Obama Energy Secretary Says ‘I would give myself an A’ For Helping Make Gasoline The Most Expensive EVER

Let’s see:

Obama’s energy policies gave us the highest gas prices for one year EVER in 2011.

Obama’s energy policies have given us the worst January gas prices in American history.

Obama’s energy policies have given us the worst February gas prices in American history.

Obama’s energy policies have now given us given us the worst March gas prices in American history.

And it aint going to be getting any better as we live Obama’s “hope and change” moving forward.

Even the New York Times has acknowledged the grim very possible reality of gasoline averaging $5 a gallon nationwide this year:

HOUSTON — Gasoline for $5 a gallon? The possibility is hardly far-fetched.

For the record, it isn’t very far from that right now where I live in California.  I gassed up yesterday for $4.70 a gallon.

Oh, and conservatives – and frankly Obama and his handpicked energy secretary himself – actually told us that this would happen:

But suddenly the same mainstream media and the same Democrat Party that demonized George W. Bush every single day that gasoline prices were high say none of this catastrophically high gas price business can possibly be messiah Obama’s fault. Even though I pointed out that this was all simply the stated fruition of Obama all along:

You remember that quip Obama gave us that under his policies, energy prices “would necessarily skyrocket“?

Remember that Obama appointed an energy secretary named Steven Chu who said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe”??? With gasoline prices in Europe consistently hovering between $7 and $10 a gallon??? Steven Chu said that in explaining the Obama policy of “progressively” making gasoline more and more expensive in order to force Americans to turn to alternative energy sources. And one of the ways Obama wants to accomplish that dream (which amounts to a nightmare for working Americans) is to tax Americans for driving by the mile.

As you contemplate $4 and even $5 a gallon gasoline prices, let me just say one word: KEYSTONE.

Now consider what Steven Chu – Obama’s hand-picked energy secretary – is saying right now:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House panel Tuesday that he’d give himself top marks when asked to grade his policies’ effects on energy prices. Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asked President Obama’s top energy official if he’d grade himself with an “A minus” on “controlling the cost of gasoline at the pump.”

Chu responded by saying he’d give himself a better grade than that.

“The tools we have at our disposal are limited, but I would I say I would give myself a little higher in that since I became Secretary of Energy, I’ve been doing everything I can to get long-term solutions,” Chu said.

Chu would give himself the top grade on gas prices despite that fact that the average price for a gallon of gas just hit $3.87 – the highest ever recorded in the month of March, according to ABC News.

I actually agree with Chu.  He SHOULD get an A – for making gasoline the most expensive over the longest period of time we’ve ever seen.  Which is exactly what he set out to do.

Obama said he wanted gasoline prices to rise – just not so quickly that the frog-in-the-pot-of-water-on-the-stove would notice and hold him responsible:

It was a question from John Harwood at CNBC: “So could the high oil price help us?” and Obama said, “Well, I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment, a gradual increase.”

Obama’s full statement:

OBAMA: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that, ehh, this is such a shock t’American pocketbooks is not a good thing. Uh, but if we take some steps right now t’, uh, help people make the adjustment — first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers.

And yes, Youtube – owned by überliberal Google – has managed to scrub that teeny-weeny little Obama statement of his energy policy.  Because apparently Obama used his same Führer-messiah power to get the media to refuse to cover the news if it makes him look bad that has been very recently demonstrated elsewhere.

Just try to imagine what would have ensued if Bush had asked the mainstream media to literally scrub an already published story from their little Ministry of Truth complex.  The Marxists who write our news would have a) broadcast Bush’s request and framed it in terms of a Big Brother fascist narrative; and b) blared the news Bush had asked them to scrub all over the airwaves just out of pure spite. 

Now, go back to what Obama said and then allow me to explain what Obama SHOULD have said and why his answer is not only deplorable, but depraved.  Obama should have said:

“Could higher gas prices help us?  Absolutely NOT!  High gas prices hurt the American people, it hurts the American economy and it undermines the American way of life.  High gas prices are the worst form of regressive tax – by which I mean it would be a tax that afflicts poor people and particularly poor working Americans – far more than it would harm wealthier people who afford expensive gasoline.  And I will do absolutely everything in my power as president to ensure that the American people are able to purchase gasoline at prices that will enable them to get to work and live their lives.”

Do you see the difference in those two statements?

And which statement do YOU prefer as you consider voting for president this November?  Obama’s or the conservative’s?

When Obama was running for president he openly mocked Bush’s energy plan, saying ” it would not produce a drop of oil for seven years.”  And Obama was right in the limited sense that it takes time for an energy policy to bear fruit tomorrow.  And Obama’s implicit energy goal was that if he was elected president he wanted future Americans to suffer because of his refusal to pursue energy.  And – as Obama’s reverend once said – that future is beginning to “come home to roost.”

Obama has put 85% of the outer continental shelf off limits to drilling and is making only 3% available for petroleum exploration and development.  Drilling in regions like the Colorado Rockies is down fully 70% due to Obama’s policies relative to George Bush’s policies.

