On Monday, President Bush lifted the executive order enacted by his father banning offshore oil drilling. He stated that his action is "one of the most important steps we can take" to reduce the burden of high gas prices. He went on to say that "This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil reserves is action” from the Democratic Congress.
This one event encapsulates why so many people despise George W. Bush. In a few sentences Mr. Bush – yet again - endeavored to mislead the American people, brush aside a near-decade of failed leadership and shift the responsibility for his failure to the Democrats. What might otherwise be dismissed as a transparent election year stunt is actually far more cynical.
Not only will coastal drilling not solve the immediate problem of high gas prices but it also does nothing to address the long term problems of our dependency upon foreign oil and our economy’s vulnerability to oil futures speculation. The coastal reserves that the president pressed to open Monday would not produce any oil for at least five years even if the oil companies began constructing platforms today. That won’t happen, of course, because the major oil companies already control millions of acres of offshore parcels unaffected by the ban that they could have exploited at any time. They won’t drill in any coastal area anytime soon because they’re betting that oil prices will continue to climb as global production peaks and then declines during the next decade. To ensure high oil prices, they’ve been lobbying very aggressively to protect the “Enron Loophole” that completely insulates energy commodities trading from any sort of government regulation. The oil companies’ sole interest is not in the health of our economy or our energy independence but in their profits. The best way to guarantee those profits is to lock down lots of pricey, easily accessible oil that they can pump when they’re good and ready – in five or ten years. And President Bush obviously agrees with them.
Mr. Bush has done nothing to develop a coherent energy policy. On the contrary, every action taken by the administration (as opposed to the claims they’ve made) has had the effect of raising oil prices and delaying the development and implementation of non-oil energy alternatives. Even the invasion of Iraq – which even the most ardent supporters of the president now acknowledge was motivated by a desire to control that country’s vast oil reserves – has backfired magnificently. The Iraq war has destabilized the entire Middle East and significantly reduced Iraqi oil production. As a result, the price of gasoline has more than doubled during President Bush’s tenure. This would be a disaster for most presidents but not for Mr. Bush. As he will certainly re-enter the oil and gas industry after leaving office, high oil prices coupled with unfettered access to large domestic reserves would certainly offer Mr. Bush the opportunity to finally acquire the personal fortune that has thus far eluded him.
George W. Bush is a throwback to the Gilded Age: A greedy, self-serving opportunist who is trying to sell us out to the big oil companies. He will not lead us out of our energy crisis. It is in his personal interest to make it worse. If we are to have any kind of future at all, we must thoroughly reject Mr. Bush’s policies and those who would advance them. 19th century thinking will not solve 21st century problems.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Gunplay
There is one predictable aspect to the public debate on hot-button issues in the US: There will be groups for and against, diametrically opposite yet equally extreme. They will present studies, data and statistics - often the same but parsed differently - to support their positions. And the debate will advance imperceptibly, if at all. The debate on guns is no different.
What gets lost in most of these debates, however, is the reasonable – or pragmatic – middle. The reality of the gun debate is that most people don’t subscribe to either extreme. A majority neither wants a total ban on guns nor desires them to be completely uncontrolled. The debate will continue to center around registration, waiting periods and what exactly constitutes an assault weapon. Fine points, not absolutes. Because we, as a nation, have a long and complicated relationship with guns. I’ll use myself as an example.
I was raised with guns and hunted as a boy. I still like guns but think that killing animals for entertainment is grotesque and have long thought that hunting does not even remotely qualify as a sport. I would never think of camping or hiking in many places without a high-power rifle but have never carried a gun in town. I would love to own many guns that are banned in California as “assault weapons” even though I have no conceivable use for them. I enjoy firing guns, but would hate to be compelled to use one against another human being – even in self defense. I would do it but I am sure that it would be among the worst experiences of my life.
Surely, people on both “sides” of the gun control debate will object to aspects of my personal relationship with guns. That’s because between the black and white edges of this issue is a huge swath of gray. Even I get caught up in the one-side-versus-the-other way the issue is framed. That’s why I was so surprised by Antonin Scalia’s measured majority opinion delivered this week that citizens do have the right to possess guns for personal protection in their homes – subject to reasonable restrictions and regulations. After his foaming-at-the-mouth prediction earlier this month that restoring the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo Bay detainees would “almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” I fully expected him to pronounce that all man-portable weapons (including machine guns and anti-tank missiles) should be made immediately available for purchase by civilians to defend themselves against any and all evildoers. But the majority played it, well, conservatively, issuing a narrow decision that leaves the final place of guns in our society yet to be determined.
