Will the President Double Down on Gas Prices?

Here we go again. Gasoline prices are rising rapidly and already have shattered the $4-a-gallon mark in California. Industry analysts say the all-time national average record of $4.11 could be shattered this summer. Some stations in Los Angeles are charging $4.93. Americans hired Barack Obama in 2008 partly in hope of finding relief from that summer’s pain at the pump. As the agony returns, voters could be primed by November to pull the lever for anybody but the current President.

The Golden State has the unwelcome distinction of having the nation’s highest gas prices, having reached $4.03 on Presidents Day, according the AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Though the national average was $3.56, the California price jumped 18.9 cents in just the past week. Alaska, Florida and traditionally pricey states in the Northeast are not far behind. The standard rule is that each penny increase sucks about $1 billion out of the economy, so the financial impact will be felt from coast to coast.

This latest gas-price jolt is predictable. President Obama has done much to impede the supply of petroleum products to consumers. Most particularly, he exploited the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an excuse to clamp down on oil drilling in the Gulf and also along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Last week, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed an energy bill by a vote of 237-187 that would reverse President Obama’s recent decision to block construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. With his December announcement to delay a final ruling on the project until 2013, President Obama, as a favor to his radical anti-business political base, passed up an opportunity to create an estimated 20,000 construction jobs. The House bill grants pipeline developer TransCanada a permit to proceed with the project and allows for expanded oil drilling in offshore reservoirs and in the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sticks to his usual script, he’ll prevent the upper chamber from even voting on the measure, saving the president from the embarrassment of vetoing an economy-boosting measure in an election year. Additionally, fellow Democratic senators can be expected to reiterate support for the president’s move to end tax breaks for the oil industry. Don’t be surprised if they also call for hearings to probe “price-fixing” by oil executives as the pain at the pump inevitably increases.

President Obama would be wise to make a virtue of necessity and orchestrate Senate passage of the energy bill. By signing it, he could win back erstwhile supporters disillusioned with his economy-crippling leadership.

More likely, though, the President will simply double down on class-warfare rhetoric about the oil industry needing to pay its “fair share” in hopes of diverting attention from the growing gas-price crunch. Promises of hope and change won’t smooth the campaign trail for the president this time around. If gas prices continue their upward trajectory until Election Day, voters are likely to look to a new leader to heal their wounded wallets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/obamas-rising-gas-prices-problem/2012/02/01/gIQAA3mQRR_blog.html

Does the GOP Deserve to Win?

They say they are all Reaganites and that they want President Reagan to return – President Reagan, who lived by his so-called 11^th Commandment that no Republican should speak ill of another Republican.

Reagan understood that Republicans can always win when they are united.  They have a message the voters understand and support.  Republicans can beat Barack Obama and his socialist message if they are unified, but if Republicans are divided and broadcasting a confusing message – which is what Obama craves – it will help him win another four years in the White House.

Every time the GOP picks a candidate with weak Republican convictions, the Republican Party loses.  And lose they should.  A party that will not defend its principles doesn’t deserve to win.

Do We Have a Two-Party System in America Today?

Do we have a two-party system in America today?  I think not.  We have one Big Government Party.  It has a Republican wing that prefers war, deficits, assaults on civil liberties, and corporate welfare; and a Democrat wing that prefers war, taxes, assaults on commercial liberties and individual welfare.  Neither wing is devoted to the Constitution, and the members of both wings openly mock it.  Will the Tea Party Republicans be devoured by the Big Government Republicans?  I hope not; but I fear so.

My fear is based on the truism that in America, people go into government in order to utilize its powers to tell others how to live their lives.  Very few persons go into government in order to shrink and to restrain the government.

Government in America today is not logic or reason, it is not fidelity to the Constitution, and it is not compliance with the Rule of Law:  Rather, it is force.  Government today steals liberty and property in the name of safety.  It restricts you ability to express yourself, to defend yourself, to be yourself; and it uses fear to keep people submissive.  Government rejects its moral obligation, insulates itself from litigation, breaks its own laws, makes its own rules, declares worthless paper to be money, and then devalues even that.  Government will not hesitate to use force upon those who challenge it.  Government has made it unlawful to resist its uses of force even when those uses are patently and unconditionally wrong.

However, there are stirrings in the land that enough is enough.  Wise folks are buying guns and gold.  States are blatantly telling the federal government that they simply cannot and shall not obey federal commands that they cannot afford or are not grounded in the Constitution.  Even many police have taken oaths to disobey the orders of their superiors when those orders violate constitutional guarantees.  And many thinking Americans – though apparently not the flying public – have seen through the Federal Government’s false promises of safety though greater control of our daily lives.

The government’s sole moral obligation is to preserve freedom.  And freedom is the unfettered ability to choose to follow your own conscience and free will, not that of someone in the government.  If the government keeps us safe but not free, the government will have become tyrannical and will be as illegitimate as was the government of King George III in 1776.  And it will be time for it to go.

It has been almost 240 years since last we dispatched tyranny from America.  Is that spirit that animated the Founders in 1776 still alive?  Are there those among us who unambiguously declare that liberty trumps safely?  Is life so sweet and peace so dear that we would prefer to live as slaves rather than risk perishing for freedom?