[* Thurston Howell III's kid.]

Seems that Mitt Romney tired of abusing dogs and turned his attentions to boating. Buzz Feed reports [emphasis added]:

Mitt Romney Was Arrested For Disorderly Conduct In 1981

According to what Romney told the Boston Globe in 1994, he had taken his family off to Wayland, Mass.’s Lake Cochituate, about an hour outside Boston, for a summer excursion. As Romney prepared to put his family boat into the water, a park officer told Romney not to launch because his license appeared to have been painted over. The officer told Romney if he put his boat into the water he would face a $50 fine.

Romney felt that his license was still visible and decided to ignore the order from the officer and pay the fine.

Because, you know, it’s only about what you’re willing to pay. Laws? LAWS? We don’t have to pay attention to no steenking laws. Listen to Thurston opine on the fundamental pestiness of these stupid laws. Mitt “felt” that he was in compliance with the law. So, rather than change his plans, he ignored the officer’s instruction.

Hey, what’s fifty bucks? A mere Grant. Here, buddy. Buy yourself a new nightstick. 

After Romney put the family boat into the water, the officer reappeared visibly angry and arrested Romney for disorderly conduct. Romney was handcuffed on the scene, taken to the local police station, and booked.

“There I was, dripping wet in a bathing suit,” Romney told the Globe. A magistrate let him go without bail.

Several days later, Romney appeared in Natick District Court and threatened to sue the arresting office for a false arrest. The charges were dropped and sealed at Romney’s request.

Aw. Jeepies. Turn the tables and bring in your legal eagles to personally attack and harass the officer and drain the resources of the local court? Why, anyone to the Manor Born would do as much.

Hell, Thurston Howell IV would utterly appreciate how “sporting” Mitt had been. He graciously felt (according to his self-serving recounting) that if the fine was only $50, then the law is actually a sort of vending machine. You plonk in your fifty bucks and do as you please.

GET THAT: your money entitles you to break most any law you please, and if you get arrested, use your immense wealth to intimidate the police and the courts. And, in return for charges being dropped, the PERSONALLY EMBARRASSED zillionaire (‘There I was, dripping wet in a bathing suit,’ Romney told the Globe. A magistrate let him go without bail. – from the story) had the records sealed — so that none could ever talk about what had happened.

Except Mitt, when it came up.

Thus, the only version that we hear is Mitt’s self-serving version. (I guess that’s the inner madman Ann Romney in her thousand dollar tee-shirt told us about?)

But it is a disturbing character trait. When he returned from taking credit for rescuing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, in 2002, he was not eligible to run as a Massachusetts resident for Governor. RETROACTIVELY, he paid Massachusetts resident taxes for the years in question — when you have homes in several states, as Thurston Howell IV would understand, your “residency” is merely a matter of some tax laws. Hey. He’d pay the $50 fine.

And a grateful Utah refunded Mitt’s Utah taxes, his lawyers took charge, and,presto, chango! Mitt was a Massachusetts resident – despite very publicly living in Utah for two years.

Seriously.

Who you gonna believe? as Richard Pryor said, ME or your lyin’ eyes?

Then, on camera, Mitt and Paul “Eddie Munster” Ryan handed out what Wisconsin election law calls political bribes, and adjudges a low-class felony.

But I guess they threatened to sue the non-arresting officers and the court, because not a damned thing has even been heard about “Oh, I’d just go ahead and pay the fine” Mitt’s little FELONY IN PURSUIT OF THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN THE LAND.

Hey! After Watergate, what’s a few felonies among friends? You know. Give him a mulligan felony. Country Club rules. Gentleman’s agreement.

That is his APPROACH to law. That is his understanding of it. If you’re willing to pay the fine, fine. If you get in trouble, you know that in America, enough money turns the tables on the courts, when the Defendant has far more resources available than the harried local police, prosecutor’s office and court.

Just imagine those hands on the levers of power, and then think of the audacious immorality (if not to say treason) of Iran-Contra, and then get back to me on what the multiplicand would be. Tenfold? Fiftyfold?

People tell you who they are.

Even when they lie to you with a straight face, a clear eye, an untroubled brow and all the time.

Right, Thurston?

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

“Think about the people as if they were storm troopers in Star Wars. They may be individually innocent, but they are guilty because they work for the Evil Empire.” — ^[48]

Today is a profound anniversary, but not much celebrated because it seems an inconvenient truth: before we all learned to hate “Moooslems,” “Ayrabs” and “Al Qaeda” we were busy hating ourselves.

… he later decided that his message would be better received if many people were killed in the bombing.^[26]

Do you begin to recall?

The three shared interests in survivalism, opposed gun control, and supported the militia movement. They expressed anger at the federal government’s handling of the 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) standoff with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge as well as the Waco Siege—a 1993 51-day standoff between the FBI and Branch Davidian members which began with a botched ATF attempt to execute a search warrant leading to a fire fight (it is unknown whether ATF agents or Branch Davidians fired the first shot) and ended with the burning and shooting deaths of David Koresh and 75 others …

It comes hazily from the depths of memory …

His only known affiliations are as a registered Republican in his New York days, and as a member of the National Rifle Association while he was in the Army.

Or this:

As you read the essay, understand why I have always felt that McVeigh lit the fuse, but is not guilty of a crime. At this past weekends Jubilation 98, I met James Nichols and Bob Papovich {Freedom”s End}.  While speaking with Bob, and he, having glanced at my writings on the subject Oklahoma City Bombing, wondered why I could say that McVeigh lit the fuse, but was NOT GUILTY. Quite simply, the answer lies in each of our respective states of mind with regard to our relationship with the US government. McVeigh had determined that he was at war with the US government. I can empathizes with his feelings, for I judge my circumstance to be the same. It is only those who have not come to the point of that recognition that have difficulty in understanding this perspective. — opf

I doubt that you have seen this essay linked above:

As time has shown, we were able to discern most of the truth about Oklahoma City, very early on. The sensationalism that was promulgated by the government and its agents or by overzealous and foolish patriots has left us fighting each other more than the cause which we profess too. Not every act that we might disagree with can be termed “conspiracy of government”. We must look to see if, perhaps, what many of us anticipate has not begun — without us! Until such time as we can support those who take the cause one step further than we, individually, are willing to take it, we cannot expect to prevail.

We cannot “carry” every bleeding heart that believes that political parties, the polling place, letters to Congress or any other means short of war, can restore our blessed Constitution. If they can, then they will. Rather than relying on those means, however, we must be prepared to support the alternative — in whatever way we can.

Really? you ask. Well, consider this:

You have no reason to be ashamed of your ancestors.
See to it they have no reason to be ashamed of you.
Are you as tired as I am of hearing the same old worn out arguments that the Civil War was fought simply to end slavery? Would you like to communicate the truth in an intelligent manner?

If so, then this CD is for you. Over an hour of powerful facts giving you the knowledge to “Defend the Heritage,” because if you don’t… who will?

Only $14.95 (plus S/H)

As you know, our heritage is under relentless assault in this sesquicentennial year and the best way to combat that is through education. Not everyone has the time to read all the excellent books on the subject of our heritage but everyone can listen to a CD while traveling to work or the grocery store.

This “Defending the Heritage” Audio CD also makes a great gift for your less informed friends and acquaintances. Remember, when we are uninformed and silent the revisionists and politically correct special interest groups naturally assume we agree with them.

. Did you know that as South Carolina was firing on Fort Sumter, there were actually more slave states in the Union than in the Confederacy?
. Did you know that the overwhelming majority of southern soldiers never did nor ever would own a slave?
. Did you know that the Corwin Amendment easily passed both Houses of the northern controlled Congress and would have made slavery permanent and irrevocable just two days before Lincoln took office?

