PrairiePundit

Reuters: Exxon Mobil Corp ( XOM.N ), the world's largest publicly traded energy company, plans to build a multi-billion dollar chemical plant in Texas to take advantage of cheap North American shale gas, according to a U.S. environmental filing seen by Reuters. The plant, which could be online as soon as 2016, would sharply crank up Exxon Mobil's chemical production capacity and help it compete more effectively with rival  Dow  Chemical Co ( DOW.N ), the largest U.S. chemical maker. Exxon Mobil has been North America's largest natural gas producer since its 2010 purchase of XTO Energy Inc. Its decision to build the new plant comes after a recent announcements by Dow, as well as Royal Dutch Shell Plc ( RDSa.L ), LyondellBasell ( LYB.N ) and others to expand their own U.S. chemical production. Shale gas gives U.S. producers a large cost advantage over European and Asian rivals, many of whom have to use crude oil-derived naphtha to make chemicals. Exxon Mobil'...

This seems to undercut the current Obama strategy, but it is a smart way to run a campaign and it does not lead to serial backfires like the current Obama campaign.

Reuters: Wal-Mart ending membership in conservative group Look, I like Wal-Mart's business model.  In fact I am sure I like it much better than the libs who have been trying to intimidate businesses into pulling support from conservative groups.  One thing Wal-Mart should count on is that the libs will still resist putting Wal-Mart stores in neighborhoods where the labor thugs do not want them.   Liberals are desperate to silence conservative speech, because they find it too difficult to win arguments.  They are attacking anyone who might support speech with which they disagree.  This is not a smart move.  Conservatives out number liberals by more than two to one.  If they use the same tactic these businesses will find they will suffer even more.

Charles Krauthammer: ... The article could have been titled "Barack Obama: Drone Warrior." Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign. On-the-record quotes from the highest officials. This was no leak. This was a White House press release. Why? To portray Obama as tough guy. And why now? Because in crisis after recent crisis, Obama has looked particularly weak: standing helplessly by as thousands are massacred in Syria; being played by Iran in nuclear negotiations, now reeling with the collapse of the latest round in Baghdad; being treated with contempt by Vladimir Putin, who blocks any action on Syria or Iran and adds personal insult by standing up Obama at the latter's G-8 and NATO summits. The Obama camp thought that any political problem with foreign policy would be cured by the Osama bin Laden operation. But the administration's attempt to politically exploit the raid's one-year anniversary backfired, earning ridicule and ...

The Lookout: Court: Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional   The outcome could be a boon for divorce lawyers who anticipate many new clients.  I am not sure the DOJ put up much of a fight though.

Reuters: Can a decade of dark chocolate protect your heart? A study suggest eating dark chocolate everyday for 10 years can make your heart healthier.  It is time to get started.  It sounds like more fun than taking Lipitor.

WSJ/Fox News: Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership -- by more than half for the second-biggest union -- since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.    Now with Mr. Walker facing a recall vote Tuesday, voters will decide whether his policies in the centrist state should continue -- or whether they have gone too far.    The election could mark a pivot point for organized labor.    Mr. Walker's ouster would derail the political career of a rising Republican star and send a warning to other elected officials who are battling unions. But a victory for the governor, who has been leading his Democratic opponent in recent polls, would amount to an endorsement of an effort to curtail public-sector unions, which have been a pillar of strength for organized labor while private-sector membership has dwindled.   ...

Fuel Fix: ... When working at its peak, the Port Arthur refinery will be able to process 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day, making it the largest refinery in the United States.  “With the completion of this massive expansion, the Port Arthur Refinery alone would be capable of meeting the entire gasoline demand of France, Italy or all of Scandinavia,” said Khalid Al-Falih, CEO of Saudi Aramco, at the ceremony. He said the project was the largest single expansion of US refining capacity in four decades. ... The refinery is a joint venture of Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell.  It can refine a diverse group of fuels. No wonder the Keystone XL plans to bring so much crude from Canada to the Texas coast.  Folks at the EPA are probably grinding their teeth.

