John McCain’s Blatant BS

John McCain recently ran a campaign ad featuring a windmill, projecting the idea that he is in favor of alternative energy. The ad claims he stood up against Bush and has a realistic plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and protect our environment.

He has had eight opportunities to vote on the renewable energy bill that would have extended the investment tax credit for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems. These credits, which expire in December of this year, help these industries to remain competitive with fossil fuel industries. And, he has missed all eight opportunites. Which effectively is a ‘No’ vote.

He is courting oil companies and is taking every nickel, dime and hundred dollar bill they are throwing at him.

What can we derive from these three facts? John McCain thinks Americans are too stupid to see him as he really is. Another political stooge bought and paid for by other oil company stooges (lobbyists) who don’t give a damn about the future of clean alternative energy or the environment.

A recent article in Scientific American laid out a grand plan to end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 using technology we have currently available.

Some of the world’s largest solar projects in the country, the Arizona desert, in the Mojave Desert, and elsewhere in California, are going to have to resign themselves to the fact that alternative energy in this country is a pipe dream. We have the consensus, the desire and the technological ability to begin cleaning up our environment and making ourselves energy independent but our leaders prefer to remain lapdogs of the oil industry.

And in doing so we are being forced to subjugate ourselves to king oil’s whims.

Despite all of the toxic pollutants we have seen dumped around oil wells fouling the surrounding land and waterways,

despite all of the disruption we have witnessed with wildlife habitat,

despite all the pollution that have been proven to result from burning fossil fuels,

despite the proven benefits to our nation and the world to be had from converting to clean alternative energy,

despite scientists warning that we need to offset greenhouse gas emissions,

despite the positive effect that pushing a new clean energy would have on stimulating our economy,

despite falling behind Germany in an industry that we could easily regain, producing and installing of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells,

despite the general public’s outcry to pursue clean alternative energy and wean ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels,

leaders of this country refuse to abandone their financially lucrative associations with big oil and instead continue to forsake the future health of their fellow citizens and the environment.

Running out of fossil fuels would probably be the best thing to happen for this planet. It is the only way the U.S. is going to adopt clean alternative fuels. I sincerely hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.

American Oil ‘Shortage’ Created by American Oil Companies

The reason Bush likes to place the cause of America’s high gas prices on increased demand from India and China is because American oil companies are shipping U.S. oil to those countries for a bigger profit than what they can get here. So, if they were not willing to pay more for the oil than American’s pay, then, according to George Bush’s profit-polluted logic, there would not be a shortage here and we would not be paying higher pump prices. Now, look here to see who is consuming the most oil.

We are exporting 1.6 million barrels of U.S. refined oil products a day and are being lead to believe that we need to open up more sources here because there is a shortage. We are creating our shortage ourselves. Is this the ‘shortage’ that oil corporations refer to when they say we don’t have enough U.S. oil to address America’s needs? Is this the real reason oil companies and their political supporters want to open up offshore oil drilling?

Here’s how it works, China and India want more oil, U.S. oil companies see a chance to make more money by shipping our oil to them instead of keeping it here in the U.S. and by doing so they create a shortage here resulting in American’s paying a higher price at the pumps. This is what is known as a win-win, for the oil companies.

Go ahead, someone try to convince me that we need more offshore oil drilling. Only the oil companies need access to more oil. Because of their need for more profit. The need of the struggling American family to keep gas prices low does not enter into the equation, except as a byproduct American oil makes even more profit off of us. I have presented facts on this very blog that the U.S. government experts have said those new oil wells will not help at the pump. This is just a mere drop in the bucket. Here we have oil companies selling oil products to foreign countries while our politicians, the oil company stooges, are trying to convince the American public that by opening up those oil fields we will have lower prices at the pump. I really, truly want to know how many people are actually buying this load of crap.

And did anyone pickup on the fact that the oil tanker that crashed in New Orleans a few weeks back was loaded with biofuel headed for foreign ports? If we have such a fuel shortage here in the U.S., enough that our fuel prices are being raised, then why the hell are we sending our fuel overseas? Oh right, they pay a higher price for it. One can only assume that if we do allow more offshore oil wells then this oil will also go to foreign ports. Why? Repeat after me, “because they pay more for it”.

