While watching the news yesterday I heard that Denver is facing a crisis. There are not going to be enough limousines in Denver when the Democrats hold there national convention there. So, will someone please explain to me why the party of Global Warming is going to be using huge limousines that use fossil fuels and leave a carbon footprint?
Years ago the guy who rode his bicycle to work was the guy who couldn't get an Auto Loan. Today Apex Auto Loan offers a nationwide auto loan program which offers car loans online in minutes to customers with good or bad credit. However, Al Gore tells us that we all should be riding a bike to work. Never mind that he flies around in a private jet and has huge caravans of SUVs that carry him to his speaking engagements.
And then there is Nancy Pelosi. She won't allow a vote on drilling in the Congress even though gas prices are sky high. While she and her family fly around in jets, I watch as a lady stops to get $6 in gas. Soon people will have to be taking out Bad Credit Car Loans not to buy a car but to buy a tank of gas.
We live in a weird world that includes some unusually schizophrenic politicians.
This evening I stopped to get gas and when I went inside to pick up a soft drink, I noticed that the woman in front of me in line purchased $6.00 worth of gasoline. She was well dressed as if she was coming home from work. Her teenage son was with her. She drove a car about five years old.
I couldn't help but to wonder what her situation was. Was that $6.00 just enough to get her home and perhaps back to work again the next morning. What would she do the following evening?
This woman is not anywhere on the radar of Nancy Pelosi. I am not sure what is worse - that Pelosi (who uses a private jet not just for herself but for her family and staff to travel between her home district and Washington D.C.) cannot comprehend this woman's plight, or that she does understand it very well and simply doesn't care. Either way, the fact that she stubbornly refused to allow a vote on the floor of the House on proposals to deal with the present energy crisis is appaling.
The following letter was recently delivered to Speaker Pelosi on behalf of the American people and the Republilcan Conference requesting that she reconvene the House and allow a vote to provide relief to Americans suffering because of skyrocketing gas prices:
An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi
On Friday August 1, 2008, at 11:23 a.m., your Democrat majority in the House of Representatives adjourned the House for five full weeks.House Republicans believe that Congress should not go on vacation until we take action to lower gas and energy prices for struggling American families.
For the last two months we and our House Republican colleagues have used every tool at our disposal to try and get you and your Democrat majority to vote on legislation to lower gas and energy prices by expanding environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging the development of alternative energy technologies.
Many of the proposals we have asked you and your Democrat majority to allow us to vote on are bipartisan proposals that we believe would enjoy the support of a majority of the Members of the Congress. Yet because you and your Democrat Leadership personally oppose these proposals, you are not allowing them to come up for a vote. This past Sunday, you even told George Stephanopoulos that you will never allow this vote to occur (see transcript on the reverse).
In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media.
Today we have again returned to the Capitol to continue speaking to the thousands of Americans from all across our country who are visiting the Capitol. We would have preferred if instead we were joined by our colleagues to have a true debate on this issue that ended in an up or down vote.
We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families. We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote.
Signed by: John Boehner, Republican Leader; Roy Blunt, Republican Whip; Adam Putnam, Republican Conference Chairman; Eric Cantor, Chief Deputy Whip; and Members of the House Republican Conference
Over the last few days I have been having discussions with friends who are headed out on a trip to the Dakota's in their recreational vehicle. I have teased them about having an experience like that of Robin Williams in the movie RV. The truth is that I am jealous of the fact that they are taking off and getting away for a few weeks.
Even though I admit to being a bit envious (forgive me, Lord) I don't think my heart could take the strain of buying gas for one of those rolling monsters. Every time we pulled in and filled the tank I think I would need someone standing by with a defibrillator to zap me.
When I take a vacation I want something to start my heart, not stop it. So, in my fantasy vacation world I am riding a Harley Davidson... hair blowing in the wind... bugs in my teeth... heart pounding, blood pumping ... the vibrations of the hog as we travel through the prairies, over mountains, across rivers...
