Krauthammer: Obama's Energy Policy

Charles Krauthammer expanded on what he says in the above video in his column today at National Review Online.

Herewith some excerpts (emphasis added):

Yes, of course, presidents have no direct control over gas prices. But the American people know something about this president and his disdain for oil. The “fuel of the past,” he contemptuously calls it. To the American worker who doesn’t commute by government motorcade and is getting fleeced every week at the pump, oil seems very much a fuel of the present — and of the foreseeable future.

President Obama incessantly claims energy open-mindedness, insisting that his policy is “all of the above.” Except, of course, for drilling...

But the event that drove home the extent of Obama’s antipathy to nearby, abundant, available oil was his veto of the Keystone pipeline. It gave the game away, because the case for Keystone is so obvious and overwhelming. Vetoing it gratuitously prolongs our dependence on outside powers, kills thousands of shovel-ready jobs, forfeits a major strategic resource to China, damages relations with our closest ally, and sends billions of oil dollars to Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, and already obscenely wealthy sheiks. 

Obama boasts that on his watch, production is up and imports down. True, but truly deceptive. These increases have occurred in spite of his restrictive policies. They are the result of Clinton- and Bush-era permitting. This has been accompanied by a gold rush of natural-gas production resulting from new fracking technology that has nothing at all to do with Obama.

“The American people aren’t stupid,” said Obama on February 23, mocking “Drill, baby, drill.” The “only solution,” he averred in yet another major energy speech last week, is that “we start using less, that lowers the demand, prices come down.” Yet five paragraphs later he claimed that regardless of “how much oil we produce at home . . . that’s not going to set the price of gas worldwide.”

So: Decreasing U.S. demand will lower oil prices, but increasing U.S. supply will not? This is ridiculous. Either both do or neither does. Does Obama read his own speeches?

It's been fairly obvious over the past three years that Obama has virtually no understanding of economics.  He has now demonstrated that he doesn't even grasp the basic principle of supply and demand.

 

Krauthammer: Media Bias on "Inside Washington"

Gordon Peterson, host of "Inside Washington," proved no match for Charles Krauthammer the other day, and not solely because Krauthammer was right. Don't miss the cackling Nina Totenberg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlHj7ZYcENY

Krauthammer: " Insult Congress, weaken the presidency."

Charles Krauthammer, writing today at National Review Online, exposes Obama's duplicity in avoiding the 1973 War Powers Resolution. "He claimed exemption from the WPR on the grounds that America is not really engaged in 'hostilities' in Libya."

"To deploy an excuse so transparently ridiculous isn’t just a show of contempt for Congress and for the intelligence of the American people. It manages additionally to undermine the presidency’s own war-making prerogatives by implicitly conceding that if the Libya war really did involve hostilities, the president would indeed be subject to the WPR.

The worst of all possible worlds: Insult Congress, weaken the presidency. A neat trick."

Read the whole article by clicking on the below link.

Who Takes Us to War? - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Hey Bloomberg, Build This!

This is truly the greater scandal that nobody in the main stream media is talking about. St. Nicholas, a Greek Orthodox Church, was founded in 1916 by Greek Immigrants on the site where much later was built the World Trade Center. The Church was crushed by the collapsing of 2 World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 after Islamic Radicals flew planes into that building and its twin. The Church and the World Trade Center are still awaiting approval from the government to rebuild almost nine years after the catastrophe. There was, as you might know, no Mosque on the site - or near the site - but Mayor Bloomberg is upset with those of us who are upset with the very idea of building a Mosque on this scared site. Charles Krauthammer calls the idea of a Mosque at Ground Zero, a sacrilege, and most Americans agree with him. One might ask how upset Mayor Bloomberg is with the fact that New Yorkers, for nine years, have been staring into a massive hole in the ground where the World Trade Center and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church formerly stood.

So you can see the exact location of St. Nicholas Church, here is a photo taken on September 11, 2001.


(St. Nicholas Church, minutes before the collapse of 2 World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Photo: Eric O’Connell)

To read more about St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church go here.

Obama: Build the Mosque

This should not be a shock to anyone who has been paying attention for the past 20 months.

For a reasonable and intelligent analysis of the Ground Zero Mosque debate, read the column posted yesterday by Charles Krauthammer, here.

