Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday July 1, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Minnesota 2. Hugo 3. Uranium 4. Snooping 5. Clueless 6. Ginsberg 7. DSK Setup? 8. Polar Bear 9. Special Session 1. Minnesota. The latest budget war out of the Midwest was Friday’s shutdown of the Minnesota government by newly elected democrat governor Mark Dayton. Minnesota has heavy conservative majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Dayton has demanded more spending and higher taxes on the rich. The legislature obliged with higher spending but has refused to raise taxes. Dayton, after promising not to shut down the state government during his election campaign, bargained in bad faith, vetoed all nine spending bills sent to him six week ago, and has orchestrated the shutdown to be as painful as possible. Throughout this Kabuki Dance, democrat minority leaders from both houses of the legislature have been welded to his hip. Dayton has received slavish coverage from the Minnea0piolis Star-Tribune throughout the workup to the shutdown. The writers of Powerline Blog believe this shutdown is being orchestrated to elect democrat majorities in the legislature November 2012. It also is a precursor of what national democrats and Obama plan to do with the debt ceiling / federal budget fight underway this summer. Warning to Minnesota Republicans: Don’t blink, as the leftists will destroy you if you do. And the people who put you into office will complete the job afterwards. 2. Hugo. One always worries when a South American dictator goes to Cuba for emergency medical care. After all, look how well they did with Fidel. Latest visitor to Cuba for medical treatment was Hugo Chavez, Marxist dictator of Venezuela, who went in for a pelvic abscess. Given that Chavez is 57, speculation is high that the emergency surgery was for either prostrate or colon cancer – either of which would be terminal in a man his age. Chavez returned to Venezuela over the weekend. Watch this one closely, as Chavez’ oil money has been the single resource driving the spread of new leftist dictators throughout South America over the last couple of decades. 3. Uranium. In his continuing war on domestic energy production, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he was recommending withdrawal of almost a million acres of federal lands near the Grand Canyon from future mining. The area is a very productive uranium mining region, with many active mines already in operation and many more being planned. Salazar promised that the withdrawal would not impact any of the active mines. Yeah, right. Interior will use the usual suspects in the environmental community, the clean air and the clean water acts to shut down those mines as the land is removed from production. Salazar continues to be the single most dangerous man to domestic energy production and security. He is doing this all on purpose. I cannot think of anything he has done so far that could have been done any more damaging to oil, natural gas, coal or uranium discovery or production. Time to return ALL federal lands to the many states, as the feds are obviously not willing or capable of providing proper stewardship of those lands. 4. Snooping. Katherine Sibellius’ HHS floated a trial balloon last week about a new program intended to fight Medicare and Medicaid fraud. This program would start putting stealth patients into doctors’ offices in an attempt to trap the doctors in committing Medicare / Medicaid fraud. Ed note: if she really What a great way to kill all motivation for doctors to take new Medicare / Medicaid patients. Note that their motivation is already at an all-time low, given that the reimbursement rate from both programs is at a historic low. The trial balloon was withdrawn after nationwide uproar from doctors and hospitals. They will be back. 5. Clueless. Former MA Governor Mitt Romney demonstrated last week the problem he will have getting the Republican nomination for president next year when he discussed how well he could reach across the aisle and work with democrats. Conservatives are not interested in working with democrats. I don’t think most of the independents are interested in working with democrats. Rather, we are interested in destroying them and leaving them and their corrupt, crony capitalist party on the ash heap of history along with the unions, greens, trial lawyers and assorted strap-hanging parasites on the productive that support them. Working with democrats got him Romney care. Working with democrats will get him cap and trade for carbon dioxide emissions. Appears that cluelessness for Romney is not just a calling, it is a way of life. If he keeps this up, he runs the risk of joining former Texas governor John Conley as the presidential candidate who spent the most money in a campaign for the fewest delegates at the convention. 6. Ginsberg. Calling Doctor Kevorkian. Calling Doctor Kevorkian. Oh yeah, you can’t any more, as he has assumed room temperature. The latest ghoulish push out of the left wing nutroots is a growing public attempt to push Justice Ruth Ginsberg out of office before Obama leaves office. They fear that the 79-year old Ginsberg, who has a history of colon cancer, will finally succumb to ill health and have to leave office during the term of a conservative president, and in turn allow the next president to replace her with a conservative. This doesn’t show a lot of faith that Obama will be able to serve out the last 5 ½ years of his term in office (something he has already been talking about). Ginsberg has been a reliable leftist vote, but has never missed a day on the Bench. I wonder how much of this is simply wishful thinking and how much of it is real and working in the background. 7. DSK Setup? As the case against former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn blew up last week, it appears to more than a few observers that this may have been a setup on an easy mark intended to remove him from the head of the IMF. Note that the replacement is a former lawyer from Chicago, putting her squarely in play as a member of the Chicago mob. Given the close interplay play of Soros, the democrat party and the Chicago mob these days, one might ask what do they have to gain out of control of the IMF? An obvious response would be to game the European bailout of Greece so as to financially benefit them. Remember that Soros made his first billions shorting the British pound sterling as he destroyed that currency. He stands to make a great deal of money as Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean members of the EU collapse. It is not paranoia if they are really trying to destroy you. 8. Polar Bear. In a decision that neither side found acceptable, a federal judge in DC upheld the finding that the polar bear was a threatened species. Environmentalists hoped to use this court case to force listing them as endangered. The court refused to go this far. Opponents, including the State of Alaska were attempting to use the case to delist the polar bear, as its listing was entirely based on the now discredited notion that they would die due to all arctic ice disappearing as manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions kicked in. The court found that the EPA made its determination based on the best available science at the time and that the state would have to return to either congress or the EPA to get new information on manmade global warming considered. This means that the game remains at the EPA and in front of congress. Both sides are considering their next moves. Expect an appeal. I believe that the State of Alaska missed a real opportunity to argue the fraudulent notion of manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions and to use the CRU e-mail dump that clearly demonstrates climate scientists gaming the system and reaching bogus conclusions. It is these conclusions that the EPA used to find that arctic ice would be disappearing. 9. Special Session. The Alaska Legislature called itself into Special Session Monday to discuss and pass an extension to the Coastal Management Program scheduled to lapse Thursday night at midnight. The House had been burned several times by duplicity out of the democrat members from the Bush rewriting already agreed upon legislation after the agreement on language was made. The rewrites were intended to give Bush communities veto authority over offshore oil and natural gas exploration and development, essentially setting up a protection racket intended to funnel more oil and state money into those communities in exchange for their agreement. The senate gaveled in Monday evening, did a bait and switch with the legislation agreed upon, passed a replacement version by an 11-7 vote, immediately gaveled out and went home. They did all of this before the House had even gaveled in for their session. The plan was to force the House to act on the second version. The senate held no hearings and took no testimony. The House gaveled in the next day and considered the legislation. It failed by an 18-18 vote under the threat of a gubernatorial veto. I predict great ugliness when they reconvene for the second half of this legislature in January, especially since redistricting will put almost all of them in both Houses up for reelection November 2012. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarc The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en
