Coming Attractions

Tighty-righties were so outraged that majority Republicans weren't governing as conservatively as they thought they should that they vowed to "punish" the GOP by betraying them at the 2006 ballot box. And indeed, they did.

Behold, the onrushing consequences of this self-inflicted purge:

***Pelosi: Democrats Will Target 'Big Oil'

House Democrats in the first weeks of the new Congress plan to establish a dedicated fund to promote renewable energy and conservation, using money from oil companies. That's only one legislative hit the oil industry is expected to take next year as a Congress run by Democrats is likely to show little sympathy to the cash-rich, high-profile business.

Whether the issue is rolling tax breaks - some approved by Congress only 18 months ago - pushing for more use of ethanol and other biofuels instead of gasoline, or investigations into shortfalls in royalty payments to the government, oil industry lobbyists will spend most of their time playing defense.

The likely consequences of this latest anti-"Big Oil" jihad?

Oil lobbyists...are preparing to fight another proposal that would raise taxes on their inventories, a change that could cost oil companies billions of dollars. The inventory tax provisions cover the entire industry and some lawmakers want to repeal them only for the biggest companies.

"That would significantly raise the cost of holding inventory" and cause companies to reduce the amount of oil they keep in storage, said Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry trade group. If that happens "prices will go through the roof" if there is even a modest disruption, he predicted....

The Interior Department also has said it wants to work with Congress to find ways to deal with the royalty issue, but is worried the proposal to bar companies from future leases could throw the federal offshore leasing program into lengthy litigation.

"Our fear is our (leasing) program would shut down. That would have a multibillion-dollar impact on federal revenues," Assistant Interior Secretary Stephen Allred recently told reporters. [emphases added]

Making gas more expensive, endangering domestic supplies, and cutting ourselves off from finding and tapping any more, in favor of stuffing corn into our tanks. Yep, I'd say that covers the whole anti-energy gambit.

If you've been wondering why the pump price of gasoline has gone up 16% since the election, as it has at my neighborhood filling station, these bad tidings might just be a clue.

***New immigration bills in the works

Counting on the support of the new Democratic majority in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and their Republican allies are working on measures that would place millions of illegal immigrants on a more direct path to citizenship than would a bill the Senate passed in the spring.

The lawmakers are considering abandoning a requirement in the Senate bill that would compel several million illegal immigrants to leave the United States before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.

The lawmakers are also considering denying financing for 700 miles of fencing along the border with Mexico, a law that Republicans wrote this year.

Wasn't the alleged failure of 'Pubbies to crack down hard enough on illegal immigration one of the tighty-righties' bigger gripes against the ex-majority? Well, congrats, numbnuts, you've sure fixed THAT problem, huh? Hey, who knows, maybe the Donks will make this ACLU gambit, which would force apartment complex owners to rent to illegal aliens, part of the latest immigration surrender.

***Say, weren't the right-wing purists in favor of winning the war on Islamic Fundamentalism? Or, at the very least, not failing in Iraq? Pity they didn't vote that way, as the Donk determination to cut and run the instant they get their hands on power is telegraphed louder and louder. Their RINO allies, bewitched by that ISG foolishness, are getting hypnotized by Bashar Assad, of all people. And Senator Joe "Chia Pet" Biden, the dreaded incoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has declared a fatwa against sending any more troops to Iraq, even threatening Republicans with more electoral decimation in 2008 if they don't fall into line behind him.

And they'll do it, too. And the tighty-righties will retaliate by digging our hole even deeper.

Yeah, that'll fix those GOP apostates, won't it?

There is a word for an orgy of self-directed "punishment": masochism. But nobody listens to us neoRealists - until it's too late.

Welcome...to the desert...of too late.