What is the true reason behind the federal government throwing subsidies at farmers to convert more corn fields into biofuels? To ship it over seas because they pay more for it. They have too quickly adopted the manufacture of an alternative fuel that offers very little reduction in greenhouse gas emissions because it brings a higher profit for themselves than investing in solar, wind, hydrogen, or wave power. Plus, the increased production of biofuels is worsening world hunger. Only after we stop sabotaging alternative energy progress, because it disrupts profit streams of current technology, can we truly begin our quest to break free of foreign oil dependence. Are all of you people who complain about high gas prices and just accept the governments reason for it beginning to see what is really happening here?

Oil companies and other profiteers are willing to destroy the natural beauty and wildlife habitat of such places as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Rocky Mountain area. They are willing to deal a final blow to an already struggling coastal economy, still reeling from the hurricanes of 2005, to extract oil that we Americans will most likely not even get to use because oil companies are keeping it away from the American people so they can make more profit from it overseas. What we really need to do is to turn the management of these American oil companies over to someone who actually has America’s best interest at heart. Because it is clear the oil company executives do not.

Four dollar a gallon gas is still cheaper than what many other countries are paying, and we will adjust to it. But using our dependence on foreign oil as a rally cry to put more profit in big oil’s pockets is the usual short-sighted policy decisions based solely on profit and only serves profiteers. And by doing so further disrupts our national treasures which will in the long run be extremely detrimental to the health and well being of all of us and the planet. If American oil companies insist on selling American oil to foreign countries let them do it after we get our share while developing alternative energy industries. Our dependence on foreign oil undermines our national security. But dependence on any fossil fuel is a danger to world health. We must develop alternative energy sources. If we decide on using biofuel then don’t use food crops.

What is further disappointing about this issue is that both presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, are shifting their earlier stances to now be in favor of offshore drilling. Well, actually McCain could flip again tomorrow, who knows where he will be come election day. Can this flip toward big oil be a sign that these guys are being paid off by big oil? Or is it the result of selling out their beliefs in their disgusting pursuit of votes?



Further reading:
OPEC president says no demand for more oil

Committee Against Oil Exploration (presents a very strong case against further drilling)

Clean Ocean Action

Hydrogen: Hope or Hype?

Progress of Wind Energy

The Technology That Will Save Humanity

Wave Power Scientist Enthused by Green Energy

Offshore Drilling Will Not Help Struggling American Families

Republicans threaten to shut down the federal government in order to force a vote on lifting the ban on offshore drilling. They are using the plight of struggling American families to get this ban lifted. They are convinced that by allowing more offshore drilling would force prices at the gas pumps to go down. This of course is a fallacy by our own government's admission and is an abominable interpretation of supply and demand in America today.

Recent statistics show that by decreasing the number of miles that American's drive decreases the price at the pump. This is the effect of supply and demand in actual practice. Another side of economic politics is that by simply threatening to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling OPEC lowered their price for crude.

Opening up new drilling will take several years before we extract the first drop of oil, and given that the life expectancy of the oil fields is around 20 or 30 years we are looking at an average of 700 million barrels per year. It is expected that we will consume 7.45 billion barrels of oil this year, so 700 million is only about 9%. Not much chance of that amount affecting gas pump prices.

Opening up offshore drilling serves American oil companies by increasing their lucrative subsidies. The more oil they produce = the more subsidy they receive. Oil industry subsidies further our dangerous dependence on foreign oil supplies and burden taxpayers with unacceptable costs to human health, the environment, and the economy. This energy policy also discourages private investments in new, cleaner technologies such as electric vehicles. Furthermore, hidden subsidies waste taxpayer dollars by undermining government programs to promote fuel efficiency, alternative fuels, and environmental protection.

So, republicans want to throw a tantrum in order to grant more money for their oil buddies and are willing to hold the federal government as hostage in order to do so.

President Bush and his crew purposefully lifted the 26-year-old offshore drilling ban at a time when it was common knowledge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is refusing to vote on it, the House of Representatives would break for an August recess, and certain spending bills are coming up for vote by the end of the fiscal year which ends in September. This is political maneuvering at its most selfish level.

