Yucca Mountain is back? Maybe for a while..

From Just One Minute:

More Change I Hope They Didn't Believe In
Despite Obama's campaign promises the Yucca mountain nuclear waste repository lives!
WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste plan was kept alive Tuesday when a panel of judges ruled the Obama administration does not have the authority to withdraw the project without permission from Congress.
Federal law requires the Department of Energy to apply for a waste repository license and for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate the application and rule on its merits unless lawmakers decide otherwise, according to a three-judge board that hears commission licensing matters.

Of course he does have a friendly congress, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Read the rest of this to see how Sen. Reid's opponent, Sharron Angle, thinks it could be used.

Elana Kagan and partial birth abortion

You won't be seeing the details on the mainstream media, any of it, but if you do a Google search you will see just how much has been written about a shameful aspect of intervention in a medical report. Apparently the report by the physicians who knew,the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, did not have any justification for partial birth abortion so their words had to be changed to reflect a need. The person who changed it was Elana Kagan.  Politics is deadly to some babies.
Here is just one of the articles, they are found only in conservative writings.

Kagan’s Abortion Distortion
How the Supreme Court nominee manipulated the statement of a medical organization to protect partial-birth abortion.
When President Obama promised in his inaugural address to “restore science to its rightful place,” he never explained what that rightful place would be. Documents recently released in connection with the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan suggest an answer: wherever it can best be used to skew political debate and judicial outcomes.
The documents involved date from the Clinton White House. They show Miss Kagan’s willingness to manipulate medical science to fit the Democratic party’s political agenda on the hot-button issue of abortion. As such, they reflect poorly on both the author and the president who nominated her to the Supreme Court.
There is no better example of this distortion of science than the language the United States Supreme Court cited in striking down Nebraska’s ban on partial-birth abortion in 2000. This language purported to come from a “select panel” of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a supposedly nonpartisan physicians’ group. ACOG declared that the partial-birth-abortion procedure “may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” The Court relied on the ACOG statement as a key example of medical opinion supporting the abortion method.
[......]
In other words, what medical science has pronounced, let no court dare question. The problem is that the critical language of the ACOG statement was not drafted by scientists and doctors. Rather, it was inserted into ACOG’s policy statement at the suggestion of then–Clinton White House policy adviser Elena Kagan.

You need to read the rest of this to get the full story.

"But has government during this time proved itself competent?"

That is the question asked by comedian Jon Stewart. Matthew Sheffield writing in the Washington Examiner calls it Jon Stewart's Walter Cronkite moment. Jon Stewart is probably immensely flattered by the comparison. This is what it's all about:

Lyndon Johnson is famous for saying that if he had lost the favorable opinion of liberal former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite that he had lost that of most of America.

President Barack Obama may be at a similar juncture now. With his poll numbers continuing a downward trend in light of the Gulf oil leak, his unpopular health care bill, and deficit spending, liberal comedian Jon Stewart asked a question Monday that is now beginning to emerge even in the minds of stalwart Democrats: Is government capable of doing anything large and expansive ?

As chronicled by Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters, Stewart challenged top Obama adviser David Axelrod on whether or not the administration is capable of doing any of the big things it’s promised, an argument long made by conservatives and libertarians wary of government encroachment.

“It’s clear that this administration believes that government can have a stronger hand in regulating Wall Street, in regulating energy, in doing these things. But has government during this time proved itself competent?” Stewart asked.

Read the rest of the story here.

The Internet Kill Switch

I've recieved a lot of emails concerning this possiblity.  This article is from Tech World.

Obama 'Internet kill switch' plan approved by US Senate panel
President could get power to turn off Internet

by Grant Gross

A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.

Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet "kill switch." Instead, the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website.

The committee unanimously approved an amended version of the legislation by voice vote Thursday, a committee spokeswoman said. The bill next moves to the Senate floor for a vote, which has not yet been scheduled.

Be sure to read the link to the breakdown of the bill  then read the rest of the article here. 

The G20 Summit

This Financial Times article and cartoon says it all.
Fiscal disarray is the least of the G20’s sins
By Clive Crook


The first Group of 20 summit in November 2008 proclaimed a new era of “global solutions to global problems”. Less than two years later, with the economic crisis barely contained, the partners are at odds. Reaching agreement was not the main challenge in Toronto this weekend. They knew that was not going to happen. Mainly, they hoped to put the best face they could on disunity.

How much do these divisions matter? The main bone of contention in Toronto was fiscal policy. Here, I would argue, simple ineptitude seems to be a bigger problem than disinclination to co-operate.

Read more here.

Wizbang's Jay Tea has a little list

You would probably like to read it.

I've Got A Little List...
Wow.
It seems everyone's reading "Avertible Catastrophe," the Financial Post's amazingly analysis of the BP oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico. As I read it, I started putting together a list of the identifiable errors and mistakes the Obama administration made. And as I made that list, I noticed that they had hit so many of the classic categories of blunders that it could almost serve as a textbook example of how NOT to do things.
1) The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good.
The Dutch government owns quite a few oil-skimming vessels that have tremendous capacity. They can suck up huge amounts of oil-laden water and remove most of the oil.
But the EPA won't let them work on this disaster. The Dutch ships don't meet US standards. According to those rules, water returned to the sea must be 99.9985% clean. The Dutch ships fall short of that metric, and don't have the capability to store and carry that water ashore for more thorough cleaning.
Let's say that the Dutch ships remove only 95% of the oil in the water. Isn't that still a hell of a lot better than nothing?
2) We Are The Smartest In The World.
Also known as the "NIH" syndrome -- "Not Invented Here." To acknowledge that others might have good ideas -- even, possibly, better ideas -- would be to acknowledge that the Obama administration does not have all the answers, and that others might have a good idea or two. And if those outsiders are part of the oil industry, that's even worse.
4) Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste.
There's a school of thought that every crisis is also an opportunity. Indeed, there's an old urban legend that the Chinese word for "crisis" is formed by combining the characters for "danger" and "opportunity."
The Obama administration has indeed seized on this crisis as an opportunity to push its own agenda. It's trying like hell to impose a ban on all offshore drilling in the Gulf, which will throw thousands and thousands out of work and seriously bone the US economy.

There's more. Go read it here.

UPDATE: So just after posting this, I ran into this from AJ Strata in Stratsphere:
Incompetence Writ Large: Obama Puts Top Donor In Charge
Go read it, too.  Be sure to follow the links.

Great Words from Donald Rumsfield

From The Corner:
Rummy on Freedom by Andy McCarthy
Former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld made remarks at a Pentagon ceremony today unveiling his portrait. Here is some of what he said:

Some might ask how our country has endured? Well, it should be no mystery. It is because we are a free people, blessed with a free political and a free economic system – Where we are: free to think and act; to believe and protest; to vote and petition; and, yes free to succeed, to fail, and to start again.

