CRASH: The Sherrods And The Pigford Payola Scandal

Well, we know the Sherrods are unhinged, Collectivist, racist bigots of the first water by now.  What may still surprise many of you is that they are also happy RICH little piggies, swilling at the underground reparations trough.

Contrary to the the Joan Walsh pontification project, the Sherrods are crass kleptocrats.  Period.

Brought to you by the previous holder of the "Most Corrupt President Evah" statue; Bill Clinton.  This is ONE reason Obama wanted Shirley out the door...post haste...

BURN: Washington's War With The People

There has never been a time in America when the central government was more adverse to the will of the people.

By both subjective and objective measures, the Obami and the Deemocrats in Congress are at war with the majority of the American people, and it is a hot, bitter war.

President Obama has not lead but ruled Chicago style, cramming "transformative" legislation down the nation's throat despite our protests and our polling which show we don't want what is happening.  Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were right there, making it happen...whatever IT has been.

The idea of government by consent of the governed has become a bitter, dirty joke in Washington, D.C.  Right up there with the ideal of the citizen-legislator, the "public servant", and limited government.  These are all things that most Americans...either vaguely or concretely...still hold dear, and believe should be the working principles behind our Republic.

In poll after poll, Washington was told by the people we did not want ObamaCare, which is an affront not just to democracy and economics, but rational thought, as well.  It did not matter.

The people of America took to the streets and public squares to oppose the Porkulus package and other schemes of vast wealth transfer...not merely from us, but from our grandchildren...as not only unwise economic and fiscal policy, but corrupt Collectivist kleptocracy on a scale never imagined before.  It did not matter.

We told Washington we did not trust them to fundamentally change our banking and finance laws, which will have the effect of "fundamentally  transforming" American business in destructive ways we will only learn about in the future.  We told them that Senator Dodd (whose corruption is so rank he could not be re-elected) and Representative Frank...men who were leaders in causing the recent financial collapse, and leaders in taking corrupt money...were not men we wanted anywhere near a sweeping scheme of "regulation".  What they wrote...or what special interests wrote and they sponsored over their despicable names...is another vast "law" that not one single person in the Senate can explain.  Americans opposed its passage.  It did not matter.

We told Mr. Obama we want to drill and produce our own oil to fuel the great engine of our economy, and for a long time, it did not matter.  Finally, and double-handedly, he sort of opened the drilling possibilities, even as his EPA head, the crazy Lisa Jackson, began her program of running rough-shod over the law.  When the Deepwater Horizon well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, we told Mr. Obama we wanted the Federal government at least out of the way if it could not help.  We told him we wanted drilling in the Gulf to continue after a rational safety review.  It did not matter.

We have told Washington we want our borders secured.  We want parents to have a choice about where they send their children for school.  We want to decide how to heat and cool our homes, and how we drive our cars.  We have told them that racial or gender discrimination is to be struck from our laws and regulations.  We have told them myriad things IT IS OUR RIGHT TO TELL THEM, and our right to demand.  It does not matter.

It does not matter because the power elite in Washington has become hostile to the people and principles of the United States Of America.  They are in rebellion.

CRASH: Washington Isn't Even Trying To Lie Well Anymore

Is it me, or did Washington pols once at least lie with some degree of art?  I mean, it is always hateful to be lied to, but they just don't even give us the dignity of TRYING to fabricate a remotely believable lie anymore. 

Ann Coulter points to this:

"Somehow we just missed that home prices don't go up forever."

No, that's not your idiot brother-in-law explaining how his four home equity loans eventually landed him penniless on a futon in your rec room. It's the billionaire CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon.

Dimon was explaining to Congress's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission how he and his fellow Magic Men crashed the entire U.S. economy and then turned to taxpayers for a bail out.

Really? So Dimon's defense to Wall Street's utter recklessness with other people's money is to claim that Wall Street doesn't really understand how the market works? Again: Really?

But no one on the Commission challenged Dimon because, while the Commission's stated purpose is "to examine the causes of the financial crisis," its actual purpose is to conceal those causes -- especially the federal government's own central role in creating the housing bubble.

But why should we expect them to even try to lie well any longer.  I mean, you have to respect someone to fabricate an artful lie.  If you have utter contempt for them, you won't bother.

Which is where we are.  Bwany Frank-lover and "Sandwich" Dodd are two of the biggest, nastiest banking whores living, and they are writing...and passing...the new "regulation" that will control banking AND finance in the entire United States.

The financial collapse was TOTALLY the creation of BIG GOVERNMENT distorting the markets.  Sure, there were private sector players who PREDICTABLY screwed things up royally, but they were dogs barking.  They acted entirely as one would expect in an environment where GOVERNMENT had imposed bizzaro-world rules.

And we let them.

Now we have insult added to injury by Congressional "Commissions" who are not even artfully lying, and new regulation that will INSURE future calamity in our financial markets.  We need to retake our dignity, and our nation.

CRASH: Investigation Now Targets Interior's Lies In Gulf

The Obama Gulf War continues unabated.  While little or no oil is being belched from BP's wild well, the jobs in the Gulf continue to hemorrhage, and working people and families are suffering.  It is cynical politics at its most disgusting.

Interior Department Inspector General (acting) Mary L. Kendall is investigating the conduct of Kwik Kenny Salazar in his Gulf drilling moratorium.  Of particular interest is Salazar's falsification of the findings of his own panel of drilling industry experts (a Federal felony in my book) in an effort to provide the Obami a fig-leaf for their economy-killing Gulf ban.

There is no reason...none...to shut down the Gulf.  Any valid safety concerns could have been allayed BY NOW, and every individual deep-water drilling rig inspected.  The reason for the JOB moratorium in the Gulf is the same reason for the non-response to the oil leak...transformation politics.