Washington Examiner Editorial: ...   Texas' Democratic Party is in shambles today, despite tens of millions in trial lawyer money that was invested to rebuild it. This year, Democrats failed even to field a credible candidate for U.S. Senate. And so to avoid throwing too much good money after bad, Mostyn and other trial lawyers changed their strategy. Instead of going all-out for the Democrats, they found and funded friendly Republicans to run in the contests that were decided this week. They concentrated especially on two open-seat state Senate races where they saw an opportunity to install Republican friends of the trial bar. They made huge individual contributions to candidates, and funneled millions more through PACs mostly connected to Mostyn, with deceptive names like "Conservative Voters of Texas," "Texans for Insurance Reform" and "Texans for Individual Rights."   In the Houston area, they spent $1 million against state Rep. Larry Taylor...

WSJ: Since 2009, the Obama administration has awarded more than $1 billion to American companies to make advanced batteries for electric vehicles. Halfway to a six-year goal of producing one million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, auto makers are barely at 50,000 cars. ...  Have these people never heard of a feasibility study, before investing this kind of money?   The companies that are still operating are struggling to survive and are no where near the jobs targets Obama projected.

Politico: Mega-donors: Quit picking on us Congress needs to add an anti stalking provision to any disclosure requirements in campaign finance laws.

Politico: On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to  Ann Romney  spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady.   Only days earlier, news surfaced that author David Maraniss had unearthed new details about Barack Obama’s prolific,  college-age dope-smoking  for his new book, “Barack Obama: The Story” — and the Times made it a brief on A15. No wonder Republicans are livid with the early coverage of the  2012  general election campaign. To them, reporters are scaring up stories to undermine the introduction of  Mitt Romney  to the general election audience – and once again downplaying ones that could hurt the president.  “The New York Times has given Obama the longest wet kiss in political history, and they have done him a favor again,” forme...

Mathew Kaminski: ... Former Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld, a Polish Jew, stood in at the White House celebration. The Walesa episode was fading into memory when President Obama made his opening remarks. Karski was "smuggled into . . . a Polish death camp to see for himself," he read off the teleprompter, that Jews were being murdered. On second reference, Mr. Obama noted it was a Nazi camp. Too late. The damage was done.   "Gafa Obamy," declared Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's leading daily newspaper, in a story about "Obama's gaffe" on its website. The linguistic faux pas went viral. In another day this would have been ridiculed as a "Bushism," before we got a president with a Harvard Law degree who claimed to practice "smart diplomacy."   Poles are prickly about World War II. When their nation was stuck behind the Iron Curtain for four decades, they couldn't defend themselves against charges of complicity in the mass murd...

Fox News: The militant group that, according to a Pakistan court, had close ties to the doctor who helped the United States track Usama bin Laden is claiming to have no association with him.    A commander from the group Lashkar-e-Islam told AFP that "We have no link to such a shameless man. If we see him, we'll chew him alive."    The comment -- and the apparent enmity between the group and Dr. Shakil Afridi -- casts serious doubt on the allegations made in the court judgment used as the basis for Afridi's 33-year prison sentence.    It was initially assumed that Afridi was sentenced for his role in helping the U.S. find bin Laden.  But after U.S. officials expressed outrage at the Pakistani government and threatened to cut off aid, the judgment in the case emerged -- it accused him not of aiding U.S. intelligence, but assisting Lashkar-e-Islam.    It claimed Afridi provided "financial assistance" to the group as well as...

Romney supporters heckle Axlerod at his attempt to slur Romney's record in Massachuesetts.  Another theme is off to a rocky start for team Obama.

I think we will see a lot of these ads this campaign.  They make a sharp contrast to Obama's rhetoric about Romney's old company.  They show his poor judgment and poor management of the risks contained in this type of investment.

