Bad Deeds for 9-17-2007

Republicans Swapped Principle for Power – In former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s new book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Greenspan wrote that Bush essentially left an unbridled GOP Congress to spend money however it saw fit, and by not vetoing a single bill in six years, the president deprived the nation of checks and balances. “The Republicans in Congress lost their way,” Greenspan, a self-described libertarian Republican wrote. “They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither.

Bush’s Friend Makes Oil Deal On the Side With Kurds, Kills Iraqi National Oil Legislation – So much for the draft legislation that would have had Iraq‘s various political factions sharing that country‘s oil revenue. The deal said to be falling apart in Iraq government, apparently because the Kurdish regional government had signed its own deal with Dallas-based Hunt Oil, which would make it seem the Kurds are not onboard with the whole revenue sharing concept. Hunt oil, it should be noted, owned by Ray L. Hunt, a friend of the president. And Mr. Bush making no mention of the collapsing oil legislation in tonight‘s speech according to the excerpts. On the contrary, praising lawmakers for a compromise. Quote, “Iraq‘s national leaders are getting some things done. For example, they have passed a budget. They are sharing oil revenues with the provinces.”

Hannity admits FOX NEWS worked to defeat the Immigration bill Hannity: “I think we learned something and you touched on this in the book as it relates to as for example when people get angry, like on the immigration bill. The fix was in. Everybody agreed to it. They didn’t expect a push back. Talk radio got involved, FOX NEWS, the new media all of a sudden people got informed. They started dialing—instilled fear in their politicians and it changed.” I thought FOX News was supposed to be a “news” channel and report events—not act as a wingnut activist organization, instill fear in politicians and try to defeat legislation.

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New Hampshire Get-Out-the-Vote Phone Jamming Scheme May Have Been Coordinated Out of the White House; Justice Department Trying to Block Investigation – On Election Day in 2002, when New Hampshire voters were going to the polls in a hotly contested Senate race, the phone lines in Democratic get-out-the-vote offices were jammed. There is reason to believe, however, that the phone jamming ploy may have been coordinated out of the White House. Democrats say there were 22 phone calls between New Hampshire Republican officials and the White House Office of Political Affairs on election night and early the next morning. the Justice Department has engaged in unlawful interference to block the investigation. He reports that according to one of the defense lawyers, the attorney general personally had to sign off on all actions in the case, an extraordinary rule that would slow things down considerably. According to Mr. Hodes, the only F.B.I. agent assigned to the case was told that she could not pursue leads to Washington.

TXU Buyout Likely To Lead To New Coal Pollution – When Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG announced this spring that it intended to buy Texas power company TXU, it received a lot of good press for scrapping plans to construct several new coal plants. But in an example of a classic bait-and-switch, TXU then announced that it would build nuclear plants – which have plenty of problems of their own — instead. Thousands of Friends of the Earth activists responded, urging the company to pursue wind and solar power instead. Now, we’re learning of another drawback to TXU’s plans. Instead of building new coal plants, the company is increasing power production at older, dirtier plants, and because of increasing demand for a more limited supply of power, the company’s profits are likely to increase at consumers’ expense—a dirty plan any way you look at it.

Coal Industry is trying to exploit national security concerns to make the military a guaranteed liquid coal buyer for the next quarter century – For months now, coal companies have been trying to add to their bottom lines by getting taxpayers to pay for the production of liquid coal – a dirty, expensive fuel that they want to use to replace gasoline in cars and other vehicles. Unfortunately, liquid coal can actually result in twice as many greenhouse gas emissions as regular gasoline, plus its production requires dangerous and environmentally damaging coal mining. While the industry failed to get subsidies written into the congressional energy bills, the Wall Street Journal is now reporting that coal companies have a new target for subsidies: the military budget. Help stop this bad idea before it goes any further—add your name to our petition by clicking on the link above.

Regards,

Jim