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From the roundup. It seems while environmentalists were getting arrested at the White House for protesting against the building of the Keystone Pipeline President Obama was golfing with two prominent oil and gas businessmen.
On the same weekend that 40,000 people gathered on the Mall in Washington to protest construction of the Keystone Pipeline — to its critics, a monument to carbon-based folly — President Obama was golfing in Florida with a pair of Texans who are key oil, gas and pipeline players…
[O]n his first “guys weekend” away since he was reelected, the president chose to spend his free time with Jim Crane and Milton Carroll, leading figures in the Texas oil and gas industry, along with other men who run companies that deal in the same kinds of carbon-based services that Keystone would enlarge. They hit the links at the Floridian Yacht and Golf Club, which is owned by Crane and located on the Treasure Coast in Palm City, Fla.
One of Obama’s golfing buddies is not only deeply tied into the oil and gas industry but has a litany of interests at stake in government decisions - the man who owns the resort that hosted Obama for the weekend, Jim Crane. Crane has extensive ties to the petroleum industry, the defense industry, and has been the subject of a serious racial discrimination suit by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC). Those must have been some interesting discussions at the clubhouse.
The optics are bad, but the truth is worse. President Obama has been an abject failure on Climate Change, his presidency has been worthless in the fight at reducing the amount of carbon emissions being pumped into the atmosphere. Obama’s Climate Change record is, like many areas of his presidency, a continuation of Bush policies with a few more platitudes thrown in.
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I’m praying for a quantum Armageddon, where all these power hungry men ( and some corrupted women) have an epiphany of light that the world we have is to be cherished and treated with reverence; that no one else can save us from ourselves and we all recognize the need to change on fundamental levels to become closer to being god-like in our interactions with all living things.
My Armageddon prayer is that we all wake up to the wonder of this universe we find ourselves in and preserve it and each other in a quantum web of understanding and tolerance.
If we all pray for this, I believe it will happen and we will overcome the monsters inside us all and the monsters in power who think it’s cool to destroy civilization for profit will begin the recovery of their souls
Jim Crane? The same guy who now owns the Houston Astros?
Is that Obysmal’s ‘fierce urgency of now’ expression?
I’m sure he and his oil exec buds were holding their sides, with tears streaming, after he went through his concerned ‘bit’ on hole 13.
Oh Obama will speechify all over the place, and my Obot friends will adjure me endlessly about how now, NOW REALLY FOR SURE, Barry Zero’s really gonna lead us to the promised land.
Yeah, right. Shine on you crazy diamond & just keep clapping louder for Tinkerbell.
Thanks for the info. Color me utterly unsurprised & totally cynical.
Pretty much sums up his presidency.
At least Obama is consistent. He sells us out at every turn. This ain’t no Democrat we elected. He’s a lap dog.
The Obama Administration is doing exactly as predicted in 2008:
*WARS fully funded and EXPANDING- see AFRICOM. Bill sent to our children……Mission Accomplished!
*Trillion Dollars given to friends and campaign contributors on Wall Street. No Strings Attached…Mission Accomplished!
*Military Spending INCREASED….Mission Accomplished!
*Trillion+Dollars given to the Health Insurance Industry. Token, easily avoidable, symbolic only strings attached….Mission almost Accomplished!
*Kill the possibility for a REAL “Public Option” or REAL Universal Health Care for at least another generation, and begin the “Entitlement Reform” defunding of Medicare (-$500 Billion)….Mission almost Accomplished!
*Block ANY re-regulation of BIG BANKS and Credit Cards….Mission Accomplished!
*Protect the Bush War Criminals and Torturers from JUSTICE….Mission Accomplished.
*Expanded Drone Assasinations- Mission Accomplished
*Marginalize Pro-LABOR Democrats and co-opt the Anti-WAR Movement…Mission Accomplished
*Reinforce the worst Police State provisions of the Patriot Act….Mission Accomplished!
*Expand government surveillance- Mission Accomplished!
*Protect the very richest. Tell the Working Class that they CAN will be forced to compete with 3rd World Slave Labor…..Mission Accomplished!
*EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) killed in the crib….Mission Accomplished!
*More Anti-LABOR “Free Trade”….Mission Accomplished!
*Jobless Recovery….Mission Accomplished!
Do people who have supported the Dems and Obama not have obligations here?
Aren’t they too complicit?
Obama’s isn’t the LESSER of Two Evils – He’s the more EFFECTIVE of the two evils.
