Dear Senator Begich:
It's not the oil and gas we don't like.
It's the fact that the industry, and in particular BP, places profit ahead of everything else.
It's the fact that those who are regulating the industry are either incompetent, or they are in industry's hip pocket.... where it appears that you and "Lease A Murkowski" are both comfortable residing.
It's the fact that the current recipe for disaster will be allowed to repeat, over and over again.
They only reason they will enact ANY environmental safeguards is if they are bound by a law with punishment that makes it more expensive NOT to do so.
"Those affected can go to court," is Lease A's contention (and apparently yours as well).
I have news for you both:
You saw how Alaskans were shafted by Exxon and the SCOTUS after a 20-plus year court battle.
That court case and resultant pittance paid out by Exxon will seem like a rapid resolution compared to the BP mess in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP's profits are $93 million a day... $12 million per day more than the total existing spill liability cap ($75 million) is right now.
In the wake of the ongoing BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it's disappointing and disheartening to see Alaska's senators brush aside, or worse yet, demonize those with valid concerns about the safety and potential catastrophic results of deep water drilling.
For what it's worth:
I'm a life-long Democrat, and a past contributor to your campaign.
You are a hairsbreadth away from losing my support.
Forever.
6 comments:
Do you really think you've represented Begich's stance correctly?
In the real world, 'apparently' isn't worth too much.
Have you read the bill Begich sponsored to increase liability limits on oil and gas producers?
Murkowski killed the effort to raise the spill caps, that wasn't Begich and there's little evidence to suggest Begich should lose support.
His statement that 'some dems don't like oil and gas' is basically an honest assessment, but to go from that to asserting that Begich equals Murkowski is a wildly unsupportable stretch.
We need to support and get behind our representatives who are willing to negotiate from an honest position. Vilifying Begich, as if he is the same as Murkowski, isn't the right move.
We should be letting Begich know that we support efforts to bring sanity and honesty to the table in dealing with oil and gas production. Begich just isn't the villain you wish to portray him as.
A solution to the energy issue isn't going to be found in putting up false framings and misdirections. You might not like a phrase or two coming from Begich, but look at his votes and his actual proposed policy statements, and it should be clear to even you that Begich is no Murkowski.
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Is Begich as bad as Murkowski?
No. Probably not.
But that doesn't give him a pass.
Frankly, I don't know what Begich's policy true positions are, because he a flits about, attempting to appease everyone.
Now he's appeasing big money interests.
His support of Murkowski's single-handed stoppage in raising the spill liability cap places him in the same column.
BP's daily profit is $12 million more than the existing liability cap.
The proposed increase to $10 billion is not unreasonable.
Mark defending Murkowski on this one doesn't cut it.
His 'support' for Murkowski's action which blocked raising the liability cap ?
Show me that 'support' for Murkowski's action.
Are you regularly finding yourself compelled to print pure imaginative fiction ?
That's quite a charge you make, where did you find this 'support' for Murkowski's action ? Can you provide any link to any evidence to support your charge ?
If not, I believe you owe your readers a retraction, you owe Begich a retraction, and maybe you might want to consider what you print before you print it next time. Maybe make the effort to find out if your 'charge' is supported with any factual evidence or whether you're just echoing fictional nonsense from some other irresponsible 'blogger'.
I'll check back, see if you can support your allegation.
Well, you can defend him all you want, but by squirming around on the issue and not disagreeing with her, he's tacitly supporting her.
Is he that afraid of her?
Adding. No, he's not.
Begich straddles the fence in an effort to be all things to all people.
What he's afraid of his oilpatch constituency, as well as the campaign spending power of Lisa's benefactors: the oil and gas industry that plans on deep water drilling off Alaska's coast.
Wolftone, I shouldn't have to remind you that it's not about whether I'm 'defending' or not defending anyone, the issue is a false allegation. Whether I say anything in Begich's 'defense' is immaterial.
(not to mention, I've not offered any 'defense' for Begich, I've merely pointed out the lack of any evidence to support your allegation.
It's false, ...it's a lie, that verity wouldn't change regardless of any other outside, irrelevant condition you might wish to assume.
You know what they call that in terms of rhetorical duplicity and sleight of hand, don't you ? Did you think you could just slip that by without it being so blatantly puerile and indefensible ?
So. I'm left with the knowledge that I was correct to take it you couldn't find any evidence to support the wholly concocted allegation that Begich supported Murkowski's block of raising the liability cap.
And I'll take it as reliably confirmed now that you're prone to print whatever you find on some other irresponsible blogger's site and just repeat it without bothering to do anything like bothering checking to see if it's true or not.
Never mind that there isn't any factual basis to make the allegation, you see it somewhere and think it's ok to repeat things without actually confirming whether there is any shred of evidence to support the allegation.
Both you and Phil cannot produce any evidence that Begich supported Murkowski's block on legislation.
Both you and Phil are guilty of gross negligence, not to mention being guilty of just plain making shit up.
It's bad enough that Phil just makes shit up, it's even worse that you'd echo whatever you find without making any attempt to actually confirm what you print. Truth or reality, who cares, right? You're a 'blogger', why worry about something like facts when you can create or echo whatever fantasy or illusion that seems to suit your mood.
I'd say shame on you, but you probably think, like Phil does, that you're without shame. You're a 'blog master' and you can be dismissive of anyone actually calling you on your shit.
You might fool yourself into thinking you've handled the matter sufficiently to suit your 'authoritative position', but you've not fooled anyone who holds a reality based view, or anyone who is interested in a reality based view.
Allegations such as you've proffered need to be shown to have some basis to support such allegations. You've failed that, and linking to the other 'blogger' that made the same false allegation is about as competent a move as what you find on deeply disreputable and dishonorable sites like Drudge or Fox News.
Congratulations. You're in 'heady' company....
You shown your readers that they can't trust you. They shouldn't trust you. You don't deserve their trust. You make false allegations and worse yet, you don't have the decency to admit you have no evidence to support the allegation you printed.
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Oh, you can search for something now if you want, but I'll clue you in on a little something to save you some time, there isn't any evidence to support the allegation that Begich supported Murkowski's block, and that's because Begich didn't support Murkowski's action.
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