Nancy Pelosi

President-elect Barack Obama has laid out a plan to “create or save” three million jobs during his first two years in office. His plan is to increase government spending, deficit be damned, by at least $775 billion dollars over that same period. While the projects he plans to invest in are things that we Americans can all use, the stimulus plan will be a flop. Here’s how I got here:

Let’s start with the money. Obama plans to increase government spending without any increases in taxes, so that negates his use of PAYGO budgeting. At the same time, the total amount of money per job that he creates or saves will come out to more than $258,333 per job. There are business executives who don’t even make this money for their job, yet Obama, who has never held a private sector job in his lifetime figures the cost of a job to “create or save” at more than one quarter of a million dollars.

Any reasonable businessperson, like myself, will tell you that if it cost that much money to save a job, we would rather sooner terminate the job immediately. The problem here is that Obama and the other people in government have no real concept of what it costs to run a business, generally speaking. The purpose of a business is not to make customers happy or to employ as many people as possible. The end goal of a business is maximizing their profits and making their shareholders money. Those who do not live by that mantra of making money for the company and stockholders quickly go out of business.

The two things that the average person on the street does not realize are how much one billion is and how much one trillion is.  For the concept of one billion dollars, imagine that on the day of the birth of Jesus Christ you were given one billion dollars and had to spend $1,000 each day onward while gaining no interest, you would be still be spending money for at least the next 700 years.  By comparison, one trillion dollars is one thousand times one billion.

Second, according to the CIA Factbook, the current Gross Domestic Product (GDP, or the total value of all goods and services produced inside the borders of the United States) currently sits at $14.334 trillion. In other words the stimulus is only 5.4 percent of GDP. From here, that percentage goes down fast.

In the Highway Spending Bill that Congress recently passed, less than 26 percent of that money was spent within the first fiscal year. If this holds true, it then means that a value of less than one-and-a-half percent of the nation’s GDP will be infused in to the economy within the first fiscal year of the stimulus bill’s existence. For an economy that will be going in to a deep recession throughout 2009, this does not bode well for Obama.

The end result is an increase in inflation thanks to the increase of the deficit to a level that will approach or exceed two trillion dollars this fiscal year and a slow-to-respond stimulus bill that will actually, when implemented, cause the death of many jobs.

However, that is only half the story about Obama’s economic plans for America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to get Obama to sign the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which is Orwellian by name, but will cause considerable damage when implemented and enforced. Barring a miraculous filibuster by the Republicans in the Senate, America’s workforce will become unionized and small businesses will close their doors.

What’s more is that the unions will get the ultimate payback from the Democrats they helped get elected. Their membership and union dues received will increase which will give the unions considerable influence in American politics and with their membership. Also, the union bosses will be able to oversee how each of its members votes in a union election, bringing to an end the secret ballot. If the Senate Republicans cannot stop this bill, small businesses in the United States will either have to shell out more of their money to meet the demands of the unions or they will close their doors, or both.

If this comes in to play, the projections for an unemployment rate of nine percent will look good to Americans because the unemployment rate in the USA will be higher than at any time since Ronald Reagan’s first term following the horrific economic policies of Jimmy Carter. The only difference is that Reagan was able to lower the unemployment rate from its peak in December 1982 of 10.8 percent to 8.3 percent in December 1983 and ultimately to 7.2 percent the very month he won a 49-state landslide win against Walter Mondale. By contrast, Obama won his election with an inflation rate of 1.07 percent and an unemployment rate of 6.7 percent in November 2008.

Finally, research from economists at UCLA determined that the Great Depression lasted seven years longer because of the New Deal. Obama wants to implement the New New Deal almost from the moment he takes office. Considering that the double-digit unemployment rates did not end until 1943, this means that had the New Deal not been implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt, the Great Depression would have ended in 1936 leading to an easy reelection.

