Big Oil Rips-Off American Taxpayers

Big Oil is stealing our oil and is refusing to pay their fair share of royalties on oil removed from USA Public Lands. Bush has already given Big Oil over $15 billion in tax breaks and other subsidies; while working Americans struggle to pay their income taxes. This is another Slap to American Families.

SOLAR BUILDING TOURS
http://www.ases.org/tour/2006_tour/california.htm
http://www.ases.org/tour

BIO-DIESEL
http://www.plantdrive.com
http://www.biodieselwarehouse.com
http://www.joshuatickell.com/books_films.htm
http://hawaii.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/5943.php

BILLION DOLLAR CROP
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/hemp.html
http://www.kenex.com/english/Default.htm
http://www.hempoilcan.com
http://www.meadowoodindustries.com
http://www.harvesthomes.ca

LINKS TO GROUPS SUPPORTING RENEWABLE ENERGY
http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/50176.php
http://newmexico.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/3270.php
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/167152.php

RENEWABLE ENERGY JOURNAL - Home Power
http://www.homepower.com

MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY IS DESTROYED BY GLOBAL WARMING
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/172934.php
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/global-warming-in-new-hamps...

GLOBAL WARMING DESTROYS WINE INDUSTRY
http://hamilton.indymedia.org/newswire/display/753/index.php
http://www.campaigncc.org

BIG OIL Rip-Off
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Big Oil is stealing our oil and is refusing to pay their fair share of royalties on oil removed from USA Public Lands. Bush has already given Big Oil over $15 billion in tax breaks and other subsidies; while working Americans struggle to pay their income taxes. This is another Slap to American Families.

Big Oil is pressing ahead with a lawsuit to stop paying royalties to America for oil removed from the USA Public Lands. If successful, Big Oil companies would avoid paying as much as $60 billion in royalties.

According to the Government Accountability Office, this a Colossal Rip-Off.

This comes at time when the Bush Administration is trying to prevent the loss of $10 Billion in royalties as a result of a huge leasing error.

Furthermore, Americans would not see any reduction by America on Foreign Oil Supplies, leaving Our Country vulnerable to oil supply disruptions, as Bush pursues aggressive measures against Iran and Venezuela.

Representative Edward J. Markey has criticized the Interior Department of being lax toward Big Oil and Big Coal in collecting the royalties due Americans and in the enforcement of environmental standards on these hideous polluting industries.

Representative Markey said that the Justice Department must put the full weight of its resources behind vigorously defending the American Taxpayer.

There should not be any more sweet heart deals for Big Oil and Big Coal. Especially as working Americans struggle to pay their outrageous high energy bills.

Furthermore, as American Families are struggling to pay an inordinate amount of income taxes, Bush is giving Tax Breaks to Billionaires.

At the same time, Bush is trying to take away tax breaks and benefits from working families, veterans and military personnel.

This is extremely Unpatriotic and Anti-American.

How much political campaign contributions (bribes) is your congressman receiving?
http://www.campaignfinance.org/states
http://www.publicintegrity.org

How much money (bribes) are the Republicans and their friends receiving from big companies?
http://www.campaignfinance.org/states
http://www.publicintegrity.org

stop ELECTION FRAUD, support Honest elections.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org
http://www.votevets.org
http://mediamatters.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
http://www.investigatethevote.org
http://www.votersunite.org
http://www.citizensact.org
http://www.solarbus.org/election/cd/test/videos.html
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_redistricting_scandal
state info: http://manila.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=31260
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/121775.php

GLOBAL WARMING DESTROYS WINE INDUSTRY
http://hamilton.indymedia.org/newswire/display/753/index.php
http://www.campaigncc.org

MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY IS DESTROYED BY GLOBAL WARMING
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/172934.php
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/global-warming-in-new-hamps...

Per the Sustainable Industries Journal,
the Pentagon has blocked the construction of 16 Wind Energy sites in the USA.
The military claims the Wind Farms are a threat to national security.
Maybe the Wind Farms are a threat to Big Oil and Big Coal?

RENEWABLE ENERGY LINKS
http://utah.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/15788.php
http://www.plantdrive.com
http://www.homepower.com
http://www.seia.org
http://www.vestas.com
http://www.ncsc.ncsu.edu
http://www.swisssolartech.com
http://www.bergey.com

OTHER BUSH BETRAYALS

Politics of Oil and Money

Another sub-title for this article could well be "a study in state monopoly capitalism." A book of the author, Dan Briody, focused on the Carlyle Group, the spectacularly well-heeled firm that includes former President George H.W. Bush, his crony James Baker and a veritable rogues’ gallery of washed-up politicians and businessmen of questionable integrity who blatantly trade upon their inside knowledge of government for private gain in yet another textbook example of state monopoly capitalism.

