Filed under: Conservatism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2008, Energy, Environment, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics | Tags: Democrat lies, Drilling, Gas Prices, Liberal lies, oil, President Bush
Contrary to Barack Obama’s and Democrats’ mantra that “we can’t drill our way out” of high gas prices, one day after President Bush announced that he was rescinding the executive order that prohibited drilling off America’s coasts, the price of oil experienced its biggest decline in 17 years, at one point plummeting more than $10 off the day’s high to settle $6.44 lower.
And that’s with the full knowledge that no drilling can begin until congress also lifts restrictions. Imagine how much the price will decline when that happens, let alone when oil starts flowing.
Nancy Pelosi accidentally conceded last week that Republicans have been right all along when she demanded the president open the strategic oil reserves to reduce the price of oil. An unwitting admission that increasing supply lowers cost.
Democrats: wrong on oil, wrong on energy, wrong on the economy. Pay close enough attention and you’ll soon discover that Democrats are wrong on almost everything.
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American Elephants 
huh, why is it that T. Boone Pickens, who helped fund the Swiftboat Veterans & made millions in the oil industry tells us differently? Is he a disgruntled oil executive who isn’t making a huge profit right now? He must be one of those Democratic Marxists right? Pickens Plan
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Comment by Hans July 15, 2008 @ 2:35 pmThere are dozens of “experts” out there, all of whom are telling us of their ideas on energy. Another says the problem with wind is that it doesn’t blow where we need it, it doesn’t blow when we need it, and it doesn’t blow steadily enough. It requires constant backup from the power grid because you can’t just order up more wind when you need more power.
There aren’t many suitable sites, and many of those where the wind blows enough are in protected places like the Columbia River Gorge. The equipment is large, expensive, and a real eyesore. T. Boone Pickens says he won’t allow any windmills on his ranch because they’re ugly. He believes in the potential of wind, but others who understand the physics do not. I don’t see anything “Marxist” about that. He also oferred $1 million to anyone who could disprove anything the Swift Boat veterans said, which nobody has claimed.
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Comment by The Elephant's Child July 15, 2008 @ 4:18 pmActually, Pickens IS calling for domestic drilling.
And while conservatives support increasing energy derived from wind power, there are a great many major problems with Pickens’ plan, not the least of which is the fact that there are 250,000,000 gasoline powered vehicles on the road. All the natural gas in the world won’t move them one inch. Nor does the infrastructure for Pickens’ plan exist. There are virtually zero natural gas service stations, the wind farms he’s calling for don’t currently exist, and even if they did, an entire new electrical infrastructure would have to be built at the cost of hundreds of billions or more.
Pickens states that the world has reached peak oil production, a belief that is hard to square with the trillions of barrels of oil that haven’t even been tapped yet. The only way this statement is possibly true is if we assume that he is talking about production from currently active oilfields and none from untapped reserves. Which is why he argues that we should drill, not that we shouldn’t.
It is also instructive to note how dismissive Pickens is of nuclear energy in favor of wind-power. It is no coincidence that Pickens has invested heavily in wind farms, which can be run by private energy companies, but nuclear plants are owned and run by the government.
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Comment by American Elephant July 15, 2008 @ 6:07 pmI have my skepticism of his plan to be honest around where all the natural gas freed up will go to. I have a sneaking suspicion it will be used for oil recover in tar sands, but that is another story all together.
I note some discrepancy in your argument AE, as you state electric will not run cars (true enough at this current time, although European nations are shooting towards implementing electric &/or hybrids with batteries to be connected to the grid that can be used to store the electricity then drawn off of when they are not in use on a massive scale, minimizing the problem you mention which coincidentally is the same with Nuclear always on, where does the unused electricity “go” at night when demand drops?) put then you point towards Nuclear as a solution. A solution (part of one anyways) to the oil problem, how so given as you said, cars do not run on electricity?
Also, i beg to differ with the categorical statement that Nukes are owned by government. To the contrary they are if not partially, then mostly owned by private companies, however they are backed by government insurance as no private insurer will cover them. Traditional Privatized Profit, Socialized Risk, as we are seeing with all these bailouts currently happening. Again, another topic, but a contradictory premise of Republican ideology.
I did not know it was Pickens that put out the “reward” although I do know a group of people put together 60+ pages of documentation to disprove it, sent it to him, and well, he chose not to honor his “pledge”. Again another topic, like I said I have skepticism in his motivations.
As to Peak Oil, the same person that modeled and correctly predicted when the Peak would be reached in the US during the 70s, modeled and predicted the same for the world for 2006-2009. That is not to say there are not other reserves out there, but why is it, that no other “superreserves” have not been found for going on decades now, even though drilling has continued if not increased in pace since decades past? why is it that whey OPEC countries were faced with only being allowed to pump a set percentage of their proven reserves, all of a sudden without further exploration or research, all of their “proven” reserved doubled magically without verifiable studies or new exploration finds?