The reality is that Obama doesn’t have the luxuries that FDR had when he was President, yet he wants to take us back to the past with an economic policy that exacerbated and extended this long economic slump. If this plan flops (and it will), just like FDR, Obama will come back with a sequel of New New Deal II which will be used as a means to “save” his job during a time of economic distress.

If the Republicans are able to do anything, it will be to vote against the stimulus package and to attempt to block the EFCA. Should this happen, they will have the ability to say that these things are prolonging the economic crisis and that they fought it all the way. If not, they will be on the same side of the line as Obama and the Democrats in 2010 and again in 2012 which could pave the way for two terms of economic agony.

It’s almost crunch time and the Republicans need to fight the expansion of big government early and often, then turn around and use it as a means to defeat Obama and Obamaism when given the opportunities to do so in 2010 and 2012. If not, they will become a permanent minority party with previous successful Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan as distant memories of what was once great about America, but never will be again.

It’s time for the GOP to be ready to fight Barack Obama when he’s wrong (like on these matters) and Obamaism. 

One can dream. Promoted. -Patrick

Update: As many people have pointed out, the surname Wong is inherently Chinese.  That said, I chose a Korean deliberatey.  Thus, I'm changing the candidate's name to Rob Ho Park.

This entry is intended to illustrate the type of Republican that could win a House seat in San Francisco.  It is not intended to describe a real person.  Imagine this as a future Weekly Standard/National Review profile.

---

Who is he: Rob the Custom Bicycle Store Owner.

Rob Ho Park is a second generation Korean American whose parents immigrated here in the 1950's during the War.  He is married and has three children.  Growing up in San Francisco, he was the first person in his family to go to college, graduating with honors from Cal in 1991.  That fall, he enrolled at a Masters Program at Stanford only to drop out six months later to join a Silicon Valley start-up.  After 5 1/2 years of 90 hour weeks, the company went public and Rob became wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

Rob survived the dot com bubble intact but shaken.  He decided to return to work only to learn that steady work is less available.  He accepted several consulting jobs and continued with his life.

Then came 9/11....

Rob was in the 7-11 in Palo Alto the first time he heard it.  About six hours after the attacks he was in line paying for his gas and coffee when the woman behind him said "we sponsored bin Laden in the 1980's so this is really our fault."  Rob was flabbergasted and sickened, yet he chose to write it off as an isolated incident.

Rob moved on with his life only to find consulting unsteady and inconsistent.  This became even truer in 2002 when Congress passed (and President Bush signed) the Sarbanes/Oxley act, which drove technology venture capital overseas.  Rob was once explaining this to a friend  when the friend said: "Yeah, that [censored]hole Bush can't do anything right."  Rob was shocked by this, even though he didn't say anything at the time.

In 2003, Rob landed a 2 year consulting contract that put him back on easy street for the first time in several years.  This time, however, Rob decided to save most of the money so he could start the business he's dreamed of owning since he was a small child.  This decision infused him with a new passion as he threw himself back into his work.

In 2005, Rob's diligence allowed him to finish his project a month early.  At this point, Rob sold the house in Palo Alto (for a surprisingly large profit) and moved the family back to San Francisco where he planned to open a custom bicycle shop.  For the rest of the year, the bike shop consumed Rob's life.  He was surprised by how difficult it was to open a business in San Francisco (not to mention the rents...), but he was determined.  He jumped through every hoop and cut through every piece of red tape the city and state could throw at him.  He even took out a loan when his savings proved insufficient.  Finally, in March 2006, Rob opened his store!

2006 and 2007 were, by most measures, the best years of Rob's life  Running the bike shop was better than Rob had ever imagined and his wife gave birth to their third child.  At the same time, several things beneath the surface troubled Rob deeply.  San Francisco had changed since he moved away twenty years before.  While he'd always considered San Francisco's cultural foibles amusing, they'd now crossed an unspoken threshold of decency.  Aggressive homeless people started living in front of his store and in the parks where his children played.  Rob tryed to take this in stride, but can only take so much public consumption of HARD drugs and public fornication.  Making matters worse, the Mayor seemed more concerned with Gay Marriage than doing anything after his store was broken into in March 2007.

