Today’s New York Times carries a piece from Larry Rohter on Barack Obama’s many ties to the domestic ethanol racket, starting with campaign trips with former Sen. Tom Daschle:
Mr. Daschle now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, “he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy.â€Â
The Obama-Daschle connection is much deeper than the article suggests. Indeed, the New York Times covered Daschle’s role in February. Daschle is in Obama’s Veepstakes. Many people in Obama’s inner circle have close ties to Daschle. After getting the boot from the Senate, Daschle maintained his mailing list of 85,000 donors, and rented it to only one candidate. As Howard Fineman put it:
Daschle’s unusually early endorsement of Obama last February gave the newcomer desperately-needed instant clout among insiders who were resigned to the inevitability of Hillary Clinton, but praying for an alternative.
Obama’s top adviser on energy and the environment, Jason Grumet, has ties to Daschle and another ethanol backing former Senator, Bob Dole.  Obama backed the hideous farm bill passsed last December, which extended the subsidies for corn ethanol (which many economists, consumer advocates, environmental experts and tax groups see as a boondoggle that benefits agribusiness conglomerates), as well as the tariffs on imported sugar cane ethanol (which is cheaper and more efficient). That bill — as Grumet noted at the time — also effectively requires the creation of a similar boondoggle for switchgrass which Obama also supports (though switchgrass is at least more efficient than corn).
The NYT barely mentions — as it previously reported — the role of corn-based ethanol in jacking up food prices, leading to riots, political instability and growing worries about feeding the poorest people. And it skips over the NYT’s previous reportage that biofuels may well increase global warming over the next century. After all, highlighting those aspects of ethanol would only underscore the degree to which Obama is in the ethanol tank, for reasons that have zero to do with Hope or Change.
Update: Malk-a-lanche!
Update x2: NRO’s Andrew Stuttaford on the switchgrass: “It’s promising, but not for years, much like the drilling for oil off the U.S. coast that Obama opposes partly because it will, uh, take too long.”
But Baracky’s lobbyists are good, and pure.
But, O! doesn’t believe in lobbyists? SMEAR. RACISTS. I preemptively denounce all of you.
And the timing couldn’t be better. Got a top-loading freezer? Stock up on meat now.
– And then you have this twat-waffle Daschle on FOX yesterday, doing everything but felating the O! man for the TV audience, and one of the main topics; “All the reasons we definitely do not want, or need, to open up the American oil reserves.”
– Somebody really should tip off FOX that they’re being used like a rented mule. I’ve been noticing it more and more lately. Fair and balanced seems to have discovered “shukin’ for Progressives” is a good niche market or something.
Domestic rackets? Sounds Chi-townish. Bush’s farm bill ext. veto was over-ridden 82-13. Math tells me some Republicans must be in on that domestic rackets game too.
=”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121417875081295571.html?mod=djemEditorialPage>I know this made my day.
The next four years is what we may really need to wake people up, but if the leftists now controlling the Democrat Party control the entire government for four years, who knows what liberties we may have left in 1012.
Ack.
I know this made my day.
Man, would I love preview!
McCain’s or 527 July 4 ad: “Here’s why your 4 July 2008 barbecue is costing so much.”
God love the farming states, but the ethanol industry seems like a scam and it hardly strikes me as a long-term solution for energy dependence.
“All the reasons we definitely do not want, or need, to open up the American oil reserves.”
Ohnoes it would create jobs.
Indeed. And I smacked both sides for it at the time.
But only two Senators are running for president in the general election. And it’s only Obama — Messiah of Hope and Change, committed to doing away with Politics As Usual — who voted for that bloated piece of garbage.
[…] He’s in the tank for ethanol. […]
thor, rinse and repeat.
Well maybe Baracky just voted for the agriculture bill thinger cause he kind of a lot needs the status quo for right now. Premature change is very confuzzling for his focus groups. Just look at Iraq.
say hey………Industrial hemp based ethanol is 4 to 7 times more efficient in productin than corn based………think the demcrats would throw anwar under the bus for millions of acres of hemp….they have always prefered quanity or quality……..just look at their politicians….
ethanol…….but in the meantime, it has provided 10% of our gas needs, replaced the equiv. of 3 refineries, employed 170,000 people. Food prices……with SE asia demand, food prices would maybe be 10% less….heck, record high soybean prices are more responsible than corn….much more soy in food than corn. Grain prices were stagnent for 25 years…..tell you what..keep all wages stagnent for 25 years…then watch the riots…..or grow your own in a little backyard garden…….
Time for a Blue Ribbon Commission with lobbyist, drugs, hookers, etc., or is that a bachelor party?
sbark, where are you getting your info, please cite references! Thanks.
What kind of engine runs on patchouli, anyway?