Now, republicans have called on Newt Gingrich to dust off his old tactics of political chicken, that he made famous in the late 1990's, to threaten a shutdown of the federal government if House republicans don't get their way.

They claim that lifting the ban leads to an environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, will improve energy efficiency and encourage the development of alternative energy technologies. This of course is all bogus as well. Oil and gas companies have seen alternative energy sources as a threat to their profits. See here and here. But some are slowly coming around to realize they can be a part of it, that is of course as long as there is profit to be made.

Lifting this ban is only a band-aid fix at best and cannot possibly meet all of the high expectations that backers claim. If they truly want to encourage the development of alternative energy technologies then vote to fund these technologies. Don't throw even more money at big oil to build more oil wells that hold no real promise of easing American families financial woes.

If you truly want to improve energy efficiency, then push legislation that will force American automakers to build more fuel efficient vehicles (under much stronger measures than the baby steps you recently took), enforce stricter vehicle and industrial emissions standards (you may have to replace EPA Chief Johnson to get this done), develop better mass transit systems, design an energy infrastructure based on alternative fuel use, and force American oil companies to spend their windfall subsidies and obscenely huge profits on alternative energy research. They don't have to lose their standings as providers of energy for America, it just should not be in pollution-generating fossil-fuel use.

We need leaders who will do something more than just talk about the need to improve our energy situation and pass band-aid legislation that provides little temporary relief at best.

If you truly cared about the financial situation of the American taxpayer, then you would stop buying oversized mansions (sometimes more than one) while many Americans live in humble homes or are losing them due to your lack of regulatory attention, you would stop flying around in energy inefficient private jets while Americans are herded and stuffed like cattle onto increasingly more expensive commercial airliners, you would stop buying gas guzzling houseboats and yachts while expecting us to conserve, and most important of all you would return all of that money from special interest groups that amounts to nothing more than blatant attempts to buy your favor for their pet projects that benefit themselves and do nothing about easing the plight of the struggling American family.

If I am painting a picture of you politicians growing out of touch with the American citizen then I have made my point.

It Should Be Obvious…Bush has Failed the American People

Is isn’t any secret that higher gasoline prices are affecting every person and every business. The effects are being felt in many ways that a lot of us did not even consider. Some communities have cut school bus routes, police patrols, traveling libraries and lawn maintenance. The St. Paul Police Department is encouraging officers to use horses and bikes. Other police departments are asking police officers to park their cars and return to foot patrol. Holly Springs, Georgia is beginning to add a “fuel surcharge” to all moving violation tickets that police issue. A number of state agencies, including those in Utah, are going to four-day workweeks to save energy costs and reduce commuting expenses for their employees.

Rising gas prices are affecting every product that is made, transported, eaten and sold at your local shopping center. Well, the list goes on. But the people who are hardest hit are those who depend on others to bring them the daily care they desperately need. I’m talking about the elderly and homebound without the ability to care for themselves. These people depend on volunteer agencies to deliver food, transportation assistance and home care.

In a recent survey by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, more than half said they had already cut back on programs because of gas costs, and 90 percent said they expected to make cuts in the 2009 fiscal year. In the survey of agencies, more than 70 percent said it was more difficult to recruit and keep volunteers.

The obvious answer for these people may be to place them in nursing care facilities. But the unfortunate sad fact is that many of them cannot afford this very expensive solution. Many are on social security which just barely covers their basic daily necessities. If they are placed in facilities they will become an additional financial burden on the taxpayer.

Agencies have suffered from Medicare cuts in recent years and are lobbying Congress to account for fuel inflation in reimbursement rates and to reinstate special increases for providers in rural areas, a program that expired in 2006.

Now, one would think that since higher gas prices are forcing people to drive less that less gas is being purchased which means those record profits that oil companies enjoyed last year are going to suffer. So is it really in the best interest of oil companies to keep jacking up their prices? Just what is the cause of rising gas prices?

Bush claims demand is raising gas prices. Our population size did not suddenly increase two-fold to justify a doubling of demand and therefore doubling of gas prices. The 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) disputes his claim. The true reason for the increase is the U.S. economy and President Bush’s policies are directly to blame for it. He keeps spouting “It should be obvious...” Well, Mr. Bush, saying it should be obvious is not a valid argumentative point. Give us some proof. People are driving less but the prices keep going up.

