Executive Orders Are Redistributing American Wealth

 

By Laura Rambeau Lee

It began with a guest appearance by then administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa P. Jackson on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart back in April of 2010. During their discussion she stated that they were waiting for the price of carbon to be established so that we could meet our commitments to the country and the entire world.  What?  What exactly are our commitments to the country and the entire world?  Some research and digging into this seemingly innocuous statement led to some pretty interesting albeit disturbing discoveries.

 

On June 14, 1992 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)  was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  At this conference, referred to as the Rio Earth Summit, the participants crafted a blueprint for the world, commonly known as Agenda 21.  In its preamble, Agenda 21, Chapter 1 states:

“Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.  However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can - in a global partnership for sustainable development.” 

In other words, the goal of the United Nations is social and economic justice through a redistribution of wealth scheme using the threat of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming or climate change to implement the market based solution of carbon emissions trading.  The International Monetary Fund  proposed a plan for a Green Fund to achieve this goal.

Following the Earth Summit President George H. W. Bush declared: “Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced – a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.” – signed by G.H. Bush, 1992

Despite pressure from the United Nations partners, U.S. delegates did not sign on to the convention.

On June 29, 1993 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12852 establishing the President’s Council on Sustainable Development as a result of the Rio Earth Summit in an effort to cooperate and implement the goals of Agenda 21.  Our obligations to the world through a treaty never ratified by our Senate are being implemented through presidential executive orders.

During George W. Bush’s two terms as President he continued to further the goals of this United Nations agenda, following his father’s lead and continuing the work of President Clinton.

Why is all of this important?  This ties in directly with the push for cap and trade legislation that has been floating around the House and Senate for many years.  When Congress failed to pass a bill, on May 14, 2010 the E.P.A. unveiled their rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the largest industrial facilities, with a phased in approach that began on January 1, 2011.  As a result we are hearing about the many coal plants that are being forced to shut down in the next few years because they cannot meet these emissions reduction numbers, and it will be too expensive to retrofit their plants.  President Obama announced new CAFÉ standards for automobiles that will require them to achieve 36.5 miles to the gallon by 2016 and 54.5 miles per gallon by the year 2025.  The talking points are that this will help us achieve energy security and reduce our use of foreign oil.  But the truth is that the United States has committed to the United Nations and its partners to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and these CAFÉ standards will have to be met in order to achieve this goal. The taxes on carbon dioxide emissions, along with other implemented market based solutions, are being funneled through the United Nations to other U.N. member countries.

When cap and trade legislation failed to pass, then Senator John Kerry (D-MA) said: "The Obama administration has again reminded Washington that if Congress won't legislate, the EPA will regulate.  Those who have spent years stalling need to understand: killing a Senate bill is no longer success.  And if Congress won't legislate a solution the EPA will regulate one, and it will come without the help to America's business and consumers contained in the American Power Act."   Senator Kerry replaced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Obama Administration, both tasked with the responsibility of redistributing the wealth of the American people to other developing United Nations member countries through USAID.

 

Americans must realize how much of our tax money is being sent overseas to meet our commitments to the global community under a treaty never ratified by this country but implemented through presidential executive orders and cabinet departments like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the State Department.  

At the 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15), U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged that developed countries would mobilize $100 billion by 2020 from both public and private sources for climate mitigation and adaptation in the developing world.  And you can bet that the bulk of that money will come from the hard earned labor and borrowed future earnings of middle class Americans.

 

Click to see the video of The Daily Show's interview of Lisa P. Jackson

 crossposted at Right Reason                                                                                              

This Story Could Affect You More Than Anything You'll Read Today

 

The most important and far reaching story out there today is naturally the one you're not hearing about. And it has the potential to affect you personally a great deal more than 90% of what's in the headlines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored a major win.He has finally succeeded in making a large deal with China to supply the Chinese with natural gas and oil - in a non-dollar contract.

As part of the agreement, the Bank of China (BOC) just signed a non-dollar agreement with VTB, one of Russia’s largest commercial bank to allow VTB and BOC to pay each in their domestic currency, removing the need for energy trading to be conducted in US dollars and a big step towards undermining the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, something that's been true since the post WWII Bretton-Woods Agreement.

Putin's deal with China was held up for a long time simply because of price haggling.Gazprom, Russia's nationally owned energy company is anticipating that its average export price on gas this year will be around $10.62 per million Btu. The Chinese will be getting it at a substantial discount, around $10 per million Btu. Since the gas China now imports from Myanmar and Central Asia costs the Chinese about $10.15 per million Btu,the deal makes sense for them. In fact, it makes so much sense for them that they're willing to invest an estimated $25 billion to finance infrastructure costs to take in the estimated 38 billion cubic meters per year the Chinese have contracted to import from Russia, 20% of Russia's total output.The pipelines involved are scheduled to be completed by 2018.

And they'll be dealing in rubles and renminbi, not dollars...which makes the deal sanctions-proof, gives Russia a badly needed dose of hard currency, and allows Putin to thumb his nose at any EU threats of finding other sources of energy as a result of the Situation in Ukraine. And when it goes through, it accomplishes something Putin has been working to accomplish for years, bypassing the U.S. dollar as the medium for energy trades.

How does this effect you? Let's look at what that last sentence really means.

Because the U.S. dollar is the medium in which energy trades are calculated, the price of these commodities is linked to the value of the dollar, and the oil producing countries in essence import our inflation...they simply raise their prices to cover it, which also affects the prices of other commodities they import, like foodstuffs and western manufactured goods. The secret behind our relationship with the Saudis and the Gulf Emirates is that for years, they have successfully fended off efforts by Russia, Venezuela and the Iranians to ditch this arrangement.

While it's not entirely ditched yet, this is a major breach, and a lot of other OPEC members and customers will probably gleefully walk through it, depending on the strength of their currency and their need to import energy.

Since the value of anything depends on demand, how much people want or need to own it, the potential loss of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency weakens the dollar. As this trend continues, the inflation we've been importing will now start to come home to roost as foreign manufactured items like the cheap goods we've learned to love made in China are going to cost more. So will food, and interest rates.

Your paycheck and your retirement dollars will not stretch as far either, your savings and 401Ks will be negatively impacted and travel will be likely more expensive than it already is.

This was probably inevitable, given the ridiculous policy of 'quantitative easing' and the huge amount of the $18 trillion debt and climbing President Obama and his team have run up. There's a part of me that thinks this might have been deliberate on the Obama Regime's part, seeking to weaken our currency deliberately to pay back these funds in cheaper dollar. No nation in history has ever managed it, and the ones that have tried did damage to their economy and their standard of living it took decades to recover from,if they were able to recover at all. Ask the Argentinians some time about how well that worked out for them.

Finally, if more countries abandon the dollar as a reserve currency, the U.S. will have lost a huge weapon, one we used successfully on al-Qaeda during the Bush Administration. No longer will we be able to say to foreign countries that if they do business with terrorist groups or a country we wish to impose sanctions on that U.S. banks will be barred from doing business with them,honoring letters of credit or handing their transactions.

That will still mean something because of the size of the American market, but nowhere near as much as it does with the dollar as the world's reserve currency. And losing that strategic weapon could affect Americans in a negative way in the future as well.

