Happy Post Independence Day, America

In a U.S. presidential election, there is never a perfect candidate. Our nose-holding options last November were candidates A or B, both deeply flawed. Regardless of what you think of our 45^th president, however, Francis Menton has a patriotic thought: Thank God We Finally Got Rid of Obama.

After eight years of President Obama and only six months of President Trump, Menton asks readers, have things gotten better or worse? “OMG, it’s not even close,” answers Menton in the Manhattan Contrarian, especially when it comes to America’s energy policy.

I find it beyond comprehension that this country elected as President, not once but twice, a man who not only thought impoverishing the people by increasing energy prices was a good idea, but promised, and then in office tried, to do everything he could to make that happen.  If you have never watched this January 2008 video of candidate Obama promising to make electricity rates “skyrocket” (“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”), you should.  The man actually thought he could change the weather by making you poorer!  And he looked down with supercilious scorn on anyone who dared to question him on that subject.

And then, upon becoming President, he tried to push the plan through.  He briefly got control of both houses of Congress, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but couldn’t get the cap-and-trade price increase plan to advance.  Whereupon he set about to try to accomplish the same ends with the “pen and phone.”  Next thing you know he was blocking pipelines; obstructing energy exploration on federal lands; forcing the closure of close to half of our electricity-generation capacity and replacement of same with uneconomic, expensive, intermittent and ultimately useless “renewables” like wind and solar; and agreeing at Paris without Senate consent to hobble the U.S. economy by forcing decreases in carbon emissions while the entire rest of the world (excepting the guilt-ridden dopes in Europe) got a pass and continued to build multiple times the coal generation capacity than we ever had.

This was not mere incompetence.  It was intentional, active effort at destruction of American prosperity.  Only by the grace of God did we have an energy sector not under the thumb of the President, that was able to circumvent Obama’s efforts and produce the fracking revolution in spite of everything the President tried to do to stop it.

And there’s more.

The Supreme Court: Obama appointed Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, both of who are “completely reliable votes for unchecked expansion of the administrative state and of the total discretion of the President and his minions to do whatever they want by pen and phone and without checks and balances.”  More frightening, another Obama appointment would have cemented a solid majority for more of the same for a decade or more to come.

Income Inequality: Or what President Obama called “the defining challenge of our time.” Writes Menton, “Food stamps exploded.  Social security disability exploded.  But how about making it easier for low income people to earn enough money to get ahead and be independent?  See above on intentionally increasing energy prices.  Did he even realize that the burden of such price increases would fall most heavily on the poor?  Of was he planning to fix that with a new handout program and more dependency?”

Kowtowing to Foreign Leaders: “The United States does not have to apologize to anyone for its success.  We have the economic model and the economy that work, that have made us successful, and that we should offer as a model to the world.  And we had a President who did not like our economic model, was ashamed of our economy and of our success and of our country, and went around the world apologizing.  If you have not seen it, you might enjoy this article from Bloomberg over the weekend headlined “China, Germany Step Up As U.S. Retires From World Leadership.”    Don’t worry, it’s not just Bloomberg.  Our entire press has no idea that “world leadership” comes from economic success and not from going along with international groupthink.”