In the general election contest many think that the Iraq War will trump all other issues. In the past week or so, I believe that has changed. No doubt about it, the price of oil, the falling dollar, and inflation are going to be the main topics. My guess is if McCain comes out strongly for exploiting the resources available in the US, he’ll win. Yet, he has not shown a desire to do so.

While McCain has been saying, “We can’t drill our way out of this problem…,” the fact is we can drill ourselves from reliance upon other countries, especially regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela, while developing alternative sources for quite some time. As recapped here:

…Recent polling data from Gallup show the percentage of voters blaming oil companies for skyrocketing gasoline prices has dropped from 34 percent to 20 percent over the past year. At the same time, support for more drilling in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas has increased to 57 percent from 41 percent.

And the candidates remain blind to these shifts.

Obama continues to lambaste oil companies while congressional Democrats push for cap-and-trade. They’re missing the point, big time. The public wants more energy and more fuel to cut high prices and spur economic growth. But the costly cap-and-trade plan would produce less fuel and less growth. It would only raise gas pump prices while mounting a Gosplan-type taxing, spending, and regulating program that would be the moral equivalent of Hillarycare on nationalized medicine.

Sen. McCain has an opening here. Yet he, like Obama, would have voted for cap-and-trade, which went down to defeat in last week’s Senate vote. And while Mr. McCain favors some off-shore production and has been strong on nuclear development, he is against drilling in ANWR Alaska.

Then there’s the oil nobody is talking about. The Bakken fields beneath North Dakota, Montana, and Canada hold an estimated 400 billion barrels of oil. In comparison, Saudi Arabia’s biggest field, Gahawar, has an estimated 55 billion barrels, while ANWR has an estimated 10.4 billion barrels.

Hat tip to Mark Perry at the Carpe Diem blog site for these figures. Perry also is reporting a Bureau of Land Management study showing 279 million acres under federal management where oil and gas could potentially be extracted. But more than half of this is totally off limits. Off-shore, where another 86 billion barrels lie in wait, is also restricted. Then there’s liquefied natural gas, oil shale, and the various coal-to-liquid carbon-capture and sequestration technologies that would be priced out of the market by cap-and-trade.

The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal, but we can’t produce. We’re still the world’s third-largest oil producer, but we could be the Saudi Arabia of oil if our companies were free to drill. Oil CEOs like Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil and David O’Reilly of Chevron keep saying this. But politicians aren’t heeding their message…

Obviously with the price of a barrel of gas closing on $138 today, the increase price of shipping costs, production costs, are being added to everything we buy. In Europe the lorry drivers are striking, no longer able to make a profit with the costs there, for their taxes on petrol are significantly higher than in the United States. To think that type of response in the US will take $8 a gallon prices, well our patience isn’t that long. Now Senator McCain hints that he may back a windfall profits tax on the oil company, following the same plan to increase the costs to the consumer, as Senator Obama.

Truth of the matter is if there is punishment to be meted out it should be where the fault lies, which is with Congress which for the past 20 or more years has made it impossible for the oil companies to explore, much less develop our own natural resources.

The inflationary effects of the increased cost of oil has not gone unnoticed by any of us. There isn’t a product that we buy that doesn’t consume energy during production and shipping. The cost of imports will be even higher in the future, considering the cost of maritime fuel added to the cost of diesel to bring the goods from ports to stores. With the falling dollar and no action by Washington to stop it, history says we should be concerned about hyperinflation.

My hope, as pointed out by Kudlow is that the public is becoming concerned as the Gallup poll attests to. Hopefully they will make their feelings clear to their representatives and certainly in November.

We have all heard lately the racist filth and outright lies that have spewed forth from Rev. Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ (“TUCC”) in Chicago, of which Obama is a 20 year member.   You might be surprised to learn that TUCC compromises the largest congregation of TUCC in the nation.  Rev. Wright (former) presides over an 8,500 member congregation. As congregations go, this is no small church.

Rev. Wright has espoused black nationalism, accused the “white” government of trying to annihilate blacks, among a myriad of other hate filled racist rants that do not bear repeating at this juncture.  Those that support Obama claim that he had no knowledge, or at most, never “really” heard specifically those hate filled rants from his pastor that he was intimately acquainted with for 20 years.   Before the truth about Obama’s church came out (I include the majority members of the church, because you cannot seriously claim that as lead pastor since the 1970s the members were “clueless” as to his beliefs) Obama had Rev. Wright’s endorsement on his webpage, now, Obama is doing everything he can to distance himself from his “Spiritual Advisor.”

