Obama's war on Oil

This article can be found at IBD ...as Americans struggle paying ever increasing gasoline costs it is important to remember that at least more than 50% of us voted for Obama. And don't tell me that you didn't know what he was...a leftist who does not care much for our Founding Father's principles. So now we're stuck with him for at least another 9 months and ugh .... maybe another 4 years and 9 months. I shudder at the thought. Read below.

Congress Can Constitutionally Skirt Obama On Keystone

Posted 01/24/2012 06:04 PM ET

Energy: The president might think that he's killed the Keystone XL pipeline, at least for as long as he's in office. But he could be very wrong.

President Obama was able to snuff out the project and with it a vast supply of needed crude because the executive office has traditionally handled permits on cross-border facilities, which the pipeline is considered since it would originate in Canada.

But that doesn't mean that's the only way for the pipeline to be approved. Attorneys at the Congressional Research Service have determined that lawmakers can pass a bill requiring a permit for the pipeline — which would have carried crude that will now instead be shipped by a rail line owned by Warren Buffett, one of Obama's supporters.

Their review "suggests that legislation related to cross-border facility permitting is unlikely to raise significant constitutional questions, despite the fact that such permits have traditionally been handled by the executive branch alone pursuant to its constitutional 'foreign affairs' authority."

Passing legislation is an option that Republicans are already looking at.

According to USA Today, Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., has written a bill that would remove the president's authority to approve the pipeline and give it instead to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

With a 50-vote majority in the House, the GOP should be able to get Terry's bill, or one similar to it, passed.

The Senate, however, still in Democratic hands, poses a much bigger hurdle. (READ HERE)

"Why Bad Economics Won't Go Away" ...and Why We Repeat the Same Bad Policies Over and Over Again

Kucinich Wants to be a Character in "Atlas Shrugged": The Villain

It is amazing that we are in the year 2012 we still are talking about the looters in Washington after Atlas Shrugged has been out there for everyone to read since 1957. That makes it 55 years since the publication of one of the most important pieces of literature ever written. I mean EVER written. Remember, in the story Ms Rand unequivocally describes the looters and the mouchers - what makes them tick (power) and what makes them cry for more power (money and fame). We can now say that 2012 is living up to Ayn Rand's looters and the moochers in Atlas Shrugged, by scribbling the bill: H.R. 3784 "GAS PRICE SPIKE ACT OF 2012".

Thanks moochers for including the year 2012 in the name of the bill. It will be remembered in mockery and disdain for decades. What else can one do but laugh at the ridiculous. Read Erica Johnson's piece at TownHall Magazine below:

Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to control gas profits.

The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a "windfall profit tax" as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.

The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding "a reasonable profit." It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. ...

Specifically, he said the money would be used to fund a tax credit on the purchase of fuel-efficient cars and set up a grant program for mass transit programs when oil-and-gas prices are high. ...The following is part of the actual bill to make new law allowing expropriation of producer's profits. ATLAS SHRUGGED again. Except this time the people should shrug and go on strike against Washington and Obama.Rread the bill below. I'd cry if it weren't so funny to read this crap.

Co-sponsoring the bill are five other Democrats: Reps. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Marcia Fudge (Ohio), Jim Langevin (R.I.), and Lynn Woolsey (Calif.)

112TH CONGRESS

2D SESSION

H. R. 3784

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a windfall profit

tax on oil and natural gas (and products thereof) and to allow an

income tax credit for purchases of fuel-efficient passenger vehicles, and

to allow grants for mass transit.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

JANUARY 18, 2012

Mr. KUCINICH (for himself, Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. LANGEVIN, Ms.

FUDGE, and Mr. FILNER) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of

such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose

a windfall profit tax on oil and natural gas (and products

thereof) and to allow an income tax credit for purchases

of fuel-efficient passenger vehicles, and to allow grants

for mass transit.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives

2 of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Gas Price Spike Act

5 of 2012’’.

READ THE REST OF THIS ridiculous bill here.

Obama Gets Real

By:

Peter Schiff

Friday, December 9, 2011

For most of his time as a national political figure, Barack Obama has been careful to cloak his core socialist leanings behind a veil of pro-capitalist rhetoric. This makes strategic sense, as Americans still largely identify as pro-capitalist. However, based on his recent speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, the President appears to have reassessed the political landscape in advance of the 2012 elections. Based on the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the recent defeat of Republicans in special elections, he has perhaps sensed a surge of left-leaning sentiment; and, as a result, he finally dropped the pretense.

According to our President's new view of history, capitalism is a theory that has "never worked." He argues that its appeal can't be justified by results, but its popularity is based on Americans' preference for an economic ideology that "fits well on a bumper sticker." He feels that capitalism speaks to the flaws in the American DNA, those deeply rooted creation myths that elevate the achievements of individuals and cast unwarranted skepticism on the benefits of government. He argues that this pre-disposition has been exploited by the rich to popularize policies that benefit themselves at the expense of the poor and middle class.

