Oil prices have put energy front and center on the world’s stage. As record prices continue week after week, day after day the confrontation with an energy present and future are on the minds and mouths of many.

In Europe oil protests erupted this week. Truckers in London blocked a major artery into the capital on Tuesday. They are putting pressure on PM Gordon Brown to act. Diesel runs at more than $9.00 a gallon there and unleaded gas costs $8.61. The British impose a $3.77 a gallon fuel duty and a 17.5% on top of that. This policy was intended to increase the use of pubic transportation. Many in England these days are questioning the taxes in the wake of surging gas prices.

In France, farmers and fishermen have been protesting for two weeks. They have blocked access to fuel refineries in several locations to display their anger at rising oil prices.

Countries on the edge of poverty such as Mongolia face crippling decisions. People in the harsh climate there are facing decisions between starving or staying warm. As food prices and energy costs run along parallel lines, these decisions aren’t always an either or proposition. In Indonesia rising oil prices have caused riots forcing the government there to subsidize energy costs to prevent an economic collapse.

Since we are dealing with an international crisis there is very little a single nation can do, especially those in the Third World.

Interestingly (and economically viable) the major Western nations are seeing a reduction of demand as oil prices are causing a shift in energy habits. China however has chosen to heavily subsidize fuel prices until after the Olympics, resulting in steady fuel prices there. A billion disgruntled Chinese wouldn’t be a pretty picture for the world’s cameras, especially in combination with the aftermath of the earthquake that hit Sichuan earlier this month.

The price is rising at a much greater clip than normal supply and demand would warrant. OPEC in fact says that the rise is due in large part to oil speculators. OPEC claims there is plenty of oil but they are nearing capacity. Investors claim the surge in speculator activity is attributable to the decline in other sectors such as real estate. The speculators are merely looking for more profitable investments. Without the recent speculation gas would be closer to $50 or $60 a barrel as opposed to $130 a barrel as it sits today.

Whereas the 2004 US presidential election centered on the Iraq War and security, the 2008 version may well pivot on energy costs. $5.00 gas is on the horizon and many are frightened of the prospect this summer. And as we know fear is a powerful political tool.

Details of former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book are coming out and by all indications it offers a scathing recollection of his days in the White House.

His revelations about why Bush went to war in Iraq are especially telling:

In Iraq, McClellan added, Bush saw "his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness, "something McClellan said Bush has said he believes is only available to wartime presidents.

The president’s real motivation for the war, he said, was to transform the Middle East to ensure an enduring peace in the region. But the White House effort to sell the war as necessary due to the stated threat posed by Saddam Hussein was needed because "Bush and his advisers knew that the American people would almost certainly not support a war launched primarily for the ambitions purpose of transforming the Middle East," McClellan wrote.

 AJC.com

On Bush’s leadership skills he writes:

"It strikes me today as an indication of his lack of inquisitiveness and his detrimental resistance to reflection, something his advisers needed to compensate for better than they did."

Bush misled U.S. on Iraq, former aide says in new book

Scott McClellan’s ‘What Happened’ delivers tough criticism of president, advisers

By KEN HERMAN
Cox News Service
Published on: 05/27/08

WASHINGTON — In a book due out Monday, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan offers a blistering review of the administration and concludes that his longtime boss misled the nation into an unnecessary war in Iraq.

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The hot button in the Presidential race these days revolves around the new “GI Bill”. This bill gives us a window on the soul of those who are waging the so called “War on Terror”. By any measure Democratic Senator Jim Webb’s version of the bill (and co-sponsored by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel) is quite generous. It would allow any serviceman who completed three years of active duty (or activated reservists or national guard) the ability to be compensated for four years of public university tuition. Sen. and Republican nominee John McCain is against Webb’s bill. McCain, like Bush, believes the bill would cause military retention rates to decrease. Many of America’s finest have served three, four and five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (and sometimes swapping between the two theaters) and those who rightfully engaged the enemy in Afghanistan and those who wrongly invaded Iraq are now denying those who have sacrificed the most the ability to brighten their future; a future that for as long as they were serving in harms way was always in doubt. A future for some involves a life without a leg or an arm. Shame on George Bush, shame on John McCain and shame on any politician who doesn’t stand up in Congress and give these boys (and girls) what they deserve. For McCain to use his lack of support of this bill as a means to attack Barack Obama (who supports this bill) for not serving in the military shows a lack of integrity; a word I would never have used to define McCain in the past. Jim Webb’s bill may have an opposite effect. The prospect of having a full paid college scholarship may very well cause a number of kids to sign up for the military. These would be men who aspire to be college graduates, just the type of people we would like to fill the ranks of the US military. Those who have put their lives on the line for this country are exactly those we want to replace the aging baby boomers in the workplaces throughout this country. Jim Webb’s GI Bill is a start but in my opinion they deserve way more than that. Unfortunately those who most wanted to wage these wars don’t see it that way.

Breaking:  Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary breaks ranks with President Bush in new book.

