The Truth About McCain and Big Oil

McCain, Big Oil. Big Oil, McCain. Where does one stop and the other begin? You’d be hard pressed to figure that out, considering how many of his advisors have lobbied for oil industry interests. And that’s not all. In 2008 alone, McCain has taken $485,526 from Big Oil.

From Brave New Films:

The Center for Responsive Politics finds that McCain has accepted over $1 million from the oil and gas industry. Many of McCain’s top advisers have lobbied for big oil, which is why he now acts in their best interests, opposing environmental legislation and alternative energy plans. And that’s exactly why we want everyone to know The REAL McCain.

McCain is desperate to distance himself from President Bush. But according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, McCain has received millions in donations from the same oil, coal, nuclear, chemical, utility, and auto companies that helped the Bush administration create its energy plan—a plan that has raised gasoline to $4 a gallon.

If you know anyone who’s on the fence about McCain, forward this on to them!

Link [Brave New Films]

‘Eco-Minded’ McCain Supports Offshore Drilling

Perhaps someone needs to clue John McCain in: calling oneself an environmentalist in one breath and supporting big oil in another = hypocrisy. McCain, in answer to rising public pressure over gas prices, keeps saying we need to “eliminate our dependence on foreign oil”. What he doesn’t seem to get is that we need to eliminate our dependence on oil, period. Not just foreign oil. Drilling for oil here in America is not going to solve the energy crisis, nor is drilling in Brazil, the Arctic or anywhere else.

McCain is calling for the federal government to lift restrictions on offshore drilling in the U.S., insisting that it will help ease the financial burden Americans are facing due to high gas prices. The Washington Post has the details:

McCain’s announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists, even as he attempts to win the support of independents and moderate Democrats. Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.

Representatives of several environmental groups criticized him for backing an idea they said would endanger the nation’s most environmentally sensitive waters.

“It’s disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters.

Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall said McCain “is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn’t.” The group began running radio commercials yesterday that criticize McCain’s environmental record in the battleground state of Ohio.

It’s clear that McCain is pandering to a nation of ignorant people who have no understanding of the energy crisis and are simply worried about their own finances and energy-sucking way of life. McCain is not thinking about America’s future, or what we’re going to do once oil really runs out. He’s thinking about what the idiots of our nation want to hear, and how he can use that to get elected.

Obama, meanwhile, has this to say about it:

“Our dependence on foreign oil strains family budgets and it saps our economy. Oil money pays for the bombs going off from Baghdad to Beirut, and the bombast of dictators from Caracas to Tehran,” Obama said. “Our nation will not be secure unless we take that leverage away, and our planet will not be safe unless we move decisively toward a clean energy future.”

I hope any of you moderate Republicans and Independents who bought McCain’s environment spiel kept the receipt for all that eco-friendly merchandise.

Link [The Washington Post]
Photo credit: Flickr user TheConcreteJungleBook.com

The Dumbing Down of America Under Bush

America has become a nation of idiots.

I think the point where I really started to worry was when people began using the phrase ‘freedom fries’ as a substitute for ‘french fries’. It spread like syphilis at a Roman orgy after France refused to take part in the invasion of Iraq, when anti-France sentiment grew here in the U.S. and two Republican congressmen decided to officially change the name in the restaurants and snack bars run by the House of Representatives. ‘Dang it all, Jeb, if the Republican gov’ment says it, then we should too! Those fancy French people, they’s all disloyal and anti-American and stuff!’

As if that weren’t enough, frighteningly, we seem to be endlessly entertained by crotch gags, like the ‘Ow My Balls!’ segments on America’s Funniest Videos. Some of the most popular programs on television are those that depict people eating bull testicles, transforming themselves into scary plastic mannequins via dozens of plastic surgery procedures, intentionally trying to hurt themselves in the stupidest ways possible and competing for the dubious affections of a man wearing a giant clock around his neck.

