Don't thank Obama: America's energy independence is almost here

The line for gasoline was several blocks long as I sat behind the wheel of my father’s Chevrolet and cracked open “The Catcher in the Rye”. It was 1973.
I finished the novel by the time I pulled up to the pump hours later, hoping there’d still be gas to put in the empty tank. I read a lot of books that year with my keister stuck to the vinyl front seat of dad’s Chevy. It always happened on odd-numbered days which matched the last digit of his license plate. That’s how it was back then. Odd or even.
If you want to know the truth --as Holden Caulfield was fond of saying-- I hated OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) for holding the U.S. hostage over its need for fuel. Who in this country didn’t? Americans seethed as they waited in long lines to “fill her up”. With transportation crippled, businesses everywhere struggled or folded.
The oil cartel, comprised of 12 partners, was guilty of malevolence and greed. They monopolized the marketplace, restricted access and fixed prices. But America was guilty of myopia and stupidity. We had allowed ourselves to become dependent on, and controlled by, foreign oil. The result was a debilitating embargo that cost this country dearly. Oil prices quadrupled and shortages ensued, triggering recessions and high inflation that persisted for more than a decade.

Our nation’s long awaited energy ascendance has come despite the vigorous actions of President Obama to curtail or shutdown oil and gas production. 

So forgive my glee over the recent implosion of OPEC’s grip on petro power. It only took us four decades to figure out the obvious: energy independence and freedom from foreign extortionists can only be attained by producing it yourself. Allowing others, including hostile and corrupt governments, to dictate supplies and prices is as crazy as Caulfield’s fear of falling out of a field of rye over a cliff.
America has finally backed away from its own energy cliff and is today on the precipice of energy success. Now, roughly 85 % self-sufficient, we are poised to become the world’s top producer of crude oil, having already become the top producer of natural gas. With it, comes the ability to render OPEC enervated and, perhaps someday, irrelevant.
Importantly, it is energizing our economy by reducing fuel prices, lowering transportation costs, and increasing the purchasing power of consumers, while boosting both manufacturers and retailers. Energy independence also impacts long-term economic growth in the form of lower inflation, a stronger dollar, and an improved trade deficit. Increased production here at home created jobs and fostered prosperity. It was the engine that helped drive our economy out of the recent bleak recession.
Our nation’s long awaited energy ascendance has come despite the vigorous actions of President Obama to curtail or shutdown oil and gas production. 
He has waged a six year war onfossil fuels, restricting access and delaying permits. Under his watch, oil and gas leases for federal lands and offshore sites in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have been postponed, rescinded or cancelled. Don’t believe me? Check out the nifty list compiled by Doc Hastings, House Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.
Yet, President Obama brags to audiences that “under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last 8 years.” He implies he had something to do with it. He did not. According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, “all the increases in production since 2007 have taken place on non-federal lands.” In other words, it happened on private and state lands over which the president has little or no authority. Meanwhile, production has decreased significantly on federal lands over which Obama exerts control.
The president seems allergic to the notion of giving credit where credit is due. He had nothing whatsoever to do with opening new opportunities for drilling and increasing production. To the contrary, he fought it every step of the way. Credit is owing entirely to American oil and gas companies which had the ingenuity and tenacity to develop new energy-producing technologies that revolutionized the industry by discovering and recovering fuels that were heretofore unreachable. Their innovations have increased our nation’s oil production by 80 % since 2008.
America is on its way to becoming not only energy independent, but energy dominant. No thanks to President Obama. He didn’t want to hear it. Literally. I sat down with Harold Hamm, the billionaire oilman who opened up the vast Bakken oil and gas fields of the northern plains. He told me the story of meeting with the president at the White House early in his first term.
Question: What happened?
Hamm: I wanted him to know for sure the opportunity that we had. We were creating a whole new renaissance of American oil and gas. And there are a lot of good things that come from that. Good middle-class jobs, for instance. National security. The balance of trade.
Question: And his reaction?
Hamm: He didn’t want to hear it. And he didn’t hear it.
And then, something curious happened. Two weeks later, Obama’s Department of Justice brought criminal charges against Hamm’s oil and gas company. The crime? Killing a single bird. It was found in what’s called a “reserve pit” used to collect the waste and mud from drilling. A federal judge eventually dismissed the charge, but not before lambasting the D-O-J for its frivolous and wrongful use of legal muscle. Hamm had a different term for it –retribution, for trying to tell the president something he did not want to hear.
The incident may speak volumes about a president who appears to surround himself with sycophants, turn a deaf ear to the ideas of others, and castigate those who dare disagree with him. When it comes to energy, he has his own ideas. To wit, supporting neophyte companies like Solyndra which blew a half a billion dollars of taxpayer money on solar panels before going belly-up. It joins a list of 36 Obama-backed green energy companies that have either filed for bankruptcy or are faltering.
This is not to suggest that renewable energy is unwise or foolish. Indeed, it is vital part of our nation’s future if we wish to protect the environment and reduce our reliance on oil and natural gas as diminishing resources. But pervasive use of renewables are, at best, a generation away. Right now, wind, solar and biofuels are inefficient, expensive and intermittent. They account for a mere 6 % of the electricity generated in America.
Jimmy Carter’s answer to the chronic oil crisis of the 70’s was to turn down the thermostat and put on a cardigan sweater. It was a nice look, but didn’t really catch on. Most other presidents since then realized that the most effective strategy to combating domestic scarcity and foreign dependence was to simply drill more and increase production. But President Obama approach has been truly novel: oppose that very strategy while pretending to embrace it.
When you think about it… it’s an astonishing act of temerity for Obama to take credit for the oil boom he tried to block.
It brings to mind Holden Caulfield’s favorite word: “phony.”

