This is Enron all over again.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

This morning on the T.V. machine, I watched one republic after another rise to beat the drum for drilling. The same talking points are being repeatedly, endlessly replayed by right wing talking gasbags throughout the land and it hit me like a rock. We are being played once again.

The oil crises is being manufactured and we the people are being gamed again. The Republics have been trying for years to spill oil all over our beaches and pollute our wild lands. They know that if they don't get it now, they won't be able to get it after 01/20/09. The oil prices have been manipulated way beyond what can be explained by supply and demand striking fear of another global economic disaster. Fear, fear, shock and awe. The best friends the Republics have. Suddenly, in the last months of the oiliest administration in history, the drumbeat to drill, drill, drill echoes out of the white house talking point machine and spreads throughout the land. The reason we have high gas prices is the Democrats fault because they won't let us drill, they say, while they ignore the fact that refining capacity is maxed out. Gas prices will come down if we open up Anwar they say, while ignoring the fact that it wouldn't produce any meaningful domestic supply for at least 10 years.

No, folks, we are being played. This is Enron all over again. A parting gift from the greediest, most corrupt administration in U.S. history.

[acmavm]

1. And? Did you expect otherwise?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Again? No, this is still Enron.

The prices we're paying today are still being influenced by Enron.

Special report on the subject tonight on Countdown.

[gasperc]

3. oil industry has 68 million acres-unused

“Today President Bush dusted off the worst of the Cheney special interest giveaways that have created record profits for big oil and a 250% increase in gas prices for consumers these last seven years. Selling off our nation’s coastlines to the oil and gas companies won’t make a dent in gas prices. If you started drilling tomorrow, you wouldn’t even see a drop of oil until 2017. President Bush and his new ally John McCain should use a little straight talk and explain why we’re even having this debate when the oil industry has 68 million acres available today that they aren’t developing. This is a fraud of a policy and a false choice. Rather than doing the bidding of the oil companies, we need a serious long-term energy strategy that reduces our dependence on oil and promotes affordable clean energy sources to address the urgent threat of climate change and help consumers.” Senator John Kerry 6/18/08

$4 gs to blackmail the public into opening ANWR and coastal drilling. Assholes and using terrorist tactics.

[kevinmc]

4. Oil Trading's Powerful "Dark Markets"

CBS News Looks Inside Futures Trading Beyond Watch Of U.S. Regulators


(CBS) As gas prices skyrocket, attention has turned to public "pits," where brokers trade "oil futures" - the right to buy or sell crude oil at a specific price, on a future date.

But far away from the hue and cry, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil futures contracts are traded electronically every day, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.

More than 30 percent, experts say, exchanged in so-called "dark markets," the exact size and scope unknown to U.S. regulators.

"If you can trade out of the sight of U.S. regulators, you can manipulate these markets," said Michael Greenberger, a former top staffer at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, which regulates the trading of commodities like oil in this country.

He recently told Congress that speculation is placing a huge premium on the price of oil.

"How much per barrel?" Keteyian asked.

"Well, there have been various estimates - anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent," Greenberger said.

"People can actually corner the market and drive up the price," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. "When there is no policeman on the beat, you know that crime can go up."

More and more fingers are pointing at one of the least-known but most powerful foreign exchanges - the InterContinental Exchange, or ICE.

By the end of 2007, the all-electronic exchange accounted for nearly a 50 percent market share of all global oil futures contracts, a total of 138.5 million contracts - up 49 percent from 2006.

Today it boasts more than 2,100 individual traders representing virtually all of the major players in oil - banks, hedge funds, energy companies, investment giants.

And according to a securities filing, two of those giants, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, were founding partners of ICE.

"The fact that they started this shows the intent of where they wanted to go," Greenberger said. "Which was to trade crude oil and energy products without any police in the United States supervising it."

That's because it's considered a foreign exchange. Taking advantage of a loophole created by the CFTC, the company says its "energy futures business" is conducted in London, it is not subject to U.S. laws. Over strong criticism, the CFTC agreed.

All this despite the fact ICE headquarters are on the fifth floor of a building in Atlanta, it's primary data center in Chicago, and nearly all its trades settled in U.S. dollars.

"It is a charade, and ... it defies explanation," Greenberger said.

In a statement, ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher told CBS News that ICE is committed to providing "the same visibility in our oil markets that exists for U.S. Exchanges," and that ICE Futures Europe is "fully regulated" by the British government.

But British financial authorities are notoriously lax.

Now Congress and others are asking just how much of the crude oil futures market is being manipulated by either excessive buying designed to drive up the price, or phony transactions that imply a supply problem that does not exist.

Today, under pressure, ICE finally agreed to impose stricter limits on certain trading, shedding some much needed light on the dark side of oil.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/17/broadcasts/main4188620.shtml

[OffWithTheirHeads]

8. And just who, exactly, has the kind of money it would take?

The oil companies!

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. Our representatives should be all over this....

our democratic representatives should be as cohesive in their coverage of this as the republicants are with their screaming rage over Anwar.

www.wearableartnow.com

[Fireweed247]

18. If only we had a real democracy with an opposition

It is absurd the Democrats aren't speaking the truth on this, but just like Iran, they just play along. All part of the dog and pony show.

[Fireweed247]

6. This is coming from the "Enron loophole" from Senator Gramm

McCain Closely Connected with man responsible for high Gas Prices!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3463000

Current supply-and-demand levels should place oil at $55 a barrel
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3467607

[EFerrari]

7. A guest on WJ said exactly the same thing on Monday.

He said it in terms of trading oil and how they can trade while holding very little. I didn't understand very much of it be he said, "this is Enron all over again".