It makes you not want to vote for her.

I watched them together in an interview with Bill Hemmer in  a Fox News interview.  She seems to make him more relaxed.

Washington Post: Chamber of Commerce plans to evade disclosure ruling by tweaking ads By changing their ads to specifically support or oppose candidates they can avoid giving the Obama stalkers a chance to harass their donors.  It is a smart idea.  Congress needs to do something to stop the stalkers if it expects greater disclosure.

Washington Post: Obama campaign shifts attack focus to Romney’s record as Mass. governor As the campaign go forwards, we can expect to see them continue to throw up various themeses to avoid discussing the economy health care and energy issues.

Washington Post: The boom in the number of Hispanic voters is radically changing the face of American politics, and there may be no better example than Texas, which picked up four new U.S. House seats after the 2010 Census. But while Hispanics accounted for 65 percent of the state’s population growth between 2000 and 2010, Texas is poised to add no Latino lawmakers to its congressional delegation, after  primary elections this week  dealt a blow to those hopes. ...  Besides not being as tribal as expected, it is also likely that much of the growth in Hispanic population has not reached voting age yet.

Washington Times: The longtime  Muslim Brotherhood  leader who is favored to become Egypt ’s next president has long cast doubt on  al Qaeda ’s involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attack and even has called for a “scientific conference” to determine the real culprits.   “The  U.S. administration  has never presented any evidences on the identity of those who committed that incident,”  Mohamed Morsi  is quoted as saying in a 2007 posting on Ikhwanweb, the  Brotherhood ’s official English website.   “The  Muslim Brotherhood  and others demanded a transparent trial with clear evidence and to have court rulings,” he said after the sixth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. “We confirm that this isn’t a defense to those who committed these actions but we only seek the truth.” ...  I guess a confession of guilt by bin Laden and others responsible for the attack is not enough for this truther....

Washington Post: U.S. officials and high-tech business giants have launched an assault against what they view as a massive threat to the Internet and to Silicon Valley’s bottom lines: foreign governments.  In a congressional hearing Thursday, they will warn lawmakers of a growing  movement  led by China, Russia and some Arab states  to hand more control of the Web to the United Nations  and place rules on the Internet that the U.S. companies say would empower governments to clamp down on civil rights and free speech.  That could mean the Web might look drastically different in other countries than it does in the United States, opponents of the proposals say. An Internet user in Uzbekistan could be more easily tracked by government officials and might get access to only a portion of the Google search results seen in the United States, for example.  In a rare coordinated effort to knock down the proposals, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Cisco als...

Erick Erickson: It is hard to overstate just how extraordinary  Ted Cruz’s  underdog entry into the Texas runoff is and just how the odds are still stacked against him unless conservatives rally quickly with lots of money. David Dewhurst has been Lt. Governor of Texas for more than a decade. He has massive name ID throughout the state.  Ted Cruz  started this race with a three or four percent showing in polling. More so, Dewhurst is a multimillionaire who can write large sums of money to fund his campaign.  Ted Cruz  cannot. Texas has several of the most expensive media markets in the country and the state is too large to go door to door across the state. Dewhurst’s political team is Governor Rick Perry’s highly successful (in Texas) political team. I know a number of them and consider them friends. They are formidable.  ... It takes money and intensity to win in a runoff.  Cruz probably has a leg up in the intensity department b...

Washington Post: The Pentagon is turning to the private sector, universities and even computer-game companies as part of an ambitious effort to  develop technologies  to improve its cyberwarfare capabilities, launch effective attacks and withstand the likely retaliation.  The previously unreported effort, which its authors have dubbed Plan X, marks a new phase in the nation’s fledgling  military operations in cyberspace , which have focused more on protecting the Defense Department’s computer systems than on disrupting or destroying those of enemies.  Plan X is a project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon division that focuses on experimental efforts and has a key role in harnessing computing power to help the military wage war more effectively.  “If they can do it, it’s a really big deal,” said Herbert S. Lin, a cybersecurity expert with the National Research Council of the National Academies. “If they achieve it, they’re ...

The Hill: The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a military spending bill that is slated to come to the House floor this week. The Obama administration said it is able to accept most of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill, but has adopted a policy of rejecting all 12 House annual appropriations bills until Republicans abandon their budget, authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). It has also threatened to veto a Commerce and Justice spending bill that the House passed earlier in May.  ...  Obama is demanding that Republicans be as irresponsible as he is.  That is not the act of someone trying to show leadership or create compromise.  It is an act of the most irresponsible President in history.

IBD: New York thinks of itself as the place to be, but its high taxes have made it a place to flee. Those who have escaped the Empire State tax man could fill a major city. From 1949 to 1961, more than 2.6 million of East Germany's 17 million population escaped to West Berlin or West Germany, a hemorrhage of humanity that led the Communists to construct the infamous Berlin Wall in 1961. The state of New York, with about 19.5 million people, has no known plans to erect concrete barriers or barbed wire fences. But from 2000 to 2010 it suffered an exodus of some 3.4 million New Yorkers — nearly a million more people than in Germany's post-war experience and more than that of any other state. And the outflow hasn't stopped. The income loss for the state is $45.6 billion, the Tax Foundation says. Granted, it's not just one-way traffic. New York has plenty of immigration from abroad; its more than 4 million foreign-born residents give it the second-biggest immigran...

Daily Mail: Residents complain after seeing mystery naked couple having sex in office across the street It is really easy not to see what is going on in an office or someone else's house.  Look the other way.  No one is making you witness the act.

Guardian: Attorney general: minority voting rights threatened That is just not the case.  I live among minority voters and see them at the polls when I vote.  There is not a one of them that would be denied access to a ballot because of a voter ID law.  None.  First, they all probably already have ID's.  You need them for more day to day activities than just voting.  but if you do not have an ID you get a provisional ballot and you can still go get an ID. What you can't do is pretend that you are someone else.  There are several ways Democrats have attempted to steal elections and many of them would be thwarted by voter ID laws.  That is what scares Democrat politicians.   In some jurisdictions Republicans need a winning margin of three percent or more to overcome the fraud. I do not know any minority voter who does not have an ID or cannot get one and the media should not let Holder try to fool people into thinking...

Washington Examiner: MoveOn, a giant in the progressive political world and an early endorser of Barack Obama in 2008, warns that it might have to “pull the plug” on key campaigns to help Obama and Senate Democrats if its 5 million members don’t pony up  with at least $5 . Without a rush of new cash, MoveOn says it will have to give up efforts to elect Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, help the recall fight against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and energize younger voters who’ve soured on Washington. “It's like picking which of your kids you love the most. I just can't do it,” said MoveOn in an email plea. “If we can’t increase our budget, we might have to dramatically scale back or pull the plug on some of MoveOn’s most important election efforts this year.” The homepage of MoveOn, which helped organize the 2004 anti-war movement, includes a “chip in” button preset at $8. ...  They could be just exaggerating to create a sense of urgency.  But they have not been maki...

Washington Times: The  Pentagon ’s No. 2 official said Wednesday that automatic spending cuts set to being in January would create “absurdities” and devastate the defense industries that support the troops. “Sequester would have devastating effects on our readiness and our workforce, and disrupt thousands of contracts and programs,” Deputy Defense Secretary  Ashton Carter  said at the American Enterprise Institute. The automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, would require an additional $600 billion reduction in defense spending over the next 10 years if  Congress  does not reach a deal on the budget. “Our military and civilian program managers would face absurdities that result from the arbitrariness with which sequestration would take effect,” Mr. Carter  said. “We remind you that the quality of the weapons systems produced by our defense industry is second only to the quality of our people in uniform and what makes our military the great...

