China wants Australia to choose.
Former Military Officer Song Ziaojun warned Australia last week to pick a “godfather” – either China or the US.
OilPrice.com reported:

It is rare in diplomatic circles for governments to speak bluntly, particularly in the Orient, where manners are highly prized.

The exceptions to this rule are retired military officers, who are often able to voice sentiments too impolitic for other channels.

One of the more startling pronouncements in this vein occurred last week when Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People’s Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and “Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the ‘son’ of the US or ‘son’ of China. (It) depends on who is more powerful, and based on the strategic environment.” Noting the rising importance of China as an export market Song added that Australia depended on exporting iron ore to China “to feed itself,” but “Frankly, it has not done well politically.”

What is also notable about Song’s remarks is that they coincided with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s first official visit to China, where Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi urged Australia to dismiss its alliance with the United States, a decades-old bipartisan and central pillar of the nation’s foreign policy, as ”the time for Cold War alliances has passed.”

The year 2012 is significant for the two nations, as it marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Australian-Chinese diplomatic relations.

Australia is one of the few countries to actually run a trade surplus with China, which for the period January-November 2011, amounted to $15.15 billion, a 274.2 percent increase over 2010. Last year Australia-China bilateral trade rose to $80.73 billion, up by 44.2 percent. Australia’s exports to China were worth $47.94 billion growing 59.7 percent over the previous year, accounting for 25 percent of Australia’s total exports. Last year Australian imported $32.79 billion of goods from China.

China is now Australia’s largest trading partner, as well as its single biggest export market and import source, while Australia is now China’s seventh-largest trading partner. While iron ore is Australia’s single largest export item to China, worth $35 billion in 2010, energy exports are also significant as in 2010 Australia exported 17 million tons of coking coal to China, accounting for 37 percent of China’s total coking coal imports, a trade that is expected to increase by around 20 percent by 2015 as new mining and infrastructure investments in Queensland and New South Wales come online.

The felons are at the gate.

(CSM)

What lovely people.
Those angry Wisconsinites who signed the petition to recall Governor Scott Walker were involved in over 20,000 felonies including homicide, arson and stalking.

Put Wisconsin First recently matched Wisconsin recaller’s names and addresses to Wisconsin Court Cases. There were over 400,000 matches of cases and charges from just over 900,000 signatures.

It took Put Wisconsin First nearly 30 days running 5 home computers hitting the WCCA Wisconsin web site searching names then matching addresses. The website found everything from election fraud to a guy who is guilty of homicide with a modifier of not guilty by reason of insanity. The man is currently residing in a mental health facility. He signed and self-witnessed the form from the address of the mental hospital!

** Over 50 of the recallers were found to be not guilty due to mental illness.

Daniil Maksimenko was working for Imo’s delivering pizza in north St. Louis, a predominantly black area of the city. Maksimenko just wanted to work and make money. He was shot dead before he could get out of his car for a pizza delivery on Saturday. Maksimenko was robbed only of the pizza.

Daniil Maksimenko, 22, of Ballwin, an Imo’s pizza deliveryman, was shot and killed in a robbery in Hillsdale May 20, 2012. Court records say Maksimenko was robbed only of the pizza. Photo provided by KMOV (StL Today)

The pizza store has cut back deliveries in the area as a precaution.

Daniil Maksimenko was shot in the head.
St. Louis Today reported:

A 20-year-old man from St. Louis County has been charged with second-degree murder and robbery in the shooting death of a pizza deliveryman and another is wanted for questioning.

Chester Romelle Woods is being held on $250,000 bail at the St. Louis County jail. He was charged on Sunday and was scheduled for his first court appearance Monday morning.

St. Louis County detectives are looking for Shermell A. Crockett, 20, who is known to stay in the Hillsdale and Pine Lawn area.

Crockett is only wanted for questioning about the incident and no Warrants have been issued charging him with a crime.

Woods lives in the 2100 block of Rosebud Avenue. Woods confessed to police his involvement in the case.

St. Louis County detectives are searching for a second suspect to question in the death of Daniil Maksimenko, 22, of Ballwin.

Maksimenko was working at the Northwoods Imo’s franchise when he was called to deliver a pizza to an address in the 2100 block of Erick Avenue. Before he got out of his car, he was ambushed and shot at about 12:45 a.m. Saturday. He died Saturday afternoon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Court records say Maksimenko was robbed only of the pizza. The charges indicate that Woods was not the gunman. Maksimenko was robbed at gunpoint by Woods and three others, court records say.

“One of the other robbers shot and killed the victim,” court papers allege.

