Climate Change-- Much Scarier Than Halloween

No serious Climate Change action from this crew

Given the nature of conservatism, the political right will not wake up to the realities of Climate Change until long after its possible to do anything about it. Just as much as Fox News and Hate Talk Radio, the greed-obsessed oil giants have helped create a dysfunctional version of democracy. I voted for Obama in 2008, despite his mediocre record in the Senate and his tendency to bend over backwards for the corporate criminals and Wall Street hucksters who finance the entire Republican Party and most of the Democratic Party-- the whole stinking corrupt Inside the Beltway Establishment. Obama knows how urgent this is and knows how important it is but hasn't invested the political capital required to move the country. Will he do it in a second term? God knows Mitt Romney won't.

A friend asserted the other day that we can thank the lobbyists for the American Petroleum Institute for the lack of progress on Climate Change issues. Look, if someone suggested we could line up every corporate lobbyist on K Street and shoot them in the head, I'd feel vindicated for my opposition to the end of the death penalty. But there's another part of the elite far, far more culpable than the American Petroleum Institute lobbyists (who spent $3,440,000 this year alone on persuading Members of Congress that Climate Change is a figment of some hippies' imaginations). The lobbyists, after all, are doing what they're paid to do. When their PAC spent $196,227 on direct legalistic bribes to Members of Congress this year, the were doing what sleazy, slimy lobbyists are expected to do, no?

But the people who accepted the bribes and fell under the spell of the lobbying efforts... those people are supposed to be working for us. But they're not. 81% of the bribes went to Republicans and 19% went to Democrats, primarily corrupt Blue Dogs and New Dems who are always happy to sell themselves to Big Business interests. Here were the biggest recipients in the House of American Petroleum Institute bribes in the 2011-'12 cycle:

Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
Tom Reed (R-NY)
Doc Hastings (R-WA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Bill Flores (R-TX)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Dan Benishek (R-MI)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Ed Whitfield (R-KY)

And overall Oil and Gas interests have forked out far more to congressmen willing to sell out the future of the planet and future generations to finance their grubby little careers and lifestyles. 88 Oil and Gas PACs have contributed $10,501,129 this year alone-- $9,159,460 (87%) to Republicans and $1,336,669 (13%) to Democrats, again, almost totally Blue Dogs and New Dems. The 3 biggest oily criminal operations to systematically bribe Members of Congress this cycle were Koch Industries ($1,337,500), Exxon Mobil ($1,192,500) and Chevron ($584,000). And the industry itself-- beyond PACs-- gave $26,815,355 this year, $23,507,700 to congressional Republicans and $3,290,905 to congressional Democrats. Here are the half dozen worst offenders this year-- in terms of taking cash for Big Oil and rubber-stamping their toxic agenda in return:

It isn't until you get to the 32nd worst whore that you finally find a Democratic briber-taker, Blue Dog co-chairman and serial climate denier John Barrow ($91,900). On June 26, 2009, the House narrowly approved the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), a weak baby step in the right direction. 219 Members of Congress voted for it (211 Democrats and 8 Republicans) and 212 opposed it. Fully 44 Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP.

Pete Stark, Eric Massa, Pete DeFazio and Dennis Kucinich voted against the bill because they felt it was too weak and failed to address the most crucial dangers of Global Warming effectively. Most of the Democrats who voted against the bill were beaten the next year-- swept away by Democratic voters' antipathy in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. The Democrats who took bribes from the oil industry and voted against the bill:

