Anne Northup was an upstanding voice for the citizens of Kentucky until she was defeated (unbelievably, I might add), by one John Yarmouth. I think now the people in her district are beginning to see the error in their judgment.

At any rate, Anne wrote this op-ed for the local newspaper, The Courier-Journal, and I wanted to include it here. Enjoy!

Mike Minton

Oil reserves in Alaska, elsewhere could ease crisis
June 17, 2007
By Anne M. Northup

Two years ago, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Congress promised to devise a national energy policy and lower the cost of gas, which was about half the price it is now. When asked what he and the other Democrats have done to fulfill that pledge, Congressman Yarmuth points to legislation they passed to suspend shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He initially claimed this legislation “could reduce prices by about…25 cents per gallon gasoline,” but later downgraded the expected effect of this action to only 5 cents per gallon. It’s a little surprising that anyone would boast about saving a nickel when gas prices have risen $1.63 since Yarmuth took office and the Democrats took control of Congress.

But there’s more. Just last week, our Representative joined ten Democrats who filed a “use it or lose” bill which would force oil companies to use the federal leases they currently have or forfeit them. The truth is, oil companies have had very little success with these leased lands, with 52 percent of the leases turning up no oil. Many more were leased for the purpose of recovering natural gas only. Other areas are prohibitive in terms of the cost to drill, and questionable in the amount recoverable oil. It is hard to fathom the thinking of a person who would propose forcing companies to drill all over the continent in places with marginal or no reserves, but refuses to allow drilling where there are plentiful reserves.

Other actions contemplated by the Democrats in Congress include suing OPEC to increase production. They also plan on launching their seventh investigation into “Price Gougers” and their fourth investigation into “Speculators”. In addition, they want $20 billion in windfall profit taxes on oil producers, a failed strategy tried by a previous Democrat Congress in 1980, and signed into law by Jimmy Carter. It stifled domestic oil production, resulting in an even greater dependence on foreign oil. One needn’t be an energy expert to understand that none of these actions will produce one more drop of oil for our country.

By halting shipments to the SPR, and trying to force OPEC or our own energy companies to increase production, the Democrats are at least indicating that they understand that increasing the supply of oil is vital to lowering our prices. The question is, why won’t they take realistic, concrete steps to do that instead of trying to demonize the oil companies and posturing against OPEC?

We do not have to look overseas for our oil. Alaska’s ANWR alone contains 10.4 billion barrels of oil. Likewise, the Outer Continental Shelf is estimated to contain 19 billion barrels of oil. There are other estimates that put our oil reserves in the hundreds of billions of barrels. When given the opportunity to tap these abundant resources, the House Democrats overwhelmingly opposed it while House Republicans overwhelmingly supported the increased production. Even when the Republicans were in the majority and passed it in the House, the Senate could not muster the 60 votes necessary to pass the bill and send it to the President because of Democratic opposition.

Recently, such large reserves of shale oil were discovered that some now refer the United States as the “Saudi Arabia of shale oil”. Yet last year this Congress banned all new shale oil extraction. That’s right: no matter where or how safely it could be recovered, this new reserve is now off limits nationwide.

We know where the major reserves of clean, light, easy-to-refine crude oil are located. Even though a majority of people in this country believe we can harvest our oil in an environmentally safe manner, this Congress seems to be too frightened of an environmental lobby that has become increasingly irrational.

The high price of oil is jeopardizing the entire economy and our balance of trade. It has triggered fears of inflation and a subsequent recession around the country. From Wall Street to the unemployment office to family dinner tables, the talk moves from higher gas prices to higher food prices to higher unemployment to greater inflation, and a real fear of the economy collapsing. As for our balance of trade, when we depend on foreign oil and the price goes up, we ship more of our American dollars overseas. Today we send $500 billion to countries, most of whom do not even like us. This is simply unacceptable.

Conservation is important, but it’s not enough. Some individuals can bike or carpool to work or consolidate trips or take a shorter vacation, but many people and many industries must depend on energy for their livelihood, and high fuel prices are threatening their survival. Hard working truck drivers, farmers and airline workers rely on oil to fuel their business, as do millions of other Americans. Energy underpins our whole economy and the long term need for energy is vital.

