So where is the story about the ten Hess Oil execs who each gave $28,500 to the RNC's fund to elect McCain? This would seem to be big news, and goes along way to explain McCain's reverse course on offshore drilling, not to mention being potentially illegal bribery. It also would appear the Hess has funneled corporate money through some employee's who mysteriously also decided to give $28,500 on the same day, despite the fact that their job titles would suggest they don't have nearly that much money to give, and the fact that this was there first ever contribution. So is Hess Oil illegal funneling money to McCain as payment for his flip-flop on offshore drilling?

For all you that are against the oil companies, make your protest by denying them their profits. Right now, go trade in your SUV for a hybrid. Get a manual lawnmower and other yard equipment. Do not fly on a plane. Quit using anything with plastics (which are made from petroleum products). Sorry, if you are diabetic, you have to give up your plastic syringes or plastic test meter. Going into surgery? Demand that the physcians use no plastic instruments–no IVs, no plastic catheter bags, etc. Now, if you all do that, you will see Big Oil suffer and lose their profits. Isn"t that what you want???

Look, the Republicans had 7 LONG YEARS to do something about our dependence on oil – and all they did was increase that dependence!

Why on earth are you people believing ANYTHING those crooks are saying???!

Please define a "windfall"
profit.
How does it differ from regular old profit
FYI – Exxon Margin is about 9%
Exxon paid over $54 Billion in taxes with a total profit of about $18 billion

Microsoft paid $20 billion in taxes on $22 Billion dollars of profits..

WITH a margin rate of almost 30%….

nevermind, you probably hate microsoft too…

People are desperate for an immediate answer or solution to the problem of raising gas prices. Unfortunately the solutions are complex and cannot be reduced to sound bites and theatrics. John McCain previous "great service" to our nation and his reputation as a maverick is sadly undermined by his current pandering and cynicism.

Most in the oil industry know that there is a server shortage of drills, drill bits, towers, barges etc . that has to be overcome before drilling could even start. They also know that most Gulf off shore wells have yielded natural gas not oil. It is symbolic that the Republicans in the house are saying drill drill drill in a dark chamber, and Mc Cain says the "best sound he knows" is several hundred motorcycles reeving their engines frivolously burning gas and polluting the atmosphere.

John McCain is not a maverick, and no longer a hero. He is a pathetic pandering politician representing a political party that is pathetically out of gas. Want to "talk straight" John? Release your medical records in a way that allows people full access and time to study them. Release your military records, and let folks know why you where transfered off the Forestall, and what influence your father and grandfather had getting you in the Naval Academy, and indeed keeping you in.(affirmative action?). Let an independent auditor go through your financial records to see your ties to big oil, foreign money, and Az land deals.

BTW….I gave serious consideration to volunteering for you in the New Hampshire Primary, but I have this bad habit of reading too much.

These oil people are lying about the length of time to get our own oil and natural gas to our outlets. If they get there rears in gear it can be done in a yr. Maybe we should push for the little independent oil people to get busy since the big boys seem to be dragging their feet and helping in the price manipulating.
Now do you want to have National Security because oil and Natural Gas are toward the top of the list with our military and secure borders. Or do you want to be a wimpy country that has to have the rest of the world take care of them Because we are headed down that road. We as a country, don't have the 10-20-40 yrs to waste for Obama and cronies ideas go into affect. And at my age I doubt I have the 10 yrs. And I do NOT want my great grand kids having to be paying off all this mess Bush got us in or be paying for Obamas pipe dream. And I don't want me or mine to be part of the North American Union that these politicians are trying to push on us.

If I hear the phrase "pain at the pump" said or printed one more time I'm going to go crazy.

Alll these politicians SUCK. They've paid lip service for decades and NOW they want to get hot and bothered. I can't vote Nader, but he had them pegged forever ago.

I'm hoping Obama brings some common sense and PLANNING back to federal government. Of course, it's up to us to keep him honest.

I wish Obama take vacation for one year. WAKE up America. No obama.

