We're Using Food as Biofuel, Why, Again?

The insanity just gets more insane.

We're using food as fuel in an attempt to appease the dread goddess Gaia, who, in her benevolence, has repaid our worship in the form of a drought. Corn prices are going through the roof as a result. This will result in an unnecessary spike in prices of meat and everything else that corn feeds. Watch the video in the link (it's short) to get a quick lesson in where the corn crop goes.

Now ask yourself, why wouldn't government lift the mandate for corn fuel (ethanol) during a drought? Normal people would do such a common sense thing. But if your goal is to keep the contributions from the fringe radical environmentalist groups coming in, those are the people you must please in order to keep your power, normal people be damned.

There is no need for this, given that we've discovered more oil beneath American soil than the whole middle East.

We should be using oil, not food, for fuel.

Romney Outsourcing? Look at Obama's Record Instead

Check out this website from the RNC that puts the lie to the Obama campaign's assertion that Mitt Romney was an outsourcer of American jobs during his tenure at Bain Capital. What Bain did was to set up foreign outposts for foreign companies, not ship American jobs overseas.

Obama's record is far worse, especially when you consider that it was taxpayer money that went to the rest of the world in Obama's and Van Jones' wet dream of a "green economy." Bain used private money, which was, the last time I checked, perfectly OK. Except for Obama, that is.

The Solyndra Slip - Kaiser Admits His Greed

Well, things are certainly beginning to heat up in the "green energy" sector of our economy.

If you've been keeping track of this glorious experiment in command and control economics, certainly you're aware of the story of Solyndra, the solar-panel manufacturer that recently became financially insolvent after squandering over $500 Billion of your tax dollars. Now that there is a Congressional investigation, the facts behind this debacle are emerging at a furious pace, and none of them look very good for the Obama administration.

What we have here is a failure to understand how our free market is supposed to work, among other things, like political corruption in the White House, crony capitalism, favoritism, and a whole bunch of other things that the government shouldn't be doing.

Again.

In case you didn't already know, this administration, through the failed Stimulus Act, has funnelled billions of your tax dollars into companies that wouldn't normally have received startup capital through traditional means, namely presenting a viable business plan to investors. They're lining up at the door to the White House for a handout from Uncle Sam.

What has occurred in reality is that an awful lot of your money has gone to Obama's political cronies and money bundlers. What it adds up to is theft. Hope and Change indeed.

Without going too deeply into the sordid details, the government has decided that it will attempt to create a whole new sector of our economy. The only problem with that is, this sector has existed for over a generation and has yet to prove itself in the free market.

Normally, any sector must be able to sustain itself by generating wealth. The fact that this isn't happening in the green energy sector hasn't stopped many well-intentioned people in Washington from pumping money into it. The problem is that it isn't their money, it's yours, and mine. Funny, but I don't remember telling anyone I voted for to do this. How about you?

Ever since this whole "mankind is killing the earth" hoax began, a few brave souls have tried, with the best of intentions, to make some money from it. Nothing wrong with that, but ask yourself if, after more than thirty years of failure, it deserves to be propped up with your money instead of doing what other businesses do, namely, sustain themselves or go out of business, all on their own, without government subsidies. All the time.

It's a good thing that there are folks in Washington who now want to take a closer look at the distorted way this sector is being funded. To my knowledge, there is no other segment of the economy that "works" the way green energy works. What we're discovering, as the curtain gets pulled back on the process, is the Chicago Way of Corrupt Politics, transplanted to Washington by the current inhabitant of the White House.

There's only one thing to remember in all of this: if these "green energy" companies had a really good idea, it would have already worked in the free market. The simple fact that these companies depend upon government subsidies to start up and operate is evidence that they aren't viable.

It's along about this time that bring in somebody named Bill Clinton to share with us his expert economic analysis of the burgeoning green energy sector.

"This has to work economically," he said. "You have to come up with the money on the front end."

Um, Bill, that's not how it works, not out here in the real world, anyway. If it was a good idea, it wouldn't need tax monies. It would create its own.

Just so you know there, Bill.