BURN: Tell Me If You Think This is Racist...

"We must stop the Black man and their race-traitor enablers from stealing our elections.  Do not be afraid to vote White.  Do not be afraid to turn out a White man who votes against his race."

A simple "yes" or "no"...racist or not...?



So, is Charles Sherrod a racist or not?  And remember, he said this...according to our source...only months ago.

CRASH: The Grinding Hypocrisy Of The Beast

In a week when Eric Holder seems to be getting his wish about a racial dialog, The Daily Beast published an article that does everything that the Collective is saying (falsely) that Breitbart did wrong.

In a piece that serves as a remarkable tour de main of pure guilt-by-association crap, The Daily Beast outdoes the Collectivist RAAAAACIST smear machine.

Arizona's White Supremacist Problem

Gee, I wonder where we are going from here...?  The author doesn't make us wait long:

Long story short, Arizona’s new immigration law gives “racism a place to hide,” says Roxanne Doty, an Arizona State University professor who has long studied the nexus of white supremacy and immigration policy in Arizona.  [Prof. Doty lists among her research interests Immigration an Citzenship...I kid you not]

Terry Greene Sterling then treats us to this kind of "logic" from her "expert":

“My view is you can’t separate white supremacists from what is going on with Arizona immigration,” Professor Doty says. “Even if politicians say they aren’t associated with white supremacists, the ideas behind SB 1070 are very attractive to white supremacists… The new face of the white supremacist isn’t the guy with a sheet and a burning cross, it is the more highly educated person with a professed focus on family values, national identity, and border security.”

There you have it.  Regardless of what the representatives of the people...including the Hispanic citizens...of Arizona tell you, and how carefully they craft a bill to be race-neutral, they are the handmaidens of the RAAAAAACISTS.  And you can easily identify those RAAAAAAACIST bastards by their focus on their own families, their pride in America, and their concern for the integrity of their nation.  Or, as polls tell us, they look just like the vast majority of the American voters.

And SB 1070 is attractive to white supremacists, see.  As is...I dunno...the MSNBC prime-time line-up, milk, salt, hamburgers...  This claptrap, of course, ASSUMES that the law is TARGETED at a racial group, rather than at people freaking here ILLEGALLY!

But there are some outfits mentioned in this story that the Southern Poverty Law Center (a radical Collectivist smear group itself) identifies as "white supremacists".  One such group is American Third Position, which has a mission statement that says, "The American Third Position (A3P) exists to represent the political interests of White Americans, because no one else will".

Now, two things spring to mind;  
1) how is that a "white supremacist" statement?, and 
2) how EXACTLY is that worse/different than the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People?

But never mind; according to the beastly Beast (and in the face of no evidence it is true), A3P is reported to have contributed to the legal defense fund of Arizona, which faces an harassing lawsuit from the Obamic DoJ.

[Governor Jan] Brewer, through her spokesman Paul Senseman, says she won’t accept donations from racists and will return the donation from American Third Position—if the contribution exists in the first place. Staffers have been diligently sifting through names of about 25,000 donors who have contributed about $1.3 million to the fund, Senseman says, and have yet to find the A3P donation.

But that really didn't matter to the Beast.  The innuendo and smear was too good to pass up, and so they ran with the crapola and threw in the modifier.

But, in a week where we had the whole "Sherrod redemption" spin from the MSM and other Collectivist outlets, this was the corker:

Rogers [spokesman for Sheriff Babeu of Pinal County] points out Babeu was recently lauded by the Anti-Defamation League for condemning desert patrols in Pinal County led by alleged neo-Nazi J.T. Ready, who has long been singled out by the SPLC as one of Arizona’s premier haters.

OK, we have a fer-real Neo-Nazzzi now.  We can all hate him, right?

And anyway, these days, Ready says, he has had a change of heart. In a quirky flip flop that could only happen in Arizona, the 37-year-old alleged Nazi spins himself as more of a liberal than some of the mainstream politicians running for office on a secure-the-borders platform. 

“My view has significantly changed since I’ve been patrolling the desert,” Ready asserts.  He’s “re-evaluated” a lot of things and has “modified” his earlier views. He is no longer a member of the National Socialist Party, he says. Bumping into migrants in the desert who are thirsty, hungry, and injured has opened his “whole humanitarian side.”  

“I no longer see them as invaders,” he claims. “I  see them as economic refugees.”

Sounds like a redemptive story to me.  Shouldn't Mr. Ready be allowed the same reformation so many on the Left insisted (falsely) Sherrod has had?  Why the "scare quotes" around "re-evaluated", "modified" and "whole humanitarian side"?  Hmmmm....???  How come this is a "quirky flip flop that could only happen in Arizona?  Aren't we supposed to believe it happened in Georgia?

I suppose it would be hard to make this kind of stuff up.  Thank you, Daily Beast, for making this little demonstration of your collective hypocrisy SOOOOOO easy...!!!

BURN: OH, SPIT!!! Graph Of The Day

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/the-scariest-unemployment-graph-ive-seen-yet/60086/

BURN: Sherrod's Further Display Of True Plumage

As anyone who follows news...especially via the blogosphere...knows, there is a controversy over Shirley Sherrod's speech to the NAACP and Andrew Breitbart's airing of a portion of that speech.

My position, after viewing both the Breitbart segment and the entire NAACP-recorded speech is that Sherrod is a racist and a class-hater.  She's reinforced that by her statements since the controversy broke.

Of Breitbart, Sherrod claims she did not know who he was before the scandal broke, and that she was not contacted for comment before the highly-abridged version of her speech. “He never contacted me,” she explains. “I think they intended it to be what it ended up being, a racist thing that could unite even more the racist people out there who follow them.”

