Gas attack

You know you're dealing with unhinged adversaries when, in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, they hold on ever more tightly to their delusions and fantasies. Nowhere is the disconnect more obvious than the current Republican line of attack, blaming Obama for rising gas prices. Here in North Carolina, the Tea Party's "drill baby drill" team is out in full force, with the magnificent Pat McCrory as their standard bearer for greed and gluttony.

There is no question that Republicans are better at exploiting human laziness and ignorance than Democrats are. We are a nation of fools, and the GOP Tea Party has our number. But for those few independent-minded Republicans who aren't quite ready to abandon rational thinking, Carter Eskew at the Washington Post today has a good summary of the essential ingredients that factor into gas prices.

Gas prices are driven by: 1.) geo-political forces, exaggerated by an active futures market. Day-to-day supply and demand are secondary to speculation about what might happen to supply given the latest in Iran, Venezuela or Mexico; 2.) a falling U.S. dollar; and 3.) the market’s conclusion that “peak oil” has arrived with the coming on line of India’s and China’s automobile ownership.

To further demonstrate the disconnect between traditional laws of supply and demand when it comes to gas prices, consumption in the United States is down and production is at a six-year high.

Don't expect reality to have any impact on the GOP Tea Party agenda. They'd just as soon torch the entire planet to help Jim Rogers get a bigger CEO bonus from Duke Energy. And if they can pollute North Carolina's aquifers along the way, all the better. In their Neanderthal view, that'll make it even easier for some other corporatist to get rich selling water.