Then there are the email forwards. Christ on a bicycle, people, would you please verify that the information you’re about to send is correct before forwarding it to 98 of your closest friends, relatives, business associates and random acquaintances? I don’t know how many times I’ve had to direct the sender of a ridiculous email to Snopes.com to get the real story. It seems that many people are content to simply believe whatever is convenient for them to believe. If they want to convince themselves that Barack Obama really did go to terrorist training school, refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and was sworn into office using the Koran rather than the Bible, they damn well will. [Read more]

McCain Campaign Advisors Paid to Stop Cape Wind Renewable Energy Project

Some people out there still seem to need evidence that McCain is just Bush 2.0, and luckily for all of us, McCain’s camp keeps on delivering. Surprise, surprise: two high placed advisors in the McCain campaign worked with lobbyists to stop the Cape Wind renewable energy project.

From The Sietch Blog:

Charlie Black, Senior Political Adviser to McCain: Senate lobbying disclosure documents reveal that lobbying firm BKSH & Associates was retained in January 2008 by the Alliance to
Protect Nantucket Sound to “Defeat the proposal for 130 wind turbines” and “promote alternative means to meet energy needs without sacrificing Nantucket Sound.” Charlie Black was the chairman of BKSH until March. [Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database]

Tom Loeffler, McCain’s Campaign Co-chairman: The Loeffler Group received $380,000 from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound from 2003 to 2005 to lobby against Cape Wind. The Loeffler Group was founded by former Republican congressman Tom Loeffler, who remains its chairman. [Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database]…

In addition to these two jokers, McCain also recently had advisors quit after it was revealed that one was actively working for Myanmar and one had ties to the Saudi government. McCain tries to play himself as an honest guy who’s more moderate than the Bush administration and open to new ideas. Too bad “Mr. Straight Talker Reformerman” is thick with lobbyists who have anything but the best interests of the American people in mind. Taking money to help corporations, organizations and foreign governments tighten their grip on American society. What else is new?

Of course, that doesn’t mean that all of the people who plan to vote for McCain have two brain cells to rub together and are therefore able to process this information. For them, there is no hope. However, perhaps those still on the fence will take it into consideration. There has been a haze of corruption over the White House for nearly 8 years, and McCain taking office will only make it more ominous.

Link [The Sietch Blog] + [Cape Wind]
Photo source: Flickr user Hot Rod Homepage

McCain ’08: A Path to Extinction!

The blogosphere has been afire with commentary after John McCain announced that he was ‘going green’, and now Jon Stewart weighs in with his own analysis of the situation.

“It’s high time I take on this president who I have endorsed, complimented, and when the occasion called for something stronger, hugged. The point is this: Mr. President, the cuddles. Stop. Here.” [See the video below]

via [emPivot]

Finally, Something the Righties and Lefties All Agree On: McCain Needs to Stop this Environment Crap

It’s not often that liberals and conservatives strongly agree on a subject, even if they have wildly differing reasons for doing so. But after John McCain debuted a line of eco-friendly merchandise on his official website, things heated up all over the blogosphere. McCain’s got people on both sides of the political fence all riled up right now, and it will be interesting to see what it does to his campaign.

When the presumptive Republican presidential nominee started making claims about what he would do as President to help the environment, many of us liberals weren’t pleased. To anyone who wonders why we’d be anything less than thrilled about the fact that the man on the other side of the ring is professing his supposed commitment to the environment, Energy Smart sums up the general sentiment:

There are some things that fall beyond satire.

Who do they think they’re kidding? Rebranding McCain as Mr. Environment? Rebranding the Republican Party as the Eco-Friendly choice? The McCain campaign must have a real disdain for the intellect of the American voting public.

While John McCain at least has a foot in reality, as he recognizes that Global Warming is real (unlike the majority of the Republican Party, which continues to reject reality), his “solutions” remained half-baked, half-measures.

