It should come as no surprise that federal employees have been accused of being in bed, literally, with oil industry representatives. The nature of power almost demands such relationships exist.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — U.S. government employees received improper gifts from energy industry representatives, and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations, according to a report issued Wednesday.
A report says government officials accepted gifts from oil and gas company employees.
The report was issued by the Interior Department’s inspector general after a $5.3 million investigation “uncovered recreational marijuana and cocaine use” by “a handful” of Interior Department staff, and found two federal employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with representatives from companies doing business” with the department.
Two Interior Department employees “received combined gifts and gratuities on at least 135 occasions from four major oil and gas companies with whom they were doing business — a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from prohibited sources,” Inspector General Earl Devaney says in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne accompanying the report.
Randall Luthi, head of the Minerals Management Service at the Interior Department, said the public had not suffered financial losses as a result of the employees’ behavior.
Some of the government employees tried to hide their close association with the industry they were supposed to be regulating, the report says.
The real problem here is not that human nature is what it is. Why does no one ever ask the question that is really important: why do we accept that government can police itself? It does a terrible job. These employees will never be appropriately punished because they are part of a monopoly that naturally protects itself. Its name is the United States Federal Government.
“The Bush administration put an ‘America for Sale’ sign on the White House lawn from day one and has been courting Big Oil ever since,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York and chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, said in a written statement. “Democrats have been saying it for some time, but this proves it. This administration is literally in bed with Big Oil. Little did we know they were such a cheap date.”
Representative Louise Slaughter is a part of the problem. She cunningly points the finger at a man we all love to hate. The truth of the matter is that Democrats are just as cheap to date as Republicans. To say that either of our two parties isn’t filled with whores would be disingenuous. Many Americans, though, remain happily oblivious to the fact that the two party system is a shell game designed for just one purpose – keeping the power in government where it can be abused with impunity.