Joel's Rant

Negative campaigns work.
People claim they want to hear a positive message, they want to hear
optimism, they want to hear genuine solutions, but isn’t that really a bunch of
bullcrap?  Once the negative ads hit the
airwaves, all they want to acknowledge is the bad stuff, or what’s being
purported to be bad stuff.

Too many people can’t reconcile “good stuff” versus “bad
stuff”, and so they just go with the bad stuff.
It’s easier to believe bad stuff.
It’s the same kind of thinking that makes it far easier to be a liberal
than a conservative.  Conservatives are thoughtful;
liberals are emotional.  In a contest
between thoughtful and emotional, emotional wins almost all the time.  Same with good stuff and bad stuff; bad stuff
goes down easier and doesn’t take much sorting and thinking.  It’s easier to trick people with bad
stuff.  That’s why going negative is more
successful than going positive.  Barack
Obama’s counting on that human nature for his reelection strategy.

Too many Iowans’ seem to be buying into the easier to
swallow bad stuff.  They should be
embarrassed because now we can officially dismiss Iowa as a place where genuine
thought takes place.  Apparently it
doesn’t.

Newt’s obviously been the focus of a negative campaign;
promulgated by people who have either no record of their own, or a lesser
record than Newt’s, to run on.  But a
smart and outspoken guy, like Newt, who’s been in political office or in the
public arena for over 30 years, makes an easy target.  A guy who’s voted on about 8,000
congressional bills, testified numerous times before Congress, written hundreds
of position papers, written 24 books and given thousands of speeches has got a
huge paper trail to glean “bad stuff” from.
No other candidate in the race comes even close to the record of
involvement and public life that Newt commands.
And so those, with no record of accomplishment of their own, are trying
to take Newt out by attacking his record.

So what are the “bad stuff” people are clearly responding to
and what’s the truth.

Newt’s First Wife

First of all, Newt’s first wife is still alive and
well.  According to the urban legend, she
should have been dead since 1980 when Newt supposedly demanded a divorce while
she was literally on her death bed.  The
truth is that it was she who had sought the divorce and that action was already
underway when she had a benign tumor removed.
Go figure!

Freddie Mac

Newt was paid $1.6 million by Freddie Mac for, what his
opponents claim, was nefarious lobbying efforts.  But let’s put this into some
perspective.  That $1.6 million was paid
not to Newt, but rather to The Gingrich Group, a Washington consulting firm,
one of hundreds of others doing legitimate business in the nation’s
capital.  That seemingly huge fee was
paid out not in one lump sum, as his opponents would have you believe, but
rather in monthly “retainer” installments from 1999 through 2007, or about
$20,000 per month, which interestingly enough is about the “going rate” for
those kinds of services in Washington.
The Gingrich Group also is comprised of 3 separate offices, in
Washington, Atlanta and St. Louis and has a staff, and pays rent and utilities,
buys equipment and business products and services, pays for travel and does all
the other things normal to a business of that size and nature.  What this means is that the $1.6 million paid
by Freddie did not end up exclusively in Newt’s wallet.  It was business income, along with other
income, from other consulting work performed, and went in the coffers of The
Gingrich Group.

It should also be remembered that Newt was a private citizen
during this time, unlike Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and others driving Freddie
Mac.  He was allowed to make a living.  Did he lobby Congress?  I’m not sure myself, but Newt claims he
didn’t, his contract with Freddie said he wouldn’t, and I’m certain if he did,
those congress people who were lobbied would have come forward already if he
did, no?

House Ethics

The story goes that Newt was fined $300,000 by the House
ethics committee because he used a book deal to circumvent campaign-finance laws while he was
Speaker.  Compared to Charlie Rangel,
Maxine Waters, Diane Feinstein, and others, a book deal sounds almost quaint,
but even that is bullcrap.  There was
certainly a political effort among Democrats on the committee, as well as
Republicans not fond of Newt’s leadership style, who wanted him out.  Under pressure, Newt acquiesced and paid for
the cost of the “investigation”, not a $300,000 fine.  As it turns out, the ethics committee
initially investigated 83 so-called violations of which they dismissed all
except for one.  A year later, the IRS
dismissed even that one and claimed no conflict ever existed.

