Factcheck.org Says Obama Ad Uses Incorrect Figure on Oil Donors

Quibbling over whether Mccain has received 2 million or 1.3-maybe 2 million-possibly more, is a silly waste of time.

The Point is that he has taken the money, and then changed his position.

Stop splitting useless hairs.

Hey Obama what about the millions you receive from union bosses so they can stay in charge and live in mansions while the people they represent suffer
What about the millions from groups with ties to Terrorist ie William Ayers

What about the oil company funding the DNC Convention!!

Obama what about the 1 million dollars you received from the tax payers through your wives job!!

So, I guess, what the commentator here is saying - is that McCain is bought by the Oil Companies, but just not to the extent that others thought.

Read the article: it says that McCain will end up getting around $2 million after the contributions to the Victory Committee are split between the RNC and McCain.

BTW, McCain changed his position on offshore drilling only in June, while gas prices had already been above $3 for more than six months.

The question is: if gas prices fall back near $3 before the election, will he change his position again?

OF COURSE THE FIGURE IS BOGUS. I'M STILL WAITING FOR THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN TO RUN AN AD THAT HAS ANY TRUTH IN IT. THIS AD WAS YET ANOTHER DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO PUMP UP HIS TANKING POLL NUMBERS.

THEY MSUT BE RUNNING OUT OF MONEY AND IDEAS, THOUGH, BECAUSE IT ENDED UP BEING NOTHING MORE THAN A RERUN OF THE ONE HE RAN AGAINST HILLARY IN THE PRIMARIES. ALL HE DID WAS PUT MCCAIN'S PICTURE IN IT INSTEAD OF HILLARY'S.

TALK ABOUT OLD POLITICS.

BARACK DUKAKIS IS GOING TO LOSE.

These are the same lies Obama used in the runup to the Pennsylvania primary against Hillary Clinton.

Aside to
'dl'

...of course, Obama "came out and said the smaller figure today didn't he?"

Isn't that his pattern......somebody does something...says something...and he decides to jump on board. He speaks well (...but only in a crowd), and doesn't have an original thought in his head to tell us about.......hope in hell he takes Ms. Clinton as his Veep or this guy...if elected...is a definite one term-er in Washington. He needs some brains in his organization besides the Mad Ave guys running his campaign.

Since Obama notes that he has a funny name, I can suggest that he take out the legal papers to change it.

Let's see...he can call himself

P.T. BARNUM

...seems to fit in more ways than one!

Obama is insane to talk about windfall profit taxes on oil companies. Corporations don't pay taxes, period. We pay corporate taxes and so do corporate employees. We all pay because corporations must recover ALL of their costs AT MINIMUM to make any kind of a profit. Taxing corporations means taxing all of US.

You people don't get it. It don't matter where the money comes from. What matters is the favors you promise to do for it. Right after McCain got that 1.1 million he jumped right in bed with Bush on drilling. And that money did come from executives. Obama may have gotten 400,000 but you don't see him pushing to drill all over the United States. This whole thing is so stupid. Pelosi introduced a bill last week that would've taken the speculation out of the market and the republicans shot it down. As soon as she mentioned it oil started to sink and went down 20 bucks. McCain says it's Obama's fault gas prices are high. But when Obama says go drill on the 68 million acres you have access to, the oil companies say no. They won't even take oil out of the petroleum reserve. This whole thing is about Bush getting his hands on as much oil as he can before he leaves office. If it was about the American people paying 4 dollars a gallon for gas it would've been fixed along time ago.

McCain did not receive 2 million, it was 1.3 million. Obama recieved 1/3rd that, $400,000 from the same oil industry employees as well. Please my fellow Americans, not the citizens of the world, do not get blinded by the smoke and mirrors.

Why does Obama want to increase the cost of fuel by putting a new tax on it

Dan,

Two responses:

1) The Joint Resolution of Congress which authorized the Iraq war listed 10 "legal" reasons for the invasion. Oil was not one of them, and I really find it hard to believe that anyone would think it was - especially with the price of it so high now. (Do you know that leading Democrats, including John Kerry and Al Gore, urged President Clinton to invade Iraq in 1999 for the VERY SAME REASONS that President Bush gave?)

2) My brother's company has done business with Pemex, Mexico's state-run oil industry. And believe me, we don't want the government controlling our natural resources.

People wake up, Obama has recieved $400,000 dollars from the same process. The money they both get are not from the oil company owners but the employees. If you worked there who would you support.

John -

As to your comment:

"The reason why they're not drilling on the land where they have leases is because it isn't worth the cost for the amount of oil they could extract. And, like it or not, they're out to make money. It's called BUSINESS and CAPITALISM."

Your argument is good. But then, an undecided voter may accept this as the very reason oil should be treated as a business utility and controlled by government. It is just too precious of a commodity. Capitalism, left to its own devices, results in exploitation of natural resources. Oil by your own argument is the most valuable of resources: it keeps our economy alive. It should belong to the people while we explore other alternative energy sources.

But absent that, an undecided voter would have to ask him/herself whether they could trust McCain or Obama, both of whom are supported by oil company interests, to make the right choices when it comes to this very difficult issue of what to do about this precious oil commodity. With respect to the effect the arguments of the oil company interests have had upon the Republican Party, an undecided voter only needs to look at the war in Iraq, supported by John McCain, which most Americans believe was an immoral war based upon, among other things, the financial interest of the oil companies in the vast oil fields of Iraq. This war, as we know, resulted in the deaths of 100,000 Iraqis and 4,000 American soldiers, and now it appears that the oil America thought it was going to get could perhaps instead be sold by the Iraqi government to outside oil interests not beholden to American interests. So this has been a terrible tragedy for America.