I have been told repeatedly that Obama’s pastor’s remarks are no big deal and that it is only a big deal to racists like me.  it is only a big deal because you wouldn’t for vote him as you would never vote for a black president anyways.   This from the very dems who would be hyperventilating if this had been McCain’s white pastor of twenty years and the white pastor had been saying this about black people.  It is no big deal, it’s like a gambling problem, the guy just made a mistake?  Really?  If it is no big deal, why then did the TUCC remove him from his position as lead pastor?  Why did Obama fire him from his campaign?  Why did Obama remove Rev. Wright’s personal endorsement from his website?

More troubling, is that there are those who, even after reading this, will still believe that I am a racist and that Rev. Wright’s hate filled rhetoric (that is only a problem now because the truth is out) is ok.

So, some of you may have noticed that I have talked a lot lately about the Libertarian Party, or LP. While I haven’t officially changed my voter registration (I’m still registered in Washington state, where you don’t register by party), I have made up my mind to register as a Libertarian when I move to my new home in August. Here’s why.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me. And it’s not just the nomination of John McCain, although that was certainly the tipping point. Over the last couple of years, I have done a lot of pondering about my politics, my values, and the like.

First of all, I am upset at the GOP’s lack of respect for the most dear of American values - liberty. As examples, see:
* the Patriot Act, which gave executive agencies the authority to approve warrants for surveillance;
* John McCain’s campaign finance reform, which is a direct assault on freedom of speech;
* continuance of the War on Drugs and prohibition of many drugs which are less harmful than currently legal drugs (e.g. marijuana);

The GOP also seems to have forgotten about small government. Examples here include, but are by no means limited to:
* No Child Left Behind - championed by Bush and approved by Republicans, it dramatically increased the federal government’s role in education. It was not so long ago that the GOP wanted to eliminate the relatively new Department of Education.
* Interference in free trade, such as the appalling continuation of agricultural subsidies, and Bush’s shameless 2002 steel tariff.
* Bush’s budgets, which has doubled discretionary spending from $555 billion in 2000 to $1.114 trillion in FY 2008 (no, that does not include the War on Terrorism);
* the GOP’s lack of initiative on introducing market-based solutions to high-cost health care, and giving up on introducing Social Security reforms.

Furthermore, the GOP is soft on immigration, and will only get softer with McCain in charge. Defending the nation is one of the charges the federal government is very specifically given in the Constitution, yet the GOP-led federal government has failed to close our borders. Immigration policy takes up many threads on the board - suffice to say I am dissatisfied with the GOP’s lack of response on this issue.

Finally, the trend of the GOP towards neo-conservatism disturbs me. I always considered conservatism (or paleo-conservatism, at least) to be against such things as running perpetual budget deficits to sustain economic growth (a Keynesian idea), opposition to a large central government instead of “seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable,” or viewing the power of the world’s largest military as an “opportunity” for an expansionist government. Neoconservatism, however, is for all of these things, and I cannot continue to support a party that agrees with this philosophy.

So where does that leave me? Certainly not with any party to the political left of the GOP. The Democrats, along with the Greens, World Workers, etc., put too much faith in the ability of the federal government to control the economy, not to mention people’s lives. That leaves third parties towards the right. I briefly toyed with the Constitution Party, the ideological home of former NH Senator Bob Smith, but they seem to lack an appreciation for freedom, along with all the rest. So finally, after a couple of months of mulling it over, I stepped over to the Libertarians.

I don’t agree with all LP views, just as I didn’t agree with all GOP views. Two issues where I disagree are immigration (I’m strongly pro-deportation, where many LP members are pro-amnesty) and drugs (I believe in legalization of some drugs; many libertarians advocate complete legalization). However, at the most basic level, libertarians believe that people should be given the maximum amount of freedom compatible with necessary government functions.

I know just what some of you are going to say: It’s a waste of time not to vote either Dem or GOP. Here’s my counterargument: yes, I may be voting for someone with no chance to win - this year. But, given enough support at the voting booth, the LP will gain national attention as an alternative to the other two parties. And, given enough grassroots support, the LP can grow its organizational structure to be able to handle the logistics of a full-blown Presidential campaign in four years’ time. Not to mention, the LP has the strongest “bench” of any third party (i.e. members who have held lower offices), and they put effort into electing members at all levels of government, unlike many parties that only run candidates for high-profile elections.

So, if you are tired of politics as usual, and want to attempt to make a real difference in the American political system, I encourage you to consider the Libertarian Party. I have no idea what to expect out of LP membership (I’m still a n00b), but I am willing to use my vote and my resources to elect freedom-loving officials instead of politicians from the two main parties.

Okay, normally I am a very mild manner man. But Congress has seriously pissed me off today. They want to increase taxes on oil companies $18 Billion dollars. That’s right. You thought it was bad when we were being screwed with $3.18/gallon gasoline. Congress wants to artificially jack up the gasoline prices. Because these complete morons don’t seem to understand. CORPORATIONS DON’T PAY TAXES.

