Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Vice Emperor Creosote sez:


“We’re not full yet.”

When reading this article, it’s helpful to remember that the ball-less, Slavish Deference to this Administration by the press and Congress was not a product of 9/11: It was a pre-existing malignancy that certainly got a massive dose of nutrients on 9/11, but it was always there.

Remember too that United States Energy Policy was handed over like the keys to the national liquor cabinet to Dead-Eye Dick Cheney the day his youthful, feeble-minded ward was sworn into office.

Cheney then proceeded to take every one of his fellow oil execs into a back room, bar the door, and carve up the world’s petroleum future like the Christmas Pig. Of course, this all took place long, long before the invasion of Iraq on trumped up evidence and rumor has it that maps of Iraq and who was gonna get what were a part of that meeting.

Strange how that worked out, eh?

Of course there is no way of knowing the details of what really happened because Dead-Eye stamped the whole thing “Classified” – a move which would have raised a hurricane of newsprint and a rip-tide of ink if it had happened under the Clinton Administration, but barely raised a gentle bunny fart of a breeze in the press when done by the GOP. My oh my how the Republican rage over the horribly, intolerably icky “secrecy” around the Clinton Health Care brainstorming sessions instantly evaporated when it was Cheney lowering the Cone of Silence over his own pet projects.

So last month it was the announcement that Exxon (for example) had fourth quarter net income of $10.7 billion.

That’s “Billion” with a “B”.

10.7 b-b-billion dollars. Net. In one quarter. And, “For the year the company earned net income of $36.1 billion, or $33.9 billion excluding special items. That's up 31 percent from the $25.9 billion it earned on that basis year earlier.”

And now, in a textbook-perfect example of the only thing the GOP agenda has ever really been about – looting and bankrupting the government of the United States and transferring its assets to Republican-friendly private corporations – this story the sheer scope and shamelessness of which almost completely robs me of my words. (emphasis added)
February 14, 2006

U.S. Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.

New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.

Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.


But what seemed like modest incentives 10 years ago have ballooned to levels that have alarmed even ardent supporters of the oil and gas industry, partly because of added sweeteners approved during the Clinton administration but also because of ambiguities in the law that energy companies have successfully exploited in court.

Short of imposing new taxes on the industry, there may be little Congress can do to reverse its earlier giveaways. The new projections come at a moment when President Bush and Republican leaders are on the defensive about record-high energy prices, soaring profits at major oil companies and big cuts in domestic spending.

Indeed, Mr. Bush and House Republicans are trying to kill a one-year, $5 billion windfall profits tax for oil companies that the Senate passed last fall.

Moreover, the projected largess could be just the start. Last week, Kerr-McGee Exploration and Development, a major industry player, began a brash but utterly serious court challenge that could, if it succeeds, cost the government another $28 billion in royalties over the next five years.


"It's one of the greatest train robberies in the history of the world," said Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who has fought royalty concessions on oil and gas for more than a decade. "It's the gift that keeps on giving."


Based on the government's assumptions about future prices — that oil will hover at about $50 a barrel and natural gas will average about $7 per thousand cubic feet — the total value of the free oil and gas over the next five years would be about $65 billion and the forgone royalties would total more than $7 billion.
Administration officials say the issue is out of their hands, adding that they opposed provisions in last year's energy bill that added new royalty relief for deep drilling in shallow waters.


By contrast, the White House bluntly promised to veto the Senate's $60 billion tax cut bill because it contained a one-year tax of $5 billion on profits of major oil companies.

"The [Minerals Management Service] only has the authority that Congress gives it," Mr. Hunter said. "The legislation said that royalty relief for these leases is automatic."

If that view prevails, the government said it would lose a total of nearly $35 billion in royalties to taxpayers by 2011 — about the same amount that Mr. Bush is proposing to cut from Medicare, Medicaid and child support enforcement programs over the same period.


Just as another point of reference, $35 Billion is also roughly what the Bush Administration has already pissed away in its failed “Iraqi Reconstruction” debacle, although as always, Cheney’s friends made out like King Rat and His Rodent Posse, armed and footloose in Cheddarvania.

And $35 billion would buy enough body armor to keep every man, woman and mascot in Iraq as safe humanly possible from IED attacks.

