Obama “Inflate Tires” Story A Study In Arrogance, Biased Media Coverage

Rush Limbaugh pointed this out:

RUSH: The Obama camp continues to push the tire gauge.  I mean, this is incredible.  They continue to push this tire gauge thing as an energy plan.  They claim to have found proof somewhere that properly inflating your tires, if we all did it, would save something like 50,000 gallons or barrels a day or some such thing.  It’s just absurd.  The Drive-Bys continue to circle the wagons around Obama’s tire gauge thing, and then McCain continues to make fun of it…

RUSH: We have a montage of the Drive-By Media circling the wagons on this.

TAPPER:  If engines were tuned up and tires fully inflated, it could save 800,000 new barrels a day.

FOREMAN:  Would it produce the savings Obama is citing: three or four percent in overall oil consumption?  The answer is…yes!

CRAWFORD:  Truth is properly inflating your tires, uh, will do more for, uh, saving money on gas than anything the politicians are going to do right now!

MADISON:  Everybody and their grandmother knows you inflate tires!

At one point, in discussing this last week, Limbaugh said, “You’d think you would have to stop every few miles and siphon out some gas to make room in your tank for all the fuel you were saving.”

Whether we’re talking about the surge or the tire pressure, Obama simply doesn’t seem to have the ability to recognize when he’s wrong.

You get the idea that if Barack Obama were to say that we could stop global warming if we all took our clothes off and ran around naked praying to Beelzebub the media would come running to say, “Brilliant!!!  He’s right!”

The Reuters story, “FACTBOX: Government backs Obama call to inflate tires,” is a classic example of left-wing media disinformation, opening with the statement:

(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain has criticized his Democratic challenger, Barack Obama, for advising people to make sure their car tires are properly inflated to help reduce gasoline use.

No.  Wrong.  McCain has criticized Obama for claiming that inflating tires can compensate for not drilling.  They are deliberately misrepresenting the McCain position in order to benefit Obama.  Reuters is willfully engaging in journalistic fraud.

This is what Obama said:

“There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy,” Obama said. “Making sure your tires are properly inflated – simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling – if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You’d actually save just as much!”

The media is fixating on the claim that, “Obama is correct that properly inflating our tires would save fuel” and ignoring the fact that he is factually incorrect on a massive scale in claiming that the resulting savings in fuel would obviate the need to increase our domestic supply of oil.

Anne Mathias, an economist with the Stanford Group, said on Good Morning America:

MATHIAS: Unless everybody in the country is driving, you know, a 1969 Chevy Impala or something like that with the tires at half inflation, you’re not going to realize as much savings as he’s talking about.

But that’s not the overwhelming media narrative, is it?

Jake Tapper of ABC had the following analysis on his blog.  Maybe he should have read it before he allowed himself to be represented by his network as supporting Barack Obama’s claim:

Obviously, Obama wasn’t arguing that inflating tires would reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil — but he was saying such a move would save as much energy as drilling for oil in the continental shelf would provide.

Is that true?

If it does save gas, and it is a common problem, well, then what would the total savings be if we all were a bit more diligent about checking the pressure very morning?

Frank Verrastro, Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says that it’s complicated, of course.

“The ‘x’ factors here are the fact that Sen. Obama used both tire inflation and tune ups in his remarks, and no one knows what volume you could/would get from additional drilling in the outer continental shelf,” Verrastro says.

As of now, all we have for the OCS are resource estimates, but no production.

Using the website FuelEconomy.gov, Verrastro writes, we can estimate that “the maximum (estimated) fuel economy (i.e., mileage) savings drivers could expect as a result of keeping their engines properly tuned (4%), replacing air filters (up to 10%), properly inflating tires (up to 3%) and using the correct motor oil (1-2%) is 18-19%.  Since American drivers use roughly 380 million gallons of gasoline (not including diesel) per day, an 18% improvement translates into a savings of 68 million gallons, or 1.62 million barrels of oil per day.”

Current crude oil and condensate production in the OCS is about 1.25 million barrels per day. [Editorial insertion: But with 85% of the outer continental shelf off limits, you know that figure ought to be MUCH, MUCH higher - and that's precisely the point Republicans are trying to make.  It's the failure to report this blatantly obvious fact that makes people like myself so furious.]

So… What does that mean?

It means that if every American was running around with significantly underinflated tires and improperly tuned cars, then, yes, Sen. Obama is right, the savings from inflating the tires and tuning the cars could arguably match or exceed current output from the OCS.

However, since estimates of significant tire underinflation affect only about a quarter of the cars on road — as we noted above with the NHTSA statistics — and it’s highly unlikely that 100% of the cars are in need of tune- ups at any given time, the maximum savings amount is probably closer to 10%, Verrastro says.

“So the production offset is more likely to approach 800 thousand barrels per day – a tidy sum and a worthwhile target for savings, but not equal to OCS output,” he rules. “Finally, without knowing what production volumes could be expected from lifting the ban on OCS drilling moratoria, it’s impossible to assert that taking these fuel savings actions would exceed future offshore oil volumes, and in fact, one might argue that the combination of achieving these savings AND developing new supply would doubly enhance US energy security.”

- Jake Tapper and Natalie Gewargis

Barack Obama is simply wrong.  What makes the story particularly troubling is that so much of the media is deliberately and steadfastly refusing to portray the difference of opinion between McCain and Obama fairly, or to report the facts accurately.

Obama is misrepresenting both how much proper tire inflation would actually save the country on one end and how much oil we stand to gain by drilling offshore on the other.

Should we be regularly verifying that our tires are properly inflated?  Yes, we should – and I do (which by itself disproves Obama’s thesis, because his assumption is that EVERY SINGLE DRIVER is driving on underinflated tires).  But it is simply false – and frankly idiotic – to claim that doing so obviates our need to increase our domestic oil supply.  And when it comes to our domestic oil, we are not talking about thousands, or millions, or even billions of barrels of oil: between Alaska, and our shale oil deposits, and the outer continental shelf, we are literally talking about trillions of barrels of oil.

Why does the media continue to be so patently unfair, biased, and dishonest in its coverage?

Obama Voted For Bush Energy Bill That McCain Opposed

Barack Obama has routinely been attempting to discredit John McCain as an extension of President Bush.

And he’s also been demonizing McCain as being too close to the oil companies. A recent Obama ad said of McCain, “”He’s for billions in new oil company giveaways while prices soar.”

John McCain responded yesterday, saying:

“Obama might be a little bit confused. Yesterday, he accused me of having President Bush’s policies on energy. That’s odd because he voted for the president’s energy bill and I voted against it,” McCain said.

“I know he hasn’t been in the Senate that long but even in the real world voting for something means you support it and voting against something means you oppose it,” McCain said.

Doesn’t that little factoid make Obama look like a big, fat, huge hypocrite?

McCain – justifiably – argues that HE has actually been far more determined to block giveaways to the oil companies than has been Obama, and that is precisely why he voted AGAINST the 2005 energy bill that Obama voted FOR.

McCain said of that 2005 energy bill that Obama voted for and he voted against:

“I spoke up against the administration and Congress and Sen. Obama when they gave us an energy bill with more than giveaways to big oil and really no solution to our energy problems,” McCain said. “I want to take a minute here on this issue ’cause I think Sen. Obama might be a little bit confused. Yesterday he accused me of having President Bush’s policies on energy. That’s odd because he voted for the president’s energy bill and I voted against it.”

“It had $2.8 billion in corporate welfare to big oil companies and they’re already making record profits as you know,” McCain said of the 2005 energy bill. “Sen. Obama voted for that bill, and it’s big oil giveaways. I know he hasn’t been in the senate that long, but even in the real world, voting for something — voting for something means your support, and voting against something means you oppose it.”

So when I call Barack Obama a hypocritical lying demagogue, realize that I’m being factually correct. Obama was the one who actually supported the Bush energy bill, and HE’S the one who voted for “billions in new oil company giveaways while prices soared.”

Is John McCain simply saying, drill, drill, drill, with no comprehensive strategy, as demonizing and demagoguing Democrats love to claim?

McCain says he wants an “all-of-the-above” approach to solving U.S. energy problems, which have seen gas prices rise to more than $4 a gallon before falling back.

He advocates a range of measures including building more nuclear power plants by 2030, developing clean coal as well as wind and solar power and wants Congress to rescind a ban on fresh drilling off U.S. coasts.

Energy is particularly important in Ohio because the traditional battleground state where Republicans and Democrats are evenly matched is one of the nation’s largest producers of coal.

