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"They, as far as I can tell, are attacking us with oil. And so I propose we declare war and invade them," Black suggested.
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Mengele's Children: American Medical Experiments and Torture
AMY GOODMAN: A new report from Physicians for Human Rights accuses the Bush administration of conducting illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on prisoners in CIA custody. The report details how doctors, psychologists and other professionals monitored the effects of sleep deprivation, waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques on more than a dozen prisoners. It charges that CIA doctors and other medical personnel turned the prisoners into research subjects and collected data in order to study and refine those techniques, but did so under the guise of trying to protect the health of the detainees. The report argues that in determining how far a harsh interrogation could go, doctors, psychologists and physician’s assistants participated in justifying acts that had long been classified illegal, provided legal cover against prosecution, and helped designed future interrogation procedures.
"She was a very beautiful woman with long red hair, but any prisoner who was caught looking at her could be shot," recalled Kurt Glass, a former inmate who worked as a gardener at the Koch family villa. "She got the idea she would like lamp shades made of human skin, and one day on the Appellplatz we were all ordered to strip to the waist. The ones who had interesting tattoos were brought to her, and she picked out the ones she liked. Those people were killed and their skin was made into lampshades for her. She also used mummified human thumbs as light switches in her house."
California voters' rejection of Proposition 16, despite at least $46 million in backing from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., clears the way for municipalities throughout the state to follow Marin's lead and compete with the investor-owned utility as retailers of electricity.
The proposition, which would have required two-thirds approval from local voters before cities or counties could choose an alternate energy provider, lost with 52.5 percent of voters opposed and 47.5 percent in favor. In Marin the margin was much larger: 61.3 percent of voters voted no, while 38.7 percent voted yes.
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"The voters saw through the attempt to buy the election. They could smell a rat," said Marin Supervisor Charles McGlashan, who heads the Marin Energy Authority board. The authority, which consists of the county of Marin and seven Marin cities, is sponsoring the Marin Clean Energy initiative, the first community choice aggregation effort in the state, which is competing for customers with PG&E.
"I'm relieved that other communities may be able to join us in creating competition," McGlashan said.
In a press release, Greg Pruett, senior vice president of corporate affairs for PG&E, said PG&E respected the voters' decision. [...]
According to Dana Milbank's column in the Washington Post and other news sources this morning, here are some of the wacky ideas Angle, a former substitute teacher for 25 years, is proposing:
* Bring more nuclear waste to Nevada.
* Deregulate Big Oil; BP spill was only "an accident."
* Abolish the Education Department, Energy Department, EPA, United Nations and most of the IRS.
* Eliminate Social Security -- possibly Medicare and unemployment insurance too.
* Outlaw alcohol. (See 'state with 24-hour saloons' - G)
Other odd and misinformed views:
* Abortion causes breast cancer.
* Prisoners should have massages and saunas (program created by Scientology).
* Drug sales supported the attack on 9/11.
During Angle's time in Nevada's state assembly, she voted "no" so frequently on matters of wide consensus that votes were often called as "41-to-Angle."
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Angle was named "Nevada's worst legislator" several times by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Another Republican contender, Sue Lowden, blasted Angle in this ad:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/lowden-ad-rips-angle-named-one-of-nevadas-worst-legislators.php
Even though about half of Nevadans view Reid unfavorably, it's hard to fathom a general electorate sending anyone as loopy as Angle to the U.S. Senate. She makes Reid look good indeed.
In the latest twist in the ever-growing Mark Kirk military service fiasco, the Illinois Senate candidate appears to have violated military regulations by campaigning while on active duty.
If Kirk did indeed campaign while serving, as a newly released Department of Defense memo suggests, the offense would be punishable by up to two years of confinement and dishonorable discharge from the military.
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For reasons that could make sense only to the "effing retarded," the Obama White House has chosen not only to ignore virtually every Democratic voter group but to taunt them, rub their noses in it, and insult any Democrats who dare to demand better choices than the corporate shills that now control much of the Party and the White House.
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So let’s see. In just the last year, the White House has managed not merely to ignore and disappoint but often gone out of its way to mislead, lie to and betray liberals/progressives, labor unions, teachers, Hispanics, gays/lesbians, anti-war groups, dedicated environmentalists, respected pro-employment/pro-growth Nobel economists, climate scientists, financial reformers, defenders of Medicare and Social Security, mainstreet populists, civil liberties and women’s rights advocates, defenders of public interest regulation, alternative energy/efficiency supporters and even scarecrows.