Our children are taught that our ancestors went to war solely to preserve the institution of slavery. Not only is this false, but it defames and disparages their memory…

Inside Fort Sumter after the
Confederate bombardment

Take a look at WHO is behind this stuff. It’s frighteningly pseudo-rational. And he says this, by way of “mainstreaming” himself:

That’s when I decided to create this CD and do my part to “Defend the Heritage.”

Groups like the NAACP and the SCLC absolutely NEED issues like the
Confederate flag to raise hell about… It sustains them. It gives them the
push they need for fund raising. If they didn’t have these issues, they
would invent them.This, my friends, is the true never-ending story.
(Neal Boortz – syndicated talk show host)

Or, consider Ted Nugent’s ACTUAL comments, that Righties are so upset were “misinterpreted”*:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Little Theodore Nugent’s NRA Rant

Nugent called President Obama a criminal and denounced his “vile, evil America-hating administration” which is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” Taking it a step further, he said that “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” “If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done,” he continued….

– Right Wing Watch, 4-16-2012

[* Alan West told CNN this:

Ted Nugent doesn’t bear “any ill will” toward President Barack Obama, Rep. Allen West said Thursday despite the rocker’s appointment with the Secret Service over his controversial comments.

“I think he was just expressing maybe his opinion about something and of course everyone wants to sensationalize things but let's leave it up to the Secret Service to interview him and get to the bottom of it,” West, a Florida Republican, told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien when asked about Nugent’s comments.... ]

Nugent was stumping for Romney at the NRA convention when
his comments were somehow misinterpreted as “hostile” 

And remember Oklahoma City, and the Tea Party-style hatred that’s still simmering under the surface, and ask yourself: by what right do these people have to feel so oppressed and downtrodden that they would prefer the violent overthrow of the United States Government, and disparage the Union?

So, one wonders, how come there is so little discussion of this equally sacred (to Nine-Lebbin) day of Remembrance?

Oh.

Courage.

PS: Today is also Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah

=============

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted  from his blog

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]]> http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2012/04/19/oklahoma-ok/feed/ 0 http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2012/04/13/war-war-women-woman/ http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2012/04/13/war-war-women-woman/#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:26:24 +0000 Hart Williams http://thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=14684 She IS a part of this campaign, and, having made herself a public figure, is undeserving of any special benefit or protection. She has to face the same political ugliness that the Obamas have (where are the cries of wounded womanhood when Michelle Obama is called "The Mooch" and derided as a mad spendthrift, behaving as Marie Antoinette in the midst of this horrible Recession?), that Hillary Clinton has, that every other man and woman in the political arena must face.

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Categories:

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Click here to view the embedded video.

SUBGATE: Romney Ryan hand out Subs for Votes in Waukesha

The matter boils down to one simple, yet deeply profound question: Why should I obey the law?

Our government… teaches the whole people by its example.  If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.  ~Louis Brandeis, Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939

For an instant last night, the sheep looked up, saw the plain lawbreaking of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, handing out free submarine sandwiches with the clear expectation that those accepting this bounty were going to go and vote in the primary (or, perhaps NOT vote against Romney).

NO ONE believes that this altered the outcome of the Wisconsin primary. HOWEVER, no one can justify this black-and-white lawbreaking. But they do. And, amidst this sea of pooh-poohing, WHY SHOULD I OBEY THE LAW?  As Jonathan Swift wrote:

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.  ~Jonathan Swift, A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind, 1707

ABC News cravenly reports:

Apr 3, 2012 3:29pm
Cold-Cut Case? Wisconsin Democrats Accuse Romney of ‘Subs for Votes’

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe, Emily Friedman and Elizabeth Hartfield report:

PEWAUKEE, Wis. – When GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., gathered at a sandwich shop in Waukesha today to drum up support for Romney in the Badger State primary, they might have been engaging in “subs-for-votes” election bribery, according to the state’s Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a complaint of bribery hours after the event, holding a news conference in downtown Milwaukee to air its grievances.

“It is a clear violation of Wisconsin election law, cut and dry,” the Democrat Party’s representative in Wisconsin told ABC News.
The group is filing its complaint with the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees the elections and will handle the complaint going forward.

Romney and Ryan’s event at Cousins Subs, billed by the former’s presidential campaign as an “Election Day Lunch,” was attended by a solid crowd on the day of the state’s primary.

The two politicos stood behind the store’s counter, handed out subs to a long line of people in attendance, and urged them to go vote.
“Get out and vote,” Romney urged voters in attendance at the sandwich shop. “If we have a good turnout, then I’ll become the person who receives the Wisconsin delegates that I need to go on to become the nominee and finally take back the White House.”

Poll workers in parts of Wisconsin were urged this year not to accept donuts from candidates, according to the Appleton Post-Crescent, which also reported that the Obama campaign in 2008 could not provide box lunches to election workers in Milwaukee.

The Romney campaign responded to the complaint from Wisconsin Democrats by accusing the president’s campaign of worrying more about refreshments than the economy. But it did not directly address whether the subs might have broken the law.

“President Obama and his allies keep wading in to the Republican primary, whether voting for Mitt Romney’s opponents or absurdly claiming we can’t provide refreshments for volunteers,” Romney spokesman Rick Gorka said. “If President Obama focused half his time worrying about the economy as he does obsessing over Mitt Romney, Americans would be a lot better off.”

It is illegal to distribute anything worth more than $1 “in order to induce any elector to go to or refrain from going to the polls,” according to the Wisconsin state statute.

The subs Romney and Ryan were handing out today, if bought individually from the store, cost more than $1. Sandwiches at Cousins range in price from $4.49 to $5.59.

This creates an astonishing irony as I hear NPR report “Mitt Romney is acting more and more like the Republican presidential nominee …”

Yeah. Nixon.

Or, as Aristotle noted: “The greatest crimes are caused by surfeit, not by want.” (Politics)

No heroes here

There was no reason to break the law, just as there is no reason to MINIMIZE it.

Wise men, learned men, and men of the West have, throughout history, recognized the primacy of the law in maintaining an ordered society. Consider this idiom, still fresh after two millennia and more:

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.

Prov.The associates of public figures must not even be suspected of wrongdoing. (The ancient Roman Julius Caesar is supposed to have said this when asked why he divorced his wife, Pompeia. Because she was suspected of some wrongdoing, he could not associate with her anymore.)

Clearly, even though they used to watching enslaved men fight to the death for recreation, we seem to have fallen below even the honor of the Romans. When this ancient trope is brought up in public discourse, it is invariably minimized and scoffed at. Even though any careful observation of anybody’s politics will vouchsafe the sheer practicality of the proposition.

If those who make our laws do not themselves obey them, there are no laws, in essence, and people rightly ask:

“Why should I obey the law?”

Because, without law, there will be law. Not the law that we’ve evolved since the Magna Carta, thence to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and 230 years of modification and adaptation through law of those principles. What principles? Turn, if thou wouldst, to chapter and verse of the Book of Warren:

“It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.”  ~ Chief Justice Earl Warren

No: it will be the law of Chicago in the 1920s, where ruthless men murdered one another to supply the farcically illegal booze to speakeasies all over the Greater Chicago area. Or, worse, the law of the New Mexico Prison Riot of 1980, in which, in less than 48 hours, the veneer of civilization came off, and 33 inmates were killed, another 200 injured, and “none of the 12 officers taken hostage were killed, but seven were treated for injuries caused by beatings and rapes.”

Kill or be killed, survival of the strongest and most ruthless; game of thrones.

