Things We Never Hear About Iraq

I mentioned yesterday that Nouri al-Maliki's relative died in a US airstrike, in an incident that is straining relations between the US and Iraq at a time when the status of forces agreement is being negotiated. This is getting almost no coverage in the American media, and really that's not an isolated circumstance.

For instance, Spencer Ackerman has uncovered a security assessment from an Iraqi contractor that is wildly different with the official "We're winning!" line that we're fed from the military and the conservative noise machine:

The following charts appeared in GardaWorld's June 30 intelligence briefing for its clients and were obtained by The Washington Independent. On page 2 of the briefing, GardaWorld prints two charts tracing the trajectory of security both Iraq-wide and in Baghdad specifically. Take a look at the Iraq-wide chart:



As you can see, the incident level spikes and ebbs, but responsible statisticians will see -- as signified by the black bar -- that the daily incident frequency is basically flat since October 1. If anything, it's ticked up somewhat, from about 50 daily security incidents in October to about 70 through the winter and coming in at around 60 presently.

Then there's the very long Pentagon study finally admitting that the war planning was botched at best, nonexistent at worst, and commanders who requested more troops were totally rebuffed (but remember, Bush always listens to the commanders on the ground).

We probably won't hear too much about this, either. From Reuters:

The Iraqi government sued dozens of companies, including oil giant Chevron Corp., for more than $10 billion on Monday, saying they paid kickbacks to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

The civil lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court in Manhattan, seeks to recover damages from companies investigated by a U.N.-commissioned inquiry, claiming they cheated the Iraqi people out of benefits of the $67 billion U.N. program.

What's hilarious about oil-for-food is that the only individuals who have been indicted thus far in the probe are two American oilmen, also implicated in this lawsuit. For all the talk of the dreaded UN, it was the multinationals bribing Saddam all along.

It's amazing what you can find out about Iraq if you dig on the Internet for hours and hours instead of passively consuming broadcast media. Must be why everyone's so well-informed...

A Tragedy That Will Grow Worse

The military junta in Burma, fearful about their grip on power, is resisting international aid.

Desperate survivors cried out for aid on Thursday nearly a week after 100,000 people were feared killed by Cyclone Nargis, as pressure piled up on Myanmar to throw its doors open to an international relief operation.

The United States was awaiting approval from the ruling junta to start military aid flights, but the U.N. food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they have finally started flying in emergency relief supplies after foot-dragging by the generals.

Some were bashing Bush for calling the junta a junta and making them less likely to cooperate, but I don't think words are the holdup here. The leadership just went through riots in the streets last year and cut the country's communications off. Disaster can breed independence movements and they are fearful of global intervention. Bush's approach wasn't going to help or hurt. You're talking about 46 years of military rule.

I'll tell you who could help - Chevron. They could threaten to pull up stakes if aid isn't delivered in a timely fashion. They are the only US corporation working inside Burma and they have a responsibility to at least do something positive with that privilege.

The NYT has more.

Remembering To Forget

Hey, remember when the oil for food scandal was simply the gravest episode of corruption in world history? Remember how it discredited the UN and proved that our allies in Old Europe were working with our enemies? Remember when the very serious Paul Volcker was brought in to investigate, and how this was the lead story on wanker cable news shows like Brit Hume's for about a year? Remember when that lightweight Norm Coleman made the scandal his personal crusade and accused George Galloway of getting more in kickbacks than Zaire's Mobutu? Remember when every documented incident of defense contractors stealing billions from the US Treasury as a result of the war was met with cries of "Oil for food, oil for food"?

Well, now that it's completely out of the wingnut spotlight, not only does it turn out that the only guy who's been actually convicted of fraud in this scandal is a Texas oilman, but the latest two companies to be investigated are pharmaceuticals.

GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca have been asked to hand over papers as part of a probe into bribes allegedly paid to Saddam Hussein's former Iraq regime.

The Serious Fraud Office is examining allegations of bribes paid to secure lucrative contracts in breach of Iraq's 1996 to 2003 oil-for-food programme.

