{"id":5701,"date":"2011-08-27T00:10:33","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T07:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5701"},"modified":"2011-08-27T00:10:33","modified_gmt":"2011-08-27T07:10:33","slug":"in-your-back-yard-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/27\/in-your-back-yard-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"In Your Back Yard, Texas!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the biggest recent change in the nature of politics is the new ability of criminal corporations to buy Republicans (and some DINOs) for almost any purpose, no matter how obscene.  For example, states have been playing NIMBY (not in my back yard) over nuclear waste for years.  However, Republican presidential candidate, Rick Perry, traded the health and safety of Texans for campaign cash.  Guess what\u2019s happening in your back yard, Texas, even though the state employed scientists, who were evaluating the project, objected to putting nuclear waste just fourteen feet from ground water.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"97717028.jpg\"Like so many Republican officials of the tea party persuasion, Rick Perry despises the Environmental Protection Agency — a feeling he has expressed repeatedly in speeches, lawsuits, legislation and even a book titled "Fed Up!" Perhaps that is only natural for the governor of Texas, a "dirty energy" state where the protection of air, water and human health rank well below the defense of oil company profits for most politicians<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But Perry has at least one other reason for smacking down those bureaucrats so eagerly. When environmental regulators do their job properly, that can mean serious trouble for Perry’s largest political donors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The outstanding example is Harold Simmons, a Dallas mega-billionaire industrialist who has donated well over a million dollars to Perry’s campaign committees recently. With Perry’s eager assistance — and despite warnings from Texas environmental officials — Simmons has gotten approval to build an enormous radioactive waste dump over a crucial underground water supply<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

"We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license, and we did that," Simmons boasted in 2006, after the Texas legislature and the governor rubber-stamped initial legislation and approvals for the project. "Then we got another law passed that said (the state) can only issue one license. Of course, we were the only ones that applied."\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Real Clear Politics<\/a>><\/p>\n

I urge you to click through and read the rest of this article.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rachel Maddow covers this abuse of power in more depth.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the way, she expanded the issue to the larger picture of campaign finance in general.  I think the best solution is 100% public financing for all federal campaigns.  To make this possible we need to keep a democrat in the White House until the balance shifts from the Injustices of SCROTUS, who have ignored the Constitution to call corporations people, and money, speech.  Then the Justices of SCOTUS can overturn Citizens United<\/em>.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the biggest recent change in the nature of politics is the new ability of criminal corporations to buy Republicans (and some DINOs) for almost any purpose, no matter how obscene.  For example, states have been playing NIMBY (not in my back yard) over nuclear waste for years.  However, Republican presidential candidate, Rick Perry, traded […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}