OILmageddon is what happens when two oil boys are in charge of our federal government. G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney appointed lobbyists to run our federal regulatory agencies.
The BP, Deepwater Horizon and Halliburton's unstoppable oil volcano, enabled by the W. Administration crusade to drill, baby, drill, continues to spew devastation into the Gulf regions of Louisiana and Alabama. Mississippi and Florida are next in line as recipients of the same ecological and economic carnage.
A Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen of Alabama and volunteer pilot Tom Hutchings of SouthWings flew over the Gulf of Mexico on Friday to get a look at the massive oil slick spreading from the site of the BP disaster.
It should come as no surprise to anyone (except for the Rush and Glenn teabagging Republicans) to learn that the Bush/Cheney Administration appointed lobbyists to serve as federal government "regulators."
For the Bush administration was, to a large degree, run by and for the extractive industries - and I'm not just talking about Dick Cheney's energy task force. Crucially, management of Interior was turned over to lobbyists, most notably J. Steven Griles, a coal-industry lobbyist who became deputy secretary and effectively ran the department. (In 2007 Mr. Griles pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his ties to Jack Abramoff.)
Given this history, it's not surprising that the Minerals Management Service became subservient to the oil industry - although what actually happened is almost too lurid to believe. According to reports by Interior's inspector general, abuses at the agency went beyond undue influence: there was "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" - cocaine, sexual relationships with industry representatives, and more. Protecting the environment was presumably the last thing on these government employees' minds.
Now, President Obama isn't completely innocent of blame in the current spill. As I said, BP received an environmental waiver for Deepwater Horizon after Mr. Obama took office. It's true that he'd only been in the White House for two and half months, and the Senate wouldn't confirm the new head of the Minerals Management Service until four months later. But the fact that the administration hadn't yet had time to put its stamp on the agency should have led to extra caution about giving the go-ahead to projects with possible environmental risks.
Throughout the years, from the Reagan Administration through 2008, we've heard a lot of talk about compassionate conservatism. According to conservative conventional wisdom, it is entirely possible for a state and/or federal government to be fiscally conservative without, at the same time, disenfranchising those who are economically disadvantaged and others who are vulnerable, like the children of the poor.
The reality? When conservatives talk about compassion they are reading GOP talking point memos. The real GOP imperative:
Kiss up to special and corporate interests. Kick down the everyday constituents.
I guess Ronald Reagan thought he embodied compassionate conservatism when his administration deemed ketchup a vegetable in the public schools' federal lunch programs. What's wrong with poor kids eating a paste comprised mostly of salt and sugar with nil nutritional value? It has a vegetable kind of product added to it. Let them eat a salt/sugar paste with artificial coloring.
Reagan's budget cuts, especially those involving social programs, effectively dismantled all safety nets for the nation's poor.
When George W. Bush ran for the Presidential office in 2000 he promoted himself as a compassionate conservative. His tax cuts would produce more jobs. Life would be good for all.
According to the some of the renowned Viet Nam War draft evaders and right wing war hawks
Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, Bill Blunt, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Phil Gramm, John Cornyn, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage
Nancy Pelosi personally ordered the CIA to find a link between Iraq and Al-Qaida. The GOP sissy boys also insist that when no links between the two evil doers could be found, Nancy the D Girl unilaterally ordered heinous torture to bring about the results the sissy boy cowards needed to gin up their war on Iraq.
Hats off to Ed Shultz of MSNBC for calling the Sissy Boys out on their psycho babble.
(Really solid post w/ lots of videos. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
First, from the Texas wing of The Party of Torture and Tax Cuts.
Senator John Cornyn, prominent member of the Party of Torture and willing player in the Bush Administration's
Journey to Depravity must think Democrats are quaking in their boots because, according to The Huffington Post he attempted to bully and blackmail them on the torture issue.
Cornyn apparently prefers to sweep the recent revelations of torture under the rug. That or pin the blame on Democrats who served on the Foreign Intelligence Committee at the time, and/or stick it to low level military and CIA officers at the bottom of the torture chain of command.
If Democrats insist on probing the Bush administration's program of detainee torture, they'd better be careful, a senior Senate Republican said Tuesday, because they might find blood on their own hands as well.
"To sit quietly and to let this happen and then to come back later and say people ought to be prosecuted criminally, not just here in the United States but perhaps internationally, to me is inconsistent, to say the least," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Lately we have been hearing a lot of squawking and screeching emanating from the conservative right wing about a revolution.
This is rather perplexing given that we recently had an election in which the elected President won rather substantially without the need for voter caging, voter suppression, election fraud, recounts, recount shut downs, lawsuits and the Supreme Court. Nor was it necessary to bring in the likes of a Swift Boat attack machine and a corrupted Secretary of State (R-OH) to deliver a win in a razor thin, close election.
And despite all of the problems we face in these dire and stressful times the President's approval ratings remain in the 60's. Today it is at 67%. Today an ABC/Washington Post poll also reveals 65% trust President Obama to handle relations with Muslim nations.
So, what is the problem? Why is a revolution necessary now?
