Flashback

Obama 0-4 for 2008 townhall-debate promises.

If This Is Forward . . .

Hat tip to Vodkapundit.

Bazinga!

 

 

Hat tip to Vodkapundit.

Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Four Years Ago?

Chris Wallace confronts Axelrod with facts and Axelrod squirms.

Those facts are the following (and should be regularly featured in Romney campaign ads from now until November:

Unemployment: 7.8% then, 8.3% now

Median income: $54,983 then, $50,964 now

Gas prices: $1.85 per gallon then, $3.78 now

National debt: $10.6 trillion then, $15.9 trillion now

On the other hand, the Democratic governor of Maryland can at least admit the painfully obvious truth.

Mitt Romney: What I learned at Bain Capital.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

My business experience confirmed my belief in empowering people. For example, at Bain Capital we bought Accuride, a company that made truck rims and wheels, because we saw untapped potential there. We instituted performance bonuses for the management team, which had a dramatic impact. The managers made the plants more productive, and the company started growing, adding 300 jobs while Bain was involved. My faith in people, not government, is at the foundation of my plan to strengthen America's middle class.

Who Could Have Seen This Coming?

Breitbart.com:  China Readies $15.1 Billion Canadian Oil Deal. 

Who indeed?

Only 1001?

1001 Reasons to Vote Against Barack Obama.  Feel free to add to the list.

Credit to Instapundit for the link (who in turn gives credit to Bill Whittle). 

Forget Bain

Obama's public-equity record is the real scandal.

Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. 

Click the link for a list representing just some of these Obama public-equity failures.  Then there is this:

. . . fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion. Obama said this week it’s not the president’s job “to make a lot of money for investors.” Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine.  

Hat tip to Instapundit. 

Obama Wages War on Coal

Your budget is a casualty.

Last week the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a shocking drop in power sector coal consumption in the first quarter of 2012. Coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36 percent of U.S. electricity, versus 44.6 percent just one year ago.

It’s the result of an unprecedented regulatory assault on coal that will leave us all much poorer.

Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”

The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.

Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.

Promises Kept: Energy Prices

Barack Obama - January 2008:  “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Smart Diplomacy Not Very Neighborly

Investors Business Daily reports:

Obama's neglect of our nearest neighbors and biggest trade partners has created deteriorating relations, a sign of a president who's out of touch with reality. Problems are emerging that aren't being reported.

Fortunately, the Canadian and Mexican press told the real story. Canada's National Post quoted former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson as saying the North American Free Trade Agreement and the three-nation alliance it has fostered since 1994 have been so neglected they're "on life support."

Energy has become a searing rift between the U.S. and Canada and threatens to leave the U.S. without its top energy supplier.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Obama the U.S. will have to pay market prices for its Canadian oil after Obama's de facto veto of the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada is preparing to sell its oil to China.

Until now, NAFTA had shielded the U.S. from having to pay global prices for Canadian oil. That's about to change. . . .

Things were even worse, if you read the Mexican press accounts of the meeting.

Excelsior of Mexico City reported that President Felipe Calderon bitterly brought up Operation Fast and Furious, a U.S. government operation that permitted Mexican drug cartels to smuggle thousands of weapons into drug-war-torn Mexico. This blunder has wrought mayhem on Mexico and cost thousands of lives.

The mainstream U.S. press has kept those questions out of the official press conferences, while Obama has feigned ignorance to the Mexicans and hasn't even apologized.

In short, the summit was a diplomatic disaster for the U.S. and its relations with its neighbors north and south.

It should have been the easiest, most no-brainer diplomatic task Obama faces.

Instead, it underscored the Obama administration's indifference to anything more than its own political interests.

It's a shame the American media didn't tell us. Instead we had to learn of it in the foreign press.

 Well, at least Obama still seems to be getting along swimmingly with Russia.
Hat tip to Instapundit.

Obama's "Affordable" Green Light bulbs

The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,” for any manufacturer that could create a “green” but affordable light bulb.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the prize would spur industry to offer the costly bulbs, known as LEDs, at prices “affordable for American families.” There was also a “Buy America” component. Portions of the bulb would have to be made in the United States.

Now the winning bulb is on the market.

The price is $50.

Remember, these are the same people promising everyone "affordable" health care.

Jay Carney Lied About How the Keystone Pipeline Died.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney claimed, apparantly with a straight face, that Obama didn't kill the Keystone pipeline and that it's the Republicans that are actually to blame.

Unexpectedly, Obama's First Re-Election Ad Is "Filled With Fibs."

"In his very first TV ad of the 2012 campaign, the president is feeding the public false information about America's dependence on foreign fuels. His twisted statistics actually celebrate the Obama recession."

Blocking the Keystone Pipeline

Powerline has two articles explaining why Obama's Keystone decision is both an economic disaster and an environmental disaster. 

The eventual Republican nominee may be wise to consider this advice:  "If Republicans spend half their time between now and November talking about energy, we will have a new president in 2013."

UPDATED: Some of that "smart diplomacy" the Obama administration was taking about?

Following up on yesterday's post, the Obama administration today announced its plans to block the Keystone XL pipeline.  It did so while attempting to blame Republicans, claiming Congress had not given the administration sufficient time to review the project before requiring a decision.  It made this claim despite the fact that the project has been under review for three years and previously received several approvals at the federal, state, and local levels.  So much for shovel ready projects. 

While it may not provide the jobs the Keystone project would have, at least we can still buy oil from places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.  More commentary can be found here and here.

Some of that "smart diplomacy" the Obama administration was taking about?

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said "news the Obama administration would delay a decision on whether to approve extending TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline was a wakeup call about the degree to which Canada is "held hostage" to U.S. decisions."  At least the Canadians can take comfort in knowing that they have China as a potential buyer to fall back upon, while we Americans can take comfort in . . . ?