April 17, 2012
RUSH: I want to go the audio sound bites. Obama in the Rose Garden today, campaign appearance. Another attack here on Big Oil and the speculators. Here we go.
OBAMA: As I’ve said repeatedly, the problem is we use more than 20% of the world’s oil and we only have 2% of the world’s proven oil reserves.
RUSH: Ah, gee.
OBAMA: Even if we drilled every square inch of this country right now, we’d still have to rely disproportionately on other countries for their oil. That means we pay more at the pump every time there’s instability in the Middle East or growing demand in countries like China and India.
RUSH: Now, I know a lot of you — and, by the way, we now have the month of March ratings data to prove this, but there are many of you listening to this program for the first time, or have come back after not being here for a while. I just have to tell you, and beg the indulgence of the everyday audience, none of what he just said is true. None of it. We have much more than 2% of the world’s proven reserves. We have enough oil, it’s been discovered, and, by the way, this definition requires oil that’s not only been discovered, but that we have the technology to go get it. We have not made the commitment to get it yet, but we have the technology: fracking, shale, any number of ways, it’s there. We have more oil under the ground here than is in Saudi Arabia.
This 20% of the world’s oil or 2% of the world’s population, he got the numbers wrong. The point that the president’s trying to make here is that we’re greedy and selfish. We are but 2% of the world’s population, but we’re using 25% of the world’s oil, and that’s horrible. It means the rest of the world has to bend over and grab the ankles while we take what they have. This is a requirement for leftists. Lay a guilt trip on everybody. Lie. Make up this notion that we’re a superpower, yeah, but we’re greedy and we’re selfish, and we don’t share with people, and we’ve taken what other nations have, and they’re poor as a result. There’s nothing, not one statistic. I think he sounded bored as heck reading this statistic. It’s like he’s getting tired of reading this lie about how drilling for oil has no relation to gasoline prices. But he does it anyway. That’s another thing.
We may as well shut down all oil drilling. If oil’s bad, and if it is destroying the planet, and polluting the air, and the amount of oil we have here, that we drill for, doesn’t affect supply and doesn’t affect price, we may as well shut it down. That would be the logical conclusion of what Obama’s saying here. But I’m just telling you, if you’re new to the program, none of what he said in that sound bite’s true. Not a word of it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Obama’s out in the Rose Garden today for a campaign appearance, and he starts trashing Big Oil, starts trashing the oil speculators. Let me ask a question: “Aren’t these green energy people all speculating and are they not speculating with our money, taxpayer dollars?” They’re all getting loans and whatever from the federal government, from Obama, from his stash. You have Solyndra. You have all these solar firms that either have filed for bankruptcy or are on the way to it. You’ve got wind energy companies that are biting the dust. The Chevrolet Volt is having trouble.
All of this green energy stuff is literally imploding. It is collapsing. Isn’t Obama, in fact, a green energy speculator? Aren’t all of these people “speculating”? Aren’t they all rolling the dice? In fact, the oil speculators aren’t breaking any laws. The Democrats have been looking for crimes in Big Oil and its related areas for 30 years! The Democrats have been looking for crimes in conservatism. They’ve attempted to criminalize political disagreements, and now Obama wants to jump all over the oil speculators. Just like last year he promised he’s gonna really crack down on these people. And today, he promised he’s gonna really crack down on ‘em again.
And Jackie Calmes at the New York Times is all atwitter. She’s all excited about this. But if you ask me, all these green energy people are nothing but speculators. Obama is nothing but a green energy speculator. Obama has spent, folks, over $100 billion — taxpayer dollars, not his! These firms are not investing their own money. These are taxpayer dollars, and by the way they’re donors. Every one of these people are donors to Obama, and so some of this money that Obama is, quote, unquote, “loaning” them to help start their businesses up is all coming back to him in the form of campaign contributions.
And the total, as best we can come up with now, is $100 billion. Obama has spent over a $100 billion taxpayer dollars speculating in green energy. And what do we got for it? What penalties should Solyndra have to pay? What penalties should the other solar firms have to pay? What penalties should all of the wind energy firms that are going bunk have to pay? What penalties should Obama have to pay? The other scandal of the day: The news is that 11 of those Secret Service agents that were allegedly involved with Colombian hookers have been stripped of their security clearances, which makes me wonder.
Does Bill Clinton have a security clearance? You would think that he does, being a former president. I know Clinton cannot practice law before the Supreme Court, but I wonder if he’s lost his security clearance like these Secret Service agents have. Let’s go back to Obama in the Rose Garden, a campaign appearance. We got three more sound bites here. These Big Oil cougars, these Big Oil speculators, they’re cheating you just like Enron! Audio sound bite number 23.
OBAMA: We can’t afford a situation where some speculators can reap millions while millions of American families get the short end of the stick. That’s not the way the market should work, and for anyone who thinks this cannot happen, just think back to how Enron traders manipulated the price of electricity to reap huge profits at everybody else’s expense.
RUSH: Yeah, well, how about you, sir? How about all the speculation you’re doing in this defunct, nothing-there business called green energy? So once again, it’s the regime attacking another private sector firm. By the way, for those of you new to the program and if you’re young, one of the ways that Obama goes after Big Oil is to talk about how much their executives get paid. What did I see the other day? Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil’s total pay package was between $30 million and $50 million. No, no! It was not 50. It was $30 million or so, counting salary, the bonus, the stock options or what have you. And what does Rex Tillerson do?
Well, Rex Tillerson runs a company that goes around the world and invests more money than you and I could ever think of into finding oil and then drilling for it, bringing it up to the ground, then transporting it to refineries so that it ultimately ends up available to consumers. That’s what Rex Tillerson does, and that’s what all the CEOs of Big Oil do. They actually work. They are engaged in finding and producing a product that everybody needs and prospers from. And so Rex Tillerson makes $30 million a year. Now, for those of you who are young and say, “That’s just outrageous,” I need to ask you to go check the salaries of your favorite movie stars and see what they get per movie.