In case you don’t recognize the list, that’s the core, the heart, the brains and the foot soldiers of the Democratic Party.
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And, by the way, going to this length over Blanche Lincoln who is about to sign on to Murkowski's move to limit presidential power to regulate on behalf of the environment is just too ironic. What exactly are these guys fighting for?
Could someone please hold a flip phone up to Sarah Palin and get her saying something like, "We use Trig as a door stop"? No, really, could someone get this nouveau riche redneck twat on camera talking about how she'd never shop at Wal-Mart 'cause she might get some trailer trash tears on her? 'Cause the idea that she is "a force" in the American political discourse is like coming across a tribe in the jungle that worships a monkey head.
Now, while Palin may look at the words "chief executive" in reference to a governor or president and think it's the same thing as "Chief Executive Officer" in a corporation, it's that very analogy that has fucked us over. The government ain't a company. The president ain't a CEO. Palin is either an idiot, Chauncey Gardner with tits, or an unconscionable, self-aggrandizing moose-fucker.
See, a CEO's job is to make money for the corporation. That's it. Shit like laws and taxes and safety are impediments that must be dealt with on the way to making money. A CEO has to be a greedy bastard, a cuntish conqueror who doesn't give a fuck what has to be done to get more money. The second you say that the President of the United States is on an equivalent level with a CEO is the second you reveal that you don't know fuck-all about government and you degrade the presidency. The logical leap to President-as-CEO is a callous manipulation of the expectations of the governed, and it turns citizens into selfish shareholders.
One last thing: that Sarah Palin would invoke her two-and-a-half year stint as governor of Alaska as her "executive experience" is fucking pathetic, like a first-time tourist attempting to give directions to the locals.
"Oh my sweet capitalist god, I wish the top kill had worked after the useless top hat and that botched junk shot, because now the tar balls are rolling in, and the tar patties are collecting into glumpy gloops all over the beaches, and you can see the sheen stretching for 100 miles in all directions, all because the damn blowout preventer jammed and, of course, now they've dumped a million gallons of toxic dispersant on the gushing plume since the relief wells aren't nearly complete. We need more skimmers!"
Quite a mouthload, is it not? All sorts of joyful burden to roll these new and oily words around on your tongue, like candy-coated gunpowder? Like little cubes of raw demon blood? Verily.
In other words, other words. Every war, every devastation, every invention and advancement lets us further mutate, mingle and shapeshift our mindmelds, bedazzle the dictionary and upflip the lexicaldingle as we reconfigulate the snugglemodes of the metaverbalizer. You follow me? Of course you do.
Does everyone remember Dick Cheney's "National Energy Task Force"? The one where meetings were held in secret, and energy policy was set by the foxes in charge of the henhouse? Yeah, I figured you might.
The Center for American Progress has connected the dots between this task force, the Bush Administration energy policies, and Tom DeLay's leadership in the House of Representatives to paint a straight line right back to Cheney & Co. I don't agree with the conclusion of "Cheney's Katrina", so how about we call it "Cheney's Oil Apocalypse" instead?
Act One - The Administration complies
First, the SAFE Act is introduced in the House in 2001. It provides for the following (quotes from CAP post):
* Taxpayer funds to reimburse oil companies for the costs of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act (Sec. 6234)
* A suspension of royalties on tens of millions of barrels of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico—especially from deepwater wells like the one now spewing into the gulf (Sec. 6202)
* Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling — with expedited leasing, limited judicial review, and lip service to environmental concerns (Div. F, Title V)
Check off one set of recommendations, though it took Cheney and Big Oil until 2003 to get it to a conference committee. Just after the midterms, Republicans guided the bill through the House, with DeLay twisting arms as needed. With Democrats safely in the minority, the conference committee was able to exempt all oil and gas construction activities from the Clean Water Act, force BLM lease approvals within 10 days, grant unprecedented authority to the Department of Interior to fast-track permits, and allocate $2 billion for oil companies to drill in ultra deepwater areas.
A filibuster in the Senate stopped it from becoming law. Then.
Act Two - If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...
It's unclear how the Cheney Energy Act will play out in the legal morass yet to come. What we should expect are many challenges by BP lawyers to any effort to claim damages under the Clean Water Act (given the exemptions) as well as challenges for liability beyond cleaning up the spill.