No sir, the biggest cause of higher oil prices is the demise of the American dollar and investors reactions to it. Oil is traded in dollars. A weak dollar means that foreign investors can buy more oil, which helps drive up the price so here is where your twisted view of demand comes into play. Huge institutional investors start buying oil as a safe place to put their money, safer than the dollar or the stock market.

"Oil is the new gold," said James Burkhard, director of global oil market analysis at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates consulting firm. "Oil has some intrinsic value, and that value remains even if the dollar depreciates."

It was only in March of this year that analysts said the fundamental issues of oil supply and demand should bring oil prices down. "At some point, the fundamentals have to reassert themselves," says Burkhard. "At some point, this has to stop, unless the dollar is in a terminal freefall."

The U.S. economy has been losing steam since last year's mortgage meltdown, which can be blamed on irresponsible home mortgage lending practices and the unscrupulous lenders who reason they will be bailed out by the government if it all fails. The weakening economy has investors uninterested in putting their money in the stock market so they put it in oil, the value of which has tripled in five years. When less money goes into the stock market the ripple effect brings the economy down even further.

This administration seizes the opportunity when discussing fossil fuel price increases to push their “commitment to renewable energy”, mainly the use of corn for biofuel production which feeds yet another corporate moneymaking scheme through even more federal subsidies and pushes food prices up as well. He is trying to refocus our attention from the real problems he has caused, because he doesn’t have any answers, to a positive spin that we will soon be free of foreign oil dependence. But this amounts to a load of rubbish.

We will be forced to pay an ever higher cost of living in America for fuel and every product that requires it for transportation whether it come from foreign shores or America’s own corn fields. We will be forced to pay ever higher costs for food because it will continue to be shipped from foreign shores because of Bush’s “world open market” economic policies. And corporations will continue to reap record profits.

Bush claims that a growing demand for fuel in China and India are placing pressure on the fuel supply to America. If this were to be true then China and India should pay the higher prices, not the U.S.

The bottom line is that this administration’s poor economic policies and rich corporate welfare policies has forced an increase in:

food prices,
gas prices,
the number of Americans losing their homes,
the number of Americans who are going hungry
the number of Americas poor

So I ask, has this president been good for America? It should be obvious.

Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Our economy is taking a major hit due to the home mortgage crisis, rising credit card interest rates, rising fuel prices, rising food prices, and the shrinking value of our dollar. All of this combined is forcing lifestyle changes.

Daily commuters are moving closer to their jobs or giving up higher paying jobs to find one closer to home as a result of higher gasoline prices.

People are finally getting rid of their hulking, low-mileage SUV’s and trucks for more fuel efficient smaller cars, because of higher fuel prices. (Who is buying these gas-guzzlers from them and why?). Obviously, not everyone is doing their part to bring fuel prices back down or to slow down the usage of our dwindling oil supply.

Independent business people who rely on driving as part of their business are scaling back and therefore are struggling to keep employees, because of fuel prices.

Every business that depends on trucking is beginning to suffer from increasing fuel costs. Independent truckers are loosing their livelihood as well as their homes because of severe increases in the cost of diesel fuel. They are forced to park or sell their rigs, leaving fewer trucks to get products to market, allowing public trucking companies free to raise their shipping rates in order to help defray fuel prices, which in turn increases the retail price of the products they haul. Repossession of these big-rigs have doubled over last year.

Food prices are increasing because of transportation costs and the added burden of biofuel manufacture from the same corn crop that was previously used exclusively for food manufacturing.

Vacations have been put off or scaled way back. Discretionary spending has been cut. Necessities such as health insurance, weekly trips to see family and friends, eating out more than once a week, are now being referred to as luxuries and are all being cut back.

Families whose incomes were once considered comfortable are now just barely getting by. The effect is devastating for egos as well as wallets, creating strained relations within the family. What do you do when a $50,000 annual salary can no longer buy a prom dress for your daughter, or your kids don’t get everything they want for Christmas and birthdays?

All of these changes in our lifestyles are a direct result of increasing fuel prices which in turn is a result to our refusal to change our driving habits and our federal governments refusal to take a leadership role in forcing big oil to stop bleeding us dry.

