Joel's Rant

There are so many bad things, all about to be brought to you by Democrats, that I can’t keep them all straight.

Try this on for size:

Why did the Obama regime loan Brazil $2 Billion in August, 2009 for them to develop their off-shore oil drilling industry?  Why wasn’t he developing our off-shore oil drilling industry or maybe even building wind mills or repaying debt or something like that?  That’s interesting by itself, no?  But here’s where the plot thickens.  I realize Obama’s not clairvoyant, so even I know he could not have predicted a disastrous oil spill in the Gulf, but look at what’s going to happen.

Because of the spill, the Democrats are going to try to get climate and energy legislation passed under the guise of developing non-fossil based resources.  Hey, nothing like not wasting a crisis.  Obama has already called for a 6-month moratorium on continued off-shore drilling and even falsely and fraudulently and despicably used the names of 7 expert engineers in the field to “document” his plan (lying has certainly become a staple of this regime’s modus operand, no?) and provide the “substance” it would not have otherwise had.  These oil drilling platforms cost about $½ million each day to operate, even if they’re sitting idle, like during a moratorium, and no oil company can afford that so they’ll be moved, and their likely destination will be……Brazil. 

Now oil is a fungible product, meaning it costs the same everywhere in the world, whether it’s developed in the United States or Angola or Iran or Brazil.  It makes no difference.  Once the drilling platforms are moved to Brazil, or wherever, they’re not coming back, at last not for a very long time.  Definitely longer than 6 months, maybe longer than 6 years.

Good riddance, right?  Wrong, you idiot!  The United States presently gets 30% of our national oil production from the Gulf.  If that oil is not replaced the price of gasoline will rise, meaning there’ll be less driving to the mall, meaning less spending money on stuff, meaning more layoffs of people normally selling that stuff, and leading directly to more unemployment and welfare payments and that’s money that is taken directly from you.  You get the idea, right?  It’s a simple calculus that cannot be denied.

Or the oil will be replaced by buying more from foreign sources, causing more and higher dependence on foreign oil, which is what our political class has been railing against for decades.  A bit of a conundrum, no?

But we can be developing “green” fuel resources so good riddance, right?  Wrong, you idiot!  Anyone who believes that is not thinking in reality.  Take a look at Spain, which dumped billions into restructuring themselves into a “green economy” and have recently announced publically their complete and total failure and which helped bring on their near-collapsed economy.  Those resources, if ever commercially viable, will not be ready for prime time for decades or longer.  Contrary to what Democrats think, developments in science and technology cannot be legislated.  If there was a possibility of their coming to market it would have happened already through the free-market, in the same fashion that petroleum oil beat whale oil, and cars beat horses, and computers beat typewriters and on and on.  That’s the genius of the free-market.  How many innovations and useful developments in technology have come out of central planning in China or Cuba or old East Germany, for crying out loud?

Oh, and let’s not forget the economies of 3 Gulf states, in which Gulf oil drilling is either the state’s single largest or second largest industry.  Those economies will be decimated, causing more of the previously mentioned unemployment and welfare payments and that’s money that is taken directly from you.

So why are Obama and the Democrats planning these political moves that will only cause economic destruction and misery on a grand scale, instead of just concentrating on plugging the oil leak?  Maybe because they’re Marxists?

Let’s look beyond merely BP.

Are you aware that the Democrats in Congress voted just two weeks ago to allow the EPA to set carbon limits for all industries nationwide?  Well, good riddance to carbon, right?  Wrong, you idiot! 

What that does is allow unelected bureaucrats, who are accountable to no one, and in most cases have no real-world experience beyond government, to set industrial policy throughout the entire economy of the United States.  The last time we saw this kind of central planning, on a scale that affects every commercial exchange in a nation, was during the Politburo days of the old Soviet Union.  Yes, the Soviet Union. 

By controlling carbon you control energy.  If you are the kind of person that turns on a light bulb, or drives a car, or takes public transportation, or likes heat or air conditioning, or likes to buy products of any type or uses services of any type, or eats food, or needs health care, or lives indoors, you’re going to be directly affected, which means you’ll either be paying much more or you’ll be doing without.  You get the point, right?  It’s a simple calculus that cannot be denied.

