Nantucket’s Eagle
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket! Great to be with you this Thursday morning, the eighth day of April, a calm and promising morning here in Osterville on Cape, and I bid you and yours a fair and fine adieu. A big shout out to Jenny Lambert and her fellow classmates at Cape Fear community college in Wilmington, North Carolina, who are busy with their studies and an assignment on this epic (possible) government shutdown looming today, that will become a reality at midnight, tonight, if a compromise is not reached by democrats and republicans on Capitol Hill–not so much in the dollar amounts of the cuts, as the democrats have gone more than half way, 33 billion dollars worth of discretionary cuts to vital social programs such as Planned Parenthood, affordable home heating oil for the poor and elderly, and head start programs for kids, no, it has come down to the 67 different social and cultural ‘ryders’ that have no place in a bill that presumably deals with the “run away spending” in Washington D.C.. Putting aside, for a moment, everything I have said in the past week here at seacapecod.net regarding the REASON we are in such debt, the republican party, or rather the ‘tea party’, the fake grass roots party of the corporations, now, taking on a life of it’s own, has put forth 67 different “ryders” to the 2011 ‘budget’, a full three months into this year–starting with the fine congressman from Indiana, Mike Pence (r), and his demand that the congress defund Planned Parenthood, or any of it’s affiliates (making it difficult for women to find help with many issues, the least of which is abortion, where, despite the false rhetoric, no federal funding exists today to provide those services), and then moving quickly to “redefine” greenhouse gases (making up science as they go along), as they attempt to put a stop to the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability in regulating greenhouse gases (this all from the man, congressman Joe Barton, who apologized to bp for our government’s response to the horrible bp oil disaster in the Gulf only a year ago, and now committee head of the Energy committee, Lord help us) via two amendments that would bar funding for the EPA, thus, prohibiting the EPA from monitoring the pollution that is emitted from stationary sources like power plants or factories–two amendments that would bar funding for the EPA to regulate fossil fuel waste or their ability to revoke permits for water polluters. According to democratic Senator Chuck Schumer from the great state of New York (who said that if these criminally insane ‘ryders’ were part of this over reaching ‘budget’ deal, he would vote against this already outrageous discretionary spending cut bonanza fueled by the tea party base of the republican party, a party, as I have written about extensively in the past week, prove the puppets on the right are in bed with big oil, big coal, and big “natural gas”. Said Schumer on the 7th of April, 2011, only a day ago, “…the bottom line is that if whether it’s Planned Parenthood or the EPA, we will not accept those ryders and any thought to the contrary is wrong.” Listening to freshman congressman representative Tom Graves of Georgia, who seemed almost giddy to be on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show last night, a republican congressman (front man) from the ninth district of that great state of Georgia, on the eve of this epic possible shutdown slated for midnight tonight, the eighth day of April, 2011, I felt a little sick to my stomach, as he spoke on that great show, “The Last Word, with Lawrence O’Donnell”, although I felt better when listening to the much smarter and saner friend to this show, seacapecod.net, Mr. Lawrence O’Donnell, who you can see every week night, only on MSNBC at 8 p.m., EDT. Mr. Graves, “Here we are on the eve of the night of the ‘democratic’ shutdown of the federal government (corporate talking point #501) and we’re still going at it (huh?), still fighting on behalf of the “American People” (I think I am going to be violently ill)”. Lawrence then asks, “Sounds like you are looking forward to a government shutdown?” Puppet: “I wouldn’t say we’re looking forward to a shutdown, we’re looking forward to a “win” for the “American People”, (excuse me, I must now take a break and throw up my breakfast, there, that’s better). Of course, what the fine puppet meant to say was “win” for corporate America, right congressman? Graves goes on to spout, “they (the American people) sent a strong message in November (and that, really being not allowing these medieval corporations to pollute OUR land, sea and air with their filthy industrialized business practices for THEIR profits, not the “American people’s, a$$hole!), you’ve got to (wait for the most popular of all corporate talking points coming up here) stop this “wasteful, runaway spending in Washington” (talking point #1145, if you are keeping score at home), that’s exactly what the House of Representatives has been fighting for, sent to the Senate, and you know the process, you know, all they had to do was vote on it, pass it, and we’ll be out of this mess, but, you know, the democrats failed to lead last year (as they, the 111th congress, passed, via extortion, an extension of the Bush era tax cuts of 2001, 2003 adding 700 billion dollars, 4.1 