Republican Crimes Against Nature

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.

Trump approved going ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline despite protests from native Americans and environmentalists citing that it will only exacerbate climate change. But of course, new EPA administrator and lawyer (non-scientist), Scott Pruitt, despite overwhelming scientific consensus by climate scientists and experts, says that climate change isn’t real. Basically, Pruitt is just a lackey for the fossil fuel industry and will anything to deceive the public about climate change. Therefore, the Keystone XL pipeline can commence and oil barons like Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, can reap the benefits.

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.

To illustrate how inept and corrupt the corporate media is about reporting anything bad about the oil industry, take a look at this website which reports oil and gas pipeline incidents from 2010 to the present. 3,300 incidents! That’s a hell of a lot of incidents! So why haven’t we the citizens heard about them in the news media?

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 and oil baron, Rex Tillerson, announce that the Keystone Pipeline will be constructed and that climate change and oil leaks don't exist despite obvious evidence that they do.
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.

If You Got The Oil, We Got The Time

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.
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.