Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck

[Octafish]

War Is a Racket, the biggest business there is.



President Kill by Carl Oxley III

Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck

By Naomi Klein, The Nation
Posted on July 4, 2008, Printed on July 4, 2008

Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." It usually goes well -- until it doesn't.

For instance, "independent conservative" radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: "I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down," Doyle announced. "We've invested $650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Shouldn't we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the Stinkin' Lincoln, at rush hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government ... . Why don't we just take the oil? We've invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in ten days, not ten years."

There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stickup in world history. The second, that he was too late: "We" are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the cusp of doing so.

It's been ten months since the publication of my book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which I argue that today's preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis. With the globe being rocked by multiple shocks, this seems like a good time to see how and where the strategy is being applied.

And the disaster capitalists have been busy -- from private firefighters already on the scene in Northern California's wildfires, to land grabs in cyclone-hit Burma, to the housing bill making its way through Congress. The bill contains little in the way of affordable housing, shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers and makes sure that the banks that made bad loans get some payouts. No wonder it is known in the hallways of Congress as "The Credit Suisse Plan," after one of the banks that generously proposed it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/90409/?ses=6c0ca665f9c6b4...

"Money trumps peace." -- George Walker Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

[mix]

1. it's the bush family way

eom

[Octafish]

2. Thanks for reminding me! Know your Bush Family Evil Empire!

Happy Birthday U.S.A.!

Know your BFEE Log




Know your BFEE: Forget Rev. Wright! It’s Bush and His Cronies Who Owe an Apology for Rev. Moon!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


Know your BFEE: GW Bush Covers Up His Lying America Into War

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Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation’s S&Ls for Power and Profit

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Know your BFEE: Bush has Killed a Million Innocent People for Their Oil.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


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Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

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Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


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What the heck, these belongs here, too:

BFEE Turd Daniel Pipes tied to DANISH CARTOONS

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

How the US Armed Iraq - In the Loop: Poppy's Secret Mission (Waas & Unger)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


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Know your BFEE: WHIG (White House Iraq Group) made phony case for Iraq War

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Know your BFEE: Reinhard Gehlen

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Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

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Know your BFEE: Killer Businessmen who put Power and Profit before Country

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Know your BFEE: Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam

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Know your BFEE: Corrupt Craftsmen Hoover and Dulles

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Know your BFEE: Poppy’s CIA Made Saddam Into the Butcher of Baghdad

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


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Know your BFEE: Merchants of Death

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Know your BFEE: R. James Woolsey, Turd of War

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Know your BFEE: Sneering Dick Cheney, Superturd-Superrich-Supercrook

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Know your BFEE: Bush Lied America into War

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Know your BFEE: Pat Robertson Incorporated a Gold Mine with a Terrorist

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...



These aren’t labeled “Know Your BFEE,” but they’re meant in the same spirit:

Poppy Bush Involved in JFK Assassination -- BFEE's Spooked!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and ''Conspiracy Theorists'' at Ford Funeral

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Blecht]

23. Awesome collection of information, Octafish

Thank you so much for taking the time to put all this information within easy reach.


You are amazing.

[Karenina]

3. Millions of barrels of unmetered oil

are and have been pumped from Iraq EVERY DAY FOR OVER FIVE YEARS. Wonder where it is?

[Octafish]

4. The Prize

Texas Tea lovers call it that, with bad reason.

"presidential" press conference with Ari Fleischer, Feb 6, 2003

questions by Helen Thomas

Q Since you speak for the President, we have no access to him, can you categorically deny that the United States will take over the oil fields when we win this war? Which is apparently obvious and you're on your way and I don't think you doubt your victory. Oil -- is it about oil?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, as I've told you many times, if this had anything to do with oil, the position of the United States would be to lift the sanctions so the oil could flow. This is not about that. This is about saving lives by protecting the American people --

Q We will not take over the oil fields, are you saying that?

MR. FLEISCHER: The oil fields belong to the people of Iraq, the government of Iraq, all of Iraq. All the resources --

Q And we don't want any part of that?

