Gas prices - on the rise, again

Isn't it convenient that the very day after Mitt Romney won the Illinois primary by a resounding margin that gas prices shot up to nearly $4 a gallon. I smell a rat. Republicans will do anything to get rid of Barack Obama, even having their Wall Street buddies manipulate oil prices on the stock market to shoot them skyward so they can say, See, we told you so, you need to elect us, and we promise you that gas will return to $2.50 a gallon the day after election day. What horse puckey! Already we're drilling more oil than we ever have as a nation and demand has actually fallen for oil and gas in recent years. Republicans are squarely blaming Obama for rejecting the XL pipeline from Canada and are saying that is why gas prices are so high right now, as if one pipeline could affect gas prices that drastically. Surely they don't think that we would be paying $2.50 at the pump if we built that pipeline. Oil prices are determined on the world market and it's a complicated mixture of the value of the dollar, demand from rising countries like India and China, unrest in the Middle East and out and out speculation on Wall Street. One pipeline isn't going to amount to a hill of beans where gas prices are concerned. But with predictions of gas prices rising as high as $6.25 a gallon this summer, Republicans are going to pounce and convince Americans that Obama is to blame, and if it goes that high, his days as President are over, period. People will blame him if prices shoot up to European proportions. Whatever economic recovery we've had will be deep sixed by high oil prices. 

I see a long, hot summer of discontent ahead, and I don't like what I am seeing. If gas does go as high as predicted, I may cancel my summer travels in favor of a "staycation", and I am sure that I will not be alone in so doing. Astronomical gas prices could seriously damage our economy in the long run and heaven help us if we see a Republican tsunami this fall in the elections. There will be such an attempt to turn this country sharply rightward that there will be a definite push-back from the left. And once again, gridlock will reign supreme in Washington, and nothing at all will get done, and this country will continue on its current course toward a spectacular crash landing as the GOP continues its war on women, the poor and anyone else they can think of to disenfranchise or turn their backs on. They'd like nothing more than to turn the clock back to 1950 again and the days of Ozzie and Harriet. They'll keep coddling their super rich friends and promising them all kinds of huge tax breaks that the rest of us will pay for, and worst of all, they plan to march us straight into Tehran and depose Ahmedinijad and the ayatollahs. Well, I've got news for them, we've been at war for a decade now and it's left our country nearly bankrupt and bleeding and we can ill afford to march into another decade long war in another volatile Middle East country, and they WILL impose an oil embargo on us, and then you will see gas prices truly skyrocket and of course, their mangled foreign policy will be to blame, so we'll be back to finger pointing and angry words and on and on and on. Ah, well, lucky for me that I am retiring next year and won't have to worry about my long commute anymore. Between gas and paying for parking and all that, it gets expensive to work, and I, for one, will be glad to finally be able to take a nice L-O-N-G vacation at last. And FINALLY get a good night's sleep, too, without worrying about who's going to call off tomorrow, what do I have to do, do I have enough time to get it all done, etc. Ahhhh, unstructured time and plenty of it! My idea of a good time!