Rock and Roll
This is a walleyed snot nosed hissy fit. I have a couple of these every year and it’s now for this one.
Texas and Oklahoma are having earthquakes because of fracking. Heck, you don’t have to be a hula dancer to know that stuff is gyrating under your feet. You can burn our water to stay warm in the winter.
In Oklahoma.
In an especially fractious split, the day after the state’s energy and environment cabinet acknowledged that the “recent rise in earthquakes cannot be entirely attributed to natural causes,” state lawmakers passed two bills to limit the ability of localities to decide if they want to allow fracking and drilling nearby.
And in Texas.
House lawmakers moved to bar cities from banning fracking and enacting a wide variety of other oil and gas-related ordinances in an action that critics call an affront to local control.
Backers rebuffed arguments that the bill would overturn ordinances that have long been in place in some cities.
I’d like to blame the GOP dominated legislature in Texas, but I can’t. Many Democrats supported this bill, dammit.
Republicans can’t seem to explain why Federal overreach is bad but state overreach is good. Democrats can’t seem to explain why they voted for something specifically addressed in the state party platform as being bad for Texas.
Everybody tells me that I can’t talk about the Democrats who bucked their party and the health and well-being of their constituents. Democrats are a minority in Texas so we have to stick together, they say.
I say caca del toro.
If you don’t walk like a Democrat and talk like a Democrat, then you’re not a Democrat.
Look, I don’t expect my politicians to vote like I want them to 100% of the time. But on issues of public safety and Texas water, I expect them to come down on the side of the party platform. I did not spend three weeks of my life helping to draft a platform only to have them crap all over it.
One of my friends suggested that maybe these Democrats had made a deal and will get something in exchange. Maybe so. But it better be more than a damn suitcase full of money. They better have walked out of that smoke filled back room with more than smoke in their eyes. And if they made a deal, they have more faith in Republicans sticking to deals than I do.
The next time I am asked why Democrats in Texas don’t vote, I’m going to give them a list of the Democrats who sold us out over fracking.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
AMEN!!!
1I agree. Some say a Blue Dog Democrat is better than a Republican. Really?
2Sorry, JJ, but this caught my eye:
“But on issues of pubic safety and Texas water, I expect them to come down on the side of the party platform.”
I guess if their are for “pubic” safety … they are, indeed, Republicans and on the side of that party’s platform! A little less pubic and a lot more PUBLIC safety!!
3This one issue is for me is the single most important issue our illustrious legislature is putting forth this year.
Not only does the damn fracking cause earthquakes, but….
We are in a serious effing drought and fracking poisons big bucket loads of water. We are in the midst of climate change and the emissions from flares are creating more climate change.
Tell me again why the Texas legislature has to meet at all.
The legislators that voted for this are our most disgusting race on the planet.
4What ever happened to hating big government? Rs only hate what doesn’t make them rich?
5“Democrats are a minority in Texas so we have to stick together, they say.”
Translation: You have to back me up even though I’m screwing you over or doing something that is inefensible by any logic or in any ethical system.
Republicans in all but name.
6Marcia – I have to quit using the work public because that’s what I end up with every time. I’ll go fix it. 🙂
7Mel, what you said sounds just like the tea baggers. Ickeee!
8Trying to make sense of all this — there are places in Louisiana that have plenty of natural gas and such underground but fracking companies refuse to touch it. Too expensive to do so, they say. I’m gonna try to translate that. Fracking is being so overdone that the $$ one can gain from what is produced is going down. In short, there is an over supply. I know that telling crazy frackers that the aquifers are being endangered doesn’t mean a thing to them, but a lot of them don’t pay any attention to the $$ that gas is supposed to be producing and it ain’t doing it like it used to. They’re to big into that damn drill baby drill. Look at Alaska. The folks up there used to get a nice check every month from the oil and such but not so much any more. All frackers should just take a deep breathe and step back a bit.
9I’ve been told that Democrats have to pontificate and vote like Republicans if they want to get elected in marginal states. I wonder what the point is of having a D after your name if you vote with the GOP anyway.
We look back at things like slavery and miscegenation laws and wonder, what the *hell* were you people thinking? Sooner than they think, these buffoons poisoning the only planet we have will have people asking them the same question. And their only answer will be “I wasn’t” or “$$$$.”
10Anybody with money invested in fossil fuels should think about moving it elsewhere. If we are going to keep the heat rise of the Earth below the level at which really catastrophic things start happening, 75% of oil, gas and coal *we already know about* has to stay in the ground unburned… but the companies want to spill oil all over the Arctic Ocean and destroy rainforests looking for more and more and more.
They are insane. And someday they are going to face the loss of all those unburnable reserves, or destroy us all.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/22/earth-day-scientists-warning-fossil-fuels-
11Amen! Keep preaching, sister!
12Yep.
13Aren’t earthquakes a biblical sign of things to come? And fire, like when the earth’s temperature heats up and causes our forests to burn in a conflagration, that’s in the Bible too isn’t it?
People who think God is the only one who can bring about the end of the world just aren’t paying attention. They’re like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Contrary to the evidence, they’ll still claim it’s someone else’s fault .
14But don’t localities generally have control over licensing and fees, local taxes, etc.?
I suggest that if they can’t ban fracking, they establish a local tax or fee – say several billion dollars for every well or perhaps a million bucks for each gallon of water used. Rather doubt the oil companies would be able to afford it or find it profitable.
15Actually, Rick, I think those biblical signs are part of their justification for what they are doing…God’s Will…in their pathetic brains.
16Politicians can talk about values all they want, but in most cases their primary value is short-term profit, especially if they expect to get a cut of it.
Getting special interest money out of politics would fix a whole host of other problems.
17Amen, Juanita Jean.
18To the point.
NO FRICKIN’ FRACKIN’
19@RayS, I like your idea. Preferably a million bucks or whatever a well going straight to the local public schools.
20Y’all, that’s what the problem JJ is railing about IS! Local towns, cities, and counties, etc, WILL NOT be allowed to issue any regulation of fossil fuels production that occurs within their actual or extraterritorial jurisdictions. Ixnay. Nada. Any tax, any rules, any limits whatsoever will become illegal, just like that. Lights and noise and smell making the neighborhood uninhabitable? Too effen bad. Drilling close to a school? Great learning experience for the kiddos. Earthquakes? well, you know, that’s progress.
21‘Nuther thought There are those who can’t tell the difference between taking care of our planet and cooking it.
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