A Few Words On The Nevada BLM Standoff

For now, it appears as if the Bundy family have won at least a temporary victory over the Bureau of Land Management and its SWAT team.

Yesterday, Clark County Sheriff Douglas C. Gillespie announced that the BLM would end their siege of the property of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy's home.

“We had a lot of fears. Individuals being shot, trampled. Individuals being run over on the highway. So it took a lot of resources, a lot of resources to associate with this,” Assistant Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said to KLAS-TV.He also stated that Bundy’s cattle would be allowed to graze on the disputed land that was the flashpoint of the entire episdode.

In addition, Bundy's cattle that were confiscated by the BLM will be returned to him..at least the ones that weren't shot and killed. The BLM refused to release the number of cattle killed, saying 'they have protocols. and the information isn't available.'

Here's what ostensibly sparked this incident. Cliven Bundy's Mormon family have been ranching in this remote area of Southern Nevada since the 1870's. And his cattle have always grazed on an adjoining area of county land, for which he paid grazing fees. In a surprise move without any notice or right of appeal by Bundy, that county land was 'reclassified' by the BLM as federal land. The excuse behind this was so transparent as to be ludicrous. The BLM claimed they were trying to protect the supposedly endangered desert tortoise..even though the tortoise population has exploded to the point where the BLM admittedly has killed over 1,000 of them.

When Bundy refused to move, we saw the spectacle of the BLM moving in with SWAT teams, beating and abusing members of the Bundy family, confiscating Bundy's cattle and putting the ranch under virtual siege.

The real reason the land was reclassified is something that has occurred throughout the west..well connected pols want the region's ranchers and farmers out of business so they can gift the land to someone else for their own personal financial benefit.

The head of the Federal Bureau of Land Management is none other than Neil Kornze, Democrat Senator Harry Reid's former Chief of Staff. It's no exaggeration to say that Kornze has the job as a 'Reid appointment.'

The land Bundy was using and paying grazing fees on was in the sights of Harry Reid and his son Rory because it stood in the way of a $5 billion solar plant being built in the county by a Chinese company Reid was connected to, with undoubtedly an undisclosed amount of under the table cash headed Reid's way if he could get the land re-classified and the project moving.

Bundy is the last one left it what was once an area filled with independent cattl4e ranches.According to a statement he made recently, there used to be 52 other ranchers in the vicinity of his property not too long ago - and they're all gone.

As my friend Sara Noble relates at the Independent Sentinel, selling oil and gas leases to foreign buyers while refusing to let American companies drill and explore is another favorite trick of politicians like Harry Reid and his ilk:

Natural News reported that the Bureau of Land Management is in the business of leasing government lands to energy companies. Significant exploratory drilling is being conducted in precisely the same area where the Bundy family has been running cattle since the 1870′s. The “Gold Butte” area can be clearly seen in the map of areas drilled (purple demarcations).

 

Oil has been found in nearby areas but oil and gas drilling have worked alongside ranching over the years without a problem. Of course, if the government can lease the land on which the cattle graze, it will be lucrative for them.

In July 2011, the federal government agreed to allow China to buy up 600,000 acres of gas & oil fields in Texas. This is the same administration that would not allow new drilling; kicked Shell out of Alaska after billions of dollars of investments; shut down most offshore drilling; and tried to shut down Texas oil fields on the remote possibility that it might harm a tiny useless lizard that was most often known for being road kill.

The acreage takes in the Gold Butte area where Bundy grazes his cattle.

Once that story broke, mainly on Drudge and new media, ( and I have to give the usually suspect InfoWars a hand here) the stench was so bad that the BLM removed documents from its website showing that the move to kick the Bundys and their cattle off of the land was because their presence 'impeded development of solar energy' on the land.

And it was then that the BLM backed off..at least for now. The next move will probably be lawfare by Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department paid for by your tax dollars in an attempt to bankrupt Bundy.

This is the natural fallout from the abuse of eminent domain that started with Kelo v. City of New London, where 'conservative' Supreme Court Justice David Souter was the swing vote that allowed government to seize an individual's private property because they felt like they could make a use of it that would do more to fatten Big Government's coffers.

And Big Government's kleptomania applies, also, to all other resources. For instance, in California, there's a drought, mainly because a lot of the water that used to make the state's Central Valley one of the greatest farm areas on the planet has been locked away due to environmentalist lobby's concern about a fish called the delta smelt. The area is now filled with fields, orchards and farms that are now fallow because they're no longer viable without the water the taxpayers of California paid to harness, and a surprising amount of that once private land has now been 'reclassified' for projects like the bullet train to nowhere. or the ridiculous express train to Las Vegas, something Senator Reid also has his claws into.

In California, there's plenty of water for San Francisco, Silicone Valley, Los Angeles and other places where the coastal,Blue voting elites hang out and do business. It's the other parts of the state that are beinbg his with a 'water shortage.'

The Saudis Look At Dumping Obama And Changing Sponsors

Two weeks ago in my piece, "What the Media Won't Tell You About What's Really Going On In Egypt", I let you in on the fact that the chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar, spent 4 hours closeted with none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 31st.

As I revealed back then, part of the conversation involved Saudi client Egypt and Egypt's General al-Sissi finding a new arms supplier and best friend in the Kremlin in response to President Obama's threats.

Putin would sell Egypt arms in a heartbeat and would love nothing better than to get another warm water Mediterranean port for the Russian navy.

But more was discussed than just that. The Saudis are fed up with President Obama and his clueless, duplicitous antics, especially his dithering on Iran and his shilling and enablement of the Muslim Brotherhood at every turn. And they're willing to discuss a deal for the Russians to become what members of the Mob refer to in these situations as 'a new sponsor.'

Let me briefly reiterate our relationship with the Saudis and the other GCE countries to spell out what this is important before we get to the grim details.

The Arabs sell us oil, which they make sure that OPEC continues to delineate in US dollars. They also spin a certain amount of that money back at us in the form of buying our debt, rewarding U.S. politicians who see things their way with lucrative business opportunities, investments in businesses and funds owned by influential Americans, the funding of presidential libraries and foundations, six figure speaking fees and honorariums, anything you can imagine. More importantly, by making sure that oil continues to be traded in dollars, they import a certain amount of our inflation, which they cover to some extent as necessary by raising wholesale prices on crude...but not too much, just enough to keep everyone happy and keep certain politicians doing their best sabotaging energy creation here in America unless in involves green energy scams never intended to work in the first place run by well connected political donors, or electric cars that are ultimately powered by oil, which is what powers the plants where most of the electricity to power them comes from.

In exchange, we protect them militarily, sell them arms and look after their interests,including the promotion of Wahhabi Islam here in America.

Needless to say, OPEC members like Putin, the Iranians and Obama's late unlamented BFF Hugo Chavez screamed bloody murder about this for years because they were getting nothing but a financial loss out of this arrangement.

What the Saudis are discussing with Putin is changing this arrangement, if a few deal points can be worked out.