The programme, established in the wake of UN sanctions, allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy humanitarian provisions.

I eagerly await the 24-hour news channels to cover this with all the vigor of a missing girl in Aruba.

(Also, Chevron knew about illegal payments too, and they acknowledged their executives did nothing to stop it, including this member of the board of directors named Condoleezza Rice).

Burma Update

While the ruling government in party continues to pay lip service to international demands by meeting with opposition leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi (and simultaneously rounding others up and keeping them under house arrest), Congress is trying to do something tangible that may put an end to the suffering of the Burmese people.

Lawmakers are advancing efforts to curtail energy giant Chevron's activities in Myanmar, which are said to provide significant financial support for the ruling military junta. The regime is responsible for recent violence against democracy activists.

Chevron is part of a multi-billion-dollar consortium that extracts and transports natural gas from the country, which has suffered weeks of violence by government troops against Buddhist monks, students and other pro-democracy activists, according to experts and human rights groups.

Much of the ruling junta's financial support comes from the royalties and other revenue paid by Chevron and the other members of the gas operation. The group paid more than $2 billion to the Myanmar government last year, according to the group Human Rights Watch.

U.S. sanctions largely prohibit investment in Myanmar by U.S. companies. Chevron's investment pre-dated the U.S. sanctions, and was grandfathered in by the ban. It is the only major U.S. company remaining in Myanmar.

That is absolutely shameful, and there should be activists in front of every Chevron station in America demanding that they get out of Burma and stop propping up a cruel dictatorship. I've been critical of Chevron for a long time, and their donation to my state party continues to rankle me. At the very least, organizations that have any affiliation from Chevron should be denouncing them on a daily basis.

The Congress is doing their part.

On Tuesday, the House Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a bill by its chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., that would bar the firm from paying taxes to the government of Myanmar, or write off expenses relating to the project from its U.S. tax bill.

The legislation now moves to two other committees for approval, before it is voted on by the full House.

A similar Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is awaiting action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That bill would make the earlier ban apply to Chevron's operation, and force the company to divest.

When the President made that big dog-and-pony announcement last week about new sanctions against Burma, none of them included sanctioning Chevron for doing business in the country. In case you weren't aware where his loyalties lay.

But he's out on an island when it comes to a Congressional bill. He can't have talked up democracy promotion and condemned Burma for this long only to veto a bill aimed at furthering precisely those goals. Or can he? It'd be the "freedom agenda" vs. the Supertanker Condoleezza Rice.

The World Must Speak On Burma

There were small protests around the world today to call attention to the massacres and human rights atrocities in Burma that followed a government crackdown on pro-democracy reformers, including Buddhist monks. While the leader of the military junta has tentatively agreed to meet with reform leader Aung San Suu Kyi, he has only done so on the condition that she stop calling for popular resistance of his regime. This is a dodge, and an attempt to stave off additional sanctions in the world community. It should not be seriously considered.

What ought to be done is full economic isolation and a denial of all Burmese natural resources at market, and in particular, those multinational corporations still doing business with the military junta, like Chevron (they of the supertanker named after Condoleezza Rice), must cease immediately propping up the government with their payments of taxes in exchange for access to their resources.

Human rights activists urge the oil companies to take a principled stand.

"They need to strongly condemn what the government is doing and make their voices heard," said Arvind Ganesan, director of Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "Being silent isn't constructive engagement."

Chevron, Total and other oil companies have poured billions in Myanmar's booming natural gas industry in recent years. Natural gas projects generated $2.16 billion in revenue for Myanmar's military regime in 2006, according to Human Rights Watch. Human rights groups say the revenue from taxes and fees on the gas pipelines have become the largest source of cash for Myanmar's generals and have helped to prop them up.

"Whenever you have billions of dollars in revenue that flow directly to a government that does not express any interest in looking out for the benefit for its people, it certainly helps them stay in power," said Ganesan.