The night satellite image of the Korean Peninsula, my favorite as many of you know well, captured many miles above the earth, tells the whole story. Below the 38th parallel, South Korea is bathed in the light of dozens of cities, monuments to that nation’s freedom. In one of the most successful economies in the world, millions of South Koreans go about their work, creating opportunity and prosperity for themselves and their families. North of the DMZ is darkness. There live exactly the same people, with the same natural resources. But those millions of Koreans labor not for themselves or their families, but for a regime that enslaves them.

The stark difference between the free and the unfree is illuminated in that picture. The boundless energy of human beings is most assuredly not unleashed by governments of boundless power. That energy is unleashed only by free political institutions and free economic systems.

But because we are free, as a people, we face choices:

We can choose to engage with the world, strengthening alliances with our friends, expanding trade agreements, deterring potential foes, and taking the fight to them when necessary. Or we can retreat, or make the truly tragic mistake of modeling our country after systems that are obviously unsuccessful. If we choose the latter path, let there be no doubt, we are certain to fail the generations to follow.

On September 12, 2001, hard hats unfurled an American flag over the still burning and deeply scarred Pentagon. Joyce and I wanted to include that scene in this portrait because those traits of resilience and perseverance – while remarkable – are not uncommon for the men and women of this Department. They are what built and sustained this country. And they are what I saw every day in the men and women I served alongside in the months and years after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history.

To each of those who serve – military and civilian – or have served, and to your families, there will come a time when the achievements you’ve made, and the trials you’ve endured, will recede into history. But although time will pass, and memories fade, certain important things will remain always – your pride of service and the appreciation of a grateful nation.

This country – which has treated me so well, and which offers so much opportunity for us all – exists and prospers because the members of the United States armed forces, have stepped forward and volunteered to protect it. In a very real sense, America is their gift to the future.

George Will's Questions for Kagan

These are great This is from the Washington Post.

A few 'vapid' questions for Kagan
Given Elena Kagan's aversion to "vapid and hollow" confirmation hearings devoid of "legal analysis," beginning Monday she might relish answering these questions:
-- It would be naughty to ask you about litigation heading for the Supreme Court concerning this: Does Congress have the right, under its enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce, to punish the inactivity of not purchasing health insurance? So, instead answer this harmless hypothetical: If Congress decides that interstate commerce is substantially affected by the costs of obesity, may Congress require obese people to purchase participation in programs such as Weight Watchers? If not, why not?
-- The government having decided that Chrysler's survival is an urgent national necessity, could it decide that Cash for Clunkers is too indirect a subsidy and instead mandate that people buy Chrysler products?
-- If Congress concludes that ignorance has a substantial impact on interstate commerce, can it constitutionally require students to do three hours of homework nightly? If not, why not?
-- Can you name a human endeavor that Congress cannot regulate on the pretense that the endeavor affects interstate commerce? If courts reflexively defer to that congressional pretense, in what sense do we have limited government?
-- In Federalist 45, James Madison said: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite." What did the Father of the Constitution not understand about the Constitution? Are you a Madisonian? Does the doctrine of enumerated powers impose any limits on the federal government? Can you cite some things that, because of that doctrine, the federal government has no constitutional power to do?
-- Is it constitutional for Arizona to devote state resources to enforcing federal immigration laws?

There are more, read the rest here.

Oil Spill Politics Part 2

They are fed up with the feds in Louisiana.  Bureacracy has run amok. This Bayou Buzz blog tells some of it.  Notice how they feel about the bureaucrat who doesn't know how things work, um.... that would be all of them.

BP Oil Spill: Louisiana’s Nungesser Blasts Interior Officer Over Dredge Email

As the BP oil hits more of the Louisiana shore, state officials are becoming more frustrated by the day with the federal response. On Wednesday, Louisiana Plaquemines Parish President, Billy Nungesser, blasted the feds and a top Interior Department official in reaction to an email a top Interior official sent to Nungesser, state and other federal offficials. Louisiana has been in a dispute with the Obama administration and the federal government over the response to the BP oil spill. This week, Governor Bobby Jindal blasted the federal government for their stopping dredging that the state was doing to build barrier islands.
Below is a correspondence from Jane Lyder (Deputy Assistant Secretary For Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Department of the Interior) to various Louisiana and federal government officials.
After that email from Lyder, Nungesser issued the “Nungesser Dredge statement”, followed by even another statement below:
From: Lyder, Jane

Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 4:41 PM

To: Lee, Alvin B COL MVN; Garret Graves; Kyle Graham; charlie hess; Serio, Pete J MVN; Accardo, Christopher J MVN; Colletti, Jerry A MVN; Ulm, Michelle S MVN; Mayer, Martin S MVN

Cc: Robert Routon; steve mathies; Jeff Jenkins; George bevan; Mark Zimmerman; ancil taylor; Mike Flores; Harris, James

Subject: Question about manpower

I’ve been asked if we could get more people out there to help lay the pipe would it go faster. It was suggested that we should help the State find volunteers to make a 5-7 or 9-10 day job a much shorter job. Is that feasible at all? We would be willing to contact folks in Houma & round up volunteers if it would help at all. note from Rockport Conservative, are you kidding?

Jane
Nungesser Dredge Statement

Wednesday, June 23, 2010
“Every minute we waste makes us more and more vulnerable to the oil attacking the marsh and the breeding grounds for the pelicans. It’s a shame that the bureaucrats once again fight us instead of helping us in this war against the oil,” said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.
Below is an email from Jane Lyder of the Department of the Interior. She’s the one holding up the dredging. This is one piece of correspondence in a chain with the State of Louisiana, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DOI, and others.
(2nd Nungesser statement from June 23)

“You don’t move sediment pumping pipe with volunteers. This is the lady that Thad Allen and President Obama are allowing hold up dredging to save our wetlands—God help us. What planet is this lady from? In the conference today Lyder was worried about the pelican nesting grounds. Obviously, she hasn’t been out there to see the birds dying, covered in oil, just like the other people who make ridiculous comments. Maybe she should go sailing on a yacht in England with Tony Hayward, it would be a great place to send her on vacation. I’ll pay her way,” said President Nungesser.

Bayoubuzz Note: The above email and nungesser statements were sent to Bayoubuzz (and others) by Nungesser's press office
by Stephen Sabludowsky

They are passing another one of those "We will Know what's in it, when we get it passed" bills

This is what the headline says:
Financial overhaul details are hammered out by House and Senate leaders

This is what Chris Dodd is quoted as saying:

"It's a great moment. I'm proud to have been here," said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."

Gee thanks, Mr. Dodd. I didn't think my respect for you could go any lower, but you managed to do it.  It's disgusting. Here is where you can read the whole thing.

