I am one of those people who will actually watch those boring, boring, hearings on C-SPAN that most of us flip right on past while watching TV, and this past week I've been watching one of the longer events the channel broadcasts...but it's been far from boring.
The Coast Guard and what used to be the MMS were in Houston looking into what caused the Gulf oil spill and they're taking testimony from representatives of the involved parties...and let me tell you, this is more than just an accident inquiry-it's also a warm-up for the lawsuits that are surely going to follow.
This is what happens when lobbyists are put in charge of our regulatory agencies. It is the same as appointing Bernie Madoff the Sheriff of Wall St.
An article in the New York Times reveals the Minerals Management Services gave permission to BP and other oil companies to drill in the Gulf without requiring permits that are obtained at another agency. The MMS also put a muzzle on the agency's scientists.
The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.
Those scientists said they were also regularly pressured by agency officials to change the findings of their internal studies if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or if wildlife might be harmed.
Under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Minerals Management Service is required to get permits to allow drilling where it might harm endangered species or marine mammals.
Meanwhile BP, Deepwater Horizon and Halliburton refuse to take responsibility for the devastating link by pointing fingers at one another. What an irresponsible, disgraceful and disgusting bunch.
OILmageddon is what happens when two oil boys are in charge of our federal government. President Bush and Vice President 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.
(Dear Conservative Hacks: File this under "be careful what you wish for". - promoted by boadicea)
Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately -- but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense.
When one goes to alternative sources for news and information on the evil doing Internets, one is likely to discover a whole host of information that will routinely never make it to the local, national evening news or cable TV.
The posts below, for example, are certainly fit to print and air but somehow, because of the powers that be in the corporate owned media, much of it has been fed through the buzz saws and the shredders of the gatekeepers who control particular messages and agendas.
Thanks to the interactive Internets and You Tube, bloggers can disclose news that is largely unnoticed or ignored in the mainstream.
Halliburton/KBR Rewarded for Deaths of U.S. Troops.
According to an article written by Jeremy Scahill for The Nation magazine, Kellogg Brown and Root received bonuses for work that had in fact killed American troops.
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.
Thanks to shoddy work done on the cheap, no doubt. According to a separate report, Houston based KBR is also hiding its money in an off shore tax haven to avoid paying its fair share of U.S. taxes.
What a fine, stand up firm.
Diarist Meteor Blades over at Daily Kos wrote an expose about KBR's appalling faulty electrical work in Iraq.
"It was horrible -- some of the worst electrical work I've ever seen," said Jim Childs, a master electrician and the top civilian expert in an Army safety survey. Childs told CNN that "with the buildings the way they are, we're playing Russian roulette.
(If your wallet feels unaccountably lighter-here's one reason why. - promoted by boadicea)
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.
As I mentioned in my diary Why Texans Deserve Far Better than John Cornyn, Part I, I asserted that rubber stamp for W. and war hawk Cornyn shirked military service during the Vietnam War when he had every opportunity to serve. While a college student, he had drawn a very low draft lottery number and yet he somehow managed to hide behind a student deferment when such were not supposed to be available at the time. Senator Cornyn likes to talk big and tall about a global war on terror as long as he and his don't do the fighting.
Part II discloses information on draft dodging Cornyn's rather interesting rise to political power in Texas. The way I see it, Cornyn's candidacies were essentially both enabled and purchased by a group of the Texas GOP rich, politically connected and very powerful people.
Our President has vetoed the SCHIP bill and many GOP lawmakers agree with W.
What a pathetically sad and embarrassing day for all of America. What kind of people have we become?
It is obvious to me that the GOP mantra du jour is "save the fetus, hate the born child" especially the child who is born into an economically disadvantaged or struggling family. Only a bunch of calloused, hypocritical, mean spirited and loathsome lawmakers would have voted against this bill.
Let's not forget whom these cruel monsters are when it is time to go to the voting polls. If they hate poor children, they also hate health care services for impoverished senior citizens, reduced interest college loans for middle and working class families, increased veteran's benefits and any program, for that matter, that would throw a life line to the working poor of this "rich" nation. No, these hypocrites instead support big oil, insurance, pharma and they fully embrace the military/industrial complex, i.e. Halliburton, Black Water, et al.