Breitbart was on record BEFORE ever airing the Sherrod segment about what his intentions were.  He stated that he could show racism in the NAACP, in response to their resolution that the TEA Parties were somehow racist.  I think the segment DID show that, not by depicting Sherrod as a current racist, but by the responses of her NAACP audience, who ARE current racists.

Throughout the interview, however, Sherrod comes back to Fox News’ role in her demise much more than Breitbart’s. Explaining her reason for canceling a scheduled appearance on America Live with Megyn Kelly, Sherrod claims that the network’s bias would have prevented them from taking her at her word had she given an interview:

“They have called me today and initially I had said yes (to an interview), but I thought about it and I did not think they intended to be fair in their reporting. They are going to say what they want to say regardless of what I say.” [...]

“It was unbelievable. I am refusing to be on there. They have been calling me and calling me. I have refused to do an interview because they are biased,” she explained. “I don’t think Fox News does it fairly. It is worse so now. I have sat and listened to the way they cover the news even before this administration and I saw what was going on.”

She also accused Fox News of racism, telling Strupp that “they are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us 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.”

Note that this is in the face of all empirical evidence showing that Fox news and commentary have been very friendly to Sherrod.  So, who is biased here?

And– surprise, surprise– she wants to sue, but isn’t sure who to attack legally yet: “I don’t know enough to know. I wish I did. I would love to sue. I am going to talk about it.” Sherrod has a lot to be angry about, and given the number of frivolous lawsuits filed in this country, she probably has legitimate ground to stand on against, at the very least, the USDA for using this video to fire her.

Let me, here and now, volunteer my legal services to Mr. Breitbart, should Sherrod decide to attempt to sue him.  That would be fun.

The most striking thing about this interview is how aggressively Sherrod takes on Fox News, so much so that it eclipses her rebukes of Breitbart, who originally ran the video. As Bret Baier argued yesterday, Fox News didn’t cover the story before her resignation (aside from a few comments in their primetime opinion hour). What’s more, the day after her resignation, Fox News’ opinion hosts covered the story in a light favorable to Sherrod and unfavorable to the NAACP and the White House.

The attacks on the network also feel off-color given the venue in which they’re presented: Media Matters, an institution primordially dedicated to discrediting Fox News. If we learned anything this month, it’s that websites with clear ideological biases sometimes make mountains out of molehills and hope no one notices when they backtrack. As Sherrod is entirely a victim of this type of political news coverage, it seems strange that she would be so eager to talk to Media Matters, and to talk almost exclusively about Fox News to them, and not nearly as much as Breitbart, the USDA, or the NAACP.

I find it strange that Frances Martel finds that "strange".  It is TOTALLY in keeping with who this woman is.  She is an unreconstructed racist, bigot, and Collectivist.

BURN: The OTHER Sherrod Video Nails Her

No, I don't mean the original, or the one Breitbart published.  I mean the one Dan Riehl produced and published.  In it, Sherrod shows she is at least two kinds of bigot.



See, for Ms. Sherrod, America is about race AND class.  In that she's a typical racial group Collectivist clone.

And don't be fooled; Sherrod's story is not one of racial redemption.  She continues to see things through a racial prism.  It is in that way that opposition to Obamacare is a racial issue.  It is in that way that the generation of TEA Party activism is a racist response to having a Black POTUS, ignoring the policies the man is guilty of promulgating against the American system.

It is apparent that, if you want to really see Ms. Sherrod's animus, you present as a wealthy, white male.  Then you are, in her bigoted world, the enemy deluxe.

As for Breitbart's publication of that original video, and whether it demonstrated racism within the NAACP, the answer lies in the "call and response" of Sherrod's speech, not so much in the truncated content of Sherrod's story.  From that, from the same active approval of Sheila Jackson-Lee's remarks, and from dozens of other actualities, the answer is a resounding YES, there is racism alive and well in the NAACP!

CRASH: Eric Holder Gets His Wish

Eric Holder infamously said that we should have a candid dialog on race, and that we don't because we are cowards.  Well, Gen. Holder, we have arrived.

If there was ever any truth to the Holder slander of America, it existed in the fact that some of us use race...or the smear of "RAAAAAACIST"...to win too cheaply in the public debate.

As we have seen very clearly of late, racism is alive and well...and totally approved of...among CERTAIN ethnic groups.  Hence, the NAACP can be bought off to slime people who resist BIG GOVERNMENT as racists, knowing that is a lie...and knowing that racism burns brightly in its own counsels...in its own call and response.

As we have learned only within hours of this writing, "racism" is the Molotov cocktail of the Collective's co-opted "journalist".  They readily and willingly hurl it at people who's views are not racist at all, but who are opposed to the Collective.

We say this is good.  Like the vacant cry of "WOLF!" in the famous parable, the very over-use...and totally corrupt use...of the term has ruined its effectiveness.

The tragedy is that racism exists still, and the word still describes a deep, corrosive civil wrong that none of us should tolerate. 

Racism needs to be plucked out...root and branch...of our national life.  But that will take some doing, as today it is enshrined as never before in law and regulation that sweeps all across America.  It is part of the Obamic agenda.

BURN: Abraham Lincoln Would Filibuster Elana Kagan

Abraham Lincoln was a flawed man...who loved the principals on which the nation was founded.  He believed the Declaration Of Independence was part of the charter of our government, and it meant what it said.  Elana Kagan believes and loves none of those things.

Presidents of the United States up through Lincoln ascribed...albeit imperfectly...to the ideals and ideas embodied in the Declaration and the Constitution.  Lincoln was one of the most ardent believers in the Declaration as a statement of our national charter, which is what it was written to be.