“Obama says he wants energy independence but he’s opposed to new drilling at home. He’s opposed to nuclear power. He said the high cost of gasoline doesn’t bother him it only rose too quickly. Tell that to the people who are driving the oldest automobiles,” McCain said to applause.

John McCain isn’t claiming that drilling is our only answer; he’s stating the fact that it is a significant part of any legitimate American energy plan. We need oil, and will continue to need it for decades to come.

Bottom line: John McCain is demanding a comprehensive energy policy that includes drilling for oil, digging for coal,and building nuclear energy plants – all of which have been blocked by Democrats for decades.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, is opposed to all of these measures. He is essentially attempting to thwart production of over 90% of our energy (oil, coal, and natural gas alone represent about 83% of our energy), and focusing instead on doubling the 5% of our energy that qualifies as “alternative.”

And Obama is falsely attacking John McCain as an extension to Bush when HE’S the one who actually supported the Bush energy plan that McCain opposed.

So here’s the question: do you want a demagoguing liar who won’t produce any energy, or do you want the man who is actually proposing real solutions?

We need a leader, not a liar.

To Obama, McCain Campaigns: Take The Obama Challenge

Obama responded to a question by claiming that inflating the tires was every bit as important as producing more oil:

There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy,” Obama said. “Making sure your tires are properly inflated – simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling – if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You’d actually save just as much!”

He also said:

“They’re making fun of a step that every expert says would reduce our oil consumption by 3 to 4 percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”

One site does the analysis for us:

Just for fun, I did the math. Properly inflating your tires can improve gas mileage by 3%. Of course, many people already keep their tires properly inflated, and many more are at least close to being properly inflated. Let’s be generous and assume that one-half of the total possible savings would be realized if we all inflated our tires properly; that’s a net gain of 1.5% fuel efficiency.

Americans drive approximately 2,880 billion miles per year. If we average 24 mpg, we use around 120 billion gallons of gasoline in our vehicles. If, through perfect tire inflation, we improved our collective fuel efficiency by 1.5%, that would be 1.8 billion gallons. A barrel of oil produces around 20 gallons of gasoline, so the total savings available through tire inflation is approximately 90,000,000 barrels of oil annually.

How does this stack up against “all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling?”

ANWR: 10 billion barrels
Outer Continental Shelf: 18 billion barrels (estimated; the actual total is undoubtedly much higher, since exploration has been banned)
Oil shale: 1 trillion barrels

And, of course, few cars on the road today actually need “a tune-up,” with computers automatically making adjustments that used to have to be made by a mechanic.

But a lot of liberals simply can’t grasp the conservatives’ argument. Obama is sticking to his position, and lock-step liberals claim that Republicans are the ones who are all wrong.

So I have an idea: let’s take the “Obama Challenge.”

Let’s have the Obama campaign inflate the tires of their cars and their airplane as much as they please, while the McCain campaign puts fuel in the tanks of their cars and their airplane. And then we’ll see whose campaign stalls first!

Obama says more air, not more oil; McCain says more oil, please.

This is my prediction: I’m betting on oil. John McCain promises to produce more of it; Barack Obama – at least until his last policy reversal – promised not to produce any (we could even allow Obama to use all the non-drilling energy sources he wants to fuel his fleet). I’m guessing “more oil” will beat “more conservation” 10 times out of 10.

We need oil. We are currently obtaining 70% of our oil from foreign countries, and paying $700 billion dollars a year for the privilege.

Obama Caught With Yet ANOTHER Radical Association

Obama keeps reaching back to his Chicago political past for his policy advisers, and pulling one despicable, vile, and even evil rabbit after another out of his hat.

The list of Barack Obama’s radical associations is long and it keeps getting longer. Some are now well-known, but many are not.

They need to be.

Oh, we know about Obama’s 23 years at Trinity United Church of Christ. And we know about Jeremiah Wright. These relationships alone were enough to prompt the leftist Rolling Stone Magazine to acknowledge that:

This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr.

And of course, many have heard the name of Father Michael Pfleger and his hateful and race-hating ramblings (what do you call a white man who despises his own race? A liberal).

But many don’t realize that Barack Obama met the radical social activist Father Pfleger while Obama was carrying out his own radical social activism. They don’t realize that Barack Obama’s stint as a “community organizer” was at ACORN, about as radical an organization that one can find in America.

But you haven’t heard quite as much about James Meeks, the third of Obama’s three closest “spiritual advisor’s.” You can hear one of his “sermons” on Youtube.

We certainly could learn more about another of Barack Obama’s friends from Chicago, Penny Pritzker, who heads the Obama campaign’s National Finance Committee. We can look into her own financial background and learn that not only was she the president of Superior Bank – which massively failed; and not only did she literally personally buy her way out of jail by paying a $460 MILLION dollar “fine”; but that she was at the very epicenter of what would become known as “the subprime loan scandal” that would come to eat this nation’s financial system alive.

We could look at former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, former head of Obama’s vice presidential selection committee until it was discovered that he had benefited from sweetheart loans from subprime king Countrywide.

The name Tony Rezko certainly ought to sound familiar.

The name William Ayers, terrorist bomber, Obama-co-lecturer, fellow board member, neighbor, and friend should certainly come to mind.

We could also look at Barack Obama’s youthful associations and see just how radical and troubling they are:

Barack Obama has been steeped in radical politics since the day he emerged from his atheist secular humanist grad student mother’s womb. The openly communist Frank Marshall Davis was his childhood mentor; Saul Alinsky and Gerald Kellman (it was through Kellman’s Woods Fund that Obama met leftist terrorist William Ayers) dominated his thinking in college. He chose the most radical church in the country; he chose to make Jeremiah Wright his “spiritual mentor”; he chose to immerse himself in hard-core ideological radicalism. Never before has this country considered such a radical leftist for its chief executive.

Barack Obama’s own wife Michelle should have a LOT more explaining to do than her “and for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of my country,” her, “America is a mean place in 2008″ comments. If that’s all you know about her “work,” you have no IDEA. The following short video is guaranteed to give you some “Oh, My God!” moments, or I’ll refund your money:

Now we find another Obama association that exposes a whole other ugly can of worms.

Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, who was appointed as the national coordinator for Muslim American affairs by the Obama campaign (if this link fails you will know that the Obama campaign is continuing to scrub its website) less than two weeks ago, stepped down Monday after an Internet newsletter wrote about his brief stint on the fund’s board – which also included a fundamentalist imam – prompting The Wall Street Journal to email inquiries. Asbahi attempted to make his brief time on a board the issue, when the real issues were his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, and his 8-year long personal relationship with Hamas fundraiser Jamal Said.

Gee, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama. If you really want people to forget that you are the son of a Muslim father who served an incredibly brutal and corrupt Kenyan government; if you want them to forget that you attended a madrassa in Indonesia as a child and even practiced Islam; if you want them to forget that you campaigned in Kenya on behalf of your cousin, Raila Odinga, who relied upon chaos, corruption, and even violence in his campaign; numerous other troubling associations between yourself and radical Muslims; forget those photographs of you waling around in traditional Muslim clothes, well then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t hang around with Muslim radicals such as Mazen Asbahi and another radical pal of yours, the anti-Semite Rashid Khalidi.

It is frankly impossible for me to understand how Barack Obama managed to win the Democratic nomination. That so many Americans could care less about who their candidate really is – beyond the fact that he is the Democrat in the race – is simply amazing.

Democrats Stuck Between Crazy and Pandering on Domestic Oil

As George Stephanopoulos asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi virtually the same question over and over again – and as Pelosi provided one disingenuous non sequitur after another – Stephanopoulos increasingly began to look as if he had just stepped in something that really stank.

Here’s a partial transcript of the encounter from the August 3, 2008 This Week:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: You’ve been getting a lot of heat for not allowing a straight up or down vote expanding drilling off the coasts of the United States. Why won’t you permit a straight up or down vote?

NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What we have presented are options that will really make a difference at the pump. Free our oil, Mr. President. We’re sitting on 700 million barrels of oil. That would have an immediate effect in ten days. What our colleagues are talking about is something that won’t have an effect for ten years and it will be 2 cents at the time. If they want to present something that’s part of an energy package, we’re talking about something. But to single shoot on something that won’t work and mislead the American people as to thinking it’s going to reduce the price at the pump, I’m just not going to be a part of it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except it’s not just Republicans that are calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire, let me show our viewers right now, says, “There is going to be a vote. September 30 will not come and go without a vote on the opening the Outer Continental Shelf. The message has been delivered. The issue can’t be ignored any longer.” He says he speaks for a lot of Democrats. He’s talked to the leadership and a vote must happen.

