Wednesday, June 16, 2010

What we didn't hear from Obama last night

American Thinker "Lastly, we didn't hear him propose tax credits to develop our nations 400 year supply of natural gas or at least take the government boot off the neck of the domestic oil and gas industry. But then that would solve a problem and we now know this progressive government has no intention of solving problems - they only exacerbating them to accrete power under the pretense solving them."

Soros hedge fund invests $811m to buy Petrobras stake  From 2008.

Understanding the Tea Party movement

World Magazine   "You cannot understand American politics today without understanding the Tea Party movement. Especially after last Tuesday’s Republican primaries, everyone from the president and the speaker of the House down to the voting citizen should get a handle on it. Get it wrong, and you get everything wrong. It is a truly American movement. It is popular in origin, protective of property, rooted in the Founding, and morally serious."  D.C. Innes; an associate professor of politics at The King's College in New York

The Oval Office address

BP: BARACK PETROLEUM.. AT LEAST THAT IS WHAT DRUDGE IS CALLING IT  "These are just a few examples of government inefficiency. We could go back through history and I guarantee you that you cannot find one government-run program that a rational person could consider efficient. But as I've already said, that is not really the point here, is it? Obama is living a dream right now . Another wonderful crisis he can exploit to further increase the power of our Imperial Federal Government."

 The President's Oil Reserves Lie  "Therefore, if we're tossing all the blame towards BP for this catastrophic oil spill then we're ignoring other perpetrators. The reason BP and other oil companies are drilling 40+ miles off the shoreline and more than a mile deep is because of the stranglehold that environmentalists have held on politicians and their resulting energy policies for decades. Let's use some common sense. Drill first on land, then in water. It's really not that difficult."

MSNBC Trashes Obama's Address: Compared To Carter, “I Don't Sense Executive Command” This is the first of a page full of articles from different sources. When MSNBC trashes Obama you know he has problems. Click the link to see all the articles.

Hey Barack, You Should’ve Done This... "Since his strategy dealing with the spill seems lacking thus far, Redstate editor Erick Erickson has compiled a Top 10 list of things to alleviate the disaster that Obama could have done but didn’t."

Weak Speech from an Indecisive Obama "...the president did not announce a Jones Act waiver to bring foreign-flag tankers into the Gulf area. Nor did he announce a new task force of hands-on experienced oilmen from the likes of ExxonMobil and other big oil sisters who actually know what they are doing." Larry Kudlow

No energy in Obama energy speech  "Also not in evidence was the most serious solution to the problem — nuclear energy. We had the usual palaver about solar and wind, but no reference to the energy source employed so successfully by the French and the Japanese, the one source that could change the situation with some rapidity. Obama probably didn’t want to mention it because his left would be offended. Again, frightened."

Oil and Snake Oil (UPDATED)

Thomas Sowell  "President Obama had barely settled into the White House before he began demonstrating his willingness to sell out this country's friends to appease our enemies. His trip to Moscow to try to make a deal with the Russians, based on reneging on the pre-existing American commitment to put a missile shield in Eastern Europe, was the kind of short-sighted betrayal whose consequences can come back to haunt a nation for years. "

Savage RNC attack on Obama’s cavalier response to the spill  Bookworm Room
"This one should go viral:" (video).

Is President Obama the Worst President in History?

Townhall   "When Obama took office, the national debt was just under $10 trillion. Now it is $12 trillion, and by 2015, it will be at least $19.6 trillion. Unemployment under Obama increased to 9.7 percent, up from 7.6 percent when Bush left office. The inflation rate has yet to explode, but most economists believe it will have to unless Obama drastically raises taxes, destroying the economy even further. Carter can't touch this guy."  Ben Shapiro.

Stuck on Stupid: Obama's Czar Fetish

Michelle Malkin   "Folks in the Gulf don't need any more Romanov-style apparatchiks or blue-ribbon crony panels to show them the way toward relief. Florida public officials and foreign shippers say the protectionist Jones Act is preventing vessels from abroad from providing cleanup aid. And Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal has exposed White House obstructionism and delays in approving the construction of barrier walls to stop the oil spread.

"After waiting weeks for approval, Jindal received a green light from the White House to put up just five barrier islands -- a minuscule amount of his plan. Tired of waiting for approval of the rest of his plan, Jindal this week ordered the National Guard to circumvent the Beltway foot-dragging and start building the walls immediately."

A Crisis of Competence

Heritage "Instead of providing leadership and properly coordinating the response, the Obama administration has chosen to shift blame and politicize the disaster, including: 1) “not-at-all veiled shot[s] at the Bush Administration” for the state of the Minerals and Management Service; 2) vague threats of criminal prosecution from Attorney General Eric Holder; 3) a moratorium on offshore oil drilling which could kill 120,000 jobs in the Gulf alone; and 4) pushing caps on carbon dioxide emissions which have no hope of cleaning up a single drop of oil spilled."

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Before the Tea Party: the Magna Carta

American Thinker  "Mrs. Thatcher did not disappoint. What did she think of the French Revolution? "It resulted in a lot of headless bodies and a tyrant," she said. But, but, the speechless reporters countered, don't you think the French Revolution marked the beginning of human rights? "Certainly not," Maggie answered with steely determination, "that began with Magna Carta." "   Robert Morrison

More on the Magna Carta "When representatives of the young republic of the United States gathered to draft a constitution, they turned to the legal system they knew and admired--English common law as evolved from Magna Carta . "

What Obama Should Say Tuesday Night

Mona Charen "There is nothing immoral about companies that extract the coal, oil, and gas from the earth -- no more than those of us who enjoy air conditioning, computers, cars, and airplanes are immoral for using those fuels. Perhaps we've all learned now that we must take another look at ANWR and shallower waters. Environmentalists did us no favors by agitating for bans on drilling in more accessible sites. At least if a spill happens there, it can be dealt with."  In our dreams.

Energy Demagogues   "...trucks and cars don't run on sunlight or wind, and coal -- whose cost of generation the U.S. energy department priced at 44 cents per megawatt three years ago -- is our second cheapest form of energy, next to oil and gas, at 25 cents per megawatt. Nuclear power is $1.59.

"And how much, according to the energy department, is wind power? Oh, $23.37 per megawatt. Solar power? A whopping $24.34."  Bill Murchison is a senior columns writer for The Dallas Morning News.
  Emphases added.

Obama in the Bunker  "In politics, a "bunker mentality" is an embattled frame of mind, often accompanied by an aggrieved sense of being unfairly under attack. The term is most often applied to American Presidents who suffer political reverses and assume a surly, defensive posture - all critics are enemies; if you're not for us you're against us; etc."  Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich.

The Obama Energy Tax Game Plan

Heritage "Politico reports that Benenson’s recommended “messaging architecture" includes the slogan “Making BP Pay Isn’t Enough” and adds: “frame the opposition” as “Big Oil and corporate polluters who have blocked energy reform for decades” and “politicians protecting the special interests that fund their campaigns.”
"The irony here is that BP has been a special interest pushing for carbon pricing on Capitol Hill for years now."