V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N! In the summer sun!

Well, sort of…

I’m taking a hiatus from the nightly “Conversation with Andrea on Blog Talk Radio” for the rest of the week. I’ll resume regular programming next Monday, June 18 when Christopher Horner joins me to discuss how last October, two liberal U.S. Senators, Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, sent a letter to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.

The letter’s message: Start toeing the party line on “global warming” — or else.

Tom Winter, editor of Human Events wrote:

In recent years ExxonMobil has had the audacity to help fund organizations that question the so-called “scientific consensus” on man-made global warming.

That won’t do, said the senators. All debate about global warming must stop, and ExxonMobil should “end its dangerous support of the [global warming] ‘deniers.’” (Remind you of “Holocaust deniers”? It’s supposed to.)

But that wasn’t all. The senators further demanded that ExxonMobil do penance for its past support of the “climate change denial myth” by spending equivalent sums on “global remediation efforts.”

In other words, don’t just shut up. Pay up.

Of course, the Senators knew better than to make their threats explicit. So they slyly remarked how ExxonMobil’s “strategies” were “all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years.”

And you wouldn’t want government to do to you what it did to the tobacco companies, now would you, Mr. Tillerson?

Now, here’s the worst thing about this brazen effort to silence free speech. It worked.

That’s right. ExxonMobil has since announced that it is no longer funding the half-dozen or so organizations raising doubts about man-made global warming.

A conversation with Christopher Horner — author of the brand-new bestseller, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming, when I return to BTR on Monday.
Meanwhile, tune in to The Andrea Shea King Show this Sunday night at 9 ET on AM 580 WDBO. And of course, check here for updated posts. I’ll be blogging you…

 Also Posted at
The Radio Patriot

*****

Yesterday, actually:

Wow. It’s been a while since we had an economy where an American with only a high school education could have a rosy economic future, huh? And our friends on the left want to go back to that? The way I figure it, you would have to ban just about all imported goods (since foreign labor can generally produce these materials cheaper), raise the minimum wage to a “livable wage” ($10/hour?), deport all illegal immigrant labor (well, some folks are probably now applauding), roll back certain technological advances that have replaced labor in some areas (get rid of ATMs, so people need to use bank tellers again)…

They want to turn back the clock, and yet somehow they call themselves progressives?

Youse can always count on J-Ger to deliver entertainingly devastating ironies.

From Rasmussen:

Thompson (not the ex-cheeser governor) 24%

Giuliani 24%

Romney 11%.

No word on any change of Romney’s sizeable leads in Iowa and New Hampshire.  If Thompson can sustain this initial momentum, those leads may evaporate.  But TV’s Arthur Branch is pretty much guaranteed home court advantage in South Carolina.

As for the “moderate and electable alternative,” he’s nowhere in any of the three and even his Florida ace-in-the-hole is hearing Ready Freddie’s loafer-steps.

And can we please dispense with the fiction that McCain is still a top-tier player?  I’d argue that he never was one, not after the past six-plus years of fratricidal eye-gouging and ball-socking, but his hand in the immigration amnesty uproar removes any and all doubt.

What do these numbers mean?  Well, mainly that Romney and Rudy have their work cut out for them, and Rudy a lot more than Romney.  But there’s still plenty of time.  Maybe Thompson’s messiahnic sheen will tarnish by the time the snow falls in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

UPDATE: Hmmm; George Will endorses Rudy, and a jiffy later, he’s trashing the biggest threat to Rudy’s candidacy.  And not very convincingly.

That’s okay, of course.  By all means, “Game on,” and all that.  If present trends hold, Rudy’s going to need all the help he can get.

In today’s Blog Talk Radio podcast at 4:30PM Eastern time, I’ll be talking to my friend Rob Bluey, Director of the Center for Media and Public Policy, and Brian Darling, Director, U.S. Senate Relations, at The Heritage Foundation.

We will talk about Venezuela, immigration, and the 20th anniversary of Pres. Reagan’s speech at the Brandenburg gate.

Rob made his debut on Blogginheads last Friday, when he discussed the immigration bill. He also blogs at Red State

Join us for a most interesting podcast live at 4:30PM today. The call-in number (646) 652-2639.

Don’t miss yesterday’s podcast with Mamacita of Scheiss Weekly and Siggy.

I did a foolish thing today and tried to follow President Bush across several issues.  It’s a good thing I have an unerring sense of policy direction, or else I’d need a Tom-Tom and a GPS doodad to tell me which end is up.

This morning I discussed his diehard refusal to let go of illegal immigration amnesty and Pontius Pilate-ing of Scooter Libby, and this evening I examined his abandonment of JSC Chairman General Peter Pace and steadfast support of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

One out of four isn’t bad, even if the one is the equivalent of a blindfolded bloop single.  If the hints of which one the one is aren’t piano-casingly self-evident, I’ll have to run down to the store to get more neon for the links.