GOP House Revolt Over Oil Drilling Gets Ignored or Buried

On Friday, we wondered how much attention media would pay to the Republican revolt that occurred after Speaker Pelosi adjourned the House for a five week vacation without allowing a vote on offshore oil drilling.

It turns out that if you rely on the evening news programs of the three broadcast networks, you didn't hear about this extraordinary event at all. As Politico reported:

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi's refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m. and are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.

The protest came moments after the GOP presented Pelosi the following letter: [snip]

The results of a LexisNexis search suggest the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, and the San Francisco Chronicle all ignored this revolt.

With gas and oil prices on the minds of Americans from coast to coast, how could any press outlet not cover this story?

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Breaking Speaker Pelosi's News Blackout

[i.e., new media exposes old's duplicity again]

New technologies broke a news blackout attempted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Friday afternoon, 8/1/08, starting at 11:30 am (Eastern) Real Time News was the only window to a major event in the House of Representatives.

The Democratic Party controlled-House had just voted to adjourn for a 5-week vacation without voting, or even engaging in debate, on solutions to America's energy crisis. As the Democrats went out to their gasoline-powered cars to drive to the airport to board jet fuel-powered aircraft, the House Republicans stayed on to present their All of the Above Energy Plan.

Despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi removing the press from the gallery, and having lights, microphones and C-Span cameras turned off, media coverage continued, against House rules, entirely via Twitter and Qik live cell-phone video...

[Recommended > ]

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$10 Gas Doesn't Change Dems Mind on Oil Drilling

There was a rather extraordinary confrontation on the Senate floor involving offshore oil drilling that got very little press coverage. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) tried to get Democrats to vote on a measure that would open up such drilling if the price of gasoline reached a certain level. Although the "bidding" eventually reached $10 a gallon, Colorado's Ken Salazar continually objected.

As reported by the Salt Lake Tribune Friday:

In back-and-forth bickering on the Senate floor Thursday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to force Democrats to vote on a measure opening up coastal waters for drilling when gas reached $4.50, $5 or even $7.50 a gallon.

"If $5-gallon gasoline isn't an emergency, I have to ask what is an emergency?" McConnell said.

"It's a phantom solution," countered Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo, noting that such drilling would not affect gas prices in the short term.

Oddly, Google news and LexisNexis searches produced little coverage of this incident. Isn't it newsworthy that Democrats wouldn't expand drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf even if gasoline reached $10 a gallon?

Evidently not.

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On energy, Democrats in office means a return to the 1970s

Last week's energy debate in Congress gives voters concerned about gasoline prices a good idea where U.S. energy policy is headed. If Barack Obama is in the White House, Democrats win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi has fewer pesky Republicans to ignore in the House, this will be energy rule No. 1: Forget more drilling. Offshore. Alaska. Doesn't matter.

[it matters who you vote for {it also helps if you're old enough to remember the '70s}]

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“Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind.’”

Unnamed Democratic Aide

.

Whose turn is it to wake up the media?

[HT:SE]
While our intrepid reporters and all-knowing, all-powerful editors are taking a much deserved (according to them) snooze, another extraordinary milestone was reached in Iraq.

Five American troops died in July as a result of combat in Iraq, by far the lowest monthly U.S. death toll of the five-year war.

Whether that can be maintained against an expected surge in violence by the remnants of al-Qaeda and Iranian backed militias as we approach the election remains to be seen. But for now, this is fantastic news - even if few are reporting it or giving it much prominence.

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Twofer...

.
Obama vows to end US role in Iraq
Barack Obama, the Democratic contender for the US presidency, has said his main priority as US president will be to end the US involvement in Iraq. Speaking ahead of a regional tour, Mr Obama said "our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe".
[really. having a military base in Iraq, bordering Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran, wouldn't be to this nation's benefit? Iraq has served as a black-hole into which vast numbers of our most dangerous enemies have been drawn into and eliminated. Leave, and it could, if Iraq isn't yet strong enough, become a safe haven for exporting terrorism to our shores...]
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Adios Afghanistan
According to Barack Obama’s own logic and criteria, it’s high time the U.S. gets out of Afghanistan. On Tuesday, Obama said This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. He was talking about the war in Iraq. But every item in his indictment could just as easily apply to the Afghanistan conflict...
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Iran Heading Toward Nuclear 'Breakthrough'

[HT:GP]
Iran is heading towards a major breakthrough in its nuclear weapons capability, Israel's deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Friday.

"Iran is continuing to advance toward a military nuclear capability and is heading towards a major breakthrough," the Iranian-born Mofaz told a think tank after talks in Washington with US officials.

"For us such a situation that Iran will have a nuclear power is an existential threat and from the state of Israel point of view, it is unacceptable," Mofaz told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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Time For An Indifferent World To Take A Stand

When you sit in Tel Aviv and admire the beautiful seashore, you also read the local newspapers and have to imagine the unimaginable. This city could one day be the target of an Iranian Shahab-3 missile carrying a nuclear warhead.

Then you instinctively understand what every Israeli already knows: An indifferent world may soon force Israel to defend its right to exist with a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. That's why the world must finally take a stand and impose tough sanctions against Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Over the past five years, representatives of the European Union have tried to negotiate a reasonable solution to the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program. Iran has consistently refused to cooperate, and it continues to enrich uranium in total defiance of three United Nations Security Council resolutions. Yet, the world's response to Iranian defiance has been weak and ineffective.

