There’s tons of important events occurring right now in the world: the continuing war in Ukraine, the Jan. 6th hearings, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the record heat waves covering most of the northern hemisphere that are clearly related to climate change. Segue to DINO West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin who has singlehandedly held up Democrat legislation and the Build Back Better program numerous times now during Joe Biden’s presidency. His latest monkey wrench is his opposition to a bill that would help create regulations that might alleviate the drastic effects of climate change that we’re currently seeing. At least federal environmental agency staffers and members of Congress have had enough and urged Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer to strip Manchin of his chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Executives in the coal, gas and oil industries are relieved that they’ve got such a solid lackey like Joe Manchin in Congress who puts profits before the health of the planet and its inhabitants.
Yes, Ted Cruz has proven himself to be many things; Senator, sycophant, seditionist, traitor and coward. Which begs the question – how and why the hell is he still in Congress?
These are trying times not just for the United States, but for the entire world. Tensions are high in the Middle East with America’s assassination of Iran’s general Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s retaliatory attack on U.S. bases in Iraq, not to mention Iran’s accidental shooting down of a commercial airliner. There is the impeachment saga of Donald Trump and his continuing attempts with help from his flying monkey lackeys in the Senate at distracting Americans (see Iran attack).
But the most frustrating thing about it is that the conservative leaders in Australia, much like their conservative counterpart Republicans in the United States are big time climate change deniers. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has received a boatload of flack for his handling of the crisis. He actually took a vacation to Hawaii while Australian citizens grappled with the fires. Of course, Morrison blamed it all on a “breakdown in communications”. He was also roundly booted from a town in New South Wales where citizens, fed up with the government inaction, heckled him thus driving him away from their town. In our estimation, Morrison deserves every bit of criticism. His and other corporatists attitude is to protect the fossil fuel industries at all cost and to ignore the obvious results of climate change, flippantly dismissing bushfires as something Australia always have had, this year it’s just a little more severe. But Australia’s summer temperatures have broken records for the last several years and the hot, dry air is only making the bushfires that much worse.
The crisis is real and Australia is in danger of losing not only its unique land wildlife but also its diverse sea life as well. The Great Barrier Reef is also in tremendous peril. The leaders of the world need to stop being greedy and consumed by materialism and the pursuit of capitalistic wealth. Like we’ve said over and over here, there is no planet B!If the living plants and creatures on this world die, we die! Since humans have commandeered this planet, it’s our responsibility as its ‘smartest’ species to make sure all life survives. Capitalism is killing life on this planet. It’s time for our leaders to pull their greedy fricking heads out of their greedy fricking asses and pass laws, a.k.a regulations, against polluting industries throughout the world.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison laments the possible extinction of the fossil fuel industry if climate change is addressed while a kangaroo, a koala and an endangered potoroo have a few choice words for the PM.
Trump’s EPA, with Scott Pruitt at the helm is the planet’s worst nightmare. We’ve commented before about this climate change denier and complete jackass here and here. This corporate lackey has been single-handedly destroying all the mechanisms in place to keep the coal, gas, oil, mining, logging and polluting industries from running amok and destroying what’s left of our environment. We claim to be a nation of laws. Regulations are laws that corporations have to abide by, just like citizens have to obey civil law. Regulations are an essential check and balance to guarantee that corporations don’t go too far like they did in the twentieth century before the creation of the EPA.
Let’s get one thing straight: Scott Pruitt is a lawyer. He knows squat about science.How is it that a lawyer is telling scientists what science is good and what science is bad? He’s got about as much business being head of the EPA as a wolf should be in charge of the hen house. Maybe that’s why he’s increased the security detail around him. He knows he’s being an asshole and he thinks some environmentalist may actually get sick of his shit enough to do something drastic about it. We’ve got a solution Mr. Pruitt: quit being a goddamn dick!!!
Trump administration EPA chief, non-scientist and friend to polluters everywhere, Scott Pruitt is now attacking the press for reporting potentially dangerous leaks and spills to the general public because the precious energy companies may lose their stock value, which in this country is more important than human lives.
While the Republican Health Care Plan failure, Trump’s Russia connections and a multitude of other daily flak from Trump’s bumbling acolytes like Devin Nunes, Sean Spicer and Jared Kushner have taken center stage, the Republican’s war on the environment has commenced in the background and it doesn’t look good for nature, science and the general well being of every living thing on this planet.
Unfortunately, the environment and humans will suffer the horrible consequences. It turns out that the December oil spill of 530,000 gallons in North Dakota (the biggest in that state’s history) was three times larger than previously reported. This brings to light a couple of things. One, the oil spill barely got coverage from the corporate media because that would put the oil industry in a bad light and might hurt business. And two, the oil industry lied about the size of the spill because reporting the real size would put the oil industry in a bad light and might hurt business. Get the picture. The only thing that matters is business and profit. If there’s an oil leak, learn to love the taste of oil in your drinking water.
