OUR PRESIDENT IS abandoning the nuclear deterrent adhered to by every American president since Truman: “Now I detest nuclear weapons as much as the next person, but this approach seems — ... — deranged.”

FLAT STANLEY TOURS THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL. We took Flat Stanley for a tour along Skyline Drive in western Virginia over the weekend. Here are a few photos from Stanley's trip.

The view from Skyline Drive.



Walking down one on the paths along the Appalachian Trail.



Time for a rest break.



A small waterfall.



Enjoying the music of the waterfall.



It turns out that Flat Stanley is pretty well-traveled.

OBAMA(CARE) APPROVAL INDEX: updated today, the ObamaCare “bounce” still shows.


But as before, the “bounce” came entirely from within the ranks of the approving, when between 5% and 10% of voters previously approving Obama’s performance became “strongly approving.”

The other side - disapprovals - didn’t budge.

ANOTHER PROMISE EXPIRED (see #19).... Didn’t Obama say that with his election the seas would stop rising?

Jim Geraghty keeps track of the expirations.

SHOWDOWN IN SEARCHLIGHT: a long post on the Tea Party Express rally in Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada. Excerpts of Sarah Palin’s speech at no extra cost.

IN HIS CONTINUING JIHAD AGAINST COHERENT THOUGHT, Eugene Robinson attacks “the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right” by citing no less than 5 left-wing terrorist organizations/incidents before setting his sights on the paragon of right-wing terrorism: the Oklahoma City bombing.

It’s a Christian thing, you see; and don’t look behind the curtain at those Islamic terrorists who took down the World Trade Center in the worst case of terrorism on U.S. soil ever.

I think that Robinson’s concern about “right-wing” terrorism versus “left-wing” terrorism may be a growing realization that the right wing is actually competent.

ADDED: At least one of the militia members was a registered Democrat.

ON MARCH 30, Instapundit asked “Could the Feds require Americans to purchase GM cars?”

I think we now have the answer to that question.

MEAN REGS AND SCAM.

I am Bam
Bam I am

That Bam-I-am!
That Bam-I-am!
I do not like that Bam-I-am!

Do you like my health care plan?

I do not like it, Bam-I-am.
I do not like your health care plan.

Would you like it here or there?
I would not like it here or there.

Hilarious, but I don’t think the final verse will work.

A PROFILE IN COWARDICE: Sen. Harry Reid cancels speech at Mormon Church after protesters threaten to show up.

Maybe Reid deserves a “pass” on this one, since apparently the event was nonpublic. But still ... how many times has the left given conservatives a pass?

Link from Instapundit.

IMAGINE THAT: If the experience of this state’s two Democratic House members is any indication, the raw emotion and mistrust emanating from last summer’s congressional town halls never really went away.

And it’s unlikely that it will before November.

Link via Power Line.

SURPRISE: Violent white racist teabaggers come in black – and brown, and yellow, and red, and ...

DO “INFORMED” VOTERS MAKE BETTER CHOICES? The gist of this study is that Americans vote on their convictions, not policy details – and it’s not a bad thing.

OBAMACARE WAS SUPPOSED TO PROVIDE UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS: How can it possibly be hurting companies and killing jobs? Surely there's some sort of Republican conspiracy going on here!

Please read it all, but here are two money quotes:

God knows there's plenty of evidence that Congress isn't a repository of rocket scientists.

Yes, and adding 30-40 IQ points would barely get them to the mean.

We're governed not just by people who do screw up constantly, but by people who can't help but screw up constantly.

And if that doesn’t make you skeptical of Big Government, nothing will.

AN ABUNDANCE OF CHOICE IN D.C. “An interesting and welcome development this year is the decision by the traditionally outmatched Republican Party to field a full slate of candidates for the ward seats in November's general election. It will be the first time in memory ... that the party has competed in four district-based seats in the same year....”

And it will be the first time in my memory if the Washington Post endorses even one of them.

THINGS ARE SO BAD IN AMERICAN MANUFACTURING that we cannot even make shoddy products anymore. We have to import them from China.

Read it all.