Yet, their money-grubbing pales in comparison – and chutzpah – to Halliburton, a firm formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, a firm that is frequently in the headlines in light of the lucrative contracts they have been awarded by Cheney’s government in the theater of war that is Iraq.

The story begins in Texas where a predecessor firm of Halliburton, Brown & Root, was catapulted into prominence – and obscene profitability - because of a tight relationship with former Senator, then Vice President and President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Large scale construction and oil services were the two pillars on which this giant company was built. Routinely the government handed out handsome "cost plus" contracts, e.g. building the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, to this corporation. "Cost plus" means that the contractor could recoup all expenses plus a guaranteed profit based on a pre-negotiated percentage. This eliminates risk for the contractor and erodes the necessity to eliminate wasteful billing which, says the author, is "great for the contractor, not so great for the taxpayer." "Basically, it’s a blank check from the government….when your profit is a percentage of the cost, the more you spend, the more you make."

Brown & Root reaped a bonanza of wasteful contracts during the war in Vietnam, which – coincidentally – Johnson prosecuted as vigorously as Cheney has done in Iraq. By 1967 this firm was the largest employer in South Vietnam. Yet even then there was an obvious downside to relying so heavily upon the private sector to perform the clear government function of waging war: motivated by the lust for profit their employees were "manipulating currency and selling goods on the black market," among other transgressions.

Johnson was so helpful to this company that the author argues that actually he was "working for Brown & Root, not the people of his district or the state." Something similar used to be said about another leading Democratic Party politician, the late Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, who was referred to as the "Senator from Boeing." Obviously today we are in dire need of deeper examinations of the ramified ties between various sectors of state monopoly capitalism and leading political figures and parties, along the lines of the work at hand.

Brown & Root was also viciously anti-union. At one time, for example, progressive formations e.g. the National Maritime Union, played a pivotal role in Texas politics but after Brown & Root and their confederates pushed through anti-union legislation in the 1940s, the political complexion of what is now the second largest state began to change to the point where it has now become a reliable Republican redoubt and, not coincidentally, the home of both the current President and Vice-President.

But as profitable as it had been, when Dick Cheney left the Pentagon in the 1990s to become head of Halliburton, this company was catapulted to a new level of profitability. A staunch conservative, while a member of Congress Cheney avidly opposed imposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa while pushing aggressively for sanctions against socialist Cuba. Before leaving the Pentagon, which he headed during the administration of George H.W. Bush, he accelerated the privatization of core military functions in a way that – coincidentally – aided the company he was about to lead. "They made $109.7 million in Somalia…$6.3 million from Operation Support Hope in Rwanda…..Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti netted the company $150." Halliburton was "becoming another unit in the US Army" and reaping millions from war and misery, providing a perverse incentive for an increase in such pestilences. "From 1995 to 2000, Brown & Root" – now part of Halliburton—"billed the government for more than $2 billion in services. The company did everything from build the [military] camps to deliver the mail, with 24-hour food service and laundering. It provided firefighting services, fuel delivery, sewage construction, hazardous material disposal, and the maintenance and delivery of equipment." War in the Balkans was the "driving force" for Halliburton’s increased profitability and heightened profile. "Halliburton’s government business doubled while Cheney was CEO."

Yet Cheney also left this firm with a basket of problems after he was elected Vice-President and this may have given him incentive to steer contracts in Halliburton’s direction in order to lessen the pain inflicted on his firm. He pushed through a merger with Dresser Industries, a profoundly disastrous maneuver, given the backbreaking liability for asbestos related lawsuits that this company carried. Coincidentally – that word again – Dresser was "the company that gave George H.W. Bush his first job." After Cheney left Halliburton a "grand jury investigation into over-billing and a Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] investigation into Halliburton’s accounting practices while Cheney was CEO" ensued. That is not all. The company was accused of bribing a "Nigerian tax authority in exchange for contracts to build a liquefied natural gas plant." A French magistrate "was looking into the possibility of bringing charges against Dick Cheney for complicity in the bribery case and allegations that $243 million in secret commissions were paid from the late 1990s to 2002….the United States Justice Department and the SEC are looking into accusations that Halliburton made $180 million in illegal payments to win other contracts in Nigeria."

This points up another festering problem with Halliburton. The French investigation of Cheney’s alleged malfeasance has complicated Washington’s already deteriorating relations with Paris, while Halliburton’s chicanery has contributed mightily to a culture of corruption in West Africa.

After Cheney left, Halliburton stock plummeted precipitously and given the millions of stock options that he still holds, this jeopardized his own personal fortune, not to mention the fortunes of his fellow executives with whom he had become quite close.