2008 was the final straw for Rob.  Rob had survived a recession and prepared early to weather another one.  He prudently ordered less overhead and installed solar panels (at an out of pocket cost of $10,000) to take advantage of a loophole in California's tax code.

It wasn't enough.  In March, Rob let his first of five employees go.  Then, the city raised his taxes.  This forced Rob to lay off two more workers.  Then the state ended up even deeper in the red than people had thought and the state threatened to raise his taxes.  While the tax hike isn't official yet, Rob is terrified because he knows this next tax hike will be his last.

At the same time, this Gay Marriage stuff has gotten under Rob's skin.  While he has gay friends, and doesn't really have a problem with Gay Marriage, he was appalled by the arrogance of the CA supreme court decision and quietly voted against Prop 8.  He thought that was the end of it.  He was wrong.  Nothing prepared him for the circus following Prop 8.

All this has left Rob Ho Park livid and ready to take it out on the incumbant leadership in his home city.  He's decided to run for the House and he needs your help.

---

Again, Rob is not a real person (or, if he is, I'm WAY better at this than I thought).  He's meant to represent the type of person we should seek out if we want to seriously contest a U.S. House seat in San Francisco.

Last month, America cast a vote to feel better about itself. Much as I had predicted in July , in the absence of a well reasoned economic alternative from the McCain campaign the voters would revert to casting a vote that would expunge the Bush years. http://www.thenextright.com/ironman/not-so-happy-motoring-a-challenge-for-mccains-michigan-ohio-strategy

I do not need to link to every quote where someone has said how good the Obama win made them feel about themselves, or their country.  It's like the entire clientele of Whole Foods Market has obtained validation that those crass, bellicose Republicans have lost.

But in the end, this is all ephemrical feelgood nonsense. We elected a Gatsby candidate http://www.thenextright.com/ironman/the-gatsby-candidates who now must enact real policies that do real things, which his resume offers scant evidence of.

Indeed, the election of Obama reminds me of this scene from the movie Dave, where the stand-in President is looking for money for a homeless program and inquires why the government is spending lavishly on making existing car owners feel better about their cars.

 Dave: I don't want to tell some eight-year-old kid he's gotta sleep in the street because we want people to feel better about their *car*. Do *you* want to tell them that?
Secretary of Commerce: [quietly] No sir.
[sits back in his seat and reflects]
Secretary of Commerce: No I sure don't

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106673/quotes

Well, the Obama Presidency may prove to be a multitrillion dollar effort in making people feel better about themselves. Whether it accomplishes anything useful for non-idealogues will probably be answered in how it handles the auto bailout.

It appears likely that the Bush adminstration and Congress have agreed on floating the car firms enough money to get into Barack's term  http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0646586520081206?rpc=44. I'm actually OK with this. Much as I had to drop well over a thousand this morning to keep the wife's jalopy on the road, we probably need to do this.   Better quick and incomplete than to allow these firms to sink deeper.

There's no time to figure out a comprehensive recovery plan and hardly any money after the $700 Billion TARP program is funded.  And for those convinced the Detroit Three are on their way inevitably to the Wilmington bankruptcy court; well, it might be better if they filed when the rest of the economy was a little more robust. Much as I would rather buy a new car along with the wife when things settle down a bit 

The problem is long term the Democratic Party has identified three mutually exclusive requirements for a auto bailout.

a) Protect taxpayers by making sure the firms return to profitability and pay back the loan.

b) Protect organized labor by limiting concessions and maintaining as much employment as possible.

c) Advance the environmental agenda by promoting electric cars.