No excuses. And activists in this country can put pressure on companies like Chevron to do the right thing. Longtime readers know that I called on the California Democratic Party to return corporate donations from Chevron. This would be one reason why. They should be isolated as Burma is isolated, until they change their behavior.

California Notes

Had a few things I didn't get to post throughout the week, so for those interested in Golden State politics:

• Last week the LAT reported on the rise of private prisons as an answer to crises like the overcrowding situation in California. Of course, the last private prison in the state I can remember, the city lockup in Seal Beach, had to be closed down because it WASN'T MAKING ENOUGH MONEY.

• Meanwhile, Robert Sillen, who's overseeing the prison health care system after a federal judge threw it into receivership, got a somewhat favorable writeup in the New York Times. Sillen is going a little outside the boundaries of his mandate to improve the facilities for prisoners, including going outside state budget requirements. He also spoke a little truth:

Mr. Sillen says California politicians are reaping what they have sown. He attributed the state’s prison problems to tough-on-crime lawmakers who made political hay out of sentencing laws that filled the state prisons without expanding either the facilities or their services.

He has a standard diatribe concerning the criminal justice system that includes issues like the neglect of poor neighborhoods and the lack of alcohol treatment programs.

“I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the politics,” Mr. Sillen said. “No one gets elected in Sacramento without a platform that says, ‘Let’s get rid of rapists, pedophiles and murderers.’ ”

• Which is why it's doubtful that two bills soon to be on the Governor's desk that would create independent sentencing commissions with the ability to modify sentencing laws will be signed. Schwarzenegger is as wedded to the tough-on-crime myth as his Republican pals, and he thinks that privatization, along with building on credit, is the answer. None of those measures attacks the problem at the root, however, which is why we'll be back here in five years.

• I attended the press event where the Speaker announced legislation aimed at stopping oil industry market manipulation on a variety of fronts. Turns out those bills have been denuded, and I can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with all that oil money pouring in to the CDP and various legislators, including the Speaker himself.

• Another bill that appears unlikely to be signed by the Governor is Sen. Perata's bill that would put the occupation of Iraq to a vote in Feburary 2008. Backers of this bill think they have squeezed Schwarzenegger, and if they jump on the result then maybe they'll get something out of it, but reasonable people agree that this is a meaningless feel-good measure that would have no impact on actual policy, and the Governor can merely say that those interested in ending the war already have a voice in Washington, call your representatives, etc.

• There is supposedly something in the works on health care reform, another closed-door deal mandated by a forced-bottleneck process that results in a Big 5, Little 116 state government. I wonder if the 30 million-plus citizens NOT represented by Sens. Perata or Yacht Boy Ackerman, or Asms. Nuñez or Villines, feel valued by such a process. As for the actual bill, it's apparently a mix of approving the plan now with the funding (including fee hikes) in a ballot initiative later.

• There's also a redistricting ballot initiative in the works. Hey I've got an idea, how about we have an election a week and "let the people decide" everything! Wouldn't it be so democratic, to run a nation-state based on 30-second television ads?? (also, people redistrict themselves, this measure will end up being FAR less spectacular than everyone believes, and also the political map has changed in 8 years, and the gerrymandering itself is not a good enough reason not to contest everywhere, it's just a convenient cop-out that allows the CDP to unilaterally disarm.)

I'd better stop writing before I get myself in more trouble...

Arnold's Canadian Vacation - All-Expenses Paid!

This is about the eighth time I've seen a report simliar to this one that undisclosed donors are financing a Schwarzenegger trade mission.

Fifty-two business delegates will join Schwarzenegger on the trip, according to a list the Governor's Office released Friday. A third of those going represent interests that have donated to Schwarzenegger's campaigns.

The governor's trip will be financed by the California State Protocol Foundation, a tax-exempt organization not required to disclose its donors. California Chamber of Commerce leaders, including President Allan Zaremberg, serve as the group's officers.