On a
Bench With Nancy Pelosi

The 31 second commercial Newt participated in with Nancy
Pelosi, in April 2008, rates as the worst time spent in his life.  But all Newt says in that commercial is that
he’s concerned about the future and that solutions need to be found.  All the details are left to the
imagination.  Newt claims what he was trying
to do was make sure that whatever action Congress decided, and at the time
you’ll recall the super majority Democrat House and Senate was hell-bent on cap
& trade action, that conservatives had a voice crafting that action.

If that sounds stupid and self-serving, compare that 31
second fluff piece with the over 1 hour of direct and detailed testimony Newt
gave, by himself, before the Waxman-Markey Environment Committee, in April 2009,
and how combative that was and where precisely Newt was coming from, and where
Waxman and Markey were coming from.  Even
if you hate Newt’s guts, after viewing that testimony you know he was talking
about small, measured steps, all done without government intrusion or taxpayer
funding.  You’ll note the extreme respect
Newt has for private industry and the free market and how leaving this issue to
the capitalists will solve this climate problem, if there even is a climate
problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzDutBRMsXw

Characterizing Newt as some sort of climate complicit cap
& trader is dishonest in the extreme.
By the way, what are Mitt Romney’s thoughts on this exact issue?  What are Ron Paul’s?

Mandatory Health Care

Newt has been a deep thinker about health care in America
for over 20 years.  He formed the Center
for Health Transformation and has written books about the present and future of
health care and the insurance industry.
His involvement in this issue is not just sound bite slogan driven
baloney, like those of the other candidates.
Newt has spoken at the Heritage Foundation and given speeches about this
stuff long before he was even considering being a candidate in 2008, let alone
2012.  This is a guy who thought about
and struggled with the need of health care, and the ability to pay for it, for
a very long time.

He claims he flirted with the issue of mandating health care
as a way to sidetrack HillaryCare in the early 1990’s and more recently by
thinking it might be better to have people post “health care bonds”.  The important point to take from here is that
lots of ideas were being bandied about; lots of possibilities were being
considered.  Don’t forget, Newt’s been
involved with health care issues for a very long time, not just since he
announced in 2011, like the others, or like in Mitt Romney’s case, actually
signing into law the forerunner and template for ObamaCare, the single greatest
destroyer of American government in history, and the plan which has already put
Massachusetts in $4 billion in debt and cost over 28,000 jobs.

And listen more carefully to what Newt was saying about Paul
Ryan’s Medicare proposal. His point was that the government, or more
specifically the Republican Party, should not impose a change in Medicare
without first explaining the details to the public and getting their acceptance
before ramming it through.  Newt’s
thinking is that a really big change requires first a really big
discussion.  And that actually makes
sense, no?

This is only a sampling of the most audacious “bad stuff”
being used in an effort to knock Newt out of contention.  But you get the idea.  Most of it is bullcrap.  Some of it is purposely misconstrued stuff
taken from a huge body of work stretching 20 years or more ago when the
thinking on a particular issue was in its infancy but might be different now
after the passage of time.  This is the
price one pays when they’re in the forefront of public life for over 30 years
and during times of great change and danger.

And that’s all there is to it.

Some weeks ago Barack Obama visited the border in Texas and gave a speech about how his administration has done everything possible, everything the Republicans demanded, to close the border and reduce the number of illegal’s streaming into our country.  In fact, he said the border is safer now than ever before.  Of course, everything Obama said was a factual and documented lie.  But a long time friend of mine of almost 50 years, a liberal from NYC, told me the reports of Barack Obama lying were just “crack pot politics”.

I mean, everything BHO said was a lie.  He said the wall was virtually completed; instead there are over 1900 miles of border and only 350 miles of fence has been built, and only about half of that was built to the correct standards.  Not even close.  BHO claimed 31% more drugs and 64% more guns were seized then before, yet the number of people crossing the border is down 40%.  Hmmm, very interesting; seizures of drugs and guns go up, yet seizures of people go down. Up or down, it matters not. Whatever the numbers, Obama vindicates himself.

He tells us that the country is creating more jobs, when it’s not. He tells us he has either “saved or created” 2 million jobs since he’s been president, but will not provide the data or formula by which those numbers were derived.  He tells us that the country is bouncing back economically or that ObamaCare is good for the citizens, when it’s not.  Everything he says is an actual lie.  But to the liberal, drawing attention to those lies is just crack pot politics.

