Dear Friends,

CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S PODCAST, where Charles Goldman and I discuss:

Dr. Charles Goldman cohosts this week’s Fallon Forum.

— An enterprising capitalist who got the COVID-19 vaccination 90 times;
— Legislation to prevent eminent domain from being used to build CO2 pipelines;
— The “Rescue America” plan proposed by Sen. Rick Scott;
— How the conventional fix to inflation will hurt wage-earning workers;
— Comparing US gerrymandering to Putin-style election rigging; and
— Subsistence farming, past and present (with Kathy Byrnes).

Y’all know the song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who? Any time Big Oil reps flap their yappers, that song should be playing in our heads.

Big Oil. The industry Rachel Maddow calls “the richest, most destructive industry on Earth.” The industry that, thanks to Exxon Mobile, made Russia the deadly oil-and-gas powerhouse it is today. The industry that lied to us repeatedly about the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Make no mistake: The primary force behind this mad rush to build 60,000 miles of CO2 pipeline is Big Oil (specifically Continental Resources, Valero, Black Rock, Wolf). Consistent with its past track record, Big Oil is lying about CO2 pipelines.

It’s a lie for that they aren’t willing to use eminent domain to build them.

It’s a lie that landowners’ soil, infrastructure, and crop yields won’t be damaged.

It’s a lie that CO2 pipelines are a solution to climate change.

At least Big Oil isn’t lying about one thing: They admit they wouldn’t build these pipelines without taxpayer subsidies.

Back to the climate angle. The Guardian reports: “The fossil fuel industry and its influence over policy was the major elephant in the room looming over the release of the third and final [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report. … [W]hat this report makes abundantly clear is that acting on climate is not being restricted by a lack of scientific knowledge or technological options, but by entrenched power structures and an absence of political will.”

Big Oil doesn’t care about climate change, but it’s happy to take our money and land to pretend otherwise. Moving carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to sequestration sites for additional oil extraction merely digs our climate hole deeper. It further entrenches an industry hell-bent on getting as rich as possible with no regard to the planet nor to the farmers, landowners, or Native communities in its way.

Whatever your concern — climate change, the environment, property rights, corporate welfare, government overreach — we need to stand together against this CO2 pipeline build-out. Divided we fall. United, we’ve got a fighting chance.

Ed

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THIS WEEK’S FALLON FORUM:

(01:13) COVID capitalism;
(06:53) Update on eminent domain for CO2 pipelines;
(12:25) One Republican’s plan to “rescue” America;
(19:31) US workers the victim of “fixing” inflation;
(37:27) Election rigging that would make Putin proud;
(54:13) Subsistence farming, then and now, with Kathy Byrnes.

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– KPIP-LP, 94.7 FM (Fayette, Missouri)
– KCEI 90.1 FM (Taos, New Mexico)
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– WRGN 94.1 FM (Columbus, Ohio)

Please support the local businesses and non-profits who make this program possible. Click on their logos on the Fallon Forum website and in our weekly email, and visit Dr. Drake Family Psychiatry, Story County Veterinary Clinic, Bold Iowa, and Birds & Bees Urban Farm. Thanks for supporting the civil alternative to the shock jocks!

Ed Fallon