I ran across this little video of one of Solyndra's principles, George Kaiser, openly boasting of his goal to secure as much of our money as possible from the Stimulus. (h/t Weasel Zippers and Ace)



Verun Serum, who posted this story initially, has this to say:

Frankly I can think of no better condemnation of the corruption and utter futility of the Obama stimulus then the fact that here you have one of the wealthiest philanthropists in America, a man with nearly $10 billion in personal assets, openly stating his intention to grab as much stimulus money as he possibly could, like every other pig at the trough. Is this the proper role of government, to take hard-earned dollars from tax payers (and their children and grandchildren) to fund the vanity projects of multi-billionaires, well-intentioned or not, who just so happen to have the right political connections? The $500 million to Solyndra is only the tip of the iceberg, I’d bet. How many other stimulus deals were greased by Kaiser and others like him?

I’m not the first to notice, but Obama is a bit of a fraud. Not exactly sure how he reconciles his tax the rich rhetoric with his Administration’s track record of deals like this. If you really believe the rich aren’t paying their fair share you might start by not forking over taxpayer dollars to your billionaire donors.

It gets better, much better. NRO points out this little nugget of legal information -

While Solyndra’s failure is an embarrassment for both parties, Kaiser’s foundation still stands to recoup a large chunk of its investment in the company, whereas taxpayers will recoup very little, if any, of the $535 million investment the White House made on our behalf. That’s because once Solyndra’s financial troubles became too obvious to ignore, the DOE negotiated a loan restructuring that gave priority status to private investors over taxpayers with respect to the first $75 million recovered in the event of Solyndra’s collapse. As Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations pointed out last week, this appears to be a blatant violation of federal law.

Toilet, meet my money. Money, toilet.

I Guess I Should Feel Honored...

The Great Gibson Guitar Raid keeps getting curiouser still. Gibson CEO: Obama Administration Told Us Our Problems Would Go Away If We Used Madagascar Labor (Audio).

Well, it's about time somebody else recognized it, too. The best way for us to solve our myriad economic problems is simple: Manufacturing a Recovery. The surprise is that this article is from the NY Times. I didn't know anyone up there knew what manufacturing was, much less that we once had an entire sector of the economy devoted to it.
Somebody named Jonathan Alter wants to know why Obama is a failure (or a SCoaMF, see Ace for the definition). Wish, command, some assembly required.
 
I'm growing tired of the attacks from the left leveled at the Tea Party. You should be too. In one way, it shows who and what they're scared of. We in the Tea Party have been called many false names such as "racists", "terrorists." (which is strange, considering that this administration refuses to call real terrorists terrorists) and now we're being cussed out by Maxine Waters.
 
Ms. Waters, I have a question: What did I do to you to make you mad at me? What personal affront was it that compels you to curse me, a fellow American citizen whose best interests you are supposed to be advancing in Washington? Why do you seem to hate me? Sure, I've disagreed with a great many things that you have approved of and made into law, but I distinctly remember hearing from another one of your Democrat friends a few years ago that dissent was patriotic.
 
Pardon me if I'm a bit confused.
 
I guess I should feel honored that you think it necessary to curse me, my family, and my political beliefs.
 
How nice of you to show your respect for a fellow citizen. This is truly the stuff of democracy and proves what an excellent legislator you are and that you are able to bring all sides together in order to insure that America remains a great country.

Oil Prices Rise, Obama Does Nothing Despite New Field Find

Drudge has this link up today: Rising oil price threatens fragile recovery (sorry, the link is for subscribers only, although I was able to read it earlier). In this “water is wet” story, rising oil prices are ready to stymie the world’s economies by rising to unnecessarily high levels at a time when they should remain low.

Thank you, President Obama.

It goes without saying that this situation doesn’t need to happen. If we had an administration that was at all interested in lifting America out of the depths of the worst economy since the Great Depression, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now. We’d be doing the things that we all know should be done to get our economy going again.

What we have instead is an administration that seems intent upon prolonging America’s suffering. Based on their actions, they apparantly want high unemployment and people without jobs. The reason why is anyone’s guess. But the fact that this recession has gone on this long, longer than any other recovery on record, tells us something.