Why you fight PeakOil is really beyond me, it is not that we are out of oil, but rather the scientific concept that we have used up roughly 1/2 of the oil supply on the planet. What the real significance is, centers around the fact that the “cheap, easy to get at oil” has been tapped and largely used up, now the price of oil will increase proportionately (hopefully not exponentially) to the added cost of obtaining those harder to get at barrels. There is still a fair amount of oil, roughly 1/2 of what we started with (although there might be a small amount more than that, even though deep ocean drilling is turning up blanks & much smaller discoveries than desired).
To the eyesore of windmills and other relatively opinionated statements against wind. I live just over the board from at least one of you in Oregon, so no offense, but you should know better than pulling some of the “defacto” facts you post. Trojan Nuclear was privately owned (Portland General Electric) for one, second all that cheap power you used to be getting from Bonneville BPA to all the REAs Rural Electric Associations, well that all disappeared when Bush and company decided the local entities no longer deserved the cheaper power that local sources provided and started shipping it out of state where it got higher prices. Once again, Privatized Profits, Socialized Risk, when our government paid for (taxpayers) hydroplants were in essence privatized in their sale of product and the revenues received.
Finally, those eyesores, that according to you can only go up in the Gorge through subsidized “liberal welfare” (I note that because Republicans are generally A OK with welfare “subsidies” to coal, nuclear and oil energy production, but not renewables), seem to be spreading all over eastern Oregon and SE Washington (tri-cities) and well one of the big ones is Bigelow Canyon which is being built for PGE, a private company. Which if my memory serves me correctly, as I was not in Oregon yet, was raped and more importantly had it’s pension plan screwed by ENRON. So why would a private company, invest in Windpower on the scale it is doing, if the potential for windpower production was not there? So it appears once again your argument against windpower in favor of oil/coal is well missing some serious backing. Also, when those turbines are not going up on federal land (which you and I both equally own, and his idiot Bush just put a moratoreum on for further renewable energy development, seriously WTF is this to prove?!) then those turbines on private land are paying lease rights to farmers and ranches to help them stay in business & provide good old American food (beef) to the nation. Hmm, I don’t see the problems you present as existing. What does oil drilling provide to the backbone of the american countryside and its people, given global demand is increasing regardless of how much we drill (China is adding 1 million new cars per year) so further drilling will not lower prices, not to mention drilling capacity is currently maxed, as per Big Oil CEOs, without enough drill rigs to go around.
even though you may selectively pick out one statement he made and claim it defacto necessity to drill and drill only, please do explain why Bush, when he had a rubberstamp Congress from his inauguration through to 2006 did not lift the offshore drilling ban his dad put in place with the Republican Congress giving him everything he wanted back in 2001? Could it be that all the southern coast states would have lost all their Republican Senators & Congressmen that voted in favor of offshore drilling with those people do not want either, yet now it is politically convenient to blame it on Democrats? They had 6 years to do it and well, I keep hearing if we drill now in 6 years we will be fine from the new oil coming in? Hello! 6 years ago Bush & Republican Congress did nothing, now we are in this “oil mess” yet it is ALL the democrats fault? Serious, faulty logic here.
Well that is enough of this. It truly would be nice if the Republicans could return to their base of true fiscal conservatism, well I wish that wasn’t just a saying that people stupidly believe, given the status of the national debt, but whatever, there are sheep and well there are a lot of sheep out there. Speaking of Americana, “Corporate Welfare, it’s whats for dinner at Republican Households”.
btw the way, I notice the sticker to my right of Bob Hope. Any of you in Minnesota gonna vote for Franken, given he’s been to Iraq & Afghanistan entertaining and supporting the troops more than Bush or Rush “I got a pimple on my ass so I can’t go to Vietnam” Limbaugh through the USO? Just an idea, you know “Actions speak louder than words”! 😉
ps, wow I really can’t believe I did not look for comment, given the “horrendous” eyesore of windmills comment in favor of Nukes by a Washington state writer here, how’s that cleanup happening over at Hanford Nuclear Reservation? How many trillions will we waste studying, planning, building, then doing nothing, to do it all over again in the containment of all the nuclear sludge leaching out of the “containment” vessels into the Columbia River? Once again, Privatized Profit, Socialized Risk, given they most certainly processed uranium precursors in uranium fuel rods for private Nuclear companies.
Sorry to say it, put the Elephants here, seem to be having “Senior Moments” and very selective memory retention and retrieval. Is Ginkobalboa covered in your prescription plan with the Viagra? 😉
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Comment by Hans July 16, 2008 @ 2:29 am[…] No Comments in response to the good Elephants, suffering a “Senior Moment” over at American Elephant Blog who need Ginkobalboa included in their prescription plan with the […]
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Pingback by Drilling, Nuclear & Wind Power in the Pacific Northwest Elephant Habitat « Dichotomous Mediocrity July 16, 2008 @ 2:40 amHans I take it English is not your native language. Your post is very difficult to decipher, but I will try. But given the enormity of your post and the sheer volume of inaccuracies therein, I can’t promise to address them all.
Pickens’ plan is to use natural gas in cars and use wind to make up for the power that natural gas was supplying. The problems with this plan are many and very daunting. We listed them above, so I’m not going to repeat them.
I never said that.
Again, I never said that. But you should know, Pickens plan doesn’t have anything to do with electric cars. He is proposing cars powered by natural gas. The problems with electric cars are many as well. They cant travel very far, they cant be charged quickly, the way you can quickly stop in a gas station and fill up, and switching from 250,000,000 gasoline powered vehicles to 250,000,000 electric vehicles would bring down the price of gas and make electricity unaffordable.
There is nothing about it that contradicts conservative or Republican ideology, conservatives and Republicans believe that infrastructure is one of the proper functions of government.
Oh, he has honored it, your group didn’t prove anything. You should also note that John Kerry himself said he was going to disprove it, but like his promise to release all of his military records, which he still has not done, he seems to have conveniently forgotten about that promise.
lol, thats the problem! they predicted we would reach “peak oil” in the 1970’s and it never happened! I dont know what constitutes a “super” reserve, or where that term comes from, but there continue to be discoveries of enormous, previously unknown reserves all the time. There were just huge finds in Russia and Brazil very recently. The US has enough known, untapped oil reserves to supplant everything we get from the middle east, but Democrats have been blocking it for decades.
Thats not a scientific concept, its speculation. Its what Jimmy Carter said in the 70s, he was wrong then and the same people are wrong now.
no one ever said they can only go up in the gorge, she said there are limited places where there is enough wind to power turbines.
Republicans voted for subsidies for renewables, sorry, you’re just wrong. The Republican plan calls for increasing our supply of ALL energy sources. The Democrats “energy” bill didn’t call for ANY additional energy production of any kind. They oppose oil, oppose coal, oppose natural gas, oppose nuclear, they want to tear down the dams that provide energy to the northwest, and the only congressional opposition to wind power has come from Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Barney Frank. The only thing Democrats seem to favor is biofuel which is the main cause of skyrocketing food prices and the resulting riots and shortages worldwide, and solar and cutting back consumption. That is a formula for economic disaster.
First of all, you keep using the word “defacto” incorrectly. You need to look it up before you use it any more. Secondly, I never said he called for drilling only, the quote makes it quite obvious that he means all of the above.
Sorry, you’re simply flat wrong. Republicans have been trying to pass an energy bill every single year since Bush became president and Democrats have filibustered it. Republicans didn’t have the 60 votes needed to override the filibuster so it died. In fact, Republicans have been trying to increase domestic energy supply since they won control of congress in 1994, but Bill Clinton vetoed it. In fact, Republicans have been trying to increase domestic energy supply for decades but Democrats have always vetoed or filibustered it, and Republicans, unfortunately haven’t had a filibuster or veto-proof majority.
So yes, it is absolutely 100% accurate to say it is entirely Democrats fault. Its not opinion, its fact. One need only look at the congressional record for the proof.
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Comment by American Elephant July 16, 2008 @ 4:25 amAlso, in the future, if you want a reply, please make your comments much shorter and much more to the point. I don’t have time to debunk entire novels.
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Comment by American Elephant July 16, 2008 @ 4:38 amWow, quite impressive I must say. Hans, what just happened?
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Comment by C_EV24 July 16, 2008 @ 8:44 amYou didn’t debunk anything, you just inserted your facts and yes I do no what “defacto” means and you do use it to insist things are the way they are just because they are that way, without proof, without evidence, so “in fact” you make de facto statements.
like I said, your massive discoveries are figments of your imagination and not enough to maintain current world outputs…And this is not the only sources that documents the same thing, I mean states reality
Yer “right” we have no wind “resources”, Wind Resources USA & US Elelctric Grid no electric bunk transport infrastructure (ENRON just through divine intervention “shipped” electricity from one place to another) and the US Natural Gas Pipeline infrastructure to all major US markets exists, hence it is almost as easy as connecting the NG lines to the gas station and adding a “pump”, which is exactly what they have done in Argentina, where the NG stations are the the same combined station as that of gas, and people (who do not have a lot of money) convert their cars over to running on CNG. So what point are you trying to prove in your quest to deny reality?
so again what part of my “novel” did you debunk again? Oh right, the poor little Republicans couldn’t get their way in Congress, boo hoo cry me a river! Maybe because drilling in ANWR will not make us oil independent, nor will Drilling Offshore, even though “the Chinese are drilling off the coast of Cuba” (disproved by Mel Martinez, Republican Congressmen in Florida), however upping CAFE standards could help us conserve more oil by getting us to and fro cheaper, with less fuel and at a higher efficiency, thus reducing our dependence on oil, yet we wouldn’t want to do that now would we?
why did you completely ignore this topic?