It is time for the United Nations to live up to the reason for its creation: preserving world peace. Whereas the current United Nations sanctions on Iran are weak and ineffective, strong economic sanctions can force Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program without a shot being fired. After all, Iran is highly dependent upon the outside world to develop its oil and natural gas fields and even to refine its oil into gasoline.

If [when] Russia and China prevent effective action in the Security Council, then sanctions can be implemented outside of the U.N. by the European Union together with the United States - such as urging citizens [that would be us] demand that state's public pension funds divest from investments in foreign companies doing business in Iran... [snip]

As each day passes, it becomes more obvious that Iran's real intention is to develop nuclear weapons. Israel must not be put into a situation where it has to act unilaterally. If Israel is forced to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities, oil prices will skyrocket and economies will falter.

If that happens, then the blame must be placed squarely on an indifferent world.

[and the UN's failure as an institution recognized - and corrected]

[Highly Recommended > ]

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Shades of 1936

Holding the Olympic games in Nazi Germany back in 1936 was the biggest mistake ever made by the ringleaders of the gang of extortionists known as the International Olympic Committee. Hitler was so concerned about the Reich's image that he had all the signs taken down that indicated Jews were second class citizens.

But Hitler also took precautions that the international press would not be able to interview the few who openly opposed his regime by having several prominent activists he had been unable to corral arrested in the weeks prior to the games.

Once again, the elitist, Euro-snobs who run the Olympic movement have thumbed their nose at the world, this time by choosing Communist China to host the games. And as before in Nazi Germany, the Chinese are sprucing up their "workers' paradise" in order to put the best possible face on their tyrannical rule...

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The hole in Kyoto's 'cap'

Why taxes and the cost of consumer goods go up and carbon emissions don't come down

Last week we looked at the leaky foundation at the base of the Kyoto accord, known as carbon credits. Today, let's examine the holes in its roof -- its so-called "cap" on carbon emissions. In reality, there is no "cap", either in the Kyoto accord or the "cap-and-trade" markets and carbon taxes it has spawned.

Why? Because they weren't designed to do so.

What will they do? Raise taxes and our cost of living through higher consumer prices, with Big Business and Big Government dividing up the cash between them like crooks after a bank job...

[money & power]

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State shutters FPL 'green' program

For almost five years, Florida Power & Light trumpeted green energy, saying customers could help the environment by contributing as little as $9.75 a month to buy renewable power.

On Tuesday, angry state regulators killed the program by a unanimous vote after a Public Service Commission staff audit found that about 80 percent of the contributions went for marketing and other administrative expenses.

The staff reported that about $1.8 million of the $9.6 million FPL customers contributed over a four-year span went to purchase renewable energy...

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Choosing Plastic Bags Like Murdering Puppies?

For most of us, the choice of plastic bags at the grocery store aisle doesn't equal the moral depravity of canicide. Yet for some reason, a cheeky writer for Time magazine suggested as much in her story on "The Patron Saint of Plastic Bags":

In the pantheon of lost causes, defending the plastic grocery bag would seem to be right up there with supporting smoking on planes or the murder of puppies.

Yes, that's how Time's Belinda Luscombe began her July 27 article, going further than even NBC's Brian Williams who famously found "paper or plastic?" a "paralyzing" quandary.

[I can carry a dozen plastic bags into the house at once - end of quandary. don't these adults have anything better to do?]

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THE GREATEST SCANDAL

The profound failure of inner-city public schools to teach children may be the nation's greatest scandal. Presidential candidate John McCain is calling for alternatives to the system. In remarks recently to the NAACP, McCain touted the Washington, D.C., Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally financed school-choice program for disadvantaged kids signed into law by President Bush in 2004:

• Qualifying families in the District of Columbia receive up to $7,500 a year to attend private K-12 schools; to qualify, a child must live in a family with a household income below 185 percent of the poverty level.
• Some 1,900 children participate; 99 percent are black or Hispanic; average annual income is just over $22,000 for a family of four.
• A recent Department of Education report found nearly 90 percent of participants in the D.C. program have higher reading scores than peers who didn't receive a scholarship - there are five applicants for every opening.

McCain could have mentioned EdisonLearning, a private company that took over 20 of Philadelphia's 45 lowest performing district schools in 2002 to create a new management model for public schools: the most recent state test-score data show that student performance at Philadelphia public schools managed by Edison and other outside providers has improved by nearly twice the amount as the schools run by the district...

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FT's Crook Explores the Gun Owner in His Natural Habitat

In his July 31 blog entry, "Postcard from the gun show," Financial Times correspondent and loyal subject of Queen Elizabeth II Clive Crook admits that he "may get thrown out of Georgetown for this," but he applauds the rugged individualism of the American gun owner:

Aside from other motivations-sport, self-defence-the gun-show universe is about pride, self-reliance, and resentment at being bossed around. Distinctively American traits, wouldn't you say? Best in moderation, no doubt-but still, where would the country be without those attitudes? I may get thrown out of Georgetown for this, but I say, good for them.

In the midst of describing his first-ever visit to a gun show in the Colonies, the British expat expressed agreement with the rationale for laws permitting concealed carry for law-abiding citizens: ...

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LAT: 'John McCain Ad Irritates Many in Hollywood'

Posted on the Los Angeles Times's Web site is the story "John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood." The referenced ad, of course, is the one that uses Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to portray Barack Obama as a shallow celebrity.

Despite the headline citing "many," only two Hollywood types are quoted.

[still, good start]

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