Sbark,
Oh, that’s why my corn tortilla’s are so expensive, all the soy flour in them, eh?
No, you goofball. The refineries are just built overseas now. This way we can import our gasoline. It’s Barackonomics!
If Rev Wright, BLT, Michael Phleger, Wm. Ayres & his wife Michelle haven’t tanked O! what chance does this ethanol thing have of doing it? Face it, this is our next president because over half the country will require nothing more of him than his clean, boy next door good looks and charismatic speaking style and of course, his race.. Experience and substance have no place in this election.. but what the hell… we’ll survive the next few years and it will give us someone to make fun of once Jimmah Carter isn’t around anymore..
Let’s move along to a more interesting subject..Lots of film buffs here.. Has anyone seen Funny Games ? The remake… I think its an excellent comment on the currently degraded state of the suspense/murder movie genre in American cinema and the emergence of Torture Porn as entertainment.. I enjoyed being manipulated and teased with red herrings ..
Thoughts?
* fruit sold separately
If I’m not mistaken, sbark just did a drive-by. Toss out unverifiable numbers and statistics with no reference. Wikipedia server must be down. Bravo, well done!
sbark apparently does not understand that the price of soybeans is related to the price of corn. More farmers growing = fewer farmers growing soybeans. Soybean supply decreases = price increases.
… and when corn, soybean, etc. prices increase, so does the cost of cattle and hogs which feed on corn, soybeans, etc.
Our farm grows corn and soybeans, so I am not an uninterested observer.
Shark is basically right, though I don’t know about his figures. The Omaha World Herold wrote an article about the misconceptions associated with ethanol. They said it has lowered the average price of gas by up to $.30 a gallon.
The price of soy beans and corn are both rising because the demand is greater than it was. Richer third world countries are buying more grain and meat as they are purchasing more oil. Ethanol does help bring up the price, but it is not the major player. Remove ethanol, and the price of gas rises a bit as the cost of food drops a little.
Farmers also struggle with high energy prices. From the $1,000 it takes to fill a tractor tank to the fertilizer and herbicides that nurture a crop a lot of money goes into a crop. It is cheaper to raise soybeans. Rotating crops is also better for the soil. Those factors also play into cropping plans.
Corn ethanol is a temporary way station. Switch grass and even land fills will replace or enhance corn ethanol in the future. Soy diesel is another fuel to reduce our oil consumption.
Weather disasters across the world also affect the price as do political problems like a strike in Argentina.
Dr Norman Bourlaug (sp) father of the green revolution, warned the higher yields had purchased the world about thirty years of sufficient food. Our time is running out until the next breakthrough.
eieio I guess
To be fair, James is right that ethanol is not a major driver of increased food prices. But once you make the ag economy part of the energy economy, price increases in the latter will also drive price increases in the former.
The Argentina issue is actually addressed upthread in the WSJ piece.
And Borlaug should get more recognition than he has (even though he was honored recently).
[…] Though Everyone Was Backing Away From Corn-Based Ethanol Jump to Comments But I was wrong. Do they grow corn in […]
And I actually returned to give Ouroboros’s comment the attention it deserves. Imho, history shows that nominees generally become nominees because there is not some magic bullet that implodes their campaign. Rather, nominees fail to win because of the steady accumulation of various burdens. Dakakis was not done in by Gore in 1988 over furloughs, but that issue, along with his death penalty answer at one of the debates, the tank photo-op, and more ultimately did him in. With Gore, it was a steady stream of exaggerations and self-aggrandizement. With Kerry, it wasn’t just the Swift Boat Vets, but also the windsurfing, the global test, the insulting the troops, etc.
The exception being Clinton, which is why I beat the hobbyhorse of the 16-year cycle. Even there, however, the rap on Clinton was mostly personal stuff that was not seen as related to his candidacy. The war protesting was not salient post Cold War, pre-9/11. Here, a big part of O!’s pitch is as the bipartisan, post-racial Unifier and reformer. His lifetime of associations belie that image, as does his ethanol stance. These things tend to pile up over time.
“These things tend to pile up over time.”
– Obamarama has piles? – Who knew. Well maybe Daschle. He spends a lot of time apparently, polishing Baracks crank.
If anything there should be an international BAN on using ANY food for fuel. As fossil fuel becomes more scarce and fuel prices increase in general, fuel hungry rich will buy up more and more food right out of the mouths of the poor. Mandating ethanol is just one more bad liberal policy and one that is certain to starve the third world. (And that may very well be the true hidden liberal agenda all along! .. to maintain power over the third world by keeping them dependent instead of allowing them to get out of poverty – JUST LIKE WELFARE.)
