So, who's to blame for the current mortgage mess?  If you believe the current media narrative, capitalism itself is to blame.  Not content to blame just the GOP or Bush, Democrats are going after the big prize - the conservative ideology that advocates free markets.

Progressive socialists like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders are absolutely giddy about this crisis.  This affords them the perfect opportunity to shove the word FAILURE in the face of any conservative that ever advocated for de-regulation, including John McCain.

Here's Obama declaring this mess is the "Final Verdict" free markets failed:

Just a month ago, Democrats were worried that American voters might be souring on their Progressive/socialist agenda like the French and Germans did when they recently elected pro-U.S., pro-market leaders like Sarkozy and Merkel, respectively.  U.S. voters were beginning to blame Democrats for the struggling economy when they saw Democrats clinging to their extreme environmentalism and denying even a vote on lifting the ban on offshore drilling.

This anti-democratic posture by Democrats helped the GOP blame Democrats for the bad economy.

What a difference a month makes.

Now, capitalism itself is on trial and it's losing badly.  I will stand up and defend free markets and, using the Audacity of Reason, remind voters of the facts:

1. In 1977, Democrat President Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).  This act forced banks to "provide credit, including home ownership opportunities to under-served populations".
2. In 1993, Democrat Bill Clinton asked his Treasury Secretary to come up with reforms to increase the expand the CRA.
3. In 1997, Democrat Bill Clinton increased the market share of these CRA loans from almost zero to almost 15%.  Fannie's and Freddie's combined portfolios went from about $200 billion to over $1 trillion during Clinton's term in office - a five fold increase. 
4. In 2005, Bush attempted to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs) but he was rejected along party lines despite warnings by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. 

I urge everyone to read all of Chairman Greenspan's Senate testimony on April 6, 2005, but I'll include his prescient conclusion below:

"Without restrictions on the size of GSE balance sheets, we put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership."

Still, Bush was President.  Why didn't he do more?  Let me explain.

Bush's #1 priority, after 9/11, was keeping U.S. safe.  Because Democrats chose to undermine the War on Terror and the Iraq War, Bush had to sacrifice other priorities to win support from Democrats to get national security legislation passed and keep us safe.  Had Democrats chose to support the President on national security matters, as was the custom in years past, we would have had real changes at Fannie and Freddie to limit the risk to our overall economy.

Why did Clinton, back in 1993, seek to force banks to lend to people that our banks would not have otherwise lent money to?  Here's how Clinton's Comptroller, Gene Ludwig, described how the Clinton team decided to "reform the CRA":

"Before we made a single decision on proposing reform, we...walked through South Central Los Angeles, in a predominantly minority neighborhood in New York City....we talked with representatives of the Navajo Nation; to bankers, large and small banks, inclusive; to poor people in rural North Carolina and elsewhere. (What) we saw and what we heard shaped this reform package."

How did Clinton seek to enforce compliance?  In 1993, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen explains:

"In a nutshell, what we're proposing to do is to make it easier for lenders to show how they're complying with the Community Reinvestment Act. ...the changes we're proposing are important because banks now have a very clear, quantitative standard by which their compliance can be judged. And that is very important to banks when it comes to ask regulators to approve mergers, new branches and the like."

Under Bill Clinton and his Democratic Congress, the CRA was reborn and inserted into the very fabric of our financial markets.  Yes, some institutions were happy to make money doing CRA loans but they would not have made them if the Clinton Administration hadn't forced them to in order to get new branches and mergers approved.  We know this because before Clinton, CRA loans were almost non-existent.

A $1 trillion mistake by the Democrats has finally come home to roost.

Now, there is a $700 billion plan to bailout financial institutions that are having a hard time pricing all the bad CRA mortgage-related assets on their balance sheets.  It could cost a $1 trillion or more.  Whatever the cost, it's not a failure of free markets or capitalism - it is a failure of the "mixed economy" that Ayn Rand warned about 40 years ago.

It is the socialist ideology that Democrats want to shove down your throat with stealth and guilt all wrapped up in the purposely ambiguous euphemism "Change We Need".

Yes, substandard lending had some GOP support along the way but make no mistake - it would have never have happened if Democrats didn't push for it.  Conservatives advocate smaller government and merit-based financial decisions.  Liberals advocate more government and financial decisions based on "fairly spreading the wealth".  For 12 years, during Reagan and Bush 41, the CRA was meaningless.  During 8 years of Clinton, CRA-related sub-prime mortgages increased five-fold.

If the banks and Wall Street were so greedy, why didn't they pursue substandard lending before Clinton?

Because it did not make business sense - they would have lost money.  Only after the Clinton Administration "made it easier" to prove compliance with the CRA and back up the loans with implicit guarantees from Fannie and Freddie, did private banks jump on board.  Banks were asked to demonstrate they were doing "their share" of substandard lending to minorities or else the feds would not approve mergers or new branches.

