This is Republican Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, one of those “family values” guys, giving an “interview” on abstinence. The young woman interviewing him is staffer Traci Jackson, that he was boinking on the side. Field research? Souder resigned yesterday. His wife was not at his side.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Rapid Fire Election Night Impressions
Joe Sestak beat party-jumper Arlen Specter handily in Pennsylvania. This was a setback for the White House, but not entirely unexpected. Matthews described Sestak as "the little engine that could" and Big Ed Schultz, who's given to occasional hyperbole, said he's a "diamond in the rough," predicting he's not done yet.
I'll say. First Sestak needs to beat Toomey. And Eddie, next time you talk to your buddy Joe, please tell him to hire a speech coach STAT, because his speaking style -- the long pauses, the whiny delivery, the rambling -- won't cut it in the general. It's just too annoying. It doesn't even come close to Chris saying CHEE-KNEE -- we just ignore that. Just sayin' Eddie, advise your guy to hire that speaking coach and start talking in front of a mirror -- pacing, pacing, no more long pauses, and work on some more emphatic hand gestures -- or he'll lose on the cosmetics.
Seriously. Man, what an awful podium speaker. Gave me agita. Sestak needs to develop a strong stump speech -- he's got the slogans and the talking points -- and then deliver it in a way that doesn't have people tearing their hair out at all the pregnant pauses.
In Kentucky, "Ayn" Rand (it's gotta be, like father like son like Ayn) Paul, the guy with the ass-backward name in more ways than one has just made Kentucky competitive for the Democrats. His race -- AGAINST REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH McCONNELL's HANDPICKED CHOICE -- sucked all the punditocracy oxygen away from the Democratic contest, which actually featured two strong and attractive candidates.
Gotta love those Teabaggers. I find it hard to believe that, even in Kentucky, voters will go for someone who wants to repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act, and privatize/destroy Medicare and Social Security. Wrap that one around your pea brains, you old Teabagger farts. It's not the black guy who's going to take your (MINE MINE MINE) benefits away; it's the Ayn Rand candidate you backed.
The Pennsylvania 12th, for the late Rep. John Murtha's seat was a walkover for Murtha's aide, Democrat Mark Critz over Republican Tim Burns. The Republicans nationalized the election, put up a pretty young face, dumped lots of money into the race and got their asses burned. AGAIN. Woot! Losers. So much for the punditocracy's hope this contest would go Red so they could make all sorts of idiotic assertions about national trends.
In Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln went down to an excellent candidate, Lt. Governor Bill Halter. A REAL Democrat. A CENTRIST, but that's OK, it's Arkansas. Listen carefully, Chris, I'll say this only once: Blanche Lincoln is NO "centrist." She's a CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT, just like you are. Progressives who watch Hardball have not forgotten or forgiven you for using your platform to actively campaign against the public option and "those netroots people." Poetic Justice.
Lincoln is a nice lady, but a traitor to core Democratic values. Progressives are fed up with the sellout of the Progressive agenda, from the public option to watered down financial reform to protecting Big Oil. Lincoln was on the wrong side of every single one of these good public policy issues, and her deathbed conversion as a financial reform crusader fooled no one. One final point: The "netroots" Matthews was so disdainful of poured tons of money -- $20, $30 contributions -- into Halter's campaign to take CONSERVATIVE Democrat Blanche Lincoln down. So much for our waning strength at the polls, if we listened to the idiot punditocracy.
The pundits (as usual) are all wrong. This was a great night for the Democratic Party, with a nod to the Teabaggers. They're the Republicans' problem. November's looking good for the Dems.
Matthews, you lose. Big win for Big Eddie. And Howard Fineman's mom, too.
I'll say. First Sestak needs to beat Toomey. And Eddie, next time you talk to your buddy Joe, please tell him to hire a speech coach STAT, because his speaking style -- the long pauses, the whiny delivery, the rambling -- won't cut it in the general. It's just too annoying. It doesn't even come close to Chris saying CHEE-KNEE -- we just ignore that. Just sayin' Eddie, advise your guy to hire that speaking coach and start talking in front of a mirror -- pacing, pacing, no more long pauses, and work on some more emphatic hand gestures -- or he'll lose on the cosmetics.
Seriously. Man, what an awful podium speaker. Gave me agita. Sestak needs to develop a strong stump speech -- he's got the slogans and the talking points -- and then deliver it in a way that doesn't have people tearing their hair out at all the pregnant pauses.
In Kentucky, "Ayn" Rand (it's gotta be, like father like son like Ayn) Paul, the guy with the ass-backward name in more ways than one has just made Kentucky competitive for the Democrats. His race -- AGAINST REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH McCONNELL's HANDPICKED CHOICE -- sucked all the punditocracy oxygen away from the Democratic contest, which actually featured two strong and attractive candidates.
Gotta love those Teabaggers. I find it hard to believe that, even in Kentucky, voters will go for someone who wants to repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act, and privatize/destroy Medicare and Social Security. Wrap that one around your pea brains, you old Teabagger farts. It's not the black guy who's going to take your (MINE MINE MINE) benefits away; it's the Ayn Rand candidate you backed.
The Pennsylvania 12th, for the late Rep. John Murtha's seat was a walkover for Murtha's aide, Democrat Mark Critz over Republican Tim Burns. The Republicans nationalized the election, put up a pretty young face, dumped lots of money into the race and got their asses burned. AGAIN. Woot! Losers. So much for the punditocracy's hope this contest would go Red so they could make all sorts of idiotic assertions about national trends.
In Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln went down to an excellent candidate, Lt. Governor Bill Halter. A REAL Democrat. A CENTRIST, but that's OK, it's Arkansas. Listen carefully, Chris, I'll say this only once: Blanche Lincoln is NO "centrist." She's a CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT, just like you are. Progressives who watch Hardball have not forgotten or forgiven you for using your platform to actively campaign against the public option and "those netroots people." Poetic Justice.
Lincoln is a nice lady, but a traitor to core Democratic values. Progressives are fed up with the sellout of the Progressive agenda, from the public option to watered down financial reform to protecting Big Oil. Lincoln was on the wrong side of every single one of these good public policy issues, and her deathbed conversion as a financial reform crusader fooled no one. One final point: The "netroots" Matthews was so disdainful of poured tons of money -- $20, $30 contributions -- into Halter's campaign to take CONSERVATIVE Democrat Blanche Lincoln down. So much for our waning strength at the polls, if we listened to the idiot punditocracy.
The pundits (as usual) are all wrong. This was a great night for the Democratic Party, with a nod to the Teabaggers. They're the Republicans' problem. November's looking good for the Dems.
Matthews, you lose. Big win for Big Eddie. And Howard Fineman's mom, too.
Quote of the Day: Chris Matthews on Today's Elections
I know it’s early yet, but nobody beats this zinger from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on the mood of the electorate:
“People are banging on the pipes. They want hot water. They want the Super to deliver.”This guy says hilarious things, especially when he doesn’t mean to. Give up telling people you’re not trying to be funny, Chris. By the way; you and Smerconish and the rest of the idiot punditocracy are wrong on Blumenthal. Stop being so damned trigger-happy with your snap judgments.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Big Oil’s Call Girls
When Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska rose to the Senate Floor to “object” to a unanimous consent request by Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey that the bill he and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida introduced, raising liability caps for polluters like BP from an absurd $75 million to a still inadequate but more realistic $10 billion, was Murkowski committing a crime? Technically, no. Any more than BP, Deepwater Horizon, and Halliburton are corporate criminals that would be found criminally negligent in any court of law in the land for taking the lives of eleven workers on that rig that exploded into a human and ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
And not unless the Justice Department were to conduct an investigation into influence peddling, perhaps record conversations between senators and congresspersons in which oil industry executives direct them to take to the Senate floor to block legislation that expands the corporations’ criminal liability in cases already before the courts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Corruption is very hard to prove in such cases. The Justice Department has limited resources, and its criminal investigations division was under the thumb of the most corrupt and politicized administration in modern times: eight years of deregulation and wanton corruption under Big Oil men Bush and Cheney.
Remember those mass firings of U.S. attorneys by Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? Nothing like a sledge hammer from the top to put a freeze on prospective criminal investigations into “sensitive” areas. (Democrats, Rove-sanctioned political probes were OK, though.) By the time the OIG report came out detailing a “culture of ethical failure … a pervasive culture of exclusivity, exempt from the rules that govern all other employees of the Federal Government,” well, it was September 10, 2008. Guess what was happening on November 6 of that year.
To be fair to the Inspector General, the report took so long to complete (it began in 2006) “primarily due to the criminal nature of some of these allegations, protracted discussions with DOJ [emphasis mine] and the ultimate refusal of one major oil company -- Chevron -- to cooperate with our investigation.” If anything, President Obama understated his PG-13 characterization of an X-rated “regulatory” culture existing between the federal government and Big Oil. He called it a “cozy relationship”— free-flowing sex, drugs, and phony permits between the industry and its regulators, the Minerals Management Service (MMS). The place was a real den of iniquity; and it was still issuing drilling permits after the new boss, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said he was putting a stop to them!
Nope, it doesn’t work that way. Lisa Murkowski and Mary Landrieu –- let’s call them agents prostitutes, Big Oil’s call girls –- made Crew’s list of ‘The Most Corrupt’ members of Congress in recent years, and will most likely be back on it this year. In Congress, House and Senate, (the polls show people instinctively know this) money talks and bullshit walks. Straight to the Senate floor where Senator Murkowski “argued” that the legislation:
Right. Plaintiffs’ lawyers saw right though this maneuver, claiming that the company wanted the more than 100 lawsuits adjudicated in Houston, heart of Texas oil country, because juries there would be most sympathetic to the oil industry. Instead, they will try to consolidate the lawsuits in New Orleans (watch Senator Landrieu try to block cases being heard in New Orleans) or Washington, where they could get a fair hearing.
I’ll bet the following imaginary conversation between Big Oil and Senator Murkowski could very well reside in that sinister black building where the NSA eavesdrops on millions of phone conversations. If only we had a progressive version of J. Edgar Hoover, who could dangle these personal secrets over politicians’ heads and compel them to be honest public servants. It’s easy to imagine a phone call from Big Oil to their girl, Lisa. This is how it would go:
Big Oil: “We’re calling in our chips, Senator. We need you to block, delay, obstruct, kill if you can, the Nelson-Menendez bill. We don’t care how you do it, or what arguments you use.”
