When Exxon/Mobil released its financial figures for the 4th quarter of 2005, it made a lot of people mad. We consumers watch gas prices at the pump go up and up, & worry about keeping our houses heated. Meanwhile lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry tell Senate committees that America will pop open like a blood-filled tick if we don't let them
loot Alaska right now.
Then we got the year-end figures for 2005, and find that just one of these companies, Exxon/Mobil, made a profit - no, not revenues, a profit - of $10.7 billion in the 4th quarter of 2005. A profit of over $36 billion for the year. Then in April they pensioned off their former CEO with a retirement package worth more than $400 million.
Latest: Exxon Mobil Corp. confessed it earned $10.36 billion in April-June 2006, the 2nd largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.
The AP's story with the figures for this quarter are probably in your daily newspaper. Here they are, in mine:
http://www.centredaily.com/...
But this isn't gouging. Oh, no. `A rising tide lifts all boats,' said an Oppenheimer analyst.
Here's news for the rich and comfy: A rising tide doesn't lift your boat if you're tethered to the bottom by a working-class wage. And if you're making minimum wage, the water's been over your head for five or six years now, and getting deeper all the time.
All this while their industry's lobbyists and their paid lackey, Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, were whining in Washington that "eco-extremists" and "tree-huggers" were blocking them from drilling in the Arctic.
Ok, I looked up the donations Exxon makes from their PAC. I wanted to see how many Senators and Members of Congress Exxon has in their pocket thanks to the profit they skim off your gas bill and mine.
I won't kid you. Not all their donations are to Republicans. Exxon likes incumbents, especially powerful incumbents. They've got some Democrats on their payroll. But their total donations to Republicans from 1998-2006 add up (so far, the 2006 cycle is far from over) to just shy of $2.5 million - over two and a half times as much as they've donated to incumbents in the party out of power.
We should probably press harder for campaign finance reform. But, in the mean time, I think we should give them some more Democrat incumbents to consider. Let's even things out a bit.
I'm going to profile a series of races in which a good, progressive Democrat is running against GOP incumbents who've been on the take from Exxon since the election cycle of 2000. I couldn't do them all. There are too many. I had to be selective. Feel free to make your own list. In the mean time, please visit the ActBlue page below, and donate a few bucks--if you have any left after paying your gas bill.
First up: John Laesch, IL-14
The incumbent in IL-14 is the Speaker, Dennis Hastert. $26,500 in Exxon money has helped float his campaigns, 2000-2006.
No surprise to find Hastert also on the take from Halliburton's PAC: $4,000 in the 2004 cycle.
One wonders a little why he bothers with these small sums, now that we've learned that he's made $3.8 million, so far, selling land that he bought (in his wife's name, to conceal the profiteering) near a federal highway project his district didn't even want. (And he hasn't sold even half his holdings, yet.)
Timid people say a Speaker of the House can't be defeated. How soon we've forgotten Speaker Foley, or Speaker Wright. The latter was brought down by a $55,000 book deal. Not much, compared to $3.8 million in corrupt real estate deals.
John Laesch is a fine, hard-working, progressive, grassroots candidate, who honed his skills in a spirited primary and is ready to take on the beast. He also, as a correspondent pointed out, looks substantially better in a tight t-shirt than Dennis Hastert does. (Ooops, Sorry I put that image in your minds.)
If you live in or near the district, please volunteer for his campaign. Buy one of those t-shirts. Get involved.
If not, please visit the ActBlue page below (or John's own page, or any of the other pages that feature and support this outstanding candidate), and drop a few actual dollars in the tin cup. Think how much better you'll feel.
http://www.actblue.com/...