With regards to securing oil from and for our own country in order to end or greatly reduce the rising oil price crisis, the Democrats new mantra is “we can’t drill our way out of it.” Wrong. Of course we can! Someone should tell the Democrat-run Congress that the way oil is secured is by drilling for it. But, it’s been so long since we in the USA have been allowed to secure new oil resources that perhaps they no longer realize how it’s done.

Instead of correcting the problem, this same Congress is creating a strawman argument and idiotically suing those—specifically OPEC—that supply the oil and both interrogating the leaders of US oil companies and planning to punish them with additional regulations and taxation. This despite the fact that US oil companies in all probability pay more in US taxes than any other industry. Democrats in Congress, including but not limited to House Reps Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), have—in true totalitarian Hugo Chavez mode—even called for the US government seizure of US oil companies. In fact, the Democrat response to this week’s presidential call for offshore drilling was not to correct the problem. Instead, their response was for the government to take over and nationalize US oil companies! Apparently, the Democrat-run Congress is now bent upon beginning the change of the USA from a republic into a Marxist-based communist country even before the November elections. One wonders on whose pockets the oil revenues will now reside. Note: We can now see it with our own eyes and hear it with our own ears directly from the donkey’s mouth—so to speak. However, the determination as to whether or not anyone will pay any attention is still up in the air. At this juncture, the leftist mainstream press isn’t even covering the story. Hmmm, wonder why.

Here are some actually documented facts that may or may not—contingent upon what side of the political aisle one is on—be of interest.

• China is already exploring for oil reserves off the Florida coast. When they find it they will drill for it. But, the faux environmentalists in our country—their masters to whom Democrats are beholden—won’t allow the US to do the same. Note: Apparently only the “already communist countries” may do so.
• Projected billions, if not trillions, of oil barrel potential already resides in the USA. But, the faux environmentalists—despite new and safe methods of oil retrieval—won’t allow it. The amount is said to surpass that of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves. Note: This fact has also gone largely unreported by our “mainstream” press.
• The Democrats have said for over 20 years and continue to say that “it will take ten years to extract any oil if we started to drill today.” First of all, that fact is disputed. With new technology, some believe that extraction can begin in 2 years or less. Second, this is the same argument Democrats have used for decades to block drilling. However, using the Dems’ own verbiage, had we lifted the ban on drilling ten years ago it’s doubtful we would be in the predicament we find ourselves today. In essence, we would probably already be energy independent. Note: As any alternative technologies to oil are being worked on and attempts are being made to implement and bring them to the marketplace, one would think that the US would already be close to energy independence. However, as we-the-people have discovered, these “new and improved” technologies have yet to prove themselves to be either viable or economical. Let’s face it. If there were big bucks to be made, money would be flowing into these enterprises and they would be widely available today.
• We need new refineries. But, no refineries have been built in the US since 1976. The Democrats have blocked—and continue to block—any attempts to build them.

Unfortunately, these leaders—AKA “rulers”—still are unwilling to affect any real solution to our problems. Despite the needs of both the country and the shouts from we-the-people, they are bent upon serving only their personal ambitions. And they also seem bent upon rounding us all up and frog-marching us toward and into a totalitarian state where only they—the ruling elite—can realistically prosper. Still willing to go along with their plans?

In the past, I have roundly criticized Republicans when they have made what I considered to be bone-headed moves. I will continue to do so. However, I have yet to see many—if any—Democrats do the same. Curious.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?ecid=1501&status=article&id=298682030275905

http://www.foxnews.com/urgent_queue/index.html#a54ef44,2008-06-18

http://www.americansforjobsandenergy.org/oilshale.html

http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/436692884.html

It’s no secret that Democrats are liberal, but when you peel away their devotion to environmental policies that have left America vulnerable to foreign nations on whom we depend for the importation of oil, what has been revealed is an intention to nationalize our nation’s oil industry. That, simply stated, is communism.

One might expect members of the Communist Party USA to advocate the nationalization of our oil companies, but hearing it from the lips of Democrat Party members of the House of Representatives should send a chill of fear through every American.

It was the former Soviet Union’s reliance on revenue from its nationalized oil industry that proved to be a major factor in the collapse of that totalitarian regime. It is, in large part, Russia’s nationalized oil and national gas industry that props up the current regime, a thinly disguised resurrection of the former communist party.

Having invited foreign, privately-owned oil companies to help revitalize their industry, the current leadership in Russia ruthlessly abrogated the original contracts to deprive them of much of their initial investment. Russian oil and natural gas company executives who resisted either fled to self-imposed exile or were jailed.

