Chuck Grassley-- flaccid

[cantdog]

My daughter is in Austin right now. Do any of you ever hear Hightower?

SENATORIAL BEGGING

12/1/2005

The results are in and we have a winner! The Emmy Award for the most pathetic performance on live television goes to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the senate finance committee, for his role in the the recent hearing on price gouging by Big Oil.

He was ably aided by the CEOs of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP who sat before Grassley's committee like toads on a log, refusing to budge when prodded about some $100 billion in windfall profits they've run up in the past few months. "We do not see this as a windfall," said the honcho of ConocoPhillips – even though his company siphoned off nearly $4 billion in profits in three summer months alone, a 90 percent jump over the previous year.

Did Grassley gavel these arrogant toads into silence and assert his senatorial responsibility to protect the public – maybe by pushing a windfall profits tax to recoup some of what the oil giants have ripped out of our wallets? Oh, dear, no. That would be... well, senatorial.

Instead, Grassley begged. In essence, this powerful U.S. senator shook a tin cup at the CEOs, asking them to make a charitable contribution to help poor people pay their heating bills this winter. "You have a responsibility to help less fortunate Americans cope with the high cost of heating fuels," he pleaded, asking them to donate "a mere 10 percent" of their third quarter profits. The toads declined to give.

Excuse me, Chuck, but making sure that vulnerable, very low-income Americans have heat in winter is not a matter of charitable corporate whim, but of public responsibility. Instead of groveling pathetically, either require that the incomparably rich oil giants provide such essential fuel for free, or tax their windfall profits to fully-fund the $3 billion shortfall in the government's low-income heating program.

This is Jim Hightower saying... Government has a duty to serve the public interest – even if that means confronting corporate gougers.


_________________________
"Mr. Grassley Goes Begging," The New York Times, November 11, 2005.
"On Profit and Pump Prices," Washington Post, November 10, 2005.
"Oil Execs: No Responsibility," No Accountability, No Remorse," www.commondreams.org, November 9, 2005.
"Big Oil Benefiting from $14 Billion in Taxpayer Handouts- Despite Making Record Profits," www.commondreams.org, November 9, 2005.

 

[cantdog]

"We don't think of this as a windfall."

"Oh. Well, okay."

What a dickless wonder. We had an acronym for that, in the firehouse. You have to remember that fire departments exist within city government, a corrupt milieu. One sees and hears and especially smells altogether too much, working in city government.

We called that kind of man an ASCM-- an Ass Suckin Company Man. Some people were PAMFs. I was briefly labeled a PAMF. A PAMF is a Poison Ass Mother Fucker.

Well, in firehouse parlance, Grassley is Dr. Pamfascm. Dirty Rotten Poison Ass Mother Fuckin Ass Suckin Company Man.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well, this is a government where they let the lobbyists write laws and set policy, so this should hardly be a surprise.

Do you think we'll ever get to see the minutes of what Cheney and his Big Oil buds discussed as they wrote up the guidelines for an energy policy that gave the industry exactly what they wanted?

 

[Guest]

This thread is a prime example of why i can NOT listen to or watch any governmental proceedings. I shake my fist...rail at injustice...short of voting, there is not much i can do. how impotent! there is no super pill...no viagra for the general populace, as far as i can see.
i raise up my chapstick...are you beings in area 51 watching? (peace offering)
v~

 

[amicus]

Had you biased peasants taken the time to view the Senate and House and special investigators report, (all broadcast on CSPAN) you would have heard the facts concerning alleged 'price gouging' by the major oil companies.

It simply is not true. What is true is that it is the typical left wing, anti big business, anti free market propaganda getting a free ride by a liberal left wing media.

You might for example consider the monetary loss to the oil industry in the Louisiana Ports, near shore refineries and off shore drilling and distribution rigs.

You would have learned that a week before Katrina, oil distributors transferred maximum capacity of product into areas predicted to be impacted in the 'worst case scenario'

You would have learned also of the magnificent effort by the oil companies to protect the families of their worker and even all community members in affected areas.

You would have learned also of years of preparation by oil communities in preparing infra structure for such an eventuality.

Even the honest reply to the question, 'do the oil companies need tax breaks in increase drilling, refining and distribution...' the oil companies replied, 'no, we don't need the incentives to produce more, we need the government and the enviornmentalists to get the fuck out of the way and give us access...'

The left wing and the environmentalists have tied the energy industry hand and foot and made it extremely difficult for them to do business in the US. They have gone else where, most of their business is outside the US.

