Nightly Ramble: Catching Up From the Holidays

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the ‘shere… Bit’sBlog’s Nightly Ramble

First regular ramble of the New Year, and so much going on, I don’t know as I can fir it all in… but I’ll try.

• Boy, you would have thought that somebody had set off a bomb around here the way the ground has been shaking after I posted the story about Hillary Clinton and the Syracuse developer of the Carousel Mall, there in Syracuse.    I didn’t say much, yesterday when I posted it, but it blows my mind completely away that the New York Times is daring to put anything in the paper that puts Hillary Clinton in less than favorable light.  Congel and his money appropriation act as long been a topic of discussion amongst upstate New York political watchman.  I do have to wonder what brought this to the fore, just now.
• I mean, it’s not like the Democrats don’t already have a number of things already on their plate, with the Franken election stealing, the Charlie Rangel and his criminality, the William Jefferson money stealing,  the Barney Frank gross mismanagement, the Christopher Dodd behavior issues, Chuckles Schumer crashing Indy Bank,and so on. The only reason that it’s not getting more than the substantial attention it already has been getting, is because the Democrats have presented themselves as such a target-rich environment already.
•  Now, it seems that we can add Bill Richardson to the list of scandals .  Seems he’s withdrawn his name from consideration for commerce Secretary in the new Obama administration.  Word is, those oddball business dealings we’d spoken of here a few weeks ago, have finally hit somebody’s desk.  Obama has a number of problems to deal with, and frankly one gets the impression that the problems of the world are not exactly going to be a priority, so greater the political problems within his own party.  And the funny part is, he’s not even sworn in yet.  Forget about passing the popcorn, this one’s got so many features to it we’re gonna need pizza and wings and, oh, God, yes… we need beer.
• Oh… speaking of Schumer and Indy Bank, American Thinker says George Soros is buying up Indy Bank... or what’s left of it.  Tell me again, how this wasn’t the plan all along, when Schumer tipped the scales on the place.  And how much, we wonder, did Soros invest in Schumer’s last election?
• Speaking of Franken, he will likely be labled the winner up there. Apparently they’ve got enough votes to get the Democrat in, so they’ll stop counting now. Yeah, that’s fair, huh? Well, assuming Coleman doesn’t try legal action, which he may do within the next week or so. Jonah certainly seems to think he will.
• Here’s some more on that Habitat for Humanity story I ran yesterday.
• It’s rather hard for Hamas to claim victim status on the world stage when they’ve been chucking rockets… over 1000 of them, into Israel, during what was ostensibly a cease fire. And then there’s Iran, who has been busy feeding Hamas. Let’s do some what it thinking; What if Iran was to get nukes? Iran has a lot of things, but they’re not outright stupid. They’re not going to launch a nuclear attack against Israel. For one thing, even assuming they had the bomb, they don’t have the  rocketry to get it there reliably. But more, they know as well as you and I do the immediate response to such an attack, successful or not, would be turning Iran into a glass recycling center.Meanwhile, the Palestinians have in reality been nobody’s friend for a long time now. Iran has shown no problem whatsoever with using them for cannon fodder. Given possession of even low-level nukes, then, Iran would more probably therefore provide said low level nuclear weaponry to the Palestinians for their use against Israel, instead of using them, themselves. Of course,  the response there, too, would be that all of the facade of civilization would melt away, with Israel responding appropriately, basically wiping out Gaza. Thus, eliminating not one problem for the Iranians, but two. Sure, it’s cold, but there it is. And, no, I wouldn’t put it past either one… and I think barring major changes, we’re going to play this current game until the one I’ve just described to you, unfolds.  The real game changer, here, and the one that will keep peace in the region longest,  is to cripple the Palastinians… and their ability to make war on Israel…  now.
• Speaking of the Palastinians, message to David Bernstein of Volokh; You don’t really expect Greenwald to say the truth of the matter, do you really?  I halfway expected him to blame “Wilson” or “Ellison” for his lie.  David and I have attacked him and his sock puppets often enough before, but not today. Better to read Rick Moran on the point today… ol’ Rick minces not word one with this idiot.  So good a job does Rick do, in fact, that I’m not even going to add my two cents this time.
• Blago/Burris/Reid…..(Harry, Bar the door!)  I begin to suspect that what we’re going to see there in the end is a move to put Jesse Jackson Jr… (number 5?) in the Senator’s chair. Think about this, now;  The real objection on the part of at least some was that whoever got named by Blago would be tainted.  Burris may or may not win out, here, but if he does or doesn’t, Jackson is still in the clear, pretty much, assuming his name doesn’t come up too often in dealings with Blago in the upcoming trial. Apparently Harry Reid told Blago exactly that. And yes, the race card plays heavy on all of this as Reid is now finding out. Reid gets to play the racial heavy, no matter how this falls out… and it gets worse if he tries to expell Burris.  Given the numbers he’s getting in his home district, my guess is Harry’s out the end of this term anyway, and knows it, and so doesn’t much care what it costs him politically. Quite a show the Democrats are putting on, no?
• Bizzaro-world… Obama’s consdiering a $310 BUSD tax cut? Yeah, I can imagine the reaction that’ll draw from the left. I guess it’s about offset, politically, by the 600,000 new federal employees he’s planning on. Greg Mankew examines the ‘Middle Class Tax cut” claim, and not unexpectedly finds it wanting.
• Glenn notes a pattern of Firebomb attacks against GOP targets. the difference between these and Bill Clinton’s memory of black church firebombng is that we have physical evidence of the anti-GOP attacks.
• I see Steve Jobs is being treated for some kind of nutritional disorder. Gee, wasn’t it just a while ago, that Jobs was touting the virtues of not eating meat?  Guess what area of his diet is problematic?  Yep.. Protein. Do the math, Kids…