I presume everyone here would favor a). But you can't get there when there's going to be labor efforts to keep plants open and compensation high, especially when even before the credit crisis there were too many car firms and too many car plants http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070307/AUTO04/703070363/1148/AUTO01

I would suggest those who foresee Detroit moving seamlessly to green cars consider how hard Toyota had to work to deliver a hybrid to market  http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/17/news/companies/mostadmired_fortune_toyota/index.htmEvidently Toyota is now hoping to get the Priius profit margin up to that of the Corolla. Maybe. Notice the ubitiquous incentives behind sales of this car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Government_incentives. Toyota is hoping to sell 200,000 Priuses per year in the U.S.;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Sales. By comparison, the Chevrolet Silverado pickup still sells twice that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Silverado.

Now, does anyone think such brilliant economic minds like Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Chris Dodd are going to take economically prudent steps to revive the auto industry, or are they going to "save the planet" by sacrificing the taxpayer.

I suspect that in a couple of years when highly profitable Tundras are flying off the Toyota lots a lot of Japanese businessmen will be saying Domo Arigato  to the D.C. Democrats.

I also suspect that we will be all made to feel good about the American car industry by the DC Democrats, but much as British Leyland proved an expensive and futile effort in corporate socialism for the UK  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Leyland, the new world of domestic car manufacturing will prove politically correct and financially unsustainable. 

Earlier Redstate's Pejman Yousefzadeh argued that Nancy Pelosi misread her caucus. I have an alternative hypothesis: she wanted the bill to fail. I have three pieces of evidence. First, yesterday, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the House Majority Whip told the Politico that he was not whipping the vote and was not asked to whip the vote:

Asked about Monday’s vote on the bailout bill, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn tells reporters: “We haven’t started whipping.” Asked if he’s going to start whipping, Clyburn says: “The speaker hasn’t told me yet. I do what I’m told.”

Second, as Pejman noted previously, Rep. Peter deFazio (D-OR) told NPR that he was never whipped on the question. Listen:

Third, look at the actual procedure on this. From the clerk's floor summary:

2:07 P.M. -

Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.

On motion that the House agree to the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment Failed by recorded vote: 205 - 228 (Roll No. 674).

Note the "motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection." If the Democrats had wanted this to pass, they would not have said that. The procedural guts of this is that any vote in the House can be "reconsidered" by a motion to reconsider that is in order from a member of the prevailing side for two legislative days. By tabling this, that option is off the table.

The simplest option for Pelosi would have been to wait an hour, watch the markets collapse for a while, scare 12 Democrats and hold a revote. Surely some Republicans would have participated in this.

Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats had a way to win this vote today. Either out of incompetence or strategy, they walked away from that opportunity.

Update (9:58AM, Sept. 26th): While Sens. Harry Reid and Chris Dodd stand before the news this morning pontificating and mocking Republicans, especially Sen McCain, for the perceived delay in reaching agreement, they also continues to prevaricate. Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi initially asserted that they needed McCain to clinch a deal for Democrats and now they are like a pack rabid dogs blaming John McCain for the deal falling apart. In fact, the deal fell apart before McCain arrived.

A republican senate source has confirmed that the questioned provision reported in this post is being opposed by Senate Republicans which has upset Democrats. Republicans are not opposing the obvious issues identified by Reid. They are working to get rid of the questioned provision "if they can." Also, they have already gotten the Democrats to back down from providing "most" of the money ("future profits") to the groups mentioned in the article "to a much smaller percentage." Negotiations are likely to continue throughout the day. Obviously no one is happy - especially the majority of the American public.

Breaking News - Bill Smith, ARRA Editor. I received a copy of "Agreement in Principle" relative to the $700 billion "bailout" being proposed and supported by Senate Democrats. The one page agreement from the U.S. Senate Banking Committee details guidelines to be put in place relative to taxpayer protection, oversight and transparency, home ownership preservation and Funding Authority.

