Teapot Dome III? Corruption-Free Elections?

Well, back in 2002, an article compared the Enron scandal under Bush to the Teapot Dome scandal under Harding, formerly considered the worst President in US history. I'm wondering if there will be a third (or fourth) Teapot Dome-style scandal that will come to light, perhaps, once again, in relation to oil. If you're interested in learning about the 1920's Teapot Dome scandal, check out this link...
http://hnn.us/articles/550.html

All of these scandals, whether under the aegis of Republican or Democratric rule, could be reduced by prohibiting ANY donations, favors or undue influence to/from politicians, elected officials or candidates. Concurrently, publicly financed elections with reasonable monetary caps would give all comers an even chance, thus including candidates who are as highly qualified, yet less-affluent. Wealth does not necessarily breed superiority, moral or intellectual. It does often, however, tend to breed a sense of entitlement and false sense of superiority that are antithetical to the tenets of equality guaranteed to all citizens by our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Congessman Broun of Georgia Fears an Obama-led Fascist State

Earlier today, Republican Congressman Broun of Georgia said he fears President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force in order to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. Congressman Broun has the same right to freedom of speech as does every other citizen. However, his elevated place of power as an elected official in public office should inform his behavior and any statements he might make. As a public official, he is held to a higher standard and should make more responsible, considered and factual public statements, instead of spouting the usual fear-mongering that has been the trademark of the current administration. Didn't Hitler use fear as one of his methods of gaining power over his people and reducing their rights?

As for his comments about the President-Elect, I see that he is suffering from the psychological condition of projection, in which a person projects their own problem onto others. We already live in a fascist state, courtesy of President Bush, with security forces formed under the Patriot Act: the Department of Homeland Security. This department regularly hires Blackwater militia to assist them on and off our soil. When they named this department "Homeland," it reminded me of Hitler's "Fatherland." Excessive nationalism is one of the tenets of fascism. I remember when President Bush called those who opposed his invasion and occupation of a foreign country, unpatriotic Americans. Didn't Hitler use ultra-Nationalism while invading and occupying foreign countries?

President Bush has also allowed Blackwater, formed before his Presidency in 1997, to grow into what is now the world's largest private militia on our own soil. This is unconstitutional. Why is a private militia, not bound by Constitutional constraints and Congressional oversight, allowed on our soil doing Bush's bidding? Isn't this just like the Gestapo? He also pays Blackwater forces more money than he does our own armed forces to fight in Iraq. For all of his talk of his support of our military men and women, he ought to put "his money where his mouth is."

Homeland Security and the NSA actively and unconstitutionally monitor the private conversations of US citizens. They have recorded so many conversations that they are building a new storage facility in, go figure, Texas. They are able to type in a person's name and pull up any and all conversations they've recorded under that name. We may have freedom of speech, but absolutely no right to privacy. Think about being outside anywhere on this planet - surveillance is being conducted by satellite and, in many populated areas, by street webcams. How they can see a person's nose or the license plate on a car, yet have been "unable" over almost a decade, to find one, very tall man in Afghanistan, still boggles the mind.

Our right to habeas corpus was unconstitutionally suspended under the current President. The US Constitution clearly states that "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." There was no rebellion, nor was our country invaded - we were attacked; there is a very real difference between the words invade and attack.

I could go on, but will stop here. The framers of our country expected responsible citizenship from American citizens. I ask that all Americans read or reread the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Here are links: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html and http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html. It is so easy to lose rights and privileges when you aren't aware you have them. Many people in this world still do not have the right to vote, yet approximately 40% of American citizens didn't even bother to exercise this right in the most recent national elections. Our own citizens fought and died so that we could vote and live in a democratic republic. So please get out and vote, in local, state and national elections. Finally, people may attempt to create a climate of fear; it is only when you listen to and believe them that you will be afraid and, in so doing, elevate the power of those fear-mongering people. Please use reason and knowledge, instead of emotion, to inform your beliefs.