MR. FLEISCHER: -- of Iraq need to be administered by the Iraqi government. And any action that is taken in Iraq is going to be taken with an eye toward the future of Iraq. And that involves the protecting of infrastructure, providing humanitarian aid. And that needs to be done by the Iraqi people.

Q There are reports that we've divided up the oil already, divvied it up with the Russians and French and so forth. Isn't that true?

MR. FLEISCHER: What's the source of these reports that you cite?

Q They're all over the place.

MR. FLEISCHER: Can you be more specific?

Q That we have just -- we will take the oil fields and then we will parcel out the oil.

MR. FLEISCHER: But you cited some reports. I'm just curious about -- if you can be more specific about the source of these reports that you're citing here today.

Q -- have you been reading the newspapers?

MR. FLEISCHER: Can you be more specific? Anywhere in particular?

Q Senator Lugar said it.

MR. FLEISCHER: No, there's no truth to that, that we would divide up the oil fields. As I --

Q Your own people have said something -- but I'm sorry I can't pinpoint it.

MR. FLEISCHER: As I indicated, the infrastructure of Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq. And that is going to be respected.

Q Why should you decide what is their infrastructure or their government?

MR. FLEISCHER: Obviously, if the regime changes there will be a new government. And the government will represent the people of Iraq.

SOURCE w lotsalotsa good info:

http://www.oilempire.us/iraqoil.html

Bushco is staffed by liars. And thiefs. And gangsters. And mass-murderers. And warmongers. And traitors.

Thank you for noticing and doing so much about it, Karenina!

[antigop]

5. Private equity seen near-term US banking fix

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7615749

Regulators are looking at easing rules to help private equity firms take stakes in U.S. banks, in a move that may not be a long-term solution, but could provide a near-term boost to the ailing sector.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is considering adjusting current rules that generally make it hard for investors to buy more than 9.9 percent of a bank's shares without seeking permission from regulators.
Private equity firms like Carlyle Group are pushing regulators to loosen the rules.
But private equity firms typically invest limited amounts of capital for finite periods, which may not be ideal for a bank looking to assure depositors of its strength.
"Bank regulators like stable money," said Gregory Lyons, chair of the financial services group and banking practice at law firm Goodwin Procter.
However, banks are in dire need of capital, and in some cases they need it fast. That's where private equity can help -- they can quickly provide capital for five years or longer. In the meantime, the economy can improve, allowing banks to improve their financial footing, and other investors may step in to buy out private equity funds.
"The Fed is looking for a pool of capital to help become the shock absorber during this interim period," said Paul Lee, head of the banking practice at law firm Debevoise & Plimpton in New York.

=====>'Private equity firms like Carlyle Group are pushing regulators to loosen the rules.'<==========

[Octafish]

10. Just what we need. Poppy and the his Petroturd Pals owning Bankamericard.

Wo! Thanks, antigop! You and Seafan shed real light on the subject:

Carlyle Group's plan to takeover the banking system

Really wish I had seen that thread. In the meantime, I've rounded up all the articles on the subject I can find. Who knows how much longer we have the Internet.

[bbgrunt]

6. everyone just misses the point that Palast laid out

in "Armed Madhouse": The war was not to liberate the oil, but to sequester it so the price would increase and make billions for those who deal in it.

[Octafish]

11. Absolutely agree with Palast. Like what ENRON did to Kali-forn-ya.

They crimped the hose and stopped the flow, much to the amazement of their cash register. Under Smirk and Sneer, oil's gone from $20 to $145 and climbing. They couldn't be happier, almost.

That's why the insatiable greedheads want more and more and more. The thing about Iraq's oil is they are the largest proven reserves left. Whoever owns, or controls, it gets to call the petroshots for the future.

Iraq: Oil and Economy

Sands of Iraq hold world's 2nd largest oil reserve

In a Feb. 26 address, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called suggestions that the US is really after Iraq's oil "utter nonsense."

"We don't take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does," he said. "We never have, and we never will. That's not how democracies behave."

