the last 8 years was all about enabling the U.S. oil companies to

[daninthemoon]

be allowed to drill in Alaska. That's why bushler and haliburton destroyed Iraq and set the Middle East on a potentialy even more volitile course. That's why ethanol has had a part in the growing world food crisis.

[Virginia Dare]

1. Put two oil men in charge, and this is what you get..

SURPRISE AMERICA!!! Are you ready to go out and have that beer with the chimp now?...ah shit, you can't afford it anymore, can you?

[rurallib]

2. Hey - you forgot that destroying unions was pretty important also.

[derby378]

3. Ethanol didn't have to be a part of the equation, and it still doesn't

Screw GM's FlexFuel. People are starving.

[SharonRB]

4. I'm fuming about what he said today

Blames Congress for the high gas prices because they wouldn't allow drilling in Alaska. Give me a break! :crazy:

[KSinTX]

10. Let's hope they stand their ground on this! nt

[INdemo]

11. And thats not all .......

He said J. Mccain will win ......Remember when he said he wasn't going to lose..Did Diebold reassure him that everything is in place to steal another one...But back to gas prices...The public was never informed about the content of the Energy bill that Cheney and the Oil Companies drafted..Since that energy bill was passed (by Republicans by the way) we immediately saw gas prices go up.And now there are refineries shut down in countries that we dont even buy oil from but the oil companies use that as an excuse to raise prices..Why doesn't someone step forward and tell the public the truth about oil prices..Its not about world demand ..Its about insider trading of oil on the market running it up (and down) that is producing millionaires daily.Are Democrats in Washington cashing in on these market profits? It makes one wonder.

[Subdivisions]

5. Study: ANWR oil would have little impact

Opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil development would only slightly reduce America’s dependence on imports and would lower oil prices by less than 50 cents a barrel, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Energy Department.

The report, issued by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said that if Congress gave the go-ahead to pump oil from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the crude could begin flowing by 2013 and reach a peak of 876,000 barrels a day by 2025.

But even at peak production, the EIA analysis said, the United States would still have to import two-thirds of its oil, as opposed to an expected 70 percent if the refuge’s oil remained off the market.

-snip-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/

'Nuff said on ANWR.

[spanone]

6. please, don't put facts into the equation, mr mr doesn't like that

[daninthemoon]

7. it's going to make a big impact on bushler's infamous coffers. Only

question is exactly how. I assume it will be through stock ownership in haliburton and some of the companies in the bushler family business lines.

[Junkdrawer]

8. ANWR is more valuable as a wedge issue than as a business proposition.

If Big Oil really wanted ANWR, they'd have had it on a silver platter long ago.

[Marr]

9. Like everything else they do, this about wedge issue politics and handing money to

the GOPs sponsors. It's another shortsighted con game that can be played with politically for a few months. These people never think far beyond their own immediate greed, and almost never beyond the next fiscal quarter.

[Hidden Stillness]

12. No Rules, No Laws--Everything Replaced by Corporations

I think as much as anything else, the last 8 years of Hell were all about deregulating everything--EVERYTHING. No laws, no rules, no Government response or obligation to citizens, no National borders, nothing. This was why there was such a furious, non-stop flurry of NAFTA/CAFTA-like "free" trade agreements with one country after another, no matter how much anger and opposition there was, like they had to get it all done before they left office, as that was their only chance. The real object of these secret agreements was the deregulation of the banking and finance laws of other countries, so that all U.S. corporations can move their "offices" (however fake the "move") to countries with no corporate taxes, no Social Security payments, etc., and so that they can invest anywhere, take over or merge with any other corporate entity, and collude with any corrupt Government in the world on anything, such as turning a blind eye to slavery or other abuse of employees, complete pollution of factory areas, etc., etc.

It was about deregulating the stock and commodities markets, so that now gas and oil are bid up to outrageously high prices by a wild frenzy of speculation, having nothing at all to do with buying and selling products, with supply-and-demand, etc., but only being deliberately--and completely unregulated--manipulated prices up by speculators who do not know or care which items they are auctioning off this week. Producers do not profit by working; speculators profit their hedge-fund managers, (and people like John Edwards), by speculating it up, and refiners profit by closing down perfectly good oil wells, to cut supply. The entire market was actually moved, from the regulated stock market, to the unregulated and completely secret hedge-fund/"spot market" (I think they call it). There are no laws; there is no oversight. The last 8 years also introduced the once-shocking idea that if you are flooded, or have a hurricane hit, and you desperately need help, you can die, because the Federal Government is now as if on another planet, and only for rich investors--just like the Gilded Age. We do not actually even have an armed forces anymore--we have Halliburton, Blackwater, and who knows who else, doing what, under no law!

They could not fight the people on these issues, because the people support all the opposite things--so they undercut and short-circuited the whole system and replaced it with a secret corporate conspiracy/cartel instead!

[Initech]

13. At what point do we cut off big oil's funding?

*CAN* we cut off their funding? Shit, they're raking in profits in the fucking TRILLIONS while we all suffer the consequences of $4.00 a gallon. At some point we should just step in and fucking shut down their money-making machine. Yeah, I do realize that's borderline communist, but the line's got to be drawn somewhere.

[Winterblues]

14. I think it was about more than that

Exxon is making and has made a Net Profit of OVER One Hundred Million Dollars a Day day in and day out, week after week; month after month; year after year. And this is all NET PROFITS after All expenses have been met, basically in the pocket money, and price of fuel just keeps climbing.. ANWR doesn't really matter all that much with such Profits currently being made..