Yet Another Republican Pushes China-Cuba Oil Myth
This just keeps getting more and more absurd. Now the tall tale about China drilling for oil off American shores has found its way into a House GOP candidate's campaign flyer.
And to make matters even more ridiculous, the candidate's staffers are giving us conflicting information about whether he even sent it out!
The flyer is the work of John Gard, a Wisconsin Republican who narrowly lost a Congressional race in 2006 and is now seeking a rematch against freshman Democrat Steve Kagen. It was handed out at a county fair on June 15, a few days after Dick Cheney was forced to admit that his story about China drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico was false.
And this gets even sillier still.
At first, Gard campaign manager Ellen Nowak told us that these flyers had been scrapped. "We didn't print them that way," Nowak said, after the text was read to her over the phone.
Then she made the mistake of referring us to communications director Mark Graul, who confirmed the flyer's existence. But he said it wasn't about China, insisting that the "foreign nations" reference was to India, Brazil and other countries. "We now know that China are not drilling per se," Graul said, "but other foreign countries are."
Sadly, that's not true, either. Oil companies in India, Canada, Spain and other countries have indeed signed exploration leases with Cuba. But as McClatchy has noted, those same companies have expressed concern that it isn't economical to drill for oil in those places at this point in time. Due to the lack of refinery capacity and the difficulty of reaching oil in those sources, any actual drilling won't start for at least the next few years.
This brings us to a total of four confirmed cases of Republicans continuing to push this story even after Dick Cheney retracted the claim -- and we're still counting.
Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, is alleged to have stated that if a lie is repeated enough times it would become widely accepted as truth.
The Repugs have use the same methods very effectively.
June 27, 2008 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
No kidding.
Their problem these days is that they got caught too many times.
June 27, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, repeat the lie AND suppress the truth - and I wonder if the people at that county fair will ever even hear the truth.
June 27, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
They've got nothing to sell except phony fears.
June 27, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's pathetic that the corporate media do not call out these candidates (and reps) on their lies. Lindsey Graham slipped in a sideways reference to the China myth last Sunday on Meet the Press and both Biden and Brian Williams didn't stop him.
June 27, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that's really starting to bug me as well. When Hillary Clinton was talking about doing the gas holiday, there were all sorts of stories on the news featuring economists and pundits saying how unsound an idea it was, while acknowledging that it was an issue that would play well with "low information voters" who just didn't know better.
Now, McCain is offering the same garbage (except without bothering to talk about how he'd pay for it), and where are those same economists? Nowhere. If I were Hillary, I'd be pissed. It's like the media is making a deliberate effort to bust Democrats for disingenuous arguments, but will allow Republicans to say and do whatever they please. Witness the raking that Obama has taken for opting out of public financing, while McCain is currently breaking the damn law and hasn't had one negative word written about it outside of the progressive blogispere.
McCain himself admits that coastal drilling would only have a psychological impact on the economy and gas prices (which means imaginary and speculative), and no one except Olbermann is taking that on. Dick Cheney was forced to retract the lie about the Chinese drilling, yet Republicans keep repeating it over and over, and our media doesn't do jack to air this story and put an end to that lie.
And they wonder why no one trusts or respects journalism in this country.
June 27, 2008 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The most optimistic scenario projects that the yield from ANWAR would reduce US need for imports (now about 60 percent) by 4 percent. And anyone who thinks that would cut the price ($4.50/gal) at the pump by 18 cents/gal is a fool. Big Oil, whether the oil is pumped domestically or imported, will charge whatever the global market will bear.
June 28, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is the Republicant answer to the overall dislike of all things Repugnanican.
It's a propoganda-like lie, so they are comfortable spewing it. It is anti-Commie and angry.
June 27, 2008 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's true. Venezuela is off the coast of Florida. I mean, it's a long, long way off the coast of Florida, but still...
June 27, 2008 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not run an ad that shows the false ad, debunks it and says "John Gard knowingly lied to you about Chinese oil drilling off the coast of Cuba for political gain. Is this the kind of person you want representing you? What else will he lie about in the future?"