If you stop chasing Traffic Stops, you will all save Fuel… You can not beat the Lights… All that energy wasted, just to sit there Idling; with a Carburator full of Gas…

HOT TOPIC : THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF THE NATION OF GEORGIA .. THIS IS MORE LIKE THE FORMER SOVIET UNION IN ACTION. LUCKY WE HAVE NATO AND THE UNITED NATIONS.
IS IT ANY WONDER THE FORMER SOVIET CONTROLLED NATIONS WANT TO JOIN NATO AND THE WESTERN NATIONS (USA INCLUDED) ? AND THERE ARE NO IMMIGRANT PROBLEMS IN RUSSIA? NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE UNDER A DICTATORSHIP.

$4.51 a gallon?! I gotta get me some of that…

I'm paying $4.67, unless I'm low out in the boonies, in which case the price heads up to around $4.89.

Gee, we have all been informed that if we properly inflate our tires we won't have an oil price problem. We can do that, so what's the problem????

Charlie, it's a windfall profit tax, so the oil companies can raise the price if they want to collect more taxes from gasoline. Duh.

Mitch McConnell couldn't take responsibility for any Republican disaster. He doesn't have the character.

I think Obama thought up this gas tax rebate while giving his speech. Lets find ways to get prices down not rebate everything.

Oh darn! Now the GOP will blame Obama again for these record gas prices.

Go ahead GOP……Make my day…..

Pelosi and Obama on the wrong side on this one. A LOSER for the DEMS come November!

Sure and when the oil companies raise their prices to offset the
windfall profits tax then you will still be paying the same but losing more money since the windfall that Sen Obama gives you will
be taxable as income. Nice try but have been through this one
back in the seventies.

Funny how the Obama threads close after 10 or 12 responses and VP Cheney stay's open for 225 posts (way to go CNN). On Obama's Hawaii trip, for someone touting getting off oil dependence and being thrifty and saving, he sure is burning an awful lot of fuel taking a dozen people to Hawaii. He could have flown the dozen or so commercial and saved a lot more. Hypocrisy at it's best. By the way did he check the inflation on those jet tires before they took off?

Gas will never be under three dollars a gallon again. Drill or no drill.
I think Obama's Gas Tax Rebate will help off set the burden of the high gas prices and is a fair and sensible idea.

More liberal whining. Can't wait for the independents to vote in November and shut the left and right up. Go McCain.

Why is oil talk so popular. Election time.

The candidates all finally seem to realize that this is the big issue. They would have realized it before if they were real people with real problems. They rely on the press to let them know what issues matter who are also not real people with real problems. I doubt that they will be willing to work together to solve these problems. It's easier to point fingers and place blame instead of trying to actually work on a productive plan.

Truth is neither candidate for pres election, has the solution for energy. Listen to farfetched ideas like inflate ur tires and offshore drilling.

Isn’t it amazing that so many past presidential issues during campaigns rarely matter years later? Are the Democrats making a big deal out of global warming just to play politics and make it the issue of this campaign? Or do they sincerely care about the environment? Further, are they that concerned about the environment that they will let America’s economy and industrial sector falter as they refuse to let more drilling take place? The Democrat’s political games are slowing America’s development and progress, and making us lose jobs. Go John Go

Michigan Rep. Dingell needs to come to mid-Michigan the price of gasoline jumps up 20 cents in a day, then goes down 10 cents, then up again all within a day or two. Did I forget to mention there could be a 5 to 10 cent difference within a block of each other. It's crazy here.

Why do democrats hate oil?

But I thought Barack "Big Oil" Obama told us all we have to do is inflate our tires a little bit and all would be solved?

The market will only support what people are willing to pay. It will correct itself.

Frankly, it seems the prices have gone down steeply since the Congress has been on vacation. Mabye this is a message to us all sometimes the best thing to do is nothing—rather than trying to fix economic/market fluctuations by throwing money and rhetoric against the wall to see what sticks.

The picture you're looking at is San Francisco with the Golden Gate in the background. Fuel here in the midwest is running around $3.40 , go figure.

Oh boy, another politician taking a stand! Too little, too late.

IMPEACH PELOSI!

Novel Idea – Vote the incumbents out – put in new people – if they are found to be as crooked as the ones we have now, vote them out next time.

We have to send the message that we aren't going to fund career politicians with their own bottom line in mind – not ours.

We need people that work FOR us

Vote the incumbents out – put in new people – if they are found to be as crooked as the ones we have now, vote them out next time.