Some people want to see guns completely eliminated among the civilian population. Although I’d prefer to keep my guns, I would relinquish them if total domestic disarmament were achievable. Searching out and collecting all of the guns in the country, however, is a practical impossibility – especially since there no doubt would be countless exemptions. Gun rights advocates further argue that eliminating guns would only eliminate them among law-abiding citizens. Criminals, they correctly assert, would still have theirs, if simply by hiding them. Even if we could find every single gun in the country, more would find their way in. The war on drugs has proved how utterly ineffectual we are at controlling our borders. If tons of drugs can make their way into the country every year, so can tons of guns. There will be a ready market for contraband guns and there will be no shortage of suppliers willing to meet the demand. The big difference is that those buying guns will be actual criminals. The salient point is that most Americans would not support an outright ban on guns and only extremist gun nuts (a thankfully small minority) would tolerate convicted criminals and the mentally ill having guns of any kind, or a relaxation of the restrictions on gun sales.
Paradoxically, this is not an argument against civilian disarmament. Between 35% and 50% of American households (depending on whose numbers you go with) own guns, yet almost none of these households will ever experience a crime of any kind, much less one involving a gun. Half of all gun deaths are suicides. Guns are responsible for only a small fraction of homicides. Most homicide victims were killed by someone they knew, not the evil stranger we imagine when we consider buying a gun “for protection.” But therein lies the real problem: those damned statistics.
Gun control advocates assert that eliminating guns will reduce violent crime. The statistics, however, don’t bear that out. The numbers show that restrictive gun laws frequently correspond to increases in violent crime and murders. Now, that doesn’t mean that these two things are connected. Coincidence is not causality. Similarly, there are no strong data to indicate that increased gun ownership decreases crime. Statistics, while useful, don’t answer many fundamental questions. The result is that the conclusions any of us derive from the statistics are largely influenced by our preconceptions. So far as we know, owning a gun does not make us statistically safer; not owning a gun does not make us statistically less safe.
The best thing that I can say about the guns that I own is that I’ve never had to use them in anger. And, statistically speaking, I never will.
What gets lost in most of these debates, however, is the reasonable – or pragmatic – middle. The reality of the gun debate is that most people don’t subscribe to either extreme. A majority neither wants a total ban on guns nor desires them to be completely uncontrolled. The debate will continue to center around registration, waiting periods and what exactly constitutes an assault weapon. Fine points, not absolutes. Because we, as a nation, have a long and complicated relationship with guns. I’ll use myself as an example.
I was raised with guns and hunted as a boy. I still like guns but think that killing animals for entertainment is grotesque and have long thought that hunting does not even remotely qualify as a sport. I would never think of camping or hiking in many places without a high-power rifle but have never carried a gun in town. I would love to own many guns that are banned in California as “assault weapons” even though I have no conceivable use for them. I enjoy firing guns, but would hate to be compelled to use one against another human being – even in self defense. I would do it but I am sure that it would be among the worst experiences of my life.
Surely, people on both “sides” of the gun control debate will object to aspects of my personal relationship with guns. That’s because between the black and white edges of this issue is a huge swath of gray. Even I get caught up in the one-side-versus-the-other way the issue is framed. That’s why I was so surprised by Antonin Scalia’s measured majority opinion delivered this week that citizens do have the right to possess guns for personal protection in their homes – subject to reasonable restrictions and regulations. After his foaming-at-the-mouth prediction earlier this month that restoring the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo Bay detainees would “almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” I fully expected him to pronounce that all man-portable weapons (including machine guns and anti-tank missiles) should be made immediately available for purchase by civilians to defend themselves against any and all evildoers. But the majority played it, well, conservatively, issuing a narrow decision that leaves the final place of guns in our society yet to be determined.