trillion if kept in place for the next ten years, to our national debt, money we borrowed from China), they didn’t. It’s clearly their crisis and we’re doing everything we can (what a guy!) to keep the government running (bull$hit!), but we’ve got to save the “tax payers” money (the biggest LIE of them all).” How are you doing that congressman? By laying off teachers, firemen, policemen and many other vital government programs that keep this country safe and running efficiently? By allowing big monstrous corporations to continue polluting our environment by destroying any regulation designed to preserve it from those nasty corporations in the first place, who have no interest in said, the “American People”, other than to use them as slaves in their factories, mines, oil rigs and nuclear facilities? Or serve their rich children fries at McDonald’s? This all in the name of increasing THEIR bottom line profits, by the billions, all while receiving government subsidies (oil, farming, natural gas) that the “American people” pay for by way of their taxes, bringing in record profits for their corporate masters, people like David and Charles KOCH, of Koch Industries, who are widely considered, along with bp and Halliburton, to be the largest polluters in the history of the United States of America. The freshman congressman, one of many in a recent meeting with “Speaker” of the House, John Boehner, who is a box of his own, was present in said meeting as they all chanted in unison, akin to a scene from the book, “Lord of the Flies”, for these are adult children we are dealing with here, “shut it down, shut it down, shut it down~!” and yet he LIED to Lawrence when he stated that he knew of no such outbursts, and then continued on with his party’s cliched, ad nauseum, talking points, one after the other, of “runaway spending” (talking point #333) and “doing the job of the American People” (talking point #1129), whom he has been well fed by the billionaires like David and Charles Koch, who pull the little strings of his little puppet mouth, opening that mouth wide enough to shove, like a zoo keeper feeding a hungry tiger, large pieces of raw meat, giving him the strength to carry on with his monumental hypocrisy and out right LIES. Please read seacapecod.net’s recent posts on this issue of ‘runaway spending’ and where this 14 trillion dollar national debt originated from, I believe it has been the past two blogs or so, where it spells out the FACTS of how this nation arrived at this destination–a destination that now parades around CLOWNS like the freshman congressman Tom Graves of the great state of Georgia, as he explains to US why this government shutdown is the fault of democrats who actually have a conscience when it comes to our children’s and grand children’s futures, and why WE will NOT allow criminally intentioned ‘ryders’, these social/culture WAR ryders, that have nothing to do with the budget at all, to DESTROY our environment, an environment on the edge, that will, if the republicans have their way, GOD FORBID, WILL be destroyed by the likes of criminal corporations like Halliburton, KOCH Industries, and the big oil and coal companies, like bp or Massey Energy, who continue blowing up mountain top after mountain top in the Appalachian mountain states of West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, mining for cheap coal, while polluting the rivers and streams below, bringing with it many other environmental problems down the road. How quickly we forget about the bp disaster that spilled over 500 million barrels of oil into the Gulf (the real number), only to be mixed with the deadly, banned in the U.K., dispersant Corexit 9500, that all now all sits at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, five inches deep, for thousands upon thousands of square miles, killing all of the oxygen and therefore, creating ‘dead zones’ that do not allow the single cell organisms that make up the building blocks of our food chain to survive, starving the sea life of vital nutrients, that will eventually make it’s way up said food chain to man himself. Oil that killed thousands of species of animal life that is near and dear to not only my heart, but many others as well, species like the Brown Pelican, the sea turtle, the dolphin, the whale, the shark, the sea bass, the tuna, the Marlin, and the beautiful marsh lands that are home to the oysters and nesting grounds for the very young, innocent victims of this horrible modus operandi promulgated by pawns like Tom Graves--”PROFIT OVER PEOPLE”. These ryders will allow monsters like bp, Chevron, Shell, Exxon, and the like, to continue using outdated (2009 safety procedures, and the faulty blowout preventers), with their newly approved plans, in the continuation of deep water drilling in over 7000 feet of water in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR–’blowout preventers’ that have been proven, by an independent Norwegian firm, to not work when pressure in those drilling rigs gets too high, the whole purpose for their existence to begin with, and the REASON for the Deep Water Horizon disaster that killed eleven crew members which resulted, again, in the ’spilling’ of over 500 million barrels of oil into the sea. That being the REAL number concluded by CREDIBLE scientists, not the department of energy headed up by that a$$hole