In this 2008 political cycle, candidates are quick to propose expedient solutions to lower the price of gasoline. Few seem to recognize or admit that the primary function of markets is to forecast supply and demand. The energy and food markets are telling us that we must change our methods of production. Doctors say that pain is a friend since it is a symptom of what’s wrong and it motivates patients to seek solutions. Hopefully, the high cost of energy and food will likewise motivate us.

Some blame speculators for the high price of energy and food. It is true that traders can manipulate short-term markets, but they cannot buck fundamental supply and demand. We stand at the threshold of the largest industrial revolution in history. The energy demands of China, India and other developing nations are growing exponentially. The price of food and many other commodities are rising as a result of the energy needed to produce and transport them.

Jake Stump of the Charleston Daily Mail got it wrong about Big Oil's favorite West Virginian, the ineffective Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito in today's paper:

On Wednesday, the Barth campaign attacked Capito for taking contributions from big oil companies like Exxon and Marathon in previous years, though Exxon has not given to her campaign this election cycle.

"These are very powerful and controversial special interest groups that have hiked up our gas prices and exploited working families," said Barth spokesman Mark Ferrell. "This campaign will not take money from big oil."

Oh really?

Exxon Mobil Corp. PAC
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, Texas 75039
06/29/2008 1000.00

Their return on investment has been a success.

Lobbying is said to be a specialized and highly sensitive form of art. These days, some of the greatest lobbying artists on earth work for Big Oil. Their works influence Congress and the Bush Administration on taxes, regulation, contracts, and environmental policy. It’s difficult to quantify their effects on regulation and policy through a diary, but information on their contracts is easily available and can be displayed in a simple fashion.

Companies retain lobbyists based on performance, so how effective have Big Oils’ lobbyists been with securing federal contracts in the past 7 years?

I've had people here say that talk radio (Limbaugh) and the like simply don't matter any longer.  I disagree.

The lies, inconsistencies and propaganda on conservative talk radio, virtually unopposed by progressives in that medium, are extremely important.  Also, Mr. Limbaugh just had his contract renewed, so unless he drops dead soon we can look forward to him being around for another decade.

Why aren't liberals and progressives better in the radio format?  I'm not sure.  Maybe today's neocons and conservatives are simply good at lying with a straight face and getting people to believe them.  Certainly they like to repeat themselves endlessly...

It is the same ole song, as a line from an old Herman’s Hermits hit back in the 60’s "2nd verse same as the 1st" actually it’s the umpteenth time Oil Executives have been called to testify before the US Congress.   Gas and oil prices go up, Congress ‘out of the blue’ appears to be aggressive presenting to the American public how serious they are ‘calling on the carpet’ these multi-billionaire executives.  Unfortunately, the ‘do nothing Congress’ will stick out their chests, slam their hands down, raise their voices, yell at the oil company executives – all as a "show" that is as theatrical as any Broadway play.  Of course, Congress will NOT DO ANYTHING and HAS NOT DONE ANYTHING about the high gas prices.  It is a manipulative tactic common to Mr. Bush and Republican powers-that-be.  I say that because at least Democratic members of Congress have ‘attempted’ to eliminate the huge tax breaks big oil companies receive from the Mr. Bush.  The tax break amount is up to $33 BILLION and counting!   Under the Bush administration oil company executives have been called before Congress (at tax payer’s expense) 3 times.

Many are declaring that they are independents this year, most as a protest because (gasp) a black man defeated their candidate who happened to be the first woman presidential candidate, at least one for a major party. (If anyone else had been their candidate there would be cries of racism but hey these so called Democrats are not bigots, they would never stoop to racist remarks, but supporting a Black man for President is going a bit to far).

How do these so called declarations of independence compare to that one 221 years ago?

Will someone please tell Barack Obama that he’s aiming way too low when it comes to energy policy?  We need a big, bold plan that gets us beyond oil dependency FAST – not in that always promised 25 or 50 years -- but in this decade. We need a President who will shoot for the moon.

The Iraqi oil ministry says big oil companies are dragging their feet about finalizing short term contracts because they want part of the profits of the oil, not just service contracts. It's a little like your gardener demanding you put his name on the deed to your house in exchange for mowing your lawn.

With former speaker Newt Gringrich leading the charge, Big Oil has been mounting a coordinated effort to fool the American people that it cares about consumer prices and has an easy answer-give us everything we want: the Outer Continental Shelf, America's forests, parks, and wilderness lands, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, your private property.

Compliant politicians, with campaign coffers stuffed by Big Oil, seem all too willing to sell off the public's assets to abet Big Oil's massive feeding at the profit trough.  

But will drilling all these places now, at the whim and direction of Big Oil help us out of our energy crunch?

Follow me after the fold for more...

Thirty years of Unfulfilled Promises

President Gerald R Ford 1975 -
"I’m recommending a plan to make us invulnerable, to cut off foreign oil, it will require sacrifices, but it, and this is most important, it will work!"

President Richard M Nixon 1974 –
"Let this be our national goal, at the end of this decade, at the end of 1980, the U S will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes and to keep our transportation moving."

President Gerald R Ford: 1975 –
"We must reduce oil imports by 1 mill barrels per day be the end of this year and 2 mil barrels a day by the end of 1977, we must end vulnerability to economic disruptions by foreign suppliers by 1985."

