Rep. Michele Bachmann: 'This is the “small ball” battle that House leadership has chosen to engage'

Representative Bachmann, at Red State, "Not a Big Enough Fight."

She's a little upset that House Republicans aren't staying focused on the big picture, especially the priority of ObamaCare repeal:

Don’t get me wrong, cuts in spending are a move in the right direction. House Republicans have brought about a change from the spending binge of the last two years. But it’s time to face the facts. This is the “small ball” battle that House leadership has chosen to engage. The current battle has devolved to an agenda that is almost too limited to warrant the kind of fighting that we’re now seeing in Washington.

Democrats only want to cut $33 billion of spending, while some reports say Republicans might settle for $40 billion. Either way, it’s not enough. We should be playing “big ball.” We should be fighting over trillions, not billions. We should be defunding ObamaCare, but we’re not.

I made a commitment to vote “no” on any Continuing Resolution that does not defund ObamaCare. That pledge to the American people remains unchanged. I believe that’s a battle we cannot walk away from. But, it’s not been an option in the recent government funding bills that House leaders have put up for a vote.

I am ready for a big fight, the kind that will change the arc of history. And, I’m hoping that when it comes to issues like the debt ceiling, ObamaCare, and the 2012 budget, House Republicans will take the lead, draw a line in the sand and not back down from the fight.

And here's Bachmann last night on Greta's:

I'll update on this. Social conservatives are loving the firm stand against Planned Parenthood, so there's special significance to this "small ball" battle after all.

GOP Threatens Shutdown Over Planned Parenthood

And I'm glad.

The New York Times is spinning the debate as a "non-budget" issue, but $75 million or $75 billion, it's public funding and more power to the Republicans calling out Dems on government-sponsored death to the unborn. And quoted there is former welfare recipient Patty Murray:

“I am really stunned, and I am angry as a woman,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, “that we have come to this after weeks of negotiating on numbers, where we have in principle an agreement on numbers, that there are those in the Republican Party in the House who are willing to shut down the government, take people’s paychecks away from them, because they want to deny women access to health care in this country.”

"Health care."

That's a nice rhetorical trick. Planned Parenthood is a death mill. Ground zero for the enormity of progressive pro-abortion evil. And leftists are manning (or womanning) the barricades on this one, since they know that abortion is to social policy as unions are to economics: Lose there and the Democrat-socialist-anti-life-coalition takes a knockout blow, with repercussions all the way up the electoral ladder (think President Barack "Infanticide" Obama).

Also, at Wall Street Journal, "Abortion Returns to Center Stage."

ANSWER Coalition's Brian Becker: 'Violence Sometimes Is Necessary’

It's not that this stuff is surprising, but that the media is so ridiculously biased when it comes to reporting violent rhetoric.

The clip below is from The Blaze, "Dark Rhetoric: Nonviolence Is Not Always the Answer; American Socialist Leader Calling for Revolution Says ‘We Are Not Pacifists, Violence Sometimes Is Necessary’":

And check out this piece at New York Review, "We Don’t Know the Language We Don’t Know." It's a report on the March 19th White House protest against the wars. All the usual suspects were on hand, including Code Pink Obama money-bundler Jodi Evans. The "language" reference is to Daniel Ellsburg, who argues that Americans don't know Pashto, so we'll lose in Afghanistan. It's more complicated, but we'll hold off on that for another time. Anyway, ANSWER's Brian Becker was there, talking up a revolution right here at home:

Then Brian Becker of the Answer Coalition, a socialist group that sponsored some of the biggest peace demonstrations before the Iraq war, tore into the Libyan intervention, which had begun with the launch of a hundred cruise missiles that morning. “We have to learn the lessons that are so crystal clear, as Obama and the Pentagon and France and Britain prepare in the next few hours to start dropping bombs on the people of Libya in the name of democracy,” Becker said. “Let’s know this: Libya is the largest oil producer in Africa, and there’s no possible way that if the US goes into Libya that it’s ever going to come out.” Libya must be the masters of their own destiny, he continued. “We ourselves reject the idea, fed to us once again, that US imperialism, with all of its guns and bombs and missiles, is going to help an oppressed people. The only help we can give to the people of Libya and Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen is to make our own revolution right here!” (Whooping and cheering.)