So Oregon holds a warm place in my heart as everyone knows and today the Beaver State is spotlighted in the primary process. This weekend Obama held a huge rally in Portland where over 70,000 people were in attendance. This was the largest gathering to date and what makes this even more unusual is Oregon is predominately White. In fact African Americans weren’t even allowed residency status until the 1920s. Known as the Exclusion Law, Oregon chose to be free of the slavery issue altogether in the mid-19th century by simply keeping Blacks out of the sate. To see the Northwest’s rather contentious race history click HERE.  This shows how much Oregon has changed, especially west of the Cascades. The Democratic race that never seems to end rambles on.

The credit for the following belongs greatly to my old man.

As Bush spoke in front of the Knesset this week he invoked the preface to WW II. I have thought a lot the past few days about the idiotic comments of perhaps America’s most idiotic president and would like to set the record straight for a man who most likely doesn’t read a lot of history.

When Chamberlain met with Hitler in 1938, Britain was trying desperately not to be plunged into another war; a war they were in no way prepared for nor had the stomach to initiate. WW I was still fresh on their minds and the bad taste the Great War left in their mouths made them less powerful. As the Prime Minister of Britain met with the Chancellor of Germany it was from a position of weakness. The British military (navy excluded) had been downsized in the decades following 1918 and the army they did have was spread all over their empire. By 1938 the Germans had long since defied the Versailles Treaty and were on a war economy. These two powers were going in separate directions. Germany was meeting from a position of strength and Britain was meeting from a position of weakness.

If Obama or McCain sits down with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Hamas or any other two bit dictator they will not be Chamberlain. The US spends well over $400 billion a year on its military. In 2005 the US military budget was nearly as much as the rest of the world COMBINED and eight times larger than China’s defense spending. This just shows you how much of an idiot Bush is for making that same old sad WW II analogy of appeasement. To make matters worse, this same President proceeds to Saudi Arabia, a country who requires our military technology to keep their people in line, and begs them if they could do us a favor and up the oil production. Our allies in the Gulf merely brush the President of the free world aside like a bum on the curb with a tin cup. Most conservatives would tell the bum to go get a job. Well I’m telling the bum to get working on an energy policy where we don’t have to be beholden to any dictator. Who is the true appeaser?

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My new bumper sticker for the week:

Purge your Sins, Conservatives. Vote Obama

Earlier today our revered President spoke to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state. In that speech Bush took the opportunity to slam the Democratic nominee on his policy of negotiating with adversaries. In front of many Jews who had lived through perhaps the most nefarious period in modern history the President of the United States chose to invoke appeasement and Hitler for political purposes. This act was flawed on many levels. First, the Dixie Chicks were lambasted for criticizing Bush on foreign soil. Their reputations were severely tarnished and death threats followed. President Bush not only did this on foreign soil but in front of the entire Israeli legislative branch. Secondly, Bush purposely didn’t give credit to the Senator with whom he quoted, isolationist Republican Congressmen William Edgar Borah from Idaho who said, “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” If Borah had been a Democrat I’m sure he would have been fully disclosed. Finally, talking to Iran, North Korea, Syria, et al is a policy proposed by Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense.

So now we are left with the fallout. McCain has hitched his wagon to the opportunism offered by Bush’s speech. And the Right Wing has begun to try to triangulate Obama as the second coming of Neville Chamberlain. Fortunately, many Conservatives are not very savvy when it comes to history. In fact, many right wingers I have argued with over the years have a hard time getting past what they hear on their favorite sycophant’s radio program. What do I mean, you say? Chris Mathews today tried to carry an argument with one such right winger and talking points seemed to get in the way of the facts. Enjoy.

These days, a true patriot drives a small car. Current gas prices are now making this not just an option but a necessity.

"I don’t need this much space," McHugh said of his SUV. "It just seems ridiculous."

——Did it take a spike in gas prices to realize this?

Frustrated Owners Try to Unload Their Guzzlers

—Boston Globe—

After paying $75 to fill his black Dodge Ram pickup truck for the third time in a week, Douglas Chrystall couldn’t take it anymore.

Feeling pinched at the pump, and guilty as well, Chrystall, a 39-year-old father from Wellesley, is putting ads online to sell the truck, and the family’s other gas-guzzler, a Jeep Grand Cherokee. He knows it will be tough to unload them because he is one of a growing number of consumers downsizing to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

Americans are turning away from the boxy, four-wheel-drive vehicles that have for years dominated the nation’s highways. Sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks – symbols of Americans’ obsession with horsepower, size, and status – are falling out of favor as consumers rich and poor encounter sticker shock at the pump, paying upward of $80 to fill gas tanks.

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The American Revolution, Abolition, Civil Rights. Liberalism is the cornerstone of this nation.

Thomas Friedman has returned from sabbatical to enlighten us on the current issues of our times. Today he speaks about the US’ failures. He also gives a nod to Obama. I’m starting to believe Obama is the anti-Bush, and the anti-Bush is just fine by me.

Who Will Tell the People?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.

Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”

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