11 May 2010 How big is your Congress person’s head

11 May 2010 How big is your Congress person’s head


“BP, subcontractors: Spill is the other guy's fault”

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/11/news/companies/BP_hearings/index.htm?hpt=T1

As almost anyone could have predicted, the various companies that may be responsible for the oil spill have begun claiming that the fault lies with each other. And this is possible because of the practice of outsourcing any and everything that is a major problem with United States business practice today. Outsourcing, combined with the removal of almost all oversight and regulation during the Reagan and Bush presidencies allows all the blame to be outsourced along with all the employees. What remains? Corporate executives, corporate attorneys, a few corporations acting as share holders; and one or two secretaries to print out the letters that terminate any employees still producing something with physical properties, so that those jobs can be outsourced as well.

In the mean time, the cost of gasoline has increased so that consumers can get used to paying for the time the various company executives spend worrying about sticking the blame onto someone else, and to compensate them for the hours they will spend denying any lack of guilt to Congress. Congress will admonish them gently for the public’s consumption, pocket the usual corporate contributions, and PR firms will blanket the television airwaves with programming telling us how hard the oil industry is working to stop the leak, clean up the damage, and prevent further blowouts. We’ll be told how many billions BP, Halliburton, and Deepwater Horizon are spending to save the Gulf’s ecosystem. BP and Halliburton will, of course, post record profits this year.



Closer to home, by a few miles, perhaps; the GOP lie factory and political assassination machine are cranking up to discredit current Solicitor General Elena Kagan in an attempt to prevent her being confirmed as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ms. Kagan’s nomination has raised ire among the GOP, the Tea Party mob, and among the Christian right.

Ms. Kagan has never served as a judge despite a lifelong career in jurisprudence. This will be raised against her by a Senator who claimed the “learning curve for Supreme Court Justices is very steep.” Of course, he neglected to mention that so is the learning curve for members of the U.S. Senate. I see no problem for Ms. Kagan.

She will be grilled by GOP Senators in an effort to discover her positions on abortion, same gender marriage, and other wedge issues that she has been wise enough to avoid to this point in time. Her views are her business, not that of the GOP. If she is required to rule on these matters I hope she will find as I would and thus balance the SCOTUS a bit more than it currently is.

She will be attacked for attempting to ban military recruitment at Harvard Law School while serving as Dean of HLS. While I disagree with the ban, I don’t find it discrediting. Her reasoning for the ban was one I can support. Again, wedge issues will be used by the GOP.

In my opinion, the confirmation process has become a confrontation between the GOP and Obama. Congress is required to advise, not given a green light to behave as they have for the last 15 months. If it were up to me, I’d be sending any Senator up for re-election, and every Congressperson home with a pink slip. We should not allow them to establish little satraps for their selves, trading influence and votes for bribes, graft, and re-election funding. I wonder just how many we would need to stop the flow of oil from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. That, of course, would depend upon the diameter of the Congressional crania. I’d be quite content to volunteer Congressman Roe, (R) TN to be used to stop up the leak. I’ve heard him speak enough to know that his head is swollen with self-importance. I also know several nurses at the local VA hospital who would confirm his highly inflated view of his self-worth.

Send your elected Congresspersons and Senators for a Gulf vacation today!