The foundation is not required by law to disclose its contributors and has not done so. In 2005, the last year for which IRS forms were available, the group received nearly $2 million in revenue. It reported $1 million in travel expenditures that year after Schwarzenegger led a weeklong trade mission in China.

The excuse put forth by the Governor's spokespeople is always the same: this SAVES taxpayer money because they don't have to finance these trade missions! Really? What about all the corporate welfare checks that get cut as a result of this access? What about all the watered-down regulations that cost taxpayers, not only with money but with public health and quality of life? What about the state contracts that could go to lower bidders who don't have the same relationships (read: bribery poke) with the Governor?

Frank Russo is right:

Take a look around and you'll see that this is a bipartisan problem that needs fixing--the same way that a true reformer, Hiram Johnson-- took on the railroads which controlled our state a hundred years ago. His legacy is a California Constitutional prohibition against accepting any gifts of free transportation from railroad or other transportation companies. It needs to be extended to cover today's corruption, subtle and otherwise, of our elected officials. [...]

We've seen a record of obscene campaign contributions in California the last election cycle--topping $600 million dollars. The next campaign season is upon us, and the Governor has proposed bans on fundraising during certain months of the year when the budget is being considered and at the end of the session and bill signing times. The California Progress Report has railed against the influence of campaign contributions on the political process and the corruption of state government. But these other "gifts" to public officials also need to be scrutinized.

Action is needed, not because our elected officeholders are corrupt--any more than anyone else--but because they are human and influence is why campaign donations and private funding for trips and the like are given by private interests in this state. The same was true in when bold Progressive Reforms were needed in 1911 and human nature is the same today. Only now it's not the railroads.

It should frankly be outlawed for a private company with business before the state to finance the Governor's travel, especially when it's supposed to be official business. This is government for sale from the guy who was supposed to be such a big reformer because he was richer than dirt. This is also why I've been so adamant about the CDP-Chevron donation. Influence peddling in the capital is an epidemic that needs to stop.

"I believe that there is market manipulation at the refinery level"

That was Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez today at an event in downtown Los Angeles, in front of a Chevron station (that was selling gas for a low low $3.49, I think the advance man could've found stations 30-40 cents higher without too much trouble), as he announced with Assemblymen Mike Davis, Mike Feuer and Mike Eng a series of bills to combat rising gas prices and the artificial depression of refinery supply. The bills will seek to oversee refinery maintenance, expand regulatory authority, and deal with the "hot fuel" issue. The Speaker said that "During the electricity crisis a few years ago, California adopted similar measures to keep energy companies from using these convenient (refinery) shutdowns to amp up their profits, and today we're going to make sure oil companies can't use Enron-like tactics on California consumers."

This is an object lesson in why now was the exact wrong time for the CDP to accept $50,000 from the prime progenitor of those Enron-style tactics. And it actually came up in the press conference.

Nunez referenced a Wall Street Journal article (behind the wall, sadly) that detailed how refineries are cashing in on high gas prices by artificially lowering their supply through various methods, particularly shutdowns. The three bills work out this way:

1) new oversight committee: Nunez and Eng's bill would create the California Petroleum Refinery Standards Committee, made up of the Attorney General, the State Controller and a couple political appointees, which would develop standards for maintenance and operations at California refineries, would look into shutdowns and would increase mandatory reporting from oil companies regarding them, would take audits and inspections, and would ensure compliance. Penalties for not complying to these standards, would be "very stiff" and would be considered felonies, not misdemeanors.

2) "Hot fuels": temperature varies in fuel, and it impacts the weight of gasoline, which since it's sold by the gallon impacts the price. The suspicion is that oil companies are manipulating temperature variations to give the consumer less for its money. Assemblyman Mike Davis' bill would seek a comprehensive study, cost-benefit analysis, and recommendations on what the national standard for gasoline temperature should be. Right now it's 60 degrees; the concern is that the number should be higher.

3) Petroleum Industry Information Reporting Act: oil companies are not releasing enough data to determine properly the efficacy of inventory levels and profit margins. Assemblyman Mike Feuer's bill would mandate monthly financial reports on oil supply, demand, and price issues. It would also allow that information to be shared with the Attorney General and the Board of Equalization.

