Texas Governor Rick Perry has dismissed B.P's outrageous, criminal conduct as, "An Act Of God." Fox News Weather announces that B.P's Pandora's Box could become much worse if a storm develops and spreads the oil. That event, Fox informs, would be by "courtesy of Mother Nature." B.P. and Halliburton announce they have "Deep Department of Justice and White House ties" to shield them from criminal charges.
Senator Lisa Murkowski picks this moment to introduce legislation to overturn the EPA's "endangerment findings." Murkowski worries that EPA regulations are harming the economy and small businesses. The pathetically brainless, Republican Senator from Alaska, has apparently managed to miss the enormity of the damage, including in job losses, from B.P's oil disaster. Such stupidity leaves one breathless with astonishment, and wondering if Republicans have found a way to clone themselves.
Halliburton"s PAC"s, since the disaster, has given 14 contributions to those Congressmen who sit on committees with oversight of the oil patch. Thirteen of those Congressmen are Republican.
Corporate media continues its endless stream of titillating, tabloid journalism, while the Gulf of Mexico dies and B.P's oil continues its inevitable, calamitous journey around the planet's seas. Louisiana's fisherman are realizing that the disaster has permanently destroyed their way of life. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that sales of midsize S.U.V' s are up 32%, and sales of large S.U.V's are up 34%, compared to the same month last year.
B.P, trying to limit its liability, originally estimated the discharge at 1,000 bbls a day that soon increased to 5,000 bbls a day. Obama, busy monitoring what the white House continues referring to as "'The Spill" ignores the scientists he assembled. Experts in flow rates, pressure gradients and volumetric capacity of discharge, Obama's scientific team estimate the oil is being released into the Gulf at a rate of 100,000 bbls a day. Obama clings to B.P's oft repeated best estimates which are obviously based on lies designed to limit its liability.
And so it goes ". Obama is now thoroughly revealed as the inept coward that he is. The man will not lead. He will not risk the slightest political repercussion for fear of B.P' s Corporate reach. The best thing he could do is fire all his advisors, and try doing his own thinking. How could his fawning "leadship" style be worse?
If there is to be any silver lining to the dark, angry cloud that now hangs over the world's oceans, it will take the form of millions of Americans demanding that their government be returned to them. Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Texas are the state's whose voters have often elected Republicans. Deregulate and "drill baby drill" has long been a rallying cry of the G.O.P. Bush Junior and Dick Cheney gave oil companies a big green light to ignore those pesky regulations that were hamstringing Free Market Enterprise. But now the buzzards have come home to roost in precisely those states that could always be relied on to send another, deregulating Republican Troglodyte, to Washington.
The question begs. What responsibility do the voters in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida share in their own destruction? David Duke, a Grand Wizard of the KKK, ran for the Louisiana State Senate, the U.S. Senate, the Governorship of Louisiana and twice for the U.S. Presidency. The fact that enough Louisianans supported the racist Duke in his political efforts is testament of their ignorance and political gullibility. Does stupidity or ignorance serve as excuse for their part in the destruction of their environment and livelihoods?
If Americans continue their infatuations with Limbaugh, Beck, Fox and other right wing imbeciles they will, as usual, be aiding and abetting the increasingly slippery slope of their own demise. Far Right Troglodytes blithely cite phony statistics that refute theories of Global Warming that have been carefully and intelligently assembled by the brightest scientific minds on the planet. Right Wing blowhards blather any stupid comment that intrudes into their empty heads while vastly superior intellects are ignored or held in contempt. Millions of Americans daily applaud such morons. Human kind, at this stage in its development, can be likened to a one year old playing with a straight razor. Time to grow up.
When Florida, in concert with the U.S. Supreme Court, threw a presidential election to Bush Junior Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, should have said in one voice Whoa Nelly ".! Bush and Cheney began two wars, they legalized torture and enabled, through deregulation, the corporate fixation of money over patriotism, duty and God. Bush and Cheney were national disasters the nation will probably never recover from. Their unceasing efforts to deregulate oil exploration and development can now be seen bearing its poisoned fruit as the Gulf of Mexico dies.
Americans grumbled faintly while two trillion of their tax dollars were given away to Wall Street's Commercial Banks while their schools, roads, and government services went unfunded. Two wars are devouring hundreds of billions a year more to keep Americans safe from the Boogeyman while accomplishing quite the opposite.
Darcy Burner is the head of the Progressive Congress Action Fund. She says, "there were far too many of us who thought our job was done" after the election. Now Darcy wants to make Obama more assertive. It's not that Obama is less or more assertive. He was offered the top spot because, after 8 years of Bush Junior and Cheney, 2008 was not going to see another Republican in the White House. The powers decided it would be best to get a Democrat elected. A minority Democrat was perfect - enter Obama.
And so it was that an overachiever took the bait offered and ran with it. Obama's function is in filling in until the Bush Cheney burn diminishes enough that Americans are again susceptible to the traitorous Republican attacks, that as Grover Norquist put it, "will reduce government to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Grover adds, while Republicans nod to break their necks "The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax."
Grover's new, lame brained opinion, is that taxes aren't such a bad thing as long as they're used for war, and bailing out too big to fail corporations all at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Americans are told that any services their government might provide them smacks of socialism, communism or any other ism that keeps their tax dollars flowing to the corporate oligarchy, and away from their nation's infrastructural needs. So giving trillions of their tax dollars away to endless corporate welfare cases makes perfect sense as the corporate strangle hold closes ever tighter around America"s neck. Go figure.
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