Torpedoed by a submarine sandwich

THAT is, presuming civilization could be maintained, with tankers of oil, and electrical lines and power stations, and roads and relative freedom from roaming marauders. Think “Road Warrior.”

Because this magical civilization in which we live is NOT a given. Sorry.

Pull the plug on America and all hell breaks loose within 72 hours. Food spoils. Generators run out of fuel. All electronic gizmos start dying off.

Then what?

Saturn Devours His Children – Goya

The framework that holds it in place is the law, which we commonly agree upon, following the last successful war. In this case, we opted for a representative democracy with three rules: we agree to  self-governance by majority vote. We agree to abide by the results of those elections. And we agree to reach consensus on the laws we elect our representatives to enforce and modify.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst. ~ Aristotle

Oh, one other rule: we agree to obey those laws passed by the majority consensus. Even “civil disobedience” openly acknowledges that a crime has been committed and agrees to the penalties for breaking that unjust law.

But we must know that our elected representatives are lawful. And we must know that those who are hired by those representatives to ENFORCE that law are, themselves, lawful.

Anything less, no matter how benevolent-seeming, is an inevitable descent into savagery and blood-feud.

It is NOT a small matter that a man who aspires to the highest office in the land breaks the law, and if he didn’t know he was breaking the law, surely Paul Ryan must have known, and Romney’s aides and Wisconsin GOP allies must have known. Now, the “defense” is that it’s not important.

NOT IMPORTANT?

Yeah. Consider the sniggering tone of the headline — knowing that merely saying “Democrats accuse” in the passive, rather than the quasi-journalistic, “DID Mitt Romney break election law?” will automatically make null and void all words following said phrase to 40% of any general readership, so partisan and poisonous has the climate been:

Cold-Cut Case? Wisconsin Democrats Accuse Romney of ‘Subs for Votes’

What a funny pun! Ha ha hah ahhhahahahahah.

Which is to say: THIS STORY IS NOT IMPORTANT.

And then “Wisconsin Democrats Accuse”

Which is to say: OH THIS IS JUST MORE SILLY BICKERING.

Less tongue and less ham, please.

To which I’d like to say, if the law is so unimportant to you, what funny headline will you come up with when you get back home and suddenly experience that existential rape: your door is off your hinges; stuff is missing, clearly. OH MY GOD! My (special irreplaceable thing) is GONE/BROKEN! Etcetera.

Will it be funny that a law was broken? Or are you just a bunch of coprophageous bottom feeders, slithering under the soft white underbelly of whatever sludge you can suck up and feed to your “audience”?

Well, when a man who aspires to the presidency has pulled this crap before, and again, you have to wonder if his fingers would be crossed when he pledges to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” so help him whatever he preys too.

You know there’s a goddam good reason for anti-corruption voting laws. And the continual irregularities of this electoral season OUGHT to scare the living hell out of you, if you give a damn about your country, and aren’t just masturbating to your fantasy of what the “Founding Fathers” had in mind.

Because it represents a FUNDAMENTAL scoffing at the very idea of democracy. We “bribe” the voters to get out and vote for us, and scoff that nobody can be bought that cheap.

(I don’t know, ABC News. They bought you pretty cheap, if that story is any indication.)

piss and vinegar doesn’t cut the mustard, pal

Besides, the Wisconsin Republicans know ALL ABOUT illegal electioneering. Here’s from a Milwaukee “News Radio” station on August 5, 2011 (if this were a stock or securities sale, Mitt, it would legally be a short term sale):

… The Republican Party of Wisconsin and Media Trackers, a conservative non-profit, non-partisan investigative watchdog, filed complaints about the block parties.  According to Media Trackers,

On August 1, a source who wishes to remain anonymous attended a Wisconsin Jobs Now! “block party” and witnessed a number of illegal activities firsthand. Upon checking in, the source was given a free meal ticket and a raffle ticket for a prize drawing before being whisked away in a white van to Milwaukee City Hall. At Milwaukee City Hall, personnel wearing Wisconsin Jobs Now! t-shirts explained the ballot and assisted voters with registration forms all from inside the Milwaukee Election Commission office, a polling location.

The Media Trackers complaint alleged Wisconsin Jobs Now! violated two sections of Chapter 12 of the Wisconsin statutes: those covering election bribery and electioneering at a polling place.

Earlier this week, Peter Pickett of the Government Accountability Board told the MacIver News Service it would be illegal to give people anything of value before giving them rides to the polls. It is also illegal to combine giveaways with transportation to the polls.

“If they walk in with a sticker that says ‘I voted ‘that’s one thing, but if they eat before they vote that’s a problem,” Pickett said. “It’s still a questionable practice on way or the other.” [...]

(I’ve covered Wisconsin’s “MacIver News Service” before, BTW. See “Water, Tea or Koch?” 20 February 2011)

If the law was important then, it is important now. And, in EITHER case, the law is the law until you change it. You don’t get to just “ignore it” when it’s inconvenient. (Unless you’re Mitt Romney and have returned to Massachusetts from Utah and want to change your residency. Or you’re Dick Cheney and want to change your residency from Texas, where you’ve lived for years, to Wyoming so as to get around the Constitutional requirement that no President and Vice-President may be from the same state. Having let them break that law, how’d that work out for the USA?)

This is not a partisan issue. It is an American issue.

And Mitt Romney just made a mockery of the very laws of elections — the PRIME source of all law and governance. What was committed was, by Wisconsin law, a felony.

And the law must either be enforced, else

WHY SHOULD I OBEY THE LAW?

When those who would lead us show no inclination to do so.

Dance down this broad, good-intentionally paved road.

But remember. At the end of that road, the New Mexico Prison Riot of 1980 is waiting for you.

If that’s what you want.

Or, you could have some foul-mouthed hillbilly from Wasilla, Alaska stand on your stage with her bastard grandson in the womb of her loose daughter, with the supposed-shotgun-wedding “groom-to-be” and yammer on about how moral and upstanding you are, and claim it’s about “country first.”

If you gave a damn about your country you would at least pay attention.

And if the Fifth Estate (or is that fourth column?) gave a damn about you, they’d not sneer and spit on the story, as did ABC this day.

And ask yourself: “Why should I obey the law?” and “If I obey the law, why shouldn’t Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney?”

Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm living public opinion.  ~Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips by Matthew Brady

And ask yourself why Sarah Palin guesting on NBC’s Today (Toady?) Show is getting exponentially MORE press coverage than this story?

Courage.
======================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

I’m a white woman from a small town in Massachusetts, but I spent 19 years living in Los Angeles. I raised my only child, my white daughter in inner city L.A. schools where she was a minority. Many of her school friends were black, many of my friends in L.A. are black with black sons, and every time I read another piece on Trayvon Martin, my heart breaks a little more.

We lived in L.A. during the Rodney King riots… I’ve seen up close and personal the way black men were targeted in the inner city by white cops. I abhore racism. I abhore gun violence. And I abhore laws that allow guns in the hands of the wrong people. I get the whole 2nd amendment argument, but I don’t get organizations pushing laws like Stand Your Ground, in states like Florida and other states pushing for similar legislation. Where does it stop?

Charles Pierce said in Esquire:

We executed children in this country until long after the rest of the world — except Iran — thought that was a good idea. Almost six million children live in poverty in this country. Almost six million of them are without health insurance of any kind, and that’s reckoned to be an improvement. None of this is accidental. These children are expendable because the people we elect make policy decisions of which we approve — or, at least, of which we do not disapprove. The Republicans in Congress — behind the “leadership” of zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan — would like to zero out the SCHIP children’s health-care program. If they do that, it will not be done by accident. The Florida legislature, behind the leadership of the National Rifle Association, passed the “stand your ground” law, despite the fact that even police and prosecutors were warning that it amounted to a hunting license for anyone who had both a gun, and the ability to concoct a good story. Trayvon Martin is not dead by accident.