These appear to be decent bills that correctly address the issue of artificial refinery supply. However, in the question-and-answer session that followed, there was an example of why it is not smart to play both sides of this fence.

The fact that the backdrop of the press conference was a Chevron statement is telling; after all, they own 25% of the refineries in the state, and they are getting rich off the high gas prices being made by their actions at those refineries. The VERY FIRST QUESTION offered to Speaker Nunez was about his trip to South America paid for in part by Chevron. Nunez replied that the trip was "insignificant," that the trip was taken to learn more about alternative fuels in South America, that he stands for issues that are important to Democrats, and that he resented any attempt to question his ethics. And right after the presser was over, during a sort of press gaggle, he told the radio reporter who asked that question that is was either a "cheap shot" or a "chicken shit" question (I wasn't quite close enough to fully make it out). The reporter replied that the information was out there and she was just giving the Speaker a chance to respond.

Clearly that's a fair question. And clearly it's fair to ask whether, at a time where the Speaker of the Assembly is accusing Chevron of market manipulation and of engaging in "Enron-like tactics," it's the best time for the CDP to be taking a $50,000 contribution from that same corporation. Now more than ever, the message should be united, and the perception here is quite confusing, and more hurtful than the money is helpful. I appreciate these efforts to stop market manipulation, but I do not appreciate giving the opposition another arrow in their quiver through the appearance of impropriety of this donation. I renew and strengthen my call for the Party to return the money and work in more innovative ways to fundraise and grow the party.

More on the Chevron/CDP Situation

I got a lot of comments over at Calitics in my somewhat provocative post on Chevron's $50,000 donation to the CDP and why I think there's a better way to do business. I'm no hallowed saint when it comes to politics, and I understand that right now it takes lots of cash. But my main point is that money received from this particular company at this particular time with these particular underlying scenarios, whether taken in good faith or bad, will not do as much to reach new voters as it will alienate old ones. People have every right to assume that a politician or a party who receives a large donation from a corporate entity will be expecting something in return, as the instances of such exchanges being consummated are too numerous to count. And $50,000 buys 1 ad in LA during election season, maybe not all of it, but it drives hundreds of activists crazy, and every decline-to-state voter that hears about it just shakes their head and continues to believe the perception that "they're all the same" in politics. I know personally, from the reaction this has gotten, that people are upset. It doesn't mean they'll stop working for the party, but maybe they'll stuff one less envelope. Maybe they'll make one less phone call. And maybe they just won't feel as invested in a big-donor top-down party as they would in a small-donor bottom-up one.

I don't know if everyone's aware of this, but the CDP has a horrible reputation in this state, if it has a reputation at all. At a time when people are deserting the GOP in record numbers, we're barely moving the needle. The only way to turn this around is to erase this idea that both parties have their own special interests and that politics is politics and "a pox on both their houses." This donation, particularly from this company (I wonder how Steven Bing feels about it?), particularly with gas prices and oil co. profits both at an all-time high, particularly where the company is artificially decreasing supply like they're OPEC, is to me a no-brainer. It hurts the party. To those who think that parties rise and fall on candidates rather than who gives the candidates money, I advise you to consult Wikipedia under "corruption, culture of," which was universally given as the biggest reason for the Democratic success nationwide in 2006. I fail to see why you would willingly invite comparison, when there's a better way to raise money that brings more people into the donor pool and proud to be a part of the party at the same time.

Further, something the party did in the past doesn't innoculate it from future criticism. Just supporting Prop. 87 and abandoning the issue when it loses is not enough. The gas crisis is playing out right now. CA Democrats have done nothing about it, haven't really talked about it, since November, save for spending money on infrastructure bonds that call for more roads and make the problem worse. Maviglio has said "just wait, we're working on it" so we'll see. But I can't help but believe that pressure LIKE WHAT I AM NOW DOING is a driving factor in that.