The Green Energy People don't want you to know this

Remember that article about the high costs of the greens jobs in Spain?  Here is a scary update.  These people do not want the truth to be told.
Pajamas Media has this:

BREAKING: ‘Green’ Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts

The author of a damning study about the failure of Spain's "green jobs" program — a story broken here at PJM — received the threatening package on Tuesday from solar energy company Thermotechnic.
Spain’s Dr. Gabriel Calzada — the author of a damning study concluding that Spain’s “green jobs” energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure — was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic.

Says Calzada:

Before opening it, I called [Thermotechnic] to know what was inside … they answered, it was their answer to my energy pieces.

Dr. Calzada contacted a terrorism expert to handle the package. The expert first performed a scan of the package, then opened it in front of a journalist, Dr. Calzada, and a private security expert.

The terrorism consultant said he had seen this before:
This time you receive unconnected pieces. Next time it can explode in your hands.
Dr. Calzada added:
[The terrorism expert] told me that this was a warning.

Read the rest, these people are desperate to keep the "green" business going, using our money to do it.

Unintended consequences re McChrystal? Or intended?

I vote for the unintended but desired, by the war hating magazine that had the story.  I have not read the story but I do not remember them ever writing a story showing any military  in a good light. (actually, if they did I would not have seen it as I never read it.)  The author says he didn't intend, nor did he expect anyone would be fired.  If that was the case what DID he intend with his story.  I'm sure he personally did not expect the repercussions to go quite this far.
This was written for Pajamas Media by Soerem Kern who is Senior Analyst for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.

Europeans React Skeptically to McChrystal Debacle

There's a feeling that the departure of McChrystal is an indictment of Barack Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan, and may increase the pressure on European governments to withdraw their troops from the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to remove General Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan has generated considerable media commentary in Europe, where governments are facing an uphill struggle to reverse dwindling public support for the Afghan deployment.

Most European opinion-shapers say that Obama had no choice but to relieve McChrystal of his command after the general and his associates publicly ridiculed Obama’s war cabinet in a magazine article. But the overarching theme in European newspaper commentary is that McChrystal’s insubordination is a symptom of a much larger problem, namely that Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is not working.

Read it all along with its embedded links.

Media Bias, Liberal Press. Whatever, it was Al Gore, move on along folks, nothing to see here.

From Power Line;

"Crazed Sex Poodle"?

This is a clear case of too much information. Is it true? Who knows; but if detail lends credibility, it certainly qualifies as credible. What is most interesting to me about the story, however, is that a Portland newspaper had the story in 2007 or 2008, but chose not to publish it:

In 2007 or 2008, then-Portland Tribune reporter Nick Budnick made a public records request and obtained the Portland police report, but the newspaper did not run a story.

Mark Garber, the Tribune's editor-in-chief, said the woman was not willing to talk on the record or press charges and the paper considered the time lapse between the incident and when the paper received the police report. "In the end, we decided not to proceed with a story that we could not document," Garber said.

I think Tipper stayed on way too long with this crazy man.  We thought he was just making money with his crazy eco scheme and he was.  I thought he was crazy like a fox.  I was wrong, he was just crazed with power.  I wonder if the Nobel people are getting this?  What a loser.  Read the rest of the PowerLine post here.

More Irony, this time in Australia

From American Thinker blog

Obama's ally ousted as Aussie PM
byThomas Lifson
President Obama's endorsement is proving to be a political kiss of death overseas as well as at home (ask Arlen Specter about the value of an Obama endorsement).
Barack Obama publicly acknowledged two months ago that Kevin Rudd, just ignominiously ousted by his own party as Prime Minister of Australia, was politically a great match for him. From the Sydney Morning Herald in April:

Read the rest here.

This strikes me as funny/irony

From the Hill blog

Harry Reid's son leaves last name out of first campaign ad
By Emily Goodin
Nevada gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid (D) is on the air with his first campaign ad and it's missing one thing: his last name.
Reid, the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), doesn't say his name at any point during the ad, but it prominently features his campaign logo, "Rory 2010."
Observers noticed that throughout the gubernatorial primary, Rory Reid seemed to distance himself from his father, who faced high disapproval ratings from voters.
Read the rest here.

Soros makes out like a bandit - no surprise there!

This is definitely a read it and weep piece from The Hill blog briefing room, a credible source.

GOP lawmakers echo Beck's claims against Soros
By Elise Viebeck
Two GOP lawmakers seemed to echo talking points from Fox News host Glenn Beck about a deal made by investor George Soros..
Reps. Dan Burton (R-Ind) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) questioned whether Soros, who backs a number of liberal causes and Democratic candidates for office, had invested in a Brazilian oil company, Petrobras, with the knowledge that President Barack Obama might temporarily ban deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
"We don’t need to be spending Mr. Soros's money in Brazil, so he can make more money by doing offshore drilling with our taxpayer’s money," Burton said.

If you don't know this whole story read it all here.

A Classmate Sums it Up - Obama's agenda: Overwhelm the system

Rahm Emanuel cynically said, "You never want a crisis to go to waste." It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Barack Obama's presidency.

Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

The list is long and very disconcerting. Go here to read it all.

Do You Have Confidence in the President?

I didn't think so.  Neither do many others.  This is from American Thinkers Blog.

American's confidence in Obama at an all time low
Rick Moran
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll out today shows the public becoming increasingly disenchanted with President Obama and his ability to address the crisis in the country:

Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure. 
Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.
[...]
Some 30% in the poll said they "do not really relate'' to Mr. Obama. Only 8% said that at the beginning of his presidency. Fewer than half give him positive marks when asked if he is "honest and straightforward.'' And 49% rate him positively when asked if he has "strong leadership qualities,'' down from 70% when Mr. Obama took office and a drop of 8 points since January.
Just 40% rate him positively on his "ability to handle a crisis," an 11-point drop since January. Half disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the oil spill, including one in four Democrats.
The precipitous drop in Obama's leadership numbers is quite significant. Coupled with the "honesty" factor, they show a public becoming distrustful of what the president says and does. The drop is most significant among independents who seem to be abandoning the president in droves.
The poll also shows a widening gap between the GOP and Democrats with 45% now wanting to see a Republican majority in Congress.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky, who adds:
Do you think it might have something to do with being in the hands of people who lie to us, ignore our wishes, engage in tricks and bribes to get legislation passed that most Americans don't desire? The fact that we are looking at being stuck with a debt that will be a drag on us for decades (regardless of the current state of the economy)? Do you think having a President who is a hypocrite who name-calls and finger points and hectors us makes us cheerful and optimistic?
How about a President who is ashamed of America and apologizes for our history when he is overseas? How about having an Attorney General who calls us a nation of cowards on race, a First Lady who was never proud of America until her husband was nominated to be President? How about an administration that will push tax raises while enacting a raft of anti-growth initiatives? How about a President who lets our adversaries run roughshod over our allies and us?
Any of those facts induce cheer and optimism? Everyone liking that changey-thing?
The cure comes in November-one hopes.

