Gasland 2 screened yesterday in Normal, IL and DeSmogBlog was there to gain a sneak peak of the documentary set for a July 8 HBO national premiere.

Josh Fox’s documentary played at the Normal Theater, the second-ever screening since the film officially premiered on April 21 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

The movie builds on Fox’s Academy Award-nominated Gasland, further making the case of how the shale industry’s hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) boom is busting up peoples’ livelihoods, contaminating air and water, polluting democracy and serving as a “bridge fuel” only to propel us off the climate disruption cliff.

President Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee not only worked for the Citigroup hedge fund that shorted the housing market, invested in off-shore tax havens, and took a nice bonus from TARP money – he had a provision written into his employment contract that encouraged him to return to government service.

A report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) finds that the incestuous nature of the SEC-Wall Street relationship caused reform efforts in the money market fund industry to fail.

Yesterday President Obama nominated Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. The administration and establishment media highlighted White’s experience as a prosecutor and hinted at the possibility of a more aggressive SEC. But now that there has been time to digest the nomination there seems to be some familiar problems.

Major tax cuts were extended for giant corporations — while the average Montana was stuck with a $900/year in increased taxes — and the person responsible is claiming he doesn’t even know how his staff put it in there for his former staff? This is why last night Bill Moyers referred to Max Baucus as, “a connoisseur of revolving door corruption.”

Step right up and Spin the Revolving Door – and what is your prize? Why, a nice job on Wall Street working for the people you used to regulate – you wrote in the loopholes, now you get the cash for exploiting them!

The Tar Sands Blockade of TransCanada Corporation’s “Keystone XL South” continues in Texas, but former members of the Clinton and George W. Bush cabinets believe the northern half will soon be green-lighted by President Barack Obama.

In a Nov. 13 conference call led by the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), an oil and gas industry front group, CEA Counsel John Northington said he believes a “Keystone XL North” rubber stamp is in the works by the Obama Administration.

“I think the Keystone will be approved in fairly short order by the administration,” Northington said on the call.

In case you were wondering what all those retiring and defeated lawmakers do with themselves once banished from Capitol Hill, I have a simple answer for you: they get paid.

Pawlenty isn’t being chosen by the Financial Services Roundtable for his vast knowledge of financial services. He was chosen because he has a familiar name to members of Congress and he can get into offices and lobby them with relative ease. This is the whole point of the revolving door – find someone with contacts and name recognition and use that as a lever to get your lobby’s goals into the Congressional consciousness.

Florida’s leadership is among the most aggressive in the nation in trying to bring private prisons to the state. The governor, speaker of the house, former speaker of the house, and a host of Republicans in the legislature repeatedly attempted to force through what would have been the largest wholesale privatization of prisons in US history.