Of course, it was a mistake to package these loans into financial instruments traded around the world but can you really blame a German or Japanese bank for buying a product that had the allure of "U.S. Mortgage Obligations"?  It probably never occurred to the German banker to ask if some of the mortgages were made without verification of income???

Congress did everything it could to grow Fannie, Freddie and CRA loans.  This was a whopper of a mistake.  A $1 trillion mistake by Clinton and the Democrats.  The question is will the public hold them accountable or believe Obama's propaganda that evil-unregulated-free-markets is to blame for this mess?

According to Dana Perino, White House Press Secretary, no matter what rescue plan Congress gives him to sign, Bush “would look to his Secretary of the Treasury and …the Fed Chairman,” and ask them if this plan will save our economy. 

Wow, so even if 20% of the plan’s profits would go to ACORN, the massive corrupt leftist got-out-the-vote-for-Obama group, the President is going to sign it because Hank Paulson gives the thumbs up??  So who is this unelected man that the President has granted authority over $700 billion of our money?

I count myself among the better informed.  However, I did not know Hank Paulson was a Democrat, attended Harvard and lives near Chicago.  Isn’t Obama a Harvard grad who lives in Chicago?  I have nothing against common folk from Chicago but looking into Obama’s background gives me pause. 

Let’s take a quick review of the more famous Chicago power players:

In addition, it turns out that ACORN had a remarkable role, with help from Congressional Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, in creating the toxic paper that our financial markets are now choking on.  

Section 8 of Paulson’s plan states: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the …this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”  No review by a court of law or administrative agency?  So I can’t even “trust but verify”?

So, how are you feeling about trusting Hank Paulson with the largest rescue plan in U.S. history? 

We haven’t even talked about Paulson’s conflicts of interest given that Paulson was Chairman and CEO, after 32 years, at Goldman Sachs - which happens to be the last independent investment bank standing.  It’s been reported that despite “…bailouts and managed liquidations of Goldman competitors Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman…in which shareholder value was largely wiped out, Goldman’s stock could rise under the Paulson plan…”.

Lastly, thank God, are the recent reports that many of Paulson’s former executives at Goldman are “bundlers” for Obama’s campaign - going so far as to email, to Obama’s campaign manager, details of the “private” discussions between the Secretary and House Republicans.

THAT’S IT! 

Paulson must resign, along with the leading Democrats still pushing the toxic paper that’s crippling the world’s financial markets.

Before any rescue plan…Fire Dodd, Frank & Paulson!

Many people have heard that the National Journal rated Barack Obama the Most Liberal Senator in 2007.   Obama’s could have picked anyone to be his running mate, and he chose Senator Joe Biden - the 3rd most liberal. 

What you may not know is that one of my Vermont Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was rated 5th most liberal and is a self-described Socialist. 

That makes Obama more liberal than a Socialist.

Before you tune me out because I used the “S” word, do a little research.  Invest a little bit of time learning about:

• Saul Alinsky - the father of community organizing.  Clinton wrote her senior thesis about Alinsky.  Obama learned Alinsky’s methods so well that he taught them to others.
• Weather Underground - radical group known for bombing the Pentagon, the NY Police HQ and the Capitol.  Co-founded by Bill Ayers.  
• Bill Ayers - co-founder of Weather Underground who hosted a party to launch Obama’s political career in his living room.  
• Bernardine Dohrn - Bill Ayers’ wife, convicted for Weather Underground activities, unrepentant in her support for Marxism-Leninism, now an adjunct professor of law @ Northwestern.  
• Black Panther Party - Ayers and the Weather Underground declared war on the U.S. Government after the death of a Panther Fred Hampton.
• Haymarket Riot - An event that seemed to have started it all. 
• Rashid Khalidi - former PLO spokesman & Obama family friend.
• Tony Rezco - a huge Obama fundraiser convicted of fraud and bribery.
• ACORN - The nation’s largest radical organization and Chicago ACORN it’s most radical chapter.   They played a big part in pushing sub-prime loans that crippled our financial system and committing voter fraud in several states. 

Just Obama’s ties to ACORN should disqualify him from running for office.  Add in all the rest and the prospect of an Obama Presidency is truly frightening. 

I have no doubt in my mind that Obama is a socialist and, with a little education, you will know that too. 

Maybe you’re OK with that.  I’m not.

Last Friday, as usual, I was listening to Glenn Beck on the radio.  I'm a big fan but on Friday, I was getting more and more angry with every minute.

Glenn Beck had yet to make up his mind about supporting McCain-Palin.  I understood completely why some may have hesitated to support McCain - he's poked conservatives in the eye so many times, we winced at the mention of his name.

However, at some point, after the primaries are over, and the contrasts are drawn between the GOP nominee and the Democratic nominee, angst about our nominee should give way to support.  U.S. Presidential elections are rarely, if ever, between your ideal candidate and the Democratic nominee.

Most elections are a choice between two flawed candidates that will steer the country left (Democrat / liberal / more socialism) or right (GOP / conservative / more capitalism).   Given the failures of the socialist model, it's surprising Democrats win anything.