Obama and his record should be the basis for what the 2012 presidential election is about, and the Democrats will do everything they can to not talk about the present, to not talk about the Obama record.  The truth is that the GOP nominee, no matter who that is, should have a field day beating the person who is essentially the dumbest and least capable of all the candidates running in 2012, Barack Hussein Obama.

So before we forget about the present, let’s review where we presently stand after just 2 ½ years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

• The number of people on Food Stamps has increased by 40% to the highest number of beneficiaries in the nation’s history. 
• The price of gasoline has increased by 75% to the highest in the nation’s history.
• The 33% of average home equity loss in the last 2 years is higher than that of the 31% suffered during the Great Depression.  Home prices are now at 2002 levels, wiping out 10 years of increased equity and personal wealth.  In fact, home foreclosures, recently at record levels, continue at very high and unacceptable rates.
• Two nationally recognized credit agencies are about to downgrade America’s bond rating to below triple-A  because of a $14 trillion debt that the Obama administration has done everything it can to avoid dealing with in an honest and responsible fashion and has taken absolutely no action to address other than to require higher taxes on the so-called rich.  By the way, even if taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” (who are really people grossing just $250,000 and are not millionaires or billionaires at all) are eventually taxed at the “Clinton tax levels” the additional revenue generated would amount to only $80 billion.  With a budget deficit this coming year alone of an expected $1.65 trillion, you can see the issue of taxing the “rich” to get out of our budget disaster is a complete red-herring, a canard, a lie, bullcrap.  You get the idea.
• Manufacturing in America has slacked off to its lowest level since September 2009, no matter what Obama recently said about the 2 government auto companies, which could only be showing progress due to GM and Chrysler both being relieved of their tax burdens to the tune of $47 billion and $7 billion respectively.  Only a government and union owned company could possibly get a deal like that.
• By a 3 to 2 vote (the 3 being Obama appointed union lawyers and hacks) the National Labor Relations Board is attempting to stop the Boeing Corporation from opening a manufacturing plant in South Carolina because that state is a “right to work” state.  Boeing’s only other alternative would be to take those 1,000 jobs overseas.
• The official unemployment rate is presently 9.1% and the GAO now reports that, using present government economic policies, it is likely to remain at that “European level” until at least the year 2020.  And that doesn’t even factor in the “under-employment” rate, including folks either working only part-time but want to work more or who have simply dropped out of the labor market altogether, which is closer to 20%, a number last seen during the Great Depression.
• Over 51% of the working age population pays no federal personal income tax, depending rather on the largesse provided by the remaining 49%, of which the top 1% pays 40% of the taxes and the top 10% pay over 70% of all federal personal income taxes.
• Because of the instability in the American economy, China no longer wants to buy our debt.  They figure holding $1 trillion is clearly as high as they want to go.  In fact, they’re trying to off-load some of the debt they hold.  Instead, the biggest buyer of American debt, which is required to fuel the operation of our government to the tune of 40 cents for every dollar spent, is the Federal Reserve.  Through their “quantitative easing” policies they have bought over 70% of all US debt, which effectively means they are simply printing fiat money, backed by nothing, to flood the economy.  The approximate $1 trillion recently printed through QE1 and QE2 is apparently not even enough since talk of a QE3, to print additional hundreds of billions, is already underway in the halls of the Treasury and Federal Reserve.  What are the repercussions of a government printing paper money to borrow from itself?  Remember Weimar Germany?  How about present day Zimbabwe?
• The Obama EPA has imposed such strong anti-coal policy that 5 coal-fired power plants in the Midwest have decided to shut down rather than make needless modifications that would cost literally billions to effectuate.  Interesting that the lifeblood of a technological society is cheap and abundant energy, which America has much of, yet the Obama administration is doing everything it can to halt production, force prices higher and make stockpiles scarce, even to the point of lending money we borrowed from China to Brazil and Columbia for them to develop their own energy resources instead of us developing ours.  Using exactly what kind of demented calculus do you use to believe that policy is good for America?

And there’s so much more.  And that doesn’t even include the destruction of liberty and subversion of the Constitution that we know of as ObamaCare.  And that doesn’t even include a foreign policy from Mars.

But isn’t there any good news?  BHO must have done something good, no?

