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Texas Ultra Republican Congressvarmint Smokey Joe Barton has more than just a few dings in his thinking mechanism.

He’s said some powerful strange things, like the time he apologized to BP for letting our Gulf of Mexico flat ruin their oil.

However, if you can figure this one out, you will be awarded 30 extra IQ points to be used at any time or place, including Juanita’s Famous Scrabble Tournament and Wine-A-Thon, where, of course, you will most definitely need them.

Listen up.  Here goes Smokey Joe’s jaws explaining why we should continue oil subsidies.  He explains that these subsidies are required to keep the companies like Exxon-Mobil from going belly up.

“Over time if you put so many disincentives against any U.S. manufacturing or production company, or oil and gas exploration company, they’ll go out of business,” Barton said.

Barton, perhaps the oil and gas industry’s staunchest support on Capitol Hill, says the subsidies for the industry should remain unchanged “so long as you believe that you believe in the free market capitalist system and they should be headquartered in the United States.”

“Now, Honey,” Juanita stands amazed, “I do believe that Joe is saying we need to nationalize the oil companies.”

“You have to give subsidies to have a free market?  Did he really say that?  I do believe he’s eaten too much crude.”

“Nope,” says Thelma, “he’s just lame brained.”