Tom Cruise I saw the other day gets $25 million a movie. Now, that’s fine and dandy. But what is Tom Cruise actually doing for you? I saw somebody on this list of actors gets $40 million, or made $40 million last year. I don’t remember the name. But what is that actor doing for you? My point is that every time this salary disparity comes up the usual comparison is between Big Oil and teachers, or Big Oil and athletes and so forth. All these athletes and actors, what are they doing for you? They’re entertaining you, giving you an escape — the same thing with the actors — but what are they really doing? If you want to start trying to justify the “fairness”…
Which I don’t agree with, by the way. I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. But still if you want to think about it that way, I would love to try to change your mind if you believe that people, CEOs at Big Oil, are somehow screwing everybody and are unfairly compensated, when look at what they do. We learned the other day the CEO of CBS, Les Moonves, made $69.9 million according the Hollywood Reporter. What has CBS done for the country lately? Expanded Face the Nation from 30 minutes to an hour. Big whoop! My point is, you’re gonna find these disparities all across America, and you know what? It’s the market.
Les Moonves made a grand total of $70 million because the people involved think he’s worth it. It’s the same thing with Rex Tillerson at ExxonMobil. Lee Raymond was the CEO of ExxonMobil before Tillerson. He got paid a golden parachute to go away of $300 million. Everybody was griping, “That’s not fair!” It’s what the market does. But just compare it to all of these entertainers and so forth; it’s one way of putting this all in perspective. There’s Obama: “Some speculators can reap millions, while millions of American families get the short end of the stick.”
We’re getting the short end of the stick every day with this administration and its policies. Look what it’s doing to virtually every important sector of our economy. Shrinking it! And all these “investments” in roads and bridges and schools, where are they? It hasn’t happened. So-called infrastructure investments in schools. “Investments.” What about all the speculation in green energy that’s going belly up firm by firm by firm? So here’s Obama. He wants more cops on the beat here. He wants more people spying on and investigating Big Oil and the speculators.
OBAMA: I call on Congress to pass a package of measures to crack down on illegal activity and hold accountable those who manipulate the market for private gain at the expense of millions of working families. … Can you imagine if, uh, the NFL quadrupled the number of teams but didn’t increase the number of refs? You’d end up having havoc on the field and it would diminish the game. It wouldn’t be fair. That’s part of the what’s going on.
RUSH: “It wouldn’t be fair.” Yeah. Well, once again, “crack down on illegal activity and hold accountable those who manipulate the market.” How about Fast and Furious? For every one of these assaults that he makes on a private sector industry, we can counter with multiple examples of his own incompetence, wasting taxpayer dollars. General Services Administration, anybody?
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RUSH: By the way, folks, I would like to invoke the Hilary Rosen theory. Hilary Rosen said of Ann Romney, she’s not qualified to advise her husband on the economy; she never worked a day in her life. Bill Maher said she never got her butt out of the house at seven o’clock in the morning, she’s not qualified. Mitt Romney has no business listening to his wife. The last I looked, Barack Obama had not spent a day in the oil industry. I don’t know why we should have to listen to anything he says about it. He doesn’t know anything about it. Obama’s never been in the oil business. All he’s ever had is contempt for it. He’s never been in the health care business. He’s never been in the housing market. What the hell does he know? He knows nothing about any of this stuff.
What Obama knows is big government. What Obama knows is power. What Obama knows is command-and-control, central authority, mandating everything for everybody. Controlling everything. Because only Obama knows what’s fair, and only Obama knows how to make things equal. Only Obama knows how to end discrimination. Obama doesn’t know anything. He’s the least qualified guy in any room he enters. Why in the world does anybody invest in Obama? The vast majority of the American people do not think Obama should have anything to do with our health care business, don’t want any part of his health care bill. So why should we listen to Obama on the oil industry? He doesn’t know anything about it. All he does is have an intense dislike for it.
Grab audio sound bite 25. We just played these sound bites of Obama in the Rose Garden condemning Big Oil, speculators, the American people, virtually anybody that ever comes into contact with oil. So on CNN’s Newsroom, after Obama spoke in the Rose Garden, they had the anchorette, Kyra Phillips, talking with the chief business correspondent, Ali Velshi, about the president’s speech, and they couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Kyra Phillips said, “How immediate could the impact on gas prices be, Ali? Right there toward the end the president basically said it’s not gonna happen real quickly, but I can tell you market manipulation, something will happen in that regard right away.” I should remind you, George W. Bush in his administration, I forget which term it was, but he just talked about opening the strategic reserves, and it dropped the price of oil in the world market immediately. Not for long, but it did. The effect can be immediate. Well, anyway, let’s listen to Ali Velshi, who is in the Obama camp, State-Controlled Media, try to tell Kyra Phillips exactly what it was Obama was talking about.
VELSHI: I wish he wouldn’t say things like this. “That’s how we’re gonna solve the problem.” I don’t know what he’s talking about. In the end, that speculative part of the oil price is a very bumpy, jagged, and somewhat disconnected line to the price that we pay at the pump. But for the president to walk away and say that’s how we solve the problem, I would have to say if I were those political people, I would say, almost pants on fire.
RUSH: Here’s Ali Velshi, wants Obama to triumph, wants Obama to succeed, and has to admit he has no idea what he’s talking about. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t know what he’s saying, and neither does Obama. It was all on the teleprompter, it’s what somebody else wrote for him to say, and just the usual day-to-day condemnation of another great American and worldwide industry.
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