Two thoughts on the right

So, I was thinking about the opposition to the windfall profits tax on oil companies. For some reason I was listening to RightWingTool2 (Hannity). He was railing against it, because the caller (whose dad was a geologist for the oil companies) complained that a windfall profits tax could not be imposed on foreign companies and especially governments. I doubt that is the case, the government has the right to tax whatever hits our shores, and most of those companies probably have local subsidiaries that do the business here and repatriate. Anyway, companies that are supposed to get the $18B or whatever in tax breaks in the current law are probably taxable.
I have fundamental problems with a windfall profits tax, but I disagree that it discourages investment - if there is money to be made, it will be made, regardless of what the companies would say:

BP Alaska, which runs Prudhoe Bay, said earlier this year that it had delayed the development in the western region of the North Slope as a result of the tax. ConocoPhillips cited the same reason for scrapping a $300 million refinery project.

I don't believe either of these, if they gave away a chance to make money, they are doing a disservice to their shareholders. Also, if more refineries are brought online, the price of gas would go down - refineries are the major bottleneck here.

I would rather just cut the tax breaks, instead of the government interfering with the market (which would effectively get the government out of interfering with the market in the tax code.) For the same reason, I don't like a gas tax holiday. But I do like the tax credit to middle-income families for gas. Good plan.

That's not what I wanted to talk about. The Right is talking up Palin in standing up to the oil companies, and for returning money to the taxpayers of Alaska. As I was thinking about this, and the $3K check that each citizen of Alaska will be receiving on Friday, something I heard a while ago popped into my head. Why doesn't the GOP mention that her standing up to the oil companies and returning money to the citizens of Alaska were the same act - she instituted a windfall profits tax on the oil companies, around the same time the GOP shot it down in Congress, to increase this years' check by $1200 per person.

Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska's Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry — a step that has generated stunning new wealth for the state as oil prices soared.

I don't hear that story thrown around a lot. Does that seem hypocritical?

I was really listening to the Ed Schultz show (where America comes to talk). He had Michael Isikoff on to report on the ethics investigation in Alaska...

-- inner monologue -- ooh, that's not sexist is it, to talk about the ethics investigation, I think she is a woman. Well, I am going to brave it anyway. -- end inner monologue--

Michael talked about the rapid response team sent to Alaska to help (i.e. interfere) with the investigation by the McCain campaign. I think he mentioned 15 lawyers and staffers or something like that. He also talked about this team working to muddy the waters (his words) and try to screw up the process (my words). But my question there is: who is paying for them. To send 15 people to Alaska for a few weeks has got to be pricey. Are campaign contributions allowed to be used for this? Or the public financing McCain accepted? Should someone be looking into this?