Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader killed

Good news this morning in the War on Terror: New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed by an American air strike in Yemen. Amazingly, the Yemeni government assisted in the operation. Terrorists held by Yemen have been known to "escape" regularly.

Technorati tags: War on Terror military

Obama administration is out of tune in Gibson Guitars raids

Mississippi, Natchez Trace Pkwy

Everybody told me you can't get far
on $37 and a Jap guitar.
Steve Earle, "Guitar Town."

Perhaps President Obama would prefer that Earle, a big liberal by the way, keep strumming Japanese-manufactured guitars.

From the Wall Street Journal earlier this month:

Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009 and were back again Aug. 24, seizing guitars, wood and electronic records. Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail.

"Can you imagine a federal agent saying, 'You're going to jail for five years' and what you do is sort wood in the factory?" said Mr. Juszkiewicz, recounting the incident. "I think that's way over the top." Gibson employees, he said, are being "treated like drug criminals."

Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Obama's environmentalist army suspects Gibson Guitars, an ecologically responsible firm, of using illegally harvested rare woods for its famous instruments. Gibson doesn't need much wood for its guitars, so unlike a lumber firm supplying homebuilders, clearcutting forests isn't necessary for them. It supports the efforts of Greenpeace and the Rain Forest Alliance to preserve rare trees.

If the Obama overreachers can raid Gibson, is anyone safe?

Here's the latest from Politico:

The fight between the government and the Gibson Guitar Corp., maker of instruments such as the Gibson Les Paul, features some similarities with the GOP’s typical complaints about the Obama administration's regulatory agenda — especially in the impact on jobs.

"Gibson is a well-respected American company that employs thousands of people," House Speaker John Boehner said in a speech this month to the Economic Club of Washington. "The company's costs as a result of the raid? An estimated $2-3 million. Why? Because Gibson bought wood overseas to make guitars in America. Seriously."

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz sounded a similar theme when complaining to reporters about the roughly $1 million in wood and instruments that the federal agents seized in August from company facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn.

"We aren't in the wrong, yet our entire operation has effectively been noticed to be shut down," Juszkiewicz said during a news conference after the raid. "Over the last two years, we've hired 580 American workers. Just in the last two years. We're one company that’s manufacturing in the U.S., hiring people and yet, the government is spending millions of dollars on this issue."

Technorati tags: entertainment rock music culture politics Democrats economy business law legal regulation overreach

So long Solyndra---but no goodbyes to crony capitalism

The Obama administration made three errors when it got into trouble with Solyndra. It challenged science and economics. Add Chicago-style crony capitalism to the toxic mix and the result is a $500 million loss for taxpayers.



Is this just the beginning? Yesterday the radicalized-Department of Energy approved a $737 billion loan to a company where the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi is second-in-command.

Related post:

Solyndra whistled while passing through the financial graveyard

Technorati tags: politics news Democrats california Barack Obama Obama jobs economy environment climate change global warming green california california politics

Perry: Obama's environmentalist army declares war on West Virginia jobs

Coal barge, Guttenberg, IA

Rick Perry has something to say about President Obama's war on fossil fuels.

From a campaign press release:

Obama's Environmentalist Army Declares War on West Virginia Jobs
President’s agenda will kill 7,000 mining jobs nationwide

Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign today is calling upon President Obama to freeze proposed mining regulations that will kill good jobs in West Virginia, increase dependence on foreign energy sources and raise electricity prices for consumers nationwide. Today Gov. Perry is visiting West Virginia, where he will continue to share his record and vision of fiscal conservatism and job creation.

"President Obama claims to be a 'warrior for the middle class,' but his job-killing regulatory policies are hammering middle class families already struggling to make ends meet," said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "The president should freeze the proposed federal regulations endangering thousands of West Virginia jobs and the very existence of the industry that provides 44 percent of America's electricity."

The Perry campaign cited the U.S. Office of Surface Mining's rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, which could kill as many as 7,000 coal mining jobs nationwide, or 10 percent of industry total, according to the agency's own estimates.

"Our families cannot afford four more years of a president sacrificing thousands of jobs and crippling American energy production so he can energize his liberal political base," said Miner.

President Obama's policies indicate that he is intent on shutting down the U.S. coal industry, as he admitted in a 2008 interview: "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

The president's ideologically driven objectives on greenhouse gases are so extreme, in fact, that the EPA recently admitted it would require 230,000 new federal bureaucrats to fully implement the terms of the Clean Air Act. The agency's admission confirms that the Clean Air Act was never intended to apply to greenhouse gases. Rather than simply concede that fact, the Obama administration has attempted to rewrite the Clean Air Act to satisfy its radical agenda of regulating the entire economy based on emissions.

"Gov. Perry knows we do not have to sacrifice our economy to protect our environment, and we do not have to pit our health against our jobs," said Miner. "Even President Obama realizes that his environmental extremism is hurting the economy, and that's why he reluctantly backed off enforcement of smog rules. But if the president is serious about creating jobs, he will freeze all proposed federal regulations for six months, starting today."

Related posts:

Obama's war on coal marches on

Obama's war on coal claims five power plant victims

Technorati tags: Democrats politics Obama Barack Obama coal environment energy Republican gop news texas rick perry texas politics elections 2012 West Virginia west virginia politics

Durbin on Chicago radio about Stimulus II: We don't have the votes

Evanston, IL, 2009

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), who nominally represents me in the upper chamber, told WLS-AM Chicago that the votes aren't there in the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass President Obama's American Jobs Act--also known as Stimulus II.

WLS Radio's Bill Cameron reports his own party has delayed action in the Senate and talked with Senator Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, about the reason why.

"The oil-producing state senators don't like eliminating or reducing the subsidy for oil companies," Durbin tells WLS Radio. "There are some senators who are up for election who say I’m never gonna vote for a tax increase while I'm up for election, even on the wealthiest people. So, we're not gonna have 100% Democratic senators. That's why it needs to be bi-partisan and I hope we can find some Republicans who will join us to make it happen."

But so far, Durbin concedes Democrats don't have the votes in the Senate to pass it, "Not at the moment, I don’t think we do but, uh, we can work on it."

Technorati tags: Democrats Obama Barack Obama boondoggle arra stimulus government democrat politics illinois politics Illinois chicago Durbin