Though the author does not stress this, his study reveals a critical fault line within state monopoly capitalism. For when Halliburton began to feed ravenously at the government trough, other firms in the same business became angrily resentful, which helped to fuel congressional investigations and adverse publicity. For example, during the Reagan years, Bechtel was the government contractor of choice, as suggested by the prominent role in his administration played by two of their former executives – former Secretary of State George Schulz and former Pentagon chief, Caspar Weinberger. "The rapid rise" of Brown & Root, for example, "brought on a fit of jealousy" from their "biggest rival, Bechtel of San Francisco."

Reference
book: The Halliburton Agenda, The Politics of Oil and Money
author: Dan Briody

2ND BOOK: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas

Halliburton is of Brown & Root, a company that obtained government contracts via Lyndon B. Johnson during the New Deal. They also took most of the government contracts during the Second World War, Korean War and Vietnam War. It was all done by controlling the chairman of key Senate Committees and having their people holding key posts in the government such as Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Treasury.

Not that this is common knowledge. This group of Texans (sometimes known as the Suite 8F Group) bought into Operation Mockingbird (a CIA project to control the US domestic media). However, the web has undermined this project.

The key point made by Bryce and Briody is that this is really an economic issue. The politics of all this is about making money out of their ideology. It does not matter who the US is fighting, it is the spending this goes on it that is important.

Global military spending is $956bn and rising. US spends 40% of this. Most is spent with companies based in Texas.

In 1963 John F. Kennedy tried to deal with the Texas stranglehold over government policy. However, he underestimated the power of the Suite 8F Group.

References
book: Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas; author: Dan Briody
book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; author: John Perkins
book: Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War; author: Michael Isikoff
book: State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III; author: Bob Woodward
book: The One Percent Doctrine; author: Ron Suskind
book: The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina; author: Frank Rich
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WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar
http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com
http://www.megawattmotorworks.com

Why are Good Electric Cars being Destroyed?
http://www.dontcrush.com
http://www.saveev1.org

FLIM: ExxonMobil Expose and OIL SPILLS
http://www.worldoutofbalance.org
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book56w.htm
http://www.sunkills.com
http://www.refineryreform.org
http://www.bakuceyhan.org.uk/more_info/bp_pipeline.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1105-04.htm
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25422
http://www.greenpointvexxon.com
http://whyfiles.org/168oil_spill/index.html
http://www.loe.org/series/exxon/lessons.htm
http://environment.about.com/b/a/256786.htm
http://www.jomiller.com/exxonvaldez/
book: Extreme Conditions, Big Oil and the Transformation of Alaska; author: John Strohmeyer

SOLAR HOME TOURS AND LINKS
http://milwaukee.indymedia.org/en/2006/07/205706.shtml
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/2006/07/25901.shtml
http://rogueimc.org/en/2006/07/6867.shtml

FOOD BANKS NEED YOUR HELP
http://hawaii.indymedia.org/news/2006/06/5894.php
http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/11385.php

BUSH SLAMS CHRISTIANS as a Bunch of Nuts
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/136252/index.php
http://hm.indymedia.org/newswire/display/12550/index.php
http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/53135.php
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Racketeering charges have been filed against Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, Monsanto, NutraSweet Co., the American Diabetes Association and Dr Robert Moser for distributing toxic aspartame, in a class action representing many plaintiffs, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking $350 million in damages.

The suit charges the defendants with manufacturing and marketing a deadly neurotoxin unfit for human consumption, while they assured the pubic that aspartame (also known as NutraSweet/Equal) contaminated products are safe and healthful, even for children and pregnant women. Present US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, is mentioned throughout the lawsuit.

As evidence, an explosive affidavit from a former translator for the GD Searle company - the developer of aspartame - was made recently public and revealed the following.

For 16 years, the Food and Drug Administration denied approval of aspartame because of compelling evidence of its contributing to brain tumours and other serious disabilities. Donald Rumsfeld left President Ford's administration as Chief of Staff to become the CEO of aspartame-producer GD Searle Co. in 1981.

In 1985 Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in Nutra Sweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame's clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it "might induce brain tumors."

The FDA had actually banned the drug based on this finding.

Then Donald Rumsfeld, Searle Chairman (currently the Secretary of Defense), vowed to "call in his markers," to get it approved.

On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame in food sweetener, and Reagan's new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry's decision. It soon became clear that the panel would uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then broke the tie in aspartame's favor. Hull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller, the chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle. Since that time he has never spoken publicly about aspartame.