The U.S.must start drilling now. While it will take years for the new oil to enter the marketplace, that is no excuse for not starting now. Economists agree that passing legislation to open up drilling in ANWR, the gulf and the Outer Continental Shelf will instantly lower oil prices. It will send a clear message to speculators and other countries that we are serious and proactive about solving our energy problems. In seven to ten years, oil will start flowing from these and other explorations, will become an asset to our economy, improve our balance of trade, increase our international competiveness and ensure that our national security is unthreatened by the need for foreign oil.

This will give us the time we need to begin a national path towards energy independence using not only our own oil, but clean coal, nuclear, fusion, hydrogen, solar, and wind energy. There will be new economic confidence, a pride in our country’s “can-do” determination and new technologies to export around the world.

Affordable, dependable energy is not a new issue. Economists have been warning us for years that energy independence and the need for more oil are critically important. For ten years, I supported every effort to expand drilling in ANWR, in the Gulf and off our coasts despite the political and personal attacks – especially in the last election – because the people in this district deserve a strong, honest leader who says what needs to be said. But today, this issue is more than a campaign issue. It is a national emergency. To purposely stand in the way of an obvious solution to a national crisis is inexcusable. Let’s get going.



Paid for by Northup for Congress.

I got this email today. It is short amd succinct, but it drives home the message and gives you an opportunity to do something about it to regain a little power. As my girl Laura would say, "Pwer to the People!"

email:

Folks, if you're angry that a Congressional subcommittee rejected legislation for oil drilling, here are your contacts http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newcommittee.cgi?site=ctc&lang=&commcode=happrop_interior.

All Republicans said YES. All Democrats said NO.

Moral of the story: Democrats don't want domestic drilling. It is the party of communists and George Soros. They want to bring down the country. Republicans are not a whole lot better but they don't want the nation in the gutter like the lib Dems. Feel free to call or fax the Democrats on this subcommittee if you're fed up with high oil prices. And spread the word. We must at least get rid of the Democrats in Congress. Thanks.

Nedd

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Leave it up to a California High School principal to make a liberal ruling on the flag, right? WRONG! Take heart, my fellow Americans. For, even in Academia, there still seems to be a struggling band of conservatives…even in California! Yes, they are small and struggling, but they are also bold and determined!

Now to the story, as told by the never-liberal Associated Press. According to the article, there was quite a raucous caused when the students who run the student body newspaper at Shasta High School, chose, as the front page of its final edition for the year, a picture of a student holding a burning American flag.

The first thought that really came to my mind when I read about this was, “where are all the patriotic kids?” Man, if that had happened in my high school, in my day, somebody would have taken a beating. Now, I’m not suggesting that should happen here. I am simply pointing out the change in loyalty that has occurred over the past twenty years.

I am happy to say, however, that the principled principal (can you tell I like saying that?) has laid down the law with these sad, confused young souls. He has not really taken a kinder, gentler approach to the situation. He has, as Barney Fife would say, nipped it in the bud. Nipped it, nipped it, nipped it.

Shasta High School Principal Milan Woollard said the newspaper “was embarrassing.” He also said that “the paper’s done…[T]here’s not going to be a school-run newspaper next year.”

One of the graduating seniors at Redding High School, Connor Kennedy, said in a phone interview as reported by the AP, “"I'm deeply saddened, and I find it terribly ironic a high school newspaper would be shut down for exercising free speech — particularly when the curriculum being taught was that this was free speech.”

Well, Mr. Kennedy, it amazes me to no end how kids today think they can just take whatever Constitutional liberties which apply to ADULTS in this country and twist them to fit whatever irrational thoughts may be running through their heads.

I personally find this to be a disgusting, repulsive act. And as I have said, had it happened when I was in high school, I feel pretty confident the two sides (if there even was another side) would be squaring off in the parking lot.

You are in a CONTROLLED, SCHOOL SETTING! You are not out with the stoners on a Friday night. The school has every right to deem what it considers to be appropriate and what it deems inappropriate. And if it were up to me, I would have the guilty parties hand-sewing American flags after school for detention for the next year’s first semester.

And parents, I hope you are proud of what your kids are becoming. You have raised your kids to believe that the best way to change something he/she doesn’t like about the greatest nation on the face of the Earth is to desecrate the one symbol that means more to true Americans than any other…Old Glory.