Murkowski: “You don’t understand the pressure we’re in to do something in Congress. After all, your people are poisoning the Gulf and ruining the coastal and tourism economies of four states. Nelson and his crowd are royally pissed at me. They’re threatening a recorded roll call vote, instead of a voice vote. I just don’t know how long Mary and I can hold them at bay. And now our friends are getting pissed at me because they don’t want to be outed voting against this thing. They, all of us, just love your money, but this is big, really big. You gotta understand!”
Big Oil: “Calm down, Lisa. We’re working on a “friendly” judge (if you know what I mean) to limit liability, as we speak. Perry’s office promises to cooperate, anything we need, the Texas delegation is mostly behind us, Barton’s screaming at that little radical punk in the House, Henry Waxman, that he wants “fair and balanced” hearings. Haha … Fox has their seat at the table. Not much we could do about Ed Markey’s grandstanding with that jar of oily Gulf water and “hole-in-one” shit … Just be thankful we threw so much money at Scott Brown we discouraged Markey from running. Brown’s in our pocket. He’ll play ball. And you’ve got that all-important 41st vote to filibuster …
Murkowski: “No. That’ll look bad … This isn’t healthcare, you know. Even the Teabaggers, I mean Tea Party people … might think critically once that black ooze and dead animals start washing ashore in their backyards … and they won’t like it when their shrimp cocktail, gas pump prices gets more expensive and the seafood restaurants go out of business … They might blame us, not Obama this time! I don’t know how long Dick Armey can control those crazy old coots, and Sarah, well she’s just out for herself. Loose cannon, she’ll say something dumb, I know her well. (Snort)”
Big Oil: “Listen Lisa. You do the talking, we’ll do the thinking. Okay? Play your cards right and we won’t need a filibuster. We just need you to delay for now, until we can get some favorable rulings in court. We’re very close. Just delay, obstruct …”
Murkowski: “But what do I say? They have a point, you know. And the politics of this has gone TOXIC. It’s not simply the Gulf, you know. Everyone here is calculating how this will impact our political futures. We’ve got political and lobbying careers to think about. You didn’t do us any favors with all that finger-pointing at the hearings …”
Big Oil: “Minor setback. Tony’s not happy but he’s got Lamar on a short leash. And we’ve got Tony by the balls, too. He’d better hope it’s us and not the feds. Lamar’s gone after this is all over, but if he fucks up again … No golden parachute. He knows it. They all do. In the meantime, tell them anything, just stall stall stall. Say it hurts small business operators … Haha … Total nonsense, but a standard Republican talking point.”
Murkowski: “Hmm … That might work. But only for so long … I mean, it makes no sense to say this hurts small operators (do they even exist?) if they can’t cover the cost of the clenup … that means the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill and the Teabaggers will be all over me. (Whines)”
Big Oil: “It’ll be all right. They’re too dense to catch on, they still think the rig was blown up by ‘environmentalist wackos’ … Hahaha … Couldn’t ask for better media boosters than Rush and Glenn. (Note to self: make sure they get their stash of drugs.) If all goes as planned we won’t keep you hanging out there too long. We won’t forget this, Lisa. We reward loyalty, you know, and we really appreciate your courage, standing up for the right thing and all.”
Murkowski: “Right …”
Big Oil: “Remember … just as Henry Waxman and Barbara Boxer, and the rest of those tree-hugging alternative energy (snorts) radicals opened their hearings, we held our own little grease-the-wheels confab with your Republican colleagues. Sorry you couldn’t make it, but we understand. Don’t worry, you’ll get yours too. (Joke! Haha.) You’ll be happy to know message guru Frank Luntz was in attendance. We told Luntzie, ‘this is your biggest career challenge! We want you to make us come out the other end smelling like roses and sweet perfume’ … Someone told him taking a dip in the Gulf might help his complexion. He said, ‘no thanks.’ Not much of a joke guy.”
“Speaking of jokes and swimming in these waters, Haley Barbour should really stop telling people it’s OK to go to the beach. Truth is, we really have no idea what effect the tons of dispersants we’re dumping in the Gulf will have on humans, long or short term, and we don’t intend to find out! The last thing we need are more lawsuits from a bunch of Haley’s Mississippi constituents who went swimming because he said it was safe and got a bunch of skin lesions for their trouble.”
Murkowski: “Gotta go. The bill’s coming up shortly. I’ll think of something, for now, but you’d better get me those Luntz talking points STAT! (I know, we said it during the healthcare debate, too.)”
Big Oil: “Go get ‘em, tiger! One more thing, Lisa, before I forget. Make sure you coordinate your message with Mary. We want this thing to look bipartisan. Optics are very important; it’s the only thing keeping the public from the reality of what’s going on in the Gulf.”
Murkowski: “Landrieu? She’s great! You don’t have to worry about her, why, she’s a true believer. Did you catch that interview she had with Ed Schultz over at MSNBC? She rolled that fat man like he was the tarp coverin’ the baseball infield during rain delay! Haha … I think she set the ground rules for the interview, ‘cause he said the ‘floor is yours.’ Talk about how not to conduct an interview … not that I’m complaining, but we need more places to get our message out than just Larry King and Fox News … And when the Ed Show inflated your contributions to her (I should be so lucky!), Mary got them to retract it, not once, but twice! Poor Lawrence, he was just sitting in while Ed’s off playing golf somewhere. Ed got so flustered that he didn’t even mention Mary was the top Senate recipient of campaign contributions from BP in 2008. Didn’t you just love it how she lectured fellow Democrats, her own party, not to ‘retreat’ or ‘react with fear’? She sure showed Eddie, she fears no one. I’m good, but honestly, you couldn’t have a better girl in your corner!”
Big Oil: “We appreciate Mary’s commitment and enthusiasm, and her single-minded pursuit of our money, heh, but she’s got to bring it down a few notches. All those intemperate statements, while they could be good at rallying our rank-and-file troops, we can take care of our own. They know we’re the only game in town, and they need us. But Mary’s sanguine cheerleading, I must say Lisa, is beginning to backfire. I can understand her refusing to return our contributions, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, but all this talk, what did she say … “I mean, just the gallons are so minuscule compared to the benefits of U.S. strength and security, the benefits of job creation and energy security, so while there are risks associated with everything, I think you understand that they are quite, quite minimal.”
I watched that hearing, and the look Chairman Barbara Boxer gave Mary, hell, that woman’s glare even scared me … but Mary was unmoved. The point is, it’s one thing to roll big Eddie over at MSNBC, and Mary’s one tough lady –- that’s why she’s on the payroll, so to speak, hehe –- but she’s gotten the attention of the President. And he’s furious, Lisa. Fuming. We’ve gotten an earful. It’s bad for business. It’s bad for you, me, Mary, Joe, Blanche, all of us. You know the drill. (No pun intended.) This week what with Massey Mining’s Don Blankenship testifying, before you know it, it could be open season on CEOs!
Did you catch that part where Mary said, let me get this straight, that Transocean person ‘was impressive, and that’s not just from advocates but from critics as well’… I think that rubbed President Obama the wrong way. Next thing you know, he comes out and says: ‘I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn’t.” Seems like the President was saying to Mary, ‘I’ll call your “impressive” and raise the American people’s,’ ya think? Not good, Lisa. Not good at all …
Murkowski: (frowning) “I’ll set Mary straight, but the President, that’s above my pay and contribution scale.”
Big Oil: “We’re counting on you. (Click.)
And not unless the Justice Department were to conduct an investigation into influence peddling, perhaps record conversations between senators and congresspersons in which oil industry executives direct them to take to the Senate floor to block legislation that expands the corporations’ criminal liability in cases already before the courts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Corruption is very hard to prove in such cases. The Justice Department has limited resources, and its criminal investigations division was under the thumb of the most corrupt and politicized administration in modern times: eight years of deregulation and wanton corruption under Big Oil men Bush and Cheney.
Remember those mass firings of U.S. attorneys by Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? Nothing like a sledge hammer from the top to put a freeze on prospective criminal investigations into “sensitive” areas. (Democrats, Rove-sanctioned political probes were OK, though.) By the time the OIG report came out detailing a “culture of ethical failure … a pervasive culture of exclusivity, exempt from the rules that govern all other employees of the Federal Government,” well, it was September 10, 2008. Guess what was happening on November 6 of that year.To be fair to the Inspector General, the report took so long to complete (it began in 2006) “primarily due to the criminal nature of some of these allegations, protracted discussions with DOJ [emphasis mine] and the ultimate refusal of one major oil company -- Chevron -- to cooperate with our investigation.” If anything, President Obama understated his PG-13 characterization of an X-rated “regulatory” culture existing between the federal government and Big Oil. He called it a “cozy relationship”— free-flowing sex, drugs, and phony permits between the industry and its regulators, the Minerals Management Service (MMS). The place was a real den of iniquity; and it was still issuing drilling permits after the new boss, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said he was putting a stop to them!
Nope, it doesn’t work that way. Lisa Murkowski and Mary Landrieu –- let’s call them agents prostitutes, Big Oil’s call girls –- made Crew’s list of ‘The Most Corrupt’ members of Congress in recent years, and will most likely be back on it this year. In Congress, House and Senate, (the polls show people instinctively know this) money talks and bullshit walks. Straight to the Senate floor where Senator Murkowski “argued” that the legislation:is “not where we need to be right now” and would unfairly advantage large oil companies by pricing the small companies out of the market. Murkowski did signal that she would be open to "look at the liability cap and consider raising it.” Just not at this moment.Interesting. So Murkowski concedes she is willing to consider lifting the caps, just “not right now … [it’s] not where we need to be.” Why not, Senator? Coincidentally, the very same day Murkowski was making her utterly specious and illogical argument, the owner of the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf, Transocean, was filing a petition asking a (presumably friendly, considering the venue) Houston federal court to limit its liability for the spill to $26.8 million, a microscopic fragment of the anticipated damages. With this legal maneuver, Transocean was seeking to consolidate all lawsuits from the spill “before a single, impartial federal judge” [and to] “establish a single fund from which legitimate claims may be paid.”
Right. Plaintiffs’ lawyers saw right though this maneuver, claiming that the company wanted the more than 100 lawsuits adjudicated in Houston, heart of Texas oil country, because juries there would be most sympathetic to the oil industry. Instead, they will try to consolidate the lawsuits in New Orleans (watch Senator Landrieu try to block cases being heard in New Orleans) or Washington, where they could get a fair hearing.
I’ll bet the following imaginary conversation between Big Oil and Senator Murkowski could very well reside in that sinister black building where the NSA eavesdrops on millions of phone conversations. If only we had a progressive version of J. Edgar Hoover, who could dangle these personal secrets over politicians’ heads and compel them to be honest public servants. It’s easy to imagine a phone call from Big Oil to their girl, Lisa. This is how it would go:
Big Oil: “We’re calling in our chips, Senator. We need you to block, delay, obstruct, kill if you can, the Nelson-Menendez bill. We don’t care how you do it, or what arguments you use.”
Murkowski: “You don’t understand the pressure we’re in to do something in Congress. After all, your people are poisoning the Gulf and ruining the coastal and tourism economies of four states. Nelson and his crowd are royally pissed at me. They’re threatening a recorded roll call vote, instead of a voice vote. I just don’t know how long Mary and I can hold them at bay. And now our friends are getting pissed at me because they don’t want to be outed voting against this thing. They, all of us, just love your money, but this is big, really big. You gotta understand!”
Big Oil: “Calm down, Lisa. We’re working on a “friendly” judge (if you know what I mean) to limit liability, as we speak. Perry’s office promises to cooperate, anything we need, the Texas delegation is mostly behind us, Barton’s screaming at that little radical punk in the House, Henry Waxman, that he wants “fair and balanced” hearings. Haha … Fox has their seat at the table. Not much we could do about Ed Markey’s grandstanding with that jar of oily Gulf water and “hole-in-one” shit … Just be thankful we threw so much money at Scott Brown we discouraged Markey from running. Brown’s in our pocket. He’ll play ball. And you’ve got that all-important 41st vote to filibuster …
Murkowski: “No. That’ll look bad … This isn’t healthcare, you know. Even the Teabaggers, I mean Tea Party people … might think critically once that black ooze and dead animals start washing ashore in their backyards … and they won’t like it when their shrimp cocktail, gas pump prices gets more expensive and the seafood restaurants go out of business … They might blame us, not Obama this time! I don’t know how long Dick Armey can control those crazy old coots, and Sarah, well she’s just out for herself. Loose cannon, she’ll say something dumb, I know her well. (Snort)”
Big Oil: “Listen Lisa. You do the talking, we’ll do the thinking. Okay? Play your cards right and we won’t need a filibuster. We just need you to delay for now, until we can get some favorable rulings in court. We’re very close. Just delay, obstruct …”
Murkowski: “But what do I say? They have a point, you know. And the politics of this has gone TOXIC. It’s not simply the Gulf, you know. Everyone here is calculating how this will impact our political futures. We’ve got political and lobbying careers to think about. You didn’t do us any favors with all that finger-pointing at the hearings …”
Big Oil: “Minor setback. Tony’s not happy but he’s got Lamar on a short leash. And we’ve got Tony by the balls, too. He’d better hope it’s us and not the feds. Lamar’s gone after this is all over, but if he fucks up again … No golden parachute. He knows it. They all do. In the meantime, tell them anything, just stall stall stall. Say it hurts small business operators … Haha … Total nonsense, but a standard Republican talking point.”
Murkowski: “Hmm … That might work. But only for so long … I mean, it makes no sense to say this hurts small operators (do they even exist?) if they can’t cover the cost of the clenup … that means the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill and the Teabaggers will be all over me. (Whines)”
Big Oil: “It’ll be all right. They’re too dense to catch on, they still think the rig was blown up by ‘environmentalist wackos’ … Hahaha … Couldn’t ask for better media boosters than Rush and Glenn. (Note to self: make sure they get their stash of drugs.) If all goes as planned we won’t keep you hanging out there too long. We won’t forget this, Lisa. We reward loyalty, you know, and we really appreciate your courage, standing up for the right thing and all.”
Murkowski: “Right …”
Big Oil: “Remember … just as Henry Waxman and Barbara Boxer, and the rest of those tree-hugging alternative energy (snorts) radicals opened their hearings, we held our own little grease-the-wheels confab with your Republican colleagues. Sorry you couldn’t make it, but we understand. Don’t worry, you’ll get yours too. (Joke! Haha.) You’ll be happy to know message guru Frank Luntz was in attendance. We told Luntzie, ‘this is your biggest career challenge! We want you to make us come out the other end smelling like roses and sweet perfume’ … Someone told him taking a dip in the Gulf might help his complexion. He said, ‘no thanks.’ Not much of a joke guy.”“Speaking of jokes and swimming in these waters, Haley Barbour should really stop telling people it’s OK to go to the beach. Truth is, we really have no idea what effect the tons of dispersants we’re dumping in the Gulf will have on humans, long or short term, and we don’t intend to find out! The last thing we need are more lawsuits from a bunch of Haley’s Mississippi constituents who went swimming because he said it was safe and got a bunch of skin lesions for their trouble.”
Murkowski: “Gotta go. The bill’s coming up shortly. I’ll think of something, for now, but you’d better get me those Luntz talking points STAT! (I know, we said it during the healthcare debate, too.)”
Big Oil: “Go get ‘em, tiger! One more thing, Lisa, before I forget. Make sure you coordinate your message with Mary. We want this thing to look bipartisan. Optics are very important; it’s the only thing keeping the public from the reality of what’s going on in the Gulf.”
Murkowski: “Landrieu? She’s great! You don’t have to worry about her, why, she’s a true believer. Did you catch that interview she had with Ed Schultz over at MSNBC? She rolled that fat man like he was the tarp coverin’ the baseball infield during rain delay! Haha … I think she set the ground rules for the interview, ‘cause he said the ‘floor is yours.’ Talk about how not to conduct an interview … not that I’m complaining, but we need more places to get our message out than just Larry King and Fox News … And when the Ed Show inflated your contributions to her (I should be so lucky!), Mary got them to retract it, not once, but twice! Poor Lawrence, he was just sitting in while Ed’s off playing golf somewhere. Ed got so flustered that he didn’t even mention Mary was the top Senate recipient of campaign contributions from BP in 2008. Didn’t you just love it how she lectured fellow Democrats, her own party, not to ‘retreat’ or ‘react with fear’? She sure showed Eddie, she fears no one. I’m good, but honestly, you couldn’t have a better girl in your corner!”
Big Oil: “We appreciate Mary’s commitment and enthusiasm, and her single-minded pursuit of our money, heh, but she’s got to bring it down a few notches. All those intemperate statements, while they could be good at rallying our rank-and-file troops, we can take care of our own. They know we’re the only game in town, and they need us. But Mary’s sanguine cheerleading, I must say Lisa, is beginning to backfire. I can understand her refusing to return our contributions, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, but all this talk, what did she say … “I mean, just the gallons are so minuscule compared to the benefits of U.S. strength and security, the benefits of job creation and energy security, so while there are risks associated with everything, I think you understand that they are quite, quite minimal.”
I watched that hearing, and the look Chairman Barbara Boxer gave Mary, hell, that woman’s glare even scared me … but Mary was unmoved. The point is, it’s one thing to roll big Eddie over at MSNBC, and Mary’s one tough lady –- that’s why she’s on the payroll, so to speak, hehe –- but she’s gotten the attention of the President. And he’s furious, Lisa. Fuming. We’ve gotten an earful. It’s bad for business. It’s bad for you, me, Mary, Joe, Blanche, all of us. You know the drill. (No pun intended.) This week what with Massey Mining’s Don Blankenship testifying, before you know it, it could be open season on CEOs!
Did you catch that part where Mary said, let me get this straight, that Transocean person ‘was impressive, and that’s not just from advocates but from critics as well’… I think that rubbed President Obama the wrong way. Next thing you know, he comes out and says: ‘I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn’t.” Seems like the President was saying to Mary, ‘I’ll call your “impressive” and raise the American people’s,’ ya think? Not good, Lisa. Not good at all …
Murkowski: (frowning) “I’ll set Mary straight, but the President, that’s above my pay and contribution scale.”
Big Oil: “We’re counting on you. (Click.)
Oh, Those Fabian Socialists at MSNBC
I was initially going to write this about Rachel Maddow (I’ll get to her presently). But then Pat Buchanan opened his mouth. And he kept on talking, kind of like the chicken lady in Nevada who wouldn’t shut up, so Keith kept on mocking her. It says right there under Pat’s name, wherever he pops up ‘at another network’ to spout his Teabagger credo of the ‘old angry white male’s last stand’: MSNBC contributor. Or, worse, just plain MSNBC.
Anyway, Pat’s been complaining loudly that with Elena Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court and prospective confirmation, there will be too many Jews on the Court. Seriously. I’m not quite sure whether he’s a dark horse water carrier for Jeff Beauregard Sessions, Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose own appointment as a disctrict court judge was denied for making racist and pro-KKK statements. According to Buchanan-chanelling-Sessions (and vice versa):
Brilliant! Buchanan is arguing that Democrats should attempt what they feared Lincoln would do and what FDR tried to do but failed: Pack the Court with liberal Justices! Expanding the roster to 27 will give us loads of 15-12 decisions, with three Justices to spare. No more 5-4 cliffhangers. Plus, with 18 open slots, the Court will more accurately reflect our nation’s liberal, multicultural and religious diversity.
It was a Teabagger who called the folks at MSNBC “Fabian socialists.” Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont and proud socialist, might have thought so too until Rachel Maddow phoned his office to apologize profusely for calling him “Bernie” during an interview. Bernie said, “Rachel that’s fine, everybody calls me Bernie.” Still anguished, Rachel made a point of reminding us that she’d called him “Bernie” when it hadn’t even registered. And I’m scratching my head and thinking, “Rachel, Rachel. This is BERNIE you’re talking to. We ALL call him BERNIE. It’s a term of endearment, first and foremost, but second, HE’S A FRIGGIN’ SOCIALIST!”
Hello, anybody home? If you’re having such ridiculous conflicts, girl, you might as well go back to Oxford for some re-education; or is it that you can take the socialist out of Oxford, but you can’t take Oxford out of the socialist? This is America, Rachel. The Constitution says we have the right to call our senators Bernie or rascal, if we like. I’ve never known a socialist to stand on ceremony, but then the Fabian Society and Oxford might be a different thing.