We have to send the message that we aren't going to fund career politicians with their own bottom line in mind – not ours.

We need people that work FOR us

Start supporting the leaders of our country. This is the United States.
The way some people act here, you think this is a war zone. What do you think the leaders of the other parts of the world think, when they hear how the people of the US feel about our leaders? Be proud of our leaders. They are trying to do their best. It is not always easy. Have a heart people. Wait until you are faced with a crisis and just compare your one person's problem with our leaders trying to deal with the entire country.

Senator Mitch McConnell is as worthless as McCain,Bush,Chenney,Rove,Rice and any other Republican name you can insert here.

There is little that elected leaders can actually do with the price of gasoline. The major thing that they could do is raise or lower the gasoline tax. Given how small the percentage gasoline tax is in the amount of the price of a gallon of gasoline, why are we talking about this? The major problem is that people are speculating about the price and the availibilty. If we didn't need to use oil period, then this would be of little concern.

The oil corporations believe that greed is all right and that greed is healthy. And in the end they can be greedy and still feel good about themselves.

DRILLING IS NOT GOING TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS NOW!!! IF WE DRILL IT WILL TAKE AT LEAST TEN YEARS TO USE IT! SO MCCAIN IS USING THIS OFF SHORE DRILLING AS A GIMMICK TO OFFSET WHAT IS REALLY TRUE!!!! SO DONT GO FOR HIS BULLS_IT EVERYONE. HE'LL ONLY SAY WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR TO GET ELECTED! HE IS A BIG FAT LIAR PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was raised in a very political family and I know that politics does play a major roll in things. Has it ever occured to you, that the democrats maybe behind the price of things going up so that it will look bad for the republicans? The democrats can play some dirty pool ,as well as the republicans. Why don't you people use common sense ?

The Oil corporations believe that greed is all right, and that greed is healthy. And in the end, the oil corporations can be greedy and still feel good about themselves………

ENRON LOOP HOLE

The difference is, the democrats are giving America the finger and saying "Get used to it." and the Republicans are trying to help do something about it.

It's more than evident the democrats are only about power, they think they have a shoe-in for controlling Congress and the Presidency, so they just need to sit back and buy time.

America needs to show Congress that 2 years of democrat control is more than enough.

I really don't think this so much gouging by the oil corps and investors feeding on the populace.

Go after the futures traders since they control the price of crude.

Yes gas is expensive, but is that a bad thing?

As long as we have no incentive to make changes in our lives we won't. It's time to start looking at alternatives to the car(and truck) as we know it.

We used to be the great country of inventors. Do we have any left? It's time to think outside of the box. Maybe the way to fix the gas prices to to get rid of the gas prices.

When a global conflict does NOT cause the price of oil to go up, it seems obvious that market capitalism isn't as independent as one would proffer. The price of oil drops during this Georgian conflict when in practice, it should have risen speaks volumes of a market controlled by interests other than the free hand of economies of scale. Good thing I do not drive much!

Be impressed by leaders that identify problems before they become problems and proactively implement solutions … even if they don't fully work.

Don't be impressed by ambitiious ALSO RANS that can only REACT to a problem after it has surfaced. In particular, don't reward those that react in an uninspired, knee jerk, manner. Make them think through the consequences of their reaction.

What's wrong with America is most of us are TOO LAZY to think in advance, remember what CLAIMS a politician made, and TOO superficial to truly hold leaders accountable.

The re-election of President Bush proves that and the prospect of John McCain running anywhere near Barack Obama in the polls re-enforces it.

High gas prices are due to the speculaters, Big Oil, the Bush Administration, and their puppets in Congress. When they all get voted out of office, only then will gas prices come back down to where they were.

Everything else is BS.

Indeed the Energy Crisis is a huge issue for us! Sadly, though the American people don't necessarily do their homework to find out who is really telling the TRUTH.

Why is it IF we have SO much oil along our coasts that the oil companies with ALL THEIR LOBBYING POWER have not abolished the ban on off-shore drilling????

Why is it that from 1994-2006 the GOP controlled BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE BUT DID NOTHING TO DEAL WITH THE IMPENDING OIL CRISIS??????