HA! Go Google "evil genius nicknames" and guess what's the NUMBER ONE link. Yep, you guessed it. Us! Or specifically, this diary by Branded Brazoria, which explains the secret plan by Dick Cheney to resign and return as CEO of Halliburton and become an Evil Genius.
Personally, I think he STILL is the CEO and it was a genius (if evil) plan by Halliburton to improve their profits. Start a war, give contracts to KBR, sell tons of $800 hammers to the military. All they needed was some good excuse to convince a reluctant Americans coming off a very productive decade to invade Iraq.
Just some excuse. Hmmm. What could it be...
What? Did you say some Islamic terrorists attacked the Twin Towers? Let's blame Saddamn! Sunni. Shiite. What's the difference? They all look the same, right?
It's not like these guys have fought civil wars against each other for centuries, right?
Sight. Anyway, sounds like it's time for a Googlebomb. Go and boost the diary some more!
Fresh from it's announcement that it was moving it's corporate offices to the Middle East, Halliburton warned stockholders that the company would miss it's quarterly profit numbers. Why? Because North American drilling has been tapped out.
I wonder how much those political contributions kept Halliburton's executives out of jail for over billing the Army. The relocation of it's CEO and their corporate headquarters from Houston to the Middle East was symbolic IMHO of the company's arrogance which gladly takes money from the American taxpayer (in Iraq & subsidies) but dumps the United States when there's better money elsewhere.
Speaking of which, you know Iraq is going bad when even Halliburton is trying to dump KBR, a major government contractor in Iraq. Halliburton will dump all KBR shares before summer.
Come to think of it both Bush (with his Paraguay ranch) and Cheney seem to be making preparations to get the heck out of the US once they're out of office. Hmm, wonder why.
Here's the statement though that got me.
[Halliburton's] concerns stem from signs that the North American market has more drilling rigs than needed to meet demand, said Bill Herbert, an industry analyst.
Wait a second. The supply is more than demand. Doesn't that mean my gas bill and the price of gas should be going down?!? Something just does not makes sense here - but then it never does with these guys.
(Diary edited - to demonstrate my vast power!!! Mu. HA. HA. HA. HA. - promoted by krazypuppy)
Washington, D.C. - In a startling move today, Vice-President Dick Cheney has announced he will step down due to medical reasons and once again take the helm as CEO of Halliburton. Though wildly cheered throughout progressive and liberal segments of American society, new concern has risen over the structure and purpose of Halliburton's move to the notorious pirate port of Dubai.
While it was widely known that the Houston-based international conglomerate was moving its CEO and headquarters to the United Arab Emirates, the business and political world was shocked to learn that Cheney would be once again take the helm. And as plans for what is now known as Dick Island, located at the world-famous The World development, comes to light, anxiety is filtering out among the world.
(Edited for the front page. This is a thoughtful reflection on how far from our better senses we have come since WWII and Korea..... - promoted by lightseeker)
Appeasing The Gods Of The Shareholders
There was a time when, as a matter of policy, America went to war only as a response to an attack by an aggressor. In 1962 John Kennedy had every reason to make war with Cuba and Russia when Kruschev talked Fidel into parking several dozen Soviet nuclear missiles ten minutes from Washington and 90 miles from spring break.
Most of the Joint Chiefs, especially Curtis Lemay,(General Bat Guano?) along with a sizable faction of Kennedy's closest advisers urged the President to invade. Lemay wanted to send his B52s, (presumably not to drop leaflets) while others preferred a massive land invasion, perhaps to restore the Cosa Nostra to control of Cuban Casinos, the way God intended.
There is an apocryphal story told that Marine Commandant David Shoup (under whom I served at the time) presented the assemblage of top level civilian and military advisers with an easel containing a map of Cuba, over which he had placed an acetate overlay of a tiny Pacific atoll named Tarawa. Tarawa, which the Marines had invaded early in WW2 was shown graphically as a small speck against the background of Castro's Caribbean worker's paradise.
He then proceeded to inform the gathering that the insignificant speck had not been at all pacific, having cost the lives of over 1000 Marines and the wounding of 2200 others, creating a great storm of protest at home over what was seen as a needless squandering of lives to gain a tiny piece of real estate. Tarawa, he is reported to have explained, was defended by 4500 Japanese while Castro would field 150,000, and perhaps as many more.
