All Entries in the "Rightwing World" Category
Newt Gingrich Suggests Attacking Rest Of ‘Axis Of Evil’ (VIDEO)
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich twice called on the United States to attack North Korea and Iran Thursday because the United States has only attacked “one out of three” of so-called “Axis of Evil” members by invading Iraq. He also claimed that Muslims are trying to install Sharia law on America and said that the “War on Terror” should have been a war on “radical Islamists” instead.
Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute event yesterday, Gingrich compared not following through on President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” agenda with not fully engaging the Axis power in World War II.
“If Franklin Roosevelt had done that in ’41, either the Japanese or the Germans would have won,” Gingrich said, adding that Americans should “over-match the problem.”
Full Story: Newt Gingrich Suggests Attacking Rest Of ‘Axis Of Evil’ (VIDEO).
GOP Lawmaker Slips Up, Admits Tax Cuts Will ‘Increase The Debt’
At the end of the year, President Bush’s tax cuts are set to expire. President Obama and many Democrats in Congress favor extending those tax cuts for the middle class. But Republicans — seemingly not worried about the $700 billion cost — want tax cuts for the rich included as well.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) seems to be one of those Republicans. But when C-Span host Steve Scully asked the California Republican about the tax cuts issue on Washington Journal this morning, Nunes went slightly off message:
SCULLY: Tax cuts, do they increase the debt or do they spur economic growth?
NUNES: Well, I think that they increase the debt. If you let them expire at the end of the year we’re going to have a huge, the largest tax increase in American history.
Nunes drifted back on message later, saying that the deficit is “going to grow” if all the Bush tax cuts expire. But when asked why, he couldn’t provide any specifics. “Because it’s going to throw the economy into a tailspin,” he said. Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » GOP Lawmaker Slips Up, Admits Tax Cuts Will ‘Increase The Debt’.
As Tennesseans Desperately Search For Work, Wamp Suggests Unemployed Are ‘Just Sitting Back Waiting’
This past Tuesday, Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN), who is also a leading candidate for the GOP nomination for governor, joined a conference call with the right-wing National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). When the subject of extending unemployment benefits arose, Wamp complained that giving people unemployment insurance was “creating a culture of dependence which we do not need.” He then said that he wants “people out there scraping and clawing and looking for work and not just sitting back waiting”:
Wamp [...] said small business, the NFIB and he as governor “must resist… any more mandates to small business to help the unemployed — that we have continued to extend on a federal level, I think, unemployment compensation so long that there’s disincentives for people to actually re-enter the workforce or go out and look for a job.
“And this is creating a culture of dependence which we do not need. We want people out there scraping and clawing and looking for work and not just sitting back waiting. And so we’ve got to not allow any more mandates.”
Full Story: Think Progress » As Tennesseans Desperately Search For Work, Wamp Suggests Unemployed Are ‘Just Sitting Back Waiting’.
Deficit Hawk Survey Falsely Claimed People Support Cutting Social Security
A high-profile survey funded by anti-Social Security advocates falsely reported that Americans favor raising the age of retirement to 69, according to a subsequent correction made by the organization.
On June 26, results were released of a nationwide survey of participants in town hall events dedicated to discussing ways to reduce the deficit. The events were organized by AmericaSpeaks and largely funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Peterson is a hedge-fund billionaire dedicated to cutting Social Security in the name of deficit reduction.
According to the group, the only across-the-board cut that the participants favored was raising the retirement age to 69. Increasing the age is a dramatic cut, because those who choose early retirement receive significantly less every year they receive benefits. Even if a recipient waits until 69, he or she would begin receiving benefits at a lower rate.
Full Story: Deficit Hawk Survey Falsely Claimed People Support Cutting Social Security.
Bush Memoir Release Has Republicans Concerned
With the 2010 election season underway, Republicans are reportedly concerned about how the impending release of former President George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, may affect the party’s success at the polls come November.
While the widely-anticipated book from Bush isn’t set to be released until November 9 — one week after votes are cast across the country — details from the text have already begun to leak out.