Karl.. You’re referring to normal, human candidates… Not the Obamessiah.. He’s the Teflon son of God (if the proggs believed in God)… Unless it can be documented that he is in fact The Manchurian Candidate, sired by Satan himself in a fashion reminiscent of Rosemary’s baby or carries a 666 tattoo hidden under his neatly trimmed ‘fro… He gonna be da one, Bruddah.
I take that back.. Even the tattoo wouldnt work..
Hey Karl, you do film reviews.. Did you do one for Funny Games? I’d be inerested in reading it if you did.
OB: You’ve focused on Barack’s tefloness as a reason why he’ll weather all storms. I’m of the school that it’s less about his transcendent charisma and more about the transcendent dissatisfaction of a wide swatch of the electorate with the “status quo”, especially Republicans.
McCain’s problem is that the base doesn’t trust him and too many others (with Soros and his $350 Mil. investment through MoveOn et al) will be beating the drums of the “McBush” narrative. What I hear more often from moderates is a variation of “yea, I know Obama’s way left but what do you expect me to do? Vote for more of the same?” If anybody has any brains in McCain’s campaign they will have grasped this litle truism and will be working to very hard to “maverick up” his own image and provide as much seperation from Bush as possible and still maintain his strong stances on the GWOT and foreign policy. He’s not an economic wonk but a few more interviews like Barack’s pathetic appearance on CNBC exposing his cluelessness on things like Capital Gains taxes and he may seem like a savant. Maybe.
However, I share your sense of dread. I suspect that enough voters, both the “blinded by the light” demi-cultists and the hardassed disaffected moderates, will eschew critical thinking and vote with their hearts to get this woefully ill prepared and fraudulently presented candidate elected.
Krauthammer might be right. The day after Obama’s inauguration a whole bunch of people are going to wake up and exclaim, “What the hell have we done?”
I don’t think ‘fossil fuel’ becomes more scarce, or at the least cannot be definitively shown to do. It does seem to become more costly, but that would argue in favor of not hindering discovery and development of the resource. Corn based ethanol will surely be given up if it begins to be clearly demonstrated to starve any poor people. Knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns.
– Look guys, I’d already made peace with the idea of Obama possibly getting the nod. But thats because I have a feeling the great Obamessiah may not turn out to be what the sycophants on the Left believe he is. That little impulsive burst of angry smack down of Pakistan may just have revealed a far different Obama than anyone on the Left or Right suspects. Besides, in a four year term reality in the form of the “politics of the do-able” will set in and regulate his enthusiasm to a large extent, so its likely whatever damage he can do would be limited. But I still think an Obama administration would not be anything like the Left imagines it would be. Especially the hard liners, and you know how they are when they think they’ve been had.
– But then this oil mess came along, and now it needs to be looked at again. If McCains camp is smart, and depending on how things go from here on in, this oil issue could sink Obamas ship, because he can’t buck the ECO hard liners without demographic damage, which puts him squarely against what (by yesterdays latest polls) 79% of the Electorate are demanding. Give it a few more weeks and the noise level is going to get deafening. McCain has had a golden opportunity just handed to him, but it remains to be seen if he and his handlers are smart enough to use it to their advantage.
– OTOH I notice today Obama is talking going after the speculators, so maybe hes decided to throw the Greenies under the back of the MagicBusâ„¢ on top of the growing pile of expendables.
Guess ethanol isn’t special or intersting.
What do you want to bet that some low level staffer is to blame.
“What the hell have we done?â€Â
..but unlike the coyote ugly scenario it wont be as simple as chewing off our collective arm and slipping out of there quietly…
You know, during the last election I became very disappointed with the American people in general.. not because they voted Kerry or they voted Bush, but because I listened to a Sean Hannity ‘Man on the Street’ poll of political views… and I was mortified that many people didn’t even know who was running much less what issues were in play… Then it struck me (to borrow from Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now) like a diamond bullet right in the middle of my forehead… We’re a country chocked full of idiots and illiterates. In our time the fool builds his campaign on issues and positions that are beyond the capacity of the lumpen proletariat to appreciate.. The enlightened politician builds his campaign around nice teeth and popular sound bites.. convinces all who believe they’re victims that he’s great equalizer. Speaks but says nothing..
I don’t like it.. Just readin the writing on the wall..
“I don’t think ‘fossil fuel’ becomes more scarce.”
– Not so much scarce as economically unfeasible. accessability sets in at some point, generally long before a tract actually runs out. Same reason that offshore can run as much as 8 times as high per barrel to extract it. At some point it just doesn’t make economic sense to go after it. That is in large part why the Oil companies have not developed this 68 million acres of Offshore leases the Democrats are lying through their teeth about.
– On the bright side there are 800 billion barrels in the naked Rockie mountains story that are considered economically accessible.