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir has a piece worth reading that they're representing as a basic rundown on what went what on. Some of it appears to be fairly accurate, at least in terms of the subjects that were discussed, especially in light of a few details I'm aware of but some of it is also highly unlikely, which we'll get to. You have to keep in mind that As-Safir is a Lebanese paper and thus a paper that exists as part of the Iran/Syria/Hezbollah bloc...which colors their coverage.A free press and the Muslim world don't exactly go together.

Here's the main, most important part, and the part I would say is 100% accurate:

The Saudis are offering to partner with Russia in essentially controlling the price and supply of a lot of the world's energy. The article doesn't say this, but it's obvious that the Saudis are asking, essentially, for Russia to sponsor them as members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group long time members of Joshua's Army may recall me mentioning.

The SCO is basically a partnership which was founded five years ago under Chinese leadership to foster regional security and economic cooperation.China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan make up the group, and Iran, Pakistan, Mongolia and India all have observer status.

The six member states control 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world's people. With observer states included, its members account for half of the earth's population. It also offers an alternative bloc to western democracy and to using the U.S. dollar as reserve currency for energy dealing (they're working on putting together a gas cartel) and other joint development projects.

Turkey has been banging on the SCO's door for quite a while, and Tayyipp Erdogan would happily leave NATO and sell out its secrets to get into this club .

The Saudis joining the SCO would give the group more stability and coverage, control over a huge part of the world's energy, and of course, the prices. And it would end the use of the U.S. dollar as the currency used in energy trading, with some interesting results on our currency, at least until we got our own act together energy independence-wise.

Syria and Iran were almost definitely on the agenda.

As-Safir says that Prince Bandar told Putin that he had spoken with the Americans before the visit, and they pledged to commit to any deal the Saudis and Russians made on a diplomatic solution to Syria. This is almost definitely not true, since Putin would have laughed at it and Bandar knows it.

Putin has not trusted President Obama for quite some time,but especially since the two of them first started to attempt to work out a diplomatic solution on Syria and Putin found out that President Obama sent 1,200 Marines to the Jordanian border via the USS Kearsage without telling him.

The article quotes Putin as saying, "During the Geneva I Conference, we agreed with the Americans on a package of understandings, and they agreed that the Syrian regime will be part of any settlement. Later on, they decided to renege on Geneva I."

It further quotes Putin as saying “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters."

I doubt Putin said that, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bandar and Putin discussed the outlines of a diplomatic arrangement between them that would leave Assad in power in exchange, perhaps, for arms deals with the Saudis and Russian help with the Iranians, since the Saudis know by now President Obama will do nothing to stop Iran from going nuclear.

However, if President Obama hits Syria, any tentative arrangement Bandar and Putin might have come to might well be history,or at least postponed.

As-Safir says that when Bandar mentioned Iran's nuclear program as a problem, Putin replied, “We support the Iranian quest to obtain nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. And we helped them develop their facilities in this direction. Of course, we will resume negotiations with them as part of the 5P+1 group. I will meet with President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the Central Asia summit and we will discuss a lot of bilateral, regional and international issues. We will inform him that Russia is completely opposed to the UN Security Council imposing new sanctions on Iran. We believe that the sanctions imposed against Iran and Iranians are unfair and that we will not repeat the experience again.”

The dialog on Iran and Syria are almost certainly fabricated to a large extent.

Putin has been violating the sanctions since day one, and Russia has a veto on the UN Security Council even if our Dear Leader decided to actually impose real sanctions. He could care less about them except as a talking point at the UN. The conversation with Putin over Iran probably dealt more with what safeguards the Russians could put in place to stop the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons and threatening the GCE countries...if Russia in fact became the Saudi's new sponsors.

Bottom line, the Russians and Saudis are now considering serious cooperation on energy and perhaps even on arms sales, and studying the mechanics of what concrete proposals were advanced.

Syria and Iran likely still remain issues that are problematic but are still under discussion. Could Russia and Putin finesse this by working as a mediator to end the Sunni-Shi'ite war in the Middle East and provide certain guarantees to the Saudis? With the leverage Putin has on Iran and Assad's Syria, anything's possible. And the idea of collaborating with the Saudis on the energy trade would be a powerful incentive for Putin.

Of course, if that happens, America's influence in the region will be over.

The Day The Middle East Changed - Israel Starts Pumping It's Natural Gas

Today definitely marks a major change in the Middle East, as Israel's natural gas from the offshore Tamar field began flowing for the first time into the port of Ashdod. The gas came online months ahead of schedule.

The Tamar field was discovered in 2009 off the coast of  Haifa and holds an estimated 8.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.And that's just the beginning. The much larger Leviathan field is estimated to hold well over 16 trillion cubic feet of gas ( as well as 600 million plus barrels of oil)  and is expected to go online in 2016. Indications are that Leviathan will go online ahead of schedule as well.

And then, there's the substantial shale oil deposits Israel has discovered  near Beit Shamesh in a place  called the Shfela Basin. It contains an estimated 250 billion barrels of shale oil.



This is a game changer for a number of reasons.

Right now, Russia pretty much has a monopoly on gas sales to Europe, because it controls the pipelines from Central Asia. Part of the EU's hostility towards Israel involves the need to keep both Arab oil producers and Iran mollified, as well as their Russian sponsors.

Being able avoid Russian energy blackmail and buy directly from Israel at cheaper prices (because of the shorter transit difference) might very well change the anti-Israel tune of some EU members.Not to mention avoiding the political volatility of a number of oil producers in the Muslim world.

For that matter, since these new discoveries, Russia's tone towards Israel has warmed considerably. And that's even more true of energy hungry China, whose tone has always been relatively friendly and was only constrained by the need to placate Muslim oil producers. Both Russia's Gazprom and a number of Chinese companies have a role in Israel's energy development.

In fact, as I reported previously, China and Israel  have not only had top level conferences on joint security but have particularly warm commercial relations and are engaged in a number of joint development projects...including revamping Israel Red Sea port Eilat to handle major container traffic and building a commercial railway between Eilat and Israel's Mediterranean ports. The railroad is designed to bypass the Suez Canal and cut both the distance and expense for  shippers between Asia and the Mediterranean.

As an added bonus, Israel has conducted itself for years as a nation dependent on foreign energy, so conservation and alternatives like solar are well advanced. The new energy wealth will not only change the geopolitical climate but  add significantly to Israel's GDP.

A game changer indeed.

Palestinian Authority Cancels Electricity Debts For All Residents - On $$ Owed To Israel!

When it comes to pure, unmitigated gall, you really can't beat the Palestinian Authority.

They just issued a blanket cancellation to all residents of all past due debts owed for electricity.

The Palestinian Authority announced on Wednesday that it is cancelling outstanding electricity debts for each West Bank resident, on the heels of a deal that aims to help assuage the electricity companies' own arrears.

Government spokeswoman Nour Oudeh told Ma’an that all residential bills owed until Dec. 31, 2012 will be canceled. Businesses and people facing investigation for electricity theft will not be included in the deal.

Now here's the fun part.The Palestinian Authority receives all of its electricity from- wait for it - Israel!

The article briefly alludes to this, explaining that the unpaid bills outstanding totaled about $100 million, the sum the Israeli government transferred to the Israeli electricity supplier out of tax and customs duties collected for the PA by Israel.

