Chupacabra Report

News that gets my goat..

Obama’s visit to the GOP House Caucus last Friday showed him in good form. He can certainly hold his own with those ideologues and dimbulbs, so much so that the Torys will probably not allow cameras in any return visit. Unfortunately the Faux News programmers declined to show the substance of the exchange and instead cut directly to their talking heads doing their usual shtick.

I read that CNN broadcast it on Saturday but the ninety-minute session was cut to sixty minutes with a commercial between each question. Damn. Where’s the FCC when you need it? They’re all over cuss words and wardrobe malfunctions, but they need a mandate to referee the airwaves, a public trust in this nation dependant on an informed populace for good governance.

Last week the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC was another stab in the back of liberty. Imagine that the answer to a democracy awash in corporate cash is to remove the feeble limits on corporate cash! In Texas, which has suffered “golden rule” since the days of the railroads, the EPA has been holding hearings about why we’re still having trouble meeting 1980 standards for emissions of ozone, soot, and toxic chemicals such as benzene.

This from The Houston Chronicle:

"State officials have said that tougher federal limits on smog pollution could lead to drastic new restrictions that affect personal choices, such as banning drive-through windows on the smoggiest days. Bryan Shaw, chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the proposed limit “provides the illusion of greater protectiveness, but with no regard for cost, in terms of dollars or in terms of the freedoms that Americans are accustomed to.”

"Meanwhile The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's main trade group, said that there was no scientific justification for a stricter smog limit. The EPA's proposal, the group said in a statement, is “an obvious politicization of the air quality standard setting process that could mean unnecessary energy cost increases, job losses and less domestic oil and natural gas development and energy security.”"

Talk about cozy: Industry and regulators reading off the same page.This is why when Bill White was mayor, he had to lobby the state legislature for rule changes to allow the city to regulate its own polluters. Corporate tool Rick Perry had arranged with the Bush EPA to extend the deadline for meeting ozone limits until 2019. Bill White brought Houston in under the limit in 2009, this before the recession brought a slump in petrochemical production. He will be a great Governor for Texas.

In the second GOP gubernatorial debate last week, dark horse candidate Debra Medina backpedaled from her statements last year that the nation “needs a bloody war of succession.” Good for her, that’s already Rick Perry territory; population Pat Boone, Chuck Norris and Ted Nugent.