Now that McCain has introduced a line of eco-friendly gear on his website, he’s being hit even harder with criticism. After his adviser Kevin Hassett wrote an op-ed opposing the designation of polar bears as endangered because of what it would mean for oil drilling in Alaska, Gristmill wonders,

If McCain’s advisers are already pushing for Bush-administration-style policies on issues like the polar bear, how credible are his claims this week that he’s not Bush when it comes to the environment? All the eco-swag in the world can’t make up for policies that continue to prioritize industry interests over the planet.

Another reason why Democrats and other liberals aren’t happy about McCain’s pandering is the fact that his record shows that he’s all talk and no action on environment. The Democratic Party spells it out here.

Commenters on blogs like the New York Times’ ‘The Caucus’ point out the hypocrisy:

“When he comes out with “green” flip flops I might be able to stop laughing long enough to forget his voting record on the environment! NOT! – Posted by JanK”

“WOW! Now I sure want to vote for John McCain! He is so eco-friendly making cotton bags to shops with while riding around in his wifes private jet!!!! — Posted by Shawn”

And then, there’s the conservative reaction.

I usually stay away from conservative media for a reason: reading just a few lines of their bullshit makes me start to feel like a homicidal maniac. I literally feel my blood pressure rising. I start to get a crazy look in my eye. It’s not good. But as the posts started streaming in from right-wing blogs about the McCain campaign’s sudden focus on the environment, I couldn’t ignore them.

Conservatives are pissed. Most of them weren’t crazy about McCain to begin with, but this whole environmentalism thing has their panties in a wad like never before. The Business and Media Institute quotes Rush Limbaugh:

“The troubling thing here, Senator McCain, is I’m mapping out plans here to try to persuade Republicans to eventually cross over to vote for you and this is not making it any easier,” conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said on his May 12 show. “At some point Republicans are going to have to decide whether to cross the aisle and vote for McCain. Clearly, he’s rolling the dice in thinking that the ‘green’ community and the independents and the yutes out there will buy into this global warming business and think he’s different than the average conservative Republican and that will stand him in good stead.”

Heidi Harris, a radio talk show host in Las Vegas, isn’t happy about it either. She rails incredulously, with her Midwestern Mom hair quivering as she speaks, about how the U.S. might as well not even try to cap their emissions since businesses will just send their factories off to China. Let’s not even go there, because that’s a whole different topic. The point is, she wants you all to know how absolutely disgusted she is as a conservative that John McCain is focused on climate change. Watch the video on the Business and Media Institute website and you’ll see what I mean.

Andy Aplikowski of True North needed to knock a few back to deal with the news that McCain is selling ‘eco-friendly merchandise’ on his official website.

Cease and desist on all this Global Warming BS that warms the heart of Al Gore. If we can just stop the Republican officer holders and politicians from speaking in support of it we could easily cut half the so-called human caused global warming gases being emitted from the steaming piles of rhetoric they spew daily in the hopes of pandering for votes based on junk science funded by anti-American billionaires who loathe everything the Republican party is supposed to stand for.

And finally, I leave you with a quote that made me spit my coffee all over my laptop screen. Thank you, Andy Aplikowski, for this unintentional bit of much-needed humor on this dreary day:

Sticking your finger in the eye of conservatives is never a good idea if you are the Republican candidate for President, but waging an all out war on capitalism and promoting the junk science designed to end the American way of life [emphasis mine] is a colossal electoral failure waiting to happen.

Priceless.

Photo credit: Flickr user soggydan

McCain Makes Big Crazy Promises About What He’d Accomplish in His First Term

Showing that the apple doesn’t fall far from the Bush, John McCain predicted yesterday that within 4 years of him as president, the war in Iraq would be over and Osama Bin Laden would be dead. He also promised rainbows every day of the week, chocolate rivers, marshmallow mushrooms and hugs from unicorns for all.

From MSNBC:

McCain, running in the November election to succeed Bush in 2009, described a scenario he thought he could achieve within his first four-year term.

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom,” McCain said in prepared remarks he was to deliver in Columbus, Ohio.

“The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced,” McCain said.