However, given that I am seven months pregnant that isn't going to happen; at least not for me. It could happen for you. If that sounds good you might want to check out EagleRider. EagleRider Rentals & Tours pioneered the Harley-Davidson motorcycle rental concept and today they are the world's largest motorcycle tourism company. In addition to rentals, and guided & self-drive tours, they have big-time discounts on motorcycles going one way to specific locations (they appear to run about the same price you would expect to pay for a mid-range car rental).
Just do me one favor. If you end up touring on a Harley with EagleRider, please don't send me any pictures or postcards. The jealousy just might kill me, and I've got a baby to think about.
Friend #1: "How can Democrat politicians NOT know that deep-water oil exploration is the right thing to do. It will take the speculators out of the market resulting in an immediate 25% drop in gas prices, and the money will be going to American companies to reinvest in American jobs and in new energy technologies, AND the money won't be going to some Middle East country where it can be used to support terrorism. How can Democrat politicians NOT know this?"
Me: "They know, they just don't care."
Friend #2: "How can all of these people NOT know that Barack Obama is an empty suit. He has no experience and surrounds himself with terrorists, racists, and crooks. He hasn't a clue when it comes to policy; he was for unconditional talks with dictators and tyrants before he was against it, he was for public funding for elections before he was against it, he was for his pastor before he was against him, he was for all kinds of things before he was against them. He is as much a waffler as John Kerry. How can Obama supporters NOT know this?"
Me: "They know, they just don't care."
I have never been able to understand the way some people can ignore what they know to be true, simply because it doesn't match up with what they want to be true. And, it is not limited to the realm of politics either. Consider this example taken from the book Casanova Was A Book Lover;
The Beardstown Ladies, celebrated for their putatively brilliant investment club, sold eight hundred thousand copies of their first book, success that led to other books. Nothing much changed when a mean-spirited little whippersnapper in Chicago reported that their investments really weren't that good and neither was their math. The little old ladies had not known the right way to calculate annualized returns; the proper calculations showed their returns fell far below the market annual averages. They were sorry. "We're saddened by the people who judged us guilty and suggested we were in it for the money," said Betty Sinnock, the lady who can't add. "I feel like [the reporter] really didn't related what the Beardstown Ladies were all about." Accepting the apology, the public keep buying the books, in which the publisher didn't work too hard at inserting corrections slips. Sinnock remained on the individual investors committee to the New York Stock Exchanges. The reporter attended a speech for which Sinnock received a standing ovation. "The got away with it, and more power to them," of of the members of the audience told him. "Look at how many books they've sold."
In other words, for this member of the audience the popularity of the Beardstown Ladies excused the lack of substance. Sounds familiar doesn't it.
Nearly 12,000 delegates and alternates gathered last week for the Republican Party of Texas Convention. It seems that the liberal left, the mass media, and radio talk shows have managed to focus attention on a few of the not so pretty items of interest (eg. John McCain's no-show, some stupid buttons sold by a fringe group, a questionable video introduction, etc.). However, there were plenty of newsworthy and noteworthy events and speeches.
One of the most talked about speeches was delivered by Chairman Michael Williams of the Texas Railroad Commission. He was interrupted by applause more than 30 times during the course of the speech. I have embedded the video of the speech below, along with a transcript. I encourage you to check it out.
CHAIRMAN MICHAEL WILLIAMS 2008 REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS STATE CONVENTION JUNE 12, 2008 – HOUSTON, TEXAS
I am honored to share a stage this week with Chairman Benkiser, Vice Chairman Armstrong and my 28 colleagues who hold statewide office, all of whom are proud Republicans.
And I am especially honored to be in the midst of the many thousands of you who launched a Republican revolution in Texas… the greatest grassroots organization in the 50 states… the delegates and alternates of the Republican Convention of Texas.
You are the heart and soul of our party…a people who have never stopped believing in conservative ideas, and who have never stopped living up to conservative ideals.
Eight years ago you saw fit to elect a bald-headed guy who wears bow ties and cowboy boots to the Texas Railroad Commission. Two years later you did it a second time. And I thank you.
If you did not support me in those previous races, that’s okay. You will have another chance in November.