One of the reasons the Dems win is that most Americans get their election information from folks that spin it to make Democrats look good (or not as bad) and Republicans look bad (or really bad).  That's why it's so important to have objective news sources and, maybe, some conservative ones.

Glenn is one of those few objective sources of information.  I know he's conservative but, if you spend ten minutes listening to him - he's extremely fair and objective as it gets.  He has no problem slamming Republicans if they're screwing up.  In fact, he does it all the time!

In the 2008 election, the liberal news media, if they were honest with us, would admit Obama is a candidate whose background scares most Americans (graduate of Chicago-style politics, associations with Rezco and terrorist Bill Ayers and twenty years in a church with "God Dam* America!").  Althought he's succeeded at keeping his idea of "Change" ambiguous, the positions he's clear about are also scary.  

For example, raising taxes in a weak economy will make the economy worse.  It's not a judgement call - it's economic science.  Raising taxes on businesses will hurt all Americans who shop at or work for a business.  When faced with the crisis of a huge rise in oil prices, the Obama-led Democrats took a 5 week paid vacation.  High prices are hurting most Americans.

Except Members of Congress, who make $14,000 per month, adjusted for inflation!. 

Obama will not admit opposing the surge was a mistake.  It's obvious the surge has been successful and for a future commander-in-chief to not admit he's wrong reminds many of Bush's reluctance to admit his initial Iraq strategy was not working.  Obama still thinks premature withdrawal would have been better.  Americans don't want a President, of either party, who can't admit when their wrong.

On Friday, Glenn spent a good part of the morning agonizing about how much John McCain ruined the "orgasmic high" Sarah Palin had provided with the "conservative porn" in her Thursday RNC speech.  Knowing how bad an Obama presidency would be, and what a breath of fresh air Sarah Palin is, I was stunned that Glenn Beck was still on the fence.

Angry and determined, I called in to vent:

GLENN:  Let me go to Matt in Vermont...hello Matt!

MATT:  Hey Glenn, how ya doing?

GLENN:  Good, man, how are you?

MATT:  I'm stunned.  I'm a big fan but...

After hearing how different McCain and Obama handled the Russian invasion of Georgia...

And what Obama supporters said about Sarah Palin...

After all we know about Obama's Marxist past...

After all you know about Sarah Palin...

I can't believe you're still undecided about whether to support McCain-Palin!

McCain brought Sarah Palin to national politics...to his credit...

GLENN:  Why do you have to call it McCain-Palin?

Just call it McCain.

MATT:  What?

GLENN:  Why do you have to call it McCain-Palin?

Cause then it makes me...

MATT:  That's the ticket!  He brought her there!

He put the Sarah card on the table and you're not going to pick it up!!!???

I just don't get that....that's uh...

GLENN:  I understand..

MATT:  I just don't understand that's like uh..

GLENN:  No.  Go ahead. I thought you were going to say that's stupid

MATT:  You know the saying "Perfect is the enemy of the good"?

GLENN:  What did you say?

MATT:  You know the saying "Perfect is the enemy of the good"?

GLENN:  I'm not looking for perrrfecttt.  I'm not looking for perfect.

I'm just looking for someone who, in their speech last night, doesn't say things like, "Hey, if you lose your job and your get a lower paying job, we're going to make up the difference for a while."

That's what I'm looking for, I'm looking for somebody who doesn't say that.

MATT:  (unaired) You don't have the option of choosing...

(aired) the perfect candidate.  It's who's the best candidate between the two teams?

GLENN:  Grrrrrrr!

MATT:  Are you really going to choose Barr and say no thanks to Sarah Palin?

GLENN:  No!  No.  No.

MATT:  (Not aired) Because voting for Barr has the same effect as...

(Aired) voting for Obama.

GLENN:  I just can't bring myself to say it right now...I just can't bring myself to say it yet...

(frustrated) Ugh...I'm sure I'm going to vote for McCain-PALIN!  I'm sure I'm going to do it.

(end of call)

That is the first time I've heard Glenn Beck say who he'd vote for.

SUCCESS!!  FINALLY! 

I was thrilled.

Although HE has disappointed me in the past (they endorsed Thompson for President even though Thompson was one of a handful of GOP Senators to vote against Clinton's impeachment), I admire Ann Coulter, she works there, so I thought I'd take a look at their report.   They cover ten folks and no Mitt Romney.  Huh????

Well, I bolted off an email to John Gizzi, the Political Editor at HUMAN EVENTS and I share it below:

John,

I can’t say I was surprised you did not include Romney in your McCain Veepstakes Report but it was disappointing nonetheless. Perhaps you might reconsider? Did you know that Townhall.com is doing a poll and Romney is leading by twenty points ahead of Palin and Hutchison (tied @ 2nd)?.

While picking VP should not be a popularity contest, shouldn’t Human Events include one of our most popular Republicans, and the man who came in 2^nd during the 2008 GOP Primary, on your short list??