What this is all about is how the party can break with the past and move into the future. Taking a stand on this particular contribution, coming up with a more innovative and respectable solution, will reap a hell of a lot more goodwill than $50,000 ever could.

There is a draft letter being circulated among delegates requesting respectfully that Chairman Torres returns this money and works on better funding solutions that are more about party growth. If anyone would like to sign on to it, email me through the site and I'll send you a copy.

CDP: Please Give Chevron Back Their Money

I am fairly surprised that more has not been made in the blogosphere of the unwelcome news that Chevron is doing everything it can to buy off the California Democratic Party and some of its top legislators. Outside of this small item in The Oil Drum, pretty much nobody has said a word about the fact that the CDP accepted a $50,000 check from a company that is attempting to artificially depress capacity and manipulate the energy market in a way that is shockingly similar to how Enron made themselves a fortune during the 2000-2001 energy crisis. You can read the details here.

As a delegate to this party, I feel personally tainted by this donation. I feel like there is a concerted effort to buy my silence. It will not work, and I want to outline why I am respectfully asking this party, of which I am a member and to which I pay dues, to return the money.

I don't think I have to go into how Chevron controls the oil market in California by owning most of the refineries, and that in another era that would rightly be called a trust. I don't need to discuss their record profits or their expenditures of $44 million to defeat ballot propositions like Prop. 87 and Prop. 89 last year, or their consistently greedy profit-taking at a time of record gas prices throughout the state, or how they refuse to increase refining capacity to keep that profit artificially high. And I don't need to explain how corporations aren't in the business of charity, and that every expenditure they make has a stated outcome, whether for public relations purposes or to engender favorable legislation or just to keep government off their backs while they continue to rake in billions. What I can talk about is the poverty of imagination that leads the CDP to take a gift like this.

What bothers me most about taking a fat corporate donation like this, from the very interest group you fought tooth and nail against on Prop. 87 just 6 months ago, is how LAZY it is. There are an unlimited amount of ways to raise $50,000 that not only show no appearance of impropriety or corporate favoritism, but bring people into the process and grow the party, which are the key metrics for politics in the 21st century. If you really needed $50,000 in a state of 37 million people, how about this: ask 50,000 to give a dollar to specifically ensure that the CDP won't be beholden to big corporate money. You can hold dollar parties and write about how giving citizens a stake brings them closer to the party. And in return for that dollar, you could give people prominent space on the CDP website to upload a minute of video about what problems facing California most affect them. Then, once the money is collected, PUBLICLY REBUFF Chevron by telling them that their donation has been paid by the people. Not only would you be seen as populist folk heroes, you would be investing in the party by allowing 50,000 Calfornians get a share and a stake. That's called people power. The new metrics for the Presidential campaigns, for example, are not just money but numbers of donors, because that shows a broad base of support. A party that gets rich off fat $50,000 checks is a mile wide and an inch deep. We already have a party like that in California. It's called the Republican Party.

If that corporate money were even drilled in to infrastructure and party building, that would be something. But typically, it's not. And the party that continues on a traditional model of collecting big corporate checks and running big broadcast ads will be obsolete in a new media environment. Stoller:

We need to figure out new metrics for receiving party support aside from money and polling. Perhaps opt-in email addresses acquired? Friends on MySpace? Newly registered voters (I like this one)? Chatter across blogs using sites such as Blogpulse?

I'm not sure, but the whole landscape of politics is shifting. It's like an entirely new grammar is emerging, but we're not there yet.

A "dollar party" strategy, that could spread virally through social networking sites (is the CDP even on MySpace or Facebook?), that would bind more people to the party in a small way and set up a core of activists for GOTV, that would allow a press release that says "50,000 donors!" instead of hiding the fact that one polluting Big Oil ripoff artist gave you 50,000 dollars... would simply be a forward-thinking way to grow the party and gather attention.