Some McChrystal Commentary links

First, from my favorite,  Victor Davis Hanson (Pajama Media):
McChrystal’s Tragedy

Next we hear from the Washington Post:
Gen. David Petraeus: The right commander for Afghanistan
by David Ignatius
ed. note: remember to look up what he had to say re: Gen Betrayus.

The wound that Stanley McChrystal opened
by E J Dionne

McChrystal had to go
by George Will

McChrystal's lack of political skills led to downfall
by Greg Jaffe

and their final (by Rockport Conservative) editorial:
Change of Command

I suspect most of you, like me, have read enough, heard enough, so maybe, just maybe this will be the last of them.  If I find anymore you need to see I will  update this post.
1st UPDATE:
For more information on this and much more go on over and visit the NRO front page. Lots of good links and commentary, as well as true information.

2nd UPDATE:
From The Atlantic and a very important read.
Killing the Horse Midstream
by D.B. Grady is a former paratrooper with U.S. Army Special Operations Command and a veteran of Afghanistan. He is the author of Red Planet Noir.

Another of our WWII Heroes has Died

This is from the Houston Chronicle:

Last South Dakota code talker buried
STURGIS, S.D. — The last of the American Indian code talkers of South Dakota who served during World War II has been laid to rest.
Clarence Wolf Guts of Wanblee was buried Tuesday in Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. The 86-year-old Wolf Guts died June 16 at the South Dakota Veterans Home in Hot Springs.
Wolf Guts was one of 11 Lakota, Nakota and Dakota code talkers from South Dakota. During the war, they transmitted messages from an Army general to his chief of staff in the field using their native language, which the Germans and the Japanese could not translate.
People came from around the country to pay their respects at his funeral. Gov. Mike Rounds asked that flags be flown at half staff in Wolf Guts' honor.

Darleen Glick Calls it Chutzpah

In Protein Wisdom.  I think she's right.  Now if Mexico would just use that Chutzpah on the drug dealers and coyotes who bring their fellow citizens over to die in the desert, that would be a good thing.

Mexico asks court to reject Arizona immigration law

Mexico on Tuesday asked a federal court in Arizona to declare the state’s new immigration law unconstitutional, arguing that the country’s own interests and its citizens’ rights were at stake.

Lawyers for Mexico on Tuesday submitted a legal brief in support of one of five lawsuits challenging the law. The law will take effect June 29 unless implementation is blocked by a court.

The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” they’re in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state’s streets.

Citing “grave concerns,” Mexico said its interest in having predictable, consistent relations with the United States shouldn’t be frustrated by one U.S. state.

Mexico also said it had a legitimate interest in defending its citizens’ rights and that the law would lead to racial profiling, hinder trade and tourism and strain the countries’ work on combating drug trafficking and related violence.

Mexican citizens should not be working in the United States in the first place (sans greencard), that is the point. Don’t want to be “scrutinized”? Then don’t break a law because you’ll only be asked for identification at that point — just like American citizens are asked for their identification when stopped by officers investigating the commission of a crime

Gov. Christie is looking good so far

From the American spectator via Lucianne:

Christie and Results

By Joseph Lawler

With yet another video of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie displaying some impressive rhetoric starting to make the rounds, I thought it was time for an update on his actual accomplishments. There's no point in wasting time talking about him as a candidate for higher office if his achievements don't match his reformist image.

Today Christie reached an agreement with the legislature on his budget, which closes a $10.7 billion revenue gap -- the second-highest in the country, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a New Jersey record -- without raising taxes. The plan includes cutting $820 million in public school funding, trimming $445 million in local-government transfers, and skipping the scheduled $3 billion state pension contribution, which must be made up in the future. Christie's decision to postpone pension reform to a future year seems justifiable given the urgency of plugging a deficit about one-third the size of the budget.

Read the rest here.

First they shut down the drilling....

Now they've made Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser angry by stopping the work on the berms he needs. From WDSU.com:
Federal Gov't Halts Sand Berm Dredging
Nungesser Pleads With President To Allow Work To Continue

NEW ORLEANS -- The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.

The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the dredging plan, has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, pleading for the work to continue.

Nungesser said the government has asked crews to move the dredging site two more miles farther off the coastline.

"Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil," Nungesser wrote to Obama. "Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil.

Nungesser has asked for the dredging to continue for the next seven days, the amount of time it would take to move the dredging operations two miles and out resume work.

Work is scheduled to halt at midnight Wednesday.

Anti-Semitics and the Gaza, are they correct?

In every city, large or small, there are areas of poverty.  Some have much more poverty than others. I am sure this is true in the Gaza, but what is not usually headlined is the afflence that also exists there.  It is apparently beginning to leak out, a lot of people there are doing very well. Via Lucianne this is from the American Thinker Blog.

Gaza Opulence
Benyamin Korn
It began with an innocent trailer on YouTube -- a plug for a club called "Roots." The scene showed well-fed women wearing traditional Muslim head coverings but otherwise garbed in chic clothing enjoying themselves at the club's "fine dining restaurant, banquet hall and terrace cafe." What was startling was the club's location: in the heart of Gaza City.

Gaza, the territory which, to judge from international news media reports, is the most impoverished place on the planet earth. Gaza, which is supposedly suffering from such terrible shortages that "activists" from around the world have no choice but to ram blockades to bring in desperately needed goods. Gaza, which has managed to capture the sympathies of the United Nations, Europe - and even the White House.

The YouTube image of plump, fashionably garbed Gaza women enjoying a night out on May 10, made many people wonder if perhaps all those news media accounts of Gaza poverty were not quite accurate.

And then people started asking: if the Arabs of Gaza are starving, as the news media have suggested, how is it that not a single resident of the territory has died from malnutrition. Not one! How do we know? Because you can be sure that if even one Gaza Arab died of starvation, it would be front page news around the world, for starters.

But leave it to the New York Times to (inadvertently) blow the lid off the entire myth of Gaza's poverty. In its June 13 "Week in Review" section, the Times featured six "slice of life" photographs from Gaza - and in its online version, a full twelve. The contrast between these photos and what the UN and the news media have been claiming for years is startling.

We see a traffic snarl. Several of the cars appear to be late-model BMWs. In the background one can see modern, colorful stores.

A family at the beach. Nobody starving here. Smiling women, children in clean, modern clothing, a table with a platter of food.

Gaza fishermen at work. In rowboats? Homemade rafts? Hardly. They clearly have relatively modern fishing trawlers.

A couple emerging from a mall in what the caption calls "a wealthy neighborhood of Gaza." There are wealthy neighborhoods in Gaza? Noboy at the White House seems to know that.

The caption to photo number nine announces: "The opening of a new shop in Gaza City selling wedding and engagement dresses." In the windows, one can see some very fancy wedding gowns. In Israel, brides often cannot afford to buy a wedding dress and have to borrow from what is known as a "gemach," a community charitable society.
Maybe it's time for a flotilla of aid for poor Israeli brides.