White House and Congress Seek to Avoid Shutdown

The report's at Chicago Tribune, "Budget deal elusive as negotiators scramble." Also at Hot Air and Memeorandum.

Please Help Find Marizela

Michelle Malkin's cousin Marizela Perez was last seen March 5th. The Find Marizela website is here. And here's Michelle with Megyn Kelly earlier today:

The Cars Reunion Tour 2011!

Trippy.

It's almost new wave retro, except The Cars aren't retro!

At RTTNews, "The Cars Announce Spring Tour Dates":

THE CARS - 2011 TOUR DATES:

5/10 in Seattle, WA @ Showbox @SODO

5/12 in Los Angeles, CA @ The Hollywood Palladium

5/13 in Oakland, CA @ Fox Theatre

5/15 in Denver, CO @ The Fillmore

5/17 in Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue

5/18 in Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre

5/20 in Toronto, ON @ The Sound Academy

5/23 in Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club

5/25 in New York City, NY @ Roseland

5/26 in Boston, MA @ The House of Blues

HAT TIP: The Sound LA.

RELATED: The new album available May 10: "Move Like This."

Prosser Picks Up Waukesha County With 7,500 Votes!

Hmm, now it's a rout!

At Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, "Prosser gains 7,500 votes in Waukesha County" (at Memeorandum).

Now this is the best! Ann Althouse has a post on Richard Hasen's commentary at Politico, "Wis. court election courts disaster." See, "Don't talk about fraud! Fraud?! There is no fraud! Pay no attention to those... those... those... frauders!":

Don't dare say fraud!

While the fraud allegations [in various recent elections] remain stuck in the public’s mind, no proof of any systemic fraud has been unearthed. Instead, close examination of elections show, time and again, that our election systems are not perfect – but this is due to human error and not fraud.... [I]f the Wisconsin Supreme Court race goes into extra innings, I expect things to become especially contentious and partisan.

To become contentious and partisan? It's been ridiculously contentious and partisan here in Wisconsin since mid-February. It's hard to understand why the Republicans should stand down now. Prosser was way ahead and would have easily won if Democrats hadn't turned what was supposed to be a nonpartisan election into a referendum on the Republican governor they hate. It took Prosser a long time to realize he had to fight like a politician and not just sit quietly modeling traditional judicial demeanor. Outrageous, dirty politics was played against the old jurist, and he had little idea what to do about it. Now, his advocates are supposed to play nice so things won't get ugly? We've been in uglyville since February.

Word.

The Political Carnival's already suspicious, and at Firedoglake: "Now this could approach scandal territory. Let’s see where it goes."

Right. Scandal.

More at POWIP: "Prosser Takes the Lead by . . . 7500 Votes?"

Facebook Revolution: The Democratization of Egypt and Changes in the Middle East

A panel discussion at my college today:

The college may upload the talk to YouTube, and if so I'll post it here.

John Yoo at David Horowitz's West Coast Retreat, April 3, 2011

I have a new essay at NewsReal Blog, "John Yoo at West Coast Retreat: Obama Has Made Us Less Safe."

Professor Yoo hammered the Obama administration’s foreign policy. President Obama has, he said, in attempting to dismantle the legal framework of the Bush administration’s anti-terror program, made Americans less safe. Not only did Obama attempt to shutter Guantanamo, but under his watch more than a quarter of the enemy combatants released from detention have returned to the field of battle. Professor Yoo indicated that the nature of the war on terror has changed significantly since the first few years after September 11. Al Qaeda has become increasingly decentralized as a terrorist organization, and transnational recruitment in the U.S. and Europe is a growing source of combatants for the next wave of operations. There are less likely to be large-scale attacks along the lines of 9/11, and more like that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner two Christmases ago.

More later ...

Obama Says Shutdown Would be 'Inexcusable'

The Washington Post has the story. And here's the key quote:

“I remain confident that, if we are serious about getting something done, we should be able to complete a deal and get it passed and avert a shutdown,” Obama said. “But it’s going to require a sufficient sense of urgency from all parties involved.”

