Atlanta Opinion

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 06:26 AM | Link to this

It figures, the democratic party is absent from the cartoon, just like in real life, they’re probably off on some space voyage. Why present yourself as a viable alternative when you can spend your days foaming at the mouth over Bush? This leaves the voter with only one choice, which would be the right one.

By seeker

May 2, 2006 06:56 AM | Link to this

This cartoon is so fitting!!

After all, the Republicans and/or Bush are responsible for all 4 of the hornet’s nests on the pachyderm’s paws.

No-veto Bush and the GOP Congress turned a federal budget surplus into a record debt. Bush lied to invade Iraq. That invasion, and his ignorance of Iran’s nuclear program led to record gasoline prices. And in terms of gross (both financial size and repulsiveness), you cant top Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham for scandal!! LOTS worse than lying about a BJ.

And for this, Frist and friends want to give us $100?? Oh, the stupendity! The cheapness! The stupidity!

The Democrats don’t even have to have an agenda with 3 Stooges opponents like these! They can juist sit back, laugh, and watch the elephant drown!

Yes sirree! Mike hits the nail on the head. And it will be hilarious to read the sputterings from wingnuts here over it!!

By Charles

May 2, 2006 07:20 AM | Link to this

Scandal? Only by what the Liberal media tries to push on the weak minded.

Gas Prices? The oil companies make maybe 9 cents off a gallon of gas … its the taxes collected by government that make it high.

Debt? We’re in World War III and every war comes with debt.

Iraq? Nobody with an ounce of brain matter thinks there were NOT WMD’s in Iraq. Anyone who doesn’t just needs to get off the ‘Kool Aid’ they’ve been drinking.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:33 AM | Link to this

“Foaming at the mouth over Bush”

No-veto Bush and the GOP Congress turned a federal budget surplus into a record debt. Bush lied to invade Iraq. That invasion, and his ignorance of Iran’s nuclear program led to record gasoline prices. And in terms of gross (both financial size and repulsiveness), you cant top Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham for scandal!! LOTS worse than lying about a BJ.

I appreciate the validation of my theory, seekling.

By seeker

May 2, 2006 07:36 AM | Link to this

I have an ounce of brain matter.

And despite his incompetence, Bush must have some brain, too. Because even he says there were no WMD stockpiles in Iraq.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:37 AM | Link to this

Another one bites the dust:

KABUL, Afghanistan May 2, 2006 (AP)— A top al-Qaida leader whose links stretch from Afghan terror training camps to extremist networks operating throughout Europe has been detained in neighboring Pakistan and possibly handed over to American authorities, according to a U.S. law enforcement official.

Pakistani and American officials have long been tightlipped on the status of Nasar, who has had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and has been described by the American Justice Department as a former trainer at Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan who helped teach extremists to use poisons and chemicals.

OBL by October? Or should we wait till November 1st?

By Voice of Reason

May 2, 2006 07:44 AM | Link to this

SO was this guy the #2 Al Qaeda guy?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:45 AM | Link to this

HOUSTON May 2, 2006 (AP)— Jurors at the federal fraud trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay got a glimpse at his lavish lifestyle, including homes in Aspen, a vacation on the French Riviera and $20,000 spent on antiques in Spain.

Like this isn’t biased, no, not at all, compare this “lavishness” to John Kerry’s modest 15 Mansions, Gulfstream Jet and fleet of SUV’s.

Can’t liberals just report the news and at least try to suppress their hate?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:49 AM | Link to this

“Foaming at the mouth over Bush”

SEE BS “NEWS”- Poll: Gas Prices, Iraq Weigh Down Bush!!

“News” that only a pinko could care about.

By JP

May 2, 2006 07:51 AM | Link to this

Charles, you’re an idiot. “Nobody with an ounce of brain matter thinks there were NOT WMD’s in Iraq.” I’m sure you’re also fired up about going to war with Iran, even though we know they won’t be able to make a bomb for 10 years. Great foreign policy!

Seeker—I’m with you, I’ve been talking about Signing Statement George for months. Turns out he’s used over 750 of them—here are just a few examples.

Anyone with half a brain has to realize why our collective rear end is sore.

Tell it like it is, Mike!

By @@

May 2, 2006 07:52 AM | Link to this

And Dem bees, dey are a buzzin’!!!

High gasoline prices were an inevitability given the increase in global consumption and circumstances. The rebate was intended to ease the pain, nothing else.

By JP

May 2, 2006 07:52 AM | Link to this

AJC Promotes—Can Fox News just report the news and suppress their undying love? I don’t think so.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:54 AM | Link to this

VOR: I’m sure there are only 2 Al Qaeda left. Choose which number suits you.

By DavidU

May 2, 2006 07:55 AM | Link to this

I appreciate how ML singled out Iraq with the hornet’s nest.

Good cartoon.

By Scooter

May 2, 2006 08:00 AM | Link to this

How about we blindly criticize everything this President does so you will forget Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWR during the late 90’s? Those Oil Fields would be online now and could have reduced the price at the pump. Perhaps our rabid criticisms will help you forget how we obstructed any individual liberty over your Social Security accounts. Also, please forget how we democrats thought Saddam was a grave threat when Clinton was launching Operation Desert Fox, you know just before the inspectors were kicked out by a cooperative Saddam. It was in the UN’s absence that we became aware Saddam was not a threat at all. Can we dmocrats please get back to redistributing individual wealth, we won’t call it socialsm?

Again, I’m laughing at ml, not his toon.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 08:01 AM | Link to this

The imagination of historians like me can wander and take analogies too far. Al Qaeda isn’t the Wehrmacht. World War II was indeed a great crusade consuming two thirds of the nation’s production and twelve million of its young. Today the Army and Marine Corps, less than three quarters of a million, shoulder the burden for this war at a cost of less than 1 percent of GDP. Perhaps the American population is more willing to listen to criticism of their wartime leaders because they fail to accept that the stakes in this war are as great (or perhaps even greater) than those in World War II.

Let’s see, love the United States or hate the United States, gee, JP, that’s an awfully tall order you are asking..

By Mike

May 2, 2006 08:03 AM | Link to this

Isn’t this the second time Lucko has used the elephant with his hands stuck in jars? Has he really run out of ways to bash Republicans? I know that is all he has done for the past six years, so maybe he has run out of ideas. Why not do a cartoon on the hyprocrisy of illegal immigrants marching in the streets demanding rights like they are citizens or changing the national anthem? Oh I forgot, we don’t want to offend any minorities do we?

By AntiRadical

May 2, 2006 08:03 AM | Link to this

Good toon ML. The $100 offer from Frist et al is completely insulting. The Reps have demonstrated that they have absolutely no principles whatsoever, now.

It would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic. Only a few short years ago the Dems were known as the tax and spend party and the party of big government. Clinton for all his other faults reversed that trend for the Dems.

Like crabgrass though, this weed was now taken root in the Republican party under GWB. Moderates are poised to apply the weed killer in November.

By DavidU

May 2, 2006 08:05 AM | Link to this

Senate Democrat on Monday suggested the creation of separate, autonomous regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to counter continuing ethnic and religious violence.

Yeah, that’s a dumb idea. Sorry Senator, but that’s just stupid. We broke it, thus we have to put it back together again. Not separate the broken pieces into nice piles. We need to do better. We need to come up with a better plan.

By Voice of Reason

May 2, 2006 08:08 AM | Link to this

Only two huh? No wonder they are so weak, to many chiefs and not enough indians. Not everybody can be #2. But I guess it’s possible.

By AntiRadical

May 2, 2006 08:15 AM | Link to this

In looking over the posts, I am struck by the question “Why is it that Reps can only talk about the Dems these days?” Could it be that they don’t have any positive accomplishments to their credit so they are left only with the ability to criticize the opposition? This is a rather poor strategy for midterms but I suppose they have no other choice.

By bgirl

May 2, 2006 08:42 AM | Link to this

Bush found WMDs in Iraq? That must be one of those national security secrets; like what Bushco was doing while the Gulf Coast was drowning, or what Bushco was doing pre-9/11. Wow, American rejoice — we haven’t lost over 2,400 American lives in vain. We were right to kill, invade and occupy, whew!

By Mike

May 2, 2006 08:43 AM | Link to this

Anti, the Reps say the same thing about Dems. Why do they only critize the current admin instead of proposing new ideas themselves? That is the problem with the political culture today. Their is a lack of ideas being presented. You can say what you want about guys like Newt and Slick Willy, but at least they provide workable ideas.

By Conservatives Swallow

May 2, 2006 08:45 AM | Link to this

Look at that- the Republicans had complete control for six years, and everything went to hell. They have no one to blame but themselves.

By Tim

May 2, 2006 08:46 AM | Link to this

A $100 check to each citizen (they probably won’t limit it to just taxpayers) is totally asinine; equally asinine is the Democratic proposal to suspend the gasoline tax. If Congress can’t help itself but to do something to increase the federal deficit they could spend the money on developing the production and distribution of cellulosic ethanol. That would at least actually address the problem. You can grill the oil companies all you want — they were making 9 cents on the dollar last year, they’re making 9 cents on the dollar this year (eBay makes 20 cents), and it won’t change a thing. It’s demand and supply interacting.

By Conservatives Swallow

May 2, 2006 08:47 AM | Link to this

Scooter,

You’re an idiot. Alaskan oil won’t do squat for oil prices. You want oil to get cheaper? It ain’t gonna happen. Supply and demand.

By T

May 2, 2006 09:03 AM | Link to this

I rarely comment, but Mike, THIS one was SO on-point. It so embodies the Bush mantra: Yes everything has been shot to hell and a handbasket under me…but I’m giving you a tax cut! LOL Dude is a LOON and his followers should feel like stoops! I’m printing this toon out and adding it to my collection…

By Wild Sects

May 2, 2006 09:07 AM | Link to this

AntiRadical - It’s the same old story. When you have nothing positive to run on you smear your opponent. The Reugnants have perfected this style of politics.

By Roger

May 2, 2006 09:07 AM | Link to this

This board is overrun by kool-aid drinkers. I can’t believe the vitriol and lack of ideas that circulate here. It’s just a bunch of angry, unhappy individauls, anonymously beating up on one another as an outlet for their misery. People on this board are so firmly entrenched within their own belief system that nothing will ever change their opinion. For most of you it would be best to find some more productive use of time.

P.S. A hundred bucks fills up my Escalade once. The government should keep this money instead of giving everyone one free fill-up. Maybe put this money towards alternate fuel strategies instead of a one-time waste for every taxpayer. Then, what? Are we going to be given another hundred in two months? And why are the Republicans pushing this - aren’t they about personal responsibility and isn’t our responsibility to fill up our automobiles?

By ChickenHawk Bush

May 2, 2006 09:09 AM | Link to this

There’s a place that has huge amounts of oil, enough to make Alaksa oil look like a bucket full. If this place were able to get oil out of the ground the price would tumble, the supply issue solved.

But our incompetent leader, George W Bush didn’t pit enough troops on the ground, and totally mismanaged the war. So much so the rest of the world is scratching their heads saying “super power my azz”

Yes, that place is Iraq. Now a total disaster, sitting there with all of that oil. What a shame.

By Chris

May 2, 2006 09:14 AM | Link to this

You’re an idiot. Alaskan oil won’t do squat for oil prices. You want oil to get cheaper? It ain’t gonna happen. Supply and demand.

So if the supply goes up (ALA drilling in Alaska), the demand won’t be eased? Who’s the idiot?

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 09:15 AM | Link to this

I was right. Frist’s number was busy, busy, busy because people like me were angry, angry, angry.

He got the message that the GOP Senate tax + rebate proposals were asinine, and not supported by the people who elect Republicans, so it is being withdrawn.

Read here

Time for a new cartoon.

By Jewish and Proud of It

May 2, 2006 09:20 AM | Link to this

I’d like to know if there has been any kind of cost-benefit analysis done on ANWR? Has any study been commissioned that says with this oil from ANWR, we can lower prices to X and keep them there for X number of years? Anything out there like that?

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 09:22 AM | Link to this

At 8:15 we learn from AntiRadical “the mad professional” that all Republicans do is criticize Democrats. He/she says they learned this from reading this mornings posts.

Maybe he/she should read the posts at 6:56, 7:36, 7:51, 2nd 7:52, 8:03, 8:42, 9:03, & 9:09. The remarkable thing is the 8:03 example of a Democrat having nothing but criticism of the Republicans, is from the same person that complained 12 minutes later that the reverse is true.

By Jewish and Proud of It

May 2, 2006 09:23 AM | Link to this

So if the supply goes up (ALA drilling in Alaska), the demand won’t be eased? Who’s the idiot?

Maybe not Chris because by the time we have the infrastructure in place to be able to drill in ANWR, how much will demand have increased by then? We may just be preserving the status quo…

By War Dove

May 2, 2006 09:29 AM | Link to this

Just think what our nation could be using the $10 billion a month we are spending in Iraq for; alternative fuel, education, medical care. Instead we are trying to prop up a country so it can fight its own civil war.

By Roger

May 2, 2006 09:32 AM | Link to this

Jewish,

It’s very hard to run numbers on ANWR because their is no definitive account of how much oil is actually there. Democrats and their sources claim there is at best six-months to a years worth of consumption there, while Republicans and their sources claim there is ten to fifteen years worth. I suppose the truth lies somewhere inbetween the two figures. Plus it depends what percent is being used on a daily basis from ANWR.

By Getitright

May 2, 2006 09:34 AM | Link to this

That’s right Mikey. Keep supporting your masters on the kooky left fringe. How about a cartoon that reflects what is REALLY happening to cause the gas prices to go up? Presidents Tweedle Dee (Iran) and Tweedle Dum (Venezuela) are threatening all kinds of weird stuff and everytime they do, the price of oil (you know, the stuff they SELL) goes up. Think about it. See if you can break the addiction to having the DNC do your thinking for you.

