Free Republic

Over the past 28 years there has been a sea change in the media. Not only has the monopoly of the so-called mainstream media been shattered but the phenomenal rise of conservative media has been truly stunning. It began in 1988 with the national syndication of Rush Limbaugh and his distinctive brand of conservative political commentary espoused in an entertaining and captivating way, which opened the flood gates for other conservatives, together with Rush, to dominate the talk radio airwaves. In the 1990’s the internet, through hundreds of websites, gave voice to journalists to report stories either ignored or downplayed...

Gasbuddy.com says several stations in Houghton Lake, Michigan have lowered their prices under $1 per gallon, in what appears to be a price war. According to GasBuddy it appears these stations are currently the first stations in the country to see prices under $1 per gallon in years. As the situation unfolds, it's possible these stations re-raise prices back over $1/gallon. 78 cents per gallon was recorded at Beacon & Bridge Market while 95 cents per gallon was recorded at the Marathon in Houghton Lake. Prices were verified by GasBuddy after a review of photographs uploaded to GasBuddy's app.

President Barack Obama signaled in his final State of the Union address Tuesday night that fossil fuel companies could face higher charges when mining on federal lands. Obama said that he's going to push to change the way the federal government manages its oil and coal resources to better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and the planet.

Mary Kay Henry, the head of the Service Employees International Union is very nervous about the amount of popularity GOP front-runner Donald Trump has garnered. She recently said her organization is going into "hyperdrive" to stand up against Trump, because she saw him as a real threat. Henry was interviewed by David Axelrod for his podcast, "The Axe Files" on Thursday, when she admitted that her organization was worried about what Donald Trump was stirring up in the SEIU's 2.1 million members. She was worried because she believed Trump has the ability to win the White House in November. During...

Texas shale gas is setting sail for Europe. Cheniere Energy has begun liquefying natural gas at its Sabine Pass terminal on the Texas-Louisiana border. The gas will be loaded onto a ship scheduled to travel overseas later this month. That's welcome news for Texas and U.S. gas producers. A glut of shale gas has depressed prices in the domestic market. Slower growth in China and South Korea have clouded prospects for LNG shipments from Alaska to Asia. That leaves Europe, where demand for natural gas remains strong -- and prices are much higher. Getting the gas there is the challenge....

If you read Stephen Moore's column, he noted how the consensus over oil is wrong. We're not running out of oil. In fact, many have been saying we're going to run out since the 1930s: These stupid predictions of the end of oil have been going on for most of the last century. Just over 100 years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated total future production at 6 billion barrels, yet we've produced more than 20times that amount. In 1939 the Department of the Interior predicted U.S. oil supplies would last 13 years. I could go on. […] The...

It would be hard to find anyone in all of America who has been more wrong on the American energy story than Barack Obama. Oil prices have fallen from $105 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to hovering at $35 a barrel today. That's a two-thirds reduction in the price, and the biggest factor is shale oil brought to you by fracking. In many areas of the country gas is now less than $2 a gallon, and it could fall further in the weeks ahead. The falling price means, of course, an expanded supply. But now listen to Obama,...

<p>The American people will have to absorb higher deficits, greater debt, less economic liberty and more corporate welfare. Congress cannot seem to help itself in bending to every whim of special interests. How can they face their constituents when they continue to burden our children and grandchildren with debts they will never be able to repay? Our government is failing us, so we must do something about it. Who knows how bad things will be when the next administration comes in and has to pick up the pieces?</p>

The other lesson from history is that oil prices, like other commodity prices, are inherently volatile. Volatility is not some accidental attribute of commodity markets, it is their defining characteristic. Prices have been unstable since the beginning of the modern oil industry when Edwin Drake drilled his first successful well in Pennsylvania in 1859. (http://tmsnrt.rs/1O6JytM) Writing less than 20 years later, one of the first historians of oil observed: "Petroleum had no certain value, no determinate value. The fact that it sold for 50 and 25 cents per gallon proves nothing. It sold for that in 1859 but the first...

nergy expert Dr. Daniel Fine, left, in March predicted the current low gasoline prices. Pictured with Fine during a meeting in Roswell in March are local oil men Rory McMinn of Reed & Stevens, center, and Bob Armstrong of Armstrong Energy Corp. (Jeff Tucker Photo) An energy expert’s prediction in March that gasoline prices in New Mexico would dip to $1.65 a gallon has been proven true.' Dr. Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, said at a landmen’s association’s meeting in Roswell in March that gasoline...

