Day: April 17, 2012

If Republicans Wanted Prices at the Pump to Fall, They Would Go Along with Obama’s Plan

Trish

gaspump

The president is proposing a plan that would actually make a dent in gas prices. And no, it’s not drill baby, drill because, as Obama explained, there’s a big hole in that idea.

…the problem is we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil and we only have 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Even if we drilled every square inch of this country right now, we’d still have to rely disproportionately on other countries for their oil. That means we pay more at the pump every time there’s instability in the Middle East, or growing demand in countries like China and India.

Instead, the president wants to attack gas prices both administratively — meaning acting as allowed without Congress needing to do that whole law-passing thing of which they seem incapable — and legislatively. Both strategies start by attacking the real problem — oil speculation. Obama:

We can’t afford a situation where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil, creating the perception of a shortage, and driving prices higher — only to flip the oil for a quick profit…That’s not the way the market should work. And for anyone who thinks this cannot happen, just think back to how Enron traders manipulated the price of electricity to reap huge profits at everybody else’s expense.

Obama made good a long time ago on a campaign promise to close the “Enron loophole,” which allowed traders to evade American regulations by buying and selling electronically or overseas.

So here’s what he’s asking our representatives in Washington to do.

[…]

Anne Romney Stayed Home for Religious Reasons

Buck Banks

The religious dynamic of the Romneys’ Leave It To Beaver lifestyle has been largely lost on the partisans making hay out of the latest flare-up in the mommy wars, which was sparked by a Democratic strategist charging that Ann ‘has never actually worked a day in her life.’ But while much of the debate has centered on class — with liberals casting full-time motherhood as a luxury for the rich, and conservatives hoping working-class women will identify with her — the fact is that even if Mitt were a middle-class schoolteacher, there’s a good chance Ann still would have foregone a career… That’s because for many Latter-Day Saint women, staying at home to raise children is less a lifestyle choice than religious one — a divinely appreciated sacrifice that brings with it blessings, empowerment, and spiritual prestige.

— McKay Coppins, writing for Buzzfeed.

One of the Bums Says to Fire the Bums

Buck Banks

Congress today is a stagnant pond that needs to be drained and refilled with a steady stream of new public servants. I’m a fan of the Jack Welch principle in reverse for Congress … fire 90 percent of members every election and only keep the 10 percent who were productive.

— Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), ripping into his colleagues in a new book out today, The Debt Bomb, noting the U.S. Senate is “heavily sedated.”

Penguin Bites Newt Gingrich

Trish
penguin
Move over honey badger. Penguin really don't care.

We imagine the penguin was just standing its ground.

Newt was nipped on the finger by a penguin during a private tour of the famous St. Louis zoo on Friday before he spoke to the National Rifle Association convention, zoo officials confirmed on Monday.

Gingrich, who is trailing in the Republican race for the White House and is under pressure to withdraw, passed unscathed through Big Cat Country and avoided contact with the crocodiles in the Herpetarium. But his visit took a turn when a Magellanic penguin pecked at the candidate’s hand.

“He was nipped on the finger by a penguin,” zoo public relations director Susan Gallagher said. “A Band-Aid took care of the injury.”

Romney Advocated Raising Energy Costs in 2010 – Rails Against It in 2012

Jon Ponder

For the past few weeks, Mitt Romney, his surrogates and primary opponents have been railing against the rise in gas prices and, of course, blaming the surge in crude oil prices in world markets on Pres. Obama. Here is a sampling of their spin from Elizabeth Kolbert writing in the New Yorker:

“Higher energy prices would encourage energy efficiency across the full array of American businesses and citizens.”
– Romney in 2010

[Romney] called on President Barack Obama to fire three of his Cabinet members: the Energy Secretary, Steven Chu; the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar; and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson. According to Romney, the three have spent the past few years carrying out a not-so-secret plan to raise the price of gasoline at the pump. Only by firing the “gas-tax trio,” Romney told Fox News, can the President demonstrate that he did not approve of this plan. “Time for them to go,” Romney said.

Romney’s remarks came just days after Louisiana’s governor, Bobby Jindal, also on Fox, accused the Administration of driving up the cost of gas in the service of its “radical” agenda. “The reality is, gasoline prices have doubled under this President—highest prices for oil and gasoline in a hundred and fifty years,” Jindal said. “People used to think it was because of incompetence from the Obama Administration on energy. I think it’s because of ideology.” (As far as “reality” goes, Jindal’s characterization of gas prices is inaccurate; they were higher in 2008, under President George W. Bush.) Romney and Jindal, meanwhile, were echoing comments made by Newt Gingrich, who accused the President of adhering to a “radical ideology, which wants to artificially raise the cost of energy.” And Gingrich was following Rick Santorum, who, back in February, declared that Obama’s energy policies are based on a “phony theology” that “elevates the earth above man.

But in Romney’s ironically titled book, “No Apology,” published in 2010, he pushed the opposite approach. “Higher energy prices would encourage energy efficiency across the full array of American businesses and citizens,” he wrote back then. “…It would provide industries of all kinds with a predictable outlook for energy costs, allowing them to confidently invest in growth.”

[…]