St. Louis police allege hate crime in latest attack on Bosnian resident

The St. Louis police chief has asked for the FBI's help investigating what he believes was a hate crime attack against a woman in the same Bosnian neighborhood where a man was beaten to death days earlier by hammer-wielding teens, and where assaults have spiked dramatically in recent months.
The 26-year-old Bosnian-American woman told police she was stopped in her car by three African-American teens early Friday morning in the city's Bevo Mill section, where tens of thousands of Bosnians settled following the civil war in the former Yugoslavia 20 years ago. The incident occurred just blocks from where Zemir Begic, a 32-year-old Bosnian-American, was beaten to death by teenagers with hammers a week earlier.
One of the assailants flashed a gun and ordered the woman out of her vehicle and another hit the woman's windshield with what police believe was a crowbar, authorities said.
"You're Bosnian," one of the suspects allegedly said. "I should just kill you now."
The woman, who was pulled from the car and then beaten, was found unconscious by a passerby, police said. The alleged statement prompted St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson to present the case to the FBI.

"We have been stopped at intersections in Bevo and our car attacked by teens who pound on the car -- laughing at us."- Resident of St. Louis' Bosnian enclave

"As of now, officers are investigating this incident as a bias crime based on the victim's account of the incident," the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said in an email Monday. "The investigation is ongoing."
Authorities said they don't believe the attacks on Begic and the woman are related, but acknowledged a disturbing rise in violent crime in the area in recent months. Although police have not made a connection, the crime spike coincides with the rioting that followed the August police shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, Mo.
Bevo Mill residents, whose neighborhood has seen a cumulative 24-percent rise in aggravated assaults over the last three months, say assaults and threats by packs of teenagers against Bosnians have become the norm. One who spoke to FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity due to safety reasons claims he and his family experienced a similar attack and said there is a disturbing pattern of violence against white residents in the area.
"It is common for African-American teens to walk in the middle of the street and block in cars at intersections," said the man, who has lived in the neighborhood for half a decade. "We have been stopped at intersections in Bevo and our car attacked by teens who pound on the car -- laughing at us."
"They only do this to white individuals, who they have learned will generally not respond. There is a pattern here and it is racially motivated," he alleged. "Many of us are arming ourselves in order to avoid becoming the next victim to be beaten to death in the streets."
"Overall the whole neighborhood is on alert," Alderman Carol Howard told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "There’s been an uptick in crime since August. I really do believe it has set off a sense of lawlessness."
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, at the urging of Dotson, is working on a plan to put 160 additional officers on the street in response to the recent increase in crime, Slay's office said Monday.
Aggravated assault, for example, was up 19.6 percent in the Bevo Mill neighborhood in September when compared to September 2013, according to crime statistics posted on the St. Louis Police Department website. In October 2014, aggravated assault was up by 24.1 percent and by 29 percent in November when compared to the same month in 2013.

Jonathan Gruber on the hot seat heading into hearing

Republicans in Congress plan to launch its final assault on ObamaCare as consultant Jonathan Gruber will face questions about possible deceptions and a lack of transparency in the 2010 Affordable Care Act Monday.
Lawmakers have obtained videos that show Gruber saying the act was written in a “very tortured way” to hide taxes and it passed because of the “stupidity of the American voter.”
Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee told Reuters the public deserves an explanation from Gruber. Issa has used his position to attack the administration on issues such as the IRS scandal, misplaced guns and U.S. deaths in Benghazi.
"If you can't trust what he says, and what he says he'll do, to get votes and trick the American people into voting for something, then can you trust his analytics?" Issa said of Gruber.
"It is our job to see that the administration is working to run the country and that they are reporting honestly their successes and their failures,” he told Reuters.
Like many congressional hearings, Tuesday's session may provide partisan fireworks while doing little or nothing to change government policy. The president says he will veto any effort to overturn what Republicans call "Obamacare," should such a bill reach his desk after Republicans add Senate control to their House majority next year.
Gruber has served as health care adviser to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and has been dubbed “architect” of Obamacare by some Republicans. The government paid Gruber nearly $400,000 for his work.
Also testifying Tuesday will be Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In an effort to distance Tavenner from Gruber's remarks, the administration asked Issa to put her on a different witness panel. Issa's staff said it was weighing the request.
Issa calls the health care law "the poster child for this administration's broken transparency promises."
Issa's bare-knuckled inquiries into administration policies and missteps have often infuriated Democrats while providing welcome fodder for conservative talk shows, speeches and campaigns.
Issa has clashed with the administration on numerous topics. When he accused it of improper campaigning, he tried to bring two former Cabinet members — former Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis — before his committee. They declined.

'Unconscionable': Top Republicans lash out ahead of release of CIA report

The Three Stooges.

Top Republicans are lashing out ahead of the release of a long-anticipated report on the CIA's interrogation techniques, calling the decision to disclose the documents “unconscionable.”
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, spoke out in a statement Monday after lawmakers and Obama administration officials warned that releasing the report could lead to a backlash against Americans around the world.
Rubio and Risch called the choice to release the report a “partisan effort” by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, saying the report is not “serious or constructive.”
“We are concerned that this release could endanger the lives of Americans overseas, jeopardize U.S. relations with foreign partners, potentially incite violence, create political problems for our allies, and be used as a recruitment tool for our enemies,” the senators said. “Simply put, this release is reckless and irresponsible.”
The lawmakers spoke out as alleged new details of the report, which is expected to be released Tuesday, began to emerge. The 480-page report, a summary of a still-classified 6,000 page study, amounts to the first public accounting of the CIA's alleged use of torture on suspected Al Qaeda detainees held in secret facilities in Europe and Asia in the years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Reuters reported Monday night that the report contains graphic details about the techniques, including sexual threats made to detainees.
According to Reuters, the report describes how at least one detainee was threatened in a sexual manner with a broomstick. In another example, Reuters reported, a detained Al Qaeda operative was threatened with a buzzing power drill.
U.S. officials who have read the report say it includes disturbing new details about the CIA's use of such techniques as sleep deprivation, confinement in small spaces, humiliation and the simulated drowning process known as waterboarding.
A former CIA officer told Fox News Monday that the agency's techniques led to helpful intelligence. The former officer noted that once accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's will was broken, he generated more than 2,000 intelligence reports.
In addition, three former CIA officers from the program told Fox News that they believe the Senate report seeks to minimize intelligence that led the U.S. to Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti-- Usama bin Laden's trusted courier.
Another former officer told Fox News that the CIA was encouraged by lawmakers "to do whatever it takes" to prevent another attack on the scale of Sept. 2001.  The former officer said that Hill leadership was briefed more than three dozen times before the program was shuttered.
The White House on Monday reiterated its support for the report’s release, despite the warnings it could provoke violence. Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration has been preparing "for months" for the report's release.
However, Secretary of State John Kerry last week asked the Senate Intelligence Committee to "consider" the timing of the release.
The administration's stance was criticized by GOP Sen. Richard Burr, the prospective new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Burr, R-N.C., said that Kerry's request that the report be delayed didn't jibe with Earnest's comments.
“It’s dumbfounding they can call and ask for it to be delayed and then say they want it out. You can’t have it both ways,” Burr told Fox News.
U.S. officials have confirmed to Fox News that an advisory has been sent urging U.S. personnel overseas to reassess security measures in anticipation of the release. The message directs all overseas posts, including those used by CIA personnel, to "review their security posture" for a "range of reactions that might occur."
A similar statement was being sent to military combatant commands to assess their readiness. Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Monday the combatant commands have been urged to "take appropriate force protection measures within their areas of responsibility."
In Washington, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said America's allies are predicting "this will cause violence and deaths." He said U.S. intelligence agencies and foreign governments have said privately that the release of the Senate intelligence panel report on CIA interrogations a decade ago will be used by extremists to incite violence that is likely to cost lives.

