Saudis Use Oil Weapon Against Iran

A lot of pundits are treating the falling price of oil as a Saudi move to try to preserve market share.  I think Saudi Arabia is trying to put the Iranian mullahs out of the nuclear arms business. The House of Saud is so scared of an Iran with nukes, they talk about how much they have in common with Israel during newspaper interviews. I think they have rightfully concluded that the Chicago Machine Prodigy in Chief will not treat the Iranians anywhere near as tough as he does Republicans and that it's up to them or the Israelis to stop an Iranian bomb. The Israelis would have to use nukes to do the job, so the Saudis decided to use the oil weapon. The Iranian government depends on oil revenue for 65% of its budget. The mullahs need an oil price of $100 to $130 a barrel in order to support their internal subsidies for food and gasoline, pay for their extensive and expensive internal security organizations and support Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria and Shiite militia groups in Iraq. All those centrifuges processing uranium to make weapons are hugely expensive also.  Iran has minimal foreign exchange reserves. At $50 a barrel for their oil, the Iranian government goes broke in a year or two, maybe less. The Saudis are getting the added benefit of crippling Russia at the same time. Saudis would like to damage Russia because Putin has been selling arms to Assad in Syria and, in addition to arms, has sold a reactor to Iran that can be used to make plutonium for a bomb. Russia gains most of its foreign exchange from oil and natural gas sales. The price of natural gas is under pressure from US fracking and the prospect of increasing US liquid natural gas exports. With the oil price at half of the $100 a barrel Putin needs to stay in business and the ruble down 30-40% against the dollar, things don't look so good for Putin. All the companies his oligarch buddies own have a lot of debt to European banks due in the next two years.  They can't refinance because of the sanctions prompted by Putin's Ukrainian aggression. The oligarchs may be tempted to replace Putin with somebody who would be better for business just like mobsters get rid of guys who attract too much heat from the cops. I think the stress that the lower oil price puts on US producers is a side benefit for the Saudis. The main target is Iran, with a secondary target of Russia.

Benghazi Situation is What an Intelligence Failure Looks Like

The Intelligence Committees in both the House and the Senate have equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. Foreign intelligence is supposed to be bipartisan. In this case it's obvious that the report is a compromise that the Democrats could accept which spares the intelligence community any blame. I don't understand how nobody was on alert on September 11, 2012, the anniversary of the 2001 attack. There were no fighter bombers, tanker aircraft or strategic reaction ground security forces on alert anywhere in the region. Benghazi is a port, but there were no navy ships in the area for fire support. The attack went on for 13 hours. All during that time, as I understand it, there was only one unarmed drone that managed to be over Benghazi during the attack. No air support was even launched from Aviano and there were not air refueling aircraft in Sicily to meet them even if they were launched. That situation, a totally unprepared military, is what an intelligence failure looks like. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/29/Benghazi-Report

Republicans Should Clear Out the Congressional Budget Office

As a Vietnam Era Veteran, I think we should modify "Search and Destroy" to "Search and Separate" any holdovers in any politically appointed positions as every office changes hands. This ESPECIALLY applies to the CBO. They score the bills. If you want to see any tax reform at all, you have to clear out every Liberal in there like Boss Tweed would have done in the bad old patronage days. This ain't no time to play nice. These guys are ruling by decree from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and counting on the Justice Department not to prosecute obvious Obstruction of Justice in the IRS case. We need to clear the decks to stop all of this unconstitutional, lawless behavior. We can't leave snipers in the rear to stop our bills on budget technicalities when they get the word from our Dear Leader.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/393667/voters-spoke-now-listen-john-fund

Obama Won't Make Any Deals with Republicans, RINO or Otherwise

Conservatives have taken to worrying about whether Republicans in Name Only will make bad deals with Barry the Magnificent.  Since Obama won't work with any Republican, it really doesn't matter what RINOs want to do. I'm not the first to notice that the US would be a lot better off if Obama would treat negotiations with Iran more like he does negotiations with Republicans and negotiations with Republicans more like negotiations with Iran. At this point, our Dear Leader's hubris has gotten to the point that he thinks he can rule by decree without any backing from even the Democrats in Congress. The Smartest President Ever only needs to bounce his ideas off Valerie Jarret and David Axelrod in order to make decisions. Cabinet level appointments are used as the designated fall guys. It's pathetic. The bumper sticker I have on my car says it all: "Worst President Ever." And yes, it does have an Obama Campaign "O."