Today, the notion of unalienable rights is one only commonly held by conservatives and libertarians.  Collectivists find it quaint, and slightly embarrassing, that anyone ever subscribed to that idea, much less that they do now.  Rights, they all know, come from government, and are quite plastic, fungible sorts of things society creates or destroys according...essentially...to the fashion of the day.  Natural law, like nature's God, is a passe indulgence in superstition.  We've moved past that...evolved, as it were.

From her testimony before her Senate inquisitors, Elana Kagan showed she is capable of being untruthful, deceptive, and very ambitious.  To her, we had no rights before the Constitution, which is breathtakingly ignorant of both law and history.

She also proved that she and Abraham Lincoln would have had very little in common.  She showed she has utter contempt for things Lincoln believed in his marrow.  He would fight her nomination with everything he had.

CRASH: The Racism Of The Collective's Porch Negros

The term "porch negro" is perfectly acceptable, according to President Obama's blog.  I understand it is an invective, and I use it very appropriately and very intentionally.

You see, the NAACP...once an organization of proud, free-thinking people in the main...has reduced itself to being the National Association Of Collective Porch Negros.  It has proven that it will say and do virtually anything their collective masters demand, regardless of how servile...and vile.

During my life-time, I admired and worked for the MLK dream of an America that was not color-conscious.  As a capitalist, I still hold that dream, and work toward that goal.  The NAACP abandoned it some time back, and now actively...even avidly...fosters racial discrimination.

And, let us be frank, there is no doubt that racial discrimination...racism...is a feature of both the Deemocrat Congress and the Obama administration.



There are blatant racial preferences written into the vast, unread pages of major legislation coming out of our Collectivist, totalitarian, capital.


Far from a new "post-racial" era, Barack Hussain Obama has...I think quite by design...brought us the ascendancy of Rev. Wright's racial hatred.  The porch Negros of the NAACP are quite at home on the Collective plantation, so long as they get theirs.  And they will.  They have sold themselves for a mess of pottage.

CRASH: The Old, Old Collectivist Excuse, Again...

UPDATE: Collectivists Added To List Calling For MORE PORK!

Joe "Plugs" Biden…the other new sheriff…has been handed (through his campaign) a hefty fine for crappy financial reporting and other violations, and went on a new round of blame-gaming to try and depict the GOP as the culprits in the failure of the Porkulus to stimulate anything but corruption.
 

And, as if on cue…we have this…a call for MORE pork…

When you lede a story with “Top Economists” and then include Little Bobby Reich in the list, you are in belly-larf country.

But isn’t this the well-worn formula of the Collective, when faced with another example of  the failure of their entire philosophy?

“We didn’t spend enough.  We weren’t committed enough.  Those evil Republicans crippled our effort.  We never really gave this a chance.  WE HAVE TO SPEND MORE”.

Geebus, how many times have I heard that in my life now?  How many more times will we have to hear this stupidity?  And how wreaked does our economy need to be before people wake up?

BURN: The National Disgrace Of Texas

A few years back, a beer was advertised as "The National Beer Of Texas".  It was a clever ad campaign, as it exploited an understood bit of humor.  Unfortunately, Sheila Jackson-Lee is not a joke.  She is the National Disgrace Of Texas.

Now that is going some, because we have some real hum-dingers floating around Texas.  But Jackson-Lee has recently put herself head-and-shoulders above the pack of disgraceful Texas pols.

Congresswoman Jackson-Lee is not new to the pack of gob-smackingly STUPID people Texas sends to Washington.  She has at times been the going-away favorite, earning her pole position by such questions as where the photo of the U.S. flag planted by astronauts on Mars was to be found.

But comments she made last week add to her infamy in ways that set her apart as not just STUPID, but also as a viciously racist demagog, as well.  Don't get me wrong; Sheila has been a known corruptocrat here in Texas for a lonnnngggg time.

Lest someone accuse me of having nothing good to say about Ms. Jackson-Lee, let me now say that I have personally observed her to be a very hard-working politician.  She does constituent service well.  She is also one of those people who you NEVER want to have catch you blocking her direct line-of-sight to a camera and/or microphone.  You WILL be trampled.

Which brings us to an interesting vignette about our Sheila; if you review video of any W SOTUS, you will see Sheila front and center in the press to shake his hand...every time.  It's that camera thang!  She kant hep it...as Anne Richards would say.

But Sheila left the realm of risable idiot the other day in a statement supporting the NAACP resolution smearing the TEA Parties, and she did it in a way that earns her the undying contempt of anyone who either loves the truth, or gives a fig about history.  Especially those of us who both love truth and history.

And I thank you professor very much. I’m going to be engaging you with those very powerful numbers that you have offered on what the tea party recognizes, uh, or is recognized as. Might I add my own P.S.? All those who wore sheets a long time ago have now lifted them off and started wearing [applause], uh, clothing, uh, with a name, say, I am part of the tea party. Don’t you be fooled. [voices: "That's right.", applause] Those who used to wear sheets are now being able to walk down the aisle and speak as a patriot because you will not speak loudly about the lack of integrity of this movement. Don’t let anybody tell you that those who spit on us as we were walking to vote on a health care bill for all of America or those who said Congresswoman Jackson-Lee’s braids were too tight in her hair had anything to do with justice and equality and empowerment of the American people. Don’t let them fool you on that [applause]….

That smear of the TEA Party is a flat lie, which she likely knows is as vile lie as any told in the past few years. Sheila ALSO knows her "those who spit on us" statement is also a deep, sinful lie that she employs to put herself where...not only nobody was...she was nowhere near.  Nobody spat on anyone, unless you include "stage-spit".  Nobody called anyone racial epithets.  It is all a pack of lies, and Sheila resurrected them, and poured that filth on herself for pure self-aggrandizement.