By finch

May 2, 2006 09:40 AM | Link to this

The US might just as well drill away in ANWR and the outer Continental shelf, because the projects will just prove that the classic law of supply and demand is etched in granite, and panicky, shallow responses won’t change that.

It’ll take years for ANWR and Shelf oil to come in. When it does (about 2% of daily demand) it won’t push oil prices down. It’ll just dampen (barely) inevitable increases. Skyrocketing demand from Asia guarantees that.

Until those oil supplies run dry. Then we’ll be in the same boat we’re in now. Except we will have spent money that could have been spent on research and development of long term, renewable, alternative, economical energy. Nuclear, solar, wind, thermal, bio, whatever.

In the meantime, we’re being held hostage by OPEC, and ANWR won’t change that. Ever. We’re in the stupid position of funding both sides of a war. Once when we pay our taxes, and once when we fill up our tanks.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 09:40 AM | Link to this

I can just imagine why a certain person would want to know the following info but here it goes anyway:

There is a 95 percent probability (a 19 in 20 chance) that at least 5.7 billion barrels of oil are recoverable in ANWR.

Projected ANWR peak production rates range from 650,000 to 1.9 million barrels per day across the 6 cases.

As a side note, 1 million barrels a day times $60 a barrel equals 60 million per day times 365 days a year equals $2,190,000,000,000 a year that we could return to our economy instead of giving it to the people trying to kill us.

Anybody want to guess where the libs stand on this issue?

By i hate name calling

May 2, 2006 09:41 AM | Link to this

The incessant name calling that goes on here is ridiculous. Make an argument, don’t just call each other idiots. I am not a fan of Republicans or Dems (I would rather see a Progressive third party come about, but the system is fixed against that happening).

And in reply to the talk of drilling in Alaska, I found this portion of an article from Sunday’s paper to be quite enlightening:

“The oil market is a global market — all oil sells at the world price, regardless of where it comes from, and that price is determined by the balance of worldwide supply and demand.

For example, if the world price for light crude is $75 a barrel, Americans do not get some magical bargain rate on light crude pumped out of Texas or Alaska. We still have to pay $75 a barrel for that oil, the same as everybody else.

Given that reality, ANWR could lower the price that Americans pay at the pump only if it produces enough oil to lower the cost of oil worldwide. Numbers produced by the U.S. Department of Energy say that’s impossible. According to those estimates, if drilling began today, by 2025 ANWR would reach maximum oil production of 900,000 barrels a day.

That may seem like a lot of oil, but by 2025, total world oil demand is estimated to reach about 119 million barrels a day. In other words, even in its few years of maximum production, ANWR would account for just 0.75 percent of world demand.

Nor would ANWR change our strategic situation. According to the U.S. government, if we don’t drill in ANWR, we will be forced to import 70 percent of our oil by 2025. If we do drill in ANWR, we will be importing 66 percent of our oil, a change of no significance whatsoever.

There are no easy answers, and no quick answers. “

And now I am sure I will be attacked as being a liberal idiot, despite saying from the outset that I am just as “against” Dems as I am “against” Republicans. Go ahead and throw your insults; I have enough education and self-esteem to know better than to take any of them seriously.

By Republican Family Values

May 2, 2006 09:41 AM | Link to this

Ex-lover betrayed Schrenko’s trust, her lawyer says

Schrenko’s defense attorney, Pete Theodocion, acknowledged that the married Schrenko and Temple had a romantic relationship but said any financial wrongdoing was done by Temple and other political operatives without Schrenko’s knowledge.

“She placed her trust in the wrong man,” he said. “We could put up a chart and all arrows lead into the side pocket of Merle Temple.”

When it became clear federal investigators were looking into Schrenko’s finances, “Merle gave up Linda’s head on a silver platter,” Theodocion said.

Theodocion said Schrenko had long been estranged from her husband, Frank, whom he referred to as alcoholic and abusive, but said she waited until her political career was over to file for divorce because she feared a backlash from political supporters. He added that she has now filed for divorce.

A Republican, Schrenko ran as a religious conservative throughout her career. As superintendent, she pushed for Bible classes in public schools and for teaching alternatives to the theory of evolution.

More of those Republican Family Values at work- dishonesty, lack of compassion for the deaf kids she stole from, adultery, inability to accept responsibility, and theft. Yep, those are the Republican Family Values we have all come to know so well!

By Scooter

May 2, 2006 09:50 AM | Link to this

We have come to know politicians coruption and the one sided critics of that corruption, haven’t we RFV? Have we become weary of giving ever more responsibilities over to government, not even close and the politicians love it.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 09:55 AM | Link to this

Nuclear, solar, wind, thermal, bio, whatever. Yeah, whatever, so far, the only alternative we have found success with, harnessing all of the hot air coming from the liberals mouths, has driven gasoline prices up to 3 dollars a gallon.

Let’s give drilling a chance.

i hate name calling: Could you provide a link to your article or tell us what web site it can be found at?

Further information from a know it all Conservative:

This is larger than the Saudi Arabia oil reserves, which are estimated at 240Gb. The total reserves for Alberta, including oil not recoverable using current technology, are estimated at 1,700- 2,500Gb

That would be the Canadian tar sands. This is where the focus of our attention needs to be, finding a cheap, dependable way to extract this oil and get it to market.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 10:04 AM | Link to this

I could have sworn that Sonny Perdue beat Linda Schrenko in the Republican primary. Strange that he became governor after losing the nomination, unless RFV is just wrong.

By Dusty

May 2, 2006 10:12 AM | Link to this

This cartoon needs to go to the Elephant GraveYard. It was DOA. Yep, dead on arrival.

If Luckovich ever presented any new ideas this blog might also resuscitate. Right now it is a mudhole with scandals being dragged up from the school yard level.

Let’s send ml a copy of Babu, the Elephant. The material there is bound to be more innovative than what we are getting here.

By i hate name calling

May 2, 2006 10:15 AM | Link to this

the article is by jay bookman and is from this past sunday’s ajc. and, i am fairly certain you will attack bookman as being another member of the “liberal media”, rather than trying to debunk anything he says. again, i am not saying he is right on the issue (i am not a scientist of that sort), but i think he makes an interesting and convincing case.

the focus of our attention should be on encouraging the development of alternative fuels and finding ways to develop cities in ways such that driving 29 miles each way to work everyday is not the norm for 3-4 million people. the oil will run out, or the world will destroy itself due to global warming.

but, hell, that’s not our problem, right? won’t happen in our lifetime, so who cares!! let’s drill for that oil, i’ve got a Hummer to fill!!

By gadem

May 2, 2006 10:17 AM | Link to this

Oh Andy, why the fascination with John Kerry? Did John Kerry destroy a company to finance his lifestyle? Andy so misinformed…you are such a victim of stupidity.

By i hate name calling

May 2, 2006 10:22 AM | Link to this

and seriously, i would refrain from using a paper written by a freshman physics student as your “source” for any argument.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 10:22 AM | Link to this

This is the best solution I’ve heard yet on how to handle Iran through internal pressure, from Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late, deposed Shah (thanks peanut).

Pahlavi, who lives in exile in the United States, said he has been in contact with elements of the Revolutionary Guard that would be willing to play such a role, and activists who could help spark the civil disobedience.

I particularly like his ideas for what he calls “smart sanctions”

Why don’t you, for instance, in terms of the UN sanctions, demand a complete obstruction of travel for Iranian officials? Or denying them visas or from entering other countries, things of that nature? Why don’t you talk to all these countries that have intelligence and data on all those dummy corporations and bank accounts that the regime has in different countries and freeze those accounts?

And if all goes well, and the Iranian people decide a monarchy works best for them, then so be it.

I await an onslaught of indignant protests.

By one more time

May 2, 2006 10:23 AM | Link to this

before i got get some work done, one last post for all the “idiots”.

A Gouging Market By Matthew Rothschild April 27, 2006

Accusing oil companies of price gouging is like accusing sharks of swimming. That’s what oil companies do. In fact, that’s the imperative of the marketplace: to charge whatever you can get.

I remember taking Economics 10 at college, and my instructor told us that on a hot day the ice cream parlor should raise prices. Well, it’s a hot day right now, and the oil companies are jacking up the price at the pumps.

If you worship the market, fill your tank and smile.

But the free market is not exactly in a textbook place right now when it comes to oil. Rather than having a multitude of ice cream parlors to choose from, the consumer can select from only a few oil companies, and they own not only the parlor but the cows and the dairies, too.

Plus, there’s another big difference between ice cream and oil. The choice of having an ice cream cone is a luxury. Driving a car, for many of us, is a necessity.

That’s something the hardcore free market apologists don’t grasp.

“Gas station owners cannot force us to buy gasoline,” writes Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute, in an article entitled ‘The Myth of Price-Gouging.’ “They can only offer us a trade, which we are free to accept or reject.”

But how free is the independent trucker, or the taxicab driver, or the traveling salesperson? How free is the service worker who can’t live in the expensive city where she is employed because the cost of housing is so high but has to live thirty miles away, where there is no public transportation?

Oil companies know that they have a lock on a crucial product. They’re charging through the teeth for it.

Still, fantasies of a free market die hard.

“There is no such thing as ‘price gouging’ by private business,” says Epstein. Which is, I suppose, just the flip side of saying all profit is theft.

It very well may be that what the oil companies have been doing over the last couple of years does not technically qualify as collusion.

“The real problem is legal manipulation of prices,” says Tyson Slocum, acting director of Public Citizens’ Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. “The oil companies have gotten so big they don’t need to collude anymore. Advances in computer modeling have really aided the ability of the big companies to game the market.”

So game it they do.

And because the five largest oil refining companies in America—ExxonMobil, Valero, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP—control more than 50 percent of the market, they can individually decide to limit the supply of refined oil products. If ExxonMobil sees Shell taking gasoline off the market, it can do likewise, and they will all end up making more profits without ever needing to huddle together in a boardroom to fix prices.

Even George Bush, as ardent a defender of the oil companies as ever set foot in the Oval Office, has begun to yelp about price gouging. With his popularity down at the freezing mark, he’ll say just about anything. But he won’t say “windfall profits tax,” even though 80 percent of Americans are in favor of it, including 76 percent of Republicans, according to one recent poll.

Bush ruled that out in his April 25 speech. “What can the government do?” he asked. “One of the past responses by government, particularly from the party of which I am not a member, has been to have—to propose—price fixing, or increase the taxes. Those plans haven’t worked.”

No, we can’t have that, can we? Never mind that the windfall amounted to $36 billion last year in profits to the oil companies. ExxonMobil alone made $10 billion in the final quarter of 2005. In the first quarter of 2006, it made $8.4 billion, up from the same period a year ago.

Democratic Senators Byron Dorgan and Christopher Dodd have introduced legislation to impose a 50 percent excise tax on oil profits when it is selling for more than $50 a barrel. Representative Dennis Kucinich has proposed a 100 percent tax on windfall oil profits. But not only are Republican Congressional leaders opposed to these ideas, they don’t even want to strip out some of the tax benefits the oil companies have been reaping already.

“While Republican leaders sharply criticize soaring gasoline prices and energy industry profits, GOP negotiators have decided to knock out provisions in a major tax bill that would force the oil companies to pay billions of dollars more in taxes,” The Washington Post reported on April 26. No surprise there. Since 2001, the oil industry has gurgled up $55 million in campaign contributions, with 81 percent going to Republicans, according to Public Citizen.

Bush talked the talk. “These energy companies don’t need unnecessary tax breaks,” he said. But he didn’t walk the walk. All he proposed was phasing out $2 billion in tax breaks over the next ten years. This, after giving the oil companies billions of dollars in tax breaks in last year’s energy bill, along with a holiday on royalty payments on oil and gas they extract from public lands.

Bush proposed several other measures that won’t solve the problem of high gas prices.

First, he offered to give bigger incentives to consumers who purchase hybrid or clean-diesel vehicles, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But it won’t do anything in the short term. “There is already a long waiting list to buy certain hybrid cars,” Slocum notes. And it’s not aimed at the people who are being most disadvantaged by high oil prices.

Bill Wineke, a columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal, put it well. “Tax credits will help people like me, but they won’t help people like my son, Andy,” he writes. They both drive a fair distance to work. But “the difference between us, frankly, is that I have more money… . I can buy a new car. Andy can’t… . If he could afford a new car, he could afford the gasoline for his current car.”

Second, Bush said the U.S. government would stop purchasing oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so as to increase supplies of oil on the market. But the problem right now is not one of supply. The Department of Energy in April revealed that oil inventories in the United States were at an eight-year high. And anyway, Bush’s move would account for less than half of 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption. His new-found religion on this issue is interesting, to be sure. “We will not play politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Bush said on the 2004 campaign trail. Well, what’s he doing now?

Bush also seized on high gas prices to advance his anti-environmental agenda. He proposed waiving clean air rules for gasoline blends, and he insisted that oil refinery construction permits be decided on within one year’s time. This will greatly diminish the ability of consumers, environmentalists, cities, and states to properly investigate the risks that such construction could bring. To top that off, Bush once again put drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the table, even though oil supplies are plentiful right now.

“We can gut our environment to match that of Bangladesh, and all it’ll accomplish is to make our air quality poorer and our people sicker,” says Slocum.

Bush and conservatives love to harp on the fact that refinery capacity is way down in this country, and they blame that on environmentalists.

But as Slocum notes, a small oil company, Arizona Clean Fuels, has managed to navigate the bureaucracy and get all the permits it needs.