Moreover, the unpopular Republican leader and contentious policy initiatives put forth by his administration have already resurfaced to shake-up this year’s heated midterm match-ups.
Matt Latimer at the Daily Beast reports:
Full Story: Bush Memoir Release Has Republicans Concerned.
Rep. Steve King Joins Deficit Fraud Caucus: There’s No Need To Pay For The Bush Tax Cuts
Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who spends a lot of time stoking fear about deficits under President Obama, explained on MSNBC this morning that the “difference” between President Bush and Obama is that Obama is spending far too much.
However, later in the very same interview, King threw concern for the deficit out the window, saying Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and that there is no need to pay for the $678 billion in lost revenue they represent. “You don’t have to ask for a paid-for” to offset tax cuts, King said, before making the ludicrous claim that Bush’s cuts “increased revenues”:
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Since you are, I’m presume, support extending the Bush tax cuts, do you think that you guys should figure out a way to pay for them, since it will add to the deficit, decreasing government revenues?
KING: [...] They have stimulated the economy. It is not paid for with offsets, those tax cuts have been in place as you characterized them, since May 28th of 2003. This is a continuation of a tax policy, so I would say you don’t have to ask for a paid-for continued tax policy. This is a tax increase if we let this happen without doing something happen about it. They have also demonstrated they increase in revenue with the capital gains as a part of that.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Rep. Steve King Joins Deficit Fraud Caucus: There’s No Need To Pay For The Bush Tax Cuts.
Conrad And Lieberman Come Out In Favor Of Allowing Wealthy To Keep Their Massive Bush Tax Cuts
Currently, the Bush tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire at the end of this year. Progressives have long planned to allow the tax cuts for the richest Americans to expire, which would help ease the U.S. debt burden. Unfortunately, a number of Democratic senators have come out for extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Last week, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called for a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, which the Obama administration would like to see expire. Conrad even suggested waiving pay-go rules (which apply to those cuts for the richest two percent) in order to extend the cuts without paying for them. Conrad quickly clarified that he wasn’t embracing the Republican approach, which is simply extending all of the tax cuts forever, calling that a “formula for the decline of the United States.” Today on CNBC, Conrad argued that now just isn’t the time to raise taxes on the wealthy:
We’ve got to be very careful with the timing of what we do. There’s no question in my mind that taxes have to go up on the wealthiest among us. The question is when. I don’t think this is the moment.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Conrad And Lieberman Come Out In Favor Of Allowing Wealthy To Keep Their Massive Bush Tax Cuts.
Big Oil Apologist Haley Barbour Raises More Than $2 Million In Oil Money For RGA
Thanks to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s (R) prodigious fundraising, which continued apace even the very same day the oil slick reached Mississippi, the Republican Governors Association was able to raise an astonishing $19 million last quarter. A ThinkProgress review of RGA documents recently filed with the Internal Revenue Service reveals that a significant portion of last quarter’s haul—more than $2,000,000—came from oil and gas industry interests, including:
# $1,000,000 from infamous right-wing oil billionaire and tea party-funder David Koch.
# $250,000 from Devon Energy
# $150,000 from Chevron
# $100,000 from ExxonMobil
# $100,000 from Hunt Oil
# $25,000 from Marathon Oil
# $25,000 each from Bollinger Shipyards and the president of Gilbert Cheramie Boat, both of which provide support services to the offshore oil drilling industry.
Full Story: Think Progress » Big Oil Apologist Haley Barbour Raises More Than $2 Million In Oil Money For RGA.
Rubio’s Spending Cuts Plan: End Tax Benefits For The Middle Class While Extending Them For The Rich
Earlier this month, Florida GOP U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio unveiled his economic plan which is basically just a double-down on the Bush tax cuts with, as the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo noted, “an unspecified corporate tax cut thrown on top for good measure.” How does Rubio plan to pay for all these tax cuts? His campaign “couldn’t give an answer.”
