Citgo moves from Baseball Hall of Fame to Kennedys for propaganda
"Citgo sign inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame", 7/18/06 (MLB.com), article details intensive 5 year promotional program between MLB and the Venezuelan oil company headed by Hugo Chavez. If MLB deifies a dictator, why shouldn't the Kennedys? Headlines this week drew attention to Citgo's oil program for low income people in the US and the administration of same by Joseph P. Kennedy's 'not for profit' (tax exempt) company Citizens Energy. The program is actually not for poor people but more to grease the skids with reliable political pawns advancing Chavez' concerns:
- (Human Events, 1/09/09): "It’s hard to avoid the commercials starring former Congressman Joseph Kennedy II explaining how friendly Venezuela and Hugo Chavez are to the American people. After all Chavez and Kennedy are bringing relief to the poor people of America who suffer under the evil tyranny of high fuel costs.
- First, Citizens Energy Corporation is not the organization that is directly involved with the program. Rather, one has to first look to a holding company,
- Mr. Kennedy’s over $400,000 annual salary comes from this organization.
- they managed to buy over ten million dollars in oil
- However there’s a problem with the math in these deals. According to Citgo 40 million gallons of oil went to help 181,000 households last year, however Citizens Energy claims it was 170,000 households.
- Interestingly, the numbers provided by Citgo offer a breakdown by State on the number households aided and total gallons involved.
- The disparities by State offer a view into what this program really seeks to accomplish.
- In New York where the program was limited to Bronx and Harlem are the districts represented by Congressmen Charles Rangel and Jose Serrano, the latter being arguably Chavez’s biggest ally in the US Congress, the average household received 454 gallons of oil from Citgo.
- In Massachusetts -- the Kennedy stronghold – was where Representative Bill Delahunt, who is Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight of the House Foreign Relations Committee welcomed the delivery of on average 240 gallons of oil per household.
- Finally, there is Rhode Island where Senator Kennedy’s son Patrick Kennedy represents the first Congressional district and whose average household participating in this program happened to have received over 366 gallons.
- That’s well above what Vermont, despite having harsher winters, got: at an average of 166 gallons per participating home.
- Why is a not-for-profit entity engaged in a commercial enterprise?
Where and how did the additional thirty-seven million gallons of heating oil, representing more than ninety-million dollars based on the average price, come from that Citgo claims to have distributed, when their point of distribution claims to have only been involved in a six million dollar program?
- But this program is not about the buying, or selling of oil, or math or home heating.
- It’s about the subtle influence of the American system.
- It is about aiding political allies as a means of influencing policy.
- It is time the Kennedy family and their allies provide answers to the American people about what they and their partner Chavez are really up to, and
- end the platitudes about how Chavez is just a misunderstood teddy bear who cares for Americans." via Free Republic
- Top photo from CaptainsQuarters
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