Email: "Offshore Drilling Brazil"

Offshore Drilling Brazil

[note - all mistakes below are original to the text]

From: XXXXXX@gmail.com
To: XXXXXX@hotmail.com
Sent: February 16, 2010 9:20 PM
Subject: Oil Drilling BRAZIL

Oil drilling in BRAZIL

Obama underwrites off shore oil drilling in BRAZIL .

This is a perfect example why I refrain from watching the news on ABC, NBC, CBS, or MSNBC. 

Today on a segment of the "Glen Beck Show" on FOX (Fox Cable News) was the following:

"Today, even though President Obama is against off shore drilling for our country, he signed an executive order to loan 2 Billion of our taxpayers dollars to a Brazilian Oil Exploration Company (which is the 8th largest company in the entire world) to drill for oil off the coast of Brazil ! The oil that comes from this operation is for the sole purpose and use of  China  and NOT THE  USA  ! Now here's the real clincher...the Chinese government is under contract to purchase all the oil that this oil field will produce, which is hundreds of millions of barrels of oil".

We have absolutely no gain from this transaction whatsoever! 

Wait, it gets more interesting.

Guess who is the largest individual  stockholder of this Brazilian Oil Company and who would benefit most  from this? It is American BILLIONAIRE, George Soros, who  was one of President Obama's most generous financial supporter during his campaign.

If you are able to connect the dots and follow the money, you are probably as upset as I am. Not a word of this transaction was broadcast on any of the other news networks! 

Forward this factual e-mail to others who care about this country and  where it is going. Also, let all of your Government representatives know how you feel about this.

 Below is the Wall street Journal article to confirm this. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html

Response

Hey there, glad to hear from you.

You'd think something as bad as that would surely be covered on the news! As with many emails I get, that one seemed a little far-fetched.  I decided to look into some of the charges to see if they were true.

Luckily, they weren't. 

I found a great website called FactCheck.org that examines false claims by politicians of both parties and occasionally tackles viral emails.  They actually have already looked at this email and found it false.

FactCheck.org wrote:

The e-mail is false on two counts.

• The message falsely says the decision was due to an "executive order" by the president. No presidential order was required. Furthermore, none of President Obama's appointees had joined the Ex-Im board at the time of the vote, which was unanimous, and bipartisan. The Ex-Im Bank states: "In fact, at the time the Bank's Board consisted of three Republicans and two Democrats, all of whom were appointed by George W. Bush."

• The message falsely claims that "we have absolutely no gain" from the loan. In fact, the loan is being made specifically to finance purchase by Petrobras of U.S.-made oilfield equipment and services. The mission of the Ex-Im Bank is to encourage exports by making such loans.

You see? Not only did President Obama not have anything to do with the decision, but the reason the Export-Import Bank was started was to loan money overseas so folks in other countries would have money to by U.S. products -- which is exactly what it did.

You can read the whole FactCheck.org article here: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/bogus-brazilian-oil-claims/

Luckily, this email wasn't true.  I bet every American would be outraged if it were.

It's important to remember that most of the viral emails going around are usually not true.  Next time, be sure to check out the facts before you forward them to your friends and family.  You don't wanna scare people for no reason.

Stay well,