So let's reiterate - the PA is cancelling bills owed to someone else with money it doesn't have and taking credit for it as a goodwill gesture!

Of course, the real suckers are those people that actually paid their bills. The PA simply pocketed that money and never remitted it to Israel as they had agreed to do.

It's worth noting that most of what passes for infrastructure in the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria was built by Israel after the Six Day War. Aside from totally revamping the power grid, the sewage system, the roads, schools, hospitals,Bir Zeit University, even parks and zoos, the Israelis supply almost all of the PA's water and electricity.

Needless to say, they never gotten so much as a cursory acknowledgement for any of it.

After the way the Palestinian Authority has behaved, I think it might be simple justice for Israel to simply turn off the juice and the tap and let the Palestinians negotiate something with say, Jordan to fulfill their needs.

I'm sure their Arab brothers will treat them with the same compassion they always have.

Mitt Romney's New Ad: 'Obama Lied'

As I mentioned before, Mitt Romney is not John McCain, and he has no intention of allowing Barack Obama and his media lackeys to simply lie about him without challenging it and fighting back. And by the way, the Washington Post quote came from the paper's own factchecker.

Speaking of outsourcing, anybody mention the jobs in coal or in oil production that have been lost under this administration - while our president gave $2 billion dollars of our tax money to Brazil to be used to develop their oil infrastructure and production, thus directly shipping American jobs overseas? Remember this one?



Oh, and the Brazilian oil we helped them develop? China got it. Well done, Mr. President!

I'd love to see a followup by a conservative superPac dealing with all the other outright lies Barack Obama has told the American people during his occupation of the Oval Office...maybe with an animated Pinocchio nose that grows after each example.

As I've said before, it's easy to tell whether this president is lying. Just see if his lips are moving.

Must-See Video - "If I wanted America To Fail..."

This has been all over the 'net, but it bears watching, especially if you haven't seen it. 'Nuff said,

(hat tip, Ace)

Obama Alienates Canada And Mexico At Summit - And It's Going To Cost Us A Lot Of Money

Aside from the unprecedented occurrence of flapping his mouth and threatening the Supreme Court about a matter pending before the justices, President Obama was also busy at a recent summit alienating our two closest neighbors.

As usual, the president's lackeys in the media ignored this, but the Mexican and Canadian press reported the real story. And as you'll see, Canada's PM Stephen Harper, a staunch U.S. ally (or at least he used to be) was unusually blunt.

Normally, such summits are relatively friendly affairs dealing with trade issues that are settled more or less amicably and end with the usual platitudes and photo-ops. Not this time.

Mexico's President Calderon is already not a fan of the president because of Fast and Furious, which illegally supplied arms to the drug cartels strangling Mexico and resulted in over 200 murders of Mexican nationals. My sources tell me that President Calderon asked some pointed questions about what the U.S. was doing to investigate this, punish the officials responsible and clean up the mess President Obama's justice department created, and that the answers were less than satisfactory.

This puts Calderon in a terrible position politically as the Mexican public is asking him the same questions. El Universal, and Reforma, two of Mexico's top papers have led the charge on this one.

Our situation with Canada is even worse. Canada's National Post quoted former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson as saying the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and our alliance with Canada is "on life support."

It's not a well known fact to most Americans, but our biggest supplier of foreign oil is not the Middle East, but Canada.

Up until recently, the Canadians supplying us with oil at lower than market prices because of the NAFTA agreement. American companies actually refined some of the Canadian oil and exported it overseas at below market price, which the Canadians put up with because we had the refineries and they didn't, and besides..it was between friends and there were compensations on things like lumber and items American companies manufactured.

That changed when President Obama took office. He and PM Stephen Harper never quite hit it off that well anyway, partly because President Obama's policies on Afghanistan where Canadian troops are in combat and partly because of disagreements on Israel, a country PM Harper is a great supporter of.

But the rift widened greatly when President Obama repeatedly blocked Canada and Mexico's attempts to joint a lucrative eight-way free trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an alliance of the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Peru, Chile, and Singapore.

And it exploded when President Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline.

The Canadians had patiently waited for President Obama to make a decision to allow what would have been an economic plus for both countries, creating jobs and allowing the Canadians to benefit by shipping more oil that way.

President Obama's farcical no on the pipe line was a wake up call for the Canadians:

In a public one-on-one interview here with Jane Harman, head of the Wilson Centre think-tank, Harper said Obama's rejection of the controversial pipeline -- even temporarily -- stressed Canada's need to find other buyers for oilsands crude.

And that wouldn't change even if the president's mind did.

"Look, the very fact that a 'no' could even be said underscores to our country that we must diversify our energy export markets," Harper told Harman in front of a live audience of businesspeople, scholars, diplomats, and journalists.

As I previously reported on these pages, the Canadians finslly got sick and tired of Obama's dithering, sold the oil contracts to the Chinese and rerouted the oil to Vancouver.

And not only isn't that that decision going to change, but as the Winnipeg Free Press is reporting, PM Harper is now saying that as a consequence of our president's actions, American consumers will be paying for Canadian oil in the future at market rates:

Here's some quotes from an interview on the matter PM Harper did at the Wilson Center.

Harper: Now, in fairness though I've got to say that Canada's interests here are a little bit different. And particularly, I might as well be frank, particularly in light of the...of the interim decision at least on Keystone. What it really has highlighted for Canada is that our issue when it comes to energy and energy security is not North American self-sufficiency. Our energy [issue] is the necessity of diversifying our energy export markets. We can not be, as a country, in a situation where really our one, and in many cases almost only, energy partner could say no to our energy products. We just cannot be in that kind of position.

And the truth of the matter is that, when it comes to oil in particular, we do face a significant discount on the marketplace because of the fact that we're a captive supplier. We have made it clear to the people of Canada, one of our national priorities is to make sure that we have the infrastructure and the capacity to export our energy products outside of North America.

What Harper is saying if you read between the lines is that not only are the Canadians going to diversify whom they sell to but that their no longer going to rely on U.S. refiners. Look for Canada to begin work on its own refineries and oil infrastructure in the near future....probably financed by China.

This president could have okayed the Keystone pipeline with the of a pen. It would have created thousands of jobs, been a boost to U.S. exports and given us a safe and secure source of oil from a friendly neighbor. Instead, thanks to President Obama, we not only lost out on all of this permanently, but angered a loyal, long time ally in the bargain. And this president then had the nerve to blame this fiasco on Republicans, just like he does every other failure he engineers.

This, by the way, is the energy policy Slo-Joe Biden just referred to as 'the very best it's ever been.'

Remember when Barack Obama was running for election? Remember how the line was that he was going to fix things and improve relations with our allies after 'Cowboy' Bush?

President Obama's tactics are pretty clear. None of this is an accident

What he and his far Left vampires want is to choke the American economy. They want an America where gas prices are as high or higher than they are in Europe, where most people are forced into public transportation run by the government and the private cars that exist are abominations like the Volt, where a light bulb costs ten times as much as before and where breaking one calls for an expensive hazmat cleansing rather than just a broom and a dustpan.

And above all, he wants an America where the tax payers are raped by government giveaways to green energy scams run by well connected insiders and Democrat campaign donors.

Because America, in his mind, deserves to be made to pay for our sins.

Absolutely disgraceful.

WH Press Sec Carney: 'President Obama Doesn't Like To Play Politics On Keystone'

Jay Carney is a unique human being, and likely worth every penny of his taxpayer funded salary to the Obama Administration. You have to wonder where they found him. Pravda? The fifth dimension? Columbia J-School? Baghdad Bob's School of Media Misrepresentation? You'd have to really search hard to find someone willing and able to tout the party line so diligently while keeping a straight face. And so perfectly named, too!

When asked about the President's position on the Keystone Pipeline at a press conference on March 8th, Carney explained in answer to one of th eusual softballs that the president "believes it is wrong to play politics" with the Keystone pipeline because 'it's route has yet to be determined'....solely because the President refused to approve any of the proposals he was given.

And then five seconds later, when challenged by a reporter about a Politico article that the president was personally lobbying Democrat Senators to kill the amendment for Keystone's funding..he admits that President Obama is doing exactly that!

Of course, the amendment was killed in the Senate. Actually, as I pointed out some time ago, the pipeline, the over 900,000 barrels of oil per day we would have gotten from a friendly neighbor rather than places like Venezuela and the Middle East and the thousands of construction jobs that it would have provided are all gone anyway...because the Canadians got sick and tired of Obama's dithering, sold the oil contracts to the Chineses and rerouted the oil to Vancouver.

Here's what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had to say about it:



“Last night the two parties reached agreement on amendments to the Highway Bill. I’m happy to report that there are a number of strong job creating measures in the mix. One that stands out is Senator Hoeven’s amendment on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“Most Americans strongly support building this pipeline and the jobs that would come with it. And it’s incomprehensible to me that the President of the United States is lobbying against it.

“There’s a report this morning that President Obama is personally making phone calls to Democrat Senators he thinks might vote for this amendment. He’s asking them not to. And, frankly, it’s hard to even comprehend how out of touch he is on this issue.

“I mean, think about it: at a moment when millions are out of work, gas prices are skyrocketing and the Middle East is in turmoil, we’ve got a president who’s up making phone calls trying to block a pipeline here at home. It’s unbelievable.

“What we’re seeing in Congress this week is a study in contrasts.

“On the one hand you’ve got a Republican-controlled House that’s about to pass a bipartisan jobs bill that would help entrepreneurs and innovators by getting Washington out of the way. And today we’ve got a Democratic-controlled Senate trying to line up votes against amendments that would create jobs—and a President lobbying against the biggest one.

“We’ve got an opportunity to work together to create jobs. We can do that with these amendments. And we can do that by taking up the bipartisan jobs bill the House will pass later today.

“Let me just say a word about that. The bipartisan jobs bill the House will pass later today is supported by the President. It is ready to go, and I hope that once it gets over to the Senate we'll simply take it up and pass it.

“It's an example of a measure that is supported by Republicans and Democrats and the President that we believe will clear the House with a very large majority. I think the sooner we pass that here in the Senate and send it down to the President for signature, the better.

“With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.”

Senator McConnell is very wrong on one thing - President Obama is very much in touch on this issue.

What he and his far Left myrmidons want is an America where gas prices are as high or higher than they are in Europe, where most people are forced into public transportation run by the government and the private cars that exist are abomination like the Volt, where a lightbulb costs ten times as much as before and its' breaking calls for a major hazmat cleansing rather than a broom and a dustpan.

And above all, an America where the tax payers are raped by government giveaways to green energy scams run by well connected insiders and Democrat campaign donors.

Because America, in his mind, deserves to be taken down a peg and made to pay for our sins.

Just One More Question, Mr. President..

Cheerfully swiped from the one and only Hugh Hewitt.

And placed on a number of gas pumps in my little corner of the world...where prices are climbing towards $4.50 per gallon including Big Government's 17-22% profit for just being there (AKA Federal, State and local taxes).

Germany Sunsets Solar Power - After Losing Over $130 billion

Germany, being the staunch advocate of climate change and global warming it is like much of the EU prided itself on being the "world champion” of solar power. They doled out billions of marks on subsidies for consumers and businesses to go solar to reduce Germany's carbon footprint in response to the 'settled science' propaganda pushed by the global warming cult.

Germans used that money to install a solar capacity of 7.5 gigawatts last year. And warum nicht, if Big Government was paying for it and Al Gore and the UN said it was just what they should be doing?

Actually, Big Government wasn't paying for all of it, as it turns out. Solar power users were allowed to receive a guaranteed above-market price for the electricity they sold back to energy grid which was financed by - surprise!- a tax on every household's electricity bill. That alone amounted last year to a subsidy of some €6 billion ($7.9 billion), which is estimated to add at least an average of $260 to German consumer's annual energy costs.

The German government, after going over the figures, has decided to pull the plug on solar subsidies. They will cut them at least 30% this year and phase them out entirely within five years. Given how much it has cost the German government, I wouldn't be surprised to see them gone entirely before the end of 2013, and that's only because of the unemployment entailed as German companies who went into solar technology to take advantage of the government-funded 'sunshine rush' lay off workers or go bust.

This particular green energy scam hit Germans in the pocketbook in various ways.

One of the chief problems with solar for a high wage country like Germany is the cost of manufacturing solar panels and installing them. This was something Big Government was subsidizing in the name of green jobs. Unfortunately, the solar panels can be manufactured far cheaper in China, so every one of those 'green jobs' ended up costing German taxpayers an average of $175,000. And as we've seen elsewhere, China is not exactly overly concerned about things like pollution, 'carbon footprints' or 'global warming'. Think of it as another huge Solyndra.

Germany's climate, like most of Northern Europe's is not exactly the sunniest in the world. That's particularly true in the winter, when energy use peaks because of heating costs. When the winter days are short and the weather is overcast, Germany's solar power investment generates hardly anything - which means the Germans have to import traditional energy from power plants, some of them coal powered, in places like France, Poland and the Czech Republic. Not only that, but because the EU instituted the cap n' trade nonsense President Obama tried to have his EPA impose here, what the whole program has amounted to is a transfer of wealth to poorer EU countries:

Indeed, despite the massive investment, solar power accounts for only about 0.3 percent of Germany’s total energy. This is one of the key reasons why Germans now pay the second-highest price for electricity in the developed world (exceeded only by Denmark, which aims to be the “world wind-energy champion”). Germans pay three times more than their American counterparts.

Moreover, this sizeable investment does remarkably little to counter global warming. Even with unrealistically generous assumptions, the unimpressive net effect is that solar power reduces Germany’s CO2 emissions by roughly 8 million metric tons—or about 1 percent – for the next 20 years. To put it another way: By the end of the century, Germany’s $130 billion solar panel subsidies will have postponed temperature increases by 23 hours.

Using solar, Germany is paying about $1,000 per ton of CO2 reduced. The current CO2 price in Europe is $8. Germany could have cut 131 times as much CO2 for the same price. Instead, the Germans are wasting more than 99 cents of every euro that they plow into solar panels.

It gets worse: Because Germany is part of the European Union Emissions Trading System, the actual effect of extra solar panels in Germany leads to no CO2 reductions, because total emissions are already capped. Instead, the Germans simply allow other parts of the EU to emit more CO2. Germany’s solar panels have only made it cheaper for Portugal or Greece to use coal.