I know you’ve think Huckabee came in 2^nd but that’s odd considering 1) Romney graciously left the race when it was obvious McCain would win, 2) Huckabee, inexplicably, ungraciously, stayed in the race and 3) Romney would have cleaned Huckabee’s clock in delegates, states and votes had he stayed in.

Think of it this way, the game was over after Super Tuesday. The lights in the gym were dimmed to encourage folks to go home, the best players left to prepare for the next game, most fans were gone and Huckabee's still running up and down the court, in the dark, posing for the few remaining reporters, shooting baskets and claiming the baskets he happened to make still counted toward the final score. Yeah, right.

So, please reconsider your decision to keep Romney out of the VP narrative. You could issue a special “Romney Report” outlining all the reasons Romney should also be considered.

My top ten reasons Romney should be VP:

1.      Most of us who support Romney do so because we think he’s a decent man, a great husband and father and the best Presidential candidate to come along in 24 years.

2.      Unlike all the Veeps in your report, Romney looked in the mirror years ago and felt confident enough to run for President. All of your folks looked in the mirror, lowered their sights and ran for Governor of LA, MN, MS and SC. Romney put himself out there, in JFK’s arena, competed in debates, endured national press scrutiny and won the hearts and minds of millions around the country – they didn’t. Pawlenty, Palin, Jindal – they all should be applauded for advancing conservatism but they did not feel confident to run for President – Romney did.

3.      Romney raised over $100 million across the country from California to Utah to Texas - they haven’t. Romney has had great success managing large companies, the International Olympics and Governor of the 13th largest state - the other candidates have been Governor, that’s it. Romney has experience running a strong, organized national campaign - at most, they have experience running a one-state campaign.  Romney has tens of millions of supporters - they don’t. Romney can help deliver IA, MI, MN, ME, CO, NV, UT & probably NH - they deliver one state each.

4.      Romney’s great success in the private sector makes him the perfect VP to help McCain help America win the global economy. Romney’s a private-sector superstar who successfully counters Obama’s populism with free market solutions to people’s everyday problems. Having both a Harvard MBA & Law degree doesn’t hurt either.

5.      I’ve heard rumors, propagated by Huckabee et al, that Evangelicals may bolt if McCain picks a Mormon. I’m shocked folks are still listening to the Huckster given his really, really bad sense of humor when making jokes about Obama being shot at.  Make no mistake, Huckabee has a problem with Romney’s religion and has soured many evangelicals on Romney but not all of them.  Bottom-line, the base of the GOP are patriots that are comfortable with anyone of any color of any gender who attends any church. Those that aren’t comfortable with the Church their party’s V.P. nominee attends should evolve or find another party.

6.      McCain was having trouble raising money until Romney sponsored a fund raiser for McCain in Salt Lake City and another with President Bush at Romney’s home in Deer Valley, UT.  Romney has raised lots of money and has lots of money – that could be useful when the Soros-backed-MoveOn.org crowd start to cause trouble.

7.      As far as the electoral college, Romney will help McCain exactly where he needs help the most: Michigan (Obama now +4.3) and Colorado (Obama now +1.2) - two of the four states Karl Rove says are key (McCain's already ahead in the other two - VA & OH).  Romney beat McCain in the GOP primary 59% to 19% in CO and 39% to 30% in MI, where Romney’s father was governor.

8.      In FL, 600,000 voted for Romney - those votes could be crucial in a general election.  Bush won FL by less than 1000 votes in 2000.

9.      McCain lost big time to Romney in 5 of 10 states with less than 5% margin of victory for Bush in 2004: IA, NV, MI, MN & CO.

10. Net, net - Romney on the ticket may add 47 to 61 electors.  Bush beat Kerry by only 34 electors.

So, John – does that sway you at all? Might the great national conservative weekly have room in the tent for a leader that could do so much for the GOP ticket?

Take care…Matt

I don't have much hope Mr. Gizzi will add Mitt to their short list but I believe you have to express yourself, you have to put your view out there, regardless of whether you have a guarantee it changes anything.  Hey, you never know.

Last Thursday night, I hosted a “McCain Nation” event - a house party, of sorts, for conservatives.  Living in the state with more Obama supporters per person than any other (Vermont), I appreciate any occasion to meet and greet people who support Jessica's Law and don't feel warm and fuzzy about impeaching President Bush.

Thank you, Cindy McCain, for your comments about the women of Rwanda.  After all they’ve been through, they certainly deserve all the support we can give them (see Justice 4 Rwanda). 

At their upcoming convention, Democrats will make lots of speeches pointing to the “booming Clinton economy of the 1990s” as proof that Democrats can be trusted with the economy.

The problem is the booming 1990s economy began March 1991, 22 months before Clinton took office. 

Like Obama, Clinton promised “Change” during his 1992 campaign for President.  However, later, after the country saw what kind of change Clinton had in mind, voters overwhelmingly rejected Clinton’s policies by electing, for the 1st time in 40 years, a Republican majority in Congress that kept taxes and spending down and forced Clinton to balance the federal budget.