Are We Green Yet posted about how by working together we can counteract these increasing fuel prices simply by changing our driving habits. Americans, with their affinity for bigger, more powerful vehicles, carry the biggest share of the guilt. Our driving habits are atrocious compared to foreign countries.

We all have to do our part.

A common misconception is that biofuel production will save us from having to drive more conservatively or to embrace mass transit. But the increased demand for corn as a biofuel is driving food prices up. The increased production of biofuels has not slowed down the price of oil and OPEC is continuing to squeeze us all.

Cocooning has become the latest buzz word in suburbs everywhere. People are staying at home more because they can’t afford to go out for entertainment. They have to save fuel to get to and from work and the grocery store.

Soon, only the wealthy will inhabit movie theaters, restaurants, concert halls, and amusement parks.

I come from a family of six children. We were born from 1951 to 1961 and were raised under very modest financial conditions. We were forced to share everything. Not because of an idealistic unselfishness, we had to do it to make ends meet. Today, I see kids with everything I only dreamed about having when I was their age. I see super-sized homes with enough space inside that every child gets their own bedroom. They get their own iPods, their own cell phones, their own computers. These Americans have become truly spoiled, others not so much. I don’t begrudge anyone who has the financial ability to give their kids everything they want, but when those spending habits begin consuming more than their ‘fair share’ of gasoline and food, and all of this gluttony leads to shortages for the rest of us, that’s when I have a real problem with hearing them complain about how their $50,000+ income no longer meets their demands. No, I find it very difficult to empathize with them.

Changing our lifestyles is the best answer to the financial situation in which we find ourselves. It is a sad commentary that we are forced to do this as a result of our own habits. No one wants to give up an opulent lifestyle. No one wants to scale down our luxuries. Everyone wants to be able to take the family to a restaurant and/or movie. We all enjoy our day at the amusement park. But we cannot continue to over spend, to waste fuel, to live beyond our means.

There is a law of nature at play here. Nature will tend to slough off wastefulness when it becomes too great a burden to carry and becomes detrimental to the safety and continued operation of the system. We have over-spent and over-extended our use of what nature has made available to us and we expect to not have to change our ways when nature is showing signs of crashing. This trend cannot continue.

We must change our attitude toward what we can expect from nature. We cannot continue to take and not give.

Greed hurts us all again

The rush to make money has once again worsened an existing problem.
The U.N., and others, is warning the world that water resources, already strained by over population, will become even more scarce from the increased production of corn and other crops for biofuels.

Also, since more corn is being sold to biofuel producers, diverting it away from food producers, the price of corn for food is increasing. The price of every other crop that is being diverted away from traditional uses to biofuel production is going up as well.

Winners and losers? In the short term, the winners are the farmers who convert their lands to grow more palm trees, more sugar cane, more of anything that biofuel producers will buy. In the long term, the losers are those very same farmers, along with anyone else who requires food. It may sound like a bit of an over-simplification and melodramatic, but it is true.

These problems and others, such as increased pollution from the increased use of synthetic fertilizers to support the additional crops and the conversion of forests into agricultural lands, have been discussed in length by ecologists, scientists, farmers, food producers, environmentalists and bloggers who can see beyond the need to make an extra buck, for quite some time now.

I don’t mean to get down on those poor countries who are struggling to make more money. They need to eat too. But their shortsightedness is going to affect everyone else. Using more land that hastens the shortage of one of our most limited resources and polluting it even more borders on lunacy.

The use of biofuels is a double-edged sword. It is better for the environment than fossil fuels and it increases energy security for many countries. The pitfalls affect social as well as environmental issues.

New studies from scientists, private agencies and governments are saying biofuels could do more harm than good. Instead of helping the environment, deforestation to grow more energy crops is increasing the threat of global warming.

Converting more land to agricultural use will prevent an ever increasing population from finding land to build homes on.

Pollution from synthetic fertilizers creates the need for more water purification systems which takes up more land.

There needs to be controls put in place to decrease the competition of agricultural lands in order to maintain a percentage of land for food production only. Developing countries will benefit most from this.

We need to look at long term solutions and not jump on the first immediate answer. How many times have individuals been burned in their personal lives by doing exactly this? When are we going to learn from our mistakes. This mistake is global and will have global consequences.