But Obama's knowledge of history is limited to what is written on his teleprompter. And his selection of the same location that Teddy Roosevelt used to chart an abrupt departure into populist politics is deeply symbolic in the opposite way to that which he intended. It is not by some genetic fluke that Americans distrust government. It is an integral and essential part of our heritage. The United States was founded by people who distrusted government intensely and was subsequently settled, over successive generations, by people fleeing the ravages of government oppression. These Americans relied on capitalism to quickly build the greatest economic power the world had ever seen - from nothing.

But according to Obama's revisionist version of American history, we tried capitalism only briefly during our history. First, during the Robber Barron period of the late 19th Century, the result of which was child labor and unprecedented lower-class poverty. These ravages were supposedly only corrected by the progressive policies of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. We tried capitalism again in the 1920s, according to Obama, and the result was the Great Depression. This time, it allegedly took FDR's New Deal to finally slay that capitalist monster. Then, the account only gets more farcical. Apparently, we tried capitalism again under George W. Bush, and the result was the housing bubble, financial crisis, and ensuing Great Recession. Obama now argues that government is needed once again to save the day.

This view is complete fiction and proves that Obama is not qualified to teach elementary school civics, let alone serve as President of the United States. I wonder what other economic system he believes we followed prior to the 1890s and 1920s (and during the 1950s and 1960s) that that he now seeks to restore? Capitalism did not start with J.P. Morgan in 1890s or John D. Rockefeller in the 1920s as the President suggests. In fact, it was about that time that capitalism came under attack by the progressives. We were born and prospered under capitalism. The Great Depression did not result from unbridled capitalism, but from the monetary policy of the newly created Federal Reserve and the interventionist economic policies of both Hoover and Roosevelt - policies that were decidedly un-capitalist.

The prosperity enjoyed during mid-20th century actually resulted from the incredible progress produced by years of capitalism. Contrary to Obama's belief, the New Deal and Great Society did not create the middle class; it was, in fact, a direct result of the capitalist industrial revolution. The socialist programs of which Obama is so fond are the reasons why the middle class has been shrinking. America's economic descent began in the 1960s, when we abandoned capitalism in favor of a mixed economy. By mixing capitalism with socialism, we undermined economic growth, and reversed much of the progress years of laissez-faire had bestowed on average Americans. The back of the middle class is being broken by the weight of government and the enormous burden taxes and regulation place on the economy.

America's first experiment with socialism, the Plymouth Bay Colony, ended in failure, and our most successful colonies - New York, Virginia, Massachusetts - were begun primarily as commercial enterprises. When the founding fathers gathered to write the Constitution, they represented capitalist states and granted the federal government severely limited powers.

Apparently, Obama thinks our founders' mistrust of government was delusional, and that we were fortunate that far wiser groups of leaders eventually corrected those mistakes. The danger, as Obama sees it, is that some Republicans actually want to reverse course and adopt the failed ideas espoused by great American fools like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.

The President unknowingly illustrated his own contradictory thinking with the importance he now places on extending the temporary payroll tax cuts. If all that stands between middle-class families and abject poverty is a small tax cut, imagine how much damage the far more massive existing tax burden already inflicts on those very households! If Obama really wants to relieve middle-class taxpayers of this burden, he needs to reduce the cost of government by cutting spending. After all, there is no way to pay for all the government programs Obama wants simply by taxing the rich.

History has proven time-and-again that capitalism works and socialism does not. Taking money from the rich and redistributing it to the poor does not grow the economy. On the contrary, it reduces the incentives of both parties. It lowers savings, destroys capital, limits economic growth, and lowers living standards. Maybe Obama should take his eyes off the teleprompter long enough to read some American history. In fact, he could start by reading the Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold.

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NPR and Atlas Shrugged!

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/14/142245517/on-capitol-hill-rands-atlas-cant-be-shrugged-off

Go to NPR to listen to this talk about Ayn Rand....16Jan2012! Wow she's getting more and more attention as the United States is looking more and more like the United States depicted in Atlas Shrugged. What she foresaw has come to be.

The Iron Lady - A Movie About Margaret Thatcher

"If the state wishes to spend more, it can do so only by borrowing your savings or taxing you more. And it's no good thinking someone else will pay, that someone else is you." Margaret Thatcher.

I went to see Iron Lady last night at the movie theater and was kept in rapt attention at this woman's life. I'm in my 50's so I remember her in the 90's but had only a vague idea that she was one of the good guys. This movie manages to show that but not to the extent I would have liked. They do dwell too much on her later years when Alzheimer's was taking her mind. I would have liked to see more of the political battles she fought. She was the ONLY woman to have won a seat in Parliament at the time and she went on to win the elections for Prime Minister in 1979.

I got this from Wikipedia:

"She was influenced at university by political works such as Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to

Serfdom (1944),^[17] which condemned economic intervention by government as a precursor to an authoritarian state.^[18] "...she became the face of the ideological movement opposing the welfare state Keynesian economics they believed was weakening Britain. The institute's pamphlets proposed less government, lower taxes, and more freedom for business and consumers.^{[51][page needed]} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

So there you have it. An amazing movie even though it lacked more about her life. Maybe someone will do a better movie and put her entire life in perspective. How about a movie on Ronald Reagan?