In an ESPN story today, former Yankee strength trainer Brian McNamee says two things that are puzzling. First that one of the injectables he used on Clemens was lidocaine with B-12.

It’s easy to envision how he got the B-12, but not so much with the lidocaine. The later is a anesthetic that’s promarily used as a numbing agent to apply stiches or in dental work. In athletics its easy to see why a physician would choose to add lidocaine with any steroid. Its a technique the pysician uses to see if they “hit the spot” with their injection into a shoulder, knee or elbow. It would never be added to steroid injection into a large muscle like that of the buttocks. Nonetheless its worth questioning McNamee where he got the vile of lidocaine as this is considered to be a narcotic.

Second, McNamee says he injected Clemens at Yankee Stadium in the area which the hot tub was located. Was this area in a place where long time Yankee atheltic trainers Gene Monohan and Steve Donahue were working? If So, McNamee’s claim is questionable as there is no way on this earth that either Monohan or Donahue would have allowed a layman like McNamee to give a shot to an athlete. Nor would have Clemen’s chanced it if he felt that either of the two would have discovered them. If the hot tub at Yankee Stadium was clearly seperate from the training room does it make McNamee’s statement’s questionable.

At any rate the whole episode sheds light on the surge of “personal trainers’ whom baseball let in without vetting. Too may of them – like McNamee – had far too many links to the community of body building and traditional power lifting. Barry Bonds now notorious strength trainer, Greg Anderson is another. They saw major league players as willing dupes who could deliver the kind of access they could never obtain by going through the front door.

Still responsibility lies with players who felt they were untouchable and the suits whom run the game. It unltimately is about sceeding power and influence – something the game’s executive branch often sought to supress in their ATCs . Ultimately their lack of professional respect for ones like Monohan and Donohue helped fuel the disaster. ATC’s have long since earned the respect and appreciation by players and might have been one group if respectfully empowered by management might have been able to raise the alarm against charlatans like Anderson and McNamee.

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Ed Morrissey at HotAir has thoughtfully framed the issue of unfilled cabinet positions at Treasury.

President Barack Obama’s handy excuse for all sorts of goofs and missteps is that he’s too busy working on fixing the economy. In order to do that, one might expect that Obama would concentrate on building his economic team at the Department of the Treasury, where most of those efforts would originate and get managed. Instead, as noted earlier today, phones go unanswered at Treasury — and our allies and trading partners have begun complaining about the lack of effort in the White House.

The puzzling issue as Morrissey points out is that the Obama administration hasn’t nominated anyone for 18 positions that must be confirmed by the Senate.

One theory is that its because Obama has become extremely cautious (understandably) about nominees with any more tax problems. But there is another possible explanation that’s consistent with a pattern the administration has already followed. Like the Emanual attempt at hijacking the census from Commerce, is the new administration attempting to circumvent oversight by doing the same with Treasury?

Is WH Budget Director Peter Orszag the real power behind fiscal policy right now and not Tim Geithner ? Its little wonder Geitner has no plan. Its not his anyway. The Obama administration has been demonstrating via its own policies that its not interested in repairing our economy, but it remaking it to its own socialistic redistributionist philosophy.

Most certainly Orszag is the likely architect of the Obama environmental policy. His point of view is in the alarmist camp. Tom Nelson has more from October in 2008. And as Orszag’s other “specialties” are health care and retirement funds, it makes more sense for the Obama agenda to put Orszag at the point of attack over Gietner right now. Banking regulations and tax issues just can’t get in the way now.

So is cap and trade and health care reform the actual priority and not the sliding economic health of which Geitner would be more responsible? All Obama has to say, is that Geitner just doesnt have all the people in place yet to do regulatory reform. If so the drag on confirmations at Treasury are serving as a stall tactic to inact the leftist reforms Obama wants first.

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In what cannot be considered anything more than hypocrisy, Fox News’ Bill Sammon reported this:

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: “They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails.”

