• GOP To Gain 45 House Seats: Cook Report
• Lebanon’s Army Co-opted by Iranian Backed Terror Group
• Tax Freedom Day August 19: Latest Ever
• Russia Loads Nuke Fuel in Iran: Joins China to Sell It Gasoline
• Apprehension and bitterness as U. S. Pulls Out Of Iraq
• Lungren Blasted For Lavish Taxpayer Pensions.
• Epidemic of Copper Theft Spreads Worldwide
• Russian Blames U. S. For Drought and Crop Collapses.
• Target Trips Up
• Obama Bureaucrats Want Compulsory Volunteering
• Frank’s Fanny / Freddie Fiasco Flim Flam
• Park51 Imam On Taxpayer Paid Trip To Middle East
• Comparison of 1969 — 2010 Oil Spills: Editorial

Those who argue Muslims have the right to build a community center and mosque adjacent to Ground Zero have a valid legal  point. But, with rights come responsibility, and it certainly is irresponsible or at the least insenstitive at best or intentionally provocative at worst in the face of the facts.

The Cook Political Report’s forecast for the November elections now has Republicans gaining as many as 45 seats in the House - more than the 39 the GOP needs to take control.

The Report is a nonpartisan online newsletter founded by Charlie Cook, a political analyst for NBC and the National Journal. Cook’s new midterm predictions are based on changes in its forecasts for 10 House races.

Previously Cook had predicted a net gain of between 32 and 42 seats for the GOP, but he now has raised that to between 35 and 45 seats.

“At this point, only 214 House seats are Solid, Likely or Lean Democratic, while 181 seats are Solid, Likely or Lean Republican, and 40 seats are in the Toss Up column,” the Report observes.

“While this would imply an advantage for Democrats, given the continuous erosion we have seen in dozens of contests so far this cycle, races shifting from Solid and Likely Democrat to Lean Democratic and Toss Up, we would be surprised if there was not more movement from now until Election Day.”

Cook has changed the forecast for seven races from Lean Democratic or Likely Democratic to Toss Up, including districts in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, South Dakota, and Pennsylvania. Three other races have now gone from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic.

Obama plans a major speech on Iraq after his August 29 return to Washington following his most recent vacation - this time to Martha’s Vineyard. Expect something of a victory speech and to take credit for success.

Lebanon’s Hizbullah-dominated government with Iranian proxies in control of most of the country; a UN peacekeeping force too scared to leave its headquarters, and a jittery Israel worried over a U.S. arms embargo should war erupt.

Hizbullah has now found a much better way to attack Israel - through the U.S.-trained and financed Lebanese Army.

Israel’s military has determined that the Lebanese Army was being directed by the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah to destabilize the border with the Jewish state.

Hizbullah has thoroughly infiltrated the 75,000-man Lebanese military, particularly in the critical  area south of the Litani River. Hizbullah has placed members or supporters in key field Army positions, including those of brigade and battalion commanders.

Hzbullah’s campaign against Israel was capped by a fierce gun battle in which six Lebanese and Israelis, including a senior Israeli commander, were killed on Aug. 3.

60 percent of the Lebanese Army is Shi’ite, and members of the Muslim sect were being promoted to such senior positions as battalion and brigade commanders.

The 9th brigade is led by a Hizbullah devotee, and he has been ordered to create tension not unlike the August 3^rd firefight..

Lebanon and Syria host Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, all of which appear on the State Department list of terrorist organizations.

Western intelligence sources say Hizbullah in Lebanon has received the Iranian-origin Fateh-110. Fateh, with a range of more than 220 kilometers, marked the first solid-fuel rocket delivered to Hizbullah.  It allows Hizbullah to strike targets in much of Israel without being exposed to attacks by the Israel Air Force.

In addition Iran is preparing to deliver the Russian-origin SA-3 surface-to-air missile to Hizbullah squads were training on SA-2 and SA-3 batteries in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bases in Iran.