Anyone with information about Crockett and his whereabouts should call the St. Louis County police at 314-889-2341 or Crimestoppers at 866-371-TIPS.

The media called this a robbery. All they took was a pizza. It was a thrill killing.

Don’t expect the national media to pick up on this. It doesn’t fit their agenda.

The ACLU sued Franklin County today for saying prayers at meetings.
CBS Local reported:

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing an eastern Missouri county in an effort to halt prayers at county commission meetings.

The Washington Missourian reports that the suit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis by the ACLU on behalf of an anonymous resident of Franklin County. It alleges that the commission begins meetings with a prayer in violation of the U.S. and Missouri constitutions.

Presiding Commissioner John Griesheimer has said he prefers to fight the ACLU but is concerned about spending taxpayer money in litigation.

Hat Tip Ed

UPDATE: Franklin County not St. Louis County.

Did the GOP pick another Lugar?
George Allen, former Virginia Governor, is currently tied in the polls with Tim Kaine. One would think that the establishment GOP in Virginia would have picked someone with less baggage during such a critical election cycle.

Baggage? You’re probably thinking about macaca.

The macaca moment was a verbal gaff that derailed Allen. Republicans feel like it was a made-up problem and are eager to have Allen come back.

Looking at Allen’s record, one wonders why. That’s where the real macaca sits.

Consider:

George Allen is about as conservative as Dick Lugar. In fact, in 2002, Dick Lugar was more conservative than George Allen.

As the head of the NRSC, George Allen called for “all hands on deck” to defeat Pat Toomey.

Allen voted to increase spending over and over.

Allen has waffled on ethanol subsidies.

George Allen is a George W. Bush Republican and really hasn’t backed off his big government stances even in the face of crushing deficits.

He is a big government Republican–and one lacking courage, at that. He hasn’t committed to supporting any conservative budget including the Ryan Plan.

And even running a “moderate” campaign, the kind of campaign the GOP seems so keen on running, George Allen is still tied with Tim Kaine.

So why did the Republican party of Virginia decide to run George Allen? After multiple failures across the country — guys like Charlie Crist, Bob Bennett, and Dick Lugar — why isn’t the Republican party looking for better candidates?

The GOP has had an uneasy relationship with the Tea Party. The Tea Party has infused the GOP with grassroots enthusiasm and the tough work to get people in office.

And still, the GOP puts up moderate to liberal Republicans that beg for a primary challenge because Republicans want a candidate who actually fight for the Republican party planks.

In Virginia, Jamie Radtke, a Tea Party founder, is running against George Allen. She is worth a second look.

George Allen has many powerful friends in Washington, D.C.

Jamie Radtke is friends with constitutional principles and the GOP platform.

There is another primary debate this Friday in Virginia. It will be interesting to see how Allen answers for his record.

No matter the outcome, it’s discouraging that the Republican powers that be still choose such bad candidates. They still haven’t learned the lessons of 2006, 2008, and the tsunami election of 2010.

Here’s a clip from the last Virginia debate:

We were warned…
In January 2008 Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that cost onto consumers.”

He promised that his plan would cause electricity rates to skyrocket.

He wasn’t kidding.

Now thanks to Barack Obama’s radical energy policies, electricity rates are skyrocketing across the country.
FOX News reported:

Obama’s War on Coal has already taken a remarkable toll on coal-fired power plants in America.

Last week the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a shocking drop in power sector coal consumption in the first quarter of 2012. Coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36 percent of U.S. electricity, versus 44.6 percent just one year ago.

It’s the result of an unprecedented regulatory assault on coal that will leave us all much poorer.

Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year’s because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.

These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.

But, it’s OK. We may all be suffering but at least his top bundlers are getting rich.

He snitched on Osama. Now he must pay.
Pakistan sentenced Dr. Shakil Afridi to 30 years in prison today for helping the US get Osama Bin Laden.

FOX News reported:

A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Usama bin Laden was sentenced to 33 years in prison on Wednesday for conspiring against the state, officials said, a verdict that is likely to further strain the country’s relationship with Washington.

Shakil Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden’s presence at the compound in the town of Abbottabad where U.S. commandos killed the Al Qaeda chief last May in a unilateral raid. The operation outraged Pakistani officials, who portrayed it as an act of treachery by a supposed ally.

Senior U.S. officials have called for Afridi to be released, saying his work served Pakistani and American interests. But many Pakistani officials, especially those working for the country’s powerful spy agency, do not see it that way.

“He was working for a foreign spy agency. We are looking after our national interests,” said a Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the agency’s policy.

