Got Gas?

Lets Celebrate!
One year ago today, Congress finalized the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which lavished $14.5 billion in tax breaks on energy firms, nearly 60 percent of which went to “oil, natural gas, coal, electric utilities and nuclear power.” CONgratulations! -More at ThinkProgress

Exxon posts $10.36 Billion in PROFITS for the 2nd quarter of 2006 (over $79,000/minute). That is the 2nd highest for any US company in history. The first highest: You guessed it, Exxon’s 4th quarter profits in 2005 (10.7 Billion).

Shell profits are up 40% from last year. Their 2nd PROFITS were $7.32 Billion (over $56,000/minute).

British Petroleum is up 30% from last year, raking in a cool $7.27 Billion (over $55,000/minute) in PROFITS for the 2nd quarter in 2006. That’s up 30% from last year.

ConocoPhillips is up 65% with 2nd quarter PROFITS at $5.18 Billion ($40,000/minute).

Along those lines, do you know what the average price for gas is these days? $3.00 a gallon. Find out what it costs in your neck if the woods here.

Now to life during the DubyaYears; Let us start with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and his speech before Congress. Were they his words? Or were they written by the White House? Press Secretary Tony Snow acknowledged there had been "conversations" about the address within the administration. Even if they were Maliki’s words, what will come of the ‘words’? Will they be translated to action or placed neatly upon the shelf to ferment? In my mind, it’s a function of leadership. But what is leadership without a strong leader? A leader that thinks before he speaks, a curious leader, a leader with communication skills that compliment the office occupied–is this what we have in the US? Lets investigate a bit.

U.S. policy in the Middle East “is the basic test of America's capacity to exercise global leadership," former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi said this week. If the United States does not succeed in its Middle East challenge, he argued, " the U.S. will lose its capacity to lead." President Bush does not grasp this reality. Nearly two weeks of spiraling violence passed before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to the region for meetings in Beirut, Jerusalem, and Ramallah. Her trip ended yesterday in Rome, where perhaps the most stark aspect of the gathering of diplomats was how isolated the United States appears. Rice has repeatedly stated the administration's refusal to accept the "status quo ante," the "old Middle East"; she sees in the current crisis the "birth pangs of a new Middle East." But these visions of a new Middle East have not been matched with a new Middle East policy, to replace the one that helped foster so much of the current instability. Instead, the Bush administration has stuck to its playbook during the crisis, giving a tacit blessing to the escalating violence and maintaining a studied silence: “We do not negotiate with bad guys like Syria and Iran." The result: Rice's visit concluded without any plan to end the escalation, restore order, and put all the parties back on the road to security, stability, and peace.

At least some Senators are beginning to ask about whats going on, specifically in Iraq. More than likely because it’s election season –but nonetheless; the New York Times reported in 2004 that a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) offered three grim scenarios for Iraq's future. The most optimistic of these possibilities predicted continued instability throughout the country. The threat of a civil war was the worst case scenario. At the time, Bush casually dismissed the dire predictions, claiming the CIA was "just guessing as to what the conditions might be like." Despite the fact that the intelligence community's predictions have been largely vindicated by the events in Iraq over the past two years, the Bush administration has been wary of returning to the CIA to ask for another NIE. CIA analysts who want to produce another NIE have been stonewalled...by John Negroponte, the administration's Director of National Intelligence, who knows that any honest take on the situation would produce an NIE even more pessimistic than the 2004 version, Harper's Ken Silverstein reported recently. To counter the Bush administration's lack of initiative, a group of senators sent a letter to Negroponte yesterday, calling for a new NIE. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) noted, "Virtually every prediction made by Administration officials about Iraq has turned out to be wrong, and it is time to get some straight answers and sound analysis." Hmmm -at least we know who NOT to ask!

In the meantime Rummy shows how blissfully detached he is from the 'civil war' in Iraq, as Israel calls up 30,000 reserve troops to support ongoing campaign to decimate Hezbollah's weaponry along its border with Lebanon

(sources: ThinkProgress, Energy Information Administration, FeulEconomy.gov, Randi Rhodes, Slate.com, Washington Note, NY Times, White House website, Harpers, US Newswire, Andrew Sullivan, FoxNews)

PS “CLEAN BREAK” RESOURCES
Neocon Richard Pearle's "A Clean Break"
Wayne Madsen documents Cheney’s & Netanyahu’s “Clean Break” planning of the current war last month. About Wayne Madsen
Book: Neocon Middle East Policy: The Clean Break Plan Damage Assessment