Some people want to see guns completely eliminated among the civilian population. Although I’d prefer to keep my guns, I would relinquish them if total domestic disarmament were achievable. Searching out and collecting all of the guns in the country, however, is a practical impossibility – especially since there no doubt would be countless exemptions. Gun rights advocates further argue that eliminating guns would only eliminate them among law-abiding citizens. Criminals, they correctly assert, would still have theirs, if simply by hiding them. Even if we could find every single gun in the country, more would find their way in. The war on drugs has proved how utterly ineffectual we are at controlling our borders. If tons of drugs can make their way into the country every year, so can tons of guns. There will be a ready market for contraband guns and there will be no shortage of suppliers willing to meet the demand. The big difference is that those buying guns will be actual criminals. The salient point is that most Americans would not support an outright ban on guns and only extremist gun nuts (a thankfully small minority) would tolerate convicted criminals and the mentally ill having guns of any kind, or a relaxation of the restrictions on gun sales.
Paradoxically, this is not an argument against civilian disarmament. Between 35% and 50% of American households (depending on whose numbers you go with) own guns, yet almost none of these households will ever experience a crime of any kind, much less one involving a gun. Half of all gun deaths are suicides. Guns are responsible for only a small fraction of homicides. Most homicide victims were killed by someone they knew, not the evil stranger we imagine when we consider buying a gun “for protection.” But therein lies the real problem: those damned statistics.
Gun control advocates assert that eliminating guns will reduce violent crime. The statistics, however, don’t bear that out. The numbers show that restrictive gun laws frequently correspond to increases in violent crime and murders. Now, that doesn’t mean that these two things are connected. Coincidence is not causality. Similarly, there are no strong data to indicate that increased gun ownership decreases crime. Statistics, while useful, don’t answer many fundamental questions. The result is that the conclusions any of us derive from the statistics are largely influenced by our preconceptions. So far as we know, owning a gun does not make us statistically safer; not owning a gun does not make us statistically less safe.
The best thing that I can say about the guns that I own is that I’ve never had to use them in anger. And, statistically speaking, I never will.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Black Thoughts
This week John McCain’s top advisor, Charlie Black, said that a new terrorist attack upon the U.S. would be a good thing for McCain’s campaign. Black has been roundly criticized by Democrats for saying such despicable things but Black’s only mistake was inadvertently speaking the truth. Or was it? The conventional wisdom is that the Republicans are perceived to be stronger in the fight against terror than the Democrats and, in politics, perception is reality. But with the failure to capture Osama bin Laden, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the gross mismanagement of the war in Iraq and the failure of the president and Homeland Security to deal with the predictable disaster that was Katrina, that reality may have changed.
The Republicans have played the fear card in every election after 9/11 with progressively diminishing success. If there were a terrorist attack prior to this election, it would be a disaster for the Republicans. They would have no place to hide, no one to credibly blame. They couldn’t accuse Democrats of being soft on terrorism because they’ve given the president everything he’s asked for and more, from the Patriot Act to warrantless wiretapping to rolling over on habeas corpus to giving him boatloads of cash. Another attack – especially on the scale of 9/11 – would find most Americans asking the Republicans just what they’d been doing for the last seven years. Allowing another 9/11-type attack to occur would destroy the Republicans because no one would trust them to defend us ever again. Moreover - with countless examples of corruption, cronyism and incompetence emerging from the Bush administration – impeachment or post-presidential prosecution would likely be back on the table.
Charlie Black was wrong. The only issue that McCain leads Obama on – and then only marginally – is national security. And, since terrorism is way down on most Americans’ list of priorities this election cycle, that advantage has been largely blunted. Unfortunately for McCain, the only card he really has to play this election isn’t the ace it used to be.
The Republicans have played the fear card in every election after 9/11 with progressively diminishing success. If there were a terrorist attack prior to this election, it would be a disaster for the Republicans. They would have no place to hide, no one to credibly blame. They couldn’t accuse Democrats of being soft on terrorism because they’ve given the president everything he’s asked for and more, from the Patriot Act to warrantless wiretapping to rolling over on habeas corpus to giving him boatloads of cash. Another attack – especially on the scale of 9/11 – would find most Americans asking the Republicans just what they’d been doing for the last seven years. Allowing another 9/11-type attack to occur would destroy the Republicans because no one would trust them to defend us ever again. Moreover - with countless examples of corruption, cronyism and incompetence emerging from the Bush administration – impeachment or post-presidential prosecution would likely be back on the table.