Russia has since sought to coerce European and former satellite nations by threatening to withhold the oil and natural gas on which they depend.

The nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry by a communist regime led by Hugo Chavez is currently destroying that nation’s economy. Most of the oil in the world is under the control of nationalized industries. U.S. oil companies, combined, own only four percent of the world’s known oil reserves.

At a June 18 press conference, however, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) called for the government to nationalize and own refineries, threatening U.S. oil companies with nationalization. “We should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.” Earlier, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) had also threatened oil company executives with nationalization.

In a demonstration of a complete lack of understanding of how the marketplace for oil operates, nationally and globally, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) said, “You cannot drill your way out of this.” Exploring for and drilling oil is precisely the way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil!

Rahall is the chairman of the Resources Committee and is apparently ignorant of the fact that the U.S. has literally billions of barrels of oil untapped in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, off the continental shelf of the nation’s vast coastlines, and in many States.

Florida, for example, long resistant to permitting off-shore drilling, has discovered that the high price of gasoline is forcing many Americans to abandon plans to drive to Florida for vacations there. Meanwhile, China has joined with Cuba to explore and drill for oil barely 90 miles or less off the coast of Florida. Similar energy policies in California caused its largest utility to go bankrupt and has deprived its citizens of a reliable supply of energy.

The Democrat nominee for President, Sen. Barack Obama, has called for a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies, but in 1980 such a tax, before it was repealed, led to the three decades of decline in oil production in the United States. U.S. oil companies do not control the price of oil, a global commodity sold on mercantile exchanges around the world. Their profits are less than those currently being enjoyed by the pharmaceutical industry, high tech industries, and financial and banking firms nationwide.

It was former President Clinton who refused to allow exploration and drilling in ANWR in the 1990s and it has been a Democrat-controlled Congress that has resisted President Bush’s call to allow access to the estimated seven billion barrels of oil untapped beneath ANWR.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) deliberately sought to mislead Americans into believing that the oil leases held by U.S. oil companies mean that they could drill tomorrow to produce oil, but neglected to mention that oil leases are no guarantee that any oil would be found. A high percentage of wells that are drilled come up empty. It is a highly speculative and highly expensive business to find and extract oil.

This brings us to the fact that a vast matrix of environmental legislation slows the process by which oil can be accessed and, later, refined for use by consumers. The U.S. has not allowed a new refinery to be built in more than three decades as a result of this legislation. It takes, on the average, ten years between finding oil and making it available to consumers.

Voters paying $4 a gallon can thank the Democrat Party’s alliance with environmental organizations for the failure and refusal to allow access to our national reserves of oil and natural gas. Lying about it and shifting blame to the oil companies does not change this fundamental truth.

The past actions of the Democrat Party and the assertions by several Democrat members of Congress represent the true face of the party and its close resemblance to the Communist Party USA should be a cause for grave concern in the forthcoming national elections.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

             

Few things illustrate Democrat’s penchant for preying on people’s fears better than Social Security. Proposing changes to Social Security produces hysteria from any Democrat near a microphone. Barack Obama is no different as evidenced by his comments earlier this week.

Speaking to a crowd of retirees in Ohio,

Obama … criticized McCain for being open to letting taxayers invest part of their Social Security payments in private investment accounts.

“Imagine if your security now was tied up with the Dow Jones,” he said, alluding to the recent slide in stock prices. “You wouldn’t feel very confident about the security of your nest egg.”

Senator Obama misses the point. It is not how well the stock market performs today as opposed to yesterday. There will always be ups and downs in the market and investing is for the long term. Social Security is the same. It is how well the Stock Market performs today as opposed to how well Social Security is performing today! The question Senator Obama should ask is, “Imagine if your security had been tied to the Dow Jones for the last 50 years? You’d be pretty excited about the security of your nest egg!”

Social Security, begun in 1935, is out of date. The financial world is vastly different today. Why then do we depend on an antique product? It’s easier to amend the Constitution than to update Social Security. You’d think modernization would be beneficial after so long. You’d be wrong.

Just one factor illustrates the problem. In 1935, the age at which one began to receive benefits was 65. This at a time when life expectancy for Americans was 62. Today the terms are the same but people live longer. No wonder the plan is going bankrupt.

