Monthly Archives: June 2006

Dump Duhbya

A Farewell Finger to Tom DeLay — See You in Hell

It is a great and glorious to see Tom “The Hammer” DeLay go away. DeLay once declared “I AM the Federal Government” at precisely the moment he was violating countless rules, customs and laws. Even Republicans hate Tom DeLay, with good reason, given he is a self-serving dictator.

But, while we dance on his political grave, note that he has moved to
Virginia to pursue a career as a lobbyist. With Jack Abramoff as his model, he will no doubt be in the news again — and in jail before long — but not before he’s screwed the country again. mjh

DeLay Exits, Stage (Hard) Right By Ruth Marcus

No one who’s seen Tom DeLay operate over the years could have expected the Texas Republican to go gently: The Hammer always comes down hard. But DeLay’s farewell address on the House floor last week was nonetheless stunning for its sneering, belligerent partisanship.

This was not the case of a politician who happened to hit a jarring note at just the wrong time. DeLay made clear that he wanted to leave the way he behaved throughout his 22 years in Washington — contemptuous of the opposition and unrepentant about his cutthroat tactics. …

In DeLay’s world, “It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle.”

This is a man who — now that he’s had time to take in the monuments — sees Lincoln’s statue and fixates on the one hand clenched in a “perpetual fist.” …

As he addressed his colleagues for the final time, DeLay betrayed no doubt that his tactics had ever edged even slightly across the line, no hint of recognition of the poisonous consequences of GOP authoritarianism under his sway.

There is a place for partisanship, and an honor in hewing to principles that divide the parties. But DeLay’s zero-sum politics diminishes the capacity of government to solve difficult problems. Compromise isn’t just an occasionally necessary evil, as DeLay sees it. Practiced well, it can be a mechanism for distilling the best public policy, or at least a better one than either faction would achieve on its own.

“If given the chance to do it all again, there’s only one thing I would change,” DeLay said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “I would fight even harder.”

Think Progress » VIDEO: In Goodbye Speech, DeLay Bitterly Attacks Liberals

DeLay: “In any place or any time on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? More. More government, more taxation, more control over people’s lives and decisions and wallets.

“If conservatives don’t stand up to liberalism, no one will.”

Texas Democrats Revel in DeLay’s Departure — Newsday.com By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer

“If the sun seems a little brighter today; if our step seems a little bouncier; if life seems a little better today, there’s a good reason for it. For the first day in 22 years, Tom DeLay is not a member of Congress,” U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, said as the crowd cheered wildly.

Dump Duhbya

DeLay Lines His Own Pockets

Lest anyone feel the need to defend the nobility of DeLay’s principles, here’s just the latest info on how he royally enriched himself. mjh

Retirement Account of DeLay’s Wife Traced By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay’s attorney, Richard Cullen.

The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay’s family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay’s family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars. …

From 1998 until recently, Buckham, an evangelical minister, met regularly with DeLay, occasionally attended staff meetings in his office, made scheduling recommendations or decisions for the office, and served as DeLay’s chief political and spiritual adviser, even though he was not formally employed by him. At the time, Buckham’s clients included a host of companies with regulatory and legislative business before Congress, and whose interests DeLay supported. …

Besides financing the retirement account, Buckham played a role in two other streams of income that indirectly benefited DeLay.

One involved payments to DeLay’s family by his principal political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), which drew its largest donations from corporations. Three former DeLay staffers with firsthand knowledge of Buckham’s activities have described him as a decision maker for the group, even though it was formally run by its executive director. …

[F]rom 2001 to Jan. 31, 2006, ARMPAC paid Christine DeLay; DeLay’s daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro; and Ferro’s Texas firm a total of $350,304 in political consulting fees and expenses, according to public records. [mjh: nice work if you’re sleazy enough to take it] …

Together with the retirement account worth about $25,000, this means the [DeLay] family’s total financial benefits from entities at least partly controlled by Buckham exceeded $490,300.

Dump Duhbya

Gingrich for President — “He’s Better Than Some!”

Newty Gingrich set the stage and the tone for the rise of the Radical Religious Right. Tom DeLay is his offspring — perhaps The Hammer will be the VP candidate? Now, Gingrich has been gone long enough to return as a noble elder statesman. I’d rather they dig up Nixon. mjh

Gingrich May Run in 2008 If No Front-Runner Emerges By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) expects to run for president in 2008 if the contest for the Republican nomination still seems wide open late next year, he said yesterday. …

Gingrich’s entry would shake up a Republican presidential field that now includes Sens. George Allen (Va.), Bill Frist (Tenn.) and John McCain (Ariz.). Many Republicans still revere Gingrich for engineering the GOP’s takeover of Congress in 1994, though members of his own party pushed him to resign in 1998 after his drive to impeach President Bill Clinton cost them seats in that year’s election.