While on the surface the agreement looks generic and positive, However, the "devil is in the detail." There is one detail that Democrats are concerned that Republicans will not agree to in the bailout agreement. That is if the Republicans even see the item. It seems that this issue may be one reason that many Democrats have hounded Sen. John McCain and pushed for his speedy approval. Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-NV) has already identified that it is Sen. John McCain's approval, not Barack Obama approval, that is needed to secure the agreement of Senate Republicans. In fact, the questioned provision indirectly focus on some prior concern regarding Sen. Barack Obama involvement with various organizations. Maybe that is why Obama would prefer being at a debate in Mississippi than being in Washington D.C.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) cohorts are also hounding Sen. McCain to agree. They know that neither the House Republicans nor the House Blue Dog Democrats are going to sign on easily to an agreement extending $700 billion "bailout" if Sen. McCain disagrees. Pelosi does not have control of the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs who are not happy with committing $700 billion to the "bailout" effort.

In the "agreement in principle," there is the effect of a major "earmark" which commits money from future "profits" to be given to nonprofits organizations like ACORN, National Council of La Raza and potentially the National Urban League. This agreement clearly evidences that the Government expects to benefit in the future from the bailout when the values of property rises and mortgages or properties are then sold by the Federal government. The agreement --

"Directs a certain percentage of future profits to the Affordable Housing Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund to meet America's housing needs."

In the proposed bailout agreement, Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee and other Democrats desire to pre-direct that future funds (profits) not be returned to the taxpayers via the treasury but that they be used to underwrite potential questionable (maybe even illegal activities) of certain nonprofits which have had a hand in promoting and expanding access to "no money down" loans for minorities, illegal voter registrations and extensive lobbying activities.

Let’s examine the connection of the Affordable Housing Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund with the various nonprofit groups mentioned above. In July, 2008, a Wall Street Journal article addressed the previous housing bill signed into law:

Provide[d] a stream of billions of dollars for distressed homeowners and communities and the nonprofit groups that serve them. One of the biggest likely beneficiaries, despite Republican objections is Acorn, a housing advocacy group that also helps lead ambitious voter-registration efforts benefiting Democrats. Acorn -- made up of several legally distinct groups under that name -- has become an important player in the Democrats' effort to win the White House. Its voter mobilization arm is co-managing a $15.9 million campaign with the group Project Vote to register 1.2 million low-income Hispanics and African-Americans, who are among those most likely to vote Democratic. Technically nonpartisan, the effort is one of the largest such voter-registration drives on record.

The organization's main advocacy group lobbied hard for passage of the housing bill, which provides nearly $5 billion for affordable housing, financial counseling and mortgage restructuring for people and neighborhoods affected by the housing meltdown. A third Acorn arm, its housing corporation, does a large share of that work on the ground. Acorn's multiple roles show how two fronts of activism -- housing for the poor and voter mobilization -- have converged closely in this election year. The fortunes of both parties will hinge in part on their plans for addressing the fall of the nation's housing market and the painful economic slowdown. . . .

Partly because of the role of Acorn and other housing advocacy groups, the White House and its allies in Congress resisted Democrats' plans to include money for a new affordable-housing trust fund and $4 billion in grants to restore housing in devastated neighborhoods. In the end, the money stayed in the bill; the White House saw little choice. What most riles Republicans about the bill is the symbiotic relationship between the Democratic Party and the housing advocacy groups, of which Acorn is among the biggest. Groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the National Urban League also lobby to secure government-funded services for their members and seek to move them to the voting booth. Acorn has been singled out for criticism because of its reach, its endorsements of Democrats, and past flaws in its bookkeeping and voter-registration efforts that its detractors in Congress have seized upon. . . .

Sen. Obama is especially reliant on registration drives, such as Acorn's with Project Vote, to help him win the White House. The Illinois Democrat draws his strongest support from blacks, Hispanics and young people, groups that are among the least likely to be registered. After law school, Sen. Obama was the director of Project Vote in Chicago. . . .

Democrats on Capitol Hill have helped to steer millions of dollars in housing and other grants from the federal government toward Acorn and groups like it. The groups must qualify and compete for the money, which is typically doled out from the federal government to states and municipalities. The housing package includes a new, permanent source of affordable-housing money that congressional Democrats and grassroots groups have sought for years. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund will be funded by a tax on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage titans.

