Flopping Aces

Is there a competency problem at the White House?

Remember this recent photo of Obama trotting out three unemployed persons to use as props as he demanded that Congress increase the budget deficit and pass a further extension of unemployment benefits without paying for it?

Well, turns out the reason the woman on the right is unemployed is that she was convicted of prescription drug fraud charges in 2009 and is currently serving her sentence:

Leslie Macko, a Charlottesville resident, stood next to President Obama as his example of the need to extend jobless benefits.

“We need to extend unemployment compensation benefits for women like Leslie Macko, who lost her job at a fitness center last year, and has been looking for work ever since. Because she’s eligible for only a few more weeks of unemployment, she’s doing what she never thought she’d have to do. Not at this point, anyway. She’s turning to her father for financial support,” Obama said in his speech at the White House on July 19th.

Macko was once employed at ACAC Fitness and Wellness Center in the Albemarle Square Shopping Center. However, in April 2009, a month after being found guilty of prescription drug fraud, she lost her job as an aesthetician in the spa at ACAC.
…
CBS19 also learned Thursday that Macko has had more than one run-in with the law. In June of 2007, Macko was charged with grand larceny. The charge was reduced in court to petit larceny, and she was sentenced to two years probation.

Well, I suppose we really can’t fault Obama’s White House on this one. After all, there are so many criminals running around the place who don’t pay their taxes as well as a host of other nefarious activities that this woman fits right in. Or maybe White House staffers just confused Macko’s former employer ACAC with Obama’s former employer ACORN.

The real issue here is the gross incompetence of the Obama Administration. With millions unemployed they can’t find one three that haven’t been convicted of a crime?

I wonder if she will be offered a job in the Obama Cabinet? She’d fit right in!

We have a war that is going sour, our Justice Department has become the Department of Social Injustice run by a radical racist who refuses to prosecute Blacks and minorities, the federal government refuses to secure the border and welcomes illegal aliens to gut our states’ welfare entitlements and denies local law enforcement the right to prosecute illegal aliens, Obama’s administration is riddled with tax cheats and criminals who get an ongoing free pass for felonies that would put the common man in prison, and an energy policy that has our adversaries laughing their asses off, our citizens are lucky to buy a job and our president need more illegal aliens to get reelected and we are facing ruinous debt and massive tax increases. And now we have our teleprompter reading president, who was ordained by a corrupt Main Stream Media as the most intelligent man to ever hold the office and who was supposed to find the solutions to all our problems and bring this country together, is facing a midterm election and dismal polls; so in desperation, he decides to campaign to try and recapture the White soccer moms who voted him into office by sitting with women and posing like a woman with his legs crossed even tighter than the thinnest woman on the set. Using his most effeminate mannerisms and charm he hopes to tap into the frustrated psyche of the white middle-aged female and tickle their subliminal libido, to keep from being humiliated by losing majorities in both houses.

Not only is he the first Black President, but he is the first President to humiliate himself groveling in front of a cheesy gossip show like a celebrity looking for fans. It’s true his base was entrenched solidly in the black vote, that is a comfortable voting block of 15% for any Leftist who can promise a form of reparations, as well as the White women who were looking for a change of direction or an exotic stimulant for a life of unfulfilled dreams. The Blacks have their savior and he is unlikely to lose that core group, no matter what direction he takes; however, White women have realized Barack is a pathetic poser who eats cake and is a quintessential dilettante who would be kicked out of their homes for the same displays of irresponsibility and a preference for silly games rather than serious work, at least if he approached making a real living like he approaches performing the duties of a president rather than the ceremonial Narcissus type appearances, at those our president excels, especially if the involve reading a teleprompter and hearing that he is sexy.

Something tells me, Mr President, the jig is up and America would much rather have a homely hard working President than a Jive Ass Teleprompter Reading Socialist posing as a statesman.

The Left’s defense for the behavior of the Journolistas is that it is just media types pooling their ideas; true enough, unfortunately, their ‘ideas’ were propaganda and lies that swayed an electorate so that the United States now has to endure its first Socialist Racist President.  

Unlike Duranty, who held Communism in contempt at least privately, but was willing to sell out his personal integrity to assuage his hedonism and promotion of Duranty by playing up to the mass murderer Joseph Stalin and The New York Times.  Consequently, FDR was deluded by men like Durant and the Soviet Agents, like Alger Hiss that had infiltrated his confidence and advised him with advice that has influenced and endangered the United States to this day.

Therein is the rub or treason; of course, a Socialist will always retort that the “Ends Justify The Means” and that lies or propaganda is doing the United States a ‘collective good’ and therefore they are more than justified in their lies to promote the cause of Socialism against the hard headed people who actually believe that the Constitution contains the secrets of our exceptionalism  and success.  Thus theirs is the “Good Fight” and presenting propaganda and lies as news is justified; to a Socialist this is logic and therefore acceptable; unfortunately, the non-Socialist is left feeling bewildered and confused.  With sincerity he asks, “When did the news stop becoming the news and evolve into being merely a subliminal political message?”

Obviously this has been an excepted method of execution since the thirties.  There has probably been a 70 year period of only hiring Socialist sympathizers to derive the Yellow Press of today, but now that they have achieved their goal, they are losing their audience and credibility at an astronomical rate.

Here are five of the most blatant excesses in journalistic malfeasance.

• the Journolisters’ attempt, during the 2008 presidential campaign to kill and bury stories about Obama’s relationship with “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright;
• their push to deliberately smear innocent conservative journalists and politicos as “racists” and “bigots”
• their twisted passion to see Rush Limbaugh killed off and dead;
• their intolerant desire to have the government censor and shut down Fox News; and
• their baldly partisan effort to coordinate liberal talking points that would discredit Sarah Palin and John McCain, while helping to elect Barack Obama president.

Many of these conspiring journalists who took it upon them selves to pervert the news to enable a Socialist Agenda were from previously respected news sources.

Considering that Journolist included journalists from Washington Post, the New York Times, National Public Radio, New Republic, and Time, one has to wonder if the biggest story covered up in 2008 was the illegal coordination between ACORN and the Obama campaign.

Unfortunately, the Socialist Left is so devious in their efforts to bring down the United States and create their Socialist Utopia, that they manage to have the taxpayers pay to fund entities like NPR and soon we will be paying to keep corrupt and obsolete news sources like the New York Times alive so that they can plot to throw more elections just like the low life’s who are always trying to manipulate horse races, with one exception, manipulating a horse race will get you time in prison, manipulating a federal election is OK if you are a Socialist.

It’s time for right thinking patriots to support the RNC and Senate and House campaign committees!

Opening the Mike’s America fundraiser that keeps yours truly on the job, I released my list of the top ten (well, really eleven) GOP Senate candidates worthy of your financial support in our bid to retake the U.S. Senate in 2010. You are encouraged to donate directly to their campaigns. Soon, I’ll be publishing a list of key House races necessary for us to retake control of the House of Representatives and boot Nancy Pelosi out of the Speaker’s Chair.

Some people feel more comfortable in contributing directly to campaigns, and independent efforts like mine, than to the Republican National Committee and it’s sister campaign organizations the National Republican Congressional Campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Over the past few years those organizations have had some spectacular missteps that have alienated some donors.

