A bill that is being quietly backed by the billionaire Koch Bros is getting ready to easily pass in the House.
The bill would preclude the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Koch Industries is a major refining and chemical business and passage of the bill is an obvious gift to this company as it will reduce costs related to having to comply with strict greenhouse gas emissions of which Koch is a big producer.
Score another one for these not-so-secretive billionaires who not only fund the Tea Party, but support the drive for austerity as well as cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection and other causes in their interest and against the interests of the American people.
Here's a list of policy issues the Kochs are involved in:
By the looks of it they own the Republican party and they are intent, it seems, on rolling back the environmental clock. Read what Henry Waxman (D-CA) had to say, here.
So what's next for these two? A repeal of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts? After all, it would be a lot cheaper if their factories just dumped chemical waste into our rivers and waterways than to go through all the expense of having to make sure these pollutants were disposed of properly, right? Or how about just letting their smokestacks belch toxic smoke into the air?
If it's good for the Koch's you better be sure they're funding it. The problem is, the Koch's are bad for America.
6 comments:
Enterprising people under about 40 should consider emigrating. The opportunities are in the emerging world anyway, and the future of the US looks bleak. Retirement outside the US is also becoming a big thing.
Tom,
I'm over 40 and considering emigrating.
Mike, I think that everyone in a position to do so should be considering the options. The US is in decline, on one hand, and, on the other, the standard of living is a lot better in many other places if you have a US income stream. People can retire quite comfortably on SS elsewhere, for example, while here SS is a pittance in most places.
I said "under 40" because I an aware of young people that emigrated and leapfrogged many years, obtaining management positions in their thirties that they would not be eligible for in the US until their fifties. While the emerging world has a lot of workers, they are short of managers, especially those that speak English fluently and have a connection to the US, still the major market.
For those committed to stay in the US, I suggest looking at Vermont. It's a beautiful state, and they are sane there. In fact, they already have universal health care and are instituting single-payer this year.
The other alternative is to live in a small to mid-sized university town.
Tom, Mike,
This type of, I'll try to be kind today, 'unintelligence' seems to pervade the leadership of the entire western civilization at this time.... So I dont know if you can escape it without going "Jeremiah Johnson" or something... btw this is what Neel Kashkari did after the Treasury job, but now he is back at PIMCO no less. It didnt take him long to revert back to his "religion" just like Hudson observes with Greenspan (btw also working w. PIMCO).
The Koch Bros, from what I understand, also endow to a great extent "Reason" Magazine and the Cato Institute. Purportedly "Libertarian".
This secular ideology/philosophy that the Kochs fund, goes along the same lines as the other right wing fixation on Ayn Rand's Objectivism, which seems to be where Ryan is getting off the rails.
Tom, I see a connection between these depraved policies coming out of these people who seem to be motivated solely by secular "reasonings". Seems like nothing good for the overall humanity is being inspired out of these organizations.
Resp,
I don't know if emigrating will do the trick. Imagine a nation which has over 5000 active warheads ruled by the Tea Party. No place on the planet will be safe.
I'd be aiming at the Southern Hemisphere. It's a safer bet than the North. The rich are already staking out their hideouts there. The Bushes have 10K acres in Paraguay just in case.
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