So the credit for the “booming 1990s economy” really belongs to Bush 41 and the ‘94 Republicans. 

So, my question is this:  Will the McCain Campaign debunk the myth of the “booming Clinton economy” so Obama and the Democrats can’t take credit for it anymore?

Charlie Black agreed with my analysis.  I was thrilled!  Perhaps he was just flattering a supporter, in front of 15,000 other supporters, but it was thrilling to offer a senior McCain advisor, directly, my advice for taking away the economy, as an issue, from the Democrats in the General Election.  (I wonder if Mitt Romney was listening - our choice for McCain’s VP!)

Anyway, Mr. Black went on to say that the ‘94 Republicans quickly entered into a balanced budget agreement, with the then-weakened Clinton, to fulfill their promises in the Contract with America, and that that agreement laid the groundwork for historic budget surpluses in the late 1990s.  He also said that he had recently heard Obama’s surrogates on TV talking about how great the Clinton years were for the economy and the country.   

Clinton didn’t create 22 million jobs - the booming economy that he inherited from Reagan and Bush 41 did.

I hope and pray that I’ve planted a seed that will encourage McCain campaign strategists to come up with an ad, or a major speech, that will debunk the booming-Clinton-economy myth and put the 1990s in proper perspective.  Many feel a President doesn’t have much influence anyway on a $13 trillion dollar economy.  I’m sure Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Cisco and other great American companies feel they had a bigger influence on 1990s economy. 

Nevertheless, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and hundreds of other Democrat leaders, pundits and supporters in the media often boast how “magnificent Clinton was on the economy”, how “Clinton created 22 million new jobs”, that the economy is a glorious part of his legacy and that evil Bush came along and ruined all the good work Clinton had done in the ’90s.

These are all lies that need to be confronted & corrected. 

So, to the extent that any political leader can take credit for increasing the GDP, and the resulting job growth, it is the pro-growth policies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush that kept the 1990-91 recession shallow & short - in effect extending the booming Reagan economy into the 1990s.  Credit the 1994 Congressional Republicans for forcing Clinton to keep taxes and spending low and balancing the federal budget - all things that tend to help an economy.  One must also give some credit to Ross Perot for making federal budget deficits a big focus of the 1992 and 1994 campaigns.  Whatever you think of Ross Perot, he made it “sexy” again to demand fiscal responsibility from our elected officials.   

In any event, the credit does not belong to the Clintons.

Democrats, if they’re to be honest, must use the Carter economy for guidance on what an Obama economy might look like.   Like Carter, Obama will, if elected, have both houses of Congress led by Democrats.  Like Carter, Obama’s energy plan is to make our own oil companies the enemy, to seize their “excess” windfall profits, to implement new taxes on oil & gas (aren’t they expensive enough already?) - everything except what’s needed most:  lifting the ban on offshore (OCS) and ANWR drilling effective immediately.

I'm a member of several Obama groups, just to keep an eye on things, and I just received this eyeful yesterday: 

Subject: A Reception with George Clooney in Switzerland for Senator Barack Obama

Dear Friends,

We are very excited to announce that Academy Award winning Actor George Clooney will be headlining an event for the campaign. The event will be Tuesday, September 2nd in Geneva, Switzerland and we really need your help to make this special event a success.

The evening will be broken down into two parts - a reception for $1,000 where Mr. Clooney will speak and take questions followed by an exclusive dinner at the home of NFC member Charles Adams for $10,000 per person. The dinner is limited to 75 people so if you are interested in attending, please fax in the attached invite as soon as possible. Or if know of anyone you think may be interested in attending, please forward this email.

If you do send this to friends and colleagues abroad, only American Citizens with US Passport numbers can contribute to the campaign.
Thank you so much!!!

Cookie Parker
National Finance Committee, Obama for America
National Chair, Women’s Leadership Initiative
Democratic National Platform Committee, DNC

So, let me get this straight.  A member of Obama's National Finance Committee (which nation?), Mr. Charles Adams, owns a home in Geneva, Switzerland, and plans to host a $10,000 per plate dinner with George Clooney as the headliner during the GOP convention.

Originally posted on June 27, 2008.  This is my fourth revision.

Here’s my plan:

1. Sell 1% of the SPR, per month, until oil is < $100 barrel again.  
2. Spend the SPR money, about $1 billion / month, to jump-start alternatives like Picken’s wind project, solar and hydro. 
3. Make a 9pm EST Primetime announcement that the U.S. will begin drilling in the OCS and ANWR effective immediately.  Make it a national priority to help oil companies get rigs out to those sites!  Use military when necessary, interrupt shipping lanes - rally the nation - this is important & urgent!  Let's act like it!
4. Offer $100 billion for the first person or company to invent an inexpensive  way to retrofit existing cars to get > 100 mpg.  It’s great if auto makers offer new cars that get high mpg but for every new car sold there are thousands already on the road. 
5. Build the largest nuke plant in the world in the Nevada desert, right next to the Yucca Mountain Repository, and plug into the national grid.  Why risk transporting the nuke waste any farther than necessary?
6. Identify the 10 worst users of energy, efficiency-wise, make them famous and use carrots and sticks to make sure the list is completely different next year.
7. Abandon all efforts at biofuels - that was a really stupid idea.  Not only is producing food energy-intensive but we need all the food we produce to feed people, not cars.  USE FOOD FOR PEOPLE.
8. Remove regulatory burdens preventing new oil & gas refineries from being built and existing ones from being expanded. 

