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.
Ok, so we've been hearing about this deadly swine flu that has many folks panicking right and left. Schools are closing, people are wearing surgical masks, and many are avoiding their local public transportation systems, railroads and airlines. In Texas alone, 300,000 children are not in school.
Indeed the reaction has been so strong that a flight enroute to the U.S. from Europe diverted to Boston because a passenger said she had flu like symptoms. Some folks, mainly Republican politicians and xenophobic pundits, have demanded that we immediately shut down the U.S./Mexico border. Apparently these folks have not heard the latest reports on the swine flu.
Apparently we were warned about this flu's potential as far back as 1999. The forewarning obviously fell on deaf ears.
According to a piece written in The Huffington Post U.S. military contractors in Iraq have charged the American taxpayers $85. billion for services rendered.
It should come as no surprise to any informed person that these outsourced services are not any less costly than those that could have been provided by the U.S. military.
Worse, these military contractors are responsible for the accidental deaths and shootings of more than a few of our U.S. military.
Are the hired contractors typically incompetent Republican heckofajob brownies or are they simply outright criminals?
It is hard to tell the difference between ineptitude and crime under W. rule.
One must understand the ideology that drives the Republican Party's quest to wage war and, at the same time, enable contractors who are given a free ride to rob our nation's piggy bank.
I am sure everyone has heard the economic advisor for Senator John McCain and former Texas U.S. Senator Phil Gramm's words of wisdom last week. Apparently Mr. Gramm is impatient with the American people and he graciously volunteered to serve as our personal life coach and economic counselor for the day.
It sure is nice when one of our former U.S. Senators decides to descend from the bubbly stratosphere of wealth where 1% of the nation's people reside. Those of us below should feel blessed when a resident of this realm decides to pay us a social call. And we should feel especially grateful when the bubble dweller decides to give us a little pep talk and reassure us about our financial well-being.
According to former Senator Phil Gramm, the media covers only the negative news about the economy. Gramm insists the economic news is nothing more than fabricated doom and gloom. According to him, the economy is fine, it is humming along splendidly and therefore we should all be very happy. Any pain we think we might experience at the pump or at the checkout lanes of the supermarket does not exist. It is all in our heads. You see we are in the state of a "mental recession" according to the former U.S. Senator. We are becoming a nation of whiners, Gramm admonished.
I guess a permanent tap into Middle Eastern oil was just too much to pass up for the Vice President's former company.
What a disgusting move. All those no-bid Afghanistan, Iraq War, and Katrina recovery contracts were a money pipeline in allowing Halliburton to cut and run to the land of black gold.