If you’ve wondered why it is that the conservatives are called the “right” and the liberals are called the “left” consider this Bible verse: Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV) “The heart of the wise inclines to the right,  but the heart of the fool to the  left.”

The average American worker had to work the first 231 days of 2010; more than 63 percent of the year, to pay for state, local, and federal government costs. This leaves just under four and half months for Americans to provide for themselves and their families before the growing tab of the cost of government comes due again.

Every year, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and its Center for Fiscal Accountability calculate the day on which average Americans have paid off their share of the costs of federal, state, and local spending and regulations. This year that day falls on August 19, a full eight days later than last year’s date.

Between 1998 and 2008, the 10 states with the highest tax burdens - California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Ohio, Maryland, Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania - lost more than 3 million residents, who took with them $92 billion in income.

During the same period, the nine states with no income tax - Florida, Nevada, Alaska, Texas, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Washington, South Dakota, and Wyoming - gained 2.3 million new residents and $92 billion in wealth

It is the latest Cost of Government Day ever recorded.

A fool says what he knows, and a wise man knows what he says.

In yet another consequence of Obama’s flaccid Rodney King-like foreign policy Russia

, thumbing its nose at U.S. sanctions, is resuming fuel exports to Iran.

Russia’s LukOil has vowed to resume fuel sales to Iran

in partnership with China. LukOil, the largest energy contractor in Russia, said the exports would not be blocked by U.S. pressure to halt gasoline sales to Teheran.

Industry sources said LukOil and China’s Zhuhai Zhenrong have already begun gasoline shipments to Iran.

Coincidentally Russia started loaded 20 tons of nuclear fuel grade uranium nto what will be Iran’s first functioning reactor. Russia says you need not worry about Iran refining weapons grade material from that fuel an assurance that shouldn’t make you feel too comfortable.

Lincoln Club of Santa Barbara’s Annual Meeting has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opponent Congressional Candidate John Dennis as its guest speaker on Wednesday, August 25th.  Pelosi is leading the Republican 3 to 1 in the liberal Bay Area district - Pelosi 61%, Dennis 19%, Undecided 21%. That’s not really too bad considering the 7 to 1 voter registration edge for Democats in the District -  32,000 registered Republicans versus 211,000 Democrats,

Deep apprehension tinged with bitterness has taken hold as Iraqis digest the reality that the American who they once feared would stay forever are in fact going home - at a time when their country is in the throes of a political crisis that many think could become more violent.

”I’m not happy at all. I’m worried. They’re leaving really early,” said Wissam Sabah, a carpet seller in a Baghdad shopping districts. ”We don’t have a government and we don’t know what is going to happen next. Maybe we will go back to civil war.

”The situation is getting worse every day. The politicians are inflaming the situation, there is a battle between them, and I am 100 per cent certain it will be reflected in the streets.”

US combat operations in Iraq will not officially end until August 31, the deadline set by Barack Obama for the reduction of the force to 50,000 people involved in ‘’stability operations”.

Most international observers expect violence and many deaths in coming months, and fear Iran will move in and could even takeover Iraq creating a solid bridge to Syria, and expanding the danger of expanded warfare in the region.

California’s Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau has formally  proposed a nearly 30 percent increase in employer-paid premiums. Businesses in the State are being told their health premiums for employees will increase from 30-70%. Most say this will increase business flight from California that already has a 14% unemployment rate.

As the race for California’s 3rd District congressional seat heats up, Democrat Ami Bera today took aim at Republican Rep. Dan Lungren’s pension, calling it “lavish.”

According to the Bera campaign, Lungren received $55,697 in pension income from the California Legislators Retirement Pension in 2009 for his eight years of service as the state’s attorney general.

At the same time, the campaign said, Lungren received a congressional salary of $174,000, and he will be eligible for another $64,662 in estimated pension benefits each year when he leaves Congress.

Lungren received a 25.9 percent raise in his final month as attorney general, because the California Citizens Compensation Commission approved increases for all state officeholders effective Dec. 7, 1998. It increased the maximum amount he could collect on his pension by more than $11,500 per year.

Obama said the other day, that if you want a car to go forward you put it in “D.”  If you want it to go backward you put it in “R.”  It occurred to me that this is emphatically not true when you’re about to go over a cliff - Bill Seimens

The worldwide economic crash and record high scrap copper prices are creating something of an epidemic of thefts of anything containing the metal.

In Houston thousands of residents lost telephone service when thieves broke into and stripped an AT&T facility.

The San Bernardino, California two men were arrested and jailed for stripped a closed prison near Boron.

A Kansas farmer suffered $30,000 in damage to an irrigation system when persons yet unknown stole cooper wire that likely sold for $5 at a recycling center.

Bygone troubles are a pleasure to talk about - Yiddish proverb

Russians are literally smoldering this summer from heat and wildfires.  Of course it’s all America’s fault.

A Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate change weapons to alter the temperature and crop yields in Russia and central Asian countries. Andrei Areshev, deputy director of Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote at the moment climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to evoke droughts, erase crops and produce various phenomena in certain countries. The article has been carried by publications throughout Russia. The loony toon says the weapon is buried deep under Alaska.

Undoubtedly it is a Sarah Palin plot.

An Associated Press - GfK poll puts approval of Obama’s handling of the economy at an all time low of 41%. Obama insists things are getting better. Others wonder how good things could be had he not followed his big government anti-business policies.

When Target gave money in July to a pro-business group in Minnesota, the company thought it was helping its bottom line by backing candidates in its home state who support lower taxes. Instead, the retailer has found itself in a fight with liberal and gay rights groups that has escalated into calls for a nationwide boycott and protests at the company’s headquarters and stores.

The problem: Target’s $100,000 helped pay for TV ads supporting the gubernatorial campaign of Republican state Rep. Tom Emmer, who thinks Minnesota’s corporate taxes should be lower. As it turns out, he also wants to ban same-sex marriage.

It was an embarrassing stumble for a company that has carefully cultivated an image of urbanity and hipness — and that’s earned goodwill with the gay community. The company offers benefits to domestic partners and receives sterling marks from liberal groups for its tolerance of gays. Target’s even been an annual sponsor of the Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival.

The imbroglio illustrates the pitfalls facing companies after a game-changing Supreme Court decision in January allowing them to contribute unlimited money for political activities — often with complete anonymity. But corporate donations can still come to light and, when they do, cause unexpected heartburn for public relations.

Despite its hitherto carefully cultivated positions Target was recently rejected again for a store in liberal Santa Barbara notwithstanding the almost certain fact it would have greatly increased sale tax revenues to that city.

President Obama was in Hollywood for a star-studded fundraiser. They raised a million dollars and converted him to Scientology. — Kimmel

“Only a federal bureaucrat could come up with an oxymoron this laughable: “Feasibility of Including a Volunteer Requirement for Receipt of Federal Education Tax Credits.”  A “volunteer requirement”? Come again? But that’s what the Treasury Department said in a call for comments issued this spring on the idea of making community service–volunteer work for charity–mandatory for college students seeking to qualify for a higher-education tax credit made part of the $800 billion economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in 2009.”

There is nothing overtly wrong with requiring service for taxpayer largesse. In fact I believe every America upon reaching 18-years old should be required to serve 2-years military, border patrol, police or fire service; 3-years in forest service, or four years with a non-profit organization, or some variation.

Federal bureaucrats propose to ban 25 cent incandescent light bulbs in favor of the $5 CFL gadgets. CFLs are known to have caused house fires and contain poisonous mercury but, of course, bureaucrats know better.

In what sounds for all the world like another monster boondoggle, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee, said on Tuesday, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be abolished rather than reformed as part of the Obama administration’s planned overhaul of the government’s role in housing finance, “The only question is what do you put in their place.”

The Federal Housing Administration should be fully self-financing and Freddie and Fannie should be replaced with a new mechanism to help subsidize housing, Frank said in the interview.