I'm sure that there are a host of conciliators and "my-party-right-or-wrong" types that have a problem with me sharing even a scintilla of disagreement with the state party (there's another guy that believes in the silencing of any alternative voices, he resides at 1600 Penn. Ave, Wash, DC, 20500). First of all, I would have them take a look at the rise of DTS voters and the lack of success in joining the progressive wave in 2006 and ask them where all that brushing aside criticism has gotten them. But the second thing I would ask them is, why are you a Democrat? What do you believe, if anything? And how do you square that belief with the fact that one of the companies most committed to stopping any progress on global warming or reducing dependence on foreign oil just handed you - you! - a wad of money in order to shut you up?

The Speaker's Office claims that these donations won't impact Democrats' ability to take a hard look at what Chevron is attempting to do on refining capacity, and that "tough" legislation is forthcoming. I would hope so. I cannot impact what individual candidates receive in gifts; at least, not until election season. I can have an impact when it's my party. I'm a delegate and a member in good standing. I know for a fact that members of the Party leadership read this site. I'm asking those in charge at the CDP, nicely, to give back the Chevron money. I want to work on innovative fundraising solutions that can simultaneously fund the important work of the party and bring it closer to the people whom it serves. But like any addiction, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Big Oil Buying Sacramento One Legislator At A Time

Jamie Court and Judy Dugan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights pen an extremely troubling piece today about Big Oil, particularly Chevron, outright buying our government and its leaders. This is not limited to Republicans, but certainly the Governor is the biggest recipient of this largesse.

Take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once claimed that he was so rich he did not need anyone else's money — and who isn't running for another office. Yet as gasoline prices were breaking last year's record of $3.38 a gallon, Schwarzenegger collected a $100,000 check May 1 from Chevron, the West's largest refiner. The company certainly had the cash on hand. Just three days earlier, it reported a $4.7-billion first-quarter profit, up 18% over the same period last year.

The contribution brought Schwarzenegger's take from Chevron to $665,000 (making it his 15th largest donor) since 2003, and his total political tribute from the energy industry is now $4 million. According to a recent Schwarzenegger fundraising solicitation, Chevron's $100,000 buys the company special briefings with the governor, something that beleaguered motorists aren't getting.

In all, oil companies delivered $90 MILLION dollars to political campaigns and parties in 2006, and while a lot of that went to block the corporate tax-for-alternative energy Prop. 87, plenty was spread around to political leaders and parties. And that seed money ensures that there is no investigation into practices like this:

Like power plant owners during California's 2001 electricity crisis, refiners such as Chevron have discovered that they can make more money by producing less gasoline. So they do. They have, over more than 20 years, deliberately reduced their capacity until they can barely meet California's needs under the best of circumstances. Industry spokesmen defend this as efficiency. But there is no slack in the production system, which shorts the market and raises prices.

Any planned or unplanned refinery outage, pipeline break or power failure causes prices to jump.

Take the case of a possum and a raccoon that, in March, bit through power substation lines feeding two refineries in the South Bay. The critters expired, but the outage caused a 7-cent jump in local wholesale gasoline prices. The cost of refining gasoline is stable over time, so these price spikes equal pure profit for Chevron and Co [...]

Chevron refined 22% less oil in the U.S. during the first quarter of this year than in the same quarter of 2006 because of longer "planned maintenance" downtime and accidents. Yet its total profit on U.S. refining increased 66%. Making less gasoline, it made much more money.

Last week, the CDP took $50,000 from Chevron. Court and Dugan also detail a junket that Schwarzenegger chief of staff Susan Kennedy took with Speaker Fabian Nuñez in Rio, a 12-day conference paid for by Chevron and other oil interests.

During the 12-day conference, Chevron's lobbyist got an entire day on the official agenda, which the public knows about only because of our Public Records Act request. Nuñez, who last year was highly critical of oil companies, seems to have nothing to say this year.

The FTCR have a long track record detailing this kind of takeover of our government. And we all know about the inordinate power that corporate interests have in Sacramento. This editorial makes it plain, and it's really shocking to see it so starkly.