Solar energy can be a good idea in places that it was better designed to work, especially with active systems that capture the excess energy for use when the sun doesn't shine. Israel in particular has made massive strides in both the technology used to capture the energy and in manufacturing the panels more efficiently. There are even solar generators that can be used as an emergency backup in case of power failures. But having government subsidize it in the name of Holy Gaia and climate change has turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea in Germany and everywhere else it's been tried.

Remember this cautionary tale when you hear President Obama mouthing off about energy in his quest for re-election. There's no doubt if he gets back in, we'll seen even more of our wealth squandered on green energy scams like Solyndra run by his donors and cronies.

Obama's Energy Speech - Lie After Lie After Lie

Someone obviously whispered in our Dear Leader's ear that gas prices have skyrocketed, and it wasn't polling well. So he decided to address the peons in front of a friendly crowd at th eUniversity of Miami, Florida, telling them in effect 'hey, it's not my fault, it's the greedy oil companies so stop whining and go buy a Volt or something.'

The speech was so ruthlessly cynical and lacking in truth that it would take more space than it's worth to fully debunk it, but there are several points worth underlining:


Now, some politicians they see this as a political opportunity. I know you’re shocked by that. (Laughter.) Last week, the lead story in one newspaper said, “Gasoline prices are on the rise and Republicans are licking their chops.” That’s a quote. That was the lead. "Licking their chops." Only in politics do people root for bad news, do they greet bad news so enthusiastically. You pay more; they’re licking their chops. You can bet that since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their 3-point plan for $2 gas. And I’ll save you the suspense. Step one is to drill and step two is to drill. And then step three is to keep drilling.

You know there are no quick fixes to this problem. You know we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.

That seems to be a key phrase for this president 'we can't drill our way to lower gas prices.'

An honest response would be, 'how the hell would you know, sir'?

One of the first things President Obama did when he became president was to cancel leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah, and he followed up with cancellation in in Virginia, in the Gulf and suspended them in Colorado and Montana. In 2010, he doubled down with new, stringent regulations to make future leasing on federal land for energy exploration and drilling far more difficult.

He issued not one but two executive orders halting drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, one of which defied a court order. And his administration has been refusing to issue any new permits ever since. The Department of Energy's own figures says that Gulf oil output will be down 17% by the end of 2013, compared with the start of 2011.

This president is also blocking access to an estimated 19 billion barrels of oil on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, another 10 billion barrels estimated in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast, and another 10 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This is th esame president who later on inhis speech said 'we're focused on production'!

The amount of oil that we drill at home doesn’t set the price of gas by itself. The oil market is global; oil is bought and sold in a world market. And just like last year, the single biggest thing that’s causing the price of oil to spike right now is instability in the Middle East -– this time around Iran. When uncertainty increases, speculative trading on Wall Street increases, and that drives prices up even more.

If we’re going to take control of our energy future and can start avoiding these annual gas price spikes that happen every year — when the economy starts getting better, world demand starts increasing, turmoil in the Middle East or some other parts of the world — if we’re going to avoid being at the mercy of these world events, we’ve got to have a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.

The president blamed high prices several times on turmoil in the Middle East rather than his own mismanagement and incompetence. And mentioned global demand as a factor,particularly in China.


Just a little while ago, there was a bill in Congress to approve the Keystone Pipeline, a project that would have not only provided thousands of badly needed construction jobs but lowered the cost of transporting oil to American refineries - and not from some hot spot in the Middle East, but from Canada. That project was killed by the president with the assistance of his fellow Democrats in the Senate....and the fed up Canadians are routing that oil to Vancouver via an already existing Canadian pipeline and have sold those oil contracts to China.

President Obama blamed this fiasco on - wait for it - Republicans, simply because they wanted to end the dithering and give the Canadians some indication we were serious about buying their oil. hey, not only did President Obama see to it that we lost out on 900,000 barrels a day of badly needed oil to China, he insulted one of our closest allies in the bargain at the same time. Focused on production!

Another interesting factoid - remember the President gifting over a billion of your tax dollars to Brazil to finance their oil exploration because, as he told them 'we want to be your best customers' ? Instead oil financing oil exploration here?

The United States consumes more than a fifth of the world’s oil. But we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves. That means we can’t just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. We can’t just allow ourselves to be held hostage by the ups and downs of the world oil market. We have to keep developing new sources of energy. We have to keep developing new technology that helps us use less energy. We have to keep relying on the American know-how and ingenuity that comes from places like the University of Miami. That’s our future. And that’s exactly the path we’ve been taking these last three years.

That 2% figure is demonstrably false on the face of it, since believe it or not, America is one of top five oil exporters. But even without going there, this president,who claims we're running out of oil and that he's focused on an all-of-the above strategy curiously leaves out two major oil sources here at home.

The first is shale oil, which the administration has fought tooth and nail but is providing quite a few jobs in the Dakotas and other Rocky Mountain states. The process of fracking, which the president has also tried to restrict as much as possible on faux environmental grounds is making headlines in a great many places, but getting hardly any support...certainly nothing like the bogus 'green energy' companies like Solyndra run by well-connected insiders and Obama campaign donors that have sucked up billions of taxpayer dollars and been an abysmal failure.

Another energy resource that has been totally ignored because of the Obama Administration's focus on cap n' tax, subsidizing the UAW friendly bailout of GM and similar pursuits is the gasification of coal, which I've mentioned a few times of these pages.

Gasification is a proven, clean technology that takes coal and reprocesses it into refinable oil and petroleum products. It's how Hitler kept the Panzers running after the British fleet cut off much of Germany's access to Middle East and Asian oil.

The United States is justifiably called the Saudi Arabia of goal, and we have ample supplies of it. Back in the 1970's, when our Arab friends put an embargo on oil shipments to America and oil was flirting with $100 per barrel, President Carter performed one of the few intelligent acts of his administration and authorized the development of American synthetic fuel made by this process, which could be done then for about half of what the Arabs were asking for their crude.

The project worked quite well for a few tears, but was scrapped when crude prices from the Middle East crashed in response and made it less economical.

Gasification is still a cheap source of oil, the technology has improved considerably since the 1970's, we have massive coal deposits and it could still produce oil for about half what Brent crude is going for on the spot markets. So why isn't Mr. 'all-of-the above strategy' jumping on this?

Here's why. First of all, President Obama, quite frankly, knows very little about energy but he does know that a lot of his base hates the coal and oil industry, because that's what Democrats have told them for years without letting them in on how ample energy affects things like food prices, the cost of goods and services and yes,what they pay at the pump. They've even got these well-trained lemmings buying electric and hybrid cars because they're not thinking about what the electric power plants run on that generate that 'non-fossil fuels' energy for that spiffy new Prius or not so spiffy GM Volt.

The oil companies make a convenient target, as the president demonstrates here:

Right now, four billion of your tax dollars subsidize the oil industry every year. Four billion dollars. These are the same oil companies that have been making record profits off the money you spend at the pump. And now they deserve another four billion dollars from us?

