Separation of Oil & State

OIL CHANGE INTERNATIONAL "campaigns to expose the true costs of oil and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy. Oil companies and their employees donated over $25 million to candidates in the US during the 2004 campaign, and they've already invested over $13 million in the 2006 elections. The next step to ending our collective addiction to oil is reducing oil's influence over our representatives and demanding political independence from Big Oil."

"It’s time to ensure that our representatives represent us, not the oil companies."

PriceOfOil.org speaks to you if you're tired of big oil running the show. It offers several ways to take action by raising your voice to congress.

Separate Oil & State

Separation of Oil & State is a campaign to get oil money out of politics. It's important that we demand that our representatives stand up for the future of energy, not for the dinosaurs of the oil industry. Type in your zip code an Oil Change International to find out how much oil and gas money your reps are taking and then send an email to them. My senators are representatives are below.

How much oil donation money have your congressional representatives received? Mine are below.

Sen. Bill Nelson- FL
This representative has taken $124,855 from the oil and gas industry since 1990.

In 2006, they received at least $72,700.
In 2004, they received $9,250.
In 2000, they received $11,250.

Sen. Mel Martinez- FL
This representative has taken $138,847 from the oil and gas industry since 1990.

In 2006, they received at least $3,500.
In 2004 they received $135,347. (Wow, that's a lot.)
In 2000, they received $0.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz FL- 20FL
This representative has taken $4,000 from the oil and gas industry since 1990.

In 2006, they received $0.
In 2004 they received $4,000.
In 2000, they received $0.

He Can't See the Forest for the...oh...never mind...

Looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, in spite of the black lens caps.

Keeping in step with the Bush Administration's "Fox in the Hen House" approach to filling key positions, our nation's top forestry official, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, is a former timber industry lobbyist. Also keeping in step with much of the Bush Administration staff, Rey has a date with a judge.

Judge: Bush Official Faces Contempt
By Jeff Barnard
The Associated Press

Tuesday 21 August 2007

Grants Pass, Oregon - A federal judge in Montana has ordered the Bush administration's top forestry official to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for the U.S. Forest Service's failure to analyze the environmental impact of dropping fish-killing fire retardant on wildfires.

If found in contempt, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, could go to jail until the Forest Service complies with the court order to do the environmental review.

Noting that Rey had blocked implementation of an earlier review, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Malloy in Missoula, Mont., ordered Rey to appear in his court Oct. 15 unless the Forest Service completes the analysis before that time.

Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said the agency was working on the analysis, but he could not say whether they would meet the new deadline, because it was two months away. Rey did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an environmental group based in Eugene, filed the lawsuit in 2003, a year after more than 20,000 fish were killed when toxic retardant was dropped in Fall Creek in central Oregon.

In 2005, Malloy ruled that the Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it failed to go through a public process to analyze the potential environmental harm of using ammonium phosphate, a fertilizer that kills fish, as the primary ingredient in fire retardant dropped on wildfires.

In February 2006, the judge gave the Forest Service until Aug. 8 this year to comply, noting that if they needed more time, they were to contact the plaintiffs well in advance, and not come to him just before the deadline. The request for an extension was filed on the final day.

"It seems as if the government is playing a not too funny game, betting that the court will be forced to grant the additional time and hoping the irony of the timing will be overlooked," the judge wrote.

Andy Stahl, the group's executive director, said it asked the judge to specifically hold Rey responsible. A former timber industry lobbyist, Rey has been reshaping Forest Service policies to make it easier to log on national forests.

"I'm sure this order has got the government's attention," said Stahl. "I think they have to take a hard look at their 100-year war against wildfire and explore alternatives that will allow us to live with fire, and that is what they don't want us to do."

Stahl said the Forest Service appears to be immune legally from fines, but not from jail time to pressure them to complete the environmental review.

"You can throw them in jail to coerce future good behavior," Stahl said.

Close The Door On AIPAC Already

September 2004 Poll: Should AIPAC Register as the Agent of a Foreign Government?
The Question: A tax-exempt organization that lobbies Congress on behalf of Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (also known as AIPAC), has been under investigation by the FBI for allegedly receiving classified information from a Pentagon official and using this information on behalf of the government of Israel. In view of this investigation, do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that AIPAC should be asked to register as an agent of a foreign government and lose its tax-exempt status?
Method: Conducted by Zogby International of 1,004 likely voters from 9/8/04 through 9/9/04.

August 2005 Indictment
Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen are accused of passing U.S. national security information to a foreign government agent (Israel)

June 2007 Trial Delayed Again
The federal case, which is being handled by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, was supposed to go to trial on June 4, 2007 but was postponed until the fall, the latest of several delays.

Is It Time to Rein in AIPAC?
©2007 William Hughes
August 15th

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “AIPAC,” is the nine ton elephant in the room! It is the ultra-engine that drives the Israel Lobby. After the Walt/Mearsheimer Report came out in March, 2006, its cover was blown. Now, Grant F. Smith’s latest book, Foreign Agents: AIPAC From The 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal is hitting the streets. It is a searing indictment of AIPAC in the Court of Public Opinion and should be read by every American who cares about the fate of the Republic.

Foreign Agents reveals the controversial history of the influential lobbying organization. It comes on the heels of Smith's insightful tome, Deadly Dogma, an exposé of the Neocons, where he evidenced their lethal "Clean Break" scheme to destabilize Iraq. In this new book, Foreign Agents, Mr. Smith argues that AIPAC, a corporation, should be required to register as a foreign agent for Israel. He accuses it of morphing into a “secretive political intelligence-gathering and covert operations powerhouse...and Israeli-controlled entity in America.” Naturally, AIPAC disagrees with him.

Read William Hughes' entire review of Grant F. Smith's Foreign Agents here.

