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POPSDemocrats Consider New Energy Strategy “I think there’s far more support across the board for SPR than anything else,” a senior aide said. Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have not said what the final SPR bill would look like, nor have they said what energy measures — which could also include a speculation bill — will be brought to the floor this week or under what rules.
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POPSThe Democrats' Fairy Tale
And the improvements in Anbar could never have been sustained without aggressive American military efforts — efforts that were more effective in 2007 than they had been in 2006, due in part to the addition of the surge forces. Last year’s success, in Anbar and elsewhere, was made possible by confidence among Iraqis that U.S. troops would stay and help protect them, that the U.S. would not abandon them to their enemies. Because the U.S. sent more troops instead of withdrawing — because, in other words, President Bush won his battles in 2007 with the Democratic Congress — we have been able to turn around the situation in Iraq. And now Iraq’s Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law — one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground by harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation
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POPSWall Street Likes The Bailout Plus Drill, Drill, Drill But my thought is that a Senate victory might just blow Pelosi out of the water and open the floodgates to Democratic defections in the House. If a drilling bill ever passes Congress, oil prices will keep on plunging — perhaps all the way to $75 a barrel, which is the profitable break-even point for lifting the extra barrel of oil. That would drive the Dow to somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000, and it would have a huge tax-cut effect on the economy. And, of course, it could completely change the November election outlook in a highly favorable way for the GOP. The conventional wisdom says Republicans are gonna get clobbered again this fall. But drill, drill, drill would overturn that wisdom. More drilling today would have the potency of the Reagan tax cuts 28 years ago in the 1980 landslide race. But the GOP has got to make the case. And deregulating oil, which is great policy, would offset much of the bad policy pain coming out of the Fannie-Freddie housing bailout.
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POPSPelosi: The Power Of One "In the House, the power rests in the speaker, the power of recognition, of setting the agenda. . . . Very different rules," Pelosi said. Acknowledging her ability to influence decision-making, Pelosi said in the CNN interview that she gets to operate differently than her Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Reid must reach out to Republicans to muster 60 votes — enough to stop a filibuster — to get anything done. It's an example of the vast power placed in the office of the speaker, who sets the agenda for the 435-member House. Members can force a vote if enough of them sign a petition, but that's a rarity because it requires rank-and-file Democrats to line up against their boss. In this case, Pelosi is going against a rising tide of public opinion. Faced with rapidly increasing gasoline prices, 73 percent of Americans now favor offshore drilling, according to a poll conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp.
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POPSDemocrats And Gasoline that they must have some gall to criticize creationism when they in fact subscribe to its economic equivalent. But as I wrote last week, I don't really think they are this ignorant. They're providing a rhetorical distraction to the fact that they want high gas prices, probably higher ones than we have right now. Meanwhile, in order to deflect and even harness consumer anger in the political arena, they can send out Chuck Schumer to put on this dog-and-pony show about the phantoms that are secretly directing the economy from behind closed doors. It's a smokescreen. As an energy consumer, you should be a lot more concerned about what Democrats are doing in the open Senate chamber. The gas crisis finally hit Capitol Hill with full fury this week, and Senate Democrats have launched a plan that sounds ambitious: Take on Wall Street speculators, OPEC, price gougers and Big Oil. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9967.html
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POPSObama’s $50 Billion AIDS Bill Up For Vote However, the United Nations over the years has greatly exaggerated the number of those with HIV/AIDS and it is still difficult to get accurate estimates of the problem. Richard Darling of the FAIR Foundation told AIM on Friday that federal funding for most diseases is being cut back while spending on AIDS is continuing to rise. fairfoundation.org/ On Friday, the Senate voted 65-3 to proceed to floor action on the bill, with many members absent or not voting. Those voting to invoke cloture and proceed included Senate Republican Leader McConnell. However, this does not mean that all of those voting to bring the bill to the Senate floor will support it when a final vote on the actual legislation is taken. Some lawmakers have been intimidated by AIDS activists coming to Washington to deliver funeral wreaths to those standing in the way of the passage of the legislation. Opponents of the bill have been labeled as “Global AIDS Super villains” by the homosexual lobby.
