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By Dave Lindorff
As the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew out ever more toxic oil and methane into the sea, floating toxic sludge, by the millions of gallons, starts destroying the wetlands across the American Southeast, the dead hand of President Ronald Reagan is at work, making sure nothing is done to prevent yet another such disaster from occurring.
The name of that dead hand is Martin Leach-Cross Feldman, a federal judge in Louisiana, a part of the notoriously right-wing Fifth Circuit.
Feldman, appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan and approved by the Republican-led Senate in 1983, has been a craven supporter of corporations over the public interest for years. In the wake of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, for example, Judge Feldman ruled against homeowners who tried to bring a racketeering case against Clipper Estates, the corporate owner of their housing development, claiming that the company had stolen money it collected from them allegedly for repairs, for the owner's personal use. The judge ruled that homeowners had no standing to sue.
The Dead Hand of Reagan Rises from the Gulf
Now, using classic Reaganesque logic (remember our senile ex-president's mocking argument to environmentalist that because trees release carbon dioxide at night, they must be "polluters"?), Judge Feldman has issued a temporary restraining order against the White House's six-month freeze on offshore drilling. His rationale for overturning the moratorium on drilling: The government hadn't provided an adequate justification for it.
As the judge put it: "If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy handed and rather overbearing".
Well actually Judge, yes it is rational as a matter of fact...
For the rest of this story by DAVE LINDORFF in the new online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening.net, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/
