The Push for Oil

The Northwoods Politic

President Bush today has lifted the executive ban on offshore oil drilling. He's been pushing Congress to allow for the drilling of offshore oil deposits on the U.S. continental slopes. There are both executive and Congressional ban on drilling offshore, but he's hoping that by lifting the executive ban he can push Congress into lifting theirs.

There are two parties that both have fundamental differences in opinion on how this will affect energy prices. One party says this will bring the high cost of fuel prices down. The other side says this is mostly hype and it is just a matter of the first party taking advantage of people's fears that we need to do anything and everything to bring these prices down, because they just can't afford to pay these prices for fuel. What the true facts are is hard to tell. If you read about the companies that make these big drilling platforms needed to extract the oil from our continental slopes, they state that they are already backlogged 5 years on orders for other countries so it would be 5 years before they would even be able to start building the oil platforms to use in the U.S. On top of that, some say that the oil companies hold leases on all kinds of land with viable oil reserves that they are not drilling already.

Again as always, this is an issue that runs along Republican and Democratic party lines, with mostly Republicans wanting the drilling and Democrats not wanting drilling. This is one of the biggest problems in our government. We can't seem to have all these people sit down, look at the facts, and come up with what they think is good or not good. After deciding what their stance is, they should go back to their districts and try to persuade their constituents to what they think is right, but their main job after that is to take what views their constituents decide back to Washington and reflect that in their vote on the issue before Congress. Instead the top person, in this case the president, decides what he wants and all the rest of the people in their party fall in line behind him, they say this is what they want too, and they vote on the issue in Congress to reflect their party's will. Most of these people that we are talking about are addressed as Representatives, the reason they are addressed by that title is that they are supposed to represent the people from their districts. The way this has been working is a major flaw in the way our government is supposed to work.

Clean Air Interstate Rule of 2005

The Northwoods Politic

Today's news speaks of a decision of a federal appeals court that effectively cancels any air pollution regulations the Bush Administration implemented to cut down the levels of greenhouse gases, by stating that the EPA overstepped it's bounds when it established the Clean Air Interstate Rule of 2005.

Shortly after that, the same day, the E.P.A. Administrator, Stephen Johnson, announced that he wasn't obligated to regulate greenhouse gases saying that it would be an unprecedented expansion of the agency's authority.

Between these two actions, any new reductions of air pollutants during the Bush Administration has been canceled out. This basically is what the administration's, Transportation's, Agriculture's and the Commerce Department's want. Their position all along is that they didn't want to place air pollution controls on these industries anyway.

I think this is no accident, the Bush Administration's has all along used legal points to battle and effectively stonewall any attempts of getting any information needed by oversight committees to do their investigations. Do you think it's possible that the Bush Administration could have accidentally overlooked how their controls set up to reduce greenhouse gases could be deterred by the courts? I think it was planned all along.

Bush and his administration has played this country like a chess game, as the country's attention has been drawn from one contested issue to another in other unrelated areas, attention is always being shifted so as to never give enough time for people or agencies to act on or follow through with oversight or arguments against the earlier issues. In this way he has used his time in office to promote republicans,, that he can count on to go along with him, into just about all areas of government. Republicans have infiltrated all areas of the government and they use that power to promote their agendas not the people's. How many times have Bush and Cheney stated that public opinion isn't important to policy, what's important is that we stay the coarse on their agendas because they know what we need, even if it's not what we want.

Iraqi Government Does What U.S. Government Can't

The Northwoods Politic

I get most of my news from the Associated Press and The New York Times. Today I noticed that the Iraqi Government appears to be doing something that our Congress can't seem to do. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is standing up to President Bush in regards to the Iraqi/U.S. agreement that Washington was trying to get approved by July 31st.

According to what I've read, the UN agreement for troops being in Iraq ends at the end of December, but the Bush Administration has been pushing Iraq for an agreement to allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq before the end of July. The reason for this is obvious, Bush wants to get a concrete agreement with Iraq before he leaves office at the end of the year. According to the Bush Administration, they claim that they don't need Congress approval even if they decide to have full status of forces agreement with Iraq. The administration has been pretty mum about what the points of the U.S./Iraq agreement not wanting to have a bunch of resistance from Congress until after the agreement is signed.