The Republican Party and John McCain have had their shot when it comes to issues of oil and energy. The Democratic Party should be given a shot.

I will be voting for Barack Obama in November. Forasmuch as he may be idealistic about air pressure in tires, or what to do about the strategic oil reserves, he has indicated that he will not support blood for oil. There is, simply, no blood on his hands.

Cheers!

My brother has designed offshore oil platforms for the past 17 years. If you knew the amount of effort and risk it takes to get that stuff out of the ground, thought just for a minute about how many everyday products are made from petroleum, and considered how many billions of dollars in taxes those companies pay, you might not be so quick to bash "Big Oil."

Those guys know what they're doing. The reason why they're not drilling on the land where they have leases is because it isn't worth the cost for the amount of oil they could extract. And, like it or not, they're out to make money. It's called BUSINESS and CAPITALISM.

As for the amount of time it would take to get the oil from the OCS to the market, it is about TWO YEARS.

Here is just a small sample of the hundreds of products made from petroleum:

Plastics, Ink, Paint, Shoe Polish, Nylons, Roof shingles, Novelty Candy, Cosmetics, Candles, Vaseline, Bug Killer, Ammonia, Tires, Asphalt, Crayons, Paper cups, Wax paper.

Just how is wind power or inflating your tires supposed to create these things?

Terry, some info for you to get you up to speed.

Do you know how many of that supposedly 86 billion of OCS-oil is currently off limits?

18.17 billion barrels

So what's the hurry?

Roughly 67 billions is already up for grabs. 41 billion of that became availabe two years ago. Where's the drop in oil prices since then? Why has it doubled?

Dan,

1. McCain said Obama didn't "have time" to visit the troops.
2. McCain knew this was FALSE.
3. Therefore, McCain is a liar.

If McCain isn't comfortable about LYING about Obama, maybe he should just stop.

McCain knows that the Iraq war has increased Iran's power in the middle east. And yet he refuses to acknowledge that it was a mistake.

McCain knew that the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were in Afghanistan. Yet he endorsed the plan to take the military resources out of Afghanistan and into Iran.

McCain knows that Lilly Ledbetter, and all working women deserve justice. Yet he opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay act.

McCain knows that having health insurance companies be regulated by the state of their own choosing (by reincorporating in a friendly state) guarantees the end of all consumer protections (do you want every dispute to go to an industry sponsored "arbitration" system?). Yet that is a key part of his health plan.

McCain knows that a "gas tax holiday" is a stupid, pointless idea (When do you end the holiday? What is the point of cutting off $0.30 per tank of gas?) Yet he is willing to highlight that pander.

McCain knows that the U.S. middle class has faced stagnant wages for most of the last 25 years (but not during the Clinton years!) and the wealth of those making over $250 have increased. Yet he favors eliminating all taxes paid by the the wealthy. How is it that he came to support the Bush tax cuts that he once called UNCONSCIENCEABLE?

You don't need Obama to point out that McCain has received $2 Mil from the gas and oil industries. Just follow his actions!

Terry, China and Cuban drilling is a lie, it has already been debunked ages ago. Keep up.
And are you really calling US scientists stupid?

Two years ago, we opened most of the Gulf of Mexico — with its estimated 41 billion barrels of oil — and *oil prices since then have doubled*.
So much for your ‘speculation’ argument. It doesn't hold any water nor oil.

And the OEMM-report? Hahaha. Did you read it? "*estimates* of oil and gas resources *in undiscovered fields*"
There is not one business that's going to do business with you when you advertise with that.

I read the Factcheck.org article. The question that arises from this article is why oil and gas company surrogates donate to both candidates in the first place. Why not just donate to McCain, or just donate to Obama? An undecided will see that there are some oil company surrogates who want Obama, and some that want McCain, so how can the whole issue of who is more in bed with the oil companies make any difference to an undecided? To me, the matter isn’t which candidate is more in bed with the oil companies. It's WHICH oil companies the candidates are in bed with. Because the whole issue of the production and control of this valuable commodity is loaded with complicated interrelationships involving public consumption and changing market conditions including the constant threat of market speculation, I think an undecided voter will have a hard time knowing which candidate to choose on this issue. So I think an undecided voter should look at how the Republican administration under George W. Bush may have been influenced by the oil industry in taking the USA into the pre-emptive war in Iraq, which many Americans believe is an immoral war, and which many people believe the oil industry surrogates and military industrial complex wanted for their own monetary benefit at the expense of 100,000 dead Iraqis and over 4,000 dead American soldiers, and then ask themselves: who supported that war? And who supports that war now? An undecided may see that this candidate is John McCain, who continues to support the pre-emptive war in Iraq, and a connection between John McCain and George W. Bush and the oil company surrogates that support them. For this reason I wouldn’t be concerned about the matter of who gets more money from the oil company surrogates. I would be more concerned about what these oil company surrogates hope their candidate would do, once elected.

I believe what our government did in Iraq at the apparent behest of the oil company surrogates, whether pressured directly or indirectly, was wrong. It was a terrible choice made by George W. Bush, and it was supported by the Republican Administration, including Senator John McCain. I think America will have a hard time recovering from this historically immoral attack. Barack Obama, forasmuch as he may be wrong or right about what to do with strategic oil reserves, has indicated that he does not support blood for oil. In that respect I’m with those oil company surrogates that support him, and so I believe Barack Obama is the right choice. The Republicans have had their chance when it comes to the commodity of oil. I think it’s time to let the Democratic Party have a crack at it.
Because of this issue I will vote for Barack Obama in November, and I encourage undecided voters to consider my reasons for supporting him.

Cheers!