It’s Wednesday, March 14th, 2012….but before we begin, regardless of the support shown Rick Santorum by the voters of Alabama and Mississippi think, absent his unflinching opposition to gay marriage and abortion, he’s about as Conservative as George W. Bush….and has as much chance beating Obama as Fritz Mondale unseating Ronald Reagan.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up on the mid-week edition, the truth behind the lies, courtesy of the WSJ:

Big Oil, Bigger Taxes

The industry sends more money to Washington than to shareholders.

President Obama says he wants to end subsidies for what he calls “the fuel of the past,” but lucky for him oil and gas will be the fuels of the future too. His budget-deficit blowout would be so much worse without Big Oil, because the truth is that this industry is subsidizing the government.

Much, much worse, actually. The federal Energy Information Administration reports that the industry paid some $35.7 billion in corporate income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which data are available. That alone is about 10% of non-defense discretionary spending—and it would cover a lot of Solyndras. That figure also doesn’t count excise taxes, state taxes and rents, royalties, fees and bonus payments. All told, the government rakes in $86 million from oil and gas every day—far more than from any other business.

Not paying their “fair share“? Here’s a staggering fact: The Tax Foundation estimates that, between 1981 and 2008, oil and gas companies sent more dollars to Washington and the state capitols than they earned in profits for shareholders.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest oil and gas company, says that in the five years prior to 2010 it paid about $59 billion in total U.S. taxes, while it earned . . . $40.5 billion domestically. Another way of putting it is that for every dollar of net U.S. profits between 2006 and 2010, the company incurred $1.45 in taxes. Exxon’s 2010 tax bill was three times larger than its domestic profits. The company can stay in business because it operates globally and earned a total net income after tax of $30.5 billion in 2010 on revenues of $370.1 billion.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s 2013 budget—like its 2012, 2011 and 2010 vintages—includes a dozen-odd tax increases that would raise the industry’s liability by $44 billion over the next decade, according to the White House, and by $85 billion, according to the trade group the American Petroleum Institute (API). At any rate, the President’s economists ought to be weeping for joy for the revenue windfall from an industry that grew 4.5% in 2011, compared to overall GDP growth of 1.7%.

Crunching Compustat North America numbers, API estimates that the average effective tax rate for oil and gas companies is 41.1% for 2010—i.e., taxes as a share of net income. That is broadly in line with the Energy Information Administration’s estimates for “major energy producers.” By the same measure, other manufacturers on the S&P Industrial index pay an effective rate of 26.5%.

Specific oil and gas investments are also taxed at higher rates than other energy plays, which were surveyed in a 2009 paper by economist Gilbert Metcalf, now a deputy assistant Treasury secretary. He found that oil drilling (for an integrated company) clocks in at a 15.2% tax rate, refining at 19.1% and building a natural gas pipeline at 27%.

For comparison, nuclear power comes in at minus-99.5%, wind at minus-163.8% and solar thermal at minus-244.7%—and that’s before the 2009 Obama-Pelosi stimulus. In other words, the taxpayer loses more the more each of these power sources produces.

As for the “subsidies” that Mr. Obama says the oil industry receives, these aren’t direct cash handouts like those that go to the green lobby. They’re deductions from taxes that cover the cost of doing business and earning income to tax in the first place. Most of them are available to other manufacturers.

What Mr. Obama really means is that he wants to put the risky and capital-intensive process of finding, extracting and producing oil and gas at a competitive disadvantage against other businesses. He does so because he ultimately wants to make them more expensive than his favorites in the wind, solar and ethanol industries.

Why he would still want to do this amid the political panic over $4 per gallon gasoline is a mystery. Even Mr. Obama now claims to want lower gas prices, commenting recently that “Do you think the President of the United States going into re-election wants gas prices to go up higher?” Too bad his every policy choice, and especially his tax agenda, would lead to higher prices.

Meanwhile, the hits just keep on comin’, as this next forward from the Daily Times, courtesy of Bill Meisen details:

Feds: Refinery closings may lead to price hikes

If three Delaware Valley refineries close, gasoline prices may soar and the market may suffer spot shortages, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In November, a congressional contingent including U.S. Reps. Patrick Meehan, R-7, of Upper Darby, Robert Brady, D-1, of Philadelphia and Chaka Fattah, D-2, of Philadelphia, and U.S. Sens. Robert Casey, D-Pa., and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., asked the U.S. Energy Information Administration to independently assess the situation.

The EIA is the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. It released an eight-page “Reductions in Northeast Refining Activity: Potential Implications for Petroleum Product Markets” today.

In September, Sunoco executives announced plans to sell their Marcus Hook and Philadelphia refineries, with the intention of closing the facilities if a new owner isn’t located. In December, the company issued a 90-day layoff pronouncement for the Marcus Hook employees; Philadelphia is slated to shut down no later than July.