In 1935, only the very wealthy owned stock in many companies at once. If a stock or a market segment went bad, the entire portfolio wasn’t at risk. Today, mutual funds make that strategy available to virtually any American. It also makes Social Security an antiquated, government run Ponzi scheme. To demonstrate the difference 75 years can make, we’ll use Social Security’s own benefits calculator and a simple financial calculator.

Meet Sam, our less than average American. Sam began working this year, at age 16, for just $7.50 an hour, $300 a week, $1,300 a month or $15,600 a year. Sam, while quite nice, is pretty much a loser. He is so unskilled he will never get a raise. He is industrious, though, and will work for 49 years, retiring at 65. This scenario gives Sam about $1,500 per year to invest for retirement based on current Social Security rates. Let’s see how he does. The actual numbers generated below will, of course, be different based on a number of factors. However, they are accurate enough to make the point.

Using Social Security’s own calculator and plugging in Sam’s numbers (born 1/1/1992, $15K annually to 65), his total contribution is $73,500. At retirement, Social Security will pay Sam $703 per month. This is barely over half the income he enjoyed while working. Welcome to cat food cuisine! After working 49 years at $7.50 per hour, Sam must retire on $4.50 per hour. Once Sam dies, the benefits Mrs. Sam enjoys are drastically reduced. At Mrs. Sam’s death, the benefits die, too. 49 years - $73,500 and there’s nothing to pass on. This is what Obama, Democrats and central planning Republicans want for Sam. If that was all there was, the saying “60% of something is better than 100% of nothing!” would apply. But it’s not.

If Sam is allowed to invest his money privately the results are astounding. A simple financial calculator shows Sam’s $73,500 would grow to $1,975,000 with a 10% return, $920,000 at 8%, $446,500 at 6% and $228,500 at 4%. These sums provide monthly incomes of $16,458 at 10%, $6,133 at 8%, $2,232 at 6% and $761 at 4%. Sam could earn just 4% interest for 49 years and retire with more than Social Security provides. Check with any investment broker for the actual results over the last 25 years. The ones Barack Obama is sure would have been bad for your nest egg.

I’ve further assumed the principal is left intact so when Sam dies, Mrs. Sam’s income stays the same. When she dies, the principal passes to their two children. There’s an inheritance to leave on just $15,000 a year! If we assume Mrs. Sam is the same age and does the same thing then the numbers double. $3,950,000 at 10%, 1,840,000 at 8%, $893,000 at 6% and $457,000 at 4%. Barack Obama doesn’t think you should feel confident about that.

Privatization’s real power is seen when we get to the kids and the grandkids. If we assume the same scenario for the kids and grandkids, by the time the grandkids retire, they are multi-millionaires, even at 4%. And they did it with 3 generations of losers who never made more than $15,000 per year.

Most folks, of course, will make more than that. So much the better! Add in US economic expansion from the infusion of that sort of capital into private enterprise and imagine the earnings potential future Sams will have. With such wealth, questions about affording health insurance and what to do with Uncle Joe who would not save for himself become memories. Americans will take care of themselves and their own. The government is out of our lives on a grand scale. Increases in government revenue insure promises made to those now on Social Security are kept.

Barack Obama won’t tell you this. Why? Why don’t Democrats, and too many Republicans, want Social Security privatized? Because if you don’t need government, you don’t need them. It’s a matter of personal and political power and nothing more. Their continued insistence that Social Security can be fixed and that they are the ones to fix it is a deception. It’s an appeal to your fears stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from you and your family. It’s time for that to stop. It’s time for someone to remind you of your dreams and tell you the truth about privatizing Social Security!

Blue Collar Muse

-By Warner Todd Huston

What’s history for if Hollywood and our other entertainment industries can’t take it and warp it to fit a current, partisan political agenda? In yet another example of Hollyweird’s foolishness, we have a new Robert Downey, Jr. vehicle that casts the American Cowboy as an “imperialist”. Of course, they will dress it up and try to hide this absurd message by having an alien invasion occur during a skirmish between Cowboys and Indians in the late 1800’s, forcing the two human enemies to unite to fight the aliens. This is supposed to be an “allegory.” Yes, with this “pulpy mix of the sci-fi and Western genres,” we have “allegory” in the fact that the space aliens are trying to invade and conquer the Earth just like the cowboys were doing to the poor, benighted natives. Just once I’d like to see a movie present Indians as real, three dimensional people instead of infantilized, victims.

After Downey’s great success with “Iron Man,” it is now reported that he is in talks to join “Cowboys and Aliens,” from Imagine Entertainment, a film based on a so-called graphic novel of the same name.

