Another incumbent member of Congress lost in a primary today

Another one bites the dust.

An incumbent Republican Senator, Robert Bennett from Utah, lost his reelection effort over the weekend.

Today, Democratic Congressman Alan Mollohan lost in his primary:

Democrat Alan Mollohan's 28-year run in the House of Representatives is over.

With 71 percent of the precincts reporting, state Sen. Mike Oliverio had nearly 56 percent of the vote compared to Mollohan's 44 percent.

Tuesday's vote made Mollohan the first House incumbent in the country to lose his seat this year.

Mollohan was dogged by ethical questions, and the more conservative Oliverio ran an aggressive campaign portraying him as corrupt and disconnected.

I suspect this will only heighten the panic that is permeating the House Democratic Caucus. Read More......

Political ad in Alabama mocks evolution

Where was that again? Alabama, of course.

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Follow the volcanic ash cloud

An interesting map of where the Iceland volcano's ash cloud was yesterday and where they expect it to be today in Europe. Everyone is still bracing themselves for much more trouble in the coming months. It would be unusual to only see Eyjafjallajokull erupting. If the much larger neighbor blows as many expect, then it could get considerably worse. Read More......

Why new offshore drilling is irrelevant

A picture that really is worth 1000 words. Thanks, digby:


And yes, the chart does go out to 2030. Click it to make it large.

GP Read More......

If Kagan is confirmed, all 9 justices will be from Harvard or Yale

Walter Shapiro via Digby:

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that members of the Supreme Court must be lawyers. But a long line of activist presidents – both Democrats and Republicans – have altered the original intent of the Framers so that a degree from an Eastern elitist law school is now almost a constitutional necessity. If Elena Kagan (Harvard Law '86) is confirmed for the Court, all nine justices would have received their legal training at Harvard or Yale.

This is one of those moments when you sense that American democracy is more of a rigged game than they taught you back in high school civics classes. Few object to a meritocracy in which people, regardless of family backgrounds, are judged by what they have accomplished in life. But should that binding decision have been made by the admissions committees at two law schools when the applicants were still in their early 20s?

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Details of Senate climate change bill

The article doesn't have any reaction from any environmental groups. I'll be waiting to hear what they have to say, before passing judgment.

From the Hill:

The Senate climate change bill will call for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by 17 percent by 2020, and seeks to find a workable compromise between opponents and supporters of offshore drilling in light of the ongoing spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Mindful of the accident in the Gulf, we institute important new protections for coastal states by allowing them to opt-out of drilling up to 75 miles from their shores. In addition, directly impacted states can veto drilling plans if they stand to suffer significant adverse impacts in the event of an accident,” the summary states.

The long-awaited bill, to be released in full on Wednesday, also includes a 37.5 percent state royalty share to help protect coastlines and coastal ecosystems. That could upset drilling opponents that see the royalties as an inducement for expanded offshore drilling.

The legislation also contains a number of provisions designed to attract business support.

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Gold hits new high for 2010

In other words, some aren't so sure the EU bailout or the crisis is over just yet. Reuters:

The measures, unveiled on Monday, sparked a relief rally in assets seen as higher risk, such as the euro, stocks and industrial commodities.

"While this (euro zone rescue package) provided at least a temporary band aid for the sovereign debt crisis, there is still a potential for significant problems and the need to potentially do more," said Bill O'Neill, partner at Logic Advisors. "This package bides time but it doesn't indicate that the crisis is necessarily over, and that's what gold is reflecting."

Gold rallied last week on concern that Greece's debt problems would be echoed elsewhere in the euro zone, but slid 2 percent on Monday after the rescue package sparked a relief rally across financial markets.

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BP makes enough profit in four days to cover the costs of the spill cleanup thus far

ThinkProgress:

“As hopes dim for containing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico anytime soon” after a giant containment dome failed, the cost of cleaning up the spill will continue to rise. BP is financially responsible for the disaster, and President Obama wants to raise the cap on what the company is liable for, as cleanup costs have already surpassed the current limit. BP said yesterday that it had already spent $350 million on the spill response, and the company’s stock has taken a big hit, but the “behemoth” company will almost certainly survive the disaster with little long term damage. BP’s daily profits dwarf the daily cost of spill response, and at the current rate, the company could cover the entire cost of cleanup thus far in just under four days of profits.

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Silverstein: 'Oil Industry Fights Anti-Corruption Measure'

From Ken Silverstein at Harpers. Wow.

It takes real balls for the oil industry to fight against transparency and accountability in the middle of a massive oil spill, but that’s precisely what the American Petroleum Institute (API) is doing at the present moment. Even as the spill pours vast quantities of oil in to the Gulf and threatens Louisiana’s wetlands, API is working hard to defeat an amendment that would require all oil, gas, and mining companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to report how much they pay foreign governments for access to resources. (Emphasis mine.)

The very definition of bribery. Don't you wish our side had this kind of testicular fortitude?

GP Read More......

Tories & liberal Dems reportedly agree on new UK govt

CNBC:

Conservatives appeared to have reached a deal with the smaller Liberal Democrats to form a new British government, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown will resign, a source told CNBC.

An announcement is imminent, this source said.

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Colbert King on Michael Steele: 'Why doesn't he seek membership in the Ku Klux Klan?'

Yesterday I wrote about how the RNC was attacking Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, for agreeing with Thurgood Marshall that the Constitution shouldn't have approved of slavery. Since that time, Michael Steele, the African-American head of the Republican party, weighed in on behalf of, well, slavery.

