The Pink Flamingo :: Is The Problem Gas/Oil Prices, Environmentalists, or Lobbyists

Faultline has one of the best pieces I’ve seen on gas prices. I’d probably only link to it in the evening, but it brings up something I was going to write about yesterday but was sidetracked. Mentioned is the fact that travel is lighter than usual this Memorial Day.

Where I am in New Mexico I WISH! Traffic is not down. Fact is, things are booming a little in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico when it comes to oil. There is so much money flying around here it is annoying. Yesterday I went in town to my friend’s shop. It was wall to wall people. The whole town is packed and people are spending money.

Baby oil wells are popping up all over the place once you get past Roswell heading toward Texas. It really doesn’t pay to drill until the price of oil is over $60 a barrel. Boy are they drilling! The ARRA News Service has more about shale drilling and the laws preventing it.

It’s hard to judge the rest of the country. New Mexico is basically the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone as far as the civilized world is concerned We’re the only state that has “USA” on its license plate. Where I live, anyway, in the “Eastern” part of the state, money is flowing with the black oil. One of the ways I tried judging what was going on is by checking out the vehicles to see if there is any change. Here just about everyone and their ex-wife drives either an SUV or a pick-up truck.

The little community where I live swells from a full time year round population of about 10,000 to 40,000 (in a matter of less than a week). You can imagine the nasty things said in the heat of battle about Texas drivers. I see little difference in what people are driving, other than a number of new cross-overs, but they were buying those last year. Here it doesn’t appear that the price of gas is making much of a difference. I have a friend who makes and sells very expensive designer jewelry. Her sales are great.

This whole part of the country is floating on oil reserves. One of the biggest fields discovered to date is about 40-60 miles from here as the crow flies. Bill Richardson has put it off limits because of the ecologically diverse and precious DESERT that floats on top of it.

We’re basically paying for the fact that most of our politicians, both Democrats and Republicans are nothing but cowering, spineless, twits who have prostituted themselves to the highest bidder. We’re now paying the price for their sell-out to the environmental movement. I think the big question is how long are we going to allow this to keep happening.

And don’t give me that BS that third party candidates or more “pure” conservatives or liberals would make things better. They all sell out in the end. It doesn’t matter what issue: abortion (either side), immigration reform, agriculture, military, utilities….it’s the lobby that counts, not what you and I want.

OR IS THE PROBLEM PROSTITUTE OFFICE HOLDERS

Bill Smith has an interesting article today about 10 GOP members of Congress who have prostituted themselves to Planned Parenthood.

“…"Dirty Dozen" list and express your disappointment: Reps. Mark Kirk (IL), Christopher Shays (CN), Kay Granger (TX), Jim Ramstad (MN), Charlie Dent (PA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), Ralph Regula (OH), David Hobson (OH), Judy Biggert (IL), Mike Castle (DE), Wayne Gilchrest (MD) and Deborah Pryce (OH)…”

WHO IS CAUSING ALL THE PROBLEMS?
Someone sent this to me. It is an email they received from Numbers USA this evening.

“You Did It Again!
Friends,
Congratulations AGAIN! On the heels of yesterday's victory in which the AgJOBS amnesty and the employment-based permanent worker increases were stripped from the Iraq Supplemental bill, we have more good news to report to you. The H-2B low sill worker increase has been removed from the Iraq Supplemental as well!

We will be coming to you with specific actions for those of you who have Senators who are deserving of your praise for making this happen. In the meantime, you may want to go ahead and call your Senator and let them know how pleased you are that the immigration increases have been removed from the bill.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Your Phone Calls Made This Happen

We continue to receive feedback from Congressional offices that the citizen outcry against the stealth move to attach immigration increases to the Iraq Supplemental was the knife through the heart of the AgJOBS amnesty and other increases.

Senate Majority Leader Reid and other Senators were just not up for a long, drawn out fight like we had last summer over the "comprehensive" immigration bill. …This faxing system is 100% financed by the voluntary generosity of the 625,000- plus Americans who use it…”

I was once a lobbyist. A number of space related organizations realized that SC was the target state to take out the Acting Administrator of NASA who was responsible for the Challenge Disaster. It all boiled down to Senator Fritz Hollings. We engineered constituent calls from within the state – not outside of the state. The voting was scheduled to start around 11:30 or something. I had the calls start at 9AM that day and continue until 11AM. By the time I called at 11:15 I was put straight through to the Senator’s chief of staff who cried uncle. Hollings pulled his support, and the Acting Administrator of NASA was history.

We did this the old fashioned way – through the old L-5 Society phone tree. There was no multi-million dollar organization (we had none, closest thing was the Planetary Society). We did not have blast fax, email, or form letters. It was “a political” – we used anyone, any party, as long as they were registered voters in the state.

Was what we did the same thing that Numbers USA did or the bunch from Planned Parenthood? We weren’t as sophisticated. We did not threaten. I issued orders that everyone was to be polite. There was no name calling. There was no blame liberals or conservatives. We were simply constituents who thought Senator Hollings should pull his support from someone who was grossly incompetent.

And yes, after Senator Hollings did this, I voted for him the next time – even if he was a Democrat.

Maybe the problem is the fact that civil conversation and manners have left the political discourse and people feel entitled to act like animals, no matter what their political leanings? No one should be abused the way I’ve been this weekend. It’s absurd. If I weren’t dealing with so many family traumas, one of them being life and death, I might think it funny. It isn’t. We have the right to disagree. We do not have the right to censor because of political differences.

Maybe we need to start demanding some serious controls be put on lobby organizations, be they "citizens" groups like Numbers USA or Planned Parenthood, or corporate or professional. It will never happen. Follow the money, right?