That Which Is Less Discussed

I was listening to David Sirota on Thom Hartmann for a little bit today, and Sirota made a great point, that what the media chooses NOT to report is often as much proof of subjectivity as what they choose to put on the front page. It's the sin of omission, and it's amazing how regular that sin is employed to protect the rich and confuse their motives.

For example, take the case of George Tenet. He's out there pushing a book which claims that there was no substantive debate leading up to the war in Iraq, that the architects of the war were ready to go in within days of 9-11, and that it was wrong to scapegoat the intelligence for what essentially was a political failure of unnecessarily hyping WMDs. To the extent that Tenet's motives for writing the book are discussed, and his willingness to come forward now instead of during the run-up to war when it would have counted, we hear about collecting a fat payday from his publisher, or his weak kowtowing to power, or maybe that setting the record straight is valuable. What we don't hear too much about is the fact that the war itself was financially profitable for him.

While the swirl of publicity around his book has focused on his long debated role in allowing flawed intelligence to launch the war in Iraq, nobody is talking about his lucrative connection to that conflict ever since he resigned from the CIA in June 2004. In fact, Tenet has been earning substantial income by working for corporations that provide the U.S. government with technology, equipment and personnel used for the war in Iraq as well as the broader war on terror.

Tenet sits on the board of directors of L-1 Identity Solutions, a major supplier of biometric identification software used by the U.S. to monitor terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company recently acquired two of the CIA's hottest contractors for its growing intelligence outsourcing business. At the Analysis Corp. (TAC), a government contractor run by one of Tenet's closest former advisors at the CIA, Tenet is a member of an advisory board that is helping TAC expand its thriving business designing the problematic terrorist watch lists used by the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department.

Tenet is also a director of Guidance Software, which makes forensic software used by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence to search computer hard drives and laptops for evidence used in the prosecution and tracking of suspected terrorists. And Tenet is the only American director on the board of QinetiQ, the British defense research firm that was privatized in 2003 and was, until recently, controlled by the Carlyle Group, the powerful Washington-based private equity fund. Fueled with Carlyle money, QinetiQ acquired four U.S. companies in recent years, including an intelligence contractor, Analex Inc.

This never gets discussed on any of the talk shows on which Tenet has appeared. But surely he knew that he could board the defense/intelligence merry go-round after he left the CIA and reap untold fortunes.

Here's another example. A couple years back we heard a whole lot of chatter about this "UN oil-for-food" scandal, where Saddam Hussein was gaming the international community by bribing people and doing business outside the system to enrich his government's coffers. It was obvious then that the biggest malefactors in that scandal were corporations who ignored the UN guidelines and did business with the dictator while allowing him to get kickbacks worth up to $1.8 billion dollars. That was less remarked upon, even to this day:

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public.

The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.

At the time, who sat on the board of directors for Chevron? The same person that has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

According to the Volcker report, surcharges on Iraqi oil exports were introduced in August 2000 by the Iraqi state oil company, the State Oil Marketing Organization. At the time, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron’s board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.

Ms. Rice resigned from Chevron’s board on Jan. 16, 2001, after being named national security advisor by President Bush.

These are the types of things that don't make the headlines. They would inform the public about decisions that are made affecting their lives and the lives of their families. But they're never at the top of the page. You hear about Fred Thompson but not that he's a career lobbyist. You hear about Condi Rice but not that she was on the board that allowed Saddam Hussein to enrich himself. You hear about George Tenet but not that he's making a mint off the Iraq war. You hear about the surge but not about the covert action that the US and the Saudis are sponsoring inside Iran, a cooperative effort against Shiite power maintained by the same strain of Wahhabist Sunnis that attacked us on 9-11.

These sins of omissions are debilitating to the public interest of making decisions about our future. Fortunately there's the Internet, so these sins are harder to hide these days. But as long as conglomerates run the traditional news, this is going to happen. And it's also a powerful argument for ensuring a free and open Internet that cannot be restricted for content of ability to pay off wealthy telecom companies.