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MP3 One Segment
1. Supplementing discussion and analysis presented in FTR-214, this broadcast highlights the role of George W. Bush in petroleum industry politics, as well as that of his father. (Both are career oil men.) In FTR-214, the deliberate manipulation of oil and gasoline prices, the deliberate falsification of Soviet and Middle Eastern petroleum production estimates, the discreditation of the Carter administration, the election of Ronald Reagan and the subsequent military build-up and exponential increase of the national debt were analyzed as originating from a CIA report, generated by the Agency when George Bush was director. (The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus and Mark Aarons, St. Martin’s Press, copyright 1994.) FTR-214 set forth the possibility that the rise in oil and gas prices in 2000 may also have been generated deliberately, in order to help engineer the demise of Al Gore.
2. FTR-236 begins where FTR-214 left off, with discussion of Saudi Arabia’s failure to raise production, thus giving rise to an increase in oil futures. (The Wall Street Journal, 7/13/2000, p. C19.)
3. Next, the program discusses George W’s lavish campaign support from the oil companies ($1.5 million, contrasted with Al Gore’s $100,000.) The oil companies are hopeful that Bush, if elected, will help ease drilling restrictions in an Alaska wildlife refuge, ease exploration and drilling restrictions in other national parks, ease EPA attempts to eliminate sulfur in gasoline and relax an attempt by the Clinton administration to reclaim millions of dollars that the companies have stolen from the taxpayers. (The San Jose Mercury News, 7/3/2000, p. 4A.)
4. The oil companies’ expectations appear to be on solid ground, because Bush’s advisory board features people prominent in, and sympathetic to, the petroleum industry. Both Don Evans and former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney are oil men and key Bush advisors. (Financial Times, 6/23/2000, p. 4.)
5. George W has a history of going to bat for the oil industry. In 1992, he attempted to intervene on behalf of the oil industry with his father’s administration, lobbying for an increase in petroleum prices. (San Francisco Chronicle, 6/24/2000, p. A2.)
6. In his first political campaign (a 1978 run for the congressional seat vacated by the retiring Representative George Mahon, Democrat of Texas) “Dubya” campaigned on a platform advocating deregulation of oil and natural gas prices, mirroring the actions of CIA, the oil companies anb the Saudis at that time. Bush later said that he ran specifically because of his antipathy for the policies of Jimmy Carter, who had fired his father from CIA. (W — The Revenge of the Bush Dynasty, by Elizabeth Mitchell, copyright 2000, Hyperion, ISBN 0–7868-6630–6, p.158.)
7. Bill Clinton has attempted to enlist the Department of Energy in an effort to stem rising gas prices. (Los Angeles Times, 6/17/2000, p. A8.)
8. Next, the program highlights three articles from June 15 of the year 2000, and introduces speculation that the three may be related. The “missing hard drive” scandal at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has weakened the Department of Energy and subverted Energy Secretary Bill Richardson’s Vice-Presidential possibilities, undermining both the Clinton Administration’s attempts to bring the oil companies to heel and Gore’s potential appeal to Latino voters. (Richardson is a Mexican American.) (Los Angeles Times, 6/15/2000, p. A6.)
9. The same Los Alamos scandal also propelled General John Gordon (deputy director of the CIA, the agency with which George W’s father is affiliated) into the directorship of the National Nuclear Security Agency, a division of the Department of Energy. This move had been opposed by Secretary Richardson and the congressional Democrats. (San Jose Mercury News, 6/15/2000, p.11A.) Mr. Emory speculates about the possibility that elements of the CIA may have been involved in the creation of the scandal (as they apparently were in the de-stabilization of the Carter administration.)
10. Interestingly (and perhaps significantly) at the time that the events engulfing the Department of Energy were unfolding, George W was consulting (as he often does) with his father. (The New York Times, 6/15/2000, p.1.)
11. The program concludes with a look at the Kennedy administration’s attempts at increasing taxes on oil industry profits, through reducing the oil depletion allowance and the passage of the Kennedy Act. (The latter removed the distinction between repatriated profits and profits re-invested abroad. The measure was aimed largely at the oil companies.) (Farewell America, James Hepburn, copyright 1968 by Frontiers Publishing, ISBN 68–57391, p.234.)
12. George H. W. Bush’s name crops up in connection with the Kennedy assassination in a number of different contexts. The broadcast concludes with a review of Bush’s presence in the air over Dallas’ Love Field on 11/22/63. (W — The Revenge of the Bush Dynasty, p.63.)
This next article based on an investigation by the nonprofit Public Accounting initiative details how police foundations are partially funded by by large corporations including Chevron, Shell, Marathon Petroleum, Exelon, and Wells Fargo in cities such as Seattle, Chicago, Washington, New Orleans and Salt Lake City.
Some of the key portions of the article state the following:
Big corporations accused of driving environmental and health inequalities in black and brown communities through toxic and climate-changing pollution are also funding powerful police groups in major US cities, according to a new investigation.
Some of America’s largest oil and gas companies, private utilities, and financial institutions that bankroll fossil fuels also back police foundations – opaque private entities that raise money to pay for training, weapons, equipment, and surveillance technology for departments across the US.
The investigation by the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit corporate and government accountability research institute, and its research database project LittleSis, details how police foundations in cities such as Seattle, Chicago, Washington, New Orleans and Salt Lake City are partially funded by household names such as Chevron, Shell and Wells Fargo.
Police foundations are industry groups that provide substantial funds to local departments, yet, as nonprofits, avoid much public scrutiny.
But critics argue police departments are already overfunded. Nationwide about $100bn is spent on policing each year, and cities hand over 20% to 45% of their general budgets to police departments, according to advocacy group the Center for Popular Democracy Action.
Police foundation money is additional, and this money is much harder to trace since they are not subject to the same transparency rules as public entities such as law enforcement agencies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/fossil-fuels-oil-gas-industry-police-foundations?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other