Charlie Black was wrong. The only issue that McCain leads Obama on – and then only marginally – is national security. And, since terrorism is way down on most Americans’ list of priorities this election cycle, that advantage has been largely blunted. Unfortunately for McCain, the only card he really has to play this election isn’t the ace it used to be.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Drilling for Dollars
How Bush, the Republicans and Big Oil Are Killing the Economy One Gallon at a Time
With oil prices at record highs and gasoline now averaging more than four dollars per gallon, President Bush, again, is proposing that we start drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and that we end the moratorium on coastal drilling that his father, the first President Bush, enacted by executive order in 1990. He’s also blaming congressional Democrats for the dramatic increase in gasoline prices. Even ignoring that nonsense for a moment, the suggestion that arctic and/or coastal drilling will have any impact on current gasoline prices is ridiculous on its face. While Democrats have controlled congress for less than 18 months, gasoline prices have steadily increased during Bush’s tenure, and he and congressional Republicans have resisted any changes to the mechanisms that could reign in those increases even as they destroy the economy. There is much more to this than yet another of Bush’s catastrophic failures of leadership, or the bumbling and juvenile evasion of responsibility of this generation’s Warren G. Harding.
Oil industry analysts have stated that, even if drilling began today in ANWR, full production wouldn’t be achieved for ten years. At full production, ANWR oil would only reduce our imports by about 5%, and would have virtually no effect upon gasoline prices. Coastal drilling could tap a potentially larger total volume of oil but it, too, would have little effect (maybe 2 cents per gallon by analysts’ estimates) on the price of gasoline – in about five years at the earliest. The dirty little secret that President Bush and his Big Oil cronies want to keep to themselves is that drilling in ANWR or along our coasts will not have any real impact on domestic supply or prices. That's because, although that oil would increase our domestically available supply somewhat, the price of that oil is set in the commodities markets – markets that are literally out of control. But to get the whole story of high gas prices, we first have to take a little trip in the Wayback Machine…
Not long after Enron was formed in the late ‘80s, its chairman, Ken Lay, realized that he could make more money speculating in electricity futures than actually delivering power – especially if government regulators didn’t prevent him from manipulating the energy markets. Under the first President Bush, a little-known federal agency called the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accommodated Lay when its chairwoman, Wendy Graham, agreed to leave Enron alone. After Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992 – but before he left office – Lay asked Graham to make her hands-off treatment of Enron official CFTC policy. Graham agreed and the CFTC approved the Enron policy on the day of Clinton’s inauguration. Graham then accepted a position on Enron’s board of directors, receiving almost $1 million over the next decade.
Fast forward to December 2000. During the confusion of Bush v. Gore, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the “Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 [CFMA]”. The law was intended to resolve a conflict between the CFTC and the SEC, but it contained a provision – thereafter known as the “Enron Loophole” - that was slipped into the bill literally in the dead of night by then-Senator Phil Gramm [R – TX], the husband of Wendy Graham and currently the chief economic advisor to John McCain. The Enron Loophole exempted energy trading executed on electronic platforms from government regulation. At about this same time, Enron had created its own online energy market and set its sights on California – the largest electricity market in the country. During 2001, Californians endured 38 rolling blackouts as Enron used artificial shortages and its complete control of the market to triple consumers’ electricity bills. And State and federal regulators were powerless to do anything about it.
The Enron Loophole is the primary reason for the spike in oil prices today because it applies to ALL energy futures, including propane, natural gas and oil – virtually all of which are traded electronically. Consequently, oil prices are now driven not by supply-and-demand but by speculators, free from any regulatory oversight. Currently, an attempt to eliminate the Enron Loophole has been attached to the massive farm bill by Senator Carl Levin [D – MI] that passed with a veto proof majority but has nonetheless been threatened with a veto by President Bush for stated reasons that are suspect at best. But why would President Bush really want to veto a bill containing a provision that could significantly lower our energy costs right now? The answer is obvious: Money.
