Will the U.S. become Venezuela?

From a Christian Aid Ministries newsletter: ". . . a street artisan weaves a beautiful handbag out of 800 pieces of large denomination banknotes. The money is worthless. Welcome to Venezuela."

 
And I wonder. Will we be next as Biden's totalitarianism makes our money worthless? Hugo Chavez introduced socialism gradually to Venezuela until he'd destroyed a once prosperous country rich in petroleum assets. It didn't take but a few years. Watch out.

Buying Venezuelan oil while Biden kills our own industry won't save Venezuela from its own leaders' bad socialist choices and it certainly won't help Americans. A Potential U.S. Oil Deal with Venezuela Faces Hurdles (investopedia.com)  Biden enriches and enables bad governments elsewhere, while poking American citizens in the eye and lying to them.

Raisi: Iranian Tanker Delivery to Venezuela A Victory over US Sanctions - Politics news - Tasnim News Agency

Oil producers Iran and Venezuela sign 20-year cooperation plan | Euronews

Poland is taking in Ukrainian refugees

When Trump went to Poland in 2017 and praised that country for its culture, Christian history and outstanding citizens, Vox and other leftist media said Trump sounded like an alt-right manifesto. When Biden praises Ukraine for its brave people defending their culture, the leftists swoon. They lied about Trump every chance they had and praise Biden for sitting on his butt buying oil from Russia while Putin surrounded Ukraine.

Oil from Russia, or how Biden put us in danger

 

“Time to Get Tough” by Donald Trump (2011)

Yesterday I picked up a remaindered copy of President Trump's "Time to get tough" (2011). I've been browsing--and it's actually shocking to see that he was the same guy 8 years ago (or 9 if you count the time to write it). And it's exactly in his style.

Trump was running in 2011 (announced he was dropping it in May 2011)--and didn't have wonderful things to say about Obama. "Obama's popularity in America may be at rock bottom levels, but I know one place his ratings are likely sky high: the Kremlin. Russia's leaders can hardly believe their luck. Never in a million years did they think America would elect a guy as ineffective as this. Obama's pretty-please diplomacy and endless American apology tours have served Russian interests extremely well. . . No sooner did Obama move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than he began making concessions and sacrificing American power on the Altar of "improving relations" with Russia." (pp. 93-94, PB)

Called that one.

There is effectively an oil spill every day at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara, California, where 20 to 25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years. Keep that in mind when you hear about man made environmental problems like oil spills. Research is on-going. https://www.msi.ucsb.edu/current-projects/effect-hydrocarbon-production-offshore-natural-seep-rates-coal-oil-point-area-santa?

Donald Trump mentioned this in his 2011 book, "Time to get tough," as he commented on the amount of oil and gas the U.S. has, but because of the environmental lobby and Obama's weakness and messing around with the free market economy, there was no leadership.

"Here at home, he's kept in place the bans on drilling off our coasts. But he goes to Brazil, gives them $2 billion through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and brags that he's proud and excited to make America one of Brazil's "best customers." . . . It's the most ludicrous, anemic leadership anyone could imagine."

Warnings of peak oil are nearly as old as the oil industry

“. . . the International Energy Agency forecasts that U.S. production will still surpass Saudi Arabia’s output of 9.7 million barrels a day, and overtake Russia’s 10.3 million, perhaps sometime next year. This would make America the world’s largest oil producer, which it was from the dawn of the oil age through 1974. Thanks to the fracking boom, the U.S. surpassed Russia as the world’s largest natural-gas producer in 2013. “  Peak Oil Debunked Again.

Oil and gas production is increasing—on private land—new technologies make it cleaner and a smaller footprint

We could have a booming economy with enough gas to export, if Obama would just allow drilling on federal land (half of the western U.S.).  But rabid environmentalists gum up the works with mountains of paper work. Since 2007, natural gas production on federal lands fell by 33 percent while production on state and private lands grew by 40 percent. According to Congressional Research Service, the average time to process an Application for Permits to Drill (APD) on federal lands increased 41 percent from 2006 to 2011, extending the process by nearly 90 days. The sale and profits could lower our taxes and countries now enslaved economically by China and Russia's high prices for fuel could enjoy the benefits. Instead, he allows the greenies to keep him on the plantation of failed 19th century socialism. They don't care about the earth; they care about destroying the country.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/brand/new-report-chronicles-oil-and-gas-production-federal-lands-declining-under-obamas-watch

Let the market work

By Chip Wood, The North Dakota Oil Boom, http://personalliberty.com/2012/03/16/the-north-dakota-oil-boom/

[North Dakota] has the lowest unemployment rate in the Nation, at just 3.3 percent. California’s, by contrast, is 11.1 percent. That doesn’t even count the unemployed people who have simply stopped looking for work. The true unemployment number is probably closer to 20 percent.

