Day: February 8, 2006

Saudis Not Feelin’ the Love Over Hydrocarbon Hatin’

Trish

Middle Eastern oil suppliers aren’t so happy with Pres. Bush’s State of the Union admission that America is addicted to their main export. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi is decrying Pres. Bush’s newfound “prejudice against hydrocarbons.” They might not even expand production if that’s the way we feel about it.

When I hear Bush talk about limiting imports, I figure that’s Rovespeak for “Goodbye ANWR. Goodbye Florida Gulf coast.”

“What concerns us is all the talk about not wanting our oil,” Naimi told an audience at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference. “It’s something to take into consideration.”

We’re not worried. We have a plan.

Bush’s strategy calls for substituting 30 percent of the nation’s fuel supply by 2025 with ethanol made from farm waste such as cornstalks and switch grass.

Actually, when I hear Bush talk about limiting imports, I figure that’s Rovespeak for “Goodbye ANWR. Goodbye Florida Gulf coast.”

But our friends in the field, not surprisingly, hear it differently.

His singling out of Middle Eastern oil was striking, rankling Saudi sensibilities.

After all, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers accounted for only 17 percent of the nation’s oil imports during the first 11 months of 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And the Gulf states could hardly be deemed more volatile than producers like Venezuela, Nigeria or even Russia.

The Saudis don’t really see the problem anyway.

Asked whether he thinks America is addicted to oil, [Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington Prince Turki Al-Faisal] wondered: “Why do you want to live without it?”

Because when the same percentage of Chinese people as Americans decide to drive Hummers we, as a planet, are toast?

After the Wiretaps, Now Comes the Blacklist

Jon Ponder

Erlichman, Haldeman, Rove: The major difference between our criminal 37th and 41st presidents is that the current lawbreaker-in-chief, Mr. Bush, has admitted to his illegal actions, whereas President Nixon never did cop to his crimes.

It is ironic that Rove, who gave up a secret agent purely for political reasons, is kneecapping Gops for opposing illegal spying

Still, it’s like the Bushists are using an old Nixon playbook. Now, true to form, the president’s chief enforcer, Karl Rove, is calling Republican senators and threatening them with being blacklisted by the White House. This report comes from the ultra-rightwing Washington Times, a newspaper owned by the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, head of the Unification Church cult. You can find it on the Washington Times website — go here to Google it:

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee.s investigation of the administration’s unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November…

The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

Others have pointed out the irony of having Rove — who blithely revealed the identity of a secret agent who was monitoring the black market for weapons of mass destruction for purely political reasons — threatening to kneecap members of his party who believe the president does not have the authority to spy on U.S. citizens.

McCain Rebukes Pentagon ‘Emergency’ Spending

Buck Banks

Footing the bill: At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld an earful of criticism over the Bush administration’s policy of using supplemental appropriations to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain said that reliance on emergency spending provided an “end run” around Congress.

Democrats were howling too, arguing that wartime costs should be predictable more than four years after the onset of the Iraq war.

“I don’t know how you can call it an emergency anymore,” McCain told Rumsfeld.

Supplemental spending requests are not held to the same authorization standards as traditional budget submissions.

McCain also argued that supplemental spending was contrary to congressional efforts to improve the appropriations process. Supplemental spending requests are handled solely by the Appropriations committees, and are not held to the same authorization standards as traditional budget submissions.

“To continue to come up here with a, quote, emergency spending request is something that’s become unacceptable and it’s got to stop,” said McCain, long a watchdog of wasteful government spending.

In response, Rummie seemingly contradicted himself:

Rumsfeld responded by saying he could submit the wartime costs in the regular budget, but had been advised by Congress several years ago not to do so because wartime costs were unpredictable. His remarks diverged from his testimony last year that supplemental appropriations were prepared much closer to the time funds are needed, allowing more accurate cost estimates and quicker access to funds.

In two weeks the Pentagon will request $70 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of fiscal 2006, bringing the year’s total wartime emergency appropriations to $120 billion. Appropriators attached a $50 billion bridge fund to the 2006 Defense spending bill, even though it was not requested by the administration.