With the price of crude oil above $130 a barrel, and the price of gasoline nearing $4 a gallon, we need leadership that stands up for the economic interests of American families by demanding greater exploration of America’s energy sources.
I have fought for energy exploration, the development of clean energy technologies, common sense water protection and pipeline safety measures and self-imposed spending caps at the Railroad Commission.
I have advocated for fiscal conservatism even when it cost me money… such as when I turned down a pay raise from the Texas Legislature, not once, but twice.
And if you re-elect me Railroad Commissioner in 2008, I will be that voice from middle America that Washington doesn’t want to hear… the one arguing with every fiber in his being that the “cap and trade” carbon tax is nothing more than a cap and spend redistribution scheme, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the creation of the modern welfare state.
I know the liberals think Americans are finally coming their way… that suddenly working families are for higher taxes and bigger government. But the election of a Democrat Congress is not an endorsement of Democrat ideas. The fact is Democrats campaign as conservatives so they can govern as liberals. The problem is Republicans started doing the same thing, so the people chose the real thing.
But the American people still believe in limited government, lower taxes and less regulation.
And if our party returns to its Reagan roots, our majority will one day return to Washington as well.
Like many of you, I cut my teeth in the Reagan Revolution. I later served in the first Bush Administration. And for 30 years I have been friends with a man from Midland I am proud to call my president… George W. Bush.
As we choose a new president, I am keenly aware of the historic nature of this campaign.
As an African-American from the South, I am proud of the fact that someone who looks like me will be a major party presidential nominee for the first time in our nation’s history.
What Senator Obama has done is extraordinary. His nomination speaks well, not only of his own personal political skills, but of the America that exists today.
But Americans will not fall for identity politics over good ideas or slogans in the absence of substance or for promises and platitudes that are the wrong policy prescriptions.
Change is just a slogan when the ideas are the Democrat leftovers of the last 50 years. When it is the same menu as McGovern, Carter and Mondale: higher taxes, bigger government and a steady diet of class warfare and expanded welfare.
We must remember what their message of hope and change is all about: their hope is in government, and the change they seek is in your pocket.
My fellow Republicans, we are the party of change. We are the ones that brought reform to government, reducing regulation and lowering taxes. We brought down the Soviet wall. We are the ones that believe public education should be about the children and not the union leaders.
Our faith resides in the power of the individual and not an all-pervasive federal government.
And we believe in the simple but profound idea that human life is sacred, beginning with the unborn.
Our message of hope is not dependent on bureaucracy but entrepreneurship. We do not settle for the proposition that a healthy environment has to come at the expense of a healthy economy.
Our hope resides in unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit to address both challenges. We believe in tying incentives, not penalties, to fuel efficiency. We want to create an economic climate conducive to the further development of the electric, natural gas or plug-in hybrid market and the first 100 mile-per-gallon cars.
We want to send our kids off in low emission natural gas or propane school buses. Not only will our kids breathe easier, but so will taxpayers who pay the fuel bills. We want to challenge innovators and entrepreneurs who develop new clean coal technology.
Our answer isn’t to say “no to coal” with no alternative. It is to say how can we make the burning of coal cleaner, so we have a more diverse and affordable mix of energy and a cleaner environment?
America is the Saudi Arabia of coal. Texas has a 200-year supply. Let’s not start with the proposition of “why we can’t,” but “how we can.”
My friends, our message of hope and change built a political majority because it reflects the common sense of Middle America.
If you ever doubt whether we have won the debate of ideas, consider the fact that conservatives still call themselves conservatives and liberals call themselves progressives.
It is far easier to rebuild the brand of a party than revive a disproved philosophy. But to win this election cycle, we need to get our swagger back. We need to start acting with the confidence of a party that reflects the prevailing sentiment. And step one is to stop licking our wounds and start telling it like it is.
The Democrat policy on Iraq is to withdraw regardless of the consequences. Whether you supported the war in Iraq or not, the next president will not decide the past but the future. We cannot base our policy in the Middle East on appeasing the political left. It must be about serving the American interest.