That tax eventually will channel upwards of $600 million annually in grants for developing and restoring housing, mostly as low-income rentals, available to Acorn and other groups. Democrats on Capitol Hill and housing groups say the housing-assistance money is vital to helping Americans hit hardest by what some call the largest drop in home values since the Great Depression. But they acknowledge the perception of political conflict in giving federal funds to an organization that does political work. "We are guarding against it," said Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank in an interview. He secured the Affordable Housing Trust from his seat as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. . . .

Acorn describes itself as the nation's largest grassroots community organization, with more than 400,000 families organized into 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities. Over four decades, Acorn has turned its broad membership into a powerful lobbying tool. Its representatives are well-known in the marble halls of the Capitol, and press local, state and federal governments . . .

ACORN is the agency where Sen. Barack Obama worked as a trainer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN), whose affiliate, Project Vote, is known for voter fraud. It is this same organization from which a large part of the mortgage mess has grown. After Harvard Law School, Obama provided legal representation for ACORN. Obama sat on the boards of the philanthropic Woods Foundation and the Joyce Foundation which both funneled millions of dollars to ACORN.

In 2006, the Wall Street Journal addressed Acorn Indictments. In a recent article, additional complaints, indictments and arrests and conviction of ACORN members for voter fraud have been detailed for Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington State, and Wisconsin. Democrats on Capitol Hill have steered billions of the taxpayer monies to risky ventures and to nonprofits organizations like ACORN, National Council of La Raza through the government’s Affordable Housing Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund. As a result groups like ACORN have developed powerful lobby groups to secure tax money for their organizations. Now the proposed "agreement in principle" for the $700 Billion "bailout" seeks to continue the protection of this process. In another article by James H. Walsh, a former federal prosecutor, it was noted that:

ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) was instrumental in its passage of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which has plagued the mortgage markets since 1977. The U.S. Congress through the CRA compelled banks and lending institutions to make loans to “communities of color” disregarding sound economic and risk guidelines. CRA encouraged the relaxing of “outdated” risk-management protocols and underwriting obligations by lending institutions. In the name of ending discrimination, no longer were “communities of color” required to provide verification of income, employment, credit history, ability to pay homeowner bills, or down payment. In response, many banks and mortgage groups bundled trillions of dollars of “subprime” loans and sold them to investors here and abroad. It is these bundled Community Reinvestment Act mortgages, doomed to fail, that are today causing financial strain in U.S. and global financial markets.

In short, a Democrat Congress and President demanded that banks change the rules of good banking and open the Pandora’s Box of mortgage defaults and foreclosures now coming to a head. This home-parity concept of the radical left was mobilized by ACORN resulting in a purchase of a property without any credit, income, employment, and a zero down payment.

In 2003, Fannie Mae home-parity funding in Chicago reached $600 billion. When Franklin Raines, former chair and CEO of Fannie Mae, stepped down in 2004 but managed to take with him a multimillion-dollar parachute and a monthly pension of $114, 393 for life, and should he die, for his wife’s lifetime. Until recently, Raines was an advisor to Obama.

Open Secrets reveals the investment made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Democrats and details the Top 25 Democrat Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contributions in 1989-2008. The top three in order were Senators Christopher Dodd, John Kerry and Barack Obama.

When government tries to fix social issues through the use of the taxpayers’ money, there are consequences. Now the American taxpayers are being called upon again to underwrite the problems exacerbated by the prior actions of former and the current Congress and past administrations. It is hoped that Senators and Representatives will avoid this massive "earmark." All "future profits" from the resolution and disposition of the alleged current bad mortgages ("bad paper"), should accrue to the American taxpayers as a whole and be returned to the Treasury. Any determination as to the use of "future profits" should be determined by those elected and representing the people at that future point in time. No agreements should include an obligation on the potential "future profits." No agreements should support questionable programs that support organizations that contributed to the failures of mortgages or to the bad lending practices promoted by prior Congresses and administrations.