If it can do this, asks Slocum, “why can’t the world’s most powerful corporation?” He offers an answer: “ExxonMobil has no interest in creating additional refineries because it will drive prices down.”

Finally, Bush ordered the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Energy Department to investigate whether the price of gas has been “unfairly manipulated.” The tip-off here is the word unfairly. Because, like the Ayn Rand Institute, the Bush Administration doesn’t believe there is such a thing, short of outright collusion. We should all live to see the day when the Bush-Cheney Administration hauls ExxonMobil and the other big oil companies into court. But Bush will never do it. Besides which, going after the oil companies would be hazardous to Cheney’s health: He’d have his final, fatal heart attack if Bush brought indictments against them.

What Bush didn’t propose is as telling as what he did. He failed to require the automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles. The average car and truck on the road today gets only twenty-one miles to the gallon. In 1987, the average was twenty-two.

We’ve been going backwards. And in last year’s energy bill, Bush, the Republicans, and many Democrats, too, blocked an amendment to boost fuel efficiency standards.

“President Bush continues to ignore the most obvious and practical solutions,” the Sierra Club says. “The biggest single step we can take toward saving money at the gas pump, curbing global warming, and cutting America’s oil dependence is to make our cars, trucks, and SUVs go farther on a gallon of gas.”

We already have the technology, says the Sierra Club, “to make all new cars, SUVs, and other light trucks average forty miles per gallon within the next ten years.” According to the Sierra Club, this would “save more oil than the United States currently imports from the entire Persian Gulf and could ever get out of the Arctic Refuge, combined.”

Or, as Daniel A. Lashof, science director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, puts it, “We cannot drill our way out of this crisis.”

The only solution, he says, “is to use less oil. Period.”

But that goes against the entire ethos of the Bush-Cheney policy, which is: Consume until we drop. Bush after 9/11 told us to go shopping. And Cheney derided conservation as a mere lifestyle choice. His energy report in the spring of 2001, where he was counseled by other energy executives, took as a given that the United States would be as dependent on foreign oil in twenty years as it was then. The Cheney solution was to make sure the United States had better relations with foreign oil producing nations, and to have the oil companies essentially act as U.S. ambassadors.

Since then, Cheney and Bush have wheeled out another tactic: war. They invaded Iraq, with the second biggest oil supplies, and now they’re threatening Iran, another top ten oil supplier.

In fact, the instability of Iraq and the belligerent threats toward Iran have done a lot in themselves to push oil prices up.

“The Iranian situation obviously causes markets to—creates angst in the marketplace, and the result of which is higher prices,” said Al Hubbard, Bush’s director of the National Economic Council, on April 25.

What we’re seeing at the pumps is part of the bill for Bush’s reckless militarism.

Ultimately, to solve the problem of oil we need to solve the problem of empire.

We cannot keep consuming 25 percent of world’s oil when we have 2 percent of the world’s oil supply and 5 percent of its population.

We cannot keep invading and bombing countries that have the oil we’re addicted to. (Bush, in his April 25 speech, acknowledged that “some of the nations we rely on for oil have unstable governments, or agendas that are hostile to the United States.”)

We cannot keep imposing an economic policy on the rest of the world that is designed for the oil industry and other private companies.

They are the ones that benefit the most from the empire.

They are the ones that now, more than ever, run the empire.

We need to get over the illusion of the self-regulating market and the sovereign consumer.

We need to bring the giant corporations to heel.

Otherwise, they’ll keep gouging us. And not just at the pumps.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 10:34 AM | Link to this

By i hate name calling May 2, 2006 10:15 AM the article is by jay bookman and is from this past sunday’s ajc.

By i hate name calling May 2, 2006 10:22 AM and seriously, i would refrain from using a paper written by a freshman physics student as your “source” for any argument.

Moonbat versus physics student, well alrighty then, we’re just going to move on..

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 10:36 AM | Link to this

By gadem May 2, 2006 10:17 AM Oh Andy, why the fascination with John Kerry?

Kook, if you think spending 20 large on antiques is the reason Enron went under…

By Jewish and Proud of It

May 2, 2006 10:37 AM | Link to this

Thank you, one more time, for that extremely long cut and paste. Could you maybe try a link next time so the page doesn’t take an hour to load by the end of the day.

By Jewish and Proud of It

May 2, 2006 10:39 AM | Link to this

BTW, AJC PHAR, thank you for the link to the EIA (?) study on ANWR, I read it with great interest.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 10:40 AM | Link to this

Spam Master one more time: You going to walk to “work?” Mr. Force Your Stupid Conservation Ideas on the most successful economy in the world in a blatant socialistic attempt to harm it?

No, thanks, spend money and grow the GDP is the only way.

By Eric

May 2, 2006 10:41 AM | Link to this

Again I stand amazed as I read these comments. There are enough of you idiots who think either party has the answer (or gives a damn about you in the first place) to build a highway to Mars. Wake up morons… the Republicans and the Democrats DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU… and they NEVER WILL, until you can help line their pockets with cash.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 10:43 AM | Link to this

JPOI: No problem, it’s not written by Jay Bookman, so take it with a grain of salt.

By rebecca

May 2, 2006 10:46 AM | Link to this

Everything that is happening to the Republican party now; all the bad press, pending litigation, international issues, etc is basically ” the chickens coming home to roost”. They swore that they were going to bring dignity back to the oval office after the Clintons left but they have only worsened our image abroad, not to mention the incompetence that they’ve shown at home.

By Dusty

May 2, 2006 10:49 AM | Link to this

one more time,

Us idiots would appreciate a whole lot less information from you.

You could have said it is all Bush’s fault in just one sentence.

We understand only too well that some liberals are full of blab and want to dump it on us. REFRAIN! STOP! FORGET IT! We’ve already heard it.

By gadem

May 2, 2006 10:52 AM | Link to this

AJC Promotes Peace and Love, the 20 large on antiques was just a small taste of what he was doing. You are so narrow minded you probably think that what he was doing (fudging the books) was ok….to hell with the company or the workers.

By Jewish and Proud of It

May 2, 2006 11:06 AM | Link to this

AJC PHAR, to piggyback on the study you posted, I also looked at a study by the American Geological Institute that shows the cost of recovery of ANWR oil would average about $19 per barrel so if the price of a barrel were $60 then the potential return on a barrel of oil would be $41.

By Roger

May 2, 2006 11:06 AM | Link to this

IHNC,

You bring up an interesting point. Oil commodities sell at the same price per barrel, regardless of its source of origin. Oil pumped out of Texas is traded at the same rate as oil pumped out of Saudia Arabia, Russia, etc. So the actual geographic location of the source makes little difference to price. So just because ANWR is in the U.S. it wouldn’t drive down prices for the American consumer, unless it brought down prices for the entire global market - and there probably isn’t enough crude oil their to do that.

Thank you for your post - I never examined it from this angle, thus ANWR would be more about independence from foreign oil than bringing down prices, which now changes my opinion about ANWR. Now I believe ANWR should be more of an emergency plan that keeps an AMERICAN ONLY supply of oil in case we get shutout of foreign oil.

By JT

May 2, 2006 11:15 AM | Link to this

Why don’t we solve two problems with one solution. We produce the crap so let’s burn it in our cars. After initial research and develop are implemented, big business (oooh, there’s that word that invokes suspicion) can take over and the price will become competitive. Jobs will be created, our dependence on foreign oil will be over. Everybody around the world can watch in wonder. They can all be independent if they can just identify “their own crap”.

Bush is all over “alternative fuel sources” the liberals in Washington just like to talk about it. Liberals don’t promote independence from anything, especially their party. “You can’t think independently people, you need us to do that for you. And by the way, we’ll need your cash for our efforts”. The Democrat’s mantra.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 11:18 AM | Link to this

Roger,

I advocate exploitation of our own resources, but I really don’t have a problem with your ANWR as an emergency reserve scenario as long as we build the permafrost pads and set up the drilling platforms etc. now so that when we need that reserve we don’t get to fall back on this never ending excuse that it’s going to take ten years to get to the oil.

Of course while this is being done we also need to follow President Bush’s lead and work for alternatives.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 11:19 AM | Link to this

Bill Frist may well be the most inept politician to stand in the well of the Senate, and that’s saying a lot. His “diagnosis” of Terri Schaivo was an all-time low point, and if he has risen at all from that, it is incremental at best. That being said, it should be no surprise that hardly anyone is buying into his absurd rebate notion. Even the most hardcore wingnut knows the funding for such a scheme would be money borrowed from China. Much like an individual, Congress can only write so many rubber checks before even the most gullible refuse to accept them.

By ChickenHawk Bush

May 2, 2006 11:20 AM | Link to this

Gas is now $3.00 per gallon, it’s cheap! The government is subsidising the vast majority. If you add in the security fees, (Iraq war) the price would be $318.29 a gallon.

What a bargain!

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 11:21 AM | Link to this

By gadim May 2, 2006 10:52 AM AJC Promotes Pinkos and Losers, the 20 large on antiques was just a small taste of what he was doing.

Now you are coming around to see things my way, if the 20 large is small as you so aptly put it, why is ABS calling it “lavish?” Liberal bias, maybe?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 11:24 AM | Link to this

JPOI: Not arguing, I just want to clarify, most of that 19 dollars a barrel will go to the Alaskan economy, worker’s pay, etc. Not to some Islamic looney.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 11:29 AM | Link to this

Roger: 2 things, 1- We would control the price of the oil coming from ANWR, not OPEC. 2. We would not be sending a trade deficit to people that want to kill us.

Remember the trade deficit or imbalance, that was last months liberal panic attack. It hasn’t been solved yet, ANWR would go a long way to putting that to bed. Unless you want to be owned by China.

By Roger

May 2, 2006 11:43 AM | Link to this

RW, I agree, prep ANWR for drilling now.

AJC, I don’t quite follow. Who would set the price for oil coming out of ANWR? I guess, the only scenerio I can think of is our GOVERNMENT handling the drilling/refinery/distribution of the oil. (And we all know how efficient the government is!) Otherwise major US companies like ExxonMobil are part of OPEC and would adhere to their oil pricing.

If I’m missing something obvious, let me know.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:45 AM | Link to this

I like this former Republican congressman from Ohio. He makes some good points about the whole mess. Like the fact that we have seen this moment coming for over 30 years and haven’t done a damn thing about it.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 11:56 AM | Link to this

Roger: OPEC routinely raises or lowers production to effect price. I’m not aware of Exxon being a part of OPEC, I could be wrong, I thought the prices were basically controlled by the futures market. It is inherently true that the two are tied together but I’m a-ssuming we would have control of the property rights and how they are used, maybe I’m wrong but it would be more control then we have over OPEC.

That could be a stipulation of opening ANWR, making the production favorable or even exclusive to domestic use.

Let me make one more separate point while I’m here. If there was a viable alternative that could replace oil and gas consumption, or even supplement it to some extent, the markets would be heavily investing in it. Could you even imagine the greenback that could be had by creating a product that could replace gasoline? But in reality, no one is investing in corn, switchgrass, hydrogen or even cowfarts. Everybody is investing in oil stocks and they are going through the roof.

Give drilling, er, oil sands a chance!

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:59 AM | Link to this

The price of oil coming from ANWR would be the same price as the world market price unless the government takes over the whole mess. Same for the oil sitting off the coast of Florida that Jeb is protecting.

By Midori

May 2, 2006 11:59 AM | Link to this

Nice toon, Mike.

you hit all the buttons.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 12:01 PM | Link to this

Since Andy is not posting his usual wingnut opinions, let me show you how it is done with real news and on topic:

“The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum. Angry constituents have asked, “Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you think you can buy us?” said another Republican senator’s aide, who was granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator had supported the plan.

Now my take. The GOP finally decided to spend money on the people and not the lobbyists interests and it looks foolish because we the people are not used to this idea. I want my $100 so the lobbyists do not get it.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 12:06 PM | Link to this

By AntiRadical

*May 2, 2006 08:03 AM *The $100 offer from Frist et al is completely insulting…It would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic

Omigod! No wonder the sky is always falling for the Libs. Asinine yes. Tragic?? Get a grip!

Sheesh.

JoRo,

The deficit was not a concern when I called Frist’s office, and since I have all the Right Wing talking points (sarc for Getalife), I know that the deficit just isn’t a prime motivator for most of us.

One thing that I didn’t like about the ridiculous $100.00 rebate was that it would go to lots of people who don’t pay taxes and don’t drive cars, while those of us who do pay taxes and do drive cars were going to have to fund an unsuccesful vote buying scheme. Bottom line - I hate pandering - that’s why I’m not a Dem anymore.

Getalife,

I’m predicting that Rush will play some soundbites from Dem. Patty Schroeder (sp?)and Geraldo Rivera on the May Day celebrations, with a barf bag close at hand.

He’ll also recognize Frist for getting his brain back (better late than never) and will suggest that, not unlike Harriet Miers, it should be a wake up call to stick to conservative principles.

By By Old Enough to Know

May 2, 2006 12:10 PM | Link to this

Yes, I want to be owned by China. Oh, I’m sorry, we already are aren’t we, and to the lowest bidder, mind you. Thanks Republicans. Oh by the way, Sax and Johnny…. Thank you Saxby, for being a very self serving and oh so typical politician. Your own inability to think in any way other than linear and being in the position you are in has greatly contributed to the biggest backward slide of our nation since its inception. You and your ilk have cremated true family values. By dwelling on superficial topics and espousing support for things you must surely know in your heart and head to be false, you have prostituted your self for the most evil of intents and causes. Being a successful businessman, i.e. lucky huckester, no more qualifies someone to hold office than the man in the moon. Being a statesman was never in your grasp. Bad dog, go home.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 12:11 PM | Link to this

So now we are going to fall for the “Voice of the People” scam. Lib reporters scour the city until they find someone who agrees with their kook ideas. Then they splash that person’s quote on the moonbat websites, where getalife can find them, and off we go.

