The President Gets On Board
Finally we have stopped funding the Russian war on Ukraine as the President announced yesterday we would cease buying Russian oil.
Now let’s settle a few things upfront on this decision:
1. This was not leadership, it was following again. This time, afraid to veto a bill that your party dominated congress was going to pass.
2. He was forced into, it as the congress was going to pass a bill in each chamber to say stop buying Russian oil.
3. He was unable to have any European countries join us. They refused. There’s that leadership question again.
4. He did not push, open or drive development in the U.S. In fact he spent more time warning companies not to price gouge. Companies raising prices to rip off the consumer is not the issue, Mr. President.
5. As oil prices rise the administration and allies will try and blame all the increases on Putin and the war.
That would be a total misrepresentation.
Here are the price facts:
On Election Day November 7, 2020 the price of a gallon of gas was $2.10.
On the day the President cut off oil from Russia the average price of a gallon reached $4.25.
That’a a 100% price increase from the day he was elected to the day he cut off Russia.
You cannot blame the war for that. Pricing was rising before the war and is continuing.
In fact a year ago today the price was $2.80. A month ago it was $3.47. The war is two weeks old.
I know he and his team will call it the “Putin Price Increase,” but it was begun long before the war.
But then again you fool some of the people all the time.
Especially with the media on your side.
This administration practices presentation arguments by selective facts (some might call it misdirection or outright lies).
As an example, I am listening to him talk and he says we (his administration) did more oil than the previous administrations first year.
Wait now, you kind of rushed through the time frame. Let me hear it again.
Yes, he was comparing his first year in office to the former President’s first year.
He was using 2017 as the comparison.
A period when you left office and we were still dependent on others?
How do you not compare against the last year of the previous admininstration when we were energy independent? The year before you became President, not the year after you left office as VP.
Who measures against five years ago?
While you’re at it, how about comparing to the days before Covid?
If you did either of those you would see the results of your actions.
Where is the bull dog media to point this out?
Where are they telling the American people the truth?
Then he tried to convince us that he was supporting development. Oh really?
Who put a freeze on federal lands for new drilling?
How many of the L&G applications have you approved for drilling and pipelines? Answer: Zero
Why don’t you tell us one place — ONE PLACE — that you have pushed U.S. oil development. Just One.
Both he and Jen Psaki mentioned 9,000 licenses. Another misdirection.
How many are dry? On how many were royalty rates raised to make them unprofitable?
Why doesn’t the media or the complaint media ask companies why they are holding back?
The answer would be they are uncertain on what the administration will do — if they will allow pipelines to remain, if they would remove red tape.
Companies are in business to make product and profit.
A true leader would be working with these companies to fix the oil shortage and get prices lowered.
We don’t have one now.
Here’s the challenge.
Name ONE thing this administration has done to produce more American oil and fix this problem?
The whole thing is an effort at smoke and mirrors for the general public and the chance as we outlined after the SOTU, to fool those who you can fool all the time and not worry because the MSM won’t call them on anything.
It’s apparent, too, the President and administration have lost the respect of the world.
Look at yesterday:
Poland didn’t tell us in advance of their plan to move planes to Germany and have them move them to the Ukraine.
The Saudi’s apparently wouldn’t take our call to ask them to produce more oil.
When in your lifetime would foreign countries have treated a U.S. President like this?
Who said this?
“We need to blow a hole in the Russian economy. We need to lower gas prices for American consumers. Everything should be on the table. But I don’t support strengthening one dictator to hurt another. And I don’t think you’ll see us do that.” In other words no deals with Venezuela or Iran for oil.
Go ahead and guess who said it. Guess a person, organization or party.
If you guessed a Republican or right wing group, you would be wrong.
It was a Democratic congressman Sean Patrick Maloney. Who, by the way, is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the November election.
It’s not just on the House side either.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez had some pointed comments about a deal with Venezuela.
“Nicolás Maduro is a cancer to our hemisphere and we should not breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder. As such, I would strongly oppose any action that fills the pockets of regime oligarchs with oil profits while Maduro continues to deprive Venezuelans of basic human rights, freedoms, and even food.”
You see after fourteen months of blind voting loyalty, the members up for election are seeing the light. They know where that loyalty is leading them.
Want more? He started the speech with this:
“We will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war.”
Really?
You just did exactly that for two weeks. It’s only because congress was going to do this without you that the move was made. But then again, you can fool some of the people all the time.
Then he said:
I’m going to do everything I can to minimize Putin’s [gas] price hikes.”
That’s a lie, because you are not turning America loose to produce. That would be solution number 1.
His next line was:
“This crisis is a stark reminder that to protect our economy over the long term, we need to become energy independent. It should motivate us to accelerate a transition to clean energy.”
Acceleration is fine, but how about dealing with the today. We need a solution today.
Turn our companies and people loose.