Keystone will sail through the bipartisan representatives of the ruling class just like…
Just like Free Trade Job Off-shoring.
Just like De-regulation (see: Clinton & Death of Glass-Steagal)
Just like the public praise of Banksters (see: Obama & Savvy Businessmen)
Is it time to wake up?
The DemoThuglicans and RepubliCrats play the 99% for fools, using
social issues and ginning up fear of the other brand to keep the sheep
in line.
And so far – the “Left”, which is supposed to be better educated,
plays right along into the trap – hence Obama, the “Constitutional
Scholar” – making permanent that which was an abuse under RepubliCrat
Bush.
I hope the Obamabots & Apologencia are proud of their guy Obama.
Yes, wherefore that vaunted GOP opposition to Obama on everything? You know – they won’t let Obama do anything at all.
Except Free Trade.
Except more Drone Warfare.
Except NDAA / Expansion of Government Power.
Except Bernanke.
Except Geithner.
Except Holder.
Except Monsanto @ FDA.
Except link Social Security to the Deficit via the Payroll Tax “Holiday”
Except push for cuts to Social Security / Medicare (did I say cut? I mean make more “efficient”)
Except push the Fiscal Cliff meme.
Except push the 1%’s Austerity Plan.
Except coordinate the crackdown on Occupy via Obama’s Homeland Security.
Except attack Whistleblowers, a-la Bradley Manning & WikiLeaks.
Except shield BP for its Gulf Disaster
Except push through the Trans Pacific Partnership
Except push the meme that Corporate Taxes are Too High (Obama said this during a Presidential Debate)
Except citing Obama’s “Deficit Commission” which was set up by Obama
and stacked with pro-corporate / anti-99% zealots including RepubliCrat
Alan Simpson as co-chair
Except begin the outsourcing of NASA
Except continue giving blanket support to Israel, no matter what Israel does
Except continue beating the drum for war with Iran
Dammit, get me some social issues stat! We need a distraction to see
just how vastly different the RepubliCrats & DemoThuglicans are!
Crane stepped in shit and came out smelling like a rose:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crane
Insurance man, Crane borrowed 10 grand from his sister in 1984 to start a shipping company.
Now he’s a billionaire scratch golfer.
…Obama’s Climate Change record is, like many areas of his presidency, a continuation of Bush policies with a few more platitudes thrown in…
The Oily Bomber never fails to disappoint…! 8-(
FDL keeps giving me more reasons to hate the corrupt bastard.
Did he win?
In the words of Sam Rayburn, “He was playing the bass tuba the day it rained gold.”
Yup. Maybe he’ll change the ballpark’s name back to “Enron Field.”
you missed TPP nafta, EU nafta, reducing federal employees, expanding global militarization to the Pacific, prosecution of whistleblowers, and the USPS reduction, privatization.
and shutting down EPA study on TX xlpipeline, recent $4.5 billion reduction of the BP oil disaster fine, approving rick scott’s Fl medicaid privatization “plan” using 100% federal funding. and on and on and on.
oh, almost forgot today’s announcement: 10,000 troops to Niger with a few drones to start….
oops, see you did catch the ones i mentioned, there are so many coming at us 24/7, its hard to keep up. ;o(
… Quite complete POTUS Obama / Obama WH policy pick ups and touch downs catalog listing Jimbo … thank you …
Seeing what B.H.Obama has done / gets done despite the GOPs when Obama wants to get it done says something about the myth(s) that B.H.Obama is being held hostage / stopped by the GOP maniacs. B.H.Obama is one slick politician who wins when Obama wants a win plain to see.
So … about the incessant O/D zealots whining about how Obama just can’t get the GOPs to let Obama be Obama ? Jimbo just laid out a long listing plainly showing the GOPS let Obama be Obama time and time again.
POTUS Obama plainly still is intent on putting a chained CPI in place on SS… good thing Mitt did not win in 2012 because Obama would not been able to be/do Obama until Jan.2017 … thank you O/D zealots.
Heh. So Tiger was Obama’s beard?
Hey, look at Tiger with Barry! Ignore those Tippy Top One Percenters from Big Oil, Big Energy, Big Corporate, yada yada, in the foursome. (Or however many played through….)
I refused to vote for the traitor. I just couldn’t vote for him regardless of how bad the GOP looked. You gotta have some respect for yourself when everything is said and done.
Anyone for an international treaty closing down the oil wells and coal mines?