WataugaWatch

On the segment "Drill Pickle." From last night, approximately 1.20 mins. in.

Labels: oil industry, Virginia Foxx

On May 23, 2007, Virginia Foxx voted NO on HR 1252, The Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act. The bi-partisan bill passed the House by an overwhelming margin, 284-141. All seven Democrats in the North Carolina delegation voted for the bill, as did three Republicans, including 6th District Representative Howard Coble. Virginia Foxx voted AGAINST a federal law that would protect motorists from being fleeced at the pump.

That becomes more than pertinent today as station owners across the 5th Congressional Dist. jacked up prices AHEAD OF an expected shortage caused by hurricane Ike.

Foxx's challenger Roy Carter issued a press statement this p.m.:

"My opponent has spent weeks in Washington clamoring for more attention on drilling, instead of coming back to the district for constituent services like the other members of Congress," said Carter. "But when given a choice between defending the interests of the average citizen versus the interests of the oil companies, Foxx votes with Big Oil every single time."

She knows who butters her ample slice of bread!

Labels: oil industry, Roy Carter, Virginia Foxx

Mike Munger (gotta love that pic!) is the Libertarian running for N.C. governor, but he isn't invited to participate in the debates between Bev Perdue and Whatisname. In the most recent of those debates Tuesday night, Whatisname chanted the orthodox Republican mantra of "drill, baby, drill!" and the Democrat acted like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, which is what Democrats are doing these days when off-shore drilling comes up (which it does approximately on the hour).

Mike Munger, excluded (we repeat) from the debate, e-mailed his critique of this charade:

The offshore oil drilling "issue" is a gimmick. There will no effect, zero, on prices in N.C. The governor of N.C. needs to work to make sure that HIGH prices have the economic benefit of encouraging the development of alternative energy sources.

Gosh. A man running for office who dares to tell the truth.

Labels: Beverly Perdue, Mike Munger, oil industry, Pat McCrory

Not ONLY does The Guv show up in Denver, he actually seems to be enjoying himself! According to the N&O, he's given more than 20 media interviews. He's also had the temerity to stand up against the hoax of off-shore oil drilling:

Easley expressed skepticism about the value of drilling for oil off North Carolina's coast.

He said the oil companies already have 38 million acres off the Gulf Coast where they are not drilling. He said drilling off the North Carolina coast had the potential to provide six months' worth of oil for the U.S.

"This is not a solution," Easley said. "This is a slogan."

Labels: Mike Easley, oil industry

And this was an advertised town-hall meeting in Hickory.

It's tough trying to fake an interest in alternative fuels along with a first-grader's awareness of environmental dangers while simultaneously adhering to Republican doctrine that the past eight years with two oil men in the White House have yielded us a viable vision of the future, rather than the damned Mulligan stew we're currently boiling in.

One attendee had the effrontery to suggest lowering the national speed limit, at which McHenry jumped back like he'd been offered a devil-on-a-stick.

You can try, but you won't get that boy off the Republican hymnal of "drill drill drill."

Labels: oil industry, Patrick McHenry

Madam Foxx has been an avid and shameless advocate for Big Oil, accepting thousands in campaign contributions from the likes of Exxon-Mobil and diving in whole-hog to support Big Oil's profit-driven campaign to expand offshore drilling.

The Madam has been active among the corps of Big Oil's most loyal toadies in the little side-show ("drill now, drill everywhere") staged on the House floor after it adjourned last week. Visitors are not allowed on the floor of the House while it's in session, but House members can bring in guests when the House is in recess, so the Big Oil rump session filled the seats with hootin' and hollerin' tourists who were somewhat bewildered to be invited in but delighted to be in the middle of a "scene."

Our representative, Virginia Foxx, was evidently trolling the halls of Congress looking for warm bodies to bring in -- extra bonus if they happened to be Republican warm bodies -- and she proved an avid bounty-hunter. She jumped up on an intern from Sen. John Warner's office, who was leading a tour of the Capitol for some of the Senator's admirers, and essentially dragged him and his tour group into the House chamber as her "guests." The intern was delighted, the "guests" apparently got off hoo-hawing at the super-dignified behavior of the congresspersons screaming without microphones. The intern wrote up the experience and got it posted on a local news blog at The Roanoke Times (HT: JK).

If the Madam is up there manhandling interns and dragooning innocent visitors into the Big Circus for More Oil Profits, we can be relieved that she isn't driving our mountain roads at approximately twice the speed limit. Stay there and posture! There's a practically unlimited supply of interns and tourists.