And on and on it goes, with each photo providing more evidence that the dramatic claims about impoverished Gaza, which are routinely used to bash Israel and justify billions in Western aid to Gaza are, at the least, vastly overstated. See for yourself

Concerned Conservative is Completely Out of Patience

I've found I am completely out of patience today - or almost completely out of patience. I have pulled back some when it comes to retorts on Facebook or with my grandchildren, and I have left my husband out of my wrath. But I am tired and I am angry that General McChrystal jeopardizes our troups to speak his mind, or allow his aides to speak theirs, to Rolling Stone magazine, of all places!!! It is bad enough that President Obama doesn't take the war seriously enough, but for a commanding general to allow this....!!!! It just doesn't make sense. I have talked with a Marine back only 3 weeks from Afghanistan and he thinks we can win the war, and he further thinks the insurgents there are from other Arab states and not Afghanistan. Generals should lead their men, not abandon them!!!

Richard Cohen has noticed those "Smart People"

From the Washington Post.

President Obama's enigmatic intellectualism
It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all. It consists instead of a series of challenges -- of problems that need fixing, not wrongs that need to be righted. As Winston Churchill once said of a certain pudding, Obama's approach to foreign affairs lacks theme. So, it seems, does the man himself.

For instance, it's not clear that Obama is appalled by China's appalling human rights record. He seems hardly stirred about continued repression in Russia. He treats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. The president seems to stand foursquare for nothing much.

This, of course, is the Obama enigma: Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs? The president himself is no help on this score. When it comes to his own image, he has a tin ear. He hugely misunderstood what some people were saying when they demanded that he get angry over the gulf oil catastrophe and the insult-to-injury statements of BP chief executive Tony Hayward. (Wayward Hayward, he should be called.) ...

.....The oil industry is full of smart people, and so is the mortgage industry. Smart people seem to have brought us nothing but trouble. Smarts without values is dangerous -- threatening, scary, virtually un-American....

Go read the rest.

By the numbers: Oil leak wouldn't fill Superdome

The Associated Press

Overwhelmed and saddened by the gargantuan size of the Gulf oil spill?

A little mathematical context to the spill size can put the environmental catastrophe in perspective. Viewing it through some lenses, it isn't that huge. The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak has done in two months.

On a more human scale, the spill seems more daunting. Take the average-sized living room. The amount of oil spilled would fill 9,200 of them.

Since the BP oil rig exploded on April 20, about 125 million gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf. That calculation is based on the higher end of the government's range of barrels leaked per day and the oil company BP's calculations for the amount of oil siphoned off. Using the more optimistic end of calculations, the total spill figure is just over 66 million gallons.

For this by-the-numbers exercise, The Associated Press is using the higher figure.

For every gallon of oil that BP's well has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, there are more than 5 billion gallons of water already in it. And the mighty Mississippi adds another billion gallons every five minutes or so, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

So BP chief executive officer Tony Hayward was factually correct last month when he said the spill was "relatively tiny" compared to what he mischaracterized as a "very big ocean."

But another big number that Hayward provided on Thursday also offers some troubling news. He said the reservoir of oil under the sea that is the source for the leak is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil. That leaves about 2 billion gallons left to spew. So there are about 17 gallons of oil underneath the sea floor yet to gush for every gallon that has already fouled the Gulf. If the problem were never fixed, that would mean another two years of oil spilling based on the current flow rate.

More not-so-dreadful context: The amount of oil spilled so far could only fill the cavernous New Orleans Superdome about one-seventh of the way up. On the other hand, it could fill 15 Washington Monuments. If the oil were poured on a football field - complete with end zones - it would measure nearly 100 yards high.
....
If you put the oil in gallon milk jugs and lined them up, they would stretch about 10,800 miles. That's a round trip from the Gulf to London, BP's headquarters, and a side trip from New Orleans to Washington for Hayward to testify.
...
Want your own piece of this spill? If all the oil spilled were divided up and equal amounts given to every American, we would all get about four soda cans full of crude oil that no really wants.

The entire article has some eye-opening facts. Go here

THOMAS SOWELL: Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.

Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.

But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men."

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."

Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.

Taxing relief that replaces income -logical?

I think it is, if it is replacing  what you would be making with a job or business. This is from Fox News

IRS May Tax Payments to Gulf Coast Victims

NEW ORLEANS — Out-of-work Gulf Coast shrimper Todd Pellegal spent his first $2,500 check from BP quickly, paying off bills and buying groceries for his family.

He never even considered putting some of it away for taxes.

Now he's among the people up and down the Gulf Coast reeling from the oil spill disaster who are surprised — and frustrated — to find out the Internal Revenue Service may take a chunk of the payments BP PLC is providing to help them stay afloat.

Many were already angry about how long the oil giant took to cut the checks. So when they got the money — generally about a few thousand dollars each so far — they spent it fast.

"If they're going to pay you a lump sum, like for a year, then bam, take the taxes out of the check," said Pellegal, of Boothville, La. "But a little bit at a time, they shouldn't."

Accountants have been trying to nail down the implications for thousands of taxpayers after President Barack Obama said BP would create a $20 billion disaster fund and provide another $100 million for oil workers who lose their jobs because of the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the rest here and tell me what you think. 

I have known many people in that area who do not declare all the money they make by shrimping, oystering, and some of the tourist related business.  I am not painting all with a broad brush, but the people who are writing the checks know they must have proof of how much was actually made.  I have a hunch some people are going to be shorted because they have left half their income as unreported to avoid taxes on it. They are the same people who are going to be incensed on being taxed on money they are given for relief, even though it is replacing previously earned income.

Ron Paul on the oil spill

From the Texas on the Potomac blog of  the Houston Chronicle.

Too much government in the Gulf
Texas on the Potomac welcomes guest commentary from across the political spectrum. Today, we share with you a column by Texas Rep. Ron Paul, republished from his "Texas Straight Talk" blog.
Sadly, the disaster in the Gulf continues this week as BP's efforts at containment keep hitting snags and residents along the coast scramble to clean up and defend their shores and wildlife.

Many have criticized the federal government in the past weeks for not doing enough. The reality is there is only so much government can do to help, yet a lot they can do to prolong the problem and misdirect the pain. For example, in the interest of "doing something" the administration has enacted a unilateral ban on offshore drilling.

This is counterproductive.

Read the rest here.

Planned Parenthood gets, and loses, a lot of money!

From the Washington Times:

Planned Parenthood's missing millions
New GAO report reveals disturbing financial discrepancies
by Rita Diller
A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on federal tax money funneled into Planned Parenthood and similar organizations raises more questions than it answers about the nation's largest abortion chain.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America's (PPFA) audits show the organization spent just $657.1 million between 2002 and 2008 from federal government grants and programs, but the abortion behemoth's own annual reports show that it took in $2.3 billion from government grants and programs during the same time period.
That's not pocket change. Why the discrepancy?
The report (the first of its kind since 2002) was released in response to a request from 31 U.S. senators and representatives and in an atmosphere increasingly hostile to abortion. Not surprisingly. then, its findings are fueling an escalating outcry to defund Planned Parenthood.
Since 2009, at least five nationwide polls have confirmed that a majority of Americans consider themselves pro-life.