Ted Cruz is under attack. The Texas senator's rise in Iowa presidential surveys has attracted criticism from all sides. America's Renewable Future, a bipartisan political group with the support of ethanol and agricultural industry workers, unleashed new digital and radio ads attacking Cruz in Iowa. The senator's opposition to ethanol mandates has drawn the ire of ARF, whose ads claim that Cruz's policy proposals "threaten rural Iowa and thousands of jobs." "Politicians like Ted Cruz are the worst kind: Hypocrites," the ad says. "There are millions of reasons Ted Cruz supports Big Oil instead of Iowa farmers. Call politician Ted...

Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue to run for some time, as technology and new discoveries show that there's still an ocean of oil under our feet. [snip] A BP official told the magazine that "energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared." Things are so good, in fact, that Engineering and Technology says "with the use of the innovative...

Governor Palin weighs in on Obama’s failed ISIS strategy: OBAMA’S IMPOTENCE; WHY HE CAN’T "DRILL, BABY, DRILL" Obama destroys our own oil development and pipeline proposals (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/24/obama-keystone-veto/23879735/), and vows to bankrupt our American-made energy industry (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/11/02/hidden-audio-obama-tells-sf-chronicle-he-will-bankrupt-coal-industry), but is impotent against a crazy Muslim cult’s crude wealth-generating oil infrastructure. Memo to Obama: you could destroy ISIS in a heartbeat if you wanted to. These desert rats aren’t running a covert oil operation – their rigs, pump stations, gathering centers, separation facilities, pipelines, value-added refineries, trucks and transportation corridors are right there under your nose. Bomb them. Let the United States Military do...

Activists trying to stop Shell’s offshore oil drilling in the U.S.’s Arctic Ocean region invoke the interests of native Alaskans. “These communities depend on this environment for food and resources and have stewarded it for centuries,” Greenpeace says, as part of its “The People vs. Shell” campaign—what the group describes as possibly “the most important fight in environmental history.” A lot of native Alaskans, including many who live along the state’s North Slope, would prefer that Greenpeace mind its own business.

Hundreds of people in kayaks and small boats have staged a protest in the north-western US port city of Seattle against oil drilling in the Arctic by the Shell energy giant. Paddle in Seattle was held by activists who said the firm's drilling would damage the environment. It comes after the first of Shell's two massive oil rigs arrived at the port. The firm wants to move them in the coming months to explore for oil off Alaska's northern coast. Earlier this week, Shell won conditional approval from the US Department of Interior for oil exploration in the Arctic. The...

The arrival in Seattle Thursday of an oil rig Royal Dutch Shell is outfitting for oil exploration in the remote Arctic Ocean marks a pivotal moment for an environmental movement increasingly mobilized around climate change. Activists paddling out in kayaks to meet the rig off Seattle's picturesque waterfront said it's their moment to stand against opening a new frontier of fossil fuel exploration. "Unless people get out there and put themselves on the front lines and say enough is enough, than nothing will ever change," said Jordan Van Voast, 55, an acupuncturist who was going out on the water to...

CERAWEEK-U.S. fracking costs falling fast, may keep fields in play HOUSTON, April 22     (Reuters) - U.S. oil and natural gas companies have pushed down costs of fracking a shale well faster than expected, and if the trend holds up it could allow producers to keep working in oilfields that just months ago looked uncompetitive after the oil price crash.A more than 50 percent fall in the price of crude oil since June has left oil and gas producers insisting on steep price cuts from oilfield service companies that provide everything from drilling rigs to hydraulic fracturing.Oil is trading...

Exploration firm U.K. Oil & Gas Investments said Thursday there may be up to 100 billion barrels of oil at an onshore site in south England, near Gatwick airport, a company spokesperson told CNN. That's more than double the amount of oil pumped from Britain's energy offshore North Sea fields in the past 40 years. The company's share of the total reserves are estimated at close to 9 billion barrels. UKOG chief executive Stephen Sanderson described the discovery as a "world class potential resource."

Get ready for the White House to ignore their own science experts again. The Department of Energy commissioned a study by the National Petroleum Council which was meant to help determine our long range energy strategy. Their conclusion? We need to head on up to the Arctic basin and drill baby drill.