As oil prices have spiked, the oil companies have been reaping unimagined profits. Last month, Exxon/Mobil posted the highest profits of any corporation in history. What domestic drilling will do is give the oil companies a large domestic reservoir of oil to sell at what – in an unregulated future - will likely be even higher prices than exist today. The operative term in that sentence is “future.” The oil companies are making huge profits with production right where it is. Increasing supply now would only force prices down. But laying the groundwork now to produce more oil in five or ten years – when almost all oil analysts project global oil production will be declining – is a really smart business move. The evidence of this strategy is that the oil companies already possess millions of acres of offshore leases outside of governmental control which they haven’t exploited. The truth is that opening arctic and coastal drilling is not about our energy future, it’s about the future of oil company profits.
Any doubt that George W. Bush is a cynical opportunist must, by now, be completely dispelled. With the clock winding down on his presidency and with oil and gas the most likely segment of the private sector he’ll reenter after leaving the White House, it’s no surprise he’s pushing so hard for arctic and coastal drilling. I might be more charitable to Bush if he hadn’t tried to block every effort at conservation, pollution control, increased fuel economy, renewable energy development and reasonable market regulation. But he did and I can’t. I also have to be very suspicious of the motives of other prominent Republicans.
Florida’s governor, Charlie Crist, was, until last week, an opponent of drilling off Florida’s coast. Now he’s in favor. Why? Because he’s being considered as John McCain’s running mate and McCain just came out in favor of off shore drilling. But why would McCain - who just three weeks ago was saying that coastal drilling would be a waste of time and effort and have little impact on the country’s wider energy needs – change his position so dramatically? It just might be Phil Graham, the former Texas senator who brought us the Enron Loophole. Gramm, McCain’s chief economic advisor, has positioned McCain to join President Bush in opposing the current farm bill for the same apparent reasons. In McCain’s case, however, the most likely reason is that he’s clueless on the key economic matter of energy pricing and is relying on his economic advisor, Gramm, who has a vested interest in maintaining the Enron Loophole.
The tragedy of the Republicans’ fanatical support of the oil companies and Bush’s single-minded pursuit of post-presidential wealth is that nothing has been done to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil, our vulnerability to oil futures speculation or our use of fossil fuels. The debate about global warming is over but the battle to keep us locked in our death grip with oil, gas and coal goes on. Two weeks ago senate Republicans – and some Democrats from “energy” states – killed landmark legislation that would have finally addressed climate change and promote renewable energy development. They complained that the economic impact would be too painful, the sacrifices too great. So now more time will be lost in dealing with the two most important – and inextricably linked – crises we face as a nation.
The sacrifices we refuse to make now will fade to insignificance compared with the sacrifices we will be forced to make in the not-too-distant future if we don’t take aggressive, comprehensive action now. Obviously, we can’t look to the current president or much of our congress for the leadership we need – they’re too busy serving their own interests. It’s time for us, The People, to make it clear to our elected officials that we want action now. It’s time for us to take the responsibility and make the sacrifices necessary to make the world we give to our children worth having. And if our current elected officials won’t give us what we need, then, come November, we need to send others who will.
With oil prices at record highs and gasoline now averaging more than four dollars per gallon, President Bush, again, is proposing that we start drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and that we end the moratorium on coastal drilling that his father, the first President Bush, enacted by executive order in 1990. He’s also blaming congressional Democrats for the dramatic increase in gasoline prices. Even ignoring that nonsense for a moment, the suggestion that arctic and/or coastal drilling will have any impact on current gasoline prices is ridiculous on its face. While Democrats have controlled congress for less than 18 months, gasoline prices have steadily increased during Bush’s tenure, and he and congressional Republicans have resisted any changes to the mechanisms that could reign in those increases even as they destroy the economy. There is much more to this than yet another of Bush’s catastrophic failures of leadership, or the bumbling and juvenile evasion of responsibility of this generation’s Warren G. Harding.
