Burning oil rig sinks as officials wait for oil spill

Just imagine the possibilities along the coast when the administration's oil drilling plan goes into effect. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs their head examined.

A deepwater oil platform that burned for more than a day after a massive explosion sank into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, creating the potential for a major spill as it underscored the slim chances that the 11 workers still missing survived.

The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, which burned violently until the gulf itself extinguished the fire, could unleash more than 300,000 of gallons of crude a day into the water. The environmental hazards would be greatest if the spill were to reach the Louisiana coast, some 50 miles away.

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Surfer rides on back of shark following attack

This surfer has to be the calmest person in the world. I've been diving with sharks a few times but still don't think I'd remain quite as calm after meeting the toothy end of one. Even after the encounter, he continued surfing for 45 minutes.

It's a ride Jim Rawlinson will never forget. Rawlinson, 68, was catching waves at the point in Hanalei Bay, Kauai Monday at about 4 p.m. when as quick as greased lightning his peaceful afternoon turned into every surfer's nightmare. "All of a sudden I felt this strike on the back of my board and it lifted me kind of up in the air," he said. Rawlinson's surfboard had just been attacked by a large tiger shark.

As he slid backwards what happened next is as frightening as it is unimaginable. Rawlinson ended up on the back of the ocean's most feared predator.

"I was onto the shark's back...anywhere from about five to ten seconds. It was so strange that everything was so slow and yet again so fast."

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More trouble for Steele, RNC board wants independent audit of spending

It's a sign of the growing revolt that Michael Steele is facing at the RNC. It's hard to see how he holds on in the long run.

The executive board of the Republican National Committee moved quietly this week to order an independent review of the organization's spending practices, a move that reflects internal concerns about cost controls and oversight of the $121 million in tax-exempt receipts the committee collected this election cycle.

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Bishops in Ireland, Germany resign

A few are starting to understand the depth of anger against the church though Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland has yet to resign. Even after admitting he watched young boys being forced to sign vows of silence after being raped by priests, Brady still believes he deserves his senior role with the church. Ahh, moral leadership.

Pope Benedict has accepted the resignation of Bishop James Moriarty, the Vatican said Thursday, bringing to three the number of Irish bishops who have stepped down due to the sexual abuse crisis.

Moriarty tendered his resignation in December, after an official report named him among Church leaders in the Dublin archdiocese who had covered up cases of child sex abuse by priests for 30 years.

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Arizona's governor defends draconian new anti-immigrant law

Arizona's Governor is a racist and an idiot:



Markos has more:

No surprise, since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer faces a tough primary challenge, but still disappointing: she has just announced her intention to sign SB 1070.

The soon-to-be law allows Arizona police to challenge anyone they think might be undocumented, and demand immigration papers.

It also allows residents to sue their municipalities if they believe local cops aren't doing enough to target and jail undocumented immigrants. You better believe that within a year, virtually every town and county in the state will be getting sued by xenophobic teabaggers.

Obama has already promised to monitor the situation closely for violations of civil rights, which are inevitable. And this new law will create additional impetus for a comprehensive national solution to the problem of undocumented workers in our country.

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VIDEO: Bank lobbyists huddle for another secret meeting with GOP Senators

Some great work by ThinkProgress:

Earlier today, President Obama traveled to New York to tell the nation’s most influential bankers to call off their “battalions of financial industry lobbyists” and embrace a new regulatory structure meant to avert another economic crisis. But around the same time back in Washington, D.C., bank lobbyists hosted a fundraiser for Senate Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who has become the Republican liaison for Wall Street fundraising.

The invitation to the fundraiser, obtained by the Party Time blog of the Sunlight Foundation, shows that the it was hosted by lobbyists Wendy Grubb, Kirsten Chadwick, Scott Reed, and a variety of corporate PACs. Grubb is a top lobbyist for Citigroup, a bank that took taxpayer TARP funds and has yet to repay them. Chadwick, a former staffer to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), is a lobbyist for Zurich Financial Group, a financial services conglomerate.

ThinkProgress, along with several other journalists, waited outside of the fundraiser at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) building. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) walked quickly past reporters into his car, refusing to take questions. Both Sens. Cornyn and George Lemieux (R-FL) dodged reporters by driving into the NRSC’s underground lot. Although ThinkProgress tried to ask both GOP lawmakers and the other attendees of the fundraiser about regulation reform legislation, only Charlie Black spoke to us. Black is a longtime corporate lobbyist who now represents a variety of investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, within a trade group called the “Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.”

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WellPoint dumps breast cancer survivors

In more serious breast cancer news, what complete slime.

The women paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, neither had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.

Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.

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It takes 18 chickens to get a mammogram

You may recall that the GOP Senate candidate running against Harry Reid recently said that health care in America is affordable because you can always use chickens, and other livestock, to pay your doctors for medical procedures. Then she defended the statement by giving other examples of medical barter, such as hay, yard work, and horse shoeing.

Well, some folks have created a Web site to facilitate this medical barter. The site lets you know how many chickens you'll need for each medical procedure. Priceless. Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch Jr. storms into newspaper editor's office and throws hissy fit

Temper, temper old boy. Even daddy can control himself better than this. All the newspaper had done was to write "Rupert Murdoch won't decide this election. You will." in advertisements. Obviously Junior comes from the Dick Cheney school of staying classy.

The episode left experienced journalists shocked. "They strode in like a scene out of Dodge City," said one. "Murdoch scanned the room, you could almost hear him saying 'Where is he?'"

Another likened the arrival in the newsroom of Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, to a mafia visit. "It was so bizarre. He came in all menace. You know the sort of thing: 'The boss has heard what you have been saying about him. He doesn't like it.'"

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Dems to offer bill to blunt Citizens United decision

Good move. Check out the third and fourth paragraphs. Sounds like something the GOP would do - and I mean that in a good way.

Democrats plan to introduce legislation next week that would sharply limit the ability of foreign-connected companies to participate in U.S. politics and require greater transparency from corporations, unions and nonprofit groups that pay for political advertising, according to a confidential summary of the bill.

The proposal, spearheaded by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), is aimed at blunting the effect of a Supreme Court ruling in January that permits companies and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money for or against political candidates. President Obama has sharply attacked the ruling, and many Democrats fear it will unleash a flood of corporate spending that is likely to favor Republicans.

According to the summary, obtained by The Washington Post, the legislation would require corporate chief executives or group leaders to publicly attach their names to ads, much like political candidates are required to do. It would also mandate disclosure of major donors whose money is used for "campaign-related activity."

The latter measure would require powerful trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for the first time to identify the companies that fund its political-related spending.

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Graham asks Dems to cave one more time, then GOP will be nice

What Graham really means is that he'd prefer that Democrats blow off immigration, tick off 30 million Latinos, and lose control of the Congress as a result of the fall elections. This "just cave to us one more time and we'll be nice" talk from the GOP is getting awfully old. They're going to try to thwart the Democratic agenda regardless of what Democrats do.

A top Senate negotiator on climate change believes that a sudden turn by Senate Democrats to immigration could “destroy” any hope of a major climate and energy bill this year.

“This comes out of left field,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), after hearing that Democratic leaders may now push immigration reform ahead of a climate bill. “I’m working as earnestly as I can to craft climate and energy independence, clean air and jobs, and now we’re being told that we’re going to immigration. We haven’t done anything to prepare the body of the country for immigration.”

“This destroys the ability to do something on energy and climate,” he added, questioning whether the Senate could take up both immigration and climate before November.

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Why are GOPers, like Susan Collins, protecting 'Wall Street's complete and utter amorality'

This morning, while reading my Washington Post, I was struck by the scathing tone of business columnist Steve Pearlstein's latest piece, "Wall Street's know-it-alls can't tell right from wrong":

I honestly don't know whether Goldman violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. What I do know is that the facts outlined in the government case are a powerful and convincing reminder of Wall Street's complete and utter amorality. There, concepts like truth, justice, fairness, trustworthiness, duty of care, right and wrong are now totally without meaning. There is only buy or sell, long or short, win or lose.

The way Goldman went about creating and peddling its now-infamous Abacus CDO is of a piece with other stories of corner-cutting, truth-hedging and regulation-evading on Wall Street. Like the one about how AIG executives set up a series of phony reinsurance transactions with General Re in an effort to snooker investors and regulators into thinking it had more reserves than it really did. Or Lehman Brothers using short-term "repo" agreements at the end of each quarter to hide the amount of debt that it carried.

That's the Wall Street that destroyed our economy. That's the Wall Street that desperately needs reform. And, that's the Wall Street being being protected from reform by Republican Senators.

GOPers in the Senate are filibustering Wall Street reform. On Monday, Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a vote to end that filibuster. So, we'll actually get to see who is voting for Wall Street and who is voting for the rest of us.

Now, of course, the GOPers claiming they want more bipartisanship. That line might work for some of the traditional media types. But, by now, anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that for GOPers, the call for "bipartisanship" is just a tactic to kill legislation.

Wall Street may be completely and utterly amoral, but Wall Street funds the GOP's coffers. And, Wall Street is being coddled by the entire GOP Senate caucus, including that faux moderate Susan Collins:

Senate Republicans continued to oppose the pending test vote, known as cloture. They used the threat of a filibuster as a bargaining chip, saying Dodd's bill contains flaws that could harm the economy.

"I hope that Senator Reid abandons his plan to force a premature cloture vote on Monday," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), whom Democrats have been courting in recent days. "A divisive vote on cloture at this point would be unfortunate."

The lead Republican negotiator on the far-ranging legislation, Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, also cautioned Democrats against trying to force the bill.

"I wouldn't want to rush it and make a lot of mistakes," he said. "We're making progress, but we're dealing in something very complex."

Failure to vote for cloture should be destructive for the GOP. Sure, it will garner campaign contributions from Wall Street, but it's hard to see how protecting Wall Street is a political winner in 2010 -- unless the Democrats somehow screw this up, which is always possible. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

This morning, the President is overseeing a citizenship ceremony for people who have been serving in the military. According to the Daily Guidance "the President will deliver remarks at a naturalization ceremony for active duty service members in the Rose Garden. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will deliver the oath of allegiance." So, these men and women aren't even citizens, but have been putting their lives on the line for the rest of us. Think about that next time you hear from one of those immigrant-bashers.

Later today, the President and First Lady are taking off to Asheville, NC for the weekend. Given the huge entourage that travels with the President, it's obviously not your average weekend getaway.

Increasingly looks like there will be a vote in the Senate to end the GOP's filibuster of the Wall Street reform bill on Monday.

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

Liberal Democrat continues to impress in UK election debates

It's still a long shot for Nick Clegg to lead the party to victory and for him to become the next Prime Minister but he's certainly won over many. Not surprisingly, voters are fed up with the same old choices yet this time, the third party option looks pretty good. The Guardian:

Last night's outcome suggests that the dynamics of the campaign – which saw the Lib Dems emerge as a powerful third force in the election – have not been reversed.

An hour after the end of the debate, a Guardian/ICM poll of 504 voters who watched the broadcast gave Clegg a narrow win, with the Lib Dem leader on 33% and Cameron and Brown on 29% each.

Brown, however, was considered the best potential prime minister of the three: he was on 35%, with Cameron on 33% and Clegg on 26%.

Other instant polls suggested different winners, with Cameron topping one clearly, and Clegg winning in two. Taken overall, the polls amounted to almost a dead heat, but Brown failed to top any of them despite a markedly improved performance. He will hope he can improve again in the final debate on BBC1 next week, which will focus on the economy.

After the stunning surprise impact of his first TV debate, Clegg was unlikely to have the same revelatory impact a second time. Nevertheless, he appeared to negotiate the potentially dangerous waters of his policies on Europe, immigration and the independent nuclear deterrent.

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New whale hunt 'compromise' allows hunting of endangered whales

Huh? And this is supposed to be progress? How can anyone think this is a great step forward in protecting whale populations? And anyone who thinks the whalers will abide by any limits is kidding themselves. They're already selling whale meat on the black market so there's little reason to trust them. BBC:

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has published draft proposals for regulating whaling for the next decade.

Japan's Antarctic whale hunt would fall in stages to less than a quarter of its current size. But hunting would continue on the endangered fin whale.

The draft is the latest stage in a two-year process aiming to find compromise between pro- and anti-whaling camps.

It will be debated at the IWC's annual meeting in June. Some conservation groups have already condemned it.

Commercial whaling was banned globally in 1982, but Iceland, Japan and Norway continue to hunt under various exemptions, collectively targeting more than 2,000 whales each year.

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