Uncategorized

I Submit

My submissions to the Alibi’s Ridiculously Short Fiction Contest. I suggest you close your eyes or look away after each one to clear your palette.

Don’t Be So Linear, Dude

Ladies and gentleman, I thank you for this great honor you have given to me. I am also grateful to the disruption in the Space-Time Continuum that resulted in me receiving this award before anyone saw my work.

Coulda Been

In a small town in Texas, a failed oilman turned rancher sat alone in a bar, a hint of coke beneath one nostril. “I coulda been somebody,” he said to no one in particular. “If only I hadn’t lost that magic lamp!” On the TV behind the bar, President Hinton smiled from the Oval Office, the lamp gleaming on one corner of his desk. The loser snorted, “I’m telling you, that guy is the worst president imaginable.”

Postcard from Albuquerque

Dear friends,

Greetings from New Mexico! This is the 40th straight day of rain here. It’s been raining so hard we haven’t been able to spend time at the beach or even to ride the paddlewheel up to Taos. The Rio Puerco washed away the Interstate yesterday. Lake Rio Rancho is close to overflowing. My hair is completely frizzy from the 100% humidity and mildew keeps forming on my suitcase. I can’t wait to get home to the desert around sunny Seattle.

In a parallel universe, I’m the one reading your story and wondering how the hell it got into print. mjh

My 2004 submissions: mjh’s blog — Ridiculously Short Fiction

loco

If Lies Were Oil, We’d Have A Gusher

Read these 3 snippets (and the full articles). Note that in the first piece, Mathis engages in a classic attack on the motives of his enemies. I am not simply a citizen with a different and equally valuable opinion, I am a radical obstructionist and a liar feigning concern for the environment. Thanks, Mark. No one would suggest the same of an oil industry guy like you.

Of course, it takes an economics professor to really screw up the discussion. In the second piece, Gisser seems to support but dislike higher prices that aren’t as high as we think they are. He supports a tariff that keeps the price per barrel high (a widely accepted idea, even among “hands-off” conservatives) but opposes current tariffs that keep the price higher.

Both Gisser and Mathis emphasize the part of the problem is bad people like me won’t allow oil refineries in our back yards. And yet, it was an oil company that shut down a successful oil refinery in California for no apparent reason (other than the all-ruling bottom line). Read the previous entry for some of the evidence that the oil industry itself crushed independent refineries to control the market. It’s not NIMBY, it’s NIMBP — Not In My Back Pocket.

Both Gisser and Mathis believe ANWR will solve everything, an astonishingly nutty idea. Leave aside that a deal was made ages ago to sacrifice part of Alaska and preserve a tinier part. Leave aside what this says about people willing to betray earlier agreements. Just consider how long it would take ANWR oil to reach market and its tiny impact. This can be boiled down to a longish bumpersticker: We Will NOT Drill Our Way Out of This Problem. mjh

ABQjournal: Looming Crisis Eclipses 575 Debate By Mark Mathis, Executive director, Citizens‘ Alliance for Responsible Energy [Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy’s membership includes New Mexico oil and gas producers.]

I’m focused on educating the public about an issue that affects every aspect of our daily lives: the need to guarantee America’s energy supply. Without abundant, affordable energy, our high quality of life will quickly decline. And yet, just like the battle over the 505, many politicians are not looking out for your best interests.

Oil prices have climbed above $70 a barrel, but Congress will not allow oil companies to drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Congressional members voting “no” on ANWR understand that this vast oilfield could give us one million barrels of crude a day for 20 to 30 years. They know only a tiny portion of the refuge will be disturbed (the equivalent of one letter on this page), and that caribou populations at nearby Prudhoe Bay have quintupled since production began there. However, these nonleaders say “Nay” to ANWR because they are controlled by radical activist groups who spend enormous amounts of money supporting those who vote for their agenda while attacking those who don’t.

These same congressional obstructionists have voted to maintain a ban on oil and natural gas drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that’s been off limits for 25 years. Meanwhile, Cuba is exploring for oil and gas just 45 miles from American beaches. Opponents of drilling feign concern over disrupted views and environmental danger. Of course, they know you can’t see a drilling rig three to 200 miles from the shoreline and that oil rigs in the Gulf took all Hurricane Katrina could dish out without a single spill.

