… like this:

Plus, President Obama and presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced they favored the admittance of women into the club.

What about “It’s not your business” do they (especially the guy who is supposed to be on the side which favors life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) not understand?

Full quote, indicating that the ESPN reporter has it somewhat wrong: “‘If I were a member, and if I could run Augusta, which isn’t likely to happen, but of course I’d have women in Augusta. Sure,’ Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, told a reporter who questioned him on the topic at a campaign stop in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania.”

Mittster, if you were a member, you’d be more aware of the heritage and other considerations you can’t possibly appreciate if you haven’t been one. So the correct answer is: “I can’t answer that, because I’m not a member — and I won’t presume to answer it for them, or assume that I’m smarter than they are about how to run their club.”

From “Coalitions for Santorum,” in what is said to be “A memo detailing flawed delegate counts from John Yob, delegate strategist, to Mike Biundo, campaign manager”:

Re: Delegate Math
The Media’s Delegate Math is Wrong

There are a couple of fundamental flaws with the delegate counts that the media keeps that reveals that this race is much closer than they report:

1) Florida, Arizona, and quite possibly Puerto Rico will be proportional rather than Winner Take All. They broke RNC rules by going winner take all before the window and therefore RNC Members and/or the convention will enforce the rules and make the delegations proportional. This will reduce Romney’s delegate total substantially and increase the other three candidates’ respective delegate totals.

2) National Convention Delegates are elected at County, District, and State conventions rather than by the initial beauty contests in many states. For example, in Washington State Romney was allocated 25 delegates, Paul 8 delegates, Santorum 7 delegates, and Gingrich 0 delegates. The Santorum and Paul campaigns are working together in Washington State and the result will be more delegates for Santorum and Paul and a dramatic decrease in delegates for Romney. Santorum will also over perform in most other states that use this process and Romney will underperform.

3) Unbound delegates – The media continues to put unbound delegates in their counts in the territories and other states. These folks can change their mind, or have yet to make up their mind, and should not be counted as if they are bound.

The REAL Count

Our current internal count that takes into account ongoing county, district, and state conventions is as follows (combined total of non-Romneys is 591 — Ed.):
- Romney – 571
- Santorum – 342
- Newt – 158
- Paul – 91

Texas is Going Winner Take All

The state of Texas is in the process of announcing that they are going to go Winner Take All rather than proportional. This will have a dramatic impact on the delegate projections, tighten the race after Santorum wins Texas, and significantly hinder Romney’s capacity to ever get 1144 delegates because he will not get his proportion of the state. Simply put, this is a Game Changer. The race is almost even if you account for a Rick Santorum win in Texas under a Winner Take All system, and there is a clear Conservative Majority with Newt Gingrich.

The Calendar Moves to May

The month of April was always going to be difficult but the calendar gets much more friendly for Rick Santorum in May. North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Nebraska, Oregon, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas might lead to Santorum winning roughly 7 out of 8 states in May, and heading into the June 5th primaries with a freight train of momentum.

Conservative Majority with Newt Gingrich

The campaign continues to reach out to Newt Gingrich’s team to work together on County, State, and District conventions to prevent Romney from achieving 1144 and to elect a Conservative Majority of delegates.

Conclusion

This race is much closer than the media and Establishment Republicans would like to report and there and events such as Texas are dramatically changing the future landscape in a manner that is positive to Rick Santorum and negative for Mitt Romney.

The other campaigns are beginning to work together more closely to prevent Romney from reaching 1144 and it is starting to pay dividends.

The month of April was always going to be a difficult month for Rick Santorum but it will still be close enough so that when he wins the conservative states in the month of May the race will be approximately even going into the Republican National Convention.

Romney’s challengers have to perform, but the above math, if correct, would indicate that Romney really can’t unequivocally claim to have a majority of delegates — and is far from guaranteed a majority before the Republican National Convention.

_______________________________________________

UPDATE: Richard Viguerie at Conservative HQ–

… the delegate counts being published by the Romney campaign and the media are simply inaccurate.”

Gosh, that couldn’t be because the establishment press would love to see Romney as the nominee, would it?

Note from Tom: This post comes from “Garden-R-Girl,” who describes herself as someone who “writes when she’s not in the garden. She sees the world of politics and pop culture through the prism of a dirty, rough-handed gardener’s world.”

She may not appreciate this sentiment, but I’m personally rooting for lots of rain, so Garden-R-Girl can submit more gems like what follows.

________________________________

I bet Justice Roberts remembers. And perhaps Judge Jerry Smith recalls the two tries it took on January 21, 2009 for Barack Hussein Obama to be sworn in as our 44th President. A friend emailed today wanting to know if that same president really thinks the US court system doesn’t have the right to overturn laws on constitutional grounds? “I recall Obama taking an OATH to defend the Constitution!” my incredulous friend shouted.

Which got me to thinking– Why does Obama take so lightly the Oath he endeavored to take twice? And, by the way, why exactly did he need the re-do?

The first is a thorny question a federal judge wants answered too. You might have heard, Judge Smith is needling Obama (DOJ ) harder than a Falco pruner for a written explanation on O’s recent rose garden rant–the one on April 2 where amid the chirping birds and early buds he ran his mouth off against the “unelected” schleps that make up our US Supreme Court. Since then, the acrid scent of power grab and intimidation have wafted beyond the heavenly White House rosa rugosa and now permeate the country. Finally, people are getting a whiff of the real Obama and they don’t like it. Judges want answers and so do good Americans.

Now, as for the second question, why did Obama need to double down on the presidential oath?
It seems that the word “faithfully” was at issue.

“…On Tuesday, Roberts misplaced the word “faithfully” in the oath of office during the formal ceremony on the west front of the U.S. Capitol. Roberts recited to “execute the office of president to the United States faithfully,” instead of the correct clause to “faithfully execute the office of president of the United States.” The error made Obama pause and smile mid-oath and Roberts corrected his gaffe.”

Obama’s problem with the word “faithfully” from his first day in office foretold of a recurring theme. While Justice Roberts may have mixed up the placement of the word, it’s president Obama who has altogether deleted it. Ask everyone from the frightened residents of our border states to the GM bond holders to our foreign allies who look to us for dependable protection. Ask also the millions who desperately seek employment how Obama has lived up to his fumbled Oath. Evidence will show that the only thing Obama faithfully executes these days is work on his short game and fundraising bluster. The spectacularly unfaithful Obama once smiled at having to retake his promise of constitutional fidelity. This story, this week all boils down to this one word–faithfully– all the hallmarks of an epic Shakespearean concoction of tragedy and irony.

If only it were just sonnets and gardens at risk and not our republic.

You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that Associated Press CEO Dean Singleton’s lavish praise of President Barack Obama noted earlier this week by Matt Sheffield at NewsBusters hasn’t trickled down to the beat reporters and affected their day-to-day coverage.

Take this opening sentence from the AP’s Christopher Rugaber written shortly after the Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment claims report: “The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell to a four-year low last week, suggesting employers kept hiring in March at a healthy pace.” Really, Chris? Exactly how does less firing translate to more hiring? It doesn’t (historical correlation, to the extent that it’s there, doesn’t signify causation). There are any number of firms which are not letting people go but which are also not hiring. Several other paragraphs from Rugaber’s report follow:

(more…)

From the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending March 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 357,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 363,000. The 4-week moving average was 361,750, a decrease of 4,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 366,000.

… UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 311,339 in the week ending March 31, a decrease of 12,054 from the previous week. There were 353,817 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.

Business Insider’s email predicted 355K, which will be about 5K lower than actual if a typical upward revision occurs next week.

The NSA number is a pretty nice drop from a year ago.

Rules are here. Possible comment fodder follows. Other topics are also fair game.

__________________________________________

Joseph Curl at the Washington Times (“Divide and conquer: Obama knows exactly what he’s saying”):

… His provably false remarks weren’t aimed at Supreme Court justices, but rather at uninformed Americans, especially liberals (is there any other kind?). The most divisive president in history is setting up yet another straw man for his re-election campaign, one that fits directly into his strategy to divide and conquer.

The campaign geniuses, the same ones who came up with the idea to run against the much-despised Congress (even though Democrats control the Senate), have decided that deriding the Supreme Court as an arm of the Republican Party is a winning plan, one that will resonate across the country come November.

Curl doesn’t think it will work. I’m not so sure; look how quickly Congress folded when Obama and the Democrats played the Social Security/Medicare card during the debt ceiling debacle.

__________________________________________

John Hawkins at Hot Air (HT Instapundit; bolds are mine):

Good news: Obama’s illegal immigrant uncle is getting his driver’s license back

Onyango Obama has been living in America illegally since 1963. He was supposed to be deported in 1992, but since the government has no interest in actually enforcing the law, we don’t detain many of the illegals we catch. Therefore, rather than being deported, illegals run away — which is not exactly a shocker to anyone who’s not a government employee.

So here’s a key question: Why should we want a 67 year old with a drunk-driving rap who has been running from the law for twenty years to be allowed to stay in our country? What message does it send to all the immigrants who have been waiting patiently in their home countries to come here legally? The message would either have to be, “You’re really stupid to obey the law,” “It’s good to be related to the President,” or some combination thereof.

Moreover, how has Onyango Obama been working? Does he get paid under the table? Does he have a fake Social Security number? He definitely has a driver’s license, which makes you wonder if he’s registered to vote. Did Onyango Obama vote for his nephew in 2008? If he did, would anyone even realize an illegal alien voted? Will he be voting for him in 2012?

Stories like this make apathy look attractive.

__________________________________________

News the establishment press will probably decide you can’t use, from the Catholic News Agency:

‘Occupy’ movement damages San Francisco Church’s property

San Francisco’s archdiocese is assessing damage to a Church-owned building intended to be a revenue stream for scholarships, following its takeover by “Occupy” activists who were arrested April 2.

… Now, a portion of that money is likely to go toward repairing the damage left by Occupy San Francisco, so that the buildings can be restored to a usable condition.

The buildings, Wesolek said, “weren’t abandoned. They weren’t neglected. They were there for the things that we do, as the Catholic Church, in our mission … for the poor, and the homeless, and the marginalized.”

… Now, a portion of that money is likely to go toward repairing the damage left by Occupy San Francisco, so that the buildings can be restored to a usable condition.

The buildings, Wesolek said, “weren’t abandoned. They weren’t neglected. They were there for the things that we do, as the Catholic Church, in our mission … for the poor, and the homeless, and the marginalized.”

Never forget that the Occupy movement has the Barack Obama (proof here, here, here, and here) and seal of approval.

__________________________________________

Arab Spring Update:

U.S. Pressing Interpol to Deny Egypt’s Request to Arrest NGO Workers

According to people familiar with the case, State Department counsel Harold Koh and Justice Department Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz are trying to convince Interpol to dismiss as “politically motivated” Egypt’s request for worldwide notices seeking the arrest of some personnel from several nongovernmental organizations that receive U.S. funding.

Cairo’s continued plans to prosecute the NGO workers is a sharp rebuke to the U.S., which has been pressing Egypt to drop the criminal charges against 43 nongovernmental workers—17 of them Americans—from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, Freedom House, and International Center for Journalists.

Tensions between Washington and Cairo eased on March 1 when seven American democracy workers were allowed to leave Egypt after their institutions paid some $5 million in “bail” to lift the travel ban against them. These Americans—including IRI’s Sam LaHood, son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood—still face charges in a trial slated to resume on Tuesday, but are not currently wanted for arrest in Egypt.

… Meanwhile, the prosecution has effectively sidelined some U.S.-funded democracy programs in the Egypt. “Our ability to operate as a fully functioning operation is nonexistent at the moment,” Dunne said. With Egypt investigating as many as 400 organizations in the country, Dunne said, “there’s a terrible concern… about the chilling effect on Egyptian civil society.”

In “totally unrelated” news, the Muslim Brotherhood got a White House welcome, even as it broke its pledge not to run a presidential candidate in Egypt: “White House officials held talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington this week, as the Islamist group threw itself into the fray in Egypt’s presidential election.”

From Dumfries, UK:

Nineteen-year-old Nicolle Marshall has given her heartfelt thanks to the heroic coach driver and his wife whose quick-thinking actions saved her life.

Nicolle, from Dumfries, collapsed and stopped breathing after suffering an epileptic fit on the Solway Sharks ice hockey team coach as they headed to a fixture at Sheffield Senators.

Distraught fellow fans and players on board the coach from Reays of Wigton were unable to revive Nicolle and feared the worst – until driver Phil Forster sprang into action.

Phil, who is a St John Ambulance-trained emergency transport attendant, stopped the coach on the A66 near Scotch Corner and dashed to treat stricken Nicolle, whose face had turned blue.

As he frantically applied CPR and tried to revive Nicolle, his wife May, who also drives for Reays of Wigton, drove the coach to meet the ambulance at Scotch Corner.

Phil Forster, Nicolle Marshall and May Forster; Credit: Vic Gibson

Nicolle, who works at the Shortridge Laundry in Dumfries, was taken to North Allerton Hospital, where she was able to recover after receiving further treatment.

Now fully recovered, she met up with Phil and May for the first time since her ordeal when she travelled on the supporters’ bus to the Sharks’ game in Bradford, which was her first away game since the drama on February 12.

Go here for the rest of the story.