Nonsense aside, the sands of Iraq hold oil... lots of it. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), "Iraq holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil - the world's second largest proven reserves. Iraq also contains 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and is a focal point for regional and international security issues."

CONTINUED...

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aairaqioil.ht...

Typical can't-lose BFEE business plan. They play both sides and game the system.

[Supersedeas]

15. national security is a code word for oil to these people, who represent the interest of oil men

[Octafish]

17. War Inc needs gas.

There's a reason the War Party luvs Big Oil.
They run in the same circles.

The Pentagon v. Peak Oil

How Wars of the Future May Be Fought Just to Run the Machines That Fight Them

By Michael T. Klare

Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That's greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million -- and yet it's a gross underestimate of the Pentagon's wartime consumption.

Such numbers cannot do full justice to the extraordinary gas-guzzling expense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, for every soldier stationed "in theater," there are two more in transit, in training, or otherwise in line for eventual deployment to the war zone -- soldiers who also consume enormous amounts of oil, even if less than their compatriots overseas. Moreover, to sustain an "expeditionary" army located halfway around the world, the Department of Defense must move millions of tons of arms, ammunition, food, fuel, and equipment every year by plane or ship, consuming additional tanker-loads of petroleum. Add this to the tally and the Pentagon's war-related oil budget jumps appreciably, though exactly how much we have no real way of knowing.

And foreign wars, sad to say, account for but a small fraction of the Pentagon's total petroleum consumption. Possessing the world's largest fleet of modern aircraft, helicopters, ships, tanks, armored vehicles, and support systems -- virtually all powered by oil -- the Department of Defense (DoD) is, in fact, the world's leading consumer of petroleum. It can be difficult to obtain precise details on the DoD's daily oil hit, but an April 2007 report by a defense contractor, LMI Government Consulting, suggests that the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. This is greater than the total national consumption of Sweden or Switzerland.

Not "Guns v. Butter," but "Guns v. Oil"

For anyone who drives a motor vehicle these days, this has ominous implications. With the price of gasoline now 75 cents to a dollar more than it was just six months ago, it's obvious that the Pentagon is facing a potentially serious budgetary crunch. Just like any ordinary American family, the DoD has to make some hard choices: It can use its normal amount of petroleum and pay more at the Pentagon's equivalent of the pump, while cutting back on other basic expenses; or it can cut back on its gas use in order to protect favored weapons systems under development. Of course, the DoD has a third option: It can go before Congress and plead for yet another supplemental budget hike, but this is sure to provoke renewed calls for a timetable for an American troop withdrawal from Iraq, and so is an unlikely prospect at this time.

Nor is this destined to prove a temporary issue. As recently as two years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) was confidently predicting that the price of crude oil would hover in the $30 per barrel range for another quarter century or so, leading to gasoline prices of about $2 per gallon. But then came Hurricane Katrina, the crisis in Iran, the insurgency in southern Nigeria, and a host of other problems that tightened the oil market, prompting the DoE to raise its long-range price projection into the $50 per barrel range. This is the amount that figures in many current governmental budgetary forecasts -- including, presumably, those of the Department of Defense. But just how realistic is this? The price of a barrel of crude oil today is hovering in the $66 range. Many energy analysts now say that a price range of $70-$80 per barrel (or possibly even significantly more) is far more likely to be our fate for the foreseeable future.

CONTINUED...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174810 /

Hope soon they all run in the same circles. Like the eight or ninth Circle.

[Pale Blue Dot]

12. The problem I have with Palast

is that he used several logical fallacies in "Armed Madhouse" in an attempt to disprove the theory of peak oil. For a journalist of his caliber to reject scientific evidence merely because one of the scientists who presented said evidence once worked for the oil industry strikes me as the worst kind of confirmation bias.

[Wiley50]

7. Thank You For Being Frank

about this evil monster

Thanks to all of us for defining this nasty thing

BUT

How the hell can we fight back and kill it?

How do you attack against a Hydra?

