Bamboozler-in-Chief At it Again!

Here's the latest ad that Obama "approved":


"The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of “corporate raider” to its examples of alleged outsourcing." -Wa Po

I'm shocked, SHOCKED that anyone would outsource jobs to China, says Barack. But, didn't Obama choose the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, to be the head of his Jobs Council, to be a close Business adviser? And hasn't GE been outsourcing jobs , shipping manufacturing and engineering and development jobs to China, too?

Other than rank hypocrisy, how is what Romney is accused of doing any different that what Obama's closest business adviser does regularly?

And the Washington Post's Fact Checker gives Obama's crew four "Pinocchios" for their dishonesty.

The claim that Romney outsourced jobs as governor is equally overblown.

This concerns Romney’s veto of a bill that would have prohibited Massachusetts from contracting with companies that outsourced the state’s work to other countries. Lawmakers were especially concerned about a $160,000-a-month contract with Citigroup to operate a system of electronic food-stamp cards that included a customer phone service center in India.

Both the liberal editorial page of the Boston Globe and conservative editorial page of the Boston Herald urged Romney to veto the amendment, saying it would cost the state money. Romney agreed, saying the measure did not protect state jobs — the call center might have moved from India to another state — but “had the potential of costing our citizens a lot more money.” The Democratic-dominated Massachusetts legislature did not override his veto, even though it overturned 117 others, suggesting that there was little real support for the measure.

When the food-stamp contract expired, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance insisted that those jobs be returned to the United States. But they ended up in a call center based in Utah — just as Romney had predicted.

Outsourcing jobs to Utah. Perhaps if Obama is re-elected (God forbid), he could see about making Utah the 58th state?


Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

The Bamboozler-in-Chief Takes Credit He Doesn't Deserve

Real shocker, eh? The essence of a good con, or so I'm told, is to include an element of truth, something the mark can identify as true, so that you build credibility for when you start lying through your teeth. So, in the Obama ad pictured above, the statement being made is entirely factual, and perhaps one of the biggest lies you'll hear all year.

The graphic says that US oil production is at an eight year high. The question they hope you do not ask, is "Was Obama responsible for any part of it?" I think I can answer that with an illustration: Oprah Winfrey and I have a combined net worth of over three billion dollars, the highest it's ever been. And, even though I suspect that my contribution to that is a mere rounding error in Ms. Winfrey's assets, it is similar to Mr. Obama's oil claims.

The bulk of the production on federal lands, where Mr. Obama had control, has actually decreased. The federal leases producing oil were developed under George Bush and even Bill Clinton. Obama's policies did not result in the "eight year high", but rather production on state and private lands that are not under Obama's control.

And even though production is at an eight year high, worldwide demand for oil has increased even faster. Had Obama not obstructed oil drilling in the Gulf, the extension of the Keystone pipeline, and continued the bans in ANWR, the nation would have been able to supply even more, which, according to the laws of supply and demand, would have helped to bring energy prices down.


Graphic via Roger Kimball And the renewable energy Obama touts in his ad? Heard this on the radio today:

A Canadian firm will receive up to $50 million in Obama Stimulus cash for a Nevada solar plant that hires two people. And, the energy produced at the plant costs three times as much as energy from natural gas.

Is Obama really the guy you want in control of the nation's finances for the next four years? He spends $50 Million on a project that creates energy at three times the cost of natural gas and creates two (2) whole jobs. Had Obama simply signed the papers for the Keystone XL pipeline, the initial estimate of 20,000 jobs would be created. The cost to the taxpayer? A 39 cent Bic pen.

If you ran your household the way Obama runs the country, exactly how long do you think it would last?



Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

You can Trust Barack Obama... to be Barack Obama

Barack Obama, the Bamboozler-in-Chief, is going to try to tell you that you should not focus on the fact that most of us are worse off than we were four years ago, by telling us the the problem he "inherited" was far worse than he thought. Well imagine a fellow that decides to walk from one side of the continental United States to the other. He starts off in San Francisco, and by the time he gets to Denver, thinks to himself, "Wow. This is far longer than I thought it would be!"

But, at least, he'd have made it to Denver.

Now imagine Barack Obama starting off in San Francisco, going the wrong way, ending up in Hawaii, knocking off to play a few rounds of golf, and looking you in the eyes and telling you, "It was farther than I thought."

Obama said he'd cut the budget in half by the end of his first term, but made it tremendously larger instead. As a candidate, he promised to "go through the budget line by line" to eliminate waste and fraud. By my reckoning, he's played over 90 rounds of golf, but hasn't quite found the time to do the whole "line by line" thing. And he said he had cut millions of dollars from the budget, so that he could sound like a moderate politician, but the truth is, they were all phony cuts, and the Federal Budget is slated to continue to grow every year for the next ten years.

When next year's budget is bigger than this year's budget, normal people will tell you that's not a cut, but an increase. A bamboozler will tell you what he thinks you want to hear.

The first two years of his presidency, Democrats controlled the White House, the House and the Senate. They had the power to pass any legislation they wanted, any remedy to the economy that they saw fit: health care reform (as opposed to health care insurance reform), minimum wage, or jobs bills and instead, funneled money to political supporters like Solyndra and failed solar companies, sent money overseas to build electric cars, and actively took measures to raise the price of oil, gas and electricity, instead of doing what was right for the country.

What on God's green earth makes you think the next two or four years will be any different under Obama?

Tips from his caddy??

Cross posted at LCR.

The Bamboozler-in-Chief Has Loopholes in His Credibility

I created the new Democrat mascot "hippocrat" for times such as these. Obama and the Democrats, up to and including my own dear brother (Bless his heart!) are talking about "subsidies" to the oil companies and doing away with them, as if that would do anything other than exacerbate the high price of gasoline and further slow an already weakened economy. First, a look at the weaselly word the Democrats use to describe the activity: "subsidize". The word subsidy has the connotation of one party giving money to another. If some entity of government "subsidizes" the arts, if may be through a grant to a symphony or a ballet company or just an artist who wants to photograph a crucifix in a jar of his own urine. A subsidy to any of these groups or individuals, implies that the government will transfer money to them out of their own coffers. Write them a check, if you will, to subsidize those activities.

Imagine, if you will now, an armed robber approaches you outside an ATM. He demands your watch, your wallet, your car keys and your cash, but tells you you can keep $20 of what you withdrew, because he wants to "subsidize" you getting back home. "What a nice guy," you think, "letting me keep part of my own money! So that's what a subsidy is!"

What Obama refers to as "subsidies" to the oil companies, are what most normal people call "business deductions" when it comes to nearly any other industry. And the laws that the legislators wrote to provide those "subsidies", possibly in exchange for campaign contributions, are then called "loopholes" by those who want to raise taxes on those same companies. (Or extort more "contributions" from them!)

First of all, note the social engineering aspect of it: If you perform certain activities of which we approve, they say, we will lower your taxes and let you keep more of the money you earn. So, Congress writes the law in such a way as to give you an incentive for certain types of expenditures and activities. Think of your home mortgage deduction. To encourage home ownership, Congress writes a law that enables you to keep more of the money you earn if you use some of it to purchase a house. In ObamaSpeak, this would be referred to as a "subsidy" to you, the homeowner, if he were at all consistent, and a "loophole" that allows you to get away with paying less than your "fair share". The fact that you would be chastised for doing exactly what they wrote the law to accomplish is referred to as "irony".

Obama and the Democrats want to create enough class envy so that you'll want to punish those nasty, rich oil companies by raising their taxes. And rest assured, taking away current, legitimate business deductions will effectively be raising the taxes oil companies pay.

"Good!", you might say. "Those SOBs earn way too much on the backs of the working stiff!" Only here's how it works in the real world, and Obama knows it. Taxes are a part of the cost of doing business. In order to open a business and stay in business, taxes are an expense, just like rent or salaries. In order for you to stay in business and make a profit, any profit at all, you have to charge more than your expenses. If your expenses go up, the cost of any goods or services you provide have to go up as well. So called "business taxes" are a hidden tax on everything you buy. That makes the oil company, and any other business, a tax collector for Mr. Obama. Every gallon of gasoline you buy at the pump, a percentage of which is taxes, (less any deductions), which goes to the government. And then, the dirty little secret is, that the government then taxes the retail price of the gasoline as well. So the higher the cost of a gallon of gas, inflated by increased taxation, the higher the revenue in state and federal sales taxes they collect. In other words, taxes on top of taxes. Double dipping. On the backs of the "working stiff".

The state and federal governments are already skimming an average of fifty cents a gallon in taxes. By comparison, towards the end of 2010, Exxon was making just a little over two cents a gallon on oil products here in the US, in profits. So, who's the one robbing you blind here? The guy taking two cents a gallon or the guy who's taking fifty cents a gallon and wants to take even more?

As has been pointed out before, gasoline taxes are regressive taxes. They hit the poor hardest. The Bamboozler-in-Chief rails against the oil companies as if somehow, raising their taxes and thus, the cost of gasoline, (and virtually everything else in the economy), wouldn't be anything other than kicking the poor while they're down. It's a cruel deception. But if the poor are struggling and relying on government assistance to survive, it does make them easier to control.

Back in 2009, Obama went on the record acknowledging that it is a "bad idea" to raise taxes during a recession. Unfortunately, that has not been enough to keep him from seeking new taxes and revenues from people in every tax bracket. The old campaign promise of not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, unfortunately came with an expiration date. The administration that cannot stop its own rapacious spending is looking for more and more ways to feed their spending habits. Raising taxes on the oil companies directly, and you indirectly, is yet another in a long line of bad ideas. Raise your hand if you think you're not paying enough in taxes?

It's demagoguery. Barack Obama wants to raise your taxes, and the cost of everything you buy...and he wants you to thank him for it. Thank him, please, with an early retirement.