Oil industry analysts have stated that, even if drilling began today in ANWR, full production wouldn’t be achieved for ten years. At full production, ANWR oil would only reduce our imports by about 5%, and would have virtually no effect upon gasoline prices. Coastal drilling could tap a potentially larger total volume of oil but it, too, would have little effect (maybe 2 cents per gallon by analysts’ estimates) on the price of gasoline – in about five years at the earliest. The dirty little secret that President Bush and his Big Oil cronies want to keep to themselves is that drilling in ANWR or along our coasts will not have any real impact on domestic supply or prices. That's because, although that oil would increase our domestically available supply somewhat, the price of that oil is set in the commodities markets – markets that are literally out of control. But to get the whole story of high gas prices, we first have to take a little trip in the Wayback Machine…
Not long after Enron was formed in the late ‘80s, its chairman, Ken Lay, realized that he could make more money speculating in electricity futures than actually delivering power – especially if government regulators didn’t prevent him from manipulating the energy markets. Under the first President Bush, a little-known federal agency called the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accommodated Lay when its chairwoman, Wendy Graham, agreed to leave Enron alone. After Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992 – but before he left office – Lay asked Graham to make her hands-off treatment of Enron official CFTC policy. Graham agreed and the CFTC approved the Enron policy on the day of Clinton’s inauguration. Graham then accepted a position on Enron’s board of directors, receiving almost $1 million over the next decade.
Fast forward to December 2000. During the confusion of Bush v. Gore, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the “Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 [CFMA]”. The law was intended to resolve a conflict between the CFTC and the SEC, but it contained a provision – thereafter known as the “Enron Loophole” - that was slipped into the bill literally in the dead of night by then-Senator Phil Gramm [R – TX], the husband of Wendy Graham and currently the chief economic advisor to John McCain. The Enron Loophole exempted energy trading executed on electronic platforms from government regulation. At about this same time, Enron had created its own online energy market and set its sights on California – the largest electricity market in the country. During 2001, Californians endured 38 rolling blackouts as Enron used artificial shortages and its complete control of the market to triple consumers’ electricity bills. And State and federal regulators were powerless to do anything about it.
The Enron Loophole is the primary reason for the spike in oil prices today because it applies to ALL energy futures, including propane, natural gas and oil – virtually all of which are traded electronically. Consequently, oil prices are now driven not by supply-and-demand but by speculators, free from any regulatory oversight. Currently, an attempt to eliminate the Enron Loophole has been attached to the massive farm bill by Senator Carl Levin [D – MI] that passed with a veto proof majority but has nonetheless been threatened with a veto by President Bush for stated reasons that are suspect at best. But why would President Bush really want to veto a bill containing a provision that could significantly lower our energy costs right now? The answer is obvious: Money.
As oil prices have spiked, the oil companies have been reaping unimagined profits. Last month, Exxon/Mobil posted the highest profits of any corporation in history. What domestic drilling will do is give the oil companies a large domestic reservoir of oil to sell at what – in an unregulated future - will likely be even higher prices than exist today. The operative term in that sentence is “future.” The oil companies are making huge profits with production right where it is. Increasing supply now would only force prices down. But laying the groundwork now to produce more oil in five or ten years – when almost all oil analysts project global oil production will be declining – is a really smart business move. The evidence of this strategy is that the oil companies already possess millions of acres of offshore leases outside of governmental control which they haven’t exploited. The truth is that opening arctic and coastal drilling is not about our energy future, it’s about the future of oil company profits.
Any doubt that George W. Bush is a cynical opportunist must, by now, be completely dispelled. With the clock winding down on his presidency and with oil and gas the most likely segment of the private sector he’ll reenter after leaving the White House, it’s no surprise he’s pushing so hard for arctic and coastal drilling. I might be more charitable to Bush if he hadn’t tried to block every effort at conservation, pollution control, increased fuel economy, renewable energy development and reasonable market regulation. But he did and I can’t. I also have to be very suspicious of the motives of other prominent Republicans.
Florida’s governor, Charlie Crist, was, until last week, an opponent of drilling off Florida’s coast. Now he’s in favor. Why? Because he’s being considered as John McCain’s running mate and McCain just came out in favor of off shore drilling. But why would McCain - who just three weeks ago was saying that coastal drilling would be a waste of time and effort and have little impact on the country’s wider energy needs – change his position so dramatically? It just might be Phil Graham, the former Texas senator who brought us the Enron Loophole. Gramm, McCain’s chief economic advisor, has positioned McCain to join President Bush in opposing the current farm bill for the same apparent reasons. In McCain’s case, however, the most likely reason is that he’s clueless on the key economic matter of energy pricing and is relying on his economic advisor, Gramm, who has a vested interest in maintaining the Enron Loophole.
