Can even the GOP make this many 'gaffes'?

This piece assembles a number of recent news events and attempts to make sense of them.

Joe recently pointed to something that's more than a little concerning. He quotes a Wash Post article that says the BP oil spill hasn't really impacted either public opinion or public policy regarding fossil fuels. After a list of all the ways nothing has budged, the article concludes:

The Senate is still gridlocked. Opinion polls haven't budged much. Gasoline demand is going up, not down.

Joe comments:

[W]e've heard mixed messages from elected officials from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. On one hand, they want more federal aid. On the other hand, they want more drilling, even though we now know that it's not safe.

Shamelessly in bed with BP, and three crisp hundreds on the night stand. Oops. Couple that with recent GOP "mistakes" like this one from John Kyl:

You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what republicans object to. But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.

Make that four crisp hundreds. Or the Joe Barton BP apology. Or Sharron Angle calling the $20 billion in BP escrow cash a "slush fund", something Time's Swampland called "Sharron Angle's latest gaffe" (emphasis on "latest"). Or any of the countless attacks on the unemployed that stream over the transom and under the GOP door these days.

So many — can they really be gaffes? What if all of these "mistakes" aren't mistakes at all, but careful calculations? If so — and here I return you to Joe's point at the start of this post — it's working. No needle of outrage has moved; no Obama policy has been nudged toward change I can believe in. (In fact, "Team Change You Can Believe In" has managed to rebrand itself — "Team No Change You Can Notice" is sadly closer to the mark.)

A strategy this successful (admit it — it really is successful) is neither a series of "gaffes" nor the product of idiots. So best be prepared. I think we need to batten down, folks.

I've said a million times — Big Money enables Republicans and neuters Democrats. Money is handing a fortune to Republicans for this next election, and threatening Dems if Dems don't toe the line.

Money has all the bases covered. Money controls both opponents and the media who report the contest. (If you have time, check out this from Digby — I think Jon Alter has seriously soiled himself here. I wish I had the video.)

And the people? They seem to be passing through this staged event like Disney patrons in super-size shirts and shorts moving to the next faux presentation. (And it probably won't surprise you to learn that, according to this new study, the only effect that facts have on the already-cemented-in is to harden the cement.)

Yes, it may be a seriously bumpy night.

But I don't want to focus on the feeling of impotence — that's really part of the plan, isn't it — but on the need for planning and action. This note is not about them, but about you, about us, and our response to the rest of our school year with Team Change You Can Wait For.

Money's plan for them is to cave. Money's plan for you is to grumble and take it. My suggestion — cross them up. Do the first; don't do the second. (Some suggestions here.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

Confidence in Obama reaches new low in ABC/Wash Post poll

Wash Post:

Public confidence in President Obama has hit a new low, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. Four months before midterm elections that will define the second half of his term, nearly six in 10 voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country, and a clear majority once again disapproves of how he is dealing with the economy.

I do think the President has finally realized that he needs to fight, at least use fighting words, which is a step forward. But the albatross around his neck is the economy, and specifically, the unemployment rate. That rate is directly attributable to the President's decision not to push for a full stimulus, but rather cut the stimulus in half and then give 35% away to the GOP in the form of useless tax cuts. The result is exactly what Krugman and Stiglitz predicated at the time: high unemployment and a limping recovery, mixed with a threat of a double dip recession.

It may seem like beating a dead horse to note that we're in this current mess because the President screwed up, but until he shows that he's learned his lesson, and is willing to fight for things, from the beginning, and full-bore, it's worth repeating. Bad decisions have consequences, and they tend to come back and bite you in the ass. Read the rest of this post...

The first octopus millionaire?

Why not? Many have done much less for much more so good for the little guy. I hope he gets some tasty meals out of this.

Before the World Cup started, few could have foretold that one of the biggest winners of the tournament would be a psychic octopus. But now Paul, who correctly predicted the outcome of eight matches in a row, is on course to be the world's first millionaire octopus.

The mystic mollusc is retiring from the prediction business while he's ahead, his owner Sea Life announced on Tuesday. But as the company considers offers to "spread Paul's fame even further, without involving the canny cephalod directly" marketing experts say it could earn millions by selling his image for advertising products and services.

PR guru Max Clifford, best known for generating tabloid headlines such as "Freddie Starr ate my hamster," believes Paul, who was born in England, has ended his soothsaying days at exactly the right time. "Obviously his 100 percent record is remarkable but the minute he gets it wrong it all disappears," Clifford told CNN.