Hey, fuck the body armor: $35 billion would buy more than 35,000 “Rhino Runners” The all-but-impervious-to-anything-but-a-tactical-nuke carriers that Rumsfeld and Cheney tool around in when dropping by Baghdad to see how the looting is going, but are far, faaaar too pricey to be letting your average mudfoot sweat up it’s New Carrier Smell.

And even then, you’d have enough left over to the left of the decimal place to make up for the massive fraud that FEMA has let run riot with Katrina relief funds. Fraud that runs "certainly millions of dollars; it could be tens or hundreds of millions of dollars."

Maybe even have enough left to pay for Ted Steven’s “Bridge To Nowhere.”

Funny, I remember when a few million in fraud was enough for the GOP to slate whole programs for demolition: even if they were only doing OK, but not spectacularly, they would scream to bring the hammer down.

Now it’s not millions but tens of billions.

During a time when we will all have to pay dearly and for the rest of our lives for the Republican lies, treachery and the Republican war in Iraq…

With gargantuan Republican deficits looming at us just over the horizon…

With the destruction of a major American city happening on the Republican’s watch, and made vastly worse by the malignant neglect of Republican stooges…

Billions lost through the sheer incompetence of one Republican arm of the government, more billions looted and paid out to Republican cronies by another arm…

all paid for by proposing cuts to the weakest and poorest among us, and fighting their war on the cheap.

Why?

Simple.

Because to be a Republican is to believe that there is literally nothing of higher and purer moral virtue than cutting the taxes of plutocrats.

No greater glory unto God than throwing money at rich people.

That to disinter the bones of Joan of Arc and use her remains, splinters from the True Cross, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to set fire to the Virgin Mary…would be preferable to even incrementally raising the taxes on the richest people in the history of the world to pay for their war, their criminal incompetence, and programs for the poor and the powerless.

And that it if Our Lady got up and ran – hair on fire – through Arlington National Cemetery,

and the White House,

and Walter Reed Hospital,

and the Air and Space Museum,

and the Smithsonian,

and the Library of Congress,

and the National Cathedral,

and the “Falling Waters” Frank Lloyd Wright home,

and Yellowstone National Park,

and a hundred hospices,

and a thousand assisted living facilities

and ten thousand public schools…

…and set each and every one of them ablaze…

…and Republicans were told the only way to save these sacred, irreplaceable treasures was to up the tax rates on the wealthiest 1% of people and corporations…

They would still opt to try to smother the fire with the poor, or beat it out with the Body of Christ, or set up a bucket-brigade to douse it in the Blood of the Lamb -- or just let it all go up in flames -- before they would ever consider discommoding their Overlords by 1%.

‘Cause “We don’t need no taxes, let the motherfucker burn!”

I don’t know what to say, except that if you are a Republican, this was your choice, and now you are each personally complicit in this disaster of a government, because this is exactly what you voted for.

And that if you had an ounce of humanity among you, you should feel nothing but fury and terrible shame that your Party can let the pillaging of our nation by its Plutocrat Masters continue while Katrina survivors are being booted out of their rooms for want of a few bucks, and American soldiers you sent off to fight and die for your lies are maimed and killed for want of proper protection.

But then again, to continue to be a Republican these days, you really have to have had the capacity to feel any shame about anything surgically removed, don’t you? Or to save time, does Cheney just blow it off?

Because in the Age of Dubya, you can either be a Good American, or a Good Republican, but you can no longer be both.

39 comments:

zee said...

insightful read, thank you

Anonymous said...

God damn, dg, but you can write. Most-Deserving-of-Wider-Recognition write.

I can't even get outraged over this stuff anymore, though. It has been established that this administration is mindlessly, limitlessly evil, that they crossed over into cartoonish supervillainy long ago, and that left unchecked they will scour every living cell from the face of the blasted Earth without qualm. We have reached the Caligula stage of the American Empire, and we will watch helplessly as the final acts are written in blood and shit. What we are seeing now is the death blow to the Republic, from which it will never recover, and the sociopaths who rule us will never be punished or brought to account in any meaningful way. Buy some fucking popcorn and try to stay out of the concentration camps. Barring the sociopolitical equivalent of a miracle, it's over.

Anonymous said...

Barring the sociopolitical equivalent of a miracle, it's over.

Junior- after comparing the US to Rome you give up hope? You just answered your own question. And don't give up believing in miracles either, we may surprise you (just wait a few years).

driftglass said...

us blues,
Amen. The more I read history as narrative -- not as just names/dates -- the more hopeful I am...for the long term. Short term? Bad and painful, but whoever promised us otherwise.

Long term, we prevail. We always do.

cs lewis jr,
Thanks for the kind words, but take heart. This hopelessness, I can't figure it. It's like you declare that Armageddon is here and we need to all kiss our asses goodbye before the second inning is half over.

Sorry, no. Things are VASTLY better that they were 150-100-50 years ago -- just ask any citizen if they'd trade places with a black man under slavery or Jim Crow.

Some dumbasses are driving now and they're fucking things up pretty good, but there are no camps here, and no one is busting down my door if I choose to read a book critical of the govt.

I don't look for heroes to jump us into instant Utopia; just a slow, bumpy road that bends slowly towards progress. It's there, its just hard to see some days.

zee,
Thank you

Anonymous said...

Just keep shining a light in all those dark corners.

Anonymous said...

This is the perfect example of why I visit this blog first every single day. Outstanding, as always.

Thanks for the mantra: "In the age of Dubya... ...you can't be both." Sums it all up in a way even the gnat brained, attention span challenged neocon can grasp.

Anonymous said...

At times, my feelings echo that of cs
lewis jr. It does seem insurmountable. The expansion of the Ex branch is unparalled in us history.

It is true that I derive mucho satisfaction from my job working with the less advantaged. At the same time, however, I know that every dollar that I earn is going to buy a bullet or some fragment of ordinance that will be used to kill the innocent.

Tis a balancing act, for sure.

BitterHarvest said...

You tell 'em, Drifty!

Anonymous said...

C.S., good post!

And Drift is THE master surgeon-SLASH-butcher-SLASH-buccaneer-SLASH-bullshitscatterer, of us all, for sure, but he's right, you need to take heart.

I agree, that the worst thing about the republican's sodomizing of america, is the way that, collectively, we seem to bend over and spread, with nary a whimper.

But, that is, by god, changing.

Their attempts to spin the midfield-at-halftime-of-the-Rose-Bowl-fucking-of-the-cluster that's going on in Iraq, are, with every passing day, getting more and more ineffective.

Now that the Shiites are on the verge of a DEMOCRATIC takeover of the most important aspects of the "new" Iraqi government, our usefulness to them is down to the bare bones of helping them with the Sunni-hunt, and, in bushCo's frantic desparation to NOT be explaining dead american soldiers and murderous bombings of Iraqis, as the Ides of November bear down on them as if that hunk of ice had a Titanic-magnet in it's core, they have been directly cozying up to the insurgents, and hinting about thingies like having our old attack dog, Allawi, taking over the ministry of the Interior, which (along with Defense) to the Shiites, has been sorta/kinda like the Ministry of "Payback! motherfucker!"

But I'm not sure our "shoe-horning" ability is that good, now.

Allawi has an odor about him.

That being, of Fallujah-flesh burning from our application of white phosphorus, as well as signing off on various other instances of "liberation".

And his secular instinct to go with the U.S. flow, has attracted more that just shoes tossed at him at a mosque; Al Sadr cordially hates him, and Moqtada with his 30-odd votes in the new assembly, and tens of thousands of AK-47 "votes" in the streets of Sadr City, will have some say in the matter.

But I digress. C.S., it all boils down to this. A lot of people in Iraq understand that bushCo's political existence, hinges on the mid-terms, and, on their ability to present Iraq as a relatively tranguil "nation", with purple fingers OUTSIDE of trigger guards and moving right along the path of making Iraq safe for Blockbuster to sell videos of Britney shaking her ass.

It aint gonna happen. No-fucking-way!

There is a turd of unlimited length being fed into the fan-blades, and no amount of spin will hide the fecal-facial that bush is getting.

Our troops are part of the world's largest hostage situation.

We leave, and all hell will probably break loose.

We stay, and, as has been true from when the first Abrams rolled across the dry-bed Kuwait Rubicon, we are the PROBLEM; not the solution.

We all know the MSM has eaten, and regurgitated, an Exxon-Valdez full of corporate-manufactured bullshit; but I don't think they can safely recycle much more.

The number of americans who are frothing-at-the-mouth pissed about them knowing which questions not to ask, is dwindling daily.

Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees, and then, electorally speaking, kick some trollass.

BTW, make sure that your state has a law mandating paper verification of voting, on the Diebold machines.

Those little fuckers are the ONLY hope that these assholes have, of sustaining their thuggery.

Anonymous said...

I meant, of course, INCREASING. :o)

Anonymous said...

tanbark -

wow! i'm impressed. and inspired.

let's all keep the faith and keep on tellin' it like it is.

Anonymous said...

Look, these guys are a disaster off the scale,

Anonymous said...

Look, these guys are a disaster off the scale, no question. But they WILL implode, no question. And they will do so spectacularly. Then the Dems get in (and the Presidency) and simply change the laws, take back the taxes and fix it up.

Of course there's a little matter of Diebold.

But I wouldn't be too disheartened here. These guys are soooo... bad the public will ditch them. It's just a question of the damage they do in the meantime. They will wreck a lot more before they're gone. Sad, really.

Anonymous said...

I hope y'all are right. But since the last three national elections were rigged, it's hard to believe it matters how badly the Emperor fucks up. You can't even have a recount in Ohio anymore (the state GOP changed the laws). A democracy might conceivably self-correct even after the massive damage inflicted by the current crop of villains, but we don't live in a democracy any more. And Halliburton already has the contract to build the camps (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/010206detentioncamps.htm). If there is a "terrorist attack" before the 2008 election and martial law is declared, it may be too late to escape. At the very least, if you don't have a passport, get one.

Karen McL said...

Yep...despite the Hideous Evil Times under which we live - I, Too, have to find a hope that this must change and will before it is too late.

And Dang- Drifty - another GEM.

I promises (since I live so nearby at DHC - Ha!) that one of these days - I buys ya a drink for good measure to celebrate the Reclaimation of our Known World.

:-D

jurassicpork said...

I first saw this on Kos and couldn't believe it. I mean, didn't the fucking energy policy of last August already give these bloated wads of FUCK> almost 15 billion in tax breaks and subsidies?!

Dear God, why couldn't Harry have been drunk, instead?

Seven Crows said...

Just heard from my sister that the school her friend's autistic son attends is going to close for lack of government funding. This school has made such a difference to this boy. He started to talk for the first time there and he is much more aware of what is going on around him.

I think it is just hell that this is going to be taken away from him and his family. There is no way his mother can give him the specialized attention he gets from the staff at the school.

I don't have the words to curse them.

Remember how repugs used to tell stories in the good old days of the "welfare mothers" owning race horses etc. on the system? I saw a guy a month or so ago wearing a t-shirt reading "Keep on working, millions on welfare depend on you!" It made me almost nostalgic to see that old stupid protest. I should have asked him why he didn't change his shirt to read "Keep on working, oil companies are making billions from you!"
Oh well - I may be quicker next time.

Anonymous said...

I don't have the words to curse them

and words just bounce off

Anonymous said...

The most important thing we can do at this point is to fix the frickin' voting machine problem. Having your opponent's supporters secretly tabulate the score is *not* a bright idea. That's what it all comes down to for me -- *are* we actually this stupid?

Anonymous said...

Tanbark, driftglass:

Bullshit's to benign a substance too describe what the Bushies feed us. Bullshit makes the plants grow. It even smells kind of good when the wind hits it right, like horseshit in that way.

Dogshit's more appropriate. Vile, rancid stuff that won't come off your shoes.

Why's it so bad? Because dogshit is made up of the skin, hair and guts of other human beings.

Bullshit's benign but bothersome, like the lies your boss tells you at work.

Bush's lies are dogshit laced with the half-decomposed bodies of our fellow human beings. ---deaconblues

Anonymous said...

A very fine rant indeed. Keep 'em comin'.

Mr. Natural said...

dogshit? Deaconblues, follow this link for dogshit/bush.

http://leftedgenorth.blogspot.com/2006/02/i-found-this-picture-some-time-ago-and.html

Please copy/paste.

Drifty, yer the master!

Anonymous said...

Off topic but I thought I'd let you know, you've got a googlewhack for "Mag1c 1mper1al Author1ty" from Sunday, which made milk come out of my nose. Or would have, if I drank milk. Vodka coming out one's nose is just not to be done.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and you're up for a Koufax for best writing, too.

http://wampum.wabanaki.net/vault/2006/02/002312.html

Sweet!

driftglass said...

Sorry for the lag in replies, and the brevity.

On word: Work.

Or, more accurately, work work work work work work.