In fact, we’re not even in a recovery. Our current rate of growth is hovering around the 2.5% mark. While that's technically positive growth, economists say that this is barely enough to tread water. It needs to be around 9% to start to see any real positive effect. That is possible, but this administration seems to look at our economy much as a caveman would look at a car. It’s a wonder to behold, but it does so much more when you know how it works.

Take oil for example. If you’re in business, I don’t need to tell you what high fuel prices do to your bottom line. If you go to the grocery store, you see the effects of increased transportation costs in the form of higher prices. If you work and drive to get there, you know that when gas prices rise, you receive a cut in pay. When the cost of gasoline goes up, everyone pays for it.

The worst part of all this is that none of it needs to happen.

None of it.

Let that sink in for a moment.

By now, you should be intimately familiar with the negative effects on our nations's energy production from the Big Green Movement. Radical environmentalists, (there is no other kind) despite being unelected, have been dictating our energy policy for over a generation. These groups have blocked or slowed every effort to increase our nation’s energy supplies. Want to build a new oil refinery? Expect some fat-cat, left-wing environmental lawyer to beat you to the courthouse with a lawsuit to stop it. Want to build a new nuclear power plant to fill the needs of a growing community? Expect demonstrations against it led by more radical, left-wing environmental lawyers and their stooges. Drill for oil? You’ve got to be kidding. The Obama administrations position is that, despite a Federal court’s decision citing the unconstitutionality of it, there’s still a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, putting thousands of people out of work, further slowing any chance of recovery.

In other words, our own government is making sure that we never use traditional energy sources again. It’s their misguided idea that we’re supposed to be forced into some sort of “green economy.” There’s only one problem with that idea: it doesn’t work. Alternative energy has been studied for nearly forty years and has yet to become viable. The only way to force the country to use it is to shovel massive amounts of tax money into temporary government programs. Spain tried it and failed. For every “green job” their government created, 2.5 private sector jobs were lost.

In short, our own government, under the control of eco-freaks, has tied our hands when it comes to energy production. We could be drilling for our own oil. We should be building new refineries, since we haven’t built one since the ‘70’s.

And you do know that Global Warming was proven to be a hoax, don’t you? There is no reason for us not to be developing our own energy supplies. Not one.

Yet for years we’ve heard politicians in Washington say we need to become less dependent on foreign oil. Of course, their actions prove that they’re not serious when they say that, else we’d see less restrictions on oil drilling, not more moratoriums.

Two facts make it abundantly clear that this administration doesn’t want a recovery to occur. One is the financing of Petrobras to the tune of some $2B so they can expand their drilling operations. The other is that our own US Geological Service has discovered a major new crude oil field. In fact, this is the largest oil field they’ve ever discovered.

It’s in Montana.

Now, in a sane world, we’d already be pumping oil out of it, creating jobs and wealth, increasing the retirement portfolios of Americans who own oil company stock and generally acting for the general welfare of the country. The fact that we aren’t, and aren’t even planning to exploit this valuable natural resource speaks volumes about the current mindset in Washington.

We need energy, we have sources of energy, yet we aren’t developing our own resources of energy. No other country is doing what we’re doing to ourselves.

Does that seem like a sensible thing to do?

The Repeal Amendment – An Idea Whose Time Has Arrived

Perhaps it’s the air in Washington. It might be something in the water. Whatever it is, there are few who are immune to it.

“It” is elitism. Calling it an “it” is apt, much like you would call a decomposed animal found in the woods an “it” because there’s not much to identify the rotting carcass save the fur, the goo and the smell. You certainly don’t want to get very close to whatever “it” is.

These past two years have shown the country the evil inherent in elitism. In fact, our current national malaise can be traced directly to this flaw in our political nature. Politicians in their hubris deemed those who elected them to be somehow, shall we say, less than intelligent.

And in a way, they’re quite right. Look around you, pick up a newspaper (what’s that?) or turn on the television and note the news. Very little of it is good. Record high levels of unemployment, more folks on food stamps than ever before, Washington bureaucrats reaching their tentacles into every orifice and pore of your life to dictate what you can feed yourself and how your healthcare is managed.

And who is in charge? Democrats.