Well, the limousine industry in America is doing well since the number of such government vehicles has effectively increased 100% since Obama has been president.  Now that says a lot, doesn’t it?

Oh, and if you’re a politically well connected crony-capitalist company or someone with friends high in the Democrat Party (for example, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid) or a public employee union, you could get a waiver from ObamaCare that will shield you from the costs and risks that the rest of the population may have to endure.  Of the over 1300 ObamaCare waivers already granted, over half the effected workers belong to public employee or other favored union even though less than 12% of the population are union members.  If that doesn’t show the corruption that will ensue if this law is either not repealed or defeated in the courts, nothing will.

This is what happens when you take the best society and culture in the world and attempt to replace it with something else, as Obama said, to “fundamentally change America.”  You know, “fundamentally change America” into something different, foreign and alien.  But why would you want to “fundamentally” change something that you love, anyway?  The answer is you don’t. 

You only “fundamentally” change something you hate.  That’s why you “fundamentally” want to change it.  That says a lot about Barack Obama, no?  And isn’t attempting to fundamentally change America into something else really the definition of “crack pot politics”?

And that’s all there is to it.

Did you know that over 14,000 oil wells were drilled in the Gulf of Mexico before the Deep Water Horizon well exploded 13 months ago?  That was one spill in over 14,000, spanning a 40 year blemish-free period.  Yet the government – defined as Barack Hussein Obama and his administration (BHOAHA) – decided to shut down virtually the entire oil drilling industry.  In the gulf, this shut down was done over the objections of a federal court order. 

At about the same time, BHOAHA effectively shut down the oil drilling industry off both of America’s coasts.  It even shut down drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska, claiming the need to review the potential for environmental impact.  In the case of Alaska, over $4 billion had been recently invested and another $2.2 billion paid to the government in oil drilling leases.  Even so, the EPA shot down the drilling effort claiming “air quality issues” to the people living in that most northern of regions. 

North Dakota has one of the largest oil reserves in the world.  Nevertheless, BHOAHA’s EPA recently shut down the building of a pipeline from the North Dakota shale oil fields to Texas.  The new pipeline was to connect with an existing pipeline complex that efficiently and quickly moves oil to different areas of the country at low cost. 

BHOAHA also has actively aided and encouraged the oil drilling and exploration industries in Brazil and Columbia, and has told those countries that America will be their best customers.  This is rather than drilling and developing our own resources and having Brazil and Columbia become customers of America.  It’s all ass-backwards, no?

Is there any wonder why gasoline prices have soared in the past year, actually more than doubling in just the time Barack Obama has been president?  You still believe it’s “the speculators” that are forcing the price of gasoline to rise?

Only last month the price of gasoline first broke the dreaded $4.00 per gallon barrier in most parts of the country with nary a peep from the main-stream media and “progressive” consumer organizations.  This is the opposite of the summer of 2007, when the price last reached that level and the media outrage at the time made it seem the world was coming to an end.  Now it’s moving with speed toward $5.00 and threatens everywhere to reach $6.00 by the end of the summer driving season.  All the while, the media seems to be protecting BHOAHA. 

Clearly BHOAHA wants to proactively manipulate and interfere with the laws of supply and demand.  But why?  What’s going on? 

If you think this purposeful manipulation and inference is just crazy talk you need to listen to Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu.  As early as December 2008, before Obama was sworn in, Chu told the Wall Street Journal “somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”  That would, by the way, be in the $7.00 to $9.00 range.  He then went on to describe ways that the government could encourage people to buy more fuel efficient cars and even coax them into living closer to their work.

And what about Obama’s own words from January 2008 when he told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his administration the price of electricity “would necessarily skyrocket” and he “will bankrupt the coal industry”. 

The policies of his government, and the Democrats in general, would seem to be bringing his words and those of his lieutenants to fruition.  He meant it when he said it.  It wasn’t just rhetoric for campaign purposes.  Where exactly in the Constitution does it say the government should be considering issues like this?  How about planning policies that aim to change not only consumer behavior but social and personal behavior as well?  Where does it say in the Constitution that government should be acting to drive costs and choosing which industries are winners (“green energy”) and losers (“fossil fuels”)? 

Of course BHOAHA, like every other “class-warfare, envy-pushing, hate-the-so-called-rich Marxist”, is now trying to blame the oil companies for price gouging and making too much profit.  Like that’s the government’s business anyway? 

