Vacation time

For Congress, that is. And the fabulously rich and famous, to whom high gas and energy bills mean nothing. And to the upper middle class, to which rising prices constitute a mere annoyance.

For the rest of us? Well, as the presumptive Democrat nominee for president (that would be Barack Obama for those of you who have more important things to do than pay attention) has said repeatedly, we just need to drive less, turn off our air conditioning and eat less.

The House of Representatives ended its session today and kicked off its five-week vacation without any kind of action whatsoever on the energy issue. Well, 25 Republicans stayed behind in an act of defiance to "debate" a comprehensive energy bill introduced last month by House Republicans.

The bill never reached the floor, though. Not one word of debate was uttered. Why? Because House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi would not allow it and with the Democrats in power, Republicans lacked the necessary support to bypass her refusal.

Her final act today, as much of the body closed up shop for vacation, was to turn off the floor lights and microphones on the 25 Republicans still there, order C-SPAN to turn off its cameras and clear the press area of reporters.

That's the Liberal way, after all. If they don't agree with you, shut them up by any means necessary.

First of all, this bill was not simply a legislative effort to Drill Here, Drill Now, as the media allowed the Libs to portray it. The American Energy Act, as it is called, does follow in President Bush's lifting of the offshore drilling ban. It also calls for opening the Arctic shelf for exploration and drilling (where geologists know there is enough oil to supply the WORLD all by itself for roughly three years ... more on that later), part of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the vast amount of oil shale that exists in the Mountain West.

The bill also calls for cutting the red tape that has blocked development of new oil refineries in this country for more than 30 years. And equally as important, it provides tax incentives for companies to not only reward energy conservation and efficiency but for development of renewable and alternative energy technologies.

In other words, it recognizes that our dependency on foreign oil, which has grown from 24 percent in 1970 to more than 70 percent now must end but also that cleaner, more efficient fuel sources must be developed.

Makes sense, right? Not to the kook Left, which now runs the Democrat party. Pelosi, you see, represents a district in the San Francisco Bay Area, which houses the most extreme wing of her party, including a big core of the Environazi nutcases. Her political life would be over if she didn't do everything in her power to ensure NO drilling ANYWHERE.

I know everyone's aware that massive areas of the state of California burn every summer. Hundreds of thousands of acres, thousands of homes. Lost. Sometimes for months on end these fires burn, and the manpower and cost required to attempt to control these things are staggering.

A huge reason these fires spread so quickly is because the Environazis won't allow the forestry folks to conduct "controlled burns" that would make wildfires easier to contain. Hell, they won't even allow the forestry service to clear the fallen, dead trees and brush. You might as well have thousands of five-gallon gas cans lying around when a fire starts.

I could really care less, though, that Californians don't have enough intenstinal fortitude to take care of their own state. But should they have this kind of control over the WHOLE COUNTRY? That's essentially what's happened since the 2006 congressional elections gave Democrats majorities in both houses.

Every poll everywhere shows that the vast majority of Americans want us to lift these drilling bans and stop sending more than $700 billion overseas for oil every year. All that oil under the Arctic cap? It'll be taken out of the ground. By the Russians and any other nation not under the thumb of extremists who now essentially control this country through Pelosi and other Libs.

You see, what you and I and approaching 80 percent of the American people want doesn't matter. Not as long as the power structure in Congress remains as is.

(Imported from Aug. 1, 2008)