What have you accomplished, Mitch?
Joe Sonka June 6th, 2008
(crossposted at Barefoot and Progressive)
The theme of Mitch’s (unsuccessful) ads in the past 8 months has been “Look at what a powerful D.C. insider I am and how much I get done for Kentucky!”
But, as Cooler King points out in a recent AP article:
“Destruction of stockpiles by chemical neutralization has yet to start in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky.”
Yes, we’ve had leaking WMD’s threatening a high population KY area for 24 years, and powerful Mitch hasn’t even been able to get a solution to the problem to START. Very impressive, Mitch.
But perhaps I’m selling Mitch short. Check out some other “accomplishments” of Mr. Powerful D.C. insider:
-KY poverty rate: 15.3% (2nd lowest in country)
-KY unemployment- 5.7% (8th highest in country)
-KY Median household income- 4th lowest in country
-KY College educated population- 20% (3rd lowest in country)
-Commonwealth Fund ranking on Health System performance- 45th
Wow. I guess you haven’t accomplished a whole lot for Kentuckians, eh?
But wait, let’s take a look at some folks that are better off:
High gas prices may have cinched American consumers’ wallets in 2007, but they loaded the coffers of the big five oil companies: BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. ExxonMobil, after record high profits in 2005 and 2006, smashed the record for highest profits ever made by a public U.S. company—previously held by Exxon—by posting a net profit of $40.6 billion in 2007.
To put these figures in perspective, Exxon’s $40.6 billion profit in 2007 is roughly equal to receiving “$30 for every person in China and $132 for every U.S. resident.” Another way of looking at it is that Exxon made $77,245 per minute in 2007—that’s more money generated per minute than 70 percent of Americans earned all year, according to the Census Bureau.
Shell also had a record breaking year. Its $31.3 billion 2007 profit set a new company record, and was 23 percent higher than its $25.4 billion profit in 2006. Analysts believe that higher crude oil prices are responsible for the company’s success. Chevron also matched its prediction of positive gains with $18.7 billion profit, primarily due to high gasoline prices at the pump. ConocoPhillips made $11.9 billion, its third best year since 2001. And its fourth quarter 2007 revenues exceeded last year’s fourth quarter by more than $1.2 billion, due partly to high energy prices. BP had a turbulent year, posting a gain of $20.8 billion in net profits. However, their fourth quarter earnings rose 22 percent from last year’s fourth quarter, mostly due to high oil and gasoline prices.
Ah… so Mr. D.C. Insider can get some things accomplished. You just need to scratch his back first. Maybe if ordinary Kentuckians weren’t such cheapskates and gave Mitch some cash, they could get in on Mitch’s “accomplishments” gravy train.
So pony up and give Mitch some cash Central Kentucky. Otherwise you deserve to live next to leaking chemical weapons.
- Corruption , Mitch McConnell
- Comments(6)
Mitch has accomplished quite a bit. The economic policies that he supports have driven the price of gasoline up to over $4.00 a gallon in many United States locations. The unemployment rate is the worse that it has been in 22 years according to Yahoo news. The price of natural gas is up and the value of the dollar falls daily. In other words if you have saved money for a rainy day, your rainy day fund shrinks daily. The cost of food is rising and jobs are being exported. I would NEVER accuse Mitch McConnell of being a decent compassionate person or a citizen of the United States. The price of Diesel fuel is higher than Gasoline. I can’t see why a decent farmer would vote for Mitch McConnell. We need a decent loyal United States citizen for a Senator instead of what we have now. Enough Said.
McConnell has been a key and integral part of the Republican DISASTER that
Bush has created for average, working class American citizens. 6 Jun provides a good example with unemployment up from 5% to 5.5%, and oil at $137/bbl. And, of course, MORON MITCH has marched in lock step with Bush to continue an unnecessary war of choice that costs $12 Billion a month….and that $12 Billion is BORROWED money. Bush is an idiot…..McConnell is an idiot…..only an idiot would vote for McConnell. Flush this turkey in Nov.
