Fox & Friends didn't just promote the Koch Brother-funded Americans For Prosperity gas-price stunt designed to tar President Obama over rising gas prices, the "fair and balanced" show dispatched Fox's Heather Nauert for two live broadcast segments designed to give it even more credibility.
Media Matters has the details:
What Nauert and the Fox & Friends hosts failed to mention was that the fundamental premise behind the stunt -- it's somehow Obama's fault that gas prices are higher than when he took office -- is misleading and divorced from context. Economists have explained that gas prices plunged right before Obama took office as a result of a drop in world oil demand due to the recession occurring at that time, and that prices are driven by the world market for oil, not U.S. policies.
Also unmentioned was that Americans for Prosperity is largely funded by the Koch brothers, who have significant oil interests. The publicity stunt is designed to advocate for the removal of "bureaucratic and legal barriers to responsible and efficient development of America's oil." But economists across the political spectrum have explained that these policies will only benefit the Koch empire -- not American consumers.
Being in Canada, our gas prices are even higher than in the States, and we have a conservative prime minister. Have a look at this chart and see if you can tell if the U.S. and Canadian trends appear to be the same. Bottom line is that the leaders of our countries have absolutely nothing to do with gas prices.
About 1.20 minutes in the second clip, Heather asks a lady waiting for gas: “would you be willing to vote for another administration if they kept gas prices down?” The lady gave a very articulate pro-Obama answer that Heather could not cut off (nor did she try to her credit).
Heather thanked the lady politely and morphed smoothly to telling viewers that an earlier driver had said exactly the opposite (see 1.40 minutes into the first clip). No fuss, no bother, we’ll never see that lady again but she sure gets my vote for best in show for today.
I’d put (regular unleaded) gas in my car on Tuesday, 10/9, and the price was $3.599 per gallon. When I filled up at the same station on Sunday night, 10/21, the price per gallon was $3.399 per gallon. As I passed by the same gas station yesterday, the price per gallon was $3.329 per gallon. Even the little gas station near my apartment was over $3.60 a gallon back around the 9th and was under $3.40 a gallon yesterday (I don’t use this station because it sits on a bad corner, trafficwise). Even a gas station near my workplace is running about 20 cents a gallon less than it was just 2 weeks ago (and it averaged about 5 cents more than any other gas station on my usual driving pattern).
Now, I do remember a news story about a week and a half ago about how gas prices in Cali were set to go over $6 a gallon because of a refinery shortage or something but I’d think that would be something wholeheartedly supported by the FoxyFiends since it follows that old capitalism principle of “supply & demand” but doesn’t quite seem to cross the line into violating any laws against “price gouging” (here in Alabama—a bastion of conservative “fuck the consumer” ideology—we have laws that prohibit anything that looks like price gouging or price fixing during declared emergencies*; even when it looks like a group of businesses are pricing their products the same, despite the businesses may be miles apart and whose clientele’s incomes are completely dissimilar, our hard-right leaders will step in when constituents complain about possible price-fixing—the owners or operators of those businesses will be “asked” to explain why their prices seem to be so closely aligned, especially when there’s been some sort of natural disaster involved).
*Hotels, for instance, can’t suddenly increase their rates because there’s an influx of new “customers” evacuating areas under hurricane warnings and their available spaces are dwindling, and gas stations can’t jack up prices as their supply starts running low from hundreds of evacuees stopping in and filling up, and grocery stores can’t jack up prices as their “staple” items begin dwindling)