Conn Carroll: The Department of Energy's Loan Program Office website claims that a $400 million loan guarantee recipient has created 1,200 permanent jobs. But a company Chief Financial Officer confirmed that the company actually employs just 125. Earlier today on MSNBC, President Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter claimed that Obama's "strategic investments" in companies like the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar panel manufacturer had created "almost a quarter of a million jobs." "There are plenty of other examples that were successful," Cutter said. But the DOE website that tracks loan guarantees only identifies 60,000 jobs created. And even that number is highly suspect. Take the 1,200 permanent jobs that Obama claims were created by his $400 million loan to Abound Solar. Contacted by phone today, Abound Solar's CFO said the company currently only employs 125 people total. They did employ as many as 400 peaople at the beginning of the yea...

Houston Chronicle: Romney camp misspells 'America' in new phone app

Kevin Moony: If there was any remaining doubt that Chevron is entitled to an investigation that probes into potentially fraudulent actions impacting its court case in Ecuador, those doubts have been removed.   Judge Nicolás Zambrano, who issued an $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron, has been removed from the bench as a result of his involvement in drug trafficking, according to  several media sources.   Chevron became a target for litigation after it took over Texaco in 2001. Farmers and tribe members claim Texaco damaged parts of the jungle with faulty drilling practices in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In response, Chevron officials have said that Texaco properly remediated the areas where it had operations. Moreover, the company has produced reams of evidence that demonstrate plaintiff attorneys have been operating in collusion with Ecuador’s judiciary to produce fraudulent rulings. Chevron has also sought international legal recourse with considerable success....

Miami Herald: Spain’s Repsol oil company announced Tuesday it was “almost certain” to withdraw from exploration in Cuba, after spending an estimated $150 million on a dry well and seeing far more profitable prospects in other countries such as Brazil and Angola. The announcement was a blow to Cuba’s hopes to strike it rich quickly, jump-start its stagnant economy and trim its dependence on Venezuelan subsidies, although another foreign company is currently drilling a separate test well and others have options to follow. “We won’t do another well” in Cuba, Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau said in presenting the company’s 2012-16 business strategy at a news conference in Madrid on Tuesday. “The well we drilled turned out dry and it’s almost certain that we won’t do any more activity there.” Repsol spent about $150 million since 2000 exploring off Cuba’s northern coast near Havana, with one well in 2004 that did not find oil “in commercial quantities” and one this year that was dry...

ABC News: Romney Rebounds Among Women, While Obama's Favorability Slips Romney had big gains among unmarried women this time although Obama still leads among the group.  It is a registered voter poll, so it probably skews Democrat.  TheABC/Washington Post polls have also over sampled Democrats lately which makes Obama look more competitive than he is.

LA Times:  A Pakistani doctor arrested after helping the CIA track down Osama bin Laden was convicted and sentenced on charges of militancy, Pakistani authorities insisted Wednesday,  not because of his links with the effort to pinpoint the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda leader. Officials released copies of the verdict handed down against Shakeel Afridi. They show that a tribal court convicted him of aiding Lashkar-e-Islam, a militant group based in the tribal region of Khyber along the Afghan border. Characterizing the charges as being related to his alleged relationship with Lashkar-e-Islam makes it more difficult for Washington to continue to argue for Afridi’s release. Last week when Khyber authorities announced Afridi’s conviction and sentence of 33 years, they said the treason verdict against him stemmed from his work with the CIA. Up until this week, Pakistani authorities had never mentioned any pending charges against Afridi that alleged ties with militant gr...

This thing has been a fiasco from the get go and it is not getting better.  The State can't afford it, nor can the feds and it would be unlikely to ever generate the revenues to repay its costs if it ever gets built.

