Obama tells Holder to 'investigate' high gas prices

American Thinker ^ | April 22, 2011 | Ed Lasky

[radioone]

Really, why is he upset given the fact that he - and key officials in his administration (including the Secretary of Energy) - have long desired high prices on energy? But why accept blame when it can be diverted to straw men, a la his screeds against fat cats on Wall Street?

A sampling of his and their opinions:

"Under my plan of cap and trade plan makes electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket"'; "coal powered plants, natural gas, you name it..whatever the plants were...they will have to retrofit their operations..that will cost money and they will have to pass those costs onto consumers

So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can - it's just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted

Your Interior Secretary, who has done your bidding and placed one roadblock after another in the way of developing our own massive energy resources, stated in 2008 that he was opposed to opening up off-shore areas to new oil and gas drilling even if the price per gallon of gasoline hit $10 per gallon.

Mr. President-are these " Just Words"

Also, President Obama, your Secretary of Energy (who, like Salazar, has been busy trying to turn off the spigot to our own oil and gas supplies), called for gasoline to cost $8 per gallon- to push it up to European levels and that we needed to figure out ways to make that happen.

Obama is seeking to shift the blame and hence, redirect the American people's anger at high gas prices to his favorite fall guys: oil companies:

President Obama on Thursday said the Justice Department will launch a new effort to probe oil markets for abuses that might be driving up gasoline prices.

The initiative comes as rising pump prices have shot up the political agenda, prompting daily GOP attacks on Obama's energy policies, which Republicans say have stymied domestic production.

Obama, in a speech in Reno, Nev., said the new effort stems from last month's request that Attorney General Eric Holder probe any potential price gouging.

"Today, I'm going to go a step further. The attorney general's putting together a team whose job it will be to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices - and that includes the role of traders and speculators," Obama said.

"We are going to make sure that nobody is taking advantage of American consumers for their own short-term gain," Obama said.

By definition, "traders and speculators" are in it for short term gain. That's their modus operandi. They are not "taking advantage of the American consumer" so much as they are operating within a volatile market and taking advantage of market conditions.

But since the entire administration has an economics IQ of below 65, what is actually normal market activity becomes evil and bad - and politically advantageous when the president can blame someone else for his own rotten energy policies.

[Hotlanta Mike]

...I hope that smarmy Plouff, Poof, whatever his name is, is laying awake at night with acid indigestion.

---

Perhaps he’ll be leaving soon “to spend more time with his family”.

[Senator_Blutarski]

This, of course, will remind us of when Blagojevich tried to sell the Illinois Senate seat and the White House appeared to have been involved. Obama instructed Obama’s staff to investigate Obama’s staff and they determined that Obama’s staff was not implicated, which was clear proof of innocence to the mainstream media.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I assume everyone knows that the gas prices are going up because the dollar is going down. Thanks Ben. Just keep printing.

[RINOs suck]

Is Holder going to investigate Obama since he as largely responsible for the high gas prices? Nah, Obama is one of his people.

[ronnie raygun]

Look no further than the Whitehouse!

[x]

"Round up the usual suspects."