So, what are we to do now that we’ve proven ourselves incapable of electing responsible, mature adults to represent our interests in Washington? Not much, except to construct a few institutional barriers to the abuse of power.

Not that they’ll be obeyed, although that’s what our Founders envisioned when they wrote the Constitution. Doubtless, they assumed that those who would step onto the political stage were of a like mind, that they would exhibit self-control, especially when charged with the awesome responsibility of governing a nation. A moment of clear thought makes that self-evident, needing no explanation except to the, *ahem*, lesser intellects whom we have elected to office.

We need look no further than our own Congress to see just how far we’ve fallen. How can there be much respect for a governing body that excludes itself from the very laws it creates? What does that say to the governed? Plenty, I’m afraid, and none of it very good.

So, if we can’t find the right type of people to administer our affairs, we’ll just have to make sure they know what the boundaries are. The Repeal Amendment is a step in that direction. Here it is in it’s simple entirety:

"Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describes the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed."

That’s so simple even a politician can understand it.

It restores the power to the States, where it was originally intended to be, close to the people. It would essentially neuter the type of government we’re currently suffering from. For instance, I don’t think it would be very hard to repeal President Obama’s current senseless moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, let’s take it another step and repeal the EPA’s numerous regulations that are currently preventing us from enforcing border security.

Oh, you say you didn’t know that’s part of the reason our border isn’t secure is due to environmental regulations? I’ll allow the law to explain itself to you:

The Wilderness Act states, “There shall be no temporary road, no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area.”

How’s that for an excuse not to close the border? That the Feds would vigorously enforce environmental regulations instead of securing the border is but one example of this administration's misplaced priorities. Never mind that cross-border crime is victimizing the residents of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico who are reluctant to even leave their houses lest they be ransacked by illegals.

The Repeal Amendment would go a long way towards reining in the Federal government and preventing this sort of insanity. Sort of like how the Senate was originally intended to operate.

I must also off a word of caution, particularly when it comes to Constitutional fiddling of any sort; the opportunity for political mischief is great. I’d be most careful of convening for the purpose of adding to our Constitution and make sure that one, and only one issue is considered. I’m sorry to say that my own personal trust in government is at an all-time low, just like the rest of the country.

Still, we must do all we can to reduce the power an influence of Washington over our lives. If we do it correctly and proceed with caution, we can restore the Federal government to its rightful and legal place.

Which is out of our hospitals, out of our kitchens, and out of our wallets.

UPDATE! This is even better than I had hoped for. Naturally, after I finished writing this post, I ran across this. I also found that my fears of Constitutional mischief were unfounded since a Constitutional convention is not required. The things I learn by reading...

President Obama Seeks to Prolong the Great Recession

If you had any doubt that this administration is actively promoting and encouraging the downfall of the nation, yesterday’s announcement that the moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will be continued should erase that doubt. In a reversal of announced policy, an unnamed spokesman yesterday said the Obama administration would not consider any new drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, putting the area off-limits to oil exploration until 2022.

Thanks a lot, Mr. President.

Thank you for placing the needs of an extreme, misguided special interest group ahead of the needs of the country. I’m certain that the families of the now-unemployed oil workers whose lives are being destroyed by your stupid decision will think that you did the right thing. And the many other manufacturing workers who support the industry will thank you in a few months when they find themselves signing up for their unemployment checks, you know, the ones that will be far less than their past wages, and then only for a limited time.

You just gave many families a wonderful Christmas gift: financial ruin.

Thanks a lot, Mr. President.

Leave it up to the most unqualified president ever to purposely ruin our economy. When we need jobs, he makes sure they disappear. Where we need economic activity and increased energy supplies, he insures that we have neither. There can no longer be any question that this man’s decisions are harming the country.

That’s progress. Hope and Change we all can believe in.

Let’s pause for a moment and think of what we could and should be having for an energy policy, shall we?

First, we must, I stress must realize that there is no such thing as man-made global warming, climate change, or any other such nonsense. We cannot proceed any longer laboring under that myth – it was never true to begin with. It has only been used to stifle energy innovation and creativity in addition to providing a convenient excuse to drastically reduce our standard of living for no good reason.