But whatever happens, dear viewers, know this: The responsible parties are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Joe Barton, and Tom DeLay.
Repeat. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Get the word out. Put the spotlight on the real villains.
Over The Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane (Paperback), From Crooks and Liars
By John Amato John Amato (Author), David Neiwert (Author), Digby (Foreword)
"Compiling example after example, the editors of Crooks and Liars, a popular blog, examine the torrent of right-wing kookery—the eager willingness of conservatives to fervently believe things that are provably false—and its ramifications both for our national discourse and our national well-being. The authors show how this outlandish, overheated rhetoric—generated by mainstream-media figures like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Lou Dobbs—is accompanied by a wave of lethal right-wing violence and threatening behavior.
The book explores the main drivers of this descent into madness: the extremist Radical Right and the longtime Republican willingness—dating back to Nixon, but refined in more recent years by Lee Atwater and his acolytes—to engage in a divisive politics of resentment, both racial and cultural. The authors also examine ways ordinary Americans can stop the madness."
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A 2001 report noted that BP had neglected key equipment needed for emergency shutdown, including safety shutoff valves and gas and fire detectors similar to those that could have helped prevent the fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf.
A 2004 inquiry found a pattern of intimidating workers who raised safety or environmental concerns. It said managers were shaving maintenance costs with the practice of "run to failure," under which aging equipment was used as long as possible. Accidents resulted, including the 200,000-gallon Prudhoe Bay pipeline spill in 2006, the largest ever spill on Alaska's North Slope.
During the same period, similar problems surfaced at BP facilities in California and Texas.
In 2002, California officials discovered that BP had falsified inspections of fuel tanks at a Los Angeles-area refinery and that more than 80 percent of the facilities didn't meet requirements to maintain storage tanks without leaks or damage. Inspectors were forced to get a warrant before BP allowed them to check the tanks. The company eventually settled a civil lawsuit brought by the South Coast Air Quality Management District for more than $100 million.
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A Roosevelt woman set fire to her own house Tuesday, Nassau police say, amid an ongoing dispute with her sister and her sister's boyfriend over the boyfriend's presence in the house.
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Joseph Small, who also lived in the home, said he spoke with Richardson and tried to take the gasoline away from her.
"She said no one was going to live there after today," he said, adding, "I don't think she's a bad person. She just has issues."
It's been more than five months since the Obama administration missed its self-imposed deadline for the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. And as things stand now, one key member of Congress says, the White House is showing little to no willingness to continue pursuing one of the more high-minded promises made by the president before entering office.
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The senator, who is a leading proponent of Gitmo's closure, acknowledged (more implicitly than explicitly) that the issue was, for all intents and purposes, off the table -- at least for the noticeable future. It was not the president's fault per se, he said. Though a bit of lobbying on the matter wouldn't hurt. Simply put, the congressional skepticism has been too steep to overcome.
"The majority of my committee voted basically to keep it open indefinitely. Because they took away from the money for the alternative," said Levin. "You can't close it unless you have some other place to take people and put people. I happen to think it should be closed. Our military leaders think it should be closed... I think it is dangerous to America to keep that symbol there. But as long as you have the majority of Congress that oppose closing it, all the Republicans and some Democrats, it won't be easy to close it."
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Congrats to Rush Limbaugh on his fourth traditional marriage
Several weeks ago, I noticed that one of my friends on Facebook was a “fan” of Proposition 16 - PG&E’s Monopoly Protection Act that is easily the worst measure on the June ballot. After I chewed him out for it, he expressed shock to even be on that page. Apparently, PG&E had added him on as a supporter without his consent. Today, just as the Prop 16 campaign boasted that it now has 50,000 “fans” on Facebook, I received a press release from the Sunrise Center in Marin County - who complained that some of their own staffers (who are working hard to defeat Prop 16) have also been added as “fans.” Besides exposing a serious loophole in Facebook’s privacy features, it also proves that PG&E’s $40 million campaign to pass Prop 16 includes committing identity theft.
Attorney General Jerry Brown should consider pressing criminal charges against PG&E, who appears to have committed identity theft. Ironically, Facebook’s former Chief Privacy Officer -- Chris Kelly -- is running to replace Brown in next week’s election.