That’s right corporations don’t pay taxes. They pass them off to the consumer. Congress is trying to increase our taxes on gasoline when we are already getting screwed over by the price. And I am sick and tired of it.

Expect $4 dollar gasoline by memorial day. Expect it to be over $5 dollars by the end of the year. Expect not only a recession, but a freaking depression because our politicians in Congress are either too freaking stupid, or just so evil that they want to screw over the poor in America.

I am barely surviving because of the gasoline prices now. And they want to take actions that not only jack up our oil prices but do nothing but benefit foreign oil companies by forcing us to import more oil. And most of those countries are freaking hostile to us.

How freaking difficult is it to understand that the way to bring oil prices down is to stop interfering in the market place! Stop trying to prevent exploring for more oil! Stop trying to prevent building nuclear plants! Stop trying to prevent refineriess. I think 30 years is freaking long enough. Stop screwing over the average person.

And that is what this is all about. Congress wants to screw over average America. You see, the little secret is the elite politicians don’t want the average man to be independent and able to profit through his hard work. They want us dependent on government for every single solitary thing in our lives. That way can control us. If we give up and give our power to some government official who wants to screw us over, we will never be free. But if we are able to work hard and become independent and gain a profit, we have the power. We have the power to support opposition to their ideas. We have the power to run against them and vote them out of office. And believe me, they don’t want that.

I want every Democrat and Republican who voted for this to be voted out immediately. We can’t put up with this bullcrap any more. There are lives at stake. Your jobs, your neighbors job, our childrens future is at stake. It’s time for us to take back freedom and let’s start by making ourself energy independent.

No new taxes or government involvement in the health care insurance provider process.

Problem:

Reasonable people know they need health care insurance. Many simply can’t afford it.

Currently insurance providers are hand picking those they will insure. These are the least risk, healthiest folks in the population. How are they doing it? With premiums, by adjusting premiums for every individual they can effectively eliminate those they will not profit from. At the same time, eliminating so many from coverage results in higher premiums for those who are covered. The insurance industry has become no more that a premium collector from a select group instead of being an insurance provider. Don’t believe it? If you have individual insurance vs group insurance and are unfortunate enough to make a major claim, when your new term comes up for renewal, watch how fast they either don’t renew, or price your premium so high you just walk away. Sure you can get a new policy but it will be priced to reflect your history, and that pre-exiting condition, excluded for at least 12 months. They will however be happy to accept your monthly premium payment, if you can afford it.

High premiums are the major obstacle to obtaining decent or any health care coverage at all. So how do we solve this problem and not affect the profit of the insurance providers?

Solution:

I see what may be the only reasonable solution. One I may be able to support: regulation.

For the most part I oppose regulation; however, I see it working positively in the public utilities arena. People are offered a utility product which like health insurance we all need, electric, gas. The price is regulated here by the PSC (Public Service Commission).

They set the rate or maximum rate that can be charged. If the utility company needs to raise rates do to costs or expansion they must present their case to the PSC for approval before doing so. The PSC works to adjust rates, if necessary, that benefit both the public and the utility company. Utility companies are profitable under this system/ process.

The country would be divided into regions, Southeast, Northeast etc.

Any company providing health insurance in a region would be required to provide a basic health care coverage plan (Standard for the entire country) to anyone in that region.

The national standard would be developed by a national group composed of an insurance commissioner from each region. Premiums would be determined by the regional Insurance commission. Regional commissions would be made up of the state insurance commissioners from each state within that region.

Premiums would be set by region based on overall risk in that region.

.

Reasonable and customary charges would be set by region, similar to what is done now.

Maintenance of Profit and Coverage:

I see an increase, or at the least, the same profit for insurance companies by increasing their customer base thus spreading the risk across a region (think group coverage).

Supplement participating companies with current alcohol/ tobacco taxes collected regionally. Make these taxes fluid, easily shared with other regions if needed.

Further reduce risk with a customer deposit, similar to utilities now, with a maximum cap.

Well that’s my general idea. It seems reasonable to me and I think it would work with little federal government involvement, which means little federal control.

I said this a long time ago and I’ll repeat myself, I would accept anyone in the White House as long as it’s not Hillary Clinton. Besides the fact that she makes me nauseous, I believe she’s a liar, she panders and would make the divide in our country even wider than it is now.

I don’t agree with Obama’s policies, although admittedly I think he’s quite intelligent and does offer some things I can go along with, but he would do much more to bring our country back to “normalcy” than Shrillary ever could.

And it’s bad enough seeing her in the headlines through the election process, and always being in the papers here in New York, but could you imagine having to see this mug on the TV non-stop for a minimum of 4 years? My television set would end up in pieces on the pavement below my window!