Democrats Force American Energy Companies to Flee

Post below excerpted from Gateway Pundit

Democratic policies of "no drilling zones" are forcing energy companies to invest elsewhere. The Democrats also keep America dangerously dependent on foreign oil.


Oil giant Exxon announced that of the 32 new major projects for 2006-09 only one is planned in the United States territory.

Investor's Business Daily has the latest on how democrats are forcing American energy companies to flee the mainland and as a result leave our country more dependent on terror regimes for our energy. This is the last thing our country needs.
"Hil verses Hal"

Democrats gleefully demonize oil companies, outlaw offshore drilling and, in Hillary Clinton's case, vow to expropriate profits. In that kind of climate, why the surprise that Halliburton is moving to Dubai?

Halliburton's pullout from its Houston headquarters Monday for a new home in the Middle East drew umbrage from the very Democrats who've had the oil-services company in their gun sights for years.

Clinton led the charge, hinting at more punishment ahead. "I think it raises a lot of very big concerns, and we're going to be looking into it in Washington," she warned.

One of industry's most innovative firms, Halliburton provides the operative brawn to transform the discoveries of oil exploration into fuel ready for pipeline transport all the way to the gas station. It holds 4,700 patents.

The only thing Democrats see in this showplace of U.S. innovation is a criminal conspiracy. But then, leftists have built a whole culture around hating Halliburton. Their Amazon-listed books hawk conspiracy theories about how Halliburton supposedly runs the U.S. or the world or both.

"Tantamount to fleeing the scene of a crime," huffed the Huffington Post, claiming Halliburton's move was to avoid taxes and slip investigations. The company, of course, denies this -- credibly, we might add, considering its remaining base in Houston.

The reality is, Halliburton's pullout is the result of Democrats doing everything possible to give the company reasons to leave. Yet they don't seem to have a clue that that's what's happening.

Clinton says she is "troubled by the continued outsourcing of jobs and . . . eager to find out how the tax code can be strengthened to encourage American companies to invest here rather than abroad."

Invest in what? Democrats have effectively taken away every opportunity that might keep Halliburton in the states. They've blue-penciled all but a small portion of the Gulf of Mexico for offshore drilling. They also have made the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge off-limits and now want that ban permanent.

Add to that Clinton's threat to confiscate the profits of companies such as Exxon, profits now being used to develop the very energy that fuels the electricity in her microphone. The result is a climate so hostile that the only way oil concerns can produce oil is by moving.

It's not just Halliburton. Exxon last week announced 32 new projects for 2006-09. Only three are based in the U.S., and just one is in the Gulf of Mexico. Another project is in Canada, and the rest are overseas, where no Hillary-like hatred of oil companies exists.

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ELSEWHERE

Big problems with ethanol: ""It's easy to see the appeal: Like the flat tax or missile defense, biofuels suggest a simple solution to a complex problem. Like missile defense, they cater to our faith in technological progress. Instead of drilling rigs blighting coastlines, biofuels evoke vistas filled with amber waves of grain. Just like that, dirty, bloody Mideast crude turns out to have a clean homegrown substitute. It's a fairy tale of course, like so many others featuring magically prolific plants.The reality is that it's costly and incredibly inefficient to unlock energy stored inside plant cells, relative to the effort needed to distill comparable volumes of fuel from crude, even crude as expensive as it is today. The reality is that making biofuels from Brazilian sugar cane is much easier, cheaper and kinder to the environment than using Midwestern grain. The reality is that we care about all those principles so much as to impose a stiff tariff on Brazilian ethanol, lest it displace our homebrew."

The poor track record of diplomacy: "There's something about diplomats, no matter how brilliant, that leads them to see a world that never existed, and most likely never will. The past results achieved by the grand master of diplomacy were often disappointing. Kissinger attempted to tame the Soviet Empire by constructing "d,tente," which probably extended the life of the Communist superstate by a decade or more; it took Ronald Reagan to bring it to an end. Kissinger attempted to negotiate peace between Israel and its enemies, thereby spinning out a grand illusion-the misnamed "peace process"-that has created a cottage industry for negotiators but an expanded war for the citizens of the region. The illusion that "diplomacy" can accomplish anything worthwhile with the Islamic Republic of Iran will only intensify the mullahs' conviction that killing Americans is both divinely sanctioned and a winning strategy".



Comeback for Catholic tradition: "Catholics could soon be singing Gregorian chants during worship after Pope Benedict announced he wants the singing style to make a comeback. The 79-year-old German Pope, who last week told the world he does not care much for Bob Dylan, said the Catholic faithful should learn more of the chanting traditionally sung in Latin by choirs of monks. "The better-known prayers of the Church's tradition should be recited in Latin and, if possible, selections of Gregorian chant should be sung," he said in part of a 140-page booklet on the Mass. He lamented that Latin, the Church's official language, was disappearing and said he wanted future priests to study the language. "Nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy in Gregorian chant," he wrote."

Dutch turn to bible belt: "Just 90 minutes' drive from the temptations of Amsterdam is a village so devout that swearing is banned, women refuse to wear trousers and the bank machine does not dispense cash on a Sunday. The Netherlands, best known abroad for its liberal policies on sex, drugs and homosexuality, is also home to a Protestant "Bible Belt" mapped out by villages such as Staphorst. Now a small political party long associated with the Bible Belt, the Christen Unie (United Christians or CU), is benefiting from a surge of support outside its rural heartland triggered by nostalgia for a more moral, compassionate society. After almost doubling its vote in last November's general election to 4 per cent, the CU has become the kingmaker in the Netherlands' new centrist coalition government, a feat unthinkable at the time of the previous election in 2003. "Society has opted for more traditional values, for principles such as security and community feeling," says Gerard Vroegindeweij, a political correspondent with the Reformatorisch Dagblad, a Protestant newspaper".

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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