From the outset of his administration, President Barack Obama has said that he will "look forward, not backwards" when it comes to apparent crimes by the George W. Bush administration.
What has been Obama's reward? Republicans now are pushing for an investigation of his administration over alleged dealmaking connected to senatorial campaigns.
You heard that right. Karl Rove and other "loyal Bushies" apparently will escape scrutiny, while Obama could be under fire for his involvement with U.S. Senate campaigns in Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Could we see Obama officials, perhaps the very ones who turned a blind eye toward Bush-era wrongdoing, being investigated while Rove & Co. go free?
This is just the latest example of a lesson that Democrats never seem to get: Republicans are like a bunch of coiled rattlesnakes, who have no sense of justice or fairness and will strike blindly at the first opportunity. In fact, we have posited numerous times that quite a few Republicans are sociopaths, the kind of individuals who have no conscience and no empathy for others. They look out for No. 1 and nobody else.
Obama still has time to take off the blinders and give his OK for a full-scale investigation of Bush-era crimes. But it appears that he wants to continue using a gentle touch in dealing with GOP rattlesnakes. That's a good way to get yourself bit.
Iran Red Crescent to send aid to Gaza
Guests:
Adm. Thad Allen (Cmdr. Coast Guard)
John Kerry (D-MA)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Panel:
George Will
Liz Cheney
Arianna Huffington
Markos Moulitsas
Tapper: Cornyn do you have a double standard for Republicans who lie about their war records
Cornyn: oh no I don’t - but Blumenthal was wrong and Kirk is a great guy who just slipped up claiming he fought alongside Patton in Khe Sanh
Kerry: I should’ve just stayed here and gotten my damm medals out of a cracker jack box
Tapper: Rupert Murdoch told me you did
Cheney: Obama caused this oil spill and he must clean it up
Huffington: you lying idiot - Dick Cheney deregulated the oil industry and BP wrecked
the economy!
Cheney: Obama should have stopped them!
Tapper: Hey the Israel National Rappelling Team boarded a ship this week
Cheney: Turkey launched a surprise armed attack on Israel by sailing in international waters with
a boat filled with aid
Moulitsas: look everybody but Deferment Liz knows that Israel totally fucked up
Cheney: Turkey attacked Israel’s ocean
Tapper: hey speaking of institutional fuck-ups - this week baseball ruined a perfect game
Will: oh my stars perfection is overrated - look if we start demanding white people get everything right then where will be?
... [BP CEO]Tony Hayward could go door to door along the Gulf Coast, giving blow jobs and eating pussy until his jaw is distended and his belly is bloated, and BP wouldn't even have gotten started on making it right ...
I'm not going to defend Helen Thomas' offensive remarks -- any more than I spend any time defending Pat Buchanan's offensive remarks...
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But 90 plus year old Helen Thomas gets the boot...because she's just not practicing in the proper village way, whatever that is. But apparently, below is the proper way to commit journalism!
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Three months after 9/11, every major Taliban city in Afghanistan had fallen — first Mazar-i-Sharif, then Kabul, finally Kandahar. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were on the run. It looked as if the war was over, and the Americans and their Afghan allies had won.
Butch Ivie, then a school administrator in Winfield, Ala., remembers, "We thought we'd soon have it tied up in a neat little bag."
But bin Laden and Omar eluded capture. The Taliban regrouped. Today, Kandahar again is up for grabs. And soon, Afghanistan will pass Vietnam as America's longest war. [my em]
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Of course they used detainees as guinea pigs and of course they documented it. The question is, are they still doing it?
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Cheney’s memoir could be called, ‘I Upped Halliburton’s Income – So Up Yours.’ - Scott McClellan
BP Orders Containment Booms Around Beachgoers
Those covered in oil will be scrubbed, released.
Radioactive Fish Found In Connecticut River
Don't need refrigeration, cook themselves.
Americans Prefer Drugs to Psychotherapy for Depression
The more the better.
Teenage Female Knuckleballer Makes Her Pro Debut
She's clobbered, yanked, booed, released, hits skids, takes HGH, makes comeback, signed by Mets.
Survey: Brits Worst-Dressed Tourists
There was no runner-up.
Louis Torres has a can-do attitude.
Just one glance at his yard, which is adorned with thousands of beer cans -- some strung together, others crafted into ornaments -- provides proof.
Torres began putting together his beer-can canopy a couple of years ago. He and his buddies share an affinity for Miller Lite and Milwaukee's Best Light, and when the cans began to pile up, Torres went to work.
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The cans not only serve as yard art; they're a savings account of sorts.
"If I'm short of money and need cigarettes or beer, I'll pull down a string and cash it in," Torres said.
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Thirty-seven of the 64 active or senior judges in key Gulf Coast districts in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida have links to oil, gas and related energy industries, including some who own stocks or bonds in BP PLC, Halliburton or Transocean — and others who regularly list receiving royalties from oil and gas production wells, according to the reports judges must file each year. The AP reviewed 2008 disclosure forms, the most recent available.
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Over the years, the Justice Department has repeatedly pursued criminal charges in major environmental accidents, from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident a decade earlier. In most high-profile environmental cases, criminal charges are brought mainly against the companies involved, while corporate executives typically escape punishment.
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I am not a lawyer, I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express but it seems to me that the recent SCOTUS grant of human rights to corporations should carry with it the assumption of a grant of human responsibilities/liabilities. If an unincorporated human would be thrown in jail, so too should the executive officers of a corporation. Just my humble opinion.
... I just hope Dawn detergent works on Dara Torres and Michael Phelps.
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That day in Barcelona saw the biggest anti-bullfight demonstration of all time: 5,000 people marched from the Ramblas to the Plaza de Toros Monumental, where the bullfight world was busy acclaiming its conquering hero. From here it was but a step to the massive campaign of signatures – a total of 180,000 were collected across Catalonia – which eventually led to a parliamentary bill.
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Mad props to Los Lobos (website) for their principled stand against SB 1070.This just in from Los Lobos' camp: The band is canceling its performance at the Talking Stick Resort in Arizona's Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on June 10 as a protest against the passing of the state's controversial new immigration bill, SB1070. The band issued the following statement via its management:
“We support the boycott of Arizona. The new law will inevitably lead to unfair racial profiling and possible abuse of people who just happen to look Latino. As a result, in good conscience, we could not see ourselves performing in Arizona. We regret the inconvenience this may have caused the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Casino Arizona, Talking Stick Resort and our fans, but we feel strongly that it is the right thing to do.”
from Marcia Ball's 1988 performance on Kentucky Educational Television's "Lonesome Pine Specials"; H. Russell Farmer & Richard Van Kleeck, producers; Clark Santee, director. Copyright 1988 KET
Goddamn, wannabe gotcha journalist James O'Keefe must know how to suck a dick. Way more hooker than pimp, O'Keefe must be able to lap Andrew Breitbart's mighty two-incher into a magnificent two-and-a-half inch erection and just go to town. The best part is that he's such an enthusiastic cock gobbler. O'Keefe rings up the Big Government blogger (and, really, that's what Breitbart is, nothing more, nothing less) and begs for another dose of Breitbart chowder. Seriously, this skeevy, ugly fucker could give porn stars lessons.
But such truly noble things are not what Breitbart demands. Like many conservatives, Breitbart is attempting to discredit the census because of fears that urbanization will tilt the balance of representation, among other things. But, oh, O'Keefe. The finest kind of cum whore is the kind who'll do anything for a chance to show how much he loves a cock. And O'Keefe ain't about to give up such bounty for anything like "journalism."
Foxheads freak out when Rep. Linda Sanchez points out the white supremacists lurking behind Arizona's immigration law
The problem they have is that it's in fact perfectly accurate. Sanchez may have gotten the information from a blogger, but it's more than likely the blog got its information from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League -- both of which have, as Sanchez suggested, fully documented that a number of the leading "respectable" anti-immigration organizations are in fact fronts created by white-supremacist ideologues.
Finally, it's worth remembering that the two people most associated with SB1070 in Arizona -- its coauthor, State Sen. Russell Pearce, and the law-enforcement officer whose immigration obsession inspired the law, Maricopa County's Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- themselves in fact have documented associations with Arizona neo-Nazis.
Fox may think they can whip this up, bloody shirt style, in favor of the Arizona law's advocates. I'd wager those same people are wishing they'd just let it quietly drop. Because Linda Sanchez told the truth, and they all know it.
Sixty years ago, BP was called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, takes a brief look at the story of the company’s role in the 1953 CIA coup against Iran’s popular progressive Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh. Currently, as the result of Iraqi Invasions Part I and II; considering BP recently won the biggest Iraq oil contract, should make it obviously clear as to why Iran now rests within the brutal crosshairs of a savage and thirsty empire.
Emmylou Harris, Paul MacCartney, Barack Obama and others having fun with "Hey Jude" at the White House on June 2.
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Gov. Bobby Jindal's contradictions may confuse you at first. While shaking his fist at BP and the federal government's inability to stop the river of oil poisoning the Louisiana coastline and wetlands, he's also unbending in his support for offshore drilling to continue.
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What a thing we have created. What an extraordinary horror our rapacious need for cheap, endless energy hath unleashed; it's a monster of a scale and proportion we can barely even fathom.
Because if you're honest, no matter where you stand, no matter your politics, religion, income or mode of transport, you see this beast of creeping death and you understand: That is us. The spill may be many things, but more than anything else it is a giant, horrifying mirror.
Finally (and a bit shockingly), I'm not hearing Pat Robertson or any of his cretinous cult of apocalypticans blame the gays, or voodoo, or anal sex, or reality TV for what's happening in the Gulf. Oil is, after all, completely non-denominational. It mocks all religions equally -- except, of course, the only one that really matters: capitalism.
This is how you know this is one of the more universally damning disasters of our time: No one really seems to know how to process it, much less react. The GOP is backtracking like terrified hyenas from Sarah "Queen of Duh" Palin's "drill baby, drill" mantra/ass tattoo, as suddenly the incessant Republican wail for more oil exploration, more drilling, more tax cuts for oil conglomerates don't just reek of the usual inbred cronyism; they reek of death and destruction the likes of which the country has never seen.
Truly, BP is behaving no better or worse than any other corporate spawn of Satan would in a similar situation. What's more, if you don't think every oil company on earth is right now kneeling before Beelzebub in gratitude that it wasn't one of their own wells that exploded, you haven't been paying attention.
That said, after all is said and done, it's gloomily nice to think our darkest disaster in a generation could somehow ultimately improve our attitudes, change our behavior, lighten our violent treatment of the planet. As someone recently noted, the BP spill isn't Obama's Katrina, it's actually Big Oil's Chernobyl. Meaning: a disaster so appalling and devastating it might very well alter the industry and change the course of our energy policy forever.
Is it possible? Or, more accurately, are we even capable of such a shift? Is there any silver lining to be found in that black and greasy gloom? This is, perhaps, the most imperative question of all: If we can produce a demon of such extraordinary scale and devastation, can we not also somehow create its exact opposite? Let us pray.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says it's time to roll back "billions of dollars in tax breaks" for oil companies and use the money for clean energy research and development.
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He said the catastrophic Gulf oil spill shows the country must move toward clean energy by embracing energy efficiency, tapping natural gas and nuclear power and eliminating tax breaks for big oil.
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So just to get this straight, Republicans, 'cause Jesus Christ knows your views shouldn't be misrepresented: with the unstoppable Gulf oil gusher poisoning everything in the sea and destroying the economies of probably four states at minimum, with Israel gettin' all raid-on-Entebbe with a ship that was trying to get food and medicine to starving people in Gaza, with Afghanistan becoming the war that it was always gonna become, with the need for jobs programs and housing programs and training programs in this country, with immigration, climate change, civil rights for gays, and more needing work and leadership and legislation, with all that shit plus whatever the fuck's going on with the European economy, some of you guys think that President Obama should be impeached because a guy was offered a job to not run for office.
California Republican and weepy, greedy, power-hungry bitch-boy Rep. Darrell Issa, a man destined to be a prison twink, is pushing that very notion. Issa believes that, because the White House has admitted that Rahm Emanuel asked Bill Clinton to offer a job to Rep. Joe Sestak if he'd clear the way for Arlen Specter to get the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Pennsylvania, the government should come to a screeching halt while Obama is investigated, impeached, and tried. Because why? Because that's what's first on everyone's mind right now?
As Joe Conason points out, this ain't something to be taken lightly. These fuckers play for keeps, damn the consequences on the route to taking back power. The entire affair, playing nonstop on Fox "news," has been elevated to "Obama's Watergate," thanks to Issa, who never misses a chance to demonstrate his extraordinary ability to fellate himself on live television. He's so good at it that Sean Hannity got jealous, bent over, and said, "Hey, look, I can actually get my tongue to my own anus."
Fine, if we're gonna get out the hyperbole machine, let's do something a little more appropriate: the Gulf oil spill is not Obama's Katrina. No, it's his 9/11: a sudden, explosive event that hit in the first part of the presidency and revealed to the nation a threat that crosses party lines. Now, howzabout DC Republicans get off their bullshit propaganda machine for a little while and saddle up to help? Howzabout the media do what they demanded of Democrats after 9/11 and tell Republicans to put aside "partisan bickering" for the "good of the nation"? Maybe a little help instead of mindless slash and burn?
Oh, wait. Don't forget that we're dealing with Republicans. The fact that the majority of the country doesn't give a rat's fuck about the Sestak nonsense doesn't matter. All that matters is that, at all costs, even at the cost of the country itself, they try to bring down the president. Again.
Conservative pundits blame Obama for Israeli raid on flotilla
The far right likes to invoke Big Government like a bogeyman, a ghost to frighten the uninformed. But when they need Big Government they decry its absence. Bobby Jindal was trying to privatize much of Louisiana's government services. Had his approach been applied nationwide, the Federal government wouldn't have the resources he's demanding it use to save Louisiana's coast.
Can government get big and bloated? Of course. But there's a difference between starvation and a diet.
What the right fails to acknowledge is that big business, by its nature, is a bully. And you don't stop a bully by turning yourself into a 90 pound weakling. In fact, you may have to gain weight. Regardless, you have to exercise, changing pork to muscle.
It's going to take lots of muscle to truly hold BP responsible for the massive impact of its failure.
In short, make sure Big Government is big enough to keep Bigger Business in check. Or who knows what price we'll pay.
Like a robot lacking in judgment, stuck on a predetermined path - that's how the government is behaving in its handling of the aid flotillas to the Gaza Strip. The announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the security cabinet meeting Tuesday that the blockade of Gaza will continue and that Israel will keep on using force to prevent ships from entering Gaza's port suggests that the foolishness continues and no lessons have been learned from this week's incidents.
Instead of taking the initiative and developing a political exit strategy from the crisis, Netanyahu and Barak are digging themselves deeper into the quagmire. The government apparently believes its own public relations, according to which Israel was the victim of "Al-Qaida supporters." If this is the case, it must immediately dismiss the heads of the security and intelligence services who failed to issue warnings in time and did not prepare accordingly to meet this new and dangerous enemy. How does Israel plan to deal with the Irish ship the Rachel Corrie, which is on its way to the Gaza Strip? Will it also argue that the Irish government, which has given this ship its backing, is a member of Al-Qaida?
When the CIA Overthrew Iran for British Petroleum
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Lazio is the putz who blew an election by trying to physically intimidate Hillary Clinton live on television. Levy is a porn-stache-wearing immigrant-bashing party-switching clown. And Ed Cox is Richard Nixon’s son-in-law.
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Before you push your silly legislation:
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You might want to figure out how many of your own* will get caught up in it:
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IOKIYAR: Orrin Hatch Says His Amendment Would Not Apply to Mark Kirk
His military record appears to not be the only thing about which Mark Kirk is lying.
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Fishermen Hospitalized: BP Not Allowing Clean-Up Workers to Use Respirators
Fisherman who fell ill during oil spill clean-up alleges BP tried to cover-up evidence.
“At West Jefferson, there were tents set up outside the hospital, where I was stripped of my clothing, washed with water and several showers, before I was allowed into the hospital,” Wunstell said. “When I asked for my clothing, I was told that BP had confiscated all of my clothing and it would not be returned.”
From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There
If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.
BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. [...] There is no brake on their malfeasance, greed and criminal behavior, nor their ability to get nations to go to war, overthrow democratically elected leaders, and to get away with pollution of proportions beyond the imagination.
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For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us. Our can-do spirit was put on hold many moons ago, and here we are now unable to defeat the Taliban, or rein in the likes of BP and the biggest banks, or stop the oil gushing furiously from the bowels of earth like a warning from Hades about the hubris and ignorance that is threatening to destroy us.
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Instead of staring mesmerized at the tragedy in the gulf, like spectators at a train wreck, we should be trying to regain that innovative can-do spirit that made America the greatest of nations.
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JERUSALEM – Israeli commandos rappelled down to an aid flotilla sailing to thwart a Gaza blockade on Monday, clashing with pro-Palestinian activists on the lead ship in a botched raid that left at least nine passengers dead.
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The United States Supreme Court make up
is a right-wing Bush created Frankenstein nightmare that might end before I die, but I doubt it.
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In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.
Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel’s own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.
Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam.
Egypt Opens Border With Gaza Strip to Allow Humanitarian Aid
THE BOROWITZ REPORT – In a new video that is light on his usual threats but heavy on admiration, Osama bin Laden admits that he is “professionally envious” of oil giant BP’s massive oil spill, saying that it puts his efforts to create destruction and chaos to shame.
“There are times in an evildoer’s life when one has to stand back and admire a job well done,” Mr. bin Laden says in the video. “BP, you blow me away.”
The Al-Qaeda mastermind adds that his first thought upon seeing BP’s spill was, “Man, I’ve got to step up my game.”
It didn't take long after best-selling author Joe McGinniss moved in next door to the Palins in Wasilla for Sarah Palin to deploy a deceptive "Joe the Pervert-Stalker" campaign. Glenn Beck jumped in calling for a boycott of Random House which is publishing the upcoming book about Palin, and pretty soon journalists were lining up on either Palin's or McGinniss's side of the issue.
It all started a few days ago with a Facebook entry in which Palin complained that the new neighbor was looking over in the direction of her house, her little garden and the "family's swimming hole" (better known as Lake Lucille). Palin claims she was forced her to run indoors because she was standing out on her lawn wearing a tank top and shorts. Later, she accused the 67-year-old grandfather from Boston of "peering at her young daughter" and told Glenn Beck that McGinniss "better leave her kids alone." Palin's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/just-when-ya-think-it-cant-get-any-more-interesting-welcome-neighbor/392687973434
Palin's throwing around allegations of sexually motivated voyeurism, based on what? It's even more ridiculous because the place McGinniss is renting had been a residence for men recently released from prison who were recovering addicts, said Shannyn Moore in her Alaska blog, "Just a Girl from Homer."
Palin's "hysterical" reaction to him was unexpected, McGinniss told the Washington Post by phone from Wasilla. "I'm getting an insight into her character, into her ability to incite hatred, that before I only knew in the abstract."
UK: Giant Crop Circle Depicts Arcane Mathematical Formula
Appears to be unified field theory.
Arizona's Native Americans Would Also End Birthright Citizenship
Retroactive to 1492.
Fox News Edits Out 12-Second Applause as Obama Refers to End of Combat Mission in Iraq at West Point Speech
Will save it for next Sarah Palin speech.
Bush: Book Begins With His Decision to Stop Drinking
Ends with God telling him to invade Iraq.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is attempting to amend the 2005 Stolen Honor Act, which criminalized false claims of military service, in order to punish people who lie about being in combat -- people like Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D), a Senate candidate.
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The Republican candidate for President Obama's old Senate seat has admitted to inaccurately claiming he received the U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO's conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s.
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... So it’s not a question of can the oceans can take any more. The ocean can’t take any more. They couldn’t take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop?
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FOR Barack Obama’s knee-jerk foes, of course it was his Katrina. But for the rest of us, there’s the nagging fear that the largest oil spill in our history could yet prove worse if it drags on much longer. It might not only wreck the ecology of a region but capsize the principal mission of the Obama presidency.
Before we look at why, it would be helpful to briefly revisit that increasingly airbrushed late summer of 2005. Whatever Obama’s failings, he is infinitely more competent at coping with catastrophe than his predecessor. [...]
But life isn’t fair, and this president is in a far tougher spot in 2010 than his predecessor was in 2005.
When Katrina hit, Bush was in his second term and his bumbling was not a shock to a country that had witnessed two-plus years of his grievous mismanagement of the Iraq war. His laissez-faire response to the hurricane was also consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business. His administration’s posture toward the gulf region had been telegraphed at its inception, when Dick Cheney convened oil and gas cronies, including Enron’s Ken Lay, to set environmental and energy policy. The Interior Department devolved into a cesspool of corruption, even by its historically low standards, turning the Bush-Cheney antigovernment animus into a self-fulfilling prophecy and bequeathing Obama a Minerals Management Service as broken as the Bush-Cheney FEMA exposed by Katrina.
NEW ORLEANS — In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that the "top kill" technique had failed and, after consultation with government officials, they had decided to move on to another strategy.
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