So why do we need an energy plan?  Is there a crisis?  Some prominent Democratic leaders, including Barack Obama, would like you to believe high energy prices are punishment for 5% of the world’s population using 25% of the world’s oil or bitter medicine necessary to force us to finally do the right thing:  conserve. 

This explains their lack of action. 

Others, including myself, have a different take on things:

America does great things with the energy it consumes!

The U.S. economy produces over $13 trillion of goods and services  - more than Japan, Germany, China & the U.K. combined!  We create most of the world’s great inventions.  We produce most of the world’s food - food is energy-intensive.  We use lots of energy to help maintain a fantastic military that helps keep the world safe.  Our incredible economy creates lots of wealth, a big chunk of which is donated to help feed and clothe the rest of the world. 

We also produce most of the world’s medicines, music, movies and manufactured goods.  Does that surprise you?  You may have been misled into thinking the U.S. has lost all it’s manufacturing to China.  Actually, in real dollars, American manufacturers produced $1.53 trillion worth of goods in 2005—up from $900 billion in 1992.  Let me repeat, we manufacture 70% more goods than we did in 1992 in real dollars - that takes energy, lots of it. 

So, why shouldn’t we use the most energy?   We create the most goods and services (and inventions, music, film, food, medicines, aircraft, etc..)  In addition, we’re extremely efficient using our energy.  In 1999, we were able to produce all the goods we did in 1972, and then some, with 74% less energy.  In other words, Mr. Obama, we already conserve, have been for years, we just call it being “efficient”, and we do it to save our companies, and families, money. 

We should celebrate our economy and what we produce, not feel guilty about much energy we use to produce it!

This plan has huge benefits for the United States:

1. Selling SPR oil and opening up the OCS and ANWR sends a huge message to world oil markets that the U.S. is finally serious about using all it’s available resources to meet it’s energy needs.  Although the OCS/ANWR oil will not be delivered immediately, speculators trade on trends and the trend for oil prices will finally start heading down. 
2. Exactly how much will prices drop?  Oddly enough, a Democrat in Congress may have answered that question.  Peter Welch (D-VT),  sponsored H.R. 6022 to stop adding oil to the SPR.  He says that, not purchasing 70,000 barrels per day, “may reduce gas prices 5 to 24 cents per gallon”.  Every Senate Democrat voted for it, including Obama and Hillary, and Bush signed it.  So, Democrats have agreed, on record, that 1) supply and demand affects gas prices (I had doubts Democrats believed the science of modern economics) and 2) exactly how much the price of gas drops (21 cents) for every 100,000 barrels of oil.  Remarkable!
3. Using Congressmen Welch’s math, just selling SPR oil should save another 49 cents / gal.  Do you know anyone that wants to save 49 cents a gallon?  I DO!!  As far as OCS/ANWR, we looked at the 2006 OCS Assessment and the 1987 ANWR report, which indicated, OCS/ANWR may yield 2 to 4 million barrels per day.  Again, using Rep. Welch’s math, the OCS/ANWR oil may push the price of gas to below $1 per gallon.   It may not be that dramatic but the more U.S. oil we produce, the lower the worldwide price - it’s economic science.   
4. This should drop not just the price of oil, but nearly all U.S. consumer items.  Lower prices and a solid plan should help calm consumer fears about the future of the U.S. economy.  Right now, the Democratic Congress stands in the way of a solid drilling plan and that stalemate’s making consumers very uncertain, and increasingly, more angry.  
5. The SPR has about 700 million barrels of oil so 1% is 7 million bbls.  At $142 per bbl, selling 7 million bbls from the SPR will produce about $1 billion dollars per month for investment in alternative energy .  Oil, gas, coal, natural gas and nuclear will meet our near term needs (next thirty years) while we transition to alternative energy (wind, solar, hydrogen, liquefied coal).
6. Aggressive domestic drilling replaces foreign oil with domestic and that prevents hundreds of billions of US dollars from going to countries hostile to our interests, lower our trade deficit,  and creates hundreds of thousands of US jobs.
7. The more oil produced in the U.S. the more control we have over how it is produced.  For example, U.S. deep sea drilling standards minimize damage to the environment if there’s an accident.  Right now, we have no control over how a well drilled off the coast of Nigeria is regulated.
8. Abandoning bio fuels will reduce pressure on food prices and help get food to those who need it most.
9. This plan generates billions of dollars for alternative energy research without any money from the federal budget - this helps keep our deficit down, interest rates down and the dollar up - all good for U.S. consumers.
10. One nice side benefit of increased domestic production is that all our allies, Europe, Japan, Australia, South America, Afghanistan, will also benefit from lower worldwide oil prices after we increase US output.  They will be grateful that we have finally taken pressure off not just gas price but prices overall and avoided a worldwide recession, if not depression.