President Jimmy Carter 1979 –
"Beginning this moment, this nation will never use world foreign oil that we did in 1977, NEVER.  The generation won’t grow in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks, RIGHT NOW."

President Richard Nixon 1972 –
"By deregulating oil, we’ll come closer to achieving energy independence and help bring down the cost of gasoline and heating fuel."

I don't know if you've watched a lot of Sunday morning news shows recently, but I just did this morning and, my fucking God, everything is rosier than I could possibly imagine. Unfettered, beneficent oil companies, according the advertising of like all of them, are harnessing the intellectual and technological capital of the nation and the earth and fostering such innovation that they are creating a new energy paradigm even now ushering us unto the midst of Utopia.

They employ brilliant scientists who care about a effecting sustainable future — even if, at a substratum beneath the gloss of advertising, they have spent millions of dollars to bribe congressmen to deny that "sustainability" is necessary to, y'know, sustain things living and stuff. Oil companies are not only not part of the problem, they fully engender the solution! That's what their ads say!

And here I was actually paying attention to news about food riots, pan-European gas-price protests, millionaire former energy executives actually running governments, badly, and the Earth violently rejecting the species.

Fuck that noise. Turns out everything's swell, as is, and verging on a new Golden Age of humankind. Thank you, advertising, for brightening up my Sunday!

update: title changed from Stop GOP Oil Mania:National Monument Designation Could Save Ecosystem

A coral ecosystem exists off the southeast coast that is roughly the size of the land area of South Carolina.  

Economically, that ecosystem:

1. Provides food for Millions of Americans

2. Protects our coasts from Hurricanes and Nor'easters(like a winter Hurricane)

3. Protects our ports like Savannah, Wilmington, Morehead City (supports a Marine base) and the nation's most important Hampton Roads where the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay guarding Norfolk Navy Yards, Portsmouth, Newport News and Baltimore.  (Newport News is where the large Navy ships are built like Air Craft carriers)

4. Provides Millions of jobs to American by providing fisheries, deep water ports (including the US Navy's biggest base), tourism nand forestry (much of the USA's pulp wood is grown in the coastal Southeast).

Why even worry about protecting something so important to the well being of the United States of America.  Surely NO USA CITIZEN would threaten such a valuable National Treasure.

What happens when a growing new industry threatens the power and the profits of Big Oil?  Why, environmentalists win, of course!  Doing a double-take?  You are not the only one.

The Financial Times recently reported that the total open interest in the 2008 crude oil contracts on May 21 was 849.472 contracts, which equals 849m barrels, or nearly 10 times the daily crude oil production. Additionally, the daily volume in the 2008 contracts on May 21 was 657.391 contracts, equivalent to 657m barrels or nearly 8 times the daily crude oil production.

Raw Story has another article on the politicization of Justice, this time with a new focus on Big Tobacco.  The article is part of The Permanent Republican Majority Series.  Here is the article excerpt:

Justice for Sale: How Big Tobacco and the GOP teamed up to crush Democrats in the South
By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane | Tuesday, 24 June 2008
http://rawstory.com/...

Almost immediately after his appointment as US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi in late 2001, Dunnica Lampton began to investigate key Mississippi Democrats.

Trial lawyer and major Democratic campaign contributor Paul Minor ... quickly became a target of such an investigation. Minor, one of the largest Democratic donors in the South and the largest in Mississippi, would quickly find himself in the midst of a political firing line. ....

The focus on what and who are behind the politicization of justice is important.    Politics and religion played a role, but I have to add that other motivations are in play.  

George W. Bush often says he’s a hopeful person. In yesterday’s radio address he hoped to blame Congress for high oil prices. Congress according to Bush prevents oil drilling off the coasts, oil drilling in national parks, turning shale into oil, and the building of new refineries. All of which would allow us to fully exploit our estimated 3% of world oil reserves. That would be in about ten years time and even then the effect on oil prices will be negligible. That’s because producing all 3% of our estimated world reserves would do nothing to cut our consumption of 25% of world oil production. It’s a good thing Bush is a hopeful person because he’s not very good at math.

After watching the Sunday morning talk shows earlier today, and listening to all the mindless banter about Barack Obama ruining his "brand" for opting out of federal campaign funds. While, just last week John McCain did an about face about drilling for oil off our coasts, and less than 1/2 the time was spent on this "flip flop" on these talk shows.
When McCain changed his position on drilling for oil, I thought he is just pandering for votes from the Republican oil drilling base, just as he did with the whole ridiculous gas tax proposal.
It was not until this morning after listening to the excuse for McCain's turn around by Lindsey Graham,"gas is now $4.00 per gallon", did I really stop to think about John McCain and his relationship to big oil.

The OPEC oil embargo of the early 1970s and the ensuing increase in gas prices created lines at gas stations that literally stretched for blocks and highlighted the very real threat to our national and economic security caused by our dependency on foreign oil.  The issue was of paramount political importance and, for a time, it seemed we were united to solve that problem.

In reaction to and as protection against that threat, two things happened: 1) there was strong political support for more efficient technologies, including alternative energy sources; and 2) there was a concerted effort by U.S. oil companies to open up other sources of domestic oil production......sounding familiar?