Most of what we hear about the proposed agreement is coming from the Iraqi side, our government won't inform us of what they want with Iraq for stipulations. Some of the points that the Iraqi government has taken offense to are:

1.) The U.S. authority to carry out military operations within Iraq.
2.) The ability to arrest Iraqi citizens without Iraqi government's permission.
3.) Getting legal immunity for private security contractors.
4.) Control of Iraqi air space.
5.) Setting a time table for U.S. troop withdrawals.

It sounds like Washington might have dropped the immunity stipulation in regards to the private contractors, but nothing is set in stone yet. Washington has been pretty secretive about what it wants compared to what the Iraqis want. The Iraqis want control of their airspace and basically want the U.S. out of Iraq as soon as possible it sounds like. Even with Iraq talking about wanting withdrawal timetables, U.S. Ambassador Crocker has said, "We are looking at conditions not calendars, and both sides are in agreement on this point. So it doesn't appear like anyone in the U.S. is listening to what Iraqi leaders are wanting. I guess that they are just supposed to trust our government not to infringe on Iraqi rights just like we are supposed to trust our government to follow our constitution. Washington continues to say withdrawals would only be linked to conditions on the ground.

In the last couple days Iraq leaders have made headlines in their standing up to Washington against their perceived danger of turning into indentured servants of the United States. Some of the headlines are:

1.) Iraqi Raises the Idea of Timetable for U.S. Withdrawals
2.) Iraq Demands Pullout Timetable in U.S. Defense Pack Talks
3.) Iraq Insists on Withdrawal Timetable

The United States might bring the Iraqis factions together after all, but it will probably be done by pissing them off about us so much that they will unite against us.

While Iraq and the United States are trying to make some sense out of what to do with the agreement, Israel, the United States, and Iran are having a pissing contest in the gulf. First Isrial carried out maneuvers showing that they could feasibly get to Iran to start a war, then the U.S. and Iran both announced that they would do maneuvers in the gulf with a chance of starting an international incident. Iran stated that it would close out the traffic from the gulf if attacked, so the U.S. sent a convoy to the area to show that they would attack if any sign that the Iranians would put up a blockade. It's kind of like watching a bunch of young boys playing in a playground except that the stakes are much higher.

It's All About the Oil Baby

The Northwoods Politic

Before the end of his presidency Bush is doing what he can to advance his agendas in Iraq and Iran. New news is that one of President Bush's buddies Hunt Oil went ahead and made a Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government instead of the central government in Iraq. A move that has seriously infuriated members of Iraq's central government.

In advance of the news that the Bush Administration knew about the deal ahead of time, and did not try to discourage the deal, Bush is on record as saying, "I know nothing about the deal." Hmmm, sounds an awfully similar to, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.", doesn't it? If not in the words, it's familiar in the actions and intent of another leader trying to bullshit his way out of trouble, and again it didn't work, or did it? Also trying to back up their failure to tell the truth the State Department is trying to say that they discouraged the deal, even though there are a string of Emails backing up the information that the Bush Administration and the State Department knew of the dealings of Hunt Oil before anything was signed. Bush has his fingers in so many places trying to push things through for his friends that he slipped getting rid of this Email electronic paper trail. It's no surprise that the president has said something to the effect that he doesn't use Emails any more because of security reasons. Although he doesn't say it, I think the security reasons he refers to all the time is not the security of the nation, but the security of his own ass. Perhaps he's just not afraid any more what news comes out, after all he can always say any such information is internal communications and then claim executive privilege.

There is good reason to believe the Bush Administration has had it's hands in the dealings with Iraq that allows five major western oil companies non bid contracts to come in and start getting the oil flowing in Iraq. Makes a person wonder after hearing of some of the successions the U.S. wanted in their deal with the Iraqi government before the UN agreement expires July 31st. Could be that our government set the sights high so we could later drop some of them in exchange of some of these non bid contracts with western oil companies? I would imagine that we will eventually hear something like that, and it will be another thing that we will not impeach Bush over. It's starting to look like there isn't going to be any holding Bush and his Administration accountable for things at least while he's in office. The way he has setup his supporters all through the government's agencies would have to be fixed before any action on Bush himself can take place.