So let’s first put some perspective on this.  Did you know that even with the price of oil presently at over $111 per barrel, the large American oil companies make only 2 cents per gallon of gasoline in profit while local, state, and federal excise taxes amount to about 50 cents per gallon?  In other words, the government takes about 25 times per gallon what the oil companies themselves get to keep.  That’s just what the mob would do. 

Did you know that the American oil industry pays more in federal incomes taxes than the bottom 75% of all American taxpayers; in fact, the American oil industry is the second highest payer of all income taxes in America after personal incomes taxes?  Did you know that the average profit of American oil companies is less than 6%, less than drugs, computers, electronics, clothes, beverages, virtually everything manufactured and most other industries?  (Incidentally, did you know the health insurance industry runs just a 3% profit, among the lowest of all industries in America?  This is despite being labeled by BHOAHA as wealthy blood-suckers and Medicare rejecting about 7% of all claims, while private insurance rejects less than 2% of all claims.  But that’s an argument for another time.)

Did you know that no American oil company controls more than ½ of 1% of the world’s oil production volume?  It’s the state-owned companies in the Middle East and OPEC and others that set the price of a barrel of oil, not Exxon-Mobil, for crying out loud.

Did you know that the so-called $4 billion in “oil industry subsidies” BHOAHA is looking to terminate are the same exact subsidies provided to all other industries that also get to depreciate equipment and take other business related losses according to the tax code?  Not only do oil companies get nothing special, but that $4 billion will be appear at the gas pump for consumers to pay.  (Incidentally, did you know that General Motors, BHOAHA’s car company, was relieved of paying over $48 billion in future income taxes and that General Electric – BHOAHA’s favorite CEO friend – paid zero income taxes last year?  But that’s also an argument for another time).

Now I’m not crying for the oil companies, but the fossil fuels they provide, until recently at low cost, are what allows the American economy and standard of living to be the best in the world.  This applies even to our poorest people.  Even poor people in America can drive across the country and eat cheap food brought to market by cheap fuel.  But that can change and that’s just a fact. 

So why the purposeful sabotage of America’s energy industry by BHOAHA?  Why would the President of the United States purposely want to starve the country of low cost energy, thereby making virtually every product and service in America more expensive, increasing the price of food and forcing companies’ overseas and taking millions of jobs with them? 

Everything Barack Obama is doing with relation to energy is completely wrong and completely counter to free market and capitalist principles.  And he’s doing it on purpose.  But why?

The answer is because Barack Obama is a Marxist.  What Marxists do is destroy the economy so that the “Middle Class”, the one Barack Obama professes he’s trying to save, is actually destroyed.  I’m sorry to say this, but what we have is an American version of Castro or Hugo Chavez running the American government, and thereby ruining the American economy, and purposely running it into the ground.  He may have been born in Hawaii, but he ain’t no American.

By purposely increasing the price of energy, he destroys jobs.  By purposely increasing the cost of energy he increases the price of food and all other staples of life in America.  By calling for the elimination of fossil fuels in exchange for unproven and unreliable “green energy” he purposely creates chaos and rationing of energy, resulting in brown outs, black outs and the ultimate destruction of the civil society in this country.  By forcing you to live closer to where you work he destroys your freedom and mobility, and makes you easier to control.

By doing these things BHOAHA is deliberately diminishing America’s presence, standing and leadership in the world.  He is fundamentally changing our country into an alien nation. 

By doing all these things he makes everyone into a victim needing to be saved by the government.  And that makes the government, the same government BHOAHA wants to take over the health care industry, really, really, really powerful. 

And that’s all there is to it.

Did you know that the NEA, the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, the unions Barack Hussein Obama endorses, have not supported a single tax cut or a spending cut, at any level of government, in over the last 30 years?  Not one!

Here we are with our national on-budget debt about to top $15 trillion, and those unions ask for higher taxes and higher spending.  Our federal government has spent over $3 trillion additional dollars in just the last 2 years, and they think spending is too low.  Virtually every state in the nation is in huge debt, and several are near financial collapse and bankruptcy, and the unions are good with that.

Why is that?  It’s because public employee unions benefit from keeping taxes rolling in and spending as high as possible.  Public employee unions need higher taxes to get higher salaries and benefits, and know spending needs to grow to make those requirements happen.  They’re like a “fifth column” in our country.

