Obama tightens regulations on fracking. Requires a “water management” plan be filed, disclosure of chemicals used (I’m sure there’s a huge form for this about an inch thick0 and more testing for oil and gas.

In regards to Run Fast, Run Quick Elizabeth Warren, would it be better that this story goes away, and let her just be damaged goods come November? This happening now leaves too much time for someone else to jump in.

A group of 68 House Democrats and one Republican sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday urging him to reconsider an element of the controversial free trade agreement currently being negotiated by the administration. If approved in its current form, the pact would effectively ban “Buy American” policies in government contracting.

Although the deal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has received relatively little media attention in the United States, it has sparked international friction among consumer groups and environmental activists who worry that terms demanded by the Obama administration will eliminate important public protections. Domestically, however, the deal’s primary source of political tension is from a portion that could ban “Buy American” provisions — a restriction that opponents emphasize would crimp U.S. jobs.

Montana is a strange state. Remember Clinton won it back in 1992 b/c of the Perot vote but recently and it’s not b/c of demographic changes the voters in that state have been more open to voting for Obama then they were Kerry or Gore.

The banning of buy America is a good idea. Free Trade makes all parties better off. Most of the contracts would go to American companies anyways but exposed to foreign competition would keep them more honest. This is not a mark against Obama.

Californian’s flee their state because the Democrat’s policies there have been a disaster. Unfortunely, when they go to the other Western states, they bring their Democrat voting politics with them. That and the influx of immigrants (whether of not they are citizens) fleeing socialism also vote for these same kind of politicians.

Yes, this goes all the way up to Montana. Fortunately, they look next door at North Dakota’s success and are starting to remember who’s policies actually helps the economy.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia’s general tax collections fell below their estimate for the second consecutive month in April, further eroding a potential surplus for the budget year.

The state is counting on $65 million in excess revenue from the current budget year, which ends June 30, to fund the Medicaid health care program. Despite the back-to-back misses, officials continue to predict a surplus.

The state severance tax on coal and other extracted natural resources brought in $16 million less than projected in March and April, though its collections remain up by $13.7 million year-to-date.

“The severance tax is beginning to tread water a little bit, after some significant growth in the beginning of the year,” Muchow said. “I suspect that has to do with lower coal production as well as much lower natural gas prices. There’s also some softness in the coal pricing area, particularly the futures market.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Alpha Natural Resources Inc. has reported a first-quarter net loss of $29.1 million or 13 cents a share on revenue of $1.9 billion.

Facing weak demand for steam coal used by power companies to generate electricity, Alpha announced production cuts in February that will reduce annual output by about 4 million tons.

Kevin Crutchfield, Alpha’s chief executive officer, hinted that even bigger cuts are in the works.

Since the February cuts, “unusually mild winter weather and decade-low natural gas prices have significantly reduced domestic steam coal consumption and driven utility inventories to near record levels,” he said in a prepared statement. “In response coal producers continue to announce plans to reduce production. Alpha plans to introduce additional production adjustments in the near future.”

The changes to be announced will reduce Alpha’s steam coal production by the equivalent of an additional 7 million tons a year, he said.

The market for low-quality metallurgical coal also has weakened so Alpha will reduce production by the equivalent of 500,000 tons a year, Crutchfield said. Metallurgical coal is used in steelmaking.

>snip>

On Tuesday Arch Coal Inc. said “severe weakness” in the U.S. market for steam coal cut into its earnings and prompted it to reduce production.

Regarding Indiana, Lugar has always been very good at voting correctly when it really counted.

Of course, he could vote the wrong way when it didnt matter in order to burnish his own legacy. Most politicians do this. Dem Evan Bayh was a master at this.

But Lugar didnt forsee the Tea Party movement, and was not savvy enough to realize that even meaningless votes FOR Obama’s COTUS picks, for example, would have tremendous impact on his political viability this time around.

It looks like Obama will finish May with a 48 percent approval rating. But since adults include composite racist white b!tches and girls with daddy issues like Julia, he’ll be 1 pt behind Mitt in the horserace polling comprised of registered voters.

“If the selection of Mitt Romney’s running mate were left up to Republican voters, right now the choice would be a tossup between Rick Santorum and Marco Rubio—but not by much.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday night showed that Santorum led the pack in a list of 19 running mates, with 18 percent of Republican voters choosing him just slightly over Rubio, who received the support of 17 percent. Behind them, 13 percent liked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; the same number preferred former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush”

Democrats were trying to recruit a Republican ex-Congressman to run against Tim Walberg in MI-07. Today he said he wasn’t going to run. That leaves Dems with a single candidate who has raised less than $7,000, $5K of which was a loan. Cook has MI-07 as Likely Republican, but it should be moved to Safe R. One less 2010 seat we have to worry about.

