Democrats are decidedly nervous about the energy options before them and may be in a box they can’t get out of come November. Everyone in the party thought that the anthropogenic global warming hoax would stay alive long enough to scare everyone into buying into their socialist agenda. Many liberals were heard whispering that the AGW scam, "gives us the reason to do everything we’ve always wanted."

But that was not to be. AGW is now so totally disproved that the phrase global warming has been replaced by climate change. Propagandists who falsely but assertively said science was on their side must now sheepishly admit that proof of their former claims have vanished but they’re still trying to sell their Snake Oil over real oil.

The case for global warming, as history points out, lacked participation from one important player – the planet. First breached in testimony to Congress by the tinfoil hat crowd represented by Dr. James Hansen in 1988, the concept didn’t fully capture Marxist-socialist activists until Michael Mann’s famed "Hockey Stick" graph in 1998.

Mann’s graph showed fairly flat temperature readings throughout history until the late 20th century when the graph went almost straight up, looking like a horizontal hockey stick. Marxist-socialist activists saw the cause as perfect cover for their anti-capitalist agenda as did members of government and even a few businesses that saw money to be squeezed out of bogus mandates.

But two things happened to spoil the party. Someone took a closer look at Mann’s graph and the planet quit heating up almost on the day Mann’s graph was revealed.

The graph, it was pointed out, conveniently failed to track the well-established medieval warming period nor did it show the Little Ice Age. When those two omissions were properly illustrated on Mann’s artwork, it turned out the 20th century temperature climb on Mann’s hockey stick equaled the same temperatures back in medieval times when CO2, the alleged temperature increase culprit, was at extremely depressed levels. Worse, the planet, apparently deciding to prove who’s boss, went into a cooling period that has now lasted nearly 10 years. This year is so cool, records are being broken and the temperature rise the last century has been all but wiped out.

So now the Democrat’s demagoguery is exposed. Fossil fuels are not endangering the environment and the nation, fed up with $4 a gallon gasoline, is pushing Congress to end the moratorium on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate president Harry Reid shut down congress early last week in order to avoid a vote. They know lifting the moratorium will pass. They also know whichever party controls the White House when the ban is lifted will get the political credit and that could hurt Democrat’s political chances this fall.

They still have one small hurdle; the ban expires Sept. 30 unless it is renewed again. Therefore there is no way a vote can be avoided unless they let the ban expire and cede the credit for falling gas prices to Republicans.

Pelosi is so dazed and confused by all this that as she adjourned the House she did so saying, "I’m trying to save the planet. I’m trying to save the planet." It reminds me of the Boston Strangler’s psychiatrist when he was caught up on a ladder pouring green paint down a psychiatric patient’s throat yelling, "Where are the movie cameras now? Why can’t they see me at my greatest moment?"

In case you were wondering, the drilling ban stems from a 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Approximately 800,000 barrels escaped an offshore rig and really created a mess along the California coastline. The moratorium was the upshot and it has been continually renewed ever since.

But, the oil industry was not fully at fault in that incident. The rig functioned perfectly as did the blowout preventer when the pressure spiked. However, a California subcontractor used below spec pipe for the casing. Working in cahoots with a crooked California inspector, the casing was passed in spite of being below spec and it was the below spec pipe that ruptured that fateful day.

Innocent Americans have now suffered four decades of inflated oil prices when the proper response would have been the jailing of that inspector and contractor.