Charles Pierce is right, “Trayvon Martin is not dead by accident,” and by now everyone should know that. The outrage that Zimmerman has not been charged with a crime is beyond palable, yet we wait to see if he will be charged. And in the meantime so many of us feel the pain, the frustration, the heart break and the sick feeling in our guts that things are so dreafully wrong in our country:

I am sick to death of people who celebrate “the family” making excuses about why other people’s children are expendable. I am sick to death of politicians who are more concerned about protecting zygotes than about the teenagers on whom they seek to balance their budgets and advance their careers. (Barney Frank’s line about conservatives’s believing that life “begins at conception and ends at birth” was not entirely a joke, although it’s always been treated as one.) I am sick to death of opportunistic yahoos who can look at this country’s unhealthy attachment to firearms and declare that the actions of George Zimmerman, while unfortunate, were pretty much what the Founders had in mind. I am sick to death of the steady drip-drip-drip of all the topical anesthetics we mix up whenever something like this happens. Had Emmett Till been killed in 2012, there’d be at least three people sitting in the CNN Green Room right now — and probably 15 of them sitting offstage at Fox — waiting to explain how unfortunate it was that the lad so transgressed against local custom that circumstances dictated that he be beaten to a pulp and tossed into the river tied to a cotton-gin fan. I am sick to death about how we can argue about anything simply to argue about it, and then move along to the next argument, as though anything at all has been settled.

Trayvon’s tragic death has become a political football in the midst of election season that clearly draws lines in the sand showing the racial discord in America. Our President speaks out and says, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” and shortly after, Republican Newt Gingrich is verbally assaulting Obama calling his comments “disgraceful.”

Disgraceful? What is “disgraceful,” is Newt Gingrich’s lack of respect, respect for our president and respect for Trayvon’s family.

I am sick to death, as Charles Pierce is, that this country does nothing but argue and those agruments somehow lead to the death of innocent children.

When will it end.

Congressman Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.)

Paul “Eddie Munster” Ryan is in the news again. This time it’s for a redux of last year’s non-starter of an Ayn Rand budget. Don’t believe me?

“This isn’t just about math, this is a cause,” Republican Rep. Paul Ryan told the audience at the American Enterprise Institute this morning, on the release of 2013 budget.

This will be masticated to death by the sophists of the media, whose grasp on actual reasoning, debate and argumentation is, from the evidence, severely disabled, if not to say non-existent. The Republican spokes-models (as many blacks and women and black women as possible, please, seems the consensus within GOP/Dixiecrat circles) will spout whatever talking points have been faxed from Brain Dead Central, and the Democratic spokesmodels will each attempt to free-lance and maybe counter with talking points of their own. But the thousand pound gorilla in the room is the simple insanity that nobody’s willing to talk about:

You may not be able to tax your way out of a Recession, but you can SURELY never grapple with the national debt by only offering to cut taxes.

That’s simple enough that a five-year-old could get it, but Republican philosophy’s bedrock exists in the mind-set of those two years younger: MINE! MINE! MEE! MEE!

We accept this in Toddlers: they are the unquestioned centers of the Universe, and all things exist to amuse THEM, to assist THEM, to belong to THEM. If you have had a toddler, you know what I mean; if you do not, I congratulate you on your bliss.

But we do not accept this in Real Life™.

Part of the deficit may be a spending problem. But the other part of the deficit and the debt is UNQUESTIONABLY a revenue problem.

And you can’t solve the former by simply cutting all spending to zero.  (Although, in his madness, Paul Ryan and his fellow-travelers would like nothing better.)

And you can’t solve the latter by cutting all taxation to zero, even IF you cut all spending to zero.

Again, comprehensible by any reasonably bright five year old.

The root of the problem lies in that deeper poison that has leeched through the body politic, arguably, since Barry Goldwater’s “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice” campaign of 1964. Arguably, it is the Republican philosophy of Warren G. Harding, but nobody remembers his corrupt administration, nor, of those who recall, do any but a few remember that Harding was ALWAYS popular while in office. The discovery of the depths of his administration’s depravity was not known until AFTER he died and Silent Cal, Calvin Coolidge, assumed the office of the president.

Warren G. Harding

This is the poison: “freedom” is conflated with “utter abandon,” ”liberty” is conflated with “license,” and “taxation” is conflated with “theft.”

Thus, ANY form of governance and taxation to PAY for that governance becomes OPPRESSION. All regulations become cruel repression.

The notion, implausible and fantastic on its face, is that the “free market” — which is to say, untrammeled greed — will benevolently lift all of Mankind on the backs of selfish Supermen — the Howard Roarkes and John Galts — who will benevolently move industry and civilization forward because it pleases them to so do.

Historical note: this was tried in Chicago in the 1930s, with well-known results.

The first symptom of the madness is to equate the “government” with “oppression,” and ”state” with “evil.”

Yes, the three year old considers anything to be oppression that displeases him: the “Right” to stick his hand on a hot stove. The “Right” to play with matches. The “Right” to play with his own poop.

And he will protest and wail loudly when any of these “Rights” is challenged or denied.

“No taxation without representation!” has become, simply “no taxation!”

And “Give me liberty or give me death!” has devolved into “Give me puberty or give me death!”

But we are not children, and this notion that self-govenment is “oppression” is a fantasy that only serves the needs of toddlers and sociopathic zillionaires.

Grover Norquist formulated the idea for “no tax hikes, ever, for any reason” when he was, by his own admission, in Junior High School.

And it is not as sophisticated as that.

But that is an argument for another day.

In order to slay the Dragon of Debt, the Republicans again go after Medicare and Social Security, which are BOTH funded outside the debt apparatus that the Dragon frolics within. There may be problems up the line, but the wise man knows that you take your crises as they come, or at least virtually all successful generals understand this.

The thousand pound gorilla in the room is something that any lemonade stand owner understands: You must balance your overhead with your sales, and what remains is “profit.”

When you make it impossible to increase your sales (even hobbling the IRS, so that it can’t collect the taxes LEGALLY owed), you make it impossible to meet your overhead, and your lemonade stand folds.

Thus do the businessmen of the GOP understand finance.

God help us.

Courage.

======================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

by WALTER BRASCH

 (part 3 of 3)

The history of energy exploration, mining, and delivery is best understood in a range from benevolent exploitation to worker and public oppression. A company comes into an area, leases land in rural and agricultural areas for mineral rights, increases employment, usually in a depressed economy, strips the land of its resources, creates health problems for its workers and those in the immediate area, and then leaves.

It makes no difference if it’s timber, oil, or coal. In the 1970s and 1980s, the nuclear energy industry promised well-paying jobs, clean energy, and a safe health and work environment. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima Daiichi, and thousands of violations issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, have shown that even with strict operating guidelines, nuclear energy isn’t as clean and safe as claimed. Like all other energy industries, nuclear power isn’t infinite. Most plants have a 40–50 year life cycle. After that, the plant becomes so radioactive hot that it must be sealed.

In the early 21st century, the natural gas industry follows the model of the other energy corporations, and uses the same rhetoric. James M. Taylor, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, claims on the Institute’s website, “The newfound abundance of domestic gas reserves promises unprecedented energy prosperity and security.”