Right now the average federal worker earns about $120,000 per year in wages and benefits, plus enjoys the ironclad job security provided by civil service rules and regulations.  The average Wisconsin teacher earns about $89,000 per year in wages and benefits and is similarly protected by civil service rules and regulations, but in addition also enjoys collective bargaining rights to use as leverage against local communities wishing to rein in spending.  The average private sector worker, whose taxes support the aforementioned public employee workers, earns only about $61,000 per year in wages and benefits, and has virtually no job security.    What’s wrong with this picture?

How can anyone expect lower wage and benefit people to continue to pay the higher wages and benefits of the public employees who control a monopoly over basic community services, and who continually demand ever more in wage and benefits, and are insulated and protected from the recessions and depressions private sector workers are forced to endure?  And with politicians beholden to public employee unions for votes and campaign contributions there is no one negotiating for the taxpayers.  This is corrupt and unsustainable.  In fact, it’s sort of a “master” class versus a “slavery” class, no?

Public employee unions are the enemy of the civil society.  I’m not talking about the members; there are lots of good teachers and cops and sanitation workers and all that.  I’m talking about the unions, and the union bosses.  They’re the enemy.

But that’s not the way it was supposed to be.  The whole idea of working in the public sector was that you earned perhaps lower wages, but received in return better benefits and ironclad job security than those counterparts in the private sector.  As a public sector worker you knew that going in…….there was definitely a well understood tradeoff.

But that changed in the 1960s when Democrat governors and mayors saw that bestowing collective bargaining rights on public employee unions could more or less guarantee reelection by creating an army of happy voters beholden to those same politicians for keeping the taxpayer provided gravy train going, even if it meant promising future wages and benefits that could never be paid.  I guess those conspiring politicians are the enemy too.

It may have taken 30 years or more for the public employee unions to overplay their hands but that’s what has at last happened.  The Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio and Michigan situations of the past several weeks have forced America to take a new look at the extortion that is bringing the economies of these and other states down and there is an interest finally to do something about them.  America is finally waking up to the corruption.

I’m hoping America will wake up to the corruption that is preventing our nation from securing the energy it needs to maintain a 21^st century technological and free society.  I recently paid $3.85 for a gallon of premium gasoline while the guy next to me was filling his tank with $3.56 a gallon of regular. Our eyes met and we both shook our heads as if to say “this really blows, no?” Yet, other than an occasional mention in the media, there is no public outrage. 

I recall just 2 ½ years ago gasoline approaching $4.00 per gallon because oil was costing over $140 per barrel and the screaming about the collapse of our economy could be heard on Mars.  If I recall, the media drumbeat blaming George W. Bush for high gasoline prices was everywhere, all the time, around the clock.  Yet now, nothing.  What’s the difference?

The difference is, obviously, Barack Hussein Obama and the media hypocrisy.  Don’t forget, the media is merely the public relations arm of the Democrat Party and the Democrat Party is the federal government.  They are all as one, in bed with each other, part of the same genre. In effect, there’s the federal government, and then there’s the Republican Party.  That’s pretty much it.  Ergo, you can have $4.00 gasoline and hatred for George W. Bush; and you can similarly have $4.00 gasoline and admiration for Barack Hussein Obama.  Am I wrong?

I suppose we’re pretty lucky that oil is presently priced at only $104 per barrel, but when that changes you should expect gasoline prices to “necessarily skyrocket.”  That’s what Barack Hussein Obama said in his January 2008 comment to the San Francisco Chronicle in which he talked about energy prices under his administration, that they would “necessarily skyrocket.”  Yes, he seems to be a man of his word.

So here we are, facing instability and unrest in the oil rich Middle East, and the Barack Hussein Obama administration is purposely choking off all new oil exploration and drilling in the United States.  He’s currently defying a federal court order to resume drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, and has refused to provide drilling licenses off the coasts of California, Florida and Alaska or anywhere else off shore of America.  How, as a great nation, can we let one guy, one single guy, do this to us?  Where does he suppose gasoline comes from?  Where does he get the chutzpah?

And what sense does it make to force energy prices higher, which he deliberately is trying to do?  At what per-gallon price will you purposely begin to curtail your own driving?  Let’s assume you’ll do less driving than normal when the price reaches $5.00 per gallon, which may not be very long from now.  That’s means your neighbors will likely do the same thing, if they can. 