The Republican’s war on science is nothing new. Read the books Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney and Crimes Against Nature by Robert Kennedy Jr., both released during the Bush Administration, and you’ll see that the GOP has repeatedly put short term profit of the coal, gas and oil industries (major contributors to the GOP coffers) above long term consequences for the environment. To illustrate this, CEO/Dictator Trump signed an executive order last week which rolls back more of Clean Power Plan Obama’s regulations and enabling the oil, gas and coal industries to pollute to their hearts content. According to the GOP’s spiel, they’re getting rid of job killing regulations. Big deal, so we can have jobs that kill people in the long run? Besides that the promise of jobs coming back is another con. According the article linked above, “rolling back the Clean Power Plan and other environmental regulations won’t restore jobs”. So Trump and his Republican cohorts are once again conning the American public. But this con will have nasty repercussions for all of us, in the form of more pollution, risk of exposure to hazardous chemicals and gases and creating an unhealthy environment for humans and other species.
EPA director Scott Pruitt and Secretary of State/Oil Baron, Rex Tillerson, perform their patented gaslighting trick on the citizens of planet Earth by denying the existence of climate change, oil leaks and anything else which may disrupt their agenda of profiting off the environment at any and all cost.
While America’s CEO/Dictator, Donald Trump, provides insipid daily distractions, the Republicans are in the process of wrecking the government of the United States. One of the worst cabinet appointments Trump has been Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has it’s beginning back in 1970 thanks to Republican Richard Nixon, of all people. It’s purpose is to regulate corporate America and protect the people of the United States from unscrupulous pollution by mining, gas, oil, chemical and other industries that endanger life by dumping pollutants into the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. It’s a good thing!
Pruitt is like an old-timey Snidely Whiplash robber baron type who will change the meaning of the EPA’s acronym into the Environmental Plunder Agency. Yes, we have no doubt that Pruitt and his Republican corporate lackey buddies in congress will be trying to convince Americans very soon that mercury and sulfuric acid in your drinking water is good for you.
New head of the EPA and gas, oil and coal industry lackey, Scott Pruitt, declares that the agency’s acronym now stands for the Environmental Plunder Agency and that mercury and sulfuric acid in your drinking water is good for you.
Now that oil baron, tycoon and former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson has been confirmed as Secretary of State, the United States has sent a message to people in America and around the world: America is officially a corporate oligarchy governed primarily by the oil, gas and coal industries and that just like the Bush Administration, which, like Ralph Nader said, was marinated in oil, America is open for business with any country that has oil. Even Alan Greenspan said in his book The Age of Turbulence, (page 463), “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Does that mean that we’ve got another war for oil, like the Iraq War, (possibly Iran) coming? Donald Trump has said the Iraq War was a mistake but since the Republicans never seem to learn from their mistakes and America’s CEO/Dictator will always take the side of money and machismo; probably.
But another factor figures in here as well and that is the fact that Tillerson is good buddies with Russia and Vladimir Putin; so much so that Tillerson was named a Friend of Russia in 2013. Can you imagine how pissed the Republicans would be if Obama would have been named a Friend of Russia? So not only is America dependent on Middle Eastern oil, we could very well become dependent on Russian oil as well in the very near future. But hey…business is business.
Then there is the conflict of interest with a former CEO of a major oil company controlling the Department of State. Tillerson is a complete newbie when it comes to diplomacy and international relations. Although Tillerson is supposedly a great business negotiator, dealing with governments of the world is not the same as dealing with corporations of the world.
We were initially glad that Trump decided to get out of the TPP, which would have been a disaster for the environment. But with Rex Tillerson at the helm in the State Department and climate change denier, Scott Pruitt, selected to head the EPA, the new motto of America very well may be Sarah Palin’s mantra, Drill baby Drill! So screw the burgeoning alternative, clean energy industry. Let’s continue to pursue 20th century technology. Oh and don’t worry about more oil spills, environmental contamination and flammable drinking water…there are profits to be made. Cha-ching!
Oil baron, tycoon, Grand Old Plutocrat and Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, greedily proclaims that America is open for business, especially if you have oil, like his Russian pal, Vladimir Putin.
The water in Charleston, West Virginia has finally been declared safe for drinking after a chemical spill into the Elk River from Freedom Industries on January 9th. This happened when an aging containment tank leaked MCHM, which is an agent used in processing coal, into the Elk River above the water intake for the company which provides water service for the area. It appears that this facility hadn’t been inspected by federal or state officials since 1991. It was also just determined that another chemical called PPH was also leaked into the water. Of course, since the government is controlled by the oil, gas and coal industries, it’s not surprising that Washington is using the “there’s nothing to see here” approach to damage control (remember the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill a few years back). John Boehner said no new regulations are needed and all the other corporate lackeys in Washington are keeping mum as well. But this shouldn’t be surprising since our elected officials, especially Republicans, have been trying to reduce regulations and oversight since the Reagan administration. Dubya even put industry officials in key positions in the EPA. That’s like putting the mouse in charge of the cheese. Next industry officials will be trying to spin that MCHM and PPH are good for you. It’s smells like licorice, how bad can it be, right?
A coal industry representative performs damage control with the citizens of Charleston, West Virginia after a chemical spill from an aging Freedom Industries tank leaked into the local water supply.