Krauthammer: The President's Magnificence

Charles Krauthammer writing yesterday in The
Washington Post bemoaned the tendency of our president to belittle America while beatifying himself.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence -- yet not of his own country's.

Pelosi the Matriarch Speaks

You've probably seen this on TV, but it's worth remembering. Charles Krauthammer gave her the benefit of the doubt, explaining that she "probably" meant that once people feel the "benefits" of the bill (which, if any, will be at least three years behind the taxes to pay for it) they will understand and appreciate the Bill.

Nobody is right all the time - not even Krauthammer.

Here's more on this from the The Foundry, the Blog of The Heritage Foundation.

"We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it" | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

Krauthammer, Sowell & Steyn: Parthian Shots at ObamaCare

Onward, He Said, Regardless - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

As for the Blair House seminar, its theatrical quality was obvious even before it began...Unfortunately for Democrats, that seven-hour televised exercise had the unintended consequence of showing the Republicans to be not only highly informed on the subject, but also, as even Obama was forced to admit, possessed of principled objections — contradicting the ubiquitous Democratic/media meme that Republican opposition was nothing but nihilistic partisanship.

Getting Out of Medicine - Thomas Sowell - National Review Online

The confusion between lowering costs and refusing to pay the costs can have a real impact on the supply of doctors. The real costs of medical care include both the financial conditions and the working conditions that will ensure a continuing supply of both the quantity and the quality of doctors required to maintain medical-care standards for a growing number of patients.

It’s About Government, Not Health Care - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

This “reform” is not about health care, and certainly not about “controlling costs.” As with Medicare, it “controls” costs by declining to acknowledge them, or pay them. Dr. William Schreiber of North Syracuse, N.Y., told CNN that he sees 120 patients per week — about 30 percent on Medicare, 65 percent on private insurance plans whose payments take into account the Medicare reimbursement rates, and about 5 percent who do it the old-fashioned way and write a check. He calculates that, under Obamacare, for every $5 he now makes, he’ll get $2 in the future. Which suggests now would be a good time to retrain as a Realtor or accountant, or the night clerk at the convenience store.

Krauthammer: Ungovernable? Nonsense.

In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president’s own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.

Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.

It turned out that the country’s problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn’t. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills, and an ideological compass in tune with the public’s, the country was indeed governable.


Ungovernable? Nonsense. - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Krauthammer: The Age of Obama

Dr. Charles Krauthammer Speaks About Obama's Foreign Policy | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

Dr. Charles Krauthammer, who described President Barack Obama’s first 12 months in office as “the year of living fecklessly,” spoke at The Heritage Foundation last week on “The Age of Obama” and gave his views of the President’s first year of foreign policy.

Don't miss the video; it's 52 minutes, but you'll enjoy every minute. Watch when you have the time.

Krauthammer: One Year Out: The Fall

Charles Krauthammer sums up the first year of President Obama's reign:

The health-care drive is the most important reason Obama has sunk to 46 percent. But this reflects something larger. In the end, what matters is not the persona but the agenda. In a country where politics is fought between the 40-yard lines, Obama has insisted on pushing hard for the 30.

And the American people—disorganized and unled but nonetheless agitated and mobilized—have put up a stout defense somewhere just left of midfield.

Click below to read the full article:
One Year Out: The Fall by Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online

Five Voices of Moral Clarity

In this the day of political spin, the aim of which is to disguise, obfuscate, prevaricate, or outright lie, it is refreshing to read the opinions of honest, intelligent writers who think and speak with moral clarity. Five such men are: Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, Andrew McCarthy, Thomas Sowell, and Mark Steyn. These five will never be accused of being politically correct, and we are in their debt for that. If you listen to those who speak for the current administration, you will understandably be confused as to whether we are, in fact, at war, and, if we are at war, who it is we are fighting (this is still true even after the president recently deigned to mention the words "war" and "al qaeda" in the same sentence). The columns by each of the above five writers leave the reader laboring under no such confusion. Examples of their work can be accessed by clicking on their names above. Here are some clips:

Much of radical Islam’s posture is predicated on our expected response. When we did nothing during the Iranian hostage crisis, more or less whined after the Marine-barracks bombing, sent a few cruise missiles after the East African embassy attacks, litigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and forgot the USS Cole, bin Laden concluded that the West was the “weak horse” and pressed on.
Victor Davis Hanson