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

The False Dichotomy of the Bamboozler-in-Chief on Oil

Barack Obama, Bamboozler-in-Chief of the US, made a rather hinky statement about oil the other day. He posited a false dichotomy about oil being the "energy of the past" and alternative energy being the wave of the future. This is becoming part of his stump speech, as he elaborated on that talking point a few days later, trying to depict anyone who opposed his policies as "flat earthers".

Let's look at what he said, he called oil "the fuel of the past", as opposed to algae and electric cars and windmills and solar that he deems "the fuel of the future". But, isn't he omitting a rather large part of the equation? How about: The Present?

You know, algae might make a fine fuel someday, but when you go to fill up your car to get to work tomorrow, to go to the grocery store, to carpool the kids to school, to take the baby to the doctor, you can't fill up at the corner algae station, because there is none. If Barack could snap his fingers and put an algae powered car on every driveway in the nation, most of you would have to stay home, because there is no infrastructure to support it.

Those mean, nasty oil companies (more about them later) and their dealers have put up an awful lot of money to make sure that there's a gas station as convenient to you as possible, so you won't get stuck by the side of the road in downtown Cleveland or Left Wingnut, Wyoming, because you couldn't find a gas station. That infrastructure was not built overnight. And it did not come cheap, either.

And historically, even big breakthroughs in science did not take effect universally. People were still using kerosine lamps after Edison invented the light bulb. Many people still rode horses and horse drawn buggies after the automobile was invented. People were still riding trains after the Wright Brothers' invention made its first commercial flight. Ever heard of "Amtrak"? There are people today who take trains to cities where they could fly. Most times the things of the past have coexisted with newer technology for years and years. Some things are even more enduring and compete with new technology for a century or better.

The point is, that a) our need for a stable petroleum supply for both our manufacturing and energy needs is not going away any time soon. The monitor you're reading this on was made from petroleum products. The keyboard you use to type your nasty response, disagreeing with everything I say, is made largely from petroleum products.

b) The infrastructure to support electric, or algae, or hydrogen, or nuclear powered cars is not there yet, and for many people, won't be there for many years. You may be able to refuel your car's hydrogen fuel cell at the corner of Fifth and Main in the next five or ten years, but those people who use a tractor to clear the snow off their unpaved roads in the winter, will never see a hydrogen fuel cell for that old Ford 9N. Before we relegate any fuel "to the past", there must be something else to take its place. And we are not there yet.

Electric cars are still mostly playthings for the well to do. Worse yet for their prospect, is the fact that China is the primary source for acquiring the "rare earth" elements needed to make high tech batteries and devices. Even as you read this, the Chinese have backed off from selling us as much of the rare earths as we would like to buy. What if that source were cut off from us completely? What's "Plan 'B'"?

And a nation of electric cars and electric high speed trains (don't get me started on THAT one!), will require more and more electric capacity, not less. And every solar or wind powered facility needs a full fledged back up system for when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing, unless you had a very efficient storage system, which we do not currently (pun intended) possess. Yet, Obama and his EPA are shuttering coal fired plants left and right (mostly left), leaving our grid in a much more precarious position to provide for the needs of a growing economy. I guess his first step in bringing these goals to pass, was to make sure the economy wasn't growing!

But the only reason we’ve come this far as a nation is because we refuse to stand still. Because we put our faith in the future. Because we are inventors and builders and makers of things. We’re Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. That’s who we are. That’s who we need to be right now.

After disparaging the past, he cites Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers. We are still using Mr. Edison's lightbulb today, and many of us prefer it to the "CFL" (Catastrophic Failure Lamps; see also: Exploding Mercury Bombs). We may all be using LEDs someday, but for now, many people object to the price of LED bulbs and the environmental hazards of CFLs.

I bought an LED bulb just yesterday. I'm glad I didn't buy two! When I got it home, it didn't fit in the fixture I had purchased it for. Maybe one day, they come out with a different bulb or someone designs a different fixture and we all live happily ever after. But, that's not today.

Mr. President: I don't live in the past. I resent you trying to falsely paint everyone who disagrees with you as ignorant, particularly in light of that historically inaccurate tripe you included in that particular speech. I live in the present, where petroleum and petroleum byproducts fuel my transportation and provide my livelihood. There are millions of Americans just like me. You were not elected to bring about some sweeping change that would alter our future. You were elected to defend and uphold the Constitution. Last time I looked there was nothing in there about algae powered cars, LED lighting, solar power or universal health care.

Quit bragging about how much higher oil production has been during your administration, seeing as how oil production on federal lands has dropped and the increases are all in spite of your policies. Stop playing politics with America's energy security. Approve the Keystone pipeline. Facilitate drilling in the far northern, barren and desolate regions of ANWR.

Tell your hippie, environmentalist friends that it is essential to become energy independent to preserve our liberty, and that oil and coal are the energy of the present.

Cross posted at LCR.