PELOSI: Maybe it will, as part of a larger energy package. Let’s step back, call a halt and put this in perspective. What we have now is a failed energy policy by the Bush/Cheney, two oilmen in the White House. $4 a gallon gasoline at the pump. And what they’re saying is let’s have more of the same. Let’s have more of big oil making, record profits, historic profits. You see the quarterly reports that just came out, who want to be subsidized who don’t really want to compete. Let them use the subsidies to drill oil in protected areas. Instead we’re saying, free the oil. Use it, don’t lose it. There’s 68 million acres in lower 48 and 20 million more acres in Alaska where they’re permitted where they could drill anytime. This is a diversionary tactic from failed energy policies.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you feel you have the better arguments, why not give a straight up or down vote for drilling?

PELOSI: Because the misrepresentation is being made that this is going to reduce the price at the pump. This is again a decoy, it’s not a solution.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, if you’re right, why not let it be debated out and have the vote?

PELOSI: We have a debate every single day on this subject. What you saw in the Congress this week was the war dance of the hand maidens of the oil companies. That’s what you saw on the Republican side of the aisle. Democrats and Republicans are not right there on party lines on this issue. There are regional concerns, as well as some people concerned about what this means back home for them. But we have a planet to save. We have an economy to grow. And we can do that if we keep our balance in all of this and not just say but for drilling in unprotected and these protected areas offshore, we would have lower gas prices.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what exactly are you trying to say? You say you might allow a vote as part of a comprehensive package, but you won’t allow a vote on –

PELOSI: We have put on the floor. Free our oil. Strong bipartisan support for that. Use it, don’t lose it. Strong bipartisan support for that. End undue speculation, strong bipartisan support for that. We’ve talked about these things. Invest in renewable energy resources so that we can increase the supply of energy for our country. Strong bipartisan support for that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet you brought those measures to the floor in a way under the suspension of the rules so that it couldn’t be amended with a drilling proposal.

PELOSI: Well, we built consensus and have a strong bipartisan. This is what’s going to make a difference to reduce the dependence on foreign oil, to stop our dependence on fossil fuels in our own country. To increase the supply of energy immediately to reduce the price at the pump to protect the consumer. So this is a policy matter. This is very serious policy matter. It’s not to use a tactic of one — one tactic in order to undermine a comprehensive energy package to reduce our dependence on foreign oil which is a national security issue. To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in our own country. Now, will we be talking about natural gas that’s cheaper, better for the environment –

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why not allow votes on all that? When you came in as Speaker you promised in your commitment book “A New Direction for America,” let me show our viewers, you said that “Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, fair debate consisting of full amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its alternatives.” If they want to offer a drilling proposal, why can’t they have a vote?

PELOSI: They’ll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote and then they may get a vote. What I am trying to, we have serious policy issues in our country. The President of the United States has presented this but for this our economy would be booming. But for this, gas would be cheaper at the pump. It’s simply not true. Even the President himself in his statement yesterday and before then has said, there is no quick fix for this by drilling.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Obama has agreed with you. He says, listen. This is not the answer. Drilling is not the answer. But he said over the weekend that he might be willing to sign onto drilling as part of a comprehensive proposal.

PELOSI: What Senator Obama said is what we want a President to say. Let’s look at all of the options. Let’s compare them. And let’s see what really does increase our supply. Protect our environment, save our economy, protect the consumer, instead of a single shot thing that does none of the above. Why we give subsidies to big oil to drill instead of letting them –

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to move on to other issues. Just to be clear, you are saying you will not allow a single up or down vote on drilling. But you will allow a vote on a package that includes drilling?

PELOSI: No, what I’m saying to you is, as far as I’m concerned, unless there is something that — you never say never to anything. You know, people have their parliamentary options available to them. But from my standpoint, my flagship issue as Speaker of the House and 110th Congress has been to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reverse global warming. I’m not giving the gavel — I’m not giving a gavel away to a tactic that will do neither of those things. That supports big oil at the cost and expense of the consumer.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not going to permit a vote, you may get beat, but you’re not going to permit a vote on your own?

PELOSI: Again, we take this one step at a time. But while we’re spending all of this time on a parliamentary tactic when nothing less is at stake than the planet, the air we breathe, our children breathe.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s what I don’t understand. If you could get votes on everything else that you care about which you say there is strong bipartisan support, why not allow a vote on the drilling as well?

PELOSI: Because the President will not allow any of these other things to go forth. Why are we not saying to the President, why don’t you release oil from the SPR in ten days to have the price at the pump go down? Why are you opposed to any undue speculation in the oil markets? Why do you not insist that people who have leases on our land with permits ready to go use those? The oil companies don’t want competition. And what we would do by saying, go ahead, give them the subsidies. Allow them to drill in areas that are protected now, instead of where they’re allowed to drill, is to diminish all of the opportunity that we have for an electricity standard for our country. Where we set out standards that makes the competition for renewable energy resources better. Which says to the private sector, invest here because there is a standard that they have to honor. If you just say it’s drill, drill, drill, drill and we’re going to subsidize it, what is the motivation for the private sector to come in and say we’re going to support these renewable energies, wind, solar, biofuels. Plug-in cars. Natural gas and other alternatives.

Speaker Pelosi has engaged in every form of partisan gamesmanship in order to block Republicans from even having a debate over drilling measures. Apparently, that qualifies as “open, full, fair debate consisting of full amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its alternatives” in the Nancy Pelosi dictatorship.

According to a CNNMoney.com poll, 73% of Americans favored offshore drilling as of June 2008.

In PelosiLand, that kind of demand from the American people calls for only one thing: a five week vacation.

But Republicans aren’t having any of it:

House Republicans will be back on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives again Monday to continue the unprecedented protest that began last Friday, when dozens of Republicans joined hundreds of American citizens on the House floor to protest Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to send Congress home for the rest of the summer without a vote on legislation to lower gas prices and move America toward energy independence.

President Bush doesn’t mind letting Democrats twist in the wind for the next five weeks while Americans become angrier and angrier.

Barack Obama reversed his position (what else is new?) against opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide immediate price relief on gas prices. He had earlier said that the Strategic Reserves should only be tapped in the event of an emergency. Apparently a nine point drop in the polls over the course of a single week qualifies as an emergency where crippling $4 plus gasoline does not. Obama is hoping that taking 70 million barrels from the Reserve would reduce the price just long enough to keep the oil issue at bay until after the election.

Obama does not seem to want to take part in Nancy Pelosi’s (Captain KoolAid’s) suicide pact with the environmentalist groups. He is clearly beginning to hedge his position on offshore drilling. But we can’t depend upon this serial pandering flip flopper to follow through with whatever promises he makes any more than we can depend upon Nancy Pelosi’s mental health.

The Democrat Party finds itself stuck between a Crazy and a Panderer.

Democrats Demagogue and Lie About Oil – As Usual

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday as his Democrats failed to move their energy bill:

They’ve come up with the most unbelievable dodge that I can remember. They said, ‘We’re not going to do anything on speculation because it’s no longer important,’ even though it’s part of their bill.

But that’s a bald faced lie, and he knows it.

Republicans have repeatedly said they were willing to deal on speculation, and alternative energy, and other things the Democrats want. But they insist that drilling on federal lands – which is now off limits on and off shore because of Democrats – be part of any package they will support. As usual, Democrats prove themselves to be dishonest manipulators rather than straight dealers.

You want another example of Democrats’ bald faced lies – again from the top Democrat in the Senate? Speaking again about speculation (i.e. the oil futures market), Reid said:

Something that will lower prices by 20-50%. And I think that, uh, one of the reasons the price of oil has gone down… you’ll note that it has gone down since we started, introduced, since we introduced our legislation dealing with speculation.

No it isn’t, and he knows it. On July 14, President Bush ended the executive ban on offshore drilling. The very next day saw the price of oil take the biggest drop in 17 years.

Within two days of Bush’s signing the executive order, the price of oil dropped from nearly $145 a barrel to $130.73 a barrel. And within four days, it had dropped to $128.88. And Harry Reid wants to take credit for this drop in price with his incredibly airheaded speculation bill that never really had a chance of overcoming a filibuster to begin with?

In the House, Democrats are putting the energy bill on the “suspension calender” in a move that will require a 2/3 majority to pass any legislation, but which prevents the Republicans from adding ANY amendments to allow for drilling on federal lands or contribute in any way.

Democrats are so paranoid that a drilling amendment might be introduced that they would rather scuttle any meaningful vote whatsoever.

Why did President Bush lift the ban?:

The White House announced today that President Bush will lift an executive order banning offshore oil drilling, a move aimed at stepping up pressure on Congress to end the prohibition it imposed in 1981.

The futures market reduced the price of oil because they saw the very real possibility that the American political system might finally get itself in gear to increase the supply of oil. Increased supplies lower prices. It’s as simple as that.

It is just like the Democrat Party to do everything possible to cause the problem for restricting the oil supply, and then try to claim credit for lowering prices. They are the worst kind of backstabbing liars you could possibly ever deal with.

To add to the sheer insanity of the Democrat’s position on energy, Sen. Charles Schumer said the same day:

The bottom line is very simple. We Democrats believe in the future when it comes to energy policy. We believe in alternative energy, we believe we have to wean ourselves away from oil and dependency from people like Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Putin. And they want to throw themselves right into their owns because big oil wants it. So the equations is simple. The Republicans equal big oil and the past. They do what big oil wants. We democrats represent alternatives weaning ourselves away from oil and the future.

So Democrats state that they have no intention of doing anything to increase the supply of oil or doing anything meaningful to reduce the cost even as they blame the Republicans who ARE trying to increase the oil supply.

Or to put it another way, how on earth can Democrats be both for oil and against oil at the same time?

And pandering demagogue that Schumer is, he labels Republicans as stooges of the oil companies which he and other Democrats have repeatedly demonized.

Oil companies certainly have their flaws. But they have one essential virtue: they produce oil. And in demonizing oil companies, Democrats have long-since crossed the line into demonizing the oil that these companies produce.

Or, to put it in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s words:

“Those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is, coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, its Global Warming, its ruining our Country, its ruining our World.”

Democrats are clearly opposed to oil. And that’s why the supplies are so low and the prices are so high.

You just remember something. Right now we are dependent upon oil. That is why Al Gore keeps flying his fuel-gobbling private jets and getting himself ferried around in gas-guzzling convoys of SUVs. Oil is what we have, and it is very difficult to go without it – even for the hypocrites who tell everyone else to do so.

Democrats like Schumer and Reid are not just part of the problem – they ARE THE PROBLEM. Because of Democrats, we are doing nothing to tap our own massive energy resources. Because of Democrats, we are therefore forced to go to the very dictators that Schumer named and give them $700 billion a year for something we could be producing ourselves.

We can either go on listening to one stupid self-serving lie and excuse after another, or we can vote these fools out and elect men and women who will allow this country to provide itself with the energy we need.

A Hope For Some Rare Awareness About The Economy

I was in a Wal Mart store a little while back, and got into an argument with an older employee with whom I have periodically chatted.

In that discussion, I discovered that the man was a Democrat, and a pretty liberal one to boot.

And I learned that he had a terribly flawed memory about the Clinton years.

His primary contention was that he had never seen the regional economy so bad. He told me, “When Clinton was president, I had no trouble finding work. But now this Wal Mart job is the best I can get.”

Well, to put it into six words: he’s wrong, wrong, and more wrong.

The Press Enterprise, Riverside County’s (and the Inland Empire’s) largest paper, had a front-page article on July 19 titled “Inland unemployment rate hits 8 percent, highest in 9 years.”

I didn’t have to pull out my calculator to realize that “nine years ago we were in the height of the Clinton presidency.

So why on earth was my liberal Democrat friend at Wal Mart so completely wrong?

Partially because that’s precisely what the media told him to think (you ever hear that sarcastic expression, ‘If I want your opinion I’ll give it to you’?).

John R. Lott did a study that demonstrated that the media viewed the economy through rose-colored glasses during the Clinton years even when the economy was in fact entering a recession. By contrast, we have been hearing the word “recession” for the better part of a year now under a Republican president even when the economy was actually growing and even though the economy is STILL not in recession according to the standard definition of the term. When Bill Clinton was president, the media largely saw even negative news through rose-colored glasses. By contrast, throughout the Bush presidency, the media has been hypercritical – as well as hypocritical – of virtually every economic development.

It is simply a demonstrable fact that the media have for years given Democratic administrations’ economic performance every benefit of the doubt, and given Republican administrations’ economic performance an unrelentingly critical review. Republicans aren’t angry that the media is portraying the economy as being in a recession; they are angry because the media subjectively and unfairly refuse to evaluate Democrat-managed economies by the same standards.

And when it comes to the economy, perception often becomes reality, because people who think that the economy is tanking will invariably begin to act in ways that subsequently cause the economy to tank. As one example, if people are continually told that the economy will worsen and the housing market will continue to decline, will they buy homes now, or will they hold off and wait for the market to further decline and lower prices further? But by waiting, they are actually contributing to the market’s actual decline.

So the same media that helps to create positive perceptions of the economy during Democratic administrations helps to undermine the economy during Republican administrations. They frequently resort to downright irresponsible reporting to do so. And when Democrat and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich used the term “DEPRESSION” to describe the Bush economy, he was going beyond even the irresponsible media and pandering to the very lowest form of demagoguery.

Is our economy really doing so terrible?

Just to demonstrate how horrifyingly irresponsible Robert Reich was in his prediction of a “Bush depression” on March 14, 2008, the VERY NEXT DAY the story emerged that the United States continues to have the best and most competitive economy in the world!

I hate to be rude, but Reich revealed himself for the vile little pandering and demagoguing rodent that he is. Yet rabid little rat or not, he continues to be paraded from elite media network to network with all the fanfare of an enlightened analyst who truly understands what is going on.

My liberal friend at Wal Mart assured me that the economy was always great under Clinton, and that Clinton balanced the budget. The fact that neither statement is true doesn’t matter. Today’s liberals are fitted with psychological filters designed to prevent truth from entering their minds.

First of all, Bill Clinton most certainly did not get off to all that great of a start as president. If he had, he wouldn’t have contributed to the greatest landslide in political history with a massive 52 seat swing in the ‘94 midterm elections that put the Republicans in power for the next dozen years.

Furthermore, President Clinton – all ubiquitous media misrepresentation aside – most certainly DID NOT balance the budget. What he did was fiddle with the numbers to pay off the public debt by borrowing from the intergovernmental debt (particularly from the Social Security Trust Fund). The so-called “Clinton surplus” is simply a myth: The national debt continued to grow and grow and grow, and the last Clinton budget was $133.29 billion in the red.

And when President Clinton left office, he also left President Bush with an economy that was very definitely stumbling into a recession about as bad as the one we’re stumbling into now. He also left President Bush with Osama bin Laden (when he rejected a Somali offer to literally hand him over to us) and with an al Qaeda that was growing stronger and stronger after repeatedly attacking the United States throughout the Clinton administration.

Mansoor Ijaz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that:

Clinton’s failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger’s assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.

Please don’ think that the vicious 9/11 attacks – which President Clinton could have nipped in the bud by taking out its chief leader and architect – didn’t massively hurt the U.S. economy. Yet a liberal media ensured that President Bush duly received all the blame for both the recession and the attack.

The Press Enterprise article points out that a year ago, the two-county unemployment figure was a reasonable 5.9%. If anything, we have Nancy Pelosi and her “commonsense plan” to thank as much as anyone for the dramatic increase that has taken place during the oversight of a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. But you can count on the fact that the media will never connect the economic downturn to the Democrat’s control of Congress the way they routinely connect President Bush to it.

What’s caused the dramatic negative economic turnaround in the last year?

Is it the sky-high increase in oil prices? I have written again and again that it is Democrats – and Democrats virtually alone – who deserve the blame for the current situation by refusing to allow us to act in a responsible way by drilling the oil we have right under our feet and right off our shores.

See my articles (in order from the earliest to the most recent):

Democrat’s ‘Commonsense Plan’ Revealed: Let’s Nationalize the Oil Industry

Blame Democrats for Sky-High Gas Prices

Democrats Block US Energy Independence, Send Gas Prices Soaring

Democrat’s Ideological Stand Against Domestic Oil Terrible for US Economy & Security

If You Want $12 A Gallon Gas, Vote for Obama and Democrats

Pelosi, Reid, and Obama: The Three Stooges of American Energy Policy

Is it the secondary market fiasco and the subsequent housing market collapse? While Republicans deservedly merit some of the blame, let us not forget that it was Democrats who demanded that poor and unqualified borrowers had to have access to home loans. And let us not forget that the principle political figures involved in the subsequent scandal have been Democrats (Former Fannie Mae Chairman and former Barack Obama key assistant Jim Johnson, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad headline the list among other prominent Democrats).