Why does Obama and his energy secretary Steven Chu want oil prices to be the same (about $10 a gallon now) as Europe?  It’s very simple: they have a Marxist red version of a radical environmentalist green vision of energy: they want to force the American people to “choose” the energy they WANT them to choose.  And if they can’t simply mandate that “choice” like the fascists they are – which would amount to political suicide – their only option is to price gasoline out of the ballpark and force Americans to buy the little green clown cars and the electric golf cart cars that they want.

People like Barack Obama and Steven Chu sit in their limousines and see an average American driving down the road in a halfway cool car and say, “That’s unacceptable.  There should be a much bigger difference between the elites who run the world and the proletariat masses.”

Let’s sum it up in a picture.  This is a Soviet Union proletariat car:

It’s the same damn kind of clown car with the same damn kind of radical environmentalist green clown car marketing that Obama and Chu want us in today.  It’s a little tiny gutless piece of crap.  And you ought to be driving one instead of something better, because frankly you’re a faceless nobody AND YOU SUCK.  That’s the statist view of “an automobile for the people.”

So please reflect on the man that Barack Obama appointed to “get an A” with his current energy prices.  Consider that Obama knew Chu had said:

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

Consider that the very same Obama who is now our president said that he was going to make energy prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

And decide what kind of future that you want.

10 Questions Obama Won’t Answer In His Libya Speech

1. How is your Libya policy not more “Bush-ish” and hawkish than George W. Bush’s with your unprecedented standard of intervening in the Middle East whenever non-American lives are threatened?  How is this not “humanitarian imperialism” and far worse than anything Bush did given the undefined and open-ended nature of it?

“By almost every metric you can use in terms of being a muscular executive – acting alone without congressional authority, extending the Bush policies overseas, particularly in the War on Terror and Afghanistan and Iraq – he’s been more hawkish than George Bush,” Halperin remarked.

2. Why are we in Libya when even your own Secretary of Defense clearly states that it is not in the United States’ vital national interests to do so?

On “This Week,” ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper asked Gates, “Do you think Libya posed an actual or imminent threat to the United States?”

“No, no,” Gates said in a joint appearance with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “It was not — it was not a vital national interest to the United States. but it was an interest.”

3. Why are we in the middle of Libya’s civil war, given that the man leading the rebels actually fought against American troops in Afghanistan and his fighters have al Qaeda links?

… Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”. […]

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against “the foreign invasion” in Afghanistan, before being “captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan”. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008…

4. Why shouldn’t you be impeached using your own or now Vice President Biden’s standard that you used to demonize George W. Bush when you were both Senators?

Barack Obama: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama responded.

Joe Biden: “This is something I know. So I got together and brought a group of Constitutional scholars together and write a piece I’m going to deliver to the whole United States Senate in pointing out the president has no Constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people unless we’re attacked, or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. If he does, I would move to impeach him. The House obviously has to do that – but I would lead an effort to impeach him. The reason for my doing that – I don’t say it lightly, I don’t say it lightly.”

5. Will we get involved in other wars as dictators dictate?  What about Syria and the Sudan and so many other regions where leaders routinely brutalize their own people?  Will some dictator carefully reading over your speech understand what your policy is?  Will such a dictator realize he’d better not do “x” because he will have to deal with the power of the United States?

6.  How will the mission in Libya not be a complete failure and embarassment to the United States given your announcement that “Gaddafi must go“?  And is it or is it not our policy for Gaddafi to be forced out of power?

7. When exactly – and I mean when exactly – are you planning to leave Libya?

WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S.-led military action in Libya has bolstered rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, but the international operation could continue for months, the Obama administration says.

NATO’s top decision-making body was to meet Sunday to expand its enforcement of the no-fly zone to include air strikes against Libyan ground targets.

The military progress follows deep criticism against Obama from lawmakers upset that the administration hadn’t sought greater congressional input on Libya.

8.  Just when did U.S. intelligence say that Libyan tanks and trucks aquired the capacity of flight, such that they are being annhilated by the dozens in your no-fly zone?  Should the inability of American M1-Abrams tanks to fly not be seen as a crisis given this development?  If our vehicles could fly like Gaddafi’s apparently can, wouldn’t that help us with global warming?  And if Gaddafi’s tanks and trucks AREN’T flying, just how does this not exceed the stated U.N. mandate?

9. Why did your Secretary of State just call a clear dictator in Syria who is gunning down his own people in the streets for protesting a “reformer”?  And just why have you personally refused to give the oppressed protestors and people of Syria so much as a single nod of verbal support?  Why is your administration literally supporting a violent terrorist dictator over the oppressed Syrian people?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as a “reformer” this weekend, despite Assad’s atrocious human rights record and the regime’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, which has resulted in over 60 deaths in the past week alone. According to Clinton:

”There is a different leader in Syria now, many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer,” she said.