Colbert King today quoted Thurgood Marshall's views on why the Constitution should not have approved of alcwey, and then King had some strong words for Steele:

What part of this statement does Michael Steele reject? And if he is, indeed, a self-demeaning fool who believes that the originally drafted Constitution was not defective, why doesn't he seek membership in the Ku Klux Klan?

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For Supreme Court, GOP picks conservatives, Dems pick moderates. Why?

Bush didn't flinch with Alito and Roberts, both were quite conservative, no questions asked. Sotomayor, on the other hand, and Kagan, are hardly as liberal as Alito and Roberts are conservative. Why are Democrats always less Democratic than Republicans are Republican? From the NYT:

The selection of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be the nation’s 112th justice extends a quarter-century pattern in which Republican presidents generally install strong conservatives on the Supreme Court while Democratic presidents pick candidates who often disappoint their liberal base.

Ms. Kagan is certainly too liberal for conservatives, who quickly criticized her nomination on Monday as a radical threat. But much like every other Democratic nominee since the 1960s, she does not fit the profile sought by the left, which hungers for a full-throated counterweight to the court’s conservative leader, Justice Antonin Scalia.

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Oil execs. on Capitol Hill. Obama will split govt agency to end 'too cozy' relationship with industry

This morning, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is holding a hearing on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the panel consists of oil industry executives, via the Committees website:

Mr. Lamar McKay - President and Chairman , BP America, Inc.
Mr. Steven Newman - President and Chief Executive Officer, Transocean Limited
Mr. Tim Probert - President, Global Business Lines; Chief Health, Safety and Environmental Officer, Halliburton

Yes, that Halliburton. Of course, there's a Halliburton connection. MSNBC is livestreaming the hearing as is the Committee. Many of the members of this Committee are pretty much wholly-owned subsidiaries of the oil industry.

The Obama administration is also taking action. Earlier this year, Team Obama was sidling up to the oil industry with its new-found support for offshore drilling. Bad move by some political genius at the White House. Seems like the administration has been looking for ways to show that it is actually tough on the industry, hence this move:

President Obama is proposing to split the agency that oversees offshore oil drilling into two parts, one to inspect oil rigs and enforce safety, the other to oversee leases for drilling and collect royalties, the White House said Tuesday.

The proposal, in response to the Gulf Coast oil spill, will be formally unveiled at 1 p.m. by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, officials said. Mr. Salazar’s decision to split the current Minerals Management Service is occurring after the agency has come under criticism for being too cozy with the industry because it engages in financial dealings with the companies — collecting royalties and negotiating leases — while also acting as a policeman, in its role overseeing safety investigations.

The proposal reflects the shift in attitude by the Obama White House in the weeks since the Gulf spill. In March, the president called for new offshore drilling in the Atlantic ocean from Delaware to central Florida, as he sought to lay the groundwork for comprehensive energy legislation, which has since stalled in the Senate.

Many of us expected this kind of action from the Obama administration in the first place. But, the political geniuses at the White House decided to support offshore drilling. Read More......

Pope blames 'sin within' for child-rape scandal

He may actually be starting to appreciate the problem. Maybe.

He made his comments in response to a question on the clerical child abuse scandal, while en route to Portugal.

Critics have previously accused the Vatican of attempting to blame the media and the Church's opponents for the escalation of the scandal.

But the Pope made clear its origin came from within the Church itself.

"Today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies, but is born of sin within the Church," the pontiff told reporters on a plane bound for Portugal.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Afghan's President Hamid Karzai is in Washington this week. He's had meetings with Secretary Clinton, but won't see Obama until tomorrow. Obama is meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and General McChrystal today in advance of his meetings with Karzai. I haven't seen any much reporting that indicates the situation in Afghanistan is improving.

Secretary Gates will also be meeting with the President today. The topic is Afghanistan, but Obama should ask his Secretary of Defense why he thinks the President and Congressional leaders are "stupid." Yep, Gates said it would be stupid to repeal DADT this year, before his study is completed. That means the President, Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Levin, Rep. Frank, Rep. Murphy and many others are "stupid," according to the Gates standard.

The Senate is still debating the Wall Street reform bill. There will be a vote today on the amendment from Senator Sanders to audit the Federal Reserve. It's a compromise, but will be a very important addition to the legislation. A stronger audit, sponsored by Reps. Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, passed in the House version of Wall Street reform.

What else? Read More......

EU bailout sputters - euro drops again

Something had to be done though the markets are now absorbing the enormous costs including more credit debt. Paying off the old debt has perhaps somewhat easier though it still has to be paid. The euro-bears are holding firm on their forecasts of a declining euro and as of this morning, the euro is back to where it started Monday morning before the trillion dollar injection. EU finance ministers will need a steady supply of Rolaids until this settles.

The emergency plan -- the biggest since G20 leaders threw money at the global economy following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 -- impressed markets with its sheer size and sparked a spectacular rally in world stocks and the euro.

Yet financial markets turned cautious when they reopened for business in Asia on Tuesday, with investors concerned that the plan was not a long-term solution to problems plaguing the 11-year old single currency area.

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Gordon Brown stepping down as coalition talks heat up

As long as Gordon Brown stayed, a coalition between the Lib Dems and Labour was impossible. Now that he's on his way out, a coalition could very likely happen within the next day. Whoever manages to woo the Liberal Democrats still has a tough climb to reach the magic number and then to hold a coalition. Regardless of the outcome in the next day or two, the UK will probably be voting again soon enough.

The process of forming a new government may be resolved in the next 24 hours, according to a senior Liberal Democrat source who said it was "crunch time".

The Lib Dems have held talks with the Tories and Labour in a bid to form an alliance which could run the country.

Gordon Brown, whose presence in Downing Street was seen as harming Labour's chance of a deal, has announced he will step down as party leader by September.

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