Gulf seepage from another well near Deepwater

While it's good news that the failed BP well is not causing more problems, this news does raise the other issue of what is happening with the 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Hearing that it's like oil dripping from an old car is not great news. That scientists can see the oil means that it is more than just a drip here or there.

The seepage detected from the sea floor briefly raised fears that the well was in danger. But Allen said another well is to blame. The seepage is closer to the older well than to the one that blew out, Allen said. Also, he said, "it's not unusual to have seepage around the old wells."

There are two wells within two miles of BP's blowout off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. One has been abandoned and another is not in production. Around 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf aren't checked for leaks, an Associated Press investigation showed this month.

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Investigative reporter/blogger assassinated in Greece by terrorist group

A creepy reminder that even in western democracies it's not always safe to muckrake.

The murder of a prominent investigative reporter on the doorstep of his home in Athens sent shockwaves through Greece tonight as it emerged that a terrorist group was behind the assassination.

Socratis Giolas died almost instantly as masked gunmen shot him 16 times in front of his wife, who is expecting their second child.

She said her husband had been lured to the front door by an anonymous telephone call. After spraying him with bullets the assailants sped off in a stolen car that was later found burned.

The 37-year-old radio chief is the first journalist to be killed in the country since newspaper publisher Nikos Monferatos was gunned down by the infamous 17 November terror group in 1985.

Giolas, who was also a frequent blogger, posting reports on popular online newsblog Troktiko, sought to illuminate Greece's seamier underside. The shooting came days before he was due to release an investigative series on corruption, colleagues said.

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Rove-linked group uses secret donors to fund attacks

Now there's a surprise:

A new political operation conceived by Republican operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie formed a spinoff group last month that - thanks in part to its ability to promise donors anonymity - has brought in more money in its first month than the parent organization has raised since it started in March.

The new group, called American Crossroads GPS, has been telling donors their contributions would be used to dig up dirt on Congressional Democrats’ “expense account abuses” and to frame the BP oil spill as “Obama’s Katrina.”

The GPS group pulled in $5.1 million in June, its first month in operation, while the original American Crossroads, which has spent $600,000 on tough ads blistering Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has pulled in $4.7 million since its launch.

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White House team praised firing of Sherrod yesterday, offers her job today

There's the decision making ability that Americans like to see. Rush to judgment and fire someone before all of the data has been released (which was released by a Teabagger hack) and then show concern the day after. Didn't we see enough knee-jerk decision making during the Bush years?

A short time ago, CNN reported that Secretary Vilsack called Shirley Sherrod to apologize and to offer her a job. Vilsack also made a public statement this afternoon acknowledging that he called Sherrod to offer an apology to ask whether she would consider finding a way forward. Vilsack said he accepts full responsibility and (repeatedly) said it was his decision. (Note from Joe: The speech was carried live on CNN and FOX, but not MSNBC, which seemed odd.)

What a difference a day makes.

Only yesterday there was plenty of back-slapping in the office.

One source, who is unhappy with the administration's handling of the incident, paraphrased Messina's remarks: "We could have waited all day – we could have had a media circus – but we took decisive action and it’s a good example of how to respond in this atmosphere."

But two other senior officials present at the meeting, who responded to a call to the White House press office, said the gist of Messina's words had been conveyed to POLITICO inaccurately, and that Messina -- a top political operative and senior manager -- was merely speaking in his capacity as Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and "cheerleader" to boost staffers' morale.

Messina was merely praising the White House staff for "communicating well, sharing well, basically rising to the occasion" on the Sherrod story, one official said. "It was an institutional or procedural point."

Now that the full story has come out the tone has slightly evolved.

A White House official confirmed that advisers to President Obama spoke to officials at the Department of Agriculture “and we agreed that the issue should be reviewed.” The official, speaking anonymously to reveal internal discussions, said Mr. Vilsack was amenable.

“There was a convergence there, but we did initiate the conversation,” the official said.

The last time I checked, any friendship is a two way street and not this kind of behavior. If Team Change ever wants to reflect on why so many on the left are turned off by them (not that they care) it's because of situations like this. Read More......

Report of even more warnings ignored by BP prior to disaster

The BP SOP seems to have been ignore warnings and keep costs as limited as possible. Whether it was their outsourcing of the the failed safety device to China or failing to properly report problems to MMS as we are now hearing, BP showed little regard for the negative impact of their actions. Every business is trying to make money but BP consistently has shown little interest in what is best for the safety of its people and the environment. Their cost cutting is now turning out to be a lot more expensive than those costly safety precautions. Regulations are so expensive, aren't they?