Are you aware that the unemployment rate in the United States will, with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, never again fall below 9% or 10% for any extended period of time (yes, if only we had that same GWB economy where “under 5% unemployment” was common)?  Sure, maybe if the government decides to hire another million census workers or hole diggers and hole fillers it may drop below, but not for long.  Do you want to know why?  Because Democrats have made it their business to sow the seeds of instability and chaos throughout the business community.

They forced the passing of so-called health care reform, using diabolical methods of coercion and fraud, which even the Obama regime’s own estimates assume 51% of all employers will need to change their present employee health plans to the new government plan because they don’t meet the definition of a “government approved plan.”  So much for keeping the plan to you like.  But the point here is that businesses don’t know what to do until all the policies have been written….by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.  Until then, no hiring.  And what about the uncertain impact on business of cap and trade, and “card-check” legislation and the coming increase of corporate, personal, estate and capital gains taxes that will hit everyone and everything that generates income when the Bush tax cuts expire on January 1, 2011.  Everyone person, and every business, that presently pays taxes will see a tax increase.  And what about the energy tax that’s sure to come out of this Democrat Congress because of the Gulf spill and what about the VAT tax that’s surely being planned?

All of those taxes and actions conspire to create an environment in which viable employers, those that need to make a profit to stay in business, as opposed to government that doesn’t have that handicap, will not do any hiring now, and maybe won’t in the future.  How can they? 

And needless regulation upon stupid regulation.  As if regulators caught Bernie Madoff before he did severe damage, even though the SEC knew about him and his potential for ponzi schemes years before that disaster hit.  They did nothing until then.  And the Department of the Interior knew there was trouble at the Deepwater Horizon rig days before that disaster hit, and they did nothing until it exploded.  And even then did nothing.  And the regulators of Fannie and Freddie knew a disaster was coming and they did nothing as well.  And the regulators on both the Senate and House Finance Committees not only did nothing to forestall the coming sub-prime mortgage and financial crisis they exacerbated it by encouraging and codifying bad banking policy and even in some cases shared in the greed they wrought.  That’s why unemployment is high and will remain high.  It’s a simple calculus that cannot be denied.

And now there’s a call for more regulation and ceding more and more power and control to government regulators that have proven over and over that they can’t regulate, can’t be trusted and often only make things worse, much worse.

And that’s your modern Democrat Party in action.

And there’s more, all being brought to you by those same Democrats.  Will your 401k be taken over by the government?  Will you lose your mortgage tax deduction?  That’s all being talked about now in the halls of the Democrat Congress as they search for every dime they can in an effort to slow the inevitable rise in interest rates.  You see, as the nation goes higher and higher into debt, at some point the people or countries presently lending us money will stop unless interest rates go up.  That’s what happens when a lender smells a bad loan risk.  We’re like the guy whose credit card debt balance is higher than his yearly earnings.  Those people all eventually go into bankruptcy or otherwise fail in some other fashion.  And if interest rates on that $13.5 Trillion in debt go up we’re not going to be able to pay and risk defaulting and bringing the entire economy of the United States to its knees, just like Greece.  And don’t forget the potential for civil unrest a defaulting economy brings; when government retirement payments and all other entitlement payments and Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors can’t be made and so on, just like Greece.  To forestall that, the government needs a different source of cash so it won’t need to borrow at the same “40 cents per every dollar spent” rate it’s been borrowing over the past 18 months.  That’s what’s generally meant by the phrase “unsustainable borrowing and spending.”  That new infusion of cash could well be your 401k and mortgage tax reduction.

What about a $165 Billion union pension bailout?  That’s on the table in Congress now, brought to you by Democrats.  What about dumping 30 million more people into Medicaid?  That was part of the Democrat health care reform bill and is a shared cost with the states, so look at your state treasury being drained because of this Democrat plan as well.

What we’re seeing here is the destruction of a once great country by the people that are bringing every conceivable economic insult and injury to you and your family, the Democrats.