On rainy days, Jay Bookman will call Cynthia Tucker and get her opinion, and vica versa.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 12:13 PM | Link to this

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that a complete and total rape of ANWR would provide only a tiny fraction of our petro demand. The way I see it, we’re pretty much screwed until some truly viable alternative fuel materializes in the marketplace or technological breakthroughs render the internal combustion engine obsolete. In the meantime, the European model whereby vehicles are taxed based on engine size is the only practical alternative.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 12:18 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Geraldo has taken the labeling of the illegal aliens to a whole new level. Forget the politically correct “undocumented workers” BS. Geraldo calls the illegals our “honored guests”. He also said without them a “head of bananas” would cost $20.00. On this he may be right because I have not been able to find out what constitutes a “head” in the banana business.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 12:18 PM | Link to this

BD,

I know, I got the memo.

Did you read my link, the $100 rebate has restrictions.

It was not in the talking points memo.

Rush has lost all credibility due to lying to doctors to get dope. Do you actually believe anything he says? He reminds me of W.

By Scooter

May 2, 2006 12:23 PM | Link to this

Geraldo should, at a minimum, be unemployed for disclosing troop movements during “Operation Iraq Freedom”. Or “War on Iraq” if you were watching the objective CNN.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 12:25 PM | Link to this

JoRo,

Allow me to expand your “brilliant” slogan just a little so you won’t have to write it separately to address any perceived problem.

In the meantime, the European model… (insert any problem real or imagined here)… is the only practical alternative.

By gadem

May 2, 2006 12:25 PM | Link to this

Andy I think that you are “special”

By ART

May 2, 2006 12:26 PM | Link to this

Rush typifies republicans, getalife. You know…the family values party.

By JT

May 2, 2006 12:26 PM | Link to this

WS, I’ve got no problem with your link to the former Republican congressman from Ohio. I’m glad to see you turning to a Republican for a solution. My only argument to your link is that I am not willing to sacrifice the potential freedoms of the Iraqi people in order to fill’er up. It can all be handled in a timely manner with patience for Iraq and haste here in implementing alternative fuel research. It’ll cost though so individual’s need to cinch up the ole saddle and get on with it.

Conservatives on this site have acknowledged that this gasoline fiasco has been in the making for 30 years. Give them credit for that. Both parties are guilty of neglecting the inevitable. The problem with the Democrats is they’re pandering to the environmentalists inhibiting development.

If you view this gasoline panic as a by-product of everything that is going on in the world, let’s be thankful. Eyes have been opened. Research is promoted by need. The more immediate the need, the more research is encouraged (Bush is doing just that). Everybody needs to write their representatives and push for alternative sources of fuel and keep on writing so that they don’t forget how important we are and how important the issue is to us.

By By Old Enough to Know

May 2, 2006 12:27 PM | Link to this

Thank you Saxby, for being a very self serving and oh so typical politician. Your own inability to think in any way other than linear and being in the position you are in has greatly contributed to the biggest backward slide of our nation since its inception. You and your ilk have cremated true family values. By dwelling on superficial topics and espousing support for things you must surely know in your heart and head to be false, you have prostituted your self for the most evil of intents and causes. Being a successful businessman, i.e. lucky huckester, no more qualifies someone to hold office than the man in the moon. Being a statesman was never in your grasp. Bad dog, go home.

By By Old Enough to Know

May 2, 2006 12:29 PM | Link to this

Don’t remember John Kerry duping all his employees and share holders, stupid.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 12:31 PM | Link to this

Come on, folks. When it comes the illegals, the reality of the situation is little different from the gay rights slogan, “We’re here…..get used to it.”. Face it. Any punative policy amounts to putting the toothpaste back in the tube. It can’t be done. As much as people want to turn this into a devisive issue, it is really about accepting reality and nothing more. ILLEGALS AND BORDER SECURITY ARE TWO SEPARATE ISSUES. I say we should throughly check everyone crossing the borders for weapons and explosives and just forget about papers. It would be a far more efficient use of manpower. If somebody comes in and can’t find work, they’ll go home. It’s as simple as that. If they do find work, treat them like any other low income worker, tax them like we used to tax millionaires and move the country slowly but surely back toward being in the black.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 12:34 PM | Link to this

Andy,

I know you strayed away from the wingnut opinions, so I am here to help you learn.

Here are the OPEC members

We have reached peak gas production.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 12:35 PM | Link to this

JT,

There are many conservatives I respect and listen to. Unfortunately, few are in this administration. I used to religiously read Buckley, even his novels. Now it seems the best conservatives can offer is Coulter.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 12:37 PM | Link to this

JT,

I should clarify that statement. I also like Powell, but he left while the getting was good.

By The Other Andy

May 2, 2006 12:39 PM | Link to this

Just to add a little reality to the ANWR debate:

Even if approved today, ANWR oil wouldn’t flow until about 2016. You think it’s easy to locate the pockets of oil in a frozen tundra and build the pipeline to the southern Alaska ports in a way that doesn’t mess with the environment across central Alaska?

Just about the time that ANWR flow would be ramping up, the oil from Prudhoe Bay will be drying up. It’s been slowing for years. I figure it’s a wash on our total oil production. Meanwhile, demand increases.

The cost of transporting the oil from Alaska to the lower 48 is about the same as the cost of shipping it to Russia or Japan, so no reason that it would decrease our reliance on foreign oil, since all the world is a giant oil market anyway and the price Russia pays for oil is the same as our price (shipping and handling extra).

It won’t reduce our trade deficit in the near future, won’t reduce our dependency on foreign oil, won’t reduce the money the world sends to the governments that support the Islamic radicals…

By the way, I support drilling in ANWR as well as several other places along the Gulf and California coasts. I also support the newer nuclear technologies. The debate shouldn’t be a one or the other thing. It should be about reducing our reliance on unstable countries for all of our energy needs.

And the cartoon is right: the R’s have spent 6 years seriously damaging this country’s ability to respond to the world at large (either through their action or inaction) and they want to pay us off with $100 this year (like the earlier tax buy-off that helped drive us into budget deficits)?

Remember: in August 1974, 20% of the population still thought Nixon was a good president. They just didn’t have the web to innundate us with their slavish ranting.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 12:44 PM | Link to this

O.K. now I know that we would have more control over ANWR than we do OPEC, thanks getalife:

OPEC- Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members include Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 12:47 PM | Link to this

By By Old Enough to Know May 2, 2006 12:29 PM Don’t remember John Kerry duping all his employees and share holders, stupid.

Maybe because we are smart enough not to give him a chance to?

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 12:47 PM | Link to this

JT,

I don’t think the congressman was just referring to Iraq. I think he was referring to our whole foreign policy, which has become governed in large part by our energy needs. The Project for the New American Century white paper on Rebuilding American’s Defenses (courtesy of the Heritage think tank) is a good example of this.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 12:48 PM | Link to this

getalife,

Do you have some proof of guilt from Rush that the rest of us have not seen?

The latest gossip that I heard was that it came down to…40 pills. And it cost him millions to defend himself.

Hope you’re happy. Rush would be far kinder to you.

BOETK,

For starters, let me give you a little hint in blogging 101:

You don’t have to put By before your name. ML most generously does it for you!

Secondly, what are you talking about? Can you give us a clue? A quote? A link? Some reference point?

By getalife

May 2, 2006 12:50 PM | Link to this

Andy,

Your welcome.

I have a question. “The Other Andy” posted this:

Remember: in August 1974, 20% of the population still thought Nixon was a good president

Were you one of the 20%?

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 12:56 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Rush admitted to addiction. The 40 pills is formality of plea bargaining. People don’t get addicted on 40 pills. The actual number is in excess of 2,000 pills from different doctors.

By JT

May 2, 2006 12:56 PM | Link to this

WS, glad to hear you have admired conservatives in the past. The Coulters, Limbaughs, O’Reillys are a result of liberal progress fueled by the 60’s. They’re concerned and rightfully so. They may speak a little harshly and bluntly, but I think they do so to overcome the BS that the liberals have sold us for too long. I don’t pay too much attention to them.

Keep that mind of yours open for the next election. It will serve your country well. If the Republicans present a worthy candidate, go for it. The Democratic party in the hands of the liberal left are a lost cause.

Gotta go.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 12:57 PM | Link to this

BD,

If it were me, I would be serving time. When the doctors told me no more drugs because I was getting addicted, I did not go doctor shopping. I stopped taking them.

The gossip I hear is that he did not serve in the military because of an anal cyst. Are they talking about his brain?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 12:57 PM | Link to this

By The Other Andy May 2, 2006 12:39 PM

Conservative estimates put that figure at 3 years, the permitting is the longest duration. This can be accelerated to perhaps a little as a year. Construction can go 24/7, year round. Americans are very ingenious people.

The environmentalists threw the ten year number out there as a distraction.

P.S. Only a liberal wouldn’t realize that we drill through granite everyday, “frozen tundra” is like a cakewalk.

-This means, if true, we also need to get busy on the Continental shelf.

-Not true, but since Prudhoe is “drying up”, we can put the ANWR oil in here

-It won’t reduce our trade deficit in the near future, won’t reduce our dependency on foreign oil, won’t reduce the money the world sends to the governments that support the Islamic radicals… Proof please.

-By the way, I support drilling in ANWR as well as several other places along the Gulf and California coasts. I’ll bet you voted for Bush too, right?

-Nuclear is the only thing you got right.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 12:58 PM | Link to this

RW,

Senor Geraldo’s performance was right out of an SNL skit.

Maybe he hopes to be in charge of the Banana Republic of Mexifornia that his honored guests are dreaming of?

He sure sounded like he was running for something.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 01:02 PM | Link to this

Richard M. Nixon August 1974 24%

Do the libs ever tell the truth?

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 01:04 PM | Link to this

JT,

I regularly voted for the best person in past elections, but after seeing the destruction a one party Washington can accomplish, I will be sure and vote for at least one branch to be in opposition to the ruling party. Our constitution is one of checks and balances. I haven’t seen any of that for 6 years.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 01:06 PM | Link to this

The illegal solution is easy. Invade Mexico, make it a state.

New capital, Cancun.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 01:07 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Laura Ingraham played the “head of bananas” clip and her producer, Lee, said maybe Geraldo was talking about himself.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 01:08 PM | Link to this

Well Andy,

Good google.

Let me try my question again.

Were you part of the 24%?

By Liberal Texas Democrat

May 2, 2006 01:10 PM | Link to this

“By Buy Danish May 2, 2006 12:48 PM | Link to this getalife,

Do you have some proof of guilt from Rush that the rest of us have not seen?

The latest gossip that I heard was that it came down to…40 pills. And it cost him millions to defend himself.

Hope you’re happy. Rush would be far kinder to you.”

From the man himself lifted from Bartcop.com “Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs,  pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. … And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs,  they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up,” Limbaugh said  on his short-lived television show (that the free market said was no good,) on October 5, 1995.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 01:12 PM | Link to this

WashingtonState,

It looks like you guys are pretty one sided out there, I’m glad to see you say you will work in Washington to elect a more representative group.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 01:15 PM | Link to this

Anybody listening to Mr. Rush “Not Guilty” Limbaugh knows that if this guy was eating 1000 pills a day, or what ever lib nonsense has been made up about him, those pills were placebos. He got ripped off by his dealer, they gave him sugar tablets. It sure didn’t destroy his mind like it does any other junkie I ever met, getalife for example. Rush is tearing the freaking liberals up this afternoon, with half of his brain tied behind his back.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 01:17 PM | Link to this

getalife: Come on man, try to keep up. The drive by media pollsters don’t ask Conservatives for their opinions. How could I have been included in the results?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 01:19 PM | Link to this

LTD: Limbaugh had a prescription.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 01:20 PM | Link to this

Man, all this talk about drugs has made me jones for some opiates.

What the hell, if Rush can do it, so can I.

I am off to do some doctor shopping.

By By Old Enough to Know

May 2, 2006 01:26 PM | Link to this

And about those illegal workers….chew on this… Why is it that a global IT company (among other entities), created a secure web for OPEC communications in 2000, using H2B workers brought here on the “ruse” that the US could not supply them with workers competent enough to do simple programming. You worry about illegal immigrants coming here across the border, but no one is demanding the H2B workers brought here under fictious assertions be sent back. And after they are here, the employer pressures them to get their citizenship, or else get sent back, so they can bring in more H2B workers. A friend said it was part of the CIA (wink, wink). I do believe they were entirely correct. Workers and management alike were paid well beyond what they could have made in that sector elsewhere and with meager education. But they just had to “keep their heads down” and shut-up. All this is going on within 10 miles of some of our nations poorest people and with people that were kept, as US citizens and contrary to the law, as temporary workers for years without being made permanent employees. Mike’s unpublishable cartoon would have Lady Liberty prone and in a very unlady like position with our congressmen collecting money for her services from the rest off the world. Too bad there is not a male icon he could use instead.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 01:26 PM | Link to this

RW,

You are right about Washington State. I would be happier if there were one branch in opposition. We are a fairly populist state and when things get too outrageus, we can introduce initiatives to rein in the government. Too bad we can’t do that at the federal level.

By Daniel

May 2, 2006 01:31 PM | Link to this

Mike needs a new check box. I don’t like the cartoon. I LOVE IT! gal: how’ve you been? Nice to hear from you. Yes, life is sweet. Ah Limbaugh! His housekeeper was the bag woman. He was getting 2000 pills a month from a number of MD’s. Doctor shopping is not telling Dr. A you just got a prescription from Dr. B; and so on. He’s a dope fiend and a crook. By the way, (and keep this under your hat) word is that Rove is about to be frog marched out of the WH in cuffs. Let’s watch.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 01:33 PM | Link to this

getalife,

Re your 20% question, Nixon was a good President until Watergate. As part of its damaging aftermath, it forced him to capitulate to the Left’s demand that we leave South Vietnam on their schedule, according to their less than noble motives.

