Miserable Failure: Exhibit B - Rampant Cronyism

The second exhibit in my two part series of why Bush has helped ruin America is his rampant cronyism.

Oh by now, everybody remembers "heckuva job" Mike Brown from the whole Katrina disaster debacle at FEMA.

As it turns out actually this was the tip of the iceberg. Time Magazine reported a fairly extensive list of inexperienced cronies being appointed for political reasons over experience that is beneficial to the post they ended up in. In fact it seems most either had the wrong experience or the worst possible experience for the position they were taking. In other words many worked for the industry giants that these positions were supposed to provide oversight for.

The cronies were part of the Karl Rove political plan to turn every department into another political arm for the GOP and Bush Administration. Every decision was made in a way that would benefit Bushco and their benefactors and the good of the country was never taken into account.

Rove got into some hot water when it was revealed he and Lurita Doan, the head of the General Services Administration, were giving powerpoint presentations to employees on how they could help the GOP politically in 2008. The presentations, illegal to give directly to non-partisan Government employees, detailed targeted races of 2008 and where they would need the most help. He had done so apparently in 2003 right before the Presidential election as well.

The Time link above shows cronyism at some of the most critical positions in government. Sure the positions are not as sexy as Senator or President but they have as much or more impact on our daily lives and someone with high integrity and concern for the public well being needs to be in those positions. High level positions at the Food and Drug Administration, FEMA, Homeland Security, Inspectors General and more were affected.

A new one came to light though. With the Utah mine collapse (and after the West Virginia mine collapse last year) the media seems to have very slowly started to latch onto the real issue here, Mine Safety.

It shows how pathetic the media is that it took this long for this to be the focus of the issue but it finally has.

Kudos must go out to Crooks & Liars, whom I think has taken the lead on covering how this has played out and the ridiculous comments made by an owner of the mine, Robert Murray of Murray Electric Co.

Murray attacked Congress for possible Global Warming legislation somehow hindering his company. Sounds like a brilliant gameplan to me. Miners get trapped, people are incredibly worried about them. Let's talk about Global Warming Legislation is the reason why they are trapped there. Or something of that sort. WTF?!?!

Anyway the big issue is Mine Safety. After the West Virginia mine collapse, Bush sent a nomination to Congress for a new head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Even with GOP control, they sent the nomination back to Bush rejected twice.

So what did Bush do? What he usually does. Sidesteps the process and goes around Congress for a Recess Appointment.

Congress was quite unhappy about this. Some of Bush's most ardent, lap dog supporters like Rick Santorum expressed public disappointment with the move.

Why was Congress so upset about this Crony appointment?

Meet Richard Stickler, new head of MSHA and former longtime Coal executive.

Just like every other appointment Bush makes, he puts industry insiders in charge of oversight.

This administration is Corporate rule run amok. They are proof of the worst cases of Capitalism gone bad. While nobody thinks Communism is a better alternative (especially any government made of authoritarian rule), and Socialism needs a lot of work, these people are proof of the pitfalls of the form of financial system we have become too reliant on to police itself.

Corporations should not be trusted with policing themselves and CEOs should not be trusted to do what's best for anyone but themselves.

Maybe that's the problem with Bush and his friends. They are all former CEOs who don't care about the health of the country as much as they really didn't give a shit about the health of the companies they ran. They cared about short term profitability so they could take home gigantic salaries and bonuses. When the company was on the verge of collapse, they cash in their chips and get out leaving the workers and common investors to die a financial death.

That seems to be what they are doing with America. They put themselves in positions of power where their private investments can increase exponentially in value. Then as they have milked the US Budget and every available means to fatten their personal portfolio's worth, they bail on the country leaving Democrats and any other sucker who really cares about the country to clean up the mess.

When it comes to any form of safety nets for workers, seniors, the poor, the middle class, residents of places hit by natural disasters, veterans, tax payers, etc. they don't care about anything other than how they can profit. Profit by dismantling those safety nets. Profit off how they can screw those people over.

Then they have the gall to turn around, cut taxes for the rich and propose even deeper corporate tax rate cuts.

They profit while we suffer. What wonderful people they are.

-Rp