As for Principal Woollard, if you are worried about how the school board might come down on him…don’t be. Said he, “Eliminating the paper had been an option before it published the flag photo because the school expects to get less state funding next year and needs to save money.”

The students' decision to showcase flag burning ‘cements the decision’ to pull funding from the newspaper, he said.”

Score one for the good guys!

*As always, I would like to remind you that my new book, "Mr. Right Opinion-Unplugged & Unashamed," is now available at: http://www.51756.authorworld.com/, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble online, and many, many other online outlets--so check it out! Thanks!

Also, if you just can't get enough "right opinion," you can now hear Nedd Kareiva (founder, www.stoptheaclu.org) and me on the "Mr. Right Opinion and Nedd the Stop the ACLU Guy Show" on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-3:00 p.m.--Thanks!

So, it would appear that we FINALLY have all the primary garbage out of the way. I honestly don’t know why we mess around with all this primary election junk anyway. I mean, let’s face it, if you’ve ever been a Southern Baptist Minister who sympathizes with illegal aliens, and has done much of the executive work required as a governor, please be seated. Also, if you are a strong Christian Conservative who happens to be a former Senator-turned-actor-turned-back-into-politician, and you still have not lost your moral compass, AND if you reject the outright amnesty for illegals, AND you are Pro Life,
you really need to sit down!

Also, if you are a millionaire, have vast experience at successfully running large corporations, are pro-life, pro-gun, anti-illegalization, belong to some fruitcake religion and tried to hide that by saying that we are all God’s children; that we all have an obligation to build one another up. And, the last straw, if you too have executive experience at running an economically large state…I implore you to sit down before the other candidates fall over in inadequacy,

However, if you are a man from Chicago who spent part of his formative years in a Muslim madrassa, please rise. If you are a man who has spent roughly twenty years in the congregation of a church where the doctrine of the pulpit was that “whitey” was/is the reason for your “oppression,” and that “the man” has been holding you back for hundreds of years, stand--no…LEAP--up and scream Hallelujah!

If you are a black man who has made it a point to include white “token” spiritual advisors in your camp, only to one day discover the “horror” of the fact that that white catholic priest is even more racially divisive and more disrespectful to the country who has given him such great opportunity, who has given him so much to love about his homeland, than the black preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, ever thought of.

To have those who you have trusted as friends, allies, and political as well as spiritual advisors reveal for the first time in twenty years their true feelings about white folk, and the true way in which they view their own government. Not as one of compassion, but as one who could and, to some of your esteemed colleagues did, plan and execute an attack on our homeland and our brothers and sisters; our fellow Americans.

If you are a man who, after twenty years of sitting in the pew of the same church hearing the same vile spewed weekly, but never noticing that it happened, also sat in the U.S. Senate only a mere two years, but think that qualifies you to be president, please rise…we want you!

And just missing out on the Democrat’s side, and I mean just barely, we have Sen. Clinton. She had just about all the same prospects that her opponent had, except she may have had a few more years’ practice on how to cover your trails.I think she would have done a much better job at that. Outside of that, I don’t want either of those jokers answering “the phone” at 3:00 a.m. Not the man who wants to allow babies who survive abortion to actually lay in a garbage bag unattended, left to die. No, I don’t want that kind of cruelty running my country.

And no, not the woman who wants spend millions of dollars to hand out condoms in our federal penitentiaries to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. For those that haven’t heard, ABSTINENCE, especially I lockdown, is the best way to avoid diseases like AIDS.

I’m not comfortable with either Democrat wanting to make a book about homosexuality acceptable, and possibly MANDATORY for second graders. It’s wrong, and I simply disagree with it.

So, now that we have our two clear major contenders, I figured the shells would soon be flying. I might as well get in on the opening salvos, right?

Sorry it ahs taken me so long to get back, but I have been crazy busy.

Please remember my book, now available at http://www.51756.authorworld.com/.

Thanks,
Mike

P.S. I keep failing to mention that I and another guy, Nedd Kareiva, founder of "Stop the ACLU Coalition" also have a talk show on Blog Talk Radio. The URL is: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Mr-Right-Opinion. We are on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-3:00p.m. Please tune in.

Thanks again,
Mike Minton