Obama’s oil flimflam

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: March 15

Yes, of course, presidents have no direct control over gas prices. But the American people know something about this president and his disdain for oil. The “fuel of the past,” he contemptuously calls it. To the American worker who doesn’t commute by government motorcade and is getting fleeced every week at the pump, oil seems very much a fuel of the present — and of the foreseeable future.

President Obama incessantly claims energy open-mindedness, insisting that his policy is “all of the above.” Except, of course, for drilling:


●off the Mid-Atlantic coast (as Virginia, for example, wants);

●off the Florida Gulf Coast (instead, the Castro brothers will drill near there);

●in the broader Gulf of Mexico (where drilling in 2012 is expected to drop 30 percent below pre-moratorium forecasts);

●in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (more than half the size of England, the drilling footprint being the size of Dulles International Airport);

●on federal lands in the Rockies (where leases are down 70 percent since Obama took office).

But the event that drove home the extent of Obama’s antipathy to nearby, abundant, available oil was his veto of the Keystone pipeline, after the most extensive environmental vetting of any pipeline in U.S. history. It gave the game away because the case for Keystone is so obvious and overwhelming. Vetoing it gratuitously prolongs our dependence on outside powers, kills thousands of shovel-ready jobs, forfeits a major strategic resource to China, damages relations with our closest ally, and sends billions of oil dollars to Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin and already obscenely wealthy sheiks.

Obama boasts that, on his watch, production is up and imports down. True, but truly deceptive. These increases have occurred in spite of his restrictive policies. They are the result of Clinton- and Bush-era permitting. This has been accompanied by a gold rush of natural gas production resulting from new fracking technology that has nothing at all to do with Obama.

“The American people aren’t stupid,” Obama said (Feb. 23), mocking “Drill, baby, drill.” The “only solution,” he averred in yet another major energy speech last week, is that “we start using less — that lowers the demand, prices come down.” Yet five paragraphs later he claimed that regardless of “how much oil we produce at home . . . that’s not going to set the price of gas worldwide.”

So: Decreasing U.S. demand will lower oil prices, but increasing U.S. supply will not? This is ridiculous. Either both do or neither does. Does Obama read his own speeches?

Obama says of drilling: “That’s not a plan.” Of course it’s a plan. We import nearly half of our oil, thereby exporting enormous amounts of U.S. wealth. Almost 60 percent of our trade deficit — $332 billion out of $560 billion — is shipped overseas to buy crude.

Drill here and you stanch the hemorrhage. You keep those dollars within the U.S. economy, repatriating not just wealth but jobs and denying them to foreign unfriendlies. Drilling is the single most important thing we can do to spur growth at home while strengthening our hand abroad.

Instead, Obama offers what he fancies to be the fuels of the future. You would think that he’d be a tad more modest today about his powers of divination after the Solyndra bankruptcy, the collapse of government-subsidized Ener1 (past makers of the batteries of the future) and GM’s suspension of production — for lack of demand — of another federally dictated confection, the flammable Chevy Volt.

Deterred? Hardly. Our undaunted seer of the energy future has come up with his own miracle fuel: algae.

Why, explained Obama, “we can grow it right here in the United States.” (Sounds like a miraculous local find — except that it grows just about everywhere on earth.) Accordingly, yet another $14 million of taxpayer money will be sprinkled on algae research by Steven Chu’s Energy Department.

This is the very same Dr. Chu who famously said in 2008 that he wanted U.S. gas prices to rise to European levels of $8-$10 a gallon — and who on Tuesday, eight months before Election Day, publicly recanted before Congress, Galileo-style.

Who do they think they’re fooling? An oil crisis looms, prices are spiking — and our president is extolling algae. After Solyndra, Keystone and promises of seaweed in their gas tanks, Americans sense a president so ideologically antipathetic to fossil fuels — which we possess in staggering abundance — that he is utterly unserious about the real world of oil in which the rest of us live.

High gasoline prices are a major political problem for Obama. They are not just a pain at the pump, however. They are a constant reminder of three years of a rigid, fatuous, fantasy-driven energy policy that has rendered us scandalously dependent and excessively vulnerable.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-oil-flimflam/2012/03/15/gIQA7x77ES_story.html

Do We Live in an Upside Down Land?

You know you live in Upside-Down Land if ...

A Muslim officer crying "Allah Akbar" while shooting up an army base is considered to have committed"Workplace Violence" while an American citizen boasting a Ron Paul bumper sticker is classified as a"Domestic Terrorist".

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend more money.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

A seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration class on a college campus is perfectly acceptable.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if..

Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Working class Americans pay for their own health care (and the health care of everyone else) while unmarried women are free to have child after child on the "State's" dime while never being held responsible for their own choices.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if..

The rights of the State come before the rights of the individual.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Parents believe the State is responsible for providing for their children.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

You can write a post like this just by reading the news headlines.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iphones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Your government can add anything they want to your kid's water (fluoride, chlorine, etc.) but you are not allowed to give them raw milk.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

You have to have your parents signature to go on a field trip but not to get an abortion.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burqa is only subject to having her neck and head searched.

You know you live in Upside-down Land if...

Using the "N" word is considered "hate speech" but writing and singing songs about raping women and killing cops is considered "art".

Unfortunately, this list could go on and on. Our world has been turned upside-down. We are in distress. Where do we go from here?

Obama Has Your Wallet !