Labels: oil industry, Virginia Foxx

What would we do for comedy without an e-mail from Madam Foxx?

This a.m. our comedienne in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac scolds us that we’ve GOT to reduce our dependence on oil, and she has the sure-fire solution: GET MORE DEPENDENT ON OIL, by letting those humanitarians in Big Oil drill off all our coasts (and behind the sofa, if need be), and soon alternative energies will magically appear, but not until Big Oil sells our natural resources back to us at inflated prices and leverages all the patents to alternative energy solutions so they can sell that to us too.

It’s not enough, those undrilled 68 million acres of federal land that Big Oil already holds drilling rights to. Corporate America has a bigger appetite. And our best interests in the deepest recesses of their microscopic hearts.

Thank gawd Madam Foxx has volunteered to fight for the beast.

FOOTNOTE
Dan Besse has written an excellent letter to the editor (as found on BlueNC):

To the editor:

Pat McCrory has just called millions of North Carolinians "hypocrites."

According to the Raleigh News & Observer (6/30/08), McCrory said that anyone who drives daily and opposes drilling [off North Carolina's coast] is "hypocritical."

In McCrory's view, it doesn't matter whether you drive an efficient car or even a hybrid vehicle. He doesn't care whether you cut back on driving by taking the bus or a bike or a carpool where possible. To him, it makes no difference whether you already use ethanol or biodiesel in your vehicle, or actively support development of biofuels so that you can. It doesn't matter that you don't control where the oil companies drill for oil or from whom they buy it.

If you aren't willing to jeopardize our coast and our fisheries and tourism industries in order to increase Big Oil's profits, then McCrory says you're a hypocrite.

Pat McCrory owes an immediate apology to the people of North Carolina.

Labels: Dan Besse, oil industry, Pat McCrory, Virginia Foxx

Looking for a fix, Republican candidate for NC guv Pat McCrory now says he's in favor of punching holes in the sea floor off the North Carolina coast. Gonna git that awl. Which'll make it possible to keep running all these SUVs up and down the road. Sez he'll issue an "executive order" once he's guv. Since he'll be god and all.

NC-11 Congressman Heath Shuler labels this oily pandering as a "lack of maturity" in his fellow House Republicans.

Shuler said oil and gas companies already hold leases on nearly 68 million acres of federal land that could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. That would nearly double total U.S. oil production and would increase natural gas production by 75 percent, he said.

Instead of insisting that Big Oil drill the leases they already hold, Republican politicians posture for the cameras and tout the "easy fix" of drilling off our coasts and in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Like Madam Foxx. And pathetic Liddy Dole.

And now Pat McCrory.

Labels: Elizabeth Dole, Heath Shuler, oil industry, Pat McCrory, Virginia Foxx

From the Roy Carter for Congress campaign:

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina – In recent months, gas prices have risen to all time highs and Virginia Foxx, North Carolina’s 5th district representative in the U.S. House, has gone on the defensive, placing the blame squarely on others for this looming crisis. As gas prices reached more than $4.00 per gallon in some areas this past Memorial Day weekend, Foxx is directly profiting from the pain that Americans feel at the pump.

According to personal financial disclosure records, Foxx has owned between $15,001 and $50,000 of stock in Chevron Corporation since 2004. While Americans struggle to meet their expenses in the face of runaway gas prices, Foxx stands to take part in Chevron’s windfall profits. Already a multi-millionaire (her 2006 disclosure lists her total net worth between $2.9 and $9.6 million); Roy Carter believes that his opponent should review her contradictory stance on gas prices in the face of her quest for personal wealth.

“Under normal circumstances, investing in an oil company is a person’s prerogative” said Roy Carter, Democratic candidate for the 5th District seat. “But when an elected official directly profits from the oil industry and then gets on her soapbox to protest against the unfairness of high gas prices, it just rings untrue and is remarkably hypocritical. Until she sells her shares in Chevron, I don’t think anyone should take my opponent seriously.”

In addition to personal gain from high gas prices, Foxx’s campaign has benefited from the oil, pharmaceutical, and health insurance industries. According the Federal Election Commission, since she began running for US Congress in 2004, Foxx has accepted over $200,000 from these three industries in PAC money alone, including funds from the Petroleum Marketers Association of America and Exxon Mobil.

Labels: oil industry, Roy Carter, Virginia Foxx