Who This President Is Working For Just Now, Today

Two hours ago, this President just posted the following tweet online:

Having been involved in the negotiations, to put it mildly, the number that OPEC+ is looking to cut is 20 Million Barrels a day, not the 10 Million that is generally being reported. If anything near this happens, and the World gets back to business from the Covid 19 disaster, the Energy Industry will be strong again, far faster than currently anticipated. Thank you to all of those who worked with me on getting this very big business back on track, in particular Russia and Saudi Arabia.

This is who this President is working for presently.

He's working for the oil companies. 

He's working so they have higher gas prices for us to pay.

We're in the middle of the worst, most killing, deadly pandemic in the last 100 years, at least, and he's working for the oil companies today.

Not done there, he famously, in the last few weeks, made it completely clear he was leaving "stay at home" orders for this pandemic up to each of the 50 governors of each state. Today, this hits:

Trump says he’ll decide on easing guidelines, not governors

Now, suddenly, he doesn't like not having this power any longer so he's saying it's up to him, him of all people, to decide when we'll ease these orders, not the governors.

And at the same time, he's also disavowing Dr. Anthony Fauci, this administration's head of this pandemic work. Earlier today he retweeted #FireFauci.

The man is nuts. I think he's losing or lost it. Seriously.

Thanks, Mr. President!
Thanks, Republicans!

Lessons from Bolivia for us?

So it would seem:

Where more "welfare" in this country actually goes

There's so much talk and indignation of "poor people on welfare", I think it important to consider the numbers, the actual numbers.  The poor in this country...

Receive less in subsidized benefits than corporations. The US government spends around $60 billion on public housing and rental subsidies for low-income families, compared to more than $90 billion on  corporate subsidies. Oil companies alone get around $70 billion. And that’s not counting the nearly $60 billion a year in tax breaks corporations enjoy by sheltering profits offshore. Or the $700 billion bailout banks got in 2008. (Source:  Think By Numbers)

Want to fix our national spending and budget problems?

Cut corporate welfare.

Oh, and defense spending. Cut that bloated, wasteful, biggest source of spending in the country big time.  And soon as possible.

From the article:

20 Things the Poor Do Everyday That the Rich Never Have to Worry About

The white man screws over Native Americans yet one more time

If you listened to NPR last evening, you may have heard this story:

EPA Wants To Allow Continued Wastewater Dumping In Wyoming

Dirty water from the oil wells flows through oil-caked pipes into a settling pit where trucks vacuum off the oil. A net covers the pit to keep out birds and other wildlife. Streams of this wastewater flow through the reservation and join natural creeks and rivers.
_________________________________________________________

It's a real beauty.

It's not like the European settlers didn't cheat, lie, hurt, maim, torture and kill Native Americans enough since we arrive here about 500 years ago. We have to, apparently, keep on doing all we can to hurt these people.

A little from the story:

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to let oil companies continue to dump polluted wastewater on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. This includes chemicals that companies add to the wells during hydraulic fracturing, an engineering practice that makes wells produce more oil.

An NPR investigation last year discovered that the EPA was allowing oil companies to send so much of this contaminated water onto dry land that it was creating raging streams. At the time, there was a controversy within the agency over whether to keep allowing this practice, according to documents NPR obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

On Friday, the EPA will close the public comment period on proposed permits for several oil fields on the reservations. The proposed permits include some additional restrictions, but would allow companies to continue releasing the water.

So the EPA may let the oil companies keep draining their wastewater onto what is the Native American's land. Isn't that great?

And check out a short list of just some of the things that may be in the water:

"The biggest concern is still what's in the water," says Duke University's Jackson. "It has salts, metals, radioactive elements like radium, and chemicals such as benzene, and sometimes at levels 150 times what's allowed in drinking water. Who wants to eat a cow that drinks water laced in benzene?" (Robert Jackson, a professor of environmental science at Duke University.)

Let's see, we came here, 500 years ago, took their land, killed many of them, shot, hurt, tortured, maimed and killed others, took away their language, their dress, their religion, their culture, gave them alcohol and guns, shoved them off to obscure lands we call, hypocritically enough, "Reservations"--because hey, we're reserving them a space in our country, right?--and now, on top of all that, we're going to heavily pollute their land and water and poison their and our own animals, water and soil and someone thinks this is okay and that it should continue?

