The White House Blog, in a post entitled “Expanding Safe and Responsible Energy Production”, lays out the case for the Obama Administration as a long-time supporter of domestic oil and gas:

One area where we have focused our efforts since the start of the administration – long before this current spike – is increasing responsible domestic energy production – including oil and gas. In fact, oil production last year rose to its highest level since 2003. From 2008 to 2010, oil production from the Outer Continental Shelf increased more than a third – from 446 million barrels in 2008 to an more than 600 million barrels of estimated production in 2010.

Have these people no shame? (Note: Rhetorical question.)

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Last night my colleague Rep. Steve King (IA-05) and I drafted a letter to Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers urging them to include language to defund ObamaCare and rescind the $105,464,000,000 in funds already appropriated to implementing the health care law.

Next Wednesday the House will consider another Continuing Resolution. Including language to defund ObamaCare is our opportunity to stop the flow of funds to ObamaCare once and for all. Our suggested language is, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds made available by this or any previous Act with respect to any fiscal year may be used to carry out the provisions of Public Law 111-148, Public Law 111-152, or any amendment made by either such Public Law.”

All members of Congress are encouraged to contact my office to join us in the effort to prevent taxpayers’ money from going to the implementation of this unconstitutional program.

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In the above video, Mary Katharine Ham absolutely devastates Michael Moore’s Robin Hood Hypothesis regarding America’s money woes. Spoiler alert: It’s a stupid hypothesis.

The grand total of the combined net worth of every single one of America’s billionaires is roughly $1.3 trillion. It does indeed sound like a “ton of cash” until one considers that the 2011 deficit alone is $1.6 trillion. So, if the government were to simply confiscate the entire net worth of all of America’s billionaires, we’d still be $300 billion short of making up this year’s deficit.

That’s before we even get to dealing with the long-term debt of $14 trillion, which if you’re keeping score at home, is between 10 to 14 times the entire net worth of all of the country’s billionaires, combined. That includes the all-powerful Koch brothers ($40 billion between them), the all-powerful George Soros ($14.5 billion), all the Walton family (of the Wal-Mart fortune), Steve Jobs, Oprah (at a paltry $2.7 billion), the Google Founders, Michael Bloomberg, and the Mars family (of the candy bar empire).

Read the rest here.

Download audio here

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca and Wisconsin Assemblywoman Michelle Litjens to discuss the union protests in Wisconsin and the passage of Governor Walker’s legislation.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Governor Walker: Why I’m Fighting in Wisconsin
Assembly passes union measure after bitter debate
Why do these people, many of whom are professionals, feel no fear in expressing such death wishes in the open?
Capitol Chaos: Legislative Leaders Call Capitol “Unsafe”
Michelle Litjens

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The 1973 Movie “Battle For the Planet of the Apes” was a sequel to the 1968 Movie “Planet of the Apes.” In this movie we see a pivotal scene that serves as an allegory to what is happening politically in The State of Wisconsin. It involves what happens when any human in this movie’s post-atomic, bizarre world says “no” to an ape.

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Never mind that the issue in Wisconsin has been about public unions’ ability to game the system. Forget the fact that union-supporting thugs are threatening to kill GOP lawmakers and their families while the President launches an anti-bullying campaign, union bosses are using the Battle of Wisconsin as a means of drumming up support for the 2012 buildup.

The ability to coordinate with the DNC’s OFA and other Left-wing radicals to conduct massive rallies has breathed new life into the otherwise moribund union bosses’ campaign to transform America—so much so that AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka was thanking Wisconsin governor Scott Walker on Thursday:

The head of the largest federation of unions in the United States, AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka, jokingly thanked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Thursday for igniting an impassioned debate on workers’ rights.

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House Republicans are unveiling their next short-term continuing resolution today to keep the government from shutting down on March 18.  It is a three week-extension, $6 billion in cuts with no new policy riders.
 
Sound good?  It’s not.  Realize what is going on here.  House Leadership unfortunately continues to be gripped by fear of a government shutdown.   It is why these short-term extensions do not include any new policy riders, such as the one to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood or to defund Obamacare.  These extensions are carefully calibrated to not prompt a veto threat from the White House. 
 
By fearing a fight that could lead to a shutdown, House Leadership is letting the White House play rope-a-dope with them.  The House has spoken.  It passed a long-term bill that includes $61 billion in cuts and various aforementioned riders to defund objectionable activities of the federal government.  This bill was based on a promise to the American people that Republicans would make a down-payment in the face of a staggering $1.5 trillion deficit, and when the Speaker said, “Read my lips,” he was promising a real fight.  Not this. 
 

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Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) questioned Energy Department bureaucrat Kathleen Hogan before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about consumer choice yesterday.  See video below to watch Sen. Paul flush some bad energy regulatory ideas.

RedState Morning Briefing
For March 11, 2011

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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Cross-Posted: TobyToons (Conservative Political Cartoons)

From the diaries by Erick

A lot can happen between now and November, 2012. But let me make a prediction: The next month will either set Barack Obama on a “glide path” toward electoral victory -– or a glide path toward electoral defeat.

The Obama-generated narrative is that the next 30 days will be spent trying to come up with a “magic number” (between $10 billion and $61 billion) of Obama-approved spending cuts which are acceptable to both Republicans and the White House. Among other things, this negotiated plan would fund ObamaCare.

If this narrative unfolds the way Obama is planning, it will create a political dynamic comparable to the GOP’s botched handling of the lame duck session:

• In less than three weeks in December, Barack Obama was transformed from a has-been to a 2012
  frontrunner.
• Obama paid off restive Democrat constituencies: same-sex couples, foreign policy doves, environmentalists, unions, and New York’s two recently reelected liberal senators.
• Obama was perceived as a leader who had embraced both bipartisanship and tax cuts.

Similarly, Obama is on the precipice of becoming a hero to every group facing cuts under the House’s long-term funding bill –- while appearing bipartisan and becoming a champion of spending cuts.

If this happens, Republicans can forget about any more spending cuts which are not paid for with tax increases. And they can clench their teeth and prepare for the electoral disaster which 2012 will bring.

But let me suggest this:

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While Obama continues his implacable war on fossil fuels and campaigns for impotent and unreliable energy sources, he incessantly condemns oil as ‘the energy of the past’.  He is obviously referring to his self-fulfilling dream of eradicating oil from our economy; not the proven reality of our oil reserves.  According to the latest research by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), America has more proven reserves and undiscovered resources of gas, oil, and coal than any other country in the world.  Contrast that to the billions of dollars in special interest subsidies that have failed to ameliorate ineffectual ‘alternative fuels’ and it becomes quite obvious where the energy source of the future lies.

In an impassioned and timely floor speech this morning, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK.), an energy policy hero, elucidated the salient findings of the CRS report.  The report, which was initiated by Inhofe for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, includes estimates from the Energy Information Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.  Here are some of the key points from the report and from Inhofe’s research:

• While we only have 28 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, there are 135 billion additional barrels of undiscovered, yet recoverable, oil resources throughout our territory.  In other words, as a result of the war against drilling, we can only “prove” the existence of 18% of the total 163 billion barrels. This is because we can’t officially prove the exact amount of fuel resources until we explore and drill them.  If we were to tap into our resources, we could cancel our imports from the Persian Gulf for 50 years, still meeting our energy needs.

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