The media that would have left no stone unturned in launching exhaustive and well-covered investigations into Republicans in any kind of similar situation has conveniently allowed the Democrat’s scandal to vanish off the headlines. They continue to play the part – of Democrat apologist and enabler – that they have chosen for themselves all along.

And we saw an all-too typical example of Democrats and the media ganging up to harm the economy under a Republican administration. Sen. Charles Schumer unnecessarily notified the public of the impending federal takeover of IndyMac in California, creating the equally unnecessary lines and panic among account holders. And then there was the media flocking like vultures, breathlessly envisioning one worst-case scenario for the American economy after another.

Don’t you DARE try to claim that Democrats – who were so utterly consumed with investigating baseball players’ for allegations of steroid abuse and with repeatedly demonzing oil executives at one communist-type show trial “hearing” after another that they were entirely blindsided by the secondary market collapse – were one iota less to blame than the Republicans even at their worst.

And don’t you dare believe that Republicans under George Bush mismanaged the economy in spite of the Democrats’ best attempts to keep it rolling smoothly along. If anything, it was precisely the other way around.

My liberal friend is responsible for unquestioningly believing the liberal media spin rather than engaging in the critical thinking that would let him see the truth about the disinformation campaign going around all around him. Please don’t make the same mistake.

Pelosi, Reid, and Obama: The Three Stooges of American Energy Policy

Remember Nancy Pelosi’s “commonsense plan” to lower gas prices, back when gas prices were half what they are since she and her fellow Democrats assumed power in Congress?

“With record gas prices, record CEO pay packages, and record oil company profits, Speaker Hastert and the Majority Congress continue to give the American people empty rhetoric rather than join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now.

“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”

Investors’ Business Daily came out with the following call for Nancy Pelosi:

Feckless To Reckless, Pelosi Should Resign

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Monday, July 14, 2008

Leadership: With oil hitting $147, Nancy Pelosi finally admits energy is a problem. But instead of drilling for it, she’s cooked up a new drain-the-reserves scheme. It’s pure politics at a time of crisis. She ought to resign.

Any leader with an energy record as derelict as Speaker Pelosi’s ought to step down. Where she once was just incompetent and irresponsible, she has now — with her latest scheme to fix oil prices — become dangerous.

Despite polls showing Americans in favor of drilling more oil from America’s huge untapped supplies, Pelosi won’t allow it. She just wants to empty our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a short-term fix to get through Election Day.

It’s an irresponsible suggestion, signaling not only an ignorance of how the economy works but also a willingness to place the nation at risk in the case of emergency.

Last Tuesday, Pelosi sent a letter to President Bush urging him to release a “small portion” of the nation’s 706 million barrels of strategic-reserve oil to bring down prices. Regardless of how one feels about whether reserves should be held at all, two big problems stand out with Pelosi’s tiny demand.

One, she’s proposing a misappropriation of the reserves. The U.S. oil stockpile is a 58-day cushion for emergencies that today are all possible. If Israel attacks Iran, for example, and prices double again. Or if Hugo Chavez cuts off his supplies, as he threatened to do as recently as Sunday.

The reserve is there to cushion the blow of a market disruption; it’s not an open-market mechanism to manipulate prices for political ends.

Two, Pelosi has finally admitted that supply matters, something that contrasts with her entire legislative record. We count 14 energy actions to suppress supply on her Web site just since 2005.

She has blocked efforts to open Alaska to drilling, denounced fossil fuels, blamed oil companies for high gasoline prices, voted for biotech boondoggles and condemned speculators.

“Our coasts need lasting protection from oil and gas drilling,” she declared Dec. 6, 2006, after Democrats won control of Congress. Missing are any moves against petrotyrant regimes who drive prices skyward, or even lip service to the idea of ensuring supply through drilling.

Pelosi downplays her proposal as modest because it’s a “small” portion of the reserves to spend. And look what happened in 2000, she says, when an SPR release authorized by President Clinton lowered gasoline prices nearly 20%.

But she’s not fooling anyone. Then, like now, an election was coming up.

With Congress’ public approval at a subterranean 9% and falling, the speaker must be starting to realize that November may not be the Democratic cakewalk that pundits predict.

President Bush, however, isn’t about to be suckered into releasing the reserves just long enough for pump prices to fall by Election Day, thereby saving Democrats’ skins so they can carry on their drill-nothingism for an additional two years.

The president needs to do two things with Pelosi’s proposal: First, tell her “no,” unless she comes up with a plan to open up more drilling. Second, expose it for what it is — a bid to paint Bush as the problem to distract from her own sorry record.

In playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the speaker has moved beyond the incompetence and irresponsibility that have characterized her leadership to date.

It borders on reckless, something we cannot tolerate in such dangerous times.

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ought to join her, given that he thinks that the very substance our culture needs to survive is evil:

“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

Ohmigosh! The leaders of both the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are completely irresponsible – and completely useless – on energy, at a time when energy is becoming a genuine crisis!

Can we make it a trifecta? Do we have – dare I say it – THREE stooges?

Here’s what Barack Obama’s campaign says about President Bush’s lifting of the executive order prohibiting offshore oil drilling:

“If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks. But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years. Senator Obama believes Americans need real short-term relief, which is why he has proposed a second round of stimulus with energy rebates for working families. And over the long-term, Senator Obama understands that our national security and the survivial of the planet demand a real strategy to break our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, new sources of energy and by vastly improving the energey efficiency of our cars, trucks and our economy. He is ready to lead such a transformation.”

Yep. Three for three. We have the Three Stooges of energy. And I personally think Nancy Pelosi is the “Moe” of the bunch (I’ll leave it to others to decide which one is “Curly”).

What do we make of the Democrats’ proposals? How has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “commonsense plan” performed since gas prices were a little over $2 a gallon when she took over?

Well, that’s clearly a rhetorical question; Pelosi, Reid, and their Democrat Congress haven’t done a single positive thing.

What do we make of Democrats’ excuses for refusing to allow drilling? Stop and thing about their answers: 1) there’s no point in drilling because it won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years; 2) we can’t drill our way out of the problem; 3) drilling simply represents the failed policy of the past; 4) we should open the strategic petroleum reserve to lower energy prices; 5) off-shore drilling will contaminate our environment and harm our tourism industries; 6) if we expand drilling we will contribute to global warming; 7) the oil companies have 68 million acres they can drill on; 8) the high price of gas is due to “price gouging” by big oil; 9) the high price of gas is due to speculators manipulating the market.

Think about it:
1) If there’s no point in drilling because it won’t immediately produce any oil, then by the same twisted idiot’s logic, there’s no point in investing in “alternative energy” – most of which is purely theoretical and which certainly won’t be producing real energy in seven years. This asanine point is simply breathtaking in its sheer brazen shortsightedness; better to have it in seven years than not have it at all! Particularly when, had Democrats allowed us to have this oil seven years ago, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

Democrats have been saying for 25 years that drilling won’t produce an immediate solution to our energy needs. Their current rhetoric merely reveals just how terribly wrong they were seven years ago! At some point we must hold them accountable for their criminal stupidity.

2) We may not be able to completely drill our way out of the problem (although many in the petroleum industry point to their studies and argue, ‘Yes we actually can!’). But there is absolutely no question that we can substantially increase our oil supplies – and have a massive impact on our energy problem – precisely by drilling.

Explain to me how hundreds of billions of barrels of domestic oil – immune from the whims of OPEC, and immune from the instability of the Middle East and Northern Africa – wouldn’t help us solve our problem?

3) If drilling – in Barack Obama’s words – would “merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen” – than should we stop drilling? For one thing, for most of that time, the point is we haven’t drilled; drilling has been banned. So the actual “failed policy” would really be NOT drilling, wouldn’t it?

What is Obama’s and the Democrat’s meaningful alternative to drilling? When oil constitutes over 85% of our energy, just what do they propose to do to make up for that massive chunk of our requirement? The simple fact of the matter is that there is nothing out there that can begin to fill the void of oil – and by virtually all accounts we will continue to need oil for several decades to come.

It’s almost like saying that “eating would merely prolong the failed dietary policies of the past.” Even under the valid assumption that we’ve had a poor diet plan in the past, does that mean we should starve ourselves to death?

4) Opening our strategic reserve to reduce oil prices would lower gas prices. This is undoubtedly true, but what happens if we have a crisis? What happens if Israel – acting in its legitimate self interests – takes out some of Iran’s nuclear capability? That strategic reserve is there for emergencies, and we face some very real potential global crises today. What would we do if Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz and we didn’t have any oil on reserve? what would we do if we had another Hurricane Katrina that damaged oil refineries?

But another problem with this line of argument is that it exposes the gaping hole of stupidity of the Democrat’s arguments against drilling. They’re claiming on the one hand that the millions of barrels of oil a day that domestic drilling would produce wouldn’t solve our problems, while simultaneously claiming that a much smaller contribution to the oil supply would be beneficial. Which is it?

The best way to increase our national oil supply is to move toward a solution that would actually increase our oil supply. That means drilling.

5) Will off-shore drilling harm our tourism industries?

Well, a big problem with that hypothesis is that tourism isn’t going to do very well as long as fuel is so expensive that nobody can afford to go anywhere. So there’s a clear counterproductive notion to protecting our pristine beaches (particularly given that the oil rigs would be located miles out to see beyond the horizon anyway).

Let’s all agree that ANWR is not a tourist hot spot.

Will drilling create massive footprints in pristine wilderness and offshore areas? Not nearly as much as the Democrats disingenuously claim it will. And the question is, would even a large footprint in some way-far-away place like ANWR really be worth destroying our national economy over? Let’s put it to a vote: should we abandon the American way of life, or drill? Right now, 70-75% of the American people are screaming, “Drill!” And as the crisis mounts, that percentage is going to get higher.

We have dramatically improved the environmental impact of our drilling operations. We can do it cleanly, and with a surprisingly small “footprint.”

6) Will drilling increase global warming? Please, PLEASE realize that the best measurable (as opposed to abstract computer models!) scientific evidence is that we have been having warming and cooling cycles for millennial, and that we are currently in a cooling cycle.

Furthermore, we have evidence of a tropical heat vent in our climate system – not considered in computer models – which provides a “natural thermostat” that all by itself renders much of the alarm over global warming moot.

Are we really prepared to dramatically reduce our lifestyle in order to fight a cyclical climate phenomena that we can do nothing to stop anyway, and which will not even be all that bad given the documented human history through previous warmings?

And if all that isn’t enough, then tell me how refusing to drill for our own oil, while at the same time begging OPEC countries to drill more of theirs, helps prevent global warming. If we drilled for our oil, we would actually be using techniques that are much more environment-friendly.

7) The oil companies have 68 million acres to drill on, so they don’t need any more.

I can’t help but wonder: are Democrats really this stupid, or do they have an ulterior agenda for wanting to prevent America from accessing its vast domestic oil reserves?

When it comes to drilling, one acre is most definitely NOT as good as another. You don’t just drill a hole in the ground, and oil comes out.

Oil companies lease all the land they can, and then they begin the lengthy phase of doing geological studies and drilling test wells. Most of the ground comes up empty. Other ground has oil, but not in enough quantities to produce profitably.

The areas that most definitely DO produce are off-limits because of Democrat’s actions. The off-shore areas – overwhelmingly off-limits to drilling because of Democrats in Congress – are KNOWN to be the most productive of all.

And even those leased areas that WOULD actually produce oil all-too frequently tend to become off-limits to oil companies because of the actions of liberal groups such as environmentalists. To cite merely one case among many, the sage grouse is definitely more important to liberals than the fact that your family will suffer over high oil prices. This is an area that most definitely produces oil, and which is located in such a way that it will prevent drilling throughout the region.

As one other fact that Democrats and their media lackeys tend to conveniently ignore, some of that “68 million acres” we keep hearing about are actually being worked by the oil companies. The term “production” applies to sites that are actually producing oil right now, irregardless of the fact that oil companies have invested millions there, and are working toward production.

8) The excessive profits and price gouging of oil companies is to blame for high oil prices.

Well, oil trades at a world price, not one set by American oil companies. The fact is that U.S. oil has lost considerable influence to both OPEC and to foreign government oil, and has little influence over the market price of a barrel of oil. The largest American oil company – Exxon Mobil – is only the 14th largest in the world today. Therefore, much of the criticism of American oil is literally just another one symptom of the “blame America first, blame America for everything” ideology of liberals.

Democrats also perform another bait and switch: when they talk about the “obscene profits,” they always talk about the gross profit in total dollars, and never about profit as a percentage of costs. But think about it: if you had a 10% profit with a commodity that sold for $100 a unit, and the cost per unit went up to $200, you’re profit in dollars would double – even though it remained the exact same percentage. Given that virtually every corporation focuses on profits as a percentage of its costs, the oil companies aren’t doing anything that other businesses don’t do and have been doing.

Oil companies make billions of dollars in profit because they have hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and costs. But their profits are actually well within the normative range of corporations in other industries. Oil companies have to continue to make reasonable profits, or else stockholders will withdraw their money and invest in other, more profitable, industries.

The following chart is illustrative of oil company profits relative to other industries:

Do oil companies benefit from sweetheart tax deals, as Democrats constantly claim? Look at the facts and make your own determination:

A study reveals that just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers (65,000,000 people!). Moreover, the tax rate for the bottom 50% of taxpayers is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion in income / $922 billion paid in taxes), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).

So the oil companies – which in the 1990s actually suffered huge losses resulting in major layoffs (and no Democrats wailed about it or demanded hearings then) – are not “price gouging,” are not “making windfall profits,” and are certainly not “benefiting from sweetheart tax subsidies.”

9) Speculators’ have been driving up the price of oil.

The fact is that no one is able to prove that speculation is having ANY effect on oil at all. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but it’s a purely theoretical argument. Most of the so-called “speculators” are companies with commercial fleets and airlines who need to buy oil at the best prices in order to keep their costs down. If they believe that oil is becoming more expensive, what do you think they will do? They will buy oil now to save money later. And that raises the price now. It’s a simple market phenomenon.

I heard a pertinent illustration to the speculation issue: Imagine that the city of Chicago announced a moratorium on any new building. No new building permits. No new construction. What do you think would happen to the price of real estate in Chicago? It would skyrocket. Now, imagine what would happen if you announced a major new construction program in Chicago: do you think that would raise or lower the price of real estate?

We saw something like this in the past two days: oil has dropped dramatically – $15 a barrel – in just two days. And what accompanies that decrease? President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.

The mere lifting of the ban encouraged the market that more supplies could be on the way, and therefore lowered the price of oil today. When more is coming, you don’t have a scarce – and therefore more valuable – resource. When less is coming, the price increases. Everyone understands this except Democrats.

We have the Three Stooges of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama, who have announced that they are determined to pursue a policy that will keep the price of oil shockingly high and leave us vulnerable to foreign price manipulation.

If I were from a country that is hostile to the United States, I would be watching this current version of the Three Stooges and laughing my head off over their ridiculous antics. But I love my country. And I can only mourn the fact that two stooges are in power, and a third may be on the way.

Democrat’s Ideological Stand Against Domestic Oil Terrible for US Economy & Security

According to most sources, oil could soar to as much as $400 a barell (that’s over 2 3/4 TIMES its current price of $144 as of July 2) if Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz.

The problem is that Iran promised the world that it would do precisely that if Israel attempts to attack its nuclear facilities.

An impending Israeli attack is itself a result of the failure of liberalism.  The European Union – in refusing to implement ANY truly tough sanctions against Iran – is forcing Israel’s hand.  Liberals will decry “warlike” Israel, but will be those weak, gutless, spineless liberals who refused to stand up against Iran’s nuclear program in a meaningful way that are responsible – NOT Israel.  When (note: not if) Israel strikes Iran, it will be doing so as an act of sheer survival against a country which has for years promised to wipe Israel off the map as soon as it possessed the means to do so.

Genuinely tough UN sanctions, combined with a united international stand against Iran being allowed to even come close to developing nuclear weapons, would have very likely had a good chance of success.  But the liberal/socialist world never learns.  We are repeating the failures that led up to the Iraq invasion, during which time rampant UN corruption (the oil for food program) and corrupt countries (Russia and France) opposed any sanction that would have forced Iraq to truly declare its WMD capabilities.

Teddy Roosevelt said America should speak softly and carry a big stick.  Modern liberals argue that we should throw the stick away altogether and give holier-than-thou lectures.

The primary reason the United States assumed a strong foreign policy stance – and created a powerful military to back up its foreign policy – is because two world wars and millions of American deaths served to demonstrate the fact that enemy tyrants will make us pay dearly for being weak in the face of threats against us.  Yet American liberals look longingly at the demilitarized socialist states of Europe, and at their laissez faire attitude toward despicable and vicious regimes, and they want to pursue a similar  approach in the United States.  The fact remains, however, that it was the strength and resolve of American power that permitted the Europeans to be free to embrace their new attitudes – first from the Nazi conquest and then from Communist expansion.

But let us put this gargantuan failure of liberal foreign policy aside and instead focus on another issue which is more important to most Americans (although certainly not to Israelis facing a new Holocaust at Iranian hands): the shockingly high prices that will most assuredly ensue when Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear sites.

About half the world’s oil supply flows through the Strait of Hormuz.  It is about 25 miles wide, and provides Iran with a easy choke point to stop the oil flow.

A Jun. 11, 2008 Time Magazine story titled, “How Iran Has Bush Over a Barrel” puts the U.S.’s dilemma thusly:

If wasn’t crystal clear before it certainly should be by now: the Bush Administration can’t afford to attack Iran, even if it finds it necessary to do so for the sake of preventing the very real probability of World War III. With gas already at $4 a gallon and rising almost every day, Iran figuratively and literally has the United States over a barrel. As much as the Administration is tempted, it is not about to test Iran’s promise to “explode” the Middle East if it is attacked.

The Iranians haven’t been shy about making clear what’s at stake. If the U.S. or Israel so much as drops a bomb on one of its reactors or its military training camps, Iran will shut down Gulf oil exports by launching a barrage of Chinese Silkworm missiles on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and Arab oil facilities. In the worst case scenario, seventeen million barrels of oil would come off world markets.

One oil speculator told me that oil would hit $200 a barrel within minutes. But Iran’s official news agency, Fars, puts it at $300 a barrel. I asked him if Iran is right, what does that mean?

“Four-dollar-a-gallon of gasoline only reflects $100 oil because the refiners’ margins are squeezed,” he said. “At $300, you have $12 a gallon of gasoline and riots in Newark, Los Angeles, Harlem, Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas.”

But it didn’t have to be this way – even given gutless socialist Europe’s abject refusal to provide any real deterrant that would have made Iran think twice about continuing its nuclear ambitions.

Had Democrats allowed the United States to utilize its own massive oil resources, the United States would have been almost completely immune from this looming crisis.  For information on the Democrat’s culpability in refusing to take advantage of our own energy independence, read my article available here.

The United States is literally sitting on about 170 billion barrels of oil, according to the Geological Survey and Congressional Research Service.

One of our best [short-term] prospects is Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which geologists say contains billions [the official estimate is 15.6 billion] of barrels of recoverable oil. If President Clinton hadn’t bowed to Wilderness Society demands and vetoed 1995 [Republican-sponsored and supported] legislation, we’d be producing a million barrels a day from ANWR right now. That’s equal to US imports from Saudi Arabia, at $50 billion annually.

Instead, we are currently paying over $4.00 for a gallon of gas, and we are staring into the terrifying prospect of having to pay $12 for that gallon in the near future.

One day, untold years into the future, archaeologists and anthropologists will come to realize that political liberalism invariably resulted in the suicide of nations and of Western civilization in the 20th and 21st centuries.  But tragically, that day of realization has not yet arrived.  And so the United States trudges along on the same path once taken by the Dodo bird.

The dodo bird will be less responsible for its downfall than the United States.  The dodo bird needed something for survival it didn’t have.  The United states, by contrast, refused to use what it actually had in its possession even when it needed it.

Even if the United States and the world manages to dodge the looming confrontation between Israel and Iran, the price of international oil will continue to go up, and it will continue to be subject to one crisis after another as it is produced in and passes through the world’s most chaos-prone nations.  Oil will become more and more scarce as China, India, and the developing world continue to gobble it up.  And the price of gasoline will contine to rise.

And the dramatic rise of the price of gasoline does not just affect our travel plans.  It is directly tied in with our national productivity and our economy.

In a AP story titled, “It’s official: The market is in bear territory: Stocks drop after oil hits new high, concerns that GM could run out of cash,” it was reported that:

NEW YORK – Wall Street resumed its sell-off Wednesday after oil hit a new record and a bearish analyst report renewed concerns that General Motors Corp. could run out of cash.

The stock market’s pullback, which accelerated in the final hours of the week’s last full trading session, left the Dow Jones industrial average officially in bear market territory, with the blue chips having fallen more than 20 percent from their October highs.

Oil surged to new records above $144 a barrel as the government reported a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. supplies and as investors worried about tensions in the Middle East.

The July 1 DOW figures and analysis about those figures demonstrated how market performance was exactly proportional to the rise of the price of oil.  Oil is the grease that lubes our entire market structure.  More expensive oil makes virtually every product more expensive even as it cuts down on American’s individual purchasing power.

And the Demcorats have for decades now resisted any effort to produce a stable long-term source of domestic oil.  Even in the aftermath of the OPEC embargo that ravaged our economy in the 1970s, Democrats have refused to allow the United States to separate itself from OPEC and other foreign oil.

Hopefully, Americans will recognize the threat that Democrats are to our economy, our security, and our way of life this November.  If not, I can guarantee you that America will continue to suffer the consequences of rising fuel prices until it comes to its senses and elects enough Republicans to overturn the irrational Democrat-implemented drilling bans.

I only hope that we come to that moment of national lucidity before the next crisis strangles our weakening economy.  If we do not act to ensure a stable domestic energy supply in the very near future, we may well find ourselves quickly bleeding to death and desperately needing a transfusion that will not come in time to save us.

Democrats Block US Energy Independence, Send Gas Prices Soaring

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said:

“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

Watch it on Youtube if prefer seeing your idiots in living color.

Well, how about if YOU stop, Harry. And tell all your fellow liberals and Democrts to stop right along with you. The rest of us realize that we need the stuff, and that we will continue to need it for decades to come.

Let us not forget to point out that Barack Obama has the same stupid and self-defeating ideas about energy.

So it’s not coal and oil that we’re sick of, Harry. We’re sick of you and your irrational and self-defeating energy policies. Coal and oil is what made our country great; it’s what our economy has been – and continues to be – based upon. It’s what we will continue to need in order to continue to improve our way of life.

Stop and think about it: Route 66; the interstate system; distant communities interconnected by vast stretches of freeways and roads. Our entire way of life has been based upon the mobility that oil has provided. We can’t just get rid of oil and keep right on truckin’. The Democrat’s vision will create enormous adjustment and enormous pain for Americans.

At some point, we will clearly need to transition to another dominant source of energy. But there is simply no way that we will be ready to make that transition any time soon. To refuse to allow our vast domestic oil supplies to be utilized by citing theoretical alternatives is foolish beyond crazy.

While a few R.I.N.O. (Republican In Name Only) politicians (I like the term “Stockholm Syndrome Republicans”) have embraced global warming alarmism and environmentalist bans on drilling, the simple fact of the matter is that it was Bill Clinton who vetoed taking advantage of our oil reserves over a Republican effort to expand our supplies, and it has overwhelmingly been Democrats who have thwarted every effort both to increase oil drilling and oil refining every since.

The result is that we have been deliberately left completely vulnerable to just the kind of sky-high prices that we are seeing now.

Democrats argue that drilling is pointless because it won’t produce any results for 10 years. But that is insane. Number one, only a fool doesn’t plan for the future. Number two, had Bill Clinton allowed us to drill in the 90’s we wouldn’t be where we are now. And number three, oil drillers say that they could be getting substantial oil out of the ground within one year; and even the most technically difficult sites wouldn’t take longer than six years to harvest.

Democrats argue that they have provided oil companies with leases giving them access to millions of acres for exploration. But these leases weren’t granted on the basis of geologists’ studies (that these are the best locations for oil); but rather on the basis of “junk” land that doesn’t have any political (and likely not any energy) value. It’s the equivalent of the U.S. Government putting the Indians on the crappiest land in the country and then saying, “There: we’ve given you plenty of land.” The reality is that 92% of our offshore reserves and most of the state and federal lands are off limits to oil companies.The outer continental shelf – which contains the best known sources of oil – are completely off limits to the American oil companies, even as Chinese rigs are going up in those very same oil fields!!!