Justin Altmire (Blue Dog/New Dem-PA)- defeated in 2012 primary
Mike Arcuri (New Dem-NY)- defeated in 2010
John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)- likely to be defeated in 6 days
Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR)- forced into retirement in 2010
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)- retiring this year
Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)- defeated in 2010
Chris Carney (Blue Dog/New Dem-PA)- defeated in 2010
Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)- defeated in 2010
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Jerry Costello (IL)- retiring this year
Kathy Dahlkemper (New Dem-PA)- defeated in 2010
Artur Davis (New Dem-AL)- defeated in 2010
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)- likely to be defeated Tuesday
Chet Edwards (TX)- defeated in 2010
Brad Ellsworth (Blue Dog-IN)- defeated in 2010
Bill Foster (IL)- defeated in 2010
Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL)- switched to GOP and defeated in 2010
Stepanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-SD)- defeated in 2010
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)- defeated in a primary this year
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)- defeated in 2010
Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)- likely to be defeated next week
Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)- defeated in 2010
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog/New Dem-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)- defeated in 2010
Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID)- defeated in 2010
Harry Mitchell (Blue Dog-AZ)- defeated in 2010
Alan Mollohan (WV)- defeated in 2010 primary
Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA)- defeated in 2010
 Solomon Ortiz (TX)- defeated in 2010
Earl Pomeroy (Blue Dog-ND)- defeated in 2010
Nick Rahall (WV)
Ciro Rodriguez (TX)- defeated in 2010
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)- retiring this year
John Salazar (Blue Dog-CO)- defeated in 2010
John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN)- forced to retire in 2010
Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS)- defeated in 2010
Pete Visclosky (New Dem-IN)
Charlie Wilson (Blue Dog/New Dem-OH)- defeated in 2010

DCCC Chair, a "former" Blue Dog and New Dem himself, has been actively recruiting and pushing many of these corrupt Climate Change deniers and the Democrats will fail to retake the majority in the House next week primarily because of Israel's efforts to restock the Democratic caucus with corrupt and reactionary troglodytes that progressives will not support.

Problems like Climate Change, which can't be solved without cutting into the profit margins of gigantically powerful corporations can't be solved with the kind of rampant corruption that is a hallmark of Inside the Beltway governance. That's why I was so happy to see Blue America-endorsed Lee Rogers come up with another proposal for dialing back the egregious corruption that defines Washington-- and that his opponent, Buck McKeon, is more guilty of than almost anyone else in Congress.

On the heels of Lee Fang's scathing report last week in The Nation that highlighted how McKeon has “milked his political connections for personal financial gain,” Rogers announced on KHTS radio that, if elected, he plans to introduce the Enhance the Honesty and Integrity in Congress and Staff (ETHICS) Act. The ETHICS Act will ban payments to family members working on campaigns and prohibit Members of Congress and staff from receiving preferential treatment from entities like banks, auto dealerships, and jewelry stores as recommended by the Darrell Issa Countrywide Report that singled McKeon out as a bribe-taker. Rogers' proposal-- likely to be opposed by corrupt Members on both sides of the aisle-- would also require that Congress and staff notify parties of significant financial transactions that they must not receive discounts under penalty of law.

Rogers hasn't even been elected yet and he's already going to bring the two sides of the aisle together! Nothing unifies certain Dems and Republicans than the urge to protect their turf from reformers. “We cannot trust lawmakers to represent us when they’re taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from industries they’re supposed to be regulating and passing some of that money into their personal bank accounts,” said Rogers. From his press release:

During the Rogers-McKeon debate on October 10, 2012, Rogers accused McKeon of “funneling more than $600,000 into the pockets of his family members,” including his wife. Research shows the Congressman’s wife, who acts as his Treasurer, has received $617,956 over the past 10 years. His son, David O. McKeon, has received $60,951 since 2009 through three different shell corporations based in Las Vegas, bringing the 10-year family total to $678,907.

  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) recently published their 2012 All in the Family report on campaign nepotism, finding that over the 2008 and 2010 election cycles McKeon’s payments to his wife were among the five largest payments to family members in all of Congress.

  Current law bans nepotism in the Congressional office, but campaigns can hire family members if they are providing a bona fide service to the campaign and are paid fair market value. Patricia McKeon’s salary is far above the average for a sample of Members of Congress who would be McKeon’s equivalents. She made nearly double over the same period as what House Speaker John Boehner paid his treasurer and three different compliance firms.

Patricia McKeon’s work as Treasurer appears not to meet the standard of the other treasurers. She was recently found to have violated campaign finance law and fined $4,600 for filing a late report.  Patricia McKeon has also filed many more amendments to her reports than the sample of other treasurers. The average treasurer filed 4.7 amendments for 17 quarterly reports from 2009 to 2012. McKeon had to amend every report at least once, filing a total of 24 amendments for 17 reports.

And, yes, of course McKeon is both a virulent Climate Change denier and is always more than happy to accept a bribe from Big Oil ($31,200 so far). But did I mention that the lobbyists were able to round up enough corrupt senators to kill the bill that the House had passed so narrowly?