House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday shut the door on expanding oil and gas drilling beyond areas that have already been approved for energy exploration, drawing a clear distinction from her counterparts in charge of the Senate. “This call for drilling in areas that are protected is a hoax, it’s an absolute hoax on the part of the Republicans and this administration” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “It’s a decoy to punt your attention away from the fact that their policies have produced $4-a-gallon gasoline.” Pelosi’s stand may put her at odds with a growing number of members of the Democratic Caucus who have been moving toward possible compromises with Republicans on ways to expand domestic energy production. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Wednesday told reporters that expanded offshore drilling is not off the table, and that Democrats will take a look at whether states should be able to choose to drill off their coasts. “I’m not knee-jerk-opposed to anything,” Reid said.

When Ms. Pelosi says that drilling is a hoax, how does she explain the cuban Economic Zone?

The Democrats' energy package also would:

• Make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.
• Authorize the Justice Department to bring charges of price fixing against countries that belong to the OPEC oil cartel.
• Require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets to curb speculation.

The only thing it's good for is to have Democrats thump their chests and say 'We're punishing evil big oil'. It apparently isn't important that they've done nothing to be part of the solution. In fact, it apparently isn't that important that they're part of the problem.

People are looking for solutions. The Democrats' plan (I'm using the term loosely) isn't a solution; it's a political ploy. If Republicans keep pushing Newt's plan, they'll quickly be seen as having a solution. If Republicans are seen as having the solution, they'll get a big fundraising lift and in the polls.

Matt Burns, the spokesman for the GOP convention in St. Paul e-mails to say that the RNC's convention office in St. Paul has received numerous telephone calls in the last few hours from people who identify themselves as Clinton supporters asking how they can help Sen. McCain.

H/T: Gateway Pundit

Continuing to use her office for campaign activities, Rep. Michele Bachmann recently touted her support from the right-wing radical organization Club for Growth on her congressional Web site. The club is a far right-wing group made up of Wall Street financiers. You may be familiar with the group for its negative ads in 2004.

Instead of denouncing extreme groups like them, Bachmann is proud of its support and is now taking direction from the club. After the club demanded that representatives submit to their “key votes,” Bachmann opposed the recently passed farm bill, which promises to bring major support for area farmers, environmental initiatives and hungry children and families.

This group, like Bachmann, is far more conservative than the Minnesotans she is supposed to represent.

In fact, the club has been known to go after moderates who vote their district. The club’s support for Bachmann illustrates her own far-right positions are out of line with those of the 6th District.

"Sen. Obama has been to Iraq once, a little over two years ago he went and he has never seized the opportunity except in a hearing to meet with Gen. [David] Petraeus," McCain said at a campaign event in Reno, Nevada. "My friends, this is about leadership and learning."

Again raising the issue of Obama's willingness to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, McCain also said of the Illinois senator, "He wants to sit down with the president of Iran but hasn't yet sat down with Gen. Petraeus, the leader of our troops in Iraq?"

Instead, what a group of activists have done is turned the MOB (Minnesota Organization of Bloggers) into the Activists' News Network. Many of our state legislators stay in touch with what's important to working class people by reading blogs like True North, Powerline, MDE, SCSUScholars, Let Freedom Ring, Ladies Logic and Shot In The Dark. Our House GOP leadership reads the blogs on a daily basis, as do their staff.

The House GOP Caucus has used this to stay in touch with what's important with activists. That's important because the activists/citizen journalists stay in touch with their neighbors, co-workers and friends. I can't emphasize this point enough. If the GOP wants to return to majority status anytime soon, it has to start with listening to what the people are saying.

"The Clinton campaign has been stirring this up for fairly transparent reasons," Obama told reporters on the plane from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Chicago, adding she had not done so earlier in the race when she did not need the delegates to win.

"Let's not...pretend that we don't know what's going on. I mean this is, from their perspective, their last slender hope to make arguments about how they can win, and I understand that," Obama said.

The current high price of gas has led to a lot of crazy proposals from gas tax holidays to creating a tax deduction based upon energy consumption. But Rep. Paul Kanjorski's (D-PA) may top them all in terms of its stupidity. From the Times Leader, Kanjorski's plan would do the following:

• H.R. 5800 would tax industries’ windfall profits.
• The bill would set up a Reasonable Profits Board to determine when these companies’ profits are in excess, and then tax them on those windfall profits.
• As oil and gas companies’ windfall profits increase, so would the tax rate for those companies.
• Kanjorski said his legislation will encourage oil companies to lower prices to prevent them from receiving higher tax rates.

The power of conservative principles is borne out in the most strong, prosperous and free country in the history of the world. In the U.S., basic constitutional government has been preserved, foreign tyrannies have been defeated, our failed welfare system was reformed, and the confiscatory income tax rates of a few decades ago have been substantially reduced. This may be why the party where most conservatives reside, the Republican Party, has won seven of the last 10 presidential elections.

