The Liberty Tree Lantern

Simply put, Reid is telling conservatives in Congress to give up on “drill here, drill now” … agree to “sham” legislation that will increase your taxes and drive up your cost for gasoline at the pump … or he’ll make sure conservatives take the blame for shutting down the government.

According to the Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill:

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) cautioned Republicans Monday against forcing a government shutdown over expanded oil drilling while noting increased support for bipartisan energy legislation… Republicans are mulling whether to press the offshore oil drilling fight by blocking the funding resolution, which contains the congressional moratorium on such drilling. Reid reminded the GOP that its government shutdown led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) during the Clinton administration was met with widespread public disapproval.”

Reid went on to self-righteously pontificate:

“We are not interested in any games being played. We simply want to make sure the government is allowed to function. There have been Republicans saying what they want to do is close down the government. I would hope that some of those people have read very recent history where Gingrich tried to do that and it didn’t work out well for the Republicans and certainly didn’t work out well for this country.”

The only ones playing games here are Harry Reid and his liberal cohorts in Congress.

This sickening gamesmanship and disgusting political maneuvering beg some rather obvious questions:

Moreover, our elected leaders (particularly the conservatives in Congress who have bravely championed the call for domestic drilling and lower prices at the pump) need to understand that NO LIBERAL-INSPIRED “COMPROMISE” OR SO-CALLED “COMPREHENSIVE” LEGISLATION WILL BE TOLERATED… PERIOD!

If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and liberals in the House and Senate want to play games and shut the government down over this issue… SO BE IT! The American people will know who is to blame!

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But Gizzi goes on to say what Republicans should be doing… how they should be playing the game:

“Fair enough. But wouldnt it also help make an appropriations bill move a bit if the threat of a veto of a CR with a ban on offshore drilling were put on the table now?”

Gizzi is 100 percent right! Why can’t conservatives play hardball? Why can’t President Bush threaten to veto legislation that does not contain adequate provisions for domestic drilling? Why can’t conservatives in Congress stand up to Reids political games?

That last question is gaining importance because it would appear that a growing number of conservative legislators are starting to waffle!

According to TheStreet.com:

“Senate Majority Leader Reid has placed his faith for compromise in the so-called ‘Gang of 10,’ which has increased now to 16 senators.”

The Associated Press reports:

“A bipartisan group, originally known as the Gang of Ten, that has crafted a drilling compromise gained more members and has grown to 22 senators.”

So why are they running for the hills?

The crux of the problem is that too many of our conservative legislators actually believe the American people WILL BLAME THEM for a government shutdown!

What they need to hear from each and every one of us RIGHT NOW is that the American people WILL BLAME THEM if they “compromise” or vote in favor of so-called “comprehensive” legislation .

They need to know that YOU WANT THEM TO STAND FIRM!

What Reid and his liberals cohorts have actually offered are “sham bills” designed to increase our taxes, increase the cost of gasoline at the pump and increase our dependence on foreign oil.

Here’s what House Minority Leader John Boehner had to say:

“Instead of giving the American people the energy bill they expect and deserve, it appears that Democrats will bring up another sham bill loaded up with tax hikes and failed energy policies that will raise gasoline prices further, not lower them. Any bill that puts 80 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf off limits permanently cannot be called an ‘all of the above’ energy plan, and the American people will not support it. We have three weeks left in this Congress, and it’s time for the Democrats who control it to do the right thing and give Americans the energy vote they deserve.”

Of course, Reid has yet to put his latest “sham” on the table, but it is likely to take the form of the so-called “compromise” legislation being offered by the ever-growing “Gang of Ten.”

Here’s what The Wall Street Journal wrote about that plan:

“Ask GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer what he thinks of the recent ‘Gang of 10′ Senate energy compromise, and his answer is short and not sweet: ‘I’d call it 40% tax increase, 10% energy and 50% snake oil.’”

The Journal wrote in another piece wrote that; “The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better.”

And the Institute for Energy Research called the “Gang of Ten” betrayal, as it was originally proposed, a blueprint for economic and electoral disaster and pointed out that this so-called “compromise” legislation:

severely limits potential production by only granting four coastal states the ability to opt out of energy bans;

imposes arbitrary 50-mile buffer zones that would exclude a wealth of potential resource deposits (i.e. the Gulf of Mexico’s Destin Dome which is some 25 miles offshore) and;

possibly give the ban the force of permanent law for the first time ever.

In other words, liberals in Congress are basically telling us that we can drill for all the oil we want as long as we drill where there is NO OIL!

And now it would appear that some Republicans may actually succumb to Reid’s legislative blackmail and vote in favor of “snake oil.”

We can stop that from happening by taking immediate action!

Center for Individual Freedom
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