The energy policy during the eight years of the George W. Bush–Dick Cheney administration was to give favored status to the industry, often at the expense of the environment. In addition to negating Bill Clinton’s strong support for the Kyoto Protocol, signed by 191 countries, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, former oil company executives Bush and Cheney pushed to open significant federal land, including the 19 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), to drilling that would disrupt the ecological balance in one of the nation’s most pristine areas.

A study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), published in 2004 concluded that fracking was of little or no risk to human health. However, Wes Wilson, a 30-year EPA environmental engineer, in a letter to members of Congress and the EPA inspector general, called that study “scientifically unsound,” and questioned the bias of the panel, noting that five of the seven members had significant ties to the industry. “EPA’s failure to regulate [fracking] appears to be improper under the Safe Water Drinking Act and may result in danger to public health and safety.”

The following year, the Energy Policy Act of 2005—on a 249–183 vote in the House and an 85–12 vote in the Senate—exempted the oil and natural gas industry from the Safe Water Drinking Act. That exemption applied to the “construction of new well pads and the accompanying new roads and pipelines.” The National Defense Resource Council noted that the EPA interpreted the exemption “as allowing unlimited discharges of sediment into the nation’s streams, even where those discharges contribute to a violation of state water quality standards.” The exemption became known derisively as the Halliburton Loophole, named for one of the nation’s major energy companies, of which Cheney, whose promotion of Big Business and opposition to environmental policies is well-documented, had once been the CEO.

Bills introduced in the U.S. House (H.R. 2766) and U.S. Senate (S. 1215) in June 2009 to give federal regulatory oversight under the Safe Water Drinking Act to hydraulic fracturing languished. New bills (H.R. 1084 and S. 587), introduced in March 2011 in the 112th Congress, are also expected to die without a vote.

The natural gas industry has a long history of effective lobbying at the state and national level. America’s Natural Gas Alliance has four former Congressmen as lobbyists, according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). Through various political action committees (PACs), the industry has contributed about $238.7 million in campaign contributions, about three-fourths of it to Republican candidates, since 1990, according to the CRP. For the 2008 election, the gas and oil industry contributed $27.4 million, including contributions from individuals, PACs, and soft money, according to CRP data. Total contributions for the current election cycle, as of mid-March, are $20.6 million, with almost 90 percent of it going to Republicans.

At the federal level, the top recipients of oil and gas contributions during the current election cycle, according to the CRP, are former presidential hopeful Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ($833,674), Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst of Texas ($650,850), presidential hopeful Mitt Romney ($597,950), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ($264,700), and Sen. John Barasso of Wyoming ($225,400), a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Every one of the top 20 recipients is a Republican.

Barack Obama, although significantly more environmental friendly than his predecessor, had opened up off-shore drilling just prior to the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast in April 2010. He has repeatedly spoken against the heavy use and dependence upon fossil fuels, and sees the expanded use of natural gas as a transition fuel to expanded use of wind and solar energy. Nevertheless, he has still received funding from the natural gas industry. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he received $920,922 from the oil and gas industry, according to data compiled by the CRP. His opponent, Sen. John McCain, according to CRP, accepted $2,543,154.

In contrast, the 1.4 million member Sierra Club, since August 2010, has refused to accept any donations from the natural gas industry. The Sierra Club, which has actively opposed the development of coal as an energy source, had received $27 million since 2007 from Chesapeake Energy. By 2010, “our view of natural gas [and fracking] had changed [and we] stopped the funding relationship between the Club and the gas industry, and all fossil fuel companies or executives,” says Michael Brune, Sierra’s executive director.

Mixed into Pennsylvania’s energy production is not only a symbiotic relationship of business and government, but a history of corruption and influence-peddling. Between 1859, when an economical method to drill for oil was developed near Titusville, Pa., and 1933, the beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” Pennsylvania, under almost continual Republican administration, was among the nation’s most corrupt states. The robber barons of the timber, oil, coal, steel, and transportation industries essentially bought their right to be unregulated. In addition to widespread bribery, the energy industries, especially coal, assured the election of preferred candidates by giving pre-marked ballots to workers, many of whom didn’t read English.

In a letter to the editor of The New York Times in March 2011, John Wilmer, a former attorney for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), explained that “Pennsylvania’s shameful legacy of corruption and mismanagement caused 2,500 miles of streams to be totally dead from acid mine drainage; left many miles of scarred landscape; enriched the coal barons; and impoverished the local citizens.” His words serve as a warning about what is happening in the natural gas fields.

Pennsylvania’s new law that regulates and gives favorable treatment to the natural gas industry was initiated and passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. The House voted 101–90 for passage; the Senate voted, 31–19. Both votes were mostly along party lines.

In addition to forbidding physicians and health care professionals from disclosing what the industry believes are “trade secrets” in what it uses in fracking that may cause air and water pollution, there are other industry-favorable provisions. The new law guts local governments’ rights of zoning and long-term planning, doesn’t allow for local health and environmental regulation, forbids municipalities to appeal state decisions about well permits, and provides subsidies to the natural gas industry and payments for out-of-state workers to get housing but provides for no incentives or tax credits to companies to hire Pennsylvania workers. It also requires companies to provide fresh water, which can be bottled water, to areas in which they contaminate the water supply, but doesn’t require the companies to clean up the pollution or even to track transportation and deposit of contaminated wastewater. The law allows companies to place wells 300 feet from houses, streams and wetlands. The law also allows compressor stations to be placed 750 feet from houses, and gives natural gas companies authority to operate these stations continuously at up to 60 decibels, the equivalent of continuous conversation in restaurants. The noise level and constant artificial lighting has adverse effects upon wildlife. As a result of all the concessions, the natural gas industry is given special considerations not given any other business or industry in Pennsylvania.

Each well is expected to generate about $16 million during its lifetime, which can be as few as ten years, according to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC). The effective tax and impact fee is about 2 percent. Corbett had originally wanted no tax or impact fees placed upon natural gas drilling; as public discontent increased, he suggested a 1 percent tax, which was in the original House bill. In contrast, other states that allow natural gas fracking have tax rates as high as 7.5 percent of market value (Texas) and 25–50 percent of net income (Alaska). The Pennsylvania rate can vary, based upon the price of natural gas and inflation, but will still be among the five lowest of the 32 states that allow natural gas drilling. Over the lifetime of a well, Pennsylvania will collect about $190,000–$350,000, while West Virginia will collect about $993,700, Texas will collect about $878,500, and Arkansas will collect about $555,700, according to PBPC data and analyses.

State Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democrat from suburban Philadelphia, says he opposed the bill because, “At a time when we are closing our schools and eliminating vital human services, to leave billions on the table as a gift to industry that is already going to be making billions is obscene.” State Rep. Mark Cohen, a Democrat from Philadelphia, like most of the Democrats in the General Assembly, agrees. The legislation, he says, “produces far too little revenue for local communities, gives the local communities local taxing power which most of them do not want, because it pits one community against the other, and gives no revenue at all to other areas of the state.”

The new law is generally believed to be “payback” by Corbett and the Republican legislators for campaign contributions. The industry contributed about $7.2 million to Pennsylvania candidates and their PACs between 2000 and the end of 2010, including $860,825 to the Republican party and $129,100 to the Democratic party, according to data compiled by Common Cause. In addition, the natural gas industry contributed about $1.6 million to Corbett’s political campaigns during the past 10 years, about $1.1 million of that for his campaign for governor, according to Common Cause. Rep. Brian L. Ellis (R-Butler County), sponsor of the House bill, received $23,300. Sen. Joseph B. Scarnati (R- Warren, Pa.), the senate president pro-tempore who sponsored the companion Senate bill (SB 1100), received $293,334. Of the 20 Pennsylvania legislators who received the most money from the industry since 2001, 16 are Republicans, according to Common Cause.