Crimes and Felonies: The AIPAC Spy Story
Felony Indictments. The End of AIPAC? The indictment of Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen is potentially the story of how AIPAC will fall. Rosen was not a mere employee, but widely believed to be the man who built AIPAC into the $60 million powerhouse it is today. The greatest fear among AIPAC supporters is that convictions could lead to the requiring AIPAC to register as foreign agents. AIPAC closely coordinates policy with the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC and the Israeli government, making it an agent of a foreign government. AIPAC should not be allowed to keep its 501(c)(3) tax-deductible charitable status, but should be required to register as a lobbyist for a foreign agent. This would greatly cripple its role in US politics.

Thanks For The Memories, Suckers!

Karl Rove is credited for winning 4 elections for George Bush, and is hailed as the brain of the White House. But what did he really do? "Bush's Brain" manipulated public opinion and exploited his base, giving fundamentalist religious extremism a voice in the process. The country became more divided than ever- more volatile, more scared. Under his advice, the standard for leadership in 21st century America started low and quickly became a joke. Now, after tearing the country apart and leaving it for dead, he's finally joining the long list of Bush staffers who've jumped ship. Mission accomplished!

Here's a hot editorial by Bill Moyers from his August 17th program on the subject of Karl Rove's timely departure from the White House.

"...What struck me about my fellow Texan, Karl Rove, is that he knew how to win elections as if they were divine interventions. You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the good lord was speaking in a Texas accent.

Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas, was to sell him as God's anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits. Using church pews as precincts Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat -- a battering ram, aimed at the devil's minions, especially at gay people.

It's so easy, as Karl knew, to scapegoat people you outnumber, and if God is love, as rumor has it, Rove knew that, in politics, you better bet on fear and loathing. Never mind that in stroking the basest bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion.

At the same time he was recruiting an army of the lord for the born-again Bush, Rove was also shaking down corporations for campaign cash. Crony capitalism became a biblical injunction. Greed and God won four elections in a row - twice in the lone star state and twice again in the nation at large. But the result has been to leave Texas under the thumb of big money with huge holes ripped in its social contract, and the U.S. government in shambles - paralyzed, polarized, and mired in war, debt and corruption.

Rove himself is deeply enmeshed in some of the scandals being investigated as we speak, including those missing emails that could tell us who turned the attorney general of the United States into a partisan sock puppet. Rove is riding out of Dodge city as the posse rides in. At his press conference this week he asked God to bless the president and the country, even as reports were circulating that he himself had confessed to friends his own agnosticism; he wished he could believe, but he cannot. That kind of intellectual honesty is to be admired, but you have to wonder how all those folks on the Christian right must feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator. On his last play of the game all Karl Rove had to offer them was a hail mary pass, while telling himself there's no one there to catch it."

Poll Shows Iraqis Oppose Foreign Oil Ownership

Poll: Iraqis Oppose Oil Privatization
Published by Steve Kretzmann August 6th, 2007 in Iraq

Iraqis oppose plans to open the country’s oilfields to foreign investment by a factor of two to one, according to a poll released today. Iraqis are united in this view: there are no ethnic, sectarian or geographical groups that prefer foreign companies.

The poll also finds that most Iraqis feel kept in the dark about the oil plans – with fewer than a quarter feeling adequately informed about a proposed new law to govern Iraq’s oil sector.

This poll is the first time ordinary Iraqis have been asked their views on the contents of the oil law, which has been debated by Iraqi political parties for over a year. The US government is pressing Baghdad to pass the oil law by September, as one of its “benchmarks”. [1]

At the centre of the oil law is a proposal to give multinational oil companies such as Conoco, Chevron and Exxon the primary role in developing Iraq’s oilfields, under contracts of up to 30 years.

Yet 63% of poll respondents said they would prefer Iraq’s oil to be developed and produced by Iraqi public sector companies rather than foreign companies, with 32% of those indicating a strong preference. Only 10% strongly preferred foreign companies, and 21% moderately.

Only 4% of Iraqis feel they have been given ‘totally adequate’ information for them to feel informed about the oil law. A further 20% describe information provision as ‘somewhat adequate’, and 76% as inadequate.

Read the entire article here.

Deeper Into Madness

Fear is still ruling our decisions. The concept of giving up liberty to protect our freedom continues. What will we have left after the dust settles? How bad will it get?

House approves foreign wiretap bill, 227-183
The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. See the role call here.

Bush Signs Terrorism Law
President Bush on Sunday signed into law an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for warrants.

On August 5, President Bush signed S.1927, a bill amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The bill gives more authority to the National Security Agency and other agencies to monitor emails, phone calls, and other communications that are part of a foreign intelligence investigation.

Democrats Capitulate to President Bush as Congress Gives Government Broad New Powers to Conduct Warrantless Surveillance on American Citizens

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Remind your congressmen that several of our founding fathers have long ago weighed in on the dangers of valuing security over liberty, and of using war to override the separation of powers outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

The FISA court never refused any warrants; it was a rubber-stamp court. It was a bureaucratic step, but an important one. Its presence reminded us what was good about the United States of America. Without it...not so much.

Click here to make your voice heard if you oppose the expansion of Warrantless Wiretapping.
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King George W: James Madison's Nightmare
In 1795, James Madison wrote of war's far-reaching and corrosive effect on public liberty. He could well have been warning us about our own King George, just the sort of imperial president that Madison and other founders of our nation feared most.

Robert Scheer details how James Madison (as well as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) predicted that America's new experiment in representative government could be threatened. George Bush is currently endangering the foundation of America by doing exactly what the founding fathers warned against: emphasizing security over liberty and getting bogged down in "foreign entanglements".










The view from Jemmy and Dolley Madison's west-facing Montpelier estate in Virginia.