[Octafish]

14. Hydra Is Reich.

Maybe we need to approach the BFEE as Herakles did his Hydra.

The Hydra was the spawn of Typhon and Echidna. A dragon-kind, with multiple heads, who breathed a deadly venom. The creature's specific purpose was to test Herakles. Its den was in the marshes around Lerna in the Peloponnese. During this labor, Herakles was assisted by his nephew, Iolaus, son of his twin brother, Iphicles. Iolaus lit the marshes on fire to drive the Hydra to Herakles. In battle, Herakles would behead a part of the monster, but a new head would grow in its place. The only way to utterly defeat it was for Herakles to cut off a head and Iolaus to cauterize it. After the last head was defeated, the body was buried. The Hydra's blood was also poisonous, so Herakles dipped all of his arrows in it, making them even more deadly.

SOURCE: http://www.beastcoins.com/Topical/Hercules/Hercules.htm

The BFEE's corruptions and evils are so many and vast, we need more than a scorecard. We need IBM and Apple.

The Truth will cut off each head. There are so many, we need many nephews and nieces. That's where the Internets come in.

[AntiFascist]

8. Jerry Doyle is one sick mofo...

basically he's saying: 'why don't we just bomb the hell out of Middle Eastern nations and steal their oil, then we can claim we are liberating them and that they owe us." Gee, maybe because that would make us look like a ruthless, ultra-aggressive empire and there might be repercussions, not to mention that a true democracy should decide its own fate?

[Octafish]

18. A very small turd in the Bushco cesspool, Doyle is a wanna-be NAZI.

I'd add he's a scumbucket, too, but that would dis real scumbuckets.

It is glaringly obvious that many of today's big shots have strong roots in the fascist past. Wars of agression. Wars for natural resources. Wars for power and wealth for the priviledged.

Remember how CIA sent Poppy looking for the stuff during Vietnam?

CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture

A Real News exclusive, first published on The Huffington Post
By Russ Baker | January 7, 2007

Newly released internal CIA documents assert that former president George Herbert Walker Bush's oil company emerged from a 1950's collaboration with a covert CIA officer.

Bush has long denied allegations that he had connections to the intelligence community prior to 1976, when he became Central Intelligence Agency director under President Gerald Ford. At the time, he described his appointment as a 'real shocker.'

But the freshly uncovered memos contend that Bush maintained a close personal and business relationship for decades with a CIA staff employee who, according to those CIA documents, was instrumental in the establishment of Bush's oil venture, Zapata, in the early 1950s, and who would later accompany Bush to Vietnam as a “cleared and witting commercial asset” of the agency.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Bush's original oil company, Zapata Petroleum, began in 1953 through joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business. The '75 memo describes Devine as an “oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush.” The memo is attached to an earlier memo written in 1968, which lays out how Devine resumed work for the secret agency under commercial cover beginning in 1963.

“Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil,” the memo reads. In fact, early Zapata corporate filings do not seem to reflect Devine's role in the company, suggesting that it may have been covert. Yet other documents do show Thomas Devine on the board of an affiliated Bush company, Zapata Offshore, in January, 1965, more than a year after he had resumed work for the spy agency.

It was while Devine was in his new CIA capacity as a commercial cover officer that he accompanied Bush to Vietnam the day after Christmas in 1967, remaining in the country with the newly elected congressman from Texas until January 11, 1968. Whatever information the duo was seeking, they left just in the nick of time. Only three weeks after the two men departed Saigon, the North Vietnamese and their Communist allies launched the Tet offensive with seventy thousand troops pre-positioned in more than 100 cities and towns.

While the elder Bush was in Vietnam with Devine, George W. Bush was making contact with representatives of the Texas Air National Guard, using his father's connections to join up with an elite, Houston-based Guard unit - thus avoiding overseas combat service in a war that the Bushes strongly supported.

The new revelation about George H.W. Bush's CIA friend and fellow Zapata Offshore board member will surely fuel further speculation that Bush himself had his own associations with the agency.

CONTINUED...

http://www.realnews.org/index.php-option=com_content&ta...