ARRRRRGH! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I think Bush, Cheney and Paulson all need to resign. Shame on them and everyone else responsible for this, now global, mess. They should all be prosecuted, possibly even be named in a civil suit, as they have compromised our national security. Their poor leadership and outright greed have driven our economy into the ground. Deregulation, my foot! I honestly can NOT believe anyone who purposefully removes protective regulations put in place after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, to prevent it from happening again, had no clue that this would occur. So, idiocy or premeditation, they all need to resign and be held responsible!

And now AIG gets another bailout right after they take a bunch of insurance agents on a junket to an elite Southern California golf resort and spa. They did this to the tune of over $400,000 for things such as hotel rooms, massages and manicures! While the rest of us are struggling, the money for their junket was taken straight out of our meager pockets through the first AIG bailout! This gets more and more ridiculous and outrageous! When are they going to give the taxpayer a bailout? Maybe we could take the money for our bailout from the bank accounts and financial holdings of the executives responsible. After all, they've made billions of dollars at our expense!

Welfare for the Rich and Powerful

Well, we're really in a fine mess. Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs is the fellow-architect, along with Bush, Cheney, Gramm, and various and sundry Representatives, Senators, and other government officials, of this crumbling financial trojan elephant. They now want us to rush out willy-nilly, panic-driven and unthinking, and write them a $700 billion check signed by the American people.

The very people who paved the way for this financial collapse through deregulation and removal of consumer/citizen protections want us to hand them this check without the hindrance of oversight, transparency, or public hearings, simply to bail out their buddies, the leaders in corporate and financial America who were their partners in this collapse. It was even leaked by someone in Congress that Paulson was planning on using part of this money to buy his buddy's shares above cost! Like the constant terror alerts that brought us to panic and enabled them to convince us that we should sign away our Constitution and Bill of Rights, they have purposefully, intentionally and with malice aforethought brought us to a new and different level of financial and personal security panic, thinking we'll be stupid enough to sign our future financial freedom over to them, as well. This would be like handing over the hen to the fox already in the hen-house, enabling them and, as such, our government to have unprecedented financial control over the market and the future income of United States citizens. They are even now also changing laws to pave the way for investment firms to become banks, allowing their buddies to have control over large amounts of this money.

I, for one, don't trust a single one of them; they have lied and cheated their way through the past eight years of this administration. In most other countries, Heads of State and top officials in government who have so publicly and spectacularly failed their people, actually resign (wishful thinking in relation to our leaders, on my part). But, not here. So much for ethics, but then we already knew that. What makes anyone think their current plan is good for us, the average, lower-income Americans in this country? We're the people who have gotten nothing out of this administration but the loss of: our Constitutional freedoms, habeas corpus, the ability to more easily file for bankruptcy, the value of our dollar abroad, our standing in the international community, our jobs, the value of our homes (if we still have one), the ability to pay our bills, and now our financial security. For all this, we pay a higher proportion of taxes to income than do the upper income citizens.

On the other hand, the rich and corporate elite have paid a non-progressive, inequitable, lower share of taxes. In fact, now-deceased multi-billionaire Leona Helmsley used to boast that she never paid taxes, stating that they were for the little people. Don't think she's alone in this. They also have the ability to easily file for bankruptcy, get multiple loans and have the option of negotiating their payments, enjoyed a thriving speculative market geared toward profits for high-end investors, and a have a safety net, their golden parachute, when their "imprudent" business practices fail. They still get to walk away from their failed companies with millions or billions of dollars, without any penalty for their "imprudence." If we go bankrupt, lose our life savings or small investments, or lose our job or house due to their "imprudence"...we walk away with little or nothing. What a contrast. The gap between rich and poor only gets wider.

Since when do we live in a totalitarian state? They knew beforehand what would happen when they erased the protective regulations put in place after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. It doesn't take a genius to predict what would happen! Seriously, this is not rocket science. We're now living with the predicted and planned outcome of this ultra-large-scale operation.



If the American people, Congressional leadership, Department of Justice, and the FBI don't stop them in their tracks, they will have effectively fullfilled their plan to take control of a large portion of our country's wealth. The aftermath will allow the architects involved to get away with a large share of these profits, leaving the American citizen to pay for their criminal excesses. How nice and convenient for them!

As far as I'm concerned, all those involved in the financial collapse of our country are home-grown terrorists who should be charged with treason. They have put their personal profits, excessive financial greed and hunger for power above the financial security of our nation, making us vulnerable to all forms of predatory attacks, financial and otherwise, from both internal and external sources. They have also shackled the hands of future Presidents and legislators, and stymied any expenditures in the areas of health care, infrastructure improvement, alternative energy development, and any number of other areas because "we the people" will instead be spending the next few decades paying down these criminals' accrued debt. If this isn't treason, I don't know what is!

To let the President and your Congressional leaders know your thoughts, you can write to them on http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
All you have to do is look on the top, right of your screen for Find Your Officials, enter your zip code in the box, click "GO." This will take you to the page where you can Write Your Elected Officials - click on Federal just under that title. If you're in a split District, you may need to go one further step and enter your +4 zip or your complete address. Then you write your letter, finish filling in all other requested information and click submit. It's that easy to contact them all in one, fell swoop!

Clean, Renewable Energy or Drill, Baby, Drill?

Drill, baby, drill? Yes, lots of people have been drilled by Big Oil; literally, employees at the US Department of the Interior and, figuratively, the American people these past eight years under the Bush administration! Big Oil receives billions of dollars in royalties for drilling, this is in addition to their subsidies and record profits, all taken from millions of hard-working American citizens struggling to keep a roof over their heads, food on their tables and clothes on their backs! Drill, baby, drill! Boy, have they ever drilled and found lots of oil money to grease their pockets, while keeping hard-earned money out of ours!

Angry? Do I sound angry? At this point, I'm a hunka burnin' love for clean, renewable energy! I attended the first National Clean Energy Summit and know that oil is not our energy saviour. It's going to take a combination of energy efficiency improvements, an increase in use of natural gas, extensive use of renewable solar, wind, and geothermal energy, as well as a huge investment to improve the speed, capacity and size of our nation's energy transmission power grid to help make the United States a clean energy-based and secure nation. Oil is NOT, and has never been, the solution to this problem!

The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines clean as a transitive verb "1 a: to make clean: as (1): to rid of dirt, impurities, or extraneous matter (2): to rid of corruption." Their definition of dirty, an adjective, is "1 a: not clean or pure b: likely to befoul or defile with dirt c: contaminated with infecting organisms d: containing impurities <dirty coal> 2 a: morally unclean or corrupt ... 7: having considerable fallout <dirty bombs>."

When I think of clean energy, I think of energy sources that do not have "dirty" byproducts, extraneous matter or corruption. Oil, as a form of clean energy, loses on all fronts of this definition, especially since members of the Bush Administration's Department of the Interior have been caught in corruption involving bribes, sex and drugs. The alleged oil companies involved are Shell, Chevron Corp., Hess Corp., and Gary-Williams Energy Corp. I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg involving this administration's eight years of being in bed with Big Oil. No wonder why our gasoline prices have risen steadily as they continue to cry "Drill, baby, drill!" and when experts across the board have proven American citizens won't see this new oil in their gas tank for seven to ten years, even if we drill today. Why don't we put this time, energy and money into clean, renewable energy, instead?

Why are we still talking about drilling for oil when we know the United States sits on only 3% of the world's oil? How we think drilling here and drilling now will change world oil prices is amazingly stupid - OPEC sets the prices and they have most of the oil! Drilling all three percent of the world's oil supply is also not enough oil to make us energy independent. Whatever happened to common sense? Drilling in ANWAR will only produce an extremely small amount of oil, relative to our demands, help the income of Palin's State of Alaska (of course she's for this - although she has reduced earmarks by 35% over the previous administration, her state still receives more earmarks per capita than does any other) in the near future and forever pollute a pristine, protected, untouched wilderness. Drilling our limited offshore resources will only risk polluting our beaches and the security of part of our national food supply: fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and kelp.

