Background leading up to
this post starting with gas prices vs. oil production and supply problem is a
worldwide concern NOT just in the U.S. or with President Biden and covering lots of topics in between.
This issue has a few details in this CNN article (August 2022 timeframe) just as OPEC
agreed then to a small increase in September and as worldwide sanctions on
Russia continue to be a major cause. That even as gas price were falling back to
the $4.00 a gallon range and now in many places heading for the $3.00 range
before the New Year (hopefully).
But a real issue and
political football the GOP can be seen in this article with this headline from the Guardian:
“Cynical, craven Republicans out to bash Biden, not Putin,
over gas prices”
Critics say a good party of the GOP has seized on price
hikes to exploit war in Ukraine for its own benefit – and that is “an
unconscionable act of political cowardice” they conclude.
Key parts from the article:
In a Washington driven by discord, it can seem like a
throwback to a gentler time just as Rep. Michael
McCaul (R-TX), the top Republican on House of Representatives and on the
Foreign Affairs Committee said shortly after Zelensky’s visit and address to
congress said: “I’m proud to stand with my Republican and Democrat colleagues
to send help to Ukraine.”
The flipside as the expression goes:
But even as they express solidarity with Joe Biden’s stance on Russia with one hand, many Republicans are launching partisan attacks against the president with the other.
The party
has, critics say, seized on soaring
US gas prices to exploit the tragedy in Ukraine for its own political
benefit.
Since the Ukraine war broke out, many Republicans have
honed a message that America achieved “energy independence” under Donald Trump
only for it to be squandered by Joe Biden, whose preoccupation with the climate
crisis hurt domestic production, drove fuel prices up and strengthened oil-rich
rivals such as Russia.
The argument was amplified when gas prices hit at a record average of $4.17 per gallon and Biden announced a ban on U.S. imports of Russian oil. He warned that while the move would hurt Vladimir Putin saying: “There will be a cost as well here in the United States,” and anticipated criticism by branding it: “Putin’s price hike.”
But the era when wars meant unity governments and a shared understanding that “politics stops at the water’s edge” is over.
Republicans backed Biden’s ban on Russian oil imports
but simultaneously went on an offensive that effectively
absolved Putin of blame.
Now enter Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), with only aim and goal
in mind no matter what it takes – to be the House Speaker told a press conference: “These aren’t Putin prices. They’re President Biden’s
prices.”
Former VP Mike Pence told the Fox Business channel: “In the
four years of the Trump-Pence administration, we achieved energy independence for
the first time in 70 years. We were a net exporter of energy. But from very
early on, with killing the Keystone
pipeline, taking federal lands off
the list for exploration, and sidelining leases for oil and natural gas –
once again, before Ukraine ever
happened, we saw rising gasoline prices.”
NY Times Fact Checkers have pointed out that the main cause of increasing
gas prices over the past year is disruptions to global supply and demand
following the coronavirus pandemic.
Other FACTS:
1. Only a 10th of the Keystone XL pipeline was complete when Biden cancelled it and it was not likely to become operational until 2023 at the earliest.
2. The Politifact website found that domestic oil production in Biden’s first
year was on par with 2020 and higher than in three of the four years that Trump
was president.
3. The White House has also pointed out that 9,000 approved drilling permits but were not being used.
But none
of this has prevented Republicans fixating on the issue in ways that Democrats
find deeply disingenuous.
Kurt
Bardella, an adviser to the DNC, and who BTW is a former senior adviser for
Republicans on the House oversight committee said: “It just goes to show that
there are no lengths to which Republicans won’t stoop to try to score political
points, in this case using the unthinkable and tragic situation that the
Ukrainian people find themselves in. To try to exploit that and use it to
effectively lie and mislead the American people about conditions here at home
is an unconscionable act of political cowardice.”
Bardella then added: “Republicans, in thrall to big oil has spent
the past two decades opposing the very measures that would have made America
less dependent on foreign oil and fossil fuels in general. Green technology
would have shielded the U.S. from the effects of the Ukraine crisis on global
markets. Republicans were so vocal about how the Biden administration needed to
do sanctions on Russian oil and then they start attacking him. You can’t win
because everything that they do is basically an illustration of how they
operate in bad faith.”
Bardella then concluded saying: “Joe Biden could do every single thing that the Republican Party wants and they would still attack him at the end of the day. Republicans just seem to operate in a purely craven political dynamic. It’s irresponsible and downright un-American, and it’s exactly what they would have said if Democrats had done this in the wake of 9/11 or in the run up to the war on terror.”
Opinion polls suggest that Biden, like other western
leaders, has
received a boost from his response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Recall that the RNC during the 2022 midterms released attack Ads against 10
House Democrats over gas prices.
This article
concludes this way:
Bob Shrum one of many democratic strategists acknowledged this leading up
to the 2022 midterms saying: “The facts don’t matter much here. If gas prices are
really high, that becomes a problem for Democrats in the midterms because
they’re in office. It’s just a natural tendency to blame someone under those
circumstances.”
Then Shrum added: “It’s preposterous to think this is Biden’s
fault. He hasn’t done anything that would account for high gas prices at this
point. It’s the Russians’ fault but the Republicans want to ban Russian oil and
then blame Biden for the shortfall in supplies and therefore the rise in
prices. It’s cynical, obvious and opportunistic.”
Fact: There are of course legitimate policy debates in
wartime and no one suggests that a president is beyond criticism. Some
Republican senators, for example, have urged Biden to accept Poland’s offer of
MiG-29 fighter jets to be transferred to Ukraine.
Sen.Tom Cotton (R-AR) tweeted: “If we continue to blink every time
Vladimir Putin says ‘boo’ it’s not going to stop in Ukraine.”
But Republicans and Fox News channel have made gas prices
and energy production their loudest argument. It is a convenient way to deflect
attention from their own complicated relationship with Russia, which is not
confined to Trump’s longstanding admiration for Putin like his previous praise
for him like saying he is smart
and savvy.
This week Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of three House
Republicans who voted against a recent resolution supporting Ukraine – amplified a false conspiracy theory about U.S. biological weapons labs operating
in Ukraine.
Then his House colleague Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) who lost he reelection bid BTW, was caught on video calling Ukrainian President Zelensky “A thug whose government is pushing woke ideologies.”
All that GOP hypocrisy is a sign of how they and many others
in and outside of Washington have changed over the past decade as former DEM
strategist Bob Shrum (mentioned above) and now is the Director of the Center
for the Political Future at the University of Southern California Dornsife
said: “There was unity for a period of time after 9/11. But if you go back to
even Syria under Barack Obama, the Republicans were playing this same kind of
game.”
My 2 two cents: As usual a long but excellent article and analysis of the current GOP – standing for more power and
not much else all the while they appear and sound good while peddling the bad
and ugly.
This article shows the real
hypocrites they truly are,
Thanks for stopping by.
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