Dakota Beacon

The year 2016 is going to be a long year. This will be the year of wall-to-wall all the time politics. As the saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” – sort of. Here is some comic relief.

Addressing a house party in Iowa on June 13, 2015 Hillary Clinton stated, “We have to stop the endless flow of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political process, and drowning out the voices of our people! “ Her theme was that she wanted to “fix our democracy.” Did anyone really think our democracy was broken? And, speaking of money, she didn’t have much to say about the Clinton Family Slush Fund. Typically, she is long on rhetoric and short on specifics. Her comments were reported via multiple sources including CNN, Fox News, Breitbart, The Weekly Standard, The New York Post and several others.

“Hillary Clinton Sounds the Alarm on Meteorites.” That was the Politico headline on July 16, 2015. Speaking before a town hall meeting in New Hampshire she went on to say, “I think we are just at the beginning of trying to understand: What is a black hole? Why is it there? What is in it? What does it mean for us? We should, on a security basis, be mapping the meteorites and the meteors and all the other things, asteroids, that people worry about.” Ah, yes. The virtues of a coherent presidential wannabe.

“People should and do trust me,” stated Hillary Clinton to CNN’s Brianna Keilar. CNN aired the full interview July 7, 2015 on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Is she delusional? The 2016 elections will prove her right – or wrong.

“I want to first sit in my little chair in my house, take the agreement, the codicils, the annexes, and read them and ponder them and study them.” Thus spoke Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as reported in The Hill July 19, 2015. Reading the Iran nuke deal legislation, the inverse of not reading the Obamacare legislation, would be a good first step. Maybe Obamacare would have been defeated if Schumer had read it. (Ultimately, Schumer did the right thing and voted against the Iran nuke deal. Easy choice. He is up for re-election in 2016 with a Jewish constituency.)

Here is a laugh, but Obama wasn’t joking. On July 1, 2015 the Politico listed the following headline: “Obama: I’m Reagan and Hillary Can Be Bush 41: President Compares Himself to Ronald Reagan as He Strives for a Transformational Presidency.” Obama uttered this nonsense on a conference call organized by his top aides, including Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett, aimed at thanking staff members for their help in promoting his long-term presidential objectives.

Here is one for the record books. On May 25, 2015 TV mogul and Entertainment Studios CEO Byron Allen told TMZ the following, “President Obama is, at this point, a white President in black face. Black America would have done much better with a white president. You have let us down tremendously.” Allen, who is black, took Obama to task for publicly calling out the Baltimore rioters and looters over the Freddie Gray incident. “I’m disappointed that President Obama called those young men out there in Baltimore ‘thugs’.” The Daily Caller carried this story. Suppose a white guy referred to Obama in the same manner? What then?

Obama has not been friendly to the coal industry. Translation: Obama has not been friendly to household monthly energy bills. He certainly has been up front about it. In January 2008 candidate Obama gave an interview to The San Francisco Chronicle in which he said, “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

True to his word, on August 2, 2015, the Associated Press reported the following Obama action: “Aiming to jolt the rest of the world to action, President Barack Obama moved ahead Sunday with even tougher greenhouse gas cuts on American power plants, setting up a certain confrontation in the courts with energy producers and Republican-led states.” So, what is the impact of Obama’s action? NERA Economic Consulting (a global firm dedicated to applying economic, finance and quantitative principles to complex business and legal challenges) projects annual electricity cost to skyrocket during 2017-2031. Examples include North Dakota 22%, Texas 54%, Wyoming 34% and Colorado 22%. Thanks, Mr. Obama, for nothing!

These are loony times brought about by both Republicans and Democrats alike not only from the Oval Office but from Congress as well. One has to laugh to keep from crying.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).