Black & Blue Cartoon

With new majorities, GOP prepares for veto showdowns with Obama

After taking control of the Senate and widening their majority in the House of Representatives in the recent midterm elections, Republicans are preparing for new battles with the Obama administration, this time over vetoes. 
Until now, controversial Republican-backed legislation rarely reached the president's desk because Senate Democrats blocked it. Starting in January, however, Obama may have to decide more often whether to sign or veto GOP-crafted bills.
Obama gave lawmakers an early taste of veto politics recently when he forced congressional leaders to drop a proposed package of tax breaks that were popular with many Republican constituents. Some Democrats did support the plan, but liberals and the White House said it tilted too heavily toward corporations, not lower-income workers.
The White House also has promised to veto any bills restricting the president's major changes to immigration policies, setting up likely showdowns early next year.
Obama's threats present the type of bind that Republicans may face repeatedly in the next two years. They can agree to many or all of the changes he demands in legislation, or they can let him use his veto and hope Americans will blame him more than them.
It's a gamble, especially with critical spending bills Congress soon must address. Some Republicans want to amend these must-pass bills to thwart Obama's bid to protect millions of immigrants, now in the country illegally, from deportation.
Assuming Obama keeps his veto promise, Republican lawmakers would have to decide whether to drop their demands or let parts of the federal government close for lack of money. GOP leaders have vowed there will be no shutdowns over the next two years, but they have yet to explain how they can force Obama to back off on immigration.
The 2013 partial government shutdown occurred under similar partisan circumstances. Polls show the public blamed congressional Republicans more than the Democratic president.
It's unclear how often Obama will face a veto decision. Even in the minority, Democratic senators can use the filibuster, the name for unlimited debate, to block many measures that break strictly along party lines.
But some proposals, such as building the Keystone XL pipeline, enjoy significant bipartisan support. They might attract enough Democratic backing to reach 60 Senate votes, overcoming a filibuster and sending the measure to Obama.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said if Congress assembles legislation that Obama opposes, the White House will threaten vetoes and "if Congress decides to pass them anyway, then we'll veto them."
"We're not going to go out looking for them, but we're not going to run from them either," he said.
Should Obama veto a proposal such as the Keystone project, the question would be whether two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House would vote to defy him. That's the constitutional threshold for overriding a veto.
It will be critical for Republicans to put together veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate. Because any bill would require 60 Senate votes to overcome filibusters, the Senate vote would always be bipartisan and closer to the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
But the House would be harder, giving House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California greater sway in the end over the outcome of legislation.
Vetoes have existed since George Washington's day, but Obama issued only two fairly minor ones in his first six years as president. His two predecessors also went light on vetoes in their early years.
Democrat Bill Clinton vetoed 37 bills, all during his last six years in office, when Republicans controlled the House and Senate. Republican George W. Bush issued no vetoes during his first four-year term. After that he vetoed eight bills when Republicans controlled both congressional chambers and four bills when Democrats held both.
Starting next month, lawmakers say, veto clashes are inevitable.
"You're destined to see it," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.
Lawmakers say veto politics will put pressure on both parties. A veto of any bill that makes it through the Senate will frustrate some Democrats from competitive states, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.. For instance, he said, a Keystone veto "splashes over on Democrats with a political future."
Throughout the next presidential campaign, Graham said, likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton "will always have to answer, 'Would you have vetoed that?'"
At the same time, he said, Republicans must find a way to express their anger over Obama's executive actions on immigration without closing the government. "The politics of dealing with Obama's overreach is tough politics for Republicans," Graham said.
Some Democrats want Obama to use his veto powers on important issues.
"The fact that the president, I think, is determined to use the veto pen when necessary will help protect his legacy," said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

Will GOP's control of the South play significant role in 2016 races?

The defeat Saturday of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu was essentially the final act in the Republican Party’s control this fall of the South -- a transition expected to have a significant impact on the 2016 White House races.  
The victory by Republican challenger and Louisiana Rep. Bill Cassidy means that Democrats in January will be left without a single U.S. senator or governor across nine states -- stretching from the Carolinas to Texas.
And GOP runoff victories Saturday in two Louisiana House districts ensure the party of at least 246 seats, the largest Republican advantage since the Truman administration after World War II.
Furthermore, Republicans in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas will control nearly every majority-white congressional district and both state legislative chambers.
But will the conservative-leaning voters who appeared this year to have written a closing chapter for the white Southern Democrat have the same impact on the 2016 presidential races?
"The Republican presidential nomination will run through the South," says Ferrell Guillory, a Southern politics expert based at the University of North Carolina. "As Mitt Romney found (in 2012), that...makes it harder to build a national coalition once you are the nominee."
Democrats on Sunday argued that the GOP’s control of the South is not an insurmountable problem for Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or any other liberal member of their party who makes a 2016 presidential run.
“Right now, there are really two electorates -- the midterm and the presidential. It’s a different math,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin told FoxNews.com, pointing out that voter-turnout within his party is expected to be significantly higher in 2016.
Democratic strategist and pollster Ben Tulchin said the 2008 and 2012 elections prove that “Democrats don’t need the Deep South to win.”
In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter became one of the last true Southern Democrats to win the White House. He won every Southern state except Oklahoma and Virginia. In 1992 and 1996, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, considered a more conservative Democrat, won only a handful of Southern states in winning the presidency.  
Tulchin also argued a moderate Republican will likely have more problems in 2016 in the Deep South than a liberal Democrat, considering the early South Carolina primary, followed by those in other states across the region, could hurt somebody like New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie.
“His best hope there is the conservative candidates split that vote,” said Tulchin, president of San Francisco-based Tulchin Research.
The region also is home to GOP Sens. Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Kentucky's Rand Paul, both Tea Party favorites and popular presidential hopefuls.
Other Democrats argue that an election without Obama and his widely unpopular agenda in that region also improves their chances.
“The No. 1 thing to be competitive in the South is to have Barack Obama not be president anymore,” North Carolina pollster Tom Jensen, who runs the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, told Politico. “It’s just a simple reality that Southern whites really, really despise him in a way they have not despised any other president.”
Democrats also argue that changing demographics, such as the growing minority populations in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, will help.
Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere rejects the notion that Southerners could complicate Republican electoral fortunes in the long-term.
"Whether it was the old Southern Democrats or Republicans now, we've pushed the liberal wings of the parties for a long time," he said. "I think it's good for the party and for the country."

Violence erupts at Berkeley protest for second straight night

These people need to get off their asses and get jobs and go to work.

A protest against police-involved killings spun out of control for the second straight night in Berkeley, Calif. Sunday, as demonstrators threw rocks and explosives at officers, turned on each other, and shut down a highway. 
Sunday's protest began peacefully on the University of California, Berkeley campus. But as protesters marched through downtown Berkeley toward the neighboring city of Oakland, someone smashed the window of a Radio Shack. When a protester tried to stop the vandalism, he was hit with a hammer, Berkeley Police Officer Jennifer Coats said. Coats told KTVU that the man was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Sunday's demonstrations began with approximately 50 protesters, but soon swelled to at least 500 people, according to estimates by police and protesters alike. Demonstrator Alessandro Tiberio told KTVU that the crowd had "very positive energy" when the march started.
"I'm an ally," Tiberio said. "It's important to stay focused on the fact that black lives matter. It's not that all lives don't matter but I'm here to support especially the black people who are most often the ones victimized by the police."
Some of the protesters made their way to State Highway 24 in Oakland and blocked traffic. The California Highway Patrol said some tried to light a patrol vehicle on fire and threw rocks, bottles and an explosive at officers. Highway patrol officers responded with tear gas. KTVU cited additional reports of CHP and police patrol cars being vandalized with windows smashed.  
The highway patrol said it was making arrests but no figures were immediately available.
The demonstrations were the latest of several in the Bay Area in recent days to protest grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York not to indict while police officers in the deaths of two black men. The unrest in Berkeley follows violent disruptions of demonstrations in San Francisco and Oakland in recent days. Five San Francisco police officers sought medical treatment after sustaining injuries during a protest in downtown San Francisco on Black Friday.
On Saturday night, three officers and a technician were hurt and six people were arrested when a similar protest turned unruly. The most serious injury was a dislocated shoulder, Berkeley police said. Coats said no police officers were hurt Sunday evening.