In the film “All the President’s Men,” Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s shadowy source, “Deep Throat,” says, “follow the money.” Some point to evidence that there really was no Deep Throat, or that there were actually half a dozen Deep Throats, but what the supposed source actually says in Woodward and Bernstein’s book is: “The key was the secret campaign cash, and it should all be traced.”
Despite the fact that attacking rich oil companies is a favored Democratic Party talking point, President Joe Biden has for all intents and purposes been converting oil into campaign cash for his party’s House and Senate candidates as their mid-term campaigns go into high gear–and it doesn’t take any investigative reporting to trace it. This president has been abusing his executive powers over the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is only supposed to be tapped into during times of emergency, and Democrats at risk of losing congressional seats doesn’t qualify as one of those times.
GasBuddy.com reports that gasoline under $3 a gallon can now be found in areas near Houston, Atlanta, and within Mississippi. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee earlier this month boasted that “gas prices are down more than $1.20 a gallon in just about 70 days. That’s because the president increased supplies, went after price gouging, and released the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” In fact, the Democratic-controlled Congress hasn’t enacted its threatened hate-oil legislation restricting Big Oil’s supposed price gouging, for which there is no evidence; nor has it passed the windfall profits tax Democrats proposed for oil companies. And Biden has done the opposite of increasing supplies, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and imposing restrictions on energy production in Alaska and on federal lands and waters, at variance with Congressional directives.
Even with the drops, the average price at the pump remains $1.30 above the $2.38 the country enjoyed the week of Biden’s inauguration last year; from then to the week before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine the average price of gas has increased by nearly 50 percent. What’s more, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just warned of a return to higher gas prices after the mid-term elections in November, citing the European Union’s pending reduction in the purchase of oil from Russia as it continues its war against Ukraine.