Would you like me to recount the cost in human lives that was born out of the poorly executed, and all too hasty retreat?

Oh, nevermind. You don’t like to go back in time past the Bush Administration. This Nixon thing was a temporary aberration on your part.

As for your getting off of drugs, congratulations. I don’t want to get personal, but from what you’ve told us about yourself, you had a really good incentive to get it together, and getting off of drugs was part of it.

As someone who has been through it, one would expect a bit more generosity of spirt toward others. From what I can tell, AA members are a lot kinder than you are to those who have human failings.

You are revealing the true colors of a typical Lib though. Based on my impressions of that very large chip on your shoulder, if I had one word to describe you, particularly on this issue, it would be, misanthrope.

W.S.,

He didn’t get addicted from those 2,000 pills we keep hearing about. He was already addicted, after having been prescribed them by his doctor for severe back pain that was not improved with surgery. He was not a recreational drug user.

But hey you all, don’t control your glee on my account. I like it when I get evidence to prove I’m right about nasty Libs.

Tex^^see above.

Idiot

By rushncap

May 2, 2006 01:33 PM | Link to this

So now Rush has to be subjected to random drug tests. Anyone else feel like pulling a prank of showing up at his house at 3 am, in a blue suit with some rubber gloves and demand to watch him pee in a cup? I’d risk lifetime of scarred eyes to see that.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 01:34 PM | Link to this

For those of you in the wingnut peanut gallery, it appears to be necessary to define the European model as far fuel conservation is conerned. If you drive, say a Toyota Prius, you would have a car with a small displacement engine that operated very efficiently. Therefore, it would use less gas. That is a good thing. Governments at any level should encourage using such vehicles. They can do so by making fees and taxes lower on those vehicles and perhaps a tax deduction on a federal level. On the other hand, something like a Lincoln Navigator has a big, INefficient engine. That means it uses a lot of gas. That is a bad thing. Accordingly, owners of such vehicles would pay through the nose. Fees and taxes on such vehicles would be very high, and perhaps require a tax surcharge on a federal level. Get the picture? This is the fourth ‘gas crisis’ in the last forty years. It might be a good idea to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING this time around. As rich and as powerful as this country may be, we can’t get away with being stupid forever.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 01:35 PM | Link to this

Looks like the Rush thing is splitting along the usual lines: Republicans sht icecream versus all Republicans are sht. Rush admitted being an addict. He sure as hell wasn’t addicted on 40 pills. Rush is only one person in a party that compromises half the country. Hopefully his own troubles will give him some empathy for those of others. There isn’t a whole lot more to say.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 01:38 PM | Link to this

BBOEK,

Hello? Anybody home? I guess you missed my 12:48.

I’ll repeat it for you, just in case you’re not a slow learner, and just missed it -

BOETK,

For starters, let me give you a little hint in blogging 101:

You don’t have to put By before your name. ML most generously does it for you!

Secondly, what are you talking about? Can you give us a clue? A quote? A link? Some reference point?

I’d like to add one more thing - Try using paragraphs once in awhile when you rant.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 01:40 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Once you are addicted, it doesn’t much matter how you got there. I am not jumping on Rush here. He is human like all the rest of us, puts his pants on one leg at a time. I could care less how he got addicted as long as he is getting the help to get off the drugs. Like I said, hopefully it will give him a little more empathy.

By Liberal Texas Democrat

May 2, 2006 01:42 PM | Link to this

“He didn’t get addicted from those 2,000 pills we keep hearing about. He was already addicted, after having been prescribed them by his doctor for severe back pain that was not improved with surgery. He was not a recreational drug user.” Spoken like a true enabler.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 01:45 PM | Link to this

rushnsap: Are you insinuating that Limbaugh’s schlong wouldn’t measure up to your exalted standards?:

I’d risk lifetime of scarred eyes to see that.

How would you know it would scar your eyes, dearie? Are you assuming that Conservative peckers are somehow less than the liberal ones you are used to handling?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 01:47 PM | Link to this

JoRo: Where does a Gulfstream jet, like the one Gore and Kerry use to fly around the United States whining about global warming, fit in to your lesson plan?

By Midori

May 2, 2006 01:48 PM | Link to this

The president’s volunteerism with regard to fuel standards on automobiles comes too late. Congress should impose higher mileage standards on automobiles and change regulations that allow automakers to average out the gas guzzling behemoths with smaller, more efficient models. More than rebates for hybrid cars, Congress should tax car owners who insist on driving small homes on wheels. Americans who insist on driving gas guzzlers should have to pay for the privilege.

There is not an unlimited supply of oil reserves. It is foolhardy to use the current gas hike as an excuse to drill in Alaska or in other environmentally sensitive areas. America needs to use less petroleum. More of the world is becoming industrialized and the demand for oil is increasing. The less dependent America becomes on oil, the more independent it becomes. It is more than an economic decision; it is good foreign policy.

Three decades ago, drivers waited in long lines for gas. So far, gas shortages are few — it is just soaring prices that are hurting the middle- and poorer classes.

The suggestion from Congress of a $100 rebate to all taxpayers is plain stupid. One hundred dollars hardly makes a dent in anyone’s gas bill. And a nation running deficits cannot afford any more tax givebacks. Congress should be investing in mass transit systems — more commuter lines, light rail and buses.

Fewer drivers will lessen demand.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 01:52 PM | Link to this

Let’s see, from See BS no less, how governments that are crawling with liberals handle JoRo’s tax breaks for fuel efficiency.

By Daniel

May 2, 2006 01:53 PM | Link to this

Midori: Great post. We have had our belly full of: ” Borrow and Spend, Let’s pretend.”

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 01:53 PM | Link to this

Rushncap!

I’m so glad you’re back since I missed you last night. I’m still waiting for the 2 apologies you owe me.

First for this:

By rushncap *April 28, 2006 08:32 PM |

First of all, Danish, you refuse to admit that you were wrong. I hope that dishonesty does good word for Christ. Shame on you. I proved that you were wrong, you not only do not apologize, you do not even mention it. So sad. I’ve come to expect this low level of integrity from you, however. I feel bad for your children.

And then for this

I like my pitchers of Pina Coladas icy cold, with those cute little umbrellas. Hold the maraschino cherry.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 01:55 PM | Link to this

Wow, that was quick. Just ordered off the internet. I wonder why Rush did not do that.

Thanks for the compliment BD.

I love House, one of my favorite shows. He is very misanthrope. Two parter coming up.

Daniel,

Yes, Rush is a hypocrite like most of the GOP. He should be locked up for breaking the law but the GOP does not believe in laws for themselves. Did you know Valerie Plame was working on Iran nukes when she was outed by Rove and the gang?

BTW BD, this blog does not need teachers or rules. Please try to let freedom of speech rule here.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 02:02 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Be careful what you ask for. Last night rushncap expanded his idea of how he fancies himself a real man to include fulfilling your request. It’s not just a makeup mirror with the boys and a trip to meet the parents anymore.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 02:02 PM | Link to this

Have ever heard the expression ‘apples and oranges’, you who are too timid to put your real name on your postings? Gore and Kerry are national figures. How do you think their Republican counterparts get around? Santa’s sleigh? Who does your typing for you?

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 02:05 PM | Link to this

Holy JoRo,

This is for you - a South Park episode, entitled Smug Alert

By Al

May 2, 2006 02:10 PM | Link to this

Another good one, Mike. Me? I’m just here long enough to say “hi” to one of the more active chickenhawks here, homophobic-homosexual RW.

By Use your real name

May 2, 2006 02:11 PM | Link to this

Since Danish is making his rules for everybody else Joe Roman is right, use your real name.

By Bob

May 2, 2006 02:14 PM | Link to this

Good toon. I hear BD done took him a reel trip! Do tell.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 02:17 PM | Link to this

BTW BD, this blog does not need teachers or rules. Please try to let freedom of speech rule here.

getalife,

Oh, I see.

I guess that means I can ignore your rule that tells us that we can’t mention the multitude errors, and worse, made by the Clinton administration that we’re paying for now.

I’m also the one who just said, But hey you all, don’t control your glee on my account.

In other words, you are free to speak.

Anything else?

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 02:20 PM | Link to this

BUYRN,

No rules, just suggestions. Like anti-spamming advice.

With my help you might write something that is readable some day.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 02:21 PM | Link to this

Here’s one from me, yee who are too much of a coward to use your real name and instead uses an issue as dead as Ronald Reagan. STUPID ALERT!!!! You shoot off your mouth about things you know absolutely nothing about, and when you get called on it, you give a reference to South Park and call me smug? This site is for adults, junior.

By Don

May 2, 2006 02:27 PM | Link to this

Maybe some illegal alien will take lil RW under his wing and find him some kind of life.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 02:27 PM | Link to this

Joe Roman,

I have considered your rule and rejected it. It is far too dangerous to use one’s real name unless one is a lib. Just ask Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and others.

But, you go right ahead! Freedom of speech and all.

UYRN,

UYRN is a very interesting name! Was that your mommy or daddy’s idea? Sounds like…?

And the note to JoRo? It’s for you too.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 02:28 PM | Link to this

Do you liberals all hear voices coming from ml’s scribbling like weird Al here?

Another good one, Mike. Me?

When I start hearing a cartoon asking me what I’m doing here maybe I’ll start voting moonbat.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 02:35 PM | Link to this

BD,

I have no rules posted here.

Hell, you do not need links to voice your opinion unless your Andy.

[For example, “The Other Andy” did it well.

Speaking of real names, I posted a real picture

RW said he posted a real picture too.

I see that woman liked my idea of making Mexico a state.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 02:35 PM | Link to this

JoRo,

South Park’s demos are 18-49. In other words, adults.

Anything else?

By getalife

May 2, 2006 02:40 PM | Link to this

ABF(Ain’t blogging fun?)

How is that blog professor er BD?

By Syd

May 2, 2006 02:43 PM | Link to this

Midori,

Why should I be taxed more b/c I drive a SUV? What about the guy that drives 25 miles one way to work vs my 3 miles one way? That person consumes a lot more fuel than I do. Your logic dictates that there should be a tax on consumption amounts, not at the rate at which one’s vehical consumes fuel.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 02:46 PM | Link to this

Hey! I just remembered. JoRo was the dude who made the NO LINK rule!

URYN,

YOU are in violation!

Glad you got rid of that extraneous B by the way. See how helpful I can be?

By Roger

May 2, 2006 02:47 PM | Link to this

This blog doesn’t take long to degenerate into name-calling. You can’t all really belief the political sterotypes that are thrown around these days. “most republicans are corrupt/hypocrites” - “most dems are communists” etc. I know dems and repubs that run the gamat, but none fit these sterotypes I hear. I know many hawkish dems that served their country and many repubs who didn’t. I know many repubs who were pro-choice and many catholic dems who were anti-abortion. Some of my best friends are from both sides of the aisle - and somehow when we discuss politcs it never gets ugly and no one presents themeselves as being absolutely right. I think that’s what bothers me the most - the belief that one person or party is ABSOLUTELY right on EVERY issue. The idea theat even if I don’t agree with a policy I’ll defend it to my death, because it’s from my political party is being loyal to a point that maybe harmful to the country we all love.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 02:48 PM | Link to this

getalife,

You may want to look at that picture again. That woman isn’t interested in Mexico being a US state at all. She wants this all to be Mexico.

By Syd

May 2, 2006 02:49 PM | Link to this

I am certainly not a big fan of today’s administration or any of our politicians for that matter. They all have an agenda. However, the AJC, ML et al are just silly. ML rarely bases his cartoons on facts, rather his assumptions which he is most likely getting from his employer. Shall I list all the dem’s who voted for force in Iraq? What do the Rep’s. have to do with gas prices? Scandel? Both parties have scandal. ML is clearly trying to sway the “headline readers”. What a shame.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 02:54 PM | Link to this

Because are consuming gas unnecessarily, Syd. You especially foolish if yu only drive three miles to work. Your engine doesn’t even get to the point where it is operating at maximum efficiency. You might as well be pouring it out on the street. Plus, you can’t be telling me you only drive six miles per day. You and your SUV is like a fat man who wants to eat all the food in the midst of a famine.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 03:04 PM | Link to this

getalife,

It’s hard to compete with the audacity of someone who logs in as Use Your Real Name.

It’s also tough to compete with Pious Jo Roman^^. At least I have a sense of humor.

“foolish” SYD,

How does it feel to get told what and how to drive by a fellow lib? Are you going to thank him or tell him to Eff off?

By RE

May 2, 2006 03:08 PM | Link to this

“O.K. now I know that we would have more control over ANWR than we do OPEC, thanks getalife:”

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 11:29 AM | Link to this

Roger: 2 things, 1- We would control the price of the oil coming from ANWR, not OPEC. 2. We would not be sending a trade deficit to people that want to kill us.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 11:56 AM | Link to this

Roger: OPEC routinely raises or lowers production to effect price. I’m not aware of Exxon being a part of OPEC, I could be wrong, I thought the prices were basically controlled by the futures market. It is inherently true that the two are tied together but I’m a-ssuming we would have control of the property rights and how they are used, maybe I’m wrong but it would be more control then we have over OPEC.

That could be a stipulation of opening ANWR, making the production favorable or even exclusive to domestic use”

Wow, lil andy is pushing for nationalized oil fields to control pricing, I though the “invisible hand of the market” cures all ills.