“There is no more hybrid private-public,” the Massachusetts Democrat suggested. “If we want to subsidize housing then we could do it upfront and let the budget be clear about that.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were government-sponsored enterprises, privately owned companies supported by the government, until the Bush administration took control of the companies in 2008 to save them from collapse after they were directed by Bill Clinton to push mortgages to those who could not afford to repay them - at any cost.

Frank said that he does believe the federal government should have a role in building affordable rental housing but thinks money should go toward projects by private developers.

On the question of whether the government should still provide some guarantees in the mortgage market, Frank said: “If we have it (guarantees), it has to be self-financed by the people who are benefiting.”

Frank commented after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner convened a Washington conference of housing industry leaders to hear ideas about reforms for the $10.7 trillion mortgage market.

Together, Fannie and Freddie and the Federal Housing Administration now back 90 percent of new U.S. home mortgages.

Fannie and Freddie have received $150,000,000,000 (billion) in taxpayer bailout money, and there are questions now about how that was used or misused.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of U.S. voters believe the United States should help Israel if it attacks Iran. 35% say do nothing.

In addition to rejecting even meeting with New York’s Governor to discuss relocating the mosque and nixed a offer to help by New York’s Arch Bishop Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the Park51 mosque project planned for a site two blocks from ground zero, has told officials he would raise money for the mosque and community center from local Muslims, foundations and the ’sale of bonds.’ Such a sale of city and state backed financial instruments should require extensive review and approvals.

Earlier this year he admitted to a London-based Arab newspaper that his fundraising would also extend to Muslim nations around the world. Astonishingly Rauf is on a U. S. taxpayer paid tour of the Middle East on behalf of the Obama State Department.

The Post observed: “The possibility of tapping the radical rogue Islamic state of Iran for funds comes as the United States just last month stepped up sanctions on the regime in retaliation for its support of terrorism and what is feared to be an illegal nuclear weapons development program.” 

Meanwhile a Siena Research Institute poll released on Wednesday showed that 63 percent of New York State voters now oppose construction of the mosque near ground zero, up from 61 percent two weeks ago.

And a Time magazine survey found that 61 percent of Americans oppose the mosque, with 44 percent agreeing that the project would “be an insult to those who died” in the 9/11 attacks.

No one, except a comatose few, believe that millions cannot be laundered before it goes to the Park51 mosque project. The Imam has $180,000 on-hand but says he will raise $100,000,000.

The Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has infamously said: “The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end.” Rauf claimed that U.S. policies were quote, “an accessory” to the 9-11 attacks.

This hubbub comes as the Hamas terror group has endorsed Obama’s support for the mosque.

A minister’s young son sat on the floor of his father’s office watching him write a sermon. 
“How do you know what to say?” the boy asked. 
“Why, God tells me.” his father replied.
“Well, then why do you keep crossing things out?” 

 

——Editorial——

Obama called it “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”

Experts warned the plume of BP oil would create a “dead zone,” killing all marine life in its path. 

Some even predicted that methane gas bubbling up from the sea floor would accelerate global warming.

Now, five weeks after the flow of oil from the well was stopped, the doomsday scenarios associated with the Deepwater Horizon blowout all appear less and less likely with each passing day - despite the staggering 4.1 million barrels of oil that were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

The situation is eerily reminiscent of the 1969 oil spill in the Santa Barbara channel. Then as now media hacks and erstwhile researchers and scientist predicted decades of devastation and destruction grudgingly admitting 6 weeks later that their hysteria was nothing more.

The nimbies blossumed becoming BANANA people (Build Absolutely Nothing Anytime Near Anything) who still lurk as evidenced by the rejection of a slant drilling project just 15 miles to the south last spring.

Of course, it will be some time before the ultimate impact of the BP oil spill is fully understood. But many conservative climate specialists are already pointing to the spill’s aftermath, suggesting it shows that the Earth is far more resilient and adaptable than most experts recognize.