The story centers on an Old West battle between the Apache and Western settlers, including a former Union Army gunslinger named Zeke Jackson (Downey), that is interrupted by a spaceship crashing into the prairie near Silver City, Ariz.

Sounds “B” movie-like, but here is where we get the preachy “allegory.”

The story draws a parallel between the American imperialist drive to conquer the “savage” Indians with its advanced technology and the aliens’ assault on Earthlings, who must join together to survive the invaders’ attack.

Great, another example of a movie trying to be “relevant.”

I remember when the movie “Tombstone” came out there was an interview with the director that had me shaking my head, amazed at the blatant foolishness of Hollywood as they do their best to mangle real history so that they can “say something” about a problem we are having today.

In a radio interview in 1993, director George P. Cosmatos claimed that he was making another one of those pointless, Hollywood “allegories” by a costuming decision made for the enemies of Wyatt Earp and his brothers — those who stood as the law in Tombstone, Arizona. Director Cosmatos had all the cowboys wearing a red sash around their waist because, he claimed, this sash was an “allegory” to today’s “gang colors” and he was trying to draw a parallel between today’s violent drug gangs and the cowboys that faced the Earps in 1881.

It was all foolishness, of course. The so-called Cowboy “gang” that really faced the Earps in 1881 was hardly anything like a gang, even as gangs existed then, much less any sort of allegory to the sort of violent street gangs that infests our society today. Cosmatos even had several historical western figures involved in the Tombstone fight that had no role at all in the real event. Figures such as Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo made unnecessary appearances in Cosmatos’ film. The movie also completely ignored the fact that Wyatt Earp was a crook, card sharp and bunko artist or that Doc Holliday was likely responsible for a state coach robbery that was blamed on the Clantons, an event that contributed to the two camps being angry at each other.

But, let’s not let reality and facts get in the way of a movie based on “history.” Just as this new movie mistakenly uses the “allegory” of “imperialism” as a way to illustrate what cowboys were doing during the great American westward expansion between 1850 and 1900.

It isn’t just the movie taking this silly so-called allegory track, either. The original comic book also had this simple-minded point to make.

Sporting some of the most primitive and child-like art I’ve seen in a comic for a long time, this book grandly labeled a “graphic novel” infantilizes the American Indian at the same time as it tries to elevate him to the heights of nobility, a fate all too often bestowed by condescending liberals on the many and varied cultures that constituted the native peoples of this continent.

Here are the first few lines of this comic:

Every conqueror believes himself moved by a higher power. Imperialist’s actions are always justified, by necessity, compassion, or divine providence.

For those who believed in it, Manifest Destiny was a noble endeavor — a God-given duty to spread the principles of the United States throughout the world in general and North America in particular.

For those who stood in the path of the expansion of the territory of the still young United States of America, it was something else altogether.

The European settlers had superior technology, but even more dangerous than that they believed they had the right — the duty, even, to bring these ‘merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”*, to heel.

The American frontier was pushed ever westward with no thought of the impact this would have on the native population. Disease, displacement, slavery and warfare killed millions.

Entire tribes were wiped out and the survivors forced to bow to the colonists’ will.

Of course, nowhere is it mentioned that the “native population” did the very same thing — perhaps on a smaller scale, of course — to members of other tribes, who also constituted the “native population.” Wiping them out, chasing them from their homes and enslaving them as well as stealing from them. And they were doing this for thousands of years before America was founded by those eeevil white men from Europe.

Worse, this sort of Pabulum always treats all Indians as if they were mere Indians, as if there was no difference between the peoples. This uninformed take on the history of Indians also seems to forget that some tribes worked with Americans and worked with Americans against their own enemies in other tribes, at that! Yes, many Indian tribes worked with “whites” to wipe out other Indians.

On top of all of that, this sort of anti-intellectual, simplistic look at history gives short shrift to the real advances that is the United States of America and distills all the amazing things this country has done for the world to one, anti-American, and uninformed meme of hypocrisy and avarice.

In light of that, it’s no wonder that Hollyweird loves this badly drawn little comic book. It makes America a place of thieves, liars and murders. Just the sort of thing that Hollyweird loves.

(Photo credit: www.guyville.com)

Whether one attributes the success of Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama to savvy maneuvering on the part of the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign, Republican ineptitude, a biased press or the influence of shadow governments, in the end the November election’s outcome is going to come down to Americans’ capacity – or lack of capacity – for critical thinking.