Read it all here.

BP Lobbyists

BP may come out of this better than you might think, this is from National Review Online's The Corner:

BP's Army of Democratic Lobbyists [Daniel Foster]
As Rep. Joe Barton made his ill-considered apology to British Petroleum last Friday, those of us who are into this sort of thing were treated to an abortive attempt by the contemptible Markos Moulitsas to start a Twitter meme — "GO(B)P." Get it? It's a kind of portmanteau of the abbreviations for "Grand Ol' Party" and "British Petroleum," pairing  in a way that suggests the two entities are intimately intertwined. Hilarious!
But it didn't — and won't — catch on. Why? Well, this for one:

BP, which has garnered the bulk of public attention and contempt for the spill, has assembled a formidable team of Democrats for its Washington lobbying, legal and public-relations offensive. There is Tony Podesta, who heads one of the District's leading lobbying firms; legal adviser Jamie Gorelick, a top Justice Department official in the Clinton administration now at the law firm WilmerHale; Hilary Rosen, a former recording-industry lobbyist who heads the Washington office of the Brunswick Group, a public-relations consultancy; and Michael S. Berman of the Duberstein Group, who was a longtime aide to former vice president Walter F. Mondale before becoming a lobbyist.
Gorelick, who also served as a member of the 9/11 Commission, proved critical in coaching the company during tense negotiations with President Obama over the creation of a $20 billion escrow fund for spill damages, according to several sources close to the talks. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the administration "forced" BP to set up the fund and to intensify its efforts to contain the spill.

Now, as any wise corporation would, BP hedged by hiring some Republican strategists as well (though most were subcontracted by Rosen), but that's exactly the point. Throw a rock inside the Beltway and you'll hit somebody who isn't too proud or ideologically pure to ally themselves with the oil industry when the price is right. It's Washington, folks.
Oh, and by the bye, I wrote about the Democratic firm behind BP's "greenwashing" campaign here.

Oil Spill Politics

From Wizbang. I'm not sure I have the same take on the seriousness of the situation, or at least the fear of the long term disaster he is worried about.  But read it all, make you own conclusions. This is written by Jay Tea.

The Scent Of Fear

I've always been enamored of Professor Glenn Reynolds' oft-repeated aphorism: "I'll believe there's a crisis when the people who say there's a crisis act like there's a crisis." It's a great BS detector, but it has some corollaries that I'm finding truly terrifying.

What does it mean when those people say there's a crisis, I agree that there's a crisis, but they refuse to act like there's a crisis?

I speak, of course, about the Gulf oil spill.

I read the alleged inside account of the situation Kevin posted last week, and come to the conclusion that the anonymous author is a lousy writer, but seems to know his shit. And the conclusion I drew from that -- as well as what so many others have said -- is that the situation below the former Deepwater Horizon platform is developing into an ecological catastrophe that could scar -- and economically cripple -- the US for a very, very long time.

This is Katrina bad. This is 9/11 bad. This is JFK Assassination bad. This is Pearl Harbor bad.

Read the rest of this post and then the comments, there are some good ones, and some of the usual ugly drivel.

Bork, and Bork again

You know the old saying, what goes around comes around, don't you? I haven't really thought it was true or liked the saying, but.....

From the AP

Bork to publicly oppose Kagan for Supreme Court
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
Failed conservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork is joining anti-abortion activists to publicly oppose confirming Elena Kagan as a justice.
Bork plans to detail his criticisms of Kagan during a Wednesday news conference organized by Americans United for Life. The group calls itself the country's first national pro-life organization, and brands Kagan a pro-abortion activist.
Bork was nominated in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan to serve on the high court, but the Senate rejected him after an intensely partisan debate.

Some important links for today

From the Washington Post Politics:
Crist pulls way ahead of Rubio
Pelosi's enforcer not afraid to battle Rahmbo
Oil spill pits Palin against the Republican Party

From Washington Post AP news:
Supreme Court upholds anti-terror law
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has upheld a U.S. law that bars "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups.
The court ruled 6-3 Monday that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities.
 
From Washington Post Foreign Service:
Iran bans 2 IAEA inspectors from entering Iran
 
Editorials and Op-Edsand columnists:
Obama's energy pipe dreams
Robert J. Samuelson

"Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn't that president. His speech the other night was about political damage control -- his own. It was full of misinformation and mythology. Obama held out a gleaming vision of an America that would convert to the "clean" energy of, presumably, wind, solar and biomass. It isn't going to happen for many, many decades, if ever."

Barton's BP comments highlight GOP's propensity for gaffes
by Davis S. Broder (ed. note: I wish this weren't so true. Barton may have been correct but it was not the time to do the attention grabbing apology.)

The unreadiness team

THE REPORT is chilling. Optimistically titled "U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team Makes Progress in Securing Cyberspace, but Challenges Remain," it paints a disturbing picture of a national security disaster waiting to happen.

Now we know why some people call it MSDNC

This is from Newsbusters.

Mika Admits: I'm 'Working With White House' On Oil Spill Talking Points
Cut out the middle-woman and install Obama's teleprompter on the Morning Joe set . . .

Give her high marks for candor: on today's show, Mika Brzezinski admitted that she has been "working with the White House" on oil spill talking points. But that still leaves the issue of the journalistic propriety of someone in Brzezinski's position serving as such a blatant shill for the president.
Mika could be seen reading from her notes during exchanges with former GE CEO Jack Welch, who was critical of the PBO's handling of the spill. After repeated ribbing from Welch and Joe Scarborough over her use of White House talking points, Mika came clean .

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Do you want to know why I have a file that I've been working on with the White House—and I'll be very transparent about that? Because of your friend Rudy Giuliani who came here last week spewing out a whole bunch of nothing.

If Brzezinski believes Giuliani had his facts wrong, have her book a White House official to straighten things out. But for Mika to be collaborating directly with the Obama admin in mounting a defense is unseemly at best. Then again, credit Mika for saying out loud what surely happens with many others behind the scenes.

I watched the episode with Guiliana she is referring to, she was rude and sharp, very unfriendly to him. She definitely did not like him critizing her friends in the White House, so now she is trying to defend them.  She is certainly not an unbiased reporter or commentator.

For the video go here.

Mexico is worried about its image

They are hoping to change it.  I could tell them how to do that.  Here is the story, I got it from the Tammy Bruce blog but had to do a search to find the originals:

Mexico to hire PR firms to scrub drug war image

Mica Rosenberg and Adriana Barrera  (Reuters Mexico City)

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is launching a global public relations campaign to try to improve his country's image and neutralize coverage of the violent drug war scaring away tourists and foreign investors.