What economic policies has he supported that caused the price of gas to go up Charles? Please help me out here.
the war in Iraq for one
States, I will help you out, in 2006 Mitch McConnell stated that the rising price of Gasoline in the United States was a good thing because of the demand by “developing countries”. This is part of the roughage spouted by the Heritage Foundation (which McConnell’s wife worked for years ago).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMaxqvklaAk
Elaine Chao is extremely pro-Communist China
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21359
I really don’t care about India or China and I beleive that McConnell is un-American. The United States constitution says NOTHING about these countries, but Republicans follow “natural law” rather than the Constitution even though they swear to uphold the Constitution when they take office. Republicans appear to be born liars.
By the way the people of the United States elected coward McConnell, not China or India. Also did you know that China subsidizes the oil industry in their country? That’s right gasoline costs less in China than it does in the United States for the same quantity.
Due to the aid we give these “developing nations” the United States taxpayer is forced to make up the difference. Mitch McConnell needs to move to the far East so that he can represent his loyal followers and the people of Kentucky can elect an American.
Also I have called Mr. McConnell’s office many times requesting a dialogue, but because he is a coward this has never happened. I think that it is a shame that we have a Senator whose in-laws are on a first name basis with the leader of a Communist country.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21346
Editorial
The Big Pander to Big Oil
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Published: June 19, 2008
It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.
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“If Congress mandated a 55 mph speed limit… we would save more in dollars and gas than drilling for oil.”
Anne Hibbing, Lincoln, Neb.
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This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.
There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage.
The whole scheme is based on a series of fictions that range from the egregious to the merely annoying. Democratic majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, noted the worst of these on Wednesday: That a country that consumes one-quarter of the world’s oil supply but owns only 3 percent of its reserves can drill its way out of any problem — whether it be high prices at the pump or dependence on oil exported by unstable countries in Persian Gulf. This fiction has been resisted by Barack Obama but foolishly embraced by John McCain, who seemed to be making some sense on energy questions until he jumped aboard the lift-the-ban bandwagon on Tuesday.
A lesser fiction, perpetrated by the oil companies and, to some extent, by misleading government figures, is that huge deposits of oil and gas on federal land have been closed off and industry has had one hand tied behind its back by environmentalists, Democrats and the offshore protections in place for 25 years.
The numbers suggest otherwise. Of the 36 billion barrels of oil believed to lie on federal land, mainly in the Rocky Mountain West and Alaska, almost two-thirds are accessible or will be after various land-use and environmental reviews. And of the 89 billion barrels of recoverable oil believed to lie offshore, the federal Mineral Management Service says fourth-fifths is open to industry, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan waters.
Clearly, the oil companies are not starved for resources. Further, they do not seem to be doing nearly as much as they could with the land to which they’ve already laid claim. Separate studies by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Wilderness Society, a conservation group, show that roughly three-quarters of the 90 million-plus acres of federal land being leased by the oil companies onshore and off are not being used to produce energy. That is 68 million acres altogether, among them potentially highly productive leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.
With that in mind, four influential House Democrats — Edward Markey, Nick Rahall, Rahm Emanuel and Maurice Hinchey — have introduced “use it or lose it” bills that would force the companies to begin exploiting the leases they have before getting any more. Companion bills have been introduced in the Senate, where suspicions also run high that industry’s main objective is to stockpile millions of additional acres of public land before the Bush administration leaves town.
This cannot be allowed to happen. The Congressional moratoriums on offshore drilling were put in place in 1981 and reaffirmed by subsequent Congresses to protect coastal economies that depend on clean water and clean coastlines. This was also the essential purpose of supplemental executive orders, the first of which was issued by Mr. Bush’s father in 1990 after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill the year before.
Given the huge resources available to the energy industry, there is no reason to undo these protections now.