Florida's history of discrimination against African Americans should force the national Democratic Party to count all of the state's delegates at its national convention, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday claims.

The suit, filed by state Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller and two other Democrats, claims that the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits the national party from stripping the state of its convention delegates.

The Civil Rights-era law requires the U.S. Justice Department to approve any significant voting change in Florida to make sure it doesn't disenfranchise minority voters. Geller argues that includes the Democratic National Committee's demand that Florida switch "from a state-run primary to party-run caucus system" to avoid losing its delegates.

"The purpose of this lawsuit is not to support one candidate over another; it's to enforce one of the most basic tenets of our democracy: Count the votes as they were cast," Geller said in announcing the lawsuit.

Imam Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America, said in an email that he met with Obama at Macomb Community College. A mosque spokesman, Eide Alawan, confirmed that the meeting took place. During the meeting, the two discussed the Presidential election, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Iraq war, according to Qazwini.

Barack Obama claims he's against HAMAS and Hezbollah and is offended by President Bush's speech in Israel about Obama's ethos of "appeasement." So why is he meeting with one of Hezbollah's most important imams and agents in America, Imam Hassan Qazwini? And why is this open anti-Semite and supporter of Israel's annihilation getting to discuss "the Arab-Israeli conflict" in a private one-on-one meeting with Obama? What was said? I think we can do the math.

Joe Andrew, a Democratic National Committee chair for five minutes, lives and operates out of Washington, D.C. But when it comes to giving news conferences about the presidential campaign, his podium is in Indianapolis. That is where Andrew went from Beltway boy to Hoosier to make his "big" announcement on changing sides from Sen. Hillary Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama.

And the whole word gasped.

Well, not really the whole world. In all honesty, the collective gasp was heard from within the Beltway, that patch of geography where the chattering elite class of politicos live, breathe and eat.

But drive 15 minutes in any direction outside of the Beltway, and no one knows who Joe Andrew is or why his deflection should affect their vote.

Here is the problem that the media seems to ignore in this race for the Democrats: While there is plenty of headlines and pontifications about superdelegates moving their support to Obama, there is a curious dismissal of Clinton's string of strong wins with the John Deere voters.

As blogs become the voice of Mainstreet America, the superdelegates' opinions matter less and less. That's where the disconnect is most clearly seen. At the center of this is Howard Dean, the man who fancies himself as an outsider. In reality, he, like Markos Moulitsas, is a Washington insider with a brash voice pretending to speak for the people.

Like you, the status of the DeSoto Bridge repairs is very important to me. There are few arteries or bridges more vital to the St. Cloud area. Regrettably, it's critical projects just like this that are shortchanged most by rampant pork barrel spending in Washington.

That's why I've taken a pledge to not take any earmarks this year while working with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle who are determined to reform the earmarking system. It is our hope to replace a system of backroom backscratching with one in which projects are judged on merit and each of your tax dollars is spent wisely on real priorities.

Democrat Barack Obama says he was outraged by the comments of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and saddened by the spectacle of his appearance on Monday. Wright said Monday that criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church.

Obama told reporters Tuesday that Wright's comments do not accurately portray the perspective of the black church. Obama said, "I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday."

Wright's incendiary comments have dogged Obama's presidential campaign.

Before this year's historic campaign, poisoned at the root by overt and ugly sexism and covert and coded racism, Democrats have never been asked to choose quite so nakedly which absolutely necessary demographic they would like to do without. Here is the question, a cynic might suggest, that the Democratic Party must answer this summer: Do we want to lose because we drove away blacks or because we drove away white women?

In fact, it's more accurate to say that this rift first started with Howard Dean's presidential campaign. He repeatedly said that he represented the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." That rift got wider in August, 2006, when Ned Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. That night, a new type of Democrat was born: Lieberman Democrats. Brendan Loy typifies Lieberman Democrats, socially and economically liberal but hawkish about national security.

Let's return to the present. Pennsylvania's primary is a perfect illustration of the split that's becoming more apparent each day. Blue collar Democrats will vote overwhelmingly for Hillary. Rich, white liberals will join African Americans in enthusiastically voting for Sen. Obama. Once Sen. Obama wins the nomination, alot of Hillary's DLC supporters will leave the Democrats' coalition and vote for John McCain.

While it'd be wrong to think that these DLC types to abandon the Democratic in dramatic numbers, their defections would be catastrophic for the Democrats.

What's that got to do with this year's race? Sunday night, I talked with a political insider in Pennsylvania. This insider told me that Sen. McCain has a definite shot at putting Pennsylvania in the red state column, regardless of the candidate. That figures to be the case in other blue collar states across the country.