O’Reilly is not a Conservative-He’s an Ass

Bill O’Reilly is not particularly conservative. He’s a Catholic and holds some social-conservative views but he’s mostly a squishy moderate. He is also a pompous ass and he gives Republicans and Conservatives a bad name when he spouts off on topics where he is ignorant, which tend to be all economic issues.

He’s particularly infuriating when it comes to 2 key topics in this election year: Insurance companies and oil companies. There are some common threads. Both have lower than average profit margins. Both are heavily regulated and in both cases government interference in the market place is resulting in price distortions.

This has been going on for years but has come to the fore in recent broadcasts in conjunction with the return to $4 gas prices. Tonight he invited a liberal Democrat mayor to debate and hilarity ensued. O’Reilly ran up against his own circular logic when he found his guest agreeing with pretty much everything he said.

Wise people know what they don’t know. O’Reilly “bloviates”, blissfully ignorant of his shortcomings. He is emboldened by his frequent guest, Lou Dobbs, another clueless charlatan who recently advanced a crackpot theory that Bill blindly subscribes to.

O’Reilly’s “theory”, such as it is, is that evil oil companies are choosing to ship domestically-produced oil to China, causing shortages here and driving up prices at the pump. He then contradicts himself by stating that supplies are up due to the lagging economy.

In the next segment Monica Crowley countered with the exact metrics that O’Reilly and Dobbs are missing and was rudely dismissed. It happened again with John Stossel. How long will these respected journalists put up with O’Reilly’s abuse? What are those inconvenient truths?

1. Oil companies have low profit margins, in the single digits. The impact is less than a dime per dollar. So remove the oil company profit and the $4 drops to $3.64. Problem solved, right? O’Reilly laughed at Crowley, rolled his eyes and blathered about “record profits”. This is the language of the left. Then he made snide remarks about the Beverly Hillbillies. That is the language of children.

2. Oil is fungible, meaning that a barrel of oil here is pretty much the same as a barrel of oil half way around the globe. More supply here adds to global supply and lowers the price for everyone. Obama has banned drilling off-shore and on-shore, particularly in Alaska. That is a core component of the high prices we see today.

3. Shipping costs. Why would an oil company ship U.S. produced oil to China when it is cheaper, and more profitable to sell it here? It’s simple, they don’t. We are net importers of oil. We lack pricing power for this reason.

Will O’Reilly wise up? Will he invite a guest to debate who has some professional knowledge of how the oil markets work? How about Walter Williams to give him an entry level tutorial on Economics 101? I am not going to hold my breath. The Chicago Tribune won’t print my letters so I seriously doubt that my “pithy” rebuttal will be read on The Factor.

Instead I’ll just be a good Capitalist, and stop buying O’Reilly’s product.

Anyone care to join me?

One Small Step for the GOP

I have a suggestion for the Republican Party. I am not sure if we can get the various big-government hypocrites, reach-accros-the-aisle centrists, and other wishy-washy RINOs to agree, but how about issuing a statement like this:

We, the elected representatives who call ourselves Republicans do hereby promise to tell the whole truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth. We promise to stop claiming we are “cutting spending” when all we are doing is lowering, in rare instances, the rate of spending increases.

We promise to stop using the term “Social Security Trust Fund” because there is no such thing. Every penny ever collected for that program has been spent and we are dependent on current and future tax payers to fund the program. This is unsustainable.

We will request the same honesty from our Democratic counterparts but we will hold to this pledge with or without them. It is long past time that someone in this great nation did the right thing and we will proudly execute our sworn duties to uphold the Constitution.

We promise you, the American tax payers that balance their budgets at home, that we will do the same here in Washington.

We begin today. In November we will ask for your vote. With your help we can get America back on the road to fiscal responsibility. Join us on the only true path to prosperity before it is too late.

This Is What Democrats Do

Obama’s latest budget is a joke and an insult to the American people. If Harry Reid allows it to reach the floor it will be voted down like last year: 97-0.

Republicans in the House are passing budgets and bills.

Obama is passing the buck.

He’d raise tax rates and cut defense spending while expanding spending in every other area. This is a broken record.

The recent flap involving the Catholic Church and contraception etc. shows exactly what Obamacare is all about. We all lose our freedom when we hand over the health care and insurance business to bureaucrats. Now we are being told that pregnancy is a preventable illness. Do they read their own press releases? The Democrats simply run around declaring that one thing or another will be free of cost. There is no such thing. This is childish and ignorant.

The free market isn’t a bunch of “greedy capitalists” ripping us off without repercussions. The free market is about OUR freedom to choose. In that system businesses compete for our money — just like Apple and Microsoft compete for our computer and technology business. Things get better and cheaper for us while the corporations make money. There are profits and jobs — not subsidies and scandals like Solyndra.

The GOP needs a coordinated message that explains that to the voters and shows how Republicans will be distinctly different than the incompetents in charge now.

Obama and the Democrats are attempting the same controlled-economy nonsense that has failed every single time it has been forced on a population. The Soviet Union is only the most infamous example.

We are at a point where we need strong leadership to push bold policies that repeal and reverse most of this. We’ve been sliding toward socialism since FDR and the main difference now is that quicker pace. We’re at multiple tipping points. We’re broke and facing a real economic catastrophe.

If Mitt Romney wants to win the election he needs to understand that the President is not the CEO of America. You cannot micro-manage the economy–you can only set it free.

Pat Duggan

The State of the GOP

I hear a lot of complaining about the Republican Party these days. I share their frustration. How could it come to this? As the fourth year of the Obama era begins the state of the union is shaky at best. In 2008 an inexperienced leftist who donned a centrist disguise beat a weak opponent partly because the electorate was in such a state of shock that they were willing to ignore myriad red flags. I refer to his ultra-liberal voting record, murky background, radical friends and shady political pals. A lapdog media wasn’t interested in doing any vetting — opting instead to just cheer-lead.