Because of congressional inaction, nuclear power is still on the back burner, new refineries for gasoline can’t get built, onshore drilling is delayed or denied and Canadian companies drill for natural gas in the Great Lakes while the American region remains off limits. All the while your energy costs keep rising.

ABQjournal: Hysteria Over High Gas Prices Is Pumped Up By Micha Gisser, of the Rio Grande Foundation, professor emeritus of economics, University of New Mexico, and a senior fellow, Rio Grande Foundation. [mjh: The Rio Grande Foundation is a “think” tank located in a booth under the picture of John Wayne at the Frontier.]

Surprisingly, today our economy is robust despite the spike in oil prices. There are two reasons for this: First, at a price of $1.50 a gallon, due to personal income growth and increased automobile efficiency, the percentage of average household income spent on gasoline fell from 4.5 percent in 1971 to 3.1 percent in 2001.

Second, President Bush’s tax cut in May of 2003, supported by accommodating monetary policy, gave the economy a huge boost that easily swamped the impact of rising gasoline prices. Politicians who advocate restoring taxes to their pre-May 2003 level should think again.

The present spike in gasoline prices— surprise, surprise— occurred because supply and demand for a change have not been going hand-in-hand. Demand for oil has intensified since the economies of China and India have at long last taken off. But the growth in oil supply slowed down considerably in the wake of Katrina and Rita [mjh: in spite of those flawless oil rigs Mathis sings the praises of?], the instability in the Middle East [mjh: which our inept leadership contributes to] and in response to the new ethanol legislation fiasco. That policy forced oil companies to shoulder the distorting 54-cent a gallon tariff to protect ethanol producers.

In the short term Congress could alleviate the market pressures by rescinding the ethanol tariff, abolishing— or at least relaxing— the “boutique” regulations that hinder gasoline mobility across the United States, and doing something about the NIMBY (not in my backyard) activists who are responsible for the freeze in the number of oil refineries.

ABQjournal: More Wells a Drop in Bucket of Energy Woes By Stephen Capra, New Mexico Wilderness Alliance

For the past year many people have watched with frustration as the energy crisis has come to engulf America. We all knew it was coming; it’s just that we have a President that chose to ignore the warnings and continues to blame conservationists and any rational person who has challenged his oil-based policies.

America burns 10,000 gallons of oil per second. We possess only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and 2.9 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves, yet we are producing them at a much faster rate than many Mid-East countries, meaning we will be more vulnerable to shortages sooner, according to reports from British Petroleum.

The Gulf region in the Mid-East provides 24 percent of our oil. …

Here in the Rocky Mountain West, oil and gas development has spread like wildfire. Drill rigs are entering residential neighborhoods, bordering National Parks, sprouting up in National Monuments and threatening some of our wildest remaining public lands, yet we are now paying more than ever to heat our homes and drive our cars. It seems abundantly clear that oil is not the answer to our energy needs.

For the past six years President Bush and Congress have given the oil and gas industry everything they want on a silver platter. From the Enron debacle, to opening up vast tracts of public lands, to giving billions in tax cuts and royalty relief to an industry that is raking in record profits, while destroying our precious groundwater, wildlife habitat and our most important gift to future generations— our land. While top executives walk away with golden parachutes, those on fixed incomes struggle to stay warm in winter or cool in summer, and driving is slowly becoming a privilege of the wealthy. This president and Congress should be held accountable for failing miserably to protect the economic, environmental and national security interests of our country by allowing the big oil lobby to control domestic energy policy. …

The industry stump speech continues to be we need all types of energy, including alternative sources. But when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is, industry, with a few exceptions, continues to put its effort into drilling and its money into lobbying for more access to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Otero Mesa, Valle Vidal and any place that can put money in their coffers.

The question is how do we solve the problem? First, I think we can all agree there are no simple solutions. Oil in the short-term will clearly continue to be part of the energy matrix. Where conservationists and the oil industry differ is in approach. It is imperative that drilling of our wildest public lands be stopped. It’s simply not going to make a meaningful difference in the supply or price of oil or gas that we have in America. If we drilled in the Arctic Refuge today it would take more than 10 years for that oil to reach the market and would reduce the price at the pump by 1 cent per gallon in 20 years, when it finally reached peak production, according to the Energy Information Administration, a branch of the Department of Energy. With the price of oil being set by the world market, Refuge oil would be a drop in the bucket.