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POPSBravo For Bush And Bravo For The Traders Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. That’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime. The congressional ban on offshore drilling expires September 30, so that becomes a key date. A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California. There’s also a “gang of 10” in the Senate, five Republicans and five Democrats, that is trying to work a compromise deal on lifting the moratorium. So it’s possible a lot of action on this front could occur much sooner than people seem to think. Deregulate, decontrol, and unleash the American energy industry.
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POPSFeckless To Reckless, Pelosi Should Resign But she's not fooling anyone. In playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the speaker has moved beyond the incompetence and irresponsibility that have characterized her leadership to date. 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. borders on recklessness, something we cannot tolerate in such dangerous times.
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POPSNot All Democrats Want To Ride Obama's Coattails historically Republican House seat, "hasn't had time to be concerned with presidential politics" and won't be going to the Democratic convention, his spokesman said. But there may be more than busy schedules involved in some Democrats' reluctance to be associated with Sen. Obama. eing an Obama cheerleader may not be an asset," Mr. Gonzales said. In Georgia, Democrat Jim Marshall represents a solidly Republican rural district and typically neither endorses his party's candidate nor attends its conventions. Sen. Obama's coattails could be helpful to challenger Jim Himes in the Democratic-leaning Greenwich, Conn., district represented by Christopher Shays, a Republican. Political oddsmakers call the race a toss-up. Among the most vulnerable are 26 freshman Democrats and one freshman Republican. A few of those Democrats facing tough races already have signaled their ambivalence toward Sen. Obama, the Democratic candidate.
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POPSHolding Liberals Accountable For Energy Woes In essence, an artificial “monopoly” has been created among the member nations, whereby they can unilaterally determine what the rest of the world will pay for its energy needs. But for this monopoly to survive and thrive, it requires the defacto cooperation of all other parties involved. Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this situation is that such “cooperation” is effectively coming from the Democrat controlled Congress of the United States. In a sinister sense, America is officially refusing to increase the world production of oil, thus strengthening the OPEC monopoly and its ability to deliberately inflate the price of crude oil. By stubbornly refusing any consideration of exploring, drilling, and thus expanding American oil production, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA) and Senate Majority Harry Reid (D.-NV) along with their Democrat political machine in Washington, are effectively forcing the entire American oil industry into the role of collaborating OPEC members.
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POPSDenver's Convention And "South Park's" Playbook C'mon, Barack's refined sensibilities are such that he feels unclean in the presence of non-bilinguals; surely he can't be asked to suffer close proximity to the destitute. In the "South Park" episode Night Of the Living Homeless, the Colorado mountain town is overrun by its panhandling population and nearly destroyed, until someone has the bright idea to bus them all off to California. Night of the Living Homeless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Homeless "Southpark" video at site. 2:10 minutes
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POPSHow The Greens Captured Energy Policy Other aspects of the Green argument have also collapsed. New discoveries off Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico have nearly doubled international oil reserves, pushing backwards from the "peak oil" date. And global warming, that notorious by-product of "oil addiction," has faded to the point that its advocates are now reduced to threatening dissenters with prison. It has gone almost completely unacknowledged that with oil shale, offshore deposits, and new resources such as the hydrocarbon sludge deposits off B.C. and Alaska, the OPEC of the late 21st century is going to be right here. That's a goal worth working toward. Breaking the power of the Greens is yet another possible benefit. Energy reform is an egg and rock situation for the Democrats. From the old Irish proverb: "When the rock hits the egg, alas for the egg. When the egg hits the rock, alas for the egg."
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POPSReid: Spending Bills Will Likely Wait Until Bush Is Gone Reid’s statement, while not unexpected, adds a note of finality to speculation that the Senate would act on the 12 annual appropriation bills. He also said that he doesn’t expect Congress to return for a post-election, lame-duck session. Under that scenario, Congress would only be in session for another six weeks this year.
