Investigation: The oil money behind the anti-stimulus fight

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.midatlanticlabor.com/appiesnet/wordpress/?p=771

The study is here: http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/02/the-oil-money-behind-the-anti-stimulus-fight.html

Investigation: The oil money behind the anti-stimulus fight

The compromise version of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed the House and Senate Friday and is expected to be signed by President Obama tomorrow in Denver. Despite Democratic leaders’ efforts to reach out for Republican support by dropping various controversial provisions and beefing up tax cuts, the measure passed with no Republican votes in the House and only three Republican votes in the Senate.

Public opposition to the plan was led by a group called Americans for Prosperity, which delivered 400,000 signatures on a petition to the Senate opposing the measure. As the group says in a statement at its NoStimulus.com website:

We lost. But we put up a heckuva fight!

We turned what was supposed to sail through with 80 votes and no controversy into a bloody knock-down, drag-out fight.

We showed that Americans won’t passively sit by while our future is plundered. Just the fact that the bill shrank in conference committee — they almost always grow — showed that we had an impact.

Who is Americans for Prosperity? According to SourceWatch.org, the group was founded in 2003 with money from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which is run by the billionaires behind Kansas-based Koch Industries — the national’s largest privately held oil and gas company. Media Transparency reports that the group gets substantial financial support from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, another one of the Koch family foundations.

Why would an organization funded by oil and gas interests be hostile to the economic stimulus plan?

FULL story at link.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Ahh! The Koch Brothers!

One of them is married to Pretzelnuts sister, Doro Bush. They were given control of the administration of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve within days of Shitbreath's getting awarded the presidency and they held onto it for eight years. During that time, million of barrels of oil were being taken off the open market and pumped into huge salt domes in LA and TX, domes that had never before seen a drop of oil in them.

This effectively exacerbated last summer's petroleum price runups. The question I have always had on this is: Would the records of the SPR, the real records, stand up to a concerted and tough audit?

Frankly, I doubt it. I suspect that millions of barrels of oil are gone, with no record of their whereabouts.

[madokie]

2. I would say that would be a good guess

considering that its the bush family evil empire and all

[Lint Head]

3. Why would an organization funded by oil and gas interests be hostile to the economic stimulus plan?

Because it's big oil that started this shit and no one wants to talk or do anything about it!
It's bad politics with OPEC the people that saved Bush's ass in a failed oil venture and gave Daddy Bush a billion bucks.


Bush should be in jail!

:dem:

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. I dislike the man as much as anyone else but that's one hell of a crappy photoshop job.

Even the AP said he greeted the Saudi Prince with a kiss on both cheeks. Here's the real one: