’The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."..
…Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, will advise Secretary Mike Leavitt on matters such as reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy. He will oversee $283 million in annual family-planning grants that, according to HHS, are "designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons."..
…The Keroack appointment angered many family-planning advocates, who noted that A Woman's Concern supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts.’ www.washingtonpost.com
’Even for an administration dedicated to putting industry lobbyists in charge of the very agencies they have devoted their careers to undermining (coal and oil lobbyist J. Stephen Griles as Deputy Secretary of the Interior is one of dozens of examples), President Bush has recently outdone himself. He has named Lee Raymond, the retired chief of ExxonMobil, to head a key study to help America chart a cleaner course for our energy needs. Raymond currently chairs the National Petroleum Council (NPC), one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington...
…Environmentalists are outraged about the appointment of Lee Raymond. During his long tenure at ExxonMobil, the company spent $19 million on front groups designed to discredit the science on global warming. It also resisted funding clean energy alternatives and lobbied aggressively to drill in the Arctic Refuge…
…ExxonMobil is considered a rogue company even among its peers. It vocally opposes U.S. energy independence and presses for deeper reliance on oil producing nations such as Saudi Arabia, where the company has sunk heavy investments. Critics argue that Mr. Raymond’s legacy is to deny that oil dependence is a problem. ExxonMobil is the only major oil giant calling renewable energy an “uneconomical” investment…’ www.bushgreenwatch.org
Why does Bush keep doing this? It doesn't seem to be just cronyism, as with Heckuva Job Brownie and FEMA. Is it frat-boy humour? Is it a 'clever' (by Bush's standards) attempt to kill off all government agencies, hastening the libertarian dream of freedom for all corporate domination? Is it simply paying back financial donors?
Have I read this right - a man who "regards the distribution of contraceptives as demeaning to women" is now in charge of a department that will provide access to contraception?
I cannot think of any logical - or ethical - reason for this.
Words fail me. No wonder George Bush is the butt of so many jokes by the rest of the world!
He'll probably turn out to be a Roman Catholic as well. And to think, Xanadu, that there was a fuss when our government,many years ago, appointed a Minister for Transport who could not drive
Originally posted by FredPuli: And to think, Xanadu, that there was a fuss when our government,many years ago, appointed a Minister for Transport who could not drive
Who was that FredPuli? I think it must have been before my time.
Originally posted by FredPuli: And to think, Xanadu, that there was a fuss when our government,many years ago, appointed a Minister for Transport who could not drive
Who was that FredPuli? I think it must have been before my time.
Barbara Castle, now Baroness Castle of Blackburn, was Transport Secretary from 1965-1968 in the Wilson government. She was not idle either. She introduced the 70 mph speed limit and the 'breathalyser', setting an automatic ban of twelve months for anyone driving over the alcohol limit.Both laws are still with us.
Originally posted by FredPuli: And to think, Xanadu, that there was a fuss when our government,many years ago, appointed a Minister for Transport who could not drive
Who was that FredPuli? I think it must have been before my time.
Barbara Castle, now Baroness Castle of Blackburn...
All right, "later Baroness Castle of Blackburn". (Thought I hadn't heard her lately )
'Gale Norton is back providing oversight of energy development issues on public lands in the American West, this time as a key legal advisor for a major global oil company.
Months after she resigned her cabinet post as President Bush's Interior Secretary—and then seemed to disappear from public view—the Coloradan apparently has accepted an offer to serve as counsel for Royal Dutch Shell PLC...
...During Norton's tenure at Interior, rules pertaining to the permitting of oil and gas were eased, allowing the Bureau of Land Management to speed up the leasing process for natural gas extraction in controversial areas like the Jonah Field and Pinedale Anticline in the Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming, across the state in the Powder River Basin and in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah.
Another matter that may indirectly involve Norton is the fact that the Minerals Management Service which operates under Interior's umbrella waived royalty payments assessed against private oil companies, for two years running, owed the U.S. government on federally permitted leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Shell, historically one of the biggest industry players in the Gulf of Mexico, was one of five oil companies that reached an agreement with the MMS on Dec. 14 to pay royalties on the 1998 and 1999 leases," Market Watch reports. "An MMS spokesman said lost royalties from the leases amounted to $900 million, but other reports have quoted much higher figures. A Government Accountability Office report said the MMS omission cost taxpayers $10 billion."'www.newwest.net
Originally posted by FredPuli: And to think, Xanadu, that there was a fuss when our government,many years ago, appointed a Minister for Transport who could not drive
Who was that FredPuli? I think it must have been before my time.
Barbara Castle, now Baroness Castle of Blackburn...