Ronald Sepulvado, a BP well site leader, said he had reported a leak on a critical safety device at the rig to more senior company officials, but it seemed his warnings had not been passed on to the government regulating body, the Minerals Management Service.

"I assumed everything was OK, because I reported it to the team leader and he should have reported it to the MMS," he told the hearing. The leak was on a control pod connected to the blowout preventer on the rig, whose failure proved critical in causing the disaster.

A congressional committee in Washington heard testimony from Gale Norton, interior secretary under former president George W Bush. Norton said BP had ignored rules put in place in 2003. "If regulations on the books and industry best practices had been followed properly, there might not have been a blowout," she said. "It appears that BP violated all those regulations that were on the books."

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Republicans delay vote on unemployment extension — again

It never ends. From Greg Sargent today at the Plum Line blog:

Right now, as we speak, Senate Republicans continue to file a bunch of motions that could delay the vote on extending unemployment benefits for as long as another day.

This is key: It's a reminder that Republicans intend to continue to try to block the extension, unless its costs are offset, for as long as possible. Nobody is focused on this, but Republicans actually see a political upside for themselves in this standoff.

I'm told that Republicans are filing the motions because Senator Harry Reid says he doesn't want to allow votes on amendments that are designed to offset the extension's costs. Reid wants to proceed with the full vote. Senator Tom Coburn just filed a motion to suspend the rules, and Republicans are resolved to sit tight in hopes of forcing a vote on it.

"Republicans are declaring an all-out war on unemployed Americans," Reid spokesman Jim Manley emails. . . .

Republicans have their own strategy here. They believe that while Dems can milk this for short term advantage, over time any discussion of "chronic" joblessness -- a term you'll hear more often -- draws attention to the failure of Dem economic policies and feeds the GOP's larger critique[.]

What we're up against. We need us some fighters. Just sayin'.

GP Read More......

BP photo update

I just wanted to give people an update on the press coverage of the BP altered photo scandal that we broke yesterday. Here's a sampling of the coverage:

Washington Post
Fast Company
Gizmodo
Associated Press
Geek.com
Daily Mail
Gawker
Toronto Sun
Telegraph
MSNBC
Treehugger
Bild
AOL News
Yahoo News
Le Figaro Read More......

RNC fails to report $7 million in debt to FEC; Party treasurer faults Steele

The GOP civil war continues on schedule:

The Republican National Committee failed to report more than $7 million in debt to the Federal Election Commission in recent months - a move that made its bottom line appear healthier than it is heading into the midterm elections and that also raises the prospect of a hefty fine.

In a memo to RNC budget committee members, RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen on Tuesday accused Chairman Michael S. Steele and his chief of staff, Michael Leavitt, of trying to conceal the information from him by ordering staff not to communicate with the treasurer - a charge RNC officials deny.

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Original unaltered photo of BP crisis center finally released

(click photo to see larger version) Read More......

Obama administration may back track on firing employee after fake right wing outrage

After the Breitbart ACORN scam you would think Democrats might be suspicious of highly edited video footage that is fed to Fox News. The initial reaction by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the edited Breitbart video was to force the resignation of Shirley Sherrod so the administration could avoid any problems with the right wing noise machine. It would be encouraging to see Vilsack change course, following a review of the entire story - not the edited version - and re-hire Sherrod. Why is it so often difficult for this administration to work with friends and appease its enemies?

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he will reconsider the department's decision to oust a black employee over racially tinged remarks after learning more about what she said.

Vilsack issued a short statement early Wednesday morning after Shirley Sherrod, who until Tuesday was the Agriculture Department's director of rural development in Georgia, said she was pressured to resign because of her comments that she didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago.

Sherrod said her remarks, delivered in March at a local NAACP banquet in Georgia, were part of a larger story about learning from her mistakes and racial reconciliation, not racism, and they were taken out of context by a blogger who posted only part of her speech.

Vilsack's statement came after the NAACP posted the full video of Sherrod's comments Tuesday night.

Here's a bit more background by TPM on the story following Sherrod's firing. Read More......

BP's excuse for photoshop controversy: Staffer was 'showing off'

BP just digs deeper and deeper:

Spokesman Scott Dean says Tuesday that two screens were blank in the original picture and a staff photographer used Photoshop software to add images.

Dean says the company put the unaltered picture up Monday after a blogger for the website Americablog wrote about telltale discrepancies.