Obviously, the first type of driving to be curtailed will be things like going to the mall and the movies and discretionary driving like that, which means the people working in those kinds of places will start to be laid off, which means they’ll be collecting unemployment benefits, and maybe social services benefits, which means they’ll be beholden to the government. 

And don’t forget the rising costs for the people driving food to your grocery store and how the costs of food and everything else that needs to be delivered, which is virtually every product you need to carry on your life, will be going up.  And don’t forget the price of every product made with petroleum products will be going up, which includes everything from Glad-Wrap and cosmetics to life saving drugs.

And all of this an intentional effort to raise costs, all brought to you by your government, your Democrat controlled government, your government administered by Barack Hussein Obama.  It’s all intended, it’s all purposeful, and it’s all been planned this way.  Buy why?

When Barack Hussein Obama was running for President he made it quite clear, and to cheering and adoring crowds, that his aim was to “fundamentally change America.”  He said that, right?  Everyone knows he said that, and in pretty much those exact words. 

You don’t do “fundamental change” to things you love.  If you love something you don’t fundamentally change it.  You may tweak it, but you never fundamentally change it.  That changes “it” into something totally different, right?  But you do make “fundamental change” to things you hate.  Am I wrong?

I’m sorry to say that Barack Hussein Obama hates America.  There, I said it, and I meant it.

That’s why he supports the public employee unions destroying the financial stability of the states, and why he supports the purposeful raising of living costs in an effort to put people on the government dole, to keep people victims, so they can be controlled by government.  It all makes sense.

And that’s all there is to it.

My favorite political movie is “V for Vendetta” (2005) in which a masked freedom fighter takes up arms against a totalitarian government and urges the citizenry to fight the oppression of the state.  Since the main character is a super-hero named “V” you obviously need to suspend some disbelief to make this work, but work it does, all too alarmingly well.  What I find most chilling in this story is how the tyrannical government purposely and clandestinely creates a frightening crisis, then uses its power to “resolve” the catastrophe, but in the process takes complete control of the population. 

Yes, a crisis can indeed be considered a terrible thing to waste.  The blatant tyranny that takes place in V’s world, once uncovered, is easy to understand.  But in a movie you’d assume the depiction of evil would have to be at least somewhat blatant since the “hero” only has about 120 minutes to reestablish justice, and secure domestic tranquility, so the moviegoers can walk away and still be able to sleep at night.

Real life isn’t restricted by artificial time frames like that and so malevolence, or the appearance of it, isn’t always so noticeable, even when starring you straight in the face.  Having said that, consider the following.

Is it possible that the oil gusher in the Gulf is being viewed by the Obama regime, not as a crisis that needs to be corrected as quickly as possible, but rather as an opportunity to advance the Democrat’s economy-killing energy bill?

Don’t believe me?  Even after more than 75 days, in which over 100 million gallons of oil have already spilled into the Gulf, and expectations are that at least an additional 100 million gallons will be spilled before a second “relief” well is drilled in August, the Obama regime still rejects help from 13 countries that have offered oil skimmers and technical expertise.  Of the 2000 skimmers in the American skimmer fleet, only 400 are operating in the Gulf.  The Jones Act, which would allow foreign ships into the Gulf to help with the cleanup, has not been waived (George Bush waived the Jones Act 4 days after Hurricane Katrina).  Obama has not waived the Davis-Bacon Act, which prevents non-union labor from helping with the clean-up.  Obama has not suspended FEMA contracting and bidding rules, which would provide for more rapid assignment of contractors to help with the clean-up.  Coastal governors have not been allowed to dredge their coastlines to create barrier islands.  Obama’s EPA will not relax the 15 parts per million restrictions, required during normal times, on the amount of oil remaining in discharged water, meaning water must be continually re-cleaned before returning to the Gulf, thereby taking more time and effort to keep the cleanup moving forward.

In other words, every single positive proactive measure that could be taken to lessen the spill’s impact has been rejected or delayed, the exact and complete opposite of what one would expect in such a dire circumstance.  Instead, the only actions taken by the Obama regime in response to the spill have been to blame the crisis on George Bush and set an energy and economy destroying moratorium on off-shore drilling that was overturned by a federal judge, who’s reasoning in demanding the overturn was essentially that Obama’s action was self-serving, questionable and stupid (although he made it sound more scholarly).