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Connection between BP and release of terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am flight 103?

Just when you honestly thought things couldn't get any worse for BP. This is disgusting, if true. From Mother Jones:

Is there a connection between BP and the terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103? Four senators want to know what sway the oil giant may have had in securing the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in exchange for a $900 million offshore oil drilling deal with Libya.

Megrahi, the only person convicted of bombing that killed 270 people in 1988, was released from prison in Scotland last August. A Scottish court granted the release after doctors claimed that Megrahi was terminally ill from prostate cancer and had only three months to live. The release, of course, prompted plenty of outrage. The bomber is still alive, and just this week one of the doctors that gave that dire prognosis last year came forward to assert that the Libyan government paid him to make that claim. Now four senators–Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)—are calling on the State Department to investigate whether the oil giant was involved in the deal-making, and whether "BP might use blood money" to pay for damages in the Gulf of Mexico.

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The rules of engagement in rural Georgia

The rules of engagement in rural Georgia — from Monday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

[On April 26] Janice Wells called the Richland Police Department when she feared a prowler was outside her clapboard house in the rural west Georgia town.

The third-grade teacher had phoned for help. But within minutes of an officer coming to her backdoor, she was screaming in pain and begging not to be shocked again with a Taser. With each scream and cry, the officer threatened her with more shocks.

"All of it's just unreal to me. I was scared to death," Wells said in an interview with the AJC. "He kept tasing me and tasing me. My fingernails are still burned. My leg, back and my butt had a long scar on it for days."

The officer in question is Ryan Smith of the Lumpkin Police Department. Smith was called to back up an officer from the Richland Police Department because the sheriff's office in the county, Stewart, had no deputies to send.

Smith resigned as a result of the incident. The other officer involved, Tim Murphy of Richland PD, was fired for using pepper spray while trying to arrest Wells. . . . Stewart County Sheriff Larry Jones, who came to the house seconds after the last electric shock was administered, suspects the outcome would have been different if the woman had been white and the officers black. [my emphasis]

Makes you feel all tingly and post-racial, doesn't it? Digby, who covers these stories regularly, has more, including this:

Smith resigned just as Ogle started the process to fire him, the chief said. Smith now works for the Chattahoochee County Sheriff's office.

But it's not like he didn't have options. I hear Blackwater's hiring.

The rules of engagement.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Landrieu wants more drilling. Now.

Senator Mary Landrieu is a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry. I heard her on NRP this morning complaining about the Commission that's investigating the BP oil spill. She doesn't want anything to impede drilling.

The Gulf of Mexico is being destroyed by the BP oil spill. We know that the oil industry had no plan to deal with massive spills -- and still doesn't. Landrieu and her allies have protected and coddled the industry. And, she wants more drilling:

But Landrieu, an ardent supporter of drilling, was clear Monday that the government's decision is not one she can endorse, regardless of how it has been tweaked.

“Whether you call it a moratorium, a suspension, or a pause, the result will still be a substantial loss of jobs. Even the revised moratorium will force thousands of hard-working Louisianians and others along the Gulf Coast into the unemployment lines," Landrieu continued. “We know what these suspensions will do to Gulf Coast families and to our economy. Yet, it seems that the Administration has ignored this data and failed to conduct its own economic analysis."

Maybe destroying the Gulf was the oil industry's plan all along. Maybe if they destroy all wildlife in the Gulf and wipe out the fishing industry, there would be no environmental impediments to their work. Then, they could just drill, drill, drill.

That sounds diabolical, but it's probably something Landrieu would get behind. Because, a Senator who wasn't owned by the oil industry might say something like “We know what these spills will do to Gulf Coast families and to our economy." But, she ignores the data and the reality.

Makes it hard to have empathy for the losses in the gulf region when the region's leaders don't seem concerned about preventing future disasters -- and sure didn't do anything to prevent this one. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Senator candidate Rand Paul suggests the poor don't have it that bad

He actually said we should be proud of the way our poor live:

"They filmed a building in the poorer section of New York with some broken windows and they said, `Oh, this is how the poor in America lives,'" Paul said at last week's forum. "But it backfired on them because the Soviet citizens looked at that video closely and they saw flickering color television sets in all those windows."

Paul went on to say that "the poor in our country are enormously better off than the rest of the world. It doesn't mean we can't do better. But we have to acknowledge and be proud of our system of capitalism."

Who can argue with a movie? Read the rest of this post...