According to the Census Bureau, North Dakota led the Nation in job and income growth in 2011. While California is losing millionaires every day, North Dakota is creating them faster than anyplace else in the country. But even entry-level positions are benefiting. For example, a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s pays $18 an hour plus a “signing bonus” for new employees.

And while the State of California can’t begin to pay all of its bills — it even issued IOUs last year in place of tax refunds — the biggest argument in North Dakota’s State Capitol is how to spend all of the money that’s pouring in. Legislators in Bismarck have approved hundreds of “shovel ready” infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, railroads and pipelines. But even while spending more on worthwhile projects, legislators also agreed to cut the State income tax.

What’s happening in North Dakota is a classic example of the one thing that would solve our energy problems everywhere — and most other problems in the economy, too. Unfortunately, it’s the one thing Obama and his team won’t even consider.

The solution is simple: Let the market work.

Slavery in Brazil

This morning on Catholic radio I was listening to a report about slavery in Brazil. Workers are lured by promises of jobs, but after they arrive in remote agricultural areas thousands of miles from home and family, they are told they have to pay off their transportation debt.

It occurred to me that before our President offered their President Dilma Rousseff (a Marxist in her youth, and daughter of a Bulgarian Communist) money for off shore, deep ocean drilling for oil and gas (which we then will purchase from them) he should have inquired about this problem. When I checked it on the internet, our own State Department which has an anti-trafficking section reported both sex slavery of women, boys and girls as well as labor slavery:

Brazil is a source country for men, women, girls, and boys trafficked within the country and transnationally for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, as well as a source country for men and boys trafficked internally for forced labor. The Brazilian Federal Police estimate that 250,000 to 400,000 children are exploited in domestic prostitution, in resort and tourist areas, along highways, and in Amazonian mining brothels. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009

In his speech to the Brazilian people on March 20, 2011, he praised their diversity, the beauty of their country and our similar backgrounds, but failed to note that slavery hasn't ended in Brazil since it is documented both by the U.S. State Department and the Roman Catholic Church, two of the most powerful organizations in the world.

When you think about it, the journeys of the United States of America and Brazil began in similar ways. Our lands are rich with God’s creation, home to ancient and indigenous peoples. From overseas, the Americas were discovered by men who sought a New World, and settled by pioneers who pushed westward, across vast frontiers. We became colonies claimed by distant crowns, but soon declared our independence. We then welcomed waves of immigrants to our shores, and eventually after a long struggle, we cleansed the stain of slavery from our land. Transcript

So even if we ignore the idiocy and hypocrisy of sending our industry south to Brazil and the fact that if there is an accident similar to the one he dithered about in May, we still are doing business with a slave holding country with a Marxist president!

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—USGS

This report by the US Geological Survey is from April 2008, but the oil hasn't gone away. It came through on an e-mail, so I decided to take a look--and yes, the report is at the U.S.G.S. web page.

"North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil."

USGS Release: 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate— (4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM)

It really is strange that U.S. environmentalists have such a stranglehold on leaders of both parties, because the shutting down of our energy supplies and regulating it out of business, certainly isn't unique to this administration. It forces us to buy foreign supplies--where we have no control over the environmental conditions--involves us in foreign wars with Muslims, and sends our President to Brazil to offer them to drill where he says we can't. It would seem that the long term goal is to destroy both the U.S. and the environment, so obviously they are not interested in "Mother Earth."

However, depending on which version of the e-mail you get, the number of barrels keeps expanding as it is passed along (as does our use for oil), so it's best to go to the website to read the article. And new sources are being found all the time. What doesn't expand is our government's willingness to pursue it. We just pay others to pollute.

The price of oil shot up today

Just today I think I heard someone in the Obama regime pining for European prices for gasoline so we could be pushed further into green energy schemes. Now with the problems in Egypt, maybe he'll get his wish. Egypt's Regime on the Brink. Oil prices went up over 3%--oil goes through the Suez Canal as do our military fleets.

The Iconoclast at New English Review says: Stop giving aid to Egypt, to Jordan, to Pakistan, to Afghanistan, to the "Palestinian" Authority. No American aid will win friends among Muslims for Infidels. But American aid, and European too, can increase hatred for the Americans and the Europeans, not among those who are most fervently Muslim, for they are already suffused with such hatred, they batten on it, but among the more advanced (a term of relative rather than absolute value when applied to primitive, semi-savage societies with a political class even more coarse and ignorant and clownish than that to be found in much -- though not all -- of the present-day West), and secular.

Deepwater Horizon record was exemplary--MMS

Out of 2,896 days of operation, Deep Water Horizon received 6 citations, and none of those were very serious according to Minerals Management Service (MMS). The Deepwater Horizon's record was so exemplary, according to MMS officials, that the rig was never on inspectors' informal "watch list" for problem rigs. But now there are charges and counter charges, and Associated Press who probably doesn't have anyone on staff who knows anything about these rigs, is asking a lot of questions and posing lots of possibilities. But whereever it goes, it always comes back to the responsibility of MMS and the Coast Guard, i.e., the federal government, and the fact that almost nothing was done by this administration for 9 days. The World Socialist Website see it all as BP and Transocean's fault, because how could it blame the Obama government when it doesn't believe there should even be a private oil industry? Unless it was the government of George W. Bush and a hurricane, and then the federal, not the state and local governments, are completely to blame. That too is the socialist way. . .

MMS declined to send a witness to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s hearing Monday on the federal response to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said. I don't understand how the government can force automobile company CEOs and bank managers to show up to be grilled, and their own guys get to duck out!

Federal Inspections on Deepwater Horizon Not as Claimed - AOL News

On Oil, Mining and Banking Media Favor Regulation, Barely Notice Failures of Regulators | NewsBusters.org

Obama doesn't point fingers at government or environmentalists

If you Google, "blame environmentalists for oil spill" you'll get a bunch of articles, essays, blogs, and whiners on the left bad mouthing Rush Limbaugh (as though he had an elected office or owned an oil company) and someone I've never heard of, for suggesting that there would be no deep water drilling if it weren't for the environmentalists. Oh, are they outraged. But they really don't have a good answer, because it's true. Nor does Obama, whose government agencies handle all the safety and regulation of this very risky (but rarely failing) operation. He, the master of the blame game, continues to blame every thing and everyone except his own administration.

They used to drill for natural gas in Ohio and oil in Pennsylvania. No deep water spills then. Maybe if they'd listened to Sarah Palin . . .?

The Gulf oil spill blame game - How the World Works - Salon.com

Limbaugh, Environmentalists Square Off on Who is to Blame for Oil Leak - ABC News

Bush's legacy

He's not scrambling for one the way some former and ex-presidents have done, but of course, history (and the media) will assign it whether or not he claims it. I don't know how the bailout will be viewed; I hope not with all the things President Hoover tried (yes, I know Joe Biden thinks Roosevelt was president in 1929, but that's what you get with those first class educations that people like the Palins couldn't afford).

Here's what I wrote on Nov. 27, 2007:

Here are my ten suggestions for a Bush legacy, in order of importance, five positive, five negative.

1) The appointment of two outstanding judges to the Supreme Court, Roberts and Alito. This will extend many years and perhaps be able to return the Supreme Court to its original intention, moving it away from creating law. Kennedy, his father's appointment after the Bork nomination failed, was a tremendous disappointment for conservatives, so it is possible that with time, this one won't be in number one place, but for now, that's where I'd place it for long term impact.

2) The tax cuts and overseeing the most robust economy in the history of this nation I'd place second. Facing my retirement in 2000 dependent on the health of the stock market, I was watching my accounts stagnate, and then tumble after 9/11. Right now the economy is softening and Democrats are making all the wrong moves, especially for retirees (look out boomers) mainly because they use taxes to punish, not to move the country forward.

3) Getting us back on our feet after 9/11. Although I didn't dislike Al Gore and wouldn't have been upset if he'd been President (my first election as a Republican), it is still hard to imagine his taking charge after that disaster. For awhile it looked like there might even be a resurgence of patriotism and love of country, but that quickly faded as the Bush hatred over the lost election of 2000 continued to fester and eat away at the reasoning faculties of otherwise sensible people.

4) Freeing more women in Afghanistan in the 21st century than Abraham Lincoln did slaves in the USA in the 19th century. We don't know yet the full consequences of this, because women were quite advanced in this country before it was stolen from them by the Taliban, and the climb back up will require a lot of will. American feminists have ignored this achievement rather than give Bush the credit.