Wait about 72 hours.

Gasoline prices jumped to unprecedented levels in the wholesale markets today as Hurricane Ike tore across the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to strike Texas and its refineries...

The wholesale price of gasoline ranged from $4 to nearly $5 a gallon in the U.S. Gulf Coast throughout the day today, said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. That was up significantly from about $3 to $3.30 a gallon on Wednesday, Kloza said.

"We're looking at the highest wholesale prices ever for a huge swath of the country," he said. "People understand that regardless of what happens with Ike, it's going to shut down the biggest refining cluster for a period of five, six, seven days."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5995474.html

The effect is already in motion. This morning the Citgo station in CT I drive by was at $3,69/gallon; by 6pm EDT it was up to $3.79/gallon

I'm a fan of expat CT resident Brendan Loy, the cassandra of Katrina, who is still a weatherblogger @ Pajamasmedia http://pajamasmedia.com/weathernerd/. A close read of Loy's blog suggests that the impact of Hurricane Ike may be devastating to the domestic oil industry.

Meanwhile, Alan Sullivan (who has a new post up, BTW) wrote in comments on his blog: “It’s the industry of Houston that I’m worried about. Not only could we be looking at the most expensive hurricane in history, but the destruction of energy infrastructure could put the nation in real difficulty. We have refused to build infrastructure for many years; now we may lose some of what we have.” This from a guy who’s been saying that Ike is “overhyped.” If Sullivan is right, today’s gas panics may be just the beginning.

http://pajamasmedia.com/weathernerd/2008/09/12/ike-nears-coast-storm-surge-catastrophe-likely/

A quick look at the location of American oil refineries demonstrates that a huge percentage of U.S. refining capacity are in communities like Baytown, Port Arthur and Texas City which are likely to suffer serious damage from storm surge from Hurricane Ike  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_refineries#United_States especially as the estimated storm surge may reach 22 feet in some places  http://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=TXZ238&warncounty=TXC167&firewxzone=TXZ238&local_place1=Galveston+TX&product1=Hurricane+Warning

So we are potentially looking at a huge disruption in refining, for some indefinitive period. (Perhaps someone familiar with the business can tell me how well this equipment will handle saltwater immersion)  I know "Beldar" is a Houston lawyer, http://beldar.blogs.com/, whether he has any expertise in oil and gas I'm not sure about.

The usual Democratic response to a price spike--releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--won't work, since the SPR is crude oil, and the problem is we will not have sufficient operating refineries to process the usual deliveries.

Maybe this will be a short hiccup, but if it isn;t maybe fervent opponents of "Big Oil" like Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi can explain how we are supposed to function without it? Will Speaker Pelosi suggest that we "refine our brains"?

Senator McCain's V.P. choice of a true energy expert, Governor Sarah Palin, may prove all the more prescient in the next few days.  

Podcast Show Notes

Obama calls for the prosecution of a citizen running an ad against him. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Nancy Pelosi attacks citizens protesting the Democratic policies of high gas prices.

Howard Dean compares Republicans to Slobodan Milosevic.

Pro-Lifers attempt a record breaking witness at the Democratic Convention.

Wikipedia's Orwellian revisionism of Biden's support for McCain for Kerry's Veep in 2004.

Agriculture pork.

Government employees AWOL for more than 9000 years work since 2001. (Hat Tip: Red State.)

City workers provide sandbags for the house of a Democratic Congresswoman  while her constitents receive no assistance.  (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

SEIU uses college students and doublecrosses them in the end.

A truly Mickey Mouse way to teach science.

Knowing when life begins: not above the pay grade of 93% of Americans (59% agree that life begins at conception.)  

CNN does a puff piece on cohabitation while ignoring the facts. (Hat Tip: Idaho Values Alliance.)

Click here to listen, click here to download.

The House Democrats are in an uproar over remarks made by Minority Leader John Boehner which they deem to endorse physical violence against Speaker Pelosi.