Media ban lifted in Gulf spill region

What is a possible concern is who will decide who represents the media. Some of the best reporting of the events has come from independent sources online so hopefully they will be given equal access like the larger media outlets. Now we only have to count on BP security to accept this media ban since we all know how much they have respected the previous announcements.

The Coast Guard has modified a policy on safety zones around boom deployed on oiled coastlines, a policy news organizations had said unnecessarily restricted coverage of the impact of the BP oil spill and efforts to clean it up.

In a statement Monday night, the government's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said new procedures permit credentialed news media free travel within the boom safety zones.

"I have put out a direction that the press are to have clear, unfettered access to this event, with two exceptions — if there is a safety or security concern," said Allen. "This boom is critical to the defense of the marshes and the beaches."

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Jindal's 'artificial islands' are crumbling into Gulf of Mexico

Just a guess but maybe the scientists were right in saying they would not work. For yet another so-called fiscal conservative (whatever that's supposed to mean) it sounds like a bizarre way to waste hundreds of millions of dollars. The construction equipment is being submerged as this expensive, shoot-from-the-hip program sinks. Even if the islands weren't crumbling into the sea they still would severely disrupt fish who need access to the marshes. Do Republicans ever step back and think about consequences before they rush into massive plans? Click through to see the other photos of Jindal's expensive mistake.

A dramatic series of of aerial images show that plans to build artificial islands to block oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from reaching Louisiana's sensitive marshland appear to be crumbling. Literally.

Two months ago, against the advice of many coastal scientists, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal began furiously campaigning for the construction of six artificial islands to hold back the advancing oil. The federal government quickly granted Jindal his wish, and construction on the islands has been continuing apace.

But images taken of one construction site near the northern edge of the Chandeleur islands appear to show the sea washing away a giant sand berm over the course of about two weeks.

The first image, at top, was taken on June 25. The second and third, below, were taken from roughly the same vantage point on July 2 and 7. All three images were first published yesterday by coastal scientist Leonard Bahr on his blog, LACoastPost.

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GOP Senator Vitter supports birther law suits

You might recall that Vitter is the adulterer who was caught paying prostitutes, and then recently was found to have a staffer accused of cutting his girlfriend with a knife (and Vitter knew, and did nothing about it until it went public). From AP:

Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana says he supports conservative organizations challenging President Barack Obama's citizenship in court.

Vitter, who is running for re-election, made the comments at a town hall-style event in Metairie, La., on Sunday when a constituent asked what he would do about what the questioner said was Obama's "refusal to produce a valid birth certificate."

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CEO perks continue to shine

To be fair to the CEOs, this has been the most vibrant economy in decades so why shouldn't they deserve to have their lifestyle maintained? Some of the whingers will bring up the fact that some on the list had to receive TARP money but it's such an irrelevant detail. We need much more socialism for CEOs because if they aren't propped up in these tough times, how will their exclusive lifestyles survive? Read the rest of this post...

The real legacy of the economic crisis: The 99ers

In Washington, the debate about extending unemployment insurance is just another contentious political exercise. It's a game for the Republicans. Of course, Senators and their staffers have well-paying jobs with excellent benefits (all taxpayer funded, of course.) But, it's a harsh reality for the 99ers:

In the coming weeks, the Senate is expected to resume its debate about whether to extend the emergency jobless benefits that were passed in response to the steep increase in unemployment caused by the recession. But people like [Dwight Michael] Frazee, who have suffered the longest in the downturn, will not be part of that conversation. They are among the 1.4 million workers who have been unemployed for at least 99 weeks, according to the Labor Department, reaching the limit for the insurance. Their numbers have grown sixfold in the past three years.

The 99ers are glaring examples of the nation's most serious bout of long-term joblessness since the Great Depression. Nearly 46 percent of the country's 14.6 million unemployed people have been out of work for more than six months, and forecasters project that the situation will not improve anytime soon. Currently, the Labor Department says there are nearly five unemployed people for every job opening.

Frazee, 50, has applied for work at more places than he can remember since he lost his construction job two years ago. He has tried car dealerships, Kmart, Home Depot and the funky shops on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, near Toms River. He looked into becoming a commercial crabber, working in title insurance and as a bail bondsman. But no dice.

While searching for work, he lived on $585 a week in unemployment payments. But the checks were cut off in May when he reached 99 weeks. Now Frazee, who is married and has a 5-year-old daughter, is in a financial free fall with no safety net.