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: “Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!”

The press followed Carville’s orders, never reporting his or Greenberg’s desire for Bush to fail. The omission was understandable at first, as reporters were consumed with chronicling the new war on terror. But months and even years later, the mainstream media chose to never resurrect those controversial sentiments, voiced by the Democratic Party’s top strategists, that Bush should fail.

That omission stands in stark contrast to the feeding frenzy that ensued when radio host Rush Limbaugh recently said he wanted President Obama to fail. The press devoted wall-to-wall coverage to the remark, suggesting that Limbaugh and, by extension, conservative Republicans, were unpatriotic.

“The most influential Republican in the United States today, Mr. Rush Limbaugh, said he did not want President Obama to succeed,” Carville railed on CNN recently. “He is the daddy of this Republican Congress.”

Limbaugh, a staunch conservative, emphasized that he is rooting for the failure of Obama’s liberal policies.

“The difference between Carville and his ilk and me is that I care about what happens to my country,” Limbaugh told Fox on Wednesday. “I am not saying what I say for political advantage. I oppose actions, such as Obama’s socialist agenda, that hurt my country.

“I deal in principles, not polls,” Limbaugh added. “Carville and people like him live and breathe political exploitation. This is all a game to them. It’s not a game to me. I am concerned about the well-being and survival of our nation. When has Carville ever advocated anything that would benefit the country at the expense of his party?”

Carville told Politico that focusing on Limbaugh is a deliberate strategy aimed at undermining Republicans.

“The television cameras just can’t stay away from him,” he said. “Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we’re going to succeed.”

Greenberg added: “He’s driving the Republican reluctance to deal with Obama, which Americans want.”

In 2006, 51 percent of Democrats wanted Bush to fail, according to a FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll

Gee, what a big deal it was for Rush Limbaugh to say he wanted Obama to fail at his goal of socialization.

Hypocrisy…thy party is Democrat…..thou chorus is the MSM.

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I’ve missed two days of school and I’ll miss tomorrow as well. A terrible sinus infection that produces coughing spasms to the point of gagging is an unpleasant thing to suffer, but even worse for poor kids having to taking national standards tests. Hopefully the new antibiotic that my healthcare company wont pay works. It’s damn sure expensive enough. But I gratefully paid for it all full price along with my rising deductable. It was the best care on the planet. And it’s value to me and for the family I love is high. Aren’t we accustomed to paying for things that are personally valauble anyhow?

Looking beyond what I just dropped on my good healthcare that was delivered from a quality and highly trained physician, its noteworthy that I was in his office two hours after calling him and the waited only 45 minutes at Wall Mart to pick two perscriptions.

As I’ve gotten older my personal values have altered to the point of one that’s non-materialistic. No motorcycles, big houses or commitments in gear needed for outdoor sports. I live in a little apartment in Crestview, Florida in a very diverse complex. Its quiet, clean and people work for a living here. I allow myself indulgences of music and a computer and beers after school with the like minded. My wardrobe is stricly by Wal Mart now, a far far cry from the expensive foreign suits of my days in baseball to look the part.

I miss the suits, but don’t miss baseball as I once did. And certainly not like the day I started blogging about my old Mets teams of the magical 80′s. That manuscript about them is still around here somewhere but I no longer see it as a priority. Friends and family wanted more now for me than I do myself. This is one of those subtle definitions of love.

My 18 year old son has become a Mets fan a currently carries the torch. It’s not the obsession and life molding passion that once drove me to on a path to Shea Stadium. And that’s ok We’ve been apart and his mom is starting to do things that perk up his interest. My own blogging about the club done as a learned fan. And the large elephant in the room that nobody talks about is my lurch into politics well away from the interests and point of view of colleagues and readers alike.

It’s alright. I understand where you are coming from.

Like so many things in life, I entered into blogging for one reason and have evolved into something I’d not imagined. You ever want to see God smile, make plans.