Now the Bush Administration says it's almost imminent that Israel is going to invade Iran to bomb Iran's nuclear facility. I'm sure Israel just came up with that idea on their own, just like they did in Syria, but it's kind of interesting how our government seems to know all the details as soon as that kind of thing happens. You can be sure that somewhere there is a wink and a nod to Israel from people in our government, some help like satellite images and the like, maybe even some extra money in aid or something too. It would also be a way of eventually getting the U.S. into a war with Iran. We couldn't after all let one of our allies be threatened by a war with Iran. This might be one way of Bush making sure that we eventually get involved with Iran even if he can't get us into it with Iran before he's out of office this fall.

The list just goes on and on about the departments of government that the Bush Administration has Bushtardized. The State Department lieing that they discouraged oil deals, a Justice Department that won't work with oversight committee to find out the truth about the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. Even in the Environmental Protection Agency, Bush has his puppets who will advance his agenda over the sound science and advice of advisers. It is going to take quite a while and a lot of work to fix the government and our rights from the damages of the Bush Administration.

A Depressing Interlude

The Northwoods Politic

It's been four days since I've wrote. It's not that there wasn't a lot of sad crap going on in politics worth writing about, maybe it was because there was too much. Ah I guess it was kind of self inflicted. I spent a good share of my spare time watching videos of hearings on the website from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This is a great site to visit if you want to know what is going on in your government from a 'first hand' point of view. There you can read transcripts of hearing testimonies, opening and closing statements, or even watch videos of past hearings. You can also read letters sent to President Bush and other top administration officials demanding information, documents and tapes to be released. It changes, some of the videos even have a degree of drama as witnesses squirm or get defiant under pressure of questioning. This was the original venue of the video of Rep. Dennis Kucinich presented 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush on the house floor.

You can go to the United States House of Representatives or the United States Senate web sites and get news and video on important matters going through the House and Senate and various committee actions and news. There are online help forms to send Email communications to your representatives in office. Let your representatives know where you stand on the issues. Learn the inner workings of our government.

C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2 Capitol Hill, The White House and National Politics is another great site on the web or available on most all cable and satellite television networks. This site will show many of the House and Senate hearings and debates on bills and other government business. There are news casts with current and upcoming political issues, events and coverage of the upcoming 2008 campaigns and primary elections. The TV networks have much of the same information that you can find online plus the political news casts, but online you have the option of watching and reading within your schedule when you have time to concentrate on the issues.

For our government to work correctly it is the responsibility of all it's citizens to take part to guide it on it's path. If the common people get discouraged and drop out of the process, that only leaves the rich, business, and special interests to court the government's power for their own gains. I think it has been shown again and again that left to the rich and big business that there isn't any issue more important to them than their bottom line and only things that affect their bottom line will get noticed or addressed. Our government is supposed to be balanced in it's care and deliberations to weigh the balance of educational, health, environmental, economic, and other issues. It is We the People that must stand up for our rights and demand that government is accountable to the people, or it will be We the People that continue to get the shaft.

What is really disheartening about all the illegal and immoral things that continue to go on in the government is that its like seeing a rat, for everyone that is exposed, you find there are over a dozen that you don't see.

A New Process for Selecting Our Representatives

What America needs is a new process for picking it's representatives. The way we chose our leaders has basically grown more and more flawed as the years gone by, morphing elections and thus changing politics into something totally different than our founders had ever in visioned. When this country was founded, there were only 13 colonies. It was a pretty easy task for everyone to know if one person held better leadership qualities than another person by their past actions. How we chose our leaders was much different than it is today. Through time, as our population spread out across the North American Continent, it became necessary for politicians to boast more and advertise their accomplishments to win over votes from people that they have never met or who have never heard of them before. Through the years the process of selecting our leaders has become broken. I'm not saying I have a completely worked out grand new plan to fix all our problems, but today I'm going to write about some of the reasons why I think our elections fail to bring before us good candidates for presidential selection who care as much for the interests of the common person on the street as they do for the interests of big business.