Calderon declared all-out war on drug cartels on taking office in late 2006, sending thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico to take on the heavily armed gangs running a multibillion dollar business.

The strategy has so far failed to curb violence and more than 23,000 people have died in drug violence over the past 3-1/2 years. Daily images of gruesome decapitations, charred and tortured bodies hung from bridges and brazen daytime shootouts are commonplace on the front pages of newspapers and evening news broadcasts.

Calderon, a strong-willed conservative, says he is turning to private advertising firms to launch an international image improvement campaign to show the world another, less violent side of Mexico, a country that depends on some 20 million tourists a year to boost its public finances.

"We are promoting a comprehensive advertising project in my government, primarily public relations, and we are hiring the best agencies in the world promote Mexico's image," Calderon said this week during a speech in the northern state of Baja California Sur.

"Yes, we will explain the problems we have, but also how we are facing them. Above all we want to show what our country has to offer, which is a lot," Calderon said.

The campaign, whose cost and other details were not disclosed, will be run out of Mexico's tourism ministry.

Read the whole story here, read what the post at Tammy Bruce says here.

I didn't see the MSNBC - Chris Matthews Expose' of the New Right

But I've read some interesting reviews.  Here is one of them, its from red State.

Chris Matthews’ ‘The Rise of The New Right’: Deceptions and Delusions

Posted by Lori Ziganto

Last night, MSNBC aired a Chris Matthews special, labeled a documentary, called The Rise of the New Right. I decided to take a quick break from my radical right wing extremist acts like bitterly clinging to my guns and my Bible, whilst fiendishly drawing Hitler moustaches on Obama photos, to watch it. I know. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment. However, while absolutely infuriating, it was simultaneously hilarious and almost took my mind off the distressing shortage of windmills in this country.

Almost immediately, two things became rather apparent. Firstly, MSNBC’s NewSpeak definition of “documentary” is evidently “blatant fallacies and pure propaganda”. Secondly, it’s quite clear that Chris Matthews’ leg ‘tingle’ has moved into his brain, or what passes for some semblance of one. Either that, or he’s merely decided to embrace his cuckoo pants. Plus, he’s a big, fat liar. I feel no qualms about saying that, since Matthews spent a full hour demonizing me and people like me as violent, irrational racists. In fact, the entire show could be summed up like this:

Racists. Birthers. Guns! Evil scary militia groups that have the same “Don’t Tread on Me” flag!!! Chanting “USA, USA” and being fond of the Constitution and, you know, liberty is super scary and ominous. Also, racist. And violence fomenting. Plus, racist.

You see, now Community Organizing is evil and dissent is no longer Patriotic. Instead, that now signifies some sort of marauding mob of nefarious radicals who are doubleplusungood. President Obama said “I want you to talk to your friends and neighbors; I want you to argue with them and get in their faces” , but that was okay because George Bush. Or something.

This is a long post, but interesting. Click here to read it all.

About that NRA Thing

I guess we are going to Plan B.  This is from Human Events:

Pelosi Pulls New Campaign Finance Bill Despite Cave by NRA

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has pulled the DISCLOSE Act from a floor vote today, sending House members home to their districts for the weekend.

After carving out exemptions for the NRA to the new, restrictive campaign finance and incumbency protection legislation -- and then again broadening the descriptors for more issue advocacy organization exemptions -- Democrat leaders still lack the votes to pass this new assault on the First Amendment.

Read the rest here.

What did You think of Obama's speech from the Oval Office UPDATED

I didn't watch and to tell the truth I have not read all the articles. Nor have I watched all the commentators on TV.  But I watched some and I read some.  These are all links referring to the speech, not all the links there are, just the ones I ran across.  Some from the original posts,  some via Lucianne. All are interesting.

LA Times by Andrew Malcolm via Lucianne:
Obama's speech: There's a pipe spewing a gazillion gobs of oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills

Washington Post, by Michael Gerson:
Obama's address: grand setting, weak policies

Washington Post online Front page by Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut:
In address, Obama presses for clean energy
(note: this is supposedly a news item, not an editorial)

Washington Post Business Opinion by Steven Pearlstein:
Bring on the Barack and Tony Show

Washington Post "The Fix" by Chris Cillizza:
Obama hammers BP in Oval Office Speech  (definitely opinion)

From the Washington Examiner by Byron York via Lucianne:
Obama's disastrous Gulf disaster team

From Newsweeks's Ben Adler via Lucianne: ( a blog)
Obama Chickens out on Energy

the American Thinker blog by Thomas Lifson:
Obama's First Oval Office Speech a 'Flop'

Michelle Malking doesn't like having a new Czar:(definitely a right wing blog)
Stuck on stupid: Obama’s czar fetish

From L A Times via Lucianne: (not  actually about the speech)
The gulf tragedy doesn't negate the fact that oil is a green fuel
By Jonah Goldberg

From American Thinker Blog by W. R. Wansley:
What we didn't hear from Obama last night

Eyes on the people who enter our military bases

FromPatterico Pontifications blog:

Incident at Fort Gordon
by DRJ
Monday evening there was an incident at Florida’s Fort MacDill AFB in which a man and woman were detained with weapons as they tried to enter the Base.

Tuesday evening a vehicle containing explosives was found at Fort Gordon Army Base in Georgia and a civilian was arrested. He was impersonating a soldier and may have had grenades.

Perhaps incidents like this are common but, in today’s world, it’s something I notice (with help from a friend).– DRJ

I read this blog daily, you should, too

Americans still have heart

You will love reading this story.  This is a story about us, this is America and the American Spirit. via Lucianne:

Community helps raise money for soldier who was robbed

By CHARLES WEBSTER,

HOWELL — An Army paratrooper says he and his family were not going to start "kicking rocks" over the theft of a few personal items last week while he was home on emergency leave for his father's funeral.

"We just said there wasn't going to be any "Oh poor me' about this," explained Spc. John Lee, 38, formerly of Howell, now based with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy, and serving in Afghanistan.

The items were stolen when he returned here on emergency leave following the death of his father on May 27.

"Kicking rocks" is a popular military term that refers to the reaction of some people who let personal setbacks get them down and walk around with their heads down, kicking rocks.

But the Lees found out quickly there was not going to be a need to go around kicking rocks when they became the benefactors of an outpouring from the community after his laptop and some items belonging to his children were stolen last week.

And now, he said, the theft will actually be a morale booster for him, his family and the other paratroopers he soon will rejoin in Afghanistan.

Go here to read the rest of this heart warming story of the American spirit of generostity.

What’s next, Mr. Podesta? asks the Wall Street Journal

From WSJ's Washington Wire blog:

WH Takes Cues from Liberal Think Tank on Spill

By Jonathan Weisman

If you want to see where President Barack Obama’s response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster is heading, try following the urgings of the Center for American Progress.

The liberal think tank with close White House ties appears to have more influence on spill policy than the president’s in-house advisers. On May 4, for instance, the CAP’s energy and environment expert, Daniel Weiss, called on the president to name an independent commission to look at the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. On May 22, he did just that.