Today, Rubio laid out a new plan to cut spending — “12 Simple Ways To Cut Spending,” his campaign calls it. The plan contains many ideas that would do very little in terms of paying down the debt and reducing the deficit — including eliminating earmarks, reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy, and cutting Congressional and White House budgets. Others are outright gimmicks, such as allowing taxpayers to allocate taxes to the debt and calling for a balanced budget amendment.
But also, Rubio — like some of his colleagues on the right — wants to end the stimulus program:
• IDEA #4: End The Stimulus Program And Use The Savings To Cut The Debt. We must end the wasteful stimulus program that has failed to create jobs. Stimulus money that has not been spent should be used for something that will actually help the economy and create jobs, or to pay down the debt. Canceling unspent stimulus funds could save over $300 billion.
Full Story: Think Progress » Rubio’s Spending Cuts Plan: End Tax Benefits For The Middle Class While Extending Them For The Rich.
Robert Greenwald: Carly Fiorina: Runs to the Tea Party, Away From the Truth
Even before this video was released, the Fiorina Campaign was already on the defensive attack, trying to take the public’s attention away from her Tea Party/Palin support. They are distorting the truth, hiding from the facts and hoping people forgot about her pursuit of the Tea Party.
Everyone in America has at this point seen and heard what the Tea Party is about. Our video uses carefully date-labeled footage of a Tea Party rally we had video for that occurred in March. We also use clearly date-labeled footage of an April Tea Party rally Fiorina spoke at, as well as a clip of her saying that she believes the Tea Party is “making a huge difference in the political dialogue in this country.”
The fact of the matter is that Fiorina has sought to align herself with the Tea Party. She believes in what they stand for and what role they’ve played in the political dialogue. We believe she should denounce them.
Full Story: Robert Greenwald: Carly Fiorina: Runs to the Tea Party, Away From the Truth.
Bachmann: If GOP wins the House, ‘all we should do is issue subpoenas.’
Yesterday, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) spoke to the GOP Youth Convention in Washington. One attendee asked Bachmann about what the Republicans will do if they win back the House:
QUESTION: I might be putting the cart before the horse here, but assuming the Republicans win the House back this next cycle, how do you feel about the chances for a little oversight and a little accountability now that the Republicans would have the subpoena power? How aggressive do you think?
BACHMANN: Well I think that’s all we should do. I think all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another and expose all the nonsense that has gone on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership, because the American people’s patience is about this big. [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann: If GOP wins the House, ‘all we should do is issue subpoenas.’.
Rove’s RNC ‘grassroots’ rival, American Crossroads, raised 97 percent of its money from four billionaires.
Compensating for damage the Republican National Committee’s unsteadiness may cause Republican candidates this fall, several high-profile GOP operatives — including Karl Rove and two former RNC chairmen — recently founded American Crossroads as a “grassroots,” “shadow RNC.” Salon’s Justin Elliott now reports that the group raised 97 percent of its funding from just four billionaires:
The IRS filing of American Crossroads, an outside 527 group that was conceived by Rove and ex-RNC chair Ed Gillespie, gives a good taste of who is funding the GOP effort to make big gains in the House and Senate come the fall. … Chaired by another ex-RNC chair, Mike Duncan, American Crossroads has pledged to raise $50 million to beat Democrats in the midterms and has been seen by some as a competitor to the Republican National Committee itself.
And despite the group’s description of itself as “grassroots,” Salon’s review of its IRS filings show that four billionaires have contributed 97 percent of the $4.7 million it has raised to date. There are no limits on how much corporations, unions, and individuals can donate to 527 groups.
Chet Traylor, David Vitter Challenger, Challenged On Affairs
Conservative Challenging David Vitter Is Sleeping With Stepson’s Wife
When we last left the Louisiana Senate race, incumbent Senator David Vitter (R-Louis.) was waging a two-front battle for survival. On one side was Democratic challenger, Representative Charlie Melancon (D-Louis.), who recently unleashed a series of devastating ads hitting Vitter for keeping Brent Furer in his employ long after he knew that Furer had assaulted a female acquaintance.