Reality check, any corporation, no matter where it is based if it is privately held has the primary obligation of making money. That is all, corporations are not and do not have to be patriotic. Opec has a great deal of influence over pricing, but so do the US held companies that can cut back production whenever they choose to as a business decision.

By Syd

May 2, 2006 03:08 PM | Link to this

Joe,

Actually Joe a vehical operates at maximum efficiency based on many conditions: highway/city driving, tire inflation, fuel mixture ratios (i.e…in tune or out of tune), air quality/clean air filter, etc. The least of which is how long the engine has been running. I never said I drive only six miles a day. I said my commute is 3 miles one way. Many days I only drive 6 miles a day. Others I drive more as I do have errands, social and volunteer events in which I take part, etc. Then, there are the days my girlfriend drops me off at work. Somedays I ride my bike to work. So, before you start your SUV “fat man” nonsense, please have a clue as to that of which you spew!

By John

May 2, 2006 03:12 PM | Link to this

W - Worst President in History. And we are there to see it!

By syd

May 2, 2006 03:15 PM | Link to this

Got to admit, I kind of like that line “have a clue as to that of which you spew”

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 03:19 PM | Link to this

I see RE is taking on the characteristics of “Don”. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence and not the beginning of another tantrum.

By RE

May 2, 2006 03:21 PM | Link to this

don?

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 03:29 PM | Link to this

You have a sense of humor, Danish? You have posted some of the most vile personal attacks I have seen on the Internet. When idiots like you get painted into a corner, all you have left is “I was joking”. No pal. You are a joke. But I’ll give you this. You are up front about being a coward. It’s “dangerous” to use your real name on the Internet? How exactly can you type when are shaking with fear? How sad.

By finch

May 2, 2006 03:31 PM | Link to this

Oil prices will never come down, even if ANWR and the Shelf are pumped. US demand is rising while demand in India and China is going through the roof. In two years, $3/gallon gasoline will be a fond memory.

The Europeans, in a left handed way (heh!) figured out how to limit demand a long time ago. Tax gasoline. Oh, and build nukes. Those Frogs aren’t so dumb after all.

But the US has an easier way to encourage people to buy gas-sipping vehicles. A punitive excise tax on low mileage SUVs and other gas pigs. Make that Yukon as expensive as a Gulfstream.

You could grant exemptions for farmers and heavy construction contractors. Y’know the folks who actually use the behemoths they drive for more than status, but that’s a technicality.

Andy,

Your idea for utilizing Alberta’s oil sands sounds good on the surface. But have you forgotten? That’s in CANADA! Another country! What if they don’t toe the US line? Not far fetched, since those Canuks can be so fiesty, like they’re sovereign and independent or somethin’… heck, they already have gummit health care, official languages other than English, and they’ve legalized gay marriages and all but legalized pot for cryin’ out loud!

What are we gonna do?? INVADE THEM??

Don’t answer that.

By Cindy

May 2, 2006 03:33 PM | Link to this

Did Bush lie when he said Iraq had WMD or when he said they didn’t?

By Beverly Wittler

May 2, 2006 03:40 PM | Link to this

Mike Luckovich, your 5-2-06 is SO true, and SO funny! You truly deserved your recent award, and I think today’s cartoon should help you win again next season.

By @@

May 2, 2006 03:42 PM | Link to this

Can I post now? The kids are gone.

Nope, it’s my week to do the laundry. Maybe later.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 03:44 PM | Link to this

JoRo,

Come back to earth dude. If you think Buy Danish posts the most vile things you have ever seen on the internet then you need to heed your words about this being for grown ups and go away until you’re a little more mature.

By Kellie Pickler

May 2, 2006 03:48 PM | Link to this

…….That could be a stipulation of opening ANWR, making the production favorable or even exclusive to domestic use”…

What does Anwar have to do with this? He was good on American Idol, but he didn’t win. You don’t need to put any blame on him!

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 03:50 PM | Link to this

You really are in denial, aren’t you Syd. Your SUV is a gas hog. Therefore, you are a gas hog.

By Syd

May 2, 2006 04:03 PM | Link to this

Beverly,

Specifically, what is so true about this cartoon? This could just as easily be a donkey. This is exactly why the AJC and ML have so little credibility.

By RE

May 2, 2006 04:08 PM | Link to this

I know Syd, the dems keep on pushing through big spending packages and getting busted in lobbying scandals. To say nothing of the all dem administration members rooted in the oil industry. I wish the dems hadn’t been running everything for the last 6 years.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 04:10 PM | Link to this

JoRo,

I just took my SUV to the grocery store. I kept it running in the parking lot for a few minutes and listened to the radio. I figured it was worth it, especially since it was Clark Howard, and he usually has great tips.

I still don’t think I manged to get past that 3 mile marker that you say is so important in order to get it running to maximum efficiency.

Maybe next time I’ll try riding it around the block a few times and see what happens.

By Daniel

May 2, 2006 04:12 PM | Link to this

finch is on target, once again. Look, it’s not that complicated. The “crazies” have hijacked the republican party. They will never unite the country. They will always seek to divide us. In the division they will attmpt to deceive us. This will help keep them in power and money. Any questions?

By getalife

May 2, 2006 04:13 PM | Link to this

Syd,

Mike does cartoons on the party in power. He has done many on Dems and some are included in his first Pulitzer Prize

“have a clue as to that of which you spew”

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 04:14 PM | Link to this

finch: The Canadians aren’t smart enough to get the oil out of the sand without American technology. Plus, they’ll probably take a fleet of “energy efficient” pinko mobiles in trade for the property holding the sand.

JoRo: Just because you are a member of “I’ll hide behind someone else’s name to spread hate” crowd doesn’t give you the freedom to wax righteous on Buy Danish, your whole entire political party is made up of cowards. You are the “politically correct” sissies, after all.

By rushncap

May 2, 2006 04:16 PM | Link to this

Sorry, li’l andy, but regardless of party affiliation, seeing the weiner of a fat loser is not a pleasant way to pass time for myself. I will not presume to speak for you. Judging by your indignant tone, seeing Rush’s pecker would be better than a honemoon for you. Again, different strokes for different folks. Not my cup o’ joe, but, apparently, yours.

By Jesus

May 2, 2006 04:20 PM | Link to this

IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 04:24 PM | Link to this

Rushncap,

If I understand one of your late nite posts to RW correctly, a real man apologizes for his errors.

I’m waiting…

Syd,

You foolish gas hog! Don’t you realize that if you don’t heed JoRo’s wisdom, you could end up in hog heaven?

By Syd

May 2, 2006 04:25 PM | Link to this

Getalife,

My point is the ML and the AJC will go out of their way to make the repub’s look bad. They rarely will do that for the dems. I’ll be the first to admit that the party in control right now is doing a terrible job, especially with spending. But to print this cartoon implies that it is solely the repub responsible for gas prices, Iraq (shall we look at who voted to use force??? Kerry, H Clinton, Kennedy, et al). As I said, it could easily be a donkey. Both parties are pathetic and have no real leaders.

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 04:27 PM | Link to this

The double stantards applied by these wingnuts is remarkable. Rush Limbaugh has made a career of ridiculing drug addicts and his ‘dittoheads’ cheer him on. Yet, when it is revealed that Limbaugh himself is a drug addict, all of a sudden he deserves a free pass and his dittoheads get sooooo soft and squishy about addicts that they make hippies look like narcs.
Then, after constant streams of rhetoric too childish for a grade school playground, they question my maturity. I would call them intellectually backrupt, but that’s way too many syllables for them to understand.

By finch

May 2, 2006 04:29 PM | Link to this

Give it up, Andy…

The Canadians are smart enough to buy the oil sand technology from anyone selling it, and as history proves, US firms will sell to anybody. We’re who-res that way.

The Canadians are also shrewd enough to market this resource to the highest bidder. Which may not be the US.

It may be China.

And then what’re we gonna do?? INVADE CANADA??

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 04:30 PM | Link to this

Look, rushncap, it’s too late to back out. I already emailed Rush with your proposal to dress up as human condom man and come by real late to “check out” Rush’s thing.

Anyone else feel like showing up at his house at 3 am, in a blue suit with some rubber gloves and demand to watch him pee in a cup?

I told him you sound real sweet.

By Daniel

May 2, 2006 04:36 PM | Link to this

Syd: You’re obviously an intelligent person. It is clear we are a nation without leaders. But what is your other point? Mike does what cartoonists do. Don’t we need a good laugh now and then?

By Dusty

May 2, 2006 04:43 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Could we trade in Joe Roman for Kellie Pickler? Loved that What does Anwar have to do with this? He was good on American idol, but he didn’t win. You don’t need to put any blame on him. Heck no. Don’t blame Anwar!

See! I can make those vile!!! remarks too. Hard to be angelic like those sweet lil liberals.

Should I use my real name? OK It is Priscilla Precious. Don’t tell. It’s a secret.

By gadem

May 2, 2006 04:44 PM | Link to this

How many top Al-Queida officials has the US caught, I mean is everyone a friggin top official?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 04:48 PM | Link to this

Another liberal myth exposed as a shoddy little lie:

New York, N.Y. – In her new memoir, NOW IT’S MY TURN(Simon & Schuster/Threshold Editions, 2006), Mary Cheney writes that when she told her parents she was gay, the first words out of her father’s mouth “were exactly the ones that I wanted to hear: ‘You’re my daughter, and I love you, and I just want you to be happy.’”

They’re just full of lies, aren’t they?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 04:53 PM | Link to this

Exclusive: Top CIA Official Under Investigation No. 3 Official at CIA Is Subject of Investigation Related to Bribery Probe

March 3, 2006 — - A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.

The CIA inspector general has opened an investigation into the spy agency’s executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials.

So what else is this corrupt agency guilty of? Lying about WMD in Iraq? Yellowcake in Niger?

We know they backstabbed and treasoned the foreign terrorist wiretap program and the secret terrorist prisons. It’s time to throw the lid of this nasty nest of liberals.

By the way, what is Fitzgerald ignoring over there? Is this an official coverup?

By RE

May 2, 2006 04:54 PM | Link to this

so Andy, when did you become in favor of nationalizing US oil fields?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 04:57 PM | Link to this

Well we finally have one person who thinks Colbert’s performance wasn’t a career ending embarrassment:

Jon Stewart Defends Colbert’s Dinner Speech

Go figure. It isn’t like they work at the same network or anything.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 05:02 PM | Link to this

RW,

Damn! How did I miss this classic entry from rushncap?

By rushncap

May 2, 2006 12:08 AM

Do they pay you to be a psychiatrist, @@? *You might want to spend a little less time analyzing the mental state of a person about whom you don’t know anything at all, including first name or even gender, and a little more time worrying about your own…

I thought that it had been clearly determined that Rushncap was a male. After all, he made a great fuss about having all the characteristics needed to be a real man.

But now I’m confused. Maybe he is really a she who desperately wants to be a he?

Or maybe he is intersexual, so he gets to be a he and a she at the same time?

I don’t know…just one more a*ssumption gone awry. I guess there’s a lesson to be learned their somewhere. I just need JoRo to explain it to me.

Dusty,

Your secret is safe with me! I need to compose some new poetry for JoRo. He is such an inspiration!

By getalife

May 2, 2006 05:08 PM | Link to this

Andy,

Joe and Valarie thought he was hilarious

Looks like they are having the last laugh.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 05:11 PM | Link to this

National Review absolutely nails the liberal hypocrisy:

How many people do we know of—and how many celebrities can we name in sports, entertainment, politics, etc.—who develop substance-abuse problems? And in most instances the abuse is recreational, not an unintended fallout from treatment for real medical problems. Yet our society does not pursue these folks as criminals. They are treated with compassion. When they seek treatment, they win our admiration. And rightly so.

By RE

May 2, 2006 05:14 PM | Link to this

“As executive director of the CIA, Foggo oversees the administration of the giant spy agency. He was appointed to the post by CIA Director Porter Goss after working as a midlevel procurement supervisor, according to former CIA officials.

While based in Frankfurt, Germany, he oversaw and approved contracts for CIA operations in Iraq.

Foggo is a longtime friend of Brent Wilkes, referred to as co-conspirator No. 1 in government documents filed in the Cunningham investigation. The two played high school football and were in each other’s weddings.”

Good work Andy, another crony scandal by a political apointee. Who appointed this guy, why it was Porter Goss. Wasn’t he put in place by GWB to straighten out the CIA. Your doin a heckofa job Goss

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 05:14 PM | Link to this

Andy,

It appears that Tar Sands are OUT. And you are worse than Rush Limbaugh for even suggesting it. Shame on you!

North American Oil Addicts to Get Help

According to the Sierra Club of Canada, Tar sands oil is to conventional oil what crack cocaine is to ordinary cocaine powder.

I missed the Earth Day celebration too! Bummer.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 05:23 PM | Link to this

RE: So a lib criminal’s ability to fool his superiors get’s him off the hook in your perspective? I wonder if you would afford that same consideration to a Conservative, hahahahahahaha, yeah, right.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 05:25 PM | Link to this

Danish: Believe me, I’m sure the Sierra Club “knows” the difference between crack and powdered cocaine.

It’s like Ann Coulter says: Do these liberals realize how their cocaine gets to them?

By RE

May 2, 2006 05:27 PM | Link to this

what are you talking about? This guy is a lib because he was working with a GOP rep? You are losing it

By getalife

May 2, 2006 05:29 PM | Link to this

Oh, here we go with Andy’s favorite wingnut opinion NRO ( No Reality On this site).

Its okay, if one of us wingnuts does it. We should teach that to our children.

Lie, cheat, steal, kill and get high. Pitiful.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 05:57 PM | Link to this

My theory about Faux News being liberal is gaining traction:

Feds: Data Correction Erases Global-Warming Doubts

Even if it was true, who cares? We’ll just move spring break up a week.

Green Group: 16,000 Species Face Extinction

So? Is one of them looney Islamic terrorists?

Ten States Sue Government to Raise Fuel Efficiency Standards

Fox news pushing for wienie mobiles?

I’m telling you, beware, they are trying to gradually turn you into a pinko. Have you been watching Lifetime lately too? Sitting in front of the TV with a stupid smile hoping Hillary makes an appearance? That’s their plan for you, to turn you into a Hillary voter.

By RE

May 2, 2006 05:58 PM | Link to this

Mexico just says yes

By finch

May 2, 2006 06:18 PM | Link to this

Can’t spell hypocrite without NRO. Or Andy.

The nail in Rush’s box of excuses is his “hypocrisy!* Your liberal mainstream addicts at least admit that they have a problem, and they’re part of one.

Rush was denying his problem until he couldn’t. And that “fallout from pain treatment” excuse is just crap. As getalife and AntiRadical both point out here, MDs in the US won’t overprescribe oxys. They’re scared of their licenses, arrests or worse.

Good ol’ Rush liked the high so much, he actively sought out out illegal ways to satisfy his cravings. There’s a clear pattern of chronic abuse. He’s a liar in denial and anyone who believes him is a sucker.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 06:20 PM | Link to this

Getalife,

Lie, cheat, steal, kill and get high. Pitiful.

I’ll be a million mangoes you didn’t read the NRO/Rush Op Ed that you are dismissing out of hand.

The truth is that Krischer never had a case. In November 2005, the assistant state attorney handling the investigation stood up in open court and made the mind-blowing admission that he had “no idea” whether Rush had committed a crime—after pursuing Rush, and crawling through every aspect of his private life, for over two years.

He claimed he needed the court to authorize the evisceration of Rush’s doctor-patient privilege so he could interview physicians. Why? Because after months and months of poring over Rush’s actual medical records the prosecutor had no proof that Rush had done anything wrong. This should have come as no surprise since that’s what Rush had told them and shown them all along the way.

There’s more, such as the DA releasing confidential communication between Rush and his own counsel, that is never, ever made public. If you really cared about NSA wiretaps, this would concern you. But I digress.

At the risk of sounding professorial or impinging on your freedom of speech (??), I have a question for you:

You said earlier that if little ole you were you had been caught doctor shopping you would have been thrown in jail (or something to that effect). Later you told us that you beat drug addiction.

Tell me, where you ever arrested for drug possession? Doctor Shopping? Why is it that I think the answer to that question is a resounding No?

Maybe it’s because if you had been incarcerated, you probably would have shouted it to the rooftops just to point out the terrible injustice of it all?

We never heard a peep about it. Nope. Just a hypothetical IF.

By finch

May 2, 2006 06:29 PM | Link to this

Hate to break it to ya Andy, but the only ideology Fox owner Murdoch has is money. Of course, I’ve been saying that here for months.

Fox is slipping in the ratings. CNN and MSNBC are up. Murdoch goes for mass appeal. More Natalie Holloway! More Duke rapists! More Big Bad Oil and Crazy Mexican Immigrant stories! Get more Homer Simpsons to watch! Works for the NY Post!

It’s the free market at work, Andy! Aint it grand??

It is great, though, to see you admit that you rank news sources by the truths they tell. Don’t like a truth about global warming? It’s the liberal conspiracy! Horrors!! PINKOS!! They’re trying to confuse me with FACTS!

RE,

That Mexico story gives me a rush. Nancy Reagan must be spinning in her grave.

Oh! You mean she’s still alive?

By @@

May 2, 2006 06:33 PM | Link to this

With all the faults we can find in our country, this little guy asks “When can I come to America?”

“Did you like America?” she asks, through an interpreter.

“Yes,” Losha replies in rapid Russian.

“What did you like?”

“Everything,” he says, smiling even more broadly.

Finished now, Dakake asks, “Do I get my hugs?”

Losha grabs tight and kisses her.

“Do you have any questions for me?” she concludes.

“When,” he asks, “am I coming to America?”

It’s a reality check for sure! So sweet & so sad for Losha. Soon, hopefully! There are a lot of good people in the world.

Sorry everybody, just got a little emotional.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 06:36 PM | Link to this

finch,

You know I’m just amazed at how many liberals who blog here listen to Rush. You. JoRo. Washington State. Getalife. No wonder he has an audience of 20 million!

You heard him announce that he was going into rehab (like I did)! You were there the day he came back (like I was)!

I heard him admit his addiction. You say he didn’t. I heard him very humbly speak of his experience in rehab. You heard arrogance. Must be that tinfoil hat. Makes me hear things.

Why you’re even privy to evidence that the D.A. didn’t have! I could have sworn that you have made a big deal about not rushing to judgement (no pun intended) in the past about pending court cases. Yet here we have one pretty well finalized (it’s just a technicality at this point), and it doesn’t say at all what you say it says.

You’re relying on gossip and innuendo and distortions.

Sounds just like a liberal to me.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 06:40 PM | Link to this

BD,

He pleaded, cut a deal, if he was not guilty he would have defended himself. Make all the excuses you want but you can’t escape the fact that he cut a deal.

I agree with finch’s argument at 6:18.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 06:45 PM | Link to this

BD,

Wrong again, I never listen to Rush.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 06:48 PM | Link to this

finch,

Rush was denying his problem until he couldn’t.

How is that different than virtually every addict of every persuasion possible?

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 06:50 PM | Link to this

Okay finch,

It seems the word liberal does not in fact describe you -

Synonyms: big hearted, bounteous, bountiful, freehanded, generous, handsome, munificent, openhanded, giving.

Antonym: stingy. That sounds more like it.

I would add despicable, shameless and pathetic to your 6:29.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 06:59 PM | Link to this

getalife,

Well for someone who NEVER listens, you sure know a lot about him. Which was my point.

Were you ever arrested for drugs? Still waiting for that answer.

Or maybe you were and that’s why you’re such an expert on cutting deals. Nothing personal. Just trying to see if Rush really did get off for something that you got screwed for.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:00 PM | Link to this

Pardon the long post but check out how much Fox is “slipping:”

(If they lie about the little things why would you trust anything they say?)

2005 Cable News Program Rankings - Nielsen Media Research www.mediabistro.com ^ | December 28, 2005

Posted on 12/29/2005 5:57:51 PM PST by new yorker 77

Nielsen Media Research

2005 Competitive Program Analysis

2005: 12/27/2004 - 12/25/2005

Ranked On:

NETWORK PROGRAM NAME

1) FOXN THE OREILLY FACTOR

2) FOXN HANNITY & COLMES

3) FOXN ON THE RECORD W/GRETA

4) FOXN THE FOX REPORT W/S.SMITH

5) FOXN SPECIAL REPORTW/BRIT HUME

6) CNN LARRY KING LIVE

7) FOXN THE BIG STORY W/J GIBSON

8) FOXN STUDIO B W/S.SMITH

9) FOXN FOX AND FRIENDS

10) FOXN FOX NEWS LIVE

11) FOXN YOUR WORLD W/NEIL CAVUTO

12) FOXN DAYSIDE

13) CNN NEWSNIGHT W/ AARON BROWN

14) CNN SITUATION ROOM

15) CNN PAULA ZAHN NOW

16) FOXN DAYSIDE WITH LINDA VESTER

17) CNN PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

By getalife

May 2, 2006 07:02 PM | Link to this

“Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. … And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up,” Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show (that the free market said was no good,) on October 5, 1995.

This statement says all you need to know about Rush.

BTW, Mexico legalizing drugs is a slap in the face of the so called “war on drugs”.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 07:04 PM | Link to this

Naw, Rush isn’t depicable, shameless, or pathetic. He just was caught and did the smart thing. Throw yourself on the mercy of the people and go into rehab. That doesn’t make him a hero, but he is no different from millions of other addicts who refuse to admit they have a problem until they can’t anymore.

By getalife

May 2, 2006 07:06 PM | Link to this

BD,

No.

Have you?

By RE

May 2, 2006 07:07 PM | Link to this

Hat tip to BD for spontaneous outrage!

what exactly are you outraged about anyway?

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 07:13 PM | Link to this

The whole affair with Rush and drugs is a great argument for decriminalizing drugs and concentrating on treatment.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 07:20 PM | Link to this

Any decent human being will agree that what the terrorists did was completely and utterly wrong, and all that our fellow Americans did in that short moment of time was stand up for what they believed in — the right not to die without a fight — nothing more. As an American, I strongly urge you to see this film, because it puts in perspective what normal people have the capacity to do when they look inwards and sacrifice themselves to save others, and that alone makes the movie completely worth it.

By finch

May 2, 2006 07:21 PM | Link to this

RW,

Rush was denying his problem until he couldn’t.

How is that different than virtually every addict of every persuasion possible?

That’s too easy. Unlike typical addicts of the liberal persuasion, who merely try to hide their problem, Rush was fulminating about the evils of drugs and how addicts deserved no less than jail because it was all their fault. Even as he was feeding his jones.

That’s his hypocrisy talking.

But enough of Rush. If he and his fans are smart, they’ll realize he was a two-faced junkie, more dishonest than most, who was a criminal but a victim, too. If they’re both dumb and think he’s being persecuted, that’s their shame.

And that’s that.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 07:32 PM | Link to this

finch,

If you want the last word you should be a little more careful about the lies you put in that last word. Even if his words in 1995 were somehow the same as becoming addicted to a drug that was originally prescribed to you, it wasn’t the case of Rush railing about the evils of drugs while a junkie himself.

It’s been said today that Rush has made his entire career sermonizing (or fulminating if you prefer) about drugs. Would someone like to come up with more evidence than one very possibly out of context statement that is 11 years old?

By Joe Roman

May 2, 2006 07:53 PM | Link to this

The cornerstone of neo-conservatism is the principle that what is wrong for others is OK for them. Therefore, Limbaugh gets a free pass. Our Chickenhawk-In-Chief gets a free pass, Tom Delay gets a free pass, ad nauseum, ad infinitum, ad absurdum. There is another word for this philsophy. It is sociopathy. The ‘ideology’ of serial killers.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 07:58 PM | Link to this

Getalife,

No I haven’t.

I also have never made claims like, “If I got caught doing what Rush was doing, I’d be serving time”.

In fact, even if he had pled guilty to doctor shopping, he would only be the SECOND PERSON in the entire history of Palm Beach County to be prosecuted for that particular crime. So the odds of you getting punished for the same alleged activity are just about zilch.

But enough of Rush. If he and his fans are smart, they’ll realize he was a two-faced junkie, more dishonest than most, who was a criminal but a victim, too. If they’re both dumb and think he’s being persecuted, that’s their shame.

finch,

Reminds me of the old joke, “enough about you”.

Did you read the NRO piece? Not that that is the only source of background for this case, but if you had you wouldn’t be making asinine statements like that.

RE,

Why am I so pis-sed off? Because I’ve had it up to here with compassionate liberalism.

Like everything else about it, its a crock. And Finch and Getalife are doing a fine job of proving it.

By finch

May 2, 2006 08:12 PM | Link to this

April 2006 cable news ratings.

25-54 demo:

O’Reilly: 412,000 (-12%)

Olbermann: 169,000 (+37%)

Grace: 160,000 (+18%)

Zahn: 148,000 (-41%)

That’s just one prime time hour, and it shows that O’Reilly still leads. But look at how FNC is sliding, CNN is WAY down, while Headline News is up and MSNBC is WAY up from a year ago.

Murdoch, a fierce believer in surveys, focus groups, trend analysis, etc., could give a blank about pinko versus wingnut. Case in point? He owns the Times of London, which broke the Downing Street Memos. He does care about market dominance. And money. If conservatives are seeing more “heresy” it’s because Rupert’s cracked the whip.

Nothing political. Nothing personal. Just business.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 08:17 PM | Link to this

Well isn’t this mighty neighborly of See BS to let him know?:

CBS/AP) As the search for terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi intensifies, U.S. troops raided a suspected al Qaeda hideout Tuesday, killing 10 insurgents, and CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that investigators have learned that in another raid, forces were within 1,000 yards of al-Zarqawi.

The real question is who told them?

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 2, 2006 08:26 PM | Link to this

O.K. so lying wasn’t good enough now we are going to try and distort our way out of it:

O’Reilly: 412,000 (-12%) Olbermann: 169,000 (+37%)

One show, for one hour does not a network in decline make.

Keep trying, liar.

P.S. The commentator at your link agrees with me, you really should read these things:

If you still need more evidence that CNN has a problem at 8 p.m., here it is. For the month of April, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann was the #2 cable news program for the hour in the 25-54 demographic. Paula Zahn has lost 41 percent of her demo viewers compared to a year ago, while Olbermann is up 37 percent.

By @@

May 2, 2006 08:51 PM | Link to this

Well I see BD retrieved from last night’s rushncap post. It was like he jumped out from behind a Bush while Getalife and I were having a little late night fun.

For clarification, all I said was that he always seemed a little frantic and I think we do that when life is outside of our control. Psychoanalysis???

I never commented as to his/her gender. It was the name thing that got me. I thought his name here was “rushncap”, that’s what I called him, “rushncap”.

He did apologize for attributing the word “traitorous” to my post incorrectly so all’s well until next time. I’ll be keeping my @@’s open.

By rushncap

May 2, 2006 09:01 PM | Link to this

@@, still trying to analyze my life? Sigh. OK. Go to town.

By RW-(the original)

May 2, 2006 09:34 PM | Link to this

It would take an army of psychologists to figure out how rushncap could interpret that as @@ analyzing his (or her) life.

