Why on earth would Nancy Pelosi go to such extremes as turning the lights off on her fellow Reps to prevent even voting on the possibility of allowing off-shore drilling? Does she want energy prices to keep climbing, and the economy to tank? In a word: yes.

As NewsBusters reports, even George Stephanopoulos has gotten fed up with the non sequiturs Pelousy offers as answers when she's asked why she forbids us from extracting our own oil. On ABC's This Week, he kept at her about why she won't permit a vote. Amid the smoke she spewed in response, we might have the answer:

[M]y flagship issue as Speaker of the House and 110th Congress has been to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reverse global warming.

Forget the first point; not even Pelousy is nutty enough to think that strangling domestic drilling will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But could it be that forbidding drilling will "reverse global warming"?

Pelousy presumably expects us to believe that the global warming hoax is real, and our use of energy makes it be too hot out. Not drilling our own oil results in a lower supply, resulting in higher prices, resulting in reduced economic activity, resulting in recession or worse — all of which will supposedly save us from global warming by reducing fuel consumption. She wants gas prices high and the economy hamstrung because, in her own utterly unhinged words:

I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet.

Congress is literally being run by a lunatic. Imagine the damage our economy will sustain when she has an ally in the White House.

On a tip from Burning Hot. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.