On the other side came Chet Traylor. At the last minute, the former Louisiana Supreme Court Justice jumped into the primary race as a Republican challenger. Here, at last, was a conservative opponent who would strike a clear contrast with the scandal-plagued Vitter. Right?
Feh, maybe not. Here’s the News Star:
State Rep. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, said that Traylor was “significantly involved” in the cause of his divorce from Peggy McDowell, who later married Chet Traylor and became Peggy McDowell Traylor.
Full Story: Chet Traylor, David Vitter Challenger, Challenged On Affairs.
Nelson cites deficit to vote against unemployment benefits but backs budget-busting tax cuts for rich.
Earlier this week, the Senate finally voted 60-40 to extend unemployment insurance for the millions of Americans who are unable to find work due to the poor economy. One senator who voted against extending these benefits was Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who cited the deficit as his reason for opposing an extension. He gave the following statement to the press:
“I support extending unemployment benefits for Nebraskans and Americans who remain out of work. However, I opposed the Senate’s unemployment bill today because it should have, and it could have, been paid for.
“I oppose another $33 billion in deficit spending and increasing the debt. The six-month extension of unemployment benefits is a priority that can and should be funded. Some of the $70 billion in offsets included in earlier proposals could have been used to offset the $33 billion in new spending in this bill.”
Now reopen Breitbart’s ACORN fraud — and get the story right
- Joe Conason – Salon.com: :
Sherrod’s case parallels deceptions used in that other big smear — and offers a chance to restore lost standards
ormer USDA official Shirley Sherrod, a dedicated public servant innocent of the prejudice and misconduct falsely imputed to her, deserves justice. As soon as the White House and Tom Vilsack restore her job, with an appropriate apology, they will begin to remove a stain of cowardice from their administration. But while that may be all the government can do, it isn’t sufficient to close this case.
Real justice, as I suspect Sherrod would agree, also requires due process for Andrew Breitbart, the Internet impresario who framed her on his Big Government website. In these circumstances, that means a fair, thorough and tough examination of the media fraud that launched his operation last year: the ACORN tapes, whose misuse by Breitbart closely parallels his behavior in the Sherrod affair.
Full Story: Now reopen Breitbart’s ACORN fraud — and get the story right – Joe Conason – Salon.com.
Ben Stein: The Unemployed Are People With ‘Unpleasant Personalities…Who Do Not Know How To Do A Day’s Work’
Today, the Senate extended unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans. Despite the terrible shape of the economy, conservatives resisted extending unemployment insurance for weeks for Americans who can’t find work, launching a filibuster to prevent a vote on the benefits.
Writing at the American Spectator yesterday, former Nixon speechwriter and TV personality Ben Stein downplayed the suffering unemployed Americans are experiencing by writing that the people who are unemployed right now are “generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.” He claims the unemployed are Americans with “unpleasant personalities…who do not know how to do a day’s work“:
The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along — not always easy.
Racist New Hampshire State House Candidate Advises Tea Party To Be More Open With Its Racism
While the tea party movement is desperately trying to fight off charges of “racist elements” from the NAACP, Ryan J. Murdough, a Republican candidate for New Hampshire State House, has no qualms about expressing his views on race. “It is time for white people in New Hampshire and across the country to take a stand,” Murdough wrote in a letter to the Concord Monitor titled “We must preserve our racial identity”:
For far too long white Americans have been told that diversity is something beneficial to their existence. Statistics prove that the opposite is true. New Hampshire residents must seek to preserve their racial identity if we want future generations to have to possibility to live in such a great state. Affirmative action, illegal and legal non-white immigration, anti-white public school systems, and an anti-white media have done much damage to the United States of America and especially New Hampshire. It is time for white people in New Hampshire and across the country to take a stand. We are only 8 percent of the world’s population and we need our own homeland, just like any other non-white group of people deserve their own homeland.
Murdough is running as a Republican because it’s easier to get on the ballot, but the party immediately “disowned him as a candidate on their ticket,” calling him a “despicable racist” and a “fraud.” But Murdough has no love lost for the GOP, complaining, “they’ve sold white people out.