The Indian fiasco really touches a cord in a liberal state like Massachusetts. Filled with ethnic working class white men and women who normally vote Democrat but who are also sensitive to the fact that an elitist like Warren was trying to gaming the very system people like her put in place to the determinant of working class whites who suffer under that very system.

“This takes her biography into a bizarre dimension,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It has derailed the effort to define Warren in a voter-friendly way.”

Sabato also said that Warren’s claim that she didn’t list herself as a minority to gain an employment advantage is not believable.

“This is what happens when candidates don’t tell the truth,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious she was using (the minority listing) for career advancement.”

89- Actually, the Tory losses aren’t that bad and seem to be in line for a mid-term over there. The councils are split into staggered elctoral groups, much like our Senate classes. That, and a huge chunk of the Labour gains came at the expense of the Lib Dems. Losses are never anything to crow about, but -400 is not doom and gloom territory in a British council election. Ultimately, Labour will have to convince the nation three years hence that it is a different party. By then, the sting of budget cuts will have passed and hopefully, they will have moved into something of a recovery.

“US President Barack Obama on Friday shrugged off a disappointing Labor Department report on jobs growth, and said he would press Congress to pass “common sense” measures to create employment.

Obama chose to focus on the fact that the rate of unemployment dropped from 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent, not the headline number showing the economy created only a net 115,000 jobs last month, below market expectations.”

Tim V., now that most conservatives have left NY state, I thought I would scan a few headlines to see how the state is doing now that it is quickly becoming a godless liberal utopia. So I randomly pick an Elmira, NY online newspapers, and here are the local news stories:

Marijuana Growing Operation

Suspicious Death in Hornell

Divers find body of girl on lake bottom

Girl On Girl Bullying In The Elmira City School District, Part II

Former Elmira Mom Pleads Not Guilty to Murder

Closing Arguments Friday in Hate Crime Case

Two Men Charged in August Meth Bust

–Sounds like the state is doing just great! Liberalism at work! FORWARD!!

According to an IFOP opinion poll published on Friday, the last day of the campaign, Mr Hollande’s lead had shrunk to 52 per cent with Sarkozy on 48 per cent, suggesting election day could yet spring a surprise.

I am required to officially back Tim V, but since Bitter has been secretly provided the minutes to every Philly A-hole meeting to Team Evangelical in exchange for preferentual afterlife placement, he has earned protected status.

As a point of honor they will both be allowed one parting blow and this battle will be settled in full.

I doubt Sarko will pull it off (he’s angered so many people over there not only due to policies, but his general personality), but if he does, it will be due to 1) an uninspiring opponent, and 2) the slimmest majority of Frenchmen will see the folly of electing a full blown Socialist to guide their nation through a rough economic patch.

Romney has two more grandchildren. 18 now. Son Tagg had twins via a surrogate. Has 6 now, 3 with a surrogate. Cannot quite understand why 3 natural kids is not enough. But not my concern. Welcome to the new little ones!

if yhou do move to the south there is a new backyard game that has become all the rage. It involves taking turns throwing small bags filled with

CORN

into wooden boards that have cut in them a

HOLE

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So do not get offended if you move there and a neighbor comes up and asks you if you would like over to their back yard to play…

(that game) [rhymes with “Torn Mole”]
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Many outside the south either snicker loudly or get real offended when ask it the want to play (that game). I do wish they would call it Bean Bag Hole Toss or something other than what they call it.

I think Ras is dead wrong on this poll. 7%+ Obama in Montana would be possible given the number of Democrats in the state, but I have yet to talk to one person in the last 3+ years who will even admit to voting for him.

“i don’t think i could live every day in mississippi”
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Translated to MS speak that would be

(placing back oh hand on forehead)
“Fiddle-de-dee!!. Ah do not reckon I can bear to suffer a-livin’ in Mizzuhzippah ev’ry blessed da-hee!!!”
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You will be ok, lisab. You can take turns spending each weekend just across the border in TN, then, LA, then AL, etc.

Carol’s Coon
Take one large coon, skin and clean being sure to remove musk glands from legs. Put coon in large roasting pan and cover with water. Put 4 large yellow onions, 2 complete stalks of celery, tops included and salt and pepper to taste. Boil the coon until very tender. Pour off all liquid and set aside. Discard onions and celery.Prepare 1 quart of brown gravy and pour over coon in roasting pan. Place 8-10 large sweet potatoes (already cooked) around coon and cover. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Prepare large pot of turnip greens and 3-4 black skillets of cornbread. Place kitchen towel at each place amt and 2 pots of hot water on table because there will be grease from ear to ear on each guest when the bottom of the pan is licked. There is no better way to cook a coon!!

there are jobs in mass, but there is more competition. his last job in massachusetts had 41 applicants. for arkansas there were 9 and in mississippi there were 5. probably because of the number of schools here in massachusetts.

my husband is something called a cisco engineer, they tend to get hired by project not as an employee.