And, this should make all those Republicans who are blocking unemployment extensions very proud:

The longer he is out of a job, the more unemployable he feels. He suspects that potential employers are turned off by his age and by the fact that he has been out of work for so long. But he is moving near the top of the hiring list for his union. And in the meantime, he has been buying mail-order children's quartz watches from China and selling them on consignment at local convenience stores. He clears close to $3 per watch.

"I'm a union construction worker, but I think I can be a hell of a salesman," Frazee said. "A lot of the stores around here are owned by Indian Americans, and they like me. They're taking my watches. Maybe India and China are going to help me out of this jam if my country won't."

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President has a meeting with 16 Democratic Senators today (that's the " Senate Democratic Leadership Team.") They're going to be talking about the agenda in the Senate between now and the August recess. They've got a lot on their plate in the Senate. But, alas, there are only 59 Democratic Senators so they can hardly be expected to accomplish much.

The Senate is expected to bring up and pass the Wall Street reform bill relatively soon. There are three GOPers on board: Collins, Snowe and Scott Brown. But, Ben Nelson has been squishy. Apparently, the price isn't right for him yet. If Nelson won't vote for the bill, they'll have to wait til Byrd's replacement is named, which could happen at the end of this weekend. It's always something in the Senate.

A trial on the constitutionality of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law begins today in California. The suit was brought by the Log Cabin Republicans and will be defended by the Department of Justice.

The White House is unveiling its National HIV/AIDS Strategy later today, too.

What else do we need to know? Read the rest of this post...

UK recession even worse than previously thought

It won't be a surprise if other countries see similar reports. Once the full extent of the budget chopping kicks into full gear the statisticians in the UK will have even more recession numbers to examine. Without government spending now, the economy will only decline. The US really has been fortunate that Obama did not fall into the camp of budget choppers who seem to be in power these days. He should have gone for more and is probably going to struggle now getting this done in an election year but it was and will be the right thing to do. The Guardian:

The deepest recession in Britain's post-war history was even more severe than previously feared, the government said today.

Fresh information collected by the Office for National Statistics showed that the peak to trough decline in output was 6.4% of gross domestic product rather than the original 6.2% estimate.

The new figures confirmed that the six successive quarters of negative growth from spring 2008 until autumn 2009 were the toughest for the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, harsher even than the slump of the early 1980s.

Growth resumed in the final three months of 2009 as the UK economy responded to the emergency cuts in interest rates, the cheaper pound and higher government spending. The ONS made no changes to its estimate of a 0.4% expansion in the fourth quarter of last year or its 0.3% growth estimate for the first quarter of 2010, but said the role of government spending in the first three months of this year in underpinning the economy had been more significant than first thought.

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Israel admits 'mistakes' in flotilla attack

Though still not as far as any independent inquiry would go it's better than the initial story. BBC:

An Israeli military inquiry into the naval raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla says commandos were under-prepared and mistakes were made at a senior level.

The report says the operation suffered from flawed intelligence-gathering and inadequate planning.

But it also praised the commandos involved and found the use of force had been the only way to stop the flotilla.

Eight Turks and one Turkish-American died in the naval raid in international waters, which provoked a major outcry.

The report criticised the operation's planners for not having a back-up plan in the event of violence.

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'In BP’s Record, a History of Boldness and Costly Blunders'

Now there's a shocker of a headline. Big investigative piece in the NYT about BP:

Towering 15 stories above the water’s surface, Thunder Horse was meant to be the BP’s crowning glory, the embodiment of its bold gamble to outpace its competitors in finding and exploiting the vast reserves of oil beneath the waters of the gulf.

Instead, the rig, which was supposed to produce about nearly 20 percent of the gulf’s oil output, became a symbol of BP’s hubris. A valve installed backward had caused the vessel to flood during the hurricane, jeopardizing the project before any oil had even been pumped. Other problems, discovered later, included a welding job so shoddy that it left underwater pipelines brittle and full of cracks.

“It could have been catastrophic,” said Gordon A. Aaker Jr., a senior engineering consultant on the project. “You would have lost a lot of oil a mile down before you would have even known. It could have been a helluva spill — much like the Deepwater Horizon.”

The problems at Thunder Horse were not an anomaly, but a warning that BP was taking too many risks and cutting corners in pursuit of growth and profits, according to analysts, competitors and former employees. Despite a catalog of crises and near misses in recent years, BP has been chronically unable or unwilling to learn from its mistakes, an examination of its record shows.

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