June 27, 2008 11:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Timba, I like that idea really well.
Just share with you my ad idea I posted on one of the other threads on this topic:
A slide show of various American famous properties sold or pending sale to offshore interests since 2001.
[cue ominous music start pianissimo but mounting in volume slowly]
General Motors Building (and a screen overlay SOLD TO DUBAI/KUWAIT/QATER
Flatiron Building (SALE PENDING ITALY)
Chrysler Building (SALE PENDING ABU DHABI)
Anheiser Busch (SALE PENDING BELGIUM)
and so forth. Not to mention aerial shots of highways and bridges now owned by overseas toll operators!!
After this demoralizing display, the screen goes black with white lettering FIRE SALE AMERICA and a solemn voice-over: "Bush/Cheney oversaw the sale of your country to overseas interests. Now McCain promises more of the same." [insert archive b&w footage of McCain shaking hands with some distinguishably "foreign" looking dignitary][end music]
Then you close off this spot, with a wind-blown Obama in a cornfield with a silo in the background saying he won't sell our birthright, etc.!
Run it in every market the opposition runs their China drilling ad.
June 27, 2008 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Petrobras studying block in deep Cuban waters
HAVANA, May 30 (Reuters) - Brazilian state oil company Petrobras is studying a block in deep Cuban waters for possible exploration as part of broader cooperation with the Caribbean island, a top advisor to the company said on Friday.
"We are planning to cooperate not only in exploration and production, but lubricants, refining and training," Andre Ghirardi told Reuters in Havana at a one-day meeting of Brazilian and Cuban businessmen.
"We are working on the possibility of exploring a block in the Gulf of Mexico, but negotiations have not ended, they are advancing," he said.
Interest in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico blocks has picked up as oil prices soar.
Seven foreign companies have signed exploration agreements with Cuban state oil company CUPET for 28 of the 59 blocks available in the deep Gulf of Mexico waters of Cuba's economic exclusion zone fronting the United States.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the North Cuba basin could contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil, with a high-end potential of 9.3 billion barrels, and close to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Ghirardi said negotiations to build a lubricants plant in Cuba were going well, though no agreement had been signed.
Venezuela's PDVSA has become a major player in the Cuban oil industry.
PDVSA and Cuba have started up and are expanding a Soviet-built oil refinery in central Cienfuegos province and modernizing another in eastern Santiago de Cuba.
The two companies have formed joint ventures in refining and shipping.
PDVSA has also taken out blocks in the gulf, as have Spain's Repsol-YPF (REP.MC: Quote, Profile, Research), India's ONGC (ONGC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Nordsk Hydro (NHY.OL: Quote, Profile, Research), Vietnam state oil and gas group Petrovietnam, Malaysia's state-run Petronas [PETR.UL] and Canada's Sherritt International [S.TO].
The director of exploration for CUPET said this year that activity was picking up in Cuba's deep waters.
"Right now seismic studies are under way on 2,300 square kilometers and very soon three-dimensional studies will begin on 4,500 square kilometers in the Gulf of Mexico," Rafael Tenreyro said.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN3033900120080530?sp=true
June 28, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Petrobras Set to Explore Gulf of Mexico Offshore Cuba (and Key West)
Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - Petrobras and the Companhia Cubana de Petroleo (Cupet) signed a wide-ranging exploration & production, lubricant, refining, maintenance, research & development, and human resource cooperation agreement in Havana on Jan. 15.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=55360
June 28, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a voter living in Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District, Gard's had little, to no, public exposure, since he announced.
Gard has made moronic claims about incumbent Rep. Steve Kagen's (D-Wi8) voting record.
Gard claims some votes, like this ad does were against some action....by the truth is the votes he listed, were 100% procedural motion votes....not one was on an actual bill passed.
Gard, in 2006 whined over Kagen's ability to use his own money, yet Gard was allowed to get bigger donations under the Millionaires Amendment. SCOTUS shot that down this week, and now Gard has to return tens of thousands, he's raised this year using that rule. Donors are not impressed with Gard, and many of his supporters from 2006, have given Kagen & Obama.
