Catching Up On The News Of The Day -- The Increasing Irrelevancy Of President Obama And His Secretary Of State John Kerry

Earlier today, the news was coming fast and furious, and I didn't have time to expand. The second bit of news had to do with the increasing irrelevancy of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

I think this winter pretty much put the final nails in the coffin in global warming. I was writing about that BEFORE the BloombergBusinessweek story came out later today telling us how badly the government climate forecasting agency did. [By the way, Mt Rainier is expected to get up to 9 feet of snow -- i.e., 108 inches snow over the next three days. Mt Rainier seldom gets that much snow in a month; the average is less than 95 inches in the entire month of February. Remember all those articles from Patrick Kennedy et al lamenting over the fact that our children and grandchildren might never see snow in the future. What hogwash.]

We will still hear speeches ad nauseum from both President Obama and SecState John Kerry but they are talking to their base and 90% of Americans don't switch television stations to hear another speech on global warming. Many of those folks not switching stations are not doing so because they have no electricity. A global warming storm has taken out the power lines. I think if the New England folks here one more speech this week on global warming, they will re-register en masse as Tea Partiers.

On a completely different subject, I think President Obama finally noted the small print on an earlier PowerPoint slide that is now a major bullet in the newest "JOBS" briefing. It's simply this: a huge percentage of their base will see their hours cut to just below 30 hours/week because of ObamaCare. Raising the minimum wage is their only "salvation." And even if passed into law tonight, it would not be effective for most folks who will see 30-hour work weeks before the 2014 elections. The GOP should get ahead of this, and start putting out position papers saying if the government doesn't raise the minimum wage to $15/hour, the poorest wage earners are going to feel the full brunt of ObamaCare.

And that was going through my mind before the newest DrudgeReport link that says the fourth hospital in the US southern state of Georgia is closing its door as a hospital because of ObamaCare. No links; the story is easily found.

Finally, it is interesting that the price of oil has silently moved up to almost $104, when the US is producing record amounts. What gives? I know but I'm not telling. Because the reason doesn't matter to 90% of the American population. All they care about is what gasoline is costing them. Last week I mentioned that gasoline was selling at our neighborhood service station for $2.99 -- it caught my attention because it was under $3.00. This morning, that same service station was selling gasoline for $3.28/gallon and this afternoon I see it has been raised to $3.29. We haven't even begun the spring switch-over process -- when refineries switch from winter formulations to summer formulations. If record cold weather extends into that period of refinery switch-over, owners of gas-guzzling SUVs better hope they have money in their IRAs from which to take a bit of gasoline money. Then, peak driving season and the price of gasoline will continue to go back up, if history is any guide.

As a reader noted in his comments regarding minimum-wage jobs and 30-hour-work-weeks and holding down two jobs to make ends meet, it costs a lot in gas money going back and forth to two different jobs every day.

These were just some of the thoughts going through my mind when I wrote that the President and his SecState were becoming less and less relevant.