Could it be that you were stating de facto Republican “truths”, got called on it and well, you are wrong?
as to CEV24, why don’t you bother to actually use some critical thinking processes, decipher the reality from the “de facto Republican truths”, not just chew, swallow and regurgitate every BS “fact” you are given, and you might “discover” I did not get served like you imply?
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Comment by Hans July 16, 2008 @ 10:14 amNancy “I Hate America” Pelosi is trying to keep the idea to drill on our coasts from coming to the floor for a vote. Please call her office at 202-225-0100 and let her know we want this to come up for a vote. Remember what happened with the Amnesty Bill! We have the power to make them do what we want. Let’s make the Hill phone server crash with our voices.
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Comment by dmartin58 July 16, 2008 @ 12:50 pmnice you are not going to post my response as it proves that you did not “debunk” anything and by censorship you will get the last word and “assert your correctness”.
Continue to promote Big Energy disingenuous “facts” and party line accusations and well, lets see where this gets us all.
the response that was not posted
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Comment by Hans July 16, 2008 @ 3:27 pmoops, apologies. they didn’t show up at the “my comments” section but there they are 8(
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Comment by Hans July 16, 2008 @ 3:28 pmHans,
WordPress automatically holds any comment that contains multiple links for approval to prevent spam. If you want your comments to post immediately, don’t put more than one link in them, if you want to put more than one link in them you will have to wait ’til one of us sees and approves it.
And I’m sorry Hans, the Congressional Voting Record, a summary of which I linked to above, is not “disingenuous Big Energy” anything. The congressional voting record is solid, verifiable proof of who voted for what. And what it proves is that the overwhelming majority of Democrats have been consistently voting against increasing domestic energy supply for decades.
It also proves they filibustered Republican efforts to increase domestic energy supply, and it proves Republicans did vote for increases in energy supply every year they were in power, it proves that Republicans passed legislation that would increase our energy supply only to have Bill Clinton veto it, and finally it proves that the overwhelming majority of Republicans have consistently voted for increasing all domestic energy sources.
Secondly, the report you provide doesn’t back up your point, it backs up mine. That is, it makes clear that we are NOT at peak oil, and that if there is a peak oil, it will happen sometime in the future, and experts disagree when it supposedly would happen if it does. From your own link:
Furthermore, this arcticle shows just some of the reasons why we are nowhere near peak oil.
I love how you keep misquoting me in order to debate things I never said. Must make it much easier for you.
Unfortunately, I never said we have no wind resources. I said the infrastructure for his plan does not exist and that we don’t have the wind farms hes calling for. And we don’t. It would behoove you to actually familiarize yourself with the plan before you go around extolling its virtues. If you had read it, you would have seen that Pickens is calling for US to build enough wind turbines to supply 20% of America’s electricity, a daunting project he estimates would cost $1 TRILLION. I have no idea how accurate that estimate is, but suffice it to say, when people are trying to sell something, they almost always underestimate the costs.
Nor does the infrastructure exist. Just exactly as I said. He proposes building these windmills from North Dakota to Texas. He estimates it would cost another $200 Billion to build the infrastructure necessary to deliver that power to cities.
And sorry, you might think it sounds “easy” to hook up the millions of gas stations across the country, but thats going to cost a lot of money — but of course you liberals never bother yourselves with cost because its always other people’s money you’re spending.
Nor is it going to be easy or cheap for people to “convert” their cars to natural gas. I have no idea what people in Argentina do to their cars, but I know we have a hell of a lot more laws here. I would imagine people will have to buy new cars to be certified “road worthy” Again, typical liberal, writing off the substantial costs because its never your money you’re spending.
In addition, what of all the people currently heating their homes, their water and/or cooking with natural gas? Do they have to convert to electricity? Thats another astronomical cost. And what if they don’t convert? Pickens conveniently picks Utah and Texas so he can claim natural gas is cheap. But in reality, its $3.29, already in the Seattle area, 2.53 in Portland, up to 4.25 in the bay area, and up to $5 in New York and keep in mind, this is the off-season, when people aren’t heating their homes — and that price is going to skyrocket if people start demanding natural gas to power their vehicles.