Oh, hell, no.  We need to put an end to this ugliness, this gross injustice.

It's no way to treat the water, the soil and especially no way to treat a group people.

Quote of the day

"I spent 33 years & four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street & the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico... safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti & Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys... I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House.... I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests... I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies... In China... I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." --US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler. Author of "War Is A Racket." At the time of his death, the most-decorated Marine in US history.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, corporate pimp

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is understandably--I guess--but shamelessly shilling for a Canadian oil company, TransCanada, to have their oil pipeline go through the state.

This makes it official. Governor Nixon is now officially and publicly, clearly a corporate pimp.

He's out there, pushing for this TransCanada XL pipeline to transport Canadian oil through the US just so it can get to Texas and out to world oil markets for TransCanada and he's doing it for money.

Sure, he's doing it for money for Missouri's state treasury but hey, selling others--in this case, a state--for money, it doesn't matter where the money goes, just that you're out there selling people.

As if that weren't bad enough, what makes it really, additionally disgusting for and to me is that the prostitute he's selling is you and me. He's selling the state of Missouri--us.

The pipeline is to go from Illinois, through our state and then down to Texas. The Canadians are smart enough to know that in order to get their multi-billion dollar boondoggle, they need to line up all the people and states they can in order to get this thing.

It's beyond disgusting.

Why on Earth should any people or state in the US allow what is a Canadian pipeline, with its inevitable leaks and oil spills and environmental damage, go through their state and area and farm, whatever, just so a Canadian oil company can get richer?

And that's what this is all about, at its core--selling the American people on a pipeline through the country, just so a Canadian oil company can make millions and millions of dollars--more money--at our expense.

So Governor Nixon is trying to sell us all on the idea--and to sell us in the marketplace--so we can get a few temporary jobs and some more money in our state treasury.

This is obscene.

Missourians should no way stand for this.

Links (and further proof): http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/state/missouri/new-pipeline-project-through-missouri-is-praised-for-creating-jobs

http://kcur.org/post/oil-pipeline-mapped-beyond-kansas-city-outskirts

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/06/1097886/-Florida-voter-purge-official-linked-to-Koch-funded-efforts-to-defeat-Obama

We give tax credits to the most profitable industry in the nation and world

This could be a definition of insanity. It is most certainly a definition of gross unfairness.

Big Oil: Big profits and tax cuts from us, to boot

How much is enough? The top five oil companies in the country raked in $70 billion--that's billion--in profits the first HALF of this year. These are some of the most profitable companies in the nation and so, the world. But here's a dirty little secret they don't want us to emphasize--they get tax subsidies. Here's another not-so-secret secret--the Republicans and Right Wingers have been fighting in the last few months to have these same wealthy companies KEEP those tax subsidies--tax breaks. "Big Oil" is sqealing like a stuck pig, too, over the mere POSSIBILITY that they might lose $400 million in subsidies. It's time to stand up, folks. It's time we speak out. This is insanity. We're being gouged at the pump and then giving them tax breaks, to boot. Sound sensible to you? Links: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/big-oil-profits_n_913452.html; http://consumerist.com/2011/04/big-oil-companies-sucked-up-much-higher-profits-than-they-did-a-year-ago.html; http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/28/207983/big-oil-profits/

The annual, ugly, very unpatriotic Independence Day screwing

Well, good morning and welcome to the annual, very unpatriotic Independence Day screwing we always get from Corporate Amerika and the gas stations, coast to coast. As I went to work today, I noticed gasoline jumped at least approximately 15 cents--from $3.27 per gallon yesterday (when I filled up, thank goodness) to today's cost (on the East side of town, anyway) of $3.42 a gallon. Thank you, Quik Trip, et. al and happy 4th of July to you, too. Doesn't it seem as though some representative in government should propose a law making this annual holiday gouging illegal? And not just on our national patriotic holiday but Thanksgiving, Christmas, all of them? Does it seem right they can get away with this? It sure doesn't to me. And it particularly doesn't on the day we celebrate the country's birth, the opportunistic, exploitative bastards. (To borrow a phrase from another local blogger, "You kids get off my lawn!").

The end of the world as we know it

From the headlines today:

Head of Saudi Electric Company Says "Oil Runs Out in 2030 if Current Consumption Maintained"

2030 is just not that far out there.