But we must put all that behind us if we hope to win big in November. It’s great to contribute directly to candidates. They are the key players on our team. But let’s not forget the coaches. Without them, there is no overall coordination of the effort and we all know that a team made up of only quarterbacks all throwing the ball in different directions is not the way to win.

It’s time to put aside our past differences with the GOP committees. I can count on one hand the number of major flubs they have had over the past years and still have fingers left over. However, the ongoing contributions they have made the past 18 months or so have been instrumental in helping us move forward in presenting a solid front opposing Obama and the Dems overreach.

As a blogger, I can tell you that I count on research from the RNC and related committees to help me inform readers about the key issues of the day. The online video ads put out by these organizations have been an invaluable part of the message we need to counter Obama.

November Starts NOW!

Yesterday, the RNC launched a new online initiative called November Starts Now. The header of this new web page states:

Barack Obama’s presidency has been a disaster. He is either unwilling to or incapable of doing his job. The economy is in shambles, the government is failing, and Americans are losing hope. Barack Obama was not ready to be President. He’s not the solution. You are.

You have the opportunity to turn our economy, our government, and our country around by electing Republicans and restoring your voice in Washington. But to win this fall, we must start today. It’s up to you to save your country. Are you ready? Because November starts now.

Are you ready to accept the challenge or will you sit on the sidelines?

Three new web ads look back at Obama’s run for the presidency and chronicle why he wasn’t ready for prime time. I especially like their new take on Hillary’s 3 AM phone call which is similar to the popular Mike’s America production from March 2009.

The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC) has their own web ad and it’s worth your time to view:

In addition to these ads, the NRSC is providing key support to the candidates whose campaigns we must win in order to dump Harry Reid and take control of the U.S. Senate and begin rolling back the worst of Obama’s excesses.

The National Republican Congressional Campaign (NRCC) has a special online feature called GOP Code Red targeting Dems in the House of Representatives who changed their vote on health care from “no” to “yes” just in time to push Obama Care over the top. With your support, a variation of this ad will run in districts of Dems who tried to have it both ways in the health care debate but ended up supporting Obama and Pelosi.

Don’t forget County and State GOP

Your county and state GOP are on the front lines of the grass roots battle we must win to begin taking back America this fall. Don’t forget them. Not only do they need your money, but your county party needs your volunteer help as well. Headquarters will be opened that need volunteers to staff them and yard signs and literature need to be distributed.

This election is too important to sit on the sidelines or to let past differences block us from future success. The long road to take back America and begin restoring the damage done by Obama starts now and will take the combined and united efforts of all those on the right. Your vote isn’t enough to win this fight!

Journolist just keeps getting better and better. This time there is evidence that members pushed others to advocate for one party….again. Before the Obama/McCain debates:

The single biggest thing journolist can do is to lay the analytical framework within the media elite necessary for an actual Obama debate win to be viewed as such by a sufficient proportion of media elites that voters know it was a win.

Of course, this only works if Obama does as we expect (and McCain is a terrible debater, btw).

But even Gore’s uneven Debate 1 performance in 2000 was deemed a win initially by a viewership that was demographically to the right of the electorate (lower minority viewership in 2000 of debates, more male, more GOP, etc…)… but Bush was winning on several media narratives and thus got the benefit from the intense 72 hours of post-debate coverage.

In the conversation that followed Hauser’s post, not one Journolister expressed surprise or disapproval. No one rebuked Hauser for telling journalists how to carry water for a politician. Despite the group’s supposedly “very strict” ban on political operatives and explicit partisan coordination, Hauser remained a member of Journolist for almost two more years.

Hell, one staffer of Obama’s sent a message to the list telling them all to be more loyal to The One:

“Calling all Journos,” Bernstein wrote in a message relayed by Klein. “I thought we got too little love from progressive types re our tax changes targeted at businesses with overseas operations. We’re maybe going for another bite at the apple this Monday,” he wrote. Bernstein invited members of the list to join him on a conference call on the issue a few days later.

“I’ve heard that there’s some disappointment in the administration that they haven’t gotten the level of progressive love they feel they deserve for their ambitious proposals to curb abusive corporate tax loopholes,” wrote influential liberal blogger Matt Yglesias the next day. Yglesias went on to attack opponents of the plan, noting “how absurd some of the abuses the administration is trying to curb are.”

How did all this effect the narrative? Politico is a perfect example as John Nolte demonstrates:

And yet these are the same bastards “journalists” who launched a smear attack on a private citizen for asking Their One a perfectly reasonable question, obsessed over Sarah Palin’s wardrobe (and yet ranked Obama being asked about his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers as a 2008 top-ten ”media blunder“), and though they occasionally find Levi Johnston worthy of note, Department of Justice whistleblower, J. Christian Adams, remained a ghost up until and including Ben Smith’s factually challenged Nothing-To-See-Here gift to his embattled president.

Oh, and did you know that some of Politico’s “journalists” were members of Ezra Klein’s now infamous JournoList, including Mike Allen, Lisa Lerer, and Mr. Ben “I-Got-Yer-Back-Barack” Smith?

And this little juicy nugget of fact raises a troubling question…

What Politico needs to disclose is exactly when their three employees joined JournoList, because now that we know what really was going on there, this Politico article reeks of a cover up.

Written by Michael Calderon in March of 2009 and titled “JournoList: Inside the echo chamber,” even at the time it was written, the thousand-plus worder ranked as another classic example of what Politico does best: write stories about why stories they don’t want covered aren’t worth covering. In other words, like Ben Smith’s Black Panther piece, this is how Politico spikes that which might damage the Leftist narrative.

JournoList member

While reading Calderon’s JournoList expose,’ you can practically hear the staged, self conscious yawn of a man trying to put across the false front that once again those crazy, paranoid right-wing conspiracy mongers have taken him away from oh-so important work to address this nothing-ness.

Calderon’s idea of “journalism” was to interview JournoList members such as Jeffrey Toobin, Eric Alterman,and Joe Klein, who each assure us in their own wrist-flicking way, Tell those silly right-wingers that no one’s pushing an agenda. In 2009 the piece was hilariously obvious in its biased and preordained objective to smoke-and-mirror away concerns about what Ezra’s little coven of left-wingers was up to. But reading it again in hindsight, it stinks to high heaven.

Day after day we see examples of pure unadulturate activism on the part of our supposed “unbiased” journalists. A cabal of liberals who conspired to push a predetermined agenda onto the nation.

They should all be ashamed.

Immediately after the oil began to flow in the Gulf in April, I felt some anger toward BP and Tony Hayward. But now, I feel badly for both. I am now sympathetic towards them. I think both have gotten terrible treatment at the hands of Barack Obama and the US government. And this is emblematic of Obama’s attitude toward business.

When you read the words Obama and the Democrats have uttered, you’d think that BP intentionally created the accident. A search for “Obama criticizes BP” brings 11,900,000 hits. Obama criticized Hayward for going boating with his son and then promptly traipsed off to the golf course. Obama pointed his finger at the the executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton and said they should not be engaged in “finger pointing.”

This spill was absolutely the last thing that Hayward or BP wanted, but you’d never know it.