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POPSPelosi: Drilling In Protected Areas ‘A Hoax’ Democrats would not say when these bills would be ready for floor consideration. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) took to the floor to again criticize Democrats for dodging votes on energy bills, charging that Democrats are avoiding votes on the opening up of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and the OCS. Hoyer soon followed to retort, saying he and Democratic leaders have for weeks been urging for drilling on approved acres, only to have those efforts blocked by Republicans. He blamed Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney – the “two oil men in the White House” – and Republicans for setting an energy policy that has driven up gas prices and steered record profits to the energy companies. “As every serious person who has studied this issue knows, the proposals that Democrats are producing are shams and hoaxes designed to provide political cover and not to produce more American energy and lower gas prices,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.
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POPSSenators Up For Re-election, Six Weeks To Campaign Senate agrees to Sept. 26 adjournment date As Election Day nears, however, it has become clear that Democratic leaders have little desire to keep their members away from the campaign trail during what some analysts predict could be a windfall election for their party. However, Democrats may have to sacrifice progress on various legislative priorities to give themselves a full six weeks to campaign.
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POPSFREE Email: No More Excuses For High Energy Prices! There's just one problem: Democrats are refusing to allow the bill out of committee, so the full House of Representatives can vote on it! Thankfully, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) has filed a "discharge petition" to get H.R. 3089 OUT of committee and force a vote on it. That petition already has 153 names on it -- but it requires 218 signatures to force that vote... So WE need to get 65 more Congressmen to SIGN that petition, NOW!
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POPSVoters Give Congress Nine-Percent Approval Rating Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008. The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13% this month. The number of Democrats who give Congress a poor rating remained unchanged. Among Republicans, 8% give Congress good or excellent ratings, up just a point from last month. Sixty-five percent (65%) of GOP voters say Congress is doing a poor job, down a single point from last month. Voters not affiliated with either party are the most critical of Congressional performance. Just 3% of those voters give Congress positive ratings, down from 6% last month. Sixty-three percent (63%) believe Congress is doing a poor job, up from 57% last month. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/congressional_performance/congressional_performance
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POPSDid Valerie Plame Wilson Commit Perjury? But, that is no excuse for the Valerie Wilson-Plame to sit in front of a Congressional Committee and LIE like she did. This is what Valerie Plame said sworn testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: Plame also testified that she played no part in deciding to send her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, on a mission to Niger in 2002 to assess the reliability of reports that Iraq's then-president, Saddam Hussein, was trying to buy yellowcake uranium from that country for use in a secret nuclear weapons program. Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002.
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POPSObama vs. Obama finds much comfort in these increasingly peculiar neck-snapping reversals. Despite the evident dishonesty of these moves, though, those of us with whom Obama is suddenly discovering so many points of agreement should certainly make the most of his awkward dance. Will other prominent Democrats agree with their candidate's newly discovered views? If not, why not?
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POPSObama's Okie Doke Obama voted against a ban on partial birth abortions. Americans support a ban by a margin of 66% to 28%. Obama supports affirmative action in public employment, contracting and university admissions. Americans oppose giving an advantage in these areas on the basis of race by a margin of 82% to 14%. Obama voted against a ban on partial birth abortions. Americans support a ban by a margin of 66% to 28%. Obama opposed the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act while in the Illinois state legislature, to prevent abortion providers from withholding medical care and sustenance from infants born after surviving an abortion attempt. Despite his equivocal statements regarding the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, Obama has never met a gun ban he didn't like. While in the Illinois state legislature, Obama voted against parental notification requirements for abortions for minors. Americans support parental notification laws by a margin of 79% to 17%.