Rep. H. William DeWeese (D-Waynesburg, Pa.), received $58,750, the most of the four Democrats. DeWeese, first elected in 1976, had been Speaker of the House and Democratic leader.

It’s possible that the significant campaign contributions didn’t influence Pennsylvania’s politicians to rush to embrace the natural gas industry and its controversial use of hydraulic fracking. It’s possible that these politicians had always believed in fracking, and the natural gas industry was merely contributing to the campaigns of those who believed as they do. However, with the heavy amount of money spent by the natural gas lobby and, apparently, willingly accepted by certain politicians, there is no way to know how they might have voted had no money or lobbying occurred.

Tom Corbett’s first major political appointment after his election in November 2010 was to name C. Alan Walker, an energy company executive, to head the Department of Community and Economic Development. The Pennsylvania Progressive identified Walker as “an ardent anti-environmentalist and someone who hates regulation of his industry.” A ProPublica investigation revealed that Walker had given $184,000 to Corbett’s political campaign.

Shortly after taking office, Corbett repealed environmental assessments of gas wells in state parks. The result could be as many as 2,200 well pads on almost 90 percent of all public lands, according to Nature Conservancy of Pennsylvania.

Corbett’s public announcements in March 2011, two months after his inauguration, established the direction for gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

In his first budget address, Corbett boldly declared he wanted to “make Penn­syl­va­nia the hub of this [drilling] boom. Just as the oil com­pa­nies decided to head­quar­ter in one of a dozen states with oil, let’s make Penn­syl­va­nia the Texas of the nat­ural gas boom. I’m deter­mined that Penn­syl­va­nia not lose this moment.” Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley would later boast, “The Marcellus [Shale] is revitalizing our main streets in downtowns.”

Within the budget bill, Corbett authorized Walker to “expedite any permit or action pending in any agency where the creation of jobs may be impacted.” This unprecedented reach apparently applied to all energy industries. That same month, Corbett created an Advisory Commission, loaded with persons from business and industry. Not one member was from the health professions; of the seven state agencies represented, not one member was from the Department of Health. 

Between 2007 and the end of 2010, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued 1,435 violations to natural gas companies; 952 of those violations related to potential harm to the environment. In March, Michael Krancer, the new DEP secretary, also a political appointee, took personal control over his department’s issuance of any violations. By Krancer’s decree, every inspector could no longer cite any well owner in the Marcellus Shale development without first getting the approval of Krancer and his executive deputy secretary.

“It’s an extraordinary directive [that] represents a break from how business has been done” and politicizes the process, John Hanger told ProPublica. Hanger, DEP secretary under the Ed Rendell administration, said the new rules “will cause the public to lose confidence entirely in the inspection process.” He told the Scranton Times-Tribune the new policy was the equivalent of every trooper having to get permission from the state police commissioner before issuing a traffic citation.  Because the new policy is so unusual and broad “it’s impossible for something like this to be issued without the direction and knowledge of the governor’s office,” said Hanger. Corbett denied he was responsible for the decision. Five weeks after the Krancer decision was leaked to the media, and following a strong negative response from the public, environmental groups, and the state’s media, the DEP rescinded the policy—which Krancer claimed was only a three-month “pilot program.”

“When state agencies say they will ‘regulate’ or ‘monitor’ hydraulic fracturing to reduce known threats, we should not accept this as a guarantee of any kind,” says Eileen Fay, an animal rights/environmental writer. Fay argues that because of legislative corruption, it is a responsibility of citizens to protect their own health and environment by “putting pressure on our legislators.”

In February 2012, Corbett proudly signed Act 13, a merger of the House and Senate bills.

HB 1950 had initially included a provision to provide up to $2 million a year in funding to the Department of Health for “collecting and disseminating information, preparing and conducting  health care provider outreach and education and investigating health related complaints and other uses associated with unconventional natural gas production activity.” That provision, strongly supported by numerous public health and environmental groups, was deleted in the final bill.

The Pennsylvania Constitution (Article I, section 27) declares: “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

However, unlike New York state, which placed a moratorium on well permits while it is evaluating the health and environmental risks, Pennsylvania has rushed to embrace the natural gas industry and its use of fracking, apparently disregarding its own Constitution. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission has routinely approved requests from drillers to remove millions of gallons of water each day from the river, although the commissioners have not requested any health impact statements or undertaken a complete cumulative impact study, according to Iris Marie Bloom, an environmental writer and activist. Because of the nature of the Marcellus Shale deposit in Pennsylvania, as opposed to neighboring states, natural gas companies have to transport the wastewater to other states for re-use or disposal or take it to sewage treatment plants. The plants then discharge the treated wastewater into the state’s rivers. However, present methods can’t remove the salt and some other chemicals and radioactive elements. Currently, about 11 million gallons of wastewater a day are taken from the Susquehanna for fracking operations; about three times that amount is anticipated when fracking reaches its peak in the state, according to Paul Swartz, Commission executive director. In contrast, the Delaware River Basic Commission has put a moratorium on taking water from that river until studies have been completed.

Pennsylvania is “handing out permits almost like popcorn in a theater,” says Diane Siegmund, a psychologist from Towanda. Between Jan. 1, 2005 and March 2, 2012, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued 10,232 permits, and denied only 36 requests.

Siegmund is frustrated by what she sees not only as state government’s acceptance of fracking but of numerous local governments in the Marcellus Shale region from speaking out on behalf of the preservation of health and the environment. When she went to the Bradford County commissioners with stacks of research about problems with fracking, “all they did was to thank me and claim it’s not their problem.” She says residents are beginning to believe that local governments are operating in collusion with the energy companies.

But it isn’t just governments. The issue of fracking has divided towns like Dimock, Pa. In November 2009, 15 residents sued Cabot Oil and Gas, charging that the company contaminated their drinking water. Tests conducted by the DEP during the last years of the Ed Rendell administration had revealed there was higher than expected methane gas in 18 water wells that provided drinking water to 13 homes near the drills. The build-up of methane gas had also led to well explosions and DEP warnings to citizens to keep their windows open. Among the provisions of a consent order, the state required Cabot to provide fresh water to families whose water had been affected by the excess methane gas. Cabot denied its fracking operation was responsible for the elevated levels. On Nov. 30, 2011, after the DEP, now under the Tom Corbett administration, declared the water to be safe to drink, Cabot stopped delivering water.

And then something strange happened. The town of Binghamton, N.Y., about 35 miles north, said it would provide a tanker of fresh water. However, the supervisors of Dimock Twp., supported by most of the 140 residents who attended the meeting, most of them with some economic ties to the natural gas industry, refused the offer. According to reporting in the Scranton Times-Tribune, when Binghamton mayor Matthew T. Ryan asked “Why not let people help?” he was rebuffed by one of the township’s three supervisors who snapped, “Why should we haul them water? They got themselves into this. You keep your nose in Binghamton.”

In January 2012, after declaring that the water “contains levels of contaminants that pose a health concern,” the EPA decided it would bring water to residents in Dimock. The response by Cabot was that the EPA was wasting taxpayer money in its investigation of Cabot environmental and health practices. The response by Pennsylvania’s DEP was almost as inflammatory as the water in the taps. Michael Krancer, DEP’s head, not only disagreed with the EPA findings, he called the agency’s knowledge of fracking to be “rudimentary.”

In mid-March, following preliminary tests on several of the wells serving Dimock residents, the EPA found that the water “did not show levels of contamination that could present a health concern.” However, it acknowledged arsenic, some metals, and potentially explosive methane gas remained in the water. A ProPublica investigation revealed that four of the five water samples it obtained showed methane levels exceeding Pennsylvania standards.

