Mike Thompson Votes for Offshore Drilling, War Funding

(September 27, 2008)

House of Representatives member Mike Thompson, representing the mainly rural northeast of California, including extensive coastal lands, voted Yes on H.R. 2638 on September 24, 2008. The omnibus bill ended the ban of offshore oil drilling, and was widely reported as an abandonment by the Democratic Party of this environmentalist gold standard. See the House Clerk record of the vote.

In fact H.R. 2638 grew into an omnibus spending bill with $634 billion in appropriations. It is designed to fund government spending, both defense and domestic, at current levels until next March, when a new President and Congress can take a stab at it. It includes $488 billion for the wars and $40 billion for homeland security. U.S. automakers will get up to $25 billion in loans. There is even $5 billion to subsidize heating for the poor the winter. Members of Congress included 2,322 pet projects totaling $6.6 billion as well.

The spin on this is amazing. Another California member of the House of Representatives, Lois Capps, had the audacity to send out a press release blasting President Bush for allowing offshore oil drilling, but she voted Yes on the bill. I can hear the stand up comedians already: "The President made me do it!"

For those few Americans who actually watch what politicians do, as well as what they say, now is the time to see amazing 180 degree spins on reality. Mike will tell his Democratic Party base that he is against drilling off our coast and against the war, but as to voting for those things, "The President made me do it!"

Local Mendocino County Democratic spin-queen Rachel Binah already has letters printed in local papers blaming it all on Bush. In Rachel's version of reality, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Thompson and other spineless Democrats are heroes who deserve to be lauded for pursuing Republican policies, since otherwise Republicans might get elected on November 4!

William P. Meyers