Joseph P. (Joe-4-Oil) Kennedy remains one of our state’s major embarrassments. A former congressman, he runs the non-profit Citizens Energy while waiting for Uncle Teddy's liver to provide him with a shot at the US Senate. Here he is quoted at a ceremony yesterday accepting a donation of heating oil from Venezuela:
“Our government gets their panties in a knot much more than most Americans do about Hugo Chávez…I know there's a lot of controversy about the fact that this oil ultimately comes from Citgo, from Venezuela and, yes, from Hugo Chávez. I'll never be in the tank to Hugo Chávez, but I'll tell you I wish we had a little more leadership in this country that has a concern for the poor and the disenfranchised as we do in other parts of the world…We approach every major oil company and every OPEC nation each year to ask that a small slice of their record profits go to help the poor. Only one oil company -- CITGO -- and only one nation -- Venezuela -- stepped up to the plate to offer a helping hand.”
The above quotes come from this Boston Globe story and this Venezuela PR site (complete with web ads for the recent constitutional “reform” in Venezuela and a Chavez biography!)
Not to be outdone in causing embarrassment, US Representative William Delahunt, (D- Chavez MA) also spoke at the ceremony:
…said he was grateful to Citgo for "an extraordinary example of people-to-people humanitarianism." "It's time that other oil companies stood up and replicated the example of Citgo," Delahunt said. He added that he planned to soon convene other members of Congress to travel to state-owned oil companies in Kuwait, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia asking them to make similar donations to help poor Americans pay heating bills.
Aid (political donations, really) from Venezuela now and next from Mexico? Billy boy, why not add Nigeria and Chad to the list for your next cheap oil shopping trip on behalf of “poor Americans”?
1 comment:
"Joseph P. (Joe-4-Oil) Kennedy ... runs the non-profit Citizens Energy"
You are making a similar mistake as the Globe. Citizens Energy is a pretzel of a FOR PROFIT company only a small portion is used to "give" oil to the needy. Mainly it is an VERY PROFITABLE energy trading company. Joe Kennedy pulls down hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from this company. And who knows how much of this $25 million "donation" from "our friend, Hugo Chavez" (a Joe Kennedy quote) really goes to the poor. After all, oil is fungable.
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