But that was not the alpha and omega of Sheila's racist rant.  Oh, no...

....But let me just say this. We have had a challenging time with African-Americans on the question of immigration. As it first begun, uh, it looked as if it was a job killer bill for all of you. It looked as if these were folk who were interlopers who were attempting to move in on your territory. My brothers and sisters, once they begin to divide us [voices: "That's right."], once they begin to point out this one and that one [voices: "Yes."], for many of you don't realize that immigrants are Haitians, they are Liberians, they're Nigerians, and they come to this nation as we did, first in the bottom of a belly of slave boat, to make for a greater time. Wouldn't it be better if we linked arms with them to find the justice that is [inaudible] our people. [applause]....

....Immigration reform is not something we should be frightened about. We should grab it and make it ours and make it work for us as it works for those who are seeking a better life. Now let me just pose why you should look to this, uh, if you can't bring yourself to, uh, use the terminology civil rights, uh, then use the terminology human rights and human dignity. For I would compare two disparate situations which will hopefully turn the light bulb on - Arizona, there might be some of our constituents saying, go ahead, right on. But if you understand what the Arizona law says, and thank you NAACP, it says that if you as a police officer, police state that we are fighting against [voices: "Yes." "That's right."], all the places that we look askance and say oh my goodness, look what they're doing in Sudan. But if you are in Arizona the police officer has a right, if they have reasonable suspicion, and I am strong supporter of law enforcement, I'm on the Judiciary, I want them to be treated fairly, but every human being has the ability to have human error....so if they have reasonable suspicion, uh, masterful attorney, they can stop you, they can ask you papers that you left at home because you were going to Seven Eleven, they can arrest you criminally...

Adding to her calumny and racism, Sheila doubles down on hypocrisy. Within days of her praise of an actual Klan recruiter, Sen. Robert Byrd, she is tarring people of good will...but opposing politics to her's...with the Klan smear.  She earned the title: National Disgrace Of Texas.

CRASH: Hesitation In New Gulf Well Cap Supports Concern

UPDATED: My speculation confirmed
BP and the government have hesitated in the fitting and testing of a new cap, hyped as capable of capturing nearly all the oil flowing from the Deepwater Horizon blow-out.

This seems to support the theory that there are indications of a casing rupture or other really catastrophic problem (i.e., cement failure) with the well.

This comes in concert with news that the private and government players conducted a seismic mapping...perhaps a photographic mapping, as well...of the sea floor near the well-bore.

The press stories relating to this new cap suggest that the test process included sequential closing of valves, which would presumably increase the back-pressure inside the casing.  The delay that we are seeing could be explained by a concern among the engineering minds that this pressure rise would further rupture the casing or cement down-hole.  This would potentially cause a further loss of control, perhaps even below the point of entry of the relief wells now nearing completion.

As reported here, there are indications that this well could be a worse beast than is popularly understood, much less reported in the MSM.

BURN: Kwik Kenny Salazar's New Gulf Jobs Moratorium

The Obami's continued attack on the Gulf States took a bizarre, but predicted, turn Monday with the imposition of a new drilling moratorium.

The immediate story of what...exactly...this new moratorium is intended to do is another example of the confluence of idiot reportage, government action by ignoramuses calculated to do maximum damage while effecting the least good, and Obami running roughshod over the law.

First, the reportage; consider this--

By trying to forbid rigs that use the underwater equipment called a “blowout preventer,” Salazar is trying to link the ban to the reason for it: concerns about safety.

“I am basing my decision on evidence that grows every day of the industry’s inability in the deepwater to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill and to operate safely,” Salazar said in a statement.

The previous ban affected exploratory wells below 500 feet, affecting 33 rigs. The new moratorium would affect the same operations because the rigs use the undersea blowout preventers.

This tells us nothing.  Every drilling rig...on land or sea...uses a blow-out preventer (BOP).  Most work-over rigs (rigs that perform maintenance and enhancement operations on an existing well) use a BOP, too.

But if the reporting is weird, the moratorium is stranger.  It runs until November...or whenever.  What is it based on?  What will it do?  Well, Politico tell us;

It is supported, said a department statement by an "extensive record" indicating that the operations "would pose a threat of serious, irreparable, or immediate harm or damage to the marine, coastal, and human environment.”

The delay, it said, "would allow time for the implementation of new safety reforms aimed at preventing further drilling accidents."

That clears it all up nicely, don't you think?  I mean, if you asked a very highly paid boob in Washington, DC to issue a completely foggy bit of vacuity, could you ask for more (or less) than that?

Ah, but someone DID say something about this move with clarity and meaning;

“It’s a jobs moratorium,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge, who has introduced legislation to repeal the ban while calling for the safety inspection of each rig.

“You get a sense that its part of their plan to inhibit drilling one way or another,” Cassidy said.

Yes.  Yes, you do.  If you have two functioning brain cells, that is EXACTLY what you understand.  Which, apparently, leaves out the Deemocrat Ed Markey, incredibly the number two man on the House Energy and Commerce Committee;

“This moratorium will reduce oil spill risk while the Gulf will continue to produce oil,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the House Energy panel’s subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. “As new laws and safety measures are put into place on these few dozen rigs, 97 percent of the manned rigs in the Gulf will still be allowed to work,” he said.

No, not really...not at all.  See, Mr. Markey doesn't know his ass from a cypress stump in the area in which he writes law.  Or he is intentionally lying. (h/t Redstate)

Out of the 123 [DRILLING] rigs in the U.S. Gulf fleet, 73 were under contract. Fleet utilization is 59.3 percent, the same as the week before. The number of rigs actually working in the region did fall to 33.

