VDH:
President Obama yesterday praised Brazil for its new offshore oil industry and said he wants to buy as much oil as possible in this new win-win partnership — although we have piled up $5 trillion in new debt, curtailed new petroleum exploration off shore and in the West, as well as kept Alaska off-limits. Our near-term energy future apparently lies in borrowing money to buy oil from those we praise for drilling where we never would ourselves.
In the face of $4 a gallon gas, President Obama claimed that domestic oil and gas production was at a record level — failing to note that such expansion was due entirely to prior leases granted during the Clinton and Bush administrations of the sort that he has so far mostly denied. During the 2008 campaign, the president promised that under his leadership electricity prices would skyrocket and those who produced power through coal plants would be “bankrupted.” His secretary of energy, Steven Chu, in 2008 advocated ratcheting American gasoline prices up to European levels and, a year earlier, had complained that we had too much fossil fuels in America, enough, in fact, to “cook us.” So are we supposed to strive for astronomical gas prices to ensure fewer carbon emissions, the success of the government subsidized Chevy Volt, and actualization of the green dreams of a Van Jones as outlined by Chu and Obama in 2007-8 — or will they imperil recovery and must be postponed until after the reelection of Barack Obama?
[…]
Obama has scheduled $5 trillion in new debt since he took office, in part as Keynesian stimulus to snap us out of a slowdown that seemed instead to get worse. The massive debt was incurred in service to new redistributive entitlements that, we are told, will level the playing field. And to implement a new government absorption of health care, the administration has so far granted over 1,000 exemptions from its own landmark legislation. Many of the labor unions that were the most vocal supporters of the president’s agenda are the most eager to be freed from the consequences of his health care mandates.
[…]
President Obama ran on promises of a new respect for the law. But the law is now malleable and predicated on its social utility. The government, along with the nation of Mexico, sues the state of Arizona for trying to craft legislation that enforces federal immigration statutes. The government takes over Chrysler and then violates the contractual obligations to its debtors. We announce that the careless BP simply put up $20 billion to ensure proper cleanup of the Gulf. The Defense of Marriage Act is the law, but deemed unconstitutional by the administration and thus by fiat not enforced, in the manner of the abandoned prosecution of the Black Panthers whose violations of election laws were considered not violations.
If we think the country is topsy-turvy, the president offered an explanation the other day to a group of donors and supporters:
The first time around it’s like lightning in a bottle. There’s something special about it, because you’re defying the odds. And as time passes, you start taking it for granted that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama is president of the United States. But we should never take it for granted.
In short, all of the above was “special” because it “defied the odds” and was brought to us by “a guy named Barack Hussein Obama.”
And that is all ye need to know.
Well, then. Turns out a good man really is hard to find. Who knew?
Who?
“We’re tired of being dependent on foreign oil, so now we want to be dependent on your oil. From now on we’re going to buy Brazilian barrels of oil. How many is a brazilian again?”
== Barry the Lesser
Our President is totally awesome! How come you guys don’t get how awesome he is?
Seriously. Awesome.
Because, you know, that’s what governments of free market economies do. We snap out of systemic failures all the time. SNAP! And we laughed and laughed.
Plus, we hand policy decisions — running from what Johnny eats to what Johnny’s daddy drives and what on — to Alinskyesque POTUSes all the time. And we laughed and laughed.
Moron Nation.
The Reign of Idiocy. We never guessed how bad it could be. Well, some of us did.
I heard somewhere we gave Brazil $2,000,000,000 for oil exploration.
It’s nice to be nice.
Why is it alright to fund Brazilian exploration, but evil to allow American exploration?
Well duh. Stupid Arizonians.
We Californians know what’s important. Chickens!
I was a cock-teaser at Roosterama.
No, really!
I used to enrage the bantams before the big bout.
I need a job in a couple of months. I was thinking about running for President. My quals?
* I’m not a career politician. Just a scientist.
* I actually have stances on issues.
* I have no political experience. Plus I’m pretty broke, so I don’t come from big money.
* I think we shouldn’t spend more than we take in.
* I think we should fix the entitlement system so that it pays to people now, but gets phased out in 20 years. Payees now get to decided how the save their money.
* Term limits. 3 terms President, 6 terms US. Rep, 2 terms senator.
* Appoint justices who don’t call the Constitution a “Living, Breathing Document”
* Wage war on government regulations.
* Repeal Obamacare
* Give more power to the states, epsc. on issues like Medical Pot, Gay Marriage, etc.
* Institute a flat tax with a ceiling based on earned income. Remove all deductions except health care costs, child care, and mortgage interest deduction.
* Get rid of Czars.
* Shut down the Dept of Education. Move funding to NSF, NIH, and block grants to states. Reorganize federal subsidy programs for farmers. Fund NASA with the EPA’s money, and reduce the impact of the EPA. Reduce requires of DHS for air travelers and instead put onus of self-surveillance on travelers. Dismantle TSA.
I figure it’s the only government job I really want, so why not float the idea?
Sounds good, Shaitan. Except for the 3-term presidency thing.
Why would anybody want a job where you don’t get to eat your waffle?
Oh yeah. The waffles. Well, fuck it. I’m not running.
(and the 3-term presidency is just to push off a lame-duck 1 more term and even out terms for all elected federal officials to 12 years)
In the future, will the “Age Of Obama” provoke the same sort of cringe-inducing memory as the Carter “Age of Malaise”? Or will it be worse?
Wprse. Carter is a best case scenario. Malaise Index? Anyone wonder why the press hasn’t revised it to track the economy? Yep. Worse.