Insanity and the U.S. election
Forget the hope and change stuff, forget your disappointment with Obama — it’s time to get real.
For those in the U.S. who are not going to vote because they’re disillusioned or believe they must take a stand and vote for the Greens, this is the moment to swallow the bitter pill of realpolitik. Third party votes to the left of Obama will help Romney. Not voting will help Romney.
Go to the polls, cast your vote for Obama and then pledge to start fighting for real change on November 7th.
Obama and Romney have been competing for the title of “Fossil Fuels’ Best Friend,” but it’s not really a contest. The GOP has repeatedly shown it’s the party of deregulation, climate change denial and Big Oil. The Democrats may not be much better, but at this point we have to take what we can get and go from there.
Sandy by NASA
By the numbers: giving stories the attention they deserve
“By the Numbers – the fight for oil and mining company transparency,” is a must-read item from Oxfam America’s Politics of Poverty blog (the post is also pasted below).
Some stories don’t get the attention they deserve. Important issues that are hard to translate into snappy news items are more often than not overlooked in today’s shallow “news” environment.
Remember the U.S. financial reform laws passed back in 2010? You know, the Dodd-Frank Act intended to prevent another financial meltdown? Well, one part of that reform package that hardly got any mainstream news attention was Section 1504, one of several “specialized corporate disclosure” provisions in Dodd-Frank. This item, also known as the Cardin-Lugar provision, was signed into law by President Obama in July 2010.
As the transparency advocacy organization, Publish What You Pay, explains, “The first of its kind, this law requires oil, gas and mining companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to publish their payments to the U.S. federal government and foreign governments as part of their annual reports to the SEC.”