Here's the really disgusting part(s) of Gard's operation.
His campaing manager is Mark Graul, who masterminded the campaign, of the former Rep. Mark Green when he ran for Gov in 2006. Graul & Green decided to illegally transfer fed campaign money to a state race...a big no-no, with Wisconsin law. Green lost and was forced to return $473,000 and Graul was shown to have accept sports event tickets, and ask for more, from Jack Abramoffm while Green's Chief of Staff in DC.
After Green lost, Bush made his Ambassador to Tanzania.
Graul went on to run the worst State Supreme Court race in Wisconsin's history.
Graul ran the campaign of Wi Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler, who denied unethical rulings in 42 cases, where her husbands bank benefited....no recusal, no notice of conflict to the plaintiffs...
Then she admittted all the unethical conduct, ONLY after she won with a partisan 527 PAC spending twice what both candidates for the court seat raised! She got a wrist slap from her peers, on the high court.
Graul continues to claim she did nothing wrong...so Gard hires this guy to run his campaign...or was told to hire him.
Some think the latter is the case.
Voters know what's going on, with Gard...which may be why he is not seen on local media, or in public....
The Wisc GOP from Brown County, the largest in the 8th, also has serious problems. It's former chairman, a Don Fleischman, was arrested in Nov 2006, for felony sex crimes against boys, including offering them beer and pot. It gets worse.
Fleischman, who was arrested, remained the county chair and spokesman until, this blogger broker the story of his arrest, in Nov 2007...a full year after his arrest.
Once the media got the story, Fleischman and the entire GOP staff resigned...and the state decertified, the oldest and original Republican party local chapters in the nation. They protected this guy, after his arrest, and did nothing until it was too late to save him, or the local chapter.
Typical Republican values on full parade in Green Bay.
It gets even worse, in this sex crime case...
The young man, who was Fleischman's targeted victim, was found hiding in a closet in his underwear, by police. He lived across the street from Felschman, in a troubled teen home.
The kid and his family moved, and Fleischman got his case tossed when the kid did not show up for court...well, the kid was in school...so Fleischman got the court to issue an arrest warrant....only to expose his name to the public, which was held private, as he was a minor at the time of the crime, but is now an adult. So the kid gets arrested, taken out of school, and hauled up to GB.
The District Attorney was not pleased, and re-filed all the charges against this GOP jerk.
He goes to trial, in GReen Bay, in early Sept....just in time for the election. Lots of pics of Gard and this guy are out there, as is video of Gard and Flesichman, from 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006.
I suppose the 'quilt by association' is not too fair, but when the sex offender is one of the main fundraisiers, I guess that association is the real quilt.
Gard has not made any statement on Fleischmans arrest, the charges, the protection of kids, and the year long cover up of the crime.
Congress just passed the Protection of Teens in Residential Facilities Act this week, to increase penalties for those who prey on the kids, in the same kind of facility Fleischman moved near.
No word from Gard.
Here's the rub....Fleischman resigned in Nov 2007, yet the state's election board shows his name on the finance reports dated jan 31, 2008. The Wisconsin Elections Board ( Now called the Wisc Accountability Baord) is investigating this report and Fleischman's authority to sign the document.
Gard is not just a myth promoter, he is also a very disliked former Assembly member, who played obstructionist in the state capitol. The Wisconsin Legistlature was glad to see him go.
Gard has not found a job, since his loss in 2006. His income report shows his income, is that of his wife.
Gard's choice of Graul, and his support by the very partisan, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce PAC, his failure to get a real job, his silence on a sex offender running the local party, are critical issues, that voters are away of.
This is not just Gard, failing to use Google, it is a failure of that regions GOP to hold itself accountable, respectable and capable of following the values of Wisconsin.
One Joe McCarthy, making moronic claims, was enough for Wisconsin...
By the way...Wisconsin has no oil.
June 29, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink