Like high energy prices?

Keep voting Democratic, says Jeffrey Lord.

Lord lays out the case against Democrats on this issue, and why they can't even say what they really believe. There is so much good stuff, I hate to only excerpt a small part. Here's his conclusion, but anyone who votes should read the whole thing and keep it in mind:

Do you think Senator Obama wishes to acknowledge that the liberal philosophy he and his liberal (and frequently very rich) friends champion has gotten us to this exact point in American energy history? Of course not. If the American people figure out the connection between the price of gas and liberalism, they won't put a liberal in the White House. Which is why Obama, as with Dukakis, has to hide his liberalism. Connecting the dots between what we see in our everyday lives and illustrating the folly of whatever liberal idea got us here is what the rest of us have to do.

More here on the same theme:

Assaulting the standard of living of the middle class is what Barack Obama is all about. For you can search through all of his position papers, speeches and talking points and not find a word about reducing the price of gas or oil. He clearly has no intention of trying to reduce the price of gas at all. He has said, in fact, that the high price of gas and oil is good for the environment, and the only problem is that the prices increased too suddenly. This is the Marie Antoinette school of energy policy.

Remember Obama's famous quote:

"We can't just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert, and keep consuming 25 percent of the world's resources with just 4 percent of the world's population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead. We'll be fine. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen. "

What he means by this is that the current standard of living of the American people is unfair. It represents massive inequality in comparison to the rest of the world. So here we have a leading Presidential candidate who thinks truth and justice requires a reduction in our opulent middle class living standards. Good luck, and good night.

House Democrats want to nationalize an industry

They are not only adamantly opposed to off-shore drilling for oil, but now House Democrats want the federal government to take over oil refineries. Government bureaucrats obviously know best how much oil should be refined and not the market.

I guess basic knowledge of economics isn't necessary to most voters to be in Congress.

Now here's a boring post

I am tired and near the end of my day, but I'd like to point out a couple of articles I read that I enjoyed today. They are long, so be warned.

The first is by Noel Sheppard on how our national energy policies are the main driver behind $4 per gallon gasoline. Here's an excerpt:

Closer to home, our neighbors also ramped up oil production. To the south, Mexico has seen its crude output jump 64 percent since 1980, while Canada’s increased 85 percent.

Did I mention that our production declined by 22 percent in the same period?

Putting this in its proper perspective, if America had responded to the second energy crisis by increasing oil production only at the average rate of our North American neighbors, we’d currently be supplying ourselves with 18.86 million barrels of crude per day, or 91 percent of our usage.

Think oil would be $135 a barrel if that were the case?

The second is by Noemie Emery on why Obama, along with most other Democratic presidential candidates over the past 40 years, has trouble with blue-collar white Democrats (who he calls "Jacksonians"). It's also why I think McCain is going to win in November. Hint: it's not race:

Now let us imagine a different candidate, one who looks like Barack Obama, with the same mixed-race, international background, even the same middle name. But this time, he is Colonel Obama, a veteran of the war in Iraq, a kick-ass Marine with a "take no prisoners" attitude, who vows to follow Osama bin Laden to the outskirts of Hell. He comes from the culture of the military (the most color blind and merit-based in the country), and not the rarefied air of Hyde Park. He goes to a church with a mixed-race congregation and a rational preacher. He has never met Bill Ayers, and if he did he would flatten him. He thinks arugula is a town near Bogota and has Toby Keith on his favorites list. Would he strike no chords at all in Jacksonian country? Does anyone think he would lose 90 to 9 in Buchanan County? Or lose West Virginia by 41 points? For those Jacksonians who would be fine with a black man in the White House (not as tiny a group as Newsweek thinks), Colonel Obama is the one we are waiting for. When we will get him is anyone's guess.

The reasons behind our high gas prices

Greedy oil companies, as to many Democratic Senators think? Not at all, according to John Hinderaker's analysis over at Powerline.

I recommend reading the whole thing if you think the oil companies are behind gas prices. Among many other reasons:

Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.

Not that anyone who follows politics closely would be surprised that liberal Democrats are most concerned with having lots of money coming into the government through taxes.

Another big point was raised by John Hofmeister of Shell:

Meanwhile, in the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people.

Senator Sessions, I agree, it is not a free market.

According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, it's important to keep in mind that most Democrats, because they are beholden to the environmentalist left, want high gas prices as means of both punishing our economy (and those people especially who use lots of petroleum personally, like SUV drivers) and weaning the world off of petroleum-based fuel sources. That's an understandable enough position (not that I agree with it), but the Washington Democrats who agree with it don't have the courage to actually come out and say it. Instead, they do the one thing that accomplishes nothing toward reducing gas prices (berating oil executives on the Hill) and push for something that would make prices even HIGHER (a windfall profits tax) by discouraging investment in new technologies and exploration.

Again, I encourage anyone with the interest in this topic to read the whole thing.

Of course, it wouldn't be something I disagree with if John McCain didn't get involved (scroll down to see his part):

“Um, I don’t like obscene profits being made anywhere–and I’d be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax–that’s not what bothers me–but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people, that or industries or corporations that are distorting the market.”