Readers note: Although I’m pretty sure rushncap has stated that he is in fact a he on several occasions, he seemed to have gender issues last night thus the (or her) notation.

How’s that rushncap? No analysis and I left your gender open for you.

By finch

May 2, 2006 09:41 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

That NRO puff piece is an apologetic load of crap. Any article that describes Limbaugh’s “confession” as given (quote) “(w)ith characteristic candor and humility” cannot be taken seriously. You can’t use the words characteristic candor and humility in any sentence about Rush. Not with a straight face.

I once counseled addicts at a clinic. I know their tricks. And the NRO article portrays what a drug addict does best. Rationalize, externalize, and above all else, play the victim card with as many people as possible when the denial card no longer works.

Rush was almost certainly a junkie in 2001. He managed to hide it for 2 more years, which isn’t that unusual for an addict.

And yet his excusers still fall for his line of bull. He really needs to re-read his Big Book. The part about living a life that “demands rigorous honesty”. This bears repeating:

If he and his fans are smart, they’ll realize he was a two-faced junkie, more dishonest than most, who was a criminal but a victim, too. If they’re both dumb and think he’s being persecuted, that’s their shame.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 09:59 PM | Link to this

finch,

It is amazing the stories that people come up with in seeking drugs from doctors. There is no way someone could maintain an addiction without either performing illegal acts or persuading others to do it for him/her. Having said that, I still maintain that criminalizing an addict’s behaviour is not the answer and Rush is one of the best arguments for that. Maybe something good can come out of his troubles.

By finch

May 2, 2006 10:09 PM | Link to this

Andy,

I’m not lying about the factors behind Fox’s editorial shift. And there’s an undeniable ratings trend against FNC. There’s proprietary stuff I can’t link to describing the Murdoch and Ailes fine-tuning at Fox. You yourself accuse FNC of going “pinko”. I’m telling you why. It’s not about parties and politics. It’s about ratings and money.

By Mad As Zell

May 2, 2006 10:16 PM | Link to this

In today’s edition of the AJC (Al-Jazeera Constitution), the leader of all “ATL” Pinko Commies, one Ms. Cynthia Tucker or how ever the hell you spell her name (her name, along with most of the Al-Jazeera Constitution staff can also be spelled L-E-F-T W-I-N-G B-O-M-B T-H-R-O-W-I-N-G C-O-M-M-I-E P-I-N-K-O L-I-B-E-R-A-L) suggested that President Bush should have instituted (a term that most of the AJC staff should know well) a stiff tax on gasoline to dissuade people from buying gasoline.

First of all, any politician that would be stupid enough to advocate a steep national gas tax would suffer a quick and painful sudden political death. Second, obviously unbeknownst to liberals, commuters aren’t the only motorists who use gasoline. Truck drivers, who transport most, if not all of our consumer goods, also depend heavily on gasoline to, get this, fuel and power their trucks so that they can ship us all of our consumer goods (you know, important stuff like food, water, clothes, books, etc.).

Liberals and left-wing nuts just don’t seem to get that if there was a steep tax put on gasoline, truckers and merchants would pass on that highly-taxed high cost of transporting vital goods and services to consumers. Some truckers would even balk completely at the high-tax and therefore high cost of gasoline and decide that it’s time to get out of the trucking business, creating ever more difficulty in getting our vital goods transported to consumers creating a demand crux that would drive up the cost of goods even more, making the purchase of many vital goods and services difficult to many consumers who would decrease their spending down to the bare minimums and force many more out of work causing a recession.

Pinkos just don’t seem to get that high taxes, price controls and draconian manipulation of markets through artificially high taxes and price controls just doesn’t work. It’s always the first thing that liberals scream every time the price of gas goes up “price controls and high taxes on gasoline to make everyone stop using gas just like in Western Europe”. Not only will commuters stop fueling up, but truckers and industry will stop fueling up too if high taxes on gas are put in place. This is NOT Europe with socialist governments and high taxes and stiff protectionist market controls, this is the United States of America where the free market decides how goods and services get bought and sold.

Lower taxes = smaller, more efficient government, less government interference in the market (free market and more ideas exchanged) and more small businesses created and more jobs and employment.

Higher taxes = bigger, inefficient government, more government interference in the market (not so free market and fewer ideas exchanged), fewer small businesses, fewer jobs and greater unemployment.

If America wants to break it’s addiction to oil then pinkos should be more willing to let the market decide the alternatives and not a big, inefficient, interfering government bureaucracy.

Let the free markets work

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 10:20 PM | Link to this

Rushncap,

I’m STILL waiting for that apology which you claim makes you a real man. Or maybe you don’t really want to be a real man, so you won’t apologize.

Just do us all a favor. Keep Christ and Jesus out of it. Nice attempt at diversion, but it doesn’t work and only makes you appear more FOS than I could have thought possible.

I once counseled addicts at a clinic. I know their tricks

Finch,

What did you do to earn this privilege?

Seriously, because I know many, many people who counsel addicts, and they are far more forgiving.

Which is a bit of an understatement, because you don’t seem to be forgiving at all.

Must have been one of those mandated community service things that liberals insist on to get one’s creds.

@@,

A belated thank you for your post about the Russian orphans coming to Atlanta. I got emotional too.

Are you sure that it’s a Christian organization that puts this all together? Because if I am to believe the MSM and the typical, elite, Ivy League professor, Christians suck.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 10:27 PM | Link to this

There’s proprietary stuff I can’t link to describing the Murdoch and Ailes fine-tuning at Fox

OOOOOOH. Finch has a secret but he can’t tell us.

Reminds me of first grade. I know something you don’t know. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyaaaaaaaah.

If you would just give me a hint I could find it out for myself. In addition to knowing addiction counselors, I also know important people who work for Fox.

Or will I have to keep that quote on file for decades, (along with every other nasty thing that you have said today) until the right moment appears, so I can hold it against you?

All’s fair and all that.

P.S.

Sorry to be such a pissant today, but you bring out the pissant in me.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 10:28 PM | Link to this

Free markets?? You mean the manipulated markets, don’t you. We are still reeling from Enron out here in Washington and the feds are trying to hold us to contracts made during fraudulently created “shortages.” And all this shortly after Cheney gave his blessings to the “free market” approach to energy on the West Coast.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 10:36 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

I don’t know where you get your information from, but I would guess that many Ivy League professors are Christian. Why are you on such a tear tonite?

Adopting children from Russia or any other foreign country is not something to be embarked upon lightly. There are organizations, some of them Christian, which specialize in this. The incidence of disease and psychological disturbances in children adopted from the former USSR makes it important to have expert advice.

By rushncap

May 2, 2006 10:39 PM | Link to this

What am I supposed to apologize for, Danish?

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 10:42 PM | Link to this

*There is no way someone could maintain an addiction without either performing illegal acts or persuading others to do it for him/her. *

WS,

Alcohol??? Cigarettes? Oh, I guess they don’t count.

Oxycontin. Now that’s an addiction. Funny how the prescribed dose never gets you addicted.

Pain. Relief. Just a coincidence.

But hey, you’re the expert.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 10:48 PM | Link to this

WS,

Sorry that you didn’t get my little dig about Ivy League professors and the like. All in all, they are very pro-Palestinian, anti-Christian, and anti-Semetic.

That’s all I meant by it. Just a little sarc to counteract the Left who have made it a mission to destroy all remnants of Western Civilization, with Christianity being a big part of it.

Many of whom show up here with alarming frequency.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 10:48 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

You are being a royal pain tonight. “Maintaining” is the operative word here. Someone might get addicted throught legitimate perscriptions, but it wouldn’t take long for their drug-seeking behaviour to become obvious to their physician, assuming the physician is operating within the law.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 10:53 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

You are sounding more and more like Andy tonight. You have a bad day or something?

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 10:59 PM | Link to this

finch,

I finally got around to your Salon link. As a compassionate liberal, I guess the RULE is it’s not bad enough that he lost his hearing. He must pay!

As someone who listens to Rush, and doesn’t rely on blogs to give me the skinny, I vividly recall the day he spoke of his deafness. It was soon after 9/11.

Were you tuning in that day? I doubt it.

The bottom line? He might have been addicted to Oxyconton-esqe drugs since 2001. Book him Danno!

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:00 PM | Link to this

” Ivy League professors and the like. All in all, they are very pro-Palestinian, anti-Christian, and anti-Semetic.’

Now there’s a generalization that really can stand on its own two feet.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 11:14 PM | Link to this

WS,

Yeah, well I think that you libs have been a pain all day, no pun intended of course.

And I stand by my generalization about Ivy League professors.

Let’s say it’s an inside scoop.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:23 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

How’s this:

Rush is a saint. His doctor deliberately addicted him to pain meds and then fed him a steady diet of the same to keep him on the hook. He decided to come forward, with no external pressure, and voluteered the information on national radio. He then went into rehabilitation because he couldn’t stand the idea of living as an addict one minute longer. Poor Rush. Give me a break.

By DavidU

May 2, 2006 11:25 PM | Link to this

New cartoon

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:27 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Some of the greatest conservative minds teach at Ivy League institutions. And a lot of them are Christian. I did my undergraduate work at a conservative Catholic college and my grad work at an Ivy League school. Of the two, I think there were more radical thinkers at the Catholic college.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 11:31 PM | Link to this

WS,

Keep it up Mr. nice guy.

Those people you work with (you’ll pardon me if I don’t recall the exact capacity), but they are so lucky to have an expert like you guiding them. You just ooze understanding. Care. compassion. Gosh, everything one could ask for!

Damnit, if someone is in pain and becomes addicted to prescription drugs, well hells bells, that is no different from shooting horse just to get high.

Let me guess. You have a government job.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:32 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

Oh yeah, I forgot. A lot of them were Jewish, both at the Catholic college and at the Ivy League school. Anti-semitic, pro-palestian Jews. I think you might have invented a new category.

By Buy Danish

May 2, 2006 11:34 PM | Link to this

WS,

The problem is that you wouldn’t know a radical thinker from a conservative. You think that all the liberal crap that has been posted today is mainstream.

Hope the new cartoon is better. I just hope it isn’t about Rush.

By finch

May 2, 2006 11:42 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

I could post links to the subscriber stuff, but since I’m not going to give you my password (I paid good money for it), you couldn’t read it, so what good would it do??

And why are you so angry over my background on Fox’s editorial shift?? Andy has been complaining about it. I’m trying to explain it. I’m not gloating; I’m just illuminating. If you want to get mad at someone (that is, if you think FNC is going ‘pinko’), get mad at Murdoch and Ailes.

I’m extremely forgiving of addicts, Danish. But what Reagan said about Moscow is even more true about druggies. Trust but verify. If you really know conselors, they’ll tell you that the absolute best liars in the world, bar none, are junkies.

Oxycontin. Now that’s an addiction. Funny how the prescribed dose never gets you addicted.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Your counselor friends will also tell you that oxycontin and hydrocodone rank up there with heroin when it comes to addictive morphine compounds. Doctors don’t get it right more often than you think. Then their patients turned addicts get very very single minded about their new hobby.

Rush won’t be on the home stretch to recovery until he stops downplaying his addiction as ‘just one of those things’.

Go ahead and save this link. Thanks for the flag. I will too, since some of the lemons you’ve tossed here are quite corrosive.

By WashingtonState

May 2, 2006 11:43 PM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

There isn’t any point in continuing this. I have made every effort to try and present Rush’s plight in as favourable a light as possible, but you won’t be satisfied with anything but complete exoneration of the man. He did wrong. He got caught. He is dealing with it. A lot of other people are in the same boat. They all need help. For some reason, conservatives of the Bush mold insist on labeling these people as criminals. Unless you care to change your stance on the issue of drug addiction, you conservatives are the ones labeling him as a criminal. I personally feel sorry for the man, but you make it very hard for me to sustain those feelings by being such a hard+ss about the whole thing.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 3, 2006 04:43 AM | Link to this

@@: I’ll bet you that the drug abusers that finch “counseled” had a 100% relapse rate.

finch: It’s your house of card lie, not mine, you presented a false statement and tried to get out of it by distorting evidence. Live with your malfeasance.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 3, 2006 04:46 AM | Link to this

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert blamed Democrats for blocking Republican initiatives such as drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He also said such press conferences do little to help the matter.

“Our friends on the other side of the aisle are blowing a lot of hot air,” the Illinois Republican said. “Obviously, you can’t burn hot air, so we have a problem there.”

The great untapped American resource, liberals and the hot air they expel.

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 3, 2006 04:50 AM | Link to this

When you hear the liberals hem and haw about Darfur, ask yourself why doesn’t a million malaria deaths a year in Africa matter:

USAID is the federal government’s lead agency in efforts to help African countries find ways to battle the continent’s deadliest disease, which kills about a million Africans yearly, most of them young children and pregnant women. DDT is generally cheaper and more effective than other insecticides in preventing household bites.

Later this year, Mr. Miller said, USAID will begin using DDT as part of malaria-control efforts in three nations — Mozambique, Ethiopia and Zambia. Nearly $10 million in federal funds has been allocated this year for “indoor residual spraying” in those three countries.

Is their beloved junk science that important to them? Do questionable findings over bird egg shells take precedence over a million women and children?

Yes on both counts. Feels good to them, really hurts the people they are “helping.”

By The AJC Promotes Hate And Racism

May 3, 2006 04:58 AM | Link to this

Ummmm, noted Bush critic Bruce Bartlett:

Another factor is that Mr. Snow comes from Fox News, where he has been a radio and television personality for many years. It confirms in the minds of many reporters that the relationship between Fox and the Republican Party goes over the line and makes a mockery of Fox’s journalistic integrity. But of course this is just hypocrisy. The rest of the major media leans so heavily toward the Democratic Party it is simply taken as the normal state of affairs.

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