Has Rachel lost some of her mojo? There was that bizarre promo where she talked about being fair to people (I kept waiting for the other shoe –- ‘and balanced’ –- to drop), embracing our “common humanity.” At this point it was really barf bag pukesville. This might be OK for Tamron ‘desperately seeking David Schuster’ Hall, who can’t get her Congressmen straight and never met a racist ‘Son of the Confederacy’ she didn’t roll over for, but Rachel? If this was a plaintive plea for the dregs of humanity you expose on your show to come on and chat with you, it won’t work, Rachel. You don’t do Larry King, and in case you haven’t noticed, politics is a bruising contact sport.
Then, talking to the Nation’s Chris Hayes, Rachel made a serious point about possible schisms in the Republican Party by incredulously elevating Glenn Beck to leader of a libertarian faction. I know, libertarians are peeps too (Dylan Ratigan), but Rachel, Glenn Beck is a lunatic. He is insane. He never graduated college. He studies phantom fascist symbology in public buildings erected by John Rockefeller. He snorted enough coke ($300,000 worth) to permanently scramble his brains and land him a gig on Fox. He is not a well man. And of course, there’s the obligatory ‘Nazi’ thing (‘that’s not me saying it,’ she hastens to add) –- as I picture Rachel doing the two-fisted, two-fingered ‘quote/quote’ John McCain made famous.
But these are minor quibbles; I’m just funnin’ Rachel, whom we all love. Almost all of us, anyway. Maybe that’s the problem. Has anyone at MSNBC noticed a change in Rachel since her People Magazine spread? I mean, it’s the ultimate human interest, celebrity, touchy-feely, embrace our common humanity, puff and pomp pop culture mag. I’m just sayin’ … When she first started out on the ‘TV machine,’ Rachel kept Kent Jones around to give her just enough pop culture to let her out of the house without embarrassment. Now, it seems, Rachel has embraced the pop. I hope that magazine checkout at the supermarket didn’t give Rachel a goody two-shoes, we-are-all-family epiphany. I’m just sayin’.
Now Rachel’s advertising something called ‘Geek week.’ At first I thought Rachel was going on vacation for a week and handing off the show to Chris Hayes. We’ll see. I hope the network’s not going ‘CNN’, what with Rachel’s strange behavior, the CNN clone who replaced Schuster (David is one of the best informed, toughest interviewers in the business, replaced by a ‘side A/side B, we report you decide’ CNN type), and Ratigan, who must be burning a hole in the ratings up against a center-right Cubano. Between two righties, the viewers will opt for the Latino with the fun tweets and the personable manner. Hell, even I tweeted him.
But we’ve still got Keith, and Ed, and Chris too. Or, as Pat Buchanan likes to say, “You used to be Goldwater Youth. What happened?” Here’s a suggestion for the management suits at MSNBC. First, don’t do CNN. Please. Have you checked their ratings lately? Second, bring Schuster back. Your viewers like smart, informed people who ask incisive questions. And we don’t mean just Andrea Mitchell. Third, move Ratigan to 5 am, or some ungodly hour favored by the Atlas Shrugged crowd where he can hang out with his pals Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Marsha Blackburn, et al while trading wet dream fantasies about small government without Social Security or Medicare, but with vouchers and tax credits, and deregulation to unleash free enterprise’s magic sort of like Bush-Cheney did for the Gulf rig operators, only this time it’s John Galt at the helm, not Tony Hayward, so everything turns out just fine.
Why does the same right wing crowd get the economy shows and where is Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s perspective? Note to MSNBC suits: Give Ratigan’s slot to Contessa Brewer. Let her have free rein. I’ll betcha Contessa gives Rick Sanchez a tweetin’ run for his money.
Anyway, Pat’s been complaining loudly that with Elena Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court and prospective confirmation, there will be too many Jews on the Court. Seriously. I’m not quite sure whether he’s a dark horse water carrier for Jeff Beauregard Sessions, Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose own appointment as a disctrict court judge was denied for making racist and pro-KKK statements. According to Buchanan-chanelling-Sessions (and vice versa):
“If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?”Buchanan’s bizarre contention is that it’s been nearly half-a-century since the Democrats have nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman. Well, by my count, once Kagan is seated, the Court will have three Jews and six Catholics, one Yankees fan, one Mets fan, one Puerto Rican, three women, seven white men, one Latina, two Italians, one African American, and at least one bigot. I count, conservatively, 27 Justices.
Brilliant! Buchanan is arguing that Democrats should attempt what they feared Lincoln would do and what FDR tried to do but failed: Pack the Court with liberal Justices! Expanding the roster to 27 will give us loads of 15-12 decisions, with three Justices to spare. No more 5-4 cliffhangers. Plus, with 18 open slots, the Court will more accurately reflect our nation’s liberal, multicultural and religious diversity.
It was a Teabagger who called the folks at MSNBC “Fabian socialists.” Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont and proud socialist, might have thought so too until Rachel Maddow phoned his office to apologize profusely for calling him “Bernie” during an interview. Bernie said, “Rachel that’s fine, everybody calls me Bernie.” Still anguished, Rachel made a point of reminding us that she’d called him “Bernie” when it hadn’t even registered. And I’m scratching my head and thinking, “Rachel, Rachel. This is BERNIE you’re talking to. We ALL call him BERNIE. It’s a term of endearment, first and foremost, but second, HE’S A FRIGGIN’ SOCIALIST!”Hello, anybody home? If you’re having such ridiculous conflicts, girl, you might as well go back to Oxford for some re-education; or is it that you can take the socialist out of Oxford, but you can’t take Oxford out of the socialist? This is America, Rachel. The Constitution says we have the right to call our senators Bernie or rascal, if we like. I’ve never known a socialist to stand on ceremony, but then the Fabian Society and Oxford might be a different thing.
Has Rachel lost some of her mojo? There was that bizarre promo where she talked about being fair to people (I kept waiting for the other shoe –- ‘and balanced’ –- to drop), embracing our “common humanity.” At this point it was really barf bag pukesville. This might be OK for Tamron ‘desperately seeking David Schuster’ Hall, who can’t get her Congressmen straight and never met a racist ‘Son of the Confederacy’ she didn’t roll over for, but Rachel? If this was a plaintive plea for the dregs of humanity you expose on your show to come on and chat with you, it won’t work, Rachel. You don’t do Larry King, and in case you haven’t noticed, politics is a bruising contact sport.
Then, talking to the Nation’s Chris Hayes, Rachel made a serious point about possible schisms in the Republican Party by incredulously elevating Glenn Beck to leader of a libertarian faction. I know, libertarians are peeps too (Dylan Ratigan), but Rachel, Glenn Beck is a lunatic. He is insane. He never graduated college. He studies phantom fascist symbology in public buildings erected by John Rockefeller. He snorted enough coke ($300,000 worth) to permanently scramble his brains and land him a gig on Fox. He is not a well man. And of course, there’s the obligatory ‘Nazi’ thing (‘that’s not me saying it,’ she hastens to add) –- as I picture Rachel doing the two-fisted, two-fingered ‘quote/quote’ John McCain made famous.
But these are minor quibbles; I’m just funnin’ Rachel, whom we all love. Almost all of us, anyway. Maybe that’s the problem. Has anyone at MSNBC noticed a change in Rachel since her People Magazine spread? I mean, it’s the ultimate human interest, celebrity, touchy-feely, embrace our common humanity, puff and pomp pop culture mag. I’m just sayin’ … When she first started out on the ‘TV machine,’ Rachel kept Kent Jones around to give her just enough pop culture to let her out of the house without embarrassment. Now, it seems, Rachel has embraced the pop. I hope that magazine checkout at the supermarket didn’t give Rachel a goody two-shoes, we-are-all-family epiphany. I’m just sayin’.Now Rachel’s advertising something called ‘Geek week.’ At first I thought Rachel was going on vacation for a week and handing off the show to Chris Hayes. We’ll see. I hope the network’s not going ‘CNN’, what with Rachel’s strange behavior, the CNN clone who replaced Schuster (David is one of the best informed, toughest interviewers in the business, replaced by a ‘side A/side B, we report you decide’ CNN type), and Ratigan, who must be burning a hole in the ratings up against a center-right Cubano. Between two righties, the viewers will opt for the Latino with the fun tweets and the personable manner. Hell, even I tweeted him.
But we’ve still got Keith, and Ed, and Chris too. Or, as Pat Buchanan likes to say, “You used to be Goldwater Youth. What happened?” Here’s a suggestion for the management suits at MSNBC. First, don’t do CNN. Please. Have you checked their ratings lately? Second, bring Schuster back. Your viewers like smart, informed people who ask incisive questions. And we don’t mean just Andrea Mitchell. Third, move Ratigan to 5 am, or some ungodly hour favored by the Atlas Shrugged crowd where he can hang out with his pals Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Marsha Blackburn, et al while trading wet dream fantasies about small government without Social Security or Medicare, but with vouchers and tax credits, and deregulation to unleash free enterprise’s magic sort of like Bush-Cheney did for the Gulf rig operators, only this time it’s John Galt at the helm, not Tony Hayward, so everything turns out just fine.
Why does the same right wing crowd get the economy shows and where is Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s perspective? Note to MSNBC suits: Give Ratigan’s slot to Contessa Brewer. Let her have free rein. I’ll betcha Contessa gives Rick Sanchez a tweetin’ run for his money.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Anagrams, Junk Shots, and Dead Batteries: Can BP Buy a Clue?
Here is Jon Stewart carrying water for the mainstream media once again:
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Saturday, May 15, 2010
Keith Flattens Sister Sarah for Cheap Catty Shot at Rachel Maddow
Hey you know, when Rachel and by extension, MSNBC, are singled out for moronic ad hominem attacks You’ve struck a nerve, even if one has to endure the awful trailer-trash diction. Oh yes, that woman is an idiot.
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Raspberries, Keith ... really? Not crosshairs like Sister Sarah's “lock-and-load” to thin out the liberal herd Facebook page? Must be those conservative management suits freaking that your viewers are as unhinged as the Tebaggers and half-witted Beckistas. Aw, shoot.Friday, May 14, 2010
BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Disaster Ticker Added
Scroll down the right column to check the second-by-second size of the oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP/Deepwater Horizon/Halliburton oil rig explosion, based on best estimates, from the most conservative (toss 'em) to the worst case predictions (closer to the truth). Experts now estimate the oil spill is at least 10 times worst than initial corporate and Coast Guard figures, or roughly the Exxon Valdez spill every five days. When President Obama compelled BP to release underwater video of the actual spill, experts were able to add to satellite imagery and other calculations to get a much more accurate picture of the volume being released -- tragically, it is pushing the worst case predictions.
This is a corporate crime of staggering proportions, beginning with the criminal negligence which resulted in the loss of eleven lives, and it must not go unpunished. To the ultimate extent of the law yet to be written. Senate and House Big Oil prostitutes, Lisa Murkowski, David Vitter, Mary Landrieu, Dan Burton -- to name a few -- step aside and stay out of the people's way. This is a crisis, a human tragedy, and an ecological catastrophe. Senator Murkowski, in particular, coming to the defense of corporate criminals as you have, is itself a criminal action.
Here is the video BP didn't want us to see:
This is a corporate crime of staggering proportions, beginning with the criminal negligence which resulted in the loss of eleven lives, and it must not go unpunished. To the ultimate extent of the law yet to be written. Senate and House Big Oil prostitutes, Lisa Murkowski, David Vitter, Mary Landrieu, Dan Burton -- to name a few -- step aside and stay out of the people's way. This is a crisis, a human tragedy, and an ecological catastrophe. Senator Murkowski, in particular, coming to the defense of corporate criminals as you have, is itself a criminal action.
Here is the video BP didn't want us to see:
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Quotable: President Obama on Republicans
“Their basic attitude has been, if Democrats lose, we win. After they drove the car in the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. No. They can't drive. We don't want to have to go back in the ditch.”
Matthews Throws a Strike, MSM Still Drags Behind
Dick Cheney’s responsibility for the Gulf Oil spill has been carried to its logical conclusion by Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball. Matthews called for Cheney to testify under oath and reveal what he knows of those secret meetings he held as Vice President with oil and gas tycoons, while still being compensated by Halliburton (one of three companies involved in the spill). Well done, Chris.
Cheney’s responsibility was first broached by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and covered in progressive blogs, including this one: “Cheney has cause to lay low. His filthy fingers may be all over the right’s propaganda campaign, but the truth of Cheney’s responsibility and potential criminal liability is far more sinister.”
Cheney’s responsibility was first broached by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and covered in progressive blogs, including this one: “Cheney has cause to lay low. His filthy fingers may be all over the right’s propaganda campaign, but the truth of Cheney’s responsibility and potential criminal liability is far more sinister.”
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Secondly, now we learn that the Gulf oil spill is 10 times worse than previously reported. Was this reported before now by the mainstream media? No one in the MSM, it seems, questioned the Coast Guard’s appalling underestimate of the real magnitude of the oil spill. Like herd automatons, the MSM simply kept reporting that the spill was between 3 and 4 million gallons of oil and could, could if it continues unabated reach Exxon Valdez proportions, as BP testified before Congress and continued its feverish attempts to stanch the volcanic flow of oil poisoning Gulf waters and the ocean beyond. The question that must be asked is, why this colossal, collective lack of journalistic curiosity, across the board, about whether the Coast Guard’s figures were reliable and correct? On 5/10, this blog reported:Secessionist Texas governor Rick Perry called the oil spill “an act of God.” Barbour went further: “I think the most important thing is for people not to panic and not to assume the worst. Some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous.”If we can do it, why can’t the mainstream media earning the big bucks do their journalistic due diligence? We don’t trust them with our news, and neither should you. To get accurate, unfiltered information outside the mainstream grid, stay tuned. Right here, right now.
Really? The Exxon Valdez spill released 10.9 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, of which only 10% of the oil was recovered and the ecology and wildlife remains devastated. The three leaks in the BP oil disaster have been releasing an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day (Coast Guard estimate). Skytruth, a nonprofit organization tracking the oil spill estimates it’s more like 26,000 barrels of oil a day, based on satellite imagery and scientific studies.
On May 1, eleven days into the Gulf crisis, according to Dr. Ian McDonald of FSU, estimates of the oil slick indicated that 12.12 million gallons of oil, at a minimum have been released into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the Exxon Valdez spill. Five days later, at a rate of 1.1 million gallons a day, the spill will have reached 17.6 million gallons released into the Gulf, tragically making the Exxon Valdez oil spill a distant second.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
This Is Why He's Known as Bill-O the CLOWN
Bill-O claims most Americans can’t name the nine SCOTUS Justices . . . But he really means ‘Factor’ viewers, including the HOST!
Quotable: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) on the BP et al Gulf Oil Catastrophe
“Oh my God, what have we done.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer – Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment
“Right now, by their own admission, BP is largely making it up as they go. They’re engaging in a series of elaborate and risky science experiments at the bottom of the ocean. And after the failure of the containment dome, we are now hearing of plans to stuff the blowout preventor full of a mixture of golf balls, old tires, and other junk. When we heard the best minds were on the case we expected MIT and not the PGA. We already have one hole in the ground and now their solution is to shoot a hole-in-one.”
Rep. Ed Markey - Chairman, House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment
Jon Stewart Is a Genius: Watch Him Shred the Right for Trying to Link the Prez to GWB's Failures
Which begs the question: These wingnuts are tacitly admitting what a dismal, disastrous failure George W. Bush’s eight-year nightmare on the American people was; n’est pas?
It’s fascinating to see the wingnuts recall every single FUBAR of the Bush regime (installed by a SCOTUS putsch) with its corresponding (often one-word) notorious description: ‘Katrina’; ‘mission accomplished’; ‘Harriet Meyers’; ‘Iraq; ‘9/11’; ‘Enron’; ‘Heckuva job, Brownie’ moment; ‘My Pet Goat’ moment; ‘deficits’; ‘recession’; ‘war’ . . . and still they pine for the days of America’s dismal failure with ‘I miss Bush’ billboards –- the ultimate exercise in right wing echo chamber denial.
To make matters worst, these wingnuts incessantly lie about the fact that the stimulus has worked, that 290,000 jobs were created in April (the most in 4 years), that the unemployment rate while unacceptablty high at 9.9% is still lower than the highest recorded under Reagan at 10.8%, and that tax rates under President Obama are the lowest they’ve been in 60 years, back when ‘Give ‘em Hell’ Harry Truman, a great Democrat, was president.
Try telling this to the Teabaggers, as was shown in an earlier post, and they’ll simply refuse to believe it. Well, that’s really grown-up for people whose average age ranges from 45 and up. Most of them probably were alive when taxes were as low as they are today. Maybe they’re suffering from a form of political and civics Alzheimer’s. Or, as Harry Truman used to say:
It’s fascinating to see the wingnuts recall every single FUBAR of the Bush regime (installed by a SCOTUS putsch) with its corresponding (often one-word) notorious description: ‘Katrina’; ‘mission accomplished’; ‘Harriet Meyers’; ‘Iraq; ‘9/11’; ‘Enron’; ‘Heckuva job, Brownie’ moment; ‘My Pet Goat’ moment; ‘deficits’; ‘recession’; ‘war’ . . . and still they pine for the days of America’s dismal failure with ‘I miss Bush’ billboards –- the ultimate exercise in right wing echo chamber denial.
To make matters worst, these wingnuts incessantly lie about the fact that the stimulus has worked, that 290,000 jobs were created in April (the most in 4 years), that the unemployment rate while unacceptablty high at 9.9% is still lower than the highest recorded under Reagan at 10.8%, and that tax rates under President Obama are the lowest they’ve been in 60 years, back when ‘Give ‘em Hell’ Harry Truman, a great Democrat, was president.
Try telling this to the Teabaggers, as was shown in an earlier post, and they’ll simply refuse to believe it. Well, that’s really grown-up for people whose average age ranges from 45 and up. Most of them probably were alive when taxes were as low as they are today. Maybe they’re suffering from a form of political and civics Alzheimer’s. Or, as Harry Truman used to say:
“I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.”
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Monday, May 10, 2010
Big Oil’s Last Stand, Right’s Ideological Pushback Amid Worst Environmental Disaster in U.S. History
As the BP environmental catastrophe unfolds in the Gulf of Mexico, observers struggle with words to describe its enormity. One called it “America’s Chernobyl;” another described it as “a teaching moment;” and President Obama said “your government will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this crisis.” Environmentalists are stunned. Curiously muted, their minds a jumble of tasered synapses trying to wrap around this calamity and make sense of it, contextualize it.
Republicans and Democrats in-name-only were quick to come to the rescue –- of BP and Big Oil, their biggest donors. DINO Hall of Fame inductee Mary Landrieu, senator from Louisiana, the state whose ecology and coastal economy lies in the path of devastation, along with Republican governors Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi spoke up for their corporate constituents.
A Confederacy of Oil Barons Serving Transnational Corporations
Senator Landrieu said, “you’ve got to put this accident in perspective. The last thing we have to do is shut the oil and gas industry down.” Her first instinct as a politician was to shelter BP and Big Oil instead of her constituents, her people, the state’s coastal economy and ecology, which could be devastated for decades. Louisiana’s other senator, Republican David Vitter (better known for his diaper fetish and extreme right wing views) lamented that “BP is spread too thin.”
The fishing industry alone in the Gulf region accounts for about 20 percent of U.S. commercial fishing. It provides about 1 in 17 jobs in the region. Fishers are particularly vulnerable and this crisis may drive many into bankruptcy. They were barely recovering from Hurricane Katrina when the oil spill disaster struck.
Secessionist Texas governor Rick Perry called the oil spill “an act of God.” Barbour went further: “I think the most important thing is for people not to panic and not to assume the worst. Some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous.”
Really? The Exxon Valdez spill released 10.9 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, of which only 10% of the oil was recovered and the ecology and wildlife remains devastated. The three leaks in the BP oil disaster have been releasing an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day (Coast Guard estimate). Skytruth, a nonprofit organization tracking the oil spill estimates it’s more like 26,000 barrels of oil a day, based on satellite imagery and scientific studies.
On May 1, eleven days into the Gulf crisis, according to Dr. Ian McDonald of FSU, estimates of the oil slick indicated that 12.12 million gallons of oil, at a minimum have been released into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the Exxon Valdez spill. Five days later, at a rate of 1.1 million gallons a day, the spill will have reached 17.6 million gallons released into the Gulf, tragically making the Exxon Valdez oil spill a distant second.
This catastrophic disaster is entirely man-made, not Perry’s and the industry’s “act of God.” It was not caused by nature, high seas, a hurricane, or any other phenomenon that could properly be ascribed for purposes of assigning liability to “an act of God.” Perry wasn’t being pious; he was protecting his corporate donors/owners and Texas’s oil and gas polluters.
BP/Halliburton Deadly Pollution Record (Only the Most Recent)
Where is Dick Cheney? One of the more curious aspects of this environmental catastrophe is the absence of Big Oilman Dick Cheney from the public eye. In the first days of the crisis, Cheney’s surrogates fanned out in a full-court media press to spread disinformation and propaganda, even trying to deflect blame onto President Obama by calling it “Obama’s Katrina.” This charge is so patently absurd and irresponsible that it fell of its own weight when the media, for once, did a good job debunking it. Cheney’s fingerprints are all over the misinformation campaign, but he remains out of sight, hunkered down in an undisclosed location.
Cheney has cause to lay low. His filthy fingers may be all over the right’s propaganda campaign, but the truth of Cheney’s responsibility and potential criminal liability is far more sinister.
The explosions in both the BP Australian and Gulf oil rig (operated by BP subcontractor Deepwater Horizon) increasingly point to Halliburton as the main culprit for faulty cementing. The process is meant to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. The wife of one of the rig workers killed in the explosion has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming Halliburton is culpable: The company “prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion.”
Halliburton confirmed it had finished cementing 20 hours prior to the Gulf rig explosion, just as it had finished cementing the Australian rig when it blew on August 21, 2009. As the Australian government inquiry into what is called the Monera spill continues, a Halliburton cementer with 20 years on the job testified: “Q: have you been taught in, training or otherwise become aware that problems with cementing are the number one cause of blowouts?” A: “No, I wasn‘t aware of that.” From 1996 to 2006, 18 of the 39 offshore blow-outs have been caused by bad cementing, according to the U.S. industry regulator, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency of the Interior Department.
Why is this significant?
Halliburton’s alleged criminal negligence was aided and abetted by former CEO Dick Cheney’s even more valuable service to the energy industry as a powerful poison pill government insider gutting the very regulatory agencies (Interior-MMS) responsible for public interest oversight and regulation of these transnational corporations. Cheney bagged $44 million during his five-year tenure with Halliburton before becoming Vice President. As Vice President Cheney remained on the company’s payroll. After all, he is a valued corporate asset, having ensured that Halliburton’s entrails reach into every nook and cranny of Iraq-Afghanistan war profiteering.
Deregulation by the Numbers: An Avoidable Catastrophe
Burn this into memory, deregulators and global warming deniers and laissez-faire capitalist ideologues and limited government libertarians: Based on the facts, proper industry safety standards, oversight, and regulatory protocols would have prevented the catastrophe inexorably poisoning the Gulf. The craven history of Cheney’s secret meetings with energy industry tycoons -- to divvy up the deregulatory spoils, line his pockets with present and future IOUs, and gut the Interior Department and its industry enforcement arm, MMS, staffing them with cronies and (literally) industry whores -- leads directly to the Gulf oil disaster.
To hear the industry shills describe it, the oil spill poisoning the Gulf waters as it makes landfall is as benign, warm and cuddly as “chocolate milk.” Rep. Gene Taylor, one more Mississippi Democrat in the pocket of the oil and gas industry, said: “A lot of people are scared and I don’t think they should be” because “What I want people to know is, this isn’t Katrina, this is not Armageddon. The farther you get from the spill, that chocolate milk looking spill starts breaking up into smaller pieces.”
That’s like saying you’ll take your almond coffee mocha with almond-smelling cyanide and that “chocolate milk” chemical dispersant. In yet another outrage perpetrated on the public, epecially affected populations in the direct path of the oil slick, BP has refused to disclose the composition of the dispersants used in the spill, because it is a competitive trade secret protected by law. But if it’s Corexit or a product of similar composition, it contains 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that causes headaches, vomiting, and “reproductive problems in high doses.”
Aside from its devastating, long-term impact on marine life and the delicate ecosystem in the Gulf, a review by the Alaska Community Action on Toxics determined that a version of Corexit, widely used in the Exxon Valdez spill “was later linked with health impacts in people including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders.” According to the Pro Publica article reporting on the oil spill’s chemical health hazard, “the evaporation process can also concentrate the toxic compounds left behind, particularly oil-derived compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.”
In contrast to Rep. Taylor’s upbeat “the good news is it’s not in the marshes where the juvenile shrimp are, and it’s tending to break up naturally,” a Coast Guard crew described the smell emanating from the oil spill at the mouth of the Mississippi Delta as “nasty.” Reports are starting to come in from Florida, in Kissimmee and Orlando that a “strange scent in the air” was detected which wasn’t there four hours before. In St Petersburg, a “heavy oil smell hung in the air. Wind was coming from the NNW. At first it smelled like a tiki-torch, but by 11 pm it was overwhelming. It gave me a horrible headache, and the people I spoke with had headaches as well. It was thick enough to taste in the air.” Similar first-person accounts are surfacing all over the region. Follow them here.
The Right’s Response to Catastrophe: Despicable and Irresponsible
No sooner had disaster struck in the Gulf of Mexico that the right wing propaganda machine went into full coverup and mobilization mode in a rush to absolve BP and the oil industry of any responsibility while, absurdly, shifting the blame to President Obama. Here is a synopsis of the right wing’s fierce industry-protectant propaganda campaign, unmatched by any legitimate media outlets:
Blame Obama. So what else is new. After the absurd charge (even for the right) that this was “Obama’s Katrina” fizzled, Dick Cheney surrogates Dana Perrino (Bush-Cheney’ s certifiably ignorant former press secretary) and Michael ‘Helluva job’ Brownie (the disgraced FEMA administrator when Katrina struck) were dispatched to Fox “News” to spread despicable accusations and rumors. Claiming, falsely, that President Obama’s response to the oil spill was delayed, Brown told Neil Cavuto of Fox: “It’s pure politics. This president has never supported big oil. He has never supported offshore drilling. And now he has an excuse to shut it back down.”
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs replied:
Embrace the Conspiracy. Dana Perrino doubled down on Rush Limbaugh’s wild conspiracy that “environmentalist wackos” blew up the oil rig because they were upset with the “timing” of the President’s drilling announcement “so, what better way to head off more oil drilling and nuclear plants then by blowing up a rig? I’m just, I’m just noting the timing here.” Perrino: “I’m not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory, but was this deliberate? You have to wonder if there was sabotage involved.”
Minimize the Damage, Shift Blame to Environmentalists. Saying tasteless and insensitive things is nothing new for Rush Limbaugh. Neither, for that matter, is spouting flat-out irresponsible lies. To sound authoritave, Limbaugh keeps repeating “British Petroleum,” unaware that the company changed its name to “BP” to represent a more PR-friendly “beyond petroleum” public image. A small point, perhaps, but illustrative of what a damn fool the imbecile blowhard is.
He said: “oil has a tough time surviving. This many gallons of oil seeps from the floor of the Gulf every day. It never surfaces because it gets eaten alive. But it seeps from the ocean floor at this amount, not as concentrated as what is coming from this well.” Absolute nonsense, followed by, “[Some] people are saying, don’t panic, the sea will take care of the oil spill, [meanwhile rather than work with] British Petroleum, they are enemy.” Well, one can’t work with “British Petroleum” because that company does not exist -- it is now listed as “BP.”
Maintain Strict Media Silence About Who the Real Culprits Are: The Bush-Cheney Regime. How many stories has right wing media done about the gutting of Interior-MMS under Bush-Cheney and the rampant deregulation that may have a direct causal connection to this massive environmental catastrophe by not requiring installation of a $500,000 redundant acoustic switch? Answer -- almost none. One notable exception is the Wall Street Journal. Still, the right wing media has been silent on the Cheney connection, after a brief flurry of trying to blame President Obama.
Double Down on the Outworn and Discredited Slogan, “drill, baby, drill.” According to Media Matters, “Fox News has long history of aggressively advocating for offshore drilling.” And it shows. Sister Sarah posted on her juvie Facebook page, “How could I still believe in drilling America's domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.”
She fails to mention the 2006 BP oil spill on the Alaskan tundra, the impact of global warming on her state, and the fact that oil is a fungible commodity which continues to fuel our enemies and adversaries. We cannot drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil. Essentially, offshore drilling is a profit-gouging government subsidy to line the pockets of Big Oil transnational coporations like BP, with a horrific, irreversible toll on our environment.
Finally, Coordinate the Message. From Limbaugh to Fox, these operate as propagandists for Big Oil, with coordinated talking points meant to create a narrative friendly to BP, that minimizes the catastrophic damage this company and its powerful cronies are causing to the environment, limits liability, and promotes offshore drilling. Guess who’s behind this? The Chamber of Commerce (last seen running racist ads against Blanche Lincoln opponent, Bill Halter) and -- none other than Teabagger undrewriters, Dick Armey’s astroturf front group, Freedomworks.
A (Very) Brief History of Corporatism v. Environmentalism
In 1962 Rachel Carson published her seminal work, Silent Spring, which sounded the alarm against the lethal threat to animal life and humans posed by the widespread use of pesticides in our environment. Carson was viciously attacked by a concerted chemical industry campaign that spent more than a quarter-million (real money in 1962) to discredit her. In many ways the attacks continue to this day; attacks by libertarian laissez-faire ideologues whose small government mantra spurred the deregulation craze.
Sound familiar? Corporate malfeasance and criminality is exposed, industry responds with campaign to attack the messenger, limit its liability, feed pocketed politicians and right wing media its propaganda talking points, spend whatever it takes to distort the truth and fool public opinion. BP said it will pay compensation for “legitimate and objectively verifiable claims for property damage, personal injury and commercial losses.”
BP has placed a price tag on its responsibility for devastating the Gulf states coastal economy: $5,000. BP representatives descended like locusts on the region circulating a “settlement agreement” among Gulf Coast residents offering payments up to $5,000 in exchange for signing a waiver in which the victim agrees not to sue the company. When the media got wind of this, BP CEO Tony Hayward backpedaled, claiming it was a “misstep.” Indeed. A misstep with at least six missing zeros.]
Congress to the Rescue -- NOT!
This week BP, Halliburton and Deepwater Horizon executives prepare to be grilled by three Congressional committees. In a preview of what we can expect, PolitiFact rated statements by Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America, on ABC News’ This Week as “barely true.” McKay claimed his letter to MMS recommended improvements around safety regulations, but most of the letter, said PolitiFact, “suggests ways of making regulation less of a burden for BP. Certainly this is an ‘improvement’ from BP’s perspective, but we don’t see how it makes safety ‘the number one priority.’”
Predictably, perhaps, the Democratic members will posture for the cameras and ask tough questions, while the industry executives dissemble and express contrition. Even Republicans may get into the act of sounding tough. The question is, what will happen when the gavels bang the hearings closed? Federal Law limits BP’s liability to a measly $75 million drop in the bucket. Florida’s Bill Nelson is one of three Democratic senators introducing legislation to raise that liability dramatically to $10 billion, retroactively applicable to BP.
What the public needs to assess from Congress is, (1) will the Nelson legislation pass; and (2) will Congress enact tougher regulations and controls on deep-sea offshore oil drilling, at least to come in line with standards imposed for North Sea and Brazil offshore rigs. BP is the ultimate insider’s insider corporation, greasing every wheel from the President to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on down to the most junior representative. Unless there is a groundswell of public support and outrage, a public campaign demanding stringent environmental controls and fines on polluters, the chances of BP skating as devastation continues in the Gulf are about 70-30 percent.
Paul Krugman said, “antigovernment ideology remains all too prevalent, despite the havoc it has wrought. In fact, it has been making a comeback with the rise of the Tea Party movement. If there’s any silver lining to the disaster in the Gulf, it is that it may serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that we need politicians who believe in good government, because there are some jobs only the government can do.”
Is This Still Our Land?
Georgianne Nienaber said: “Words alone cannot express how dire the situation is for all life in the Gulf of Mexico.”
In 1945 or thereabouts, Woodie Guthrie wrote a song that Bruce Springsteen, a great troubador of our time, described as “the greatest song ever written about America.” He said:
Whose America is it, anyway?
Republicans and Democrats in-name-only were quick to come to the rescue –- of BP and Big Oil, their biggest donors. DINO Hall of Fame inductee Mary Landrieu, senator from Louisiana, the state whose ecology and coastal economy lies in the path of devastation, along with Republican governors Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi spoke up for their corporate constituents.
A Confederacy of Oil Barons Serving Transnational Corporations
Senator Landrieu said, “you’ve got to put this accident in perspective. The last thing we have to do is shut the oil and gas industry down.” Her first instinct as a politician was to shelter BP and Big Oil instead of her constituents, her people, the state’s coastal economy and ecology, which could be devastated for decades. Louisiana’s other senator, Republican David Vitter (better known for his diaper fetish and extreme right wing views) lamented that “BP is spread too thin.”
The fishing industry alone in the Gulf region accounts for about 20 percent of U.S. commercial fishing. It provides about 1 in 17 jobs in the region. Fishers are particularly vulnerable and this crisis may drive many into bankruptcy. They were barely recovering from Hurricane Katrina when the oil spill disaster struck.
Secessionist Texas governor Rick Perry called the oil spill “an act of God.” Barbour went further: “I think the most important thing is for people not to panic and not to assume the worst. Some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous.”
Really? The Exxon Valdez spill released 10.9 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, of which only 10% of the oil was recovered and the ecology and wildlife remains devastated. The three leaks in the BP oil disaster have been releasing an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day (Coast Guard estimate). Skytruth, a nonprofit organization tracking the oil spill estimates it’s more like 26,000 barrels of oil a day, based on satellite imagery and scientific studies.
On May 1, eleven days into the Gulf crisis, according to Dr. Ian McDonald of FSU, estimates of the oil slick indicated that 12.12 million gallons of oil, at a minimum have been released into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the Exxon Valdez spill. Five days later, at a rate of 1.1 million gallons a day, the spill will have reached 17.6 million gallons released into the Gulf, tragically making the Exxon Valdez oil spill a distant second.
This catastrophic disaster is entirely man-made, not Perry’s and the industry’s “act of God.” It was not caused by nature, high seas, a hurricane, or any other phenomenon that could properly be ascribed for purposes of assigning liability to “an act of God.” Perry wasn’t being pious; he was protecting his corporate donors/owners and Texas’s oil and gas polluters.
BP/Halliburton Deadly Pollution Record (Only the Most Recent)
- In 2005, an explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery (third-largest in the country) and fires ripped through the giant site, killing 15 workers, injuring 180 others, as 43,000 people fled for their lives into indoor shelters. The investigation determined the blast was caused by failure “at all levels of the BP Corporation” including, significantly, repeated cost-cutting safety and maintenance violations. A “criminal investigation” by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department resulted in a $50 million fine against the company for violating the Clean Air Act. One EPA administrator said the fine was but a slap on the wrist, a “laghingstock” for a company with profits in excess of $17 billion in 2007. The Justice Department slammed the door on EPA continuing a criminal probe of BP.
- In 2006 BP was at it again, drawing criminal investigations from the EPA and Justice Department for two massive corroded oil pipe leaks into the Alaskan tundra of 200,000 gallons of oil. BP’s contemptuous “compliance” with the Alaska U.S. Attorney’s office request for a “surgical” release of documents was to scan 62 million pages. EPA Special Agent in Charge Scott West remembers thinking, “Holy shit, I cant breathe.” If he and his woefully understaffed three or four people printed out all of the pages “it would have filled a warehouse.”
- In 2009 an oil rig exploded into a fireball off the coast of Australia, dumping thousands of barrels of oil into the pristine fishing waters of the region over a ten-week period. The cause, as suspected in the Gulf oil disaster, was a faulty cementing job by Halliburton. The World Wildlife Fund called the spill one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters, ruining 80% of the catch for some fishermen.
Where is Dick Cheney? One of the more curious aspects of this environmental catastrophe is the absence of Big Oilman Dick Cheney from the public eye. In the first days of the crisis, Cheney’s surrogates fanned out in a full-court media press to spread disinformation and propaganda, even trying to deflect blame onto President Obama by calling it “Obama’s Katrina.” This charge is so patently absurd and irresponsible that it fell of its own weight when the media, for once, did a good job debunking it. Cheney’s fingerprints are all over the misinformation campaign, but he remains out of sight, hunkered down in an undisclosed location.
Cheney has cause to lay low. His filthy fingers may be all over the right’s propaganda campaign, but the truth of Cheney’s responsibility and potential criminal liability is far more sinister.The explosions in both the BP Australian and Gulf oil rig (operated by BP subcontractor Deepwater Horizon) increasingly point to Halliburton as the main culprit for faulty cementing. The process is meant to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. The wife of one of the rig workers killed in the explosion has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming Halliburton is culpable: The company “prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion.”
Halliburton confirmed it had finished cementing 20 hours prior to the Gulf rig explosion, just as it had finished cementing the Australian rig when it blew on August 21, 2009. As the Australian government inquiry into what is called the Monera spill continues, a Halliburton cementer with 20 years on the job testified: “Q: have you been taught in, training or otherwise become aware that problems with cementing are the number one cause of blowouts?” A: “No, I wasn‘t aware of that.” From 1996 to 2006, 18 of the 39 offshore blow-outs have been caused by bad cementing, according to the U.S. industry regulator, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency of the Interior Department.
Why is this significant?
Halliburton’s alleged criminal negligence was aided and abetted by former CEO Dick Cheney’s even more valuable service to the energy industry as a powerful poison pill government insider gutting the very regulatory agencies (Interior-MMS) responsible for public interest oversight and regulation of these transnational corporations. Cheney bagged $44 million during his five-year tenure with Halliburton before becoming Vice President. As Vice President Cheney remained on the company’s payroll. After all, he is a valued corporate asset, having ensured that Halliburton’s entrails reach into every nook and cranny of Iraq-Afghanistan war profiteering.
Deregulation by the Numbers: An Avoidable Catastrophe
Burn this into memory, deregulators and global warming deniers and laissez-faire capitalist ideologues and limited government libertarians: Based on the facts, proper industry safety standards, oversight, and regulatory protocols would have prevented the catastrophe inexorably poisoning the Gulf. The craven history of Cheney’s secret meetings with energy industry tycoons -- to divvy up the deregulatory spoils, line his pockets with present and future IOUs, and gut the Interior Department and its industry enforcement arm, MMS, staffing them with cronies and (literally) industry whores -- leads directly to the Gulf oil disaster.
- In 2000 MMS requested industry advice on problems related to the cementing used around deep sea well caps to stop blowouts. The oil industry never produced recommendations, and no regulation was put in place. When the Bush-Cheney oil regime took office, they put the brakes on comprehensive safety regulation by MMS, which considered a safety redundant device, called an acoustic trigger “essential” and proposed to mandate them on all Gulf oil rigs.
Acoustic triggers, are mandated for major offshore rig operators off the coast of Brazil and in Norway’s North Sea operations. BP has voluntarily installed this safeguard in its North Sea rigs. All the world’s major companies use the device. It is a remotely triggered shutoff switch that activates when the manual switch fails. This device, which costs $500,000 was not installed in the BP Deepwater Horizon rig. It could have prevented the BP Gulf oil disaster.
- The number of drill site inspections carried out by the MMS fell by 41 percent between 2005 and 2009, even as the number of drill rigs operating in U.S. waters increased. The number of penalties issued by MMS for regulatory violations fell from 66 in 2000 to 20 last year.
- Illustrating BP’s awesome political clout, In June of 2009, the MMS, now under Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (whose appointment was criticized by environmentalists for being too cozy with the oil industry) exempted BP from producing a legally mandated environmental impact study for the site where Deepwater Horizon would drill. Obama was earlier warned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that MMS studies approving offshore drilling were not reliable.
To hear the industry shills describe it, the oil spill poisoning the Gulf waters as it makes landfall is as benign, warm and cuddly as “chocolate milk.” Rep. Gene Taylor, one more Mississippi Democrat in the pocket of the oil and gas industry, said: “A lot of people are scared and I don’t think they should be” because “What I want people to know is, this isn’t Katrina, this is not Armageddon. The farther you get from the spill, that chocolate milk looking spill starts breaking up into smaller pieces.”
That’s like saying you’ll take your almond coffee mocha with almond-smelling cyanide and that “chocolate milk” chemical dispersant. In yet another outrage perpetrated on the public, epecially affected populations in the direct path of the oil slick, BP has refused to disclose the composition of the dispersants used in the spill, because it is a competitive trade secret protected by law. But if it’s Corexit or a product of similar composition, it contains 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that causes headaches, vomiting, and “reproductive problems in high doses.”Aside from its devastating, long-term impact on marine life and the delicate ecosystem in the Gulf, a review by the Alaska Community Action on Toxics determined that a version of Corexit, widely used in the Exxon Valdez spill “was later linked with health impacts in people including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders.” According to the Pro Publica article reporting on the oil spill’s chemical health hazard, “the evaporation process can also concentrate the toxic compounds left behind, particularly oil-derived compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.”