My mother is 81, healthy and lives 20 minutes away. My son is in Tennessee working on getting into MTSU next fall. I’m single and have my blogging, myfriends and teaching. The later has proved to be much more for me in terms of fulfillment than anything else I’ve ever done.

Life is good. The road to our truth path is something to behold.

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has made some unprecedented demands for military traansport as Speaker. Judicial Watch has details:

*In response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, “Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi's team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?…[T]here’s no need to block every weekend ‘just in case’…” The email also notes that Pelosi’s office had, “a history of canceling many of their past requests.”

*One DOD official complained about the “hidden costs” associated with the speaker’s last minute changes and cancellations. “We have…folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets etc.”

*The documents include a discussion of House Ethics rules and Defense Department policies as they apply to the speaker’s requests for staff, spouses and extended family to accompany her on military aircraft. In May 2008, for example, Pelosi requested that her husband join her on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) into Iraq. The DOD explained to Pelosi that the agency has a written policy prohibiting spouses from joining CODEL’s into combat zones.

*Documents obtained from the U.S. Army include correspondence from Speaker Pelosi’s office requesting an Army escort and three military planes to transport Pelosi and other members of Congress to Cleveland, Ohio, for the funeral services of the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Pelosi noted in her letter of August 22, 2008, that such a request, labeled “Operation Tribute” was an “exception to standard policy.”

*The documents also detail correspondence from intermediaries for Speaker Pelosi issuing demands for certain aircraft and expressing outrage when requested military planes were not available. “It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable…The speaker will want to know where the planes are…” wrote Kay King, Director of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs. In a separate email, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King writes, “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset [s]peaker.”

*During another email exchange DOD staff advised Kay King that one Pelosi military aircraft request could not be met because of “crew rest requirements” and offered to help secure commercial travel. Kay King responded: “We appreciate the efforts to help the codel [sic] fly commercially but you know the problem that creates with spouses. If we can find another way to assist with military assets, we would like to do that.”

The Speaker leaves herself open to criticism as her demand that a plane be available every weekend at her beck and call. The comparison to the former speaker is not a fair parallel as Hastert was from a midwest state. Pelosi’s from the west coast. Still the size of the plane and the on-call status that Pelosi wants is above what is normal.

To be fair, Pelosi is second in the line of succession to the presidency behind the VP. A better comparison would be to the travel demands of VP. At any rate, Pelosi did nothing to lessen the appearance of wanting to be treated as royalty.

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I going to get hate notes from my New York readers on this one. But weren’t we all lectured to about how unintelligent President Bush sounded when he spoke? And that he took his eye off the ball? And that Dick Cheney was really president?

One only needs to listen to the halting interview with the NY Times that Obama himself sought out yesterday. More from Andy McCarthy at the Corner:

It’s cringe-making stuff — the poor delivery, the claim that Bush is the real socialist and Obama the free-marketeer (does anyone actually believe Obama opposed, or would have opposed, the prescription-drug entitlement or nationalizing the banks? that he’d ever in a million years do anything but build on these statist policies, as he has been doing since day one?), the craven refusal to utter Bush’s name when the Times reporter asks the obvious follow-up question, the whopper about how he’s got so much to do the last thing he wanted to be concerned about was the market (from the guy who spent his career carping about “economic justice” and criticized the Warren Court for not being radical enough in economic matters), etc.

If Obama had haltingly spouted this nonsense off-the-cuff at a press conference, that would have been bad enough. But he (or someone) actually decided this would be a good call to make — and they had 90 minutes to think about what he was going to say. That’s not just bad, it’s scary bad.

Little has gone right at the WH under Obama, unless you refer to the propoganda attack on Rush Limbaugh constructive for the nation. But it continues to beg the question about the competance of the President and his fitness for office.

