You might have thought that we vanquished Dick Lugar from the levers of power a few weeks ago.  But if nothing is done to stop the impending 5-year Farm Bill, he might harm us with his regressive policies long past his time in Washington.

Last month, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed a 5-year farm bill that continues to serve as one of the most potent anti-free-market vehicles in the statist arsenal.  There is nothing more vital to American consumers than fuel and food, yet the farm bill is loaded up with subsidies for farming, biofuels, and other inefficacious “fuel” sources that distort those markets, engendering regressive price increases on everyone.  While supporters of the bill are touting the $23 billion in cuts to direct subsidies, they also plan to expand the crop insurance program.  In fact, the only thing holding up the bill at this point is a food fight between different special interests battling at the trough over subsidy levels for various types of crops.  The most insidious aspect of the bill is that it serves as a means to entrench dependency in some of our most conservative states.

For all the talk of acerbic partisanship in DC, nothing brings the parties together like a farm bill.  As each member clamors for his/her own special interest handouts, the parties become indistinguishable; taking on a striking semblance of a same-sex marriage.  The best illustration is the $800 million Lugar-Conrad amendment, which would continue to shove ethanol down our throats.  On April 26, Lugar and Conrad submitted an amendment that would authorize mandatory spending for his special interest biofuels industry.  The amendment passed by voice vote, and because it provides mandatory authority, the funding would not be subject to annual appropriations.

Thomas Pyle of US News and World Report has the key details of the amendment:

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Ross Douthat to discuss his book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, how American Christianity has gone astray, and the deeply troubling consequences for American life and politics.

We’re brought to you as always byStephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that in the last month Romney has closed his so-called gender gap from 19 to 7 percent. Last month Obama led among women 57 to 38 percent. Now that lead is down to 51 to 44 percent.

The new poll found voters would be split 49 percent for Obama and 46 percent for Romney if the November election were held now, but with regard to whom they prefer on handling the economy, Romney and Obama are tied at 47 percent. That is a 4 percent gain for Romney from last month’s Post poll.

Romney’s improvement comes despite the skewed sample. The ABC News/Washington Post poll used a sample of 32 percent Democrats, 22 percent Republicans, and 38 percent Independents. Based upon exit polling, the  2008 electorate was 39 percent Democrat, 32 percent Republican, and 29 percent Independent. In 2010, it was 35 percent Democrat, 35 percent Republican, and 29 percent Independent.

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Via Ed Driscoll, via PJ Tatler: Obama in 2011 explaining what he’s going to do to lower gas prices:

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If you haven’t seen it yet, Newsbusters has the video of South Carolina AFL-CIO president Donna DeWitt beating the hell out of a piñata with a picture of Nikki Haley taped to it. The union crowd cheers her on.

This comes just days after Phil Bailey of the South Carolina Democratic Party called Nikki Haley a “sikh Jesus” multiple times on Twitter.

Were Nikki Haley a Democrat, the media would make this the front page story across the nation — racist tea partiers beating up the minority governor in effigy.

But no, Nikki Haley is a Republican minority. The media views most stories like this in terms of victim and victimizer and a minority who signs on with the Republicans has, in the mind of so many reporters in America, chosen to join the victimizer class. Therefore, when she herself is a victim, it’s just payback.

It’s sad that this would be the case, but the media has for decades shown us how they operate. What would be front page for days in a row on the New York Times were Nikki Haley a Democrat will be barely covered.

But on the bright side, we lose one less news cycle to a story of union violence and keep the focus on how Barack Obama is destroying the economy.

Barack Obama’s economic policies have failed to do anything except drive up the national debt. He has not created or saved jobs. He has not gotten Americans back to work. About the only significant industry he has expanded is the printing industry printing all the extra food stamps Americans now depend on.

His campaign attacks do not seem to be working either.

He is winning women, but not by the overwhelming margins he needs to get elected.

He is now losing Catholic voters, a key constituency he won in 2008.

He is even losing Democrats on his Bain Capital attacks. His campaign has spent more time explaining itself to Democrats this week on those attacks than it has been able to level the attacks. It doesn’t help when the Obama campaign is raking in money from Bain Capital and private equity firms while trying to demagogue them.

In a nutshell, the Obama campaign must convince Americans that Mitt Romney would be a worse option on the economy than Americans already believe Barack Obama is. Running a campaign on the message of “you think I’m bad, just look at him” is not really a winning message.

Last night, Barack Obama got a lower percentage of the vote among Democrats in Kentucky and Arkansas than Mitt Romney did with his base. Over 40% of Democrats in Kentucky voted against Barack Obama. Even at 11pm ET last night, the Associated Press had called the Arkansas Republican Primary for Mitt Romney, but still had not called the Democratic race for Barack Obama.

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It’s been five months since Barack Obama’s recess appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, SEIU and AFL-CIO attorney Craig Becker, stepped away from the union-controlled agency. Now, after a brief stint at Georgetown University, Becker’s headed back into the House of Labor—with a promotion from his previous AFL-CIO post.