In contrast to Rep. Taylor’s upbeat “the good news is it’s not in the marshes where the juvenile shrimp are, and it’s tending to break up naturally,” a Coast Guard crew described the smell emanating from the oil spill at the mouth of the Mississippi Delta as “nasty.” Reports are starting to come in from Florida, in Kissimmee and Orlando that a “strange scent in the air” was detected which wasn’t there four hours before. In St Petersburg, a “heavy oil smell hung in the air. Wind was coming from the NNW. At first it smelled like a tiki-torch, but by 11 pm it was overwhelming. It gave me a horrible headache, and the people I spoke with had headaches as well. It was thick enough to taste in the air.” Similar first-person accounts are surfacing all over the region. Follow them here.
The Right’s Response to Catastrophe: Despicable and Irresponsible
No sooner had disaster struck in the Gulf of Mexico that the right wing propaganda machine went into full coverup and mobilization mode in a rush to absolve BP and the oil industry of any responsibility while, absurdly, shifting the blame to President Obama. Here is a synopsis of the right wing’s fierce industry-protectant propaganda campaign, unmatched by any legitimate media outlets:
Blame Obama. So what else is new. After the absurd charge (even for the right) that this was “Obama’s Katrina” fizzled, Dick Cheney surrogates Dana Perrino (Bush-Cheney’ s certifiably ignorant former press secretary) and Michael ‘Helluva job’ Brownie (the disgraced FEMA administrator when Katrina struck) were dispatched to Fox “News” to spread despicable accusations and rumors. Claiming, falsely, that President Obama’s response to the oil spill was delayed, Brown told Neil Cavuto of Fox: “It’s pure politics. This president has never supported big oil. He has never supported offshore drilling. And now he has an excuse to shut it back down.”
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs replied:
Embrace the Conspiracy. Dana Perrino doubled down on Rush Limbaugh’s wild conspiracy that “environmentalist wackos” blew up the oil rig because they were upset with the “timing” of the President’s drilling announcement “so, what better way to head off more oil drilling and nuclear plants then by blowing up a rig? I’m just, I’m just noting the timing here.” Perrino: “I’m not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory, but was this deliberate? You have to wonder if there was sabotage involved.”
Minimize the Damage, Shift Blame to Environmentalists. Saying tasteless and insensitive things is nothing new for Rush Limbaugh. Neither, for that matter, is spouting flat-out irresponsible lies. To sound authoritave, Limbaugh keeps repeating “British Petroleum,” unaware that the company changed its name to “BP” to represent a more PR-friendly “beyond petroleum” public image. A small point, perhaps, but illustrative of what a damn fool the imbecile blowhard is.
He said: “oil has a tough time surviving. This many gallons of oil seeps from the floor of the Gulf every day. It never surfaces because it gets eaten alive. But it seeps from the ocean floor at this amount, not as concentrated as what is coming from this well.” Absolute nonsense, followed by, “[Some] people are saying, don’t panic, the sea will take care of the oil spill, [meanwhile rather than work with] British Petroleum, they are enemy.” Well, one can’t work with “British Petroleum” because that company does not exist -- it is now listed as “BP.”
Maintain Strict Media Silence About Who the Real Culprits Are: The Bush-Cheney Regime. How many stories has right wing media done about the gutting of Interior-MMS under Bush-Cheney and the rampant deregulation that may have a direct causal connection to this massive environmental catastrophe by not requiring installation of a $500,000 redundant acoustic switch? Answer -- almost none. One notable exception is the Wall Street Journal. Still, the right wing media has been silent on the Cheney connection, after a brief flurry of trying to blame President Obama.
Double Down on the Outworn and Discredited Slogan, “drill, baby, drill.” According to Media Matters, “Fox News has long history of aggressively advocating for offshore drilling.” And it shows. Sister Sarah posted on her juvie Facebook page, “How could I still believe in drilling America's domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.”
She fails to mention the 2006 BP oil spill on the Alaskan tundra, the impact of global warming on her state, and the fact that oil is a fungible commodity which continues to fuel our enemies and adversaries. We cannot drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil. Essentially, offshore drilling is a profit-gouging government subsidy to line the pockets of Big Oil transnational coporations like BP, with a horrific, irreversible toll on our environment.
Finally, Coordinate the Message. From Limbaugh to Fox, these operate as propagandists for Big Oil, with coordinated talking points meant to create a narrative friendly to BP, that minimizes the catastrophic damage this company and its powerful cronies are causing to the environment, limits liability, and promotes offshore drilling. Guess who’s behind this? The Chamber of Commerce (last seen running racist ads against Blanche Lincoln opponent, Bill Halter) and -- none other than Teabagger undrewriters, Dick Armey’s astroturf front group, Freedomworks.
A (Very) Brief History of Corporatism v. Environmentalism
In 1962 Rachel Carson published her seminal work, Silent Spring, which sounded the alarm against the lethal threat to animal life and humans posed by the widespread use of pesticides in our environment. Carson was viciously attacked by a concerted chemical industry campaign that spent more than a quarter-million (real money in 1962) to discredit her. In many ways the attacks continue to this day; attacks by libertarian laissez-faire ideologues whose small government mantra spurred the deregulation craze.
“Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a ‘hysterical woman’ unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto Company, Velsicol, American Cyanamid — indeed, the whole chemical industry — duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media.”When Ralph Nader published his 1965 bestseller, Unsafe at Any Speed, an indictment of the U.S. auto industry’s abysmal safety standards, GM’s response was to aggressively try to smear Nader. GM hired private detectives to tap his phones and look into his past, and prostitutes to entrap him. Nader sued, winning a decision that expanded tort law to cover “overzealous surveillance.”
-Time Magazine, 1999
Sound familiar? Corporate malfeasance and criminality is exposed, industry responds with campaign to attack the messenger, limit its liability, feed pocketed politicians and right wing media its propaganda talking points, spend whatever it takes to distort the truth and fool public opinion. BP said it will pay compensation for “legitimate and objectively verifiable claims for property damage, personal injury and commercial losses.”
BP has placed a price tag on its responsibility for devastating the Gulf states coastal economy: $5,000. BP representatives descended like locusts on the region circulating a “settlement agreement” among Gulf Coast residents offering payments up to $5,000 in exchange for signing a waiver in which the victim agrees not to sue the company. When the media got wind of this, BP CEO Tony Hayward backpedaled, claiming it was a “misstep.” Indeed. A misstep with at least six missing zeros.]Congress to the Rescue -- NOT!
This week BP, Halliburton and Deepwater Horizon executives prepare to be grilled by three Congressional committees. In a preview of what we can expect, PolitiFact rated statements by Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America, on ABC News’ This Week as “barely true.” McKay claimed his letter to MMS recommended improvements around safety regulations, but most of the letter, said PolitiFact, “suggests ways of making regulation less of a burden for BP. Certainly this is an ‘improvement’ from BP’s perspective, but we don’t see how it makes safety ‘the number one priority.’”
Predictably, perhaps, the Democratic members will posture for the cameras and ask tough questions, while the industry executives dissemble and express contrition. Even Republicans may get into the act of sounding tough. The question is, what will happen when the gavels bang the hearings closed? Federal Law limits BP’s liability to a measly $75 million drop in the bucket. Florida’s Bill Nelson is one of three Democratic senators introducing legislation to raise that liability dramatically to $10 billion, retroactively applicable to BP.
What the public needs to assess from Congress is, (1) will the Nelson legislation pass; and (2) will Congress enact tougher regulations and controls on deep-sea offshore oil drilling, at least to come in line with standards imposed for North Sea and Brazil offshore rigs. BP is the ultimate insider’s insider corporation, greasing every wheel from the President to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on down to the most junior representative. Unless there is a groundswell of public support and outrage, a public campaign demanding stringent environmental controls and fines on polluters, the chances of BP skating as devastation continues in the Gulf are about 70-30 percent.
Paul Krugman said, “antigovernment ideology remains all too prevalent, despite the havoc it has wrought. In fact, it has been making a comeback with the rise of the Tea Party movement. If there’s any silver lining to the disaster in the Gulf, it is that it may serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that we need politicians who believe in good government, because there are some jobs only the government can do.”
Is This Still Our Land?
Georgianne Nienaber said: “Words alone cannot express how dire the situation is for all life in the Gulf of Mexico.”
In 1945 or thereabouts, Woodie Guthrie wrote a song that Bruce Springsteen, a great troubador of our time, described as “the greatest song ever written about America.” He said:
“It gets right to the heart of the promise of what our country was supposed to be about. If you talk to some of the unemployed workers … or a lot of people out there whose jobs are disappearing … I don’t know if they’d feel like this song is true anymore. I’m not sure that it is, but I know that it ought to be. [W]ith countries, just like with people, it’s easy to let the best of yourself slip away.”
THIS LAND IS YOUR LANDIs it still true? It’s slipping away as surely as that gusher of black death continues to spew its poison into the Gulf. Death in the color of chocolate milk. But one thing I know. It’s still worth fighting for. And fight for it we must, with every last fiber of our being.
words and music by Woody Guthrie
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the Gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I was walkin', I saw a sign there
And that sign said no tress passin'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
Whose America is it, anyway?
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Nazi Cop Tasers Phillies Fan . . .
Question is, how come the trigger-happy fascists haven't tasered this critter?
The Goldman Sachs Slam: Wall Street's Love Letter to America
“We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.
Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.
For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.
So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.
The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.
We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?”
Anonymous
Stop whining, Mr. Shitty. You guys are so predictable. You produce nothing, build nothing, contribute nothing of value. We will survive just fine without your conspicuous consumption and pathetic insecure whines. Before they come for you and your band of sociopaths, your ignorance of Democratic Party history (thank you) dooms you to the same fate as your shitty little forbears; to be controlled and regulated and sent scurrying into the dark corners and away from the disinfecting light like so many roaches:
“The moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.”- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address/March 1933
(And he was your worst nightmare for, oh . . . a generation or so, before Truman came along, at which point you were, like, docile and potty trained. The same pattern obtains here. If you’re lucky you might even share a cell with fellow psychopath Bernie Madoff, Wall Street boytoy.)
This Oil Catastrophe in the Gulf is so Devastating we Need Some Comedy Relief . . .
Jon Stewart to the rescue:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Beyond Awful | ||||
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