Late Thursday the Bush administration announced that it was nominating Granta Nakayama as chief of enforcement for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nakayama is a specialist in environmental law, is a full partner in Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the law firm that is now defending W.R. Grace & Co. against criminal charges in a major environmental case.

The law firm is defending Grace against multiple criminal charges alleging that the Columbia-based company and seven of its current or former executives knowingly put their workers and the public in danger through exposure to vermiculite ore contaminated with asbestos from the company’s mine in Libby, Montana, a case that is being called “one of the most significant criminal indictments for environmental crime in our history,” by EPA agents.

While Nakayama was a student in George Mason University School of Law, Kirkland & Ellis led the successful appellate court battle to scuttle the EPA’s 10-year effort to ban the mining, importation, use and sale of asbestos and asbestos-containing products.

But Thomas Skinner, the EPA’s acting head of enforcement, said Nakayama would avoid any conflicts.

“I’m very confident that the first thing he’s going to do when he walks in that door is to sign a formal recusal letter and to make clear to everyone in the agency that he’s to have nothing to do with W.R. Grace or other clients represented by [Kirkland & Ellis] and nobody can talk to him about these matters.

“I guarantee you it will happen,” Skinner added.

Yeah…and I have bridge for sale–cheap…

Eleven EPA lawyers and investigators contacted yesterday refused to comment on the record, with most saying that any public comments would be “a career-ender.”

Another brazenly anti-environmental apointment by the Bush administration. Let’s see if the Democrats have any spine on this one.

I’m posting this one under the category “environmental wisdom” even thought there is no wisdom apparent here.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Senator John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator McCain,

I was deeply disturbed while watching the Iraq hearings yesterday to hear you say, “This is a conflict we have to win, and cannot afford to lose.”

Vietnam was exacerbated by a presidential lie (Tonkin Gulf); Iraq was apparently predicated on a pack of lies (Downing Street Memo.) As someone who experienced a similar war so intimately, I would think that you would be burning to get to the bottom of these allegations.

Before you participate in driving this nation deeper into a war that cannot be won, will you please press for an investigation of the growing evidence that the Bush administration “fixed intelligence around policy to justify an invasion of Iraq.” Most Americans already understand, in spite of the volumes of political rhetoric to the contrary, that this invasion was really a grab for oil and control of the region.

Global stability and national security are inseparable. Our violence toward other nations only threatens both stability and security here and around the world. Our nation will always be at risk as long as it is dependent on imported oil.

Iraq is not winnable. By pursuing this invasion we have only weakened ourselves economically, politically, militarily and morally. Even in Afghanistan, the situation deteriorates slowly. There we have suffered more casualties every year since the war began. In the first half of this year we have lost almost as many Americans as we did in all of 2002—our first full year of occupation: http://icasualties.org/oef/

We cannot win these wars. Our economy will soon come crashing down on our heads. As a nation we are borrowing more than two billion dollars every day from China and elsewhere. What happens when these friends stop lending us money? Fifteen years ago the Russians saw their currency become almost worthless. How far away from that situation are we?

Unfortunately for all Americans, your party supports the grandiose neocon illusion that we can control the oil of the Middle East. Yesterday while you were proclaiming the need for victory in Iraq, oil prices hit a record high. Unfortuantely most Democrats, including John Kerry, also believe in victory in Iraq.

A local Democrat with impeccably electable credentials (law degree, taught at West Point, veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, young, tall, handsome, bright-eyed and well spoken) is runniing for congress in 2006. He says we must get out of Iraq! —not now, but in three years! That seems to be the position of the “doves” among the Democrats. Three years! That’s longer than we’ve already been there, and much longer than our economy will support. But I guess it’s what most Democrats think you’ve got to say to get elected. Hawks: “Victory;” Doves: “Out in 3 years.” I don’t see a significant difference here except that it opens Democrats to violent attacks from Rove and company for being wusses, and aiding and comforting the enemy by setting a timetable for withdrawal.

The truth is: we need to get out NOW!

What it all boils down to is that the American people are left without any real choices, no functioning government, and truth unavailable anywhere but on the internet:
1) There is virtually no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Both parties’ only real concern locally and nationally is raising money and figuring what to say to get elected;
2) The White House is preoccupied with intimidation and news management to increase their grasp on power. They know that the truth about Iraq will ultimately lead to impeachment and even war crimes trials, so they do everything in their power to keep the truth from getting out;
3) Congress is paralyzed in partisan politicking and defending their wounded;
4) the judiciary has a lame duck Chief Justice; and
5) the media is self-managed to present a rosy picture of business as usual to the public. No one must know, for instance, of General Motors impending collapse.

Fortunately most Americans seem to prefer denial anyway, and are looking to CNN and Fox for the next Michael Jackson or Terri Schaivo story. Denial is interrupted for many only when they have to stop by the pumps and are thankful to have enough credit in their home equity line for another tankfull.

Senator McCain, I call on you as a victim of a past war, which was driven by lies, pride, and xenophobia, to face the truth and speak the truth regardless of the political consequences. The only path to real national security is changing our wasteful and violent ways, working peacefully toward sustainability and energy independence, and cooperating honestly with the rest of the world in sharing remaining oil supplies. This must begin with an admission that we were misled into an unjust war, a plan for immediate withdrawal, and justice for the victims and the perpetrators.

This is not about altruism anymore. It is about survival: survival of our democracy, our nation, and our people.

Sincerely,

Gus Linton
Perkasie, PA