US Action News

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has threatened to halt oil exports to the US if his country is attacked by Colombia – a close US ally.

“Where would Jesus drill?” That sounds almost like it could be the opening of a tree hugger’s bad joke, but instead it’s the lead in a recent Associated Press story written by John Flesher about a so-called “Green religion movement.”

George Soros is a funder of the Center for American Progress headed by Obama’s transition team leader John Podesta. Podesta and his brother Tony have a lobbying group that represents BP. A Wall Street Journal article pointed out the the initial Obama administration’s responses to the oil spill were directed by the Center for American Progress. What’s next?

He followed the established but failed practice of proposing complex, indirect remedies that aim to hide costs from consumers (and thus, voters). At best, this political sleight-of-hand makes import reductions and emission controls far more costly to achieve than would otherwise be the case. Economic harm is the more likely outcome.

Obama’s green policies will steal your freedom and bankrupt America. Ask the poor folks in the Gulf.

Obama has no problem with a serious reduction in the U.S. standard of living as long as all Americans share the misery. That is the inevitable result of his policies. The original cap-and-trade legislation favored by President Obama would have reduced U.S. GDP by $9 trillion.

Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil all have deals with China to supply oil in exchange for loans. While it remains unknown at what cost to US interests China’s strategic partnerships with Latin America will have in the long-term, it behooves Washington to engage Latin America and maintain friendships throughout the region as the power gravity slowly shifts east.

Oil imports have been one of the colossal policy failures of U.S. history, aggravated by the steroid-bloated canard that the problem can be solved by erecting windmills and clapping solar panels like limpets to almost everything.

Oh what the U.S. could have done if it had put a call on Iraq’s Rumaila oil field. If fighting in the Middle East is all about blood for oil, haven’t we spilled enough blood?

Thus the U.S. could use a little less finger-pointing at China… and a lot less foreign oil usage… if it really wants to correct its global trade imbalance. This is a huge argument against U.S. trade protectionism since protectionism would miss the largest cause of America’s trade deficit while only hurting U.S. export prospects by pissing off trade partners.