He says the photographer was showing off his Photoshop skills and there was no ill intent.

No one at BP could show off their oil drilling skills. They failed at that, too.

The original post on this controversy is here.

And, doesn't BP pay big bucks for p.r. advice? This is the best they could do. Wow.

NOTE FROM JOHN: BP's answer is more disturbing than it may appear. It is difficult to believe that the photographer, who is a professional with over 10,000 photos online, could have done the photoshop job himself. It's just so badly done that I can't believe any professional photographer could have ever sanctioned, let alone done, that kind of shoddy work. It's difficult to explain, if you don't know Photoshop, but the job was the quality of that done by a kid, at best. BP's flippant answer suggests that there's more to the story that BP isn't telling us. Who approved of the photoshopping, who did it, and why? But a professional photographer was 'showing off' by doing an incredibly poor sophomoric job of photoshopping? Come on. Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

That BP photoshop story, which John broke, ricocheted around the internet and the traditional media yesterday. It was everywhere and resulted in our biggest traffic day ever, with nearly 600,000 visits. The post had around 2,300 retweets as of this morning. Nobody likes BP. Nobody trusts BP. Nobody should.

Today, the President will sign the Wall Street reform bill. He's holding the signing ceremony for the Dodd-Franks bill at the Ronald Reagan Building, which is between the White House and the Capitol. That's rich since only three GOPers voted for it.

The Senate will finally pass the unemployment insurance extension today. The Senate could have just voted to pass the bill after the filibuster was finally busted. But, no. Senate GOPers, just to prove how craven and vicious they are, prevented an immediate vote yesterday. Seriously, there has to be a special place in hell for people who created the economic crisis, then take delight in torturing the victims of that crisis.

I'm heading to Las Vegas shortly to attend Netroots Nation. John will be there, too, so we'll be reporting from the conference for the next couple days. The agenda is here. Should be interesting. Always is... Read More......

British economy closer to double dip as banks stop lending

Why should they? Politicians all over handed them money without strings attached and now expect the banks to show appreciation for being saved. We all know that when the tables are turned the banks would not hesitate to make demands in return for billions.

The disturbing part of the story is that the banks (and media) are again flogging a PWC study about how regulations are the cause of the banking problem. It's annoying to see this continue to receive attention because PWC is very active with the banking industry so they are not even close to being a neutral source. They're lobbying to help their customers. Reading this makes me wonder if this is the government's attempt to move backwards on regulation to make it an even easier ride for the banks. Saving them from ruin was probably not enough.

A green paper, to be rushed out by the chancellor and business secretary before next week's parliamentary recess, will acknowledge the scale of the lending rationing crisis, which could "abort" the fragile recovery.

As the Bank of England (BoE) published data showing yet another month when more loans had been repaid than had been granted, Cable admitted the level of anxiety in the government about the flow of funds to smaller companies. He said: "The green paper will acknowledge the scale of the problem and how the recovery could be aborted if we don't get on top of this.

"There is a fundamental policy conflict between efforts to make the banks safer and our wish to get them lending more freely to promote growth," Cable said.

He has been presented with research from the banks – which have given the work by PricewaterhouseCoopers the name "Project Oak" – showing that tougher capital rules and the end of emergency liquidity injections from the BoE could drain the banking system by £1 trillion in the coming years.

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British PM slams 'completely wrong' decision to release terrorist

It's hard to argue that point. Where we may differ is how this relates to BP. Outside of the normal apologist crowd few believe the release of the Lockerbie bomber was not directly linked to BP drilling off the coast of Libya. BBC:

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted BP should not be blamed for the "completely wrong" decision to release the Lockerbie bomber.

Claims have been made that BP lobbied for the release, but Mr Cameron said the Scottish government was responsible for freeing Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

Mr Cameron has asked the UK's top civil servant to review government papers but ruled out US demands for an inquiry.

The Scottish government has denied any BP influence in the release last year.

Standing alongside US President Barack Obama, Mr Cameron said he had seen no evidence the Scottish government - which made the decision to free terminally ill cancer patient Megrahi on compassionate grounds - had been "swayed" by lobbying from BP.

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Retirement is for losers

Appeasement is what it's all about. The Republicans always like talking about the Democrats appeasing but of course, Neville Chamberlain was a Conservative. Not that facts should matter.

How is it again that the GOP can accept the cost of endless wars but it's fair to ask granny to work at Wal-Mart? What a proud nation the Republicans like to promote. God I admire them as well as the Democrats who play their game. Read More......