This is the incinidiary language which appalls the Democrats.    This was offered in support of Drill Now as Boehner announced a campaign trip to CT to pressure Nancy-stater Chris Murphy to adopt a realistic energy policy.

“She’s gonna bring us back and not deal with it? The American people are gonna hang her,” Boehner said. When pressed further, Boehner said it would “be fine, as long as we get a vote on our bill.”

Democrats Miller (CA) and Markey (MA) responded to Boehner’s comments:

Mr. Boehner’s comments about the Speaker are offensive, inappropriate and deliberately misleading.

First of all, no public official should use language implying bodily harm to anyone, whether they are referring to the Speaker of the House or any other American. That is completely outrageous. [Miller]

…

Assertions of physical violence toward the Speaker of the House have no place in the halls of Congress. Period.
…
Democracy is about settling differences through debate, without violence. It is unfortunate that the Minority Leader allowed violence to creep into his overheated rhetoric. [Markey]

http://ctlocalpolitics.net/2008/08/13/boehner-to-headline-fundraiser-for-cappiello/

Now I find it rather odd that two partisan Democrats not known for prior restraint in their criticism of Republicans are so irked at this rheotorical florish.

First, Boehner was not suggesting he wanted to "hang" Pelosi, or recommending it. He predicted the "American people" would do so.  Evidently the Democratic party has rather low regard for the Americans people's  judgment in this regard.

It's also odd that a liberal CT blogger known for wishing all sorts of ill to occur to Senator Joe Lieberman would suddenly develop such a delicate sense of decorum.  

But maybe the biggest problem is a sense of humor which is akin to the 1980 comedy hit Airplane!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080339/

Implying Boehner's comment were anything more than a projection of future election results makes as much sense as this dialogue

Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious... and don't call me Shirley

I'd ask Pelosi, Miller and Markey to shed some light on these remarks, but just like the movie, they might just dump a bunch of old lamps out of a truck.

We have a bunch of comedians in the Democrat Party. Sadly, they aren;t even good ones.

Who is the real power behind Barack Obama?  It's not Reverend Wright.  It's not Michelle Obama.  It's not David Axelrod.  It's not Mayor Daley.  His carefuly crafted image with little substance behind it, his ability to defeat the powerful Clinton political machine, his come-from-nowhere-into-the-blazing-spotlight evolution, and the fact that he began referring to the Democratic Party as "MY party" in June - all these things made me wonder if he's actually a puppet, a front man, for the real power - the "pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain" power.  The power that, in reality, belongs to Nancy Pelosi.

We've seen her wield it effortlessly and absolutely, and most egregiously over the past several days since she shut the lights, cameras and microphones off at the House and dismissed any Republican efforts to urge the House members to continue working on a comprehensive American Energy Act as nothing more than a "stunt".  If I were a project manager, this would be the moral equivalent of me shutting down a project meeting while we're over budget, behind schedule and incomplete in our objective; hanging up the conference call, unplugging the video camera and demanding the project team turn in their laptops on the way out the door so they cannot override my decision to stop all work regardless of whether we've completed our client's objective, that would be our client who is paying good money for our services and providing the conference room to us in the first place. 

Bloomberg has an article today that seems to validate my opinion of Pelosi's power not only in leading an extremely unified Democratic Party, but also in playing a very significant role in anointing Barack Obama when it was clear to many Americans that Hillary Clinton actually had more experience and - am I wrong? - more of the popular vote.

``This is an unbelievably cohesive team; there's almost no backstabbing,'' says House Democratic policy director Rahm Emanuel, a man not easily given to subsidiary roles. ``I'll do anything she wants, and she knows it.''

When I read that, it didn't impress me that Rahm was the World's Greatest Team Player so much as it jarred me that he is so totally, utterly and completely Owned.  And if Barack Obama thinks he won't be Owned as well, I think he had better think again.  He may find himself to be the ultimate NanChurian Candidate®.

Cross-posted at Lagamorphic Tendencies