Not her health benefits, of course, but the benefits of doubt that blacks, humanitarians, Obama folk, media, millions of others, have been giving Hillary Clinton for years. 

Early on, it was apparent that her husband cheated on her, more than most, and, incredibly, Hillary stayed with him.  Many thought she wanted political power and had made a Faustian deal, sparing Bill a divorce scandal in return for a shot at the White House later.  Others gave her the benefit of the doubt, defending her by asserting it was a private matter between Hillary and Bill made ugly and public by a “vast right wing conspiracy“.   

Later Bill went back on his campaign promise to stop the killing in the former Yugoslavia.   Again, some, such as Sally Bedell Smith and Christopher Hitchens, believed Hillary did not want another Somalia disaster threatening her health care reforms so Hill urged Bill to ignore the Bosnian cries for help (See Hitchens’ Slate article here).  Supporters gave Hill & Bill the benefit of the doubt, despite over 250,000 deaths there during Bill’s first term, and defended Bill’s inaction by asserting Europeans should help Europeans. 

In 1994, the unthinkable happened.  Over 56,000 blacks per week were being butchered in Rwanda - a murder rate 5 times that of the Holocaust.  Clinton was quick to get Americans out and supported Belgium’s call to pull UN troops out rather than send more troops in.  To get around that pesky UN Genocide Convention, Clinton instructed Secretary of State Christopher and UN Ambassador Albright not to let anyone use the word “genocide” so the US could avoid it’s more and legal obligation to intervene.  Some say Hillary was behind the policy of inaction that let 800,000 die needlessly (See Hillary’s Genocide Problem).  Others gave Hillary the benefit of the doubt and believed her when she said, during her 2008 Presidential Campaign, that she had, in fact, urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.    Even African-American leaders gave the Clintons the benefit of the doubt about the worse genocide in African history (see Where’s Black Outrage Over Rwanda). 

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Billy Shaheen, her New Hampshire Co-Chair, resigned over remarks he made about Barack Obama’s past drug use, and his insinuation Obama not only used, but also dealt drugs.  Shaheen claimed he was only raising an issue that Republicans would have raised in the fall (See Clinton Adviser: Obama’s Past Drug Use A Liability).  Earth to Billy:  An attack on a Democrat during a Democratic Primary is a Democratic attack not a Republican attack.  Some suggested this was only the latest example of a Classic Clinton tactic of smearing a political opponent, waiting for the smear to get a lot of media coverage so it “sticks” then apologize for the comment.  Net result:  the smear still gets out there and it’s cheaper than paying for an ad!  Others (you guessed it!) gave Hillary the benefit of the doubt and resented that Mr. Shaheen made Hillary’s campaign look “out of control”. 

I could come up with a hundred more examples of deeply offensive behavior, or comments, by the Clintons, or their supporters, that asked for the benefit of the doubt over and over again. 

Yesterday, Friday, May 24, 2008, Hillary Clinton lost her benefits (See Hillary’s Big Mistake).  When asked whether her remaining in the race was hurting the Democratic Party, she mentioned that her husband’s campaign didn’t “wrap up” until June (it was over in March, 1992) and that “We all remember that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California”. 

WHAT IS SHE IMPLYING??? 

In the context of a question about why she’s in the race still (when she has no real chance to win) she brings up RFK’s assassination?  Most might say she’s implying that, if only someone would take out her opponent, she’d win this thing.  Once again, some may give her the benefit of the doubt but, ding-ding-ding, she’s all out of benefits. 

No more for you, Hillary!  You’ve used up all the good will even your supporters had for a woman and a couple who put themselves first, at the expense of others, for the last time. 

It’s especially offensive given that her opponent is a black man and blacks have a sad tragic history of losing their leaders to a sniper.  America’s heart still hurts from the loss of Dr. King.  Colin Powell, although absurdly popular, never ran for fear of assassination.   Is there some nut job out there that will hear her words and “step up to help”?  It was a grossly irresponsible comment that I could rant about some more but I thought Keith Olberman said it best, the comments were “Unforgivable”.

I called Rush Limbaugh on Friday about Rwanda. You can read the transcript and listen to the audio here:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_050908/content/01125115.guest.html

I was a first time caller and a little nervous talking to a man I’ve admired for most of my adult life, and still do.

As such, I did not engage him about some of the things he said that were a little off the mark.  Rush’s overall answer was fine but he made a couple mistakes in his comments & I know he’ll want to correct the record as soon as practical.

Rush’s 1^st mistake: “Clinton was busy at the time saving Haiti.” 