His administration is good at spin. In fact its the only thing they’ve proved to be good at. Witness his press secretary Robert Gibbs insulting those whom disagree or his political advisor David Axelrod at work. Their focus is on attacking those that oppose, but not at actually telling the country why their boss is right.

Maybe being a community organizer and agitator isn’t really good on a resume afterall.

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Marty Noble - the most senior of all Met beat writers – has a blog that you must have on your favorites. Yesterday, he blogged about John Franco being in camp. Here it is:

John Franco is back in uniform, working as a Spring Training instructor. And his responsibilities are? “I do what Darryl does,” he says. But Darryl Strawberry’s job description is “to be Darryl Strawberry.”

“I’ll have to grow,” Franco said.

Franco, always a conspicuous presence in the clubhouse when he played, is quieter these days. “I’m on the other side of the room now,” he says.

I know what they mean about Franco. I was a frequent foil for Franco and catcher Rick Cerone in 1991. For some reason I was always getting fined in the kangaroo court that Franco insisted upon. We’d often wished Franco were an everyday player who’s energy and exhuberance the team could have fed off. I wonder if Darryl still gets on Franco about the two walk-off homeruns he hit off of him when he pitched for the Reds.

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From Metsblog.

Poor kid played his ass off last spring and worked himself into the everyday leftfielder before missing the season with with a shoulder injury. Now this. Pagan looked as if he would make the club again, but its worse than that. The silent whispers will begin around the game that the once promissing outfielder is injury prone and cannot be counted on at the major league level.

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From David Lennon at Newsday.

I’m sure that the Mets sincerely wanted Duaner to get a chance to catch on with someone, but they had to let him go by the middle of the month not to be on the hook for his entire salary. Even though Minaya said that he wanted cut down the numbers so he could get other guys some mork work, the move has to signal that they are pleased with what they are seeing from other pitchers in camp. Is it Bobby Parnell?

H/T: Ballbug, Metsblog

UPDATE: Mike Silva has more on the favorites to make the bullpen. Note that Silva’s post was prior to the Sanchez release and that he speculated he would not be in the mi at the end.

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For the most part, the conservative bloggers of Powerline have played it straight on the controversy in the Minnesota senate race. But no longer.

John Hindracker today said this:

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the counties that are careful about applying election laws are Republican-leading counties, while the lax ones–Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis–are heavily Democratic. What this means, in practice, is that thousands of votes are counted in Democratic counties that would not be counted if the same voter lived in a Republican county. Coleman observed that we hadn’t realized it until now, but every Republican who runs in a state-wide race starts with a deficit of several thousand votes for this reason.

Coleman has asked the judges to open and count ballots that are in substantial compliance with Minnesota’s statute and have exactly the same status as many votes that have already been counted. The court, however, has shown an inclination to apply the election law rigorously and exclude all ballots that are not in full technical compliance with the statute. Thus a deep irony arises: if a uniform standard of strict compliance with the absentee ballot statute is applied, Coleman wins. If a looser standard of substantial compliance with the statute is uniformly applied, Coleman also wins. The only way Coleman loses is if a strict standard is applied in Republican counties and a lax standard is applied in Democratic counties. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened so far.

Hindracker goes on after his discussion with Norm Coleman and his legal team and says:

One more thing: Coleman didn’t make this point, but Franken’s lead is but a fraction of the number of votes that were illegally cast by illegal aliens, students from Wisconsin, and so on. If only qualified voters had been allowed to cast ballots, Coleman would have won by a margin far greater than Franken’s razor-thin 225-vote lead. If Franken ultimately becomes a United States Senator, he will owe his seat to the Democratic Party’s deliberate strategy, here in Minnesota as around the country, of facilitating voter fraud by frustrating all efforts to require voter identification.

Republicans have been rightfully concerned about Democrat voting malfeasance for some time, most notably through organizations as ACORN. If as Coleman and his legal team asserts is found to be accurate, one hopes it will go further. But then again, the new AG is Eric Holder.

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