(Just for the record, Republicans either voted or opposed virtually all of this stuff, even going so far as to try to reign in Fannie and Freddie during the GWB administration.  Sorry, that’s true.)

And that’s all there is to it.

Now here’s an interesting situation.  Over the past 16 months or so the United States has been essentially under assault from within.  In fact, the Democrat leaders in power, who claim to love this country, also say in the same breath that it needs to be fundamentally changed and have set forth, with accomplices in the so-called mainstream media, to do exactly that. (Just as a quick aside, I don’t see how you can genuinely love something yet want to change it.  That doesn’t make sense, but that’s an issue for another time, so think about it).

Trillions of dollars have been wasted and squandered in failed stimulus plans and bailouts, and takeovers of private corporations have become business as usual.  Industries like insurance, banking and student loans, employing tens of thousands of people in private enterprises, have been regulated to the point of instability and strangulation.  Taxes have been raised on business with new and even higher taxes coming with the first of the New Year.  One-sixth of the economy has already been taken over by those hoping to completely nationalize the health care industry in the failed fashion of Great Britain, while another one-sixth of the economy, the financial industry, is about to be ruled by the bureaucrats in Washington. 

The president talks openly about regulating carbon emissions in power-producing and smoke-stack industries that will not only sap the low-cost energy needed to fuel a 21^st century economy back into life, but will cause huge increases in the cost of absolutely every single good or service in America.  Everything that costs money, or has cash value, will be more expensive.  In fact, the EPA is presently writing new regulations that will include, among a humongous number other of things, that everyone’s house, rental or business property be registered with the federal government to make sure it’s energy efficient, otherwise it cannot be sold or traded without the owner making renovations or repairs beforehand to bring it into “compliance.”

The federal government does nothing to contain or resolve the over $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities presently on the books, and has in fact increased the national debt from $6 Trillion to $9 Trillion in just the past 2 years, with the nation on a path to $20 Trillion in debt before the end of the decade, and that assumes interest rates stay artificially low.  And that does not even include the debts and unfunded obligations of the states, many of which are on the verge of bankruptcy themselves.

If anything the business environment, the one that employs people, has been made unstable through a series of taxes presently in effect now and planned for next year and beyond.  Those taxes and regulations, added to the spectacles of the new health care legislation and cap and trade plans, is keeping unemployment at the official 10% level with higher rates expected in the future.  The potential for huge numbers of jobless college graduates is real and getting worse with no end in sight.

When the state of Arizona, a state ravaged by uncontrolled illegal immigration costing its citizens over $3 Billion each year and has raised its crime rate to one of the highest in the country, passes a law to enforce the federal immigration laws presently on the books since 1940, the president of the United States stands with the leader of Mexico to denounce those actions as racist.  And not only do the Democrats in Congress literally stand to applaud the Mexican leader denouncing Arizonans as racists, but the president’s own representative in China does the same thing with the leaders of that country, a totalitarian country that routinely kills its citizens and sells their harvested organs on the open market, among their other cruelty and crimes against humanity.

And there’s more, much more. 

Last week Newt Gingrich raised an issue in a speech he gave in which he said that since the Civil War, this is the first time America has to ask itself “who are we as a people?”  I would add to that a question of my own.  Are we about to fail?

Every nation, it seems, at some point fails and is lost to history or becomes merely a shadow of what it once was.  Some nations from the past were thought of as great or grand, like Greece, Rome, Spain, and Great Britain.  At some point their wealth and prestige were gone, their ability to impact or change the world situation for their own national interests, their ability to protect themselves, either negligible or none. 

Can the same be said for the United States?  Is there anything we can do to “right the ship?”

I think it’s illustrative that earlier this week the congressional district in Pennsylvania, the one who’s Representative was Jack Murtha for over 20 years, was won by a Democrat.  It’s true the district is 2 to 1 registered democrats, but all of the facts I quoted above are true too.  On paper, this should have been a slam-dunk win for the Republicans.  But they lost.

Even with the nation under assault by Democrats, Republicans lost.  There are probably many reasons why they lost, but one obvious reason is that Republicans assumed their voters would be more enthusiastic, that they wouldn’t stay home just because it was unseasonably cold and rainy.  We’re arguably about to fail as a nation, and people who could do something about it stay home because the weather’s bad.  It’s enough to make blood shoot from your eyes.

So let me spell this out just in case you’re not getting it.  This election will be the most important of your lifetime no matter how old you are or no matter how many other elections you’ve voted in before.  This is it!  If we can’t stop the Democrat express toward socialism or worse, the country our children inherit will bear little resemblance to the one we grew up in.  This is very serious business, like no other time before and perhaps like no other time to come in the future.

On the national scene, we must protect our Constitution, rein in out of control spending, and protect the conservative ideals that make our country great.  At the very least, we need to slow down the president and Congress from jamming through more legislation that could fundamentally transform America into something different and unwelcome.

While making sure you vote is important, it is not enough.  Even writing a check to a candidate, while admirable, is not enough.  Not this year.  Not in 2010.  This year is different.  Very different.  The stakes could not be higher. 

We need to put ourselves back on the path to greatness.  We need to defend our families and our country.  The unsustainable debt and changes to our capitalist civil society will inexorably change the futures of your children and grandchildren and essentially guarantee for them lives of certain government servitude. 

What we need are boots on the ground.  We need people that will distribute literature, help register Republican voters, make phone calls, wave signs and do the other things necessary to get conservatives elected so they can stop the madness.

Please get in touch with your local Republican Club or Tea Party organization and find out what you can do to halt our progress toward a socialist society.  Everyone needs to be involved, everyone needs to become a Super Citizen who will help get others involved, and support good conservative candidates they believe in. 

It’s not easy, particulary for a “civilian”, to run for political office.  Besides money, these candidates sacrifice plenty by putting themselves out there, making speeches, going door to door and spreading the word.  And supporting them means volunteering your time and effort.  If good candidates are not supported, fewer good candidates will take up the challenge the next time.

If you have children you have a responsibility to the future.  This is not a time to be sitting on the sidelines.  Those days are over.  We need your support, we need your time and your country needs your involvement.

In an announcement that got little attention, if any, compared to the ObamaCare fiasco earlier this week, the Department of the Interior indicated that Barack Obama’s promised offshore drilling program in the United States would be delayed until no earlier than 2012.  What exactly is the point of that? 
 
Unless it’s an effort to starve America of energy and drive up the cost of fuel, thereby driving up the cost of everything purchased in the country, thereby forcing people to be more dependent on the government, thereby fundamentally transforming our country into a socialist society, I just don’t get it.  Is there anyone out there who can explain this to me?
 
This policy from hell is made all the more perverse when you realize that our essential enemy China has recently signed contracts with Cuba for drilling rights in Cuban waters.  This contract would allow China to set up rigs in Cuban waters but, using horizontal drilling technology, be able to drain American oil resources.  This is exactly what Saddam was doing with Kuwait back in 1990. 
 
Does that make sense?  What are the benefits of not drilling now?  Is this economic suicide?  What’s the point of this anti-American policy? 
 
Lately there’s been much discussion in the news media and talk show circuits about whether or not Barack Obama is actually a socialist.  I’m sure he is, but even if I gave him the benefit of the doubt what I’m certain of is that he’s not a friend of the United States.  He’s the first and only president of the United States to actually be anti-American.
 
And that’s all there is to it.
 
http://www.americansolutions.com/drill/2010/03/salazar-drilling-wont-begin-until-at-least-2012.php

We’re taking our country back on November 2, 2010.  Hope you can believe in…………..for sure.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZs8k4pJcyk

Actually, I thought the ad was great.  It was witty and clever and fun to watch. 
 
But if you think about it for more than a couple of seconds you realize that the so-called “environmental movement” and those that believe this stuff actually want the characterizations depicted to become reality.  This is the world that they have planned, circa 1850.  Idiots!
 
This is no joke, no?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml54UuAoLSo