We the People are endangered, captured, and dying due to corporate greed. Our government has allowed itself to be purchased by corporations, and its actions (deregulation, etc.) are putting Americans in danger every day.Endangered. Attorney General of Maryland, Brian E. Frosh, was quoted this week as saying, “Every day there’s something that goes on that endangers the health and safety of Americans.” This quote was in an excellent article by Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post about Attorneys General fighting for environmental protection policies. From that piece:“The NYU School of Law will launch a new center, financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, aimed at helping state attorneys general fight any federal moves to roll back renewable energy, environmental protections and climate policies.”“The grant of nearly $6 million…will establish the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center….”“The new center will provide legal assistance to the attorneys general on renewable energy, climate and environmental issues and will sponsor 10 lawyers on two-year fellowships who will work directly on cases in different attorneys general offices.”1The problem of federal roll back of environmental protections is better understood more broadly as endangerment of Americans and the future of humanity from the known and unknown consequences of ever-increasing global heating.Captured by Corporate Supremacists. A former Attorney General and now U.S. Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, has just authored Captured, an excellent book that describes how, why, by, and for whom American policy-making has been captured.Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org describes Captured as follows:“Deploying his deep knowledge of American history, Sheldon Whitehouse cuts to the quick of our modern democratic dilemma: money rules. And unless we follow his lead in fighting it, we’ll among other things watch the oil industry trash our planet.”

has filed seeks access to visitor logs.5“In this case, Public Citizen sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Secret Service for copies of visitor logs and other records documenting visitors to four agencies within the White House Complex that are subject to FOIA—the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).”Pollution and Dying Continues. As I write this, the Trump Air Pollution Early Death Clock, based on MIT estimates, has exceeded 117,000 deaths in the U.S., just since President Trump took office.6[caption id="attachment_22464" align="aligncenter" width="397"]Trump Aip Pollution Early Death Clock; image courtesy of www.careforcrashvictims.com.

We are on a burning planetary ship traveling through space. We can estimate the number of needless deaths due to air pollution in the U.S. each day. What we have been unable to do is put out the fires fed by fossil fuel and other corporate powers with unlimited money. Hopefully, we will learn to politically and legally control the corporate supremacists before it is too late for all of us.

Sources:

1. NYU Law launches new center to help state AGs fight environmental rollbacks

2. Amazon link to “Captured” by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

3. The Deep Industry Ties of Trump’s Deregulation Teams

4. Public Citizen v. Trump

5. Public Citizen, Inc. v. United States Secret Service

6. Trump Clocks