He also sounded a stern note about the consequences. “It would be inexcusable, given the relatively narrow differences when it comes to numbers between the two parties, that we can’t get this done,” Obama said. “There’s no reason why we should have a government shutdown unless we’ve made a decision that politics is more important.”

I haven't been following the negotiations, but it's mostly theater, IMHO. Shutting down government is ridiculous, frankly. Americans want a deal, as Gallup reported earlier. And I doubt either party can expect a political upside to this, especially with unemployment as high as it is. And the actual effects of a shutdown would be deeply regrettable. See LAT, "Contingency plan for possible government shutdown packs a mean punch."

RELATED: Check this awesome commentary from Daniel Henniger, "A Ronald Reagan Budget: Paul Ryan's budget offers much more than deficit-reduction brimstone."

Taking Bachmann Seriously

At one of the least expected places: Salon, and the essay there from Steve Kornacki (via David Swindle, who's more open-minded about reading progressive websites than I am): "Why we need to take Michele Bachmann seriously."

Many Fans Don't Feel Safe at Chavez Ravine: Dodgers Hire Bratton to Develop Security Plan

Two stories at Los Angeles Times, here and here.

And a news report from KABC Los Angeles:

Allegations of Fraud in Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

At Daily Caller, "Election fraud allegations fly in close Wisconsin Supreme Court race":

Wisconsin citizens and election experts are questioning the veracity of the state’s Supreme Court race, which the Associated Press reports left-wing legal activist JoAnne Kloppenburg won by 204 votes over Justice David Prosser, out of the more than 1.4 million votes.

On an estimated more than 10,000 ballots in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the state capital Madison is, voters selected only a pick in the Supreme Court race, while leaving even the hotly contested mayoral and county executive choices blank. That raises red flags for election experts like Scott St. Clair of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“This is the state that wrote the book on squeaker elections,” St. Clair told The Daily Caller. “I wouldn’t put it past somebody in Wisconsin to be selectively revealing ballots or conveniently finding ballots because this is the kind of stuff we’ve seen in the past before. I think it’s also important to note that Wisconsin and Illinois are neighbors and how they vote in Chicago doesn’t necessarily stop at the state line.”

Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, who authored ‘Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy’, said Wisconsin’s sketchy election history as well as its election-day voter registration policies make the state ripe for electoral fraud. Fund wrote that a recount, which is now considered inevitable by many accounts, “will be scrutinized for irregularities and possible vote fraud.”

Portugal Seeks Financial Bailout From European Union

At WSJ, "Portugal Pleads for Rescue: Bailout Request — Europe's Third — Will Test the Euro Zone":

LISBON—Running out of money and paralyzed by a political crisis, Portugal said Wednesday it would ask the European Union for a financial bailout—setting up a crucial test of the bloc's emboldened efforts to contain its sovereign-debt crisis.

Portugal is the third nation in the 17-member euro zone to turn to its peers for help, and one that has long been seen as a firewall between small economies whose bailouts are painful but manageable and large economies—like Spain—whose infection would set the crisis on a far darker course.

After days of pressure in financial markets, Prime Minister José Sócrates told Brussels authorities Wednesday that he needed help, and late that evening broke the news to his countrymen in a televised address.

It has appeared inevitable for weeks. Portugal has struggled to raise cash from wary financial markets, and its persistent deficits are draining state coffers.

Politics are at a standstill: Two weeks ago, Mr. Sócrates's government collapsed after parliament rejected his latest bid to rein in Portugal's budget. Mr. Sócrates had adamantly refused to countenance a bailout. Wednesday night, he said he had no choice.

"It is time to assume the responsibility to the country," Mr. Sócrates said in his speech. "It is in the name of national interest that I tell the Portuguese people that we need to take this step."

The country's been running continual budget deficits for thirty years and chronic unemployment is a way of life for large segments of society. Portugal's a basket case --- and a case study in where today's progressive left will take the U.S. under Democrat Party spending and taxing programs.

See, "Government Shutdown Showdown: Obama, Republican and Democratic Congressional Leaders 'Narrow the Issues': Obama Meets John Boehner, Harry Reid at White House in Bid to Facilitate Spending Deal." And all the latest budget news at Memeorandum.

