First Van Jones than this...
Kennedy Connection to Chávez and Citgo By Kate Phillips<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/author/kate-phillips/> As many wait to see what Joseph P. Kennedy II may decide about running for the Senate <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/us/politics/04succession.html>seat long held by his uncle, Edward M. Kennedy, The Boston Globe examines the political implications <http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/06/as_joe_kennedy_considers_run_chvez_ties_loom/?page=1>of Joe Kennedy<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/k/joseph_p_kennedy_ii/index.html>’s work with Citgo and its ties to Hugo Chávez<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hugo_chavez/index.html>, the Venezuelan president. The Globe’s Michael Rezendes and Noah Bierman explain the landscape: Over the past four years, Citizens Energy Corp., the signature nonprofit founded by Kennedy in 1979 as a political launching pad, has grown from a local charity serving 10,000 Massachusetts homes a year into a national effort delivering free fuel to 200,000 households in 23 states. And Kennedy, a former U.S. representative, has relied almost exclusively on Chávez, a vociferous critic of the U.S. government, for that growth. Since 2005, Citizens’ 877-JOE-4-OIL campaign has been sustained by the oil fields of Venezuela. Chávez, who controls the industry there, has delivered crude oil at no charge to a Citizens affiliate, which has resold it and used the money to pay for oil deliveries to America’s poor. In the past two years, Citizens has been given 83 million gallons of crude by Chávez and sold it for $164 million - money used to fund almost its entire philanthropic mission. Now, as Mr. Kennedy considers stepping into what is certain to be a contentious contest for the state’s first US Senate vacancy in more than 25 years, he will also almost certainly have to consider how his stewardship at Citizens would play in a campaign. In addition to forging increasingly close ties with Chávez and Citgo Petroleum Corp., an oil company controlled by the Venezuelan government, Mr. Kennedy has used the proceeds of Chávez’s donated oil to fund millions in advertising for the heating oil charity - $16 million over the last two winters alone. Those ads, in turn, prominently feature Mr. Kennedy, often personally delivering Chávez-funded oil to needy recipients. In February of last year, Mr. Kennedy defended the use of Venezuelan oil in an interview <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xUkbPpYGLk> with a television station based in Springfield, Mass. He said: “Some people say it’s wrong to take it,” in one of the other commercials. In the interview, he added: “Given the fact that the vast majority of the oil from any one single place in this part of the country comes from Venezuela, then everyone who has a problem with us taking oil from Venezuela should hold I think themselves to the same standard, and they should be walking to work and not just be using oil products.” clip... http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/kennedy-connection-to-chavez-and-citgo/ ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