McCain also predicted that al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed within four years and the militant group’s presence in Afghanistan would be reduced to remnants.

Gee, Mr. McCain, don’t devalue yourself and your abilities, here. You can do so much more. I mean, if you’re capable of all that, why not go for the gold? You might as well also promise that you’ll bring the dodo bird back from extinction and find a way to live forever.

Go ahead and hold up a ‘Mission Accomplished!!!’ sign while you’re at it, since you’re so confident that all of this will happen. You know, to get your base psyched up for the election. We all know that conservative voters like to live in a world where global warming isn’t real and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will solve all of our oil problems, so why not throw these promises into the equation as well?

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Conservative Hypocrite McCain Delivers Climate Change Speech at Foreign Wind Company

Oh, the irony. John McCain and his handlers are working (but not too hard) at making him look somewhat progressive on climate change to independent and thus far uncommitted voters. They’re trying to maintain a balance between pleasing the hard line conservative base and appealing to young people hip to the global warming crisis and the need for alternative energy. Too bad the setting they chose for his climate change speech only underlined the fact that he’s not the candidate that will actually do anything about it.

Gristmill has it:

Conservative presidential candidate Sen. John McCain chose a clever but ultimately hypocritical location for his big climate speech. I hope the media aren’t fooled by his ironic choice of wind turbine company Vestas as the backdrop, but I have little doubt they will run enticing photos and videos of wind turbines. McCain, however, does not deserve to be linked to such images.

I would title the speech “Not the man for the job” (see “No climate for old men”).

Let’s be clear: Conservatives like John McCain, or more accurately, conservatives including John McCain, are the main reason McCain has to go to a Danish wind turbine manufacturer to give a climate speech. With the major government investments in wind in the 1970s, the United States was poised to be a dominant player in what was clearly going to be one of the biggest job-creating industries of the next hundred years. But conservatives repeatedly gutted the wind budget, then opposed efforts by progressives to increase it, and repeatedly blocked efforts to extend the wind power tax credit.

Mr. McCain, you’re making this too easy. As Gristmill points out, you didn’t even show up for the vote that would have extended the wind power production tax credit, which would have shifted money from subsidies away from the oil industry. You’ve also opposed, on more than one occasion, a renewable electricity standard that would have set a minimum requirement for utilities to generate some of their power from alternative sources, including wind. These examples are just a small fraction of your record. Tsk, tsk. Try harder next time, old man.

Link [Gristmill]
Photo credit: Flickr user marcn

John McCain Announces Climate Change Tour; America Scratches its Head

GOP presidential candidate John McCain announced on “The Chris Matthews Show” last weekend that he’s planning a climate change tour. Our question is, what does he aim to do exactly – speed up climate change? Make it worse? Tell people it’s not real? Surely he doesn’t expect us to believe that he’ll be as effective at promoting awareness of climate change, or actually doing anything about it if he were to be elected President (OMG, please, no!).

Well, at least according to him, McCain does intend to talk to his base about climate change, which he claims to feel ‘passionately’ about. He knows that it won’t be a popular subject with Republicans, but is hoping to get the message out regardless. The funny thing is, nobody is going to take John McCain seriously on climate change – for many reasons.

From Salon.com:

While McCain may understand the scale of the climate problem, he does not appear to understand the scale of the solution. He understands the country needs to put in place a mandatory cap on GHG emissions and a trading system to energize American innovation. But in a recent Republican debate, he denied that a cap and trade system is a mandate, even though it would arguably be the most far-reaching government mandate ever legislated.

Moreover, like most conservatives, he doesn’t understand or accept the critical role government must play to make that system succeed.

…Avoiding catastrophic climate change will require sweeping legislation that covers every sector of the economy. A McCain-stacked court led by Chief Justice Roberts will rule against any ambiguous or incomplete laws regulating GHG emissions in the commercial, industrial, utility, residential, transportation or agricultural sectors. That in turn will force Congress to write laws that are detailed and specific, but that are also overly intrusive, overly prescriptive, less flexible, less capable of stimulating innovation and hence politically unpopular.