When we say no to the oil and gas industry, we force change….

More than 95 percent of our public lands are open today to drilling. The conservation community is battling to save the last 5 percent. Oil is not the answer. We must be bold and imaginative in developing alternative sources of energy. We must begin by saying no to the Bush energy policies and yes to sanity.

[updated 6/27/06 to add two other responses to Mark Mathis’ piece…]
Continue reading If Lies Were Oil, We’d Have A Gusher →

NADA - New American Dark Ages

Refinery Capacity in the Hands of the Oil Industry, Not Environmentalists

NOW. Transcript. November 11, 2005 | PBS

JAMIE COURT: Oil companies have manipulated supply so that when there’s– gonna be a peak season of demand, they then withhold supply. And when there aren’t adequate inventories, the system is rigged for a shortage, even though it’s artificial.

MARIA HINOJOSA: You’re using these terms “rigged,” “control,” I mean, these are not terms that most people kind of accept in a free market society.

JAMIE COURT: Well, I think the only thing free about this market for oil companies in the United States of America is they’re free to do whatever they want. That’s the market.

MARIA HINOJOSA: After crude is drilled from the ground, it needs to be refined — turned into gasoline, diesel or home heating oil.

But since the peak in 1981, more than half of the refineries that used to operate in the U.S. have been shut down. And that, charge critics, has been part of an industry strategy going back years. …

SEN. RON WYDEN: There is no doubt that during the 1990s, if you just look at the oil companies’ own internal documents, that yes, in fact, what they did is look at how to limit production in order to boost their profits — not my words — the words of the oil industry.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Oregon’s senator Ron Wyden … who’s been following this issue for years … is referring to internal industry documents that came to light during Congressional investigations and court cases.

One example, a Chevron memo from 1995, which included this warning from an energy analyst … “if the U.S. petroleum industry doesn’t reduce its refining capacity, it will never see any substantial increase in refining margins …”

That’s margins, as in profit margins. …

MARIA HINOJOSA: Now, refineries have been faced with tough environmental rules and community opposition — forcing many to close — or making it difficult to open new ones. But critics charge, the oil companies themselves play a role in this too.

Look what happened two years ago in Bakersfield, California.

Shell Oil, one of the industry’s biggest companies, had recently taken this refinery over. Some 400 people worked here and business seemed to be going strong.

It was “one of the few Shell U.S. refineries to turn a profit” according to this company memo, which praised the “world-class performance” of the employees there.

One of them was this man who asked us to hide his identity. He believes Shell wanted to tighten the supply of gasoline and diesel in California and that the company intended to close this refinery down in order to do that.

MARIA HINOJOSA: So just over a year after Shell buys the refinery, Shell is now telling its employees that they wanna sell the refinery?

WHISTLE BLOWER: No, that they wanna demolish the refinery.

MARIA HINOJOSA: They wanna get rid of it entirely?

WHISTLE BLOWER: Yes, correct. They would shut it down and demolish it. …

MARIA HINOJOSA: Shell continues to insist it did not make economic sense for the refinery to stay open. After the release of those documents, critics fought to keep Bakersfield running and Shell ended up selling the facility to a competitor earlier this year.

JAMIE COURT:The reason we’ve seen these price spikes — the reason we’ve seen the profit margins go up, is because a small number of oil companies have been able to consolidate and take control of this market. Independent refiners, if they still existed, wouldn’t allow this to happen because they would fill gaps in the market.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Two decades ago, a quarter of American refining was done by independents. But since then, many of those have shut down, refineries like Powerine, a small operation in Southern California.

It wanted to re-open after a temporary closure but that didn’t sit well with oil giant Mobil, which worried that if Powerine resumed production, gas prices would drop.

That would be good for consumers but bad for Mobil. In internal company emails, a Mobil manager wrote: “Needless to say, we would all like to see Powerine stay down. Full court press is warranted in this case …”
—–

Bloomberg.com: U.S.
U.S. Probing Plan to Shut Shell California Refinery (Update3)

July 7, 2004 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating possible antitrust violations related to the planned closure of a Royal Dutch/Shell Group refinery in California, which has the highest gasoline prices in the continental U.S.

Recent Press Release from Barbara Boxer, US Senator from California

Boxer said, “In the electricity crisis that hit California, we learned all too well that special economic interests had manipulated supplies and caused great harm to consumers. Let us not allow California to be hit again with this kind of manipulation.”

Bakersfield, California refinery – Google Search