A WARNING FROM DAN QUAYLE: Don’t let the Tea Party go Perot. Here are some of Quayle’s (paraphrased) observations.

Uninvited by the liberal Democrat establishment and prompted only by their convictions, millions of Americans united against an unjustifiable expansion of federal power.

If real influence is the goal of the Tea Party movement, there's an example in the late 1970s tax revolt movement that began in California and exerted enormous influence on races across the country, helping elect Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The Tea Partiers are concerned, above all, with fiscal matters and national security; they are not focused on the social issues. If the Tea Party remains an independent political force in 2012, with no partisan ties, so much the better. It will force both political parties to speak to its issues, compete for its votes and heed its example of a confident and unapologetic challenge to a liberal president and Congress

Since the very first Tea Party gatherings, the progressive Left and national news media [yes, it’s redundant] has covered this movement in the only way it knows how -- as something grubby, impertinent and possibly dangerous. To them, the most "unhealthy" aspect of the Tea Party is that candidates with its support are winning, and many more are likely to win this fall.

The movement has enlisted Americans of every background in political activism, some for the first time, and it appeals to citizens on the strength of ideas rather than party affiliation.

Quayle was writing primarily to Republicans, which is why I paraphrased his message. America is a center-right country, with the emphasis on center. Tea Partiers must make it clear to all candidates, Democrat and Republican, that they will vote their convictions for liberty and a smaller Constitutional government over political party.

FIVE MYTHS about your taxes.

NEWSROOM DIVERSITY: Falling short could be fatal.

The Washington Post’s ombudsman Andrew Alexander, writing on “diversity” in the newsroom, appears to believe that news is color and gender based. Reader Meredith Ellsworth takes exception:

I was appalled at ombudsman Andrew Alexander's column "Newsroom diversity: Falling short could be fatal" [Sunday Opinion, March 26], in which Alexander defines "diversity" largely by color. He and the people he quoted appeared to assume that black people are interested only in "black" news, whatever that is.

Consultant Bobbi Bowman's contention that "You can't cover your community unless you look like your community" is insulting to serious reporters as well as to the "community" and could be construed as racism.

A little more balance and some shoe-leather journalism in the news section might rebuild your readership more than trying to conform coverage to your idea of what minorities want to hear. It's just possible that African Americans, Latinos, Italians and Afghans might all be interested in the same news.

Alexander did get one thing right: if the Washington Post is going to remain competitive, the “key will be whether The Post can deliver content that's relevant and credible.” It’s a pity he doesn’t understand what he wrote. If he had a truly “diverse” newsroom, he might.

Goodbye, Washington Post. Will the last newsroom employee please turn out the environmentally correct, ecologically friendly flourescent light?

IF THE STYLE ARTICLE had said that the recent Burger King commercial was stupid, I would agree. But to say it is “blatently offensive” to the mentally ill is, well, insane.

These hypersensitive “advocates” have way too much time on their hands. One could hope that these organizations would suffer from the recession, but of course, they’re government-funded.

SIDE NOTE: A Post search for the article using the phrase “Burger King madness” brought up WaPo columnist Colbert I. King as the top result. Heh.

EXCESSIVE OUTRAGE ON RETIREE SUBSIDY ACCOUNTING. Post-ObamaCare, companies are taking charges against future earnings as required by federal law and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is incensed.

Megan McArdle explains:

Here's the thing: health care benefits are tax deductible. Deducting the cost of the benefits is standard practice. And subsidies usually aren't taxable, because there's no point, really. This wasn't a loophole. It was the natural result of the current tax code. And there's no evidence so far that the "loophole" was unintentional; legislators may have decided this was the optimal bribe to get companies to keep their seniors on the drug program rolls. It would hardly be the first time that tax subsidies were thrown in as a sweetener.
Now we've changed it, we have made retiree health benefits more costly for the companies. That means that some of them will probably drop their benefits. Fine, if you think that's good policy, but let's not pretend this is some righteous campaign against dastardly companies. We were paying them to take expensive seniors off our hands. Now we want to reduce the payments.

Waxman is offended tha the companies involved are refusing to hide his -- and Congress’s -- incompetence.