The recent State of the Union was full of the same old stuff: congratulating himself for perceived accomplishments and complaining about Republican obstructionism. It’s pure trash and he knows it – but he’s betting that the American electorate will swallow it once again.
Anyone curious enough to look beyond the pliant press would have found that Obama’s speech was in many instances a word-for-word rehash of his previous “SOTU’s” here:

LINK

Further analysis shows his tax claims to be demonstrably false, here:
LINK

With evidence like that this election should be easy right? Obama is a now known quantity and the mask has been ripped off the entire Democrat Party. They marched in lockstep to shove Obamacare down our throats, bypassing an honest legislative process and ignoring the will of the people, including those in uber-liberal Massachusetts who voted for Scott Brown on that issue alone. They have reclaimed the crown as the biggest spenders – quickly eclipsing the Republicans of the previous era. Annual deficits are now running $1.5 TRILLION and we have nothing to show for it.

We should be planning our election night parties – and yet…

It is a mess. Many are fearful that we’re paving the way for Obama to be re-elected. From a very large field full of flawed candidates we’re left with a clueless Mitt Romney fending off desperate attacks from a flailing Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party seems to be doing the Democrats’ dirty work for them. We’re told by self-proclaimed experts that Romney is the only “electable” candidate and yet the guy has no track record of winning. The one time he did he passed a government-run health care bill that paved the way for the mess we’re trying to get repealed.

While Newt’s failures as Speaker of the House have been misrepresented – and his major victories diminished – Mitt is mostly given a free pass. Santorum is the non-Romney of the month but he is a lightweight punching out of his weight class. Ron Paul is given exactly the attention he deserves: credit for his criticism of our dangerous fiscal / monetary policy and scorn for his dangerously naïve foreign policy. Has anyone noticed that he is attracting the youth vote?

But how did the Republican Party let this happen? Well, let’s think about it for a minute. Who is the Republican Party? It’s the candidates who run as Republicans and the people who vote for them. It’s the current crop of elected officials who still self-identify with the party and caucus with them. Let’s not forget the Murkowskis of the world who are only Republican when it’s convenient, or the traders like Jeffords and Specter who changed teams. It is also the RNC – but they really only get involved AFTER the primaries, funneling money where it is most needed in closely fought general elections.

The candidates are a reflection of what we as voters demand. For too long we settled for mushy compromising centrists like Bush and McCain who did nothing to curtail spending or the rampant encroachments on our freedoms. I am not letting the Republicans in Congress off the hook. Spending bills start there. We have a President – not a king. Obama is clearly irritated by that. But the Republicans have not stood united as a party and held their ground. They should have been there all along saying. “We simply cannot afford this level of spending. We can’t defend our country and fund out-of-control entitlement programs. We cannot suspend the laws of economics to give houses to those who cannot afford mortgage payments. We will destroy our economy if we do.”

Nope. They reached across the aisle and danced around the third rails of politics and took the easy way out. McCain was one of them and Newt Gingrich was too. Romney pretends to “Mr. Private Sector” but he didn’t trust it to deal with the health care industry. It is no wonder attacks on him have stuck.

So the Tea Party was born. They are more loosely organized than the GOP. They do not have the big money yet. They only have a few true believers in office now; young leaders like Marco Rubio. Old phonies like Newt are merely pretenders trying to harness their energy. But the Tea Party activists at least have clear principles: smaller, efficient government; low, flat taxes; balanced budgets: strong foreign policy; free markets.

The debates are a disgrace. Who agreed to this? The RNC? This was a blown opportunity to clarify what the GOP platform is to be. We should be discerning not just where the candidates are different but where they agree. Liberal TV commentators should not be involved. Their slanted, “gotcha” questions waste precious time and give the Democrats advantages they should not be granted. Who lets the other team into the huddle?

Who are the party “leaders” who convinced Chris Christie and Paul Ryan not to run? Why didn’t those candidates seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? If Romney wins and does well, he is odds-on to run again and make it an 8 year wait for GOP contenders. Then maybe the pendulum swings left again. If Romney wins and lacks the will to make the bold moves we won’t get the recovery we need. Voters will tire and be susceptible to more “hope and change”. There are lots of ways that it adds up to a 12 year wait for these rising stars. This is their best chance and our best chance.

Now we are in a primary cycle where the voters are unanimous in their support for “none of the above” Not Romney and not the non-Romneys either. I think a brokered election would be thrilling and historic — but wait – the GOP wants to screw that up too. Their idea of a “White Knight” late-entry candidate?

Jeb Bush. (Crickets)

Are they tone deaf? Sure, I know all about Jeb. He’s the smartest Bush. That is beyond irrelevant. This country is not in the mood for another Bush while still suffering from a great deal of the fallout from the financial crisis that began during his brother’s term. Sorry Jeb.

I am still optimistic. True change does not happen quickly in a world still suffering from an epidemic of incumbency. Only we can impose the term limits that are so desperately needed.

They say we get the government we deserve. I am sure I am not the only one who feels I deserve better than this. I work, pay taxes, get informed, get involved and then vote.

There is a battle for the soul of the GOP. There is a call for return to core principles as opposed to watered-down liberalism or “compassionate conservatism”. The Democrats are in a state of denial about theirs. Obama is being attacked from the left for not doing enough. Incredible. “Moderate” Democrats don’t seem bothered that their party has been taken over by de facto socialists.

The silver lining in this mess is that at least Republican voters are showing that they care about character as this search for the non-Romney goes on. Democrats were too eager to embrace scripted charisma in an empty suit. We can do better. We will. Hopefully soon.

Pat Duggan