So much for an affordable alternative.
And most problematic is the fact that Pickens is calling for replacing a reliable, consistent energy source (natural gas) with an unreliable, inconsistent energy source (wind). What do people do when there is no wind? Go without electricity?
People want lower prices, not higher.
I ignored the topic of nuclear power because it doesn’t make any difference to the point I was making which is that Pickens is heavily invested in the wind industry, which means guess who stands to profit billions if America increases wind power?
What a coincidence!
Its really very simple. The reason we haven’t switched from oil to some other power source for our cars is because even at current costs, there is no other power source that is as economical.
If we replace 20% of our vehicles with natural gas vehicles, that will bring down the demand for gasoline, which will make gasoline cheaper than natural gas, so who is going to volunteer to pay for natural gas when gasoline is less expensive?
I suggest you take your own advice, and actually read Pickens’ proposal for starters, since you’re obviously not familiar with it. Then you should actually think about it critically before you start regurgitating it as the gospel truth. You might also consider reading the things you link to before doing so. You’re much less likely to embarrass yourself that way.
And yes, you are using the phrase “de facto” incorrectly, but I digress.
Um, pretty much all of it!
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Comment by American Elephant July 17, 2008 @ 12:27 amOh and I forgot this:
No, we absolutely wouldn’t want to do that.
First of all, contrary to popular liberal misconceptions, raising CAFE standards doesn’t conserve oil. CAFE standards require car makers to make cars more fuel efficient, thus reducing the cost of driving. And guess what happens when you reduce the cost of driving? People do more of it!
But more importantly, raising CAFE standards kills people. Car makers make cars more fuel efficient by making them smaller and lighter. A USA Today study found that complying with CAFE standards has caused the deaths of over 46,000 people who died in crashes that they wouldn’t have died in had CAFE standards not been implemented.
So is it a good idea to kill thousands of people when it doesn’t even reduce oil consumption? Hardly.
There, now Ive debnked all of it.
Again, try some critical thinking instead of just reflexively latching onto anything that sounds good.
It’s like biofuels, which liberals just fell in love with because they thought it would be better for the environment. When in fact they are worse for the environment, don’t provide as much energy, cost more, take far more land to produce, are on their way to causing extinctions, have caused massive clear-cutting of tropical rain forests to grow biofuel crops, have caused worldwide food shortages that have resulted in increased hunger, increased starvation, and drastically increased prices for everyone else.
Please! Stop trying to “save the Earth” before you kill us all! And actually THINK about these things for a change.
But of course, if you actually thought about these things instead of doing whatever sounds good, you’d all be Republicans not Democrats.
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Comment by American Elephant July 17, 2008 @ 1:13 amHans-why the anger? Relax, take a deep beath and continue to tell us how we nedd to live our lives. I find your posts thoroughly entertaining and look forward to more of them.
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Comment by C_EV24 July 17, 2008 @ 5:24 amSo let’s just do nothing and/or invade other countries so that we may A) continue to send capital overseas for oil, B) borrow money from overseas to then send it overseas again plus pay interest on it, and C) spend over a trillion dollars on securing a oil source while we will still have to pay market value for it.
Brilliant analysis, CAFE standards are the cause of unneeded death. Get real!
If you spent 1/10th the time maintaining everything exactly as it is, on actually doing something worthwhile, we might actually get somewhere. But you would rather fight everything, so this is a waste of time.
Oh, by the way, we have been in Iraq about 6 years and have spent upwards of $1 trillion dollars (not counting future VA expenses for 50 years on these current veterans and the 100s of billions of dollars that will be needed to refurbish the trashed military hardware, tanks, etc.) then had we not gone in there and put this money towards any of these Wind or NG technologies, 2 or 3 of those steps of implementing would be checked off and paid for already. We haven’t gotten a barrel of oil out of Iraq, yet we’re spent all this money and we will not get cheap oil, when & if we ever do get oil out of there, so WTF is your fight all about?
Seriously, fiscal conservancy, efficiency & innovation is dead in the Conservative Ideology. Have a good day, keep fighting everything, but please take down the flag on your avatar as you are nothing more than a corporate shill and I missed the part about this country being founded for “the corporation” not “for the people”.
Waste of my time here. Be sure to get in your last word to assert your “absolute correctness” & thus by definition your omnipotent elitist arrogance.
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Comment by Hans July 17, 2008 @ 7:21 amoh while you are at it, please describe how exactly the National Debt is either A) all Democrats fault or B) all Democrats fault given those will be your answers contrary to reality.