I am so thankful Senator McCain knows that Democrat policies have empowered oil barons in the Middle East. He knows that an unconditional withdrawal will only shift the balance of power further toward the extremists. He is committed to defeating the jihadists who did not wait for the American invasion of Iraq to begin before killing innocent Americans on American soil.
The energy challenge we face today is a direct result of the refusal of Democrats to consider new energy exploration. Democrat policies stand in the way of developing needed refinery capacity.
Democrat policies have left Texans vulnerable to the rising price of natural gas. Democrat policies have stuck us with soaring electric rates. And it was the Democrat Leader in the Texas House who killed a ten percent rate reduction for millions of Texas consumers last year.
Liberals have hijacked environmentalism and given us extremism. They say “no” to nuclear development, “no” to cleaner coal plants, and “no” to wind energy when it encroaches on their East Coast beach properties.
They have fought energy exploration from the coast of Florida to the outer reaches of Alaska.
Then they turn around and blame American energy companies for the high price of energy when their extremism and obstructionism makes us more dependent on foreign oil every day.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The French are harnessing nuclear power. The Chinese and Castro are producing natural gas 50 miles from our borders. And the Democrats just say no. They are reaching back into history for Jimmy Carter’s failed windfall profits tax. The same tax that drove down American oil production. Never mind that today Americans spend $600 billion a year for imported oil.
If Saudi sheikhs are driving a new Rolls Royce, it was Democrat policies that gave them the extra riyals.
Now, the Democrats want to place a $3 trillion tax on carbon output to combat global warming.
Regardless of where you come down on the science of climate change, putting an extra $3 trillion in the hands of Washington politicians is a truly miserable proposition. Those that produce the most carbon will purchase allowances. The money generated from such a scheme will then allow Senator Boxer and her colleagues to dole out favors to all their friends.
And what will be the benefit for the single mom trying to make ends meet? The office worker trying to put his kids through college? The farmer betting on the next crop? The young couple in south Dallas, east Austin, the Valley or third ward here in Houston?
It will be even higher prices for electricity, gasoline at the pump and food at the grocery store.
That single mom with two kids… that office worker with a college loan to go with the home loan… that farmer paying higher fertilizer and diesel costs … those inner city residents making their first house payments won’t breathe easier under cap and spend either.
China and India will continue to increase their carbon output, negating any environmental benefits whatsoever. So this carbon tax will hurt Texans’ jobs, raise the cost of goods, thin our wallets and do little to reduce greenhouse gases.
My friends, this is the fundamental difference about how we address great challenges: we want to insure economic growth and create incentives for entrepreneurial solutions; they want to punish job creators through new taxes and a massive redistribution scheme.
When it comes to energy and the economy, we ought to focus on producing more, reliable energy sources here in America. Developing alternative energy for transportation and electricity, the new technology to make traditional sources cleaner and killing the Democrats’ cap and trade redistribution scheme.
And then we ought to do everything in our power to attract more American students to the fields of math, science, engineering and technology.
Both my parents earned college degrees in math. My dad was a high school math teacher and a coach. My wife Donna is a mechanical engineer. I understand the value of innovation and technology to the future of this country, which is why this summer I am co-sponsoring a camp called “Williams Innovators” to inspire students between the sixth and 12th grades to pursue proficiency in the fields of math, science, engineering and technology.
We must end the mass exportation of the talent we educate by filling American classrooms with more American students ready to take advantage of the opportunities of the 21st Century.
My friends, this is an historic time. We cannot win this election focused on internal struggles.
We cannot protect jobs and working families if we are relegated to the sidelines of public discourse. We cannot build and sustain a culture that nurtures life from the comfort of our living rooms. Now is not the time to sow the seeds of indifference. We must remember why we joined this fight to begin with… why we entered the arena.
Imagine with me the America that can be if we don’t lose hope, don’t lose our sense of idealism.
Imagine an America where freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand. Imagine an America where opportunity is available to all and the hope of all. Imagine an America where we exercise proper dominion over God’s creation while ushering in a wave of new prosperity.
Imagine an America where schools compete for our kids instead of taking them for granted.
Imagine an America where the values of Middle America are not looked down upon by the left, but embraced by all because they are right. Imagine communities free of drugs… neighborhoods free of crime… families free of violence.