An Associated Press story titled, “Much of oil, gas off limits” says:

WASHINGTON — About half the oil and more than a quarter of the natural gas beneath 99 million acres of federal land is off-limits to drilling, the Bush administration says in a report that industry sought to highlight environmental and other hurdles to development.

Just 3 percent of the oil and 13 percent of the gas under federal land is accessible under standard lease terms that require only basic protections for the environment and cultural resources, according to the survey, which was ordered last year by Congress.

An additional 46 percent of the oil and 60 percent of the gas “may be developed subject to additional restrictions” such as bans to protect winter rangeland for foraging antelope, nesting areas for bald eagles and jagged slopes from erosion during parts of the year.

The revised inventory, released Tuesday by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, is starkly different from a study done three years ago. That version, which covered 59 million acres in the Rocky Mountains, estimated more than 80 percent of oil and gas was accessible, although in some cases subject to restrictions. Environmentalists often cited that figure in arguing that a wealth of energy resources is available for developing without going into pristine areas now off limits.

And, the actual fact of the matter is that the oil companies are routinely unable to drill even in those leased areas that the Democrats deceitfully claim that they have available to them. There are plenty of stories like this out there:

Billings, Mont. (AP) – Two conservation groups have asked the federal government to impose new restrictions on oil and gas development in the West to protect the greater sage grouse, a popular game bird on the decline.

Scientists contend sage grouse breeding areas are suffering in the face of accelerating oil and gas exploration in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and other Western states.

West Nile virus, drought and residential development also have taken a toll on the bird, which is being considered for the endangered species list.

Federal rules now say oil and gas companies cannot drill within quarter of a mile of sage grouse breeding areas. Last week, Idaho-based North American Grouse Partnership and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership of Washington, D.C., filed a legal petition asking for the rule be extended to two miles.

I don’t apologize for caring more about my family and friends than I do about some rare species of bird. Frankly, Democrats should be apologizing to the American people for caring more about a few birds than they do about them.

Again and again, Democrats, Democrat-controlled government bureaucracies, and their left-wing allies in the “environmentalist” and “litigation” communities have blocked oil companies from doing anything. The result is years of lawsuits and court proceedings, red tape, delay, and other excessive costs that make such projects unfeasible.

There’s an old joke about a modern-day Noah trying to build an ark in today’s liberal political environment. It certainly has the pro-bureaucracy, anti-business policies that characterize the Democratic Party in mind.

Democrats routinely use environmental groups’ minimized estimates as to how much oil is actually in a given field. The oil companies believe there is much more available in those fields; that’s why they want to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to start getting that oil out of the ground. Think about it: Democrats routinely say that there isn’t very much oil in places like ANWR, and that oil companies don’t want to drill anyway. If that were even remotely true, then why are the Democrats repeatedly preventing oil companies from drilling by force of law? If the Democrats are anything other than lying demagogues, allow the oil companies to drill where they believe the oil is without the massive bureaucratic hassles; and if they don’t drill and increase our oil suppolies, the Democrats could say, “See, we were right.”

“Proven reserves” are resources that drilling has confirmed exist and can be produced with current technology and prices. By imposing bans on leasing, and encouraging environmentalists to challenge seismic and drilling permits on existing leases, politicians ensure that we will never increase our proven reserves. In fact, reserves will decrease, as we deplete existing deposits and don’t replace them. The rhetoric is clever – but disingenuous, fraudulent and harmful.

They have repeatedly argued that opening up ANWR would do virtually nothing to alleviate the price of gasoline. But Democratic Senators have called upon the Saudis to increase production by amounts that would be less – even according to ridiculously low liberal estimates – than the amount of daily oil flow that ANWR would generate.

The Geological Survey and Congressional Research Service say it’s 95% likely that there are 15.6 billion barrels of oil beneath ANWR. And we could add to that an estimated 169 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf, Rockies, Great Lakes, Southwest and ANWR – as well as natural gas, coal, uranium and hydroelectric resources that are currently off limits because of Democratic activism.

One of our best prospects is Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which geologists say contains billions of barrels of recoverable oil. If President Clinton hadn’t bowed to Wilderness Society demands and vetoed 1995 legislation, we’d be producing a million barrels a day from ANWR right now. That’s equal to US imports from Saudi Arabia, at $50 billion annually.

Mexico has increased its oil production 64 percent since 1980. Canada’s production has increased 85 percent. If we’d increased production at the rate of our North American neighbors, we’d be producing 91 percent of our current consumption, noted National Review’s Noel Sheppard.

Democrats routinely demonize oil companies for their “excessive” and “windfall” profits. But – as usual – they merely prove what hypocrites and demogogues they truly are. Look at the revelations from The Hill:

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who calls for “windfall profit taxes on big oil,” has some $200,000 in oil holdings with Exxon and BP. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who publicly says that oil companies are guilty of “price fixing,” has some $350,000 in oil holdings with Exxon and BP. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tx) – who speaks of “unjustifiable tax breaks for big oil” has $350,000 in Exxon Mobil and Chevron holdings. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) who claims oil companies are “gouging” has $200,000 in holdings with Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Schlumberger. These Democrats are privately profiting from the very companies they publicly claim are so terrible. What hypocrites!

And they falsely demonize oil profits in the way of the classic demagogue. The reality is that the oil companies invest FAR more than they retain in profits; and the reality is that their profits are actually quite modest given the sheer massiveness of their operations.

Investor’s Business Daily says the following:

Yes, oil companies make money. But they spend more than they make on finding new sources of oil. A new Ernst & Young study shows the five major oil companies had $765 billion of new investment from 1992 to 2006 compared with net income of $662 billion.

Over the same stretch, the industry — which includes 57 of the largest U.S. oil and natural gas companies — had new investments of $1.25 trillion compared with a net income of $900 billion and a cash flow of $1.77 trillion.

This is an industry that has redefined innovation, reinvesting profits to find innovative ways to recover oil and gas wherever they find it. This includes fields once considered “dead,” vast tracts miles beneath the ocean surface, and sands or even shale in North Dakota.

Democrats talk about the need to conserve oil and use alternative energies instead. But do the American people truly want to drastically and dramatically change their way of life when the clear alternative of domestic oil production is readily available? Even the most radical environmentalist activists such as Al Gore clearly don’t want to make such a transition in their own personal lives: Gore has routinely been faulted for his own shockingly high rate of energy consumption. And as I see drivers routinely whiz by me on the freeway, I realize that few Americans are determined to make the kinds of painful sacrifices that Democratic strategies call upon them to make.

Furthermore, there is little evidence that such sacrifice will amount to anything. With China, India, and much of the rest of the developing world increasing its oil consumption, all the “global warming” hyperbole justifying the deliberate restriction of US energy consumption (and therefore economic production) will be “much ado, signifying nothing.” If China and India use the oil we would have used – which by all accounts is exactly what is happening and will continue to happen – then what is the net climate gain?

As a further point revealing the absurdity of Democrats’ claims that we must not drill for oil lest we contaminate the environment and increase global warming, just what do you think is going on in the Middle East? When they increase their production to meet our energy needs (at a massive profit), are they not contaminating the environment and increasing global warming even more than we would, given our higher level of technology and environmental regulations?

Democrats are currently hollering and screaming about speculators artificially driving up the price of gas. But let us consider this:

NEW YORK — Oil prices rose Monday on disappointment over Saudi Arabia’s modest production increase and concerns that output from Nigeria will decline. Retail gas prices, meanwhile, inched lower overnight, but appear unlikely to change much as long as oil prices stay in a trading range.

Saudi Arabia said Sunday at a meeting of oil producing and consuming nations that it would turn out more crude oil this year if the market needs it. The kingdom said it would add 200,000 barrels per day in July to a 300,000 barrel per day production increase it first announced in May, raising total daily output to 9.7 million barrels.

But that pledge at the meeting held in the Saudi city of Jeddah fell far short of U.S. hopes for a larger increase. The United States and other nations argue that oil production has not kept up with increasing demand, especially from China, India and the Middle East.

The fact that the price of oil goes UP when the supply goes DOWN ought to tell you something about what is truly driving the shocking price increases: supply and demand.

As we see the volatility of oil prices, and as we see that threats in the Middle East, or in unstable regimes such as Nigeria, send our prices through one roof after another, thinking, rational people must surely come to realize that there is an urgent, long-term strategic need for American to have it’s own stable domestic oil supply.

And one political party – the Democrats – are clearly standing in the way of that critical strategic goal. Our survival depends upon energy independence. But Democrats are literally STANDING on our ability to provide that independence.