National Debt vs Presidents Please do note how 40 years of Democratic controlled of Congress and lots of big works projects were somehow done with balanced budgets (no debt increases) yet come Reagan time to spend money we don’t have. Then note the Clinton years, the debt stabilizes, but return Republicans to power first in Congress then the WH, OFMG, fiscal responsibility and small government gets thrown out the window.
Conservative Ideology implemented Republican control simply translates to massive fraud, spending and corruption, which isn’t that your whole supposed factual argument against “Liberal” Renewable & Alternative Energy plans? So seriously, you have nothing to stand on, other than hollow, hollow words & hypocritical principle.
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Comment by Hans July 17, 2008 @ 7:34 amYes, Hans, you are absolutely wasting your time here, because we deal in facts. We find out the facts and then form our opinions based on them. You, on the other hand (like Barack Obama who just gave a speech announcing his Iraq policy BEFORE he’d ever even talked to General Petraeus, and BEFORE his “fact finding” trip to Iraq)– like all liberals, you base your opinions on your emotions and then try to back up the opinion you already formed.
National Debt is not all Democrats fault. Republicans spent more than they took in for 6 years and they have contributed to it. But Republicans also have controlled congress for 12 years, not just the last 6. Prior to 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and prior to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans, not Democrats, not Clinton, balanced the budget and forced Clinton to sign it.
But you are conflating debt and budget deficits, which are different things. There was a budget surplus when Bush came into office, which he returned to the people, but we still had a national debt.
But two things you should know about the deficit. 1) the budget WAS on track under Republicans, according to the GAO, to eliminate the deficit by 2012, at which time we could have begun paying the debt down. That’s all gone to hell now that Democrats are writing the budgets, and 2) For the entire 6 years Republicans were in control of spending, there is not ONE thing, from the prescription drug benefit, to NCLB, to Katrina relief, to tsunami relief and even the war and the new department of homeland security, that Democrats didn’t want to spend BILLIONS more on, not one!
Oh, and 3) the economy was strong and growing until Democrats took control of the purse strings. Imagine that. Economies, just like oil prices respond negatively to regulation, and are speculative — meaning people start protecting their assets and spending less when they think the economy is going to get worse instead of better. You will notice that the polls all show that Democrats are expected to increase their majorities in congress. Go ahead, put 2+2 together.
So yes, after having balanced the budget, paying down the debt, and creating a budget surplus, Republicans have increased the debt to pay for wars and homeland security, but they were also lowering the deficit again, and on target to start paying down the debt in 2012. Democrats, on the other hand, have never balanced a budget, and are now increasing both the deficit AND the debt, and they would have spent much more than Republicans did if they could have, according to their own proposals, which are a matter of public record.
Next, you are flat wrong when you say Democrats operated with balanced budgets. They NEVER did. The ONLY balanced budget in this nations history was written by Republicans when they won control of congress in 1994 based on their promise to balance the budget! A budget Clinton had to be forced to sign by shutting down the government! Democrats have NEVER balanced a budget!
We have NEVER fully paid for all the spending of FDR, Johnson etc. We are still paying for those today.
Also, Ronald Reagan never wrote a budget. Democrats controlled congress the entire time he was in office, and PRESIDENTS DON’T WRITE THE BUDGET! CONGRESS WRITES THE BUDGET!, the president can only suggest a budget. And the budgets Reagan suggested were all a hell of a lot less than the budgets Democrats passed. Reagan also suggested all sorts of spending cuts that Democrats never implemented.
And unlike Democrats, Republicans actually remove people who commit fraud from office. Republicans either pressure them to step down, or Republican voters vote them out. Democrats from the Clintons — the most corrupt administration since Warren Harding– to Al Gore, to Congressman Jefferson, to Conyers, Feinsteiin, Reid, Pelosi, Frank, McDermott, and on and on and on… Democrats not only don’t force their corrupt members out, they re-elect them and promote them to leadership! That is why Democrats are the party of organized labor (aka organized crime), organized gambling, trial lawyers, the porn industry, felons, and every other corrupt and criminal group in the country.
As for your preceding post:
Democrats are the only ones who are suggesting we do nothing. Republicans have tried to increase ALL forms of energy including renewables over and over and over, and have been blocked at every turn by Democrats.
The Democrats, on the other hand, passed an “energy” bill that doesn’t increase energy production one watt! SO they are the ones who are doing nothing, not Republicans.
And the CAFE standards analysis was done by USA Today and verified by other organizations using the Department of Transportation’s own data. Nor does it take a genius, not that there is any danger of you becoming a genius, to figure out that lighter, smaller cars with less bulk to absorb impact are going to result in more deaths. Holy cow you’re stupid.