“We are deeply troubled by Region 3’s rush to judge the science before testing is even complete, and by their apparent disregard for established standards of drinking water safety,” said Claire Sandberg, executive director of Water Defense. She questioned why EPA Region 3’s handling of the Dimock case differed from how other EPA regional offices handled similar cases in Texas and Wyoming when it didn’t release the information until all testing was completed. Dr. Ron Bishop, professor of biochemistry at SUNY/Oneonta, told ProPublica, “Any suggestion that water from these wells is safe for domestic use would be preliminary or inappropriate.”

The extraction of natural gas has also led to the development of other industries—and the exploitation of the people. In Jersey Shore, Pa., about 20 miles west of Williamsport, Aqua PVR bought a 37-unit mobile home village, with plans to build a water withdrawal plant to provide up to three million gallons a day to the natural gas industry. The day the purchase was completed on Feb. 23, 2012, Aqua told the residents their leases were terminated “immediately,” according to reporting in the Sun-Gazette. The company gave residents until May 1 to leave. To sweeten what may be seen as a callous corporate action, Aqua said it would give $2,500 to each resident who moved by April 1, and $1,500 if they moved by May 1. However, as the Sun-Gazette reported, the cost to move each mobile home ranged from $5,000 to $12,000. Many of the residents lived in the village more than a decade; one was there 38 years. The newspaper reported that most trailer parks in the area were already at maximum occupancy, and others would not accept the older trailers.

“Residents are afraid to speak up,” says Diane Siegmund, who points out there is “a lot of fear” among the residents, those whose lives are being uprooted, those whose health is being compromised, and those whose economic benefits may be compromised if fracking operations are reduced.

“As long as the powers can keep the people isolated and fragmented,” says Siegmund, “the momentum for change can never be gained.” The experience in Dimock and Jersey Shore is seen throughout the Marcellus Shale region.

It’s not unreasonable to expect people who are unemployed or underemployed to grasp for anything to help themselves and their families, nor is it unreasonable to expect that persons—roustabouts, clerks, truck drivers, helicopter pilots, among several hundred thousand in dozens of job classifications—will take better paid jobs, even if it often means 60 hour work weeks under hazardous conditions. It’s also not unreasonable to expect that families living in agricultural and rural areas, who are struggling to survive, will snap at the lure of several thousand dollars to lease mineral rights and some of their land to an energy company, which will also pay royalties. But what is unreasonable is that government allows corporations to flourish at the expense of the people and their environment.

The Sierra Club urges that the country needs “to leapfrog over gas whenever possible in favor of truly clean energy. Instead of rushing to see how quickly we can extract natural gas, we should be focusing on how to be sure we are using less—and safeguarding our health and environment in the meantime.”

Christopher Portier, director of the National Center for Environmental Health, calls for more research studies that “include all the ways people can be exposed [to health hazards], such as through air, water, soil, plants and animals.”

In November 2011, the Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of Energy concluded: “The public deserves assurance that the full economic, environmental and energy security benefits of shale gas development will be realized without sacrificing public health, environmental protection and safety.”

When the history of natural gas exploration in Pennsylvania is finally written, the story will be that it was a cheaper, cleaner energy source, and that it temporarily helped some people in rural areas, and brought some well-paying jobs into the state. But history will probably also record that the lure of immediate gratification led Pennsylvania’s politicians to willingly accept political donations that led them to sacrifice their citizens’ health and the state’s environment.

 [Assisting on this series, in addition to those quoted within the articles, were Rosemary R. Brasch, Eileen Fay, and Dr. Wendy Lynne Lee. Dr. Walter Brasch is an award-winning social issues journalist. His current book is Before the First Snow, a critically-acclaimed novel that looks at what happens when government and energy companies form a symbiotic relationship, using ‘cheaper, cleaner’ fuel and the lure of jobs in a depressed economy but at the expense of significant health and environmental impact. The book is available at amazon.com and from the publisher, Greeley & Stone.]

Kerry swipes Romney again today over Iran foreign policy…

I have little interest in inserting myself, as a former nominee of my party, into this presidential campaign season. But as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has a vital role in issues of national security, I feel compelled to respond to the ways that, in pursuit of the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has put himself front and center in debates that have serious consequences.

And on “CBS This Morning” today, Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president,  said that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner for nomination, was “‘behaving like a irresponsible candidate’ in criticizing the president’s Iran policy.”

Senator Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee talked with Charlie Rose “about a Washington Post column in which he rebuts a Romney op-ed published earlier in the week.”

Although Kerry wrote that Mr. Obama was already doing what Romney proposed to do to Iran, he wouldn’t say the two men’s views were similar.

“I see a profound difference,” said Kerry. “The difference is President Obama is acting like a president, a commander in chief and like a, a statesperson, and Mitt Romney is behaving like a irresponsible candidate, frankly, because everything that he laid out in his op-ed President Obama is already doing.”

Kerry dismissed Mitt Romney’s attacks on the Obama administration’s Iran foreign policy as “election-year politics.” 

“What he’s doing is setting up straw men, basically trying to just argue a case, say, ‘I’m strong, you’re weak,’ without any evidence supporting it whatsoever, Charlie,” said Kerry. “I mean, everything that Mitt Romney laid out that he said he might do President Obama has done or is in the middle of expanding.”

Two days ago Kerry rebutted Romney’s OP/ED on Iran on the Senate floor. Kerry’s OP/ED in the WaPo and appearance on “CBS This Morning,” mark Kerry’s second swing at Romney on Iran foreign policy.

Jessica Winter debates in TIME Ideas: Are Women People?

Winter says, “in the past couple of months, certain powerful figures in media and politics have cracked open that certitude,” that “women are fully autonomous human citizens—who vote, even.”

I can fully understand the questions Winter is posing given the recent increase in the War On Women, by members of the Republican Party and Clergy.

In her article, Winters recapps “recent instances of powerful men from the fields of law, politics and literature tackling the question that has captured America’s imagination: Are Women People?”

It’s a must read on this International Women’s Day.

Iran has been the hot topic of the day with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney beating the Iran war drum with an OP/ED today titled: “How I would check Iran’s nuclear ambition“.

Note Romney’s closing statement in which he beats the drum harder…

My foreign policy plan to avert this catastrophe is plain: Either the ayatollahs will get the message, or they will learn some very painful lessons about the meaning of American resolve.

Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, took to the Senate floor today to deliver remarks on Iran and took time to rebut Romney’s OP/ED in his floor statement: 

“We’re going to have a bruising election season. And so we should. That’s how we decide big issues in the United States. We always have. But let’s have an honest debate, not a contrived one. Governor Romney can debate the man in the White House instead of inventing straw men on the op-ed pages. He should be armed with facts instead of empty rhetoric. And if we are to succeed as the American people want us to in order to avoid a nuclear Iran, then at some point we must all act like statesmen, not candidates. We must be clear-eyed about what we have accomplished and what we have yet to do. That’s what Americans expect from their Commander in Chief, and they deserve no less.”

The full text of Chairman Kerry’s floor statement, as delivered, is below:

Mr. President, several of us here in the Senate have run for President. Two of us have been our Party’s nominees. Dozens of others have played major roles in tough campaigns. None of us are strangers to the rough and tumble of politics. I think we all understand on a personal level what the humorist said at the turn of the century when he wrote, “politics ain’t beanbag.” You have to have a thick skin and a strong backbone to survive in this business. You have to be able to take a punch. We all understand that.

