Today's Stories

July 17, 2008

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U.S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U.S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

July 17, 2008

Bush Crony's $10 Oil Refinery Seeks U.S. Government Guarantees

Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

By JAMES G. ABOUREZK

Full disclosure: I am the attorney for one of the groups in opposition to the oil refinery proposed by Hyperion Resources in Union County, South Dakota.

Like Dr. Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen’s play, An Enemy of the People, Ed Cable, a construction consultant living in Union County, South Dakota, is trying to warn the residents of the county about the dangers of permitting an oil refinery to be constructed on the pristine farmlands in southeastern South Dakota.

In a modern day re-enactment of the Ibsen play, Cable leads a group opposing the projected oil refinery in Union County, which is about as far from an oil well as one can get.  His effort has been to sound an alarm to people about the major problems that will come with such a project, i.e., the pollution, the problems that will come with a massive influx of construction workers, and the lack of adequate hospitals and law enforcement to service such an influx.  He has found it as difficult as Dr. Stockmann to overcome the promise of money flowing into the area because of the refinery’s construction.

One must ask why is a Texas corporation moving as rapidly as it has to obtain approvals for a 400,000 barrel-a-day oil refinery to be located where there is no oil?

There is in fact a thimbleful of oil in extreme northwestern South Dakota, but not enough to keep a refinery busy.  There is no oil whatever in Union County, South Dakota, which is where Hyperion is attempting to move in to establish what it calls, “a green refinery.”  Putting aside for the moment the fact  that there is no such thing as a “green refinery,” why Hyperion wants to establish any kind of refinery in the lush farmlands of Southeastern South Dakota is a mystery. A mystery, that is, until one looks a little closer at the Texas corporation.

Hyperion is controlled by Texan Albert Huddleston, who, in 2004, contributed $100,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a Committee set up to smear Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry. He is also reported to be a close friend of George W. Bush.  The Corporation is planning to construct a $10 billion refinery on land where heretofore corn has been the principal commodity.

Huddleston is married to Mary Hunt, the granddaughter of fabled Texas oilman, H.L. Hunt.  He is also the Defendant in a lawsuit brought against him by a Miro Vranac, who is one of the Trustees of the “Lyda Hunt Bunker-Mary Moreland Hunt Trust.”  Vranac claims he was unjustly fired by Albert and Mary Huddleston after, so he alleges, he tried to block Huddleston’s attempt to use trust proceeds to pay off mortgages on real estate Mary Huddleston owned.  The lawsuit also alleges that Huddleston had requested a distribution of an additional $20 million from the Trust for what the lawsuit describes as “other misguided projects in Iraq and South Dakota.”

Beyond Huddleston, Hyperion’s background adds to the mystery of why anyone would plant an oil refinery where there is no oil.

One of the opponents of the refinery, Jason Quam, did some research on Hyperion as a company.  He found that the only real business Hyperion has been engaged in is building, buying and selling “sanitary landfills”—or in common parlance, garbage dumps.

What Huddleston and his Corporation have succeeded in doing so far is to talk the Union County Commission into granting a permit, one that would re-zone the entire area where the refinery would be located, giving Hyperion almost total control over the site, with little or no interference by the County.

His efforts have also succeeded in causing a corrosive division between those residents of the County who have agreed to sell their land to Hyperion at favorable prices, and those who have no desire to live next door to this pollution factory.  In a referendum in early June, Hyperion’s promises of lots of jobs and lots of tax money carried the election by 58 per cent.  Those who wanted to sell their land were joined by voters in the small town of Elk Point who fell prey to Hyperion’s promises, as well as those who live in Dakota Dunes, the bedroom community serving Sioux City, just across the border in Iowa, who are far enough away to be unaffected by the pollution, the destructive congestion, and the myriad of other problems that will be brought on by a $10 billion construction project.

During the buildup to the election, Hyperion was cunning  enough to resist answering publicly the questions opponents wanted answered.  It did so by holding public meetings, but instead of standing before the audience, the “experts” brought in by Hyperion sat at separate tables so their answers were heard only by those standing at a table, but not by the rest of the audience.  And the County Commissioners, who were virtually orgasmic at the thought of all that tax money coming in, refused to allow members of the public to ask questions during the few meetings they held with Hyperion present.  The Republican governor, Mike Rounds, has not only endorsed the project, but he has expended a great deal of effort to support it.  Again, full disclosure, this time on behalf of the Governor.   The Governor’s father was once a lobbyist for the oil industry in the South Dakota legislature.

This year, Hyperion officials quietly approached South Dakota’s U.S. Senator Tim Johnson to ask his help in obtaining a $10 billion guaranteed loan from the government to build the refinery.  Johnson broke the story to the press, but even that disclosure did not deter a yes vote from those who saw the dollar signs floating down to the County from Hyperion.  It’s apparent that Huddleston will have to get his financing somewhere else besides the government, especially if his friend George W. Bush is no longer holding sway in the White House.  Other experts have said that if the project were commercially viable, Hyperion would not need a government loan guarantee.

Beyond the money difficulties, there’s the question of where the oil will come from to feed the refinery.  Hyperion says it will tap Canadian tar sands from which crude oil will be extracted, then send it in a pipeline down to South Dakota.    Based on the cost of a pipeline now being planned by another oil company wanting to ship oil through South Dakota, such a pipeline from Canada to Union County will cost anywhere from $6 to $7 billion dollars.     Added to the cost of building the refinery, we’re talking real money here.

What South Dakotans are facing is the fact that there is no oil dirtier than that which comes from tar sands.  It is of such a low grade of crude that it has to be heavily refined.  And how long the nation of Canada will stand for the pollution and energy wastage resulting from producing oil from tar sands is a serious question.  This kind of extraction process produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than does a barrel of conventional oil.  The only “green” thing remaining is that which will float southward to Texas into Albert Huddleston’s bank account, leaving South Dakota, a state which now has very clean air, to live with the pollution from his refinery.

Part of Hyperion’s campaign is to hold out the promise of cheaper gasoline prices if they bring the refinery online.  But America consumes 20.7 million barrels of crude oil a day.  Adding 400,000 barrels a day from a tar sands refinery will make no dent whatsoever in gas prices.  America is much better served by conservation along with such reforms as increasing wind and solar energy, constructing a nationwide rail transportation system much like those in Europe and Japan. We can hope that by the time any such farmland refinery would come online, this country would no longer be in need of more refineries.

Moreover, Barack Obama, who is likely to be our next president, has said that he is committed to breaking America’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil.   If Obama keeps his word and doesn’t find a new religion in the process of winning the election, oil refineries of any kind hopefully will become as outdated as horse-drawn carriages.

James G. Abourezk is a lawyer practicing in South Dakota. He is a former United States senator and the author of two books, Advise and Dissent, and a co-author of Through Different Eyes. Abourezk  can be reached at georgepatton@alyajames.net.

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