10. Will you personally apologize to George W. Bush, given that you endlessly demonized him, only to then turn around and go further than he did?  How about your criticism of Bush’s acting unconstitutionally when Bush had far more constitutional support (such as Congress’ authorization) than you did?  how about your criticism of Bush for Gitmo when you haven’t bothered to close it?  Etc.?

[From the Washington Times]: Mr. Obama has less legal and moral justification for his Libyan campaign than Mr. Bush did in Iraq. Mr. Bush received congressional authorization for the use of force; Mr. Obama has not. Mr. Bush forged a broad coalition of nearly three-dozen countries to topple Saddam Hussein; Mr. Obama’s coalition is much narrower, with fewer countries. Mr. Bush’s goal was regime change; Mr. Obama’s is to protect some civilians from Col. Gadhafi’s airplanes but not from his tanks or artillery – which makes no sense.

Here’s another set of questions that Obama undoubtedly will not even bother to try to answer in his speech tonight.

There’s a reason Obama’s Libya war has less American approval than any military act in the last four decades.

I know this is actually an 11th question, but it would also be nice if Obama delivered his speech under a giant blow-up of this photo and explained just WTF made him damn fool enough to be the first U.S. president in history to shake hands with Muammar Gaddafi?!?!?

You may fire when ready, Sarah

Joe Biden knows more about Washington policy than Sarah Palin.

There.  I got it out of the way.  We can agree to agree on that.  Joe Biden is the quintessential Washington insider.  They say legislating and sausage-making have one thing in common: nobody really wants to see either process.  And Joe Biden knows an awful lot about at least one of those processes.

Having acknowledged that, let me just say – so what?

Joe Biden has been in the United States Senate since before there were dinosaurs.  And while that gives him a certain knowledge and a certain familiarity with Washington, it aint much of a selling point to an awful lot of voters.

The founding fathers did not particularly want career professional legislators.  What they wanted was people who would come from the real world, serve their nation in the Congress – and then go back home.

Bill O’Reilly made this point: if you need to have surgery, you go to a trained professional board-certified surgeon.  If you need to fly in an airplane, you want a trained professional airline pilot.  There is no school for professional politicians, and there never has been one for the American political experiment.  That’s because the founding fathers did not want inside-the-beltway policy wonks; they wanted real people from the real world.

Do we want a politician who understands the ins and outs of Washington, or do we want a politician who understands you and what you care about?

That’s Sarah Palin’s strength, and that is her secret to victory in tonight’s debate.

Joe Biden is a better politician and in all likelihood a better debater.  It’s all he’s ever done.  He’s politicized and debated all his life.  Sarah Palin has actually lived in the real world, and even her political career has been as far removed from Washington as one can be in the continental United States.

In last week’s presidential debate, John McCain clearly won on substance and on knowledge of policy.  But Barack Obama was declared the winner, because he had the syle-points down.

In the same way, Joe Biden will likely win on substance and on knowledge of policy.  But if Sarah comes out firing as Sarah, she has a real chance of stealing the show because Americans identify with her and relate to her.

Hopefully, Sarah Palin realizes that she doesn’t have to “win,” she only needs to relate in an intelligent, practical way.  And she’s already proven that she knows how to do that.

Joe Lieberman, Independent, Urges Nation To Back McCain

Joe Lieberman – at great cost to himself – has thrown his support behind his fellow Senator and friend, John McCain.

Lieberman is the kind of Democrat who didn’t leave his party, but was rather abandoned by his party.  On many of the issues, Lieberman is well to the left of even so-called “moderate Republicans,” but believes that Democrats are terrible on national defense and national security.

Democrats are already sharpening their knives to stab Lieberman.  The words “traitor,” “punish,” and “stripping” are angrily being exchanged.  And Joe Lieberman – in some way like the John McCain who refused to break with the honor system of his fellow POWs even when it meant more captivity and more abuse – knows it.

Joe Lieberman didn’t betray the Democratic Party.  Rather, he called upon Democrats to honor the commitments they had made to support their President and their troops in time of war.  To punish him, they not only didn’t back him for re-election, but actually ran a candidate about him.  Lieberman lost in the primaries, but it was only liberals who rejected him; not his state.  Lieberman ran as an Independent and handily won re-election.

Lieberman – who agrees with Democrats “on 95% of the issues”, believes that John McCain has been right about Iraq.  For that departure:

“If the Democrats are in control in terms of leadership next year, a Democrat should chair that committee,” he said, in reference to the Homeland Security panel. “Clearly, he’s not a Democrat.”

So don’t you buck the Democratic leadership.  Don’t you dare.  They are vindictive, angry people, and they will exact their revenge.  They have held back their retribution only because they have needed Lieberman’s vote, but if they pick up the seats they believe they’ll get in the Senate, they are already vowing to come after Lieberman, drive him out of his committees, and destroy him.

Joe Lieberman has voted on his conscience.  Apparently, following one’s conscience is the unpardonable sin in the Democratic Party.

Here’s the speech that so enrages Democrats: