GOPers Vitter and Blunt sponsor bills to protect BP by limiting liability

You'd think that the Senator from Louisiana would want to hold BP accountable. Not David Vitter. He wants to pass legislation to protect BP by limiting the company's liability by basing liability on BP's profits (and, as we reported earlier, BP had a $17 billion loss in the last quarter.)

Via Sam Stein:

Instead, the GOP has rallied around a counter-proposal, authored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that would cap an oil company's liability at an amount equal to its profits of the last four quarters. If the company had not made a profit in the past four quarters, it would be liable for $150 million (or twice the current cap).

To be sure, BP still has a chance to turn around its profit margin during the next three quarters. But in terms of net earnings, it is now operating out of a $17 billion hole. If Vitter's version of economic liability legislation were the law of the land, there would be open concern about the damage payments that Gulf residents would end up recouping. As a Democratic operative working on the issue notes:

When Vitter introduced the bill, we pointed out that one of the co-owners of the Deepwater Horizon rig, Andarko, had not made a profit in the last year. But with this news today, if BP doesn't overcome this quarter's losses, next year they could be responsible for a disaster as bad as or worse than the one in the Gulf and they would only be liable for $150 million if Vitter's bill were law.

UPDATE: An astute reader points out that another Senate candidate, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), has sponsored legislation similar to Vitter's in the House.

Vitter and Blunt are two of the GOP's top Senate candidates this year. Protecting BP is a top priority.

And, we're all well aware of Vitter's shady past with prostitutes. Turns out Blunt is a Party Boy -- a big time DC Party Boy. Read the rest of this post...

'Put down that plastic, Mr. President'

A tip for the president from Jennifer Grayson, the green columnist at Huffington Post, writing at her own place (my emphasis):

President Obama, you’ve spearheaded a number of meaningful environmental reforms since taking office (raising fuel efficiency standards for cars, an $80 billion investment in clean energy technology, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program) — and it seems like you genuinely want to move this country toward a clean energy future, especially in the wake of the BP oil disaster — so would it be too much to ask you to stop being a shill for the bottled water industry? . . .

It may seem like a minor detail, but those little plastic bottles are having a big impact on our nation’s oil footprint, once you factor in the crude used to make the plastic, the energy needed to process the water, the fuel used to transport the bottles, the electricity to refrigerate them… The grand total? Fifty million barrels of the sticky stuff a year. . . .

Now imagine the example you’d set for all of us if you were photographed sporting a reusable Nalgene or Klean Kanteen[.]

Seems like a reasonable request for all of us. May as well start with what's in our hand; it's at least something we can control.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Iraq and Afghanistan war spending tops $1 trillion

Today, the House voted to approve another emergency supplemental appropriation to cove the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone who is bitching about the deficit needs to know this:

With the new war spending, the total amount of money that Congress has allotted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan surpasses $1 trillion.

The war in Iraq never should have happened. If that war of choice hadn't distracted the U.S., we might have actually done the job in Afghanistan in a timely fashion. But, nine years laters, it's still a mess

This is a testament to the failed leadership of George Bush and Dick Cheney. That $1 trillion is all deficit spending. Just like the Bush tax cuts. But, those faux deficit hawks never gave these Bush/Cheney policies a second thought.

And, the money is one thing. There's no price tag that can sum up the unnecessary human tragedies. Read the rest of this post...

Al Franken: 'I don't get BP's lack of remorse'

Still subbing for Keith Olbermann on Countdown, Lawrence O'Donnell had a segment on the BP vice-president of Safety, Steve Flynn. O'Donnell, of course, thinks Flynn should resign, especially after his evasive testimony before a congressional sub-committee recently. ("I'm not the VP of Safety, I'm the VP of Thoughts About Safety" — or words to that effect.)

But I'd like to focus on Sen. Al Franken's questioning, which is embedded in the Countdown segment:



Al Franken, mano-a-mano (well, "man to man" anyway) with BP's VP of Safety. Thank you, Senator.

Now my own point: Maybe the senator is saying that ("I don't get it") for show, as a way of making the point. Or maybe he really doesn't get it. But notice he's not making the real point, the obvious one, the one thought that a world swimming in Charmin ads finds it impossible to consistently think.

The obvious thought is this, and it's a statement: No corporate "person" will ever feel remorse.

How on earth could it? A corporate "person" has no heart, no soul, no head, no capacity to feel anything at all. It is simply a beast that feeds itself. (Well, ostensibly it feeds the stock-holders, but we're way past that stage of capitalism, aren't we.)

And the central fact of this new century is that we live in a forest of such beasts, surrounded by them, constantly feeding them. We are things to them, literally. They eat us and we feed them.

But they also feed us in return. They surround us with images of the beast as human — as the kind store-keeper in the Charmin commercial; that nice business-blonde who cares about our energy future; the horny frat-bro-next-door who brings Zima and twins to your next party.

It's really hard, in a forest of such images, to see the beast behind the we-care human simulations. But it's critical that we do; the BP oil spill has kicked the Beast War* into the next phase, and believe me, he who is confused, will lose.

(*Apologies to George Lucas; he knows I mean well.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

Santorum is seriously considering a run for President in 2012.

Seriously:

As if the repeated trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina weren't clues enough, former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania met privately last week with several of his former Capitol Hill staffers to pitch the idea of a presidential bid in 2012.

According to GOP sources familiar with the meeting, which took place last Tuesday in Washington, Santorum conveyed his seriousness about a possible campaign and solicited his former aides for advice.

Though the 2012 Republican field has yet to take shape, Santorum, who lost his 2006 re-election bid by 18 points, would enter the race as a decided underdog against better-funded opponents with growing national political operations, such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

How could his former aides not burst out into laughter?

But, I say, Run, Santorum, run. Show the world you're not just a "sexual neoologism." (Remember, Santorum is NSFW.) Read the rest of this post...

Senate GOPers block vote on campaign finance reform

First, a win for corporate interests in the Supreme Court with the Citizens United decision. Now, a follow-up victory in the U.S. Senate.

The Senate Republicans, voting as a bloc, just sustained their filibuster of campaign finance reform. The vote was 57 - 41. All the Democrats present, even Ben Nelson, voted to end the filibuster. (Reid voted no for procedural reasons.) Remember when John McCain used to be an advocate for campaign finance reform, before he flipped on that issue like every other? What a fraud. And, Maine has a Clean Elections law, which passed as a citizen initiative back in 1996. So, this should have been an easy vote for Snowe and Collins, but they must show fealty to Mitch McConnell and the GOP funders, not Mainers.

During the floor debate, Chuck Schumer, who is the sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, said:

This is a sad day for our democracy. Not only does the Supreme Court give those special interests a huge advantage, but this body says they should do it all in secret without any disclosure. That, my colleagues, transcends this election, transcends Democrat or Republican. It eats at the very fabric of our democracy. It makes our people feel powerless and angry.

It is another sad day for our democracy. And, while Schumer thinks this might transcend Democrat or Republican, the GOPers sure benefit from it. Read the rest of this post...

The anti-gay agenda exposed in Indianapolis

You know how the religious rights and their minions in the GOP are always squawking about the secret homosexual agenda? (Would that our side was organized enough to have an agenda.) We've been wondering what the true goal of the gay haters is. We've had our suspicions, but they're crafty, those haters. But, now we know. See, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is conducting a bus tour of hate this summer. It's been a bust with low turnout at every stop. The Courage Campaign has been tracking and documenting this tour.

Yesterday, the NOM hate bus pulled into Indianapolis. And, that's where the agenda was exposed by Bilerico's Bil Browning:

Now, we know. They want to kill us. Gay marriage = death.

NOM's Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown preach a message of hate against LGBT Americans, as do so many of their colleagues in the theocratic right-wing. They want people to think LGBTs are not equal. They want people to think LGBTs are lesser humans. They shouldn't be surprised when their followers come up with solutions like the one in the photo above. That's the path NOM is leading its followers down. Read the rest of this post...

Martin Wolf on Republican plans for default

Yes, "default." And I thought I was hard-nosed.

Welcome Martin Wolf, economics writer for the UK Financial Times, to the screamer side of the table. (Hat tip Paul Krugman, whose headline for this find is "Martin Wolf is Shrill.")

There's more good stuff in this Financial Times article than I can quote honorably, so I urge you to click through. It's highly readable. Wolf's bottom line is the same as mine — the crisis is the plan for Movement Conservatives, whom he quaintly calls "radicals."

The political genius of supply-side economics

My reading of contemporary Republican thinking is that there is no chance of any attempt to arrest adverse long-term fiscal trends should they return to power. Moreover, since the Republicans have no interest in doing anything sensible, the Democrats will gain nothing from trying to do much either. That is the lesson Democrats have to draw from the Clinton era’s successful frugality, which merely gave George W. Bush the opportunity to make massive (irresponsible and unsustainable) tax cuts. In practice, then, nothing will be done.

Indeed, nothing may be done even if a genuine fiscal crisis were to emerge. According to my friend, Bruce Bartlett, a highly informed, if jaundiced, observer, some “conservatives” (in truth, extreme radicals) think a federal default would be an effective way to bring public spending they detest under control. It should be noted, in passing, that a federal default would surely create the biggest financial crisis in world economic history. . . .

[W]ith one party indifferent to deficits, provided they are brought about by tax cuts, and the other party relatively fiscally responsible (well, everything is relative, after all), but opposed to spending cuts on core programmes, US fiscal policy is paralysed. . . .

This is extraordinarily dangerous. . . . Those radical conservatives (a small minority, I hope) who want to destroy the credit of the US federal government may succeed. If so, that would be the end of the US era of global dominance. The destruction of fiscal credibility could be the outcome of the policies of the party that considers itself the most patriotic. [my emphasis]

Who's Martin Wolf? This guy. Looks pretty mainstream to me.

Like I said, a slow-motion suicide.

GP Read the rest of this post...

In NH, Palin's endorsement of GOPer could swing Senate race to Democrat Paul Hodes

Many in the traditional media and the political punditry are agog over Sarah Palin. They monitor and deconstruct her tweets and Facebook postings, trying to determine how she'll shape the nation. But, Palin doesn't cast the same spell over real voters -- outside of the hard core of the hard core Republicans. Look at PPP's latest numbers from New Hampshire:

Kelly Ayotte's seen her appeal to moderate voters crumble in the wake of her endorsement by Sarah Palin and her lead over Paul Hodes has shrunk to its lowest level of any public polling in 2010- she has a 45-42 advantage over him, down from 47-40 in an April PPP poll.

While Palin's endorsement may help with the extreme GOPers (and the Villagers), it's not so helpful with the moderates:

Most of the movement both in feelings about Ayotte and in the horse race has come with moderate voters. Moderates make up the largest bloc of the New Hampshire electorate at 47%, and Hodes' lead with them has expanded from just 8 points at 47-39 in April to now 21 points at 51-30. Ayotte's favorability with them has gone from +5 at 32/27 to -19 at 27/46.

The Palin endorsement may well be playing a role in this. 51% of voters in the state say they're less likely to back a Palin endorsed candidate to only 26% who say that support would make them more inclined to vote for someone. Among moderates that widens to 65% who say a Palin endorsement would turn them off to 14% who it would make more supportive.

So, Ayotte could win the GOP primary because of Palin's endorsement, but lose the general election because of Palin's endorsement. I'll take that.

I met Paul Hodes at Netroots Nation -- and I was impressed. He's not your run-of-the-mill Senate candidate. He's got a varied background: a lawyer and a musician. And, he supports marriage equality. His website is here. Read the rest of this post...

Bill O'Reilly is now to the left of President Obama on DADT

O'Reilly - yes, that O'Reilly - is now more liberal than President Obama on the issue of gays in the military. O'Reilly says to stop the discharges now. It's not clear when the discharges will actually stop, even if Congress does pass the legislation currently being debated. The President has it in his power to stop the discharges now. Read the rest of this post...

BP announces record loss of $17 billion in second quarter

BP has inflicted record losses and immeasurable misery on families and industries across the Gulf states. So, I'm not really feeling bad for BP:

BP announced Tuesday that it lost $17 billion in the second quarter of the year because of the mounting cost of halting and repairing damage from the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company also said the executive who has led its spill response effort for the last month, Robert Dudley, would take over Oct. 1 as BP's next chief executive, becoming the first American to run the London-based company.

Dudley, 54, had been widely expected to be chosen to replace outgoing chief executive Tony Hayward, whose dismissal was confirmed after a BP board meeting Monday evening.

It does take a certain skill to have an oil company suffer record losses.

Good riddance, Tony Hayward. Thanks for overseeing the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. That's quite a legacy.

All that cost-cutting and skimping on safety didn't really pay off. You'd like to think this would be a lesson for other corporations, but don't count on it. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

This morning, the Senate will vote to end the GOP filibuster of the DISCLOSE Act. That's the bill to fix the Supreme Court's horrible decision on campaign finance. You know, the one that basically said corporations are people, too. Unclear if there will be enough votes to end the filibuster. Republicans love the idea of corporations pouring money into campaigns because Republicans think they'll be the beneficiaries. And, I have no doubt that's what Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy were hoping.

Later this morning, the President meets with the House and Senate leadership: Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, McConnell and Boehner. I"m sure it will be a very productive session where McConnell and Boehner will ask Obama how they can help fix some of the problems their party helped create. Right? Bipartisanship and all. Anyway, Obama is going to make some remarks after this meeting.

On the political front, that whack job Tom Tancredo, one of the biggest haters in the GOP, announced that he's running as a third party candidate for Governor in Colorado. That should ruin the GOP's chances of winning there.

Let's get started... Read the rest of this post...

The human at the heart of the Wikileaks story — 22-year-old SPC Bradley Manning

Posted without comment (for now), a profile of the Wikileaks leaker, who will likely rot in jail for the rest of his life, if his captors have any say. From Wired in June:

SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.

Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.

He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”

The Wired story has a ton of info, and is well worth a click (h/t mirth, in the comments).

OK, one comment — bragging doesn't seem smart. But what do I know?

GP Read the rest of this post...