One of the most tragic things in our nation's modern history is that Capitalism's Invisible Army really serves the Capitalists, not We the People. Another is that many believe it's not fascism when we do it.

[AntiFascist]

24. Maybe its time to coin a new term: Oil Fascism...

much of the evil in the New World Order seems to relate to it. The Terror Economy with its drug currency is allowed to stand so long as it gives Big Oil a leg in to wage wars of aggression in order to tap into oil resources. The masses of common people are merely obstacles, or pawns to use as they please to stir up fear and anger and provide political support for their empirical objectives. I'm not sure I would call this true capitalism. When the aristocracy controls all capital and resources there is no room left for real competition. It becomes more like National Socialism, with its no bid contracts, and people who are not part of the ruling class become dependent on the government for their livelihood. To each according to their needs, provided that they serve the aristocracy and so long as their needs (including those spelled out in the Bill of Rights) don't interfere with the greater goals.

[Time for change]

9. Naomi Klein explains this racket better than anyone I've ever read

Her book, "The Shock Doctrine -- The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", is one of the most informative books I've ever read.

I hope that some day these war profiteers end up where they belong.

[lonestarnot]

13. Best book on the market!

[Octafish]

19. The Hague is Open 24/7.

In 200 days, there really may be no place for these thugs to hide.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ICC is based on a treaty, joined by 106 countries.

The ICC is a court of last resort. It will not act if a case is investigated or prosecuted by a national judicial system unless the national proceedings are not genuine, for example if formal proceedings were undertaken solely to shield a person from criminal responsibility. In addition, the ICC only tries those accused of the gravest crimes.

In all of its activities, the ICC observes the highest standards of fairness and due process. The jurisdiction and functioning of the ICC are governed by the Rome Statute.

http://www.icc-cpi.int/home.html&l=en

And we really do have a good chance of seeing the war criminals in the dock at The Hague, Time for change. That is, provided they have not yet been found guilty of treason and war crimes in the U.S.A.

[Theres-a]

16. K & R

[Octafish]

20. State Extortion

That's what mobsters do. Economists like Milton Friedman, too.

The Shock Doctrine Short Film

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

We live in Gangster Times, my Friend.

[Fire Walk With Me]

21. Oh Jerry, do you really believe that or are you simply shocking people into listening to you?

Thanks for the excellent article. The sad facts speak clearly, and vastly.

By the very formula of disaster capitalism, one must re-view 9/11 as well.

[Uncle Joe]

22. Excellent column by Naomi Klein

Regarding oil drilling in ANWR and such, why haven't the oil companies drilled on the vast amount of off shore areas with proven oil reserves of which they already have a right to? This is something Senator Biden brought up well on last Sunday's MTP, he stated they already have rights to drill on approximately 80% of known offshore reserves and have never drilled.

I believe the answer being that Cheney/Bush want higher oil prices and a weaker dollar period. I also believe that is the true motivation for much of their saber rattling with Iran, rumors of war cause fear or uncertainty particularly with a major oil producer on Iraq's border; where a large percent of the population are sympathetic to Iran. Of course should they or Israel attack Iran, this will be magnified.

I also believe Cheney/Bush and their oil corporate enablers ie: Exxon, know global warming climate change is for real and this is their strategy to gouge the world before humanity adapts to those changes with new energy technology. ANWR is just their strategy to scapegoat the environmentalists for the cause of high energy prices.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.




"Iraq isn't the only country in the midst of an oil-related stickup. The Bush Administration is busily using a related crisis -- the soaring price of fuel -- to revive its dream of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). And of drilling offshore. And in the rock-solid shale of the Green River Basin. "Congress must face a hard reality," said George W. Bush on June 18. "Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today's painful levels -- or even higher -- our nation must produce more oil."

This is the President as Extortionist in Chief, with gas nozzle pointed to the head of his hostage -- which happens to be the entire country. Give me ANWR, or everyone has to spend their summer vacations in the backyard. A final stickup from the cowboy President."