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POPSDemocrats Think Gasoline Prices Are Too Cheap NOW, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE LYING ABOUT ANWR? REMEMBER WHEN AL GORE SAID THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD WORK TO ARTIFICIALLY RAISE GAS PRICES TO $5.00 A GALLON? WELL… AL GORE AND HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS HAVE ALMOST REACHED THEIR GOAL! NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN LYING, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
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POPSMcCain: Pump This! Meanwhile, the centrists McCain spent years impressing with his outraged denunciations of conservatives, Swift Boat Veterans and Christians will be voting for Obama. They think he's cute. The irony is, the only people McCain can count on to vote for him are the very Republicans he despises -- at least those of us who can get drunk enough on Election Day to pull the lever for him. In fact, we should organize parties around the country where Republicans can get drunk so they can vote for McCain. We can pass out clothespins with his name as a reminder and slogan-festooned vomit bags. The East Coast parties can post the number of drinks necessary for the task to help the West Coast parties. For more information, go to getdrunkandvote4mccain.com. This year, moderate Republicans have hit the jackpot. John McCain is the Platonic ideal of a "moderate Republican."
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POPSSenate Leader Losing It It offers pretty stunning evidence of how personally petty Reid is, as well as his penchant for defining “partisanship” as anything that keeps him from getting his way. The Senate was voting on a Medicare bill bloated with new spending. The bill was also an attempt to prevent cuts in payment rates to doctors who treat seniors on Medicare, and Democrats wanted to pay for that by taking the funds from Medicare Advantage, a private fee-for-service plan. The president would likely have vetoed the bill in its current form and Senate Republicans opposed the gutting of Medicare Advantage, so Senate Republicans blocked the bill. The trouble is that if the Senate doesn’t resolve the issue very soon, doctors will stop receiving Medicare funds. So Republicans proposed a 30-day extension to allow more time to hammer out a compromise. Democrats blocked the proposed extension. The impasse here caused Reid to go apoplectic on Mitch McConnell (I’ve highlighted the juicy parts):
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POPSObama’s Weakness With Voters: Democrats Problem With White Voters has become the hot topic among many who say racial bias explains it. Of course it would be naive to believe that race is not a factor in America today. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Mr. Obama’s relative weakness among white voters is solely, or even mainly, due to the fact that he is black and that three quarters of voters this year will be white. In 1991, when I wrote a book about how the Democrats were failing to deal with their white voter problem, I ran into a number of editors who wanted to know why anyone would care — and not too subtly wondered whether looking at the reasons for their disaffection might be too politically touchy. White voters, as a group, are more likely to favor a limited role for government here at home and a more aggressive posture overseas. In general, polls show Democrats — and a disproportionate share of black voters — favor a smaller, less adventurous military and a larger role for government on the domestic front.
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POPSObama's Entire Illinois Legislative Record Built In A Single Year He became Obama’s kingmaker. Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city’s most popular black call-in radio program. Cliff Kelley recollected the private conversation as follows: “He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.’” “Oh, you are? Who might that be?” “Barack Obama.” Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills. State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. “Barack didn’t have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.
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POPSFlorida Gov.Crist Calls For End To Feds Moratorium On Drilling Public opinion started to move in favor of oil drilling off Florida after Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 forced many Floridians to wait in long lines for gas, said David Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, a lobbying group. Jeanne and other powerful hurricanes that battered Florida in 2004 and 2005 left millions of Floridians struggling to fill their gas tanks because of a lack of electricity to pump the fuel and difficulties getting fresh supplies into Florida. A business group that supports oil drilling release a survey on Thursday saying 61 percent of Florida respondents support increased exploration and production of oil and natural gas off the Florida coasts. "Public opinion is supportive .... t's time to give it a try (drilling) and watch it very closely,'" Mica said. Environment Florida, an anti-drilling advocacy group, said it got an unprecedented response from supporters to a write-in campaign after Crist changed his position.
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POPS Dubai's Favorite Senators Senator Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) has been threatening to hold up appointments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission until the CFTC increases regulation of oil trading. According to the Almanac of American Politics, "successfully worked the phones" in 2005 to round up enough colleagues to block drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. Her counterpart in the House is Michigan's Bart Stupak, who claims special credit for a permanent ban on drilling in the Great Lakes and has also cast votes against exploration in Alaska and off the California coast. Then there's New York Senator Chuck Schumer, another staunch opponent of new domestic oil supplies. Mr. Schumer has egged on the Federal Reserve's rate-cutting binge that has contributed so much to the oil price spike.
2
POPSYou Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time Instead of Drill! Drill! Drill!, their motto could be: Kill! Kill! Kill! In response to skyrocketing gas prices, liberals say, practically in unison, "We can't drill our way out of this crisis." What does it mean? Finding more oil isn't going to increase the supply of oil? It is the typical Democratic strategy to babble meaningless slogans, as if they have a plan. Their plan is: the permanent twilight of the human race. Liberals complain that -- as Obama put it -- there's "no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road."This is as opposed to airplanes that run on woodchips, which should be up and running any moment now. Clinton proposed a 26-cent tax on gas. John Kerry said it should be 50 cents. Gore endorsed the Malthusian proposal of Paul and Anne Ehrlich in "The Population Explosion" hat taxes gas gradually
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POPSA Clear Majority Of Americans Want To Drill Here Al Gore, philanthropist, Climate activist, and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, is the single greatest advocate in the war against humanity. Millions of innocent lives, people whose only crime is being poor. We need to protect not only others wellbeing, but our own freedoms, our own rights. We need to defend ourselves from Eco-Terrorist ideas, perpetuated by cheap theatrics and scaremongering. We need to defend ourselves against Eco Evangelist Al Gore. Energy Independence: President Bush asks Congress to lift the 1981 drilling ban on offshore oil. The no-drill Democrats will call it flip-flopping. We call it change you can believe in. The Democratic response to Republican determination to end our dependence on foreign oil has been to call for more taxes on oil companies and to pressure, even sue, OPEC. A group of 10 Democratic senators on Tuesday called for Bush to file a complaint against OPEC. http://www.smartgreenusa.com/
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POPSWebb Splits With Obama Over Drilling Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois and Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York dismissed any concerns about Webb’s stance, saying they did not notice his proposal Wednesday. Durbin, however, pointedly rejected Webb’s argument that states should have the right to make drilling decisions. The legislation “offers a preliminary step toward exploration and development of one of our domestic energy sources,” Webb said. “In order to address our nation’s energy crisis, all options need to be on the table.” One of Virginia’s most prominent environmental groups also opposes Webb’s idea, saying there is no plausible environmental distinction between gas and oil drilling and that any environmental damage would spread far beyond Virginia’s coast. “This puts the camel’s nose under the tent,” said Glen Besa, director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club.
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POPSBush Calls Out the Dems Next was ANWR, which can be exploited with "virtually no impact on the land or local wildlife." Finally, refining capacity: It has been 30 years since a new refinery was built in our Nation, and lawsuits and red tape have made it extremely costly to expand or modify existing refineries. The result is that America now imports millions of barrels of fully refined gasoline from abroad. This imposes needless costs on American families and drivers. It deprives American workers of good jobs. Finally, Bush laid the problem once again at the Dems' door: I know Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. Excellent stuff. We need to do this every single day.
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POPSThree Broadcast Networks Earned A Big Fat Zero Former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and former U.N. ambassador and assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke also benefited, as did one prominent Republican — former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson. Shalala and Holbrooke had left public office when they got their deals. But it was reasonable for Mozilo to think they'd serve again in another Democratic administration. And what, many wonder, was the quid pro quo for all this? Just a month ago, in unusually harsh language, Dodd ripped into President Bush on the subprime mess and defended a $400 billion plan that would bail out the subprime lending industry — including Mozilo. The Democrats' initial response has been to stall. They hope the problem will disappear until after the election. They need to investigate it fully, immediately and without prejudice — or risk having it blow up in their faces.