Shortly after, Rumsfeld became the CEO, and the day after President Reagan took office, aspartame was quickly approved by FDA Commissioner Arthur Hayes over the objections of the FDA's Public Board of Inquiry. Hayes had been recently appointed by the Reagan Administration. Shortly after aspartame's approval by the FDA, Hayes joined NutraSweet's public relations firm under a 10-year contract at $1,000 a day.

In January 1977, the FDA wrote a 33-page letter to US Justice Department Attorney Sam Skinner: "We request that your office convene a Grand Jury investigation into apparent violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act." Skinner allowed the Statute of Limitations to run. Three FDA Commissioners and eight other officers and Skinner took jobs in the aspartame industry shortly after it was approved.

The FDA once listed 92 adverse reactions from 10,000 consumer complaints and would send the list to all inquirers. In 1996 the FDA stopped taking complaints and now denies the existence of the report. Seizures, blindness, sexual dysfunction, obesity, testicular, mammary and brain tumours and death, plus dozens of other dread diseases named in the suit, arise from the consumption of this neurotoxin.

Defendant Moser, past CEO of NutraSweet, is cited for misrepresenting facts to public and commercial users with full knowledge of the deceptions. Aspartame/Nutrasweet is sold to Bayer, Con Agra Foods, Dannon, Smucker, Kellogg, Wrigley, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods (Crystal Light), Conopco (Slim-Fast), Coke, Pfizer, Wal-Mart and Wyeth (to name a few), who use it in some of their products, including children's vitamins. These entities are named in other suits now in Californian courts.

Defendant American Diabetes Association is meant to care for diabetics. A 35-year ADA member, diabetic specialist HJ Roberts, MD, FACP, discovered aspartame can precipitate or aggravate diabetes and its complications, or simulate the complications (especially neuropathy and retinopathy). His report, intended for the Annual Scientific Meeting of the ADA, was rejected for presentation - and even publication of the abstract - but was later published in another medical journal.
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MONSANTO MEN in USA Government

The Bush administration's could be called the Monsanto Cabinet, per Robert Cohen, author of "Milk, The Deadly Poison" which details the horrid politics behind the contamination of our nation's milk and beef supply with bovine growth hormone.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals, a company owned by Monsanto. Rumsfeld was also the Secretary of Defense under President Ford.

Rumsfeld is believed to have earned around US$12 million from the sale of Searle to Monsanto.

Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly received $10,000 for his senatorial campaign from Monsanto in the mid 90s. Ashcroft's contribution from Monsanto was five times that of any other congressional hopeful. Ashcroft, and Sr. Bush Supreme Court appointee Clarence Thomas were instrumental in gaining Food and Drug Administation (FDA) approval for Monsanto's controversial artificial sweetener aspartame, which has been linked to over 200 ailments that include Alzheimer's disease, juvenile diabetes, depression, epileptic seizures, blindness, memory loss, excitability, weight gain, multiple sclerosis and lupus (The Idaho Observer, November, 2000).

Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman was on the board of directors of Calgene Pharmaceutical, another company currently owned by Monsanto.

Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson is the fourth member of the Bush cabinet to have direct ties to Monsanto. The former governor of Wisconsin designated his state as a "biotech zone" for the use of Monsanto's bovine growth hormone even though dairy farmers in his state opposed the designation by a 9-1 ratio. Thompson reportedly received $50,000 from biotech companies during his election campaign.

Bovine growth hormone, which does increase the productivity of dairy cows, has also been linked to many health problems in children and adults (The Idaho Observer, November, 2000) and makes cows sick.

Bovine growth hormone has been outlawed in most countries, but not the U.S.

And as Cohen points out, another player in the Monsanto-studded Cabinet is Rep. Richard Pombo, who will head the Agriculture Subcommittee on Dairy, Livestock and Poultry. Pombo is also a Monsanto boy, having taken campaign money from it while stalling a 1994 bill to make labeling mandatory for milk or milk products containing Bovine Growth Hormones. Pombo helped kill the bill in committee.

Monsanto also holds the patent on the "terminator gene" which prevents plants from producing viable seed so that farmers, and therefore people, will be dependent upon the multinational corporation for their food supply.

Monsanto has proven to be one of the most greedy, ruthless and environmentally irreverent corporations in world history. One cannot serve the interests of Monsanto and serve the interests of people at the same time.

DVD: CAPITOL CRIMES
The fall of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has exposed what may be one of the biggest political scandals in America's history. What does the dizzying scope of corruption say about how laws are made and who really owns the U.S. government? Bill Moyers and his team of investigative journalists untangle the web of relationships, secret deals, and political manipulation to open a disturbing window on the dark side of American politics.
http://www.shopthirteen.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?pro...

ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY
http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/index.cfm?issue_ID=2013
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25422
http://www.campaigncc.org