Joe Barton, who actually, again, apologized to Tony, ‘gone sailin’, Hayward, (former CEO of bp) for Obama demanding 20 billion dollars in the cleanup effort, a drop in the bucket, if you will, that did not even come close to really cleaning up the mess, and did little to help all of the poor fisherman who lost their livelihood for generations, if not forever. This does not even touch the ‘fracking’ (of Koch and Halliburton, again, you can read the detail on previous seacapecod.net blogs, mostly KOCH INDUSTRIES) process that pumps high pressured water, chalk full of 596 deadly chemicals into the ground in order to break up the shale where the “natural gas” is stored. In this process, the well heads, who spew out toxic airborne chemicals far and wide, after gaining all they can from one piece of land, move on, leaving a pool of what the industry calls, “processed water”, still full of those chemicals that have led to wide spread death of animals and fish, plants and now people, and, what is even worse, is that these companies, who have no safety plan whatsoever, allow that processed water to seep into the ground, flowing into streams, estuaries, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, the sources of OUR clean drinking water, (in 37 states now) sources that will eventually find their way into YOUR faucet, in your home, even though that ‘fracking’ may be hundreds of miles away. Think about it for a moment, why else would billionaires David and Charles Koch, of KOCH INDUSTRIES (who you can read all about by independent film maker Robert Greenwald’s documentary kochbrothersexposed.com, or watch the HBO documentary “Gas Land”) why else would these billionaires create this fake grass roots product named, “Americans for Prosperity”, for their prosperity, not yours,” in the first place? Why would they want all of these ‘ryders’ in this minor budget battle of discretionary spending, a drop in the bucket compared to the monumental debt of 14 trillion dollars? Discretionary spending on ridiculous programs, in their view, such as affordable home heating oil for the poor or the elderly, head start for kids, Pell grants for struggling college students, meals on wheels for seniors, Planned Parenthood, or any social program that helps the 99.9 percent of the real American people does not mean all that much to these guys–but REGULATION does! They want the same green light our former “Vice President” Dick Cheney, afforded himself, known as the “Halliburton Loophole”, of 2005, where he opened up PUBLIC lands for his own private drilling for said “natural gas”, starting in his home state of Wyoming, with NO interference at all from the EPA, in fact, they, the EPA, was barred from testing the chemicals, all 596 of them, at all, and had no say to the airborne contaminants either, in fact, had no regulatory power over that industry at all, hence the explosion of profits from the tens of thousands of these wells all over the nation–15,000 plus in the Dallas/Fort Worth area alone, creating air that is more unhealthy on a daily basis than the worst ’smog’ days in the basin of Los Angeles. These monsters have made billions upon billions of dollars at the expense of say, a cattle rancher in Rifle, Colorado, whose five generation old farm is toast, ruined by the chemicals that have destroyed the vegetation that feeds his cows, made those cows sick and made his family sick, all sitting on land that is WORTHLESS now–all in the name of the top one tenth of the top one percent in this “democracy” we all delude ourselves into believing we live in. One last word from our idiot congressman ‘friend’ from the great state of Georgia that I think pretty much sums it all up–“Let’s empower the tax payer and not the federal government.” WOW. You sir, are a brave man. Are you sure you want to be a night club comic? Let us be clear, this is NOT about “saving or maximizing savings for the tax payer, it is about maximizing PROFITS for the CORPORATIONS! (who own congressmen like Graves). Corporations that are systematically, brutally and deviously raping and pillaging our land, sea and air, along with it’s people, plants and animal kingdom–the REAL AMERICAN PEOPLE! These men are cowards and crooks, mentally disturbed and need to be STOPPED before it is too late. I will say this about billionaire’s David and Charles Koch, you sure know how to pick your puppets, because these wind up dolls are better than Hollywood movie stars at getting their “lines” down, and memorizing YOUR talking points, nailing them one after the other, all on national television, and do a great job of duping at least 50 percent of the U.S. population, who don’t realize that you care nothing about the other 99.9 percent of the “American People”, all while doing their best ‘used-car-dealership-shtick’ on the corporate owned bat $hit stations like FOX NEWS or the like on radio, who only serve to promote the LIES and innuendo, muddying the waters so that most cannot SEE the criminal intentions of this very real corporate hijacking or our beloved country. May GOD’S SPEED still be with the good people of Japan and, may that sun rise for you soon. Have a nice day folks and good luck to all of the students in college all over this country, please question “authority”, for it is most often not what you think it is. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