These are just a few reasons why anything that McCain has to say about global warming is a bunch of crap. If he becomes president, we can undoubtedly expect the same kind of progress on climate change initiatives as we’ve had under the Bush administration. The people who would be appointed to his cabinet, more likely than not, would be global warming skeptics. That makes work toward solutions an impossible task. So basically, anything McCain has to say about climate change is a bunch of B.S., though he’ll undoubtedly use it to appeal to moderates and claim that he’s forward-thinking. Bah! Let’s hope he never has a chance to prove us wrong.

Link [Examiner] + [Salon]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

If McCain Wins, What Happens in Iraq? “100 Years” a Frightening Prospect

At a town meeting in New Hampshire this election season, John McCain made a rather startling statement: when asked about how long he thought troops should stay in Iraq, he said it would be fine with him if troops remained for “maybe 100” years.

From MSNBC:

First, if McCain doesn’t envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in that role? So far, all he has said is that the United States should withdraw only if it concludes that the Iraq mission is unachievable or when it has achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of “a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state.”

McCain hasn’t said how long he would keep fighting to reach that demanding goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain’s closest Senate allies, recently said he thinks that McCain would maintain current U.S. troop levels in Iraq through his entire four-year presidential term if military commanders recommended that course to maintain stability there.

Since his original declaration, McCain has repeatedly insisted he doesn’t foresee a century of American combat in Iraq but rather a military presence “after the war is over,” as the United States has maintained in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.

As Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dead points out, we’re not exactly welcome in Iraq. They don’t want us there. People in the region don’t want us there. Why would they? We’ve destroyed a culture. We’ve killed hundreds of thousands (some put the figure at over a million) of their people, most of whom were innocent bystanders. We’re responsible for so much death and destruction. The danger to our troops isn’t going to magically disappear – people are angry, and rightfully so.

Hopefully statements like this will help prevent this guy from becoming president. Plenty of people are against the war in Iraq, but considering the ongoing battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the race and gender issues in play and the usual spate of conservative ‘value voting’ i.e. gays, guns & God, is it enough?

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user sskennel

McCain, Clinton Both Back the Insanely Stupid Gas Tax Holiday Idea

How do you encourage people to stop using something – give them easier access to more of it? Idiotic as it is, that seems to be the answer as far as presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Clinton are concerned. Their proposed ‘gas tax holiday’ has been slammed by economists, and anyone with half a brain should be able to see that it won’t work.

The proposal involves cutting the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day, giving Americans a ‘summer break’ from paying the tax, which is put to use building roads and bridges nationwide. Obama is the only one in this three-ring circus that thinks it’s a bad idea, and Clinton in turn has accused him of ‘being out of touch with ordinary Americans’. Yeah, because in this country of brilliant thinkers, the thought process stops after they hear the words ‘tax cut’.

From MSNBC.com:

Economists said that since refineries cannot increase their supply of gasoline in the space of a few summer months, lower prices will just boost demand and the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers.

“You are just going to push up the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut,” said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington.

Obama criticized the plan as pure politics and said the only way to lower the price of gas is to use less oil.

“This isn’t an idea designed to get you through the summer, it’s an idea designed to get them through an election.”

Clinton promised to make up for the tax break by imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies, but hasn’t seemed to consider the fact that she’s essentially offering bags of heroin to a group of junkies who just started considering rehab.

Continuing the cheap gas trend in America won’t do anything to reduce our dependence on oil. It won’t encourage people to cut back. It won’t bolster further investment into alternative energy sources. It’s a dirty bandage on a weeping gangrenous wound.

People might not even get any relief from the tax cut, according to some economists who predict that refineries will likely keep some of it for themselves rather than passing it on to consumers.

At least we can console ourselves with the fact that one of the three main presidential contenders sees the truth to this. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Link [MSNBC]

Photo credit: Flickr user ~~zorro~~