The tragedy of the Republicans’ fanatical support of the oil companies and Bush’s single-minded pursuit of post-presidential wealth is that nothing has been done to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil, our vulnerability to oil futures speculation or our use of fossil fuels. The debate about global warming is over but the battle to keep us locked in our death grip with oil, gas and coal goes on. Two weeks ago senate Republicans – and some Democrats from “energy” states – killed landmark legislation that would have finally addressed climate change and promote renewable energy development. They complained that the economic impact would be too painful, the sacrifices too great. So now more time will be lost in dealing with the two most important – and inextricably linked – crises we face as a nation.
The sacrifices we refuse to make now will fade to insignificance compared with the sacrifices we will be forced to make in the not-too-distant future if we don’t take aggressive, comprehensive action now. Obviously, we can’t look to the current president or much of our congress for the leadership we need – they’re too busy serving their own interests. It’s time for us, The People, to make it clear to our elected officials that we want action now. It’s time for us to take the responsibility and make the sacrifices necessary to make the world we give to our children worth having. And if our current elected officials won’t give us what we need, then, come November, we need to send others who will.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Faithful Service
Following the California Supreme Court’s decision that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional, many Central Valley counties have announced that they will not be issuing marriage licenses to anyone or conducting civil ceremonies – because of budget issues. One might possibly accept the budget explanation except that on Monday, The Bakersfield Californian published e-mail messages between Kern County Clerk Ann Barnett and a conservative legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund in Arizona, which had unsuccessfully argued against same-sex marriage in front of the State Supreme Court. In one message, a member of Ms. Barnett’s staff requested legal assistance, indicating that Ms. Barnett “fully expects to be sued” for stopping the weddings.
What is most chilling about all of this is that government officials are consulting with special interest groups on methods to circumvent the legal system. Religious conservatives may argue the issue of the separation of church and state, but when government officials can choose which of their duties they’ll execute, our entire system of government collapses. Government officials who have a moral conflict that prevents them from fulfilling their legal obligations have a clear and simple choice: Do their jobs or resign.
What is most chilling about all of this is that government officials are consulting with special interest groups on methods to circumvent the legal system. Religious conservatives may argue the issue of the separation of church and state, but when government officials can choose which of their duties they’ll execute, our entire system of government collapses. Government officials who have a moral conflict that prevents them from fulfilling their legal obligations have a clear and simple choice: Do their jobs or resign.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The Doubletalker
On Monday, John McCain’s “Doubletalk Express” pulled into Portland, Oregon, where he gave a speech outlining his vision for combating what he said is the real, immediate threat of climate change. “The facts of global warming demand our attention, especially in Washington,” he declared, adding that if elected, his administration would take aggressive action. But I just don’t buy it.
McCain has become The Flip-Flopper Extraordinaire. First, he called fanatics like James Hagee and Jerry Falwell agents of intolerance then embraced them to curry favor with the Republican Party’s religiously conservative base. Initially, he opposed President Bush’s fiscally insane tax-cutting policies then he embraced them to curry favor with corporate fat cats in the Party’s economic wing. In the beginning, he savaged the Administration’s Iraq crusade then embraced it to curry favor with the Neocons who concocted that mess. These are just a few examples of McCain's completely reversing his positions on many important issues to garner some measure of support from the three elements that comprise the Republican Party's ragged coalition.
McCain has also learned the lessons of the Bush-style politics of personal destruction. In 2000 McCain was a straight-talker, willing to take on sacred cows and address issues rationally. It was the reason independents flocked to him. Then George W. Bush scuttled him in South Carolina by spreading rumors that McCain had an illegitimate daughter resulting from an illicit affair with a black prostitute. It’s difficult to say which is worse: that the man for whom many of us voted to be our President – a man many still regard as a good Christian – would resort to such despicable tactics, or that South Carolina voters would be taken in so easily by such race-baiting. Nevertheless, it worked. So while McCain’s wife Cindy assures interviewers that their campaign will never stoop to such nastiness, the candidate (through his ever-present appendage, the pseudo-Democrat Joe Lieberman) is attempting to link Barak Obama with the terrorist organization Hamas. This will probably only persuade those predisposed by partisan fervor (or stupidity) to believe such nonsense, but it is surely the first of many Swift Boats to be launched.
