"Drill, baby, drill!" "Sell out to the Japanese, baby, sell out to the Japanese!"

The Republicans have just spent a month going completely frothy over the need to drill for oil and natural gas in every backyard in America, claiming it'll lower gasoline prices at the pump.

But did you know that in the meantime, they've been preparing to secret all that natural gas out of the country and sell it to the Japanese?

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) did:

September 2, 2008 The Honorable Samuel W. Bodman

U.S. Department of Energy

1000 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, DC 20585 Dear Secretary Bodman, On June 3, 2008 and July 30, 2008 respectively, your Department issued and affirmed an order pursuant to Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act that will allow two major integrated oil companies – ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil – to export 98.1 billion cubic feet of Alaskan natural gas to Japan and other Pacific Rim countries. This order, which will allow the export of as much natural gas as is used by 1.4 million American families in a year, comes at a time when the President had demanded that the moratoria on oil and gas drilling along our environmentally-sensitive coastal areas be lifted and Americans are being warned that their winter heating bills are going to be dramatically higher. The Administration is trying to have it both ways – arguing that we need to drill everywhere because we don’t have adequate energy supplies, while finding that we have so much energy that big oil companies can export it overseas and keep prices here at home higher than they would otherwise be.

Well, well, well. Energy prices going through the roof in the U.S., supposedly because we're not drilling enough, and the Republicans are selling what we are drilling out the back door! Wish I could say this was a surprise.

And sakes alive! Who'd have guessed it'd be Slick Sarah Palin and the Alaskans selling it off? We're all paying through the nose for our energy needs down here, Republicans are wetting themselves over the supposed need for more drilling, and Slick Sarah and her cronies are hawking their America's wares to overseas bidders. Which, not coincidentally, has the effect of hiking the prices Reg'lar Hockey MomsTM pay to, say, heat the seats in their new boondoggle hockey rinks, and, it seems, boosting the dividend checks paid directly to... Alaskan families like Sarah Palin's, who received $3200 per head this year. Wow! I haven't seen a scam this blatant since yesterday, when we found out Slick Sarah was charging Alaska taxpayers $60 a day to sleep in and munch those mooseburgers in her own kitchen.

So they're pumping up prices by selling off the gas they told you was ours to the Japanese, and then paying themselves bonuses when they do! (Plus extra for cheating you from home!)

Enough with the skimming already, you jerks!

What's the difference between a Hockey MomTM and Enron?

Yeah, it turns out that's lipstick too.