Yeesh. I was winding down after another looong day (just ended an hour ago) and was making my way back to the castle, looked at my watch and thought, "Holy shit! 10:30! I'm never gonna get everything done. Thank God it's Wednesday and I have an least a couple more days to TCB before my weekend commitments swallow me whole.

And then I realized it wasn't Wednesday.

Holy Shit!

'night all. Sweet dreams and thank you so very much, again, for your kind words.

Anonymous said...

Junior- after comparing the US to Rome you give up hope? You just answered your own question.

Is this a Philip K. Dick reference? "The Empire Never Ended"? 'Cause that's not exactly a bouquet of daffydils.

It's not so much that I have no hope as that I do not realistically see any way for our economy to recover. The dollar is being propped up by China -- they're essentially lending us the money to buy their cheap crap at Wal-Mart -- and manufacturing jobs are disappearing. This society shows all the signs of terminal decay. I would love to be wrong about this, but my reading of history tells me that we are in the waters the late Dr. Thompson identified as Total Failure and Certain Doom. Of course, he skipped out on us, and history only knows the past, and the future is full of surprises. But the United States Government is pretty much openly being run as a criminal conspiracy -- and the opinion shapers yawn. Are we as a people organized and cohesive enough to rise up and confront evil, or are we just waiting for widescreen plasma TVs to drop below the benchmark $500 price point? At what point does the frog notice the little bubbles in the water?

Please, let me be wrong. But from where I stand, given that public outrage is no match for a rigged voting system, compliant media, handpicked partisan judiciary and eunuch legislature, we're boned. It happens. And the people it happens to typically can't see it until it's already happened. Just another fun fact about life on the planet of the apes.

Am I not Merry fucking Sunshine this week?

Anonymous said...

More to the point, everybody go vote for driftglass for the Koufax. The relatively small number of posts this site gets is ridiculous. I choose to believe that there are thousands of readers too stupefied by dg's polemic brilliance to comment, struck dumb by the sheer force of rage and eloquence on display. I like and respect the Rude Pundit, the Editors, digby et al. as much as anyone else, but when it gets down to smarts and substance, I look to two prose stylists in the Left Blogsphere: driftglass and Plaidder. And Plaidder is in semi-retirement. So keep excoriating the motherfuckers, dg, 'cause you do it so well. Gotta recognize.

dcnative said...

Clark: If we'd just gone in and used Afghanistan as a test case, found Osama, fixed their government, built schools, given women rights, ended the poppy trade and created jobs, they wouldn't be in the streets going crazy over cartoons.

Remember a little something called Iraq and our starting a war over non-existent weapons of mass destruction?

And don't talk about visceral (note correct spelling) hate when you come from Dubya's side of the aisle. You guys invented it and rode it to power. How's that workin' for ya?

Anonymous said...

"When they hit LA or NY (again), maybe you'll @#$%ing get it!" says clark kent.

Thanks for your concern, clark, but the only people who got attacked are the very same people who don't subscribe to your crippling fear, and who deplore the way Bush has responded to this attack on them.

Until YOU get attacked, I suggest you shut your pie hole. Telling the victims how they should feel about it is both jaw-droppingly presumptious and down right stupid.

Dipshit.

It's amazing.... amazing this fear that the red staters possess when under no real threat of attack. It's equally amazing the need they feel to beat fear into blue state citizens who have every reason to expect an attack.

Bah.... The wimpishness of red staters knows no bounds.

Btw...

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU DRIFTY? I'M STARTING TO GET THE SHAKES. I'M FREEZING AND SWEATING AT THE SAME TIME. I NEED MY GAWDAMNED FIX!

Anonymous said...

Dear Clark, if "they hit L.A. or N.Y. again", we won't get it; you'll get it. as in:

shoved squarely up your "we're making things all safer" ass. :o)

Anonymous said...

Hey, Clark, wanna try an experiment?

I'll have a t-shirt made up for you (you take an XXXL, right?) with the legend "Jesus Christ took it up the ass!" emblazoned on it front and back, along with an appropriate illustration for the learning-impaired. Then I'll drop you off in a randomly-selected small town here in the Bible Belt.

Remember: You can always tell them it's just a cartoon!

Anonymous said...

Yayy, Drifty! You finally got a fudd to drop by! (I prefer "fudd" to "troll" lately; see elmerfudd.us for explanation)

If the fudd gets to be Clark Kent, can I be Hal Jordan?

From space sector 2814, IBW

Anonymous said...

"You can tell them it's just a cartoon." :o)

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