David

Karki

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August 8, 2008

GOP House Members Stage Mini-Rebellion: It’s the American Oil Party

Well, no sooner did I write a column envisioning it than we almost had the real thing.

Last Friday, about 40 House Republicans staged a spontaneous protest on the floor of the chamber, when Speaker Nancy “Nine Percent Approval Rating” Pelosi forcibly adjourned the House for a five-week vacation to avoid taking any vote on domestic energy drilling – precisely because she would lose it.

Pelosi was caught between a political rock and a hard place: Allow the vote, watch a good number of Democrats defect so as to protect themselves in an election year, and see the enviro-wacko lobby turn against the party. Or block the vote when gas prices are at $4 a gallon entering the home stretch of an election, drive that approval rating into negative numbers, and more importantly, hurt the country for the sake of appeasing a far-left interest group that's part of the Democratic base.

And I'll give Nine Percent Nancy credit for consistency. Just as she did with the Columbian Free Trade Agreement (illegally sandbagging it to appease Big Labor), she cheated to rig the outcome so as to please the green lobby, putting selfish political interests ahead of what was best for the nation. And she did so with a ruthlessness and petty vindictiveness that doesn't befit the office she holds, and should make us all uneasy.

Two hundred eighteen Democrats followed her dictatorial marching orders and voted to adjourn earlier than planned so as to avoid the uncomfortable drilling vote, walking out while GOP members were still speaking on the floor, and when these members refused to leave, she shut off the lights and the public address system, ordered the visitor and press galleries cleared, and forced C-SPAN's TV camera to be turned off.

The GOP members gave rousing speeches denouncing the Democrats' energy stonewalling, as well as Pelosi's underhanded and thuggish tactics. Rep. Fabian Nunes (R-CA) held up a poster of a VW Beetle with a sail atop it, captioned “The Democrat Energy Plan.”

"This is the people's House!" said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI),"This is not Pelosi's politburo!" When one Republican luckily guessed the password to briefly reactivate the microphone, Pelosi had the electricity to the entire chamber shut off completely.

When this still didn't stop things and more GOP members and staffers gathered, as well as sympathetic visitors  in the galleries invited onto the House floor itself (at one point, a visiting Cub Scout pack filled a good number of the members' seats), Pelosi issued orders for even the water to be shut off and Capitol Hill Police to lock them inside.

Luckily, it didn't come to the spectacle of police dragging handcuffed Cub Scouts out of the House or locking them in the Capitol until after Labor Day. The original deadline Pelosi gave passed, and about an hour thereafter most everyone finally left of their own accord.

For about four-plus hours, we had a real mini-rebellion break out, an American Oil Party (or Texas Tea Party, if you like) right in the U.S. House chamber. The colonists who staged the original in Boston might not be too impressed, but for a nation grown ignorant and lazy and a Congress that's far worse, this isn't a bad opener at all. Heck, Lexington and Concord were just small skirmishes before Bunker Hill, too.

I'm sure most of you reading this are thinking I'm well over the top, but look at the nature of the opposition that was put on full display for those who could get past the media blackout. The Speaker of the House ducked a vote on a critical issue, and when she was challenged on it, her first instinct was to get her inner fascist freak on – to the point of censoring C-SPAN and initially ordering U.S. citizens be dragged out of the Capitol building.

Rather than having the tiniest bit of a sense of humor – not to mention strategic sense – and letting it go, she was so petulant that she was actually willing to create the spectacle of handcuffed Cub Scouts being lugged out by police, though I suppose you can't have a spectacle when the media refuses to cover it (save for Fox News). Does anyone really think that if Denny Hastert had done the same thing, it wouldn't have been the lead story until his resignation was forced?

Think about that: What does it tell you about Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and what they're capable of doing with unchecked power should Barack Obama win the presidency? And thus what the rest of us might have to do in order to retain the smallest modicum of liberty and freedom? Or to simply get at the huge domestic energy reserves that the radical environmentalists, through those two, are holding hostage?

Our future as a nation depends on this. Electricity doesn't magically come out of the wall socket, nor gasoline out of the pump. If we do not get past the liberal blockade, our way of life will not continue as it has been. The far left has made it clear that they intend to take full advantage of this chance to get rid of traditional energy and all the things it powers, whether it be by pricing it out of most of our reach or direct elimination. (Never mind that solar, wind and the like can't possibly hope to make up a tiny fraction of that, no matter how over-subsidized they are.)

Pelosi has made it equally clear that even the smallest attempt to stop their delusional green goals will be met with thuggish force. We need to stop this while we still can – if conflict is as inevitable as it looks, better that it be sooner than later.

President Bush needs to use his Article II, Section 3 powers to call a special session of Congress and not let Pelosi and Reid get away with hiding for five weeks to placate the Sierra Club and Greenpeace. Furthermore, he needs to veto the continuing resolution containing the drilling ban renewal and have the GOP sustain the veto, so that on October 1 we have a government shutdown due solely to Democratic energy intransigence.

This is no time to go wobbly. It's a situation where what's best for America and the GOP dovetails nicely. And it's not one we can afford to lose. Here's hoping last Friday was just the beginning of the American Oil Party.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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