5) Leading the country into an unpopular, controversial war with the support and backing of both parties, including some of the same senators who later reversed their decision. That Bush held strong and refused to abandon the Iraqi people the way Nixon did the Vietnamese is a huge legacy, especially for those he saved from the blood bath had he caved into demands for pull-outs and withdrawals from his enemies.

And on the negative side of the legacy ledger.

1) Offended his supporters and party by nominating a weak Supreme Court candidate (White House counsel Harriet Miers) and by attempting to partner with the Democrats on an amnesty bill for illegal immigrants. These two actions also hurt any Republicans who supported him on other issues.

2) Not being able to corral his stampeding RINOs and missing the opportunity to reform Social Security by taking total control back from the government to allow investment in personal accounts.

3) Standing firm in his resolve that all societies deserve and desire a democracy. Perhaps only history will decide this one, but you've got to admit trying to jump start a 7th century mentality and push or drag it into the 21st century, is a tough row to hoe.

4) The biggest tax spender on education ever to enter the White House, crafting a program with Ted Kennedy's help. Did he tell us during the 2000 campaign that he wanted to be the "education president?" Earmarks (pork) and wasted foreign aid--but that's more congressional, and something we've just come to expect from our government, isn't it? This and the next one have made him an anathema to many conservatives.

5) Expanding medical care to a government drug program with Ted Kennedy, thus laying the ground work for the Democrats to make it even worse and more expensive. I think government-doled, rock-bottom health care for every household earning less than $1 million is a real possibility after 2008. Those making over a million will still be able to purchase first class care like they do in socialist countries.

I think some items might need to be rearranged. The Iraqi war has been long and has fractured the American spirit from the bitterness of the anti-war crowd, just the way I remember the VietNam years. But he didn't abandon them and turn yellow-belly the way they wanted him to do. Not that they would have praised him for an earlier resolution. The Iraqis will sell their oil to the Chicoms--why mess with our environmentalist nonsense--they have to rebuild their economy which the left says we broke. But I guess that removes "blood for oil" argument. The Dems won that one. Even today, the other party won't use the word victory, and maybe only historians will. Democrats and their progressive/socialist/marxist fringes have been so wrong on all fronts about this, it will be difficult to sort out because the academics and the press always are on the left and write from that perspective.

The Democrats are Golden

They've got the touch. They touch it; the price goes up.

When President Bush took office in 2001, the price of oil was around $30 a barrel. Six years later the price had doubled. Democrats promised voters they had “a common sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.” On October 20, 2006, just before the Democrats took over Congress, a barrel of oil was about $57.

So, how is the Democrat’s “common sense plan” working? In the six years before they took control, oil increased an average of about $5 a year. But in the 16 months the Democrats have been responsible for the nation’s energy policy, the price of oil has risen to $126 — an increase of almost $70 a barrel or $5 each month.

If I had a choice, I’d take $5 a year over $5 a month. Meanwhile, gas prices on the Democrat’s watch went from $2.20 a gallon to $3.67, an increase of almost 10 cents a month. The Democrat’s plan isn’t working, unless their plan was to decrease our dependence on oil by making it so expensive we can’t afford to buy it. Continue reading Charles Reichley

And now they want to elect the guy who will only make it worse. I think it's the same thinking that keeps the poor and minorities trapped in the major cities, all of which have Democrats running them. Vote for us. We'll take care of you. You'll be so poor, no one else will want you!

Where that strange environmental data come from

Thirteen hundred gallons of water to produce a quarter-pounder? That's based on an ag extension report given to a high school class 30 years ago, according to this interesting article in the Wall St. Journal Friday. Pardon the pun but it depends on whose ox you want to gore. Carl Bailik provides a number of alternative figures. He says at his blog:

A respected nonprofit focused on water education repeated the number in pamphlets and other material. A scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey saw the pamphlet and used the stat for a USGS water-facts Web site. And once the estimate became a USGS stat, it was amplified and repeated — on other government sites, on PBS.org, on a bottled-water trade group site, in university newspapers and in other publications. It even showed up in the office elevator of Numbers Guy reader Joe Penrose, who saw the stat on the Captivate Network screen as a “fun fact” and emailed me to suggest I look into it.

But whoever you believe, we can live without oil, but we can't live without water, and using up our water to grow crops to burn in our automobiles to satisfy environmentalists who go crazy at the thought of the internal combustion engine and melting glaciers is just silly.