Sorry Hans, you just described Democrats not Republicans. Republicans have been submitting energy bills for decades that increase ALL types of energy production, Democrats just submitted an “energy” bill that didn’t do anything to increase energy production at all! And they have done nothing but fight and veto and filibuster bills that actually would do something!
A) no they wouldn’t because Pickens’ plan wont work, and B) National defense is actually a constitutionally mandated function of the government — micromanaging the energy markets and telling people what kind of cars they are allowed to drive, and what kind of light bulbs they are allowed to use, and what kind of energy they are allowed to use are not!
Democrats have not done anything to increase energy production whatsoever, except force the increased use of “biofuel” because they felt really strongly about the environment. And the result has been skyrocketing food prices, hunger, starvation, food riots, slash and burned rainforests and pushing species like orangutans to the brink of extinction! (not to mention what their laws forcing lenders to give loans to people who otherwise wouldnt qualify has done to the economy!)
Hardly! We have a presidential candidate who has never taken an earmark in his entire career, and you have a presidential candidate who has taken some of the biggest earmarks in the nations history, and refuses to pledge to stop.
Many Republicans increased their spending, but there is a sizable group of congressmen who have sworn off earmarks completely. All conservative Republicans. Democrats were given the opportunity to make the pledge, they all refused. The only balanced budget in history was written by Republicans, and Democrats complain a lot about what Republicans spent, but there was not one single item in the budget that they didn’t complain Republicans weren’t spending enough on. Indeed the budget has increased since Democrats took over.
So yes, some Republicans lost sight of fiscal conservancy, and had to learn the hard way, but Democrats have NEVER been fiscally responsible! Ever! Remember that pledge Democrats made that if they won they would “pay as you go”? They broke that promise before they even warmed their seats up!
And corporations ARE people! they are made up of people, they employ people! and they are owned by people! And unlike government, if they don’t provide something the people want at a price the people are willing to pay, they go out of business! Government produces nothing, it creates no wealth, people and corporations do that. All government can do is confiscate and regulate.
So yes, please, stop wasting your time here, and my time, and everyone else’s time. I would beg you to go out and get informed. To try actually challenging what you believe for a change, to try some critical thinking for the first time in your life instead of trying to find information that supports what you have already decided, but I wont beg you to do that, because you have made it perfectly clear you have ZERO interest in facts, you have ZERO interest in finding out what works and what doesn’t. You just want to do what you want to do because it “feels” good, and the consequences be damned. Well the consequences of liberal policy cause suffering! They cause people to lose jobs, they cause hunger, they make people dependent on the government instead of self sufficient, and they take away everyones freedom. If you gave a damn about anyone besides yourself and your feelings, you’d have found that out for yourself. As Winston Churchill said, if you’re 20 and you’re not a liberal, you have no heart, if you’re 30 and not a conservative, you have no brain!
Liberalism is for young ignorant fools, long on emotion and short on facts.
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Comment by American Elephant July 17, 2008 @ 9:24 amNotice how I provide verifiable facts from nonpartisan, reputable sources, and instead of refuting them (because you cant) you simply ignore them and claim that reputable, nonpartisan sources are lying.
1. WRONG! the estimates were done by the non-partisan GAO. (Look it up since I’m very sure you have no clue what GAO stands for)
2. WRONG! Big oil companies are not subsidized. A subsidy is when you give someone money, when they get more money from you than you do from them. Oil Companies get a tax break to encourage them to do things, like invest in research for alternative fuels, that they might not otherwise do. There is a difference. Letting them keep more of their own money is not a subsidy. They still pay an astronomical amount in taxes — far more, by the way, than they make in profit.
3. WRONG! They move their offices offshore, like all the other jobs that are being outsourced, because Democrats have taxed and regulated business so much that they cant compete. Business taxes in the US are among the highest in the world and companies in the US are more regulated than just about anywhere else. How do you expect companies to stay in business when their competition is taxed at half the rate they are and has half the regulations to comply with? The answer is they cant, and that is why they move jobs overseas.
4. WRONG! They dont reap the benefits of infrastructure, ALL Americans benefit because they provide the energy that fuels the entire economy.
5. WRONG! The REASON these banks have gone under is because DEMOCRATS felt sorry for poor people who couldnt get loans, so they wrote laws forcing banks to give loans to people who wouldnt otherwise qualify for them. The economic turmoil we are experiencing is a direct result of that well-intentioned, but extremely ignorant law. And THAT is why we are bailing them out.
6. WRONG! Those retirement funds were lost by Indymac bank, as a result of Democrat legislation and Charles Schumer causing a run on the banks. And yes, they should absolutely be paid back by Democrats and Charles Schumer, who should then be prosecuted.