This "Drill, baby, drill!" mantra is yet another example of this administration's and McCain/Palin's fear-mongering, sabre-rattling use of artificially increased prices by a corrupt industry and allowed by a Big Oil president and his cronies, in order to create a false emergency need to expand their operations and further increase their record corporate profits, subsidies and royalties. The call to "Drill, baby, drill!" is simply a pathetic last-minute attempt for Big Oil and its cronies to get in their last licks before Bush is out (and in case McCain/Palin never get in) and their free ride on top of the American people is over. If you'd like to see which politicians take contributions from Big Oil, go to http://oilchangeusa.org/ While there, you'll see which politicians have been paid the highest oil dollars to promote Big Oil's "Drill, Baby, Drill!" campaign, which is running concurrently with the US Presidential campaign.

This is also a "more of the same" attitude about oil that got us into this mess in the first place! No more oil! No offshore drilling! No drilling in ANWR! Say NO! We should be saying "No More Oil! No Way! Only Clean Energy!" If you don't believe me, do your research. Don't buy into all the false ads spouting disinformation that you see on television, which were paid for by the record oil profits, subsidies and royalties of the past eight years of corruption, money taken out of the pockets of American citizens (another way in which we're still being drilled).

As for nuclear or coal being clean forms of energy...no way! Nuclear is so clean that we have byproducts that must be guarded by our military so they don't fall into the hands of terrorists, who wish to use these byproducts to make dirty bombs. The water used to cool the towers becomes heavy, too. These byproducts don't have a normal decomposition time, their decomposition is measured in nuclear half-lives. Then when people think about where to store these byproducts, they absolutely don't want them in their own backyards. If nuclear energy is so clean, why doesn't anybody want the waste in their own backyard? Why are people worried that the nuclear and hazardous wastes in holding tanks are leaking at Hanford Nuclear Power Plant on 585 square miles along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington? Hanford is also near the Pacific Ocean and upstream of the cities of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. Then, think about the safety of transporting this nuclear waste across the United States of America via truck, rail and barge. Have you ever heard of accidents on the road, rail or water? I'm writing this a couple of days after the nation's worst rail accident in 15 years took place in Chatsworth, CA, with 25 dead, 135 injured, 34 of them still critical. What if the freight train involved had been carrying nuclear waste?

Coal is not clean, either. Miners' deaths, gaping holes in the earth, waste pools, polluted water from cooling the processing machinery that will kill freshwater ecosystems, mountain topping (this is cutting off the tops of beautiful mountains, with the resultant erosion, landslides, pollution of streams and rivers, and possible deaths of wildlife and human residents, and possible alteration of micro- and macro-climates), and byproducts that invade our lungs (causing allergies, asthma, and lung cancer), increase carbon dioxide emissions, thereby increasing global warming.

Notice I've mentioned water a few times, already. Fresh, potable water is less than 1% of all water found on earth. The United States has already been in a drought for years, now. We take for granted what many second- and third-world citizens have to walk for miles to get: life-giving, potable water with which they can cook and hydrate themselves. Many of these people, mostly women and children, actually risk their lives to get water, facing rape, torture and murder along their path to survival. Yet, here we are, wasting inordinate amounts of this precious resource to continue producing unclean, dirty energy.

Instead, we can say "YES!" to clean energy! We can continue to use and expand development of natural gas as an alternative source of power. We can use and continue development of solar and wind technology that already exists, yet has repeatedly been ignored in favor of oil. Instead of drilling for oil that would take 10 years to reach the pump, let's invest in solar and wind power, improve and extend our high-speed power transmission infrastructure, and use the Saudi Arabia of solar power - the Southwest USA - and the Saudi Arabia of wind energy - the Midwest USA - to power our own country. We can also expand our use of geothermal energy.

If we concentrate on truly clean energy, stop listening to corrupt, dirty energy companies who have had their day, and work together for a cleaner, brighter future with clean energy, we can make these changes! We can retool factories, retrofit our homes and cars to clean energy sources, grow green industries and jobs, improve our economy by going green, and recapture our national security by reducing our usage and dependence on foreign oil. If we get out of Iraq and stop subsidizing Big Oil, we can use this money, instead, to energize solar, geothermal and wind power and increase the energy transmission infrastructure in the United States. We can change our world into a more secure, cleaner place in which our children can grow and live healthier lives. We can do this!!!