Prior to his time at the NLRB, Craig Becker was associate general counsel to both the AFL-CIO and SEIU. On Tuesday, however, the nation’s top union boss, Richard Trumka announced that Craig Becker would be re-joining the AFL-CIO as co-general counsel.

Upon announcing the appointment, AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka crowed about Becker [via The Hill]:

“Craig Becker is a brilliant lawyer and creative thinker with deep experience in labor law, litigation and organizing; his combination of legal acumen and experience on the ground is simply unmatched,” Trumka said. “The strengths of these two extraordinary lawyers, Becker and Rhinehart, are a perfect complement, and together they will lead a powerhouse legal program to protect and promote the interests of working men and women.”

Becker’s time at the NLRB was mired in controversy from the very beginning as he flagrantly ruled on cases involving his former (and now present) employers.

Nevertheless, his refusal to recuse himself from cases involving the SEIU never resulted in as much as a hand-slap and Becker continued to inflict as much damage as he could on America’s union-free workplace as he could during his time on the Board.

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Cory Booker, the Democrat Mayor who is rapidly becoming more famous for getting smacked down by his party after speaking his mind then he ever was for saving someone from a burning building, just can’t seem to say sorry enough to escape the trouncing he’s getting from the left.

Despite making what has been referred to as a hostage video, begging for forgiveness for calling Obama’s attacks on private equity “nauseating,” the left continues to slam him.

For example, we have Chris Matthews berating Booker as the next Zell Miller, the Democrat that left the party in ’04 and spoke at the GOP Convention that year.

Lest you wonder if Matthews considers it a dig at Booker to compare him to Zell, look no further than the infamous interview in which Zell smacked Matthews down and challenged him to a duel on national television.

Now comes a Politico article from Alexander Burns which reeks of campaign oppo research on not only Booker, but a whole passel of Democrats that have dared to speak ill of the Bain strategy.

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Will this be the 2012 election map?

If the Obama administration keeps up their War on Coal (literally: they consider coal more dangerous than terrorism), quite possibly. And it may be at least partially because of coal.

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Today is May 22nd. On this date in 1813, composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born. Today, he is best known for Ride of the Valkyries (Ritt der Walküren) from his opera Die Walküre, which he wrote for the movie The Blues Brothers. Also born on this date, in 1859, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and fan of cocaine. Doyle once famously said “Any truth is better than indefinite doubt”, but I’m not so sure. On this date, in 1849, Abraham Lincoln received a patent for his floating dry dock. Take that, Millard Fillmore! And finally, today is “International Day for Biological Diversity”, in honor of which we continue to have Moe Lane on the front page. Consider this an Open Thread.

Student defends criticism of Obama after being berated by teacher | Fox News
“The North Carolina high school student who was berated by his teacher after he spoke critically of President Obama told Fox News on Monday that he wanted to ‘laugh’ when he heard the teacher suggest he could be arrested for criticizing a sitting president.”

Romney-style capitalism vs. Obama-style capitalism | Enterprise Blog
“Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes today, ‘In this election, we’re not having an argument that pits capitalism against socialism. We are trying to decide what kind of capitalism we want.’”

Chris Matthews Tells Black Preacher To ‘Evolve’ | The Blaze
“… the Hardball host yesterday pressed black church leaders to get on board with Obama and his new-found views of gay marriage.”

Should International Bureaucracies Get Taxing Powers or Direct Funding? | Daniel Mitchell
“Unfortunately, proponents of global taxes are like the Energizer Bunny of big government, relentlessly pushing a statist agenda.”

Rendell: Hey, can you believe these Bain attacks from Obama? | Hot Air
“Ed Rendell joins Harold Ford and Cory Booker as critics within Barack Obama’s own party of his electoral strategy of demonizing private equity.”

Anti-Walker Bias Surfaces in Much Politicized Legal Probe from briansikma.

obambulate (o-BAM-byuh-layt): verb To walk about.
(via Wordsmith.org.)

“I have said at nearly every climate change hearing that for me I don’t dispute the science.  Right or wrong, the debate over the modeling and science appears to be over.”

Guess who said that?  While those comments appear similar to the sentiments expressed by the likes of Al Gore, it was actually Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton who said it during a 2009 hearing before an E&C subcommittee hearing.

Throughout the past few years, we have bemoaned the fact that so many liberals fill the ranks of the Republican Conference.  Incumbents are supposedly unpopular, and Congress as a whole has an 8% approval rating.  Yet, almost every single incumbent has breezed through the primary season thus far.  There is no better individual to start with than Fred Upton.  To that end, we will be launching a new series, “Dump Upton,” to shed light on individual votes cast by Upton throughout his 25-year liberal special interest career.

Here is our first installment.  On May 13, 2009, Upton was one of only 19 Republicans to vote with the Pelosi Democrats to create a new “green schools advisory council” within the Department of Education for the purpose of studying how to build green schools.

Fred Upton helped shut the lights off on American households; it’s time to shut the lights off on his special interest congressional career.  I’m sure he’ll find a nice job lobbying for green energy and global warming regulations. Let’s just keep him away from the committee charged with overseeing those policies.

Let’s help Jack Hoogendyk overcome the special interest money from the energy sector that is being thrown at him.