Hillary Clinton's Speech

Hillary Clinton delivered a near-perfect speech last night. 

Then the pundits jumped in.

I switched between CNN and Fox last night and, had I not been paying attention, I would have thought they were analyzing two different speeches. Fox News was talking about all the things Clinton did not say; CNN was talking about all the things she did say. The result: Fox News "analysts" universally determined that the speech was good for her, but bad for Obama. CNN, on the other hand, said she did exactly what she needed to do.

Who was right? Well, Fox News was loaded with right wing blowhards like Bill "Always Wrong" Krystal. CNN was loaded with a bunch of old party Democratic Hillary Clinton ass-kissers like James "Jackass" Carville. Obviously different perspectives were in play.

 The Fox pundits were panning the speech because it did not contain language stating that Clinton believed Obama had the experience to be commander-in-chief. The CNN pundits liked the speech because it drove home the point that, if you really believe in the causes Hillary Clinton represents, then you must support Barak Obama because he will bear that torch for you.

When analyzing the success or failure of a speech, you need to know who the audience for the speech is. The right wingers mistakenly believed they were the audience for her speech. The audience for that speech was people who backed Hillary Clinton during the primary and were considering voting for McCain or not voting at all because Clinton lost a primary in which they feel (rightfully) that the media engaged in overtly sexist behavior and (wrongly) that the process was unfair to Hillary.

In the context of her target audience, her speech was magnificent. She believes the same things they believe about the media and the process. Right or wrong, nothing anyone is going to do will fix those issues. But she can remind them of why they wanted her to be President in the first place. And the truth is, if you care about 

• a woman's right to control her own body...
  
• the ability for everyone to have access to basic healthcare...
• the need for America to engage in diplomacy before war...
• the need for America to become a nation to be admired, not feared...

Then you cannot allow John McCain to be elected President, as he stands for the opposite of Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama on all these things. And she made that very clear in her speech tonight.

There will be plenty of time for Hillary to point out what a good Command in Chief Obama will make to the wider public during the campaign.

Energy Proposal

We have a lot of vague platitudes out there... "We should drill for oil offshore"... "We need an Apollo program for alternative energy"... Blah blah blah.

What we need is a specific energy program. Here's one:

1. Reduce foreign oil dependence

• Place a tax on unused oil leases.
• Make drilling available in the arctic and offshore... conditional upon exhausting 50% of existing, unused oil leases.
• Remove all federal gasoline taxes.
• Place a 33% tax on every barrel of oil imported from abroad.
• Create mild incentives for the use of natural gas and "clean" burning coal.
• Provide R&D tax breaks on seeking out new sources of oil in the USA.

These combined options create a huge incentive to sell gasoline from American wells. Quite simply, American gasoline will be cheaper than foreign gasoline and the market will vote with their dollars. We have to be a bit careful, because we don't want to create so deep an incentive that we overly rapidly deplete our own reserves. They need to last at least long enough to get to hydrocarbon-independence.

This policy will also ensure that before we damage our national treasures in the name of removing our dependence on foreign oil, that we exploit the resources we already have in place.

2. Eliminate Hydrocarbon Dependence

• Allow no new power plants based on hydrocarbons.
• Subsidize the development of nuclear, wind, and solar power plants.
• Remove all tax breaks for energy companies related to hydrocarbon R&D (except as it relates to the specific tax breaks listed in part 1).
• Boost tax breaks for R&D spent on alternative energy sources.
• Remove capital gains taxes on investments in proportion to their expenses related to alternative energy R&D (careful how this is setup, can be a nice loophole for jackasses).
• Mandate that all new vehicles sold after 2015 must get 50 miles/gallon. Allow a very high "gas guzzler" tax for exceptions through 2020.
• Mandate that all new vehicles sold after 2030 must not require hydrocarbon energy sources.
• Mandate that all vehicles on the road must be powered by systems that do not require hydrocarbon energy sources by 2050.

Cheaper oil and gas should never be an objective; it just delays the inevitable—our need to not use hydrocarbons at all as sources of energy. Absent of an incentive like high gas prices, we will continue down the path of least resistence—fueling up at the pump.

And the reality is that we don't want the departure from a hydrocarbon system to be based on the free market. It must be mandated, or it simply won't happen unless the pain in the pocket book is severe enough. We therefore need regulations that establish a timetable for the move away from hydrocarbons.