It’s outrageous. It’s inexcusable. And every politician who’s been fighting to keep these subsidies in place should explain to the American people why the oil industry needs more of their money. Especially at a time like this.

What the president is talking about is what the oil companies write off as R&D for exploration and for depreciation and depleting of existing equipment and resources, just like every other corporation. Make special rules that apply just to those 'greedy oil companies' and watch how research and development and the exploration for new resources dries up.

Which, by the way, is exactly what the president and other Big Government apparatchniks want.

They absolutely loves the high taxes generated by super-sized prices at the pump, which gives them huge sums to spend on pet projects and rewarding loyal constituencies. Those greedy, profiteering oil companies make, on average, about a 9% profit on a gallon of gas in exchange for finding, pumping, shipping, refining and retailing it. In California, the government's cut on a gallon of gasoline at today's prices simply for being there ranges from a 17% 'profit' per gallon in outlying areas to 22% in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, depending on sales taxes and the actual retail price involved.

President Obama is hoping that retailing the Big Lie on energy is going to spin the issue to make high gas prices the fault of the Republicans in Congress, who won't OK fresh giveaways of taxpayer dollars to his green energy cronies.

It shows exactly how much this president really cares about the 'little people', doesn't it?

Israel's New Energy Project Has The Egyptians Fuming

The Israelis have a major new energy project in the works called High Dam, a reference to Egypt's Aswan High Dam.It involves a 'dam' in the Mediterranean near the Israeli port of Ashdod that will export electricity to Europe via an undersea electricity cable linking Israel to Cyprus and then relayed via a second cable to Greece and the rest of Europe. The electricity will be generated by Israel's new vast natural gas finds in the area and the project is scheduled to receive joint European and American funding:

The Israel Electric Company (IEC) and Greece's DEH Quantum Energy are expected to sign the MOU in a few weeks' time. This will lead to a feasibility study, which will be followed – if all goes well – by ratification of the project by the Israeli and Cypriot governments, in the course of 2012.

According to the Egyptian newspaper Rose al-Youssef, both former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and businessman Hussein Salem, owner of the company in charge of exporting Egypt's gas, who is currently a fugitive in Spain, knew about this project when they signed deals with the Israeli government.

The closeness of Israel to Cyprus and Greece helped make the High Dam project more feasible, since Israel will be linked to the Cypriot and Greek electricity networks with 53,000 kilometers of connections under the sea to European shores, and is later expected to extend for another 600 kilometers inside European territories.

The electricity generated by the High Dam will provide more than 10 European countries with an electric power estimated at 2,000 megawatts and will reach 4,000 megawatts by 2020.

Israel made information about the dam project available to the majority of European countries involved, but did not notify Egypt, Rose al-Youssef claimed.

*chuckle*

The cable's expected to take 3 years to complete, and the Israeli shave reportedly already made agreements with the Cypriots to cooperate in exploiting the huge gas reserves off both countries' coasts.

The Israelis have reportedly already signed agreements with the Cypriots to jointly exploit the gas resources in th eares of both their coasts.

Oh, and in other related news - Delek Group Ltd. and Noble Energy Inc. have announced that they just discovered another 1.2-1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off Israel's coast in the offshore Tanin 1 (Crocodile) well, 120 kilometers northwest of Haifa. Israel may end up being one of the major natural gas producers in the world, especially as these fields are new and largely untapped.

California Goes Crazy Again...

Ah, the beat goes on...

Notwithstanding the massive recalls of Chevy Volts, the low driving range before recharging and the high incidence of battery fires,The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved a set of new rules requiring that one in seven of the new cars sold in California by 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle.

The plan also mandates a 75 percent reduction in smog-forming pollutants by 2025, and a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from today's standards. All hail Gaia! :

"Today's vote ... represents a new chapter for clean cars in California and in the nation as a whole," said Mary Nichols, the board's chairman. "Californians have always loved their cars. We buy a lot of them and drive them. Now we will have cleaner and more efficient cars to love." [...]

Trade groups representing auto dealers worried that the new regulations would increase the costs of vehicles for consumers and stifle the industry's growth.

The California New Car Dealers Association and other industry groups representing those who sell cars said the board is overestimating consumer demand for electric vehicles and other so-called "zero-emission vehicles."

Dealers are concerned that the regulations will lead to higher costs in all cars, and say consumers have been slow to warm to electric and other zero-emission vehicles.

Board member Sandra Berg, who said she drives the all-electric Nissan Leaf, said before the vote that regulators need to take consumer behavior and choice seriously in this equation.

She said a lot of work must be done to educate dealers to sell the new generation of cars.

"Early adopters (of electric cars) are willing to go without heat to save the miles they need to get to their destination, but that is not going to help grow the consumer base," Berg said, referring to the range issues with some current electric vehicles.

The board's research staff disputes the argument from dealers that the mandates for new technology will increase costs for cars. They point to steady increases in hybrid and other sales and argue that fuel cost savings will make up for any vehicle price increase.

"Our research shows a $1,400 to $1,900 car price increase. But over the life of the vehicles, the owners save $6,000 in reduced fuel and maintenance costs," board spokesman David Clegern said.

Consumers have largely shied away from these electric vehicles because of their limited driving range, higher purchase prices ( I don't know what planet Clegern and his 'researchers' are living on) and a mixed record for reliability in a number of models. Simple solution..California's bureaucrats are going to force you to buy them.

Let's look at the likely results of this stupidity:

Car prices across the board are going to rise sharply. That includes the price of used cars as people desperately try to avoid having to shell out huge bucks for an electric car that only gets 30 to 40 miles per charge and makes trips to outlying areas without a charging station a thing of the past.And by the way, do you know how long it takes to charge up an electric car as opposed to a fill up at your local gas station?

Additional government spending in a state that's already broke to put in the infrastructure for charging stations and the all important bureaucrats and their staffs to ensure and monitor compliance by dealers and manufacturers.

Increased demand in the urban areas of California for electric power from the state's already strained power grid...and of course, higher prices for energy for both homes and what remains of California's businesses. Welcome to blackout city!

The ironic part is that this is being done in the name of 'global warming', but will have little or no effect of emissions because all that electric power comes from - you guessed it, power plants fueled by oil, gas, coal or nuclear power. And even if that wasn't true, pollution doesn't honor state boundaries. Or even national borders.

Of course, this isn't about pollution per se, but almost entirely political in nature. The Obama Administration loves cap n' trade because it provides tax revenues, cripples the hated oil and coal industries and gives them bureaucratic control over yet another segment of American industry. And it also allows them to use taxpayer dollars to reward campaign donors with Solyndra-like green energy scams. The Democrats who run California are no different.

If California was anything but a state of the Union, it would be under receivership right now.

Obama Tells Another Whopper: "Republicans Forced Me To Reject Keystone PipeLine"

I absolutely cannot believe the gall of this president.

The SorosBots over at Think Progress are broadcasting President Obama's statement on his killing the Keystone Pipeline deal because of the Evil Republicans:

" As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree."

The president is flat out lying. As I revealed previously,it wasn't his decision at all and it wasn't the Republicans, who were just trying to get a decision out of him and get things rolling. The real story is that the Canadians finally got fed up with President Obama's delaying tactics and talk of putting off making a decision until 2013 and decided themselves to cut a deal with China and sell them the oil.

