{"id":4777,"date":"2011-05-08T02:00:33","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T09:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4777"},"modified":"2011-05-08T02:00:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T09:00:33","slug":"teabagger-strikes-bs-not-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/08\/teabagger-strikes-bs-not-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Teabagger Strikes BS, Not Oil!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Almost without exception, Republican claims are in no way related to facts, and that\u2019s understandable, because the truth guarantees a job loss for them, but from time to time one makes a claim that is so totally preposterous that I wonder how anyone, except the most brainwashed Fox sheeple, could even consider believing it.&#160; Enter Michael Burgess (R-TX).<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>T<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/8burgess.jpg\" width=\"289\" height=\"218\" \/>hursday, in a little-noticed move, the House of Representatives \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/e2-wire\/677-e2-wire\/159487-house-approves-offshore-drilling-bill\" target=\"_blank\">passed legislation Thursday<\/a> that would require the U.S. government to offer up offshore areas for oil and gas leasing,\u201d with all but two Republicans and 33 Democrats voting for the bill.<\/p>\n<p>During a <a href=\"http:\/\/1.usa.gov\/jyeAkt\" target=\"_blank\">hearing<\/a> of the Joint Economic Committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) <strong>claimed that the vote was responsible for Thursday\u2019s <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/e2-wire\/677-e2-wire\/159567-oil-prices-drop-below-100-per-barrel-\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>sharp drop<\/strong><\/a><strong> in oil prices<\/strong>. \u201cWhat happened yesterday?\u201d the congressman asked rhetorically. \u201cOh, the House <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/e2-wire\/677-e2-wire\/159707-republican-claims-drilling-bill-vote-prompted-oil-price-tumble\" target=\"_blank\">passed a bill<\/a>\u201c\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Watch it:<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"510\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b5DNSM1XUOo?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p>Burgess\u2019s argument is based on a flawed premise. It assumes that increasing drilling would increase supply and thus lower oil prices. But <strong>supply is already high<\/strong> [Murdoch delinked]. It\u2019s also worth debunking the myth that opening up more supply in the U.S. would cause any significant dip in oil prices over the short term. \u201c<strong>In 2009, the U.S. produced about 7 percent of what was produced in the entire world<\/strong>, so increasing the oil production in the U.S. is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/05\/06\/more-us-oil-drilling-wont-help-gas-prices_n_858473.html\" target=\"_blank\">not going to make much of a difference<\/a> in world markets and world prices,\u201d says the Energy Information Administration analyst Phyllis Martin. <\/p>\n<p>What actually explains the drop in oil prices is a very different combination of factors. The drop, as Reuters notes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2011\/05\/06\/us-oil-drops-factbox-idUSTRE74508Y20110506\" target=\"_blank\">came largely<\/a> from poor macroeconomic indicators \u2014 showing that <strong>demand is actually dropping, not that supply is increasing<\/strong>. Another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/precious-metals-in-national\/cme-margin-upgrades-shake-speculators-out-of-silver-tree-review\" target=\"_blank\">factor<\/a> was an <strong>exodus of speculators from the commodities market<\/strong>&#8230; [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2011\/05\/07\/burgess-oil-prices-fell\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The article fails to mention that the bill isn\u2019t even a law yet.&#160; Of course Burgess is the same loon that declared the US was under martial law, because TARP passed.&#160; This one is nothing but Bagger bait.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost without exception, Republican claims are in no way related to facts, and that\u2019s understandable, because the truth guarantees a job loss for them, but from time to time one makes a claim that is so totally preposterous that I wonder how anyone, except the most brainwashed Fox sheeple, could even consider believing it.&#160; Enter <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/08\/teabagger-strikes-bs-not-oil\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}