There is a rice crisis all over the world, ladies and gentlemen.

Americans are hoarding rice. Sam’s Club, a unit of Wal-Mart, is putting limits on the amount of rice that people can buy. This is happening in San Francisco. It’s happening in Thailand. People in America, Filipinos, are hoarding rice and shipping it to their relatives back home in the Philippines — and this is happening with other crops as well, but rice, corn oil, cooking oil, a number of things that you would consider staples; prices are rising, supplies are dwindling.

There was a story from a woman in California who had just opened a new bake shop or something. She needed to get some butter, went out to the grocery store, and no butter.

Of course, this is due to numerous things.

It’s due to the rising price of transportation fuel, but it’s also due to the fact that a lot of crops that we used to grow for food are now being grown for global warming.

New York Times editorial:

“The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result [on Tuesday], was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it. Voters are getting tired of it.”

Right. It was a record turnout, was it not, in Pennsylvania? And yet the New York Times says voters are getting “tired” of it. If you look at a poll of Democrat voters, they want this to continue. They want to vote in these next primaries.

It’s just the Democrat Party elites who want this over.

AP Headline: “Executives See Credit and Housing as Big Threats”.

But you know what they see as the second biggest threat? They don’t put it this way, but I will:

The election of Democrats to the presidency the second biggest threat to the American economy, because they’ll raise taxes.

Martin Crutsinger: “Turmoil in credit and housing markets will be the most significant threat to growth this year, according to a survey of top financial company executives released Friday. These executives believe there is a high probability — 88 percent — that the country will suffer a recession in the next 12 months. The responses came from executives whose firms are members of the Financial Services Forum, which represents 20 of the largest financial companies in the country including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Allstate Insurance and Fidelity Investments. After credit market tumult and troubles in the housing market, the executives listed the next biggest threats to the economy now as the possibility the government will impose higher taxes or raise protectionist barriers to foreign competition.”

Well, what party is going to do that? What party is out there promising to raise taxes?

Both Hillary and Obama are promising to raise taxes, and when you listen to Obama tell us why, it’s not about raising revenue. The whole purpose of the tax code is to raise revenue, to fund government services, blah, blah, blah. We all know this. But not with Obama. To him, the tax code is to be used as punishment. It’s to try to perfect everybody, make everybody equal, it’s to punish people who, in Obama’s view, have enough. And the same thing with Clinton, who’s out there saying she wants to take Big Oil’s profits and pour them into research on alternative fuels.

So… the way I would write this story, “After credit market tumult and troubles in the housing market, the executives listed the next biggest threats to the economy now as the possibility that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be elected president,” because they’re the ones who are talking about imposing higher taxes and raising protectionist barriers to foreign competition, i.e., NAFTA, and not passing the Colombia free trade agreement. Second biggest threat to economic growth is the Democrat Party.

The AP makes it clear, but if you don’t have the ability to put two and two together there and understand who’s for raising taxes, you’ll never get it.

You know, the most enduring image from World War II is the photo of the Marines raising the American flag over Iwo Jima. The photo — it captures so much about this nation and its courageous soldiers — continues to be a source of inspiration and awe. It’s a call to victory in the face of all odds, and a reverent tribute to those who gave their lives — their “last full measure of devotion” — in defense of freedom.

Well, the cover of the April 21st issue of TIME magazine dishonors that iconic image. Instead of raising the American flag, the Marines are depicted raising a tree. TIME’s message is that fixing global warming is the new patriotism. The cover story actually calls green “the new red, white and blue.”

Veterans — especially those who fought at Iwo Jima — are outraged. They rightly call this cover a sacrilege. It demonstrates the contempt that many liberals have for the military and the symbols of our exceptional American heritage. That liberal contempt extends beyond this disgraceful magazine cover.

Liberals attempt to throw military recruiters off college campuses. Their presidential front-runner rejects wearing an American flag lapel pin. In the name of “art” the left regularly support exhibits of flags on the ground to be stepped on. At the same time they attempt to remove all mention of God from the public square.

When you don’t believe in devotion to God and country — and don’t respect honor, duty and sacrifice — you can, I guess, like today’s liberals, believe in a tree.

While in the Middle East this week, former president Jimmy Carter has generated some press for his efforts to befriend the Islamic terrorist group Hamas.

Despite rebuffs from Israel — and our own government — Carter is playing the role of a “communicator,” as he calls it, supposedly gathering information from Hamas and Syrian leaders to then relay to “the leaders of the United States.”

In essence, he’s a one-man State Department that nobody asked for, that nobody wants, and nobody is going to listen to — besides these terrorist leaders.

The fact is, the entire world already knows what Hamas wants; they’ve said it!
They want the destruction of Israel. Hamas hasn’t changed that view, which is why they are outcasts in the civilized world.

Adding insult to stupidity, Carter did something that no American head of state has ever done. While in Ramallah, our former president paid a visit to the grave of Yasser Arafat — and laid a wreath of red roses.

Now, Jimmy Carter was — without doubt — the most inept American president of the 20th century. A man whose failures in the Middle East led to his political downfall — and haunts all of us to this day. (He was elected 32 years ago, folks! This stuff matters — who we elect.)

So his tribute to Arafat, whose name will forever be associated with terrorism, is a fitting reminder of Carter’s misguided and irresponsible liberal leadership. It’s also timely, as two equally inept liberals — Clinton and Obama — are now fighting it out to step into Jimmy Carter’s shoes.