Afridi’s conviction comes at a sensitive time because the U.S. is already frustrated by Pakistan’s refusal to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. The supply routes were closed six months ago in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Someone please explain again why we’re sending this backwards America-hating dump millions of taxpayer dollars in foreign aid?

It was a rough night.
With 89% of counties reporting, Barack Obama lost 36 Arkansas counties to newbie candidate John Wolfe in Arkansas.

(Obama counties in green)
John Wolfe won 41.5% of the Democrat vote in Arkansas.

In Kentucky, Barack Obama lost 67 counties to “uncommitted.”

(Obama counties in Kelly Green)
Obama only won 52 counties out of 120 in Kentucky with 99% reporting.

And Mitt Romney won a larger percentage of the vote in each state than the sitting president.
ABC-Yahoo reported:

In Arkansas, results are still in the early stages of being counted, but with 33 percent of precincts reporting, Obama has 61.5 percent of the vote, and his Democratic challenger, John Wolfe, a lawyer from Tennessee, has 38.5 percent. Romney, comparatively, has received 69.5 percent of the vote, the AP reported.

Hat Tip Mad Hatter

Democrats had such high hopes just weeks ago that they would recall Governor Scott Walker and oust him from office. But their dreams are fading fast. With just two weeks to go before the election, Governor Walker holds a six point lead in the latest Marquette poll. This past weekend the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, by no means a conservative paper, endorsed Scott Walker in the governor’s race.

Last February, THOUSANDS of Tea Party Patriots turned out in Madison, Wisconsin, to support Republican Governor Scott Walker.  The tea party still supports Scott Walker.

And, there is more good news for Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin. The reforms passed by Governor Walker and Wisconsin Republican lawmakers saved the state one billion dollars.
This comes from the Wisconsin Reporter:

While a lightning rod for controversy and recall, Wisconsin’s Act 10 has paid significant dividends to taxpayers, according to a new analysis by the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research, at Suffolk University in Boston.

Act 10, which curbed collective bargaining for most unionized public employees, in the whole has saved taxpayers more than $1 billion, according to The Economic Impacts of the Wisconsin Budget Repair Act. The study is slated for release this week by Beacon Hill Institute, a prominent free market think tank.

What the analysis found is that without the law, which in part requires covered public employees to contribute more to their benefits and holds wage increases to the rate of inflation, Badger State governments would have been forced to raise taxes or make deep job cuts to meet budget expenses.

As it was, Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature pushed through reforms and reductions that filled a $3.6 billion budget shortfall, although organized labor asserts Republicans balanced the budget on the backs of public employees.

The measure drew the ire of organized labor and the Democratic Party, with tens of thousands of protesters packing the Capitol. Ultimately, it was the Walker-led reforms that launched a recall campaign in which the governor in two weeks must defend his term at the polls, facing Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a historic gubernatorial recall election.

The Beacon Institute analysis argues the law may have been controversial, even divisive, but there’s no disputing its benefit to taxpayers.

The vote is two weeks away.
Let’s all do what we can to help move Wisconsin forward.

Update: Below is a graph from I Stand With Scott Walker‘s Facebook page – an impressive image of the fiscal effectiveness of Governor Walker’s reforms compared to the three previous Wisconsin governors.  Governor Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature balanced the budget.

This was cross posted at FreedomWorks.

Don’t Look Now But… Newbie Upstart John Wolfe Is Giving Barack Obama a Razor-Tight Race in Razorback Country–

When the vote tallies started coming in earlier tonight President Barack Obama led Democrat opponent John Wolfe 80% to 20%. But that has all changed now. With 4 of 75 counties reporting John Wolfe has 35% of the vote against fellow Democrat and former community organizer, Barack Obama.

He doesn’t quite have the star power of Keith Judd, but John Wolfe will do.
Democrat presidential candidate John Wolfe, Jr. spoke with a citizen journalist recently on his campaign strategy to defeat fellow Democrat Barack Obama.

The night is young. There is still hope for John Wolfe. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: (9:00 CST) Wolfe now has 37% of the vote. Obama at 62%.

UPDATE: (9:30 CST) With 45,000 votes counted Wolfe has 40% of vote.  Obama has 59%.

UPDATE: (10:30 CST) With 99,000 votes counted, Newbie Wolfe has 39% of vote.  Obama has 60%.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit:  In Kentucky, 42 percent of Democrats pick ‘uncommitted’ instead of Obama. “The results come on the heels of West Virginia’s Democratic primary earlier this month where a felon incarcerated in Texas took 41 percent of the vote from the president.”