'Transitioning Off' or Shutting TFU? Oh Well, Glenn Beck's Just Too Big for Fox

Since when was "transition off" a verb/adverb compound of note. Yeah, it works grammatically, but seems a little weird. And maybe Beck's not "transitioning off" after all? Maybe he's getting the boot for speaking truth to power, or as Pamela suggests, "Beck Bolts Fox":

Was it "I stand with Israel?" Was it his expose on the Muslim Brotherhood? Or does Glenn Beck want to be Roger Ailes? The media is saying that Beck's ratings have tanked or advertisers have bolted, but this is not so. Beck's numbers are strong, very strong. He holds at two million easy, beating Shlep, Brett, and at times, Hannity.

There is more at work here.

Keep reading Pamela's for all the ratings data. The commie dolts at Booman and Think Progress hope you'll ignore the reality of Beck's support.

Meanwhile, check out Business Insider, "Here's The Real Reason Glenn Beck And Fox News Are Parting Ways":

Beck and Fox are parting ways because Beck had too much power and Fox couldn't control him.

It's not exactly a secret that Beck was unhappy with many aspects of Fox's tightly controlled (and not always friendly) media machine and was eager to be free of it.

As I've noted numerous times, Beck employs his own PR firm outside of Fox's famous PR team. It is they, not Fox (who, in my experience, have rarely to never reached out on behalf of Beck, particularly after he began announcing things like his 100 Year Plan and really started gaining steam) who deal with Beck's many public relations.

Fox likes to wield absolute control over their stars. Glenn Beck, whose office is outside the Fox building, and whose many media holdings put him on track to become some sort of media mogul in his own right, has increasingly been outside of their control.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that Fox News' website has been noticeably stepping up its game ever since Beck's site The Blaze launched last year.

People are very focused on Beck's loss of advertisers and the crazier statements he's made (the one that pops up with most frequency is the time he called Obama a racist, even though that happened way back in July of 2009) as the impetus for this parting. And surely they were contributing factors.

But tune into Fox and Friends in the morning and you will quickly hear plenty of people say incredibly offensive things on Fox every single day -- the difference is that should Fox want to reign them in they are generally able to do so. Less so with Beck.

So to say this was a mutual decision is likely far more accurate.

For Beck it's almost a lateral move -- this is no Keith Olbermann we are talking about, Beck has an entire media empire waiting for him and will likely become his own case study in what a new media world might look like once stars become less dependent on traditional cable platforms.

For Fox it means they no longer have to answer for someone who doesn't like to answer to them.

More later ...

Michele Bachmann: 'We Have a Very Strong Opportunity to Make Barack Obama a One-Term President'

Well, since I'm on a roll here, check the full clip from O'Reilly's program last night, which is better quality from the last one, in any case:

And the reactions to the surging interest in Michele Bachmann are entertaining, at the least. The anti-Semitic Booman Tribune writes a long essay hammering Congresswoman Bachmann on her lack of qualifications, with all the disclaimers about "not being elitist," and those just come after praising a candidate who attended an Ivy League university (like you know who). Of course, Barack Obama was an unknown community organizer and state senator before anyone had heard of him, and he hoodwinked the nation with a mellifluous baritone voice plus an in-the-tank press corps. So why not Bachmann? Well, Doug Mataconis has a bit on that, and I agree with his comments on Sarah Palin:

I no longer believe Palin will run. That means that Bachmann has a chance to surprise everyone there, especially when she has people who’ve won there before advising her. Michelle Bachmann has no chance of winning the GOP nomination, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the opportunity to make a splash.

Never say never, I always say. So yeah, while Bachmann's a long shot, hey, we have the most radical and unqualified guy sitting in the Oval Office right now. So check back with me after Florida and the Super Tuesday primaries (which will be held February 7th, barring unforeseen changes).

Michele Bachmann on O'Reilly Factor: 'I Have a Very Broad, Extensive Background'

Update to my birthday wishes for Representative Bachmann.

From Christian Heinze, "Bachmann: Why I'm qualified to be president" (via Memeorandum):

RELATED: At Cubachi, "Bachmann: We have a strong opportunity to make Obama a one-term president."

Happy Birthday Michele Bachmann!