So it is not as an innocent that I say I was troubled to read an op-ed in this morning’s Washington Post by the likely Republican nominee for President, Mitt Romney – an attack on the Administration’s Iran policy as inaccurate as it was aggressive.

Every candidate for the Oval Office has the right to criticize the President. But, particularly this week, while Prime Minster Netanyahu is in Washington meeting with the Administration to chart a path forward, we should all remember that the nuclear issue with Iran is deadly serious business that should invite sobriety and serious-minded solutions, not sloganeering and sound bites. This can’t become just another applause line on the Republican presidential stump. Talk has consequences, and idle talk of war only helps Iran by spooking the tight oil market and increasing the price of the Iranian crude that pays for its nuclear program. And to create false differences with the President just to score political points does nothing to move Iran off a dangerous nuclear course. Worst of all, Governor Romney’s op-ed does not even do readers the courtesy of describing how a President Romney would do anything different from what the Obama administration has already done.

If we’re going to disagree, let’s do so responsibly – and honestly.

Just look at this op-ed. From his opening paragraphs, Romney garbles history. Going back to the Iranian revolution, he calls President Carter “feckless,” saying he did nothing for over a year while Iranian revolutionaries held Americans captive. In fact—it was the months of President Carter’s negotiations and the all-night session before the inauguration on January 20, 1981 that freed the hostages.

But I bring the hostage crisis up for another reason — because when those helicopters went down in the desert during the failed rescue attempt in 1980, the United States not only lost an opportunity to get our people back sooner, President Carter lost any chance he had at reelection. And yet, President Obama, whom Governor Romney calls “the most feckless president since Carter,” threw that lesson out the window and authorized the gutsy and dangerous raid in Pakistan that finally killed Osama bin Laden.

Despite everything that could have gone wrong with that raid, the mission was ordered with confidence, executed with courage, and the man who plotted the September 11 attacks was finally held accountable for the murder of thousands of Americans. George W. Bush may have said “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” but President Obama delivered. I don’t know if Governor Romney has checked the definition of the word “feckless” lately, but that ain’t it.

The rest of Romney’s argument doesn’t get any better.

In fact, he goes on to propose action after action that President Obama has already taken. Look, this is not just my analysis. Let me read you the first sentences from an article in today’s New York Times:

“To rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, Mitt Romney says he would conduct naval exercises in the Persian Gulf…. He would try to ratchet up Security Council sanctions on Iran, targeting its Revolutionary Guards, and the country’s central bank and other financial institutions. And if Russia and China do not go along, he says, the United States should team up with other willing governments to put such punitive measures in place. As it turns out, that amounts to what President Obama is doing.”

Ambassador Nick Burns, President Bush’s lead negotiator on Iran, said, “The attacks on Obama basically say, ‘He’s weak and we’re strong.’ But when you look at the specifics, you don’t see any difference.”

So let’s go point by point through the Romney plan.

He writes that he would proceed with missile defenses to protect against Iran. He ignores the fact that one of the first things that the Obama administration did was to issue its plans for the Phased Adaptive Approach—so that we would be able to sooner protect our friends and allies against the Iranian missile threat and to provide increasing levels of capability as the technology advances. During the debate over the New START treaty, the Senate heard in great detail—including from the commander of Strategic Command and the director of the Missile Defense Agency—how this system would work and how the administration planned to proceed with it. In fact, the president sent the Senate a letter affirming his commitment to missile defense, and over the past year he has stuck by that promise.

Then Romney goes on to say that President Obama doesn’t understand the seriousness of the threat from nuclear terrorism. Again, just look at the record: For the first time, the President set as a national goal securing all vulnerable nuclear material around the world in four years. He won international endorsement of that effort at the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit. Last year alone, the Department of Energy removed or eliminated over 250 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from places like Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. And in the budget request before Congress, the Administration plans to remove or eliminate highly enriched uranium from 9 countries, including Vietnam, Ukraine, and Mexico.

Then, Romney lays out the greatest willful avoidance of the facts in his entire article. He calls for ever-tightening sanctions on Iran. Mr. President, what exactly is it that he thinks we’ve been doing for the past three years? When President Obama took office, Iran was ascendant. As the Vice President used to say when he chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, freedom wasn’t on the march – Iran was on the march. Its reach through proxies like Hezbollah threatened the United States, its allies and the region. The international community was divided; diplomacy—both multilateral and bilateral—was stalled.

But in June 2010, with a decisive push from President Obama, the United Nations put in place the most comprehensive and biting international sanctions the Iranian government has ever faced—imposing restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, ballistic missile program, conventional military exports to Iran, Iranian banks and financial transactions, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

What’s more, in coordination with allies such as the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and others, the Obama Administration put in place additional measures, ratcheting up pressure on the country’s petrochemical industry, oil and gas industry, and financial sector. Recently, Europe announced the ban of oil imports from Iran, which will further pressure Iran’s economy.

And that’s just on the multilateral front. President Obama also worked closely with Congress to pass the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, which strengthened existing U.S. sanctions, and made it harder for the Iranian government to buy refined petroleum and modernize its oil and gas sector. And, recently, we imposed tough new sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. Don’t take my word for it – Iran’s President Ahmadinejad is the one feeling the pressure. As he said last fall, “our banks cannot make international transactions anymore.”

Today, all of these sanctions are beginning to bite. Iran is now virtually cut off from large parts of the international financial system. Almost $60 billion in energy-related projects in Iran have been put on hold or discontinued. Iran has started to lose oil sales to key customers in Europe and Asia, and those losses could reach up to 40 percent of its daily sales, according to the International Energy Agency. Banking sanctions have prevented several of Iran’s customers from paying for its petroleum products, leaving the Central Bank short of hard currency and driving down the unofficial foreign exchange rate by 40 percent in a single month.

Just yesterday, the deputy chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted as saying: “The regime is at the height of isolation and in the midst of a technological, scientific, and economic siege. We are not in a situation of imaginary threats and sanctions. Threats and sanctions against us are effectively being pursued.”

Iran is also divided internally and isolated diplomatically like never before. Iran’s most important ally, Syria, is facing regime collapse, which a former director of Israel’s Mossad recently said could be a bigger strategic setback for Iran than a military strike against it. And, to talk about Israel for a second, we should all remember that President Obama has provided record amounts of security funding to help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge. Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken of President Obama’s ironclad commitment to Israel’s security. He said “that our security cooperation is unprecedented… And [that President Obama] has backed those words with deeds.”

So when you add it all up, Mitt Romney is just trying to ignore, twist, and distort the Administration’s policy to drive a wedge in our politics.

Mr. President, let us be crystal clear: we must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. That is why President Obama, even as he builds pressure for a diplomatic solution, keeps reiterating that all options are on the table. And he’s underscored that – as he said – “I don’t bluff.” And you can ask Osama bin Laden what he means when he says that. Mr. President, we’re going to have tough debates. We’re going to have a bruising election season. And so we should. That’s how we decide big issues in the United States. We always have. But let’s have an honest debate, not a contrived one. Governor Romney can debate the man in the White House instead of inventing straw men on the op-ed pages. He should be armed with facts instead of empty rhetoric. And if we are to succeed as the American people want us to in order to avoid a nuclear Iran, then at some point we must all act like statesmen, not candidates. We must be clear-eyed about what we have accomplished and what we have yet to do. That’s what Americans expect from their Commander in Chief, and they deserve no less.

In related news during his presser today, President Obama spent sometime rebuffing “criticism that he has been weak on Iran,” and he accused his “Republican rivals of “beating the drums of war” amid rising concerns about the prospect of Iran’s developing a nuclear weapon.”