Environmentalists have no Reason to Vote

I apologize for getting on my soapbox again.  I promise this will be the last time I write about politics this year.  Next time, I’ll return to the theme of this blog–Pleistocene ecology.

President Obama and the Democratic Party don’t really care about the environment.  The last time they sent me a form letter requesting a campaign donation, they included a survey asking me what I thought were the most important issues facing our nation.  Protecting the environment, the issue I think is most important, wasn’t even listed.  I sent them nothing and never will again.  Obama has been a terrible president on environmental issues, worse even than George W. Bush.  Obama only cares about getting re-elected.  I think George W. Bush cared about the environment, and he honestly believed industry and the pro-pollution cronies he appointed to Interior Department offices would self-regulate.  Bush was naive and stupid, bless his heart.  The reason Obama fails to protect the environment is because it just doesn’t matter to his re-election strategy.  Progressives who think re-electing Obama would be beneficial to the environment live in a dreamworld.  Here’s his disastrous environmental record.

1. As a Senator, Obama voted in favor of the Energy Act of 2007.  This law subsidized the ethanol industry which turns corn (our food) into fuel.  Turning our food into fuel caused an immediate increase in our grocery bills.  But it didn’t lower the price of gas.  In fact gas prices have gone sky high since the Energy Act was passed.  It’s a failed economic policy causing hardship among  middle and working class families.  Moreover, farmers are plowing more land under to plant corn, destroying quality wildlife habitat in the process.

2.  Obama’s administration is still issuing permits allowing Mountain Top Removal Mining.  This practice is the absolute worst environmental catastrophe of our generation.

3. Obama opened up 4 tracts on public land in Wyoming for coal strip mining. This permanently destroys the land and the quality of life for local residents, and it contributes to the increase in greenhouse gases.  He appointed a pro-coal industry insider to run the Surface Reclamation office.

4. Obama opened up 75% of potential offshore oil and gas territory, despite the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

5.  The Obama administration issued the permit that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  During this crisis, Obama proved to be little more than a paid puppet of British Petroleum (a source of campaign donations).  Obama didn’t allow the EPA to become involved in the clean up.  When the EPA ordered BP to stop using a toxic dispersent, BP refused.  Obama completely failed to enforce the EPA’s order.

6. The Obama administration gives the natural gas industry an exemption from Clean Air and Water regulations when the industry conducts hazardous fracking operations.  This is illegal. President Obama should be placed in prison for this criminality.

7.   According to one source reporting on NPR, Obama has overturned more environmental regulations than George W. Bush.

8.  Obama has pulled back from tougher smog standards promised by the EPA.

9.  Obama has undercut the Interior Department’s power to designate and protect public lands.

10.  Obama has rolled back Reagan era safeguards requiring the U.S. Forest Service to maintain fish and wildlife populations.

11. Obama has undermined the Endangered Species Act by raising the threshold for listing.  An animal or plant can only be listed, if its final population is restricted to one geographical area.  Under these new standards, the bald eagle would have never been listed and today would be extinct everywhere except Alaska.

12.  Obama stripped federal protections for endangered timber wolves.

13. Obama refuses to list the Pacific walrus as an endangered species.

14.  Obama has completely abandoned efforts to decrease global warming.

Environmentalists should despise Obama, not vote for him in the futile hopes that he’ll be better in his second term.  Of course, republicans openly say they want to get rid of the EPA.  Their alternative is to let the states regulate toxic waste  as if water and air pollution magically stop at state borders.  Letting the states alone regulate pollution would mean no effort to control pollution at all in southern states where politicians perversely favor business fascism, racism, sexism, and ignorance.

As an environmentalist, I say let the republicans have their way.  Most Americans today have transmogrified into a bunch of stupid tattooed fatsoes.  Maybe, if they turn on the kitchen faucet, and diarrhea pours in their glass, they’ll start to care about the environment, but probably not.  They’d rather go into credit card debt paying for bottled water.  It’s evident that most Americans don’t care about the environment now.  I say let them choke on the smog.  They deserve it.

Here are 2 candidates I often write in for political office.  Either would make a better President, Senator, congressman, or governor than the drek on the ballots reality imposes on us.

Magnus: Robot Fighter.  He could smash the robotic puppets of big corporations that currently control the U.S. government.

Tommy Chong.  He was held as a political prisoner by George W. Bush.  He used to sell bongs over the internet.  Selling bongs within the state of California was legal but it was illegal to sell them across state lines.  The U.S. government  held a sting operation trying to get him to sell a shipload of bongs to Pennsylvania.  Well aware of federal law, Mr. Chong refused.  So the agent drove a truck to California and bought the bongs within state lines–clearly not a violation of federal law.  Nevertheless, government agents then arrested Mr. Chong.  Mr. Chong’s lawyers said he could probably beat the rap in court, but the government offered him a plea deal, promising not to prosecute his wife and son, if he agreed to plead guilty.  (What a dirty trick.) To protect his family from any chance of incarceration, Mr. Chong agreed.  Mr. Chong showed more backbone and integrity than any politician in U.S. history.  That is why he gets my vote for president.  Besides, he’d probably legalize marijuana–an act that would directly improve my quality of life.

Tags: Deepwater Horizon disaster, Endangered Species Act, George W. Bush, Magnus: Robot Fighter, mountain top removal mining, pollution, President Obama in prison, President Obama's environmental record, republicans kill EPA, Tommy Chong