All right, "later Baroness Castle of Blackburn". (Thought I hadn't heard her lately )
The stupidity of our noble species just flabbergasts me. I can see why a dictatorship wants a large number of its citizens to be on the verge of starvation -- they work for lower wages then. And they see joining the army as a good career move.
I can see why political leaders such as the Bushes want the same thing. They care nothing about the welfare of their own nation's people, believing, as they do, that they belong to an international elite of people-who-deserve-to-be-supremely-wealthy.
But for a democracy in this day and age to not realize overpopulation is not a good thing? And to turn power over to the likes of Bush? And watch him make blunder after stupid blunder, and yet continue to support him?
Truly astonishing. The founding fathers must be turning over in their graves.
Posts: 6590 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
Now see here (done in my D-bya voice). Its like, it's recirpkasun for a job well done. Let me finish.
I can't think of a better man for the Job than the man I put there. I'm the decider, I decided this, that is what I do decide things.
* * * *
Honestly politicians in general do not have a clue. They are in it as a career - a money making job - thus they are motivated by bringing in a paycheck not by morals, ethics or what is actually best for the people they work over (for whatever).
Posts: 4016 | Location: Leaving land, heading for the ocean | Registered: 06-03-02
'President Bush said Thursday that he would nominate a senior executive of the largest organization representing the nation's manufacturers to head the government agency assigned to protect consumers from dangerous products...
..."Here was a golden opportunity to put a true champion of consumers onto a very important commission, and instead President Bush selected someone who represents the special interests," [Sen. Barbara Boxer] said. "This administration seems incapable of doing anything in the public interest."
'The White House has renominated three people for top jobs affecting the environment who were previously blocked in Congress because of their pro-industry views.According to industry lobbyists and Republican aides in Congress, Bush intends to skirt the Senate approval process if necessary by making recess appointments to put the three nominees in the posts.
All three have ties to industries that face costly Environmental Protection Agency restrictions, and all three have previously bypassed or questioned the EPA’s scientific process.'www.latimes.com
Is this what they call "passive aggressive" behaviour? If Bush doesn't believe in regulatory bodies, surely he should be man enough to do something about it directly - rather than appointing foxes to be in charge of the chicken coops. Sneaking them through as 'recess appointments' compounds the behaviour. How weak.
'President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress, where Democrats had derailed Fox's nomination...
...Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation in the Foreign Relations Committee, Bush withdrew the nomination last week. On Wednesday, with the Senate on a one-week break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation...
...Recess appointments are intended to give the president flexibility if Congress is out for a lengthy period of time, such as the four-week adjournment in summer. But Dodd said the law was not intended to circumvent lawmakers' approval.
"This is really now taking the recess appointment vehicle and abusing this beyond anyone's imagination," said Dodd, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. "This is a travesty."
Bush also used his recess appointment authority to make Andrew Biggs deputy director of Social Security. The president's earlier nomination of Biggs, an outspoken advocate of partially privatizing the government's retirement program, was rejected by Senate Democrats in February.'news.yahoo.com
Originally posted by FredPuli: He'll probably turn out to be a Roman Catholic as well.
Latest conspiracy theory I heard about was GWB and the pope.
Then I thought, 'not that crazy'.
Look at the condition of working families in the South and Central American republics as compared to those in North America. Union-busting, "disappeared" troublemakers, right wing, overpopulation, no birth control, rampant child prostitution, police death squads for those who don't take poverty quietly -- wow! George W must be salivating.
Overpopulation and a very large body of people clamoring for whatever jobs at whatever wage and whatever working conditions is paradise for his ilk.
And the R.C. church likes ignorance. Uneducated people are much easier to rule. Just remind them how stupid and ignorant they are. That's put them in their place, and keep them from asking awkward questions. They'll soon learn to trust the judgement of their betters.
Posts: 6590 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
'The nomination of a long-time manufacturers' lobbyist to head the nation's consumer safety watchdog agency is not only igniting fierce opposition from public interest groups, but is sparking a reexamination of the Bush administration's five-year history of appointing senior officials many regard as "cronies" who were inefficient, inexperienced and, in some cases, forced to resign under pressure or convicted of crimes.
According to a report released by Public Citizen, Michael Baroody, President Bush's nominee to chair the Consumer Products Safety Commission, was the top lobbyist for the country's most powerful industry trade association when the group supported weakening guidelines for reporting information about dangerous products...'www.truthout.org
As you might guess, Royalty-in-Kind was proposed and remains supported by the oil industry, and Bush implanted officials with deep ties to the oil industry in charge of the agency responsible for enforcing the program, the Minerals Management Service (MMS)...
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