Congress Cannot Deflect The Blame

IBD Editorials ^ | June 18, 2008

[Kaslin]

Energy: First, Democrats dishonestly blamed oil companies for overcharging. Now they falsely accuse them of keeping their high-priced oil off the market. With public support for drilling growing, Congress is panicked.

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In this presidential election year, the Democrats really do seem to think they can fool most of the people all of the time. Gasoline prices have reached well over $4 in much of the country, but instead of fulfilling the duties given to them by the voters in 2006 and allowing access to more domestic sources of oil and gas, Democrats have thrown a new headline-grabbing smear at Big Oil.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi complains that energy firms are "sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they've already leased," but with which they are not producing oil and gas.

That same Democratic Party talking point was served up by Sen. Russ Feingold. He asked oil executives at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month "to explain why their companies are only developing 12 (million) of the 42 million acres of federal lands that they are leasing" and "only developing 8 (million) of the 38 million acres of offshore leased areas."

According to Feingold, "the executives could not come up with a good explanation."

In fact, they did — it's the fault of Feingold, Pelosi, would-be president Barack Obama and every other member of Congress whose environmental extremism has prevented the oil industry from finding and extracting America's own supplies.

[ImpBill]

I am with you. Clean out both houses of congress.

[ImpBill]

Precisely!

[ImpBill]

Thank you for bringing up the 60%.

Wasn't one of the current candidates for President, a Republican who along with 13 other Senators, including a number of Republicans, responsible for making sure that neither party would have to go back to the old rule on filibusters?

If a Senator or group of Senators want to filibuster something they should be required to stand on their feet for hours and hours, day in and day out, stopping all other business. Then and only then will cloture votes be able to happen.

But both parties, especially since the age of televised congressional sessions, don't want to be as seen as obstructionist by the public they so often fool.

Like I said my friend, in "my" opinion, Republican/Democrat, a pox on both their houses.

George Washington warned us quite specifically about making allegiances with political parties. All the reasons he stated in his plea to get us not to do so are coming true in spades.

Nothing personal, as we all have the right and responsibility to make our own choices and I don't diminish anyone else's choices, but I am done supporting candidates that are "not as bad as the other".

[quant5]

Beyond retards and into neurotic self-serving, treasonous behavior. Senators know that 60 million acres of land that don’t contain oil means it don’t contain oil. Even a pea brain like me knows there isn’t a level plain of oil floating on top of those 60 million acres.

[quant5]

The President is doing a nice job for the party. A double win for the President to slam them over the head for years of inaction and focus on destroying the man’s credibility in serving the nation. Now the American people get to really understand who cared about the people and who didn’t. Have fun with you ‘bush lied people died’ crap Dems. Dems are going after healthcare as well in such a fashion which meaning no new drugs and yes, people will die because of this. The neurosis runs deep.

[quant5]

“I sat next to an Oil Industry Engineer on a flight from Boise to Denver back in 2002 and he explained that the oil companies had plenty of leases for oil and natural gas, but every time they tried to drill for them some freaking environmental group would take them to court gaining an injunction keeping them from using the leases granted by the Federal Government. He was so fed up with it he was quitting the industry and on his way back to Colorado to finish selling his home moving back to Idaho. He stated it was one of the few states left that you he called a working state because you could actually use the natural resources. I wonder what San Fran Nan and her Soros backed tree hugging liberal minions would have to say if somebody hit them in the face with this little fact?”

They would say that the right legal precedence had not been established. By the time the legal precedence is established to use the land, a new legal precedence to not be able to drill would be slipped into some other bill such as an agriculture bill. Repeat as necessary. Washington is 2/3rd’s lawyers these days. no surprise this Dem lead government talks of suing OPEC. What’s 2000 lawyers chained to the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Thing is, this message has to be boiled down for the two-functioning-neuron crowd, and the error would be diffusing the message.....as your post does in your reply to me. I can understand well what you wrote and I agree, but for public consumption this message has to be distilled down into a zone of inescapability. Pres. Bush has laid the foundation, but this has to be hammered on. Or IMO it won’t work.

[quant5]

I have to agree. The entire party has to unify quickly, formulate game plan and educate the public before Nov. The Republicans are heopfully preparing like the New York Giants prepared against the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl. The Dems have just fumbled the ball on the 1 yard line, just thinking this is a one trick pony they can weasel out of. Being so disconnected to the American public on conservative issues was something the Republicans learned the hard way in 2006. Now it’s time for Republicans to use the same tactics on the Dems, the ‘people’s party’.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Yes, yes, and yes.

The conservative stance of “don’t [make rules that] get in the way of progress and growth” can now be morphed into a much more populist issue of “see how these failed policies whack that wallet of yours?” If done right, this really has the potential to be a nice coup, to hijack the Dems “we’re for the little guy, the common man” chant. There is a lot of meat on this bone. Obama wants to bring back a squad of Clinton-era liberals, all of whom worked to defeat any efforts to exploit our oil/energy resources....under the cloak of “newness” of course. And look where their wisdom got us. And while one party is trying to do something about high oil, another wants to seize refineries and hold hearings on steroids. Suddenly, with this issue, there are crystal clear differences between the parties that cannot be left unexploited. And, it’s even more stark than Iraq, because the electorate is way tired of Iraq; but while every congressman/woman was in favor of Iraq, with few exceptions, the dialog has moved into blame shifting and rewriting history. And it is an effort that is going to achieve whatever it achieves long past the tenure of BushCo. This oil thing has immediacy.

And your choice of the phrase “game plan” is interestingly dead on: I myself have little interest in sports, but I believe that sports are so very popular in large part because they offer a clear resolution at the end. Iraq lacks this. Oil prices have it. This issue just has to be dug into and exploited, because it so broadly attacks the folly of the whole Dem/liberal outlook of “we know better”.

[quant5]

Yeah, it’s a brontosorous steak. The Republicans should now be pulling voting records on Obama on energy bills. How many nays for Obama on drilling, nuclear power, yays on federal land lease restrictions? Clinton was the evil master of using legal precedences in this regard to provide favors for one group over another and make himself very rich with inside information in the process. Does Obama hold positions on energy stocks? Is he going long? Inquiring minds want to know... Add Obama to this little party as he is the nominee or de facto public spokesperson of the Democratic party. He should be questioned daily on his energy plans for America.

[rurgan]

You do need a super majority of 60% to do anything in the Senate. Why is that bad ?Gridlock is good. If we would have had gridlock since 1900 then we wouldn’t have the huge government we have now.

I have looked at the actual votes on many bills and Republicans in Congress do vote at close to 90% for conservative principles like limiting government, lowering taxes, stopping Amnesty, against McCain-Feingold.

Life isn’t perfect. 90% of Republicans are much better than the democrats. To not support a GOP whose members vote 90% the RIGHT way is insane imo. 90% vote the way I want them to for limiting government , lowering taxes ,against Amnesty, to support the military, etc. What’s wrong with that? What else do you want them to do? Republicans only had a 51% majority so they COULDN’T do AS MUCH as conservatives wanted because they didn’t have the 60% super majority requirement of the Senate.

No one said life was perfect or that life was even fair. To blame every Republican for the 10% -15% of Republicans that are liberal/Marxists like McCain, Lugar, Snowe, Collins, et al, is wrong. Michael savage , the liberal media and you and those like you that also are brainwashed do blame the whole GOP for the 10%-15% liberal RINO Republicans. What you and Michael Savage and the meida are doing is deception and propagandizing which only helps the Democrats/Marxists get a real super majority. I hope you enjoy breadlines as your only source of food because that’s what socialism always brings. And the U.S. will be a socialist state if the Democrats get a super majority with one of those 2 Marxists as president McCain or Obama.

You think a 3 trillion dollar annual federal budget is good? Government doesn’t work . And those “evil” corporations and the “rich” that government is taking that 3 trillion from could better put that 3 trillion dollars per year to better use like for example drill more oil wells, advance technology, create jobs etc.