Thanks to this president, we lost out on cheaper prices at the pump, thousands of construction jobs and ticked off one of our closest allies in the bargain. The fault was entirely his.

Spin that, Mr. President!

( hat tip, memeorandum)

The Payroll Tax Issue, Simply Explained

With all the verbiage and posturing going on,(a deliberate attempt to obscure things by the democrats and their media allies, as far as I'm concerned) I think a simple and direct explanation of this issue is in order.

The legislation in question actually has three components. Needless to say, the president and the Democrats are only talking about one of them.

The first one, the one that's getting all the attention is a payroll tax holiday extension for an additional two months.

The second part is completing the Keystone Pipeline to carry 700,000 barrels of crude per day from the Canadian oil sands in Alberta to refineries in Port Arthur, Texas. This would provide an estimated 20,000 American jobs and lower prices at the pump.The president, of course, says he'll veto it, citing global warming and environmental issues.

The third part involves another Federal extension of unemployment benefits.

A number of Republicans in the Senate stupidly approved a bill that would extend the payroll tax for another two months, allow President Obama the leeway to approve the pipeline construction at his discretion, (which means it won't happen) and provides funding for another federal unemployment extension.

The GOP-dominated House refused to go along with this, as Speaker Boehner showed some courage for a change. The House wants a compromise that would extend the payroll tax holiday for an entire year,would force President Obama to veto the Pipeline bill, and allow the extension of unemployment benefits.

The President and the Democrats have so far refused to sit down and negotiate any of this. The last thing the president and his allies want, aside from lower gas prices is a long term tax cut, both of which provide less revenues for President Obama's domestic agenda.

The House Republicans made a huge PR error in not making the pipeline the sticking point rather than the payroll tax holiday. Instead, they should have compared the jobs and the savings at the pump to the estimated $40 per paycheck a family of four with a $50,000 income would save (about $160 total) as compared to the jobs and the more permanent lowering of gas prices, goods and services. To make it even simpler, they could have upped the ante and said "President Obama wants to save you about $160 for two months. We want to save you $1,040 by extending the tax holiday for a full year, plus the benefit of lower gas prices at the pump. Which would you rather have?"

That's what's going on,in a nutshell.I'm frankly amazed that the GOP leadership can't explain that for some reason.

Perhaps they ought to hire me in some capacity.

UPDATE, 2:00PM PST : I see where the House Republican leadership caved in completely. Idiots. And gutless ones at that.

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More Mystery Iran Disasters - Major Fire At Isfahan Refinery, Huge Blast At Revolutionary Guards Base

Iran is finally reporting on a major fire and explosion that took place yesterday at its Isfahan refinery, the second largest in the country.

According to the official account,a malfunction at the refinery caused a leakage of cooling water from its generators, causing a power outage and blackout.One pereson was reported killed.

The official story is that there was no explosion, and that fires were caused by workers burning off excess oil and gas in pipelines to prevent one from happening. However, Iranian dissidents reported a loud explosion at the refinery, and the fact that one person was killed would seem to support that.Various eye-witnesses reported seeing flames and thick smoke covering the area.

There was a major power outage as a result according to the Iranian Mehr news agency.

One of the Iranian regime's weak points is its refinery capacity. Major damage to a refinery like the one at Isfahan is going to have an impact not only in terms of capacity but in terms of the amount of refined fuel the regime is going to have to import, for which it has to pay in hard currency.

This isn't going to do the rial any good..it's dropped from an official rate of $1,300 hundred to the dollar to $1,500 to the dollar in a matter of weeks, and refined fuels trades are conducted in dollars.

Another reliable source of mine reported a major explosion at a Revolutionary Guards base in Kerman,the headquarters for the Guard’s operations in the East, near the Afghan border. No details yet,but I'm told it was quite a large blast.Probably just a coincidence, no?

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A Song Of Corruption In Washington - How Crony Capitalism Really Works

Here's an interview by Glenn Beck with my friend Peter Schweizer on his hot new book, Throw Them All Out, a brilliant expose of how the Obama Administration raped the American Treasury out of billions to reward Obama campaign donors and bundlers via 'green energy' scams. Like Solyndra, and Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Brightsource

The book also details how corrupt congress members use their knowledge of pending legislation to do insider stock trading that would be illegal for private individuals, and use their influential positions on various committees to milk campaign contributions and get access to the inside track on Initial Public offerings ( IPO's ) of hot stocks worth millions not accessable to the general public or even many stockbrokers.

Ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a good case in point. Others include Senator Diane Feinstein ( D-CA), our old pal Senator John Kerry ( D-MA), and of course Rep. Charlie Rangel.

Nor is it just Democrats, although they're by far the most prominent, especially since President Obama took over. At Schweizer relates above, an influential GOP Congressman who was ranking member of a key committee during the 2008 financial crisis was actually using sensitive information to short specific stocks - in essence, he had a financial interest in the US economy declining.

This sort of obscene plundering of the taxpayers is business as usual in Washington, and those whom realize it sometimes form an interesting political juxtaposition...like former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Left leaning WAPO columnist Dana Milbank, both of whom have items up on the subject you should take the time to read.

If the OWS crowd had the brains G-d gave a goat, they wouldn't be occupying Wall Street - they'd be occupying Congress, and stalking President Obama at his fundraisers.

(hat tip to longtime Joshua's Army member Louie Louie for the video)

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Solyndra - Obama Administration Asked Company To Postpone Layoffs Until After Midterms

Some evidence surfaced today that showed that Solyndra, one of the Obama Administrations Green Energy scams that saw Obama's donors and bundlers getting loans with little or no oversight was 'asked' by the Adminstration not to announce planned layoffs until after the 2010 midterm elections.

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.

Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down.

The new e-mails about the layoff announcement were released Tuesday morning as part of a House Energy and Commerce committee memo, provided in advance of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s scheduled testimony before the investigative committee Thursday.

Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010, that he intended to announce worker layoffs Oct. 28. He said he was spurred by numerous calls from reporters and potential investors about rumors the firm was in financial trouble and was planning to lay off workers and close one of its two plants.

But in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail, advisers to Solyndra’s primary investor, Argonaut Equity, explain that the Energy Department had strongly urged the company to put off the layoff announcement until Nov. 3. The midterm elections were held Nov. 2, and led to Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“DOE continues to be cooperative and have indicated that they will fund the November draw on our loan (app. $40 million) but have not committed to December yet,” a Solyndra investor adviser wrote Oct. 30. “They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date.”

Hmmm..they couldn't figure out that the quid pro quo had something to do with the upcoming election? Oh, my sides!

In any event, Solyndra made the announcement as asked, on Nov. 3, 2010 that would lay off 40 workers and 150 contractors and shut down its Fab 1 factory. Just as a coincidence, the Obama Department of Energy agreed to continue giving Solyndra the installments of its federal loan even though the company was in default of the terms, and restructured the loan in February to give the investors a chance to recover the $75 million in new money they put into the company before taxpayers would be repaid.

What a coincidence, eh?

Not only that,but other e-mails that have surfaced show that Rahm Emmanuel was in this up to his neck.

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