Despite the last several years of Americans’ synaptic pathways being deluged by how much the Bush administration and Republicans employ vacuum-related techniques, in the aggregate they have more than enough evidence that conservative principles have proven themselves more fruitful than so-called progressive ones.

The rub, as it were, lies in the fact that conservative principles have not been a benchmark of the Bush administration nor have they guided the Republican Party for some time. It is fortunate for the American people that Bill Clinton was more of a narcissist than an idealist, responding to the will of the people in such areas as taxes and entitlement programs in order to secure a viable legacy. Had this not been the case, Democrats would now have even more woes to heap at the feet of George W. Bush.

The election of a Democrat president – Obama in particular – would mark a perilous quantum leap toward socialism and an ever-weakening presence on the global stage, particularly if Democrats retain control of Congress and gain more seats in the House and Senate.

“Obama praised Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to allow detainees at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts. Enforcing habeas corpus rights, he said, is ‘the essence of who we are.’”

-          Associated Press, June 14, 2008

The limp-wristed ruling with roots in a perverted interpretation of law was lauded by the Democrat candidate; the insanity of granting citizen’s rights to unconventional, lawless combatants in a global conflict be damned. Denial of the fact that the War on Terror is an unprecedented effort in response to an enemy of unprecedented ruthlessness and barbarity which must be met decisively and unconventionally is patent madness. Unfortunate that so many have accepted the notion that the entire phenomenon was a Bush concoction, and that millions may suffer terribly as a result.

“[Obama’s proposals]include a $1,000 tax cut for most working families; a new Social Security tax on incomes above $250,000; a ‘windfall profits’ tax on oil companies*; a $4,000 annual college tuition credit for those who commit to national or community service programs; and an end to income taxes for elderly people making less than $50,000 a year.”

-          Associated Press, June 14, 2008

The transparency of these proposals would be humorous were they not so manifestly flawed – and historically proven to be imprudent. Still the masses cheer and gape over the façade, not considering the following for a nanosecond:

-          A $1,000 tax cut for most working families is a joke.

-          Americans with incomes of $251,000 are not wealthy, particularly if one has a family and lives in a large city.

-          New taxes on oil companies will simply be passed on to the consumer as they always are, and Obama knows it.

-          From whence is this unfunded mandate of a $4,000 annual college tuition credit to come?

-          Here, Obama likely has gained the votes of elderly Americans who make less than $50,000 a year and pay taxes – all five of them.

But forget common sense, logic, the historical record, and the truth. As this columnist has asserted, Obama’s success (to date; he isn’t President yet) has been but a part of the global-socialist agenda. Turn the American Dream into enough of a nightmare and Americans will give up on it because survival – let alone prosperity – under the capitalist system will appear unattainable.

The former world heavyweight champion boxer George Foreman comes to mind, and the success he has enjoyed not only monetarily, but as a successful community servant. He grew up “po,’” claiming his family was too broke to afford the “or” (at the end of the word “poor”) in conditions that are more readily associated with impoverished people in the Third World these days. Yet, to hear the unshakable faith in the man, which he has also instilled in his children, that anyone can achieve anything in America to which they set their minds stands in sharp contrast to the message of those who stand out as “representatives” of “black America.”

Despite the ongoing production of multimillionaires in the U.S., even among those who ought to reside in penitentiaries, the Left continues to propagandize our citizenry as regards the downside of everything whilst busily working to manifest that nightmare of universal hopelessness.

“Barack Obama celebrated Father’s Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are “missing from too many lives and too many homes,” to become active in raising their children.”

-          Associated Press, June 15, 2008

If that’s his belief, then perhaps Obama ought to reconsider his core political philosophy, embrace conservative values and refrain from validating and keeping company with those who promote victimology, class envy and race hatred. It speaks volumes to the media’s bias toward this candidate that even when he catapults boulders from his glass mansion, there isn’t a peep from the establishment press.

Since most members of the press have proven themselves to be card-carrying Obamaphiles, save for independent pollsters – who can be incorrect – there is really no manner by which one can discern how popular the Democrat candidate is in actuality.

The press portrays Barack Obama with the confidence that his occupancy of the White House is an inevitability. Will conservative Republicans and independent conservatives, perceiving the gravity of this election in the long term, vote for John McCain, a man whom they don’t consider conservative enough?

Only November will tell whether or not Dewey has defeated Truman again.

 

*Obama’s “windfall profits tax” does not conform to the definition thereof; it would simply be a new tax; in this context, an appeal to Americans’ resentment of “big oil.”