Even if the Haiti intervention happened during the genocide (Apr-Jul, 2004), the US military had the capacity to return Aristide to power and intervene in Rwanda.  Bush proved this later when he fought two wars (Iraq & Afghanistan) with over 400,000 troops deployed.  Clinton himself estimated in 2003 that he would only have needed 5,000 – 10,000 troops to “save half of those killed in Rwanda”

So, Haiti is not a legitimate excuse. Christopher Hutchens suggested that Hillary asked Bill not to intervene in Bosnia, as he had promised he would in the 1992 campaign to Elie Wiezel, because a messy intervention might jeopardize her health care reforms. Hutchens estimates that about 250,000 died before Clinton finally intervened in his second term. I believe this also explains why the Clintons abandoned Rwanda. The Clintons did not want another Somalia. The Hutu commanders in Rwanda knew about Clinton’s mistake in Somalia and knew if they killed a few soldiers the West would leave and not come back. They were right.

Rush’s 2^nd mistake:   “Clinton squared it all …took responsibility.  He was a big man.  At least Bill Clinton admitted a mistake”.

Clinton’s apologies on Rwanda were late (in 1998 - well after the 1996 Presidential Election) and, well, Clintonesque.  He suggested he was not fully aware of the genocide and he wished he could have done more. 

In 2004, documents were released that show Bill Clinton, and Vice-President Al Gore, were kept well-informed of events in Rwanda and, in fact, began using the term “genocide” privately within 3 weeks (150,000 dead) but chose not to get involved, or allow others to send rescue teams (that would embarrass us) until three months later – after 800,000 had died.

Even if he really apologized – that doesn’t “square it all”. No apology or singing in black churches or African charity work can make up for letting 800,000 humans die needlessly.

So, given these facts – why is Rush sticking up for the Clintons? Is this part of Operation Chaos?

The Clinton /Rwanda controversy is rich with conservative talk radio material about liberal hypocrisy:

1. Hundreds of thousands of black women, young and old were raped and mutilated. Where were the feminists then? Why do they support Hillary now?
2. Over 800,000 Africans were butchered to death? We should all be outraged but why is there not outrage from African-Americans like Obama, Sharpton, Clyburn, Jackson, etc? Hours and hours about all the terrible things whites have done to blacks in Rev Wright sermons and nothing about Rwanda?
3. Democrats and their activist groups are outraged about 4000 dead soldiers – “Bush lied, they died”. Of course, we should honor every soldier’s sacrifice but they died fighting a noble cause. Tabonhe victims of the Rwanda Genocide were largely innocent – many women and children. So many were slaughtered that the Kagera River ran red with blood and clogged in some places with the bloated & hacked body parts of women and children.  Democrats are outraged about 4000 soldiers who died fighting a noble cause but not a peep about 800,000 innocent blacks butchered to death at a murder rate 5 times the Holocaust?

Apparently, the Clintons made a political calculation that, in the end, no one cares that the Clintons abandoned Africa during it's worst genocide, not even African-Americans.

They were right.

Contrary to popular belief, a bad economy can be an advantage for Senator McCain - it depends on how he handles it.  Just because the GOP has the White House during an economic downturn, doesn't necessarily mean the country will replace them with Democrats. 

Three things can happen after November - economy gets better, stays the same, or gets worse.  Putting Dems in the White House could make the economy worse - in fact, if history is any guide - that's likely.    Since McCain is a self-described economic light weight - he needs some help.

Here are three steps to help McCain address the economy - the number one issue for most Americans:

1) Announce (early) Mitt Romney will be his Vice-President.  Romney is a private sector superstar that fills a huge gap in McCain's otherwise strong resume. Romney's excellent at promoting free market solutions to effectively counter the populist rhetoric of Obama/Clinton.   He’s also great at explaining why doing nothing (letting markets sort things out) is usually best.  Make no mistake, both Democrats seek to turn this country left and back to the bad old days of socialism and progressivism.  We need a strong defender of capitalism on the ticket - nobody better than Mitt Romney.

2) Working with Romney, McCain should draft a major economy speech that educates voters about the successes of capitalism and how markets work best unfettered. For example, he can highlight how many hundreds of millions of people from India and China have moved from poverty to middle class and how that helps our economy (exports). He could talk about how liberal government policies and unions have crippled Detroit and Michigan hinting if you want America to follow the same course - elect Obama/Clinton. 

3) The knockout blow would be to debunk the myth that America can trust Democrats with the economy because of the great Clinton economy of the 1990s. The fact is the booming economy of the 1990s began with a recovery in March 1991 - 20 months before Clinton took office in January 1993. (See the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis @ bea.gov).   In addition, the Clinton budget surpluses that Hillary's so proud of were a direct result of the fiscal discipline of the historic 1994 Republicans and their Contract with America. 

McCain should help Americans understand that an Obama-Clinton economy would look more like Jimmy Carter’s economy than Bill Clinton's economy. In 1976, like 2008, a Democrat became President (Carter) with a struggling economy and a Democratic Congress. That combination (Dem President & Dem Congress) made a bad situation worse.

Do we want to repeat history and be worse off in four years? 

Now that's some straight talk!