As we all know, this week is the last of the G.W. Bush Administration. Given a national Democratic landslide election and George W. Bush's recent approval rating, there is little doubt that there is more than a tad of dancing taking place in a plethora of streets throughout the U.S. and the world.
For much of their eight year term in office, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have remained tightly entrenched behind iron gates. They avoided the press and media as much as possible. They steered clear of the public and chose to helicopter in and out of their homes and offices whenever feasible. And yet for the past two weeks both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been parading around on the Sunday morning talk and political news circuits. In their final days in office both men desperately tried their darnedest to re-write history. I imagine at this time, after Bush's farewell address, both men are securely ensconced back in their delusional bubbles in undisclosed locations.
With regard to Presidential exit interviews, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan is one of many who offered commentary on Bush's farewell address.
"It's hard to talk about moral clarity when you have tarnished our government's moral standing in the world," McClellan said. "If you look at the speech it was really a feel-good farewell speech. It was designed one final chance to burnish his legacy by highlighting his humanity, showing his humanity, his compassion, his inner decency and good intentions."
But "there are really two problems they don't seem to get," Bush's ex-press secretary remarked. "First of all, the public trust. The president long ago sadly lost the public trust. They are no longer listening to what he has to say or buying what he is selling. Unless he is willing to come out and talk candidly about his own mistakes, his own policy mistakes, and address those issues openly with the American people they are not tuning in."
Although one in ten Americans are late in making their mortgage payments, or have already lost their homes, while thousands upon thousands of others are losing jobs right and left, and millions of us cannot afford health care insurance, the fat cats on Wall Street have been given a blank check to do what they want with the bailout money. Paulson convinced the Congress that the impending financial collapse would be so horrific that the bailout should be doled out with no strings, guidelines or questions.
Well, folks, it seems that the fat cats decided they just had to have their bonuses and other pricey perks. Life has been really rough for the poor devils and we the people are picking up the tab for their hardship pay.
Are we angry yet?
We very well should be because the bailout is very likely another one of W. and his Party's manufactured and deceitful schemes to loot every dime they can from our national treasury before their term ends on January 19th.
Thanks to his brilliant grassroots efforts, his exhaustive and skillful community organization talents, President Elect Barack Obama has pulled off a landslide Election. Through his exhaustive campaign in which he elicited the support of thousands of volunteers, his extraordinary discipline, his tireless, never ending hard work, the severe lack of sleep, the sacrifice of his personal and family life, and despite the attacks and the attacks and the attacks and the misinformation and the misinformation and the blatant media bias, the bias, the bias, and the appalling regional ignorance, the ignorance, the ignorance, and the hate talk, the hate talk, the hate talk, somehow, despite all of the symbolic and vociferous right wing smearing and screaming, finally the majority of Americans heard through the deafening clamor and voted for truth, hope, change and a return to normality.
The president-elect won overwhelmingly among blacks, Hispanics and voters under the age of 30. He made inroads among important swing groups, including Catholics, suburbanites, political independents, even veterans. He won in the Midwest, where Mr. Kerry had lost. He even made small gains among groups that typically have been solidly Republican - whites, conservatives, Southerners, regular churchgoers.
And, according to the The Politico, the most affluent voters were key to Obama's win.
Thankfully, for the entire planet, the last eight years of the Republican Dark Ages and Reign of Financial Terror have crashed and burned, hopefully forever.
According to the Houston Chronicle one million more residents have voted so far, with one day left for early voting in Texas. In Harris County (the largest district in the State) Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.
Leland Beatty, a Democratic consultant, said 42 percent of early voters had voted in Democratic primaries and 20.6 percent in Republican primaries.
A Republican strategist here said the reason for the higher turnout is due to huge participation during the Primary when large numbers of voters came out to vote for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The strategist said some of those voters were Republicans who will vote for McCain during the General.
Well, we will see about that. My crystal ball is the same size as the GOP strategist and I'm not even a strategist. If the Texas Republican base is comprised of 23% of dumb bunnies who choose to believe Senator Obama is a Muslim we may be able to assume that 77% of Texans may just engage their brains before voting. After eight years of W. &Co. we can also assume that 77% percent of voters here understand that they are far worse off than they were in 2000. A vote for McCain should translate to a vote against one's own self-interests if not our very financial survival.
I find the results of the poll to be so embarrassing and alarming that I had to force myself to post this diary.
Meet the base of the Texas Republican Party, folks.
There is, of course, nothing actually wrong with one being a Muslim but the implication where seriously misinformed and low information voters are concerned is highly disturbing. Do they honestly not know Obama's religion or do they choose to ignore the truth?
The bias against Muslims is bad enough and we have G.W. Bush and his fanatical right wing neonut base to thank in demonizing all members of this religion. W.'s reckless and careless language about "Islamic Fascism" has served to paint all members of the faith as potential terrorists.
The poll conducted this month by the University of Texas found that less than half the state's voters, a majority of whom support John McCain's candidacy, could correctly identify the religion of the Democratic presidential candidate. Obama has been a member of the same Christian church in Chicago for more than 20 years, and he faced controversy earlier this year when controversial statements from the church's former pastor appeared online.
When asked Obama's religion, 22.7 percent of the respondents said Muslim, while 45 percent correctly said Protestant.