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POPSDems Running On Empty: Sen. James Inhofe Not only was I joined by dozens of GOP Senators, but nearly 30% of the Democratic Senators rebelled against their leadership and opposed the Boxer Climate Tax Bill. In the end, Senator Boxer only had at most 35 Democratic Senators willing to vote for final passage on the largest tax bill in U.S. history. The Boxer Climate Tax Bill was thoroughly disowned by Democratic Leadership and The Wall Street Journal aptly noted that environmentalists are “stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse.” Just a few days after the embarrassing defeat of the climate bill, the Democrats were at it again. As the price of gas at the pump continued to climb, Democrats were proposing yet another energy tax as part of their “solution” to our energy challenges. A major component of the Democrats’ “no” energy bill would reinstate the Windfall Profits Tax. Democrats want to impose the tax despite the fact that we tried this almost 30 years ago, with disastrous results.
3
POPS President Bush Discusses Energy The problem is that Congress has restricted access to key parts of the OCS since the early 1980s. Since then, advances in technology have made it possible to conduct oil exploration in the OCS that is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills. With these advances -- and a dramatic increase in oil prices -- congressional restrictions on OCS exploration have become outdated and counterproductive. Republicans in Congress have proposed I call on the House and the Senate to pass good legislation as soon as possible. This legislation should give the states the option of opening up OCS resources off their shores, provide a way for the federal government and states to share new leasing revenues, and ensure that our environment is protected. There's also an executive prohibition on exploration in the OCS. When Congress lifts the legislative ban, I will lift the executive prohibition.
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POPSCongress And The Countrywide Scandal As for Republicans, most members of the Senate Banking Committee voted for the Dodd-Frank bill in exchange for reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The reforms, part of a deal brokered by Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), create a new regulator to establish tougher standards for the portfolio holdings of Freddie and Fannie. While both of these agencies are in dire need of reform, this deal is still a mistake. By foisting this compromise on their Republican colleagues, Democrats are holding the reform of Fannie and Freddie hostage in order to increase bipartisan support for a bailout of reckless mortgage lenders. In a free market, businesses take risks and reap either profits or losses. But markets only work when businesses are held accountable for their bad decisions. The message this proposed legislation sends to the market is clear: Big lenders like Countrywide who make bad bets can count on generous bailouts
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POPSGas Prices Are Changing Americans’ Priorities would make developing the oil shale profitable at $20 a barrel. Are liberals in Congress anxious to see this oil help American consumers? No. Just last week they voted to extend their ban on oil shale development. The other liberal objection to increased domestic energy production is that the additional supplies will not affect prices for a decade. We will let Jay Leno respond: “Democrats said it would not do any good because it would not produce oil for 10 years. You know, same thing they said 10 years ago.” Just last week liberals in Congress rejected a proposal to allow drilling for oil 50 miles of the U.S. coast. The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be found along the U.S. outer continental shelf. The typical liberal response to calls for more domestic oil production is that drilling will not help lower prices significantly.
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POPSBush To Press Congress On Offshore Oil Drilling Bush also will reiterate his call for development of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Perino said. McCain has opposed drilling in the refuge, maintaining that the pristine areas in northeastern Alaska should be protected from energy development. On Monday, McCain made lifting the federal ban on offshore oil and gas development a key part of his energy plan. The Arizona senator said states should be allowed to pursue energy exploration in waters near their coasts and receive some of the royalty revenue. Bush has made clear in recent weeks that the drilling moratorium in coastal waters should end to allow for more domestic oil production and help "take the pressure off the price of gasoline." Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn't affect gasoline prices for at least five years.
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POPS From “Green Conservatism” To Black Gold In his book, sounding like Al Gore, Gingrich maintains that “global climate change” is one of several “worldwide challenges.” Unlike Gore, he seems to reject any involvement by “international bureaucrats” in such a scheme. So-called “green conservatism” also surfaced in former Bush speechwriter David Frum’s book. Incredibly, however, Frum advocates a carbon tax as a winning conservative idea. This kind of doubletalk helps explain why the Republican Party is in disarray. Rather than advocate the production of more energy of all kinds, they have an incoherent message that looks insincere and hypocritical because they want to appear to be as “green” as the Democrats, It’s good that Gingrich now seems to have jettisoned this approach. “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” He should go further and recall copies of his books. We need an American Vaclav Klaus to lead the way back to freedom.
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