On May 21, CAP president, John Podesta, privately implored White House officials to name someone to be the public point person for the spill response. A week later, the White House announced that Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen would hold daily briefings on the spill, wherever he would be on any given day.

On May 26, Weiss said the White House needed to demand that BP immediately set up an escrow account with billions of dollars from which claims for Gulf state residents would be paid out.

Monday’s headlines proclaimed the president’s latest get-tough stand: BP needs to set up a billion-dollar escrow account.

What’s next, Mr. Podesta?

That Rabbi is rethinking his Liberal positions

I wonder how he could have not realized many liberals are anti semitic.  They may think they are just anti Zionist but actions speak, and they speak almost as loud as Helen Thomas' words.  Here is what the Rabbi is saying in Aritz Seva, Israeli Nationa News:

Liberal Rabbi who Exposed Helen Thomas: I Have to Re-Evaluate
by Maayana Miskin

Rabbi David Nesenoff made headlines recently when he inadvertently exposed veteran American journalist Helen Thomas' virulently anti-Israel views. In an impromptu video interview, Thomas told Nesenoff that Jews living in Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine" and “go home” to Poland and Germany. Under strong attack for her remarks, she announced her retirement just days later.

Nesenoff said Sunday that his background and motives had been misunderstood. Far from attempting to expose Thomas, he told CNN, he was a supporter of hers who had been unaware of her anti-Semitic views.

When he approached Thomas and asked her for her thoughts on Israel, he was not expecting her response, he said. “Of course, there might be anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian [opinion]. That's very different than anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish and wanting to cleanse a piece of land,” he explained.

Nesenoff described himself as “a New York Democrat Jewish liberal supporter of Obama” who is now reconsidering his political views in light of what has happened.

"Now I have to reevaluate totally," he said, "...because if I was part of a team where their agenda was that Israel and the Jewish people don't have a connection... I have to really reevaluate liberal and conservative [views] and really find out where I stand, because I think I've been a little blind.”

Nesenoff has received 25,000 hate messages since the incident, many of which he has posted online. Worse than the hate mail, he said, “is the hate media I'm beginning to learn about.” When asked to clarify, he explained that he was referring to those who blindly attack him without asking questions. “They have to attack me and find, maybe we'll say he did something on purpose or he filmed it a certain way... why don't they actually ask me and find out maybe I liked Helen Thomas?” he asked.

I have Jewish friends who are still not reevaluating.  I don't understand it.

The Saudis allow Iraeli's air space if they need it

I hope this is true. It is from the TimesUK online via Instapundit:

Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites

by Hugh Tomlinson

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

Read the full story here.

Memorial Service? Fundraiser? What to do, What to do?

Well, if you are President Obama you go to the fundraiser.  After all Barbara Boxer needs all the help she can get.  From CNN and posted by Gateway Pundit:

Obama Blew Off Gulf Memorial Service to Attend Fundraiser for Boxer

by Jim Hoft

CNN reported tonight (CNN?) that President Obama skipped the Memorial Service for the 11 workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion because he was attending a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer.

According his official schedule, President Obama did not attend the May 25 memorial service in Jackson, Mississippi for the workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion because he was en route to a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in San Francisco.

At Thursday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked why Obama did not attend the service. The president’s spokesman answered, “I’d have to look at the schedule. I don’t know the answer.”

CNN examined the president’s schedule for that day, and according to it, the president left the White House at 2:55 p.m. EST en route to Andrews Air Force Base for the cross-country flight to the San Francisco fundraiser.

Fudging the data to fit the agenda

You may have heard this on the news yesterday. I saw it in several places. This report is from Gateway Pundit.

Oh My!… Team Obama Fudged Report to Push Their Oil Drilling Moratorium

Posted by Jim Hoft

We saw these radicals withhold and manipulate information during the health care debate… Now we find out they’re doing the same thing with the nation’s energy supply…

Team Obama fudged a report to support their drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

A group of oil drilling experts claimed that the Obama Administration misrepresented their views in order to put a hold on drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Click here to read the rest.

A Must read from Bookroom Room on Socialism and the American Attitudes to it

They have eyes, but cannot see — the conundrum of American attitudes towards socialism

by Bookworm

Before the 1970s (give or take a decade) the vast majority of Americans viewed socialism as a profoundly anti-American phenomenon. Red scares started in the immediate wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and America’s dislike for socialism, especially under the guise of communism, continued unabated through the first two thirds of the Vietnam War.

The temperature of the fear rose and fell, with some years witnessing a passive dislike for the red menace and other years erupting in active worries about America’s continued well-being as world socialism came a’knockin’ (thing HUAC). Whether the fear was hot or cold, though, that deep suspicion always ran strong and true through the American bedrock. Simply put, Americans were pretty darn sure that communism/socialism was a bad thing.

What’s so interesting, looking back on America’s decades-long hate affair with socialism, is that during all those years Americans hadn’t actually seen socialism in action. Sure, they knew it sparked revolutions in Russia and China, but those were tightly closed societies, so the full horrors visited on those countries’ citizens were invisible to most Americans.

This woman always has a long, well reasoned article on things I believe but can in no way articulate.  Read this, it's good.

Consequences: Intended? or Unintended?

The Gulf Coast is already hurting but Obama's policies are kicking the people while they are down.
From Gateway Pundit:

Obama’s Moratorium Disaster: “Tens of Thousands” on Gulf Coast Will Lose Their Jobs

by Jim Hoft

An a$$ to kick?

On May 27, President Obama instituted a six-month moratorium on all drilling in water depths greater than 500 feet and stopped work on 33 Gulf deepwater exploration rigs, except under special circumstances. The president’s decision will force tens of thousands of Gulf Coast employees to lose their jobs.

EnergyTomorrow Blog posted this information today:

Several organizations have offered estimates of the drilling moratorium’s impact on consumers, the U.S. oil and natural industry, and the nation’s energy security:

* Adam Sieminski of Deutsche Bank predicted that U.S. oil production could fall by 160,000 barrels of oil per day by next year. (Financial Times)

* Bernstein Research said delays from the moratorium and rising costs stemming from new safety regulations are likely to raise the marginal cost of deepwater production by about 10 percent. (Financial Times)

* Paul Cheng of Barclays Capital warned that the higher costs could eliminate small independent companies who compete for drilling projects against the majors. (Financial Times) He also predicted an 11 percent drop in deepwater oil production. (Houston Chronicle)

* The Houston Chronicle reports that two large oil-services companies are relocating workers from the Gulf of Mexico to onshore North America drill sites and Brazil.

* The National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) predicts that relocation is just part of the pain to be suffered by energy workers. Burt Adams, NOIA’s chairman, said in a statement, “the [president's] order will be felt by the families of tens of thousands of offshore workers who will be unemployed.”

For video go here.