Modern life consists of technology which is largely dependent upon energy. We pretty much owe our position as the world’s largest economy on our technical prowess. History proves that our technological innovation began shortly after the widespread utilization of electricity. For a small thought experiment, think of where we would be if we didn’t have cheap electricity. I’ll wait while you hop in the WABAK machine.

Good, you’re back.

So you understand that our way of life depends upon cheap, abundant energy supplies, which also provide jobs for those who produce and maintain the infrastructure. It’s all good. We get cheap energy, which frees up our time to be able to innovate and experiment, extends our life span so we can spend more time with our loved ones, and provides us with a high standard of living that the world has never seen before.

And, if you’ve been paying attention for the past few decades or so, you also know there are people who want to take this away from you.

Ask yourself why this is.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to reduce our standard of living? Who in their right mind would want us to return to the past, a past where simple daily hygiene was a luxury and medical practices consisted of bloodletting?

Yet, this is what some people consider “progress.”

I present to you one of those people.



Now that we need no longer labor under the hoax of “global warming,” there is no reason for us to restrict our energy supplies. None. Yet, our president is determined to do just that.

We could be increasing our exploration for oil. We could be building new nuclear power plants (after we reopen the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal facility). We could be increasing economic activity instead of reducing it. This would help us to recover from this Great Recession by creating jobs and wealth and by keeping energy prices low.

But we have a president who doesn’t want that for the country and is doing his best to make sure that we don’t have it. His decision to shut off vast areas of our Gulf to oil drilling is shortsighted, uneducated, ill-informed, and frankly, un-American. He intends to diminish this country greatly by employing what Al-Qaeda recently called “Operation Hemorrhage,” a series of small wounds that would amount to death by a thousand cuts. His ultimate goal is to inflict as much economic damage as possible upon innocent Americans whose only crime is wanting to provide for themselves and their families.

What have we done to ourselves?

Another Drive-By Post

Boxes to pack, things to move, and stuff like that there.

Here’s what eco-fascists really, really want to do to you. Warning for shockingly gross depiction of exploding dissenters skeptics schoolchildren and actresses. Heh, notice after doing her spot, Gillian Anderson gets 'sploded anyway. Nothing is ever enough for that crowd.

Why the “green economy” is a fantasy, almost as real as “global warming” or “climate change” or “climate disruption” or whatever they call it these days.

The Democrat version of Forrest Gump, Joe Biden, wants to strangle the next Republican who whines about the massive deficit. He says that Dems know how to balance the budget. Well, we’re waiting, Joe. And no fair raising taxes. Nobody has any money now, anyway.

Why I’m voting Democrat, over at Ace of Spades HQ. My Moron buddies frolic in the kiddie pool full of pudding again…

Obama’s official seal makes a run for it.

And finally, Halloween’s coming and to get you in the mood, here’s a 3-D Fiscal House of Horrors, if you dare…

More Reading Assignments

Here's a few more links for you to peruse while the heavy lifting for the move begins. And no, I didn't find any bodies in the attic yesterday. Just a box of Christmas lights.

Which is more radical: the idea of abolishing the EPA altogether, or their actions to eliminate an estimated 800,000 jobs in the middle of the greatest economic downturn in memory? Also, ask yourself if this seems like the action of a government acting in the nation's best interest.

Increasingly, we're hearing warning bells about our economy. Here's another one.

Florida voter alert! If you live in the 8th District, you have the opportunity to rid Washington of the execrable Alan Grayson. His twisting of soundbites borders on the insane, like many of his remarks during his tenure. Thank goodness his efforts are backfiring on him. We deserve better representation.

Obama as the real Agent Smith.

Even I didn't know that all these anti-American groups existed, and certainly not in these numbers. Watch all the clips if you didn't see the show yesterday. And if, after watching, you're not just a bit concerned, then watch again. I can remember when the terms "Socialist" and "Communist" were dirty words. They still are to those who know their history and understand their goals, which is complete control over you, your family and your life. This is serious stuff and worthy of your time to find out as much as you can about these people. Of course, that's why you're here in the first place.

Oh, and could you hand me that tape gun?