Why would the Obama regime do that?  What’s the rationale?  What do you suppose would have been Obama’s response to the crisis had it affected 4 blue states instead of 4 red states?  Would the delays, rejections and inactions indicated above have taken place had Deepwater Horizon exploded off the shores of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Delaware?

Consider what that means?

Then there’s the curious case of the “slam-dunk” voter intimidation case being dropped against the New Black Panther Party.  In case you’re not aware, armed thugs of this group were stationed outside a polling place in Philadelphia during the November 2008 election to keep white folks from voting, and there’s extensive video and audio to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The fact that the New Black Panther Party perpetrators refused to challenge the Justice Department’s case against them might signal even they understood the gravity of the situation.  And then, just literally moments before justice was to be announced, and completely out of the blue, the Obama regime terminated the case, all charges, except for the most minor dropped, and everyone allowed to walk away free of harm. 

What the fudge is going on here?  Blatant voter intimidation and no action taken?  The most sacred right of American citizens completely trampled on and no Justice Department action taken?  Is it possible that this is what can be expected from a “terrorist-sympathetic” Justice Department filled with pro bono Al-Qaida lawyers?  Does it matter that one of the perps, Malik Zulu Shabazz, was a previous visitor to the White House personal residence last year? 

Consider what that means?

And what about Elena Kagan being nominated to the Supreme Court?  Here’s a person who has essentially served only in administrative positions being awarded a lifetime opportunity to shape the futures of every American for literally generations to come.  Yes, she was a clerk for Thurgood Marshall, served in an administrative capacity in the Clinton Justice Department, was the Dean of the Harvard Law School and Solicitor General (SG) of the United States.  Yes, many credentials.  Interesting that as the SG, she actually only argued one single case, and very poorly, before the Supreme Court herself, leaving all the other cases to underlings.  Interesting too that she was never a judge herself, or has written anything of scholarly substance in her entire life.  Interesting too that she believes the Constitution of the United States allows for books to be banned if they’re “too extreme” and that the government can literally force Americans to eat 3 fruits and vegetables every day.  She actually said those things.

In other words, this person, who alleges to “love the law”, believes there are absolutely no limits to what the government is allowed to do to YOU.  No limits at all.  She actually believes that.  While she claims most sincerely to “love the law” she demonstrates through her own words that in reality she hates the governing document of our nation, Constitution of the United States.  And this is the person Barack Obama has nominated as the final arbiter of everything Obama.  Why do you suppose he nominated her above all the other liberals he could have nominated?  Is it because she’ll do whatever the Obama regime wants done?  Does that make her a political operative of Barack Obama?

Consider what that means?

Consider the news this week that Bucyrus International, a mining equipment manufacturer in Wisconsin, was denied a contract this week by the Obama regime to build machines for the Indian mining industry.  Because mining coal contradicts the Obama regime’s stance on global warming and green house gas emissions they will not allow Bucyrus to build those mining machines.  The cost to the company will be over 1000 jobs and $300 million in sales.  India, incidentally, immediately turned around and accepted equipment bids from companies in China and Belarus, so those jobs and that money will go to one of those countries instead.

So here Obama’s political agenda has cost this company dearly and its workers even more.  Here the government of the United States has taken action, for purely political reasons, to interfere with and quash the actions of a private sector company doing legitimate business in the free-market.  Where in the Constitution does the president or government get the authority to do that?  How will that power be translated to the health care industry once the new laws regarding that sector go into effect just a few years from now?

Consider what that means?

Consider the finance bill making its way through Congress and how that will affect the new fees you’ll need to pay for your banking business and the obstacles that will prevent even the most liquid people from getting loans and mortgages, yet does not mention the spending gusher (already over $150 billion and growing) at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in any of the bill’s over 2000 pages.  And consider the Disclose Act, also making its way through Congress, that will essentially set up differing standards for who is allowed to exercise “free speech” and who is not and how that will affect your use of the Internet.  And what about the coming VAT tax and all the other plans for taking as much of your money as possible?

Consider what that means?

Consider that, since January 2009, every action this Obama regime has taken, or has plans to take, is aimed and focused at controlling you and stealing and limiting your liberty.  Consider that.  Consider “V”.

And that’s all there is to it.