And there’s at least one more reason to distrust John McCain. He sponsored the McCain-Feingold Act to regulate money in politics. When his campaign was on the rocks last year, he collateralized a bank loan to keep things going with guarantees of federal matching funds. Yet now, as the presumptive nominee in a much better position to raise a lot more money, McCain is rejecting public financing of his campaign – financing he committed to when he obtained that bank loan. Simply put, McCain is breaking the law – a law he wrote. And since President Bush won’t appoint anyone to the Federal Election Commission unless the Senate approves ALL of his appointees, there won’t be anyone to enforce McCain-Feingold. So McCain will very likely get away with electoral fraud. What does it say about a man’s integrity when, for political advantage, he’ll break a law he himself drafted to ensure political fairness?
In 2000 candidate George W. Bush promised many things. Among them was that he would limit cabon emissions. He lied. In 2004 he said that he would make developing renewable energy and ending our dependence on foreign oil a priority. He lied again. In 2008 John McCain is saying many of the same things. Under Republican leadership we’ve lost eight critical years. We can’t afford to lose any more time to flip-flopping and false promises. We just can’t believe anything John McCain says because this time the “straight talker” is talking out of both sides of his mouth.
McCain has become The Flip-Flopper Extraordinaire. First, he called fanatics like James Hagee and Jerry Falwell agents of intolerance then embraced them to curry favor with the Republican Party’s religiously conservative base. Initially, he opposed President Bush’s fiscally insane tax-cutting policies then he embraced them to curry favor with corporate fat cats in the Party’s economic wing. In the beginning, he savaged the Administration’s Iraq crusade then embraced it to curry favor with the Neocons who concocted that mess. These are just a few examples of McCain's completely reversing his positions on many important issues to garner some measure of support from the three elements that comprise the Republican Party's ragged coalition.
McCain has also learned the lessons of the Bush-style politics of personal destruction. In 2000 McCain was a straight-talker, willing to take on sacred cows and address issues rationally. It was the reason independents flocked to him. Then George W. Bush scuttled him in South Carolina by spreading rumors that McCain had an illegitimate daughter resulting from an illicit affair with a black prostitute. It’s difficult to say which is worse: that the man for whom many of us voted to be our President – a man many still regard as a good Christian – would resort to such despicable tactics, or that South Carolina voters would be taken in so easily by such race-baiting. Nevertheless, it worked. So while McCain’s wife Cindy assures interviewers that their campaign will never stoop to such nastiness, the candidate (through his ever-present appendage, the pseudo-Democrat Joe Lieberman) is attempting to link Barak Obama with the terrorist organization Hamas. This will probably only persuade those predisposed by partisan fervor (or stupidity) to believe such nonsense, but it is surely the first of many Swift Boats to be launched.
And there’s at least one more reason to distrust John McCain. He sponsored the McCain-Feingold Act to regulate money in politics. When his campaign was on the rocks last year, he collateralized a bank loan to keep things going with guarantees of federal matching funds. Yet now, as the presumptive nominee in a much better position to raise a lot more money, McCain is rejecting public financing of his campaign – financing he committed to when he obtained that bank loan. Simply put, McCain is breaking the law – a law he wrote. And since President Bush won’t appoint anyone to the Federal Election Commission unless the Senate approves ALL of his appointees, there won’t be anyone to enforce McCain-Feingold. So McCain will very likely get away with electoral fraud. What does it say about a man’s integrity when, for political advantage, he’ll break a law he himself drafted to ensure political fairness?
In 2000 candidate George W. Bush promised many things. Among them was that he would limit cabon emissions. He lied. In 2004 he said that he would make developing renewable energy and ending our dependence on foreign oil a priority. He lied again. In 2008 John McCain is saying many of the same things. Under Republican leadership we’ve lost eight critical years. We can’t afford to lose any more time to flip-flopping and false promises. We just can’t believe anything John McCain says because this time the “straight talker” is talking out of both sides of his mouth.
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