Sarah Palin: Great Article Obama’s TRUE GOAL Tax Oil & Gas Industry Out of Existence

Take a look at this great article on Obama's commission to investigate the Gulf spill. The commission's focus on drilling safety will be cursory -- only to check the box that it took an alleged hard look at the issue. The obvious goal of the environmental activists on the commission will be to draw preconceived conclusions in order to justify regulating/taxing the oil & gas industry out of existence.

- Sarah Palin

The commission appointed by President Obama to investigate the Gulf oil spill (the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling) does not include a single member with specialized knowledge of petroleum engineering. This is akin to performing a heart transplant with a surgical team that has never set foot in an operating room.

Of the seven members appointed to the commission, not one is a petroleum engineer, and all have long-standing ties to the environmental movement. […]

If the president's intention was to prevent future leaks, why would he appoint a commission with no knowledge of drilling? The answer, it would seem, is that this commission was never meant to perform the task it was officially charged with. It was never really intended to be a commission on drilling safety, but rather a group of environmental activists intent on regulating and taxing the oil and gas companies out of business. Its report is unlikely to focus on improved safely measures with the intent of increasing oil and gas exploration and production. It will more likely issue a blueprint on how to restrict drilling while extorting profits from oil companies by way of new fees and regulation.

Even as the commission hears impassioned testimony from Gulf Coast residents about the economic devastation of Obama's ban on deep-water drilling (his second ban, the first having been ruled illegal by a federal court), its members continue to register their opposition to drilling of any sort. […]

There are two crucial lessons to be learned from the Deepwater Horizon accident, but it is doubtful whether the commission will comprehend either of them. The first is that "best practices" exist which, had they been strictly adhered to, may have prevented the Deepwater Horizon accident. It is for the commission to determine whether they were followed in that case, but it is incontrovertible that best practices have prevented significant accidents on all of the other 40,000 wells drilled in the Gulf. These practices, with continual improvement, should prevent spills in the future as well.

The second lesson, and one that no one in government or the mainstream media seems to have considered, is that the Deepwater Horizon, however flawed its management might have been, had the capacity to produce a great deal of oil and gas. […]

For most Americans, new drilling and the energy independence that comes with it seem like a good thing, but that is the very reason why the president has appointed a commission hostile to increased drilling. The success of the free market in the United States depends to a great extent on the availability of cheap energy. By cutting off the supply of oil, natural gas, and coal, Obama ensures a continuation of high unemployment and an extended period of slow growth, and with these, the expansion of the socialist welfare state.

Nothing could be further from the interests of the modern-day Democratic Party than the transformation of the American economy into a flourishing free-market economy powered by cheap and reliable fossil fuels. The fight over drilling, in this sense, is nothing less than a struggle for the future of capitalism in America.

Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe, America, and Japan. He has published many books and articles on American culture and politics.

Cross Post:

Governor Palin 4 President: Sarah Palin: Great Article Obama’s TRUE GOAL Tax Oil & Gas Industry Out of Existence

Schmidt vs Palin...No Comparison

And The Wall Came Down

By Shane Vander Hart, Caffeinated Thoughts 

President Ronald Reagan on June 12, 1987 gave an address in front of the Brandenberg Gate in West Berlin:

There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Video excerpt of that famous speech:

And two years later the wall did fall.

President Obama decided that since he isn’t running for President anymore that he doesn’t need to go to the Berlin Wall, nor would it fit with an apology tour.  Governor Sarah Palin understand, however, the importance of this anniversary noting on Facebook early this morning:

Twenty years ago, the ultimate symbol of the division between freedom and tyranny was torn down. The Berlin Wall was constructed for one purpose: to prevent the escape of East Germans to the freedom of the West. The Wall’s cold, gray façade was a stark reminder of the economic and political way of life across the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Ronald Reagan never stopped regarding the Berlin Wall as an affront to human freedom. When so many other American leaders and opinion makers had come to accept its presence as inevitable and permanent, Reagan still hammered away at the Wall’s very premise in human tyranny, until finally the Wall itself was hammered down. Its downfall wasn’t the work of Reagan alone. Our president’s actions were joined with the brave acts of many individuals who stood firm and united in facing the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall came down because millions of people behind the Iron Curtain refused to accept the fate of enslavement and their supporters in the West refused to accept that the “captive nations” would remain captive forever.

Though that long, tragic episode in human history had come to a close finally with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it wasn’t the “end of history” or the end of conflict as some had hoped. New conflicts confront us today throughout the world which call for courage and resolve and dedication to freedom. The new democracies and market economies that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe still require our friendship and alliances as they continue to seek security, prosperity, and self-determination. But as we reflect on present and future challenges, let’s take time to celebrate the anniversary of this awesome victory for freedom. The downfall of that cold, gray concrete Wall should be a lesson to us in hope. Nothing is inevitable. Tyranny is no match for the hope and resolve of those who work and fight for freedom.

- Sarah Palin

Now if only our current President would understand what President Reagan knew and Governor Palin recognizes that we need “courage and resolve and dedication to freedom.”  We need it in Afghanistan, and we need it with the threats we now face with Iran and North Korea.

Related, see this article at the UK’s Daily Mail Online by Melanie Phillips: “We were fools to think the fall of the Berlin Wall had killed off the far Left.  They’re back – and attacking us from within.”

Shane Vander Hart is the editor of Caffeinated Thoughts.  Feel free to follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook.

Jon Voight: Obama & Pelosi An Embarrassment Gov Palin Great Knowledge & Experience

Jon Voight tells us like it is on Obama, Pelosi and Governor Palin:

Demonizing histaria against Governor Palin comes from very fearful people who are trying to eradicate her triumphant strength & spirit. Her great moral understanding of how America must survive this onslaught of very biased weak left extremists. Her knowledge and experience in many endeavors especially in financing & exploring of oil and natural resources is very superior. I am sure she will have a great important future in our GOP. She is a great, great American.