Hired guns and outlaws

Blackwater U.S.A. is a mercenary security force made up of ex-military commandos, ex-police officers and civilians hired to protect corporation and government employees around the world. They are hired bodyguards trained to kill and incapacitate.

Blackwater U.S.A. has been paid millions of dollars by the U.S. government, our tax dollars, to protect U.S. civilian employees and contract workers because the U.S. military force is not large enough to do it themselves. The American people do not want us in Iraq and therefore cannot raise a sufficient military to finish what was started there.

Blackwater's duty, as it is with any private organization, is first to their own organization, and secondly to whomever hire them.

It is inevitable that there will be a few men in every organization who will go beyond the legal guidelines to do their job. Individually, they will feel 100% justified in their actions. To the greater society they are immoral, unconscionable murderers.

The fighting in the streets of Iraq is the same terrorist tactics that took place in Viet Nam. This alone is the only correlation that can be drawn to that war. The enemy does not wear readily-identifiable uniforms. They blend in very well with the civilian population and are protected by their civilian supporters. Frustration among U.S. military and civilian security forces runs high due to this single fact. In a hostile situation such as Iraq with its day-to-day street fighting there are bound to be civilian casualties. This is the whole idea behind terrorist tactics, to force the aggressors to be perceived as murderers so that terrorist groups can tell the world ‘look at America, they come into our country and kill our civilians, they are blood-thirsty murderers, we must all rise up against them'. If the fighting was here in the U.S. the terrorist could not use this tactic.

However, since the U.S. government is the leading cause of why these terrorist groups are in Iraq, the U.S. government alone can put an end to it.

I have no faith that whatever we are are trying to accomplish in Iraq is ever going to come to fruition.

There is no valid reason for the U.S. to continue its participation in this struggle between two thick-headed, narrow-minded groups who think they are the only ‘chosen’ people who are allowed to occupy this planet. They are fed only by the deeply ingrained hatred for one another based in centuries old need for retaliation. To attempt to alter the course of the history of these people is pure folly.

Their only ‘crime’ against the United States is that they have vast reserves of oil that Americans want to feed their out-of-control and insane desire to own the most gas-guzzling, environmentally-damaging vehicles on the planet. Our appetites for fuel consumption cannot be curbed by higher gas pump prices. Our appetite for faster, ever bigger vehicles cannot be slowed down by threat of draining the well dry. We are convinced that there is always some way to hang on to those oversized vehicles, no matter how much fossil fuel they burn. We will fight tooth and nail to hang on to this foolish need to dominate this planet, as witnessed by the war in Iraq.

If we had been more reliant on alternative fuel sources these past six years this war in Iraq would not have taken place. If auto makers would stop making vehicles that can reach speeds far above the posted speed limits of ‘every’ American roadway we could take a giant leap forward in producing alternative-energy vehicles and lessen the threat to this planets oil resources that are needed for other machinery besides automobiles.

Corporations, and therefore individuals, are getting filthy rich from money made from the blood spilled in Iraq, over oil. Good Iraqi citizens have been uprooted from their ancestors homes, over oil. They have lost family members to random bullets fired by mismanaged, over-zealous security forces who would rather ‘kill them all and let God sort it out’, over oil.

This illegal war is based on the fact that spoiled, arrogant Americans cannot control their lustful need to, not just ‘have everything’, but also to ‘control everything.’ Our hunger for faster cars, our drive to be #1, along with our petty and selfish need to ‘answer to no one’ causes the rest of the world to stand back, shake their collective heads and frown in disgust at how pampered and petulant we have become.

We need to refocus our energy policies from one of killing people and destroying lives for the domination of oil reserves that will eventually be depleted, to a policy of alternate energy sources that is healthier for our planet and ultimately healthier for us. In adopting this new policy we might even be able to show the rest of the world that we are not as selfish and greedy as we have been showing ourselves to be. No. That would be asking for too much.

In the meantime, back in the real world, America and Blackwater U.S.A. are not above man’s law, and they certainly are not above God’s law. By protecting these individuals from prosecution their protectors are placing themselves against these laws and as such should be prosecuted as well. But then again, George W. Bush has lived against the law since he took office so what’s new, right?