Meaning that the Gulf drilling fleet is being used at a 27% rate, thanks to the actions of the Obami.  Note that this is the lowest in the world.  That hell-hole of environmental destruction over in Europe (including the Mediterranean) has its fleet drilling at about 88% of capacity.  We all know how cavalier the Euroweenies are about safety.

A modest prediction; this moratorium is headed for the crapper.  It won't stand in court, and the people of the Gulf...and the rest of America...are apt to take the power away from Kwik Kenny Salazar to pull this nonsense.

CRASH: The Obamic Great Receding...Employment Edition

Under Pres. Obama, America is experiencing The Great Receding.  It is a phenomenon that touches virtually every aspect of American life, and also impacts the world.

It is both a dangerous and needless trend.  America does not need to diminish.  Receding is not fated; it is chosen.

The Great Depression was the result of new tools held by BIG GOVERNMENT, and employed by people enamored with "new ideas", including a perversion of Keynesian economics, fascist economic theory, and general collectivism.  It was not a "Great" Depression for others around the world.  In Germany, for instance, far more an economic crater than was the U.S., the Thirties were a period of amazing expansion.  That was but one nation that experienced great economic growth while the U.S. languished under BIG GOVERNMENT programs.

Just as now (h/t Hot Air)--

Obama tells us we are on the right track--recovery is well under way.  But we know what recovery would look like; this is a graph of Canadian employment, showing the same period--

Canada did not spend a trillion dollars it does not have to "stimulate" its economy.  Of course, in truth, neither have we...yet.  A huge hunk of the Porkulus has yet to be doled out of the slush fund...something over 40%.

The policies of the Obami are seemingly calculated to push America into a Receding...a period of diminution, of shrinking and contracting.  They cannot be the result of mere ignorance.

CRASH: 5th Circuit Upholds NOLA Court Ending Moratorium

As I predicted, the 5th Federal Circuit Court Of Appeals, one of the most respected in recent history, upheld the injunction granted by a Federal District Court, ending the Obamic Gulf drilling moratorium.

It only took the justices about an hour to return their decision, which I think reflects the general contempt for the pretext behind the moratorium.  That contempt is well earned, as it springs from the obvious facts surrounding Sec. Ken Salazar's mendacity in perverting the report of a panel of experts he consulted prior to issuing his ban on deep water drilling in the Gulf.

Salazar/Obama have already signaled their next move will be to issue a new moratorium, which I predict will use a report by hand-picked "expert whores" of the type that all trial lawyers know too well.

I predict that, too, will go down in flames, largely because the original panel of experts is on record saying a moratorium like the one Salazar and Obama want is actually prone to make the situation LESS safe in the Gulf.

BURN: AP's Excellent Technical Idiocy Adventure

In a story that got BIG play today, AP provides an excellent example of the kind of bilious BS you get when technical idiots are allowed to write florid copy.

Gulf awash in 27,000 abandoned wells, screamed the headline.  That was just the beginning...

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades.

OMG, OMG...We're ALL GOING TO DIE...!!!!

Except not so much.

While there are a few tens of thousands of plugged and abandoned wells in the Gulf, there are orders of magnitude more plugged and abandoned wells on land around the U.S., a great many of them drilled and abandoned LONG before down-hole technology reached anything like the high levels we now know.  I've owned land that had one such well on it, marked on my survey.  I once looked for it.  It was impossible to find.

Chances are great that, if you went looking for a similar plugged and abandoned well, you, too, would never find it.  There are great reasons for that.  They were made safe.  Long ago.  Old oil fields are not minefields, despite what the AP hyperventilists tell you.  If you doubt that, I have old oil fields and old minefields you can explore.

Some of the reasons that old wells are safe is because they are carefully abandoned, and they were abandoned because they no longer produce any gas or oil.  Not only that, but some of them NEVER produced any gas or oil...or anything else.  Some few of them DID produce, but not for long under formation pressure.  Those are the kind you see with the "rocking-horse" pump-jacks, pulling up petroleum out of a zone with too little pressure to drive it to the surface...some essentially have no greater pressure than our atmosphere at ground level.  Still others produced oil and/or gas for a time, then were converted to injection wells, which return in the ground the highly saturated brine that most oil wells produce as a by-product.  By injecting that brine into the same zone as producing wells are drawing from, the brine is used to drive more oil through the formation and to the producing well-bores.

When I was a boy, I visited the La Brea Tar Pits, not too far from my home.  It was, by some definitions, a very old wild well.  It didn't scare me then, but I didn't have AP writers hyping nonsense, either.

BURN: On That Poor Harassed Photog At The BP Refinery

A whole lot of people...all of whom should have known better...got all wee-weed up over a recent incident at a Texas City refinery.  This is silly.

On both Right and Left ends of the blogosphere, people have been hyperventilating over the fact a photographer was stopped by BP security, local police, and DHS personnel.  The apparent excuse for this nonsense is the juxtaposition of the terms "BP" and "press".

But, c'mon, people!  This is a BP refinery.  It has NOTHING to do with the Deepwater Horizon.  I mean NOTHING.

And the people who corralled the photographer were doing their jobs.  We like that.  Since 9/11, we have been a little sensitive about folks paying unwonted attention to refineries.  They are known to make remarkably attractive targets for terrorists, and they are kind of...I dunno...volatile.

The Obamic lid on the coverage of the Gulf non-response is a BIG issue.  But, please, let us be real.

CRASH: Obama's War On Science, History...etc.

NASA, the National Aeronautics And Space Administration, has been subverted into just another community organizing organ by Barack Hussain Obama, albeit a multinational, multi-billion-dollar one.

NASA's been tasked with a "crescent moon" mission--outreach to the Muslim world in a bid to boost their science self-esteem.  Just as well, as we seem to lack the actual capacity to actually boost things into actual space under Obama.

Apparently, Charles Bolden (now there's an inappropriate name) was given special instructions by Obama even before coming to head NASA (h/t Hot Air)--

When I became the NASA Administrator — before I became the NASA Administrator — [Obama] charged me with three things: One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

We have an entire, pork-larded, PhD staffed Dept. Of Education to "re-inspire children to want to get into science and math".  What?, are we saying now that the real pros...the experts...over at Ed are not up to the task?  We have to have a spacey guy run onto the field to get the kiddies all "re-inspired" about math and science?  Isn't there an admission about the effectiveness of the billions we spend on education in there?

And, isn't Hilliary Somebody supposed to be doing that "international relationships" stuff?  I mean, she has all those neat "reset" buttons and all that '"soft power" she keeps spreading around like pixie dust.  Oh, and doesn't she have a whole Department of real experts behind her, too?  Well, yes there is that, but in the world of the Obamic Great Receding, Americans can't put a man in space anymore without help from another country.  So Bolden DOES have to see if he can wheedle some help from...say, the Chinese.

But Bolden is apparently most straightly tasked with making the Muslim world feel great about a pack of myths that are particularly cherished by the most ignorant man ever to occupy the White House.  They first appeared in Obama's Cairo speech, given about six eons ago it seems, and he's had plenty of time to get them straightened out.  But, no.  Apparently, they are to be expanded and expounded by the head of our (formerly) space agency, who will Bolden go where no truthful man has gone before.

Oh, and one last area on which Bolden is tasked? “NASA is not only a space exploration agency,” Bolden concluded, “but also an earth improvement agency.”

So, we can count on the fine folks who've reliably brought us unreliable, faith-based junk science to keep up their efforts.  And just why are we paying for a space agency that doesn't even have "space" on its radar?

BURN: Obama's Super-Charged Cloward-Piven Regime

The Cloward-Piven strategy is not some conservative boogeyman conspiracy theory.  It was written, published, and championed by real people with real intent.  It was designed to "transform America". (h/t Doug Ross)

The original Cloward-Piven notion was designed by its authors to overwhelm the ability of America to deal with an elevated demand for "entitlements".  It targeted the demand side of the equation, with the intent that it would wreak the ability of government to meet the "needs" of its subjects.

The ultimate objective of this strategy—to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income—will be questioned by some. Because the ideal of individual social and economic mobility has deep roots, even activists seem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminate poverty by the outright redistribution of income.  [Cloward-Piven at pg. 510]

Cloward and Piven were nothing if not forthright in their Collectivist scheming.

But the Obami have refined the Cloward-Piven strategy considerably.  They have added a supply-side to the original demand-side of the earlier Collectivist schemers.  This super-charges the "transformative" power of the design.

Obama and his myrmidons are using a variety of Collectivist ideas to both raise the expense of government and finally cripple the ability of the economy to deal with that expense.  This is in keeping with a drive to "fundamentally change America" that has been on-going for well over a century.  They now have the tools to do what had only been dreamed.

The end-game is to kill off market-based (capitalist) economics in the U.S., while contemporaneously imposing a collectivist welfare state.   The favored replacement for the market-based economy, based on every indication shown by this administration, is some variation on fascist economics.  Most Americans know very little about economics in general; they know much less about fascist economics.  Fascist economies are much less threatening than are socialist economies, since they leave the nominal ownership of private capital in the hands of its owners.  Few Americans realize that American politicians have been practicing fascist economics for many decades, and that leaders of both major parties have been enamored of the concept for at least that long.

GM and Chrysler are two examples of a typical corporatist collective, originally conceived by Benito Mussolini and his fellows as a more successful mode of socialism.  The elements are typically three; 1) government (in ultimate control), 2) owners (who maintain some operational control), and 3) labor (who also have some control).  Only big business can be successfully co-opted into the corporatist collective.  Small, entrepreneurial firms are too hard to control, and present too many decisions for any but a market economy to accommodate.  Just as individual liberty cannot be abided by the Collective, entrepreneurial activity cannot be abided by the corporatist collective model of economics.

The way Americans fight both Obama's collectivist prongs is by insisting on keeping our liberties.  Neither a Collectivist welfare state or its economic models can abide individuals who insist on acting as free people.

THE HUMANITY: A Very Small Tribute To Very Great Hearts

In the midst of so much that causes me such deep concern for the future of the nation I love, there is nothing that inspires more hope in me than the example of our youth.

I am unabashedly in awe of our young men and women (and their spouses) who serve our national ideals in the uniformed services in time of war.  My admiration for them is unbounded.  A nation that produces such young people as these has great reason to hope for...and expect...not just a future existence, but a future of promise.

They, of course, are not the only ones.  Many young people stand and fight in college classrooms, in the press and the blogosphere, and as young husbands, wives, and parents.  And, of course, as informed, involved citizens.

On this Independence Day, it is right and proper that we remember our Founders, and the millions who gave us our birthright and preserved it for us against all those who would take it, both from within and without.  But their work is done...and well done.

The work for us all is to preserve what has been given us, and to pass it...brighter still, if possible...to those who follow.  That task seems more difficult today than at any time I have known in my six decades of life.  And yet, I am tremendously heartened by the example of our youth.