Meanwhile, clean-up crews are having a difficult locating the spilled oil:

For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there’s one problem — they’re having trouble finding it.

Apparently the spill is dissipating faster than anyone anticipated:

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Democrats, looking to convince America of how much they care, are trying speed a package of new rules through Congress. Undoubtedly, we’ll have to pass it to find out what’s in it and we won’t know for years whether it will work. One comes to realize after a while that Congress really isn’t interested in accomplishing anything effective. They’re interested in passing bills into law, as though each is a notch in the belt. They have little interest in whether they actually work as promised, and most of the time they don’t.

Obama has demonized the insurance and banking industries in addition to the oil industry. Obama has been labeled as anti-business by both Steve Forbes

“Well, the president clearly is [anti-business],” Forbes, a former Republican presidential hopeful, said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “I mean you can take excesses [of some on Wall Street] and tar the whole business community, which is like taking election fraud and saying that’s why we shouldn’t have free elections. He caricatures them, and you saw it in that letter that his top aides sent to the Business Roundtable saying our doors are open even to the business community.”

and Mort Zuckerman

The growing divide and tension between the Obama administration and the business world is a cause for national concern. As Clive Crook wrote in the Financial Times, Obama is “a president under business attack.” He is certainly under sharp criticism and for good reason: He has lost the confidence of much of the business community, whose worries over taxes, the dramatically increased costs of new regulation, and a general perception that the administration is hostile toward them and may take yet harsher steps, are holding back investment and growth. In the midst of a weak economy accompanied by levels of unemployment unprecedented since the Great Depression, it is critical that the government in Washington appreciate that confidence is an imperative if the business community is to invest, take risks with start-ups, and altogether get the economy going again to put the millions of unemployed back to productive work.

For all his mealy-mouthing of BP and Hayward, Obama needed them.

BP stopped the leak. Business stopped the leak. It wasn’t Obama, and it wasn’t ACORN.

Addendum:

Looking to drain the last remaining drops of blood from Hayward, US Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Robert Menendez invited Tony Hayward to testify at a Senate hearing in regard to the release of the Lockerbie bomber:

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, standing in Times Square along with relatives of some of those killed in the bombing, said it was important to get the facts surrounding the circumstances of al-Meghrahi’s 2009 release. The senators are probing whether an oil exploration deal between oil giant BP and Libya influenced the decision. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

“The abundance of incredible coincidences surrounding al-Megrahi’s release deserves a real open, transparent hearing,” Menendez said Monday.

“A cloud of suspicion will hang over the entire issue at least until all the looming questions are answered,” he added.

There is a hook in this. Obama knew of the release of this cretin. He said he didn’t approve, but then again he did not demand the guy not be released as any normal President would do. My question is- would the oil deal have gone through had Obama demanded the guy not be released? Did Obama acquiesce to facilitate the deal? There are questions to ask, but not just of Hayward, but of the most “transparent administration ever.”

But Tony Hayward has had enough of Congressional peacocks like Menendez. Hayward took a parting shot at the Democrat-controlled US Congress when he said he’d be “too busy” to attend a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Good for him.

Minerals from the rare earth mine at Thor Lake in Canada

President Obama is anxious to get us off oil and embrace alternative energy while creating millions of new jobs, the millions of new jobs are a joke; however, the true ramifications of ending our relationship with oil and switching over to alternative energy will leave us more vulnerable to foreign powers than we were with oil.

From Obama’s Organizing for America website:

America can be the clean energy leader by harnessing the power of alternative and renewable energy, ending our addiction to foreign oil, addressing the global climate crisis, and creating millions of new jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.

The Current Situation

The country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. For too long, politicians in Washington have been beholden to special interests, but no longer. Our new, responsible energy policy recognizes the relationship between energy, the environment, and our economy and leverages American ingenuity to put people back to work, fight global warming, increase our energy independence and keep us safe.

The Solution

Chart a new energy future:
President Obama has a comprehensive plan to chart a new energy future by embracing alternative and renewable energy, ending our addiction to foreign oil, addressing the global climate crisis and creating millions of new jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.

Invest in clean, renewable energy:
To achieve our goal of generating 25 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2025, we will make unprecedented investments in clean, renewable energy – solar, wind, biofuels, and geothermal power.

Fight climate change:
We will invest in energy efficiency and conservation, two sure-fire ways to decrease deadly pollution and drive down demand. And we will hold special interests accountable as we finally work to address climate change and its potentially catastrophic effects.

There has been concern over the availability of lithium for lithium-ion batteries that are used in Electric Vehicles.   Most experts agree that there is enough Lithium for the foreseeable future; although, many of the world’s deposits are in countries that are ambivalent or hostile towards the U.S., including the new deposits that have been recently surveyed by the U.S. in Afghanistan, that appear to be as large as the deposits in Bolivia, the largest known deposits in the world.

“I highly doubt it will be able to either properly manage these resources or use the riches to build a more peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan for all Afghans,” Janan Mosazai, a political analyst, told AFP.

“We have living examples of other countries where natural riches have actually turned into a curse for peace and prosperity for people,” he said, citing Nigeria’s endemic poverty and conflict despite vast oil exports.

The Afghan government has already reported large deposits of chromite, natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones.

“The only significant new bit of information (this year) is the dollar figure, as Afghan and Soviet geologists already had evidence of the riches,” Mosazai said.

China and India have bid for contracts to develop Afghan mines, with the Chinese winning a huge copper contract. An iron-ore contract is due to be awarded later this year.

A new minerals rush could pit U.S. and Chinese interests against each other. Some critics in Washington grumble that China is reaping rewards from the copper mine while U.S. troops are heavily committed against the Taliban.

However, there is another component necessary for the electric car and many other applications from cell phones to wind turbines– rare earth minerals.  Neodymium, terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium are all being mined in Mongolia by the Chinese Communists and they control or have the bulk of the world’s production.

Chinese Mine Management Will Not Be Hindered With Overbearing Safety Concerns

A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.

China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia. The move to hoard reserves is the clearest sign to date that the global struggle for diminishing resources is shifting into a new phase. Countries may find it hard to obtain key materials at any price.

Alistair Stephens, of Arafura, an Australian rare metal group reports that his contacts have been shown a  copy of the document ‘Rare Earth Industry Development Plan 2009-2015′, that places limits on the amount of rare earth metals that can be exported.

“This isn’t about the China holding the world to ransom. They are saying we need these resources to develop our own economy and achieve energy efficiency, so go find your own supplies”, he said.

Mr Stephens said China had put global competitors out of business in the early 1990s by flooding the market, leading to the closure of the biggest US rare earth mine at Mountain Pass in California – now being revived by Molycorp Minerals.

New technologies have since increased the value and strategic importance of these metals, but it will take years for fresh supply to come on stream from deposits in Australia, North America, and South Africa. The rare earth family are hard to find, and harder to extract.

Mr Stephens said Arafura’s project in Western Australia produces terbium, which sells for $800,000 a tonne. It is a key ingredient in low-energy light-bulbs. China needs all the terbium it produces as the country switches wholesale from tungsten bulbs to the latest low-wattage bulbs that cut power costs by 40pc.