BBH: Obama appears to be stuck on the “we can’t drill our way out of this” meme. Somebody needs to point out that there is a difference between short term and long term energy policy, that we have to service both, and the reason we are short of supply today is the fact that progressives and liberals haven’t let us either drill for oil or build nuclear power planta like, you know, THE FRACKIN’ FRENCH FER FRACK’S SAKE!!
Yup, I’m in a mood today.
I think you got that exactly right BBH.
I worked in a small hospital’s emergency room as an orderly while in college. The weekend nights the cops dragged in one beer-bottle brawl after another. As I prepped the wounds for suturing with Hexa-hexa-hexachlorophene, I’d think “And these guys can vote!”
The only comfort is that they seldom do vote.
Which is poor comfort at best.
“…Greenies under the back of the MagicBusâ„¢”
Makes good sense.. The hardcorp greenies are a smallish group.. The pissed off gasoline consumers
that believe (rightly or wrongly) that the speculators are the ones responsible for bringing us
$4.50 a gallon are more or less the mainstream.
You want 4 more years of The Same© or do you want to slap down those speculators?
Ouroboros,
I did not even see the Funny Games remake, as the trailer suggested your very thesis.
As for Obama, the fact that he runs behind “unnamed Democrat” in a period where about 80% think the nation is on the wrong track is indicative of something. Of course, that could change once he starts pouring out those gushers of cash that we keep getting told are going to come in.
– Over the weekend FOX did a report on the overall oil situation, and a segment included some info on the bio-fuel question. Apparently theres another plant, other than sawgrass, called Jehcobe or some such, which grows well in even sand ladened soil, and has 4 times the extractable energy per acre, and ten times that of corn. Investors from all over the world are visiting the test farm in Florida to investigate its properties.
– A spokesman mentioned that people in tropical areas have been using it in their fuel lamps for a long time. The plant yields a group of dark green seeds (germinative bulbs) about the size of the tip of a finger, which are ground to extract the raw oil, and then the oil is processed in a simple low cost manner.
– Ten times corn could put the food situation back in order if its true. Don’t know if theres any down sides, (agriculture is a tricky process concerning soil erosion, chemical extraction, disease, insect damage, weather, etc), but if its a winner it could have a heavy effect on at least the bio-fuel end of the Industry, and from that, world food prices in general, since less potable land would need to be used.
– and has 4 times the extractable energy per acre “of soy”, and ten times that of corn.
“I did not even see the Funny Games remake, as the trailer suggested your very thesis.”
Ok, forget the highhanded message and the stink of moral superiority.. Did I mention that Naomi Watts spends half the movie bound hand and foot dressed only in her her underwear.? Worth the price of the rental right there..
(Dont look at me like that..What do you think I am, some sort of effeminate French Intellectual or something? I’m an American.. I’m allowed to be an uncouth lout..)
[…] out it comes from lobbyist Tom “Puff” Daschle, who’s also reported on Obama’s list for VP. […]
[…] out in the past couple days, because these are always fun. First, that railing against lobbyists? Complete hypocrisy. Next we see again that Obama’s campaign is entirely tolerant of anti-Christian, […]
After a brief review of
Bob the BuildersObama’s Agenda for Americaepisodes 01 to 04  Bob’s Big Plan
His announcement for POTUS
episodes 05 to 09  Chip Off The Old Block
Guess it has something to do with Jimmy Carter
episodes 10 to 14  Let’s Scram!
The Iraq episodes, I presume
episodes 15 to 19  Super Speedy Benny
Sermons by Rev. Wright
episodes 20 to 24  Spud’s Bumper Harvest
Special ethanol episodes
episodes 25 to 29  Lofty the Star
Oprah lends a hand
episodes 30 to 34  Bob’s Top Team
Saw this just the other day with his foreign policy team
episodes 35 to 39  New Homes and Vistors (Coming Soon)
Must be the immigration episode
episodes 40 to 44  Apples, Seaweed and Goats (Coming Soon)
That missing “whitey” video
episodes 45 to 49  New Friend Packer (Coming Soon)
Special appearance by Iranian President Ahmadinejad
Yes we can.
BJTex: ““yea, I know Obama’s way left but what do you expect me to do? Vote for more of the same?†“
That one line captures the whole sentiment of this race.. The unknown is perceived as less crappy than the known..
If McCain’s not smart enough to seize on this and come up with some changiness (not to mention hopiness) of his own then he isnt sharp enough to be President..
[…] 1. Barack Obama in the tank for ethanol […]
[…] By proteinwisdom […]
[…] and Grumet — both in the ethanol tank — seem to have no problem with the possible increase in global warming associated with […]
[…] previously noted here, Barack Obama has many ties to the domestic ethanol racket and has backed […]
Brilliant!
[…] “He’s in the tank for ethanol. […]
[…] He’s in the tank for ethanol. […]
I would just like to say “hello”.
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