The good news out of that if you ignore the collapse of international commerce (civilization?)?

At least we'd get out of the Middle East.

If that happens, kiss Israel goodbye.

Mitch McConnell & the Republican leaders are going against the American people

Proof positive:

McConnell rejects higher taxes on oil firms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday rejected a proposal to scale back tax breaks for big oil firms, calling it a political maneuver.

No, Senator McConnell, I can assure you, this is not purely a "political maneuver."   

 It's financial one both for the American public, buying gasoline at home, as well as a more national one since we have so much debt AND the big oil companies are making more money and profits than any other companies in the country on our backs.


And then, get this added juicy bit of hypocrisy:   

Republicans for their part are hammering Obama over high gasoline prices, which threaten to slow the economy just as it is beginning to pick up steam.

They're taking money from Big Oil for their campaigns and they're in the pockets of Big Oil but they blame the high price of oil on the president.

Now, that's some chutzpah. 


But then that's what we've come to expect from the Republican leadership out of Washington.

Tax subsidies for oil companies?

The largest and most profitable companies--oil companies--get tax subsidies?  Exxon-Mobil is the number 2 "Fortune 500 Biggest Company" this year.  Chevron is 3 and Conoco Phillips is 4.

Does this make sense to ANYONE?

Good on you, Mr. President.  Good call.  Now let's carry through on this.

Link:  http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/112672/fortune-500-biggest-companies-2011

On oil: In Saudi Arabia and here in the States

There seems to be a lot going on in the world of oil, news-wise, today.

First there's this:

WikiLeaks: Saudis running out of oil


By Brett Michael Dykes
 
The latest startling revelation to come via documents leaked to Julian Assange's muckraking website and published by The Guardian is should give pause to every suburban SUV-driver: U.S. officials think Saudi Arabia is overpromising on its capacity to supply oil to a fuel-thirsty world. That sets up a scenario, the documents show, whereby the Saudis could dramatically underdeliver on output by as soon as next year, sending fuel prices soaring.
 
The cables detail a meeting between a U.S. diplomat and Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration for Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, in November 2007. Husseini told the American official that the Saudis are unlikely to keep to their target oil output of 12.5 million barrels per day output in order to keep prices stable. Husseini also indicated that Saudi producers are likely to hit "peak oil"--the point at which global output hit its high mark--as early as 2012. That means, in essence, that it will be all downhill from there for the enormous Saudi oil industry.

"According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described, and the timeline for their production not as unrestrained as Aramco and energy optimists would like to portray," one of the cables reads. "While al-Husseini fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, he is no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered."

And while not that many people here in the States are concerned about or for the Saudis and their oil (except the oil companies, of course), what needs to be said is that for the US and the world, any decrease in what they can give in oil supply needs to be offset nearly perfectly by other energy sources so the world economies can hum safely, calmly and quietly while we transition to those other sources.

Next up and lastly today is this little nugget:

New drilling method opens vast oil fields in US


By Jonathan Fahey, AP Energy Writer


A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.

Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day — more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.

This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half, advancing a goal that has long eluded policymakers.

"That's a significant contribution to energy security," says Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Credit Suisse.

The thing is, we're going to have to bring the big, unwieldy US energy-gobbling machine in for a safe landing, transferring from Saudi oil and other fossil fuels, into a) possibly our own oil sources for a time and then, finally into b) renewable, clean energy sources like solar with solar panels and photovoltaic cells, as I've written here before.  Hopefully this drilling out West can be done with minimal damage to the environment.

It's going to take a lot of work, resources and intelligence to do it, that's for sure.
Links:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110209/ts_yblog_thelookout/wikileaks-saudis-running-out-of-oil
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110209/ap_on_re_us/us_shale_oil

Can anyone really, factually deny this?

GOP PLATFORM TOP TEN (from "Fred" at Alternet, see below): --Phase out Social Security --Deny Unemployment benefits --Oppose Wall Street reform --De-regulate Oil drilling --Tell rape victims to make lemonade --Play on peoples’ fears --Count on Peoples’ hatred --Alienate Minorities --Demonize homosexuals --“Liberals are coming for your guns!” Link to original post: http://blogs.alternet.org/fr41trek/2010/07/13/gop-platform-top-ten/