Congresswoman Bachmann was born April 6, 1956.

Readers can sign her birthday card here. Her election homepage is here.

And check Jonathan Chait (FWIW), "How Michele Bachmann Could Win," and Josh Marshall (same warning), "Is She Unstoppable?"

Unions Made Wisconsin Judicial Election a Referendum on Walker's Budget Reform Bill, and They Still Couldn't Put It Away

And since the election's too close to call, progressives will likely steal a victory in the end. See Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Supreme Court race still too close to call, Kloppenburg has narrow lead":

As of 9:45 this morning, the Associated Press had results for all but 5 of the state's 3,630 precincts and Kloppenburg had taken a 311 vote lead after Prosser had been ahead most of the night by less than 1,000 votes.

That close margin had political insiders from both sides talking about the possibility of a recount, which Wisconsin has avoided in statewide races in recent decades. Any recount could be followed by lawsuits - litigation that potentially would be decided by the high court.

The razor-thin result was the latest twist in Wisconsin's ongoing political turmoil. The state has drawn the attention of the nation in recent weeks because of the fight over a controversial law sharply restricting public employee unions, which caused massive weeks-long protests in the Capitol, a boycott of the Senate by Democrats and attempts to recall senators from both parties.

Interest groups on both sides had portrayed the election as a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker's agenda and particularly on the collective bargaining law. Conservatives backed Prosser, and liberals supported Kloppenburg, even though the candidates themselves insisted they were politically neutral.

As this race goes to recount, conservatives should keep two words in mind: Al Franken.

Ed Morrissey has more, with special attention to the left's epic underperformance:

The recount process may take weeks or even months, depending on who wins the official tally and how hard the other fights. In Minnesota, we have some experience with recounts, of course, and the one that finally settled the 2008 Senate campaign between Al Franken and Norm Coleman took until the following summer to conclude. It’s an easy bet that the unions have already begun to flood the zone with lawyers to assist in the recount and cash for operations supporting Kloppenburg. If anyone in Prosser’s camp wants to heed the lessons of the Minnesota recall, calls should be going out today for a similar effort — and probably should have started a week ago or more.

But the unions have a bigger problem. Many gave Prosser little chance of holding his seat in this off-year, otherwise sleepy election, as unions organized fiercely to unseat him before the state Supreme Court could hear the challenge to Scott Walker’s law. Given the usual lack of turnout for April elections in off years, the organizing power of the unions should have been overwhelming, and Prosser should have been toast even in less-progressive areas of the state. Instead, Wisconsin voters thundered to the polls to support Prosser, and Kloppenburg turned out to do poorly outside of Dane and Milwaukee counties — and even in Milwaukee, Kloppenburg led by just a 57/43 margin.

What should have been a slam-dunk if Walker’s proposal was really as extreme and disaffecting as unions claim turned out to be an even split. Given their power and the investment of time and money by the unions, this is an eye-opening stumble.

Photo Credit: Ann Althouse.

RELATED: "Recount may not be able to start for weeks" (via Memeorandum).

Rough Language, Gay Sex Restored to James Jones' From Here to Eternity in New E-Book Edition

No doubt Scott Eric Kaufman will be thrilled.

At Los Angeles Times, "Profanity and more to be found in uncensored 'From Here to Eternity' e-book":

When James Jones published "From Here to Eternity" in 1951, his editors had pulled back some of the frank language and description in his original draft. The resulting novel, which chronicled the drinking, brawling and illicit affairs of soldiers stationed in Hawaii in the months before Pearl Harbor -- was a titillating, critically acclaimed bestseller. The 1953 movie, which starred Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, got a similar reception, winning eight Oscars, including best picture.

Now, a new e-book edition of the novel will include the profanity and mentions of gay sex that were left out of the 1951 version. The uncensored "From Here to Eternity" is being published by Open Road Media and Jones' heirs, including daughter Kaylie Jones.

"It's been on my mind for quite a few years, and the right moment just hadn't come up yet," Kaylie Jones told the New York Times. “My father fought bitterly to hold on to every four-letter word in the manuscript. The publisher was concerned about getting through the censors."

More at the link. James Jones was one of the greatest American novelists, homosexual sex scenes or not.