Romneycare is a disaster. But I don’t blame Romney, some of the worst provisions were enacted by the Dems in the legislature over his veto and then continued to be expanded.

“Romney opposed the employer mandate requiring small businesses with 11 or more employees to provide health insurance. In his view, an employer mandate was an unnecessary burden on businesses in the state. Romney believed that the employer mandate would harm low-profit-margin businesses (such as new or struggling businesses) and that it could reduce wages, or distort employment patterns.”

Romney also opposed dental and optical coverage, and he wanted even the poor to pay something. He vetoed the medicaid expansion for children.

Of course later Patrick added an expensive prescription drug benefit and set the state’s share of the premiums way above the level Romney deemed affordable.

Thanks, Mr. Vito. That as close. Good thing he was tanked when he drove up. I was going to leave him face up in the driveway but it’s raining. I left him on his side. Under a tree. In a thunderstorm. He should be fine.

The Washington Post today digs into voter registration numbers that should leave the Barack Obama campaign a bit worried: among black and Hispanic voters ? especially in key states and districts ? voter registration is trending sharply down.?

Consider these numbers: Registration among Hispanics nationwide is down 5 percent. But even more troubling is in key swing states like New Mexico and Florida, where registration is down 28 and 10 percent, respectively.?

The decline in minority registration ?is obviously an area of concern,? said Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a left-leaning think tank.

But he predicted the Obama campaign ?will have enough money and enough focus to mitigate the problem. .?.?. They have five months to get the electorate looking the way they want.?

But?this is why the Obama campaign and Democrats should be severely concerned:?According to that Pew Research Center survey, the 2008 electorate “was the most racially and ethnically diverse in U.S. history, with nearly one-in-four votes cast by non-whites.”?

Two important tables here. First:

[Hispanic black voter registration]

The voter registration for both black and Hispanic voters rose by a combined 7.6 percent in the 2008 election.?

Now this:

[attached image]

That shows how voter registration affected turnout. And in overwhelming numbers, those voters picked Obama. He won the Latino vote 67 percent to John McCain’s 30 percent, and only 5 percent of black voters picked McCain.?

But in a twist, this could also provide the Republican Party, led by its first national Director of Hispanic Outreach, Bettina Inclan, with an opportunity to pounce with its never-before-seen strategy to appeal for the Hispanic vote.?

?I think the more we talk about the issues and the more we have Republicans going into local communities and saying, ?This is what Republicans believe in. This is what Democrats believe in,? Hispanics are going to make decisions for themselves,”

Operation “Bitterpill” now moved up from pale yellow to burnt orange.
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(Would be higher level, but there is still some thunder storms around)
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I just texted the “mole”…

about 44,000 total early voters.
(but not all 55 counties have provided complete updates to WV SOS yet)

About 4400 Indies.

Rest split about 2 to 1 D to R early voters.
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No surprises.

Biggest statewide races on the D side.

6 Ds running in primary for 2 SC judge positions.

4 Ds running for Commissioner of Agriculturecounty level

All of the other action involves races at the county level and that varies county by county.
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Election Day is Tuesday.
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Sen. Manchin expected to cruise against a primary opponent. I predict Manchin will get 80-85%

The day of making fun of someones ethnicity has ended. When the Polish pope, Pope John Paul II, became pope of the Catholic Church, polish jokes subsided and eventually ended out of respect for him.
The jokes we called “funny” are now taken as RACIST. Although many don’t want to give them up, it makes the person telling the ethnic joke look ignorantly insensitive, especially if you are caucasian. If you want to win elections, you are wise to use restraint in your choice of so called “good humor.”

#297- mnw
Yes,Ras has recently been “generous” to the O Man in his national approval/ disapproval polling,but appears to be right down the middle in his State polling and national head-to-head between Romney and Obama.

Ann Romney should understand that if you want to appear in touch you should take vacations in low income areas like Martha’s Vineyard and try to help the Spanish economy by going on lavish junkets there.

Just in case you’re having difficulty keeping up with all these Composite Americans, George Zimmerman, the son of a Peruvian mestiza, is the embodiment of endemic white racism and the reincarnation of Bull Connor, but Elizabeth Warren, the great-great-great-granddaughter of someone who might possibly have been listed as Cherokee on an application for a marriage license, is a heartwarming testimony to how minorities are shattering the glass ceiling in Harvard Yard. George Zimmerman, redneck; Elizabeth Warren, redskin. Under the Third Reich’s Nuremberg Laws, Ms. Warren would have been classified as Aryan and Mr. Zimmerman as non-Aryan. Now it’s the other way round. Progress!