And I agree that they're strip mining everything they can before they're out of power, the f#cks. You'd think none of them had families.

[Fireweed247]

9. They create the 'problem' then benefit off of the 'solution'

They seem to do this over and over again without any accountability. What does that say about US?

"You'd think none of them had families"
I know, it's so incredibly greedy and selfish I can't even understand it.
I don't think any of them believe in God either or they would be fearing the ultimate accountability.

[Zodiak]

20. It is the "Shock Doctrine"

Every DUer should read Naomi Klein's powerful, but chilling book.

It explains everything we are going through, and more disturbing, where we are going if we allow these free market ideologues to continue.

They are manufacturing a crisis in order to manufacture reform.....reform they would never pass without the disaster to make it politically possible. And the reforms will shock us even further, allowing even more free market reforms. In the end, we are ruled by oligarchs under a brutal police state that uses terror to further its agenda while we scrabble for table scraps and watch our children starve in the shadows of the oligarch's opulence.

One needs only to look to Pinochet Chile and Yeltsin/Putin Russia for our futures.

[redqueen]

25. It only works because the M$M is completely sold-out.

*sigh*

[formercia]

10. The scam

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/formercia

formercia's Journal
The scam:
Posted by formercia in Latest Breaking News
Fri Jun 13th 2008, 05:58 PM
When you watch Bush Gang in action, you always have to consider the scam. What do these guys really want? What they say at face isn't anywhere near to their real intentions.

Cheney and the gang keep harping about not being able to drill off the East Coast and ANWR and they just salivate at all of the potential areas where they might lock in the leases before January, because after then, the boys are going to have to pay top dollar for every drop of oil from public lands. There isn't going to be any more of those sweetheart deals where someone conveniently fails to put in a royalty clause, wink, wink.

All this crap about the Chinese drilling off of Cuba is bullshit and they know it, so the idea is to stampede the Congress into granting a whole shit load of concessions due to people screaming bloody murder about fuel prices.

Speaking of which.....Cheney gets his oil trader buddies to drive the price of oil through the roof. They get to make a mountain of money, the consumers are ready to scream uncle and all of the loyal Bush Bots are engaged in a campaign to drive Congress into falling for the bait.

Even the Saudis are scratching their butts trying to figure out where the price take-off came from.

We know, don't we...Dick?

[Skidmore]

11. It's extortion.

A crime punishable by imprisonment if any one of us commit it.

[frickaline]

14. jinx!

you owe me a coke!

[Skidmore]

24. Oooohh....

That was spooky!

[frickaline]

12. I use another word to describe this: extortion.

This administration is holding the US hostage for the benefit of the oil companies, aka Dick Chaingun's hunting club.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. No shit!

MSNBC was giving some time this morning to the Democratic Women for Change's checklist that clearly show the difference between Senator Obama and Admiral McCombover.

I posted the list here.

The first person MSNBC had on to talk about it was Senator Mikulski (D-MD). After a brief schpeil, the MSNBC hairdo said she would have republicans on later to "tell their side".

The first Stepford lobbyist to come on spewed about how women were concerned about oil prices and not those things on the list.

I can only say one thing about the GOP: they are obedient.

[Fireweed247]

15. McCain is closely tied to the man responsible for this mess

so there is no way he will improve the situation.

We need to spread this meme about being Enron-ed everywere!

These SOBs will loot as much as they possibly can, because why not? What do they have to lose?
With no accountability in this country, it is a major free for all.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. McCain cannot control his thinning hair, so...

...he puts all his energy into padding his pocketbook.

[Fireweed247]

26. more from Olbermann

Countdown: The Enron Loophole, Gas Prices & McCain - MUST-VIEW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugss-PcNomg

[Cleita]

16. This is why we need impeachment to be heard by the Judiciary Committee.

Although Pelosi et al have said they don't have enough votes, I believe once there are hearings and all the charges are aired, any Congressman whether Democratic or Republican would really be showing complicity with the Bush regime if they don't vote for it. It will take all our Democrats to get behind the resolutions presented by Dennis Kucinich to pressure Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers to start hearings. So everyone needs to hound their Congresspersons about this. Other than that they will spend what is left of Bush's administration just doing what you said and completing the hit job on our country and economy that they started eight years ago.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. Billionaire Mort Zuckerman was on TV this morning shilling big time for this

I don't think I've ever seen him so animated or worked-up. He was tearing into Democrats and blaming them for high oil prices and calling it the outrage of all outrages that they were opposing drilling on the coasts and in Alaska. I wonder what's in it for him, as he didn't mention any of other possible causes of high oil prices, like the war in Iraq, the falling dollar, or the speculation.

[Fireweed247]

21. Kick this people!

This should be at the top of DU greatest, not Russert BS.

We need to fight these bastards. They are not going to stop, not ever, until we stop them!

[Fireweed247]

22. We know the press reads DU

We DU matter!!

If we had threads like this all over the greatest page, maybe they would cover this scam just to show how 'crazy' we all are and then the discussion could take off from there. I am so freaking sick of these greedy scumbags. They are screwing everyone over. Many of us have homes and are adjusting to the squeeze, but what about all the people that are homeless, that are destitute and were already suffering greatly. Imagine all of the veterans returning from Iraq suffering from PTSD, possibly ending up homeless. This is so fucked up!!!!

[KeepItReal]

23. Speculators are trading oil futures with no connection to actual oil shipments

Enron indeed!

Just follow the money...

[Fireweed247]

27. and when we uncover the real truth

I am sure all involved will 'die' like Kenny boy.

[tabasco]

28. I hope this wakes people up to the truth.

The republican propaganda machine is going into overdrive to prevent that.