Emperor’s Rants and Observations

Young dismisses tradeoffs for cash claim

“Every story that comes out is the same, with different players and different projects,” he said. “When you are the chairman of the largest committee in the House, and a senior member, and in charge of writing a $290-odd billion bill, it’s a guarantee that you are going to be raising more money than other less senior members. It’s also a guarantee that there will be a plethora of projects for people to look at and pick apart. This is a recycled story.”

Unfortunately Congressman Young is absolutely correct.  This is the never ending story. Until we stop voting for candidates that accept contributions from any source other than their constituents, the story will continue.

Young isn’t the issue here.  The integrity of our elections and representatives across the board is the issue.  It’s not just the Republicans.  Democrats stuff their campaign pockets with cash from special interests just as much as the Republicans.  If you looked closely at the contributions and votes of Democratic members I’m certain you would see the same type of pattern.  It’s the way the system works.

The system is corrupt.  It takes big money to run a campaign to win.  So candidates are forced to whore themselves out to special interest groups if they have any chance of raising money to compete.  Don’t fool yourself, or buy into the nonsense that contributions don’t buy influence.  Of course they do, and any politician that says otherwise is flat lying.  Perhaps lying to themselves as well.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Politics, Don Young

Palin is a self described Conservative Christian Republican. She is an ideologue. The most dangerous type of corrupt politician. She represents an ideology, not constituents. At least honest crooks can be bought off with cash and prizes. She suffers from “Bush II syndrome”. She thinks she is right even when most reasonable and knowledgeable people know she is wrong. She picks the wrong people to put her trust in and sticks with them too long. Loyal to a fault some would say. Sound familiar? It should because those same things are true about our President. There were plenty of warning signs about Bush that people failed to acknowledge. Let’s hope the people of Alaska aren’t so stupid as to repeat the same kind of mistake with Queen Palin. I have hope because we did boot Murkowski to the curb after only one term, but in the same breath we elected a weak sister of his, so the jury is still out. Let’s also not forget that Murkowski started out very popular, he actually received a majority of the vote (56%) unlike the Queen who had more people voting for anyone else than her (48%).

What is most troublesome however is the blind allegiance that her loyal supporters (members of the Queens Court) have for her. It’s as if people just buy into what ever garbage she sets in front of them. Take her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act for instance. First of all, she flat out states that she would veto the bill if it contained any significant changes that would have allowed more flexibility to encourage a wider range of offers and participants. Of course that came at a very opportune timing with the federal indictments being handed down by the FBI for Vic Kohring, Bruce Weyhrauch, Pete Kott and Bill Allen. The gutless wonders (with the exception of Ralph Samuels) wouldn’t dare even appear to be on the side of the Oil Companies so they just basically rubber stamped Her Highness ill-advised bill.

So what is so terrible about the Queens pet bill AGIA? AGIA only works if stockholder and public pressure force the leaseholders, (also known as the producers, the shippers, or basically the Gasline Customers) to agree to commit billions of dollars to long agreements with basically no security. They are counting on the good will of the oil companies essentially. That’s her plan. Her Highness has committed the State to up to 5 years and 500 Million dollars without having any idea (or caring) if the producers will even ship the gas through the pipeline. The state can’t force them to ship the gas, or they wouldn’t even bother with this silly pretense. Yet the members of the Queens court are adamant that this pie in the sky, build it and they will come, scam… uh scheme is the best and surest way to get progress on the Gas line. Murkowski was a signature away from a deal that at least had the pipeline customers talking to us. That would have seemed to be at least a good starting point. However, the Queens advisers thought AGIA was the better way to go, so negotiations with the only entities that have what it takes to get the deal done were dropped. Her loyal supporters cheered, Long Live the Queen. Her cheer leaders like lotsofpipe over on Halcro’s Gasline Hotline are going to be few and far between 4 years from now when we are no closer to a pipeline than we are today, and likely out 500 million to boot.

The Queen is trying to bully the oil companies into something that they don’t think makes financial sense.  There is no way that will or can work, despite what her groupies may think.

So I’ve been posting over at the Anchorage Daily News blogs as of late. Particularly the Alaska Politics and Halcro’s Gas Line Hot Line. There are some fairly bright and articulate posters, and as always, there are some bona fide idiots as well. What I’ve found interesting is how polarized opinion is on most topics and how quickly discussion can deteriorate into name calling and personal attacks. I’m as guilty of that as anyone, I am just surprised that others are like me in that regard.

Even though I’ve enjoyed the interaction over at ADN, I’m going to spend more time posting here rather than over there. Over the next few days I’ll try to catch up with the topics that I’ve been most involved with. Hopefully others who would like to continue discussion of topics a little more in depth over a longer period of time will participate here as well.

Stay tuned.

Richard Fineberg, an Ester analyst and longtime oil industry critic, recently completed a study in which he calculated that the state is losing $404 a minute due to excessive charges on the oil pipeline, amounting to billions of dollars over the life of the pipeline.

He said a 1985 legal settlement between the state and the pipeline owners establishing a method for setting pipeline tariffs — a deal that’s now at the center of the legal fight — was a big mistake for the state.

The state has a long legacy of battling with oil companies over pipeline tariffs, royalties and taxes, and this latest struggle isn’t likely to end soon.

By WESLEY LOY, Anchorage Daily News

These are the same folks that we are going to partner with to build a gas pipeline?

Not only have they apparently cheated the State of Alaska out of nearly a billion dollars, but they have overcharged other smaller businesses as well. They didn’t even invest those ill gotten gains back into the pipeline which led to the pipeline being shut down due to corrosion. If that wasn’t bad enough we can add the millions spent on legal proceedings. Then they have the nerve to say that Alaska is an “unstable when it comes to taxing oil companies“.

Also, lets not forget that Exxon is still fighting paying the court ordered judgement from their spill nearly 20 years ago.

Why would we want to go into yet another venture with these people that have a long history of lying, cheating, stealing and stone walling. At what point is enough and enough? For me, I ‘m at that point. I think it’s time to look at ways to revoke their leases and take back complete control of the oil and gas fields.