7. WRONG! Democrats have been filibustering energy production for decades, the proof is in the congressional record, which I already linked to. And yes, thanks for bringing up the fact that Democrats neglected their constitutional duty to advise and consent by filibustering appelate court judicial nominees for the first time in history. And the BI-PARTISAN group of 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans only proves how out of line the Democrat party was, that their own party members disapproved of what they were doing.
7. WRONG! Have you ever heard of inflation??? If you adjust for inflation the deficits run by Democrat congresses last century are much larger than the deficit of the 1980s — which was also due to Democrat budgets, and bigger than the deficit today. Just as a house that costs half a million dollars today cost 10 thousand dollars in the 1970s.
8. WRONG! Most crashes are one car crashing into a stationary object, not one car crashing into another. The study was of single car accidents. But there you go again, denying facts published by objective reputable sources and verified by others with no evidence to back up your claims or no reasonable reason to disbelieve the study. Facts dont matter to leftists, which is why their policies cause so much death, destruction, poverty, hunger and suffering. You dont care how things really work, or about results, you only care about whether the solution sounds right to you or not.
9. WRONG! For the 100th time, I never said I was against wind power! Ive said repeatedly that Im all for it, and so are Republicans, but its not going to replace oil. period.
9. If wind power is growing by leaps and bounds through private investment, which I believe, why do you want the government to pay for it??? And it may be growing faster than Nuclear and Coal, in fact I’m sure it is, but NOT because it provides more power, it provides far less, it is growing faster because liberal politicians and environazis make it next to impossible to increase coal or nuclear. In fact, because of Democrat obstruction and liberal lawsuits, there has not been a new nuclear plant built in the US for 30 + years. The story is similar for coal. Meanwhile countries all over the world, like France get 80 percent of their power from nuclear, and have for decades with no leaks, no accidents, no meltdowns and no danger of any of the above.
10. Nice slur, biggot. Of course we’ve always known that liberals are the most intolerant assholes there are.
11. WRONG! Republicans pressured Craig to leave. He is staying til the end of his term and not seeking re-election. The Republican running for his seat has long since been identified.
12. Because he’s a decorated veteran and entitled to it who served honorably in the military for decades! Meanwhile I have already named a bunch of Democrats who have committed actual crimes who are still in office. A fact you dont even bother to try and refute because you know its true. And I could name many more. Hell, Ted Kennedy Killed a woman and fled the scene to protect his sorry ass and he is still in offfice. Democrats have NO scruples whatsoever. You never get rid of them. In fact the more corrupt they are, the higher you Democrats promote them. As evidenced by both Clintons, Al Gore, Pelosi, Reid, etc…
13. YES, when the economy crashes after Democrats have been writing the budgets, then yes, if anyone gets the blame for it, it will and should be Democrats. And yes, Republican economic policies work and Democrat economic policies dont! taking peoples money away from them hurts the economy, letting them keep more of it helps the economy! DUH! this is why Democrats get blamed for ruining the economy, because their policies cause it!
Now, I have given you more than ample opportunity to try to disprove the facts I have presented, and you cant. I have backed up my positions with verifiable evidence from reputable, nonpartisan sources, and all you can do is swear and call names and throw biggotted slurs around. That pretty much sums it all up. You dont disprove my claims because you cant. You swear and call names and epithets because your opinions cant stand up to the facts.
For these reasons you are now blocked from commenting anymore on this blog.
I hope you grow up someday, start looking at the facts to get at the truth instead of to back up the opinions you formed based on emotion long before you ever looked into the facts. As it stands, people like you, who act on emotion instead of fact and reason are doing enormous damage to America. And one last thing. The fact that you act on emotion does NOT prove you care more, it proves just the opposite. If you really cared, if liberals really cared, they would take the time to research and find out if their ideas really work.
There is a word for those who have done this… they are called Republicans.
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Comment by American Elephant July 18, 2008 @ 4:24 amOf course we can drill our way out of this current oil crisis.
I am also demanding that redundant environmental restrictions and excruciatingly long permitting processes be lifted which have either wittingly, or unwittingly, created the situation where only big oil can do the job. In the old days, an independent crew with their own rig could get rich drilling and owning their own wells. Now, through government intervention, only the strongest of the strong can afford it…and that isn’t true competition.
We need U.S. oil companies to control U.S. oil, period. Giving the oil profits to multi-nationals who have no allegiance to the United States only furthers the strangle-hold.
However, we MUST immediately get more oil onto the world market. With worldwide demand only increasing, more oil is the only answer to high fuel prices.
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Comment by Lee Nickel July 18, 2008 @ 8:41 pmGreat point Lee! I hadn’t even thought about the causality between government regulation and the lack of competition, but of course you’re right, just as has occurred in so many other industries.
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Comment by American Elephant July 18, 2008 @ 9:17 pm