W.J. Astore
News that Hillary Clinton has selected Ken Salazar to head her transition team should give pause to anyone who believes Hillary’s claim that she’s a “Progressive.” Assuming Hillary wins the presidency, Salazar will chair the team that helps her to fill more than 4000 appointments.
What do we know about Salazar? According to a report at The Intercept,
As a senator, Salazar was widely considered a reliable friend to the oil, gas, ranching and mining industries. As interior secretary, he opened the Arctic Ocean for oil drilling, and oversaw the botched response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since returning to the private sector, he has been an ardent supporter of the TPP, while pushing back against curbs on fracking….
“We know that, from everything we’ve seen, there’s not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone,” Salazar told the attendees, who included the vice president of BP America, another keynote speaker at the conference. “We need to make sure that story is told.”
Really, Mr. Salazar? I lived in Pennsylvania for nine years, during the height of the fracking boom. A friend of mine lost his family farm and land due to poisoned water caused by fracking. Earthquakes have been traced to fracking. Methane seepage and burn-off contributes to global warming. Fracking chemicals are highly toxic and wastewater from fracking is radioactive. And these are just a few of the dangers associated with fracking.
It’s one thing to argue that fracking is hazardous but that those hazards can be controlled through rigorous practices that emphasize environmental safety. It’s a defensible position, though I believe the hazards are not fully known, therefore they can’t be fully controlled, let alone minimized. But Salazar is arguing fracking has not caused a single environmental problem! For anyone!
Yes, Hillary now claims she’s against fracking (when she led the State Department, she was strongly for it). But how does that flip-flop square with her decision to appoint yet another earth wrecker to a key position in her government-to-be? Just what the planet needs: a pro-fracking, pro-industry, corporate shill who will help to ensure that people like himself will occupy key positions of authority in a Clinton government.
I’ve witnessed enough earth wrecking. Count me out of Hillary 2016.
Bracing Views 
OK, you say no Hillary. What do you think Trump is going to do?
LikeLike
No Trump either. Time for new leaders.
I know — everyone says you have to vote either for Hillary or Trump, or one or the other “monster” is going to win.
Why not vote for neither? Why not vote third party? Vote for a candidate you believe in. That way, we’ll start to banish the monsters.
LikeLike
I don’t pretend to know what Trump would do. But I have heard enough from his unencumbered mouth to be adamantly disposed to disfavor him (to put it politely).
Clinton, however, has a deleterious track record and is known by the company she keeps. Salazar fits right in because he is a bald-faced blatant prevaricator. I couldn’t even pretend to be polite towards the likes of Clinton (and this is coming from someone who up until recently voted for the Democrats).
Jill Stein represents my views, hence she get’s my vote.
LikeLike