In addition, Conoco-Phillips stopped producing gasoline and other petroleum products at its Trainer facility in September with a plant closure anticipated for the first months of the new year.

….U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-7, of Mass., said, “This analysis by the Department of Energy shows that these oil companies are putting profits ahead of the people living in the Northeast.”

Hey, why not just have The Dear Leader issue an executive order forcing them to continue operations no matter how much money they lose?  It wouldn’t be more unconstitutional than most everything else he’s signed.

More importantly, heaven forbid Markey or any other slave of the Environazis permit the construction of a new refinery in THEIR district!

Here’s the juice.  Regardless of the deliberate deceptions this Administration and its unabashed advocates in the MSM seek to propagate, the increasing cost of gasoline and other fuels can be directly tied to the following six factors as forwarded by Mr. Meisen:

(1). The Gulf drilling moratorium; (2). The Keystone XL denial; (3). ANWAR; (4). Regulating drilling and refineries to the point they pick up their marbles and go home; (5). Energy algae, Solyndra and the Chevy Volt; (6). A President and Energy Secretary who don’t even own cars, let alone pay for their gasoline.

It would be misleading for us to suggest turmoil in the Middle East isn’t having an impact on the soaring price of oil; but it’s an outright lie for the President of the United States to suggest he’s powerless to materially decrease its effects.

Tick-Tock doesn’t want to lower America’s dependence on foreign oil; he wants to entirely eliminate fossil fuels as a source of energy.

And since we’re on the subject of the Progressive prevarication, here’s the latest from Thomas Sowell:

The Big Hoax 

No, no, no….the OTHER Big Hoax:

There have been many frauds of historic proportions — for example, the financial pyramid scheme for which Charles Ponzi was sent to prison in the 1920s, and for which Franklin D. Roosevelt was praised in the 1930s, when he called it Social Security. In our own times, Bernie Madoff’s hoax has made headlines.

But the biggest hoax of the past two generations is still going strong — namely, the hoax that statistical differences in outcomes for different groups are due to the way other people treat those groups.

The latest example of this hoax is the joint crusade of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice against schools that discipline black males more often than other students. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, this disparity in punishment violates the “promise” of “equity.”

Just who made this promise remains unclear, and why equity should mean equal outcomes despite differences in behavior is even more unclear. This crusade by Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is only the latest in a long line of fraudulent arguments based on statistics.

If black males get punished more often than Asian American females, does that mean that it is somebody else’s fault? That it is impossible that black males are behaving differently from Asian American females? Nobody in his right mind believes that. But that is the unspoken premise, without which the punishment statistics prove nothing about “equity.”

What is the purpose or effect of this whole exercise by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice? To help black students or to secure the black vote in an election year by seeming to be coming to the rescue of blacks from white oppression? Among the many serious problems of ghetto schools is the legal difficulty of getting rid of disruptive hoodlums, a mere handful of whom can be enough to destroy the education of a far larger number of other black students — and with it destroy their chances for a better life.

Judges have already imposed too many legalistic procedures on schools that are more appropriate for a courtroom. “Due process” rules that are essential for courts can readily become “undue process” in a school setting, when letting clowns and thugs run amok, while legalistic procedures to suspend or expel them drag on. It is a formula for educational and social disaster.

Now Secretary Duncan and Attorney General Holder want to play the race card in an election year, at the expense of the education of black students. Make no mistake about it, the black students who go to school to get an education are the main victims of the classroom disrupters whom Duncan and Holder are trying to protect.

What they are more fundamentally trying to protect are the black votes which are essential for Democrats. For that, blacks must be constantly depicted as under siege from whites, so that Democrats can be seen as their rescuers. Promoting paranoia translates into votes. It is a very cynical political game, despite all the lofty rhetoric used to disguise it.

Whether the current generation of black students get a decent education is infinitely more important than whether the current generation of Democratic politicians hang on to their jobs. (Not to Dimocrats!) Too many of the intelligentsia — both black and white — jump on the statistical bandwagon, and see statistical differences as proof of maltreatment, not only in schools but in jobs, in mortgage lending and in many other things.

Some act as if their role is to protect the image of blacks by blaming their problems on whites. But the truth is far more important than racial image. Wherever we want to go, we can only get there from where we are. Not where we think we are, or wish we are, or where we want others to think we are, but where we are in fact right now.

But political spin and pious euphemisms don’t tell us where we are. After a while, such rhetorical exercises don’t even fool others. If we don’t have the truth, we don’t have anything to start with and build on. A big start toward the truth would be getting rid of the kinds of statistical hoaxes being promoted by Secretary of Education Duncan and Attorney General Holder.

Yeah….along with both Duncan and Holder!

Speaking of hypocritical Liberal hoaxes, The New Media Journal reveals….