If you find high prices for natural gas and heating oil and gasoline, petrol for the E8 pukes...go piss on a liberal, it is their fault, not the petrolem industry.

amicus

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I'm opposed to both price gouging and a "windfall profits tax", which would accomplish nothing. The answer is to make those assholes compete by working on alternative fuels.

 

[amicus]

I'm opposed to both price gouging and a "windfall profits tax", which would accomplish nothing. The answer is to make those assholes compete by working on alternative fuels.

"...The answer is to make those assholes compete..."

In a free market place you cannot 'make' anyone do anything and still preserve freedom. And you need not, research on alternative fuels is already well underway in the private market place.

What will not work is to 'force' research along political and ideological lines that ignore the workings of the market place.

Projections concerning the amount of petroleum reserves on the planet vary greatly, but the huge quantities of Methane, compressed natural gas, Coal and crude oil reaches out far into the next century.

Man created Global Warming is a myth, thus there is no urgency to come up with alternative fuels in the near future. Remove the restrictions and controls from the market place and you will have affordable energy resources for the next 200 years and as the supply dwindles, as it will, those self same energy companies will bring that 'alternative energy source' on line, post haste.

amicus...

 

[cantdog]

Had you biased peasants taken the time to view the Senate and House and special investigators report, (all broadcast on CSPAN) you would have heard the facts concerning alleged 'price gouging' by the major oil companies.

It simply is not true. What is true is that it is the typical left wing, anti big business, anti free market propaganda getting a free ride by a liberal left wing media.

You might for example consider the monetary loss to the oil industry in the Louisiana Ports, near shore refineries and off shore drilling and distribution rigs.

You would have learned that a week before Katrina, oil distributors transferred maximum capacity of product into areas predicted to be impacted in the 'worst case scenario'

You would have learned also of the magnificent effort by the oil companies to protect the families of their worker and even all community members in affected areas.

You would have learned also of years of preparation by oil communities in preparing infra structure for such an eventuality.

Even the honest reply to the question, 'do the oil companies need tax breaks in increase drilling, refining and distribution...' the oil companies replied, 'no, we don't need the incentives to produce more, we need the government and the enviornmentalists to get the fuck out of the way and give us access...'

The left wing and the environmentalists have tied the energy industry hand and foot and made it extremely difficult for them to do business in the US. They have gone else where, most of their business is outside the US.

If you find high prices for natural gas and heating oil and gasoline, petrol for the E8 pukes...go piss on a liberal, it is their fault, not the petrolem industry.

amicus

I don't worry about price gouging. It does turn the crank of the average citizen, though, God love 'em.

I want the price to go to and beyond Eorupean levels. Make people wake up and conserve, put some money into alternatives.

 

[rgraham666]

North Americans are addicted to cheap oil, the oil companies are their pushers and the legislators are the pushers' pet lawmakers.

This won't stop until the oil runs out. Why should it? Everybody's happy.

 

[amicus]

North Americans are addicted to cheap oil, the oil companies are their pushers and the legislators are the pushers' pet lawmakers.

This won't stop until the oil runs out. Why should it? Everybody's happy.

I usually do not reply to your posts as they are almost always hate filled and pejorative.

'Cheap Oil'

You know, the history of energy production from the time of burning wood and peat and coal and whale oil lamps, is an interesting one.

The ongoing attempt by man to find warmth, heat and light for his dwellings, is a fascinating history of invention, innovation and perserverence.

The usual left wing morons complain that there are too many people anyway and besides that, they are messy, polluting creatures who should leave nature in its pristine mosquito ridden naturalness.

I think few take the time to consider just how dependent upon energy the world has become. Even you, my Canadian retard, just imagine yourself without electricity or transportation, cars, trains, planes busses, et al, for the period of a year.

Now I have lived in the woods, alongside a lake for several months with none of the modern conveniences. Could you do the same? Would you prefer to live that way au naturale, forever?

I watch science and history television programs a lot and I am amazed at the technology that has been created for off shore oil rigs, drilling platforms, refining and storage procedures, pipeline facilities, the pressurization of LNG products, it is truly an amazing accomplishment. All to keep your hovel warm and lighted and to keep your pope mobile running merrily down the road.

...not that it matters...


amicus...

 

[LadyJeanne]

Retard? Shame on you, amicus. That's uncalled for.

 

[amicus]

I consider all socialist and nearly all canadians as retarded; that's all you could find to scream about?

amicus...

 

[rgraham666]

Did amicus call me a nasty name?

I have him on ignore, so I wouldn't know.