Exxon's earnings are expected to go up 50 percent this year, reports the Wall Street Journal. What was Washington's response? The House GOP voted overwhelmingly to protect the billions in taxpayer subsidies oil and gas companies receive.

So let's see … you're paying Exxon at the pump, and you're also paying them on tax day. It's almost as if our entire transportation system renders us indentured servants to the producers of our energy. That's not a joke, just an attempt to describe the corporate neo-feudalism our bought-and-sold political apparatus churns out like so much blood sausage.