No replacement has been found for neodymium that enhances the power of magnets at high heat and is crucial for hard-disk drives, wind turbines, and the electric motors of hybrid cars. Each Toyota Prius uses 25 pounds of rare earth elements. Cerium and lanthanum are used in catalytic converters for diesel engines. Europium is used in lasers.

Blackberries, iPods, mobile phones,  TVs, navigation systems, and air defence missiles all use a sprinkling of rare earth metals. They are used to filter viruses and bacteria from water, and cleaning up Sarin gas and VX nerve agents.

Arafura, Mountain Pass, and Lynas Corp in Australia, will be able to produce some 50,000 tonnes of rare earth metals by the mid-decade but that is not enough to meet surging world demand.

New uses are emerging all the time, and some promise quantum leaps in efficiency. The Tokyo Institute of Technology has made a breakthrough in superconductivity using rare earth metals that lower the friction on power lines and could slash electricity leakage.

The Japanese government has drawn up a “Strategy for Ensuring Stable Supplies of Rare Metals”. It calls for `stockpiling’ and plans for “securing overseas resources’. The West has yet to stir.

Mike Crane, runs the EV and hybrid business at the fourth-largest global parts supplier ($20 billion in sales for 2009), Continental Corporation, expressed his views:

Continental has a dog in this hunt. As an alternative to the permanent-magnet motors in most electric cars, it is deploying a brushed synchronous motor that uses no rare earth metals. The motor will be used in a European EV coming to the market next year.

“Rare earth availability is a serious problem as the EV market grows, though I’m not seeing much consternation about it yet,” said Crane in an interview. “We could be trading dependence on one commodity, foreign oil, for another, rare earth metals.”

The Chinese appear to be tightening their control over rare earth production. Crane points out that mining rights for the 17 rare earth metals would be restricted to state-controlled mining companies under a draft proposal submitted to China’s cabinet. China also capped production levels for 2010, and imposed a moratorium on new mining licenses until next summer.

“There are other reserves around the world, but they’re not as rich as China’s,” Crane said. “And then there’s the question of whether it will be economic to mine the reserves in places like California, given much lower labor costs in China.” The U.S. was a major player in rare earth metals, but between 2005 and 2008, 91 percent of its supply came from China.

An estimated 180,000 Toyota Priuses will be sold in the U.S. this year, and every single one of them uses in its electric motor some 2.2 pounds of neodymium, a rare earth mineral that is mostly found in China. Hybrid and electric cars (as well as wind turbines) use various rare earths in abundance, which is a growing problem as China starts to electrify its vehicle fleet and will need those metals for its own production.

The U.S. has some rare earth reserves, and a rare earth mine is expected to open in California in 2012, but some 95 percent of the supply is believed to be in China. One bright spot in this picture is the new major metals find in Afghanistan, which the Pentagon says could be “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.”

Rare earth supplies are crucial, because more than 30 companies have hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid and battery EV programs underway, and 18 million vehicles will use nickel-metal-hydride and lithium batteries by 2025.

The search appears to be on for sources of rare earth metals. Japanese firms are, according to Reuters, “showing strong interest” in a Canadian rare earth site at Thor Lake in the Northwest Territories. Toyota is among them (it’s also exploring Vietnam), because according to strategic metals expert Jack Lifton its Prius is “the biggest user of rare earth metals of any object in the world.”

The Department of Energy is debating creation of what could be called the National Research Center on Rare Earths and Energy. It looks like we’re going to need it.

Of course Obama’s answer will be another incompetent bureau passing self defeating regulations for the US that place us out of contention in the race for the technology of the future.  Since Obama is content to place any country ahead of the US in competition for the economic struggle, so that we are always operating from a deficit, it is no surprise that he is painting the US into a corner so that we will be at the mercy of China, the Communist dynamo that is sapping America’s vitality while Obama vacations, plays golf, puts on parties, and giggles while America drowns in Obama’s Socialism.

Using his preoccupation with sports, especially basketball, Obama finds guidance for dealing with China in a basketball player.

“I have learned from the words of Yao Ming, who said, ‘No matter whether you are new or an old team member, you need time to adjust to one another.’ Well, through the constructive meetings that we’ve already had, and through this dialogue, I’m confident that we will meet Yao’s standard.”

The United States is on a precipice of economic disaster and our president quotes a basketball player at the opening meeting of the first China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) on July 27, 2009,  the Chinese-born NBA star Yao Ming.  While the Chinese laugh their asses off at the man child president as he returns home to tell us how great China is and how we should emulate their success.

The Clinton appointee Judge has blocked certain sections of the Arizona law from going into effect until they can be heard through the courts:

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues.

Full motion here:

U.S. v. Arizona – Order on Motion for Preliminary Injunction

It appears the key question that has given the Fed’s a temporary victory was that the law as written would require law enforcement to check immigration status on everyone arrested or held, not just those with “reasonable suspicion” of being illegal immigrants.

And that would create a burden on both LE and legal immigrants alike.

For these reasons, the United States has demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on its claim that the mandatory immigration verification upon arrest requirement contained in Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070 is preempted by federal law. This requirement, as stated above, is likely to burden legally-present aliens, in contravention of the Supreme Court’s directive in Hines that aliens not be subject to “the possibility of inquisitorial practices and police surveillance.” 312 U.S. at 74. Further, the number of requests that will emanate from Arizona as a result of determining the status of every arrestee is likely to impermissibly burden federal resources and redirect federal agencies away from the priorities they have established.

In combination with the impermissible burden this provision will place on lawfully-present aliens, the burden on federal resources and priorities also leads to an inference of preemption. Therefore, for the purposes of preliminary injunction analysis, the Court concludes that the United States has demonstrated a likelihood of success on its challenge to the first sentence of Section 2(B). Section 2(B) in its entirety is likely preempted by federal law.

So the divert resources from the fed’s argument won the day….for now. Bolton obviously believes the DOJ has a case.

We shall see.

This President has said for months that jobs and the economy are his number one priorities. ObamaCare has demonstrated his sincerity… just not in the way we might think. While American shores are littered with the carcasses of millions of octopi who sacrificed their lives so that their ink might be used to expound upon the disaster that is ahead, one of the most damaging elements of ObamaCare doesn’t have anything to do with healthcare in the first place. It really belongs amongst the 2,300 pages of economic malpractice known as Dodd-Frank. We are of course talking about Section 9006.

What is Section 9006? It is nothing less than a bullet aimed at the foot of the American economy as it competes in the race out of our economic malaise. Up until ObamaCare, businesses were required to provide 1099’s (the miscellaneous income form from the IRS) to individuals who provided them with services (via an other than employee relationship) if the total amount spent was in excess of $600. As such, consultants, freelancers and temporary help are often paid for their services this way. It keeps companies from having to collect and track taxes for short term relationships and it lets individuals who may deal with numerous clients during the year handle their own taxes.

Unfortunately, thanks to Section 9006 of ObamaCare the Dr. Jekyll 1099 we’ve all come to know and love is going to become the Mr. Hyde 1099 that will cause many businessmen to head for the exits. Beginning in 2012, 30 million businesses in the United States will have to begin issuing 1099s as if they were Internet diploma mills sending out bachelor degrees. In addition to everyone they already are required to issue 1099s to, ObamaCare will require them to issue 1099s to every single entity with which they do in excess of $600 in business in the calendar year. Buy a computer at Best Buy? Issue them a 1099. Buy 5 cases of $12 wine from Vinnie’s Wine shop? Issue them a 1099. Pay PG&E $100 a month for electricity? Issue them a 1099. Large companies with internal accounting staffs will be able to add another desk in the department to handle the extra work. Small businesses don’t have that luxury.

Of all of the lunacy that the Democrats have engaged in over the last 18 months, this may well be the most Bellevue worthy. Imagine you are a trucker who drives 2,000 miles a week, stops for gas 3 times a week and spends $200 each time. At the end of the year that trucker will have to go through 150 gas station receipts, find the station matches and figure out at which of those he spent over $600. (Of course it’s not quite as easy as it might sound as some branded gasoline stations are franchises and others are company owned while some companies own stations carrying different brands… but I digress.) Once they navigate through all of that mess, they then have to contact each company, find the correct person and ask for their Federal Tax ID. Then they have to issue to each of those companies a quad form 1099 – One for them to keep, one for the IRS, one for filing with the state and a fourth for any possible local taxes.

And of course this is only for their gas. There are a plethora of other services for which our intrepid trucker may have to issue 1099s. If he spends $25 a week at McDonalds in 15 states, he may have to provide them with a 1099 if half of the stores are company owned. (Good luck keeping track of that…) If he buys two tires from a service store in Mustang, Oklahoma he’ll need to send them a 1099. If he gets a paint job in Bollingbrook, Illinois or a few tune ups in Macon, Georgia he’ll better make sure he gets the Tax IDs.

Unfortunately for many of the tens of millions of small businesses across the country this trucker story is no fantasy. It is reality and they will be feeling the pinch just as badly. A real estate agent who drives 30,000 miles a year and fills up at 5 different gas stations will need to add a new file to her Rolodex. A plumber who buys piping at Home Depot, tools at Sears and work boots for his crew at Wal-Mart will be adding some numbers to his accountant’s check. Then there is the phone company, the office supply store and even their insurance companies. I can’t even get my phone company to figure out what all the fees mean on my bill and now I have to depend on them to provide me with the correct Tax ID information and address information for the IRS under the penalty of jail… for me, not for them. That’s comforting…

As small businesses across the country seek to find their footing and get back on the growth track, the last thing in the world they need is another stream of government regulations that force them to divert their attention from actually running their businesses. This is of course no surprise as it’s just another example of what happens when Americans put people with virtually no private sector experience and who are hostile to capitalism in charge of the government.

The bottom line however is that they are sticking to their word and indeed jobs are priority number one. Unfortunately in this case the jobs belong to the IRS agents who will be ensuring compliance and postal workers who will be delivering the millions of 1099 forms. Now that’s change we can believe in…

A few weeks ago Fareed Zakaria (who aspires to see a Post-American world) wrote an article noting that US companies are not hiring while they are sitting on $1.8 trillion on their balance sheets.

The Federal Reserve recently reported that America’s 500 largest nonfinancial companies have accumulated an astonishing $1.8 trillion of cash on their balance sheets. By any calculation (for example, as a percentage of assets), this is higher than it has been in almost half a century. Yet most corporations are not spending this money on new plants, equipment or workers.

But then Zakaria puts his ignorance of economics to work

Were they to loosen their purse strings, hundreds of billions of dollars would start pouring through the economy. These investments would probably have greater effect and staying power than a government stimulus.

That’s true, but loosen the purse strings to do what? Hire employees? To do what? Where’s the demand for the products those workers will make?

To be clear: There is a strong case for a temporary and targeted government stimulus. Consumers and companies are being very cautious about spending. Right now, government spending is keeping the economy afloat. Without a second stimulus, state and local governments will have to slash spending and raise taxes, which will produce a downward spiral of higher unemployment, slower growth, lower tax revenue and a larger deficit. Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, told me that when the stimulus money runs out at the end of this year, he will be forced to lay off 5,000 teachers. Multiply that example a thousand times to get a sense of what 2011 could look like.

This part really pisses me off. We will print money to keep state and local governments (translation: unions) afloat with deficit spending.

Who’s going to keep them afloat next year????

That was the very question many of us asked when Congress rammed that first stimulus package through. Money was spent to keep states and cities afloat. That money contributes to the national debt which will in turn demand higher debt servicing and eat more of the federal budget. It appears that under Obama we’re going to need a stimulus every year.

That won’t work.

Why would anyone want to loosen their purse strings? Obama is the most anti-business President in the history of this country. He does nothing but demonize business.

And that’s why people don’t hire. They’re afraid.

Even Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, who has his head so far up Obama’s rump that he wouldn’t know day from night said that Obama was out of sync with entrepreneurs. Obama has forced down our throats two unpopular laws- health care and financial reform. No one really has any idea how badly these laws are going to affect business and Obama would love to cram Crap and Trade down our throats, which would paralyze the country.

And the idiot wonders why no one hires. He also thinks government workers are superior to the private sector:

But all think he is, at his core, anti-business. When I asked for specifics, they pointed to the fact that Obama has no business executives in his Cabinet, that he rarely consults with CEOs (except for photo ops), that he has almost no private-sector experience, that he’s made clear he thinks government and nonprofit work are superior to the private sector. It all added up to a profound sense of distrust.

So what is Obama to do with companies sitting on all this capital and not hiring?

Tax the crap out of retained earnings.

I knew this was coming and Van Jones spilled the beans.

We can expect Democrats to start badmouthing the “greedy” corporations and extolling the need for them to “pay their fair share.”

If Republicans don’t take back control of at least one House of Congress Obama will render this country into a third world nation- something none of our parents would recognize.

Democrats often accuse Republicans of not having a plan, of being the party of ‘No.”

Stopping Obama is a plan, and “No” is a good party as you watch what’s happening now. This country did not become great by emulating Europe. It became great by being different from Europe.

FDR- “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

Reagan- America is “A shining city”

George Bush- “Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.”

Barack Obama- “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United states of America”

He meant every word of it. Obama would like nothing more than to be the first post-American President.

A Department of Revenue spokesman said Kerry would be liable for Massachusetts taxes if he berthed the boat in the Bay State within six months of its purchase. If the Isabel were brought to Massachusetts after that period, the state would have to decide if it wanted to pursue the taxes.

Massachusetts, like most other states, has been grappling with plunging tax revenues. Last year’s budget deficit was $600 million, and officials are bracing for a $1 billion deficit this year.

The Republicans of Massachusetts spoke out meekly to criticize Kerry’s cost saving measures.

“While we can fault the senator for his hypocrisy on taxes or having his boat built halfway around the world instead of here in the USA, John Kerry proves an important point that taxes in Massachusetts are too high. If they are too high for someone as rich as Senator Kerry, they are absolutely too high for working-class taxpayers who are being squeezed at every turn,” said a statement issued by party Chairwoman Jennifer Nassour.

The 76-foot sloop has two cabins, a pilot house fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage, according to the Boston Herald, which first reported its Rhode Island berthing. It derives its moniker from the middle name of Kerry’s mother and the name his wife, Teresa Heinz, hoped to give a daughter.

Perhaps the Republicans are concerned over their own Senator Brown’s taxes on the pickup he drove around the state during his campaign.

Obviously, a $7,000,000 yacht can have warranty issues, so why bring it next door to Massachusetts when your wine cooler might break down.  State Senators and yacht owners are faced with difficult decisions all the time.  Kerry has decided that his cash strapped state must function without his personal dollars, only because of the frailty of an ocean going yacht that was built in New Zealand and sailed to Rhode Island for delivery.

Although Mike reported on this story originally, I found the views of Steve Dennis and his New Englander’s blog enlightening and informative, an update:

First the national issue: We have been told constantly that as Americans we have to sacrificemore for the common good. In this economic downturn the president has told us that we must face higher taxes in order to help those less fortunate than ourselves. From healthcare reform to the stimulus package, future American taxpayers are being asked to bear the burden of this regime’s out of control spending.

At one point during the campaign while in Oregon, Barack Obama was apologizing to the world for what he deems as Americans over extravagant lifestyles, Barack Obama stated that “we can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.”

So while ordinary Americans are being asked to drop our standard of living by keeping our houses cooler in the wintertime by turning down our thermostats; and while Barack Obama has declared that we can’t eat as much as we want; and while Barack Obama claims that we the ordinary Americans can’t drive SUVs, John Kerry doesn’t have a problem with not only buying a brand new yacht-even as the president dissed us for driving what many families think of as a necessity, SUVs– John Kerry doesn’t have a problem with spending $7 million on a yacht, which nobody can claim is a necessity, while evading the taxes that he rightfully owes by registering it in a state that is not his home state. These politicians are telling us that we have to live by one set of standards while they live a totally unneccessary and extravagant lifestyle themselves. John Kerry is a perfect example of the double standard and hypocrisy that is prevalent in Washington today.

Second, the local issue: Last year Massachusetts decided to crack down on residents that were avoiding the Massachusetts sales tax by buying high end goods in tax free New Hampshire. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick decided to crack down on the state “use tax.”

Massachusetts requires its residents to report on their state income tax returns all goods purchased in New Hampshire that were to be used in Massachusetts, but because this law is unenforceable with Massachusetts residents, Massachusetts tried to sue a New Hampshire business in an attempt to make New Hampshire businesses collect Massachusetts sales tax for them when Massachusetts residents bought goods in New Hampshire. This was met with great resistance in New Hampshire. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed into law a bill that would exempt New Hampshire businesses from becoming tax collectors for the state on Massachusetts. Score– New Hampshire 1, Massachusetts 0.

It will be interesting to see if Massachusetts goes after John Kerry for avoiding Massachusetts taxes with the same zeal that they went after ordinary Massachusetts residents. Somehow I don’t think that will be the case. While John Kerry as a United States senator is not involved with the local politics of the state, he has been an advocate for the Obama regime’s tax increases. He has endorsed many of the Massachusetts politicians– including Deval Patrick– who support higher taxes, including the recent raising of the Massachusetts sales tax. By doing so he has also endorsed their tax increases.

Yet John Kerry looks to avoid paying higher taxes himself and this is a perfect example. When politicians like Barack Obama talk about sacrifice, and lowering the standard of living, they are talking about ordinary, hard working, middle class tax payers; they are not talking about themselves. They are unwilling to meet the expectations that they hold for us. And John Kerry’s tax avoidance is just the latest example of how Washington politicians are not willing to sacrifice for the common good themselves.

Our MSM has not purged itself of the Journolistas and why would anyone expect their editors to be so stupid they didn’t realize the blatant propaganda they churn out continuously as news; consequently, the facts and details of this story will be smothered like the Wright episode.  Thus we will need to be more diligent than ever to find the truth in these news stories.

Sarah Palin was dismissed as a light weight and Islamophobe. They can’t say the same about Newt!

In my posts (here, here) objecting to the building of a mosque near the site of Ground Zero in New York set to open on the 10th anniversary of the attacks by radical Islam, I hardly mentioned the significance of the name “Cordoba House” which the mosque builders proposed for this 13 story mega mosque.

The name did not escape the notice of Newt Gingrich:

Newt Gingrich Statement on the Proposed “Cordoba House” Mosque near Ground Zero
July 21, 2010 6pm

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

The proposed “Cordoba House” overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks – is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex.

Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to “symbolize interfaith cooperation” when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.

Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for “religious toleration” are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca.

And they lecture us about tolerance.

If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.

We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years. Now we are being told a 13 story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history.

Finally where is the money coming from? The people behind the Cordoba House refuse to reveal all their funding sources.

America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.

No mosque.

No self deception.

No surrender.

The time to take a stand is now – at this site on this issue.

Conservative Frank Gaffney’s group, Center for Security Policy has the following one minute ad covering this topic. It describes how Muslims have taken over Christian sites and used them as monuments to Mohammed. Ground Zero, while not a Christian church, is sacred ground:

All the phony arguments about religious freedom, tolerance, property rights and whatever else the politically correct want to toss into the hopper cannot overcome this one simple statement:

This the wrong place and the wrong time to build a mosque!

Darren Goode posted an article at The Hill titled

Dean calls Fox News ‘absolutely racist’ for aiding Sherrod ouster

But the following details prove the opposite (and the title was doltish).

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean accused Fox News of promoting racism, including in the recent fracas over the Obama administration’s forced resignation of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.

“Let’s just be blunt about this … I think Fox News did something that was absolutely racist,” Dean charged on “Fox News Sunday.”

Chris Wallace then hands Dean his ass:

But host Chris Wallace shot back, “I know facts are inconvenient things, but let’s deal with the facts.” They include that Fox News did not play the clip or mention her name before the Obama administration forced Sherrod on Monday to step down, he said.

Goode, if you’re reading this, your title should have been

“Dean is handed his ass for stupid allegations”

But Dean is not one to easily face facts:

Dean said the clip was about to run on Glenn Beck’s program on Fox, “which is what the administration was afraid of.”

Howard Dean told America that the White House lives in fear of Glenn Beck.

That’s cool.

But ironically, Beck came to Shirley Sherrod’s defense.

“Now if she is relating a story from1986 to make a point about how her racial perceptions have changed, this woman deserves her job back. Again, me at AA. Something is definitely wrong here,” Beck said.

This is what the White House feared?

Amusingly, Jesse Jackson suggested that the White House acted stupidly:

“The idea of an avalanche of news media accusing them of being racist is offensive and politically threatening,” Jackson said. When the news story broke about the Breitbart video clip, “It frightened the White House,” Jackson said. “They didn’t want to be accused of being racist and of course they ignored due process [and] were wrong in overreacting.”

And frankly, so did the NAACP.

But one wonders- why did Sherrod resign if she knew she did no wrong? Why didn’t she put up a stink immediately and refuse to resign? Why didn’t she tell them to watch the entire tape?

Further, one wonders why the Vilsack and NAACP did not evaluate the situation on their own prior to demanding a resignation.

Maybe because she knew something else was there. Maybe it wasn’t the white farmer she was thinking about. Maybe it was something far more recent:

You know, I haven’t seen such a mean-spirited people as I’ve seen lately over this issue of health care. Some of the racism we thought was buried. Didn’t it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bush’s and we didn’t do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black President.

Sherrod suggests George Bush is a racist. At least he’s not alone;

The people with money, the elites decided, hey, we need to do something here to divide them [the white and black servants] so that’s where they made black people servants for life. That’s when they put laws in place forbidding them to marry each other. That’s when they created the racism that we know of today. They did it to keep us divided. And here we are over 400 years later and it is still working.

She continued;

It’s not so much about white…” (catches herself, says), “It IS about white and black.”

Then she unloads what’s really in her mind:

“I think they should but they won’t. They intended exactly what they did. “They were looking for the result they got yesterday,” she said of Fox. “I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.”

This is the woman who claims her motto is:

‘Let’s work together’

Shirley doesn’t know when to shut up.

Perhaps it wasn’t the Bretibart snippet Sherrod was reacting to. Perhaps her guilt arose from these words. And maybe more than that. And perhaps resigning was exactly the right thing to do after all.

And if Obama gives her her job back?

That would be acting stupidly.

Check out this video from last year in which John Ziegler is being interviewed by O’Reilly. In it you see Brian Williams, the anchor of NBC news, quoting Time’s Joe Klein about Sarah Palin.

Klein would later pass off the words of fellow Journolisters as his own for a anti-Palin piece. This is how insidious the Journolist cabal was. They conspired to send a message through all forms of media, and make it in unison so any and all opposition is drowned out in response.

Ziegler:

One of the criticisms of the Daily Caller’s investigation into the “Journolist” scandal (if it is even possible for there to be a “scandal” in what is left of journalism these days) is that these were mostly just a bunch of liberal commentators expressing their opinion and that their thoughts didn’t make it into the “mainstream” as actual reporting. This episode with Brian Williams proves that contention to be utterly, and sadly, without merit.

As the “missing link” video below proves, there is no doubt that members of Journolist both tried and succeeded as injecting their opinions (in this case mostly discredited ones) disguised as fact into the mainstream through one of the most widely viewed and respected outlets we have left, at the most advantageous moment possible.

And the latest Daily Caller release from the Journolist is one more nail in the coffin:

Ed Kilgore of the Progressive Policy Institute, another supposedly “independent analyst,” did the same, even outlining specific talking points: “It requires no particular strategic genius or ‘message coordination’ to recognize that we and the Obama campaign have the next two months to demonstrate that McCain and Palin represent the status quo party, the status quo ideology, and status quo policies,” he wrote.

While other members of the group debated whether to coordinate a pro-Obama message – or, more precisely, whether to concede that such a message was being coordinated — Todd Gitlin of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism had already made up his mind. Gitlin, whose job is to train the next generation of America’s most elite journalists, wrote this impassioned plea on behalf of the Obama campaign:

“On the question of liberals coordinating, what the hell’s wrong with some critical mass of liberal bloggers & journalists saying the following among themselves:

“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.

“Repeat after me:

“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.

How often have we on the right said that our universities are infested with liberal nut professors? Now here is a man, a man who teaches the future journalists of this country, urging all the other journalists to secretly coordinate a specific message on behalf of the Democrat party.

I wonder what The Columbia School of Journalism thinks of this?

Journalists, including this Professor from Columbia, colluded to force a certain message out through their reporting.

The lefties would be apoplectic if all this Journolist news was from the right side of the aisle, but not now. Now it’s just no big deal.

A Horseshoer shoeing a Clydesdale

Johnny and I often ended up with very little to do in the early spring; the ice was breaking up and the rivers weren’t ready for beaver hunting, the bears were coming out of their dens but the creeks and rivers were too dangerous with fast water and rotten ice to travel in the bush, so we often would load a tent into Johnny’s old 47 Studebaker and head to town to see if we could make some money riding problem horses or just taking the meanness out of someone’s colt.

We went down to the stockyards and saw a couple of expensive semi-rigs that advertised a world champion Percheron hitch.  One of the rigs hauled the horses and the other rig hauled the wagon and all the equipment and feed.  Like cats, curiosity got the best of us.

In the blacksmith shop we found the owner and driver of the four horse hitch.  He was a big man and obviously wealthy to put together these horses and wagons to go show around the North America.  The leather alone must have cost a fortune, and the freighting wagon decked out like a beer wagon was an antique; I’m sure his outfit was worth enough to but a nice ranch in those days.

Johnny was a natural for getting together with horsemen and today he was asking the draft horse man a bunch of questions.  The two made quite a pair: Johnny weighed a little over a hundred pounds, with long black silky hair, the draft horse man weighed well over 300 pounds, stood six foot five and had short red hair.  The two of them were instant friends and were talking away.

I was impressed with the big horses and was looking them over closely.  There was a stallion with broken feet and no shoes, two mares, and a gelding: they must have weighed at least 1800 a piece and looked like they had never missed a dinner in their life.  In other words, they looked a little soft and lacked the muscle tone of hard working ranch draft horses; but they had nice feet with an excellent set of shoes on each one.

This Is A Percheron Show Mare, She’s Just A Little Fancy And Soft For Ranch Work

All of a sudden, the big man puts a fifth of Tennessee Whiskey on the table with a hundred dollar bill; “A hundred dollars and a fifth of sippin whiskey to the man who can nail four shoes on the stallion.”

Just as quick, Johnny picks up the whiskey and says, “Don’t worry, we can shoe that damned stallion,”  just before he walked out of the blacksmith shop.

I was wondering if Johnny had a friend he wasn’t telling me about, while the big man was looking at me with a smug grin with his head cocked to the side.

It would only be a minute or two before Johnny was in his 47 Studebaker and be worthless to the world now that he had the bottle of Tennessee Whiskey to nurse on like an orphan calf.  The truck was a funny deal, it was Johnny’s truck, but like many Indians in that day and age, Johnny was lucky to start a chain saw and keep it running, let alone drive a truck.  My dad always kept that old truck up for Johnny and I was the original designated driver, despite the fact that I didn’t have a driver’s license, but was already operating everything from a D10 dozer to a semi-tractor trailer.  It was a rare show of benevolence that was uncharacteristic of my dad.  I’ve often suspected that Johnny was related to my mother and my dad favored Johnny because of the closeness of blood; however, that is a mystery that will never be solved, since I am the only one left alive from that little group.

The 47 Studebaker is one of the best looking trucks ever made

Also, I’m pretty sure my dad wanted me to take Johnny places to help him recover, temporarily at least, from his strange dietary habits that would have killed most White Men.  That was fine with me, any chance a country boy has to go to big cities like Fort St John, Hudson’s Hope, Chetwynd, Pouce Coupe, or Dawson Creek you can bet he will be lunging in the traces to get there.  The only problem was Johnny might get drunk or lock belt buckles with one or more Indian women; they seemed to think he was the sexiest man alive, even if they were three and a half times bigger than him.  Johnny seemed to consider it a moral obligation and a divine mission from the creator to make himself available to as many women as possible; consequently, I spent a lot of time alone in those big cities, drinking coffee in a truck stop, waiting on Johnny to either exhaust himself or sober up.

But on this day, I was supposed to shoe a draft horse stallion; a horse that surely had a problem or the man wouldn’t be offering the unheard of price of $100 dollars and a fifth of American Whiskey.  Oscar the blacksmith was a friend of mine and would be okay with me using his tools to shoe this monster, even though it was Sunday and Oscar was observing the sabbath with a few shots of liquor and the resolve not to pull his ox or anyone else’s out of the ditch, not that he would want to shoe this monster.

Shoeing a draft horse isn’t too bad if they are handled well, but way too many people are scared of them and treat them as if they were fire breathing dragons, thus once a horse realizes that people are intimidated, he will take advantage of the situation and become a tyrant.  I was worried that this horse had already won many battles and was looking for another victory.

I walked over to the shoeing box and picked up a light driving hammer, the one you use to drive nails through the hoof wall to keep the shoe laced on.  I picked up a front leg and tapped the hoof in several locations and the horse just stood there.  Hmm, this could be some easy money.  I put on Oscar’s shoeing apron and picked up the shoeing box with all the hoof tools in it and walked over to the horse; just then, he fired a hind foot at me and missed my knee by a fraction, when he drew the leg forward to fire again the hoof and fetlock were tangled in the apron and he pulled me to my knees and started moving sideways to step on me, I rolled away just before his big hoof slammed into the wood floor in an effort to crush me.

At this point, I realized why the hose was barefoot.  Suddenly, I had an epiphany, I took off the leather apron and walked over to the hoof and started trimming it to accept a shoe.  I trimmed all four feet with no problem and walked over to the fire and built four shoes that were pretty near as large as a dinner plate.  I turned heel caulks and welded a modest size toe caulk on each shoe.  The irst shoe was cool enough to handle by the time I finished the last shoe.  I picked the near side front hoof and placed it between my knees and started driving the first nail.

This was the moment of truth; without a leather apron, this black bastard could jerk his hoof from between my legs at the speed of light and rip a #8 City Head nail through my thigh and cripple me before I could feel him moving; but luck was with me and the big bugger didn’t move as I drove ten nails in each hoof, just as long as I didn’t put on that blacksmith’s apron.

I was clinching the last hoof, when Johnny walked or perhaps I should say staggered into the shop with a old pair of oversize wool trousers smoldering halfway up one thigh, the result of falling asleep while sleeping, half of the one trouser leg was burned away and Johnny was swaying while trying to get my attention.  ”Skook…, er Skook, can I use that bucket of water?”

Everyone was enjoying the show in a patronizing way, including me.  ”What do you need the water for Johnny?” I answered his rhetorical question with another rhetorical question and dropped the last hoof.

“Well…. the truck’s on fire.”

Six guys jumped up and ran outside, the smoke was pouring out of the truck, hoses and buckets were soon pouring a hundred gallons into the cab of the old Studebaker.

After the quasi-volunteer firemen finished, I thanked them for saving the truck and they went back inside.  Johnny and I surveyed the damage and surmised that the seat, steering wheel, interior door handles and door panel would need to be replaced.  We drove to the junkyard and luckily he had all the parts we needed, they were priced right, $100 dollars.

So our trip to town had a balance sheet that read like this, Johnny drank a fifth of good whiskey, I nailed shoes on a horse that could have killed me and made a hundred dollars, back when you could get a horse shod for ten dollars.  Johnny fell asleep in the truck with a cigarette and burned up several pieces in the interior.  The replacement parts cost one hundred dollars and I had the money.

Johnny thought it was a perfect day and thought everything turned out perfect, I wasn’t convinced.  Now I realize, that Johnny’s irresponsible behavior and me doing the work, assuming a degree of risk, and forfeiting my income to keep the situation afloat, is a perfect example of Obama’s Wealth Redistribution.

In this micro-economy, everyone did well except for me; Johnny enjoyed a great bottle of sippin whiskey, the horse owner learned the secret of shoeing his stallion, and the junkyard owner made money on a truck he probably paid twenty dollars for, and me, I got nothing but a feeling of being angry at Johnny.

Even the horse had nice shoes that would help his sore hooves feel better and a new respect for humans and the way they could figure him out rather than working him over with a shoeing rasp or hammer while wearing a shoeing apron.

A six up Belgian Hitch

The problem is this type of economy will begin to fall apart.  Johnny or the type of person that he represents, has no incentive to alter his behavior, but the guy who did the work and took the chances has all the incentive to change the way he works in the future and thus protects his money from Wealth Redistribution.  Of course, this means that his income will be hidden by working under the table and no matter how much he loves his friend, he just doesn’t make enough money to subsidize irresponsible behavior.

How are they going to hush this one up?

Just 12 days ago Senate Democrats were demanding an investigation into the efforts foreign oil giant BP may have made to get the Lockerbie Bomber (responsible for the deaths of 270 persons after Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Scotland) released from Scottish jail and returned to Libya. Megrahi was released last year after Scottish officials came to the erroneous conclusion that his terminal prostate cancer left him with only a few months to live. He’s outlived their dire predictions for over a year and a Libyan doctor advises that he may live for another ten years.

The issue of convicted terrorist Megrahi’s release is so controversial that it even came up in a White House meeting with President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron. During the press conference, Obama said this:

OBAMA: [A]ll of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed, and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber. And my administration expressed very clearly our objections prior to the decision being made and subsequent to the decision being made. So we welcome any additional information that will give us insights and a better understanding of why the decision was made.

“Surprised, disappointed and angry” and “expressed very clearly our objections prior to the decision being made and subsequent to the decision being made.”

Really?

So, when the U.S. Congress called on the Scottish government to release letters regarding the release of Megrahi, why has the Obama Administration refused to release the letter it sent via our embassy in London?

Perhaps it is because the letter reveals that the Obama Administration was prepared to look the other way if Scotland choose to release Megrahi? While their position was that they prefer Megrahi to be released and live in Scotland, they “strongly opposed” a prison transfer of the bomber to Libya which would have kept him in jail. In the end, Megrahi was sent as a free man back to Libya.

From the embassy letter:

“Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose.”

The Australian reports that “Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as “half-hearted” and a sign it would be accepted.”

Ed Morrisey sums up the current controversy this way:

The letter did not give a green light to Megrahi’s parole to Libya. Nevertheless, it shows the kind of ineptitude that has plagued the Obama administration’s diplomacy from the “reset button” with Russia to this day. LeBaron’s note was a clear signal to Scotland that the US had lost most of its interest in Megrahi; recall that the US had insisted originally that any parole must include extradition to the US. The Scottish government must have presumed that we would not strenuously object to their release of Megrahi to the Libyans after LeBaron failed to raise that point and demand Megrahi’s extradition.

Also, it shows that the Obama administration lied about being surprised by Megrahi’s release. They knew it was coming, and while they may have been surprised that he went to Libya, the White House knew Scotland was going to spring Megrahi one way or the other.

190 American citizens were aboard Pan Am 103. All were killed, including 35 students of northeastern colleges on their way home from overseas study. Clearly, the Obama Administration sent the wrong signals to Scottish authorities. Megrahi never should have been released PERIOD!

Last Monday, via Andrew Breitbart, we were introduced to Sherry Sherrod:

Today, via Dan Riehl, meet her husband Reverend Charles Sherrod:

“We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections.”

Entire, unedited 26:00 speech delivered in Feb 2010 at UVA Law School (skip to 15:30 for highlighted section):