MSNBC’s Schultz a Paid Labor Union Mouthpiece Since 2005

US labor unions paid MSNBC “Ed Show” host Ed Schultz roughly $200,000 in 2011, and roughly $337,000 over the last seven years, according to Department of Labor documents. Newsbusters first reported that the liberal TV talker received $190,000 from the Communications Workers of America for “representational activities” in 2011. CWA president Larry Cohen is a regular guest on Schultz’s radio program. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers also paid Schultz $9,900 last year.

In 2010 his union salaries totaled a comparatively small $37,350. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the Communications Workers of America paid him $15,000, $14,850 and $7,500, respectively.

The unions classified the 2010 payments to Schultz as “union administration” expenses, according to Labor Department records. Schultz’s union salaries doubled since the debut of “The Ed Show” on MSNBC in 2009.

FYI, Schultz has yet to substantiate subsequent claims he donated his union payments to “charities”, a curious category Schultz inexplicably assumes to include advertising on his radio website.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but willful ignorance constitutes deliberate misrepresentation, i.e., lying.

Which reminds us; there’s ignorant, stupid and just plain dumb.  Presented for your approval, courtesy of Bill Meisen, the latest gaffe from the man who inspired the phrase “dumber than dirt”:

Biden hails middle class at wealthy fundraiser

Vice President Joe Biden addressed 87 wealthy Democrats last night attending a fundraiser at the home of Sen. John Kerry in Georgetown. As they dined on grass-fed New York strip steaks and white truffle mashed potatos underneath a outdoor tent, Biden criticized Republicans for being out of touch.

“These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there,” Biden said according to the pool report, “They don’t know what it means to be middle class.” 87 guests paid a minimum of $10,000-per-couple to attend the dinner.

And since we’re on the subject of stupid, here’s our “Tale of Two Harrys” segment.  First, Harry One:

Soooo….polls don’t count?  Not so fast says Harry Two:

Reid: ‘Country doesn’t care much about the Tea Party,’ cites new CNN poll

So tell us, Harry; were you lying then….or are you lying now?!?

Meanwhile, back at the Mustang Ranch….

Bad News: Liberal Women Plan “Sex Strike” to Protest Nonexistent Contraception Ban

Bad news….

….for whom?!?

On the Lighter Side….

And in the Wide, Wild World of Sports….

Golfer may lose leg after being stabbed with a putter on golf course

A Texas man says he may lose his leg after he was stabbed with a putter by another golfer on a golf course earlier this year, MyFoxDFW reports. Clay Carpenter, 48, speaking out about the incident for the first time Monday, said he was playing golf with friends when the course marshal told them to play through a slower group ahead of them.

“One of the gentlemen waved us up, so we hit up. All three of us hit up,” he said. Carpenter said one of the men in the other group charged at them, waving a putter in his hand. “He swings at my head with his golf club, with his putter. Well I stick my hand up. It breaks my thumb here,” he said. “Next thing I know my buddy’s saying, ‘Clay you’ve been stabbed.’ Obviously my shoes were filling up with blood and at that point I passed out.”

The putter had punctured Carpenter’s femoral artery. “I was asking the Lord to save me and to help me because I knew I was going to leave them. And I knew my parents and my sister and all them, you know, things were fixing to change for everyone,” he said.

Although Carpenter survived, there is still a chance his right leg will have to be amputated eventually. Authorities have not released the name of the man suspected of attacking Carpenter, and no charges have been filed against him. Investigators say they are still trying to determine whether the man stabbed him on purpose or if it was accidental.

Yeah….an accident….right after the guy tried to brain him.  This was about as much of an accident as Mary Jo Kopechne’s midnight swim off the Dike Bridge.

Finally, we’ll call it a day with yet another sign the apocalypse is upon us:

Former gay porn actor reportedly cleared to obtain Florida teaching certificate

A former gay porn actor and director who was fired for violating the Miami-Dade School Board’s code of ethics has reportedly been cleared to pursue his teaching certificate again.

Shawn Loftis, 36, spent six years in gay pornography and owned his own company, World of Men, until he quit the industry in 2010. He then got a job as a substitute teacher at Nautilus Middle School in Miami Beach, but was later targeted in a “moral crusade” by the school’s principal and was eventually fired for violating the Miami-Dade School Board’s code of ethics and for gross immorality, NBCMiami.com reports. (How unenlightened of him!)

In November, the Florida Department of Education banned Loftis from obtaining a teaching certificate for five years, but that decision was reversed last week by the state’s Education Practices Commission, the website reports. And since he has already passed the exam, Loftis just needs a job to resume teaching.

“I just hope that a position comes available at Miami Beach High; that is where I really want to be,” he told the station. (As Robert DeNiro said in Meet the Parents, “I bet you would, Panama Red!”) Miami-Dade Public Schools spokesman John Schuster said the certificate, however, does not guarantee employment.

If not Miami Beach High, Loftis could always pursue a position at Penn State….as Jerry Sandusky’s personal locker room attendant.

Magoo