We can only achieve what we first imagine. We can only realize that which we are willing to do.
I know no election more significant than the next one. My dad is in the Texas Football Coaches Hall of Honor. He says the first rule of winning is to show up.
Will you roll up your sleeves with me, and answer the whistle? Will you join me on the game field? Will you fight for a brighter future for all Americans?
I ask for your help… I ask for your prayers… and I ask for your vote.
May the peace of the Lord be with you. May God bless you and may God bless Texas.
Energy independence has been on our "to do" list for over thirty years, my whole adult life. In 1973, in response to OPEC's oil embargo against us, President Nixon established Project Independence, which promised independence in 1980. We could have been energy independent a generation ago! The truth is, we are so pathetically behind the curve right now that federal spending for energy research and development is only 40% of what it was in 1979. Our efforts are haphazard and often pointless: today we have six million flex-fuel vehicles built to run on biodiesel or on E85, which is 85% ethanol, but only 2,000 pumps for those fuels in a country with 170,000 gas stations.
When energy shocks and crises come, we take aspirin to deal with the pain, but we don't address the underlying symptoms. This oil addiction is killing us. We have to stop popping pain pills and get ourselves cured. For all these years, we've never lacked the means, just the will. We've never harnessed the real energy source that independence requires - the energy of the American people.
The first thing I will do as President is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. I'll use the bully pulpit to inform you about the plan and ask for your support. I'll use the bully conference table to meet with members of Congress until I have the votes. The plan will get underway during my first term, and we will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term. The Huckabee Administration will be remembered as the time when we finally, finally achieved energy independence.
We have to explore, we have to conserve, and we have to pursue all avenues of alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, biodiesel, and biomass. Some will come from our farms and some will come from our laboratories. Dwindling supplies and increasing demand from newly-industrialized countries of fossil fuels are driving up prices. These price increases will facilitate innovation and the opportunity for independence. We will remove red tape that slows innovation. We will set aside a federal research and development budget that will be matched by the private sector to seek the best new products in alternative fuels. Our free market will sort out what makes the most sense economically and will reward consumer preferences.
We think of globalization as primarily an economic issue and the war on terror as primarily a military issue. Yet the same key unlocks the door to success in both, and that key is energy independence.
None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that's what we're doing every time we pull into a gas station. We're paying for both sides in the war on terror - our side with our tax dollars, the terrorists' side with our gas dollars.
Our dependence on foreign oil has forced us to support repressive regimes, to conduct our foreign policy with one hand tied behind our back. It's time, it's past time, to untie that hand and reach out to moderate Muslims with both hands. Oil has not just shaped our foreign policy, it has deformed it. When I make foreign policy, I want to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and that requires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over a barrel - literally - for way too long.
Energy independence will ease the effects of globalization because the future energy demands of countries like India and China, as their middle class grows, are going to be tremendous. Even if Middle East supplies remain stable - a huge if - that increased demand will drive prices up dramatically, which will hurt our economy by making everything more expensive here. But if we are energy independent, we will be able not just to take care of our own needs and protect our economy, we will also create jobs and grow our economy by developing technologies that we can sell to the rest of the world to meet their needs.
Achieving energy independence will make us safer and more prosperous, and is yet another way that I intend to lift America up.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers are financing both sides in the war on terror because of the actions of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday.
The former Arkansas governor made the comments following what he suggested was a muted response by the Bush administration to a Saudi court's sentence of six months in jail and 200 lashes for a woman who was gang raped.
"The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women," Huckabee said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we're paying so that the Saudis get rich — filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas," schools "that train the terrorists," said Huckabee. "America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It's absurd. It's embarrassing."
Huckabee said "I would make the United States energy independent within 10 years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil just like they can keep their sand, that we won't need either one of them."
"Jesus said that we are to render to God the things that are God’s and to Caesar those that are Caesar’s. Our Caesar is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In order for us to render to Caesar the things that are due him, we should indeed participate in our government. Our Lord would have it so." ~ Adrian Rogers
"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." ~ Thomas Jefferson
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