This is a fanatical religious sect dedicated to establishing the most oppressive medieval theocracy and therefore committed to unending war with America not just because it is infidel but because it represents modernity with its individual liberty, social equality (especially for women), and profound tolerance (religious, sexual, philosophical). You going to change that by evacuating Guantanamo?
Charles Krauthammer

The FBI and the rest of our Islamophilic government have their story, and they’re sticking to it. The terrorists’ siege on our nation has nothing to do with Islam. It is the work of al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda terrorists — so the catechism goes — are not true Muslims. Sure, Osama bin Laden & Co. accurately quote Islamic scriptural injunctions to wage jihad against non-Muslims. But never mind that: Islam is an irenic, unmitigated good; in fact, it is one of our best weapons against terrorism.
Andrew McCarthy

In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
Thomas Sowell

What did the Pantybomber have a membership card in? Well, he was president of the Islamic Society of University College, London. Kafeel Ahmed, who died after driving a burning jeep into the concourse of Glasgow Airport, had been president of the Islamic Society of Queen’s University, Belfast. Yassin Nassari, serving three years in jail for terrorism, was president of the Islamic Society of the University of Westminster. Waheed Arafat Khan, arrested in the 2006 Heathrow terror plots that led to Americans having to put their liquids and gels in those little plastic bags, was president of the Islamic Society of London Metropolitan University.
Mark Steyn

The Gitmo Obsession: Charles Krauthammer

The Gitmo Obsession by Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online

Krauthammer: War? What War?

Charles Krauthammer offers his always welcome opinion on the the Obama administration's handling of the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a plane inbound to Detroit by an Islamic terrorist. Here are some clips:

This is the same president who, after the Ford Hood shooting, warned us “against jumping to conclusions” — code for daring to associate Nidal Hasan’s mass murder with his Islamist ideology. Yet, with Abdulmutallab, Obama jumped immediately to the conclusion, against all existing evidence, that the bomber acted alone.

More jarring still were Obama’s references to the terrorist as a “suspect” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device.” You can hear the echo of FDR: “Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor.”

But a government that refuses to admit that we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy — jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon — turns laxity into a governing philosophy.

War? What War? by Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online

Krauthammer: "Uncertain Trumpet."

Charles Krauthammer reviews the president's speech at West Point this week.

Here's a snippet:

Words matter because will matters. Success in war depends on three things: a brave and highly skilled soldiery, such as the U.S. military 2009, the finest counterinsurgency force in history; brilliant, battle-tested commanders such as Gens. David Petraeus and McChrystal, fresh from the success of the surge in Iraq; and the will to prevail as personified by the commander-in-chief.

There’s the rub. And that is why at such crucial moments, presidents don’t issue a policy paper. They give a speech. It gives tone and texture. It allows their policy to be imbued with purpose and feeling. This one was festooned with hedges, caveats, and one giant exit ramp.

Here's the whole piece:

Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online

Krauthammer: "Kill the Bills."

Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online

The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one — tort reform, interstate purchasing, and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 — and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.

Krauthammer: Medicalizing Mass Murder

What a surprise — that someone who shouts “Allahu Akbar” (the “God is great” jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre downplaying Nidal Hasan’s religious beliefs.  Read the whole article:

Medicalizing Mass Murder by Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online

Decline is a Choice - Krauthammer at his Best

Everything Charles Krauthammer writes is as important as it is insightful, but this article of his from the Weekly Standard tops the Must Read list. It may be the most important thing you read this year.

For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline--or continued ascendancy--is in our hands.

Facing the choice of whether to maintain our dominance or to gradually, deliberately, willingly, and indeed relievedly give it up, we are currently on a course towards the latter. The current liberal ascendancy in the United States--controlling the executive and both houses of Congress, dominating the media and elite culture--has set us on a course for decline. And this is true for both foreign and domestic policies. Indeed, they work synergistically to ensure that outcome.

Please read the entire piece here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/056lfnpr.asp?pg=1

Der Spiegel interviews Charles Krauthammer

The inestimable Charles Krauthammer was interviewed by two members of the staff of Der Spiegel, and he covered a number of topics with his useful clarity and good sense. Here's the transcript of the interview:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,656501,00.html

Vintage Krauthammer

The inestimable Charles Krauthammer is featured in the Notable & Quotable section of today's Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461293823826308.html