Whenever we see a young man or woman in uniform, I hope we will overcome whatever retrograde feelings we have, and take the opportunity to shake their hand and say "Thank you".  Whenever we hear or see a young person standing on principles we know to be right, I hope we will all find ways to express our support and admiration.  There is nothing better we could do to celebrate our independence, and to assure its future.

CRASH: Growing Recognition That The Gulf Response Is Design

After pondering for days whether I should, I posted to say the Gulf response was Obama's intentional design.  That seems likely to be the "consensus" in a matter of days, as main-stream thinkers confront the obvious.

From Powerline blog yesterday:

As with what many have called his inept handling of the Gulf oil spill, I think Obama is just fine with the deterioration of the situation on the border, for it may provide him exactly the opportunity you mention: a chance to enact sweeping "amnesty" legislation that will put a few million more Democratic votes in his pocket.

One thing bothers me about a lot of recent commentary, and that's the repeated assertion that Obama is incompetent. I don't think he is incompetent at all when it comes to the issues that matter to him and his inner circle. He is all about transforming the country and perpetuating the power of his administration and its ideological allies.

When one considers what he's done and is doing in that light, then it's not too hard to see how he and his allies may think that they are making steady progress and, more often than not, surmounting what they knew would be formidable public opposition.

 From Paul Driessen at Townhall:

To top it off, in the face of an environmental catastrophe largely perpetrated and perpetuated by a deliberately incompetent and intransigent federal government, rabidly anti-drilling Congressmen Waxman, Markey and Stupak have now introduced HR 5626, the Blowout Prevention Act. The bill requires that any company seeking a drilling permit must first guarantee that it could prevent any future blowouts; promptly stop any blowout, even if the blowout preventers and other measures fail; and drill a relief well within 90 days of any blowout.

Some fool commenter on another blog accused me of promoting a "conspiracy theory".  Nothing of the kind.  It is no "conspiracy" when Obama, Pelosi, and Reid pass monster bill after monster bill, "responding" to one made-up or actual crisis after another with only BIG GOVERNMENT solutions.  Nothing they have done needed a "conspiracy".  It is the Collective acting as it does.

The Obamic Gulf oil manipulation is hardly illegal (so why a "conspiracy").  It is immoral, disgusting, and horrific that any member of our nation would act in this way, but it isn't even out of character for Obama.  Why, he is simply remaining passive as his agency heads execute their legal and regulatory mandates.  He...and they...are simply following the law...and applying every inch of red tape.

Obama has demonstrated he is either; A) perfectly capable of manipulating peoples' fear of death as a whip for support of health care, or B) if he believed what he was telling Americans about more of us dying from lack of care, sanguine about letting many thousands of us die before ObamaCare kicks in, all for political expedience.


Obama is incompetent in MANY areas.  The Gulf response is not an example.  It is an example of raw political gamesmanship by a man without scruple, and with no notion of "America" as most of us understand her.  Think on that this July 4th.

CRASH: Kagan--No Rights Before The Constitution

If I just heard what I think I heard, a person under serious consideration to sit as a Justice on the Supreme Court said there were no rights before the Constitution.

This is, of course, astounding.  It is breathtakingly ignorant of history, law, civics, and the fundamental, organizing principles behind this nation.  Just for review, those included the idea that our nation COULD be founded BECAUSE those founding it were IMBUING the new nation with rights THEY held.

Kagan's hatred of the Founding is not, unfortunately, novel or inconsistent with a view of law that says that rights come only from government.  It is an article of faith for the Collective.

Thus, days before we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Kagan has repudiated some of its most seminal statements.  And she will interpret the Constitution that flowed directly from it.

BURN: Transcending Incompetence In The Gulf

Occam's Razor instructs us to look for the simplest explanation to a question.  For most of us, our minds flee from conclusions that seem too dark, too monstrous to have to contemplate.

For both those considerations, I have been reluctant to write this post.  Yet, when proof after proof of an awful truth is placed on a scale, one is a fool to deny them their weight.

The Obamic response in the Gulf Of Mexico is not incompetence; it is design.

Oh, to be sure, there is incompetence aplenty.  Along with red-tape by the mile.  Those have been incorporated into the design, however.  Obama is using the natural sludge of bureaucratic, stupid BIG GOVERNMENT to effect his intent.

Consider this; time, rhetoric, resources, duty, compassion, and political costs all scream for an effective response.  An effective response which would be so easy to provide with so little actual leadership.  As I have noted, there are market players lined up to go, awaiting only the word...only permission.

And, still, permission has been withheld.  We learned yesterday that the regime was finally accepting some of the foreign offers...several of them months old now...to come to our aid.  But, if you read the material, even that is not exactly true.  They are in process...and the processes could take considerable time.  I think we can expect they will, in fact.

Obama's hands held the scissors...uniquely powerful in all the world...that could have been used to cut away the red-tape fetters that kept people and equipment and ideas out of the Gulf, away from the rescue.  The use of those scissors would have cost him so little, and netted such obviously immense political rewards, that his failure to use them cannot be the result of incompetence.

Obama, for all his Bush-bashing, has not hesitated to follow Bush examples.  In two hurricane events, Bush waived the Jones Act.  We all know this, as does THE ONE.  But this is a Bush example he has refused to follow.

So, all this to what end?  This is the monstrous part; the President Of The United States is intentionally allowing this disaster to go without effective response for political gain.  He promised us he would transform America, and this is part of the process.  This is the crisis de jour, much bigger and more real than was health care, and he does not want it fixed.  It is too useful.  It is a Machiavellian tool of Biblical proportions, and Obama is not hesitating to use it.

Obama has quite willingly allowed titanic destruction of the environment, economic interests, and quality of life for an entire region as part of his drive to "fundamentally change America".  There is no other conclusion on these facts.