Fox News: Planned Parenthood, endorsing President Obama Wednesday morning, went after Mitt Romney out of the gate with a new ad buy in crucial swing states accusing the Republican candidate of undermining women's rights.    The ad campaign seeks to exploit the so-called gender gap between the two candidates. Polls consistently show Obama doing better among female voters than Romney -- though Romney typically does better among men.    The  30-second ad , a $1.4 million buy expected to run in Florida and Iowa, pulls no punches. It intersperses sound-bites from Romney with warnings about his policies.    "When Mitt Romney says, 'Planned Parenthood, we're gonna get rid of that,' Romney is saying he'll deny women the birth control and cancer screenings they depend on," the narrator says.   "When Romney says, 'Do I believe the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade? Yes,' he's saying he'll deny women the right to make t...

Politico: GOP Groups Plan $1 Billion Blitz This is in addition to the $700 plus million that Romney and the RNC will spend.

Steve Huntley: With the presidential campaign gathering steam, the voters are going to be fed a lot of baloney before Election Day. One of the biggest humdingers now coming your way: The Bush tax cuts are responsible for the mess the country is in. A recurring theme in President Barack Obama’s attacks on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his tax policies is: “We can’t go back to the same policies that got us into this mess.” President George W. Bush’s tax cuts did not cause the fiscal crisis of 2008. Our economic calamity came in a housing meltdown — the result of years of administrations of both parties encouraging variable-interest, no-interest, little or no down payment, and no-document or liar loans that flooded people into homes they couldn’t afford under traditional mortgage lending practices. To its credit, the Bush administration twice advanced reforms to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, major players in pushing bad loans. Each time it was blocked by...

Politico: ... “C’mon. Let’s get real,” an exasperated  David Axelrod , Obama’s top campaign strategist, said when asked if Obama’s attacks are boomeranging. “Romney’s been beating us up in a very direct and personal way for a year. This is a guy who’s offering himself to the country as a kind of economic savior, as a wizard. It behooves us to pull the curtain back, and that’s what we’re going to do.”   Axelrod disputed the revisionist notion that Obama ran a strictly positive campaign four years ago — just ask Hillary Clinton and John McCain if they agree that Obama played patty-cake — and said the campaign is doing what it did in 2008, drawing a contrast between Obama and the opposition. The difference now, he said, is that the pundit class is holding the president to a phony, Catch-22 standard. ... But several top Democrats interviewed by POLITICO said Obama’s recent attacks — including his long defense, at a press conference in Chicago last week, of his decision to tar...

Rich Lowry: ... The White House has a deeply conflicted relationship to its own record. It is saddled with a bad case of spender’s denial, a rare psychological disorder afflicting committed Keynesians facing re-election at a time of record debt.   On the one hand, spending is the lifeblood of “Forward.” It saved us from another Great Depression. It is forging a glorious new future of green energy. It is the only thing standing between the American public and the untold devastation of the Paul Ryan budget. How do we know? Because President Obama says so.   On the other hand, the deficits and the debt that come with all this spending are alarming and unpopular. So Obama calls himself the most fiscally conservative president in over half a century. When the president isn’t extolling his transformative expenditures, he has a Walter Mitty life as the second coming of Dwight Eisenhower. He needs to consult an accountant and a therapist, and not necessarily in that order. ...

Washington Post: Across the vast, rugged terrain of southern Yemen, an escalating campaign of U.S. drone strikes is stirring increasing sympathy for al-Qaeda-linked militants and driving tribesmen to join a network linked to terrorist plots against the United States.  After recent U.S. missile strikes, mostly from unmanned aircraft, the Yemeni government and the United States have reported that the attacks killed only suspected al-Qaeda members. But civilians have also died in the attacks, said tribal leaders, victims’ relatives and human rights activists.  “These attacks are making people say, ‘We believe now that al-Qaeda is on the right side,’ ” said businessman Salim al-Barakani, adding that his two brothers — one a teacher, the other a cellphone repairman — were killed in a U.S. strike in March.  Since January, as many as 21 missile attacks have targeted suspected al-Qaeda operatives in southern Yemen, reflecting a sharp shift in a secret war carried out...