The Only Real Obama Administration Scandal

Jan 22rd, 2012
by F. Grey Parker

From day one, the GOP, the Fox News drones and the far right blogosphere have thrown a series of charges at the Obama Administration so manifestly ill-conceived that they are laughable upon strict scrutiny. Hundreds of hours have been spent on the "New Black Panther scandal," the "Fast and Furious scandal" and the "Solyndra scandal," just to name a few. In every case, the truth has been a far cry from the apoplectic insinuations hurled by the bottom-feeders.

This begs a question; why hasn't the only obvious and provable instance of high level corruption in this administration been addressed at all by the enemies of the President?

The answer is simple. It involves the Clinton State Department's handling of the Keystone XL proposal. We wrote about this last year HERE.

To sum up, one of Secretary Clinton's most trusted advisers poisoned the review process for a major foreign corporation's potentially hazardous use of American territory. This is a scandal which has everything:

Back room coaching of those the State Department is supposed to vet?
Check.

Lobbyists granted access to internal governmental operations?
Check.

Sweetheart relationships between foreign business interests and public servants who report directly to one of the most powerful people in modern government?
Check.

As the weeks have turned to months since I wrote about this last, this has begun to bother me a great deal.

Anyone who is familiar with my writing or activism knows that I support President Obama. I am not out to make him or his administration look bad. That said, this is basic stuff, the kind of stuff you dream of being able to use against your opposition.

If you are a junior-grade politician with half of a brain, you would know what to do with it.

Unless, of course, the people that are really in charge of every bloodthirsty, prevaricating and odious assault... have told you not to use it.

The GOP desperately needs to keep fighting on behalf of the Keystone XL issue.

It doesn't matter if you or I know that every pronouncement from them about the project's possible benefits is supreme bullshit. They don't care. The most powerful backers of the largest Republican sympathizing PACs have a vested interest in this one. Anything that might interfere with the GOP's slavish service to these puppet masters, even the only legitimate chance to undermine the current administration on the grounds of severe malfeasance, is off the table.

Remember this when Speaker Boehner comes out, very likely tomorrow, and tries to tie a resuscitation of the poisonous Keystone scheme to the passage of any piece of legislation that might actually benefit the United States of America.

Fox Lie Of The Year Nominee

Dec 2nd, 2011

Wow. This one is whopper. Nearly on par with the imaginary costs of the President's trip to India, which you may recall did not require $250 MILLION a day, Fox News' Brian Kilmeade claimed this morning that the proposed Keystone XL project would create "250,000 permanent jobs."


So provable is this lie, as shown HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE, that this does rate as one of the worst acts of propaganda in Fox history. But why listen to me? Listen to the TransCanada official who admitted, on camera, that the total number of "permanent" jobs after the completion of construction would be at most in the "hundreds." That's it.

Graft, Potential Catastrophe and The XL Extension

Oct 3rd, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

Throughout this past Summer, environmentalists protested the construction of an oil pipeline. 

So what? Right?

Most major media outlets portrayed the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline extension and the controversy surrounding it in just such an innocuous manner.

The failure to communicate with our citizens the scope of the project, the lack of transparency among the decision makers involved and the actual dangers posed by this industrial scheme run amok is staggering.

Push Back Against Keystone XL

Sept 2nd, 2011
Sign the Food & Water Watch petition HERE
Call the White House at 202 224 3121

The sheer scope of the tar sands project makes this fight that much more difficult. We need every voice raised as loudly as possible.

Image via

The Truth About Tar Sands, cont...

Sept 1st, 2011

Josh Fox issues a call for further direct action

Tar Sands Action/ Josh Fox from JFOX on Vimeo.

The Truth About Tar Sands

Sept 1st, 2011

The construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is likely a forgone conclusion. As much as I support the protesters who have put their freedom on the line in D.C. and as loudly as I have tried to draw attention to the potential hazards, this is only the latest stage of the largest energy project on the face of the Earth. Putting the brakes on now is nearly impossible.

The TransCanada corporation first proposed the Keystone project in early 2005, yet most Americans had never even heard the phrase "tar sands" until earlier this year. The accident prone first Keystone pipeline has been in operation for over 14 months and many still don't realize just how much more volatile the materials involved are than traditional petroleum.

Carrie La Seur wrote recently in Grist:

"Keystone XL won’t carry “light, sweet” crude, which floats on top of water and can be mopped up with absorbent booms. Bitumen—a tarlike substance mined from the Alberta tar sands, chemically diluted, and heated to improve flow—will travel at high pressure across Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to Gulf Coast refineries. If and when it leaks into water bodies, this product will sink. To judge the risk of that happening, it helps to know that the first piece of the Keystone system, TransCanada’s Keystone I pipeline that crosses the eastern Dakotas, has sprung a dozen leaks in its first year of operation."

As La Seur notes, the XL phase of operations directly threatens the Ogallala aquifer. This very shallow groundwater network is the source for roughly 30% of U.S. agricultural irrigation and drinking water for tens of millions of citizens. A serious accident here would devastate not only the health but the economy of the United States for generations. 

Our failure to educate the public sooner through the kind of direct action now being engaged in Washington is a major contributor to the public's lack of awareness. That doesn't make pushback pointless. It makes it even more essential. 

We are literally running out of time.