I've always heard that we are never going to get a person in office that is any more ethical or morally responsible then the people that put them in office. I somewhat agree with that statement. If the voters are not very ethical or moral, they won't hold the politicians they have elected accountable to being ethical or moral either. I do think that the way we select our politicians makes a big difference in the kind of leaders we have though.

One of the biggest failings in our process of selecting a government representative is the amount of money needed for anyone to run for office. This fails our government from the start in so many ways. One of the biggest ways this has a negative effect on our politicians is that they need to spend a pretty good share of time raising money for their re-elections, because they need lots of money to get re-elected. Usually, without some extenuating circumstances, or other form of fame and publicity, the person that spends the most money wins the election. It takes large amounts of money to travel around the district, state, or our country promoting one's self putting out television, internet, and radio ads. Ads must introduce the candidate, list where they stand on issues, tell of unscrupulous acts by the opposition, and defend one's self from smears made by the opposition. As our population grew and spread across the continent the cost of campaigning has grew.

Politicians are only human and it is human nature to do nice things for people who do nice things for us. Lets face it, people give large amounts of money or favors to candidates for basically one reason, and that is with the hope that their donations will help elect the candidate of their choice, and once in office that candidate will remember the donor's issues that they wanted help with. Other than that, whether it's a large amount of money from a large corporations or small amounts of money from individual donors, there is no other reason for anyone to give money to a candidate. It's a validation for the candidate. It's a way of saying you think like I do on the issues that matter to me, so here's some money to help you get elected so you can support those issues. Politicians are not supposed to think of who gave them how much money or let it influence their decisions when they vote on issues that may affect the donor, there are laws against it. But when money is so important to getting re-elected, who in their right mind would vote for something that would adversely affect someone who gives big money towards getting them elected?

Somehow we have to take the costs of campaigning out of the equation, that is about the only way to take the advantage away from big business and special interest groups. The government actually owns control of TV and Radio frequencies, there should be a certain amount of airtime given to the process of electing our representatives that they don't have to pay for. Candidates should have to present themselves within a structured format so that people can see where each candidate stands compared to their rivals. There should be no public advertisements by special interests groups smearing rival candidates. In fact anything that is said by a candidate or endorsed by a candidate should be factual. If it is found that any candidate lied about past voting records, past positions on issues, smears against rival candidates, they should be prosecuted for lieing or slander. It should not be up to the voting public to have to check up on every statement made by politicians and try to figure out whether it is a lie or not. We should demand that when politicians speak to us that they are telling the truth, they work for us after all.

Thanks For Reading

Thank you for reading. I have noticed that I am picking up a few readers on my blog. I want to thank all who have taken the time to check out my blog and a special thanks for those who have been interested enough to return multiple times. Thank you.

Long as I have your attention... Please feel free to leave a comment if you would like. The link to comments is at the end of each article, this is where you can agree or disagree and/or state your opinions. Comments are moderated not to deny opposing comments or viewpoints, (in fact I would encourage any civil exchange of ideas) but to try to catch profanity and to keep posts on subject. Please do not use profanity, respect the right of others to their opinions, and refrain from personal attacks of others.

The Northwoods Politic is my political views about headline news from my own personal Northern Wisconsin perspective. I have been in various stages of disability from fibromyalgia the last 15 years since having a back operation. To fill my time and to try to get a better understanding on our government I have been reading political news from articles off major online publications such as The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, articles from the Associated Press, internet sources, various local papers and magazines. I claim to not be an expert on any subject, but if you agree or you disagree and think I'm off comment about it. You may change my mind, I may change your's, but in the end maybe we will all know more about the issue than we started with.

In the future I may change formats somewhat, maybe I will have some regular feature spots, but for now, most of my articles are my off the cuff reactions I have to political current news and events. As to which topics I write about, at this time, I tend to write about whatever PO's me the most at that particular point in time.