BUSH/CHENEY DID SOMETHING THEY WENT TO WAR WITH IRAQ………… A SOVEREIGN NATION ……. SO WE COULD GET BIG OIL WHICH HAD BEEN ASKED TO LEAVE IRAQ………… BACK IN!

INTERESTING.

HESS CORP. NOT AN OBAMA SUPPORTER.

WHAT A SURPRISE THERE????

FOLKS DO ENY OF YOU REMEMBER THE SECOND WORD WAR?

WE HAD GAS PROBLEMS THEN AS WELL AND WE HAD "RATIONING ON GAS " MAYBE WE SHOULD TAKE A PAGE FROM THE PAST AND STOP THINKING WE HAVE ALL THE ANSWERES TODAY WHEN WE ARE ALL BRAIN DEAD

Want to know what will stop our dependence on foreign oil?

Stopping our dependence on OIL.

Good reading :
" Barack and the Buck" – The Wall Street Journal – 8.8.08

I check my tires and changed my oil. What else is there!??

This is really weird for me in MN- the prices are falling, and about $1 less than this photo. Are they rising still in other parts of the country, or is CNN being overdramatic? I really have no idea- could someone in another part of the country please enlighten me?

Well so far Sen Obama has a plan it needs some work but he does have a broad and comprehensive plan. Sen Mc Cain has nasty attack ad after attack ad. Oh and he does have a few ideas if you go to his web site thought I would not call it a plan. It is more like a rant of ideas and gimmicks most of it is pure pandering and has been called out by many experts and economist. I think I have made the right choice got my facts and I am ready to vote. Please i beg my fellow republicans please read and get the facts about Sen Mc Cain. His last attack ad was nothing but lies from start to finish. Sen Obama will only raise taxes on those making 250000 a year or more or to be more accurate he is going to remove the bush tax cuts that he gave tot he most wealthy people in the nation. Do your homework people!!!

Why are people voting for Obama if he is going to raise your taxes? With a Dem majority they can screw you even further. Bush lifted oil drilling ban (installed by clinton) and prices dropped like a stone…don't you Obamaniacs get it? Dems will screw you hard with taxes. Be careful what you ask for.

Mitch McConnell is a typical lying Republican hack who would sell his mother to get re-elected. Unfortunately, the rubes in Kentucky keep buying his snake oil. Considering the illiteracy rate here it doesn't surprise me.

It's the economy stupid. Seriously though we can no longer afford the republican strategy of for the rich only. We have to start caring about all our citizens. We have become a nation built on greed and we need a change. John McCain has no idea of what the average american faces in every day life, how some people have to rob peter to pay paul or forgo their rent for prescriptions and he never will. He doesn't have a clue nor does he care to. Just look at the tone of his ads, that alone should tell you that he is not focused on most of america's needs.

If Republicans will give on cafe standards and Democrats will give on drilling we could have a chance at a real and meaningful energy policy. But all either does is nay-say every suggestion because it will require sacrifice and patience.

It will take time to achieve independence from foreign oil, no doubt about it. Rewind to the 70s – If our "leaders" had the fortitude to lead and the media had the fortitude to ridicule the whiners who want to trade our security for more hot rollers, big screen TVs, Wii and Nintendo time we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

they play with gas prices to make another republican win the white house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And all the owners of gas-guzzling s.u.v.s who drive 15 miles over the speed limit are totally blameless ???????????
How cool ………

No more… McCain=Bush!!!
Obama '08

I don't know about the rest of you, but I barely survived the Arab oil Embargo and the Odd-Even days of the the 70's and don't want to see anything remotely this ever happening again. Despite 30+ years, majorities of Democrats or Republicans in Congress, we import more foreign oil now than we did then and despite either party claiming support of renewables, we haven't made any major inroads.

That's why "Drill Here and Now."

Dingle was one of many REPUBLICANS who 2 yrs ago secretly voted to allow Speculators/Hedge Fund companies in the business of driving up value of stocks to purchase oil futures. This is how McCain and his republican buddies will fuel the crisis, not solve it.

Everyone has one last chance to elect a true leader of the American Public during the Democratic Convention Aug 25th-28th…Hillary either as Prez or V.P or we will be stuck with 2 choices, both of which have taken big money from oil.

Lou Dobbs (Man of the Year), care to run as OUR Independent Choice? – Signed, fed up Democrat

The truth shall prevail!