Full Story: Think Progress » Racist New Hampshire State House Candidate Advises Tea Party To Be More Open With Its Racism.
Sen. Barrasso Calls For Repealing Middle Class Tax Cuts To Finance Tax Cuts For The Rich
In the last week or so, a dizzying array of Republicans have made it their official stance that $33 billion to extend unemployment benefits must be fully paid for, but financing a $678 billion extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy with deficit spending is just fine. “I think we need to be paying for all the spending that’s going on,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). “But when people can keep more of their own money that shouldn’t be considered a cost.”
Today, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) tackled this topic and started to go down the same road as the likes of Bachmann and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who was the first to set foot in this fiscal fantasy land. But he then pivoted to suggest that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be funded with unspent stimulus funds:
Q: Are you for extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, yes or no? [...] Are you paying for them? Or are you for adding to the deficit to continue those tax cuts?
Barrasso: There is so much unspent stimulus money that we ought to use that in a responsible way, which is to help keep taxes low.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Sen. Barrasso Calls For Repealing Middle Class Tax Cuts To Finance Tax Cuts For The Rich.
Koch Industries Takes Credit For The ‘Spontaneous’ Tea Parties: We’re Glad We ‘Helped Stimulate’ Them
As ThinkProgress has documented, the lobbyist-run Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has been instrumental in orchestrating the Tea Party movement. The group coordinated “grassroots” protests around the country and provided organizations and communications support to the Tea Parties. AFP staffers are also regular presence at Tea Party rallies. The man behind AFP is David Koch, who is one of the richest men in the world thanks to his oil, chemicals, and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries. In 2009, AFP President Tim Phillips said he “launched our organization.”
Koch Industries and AFP have largely tried to keep their distance from the Tea Parties. From a May 2010 interview with the Frum Forum’s Tim Mak:
Most incredibly striking is Koch’s efforts to distance itself from the Tea Party movement. “We’ve been labeled tea party founders or funders – in fact, masterminds – but that’s not consistent with the facts,” said Fink. “To my knowledge, we have not been approached for support by any of the newer ‘tea party’ or other grassroots groups that have sprung up around the country in the past year or so.”
Rubio’s campaign ‘couldn’t give an answer’ on how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts.
This week, GOP U.S. Senate candidate in Florida, Marco Rubio, said he would not support extending unemployment benefits to nearly 3 million Americans unless spending cuts were identified to offset the $33 billion cost. “At some point, someone has to draw a line in the sand and say we are serious about not growing debt,” Rubio said. At the same time, Rubio wants to make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent — at a cost of nearly $700 billion over the next ten years — with no offset. While Rubio recently claimed they would pay for themselves (they won’t), a local Florida CBS reporter followed up with his campaign:
However, historically speaking, no party has ever opposed extending the benefits when the unemployment rate was higher than 7 percent until the current election cycle. [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » Rubio’s campaign ‘couldn’t give an answer’ on how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts..
Shocker: Conservatives have no taste for conservation, study finds
A pair of University of California, Los Angeles professors tracking subtle socioeconomic responses to detailed consumer information about power consumption have effectively pinpointed something oft’ joked of by so-called “liberals” but never genuinely proven until now: conservatives, by and large, have no taste for conservation.
By studying average household electricity consumption after what they called a “nudge” (more specifically, giving the residents a detailed chart of that home’s drain on the electric grid), UCLA professors Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn pinpointed distinctly different response patterns along political fault lines. Using voter registration information and data about charitable contributions, they picked out homes that bought renewable energy, voted for Democrats or contributed to environmental causes, and compared consumption to addresses given by registered Republicans.
People who fell under the prescribed labels of liberal and conservative, as it turned out, seemed to show behaviors quite the opposite. Liberal-leaning households tended to reduce power consumption 3-6 percent after seeing a detailed usage outlay, but on average so-called “conservatives” used 1 percent more.
Full Story: Shocker: Conservatives have no taste for conservation, study finds | Raw Story.
Group Run By Anti-Stimulus Crusaders Rove And Gillespie Airs Ad Attacking Reid For Lack Of Stimulus Money In NV
Group Run By Anti-Stimulus Crusaders Rove And Gillespie Airs Ad Attacking Reid For Lack Of Stimulus Money In NV
GOP operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie recently founded a network of right-wing attack groups to rival what they view as inept and ineffective Republican National Committee. One of those groups, American Crossroads, is a 527 committee, formed to spend tens of millions of dollars on House and Senate races this year.
The group recently launched an ad in Nevada attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D):
It’s bad enough that Nevada has the highest unemployment in the nation. And Harry Reid claims to be helping the jobs situation? Really Harry? Recent data show Nevada ranks 50th in the money received from Harry’s stimulus bill. That’s right — Senate leader Harry Reid has gotten his own state less help than every other state but one. And along with bailouts, deficits, and Obamacare, that’s what Harry Reid’s done for Nevada. Really Harry? That’s not the kinda help Nevada needs.
Watch it:
Yes, There Is Racism in the Tea Party
In passing a resolution condemning the racist elements within the Tea Party this week, the NAACP set off a media firestorm over the merits of its charge against the right-wing movement. As the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates notes, critics bemoaned the resolution as a silly stunt that “heightened division” and implied that racist extremists define the membership of the Tea Party. Such a wholesale charge would certainly be exaggerated and inaccurate, but that was not the charge the NAACP made. “The resolution was amended during the debate to specifically ask the Tea Party itself to repudiate the racist elements and activities of the Tea Party.” As NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous said, “We’re simply asking them to repudiate racist acts and bigotry in their ranks or accept responsibility.” But instead of acknowledging and disassociating themselves from the more radical actions of their membership, Tea Party leaders have said that racist elements are non existent. In hurling accusations of racism back at the NAACP, Tea Party leaders have wielded a professed desire for colorblindness as a whitewashing tool. But Tea Party members are employing a defense that only perpetuates the racism they are desperately trying to refute.
Yes, There Is Racism in the Tea Party | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.
Top House Republican wants ban on [ALL] new federal regulations
House GOP Leader John Boehner said he supports a ban on all new federal regulations, after meeting Friday with business lobbyists who complained about uncertain economic conditions.
“I think having a moratorium on new federal regulations is a great idea. It sends a wonderful signal to the private sector they may have some breathing room,” Boehner said.
He said any ban would include an exemption for “emergency regulations” for some agencies and suggested it could last a year.
A House Republican leadership aide noted that Boehner and House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, in a proposal to President Barack Obama last year, suggested a similar halt to any new regulations that could cause new costs to small businesses.
Full Story: Top House Republican wants ban on new federal regulations – CNN.com.
Peter King: Republicans Shouldn’t ‘Lay Out A Complete Agenda,’ Because It Might Become ‘A Campaign Issue’
For the past year, Republicans have been desperately trying to show Americans that they have substantive policy ideas, and that they are not just “the party of no” that reflexively opposes anything President Obama supports in order to score cheap political points. “House Republicans have engaged with the American people to develop innovative solutions that meet the serious challenges facing our country,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) declared on the flimsy “GOP Solutions” website.
But Rep. Peter King (R-NY) was perhaps a little too honest yesterday, explaining to radio host Bill Bennett that Republicans shouldn’t “lay out a complete agenda,” because then people would be able to scrutinize it and make it “a campaign issue”:
BENNETT: Is it enough for Republicans to say we are opposed to what [Obama's] doing — stimulus, health care, we don’t like what he’s doing with the government, and look at the job situation — or do we need to have meat on the bones? And say, this is what we are for? Do we have to have positive proposals? […
Still Looking Out For Wall Street, Leading Republicans Are Already Calling To Repeal Financial Reform
Earlier this week, the Senate voted 60-39 to pass Congress’s financial regulatory reform bill, setting the stage for President Obama to sign it into law next week. The bill installs new safeguards and protections for consumers in their interactions with financial institutions and is a response to the economic crisis started in 2008 largely due to bad behavior by the world’s most powerful financial institutions.
Yet, just as they did for the health care bill earlier in the year, leading Republicans have already started calling for a repeal of the bill, this time before it has even been signed into law:
– Even before the bill passed the Senate, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters on the day of the vote, “I think it ought to be repealed.” [7/15/10]
– “If we were in a position to do something, maybe [Boehner] is right,” said GOP Policy Chairman Sen. John Thune (ND), endorsing Boehner’s call for repeal. [7/15/10]
– Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-AL) said he’d “love for it to be repealed.” [7/16/10]
– Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, told Good Morning America that he and other Republicans would “like to repeal it.” [7/16/10]
Coburn: New Tax Cuts Cost Money But Extending The Bush Tax Cuts ‘Isn’t A Cost’
Last Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) caused quite a stir when he claimed that the government should “never” offset tax cuts, yet unemployment insurance extensions must be paid for. “You should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans,” he said.
Today on C-Span, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) circled the wagons around his Senate colleague. When host Greta Brawner asked Coburn about a Washington Post editorial mocking Kyl’s statement, Coburn conceded that tax cuts cost money, but he claimed that extending the Bush tax cuts won’t cost anything, because, according to Coburn’s logic, they’ve already been enacted at one point in the past:
COBURN: Continuing the [Bush] tax cuts isn’t a cost, if you added new taxes, new tax cuts, I would agree that’s a cost. It’s not a cost. That’s where we are today. That’s the baseline. It doesn’t score anything to continue them. It costs money if we increase, which I would be willing to do. I think we ought to cut corporate taxes.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Coburn: New Tax Cuts Cost Money But Extending The Bush Tax Cuts ‘Isn’t A Cost’.
Cantor Says Federal Spending Doesn’t ‘Create Jobs’ — At Job Fair With Companies Funded By The Stimulus
House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) has been one of the loudest critics of the Recovery Act, insisting that it hasn’t created any non-government jobs and proposing that it be canceled in order to “pay off the debt and deficit so we can get our fiscal house back in order.”
Today, Cantor held a job fair at Deep Run High School in Glen Allen, VA. As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, employers scheduled to attend the event have received more than $52 million in federal stimulus funds. ThinkProgress attended today’s job fair and asked the congressman during a press conference whether he would support repealing the stimulus (as several of his colleagues have advocated) and making businesses and state/local governments return the funds in order to help pay down the national debt:
TP: Congressman, you’ve been an outspoken opponent of the stimulus. Do you think it should be repealed?
CANTOR: The stimulus money ought to go back — that which is unallocated — to go and repay the debt that we’ve incurred, yes.
Rubio Unveils His Economic Strategy: Tax Cuts For The Wealthy And Corporations
Today, Senate candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL) released his economic platform, which he claims is a “a clear alternative to the anti-growth, anti-job creation economic policies coming out of Washington.” “We have reached a point in our history when we must decide if we are to continue on the free market, limited government path that has made us exceptional, or if we are prepared to follow the rest of the world down the road of government dependency,” he said.
However, as the Orlando Sentinel’s Jim Stratton pointed out, “after perusing the list, the sharp-eyed reader will likely notice a recurring theme: This Rubio guy appears to be a big supporter of tax cuts. The proposals are sure to please his conservative base, many of whom see tax cuts as a magical elixir, good for pretty much anything that ails you.” Indeed, of the 12 steps that Rubio proposed, six are tax cuts, and another three are directives to stop regulations or taxes from being implemented. Here are some highlights:
– IDEA #1: Permanently Extend The 2001 And 2003 Tax Cuts
– IDEA #2: Cut Taxes On American Businesses
– IDEA #3: Permanently End The Estate
Tax
Full Story: Think Progress » Rubio Unveils His Economic Strategy: Tax Cuts For The Wealthy And Corporations.
Jon Kyl: Extend Bush Tax Cuts For Wealthy Even If They Add To Deficit
Top Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns.
“[Y]ou should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes,” said the Arizona Senator during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right to — if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. 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.”
White House aides immediately seized on the comments. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wrote on Twitter, “Kyl says wealthy need big Bush tax cuts while middle class families are on their own to fend for themselves as a result of Bush economy.”
Full Story: Jon Kyl: Extend Bush Tax Cuts For Wealthy Even If They Add To Deficit.
Bachmann Hints At Bid To Overthrow GOP Leadership With True ‘Constitutional Conservatives’
Last weekend, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) helped headline the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Bachmann fired up attendees with an anger-filled speech repeatedly comparing America under President Obama to slavery, reports the Colorado Independent. “We will talk a little bit about what has transpired in the last 18 months and would we count what has transpired into turning our country into a nation of slaves,” thundered Bachmann at one point.
After her speech, Bachmann took questions from the audience, including one from a woman concerned that the Republican leadership does not share Bachmann’s dedication to “spreading the word.” Bachmann agreed that “Republicans need to have one voice on all of this.” She then argued that although she is “not in leadership,” it is “extremely important” that the Republican “leadership is made up of constitutional conservatives” if the GOP takes back Congress:
Q: Your colleagues are not out there spreading the word, not out there saying, ‘yes it’s going to be tough, we have to give up a lot that we have right now to move forward to do what we need to save this country.’ And, you’re good at it. There a couple of other people who are good about it, but there are an awful lot that are just quiet out there, especially on the state level. [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann Hints At Bid To Overthrow GOP Leadership With True ‘Constitutional Conservatives’.
WI GOP congressman supporting Ron Johnson surprised that Johnson supports Great Lakes oil drilling.
Ron Johnson, a wealthy business executive and leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin this year, is beginning to receive scrutiny for his far right views. He has been criticized recently for opposing an anti-sex offenders bill, the Child Victim Act, and for saying that he is “glad there’s global warming.” Last month, when asked if he would support drilling for oil in the Great Lakes, Johnson — who owns more than $100,000 in BP stock — replied, “I think we have to, get the oil where it is.” At a town hall on Wednesday in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) — who was sporting a Ron Johnson for Senate bumper sticker — if he agreed with Johnson’s support for Great Lakes oil drilling. Petri said he personally hasn’t supported Great Lakes drilling, but seemed genuinely baffled by Johnson’s radical views, and refused to comment:
TP: Ron Johnson, the Senate candidate here in Wisconsin, says he opposes the drilling moratorium and he even goes as far as saying he wants drilling everywhere, even possibly the Great Lakes. Would you support that kind of position?
PETRI: Well I haven’t but I don’t know the details of what exactly is being talked about and I sort of hate to respond to someone else’s characterization of an individual’s position without knowing what they actually said myself.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » WI GOP congressman supporting Ron Johnson surprised that Johnson supports Great Lakes oil drilling..
OPS: Conservatives are insane and here is more proof. SO kids, how about letting BP drill for oil in our FRESH WATER SUPPLY?!
Major BP Shareholder Rep. Sensenbrenner Says BP Doesn’t ‘Deserve Any Type Of Executive Bonuses’
In June, the AP reported that Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) owns hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of BP stock, according to financial disclosures. Shortly after the spill, Sensenbrenner focused his criticism on President Obama, attacking him for “publicly chastising and threatening BP” when BP “likely wants this resolved more than anyone.”
At a town hall in Saukville, Wisconsin on Tuesday, Sensenbrenner told ThinkProgress that he would not recuse himself from BP-related votes, despite his financial ties to the company. However, Sensenbrenner said BP executives “don’t deserve any type of executive bonuses,” and if he were on the BP corporate board, he would vote against using shareholder money for bonuses this year:
Full Story: Think Progress » Major BP Shareholder Rep. Sensenbrenner Says BP Doesn’t ‘Deserve Any Type Of Executive Bonuses’.
OPS: BP doesn’t deserve to exist. It’s time to use the Corporate Death Penalty again
GOP Reps Push Conspiracy Theories: BP Oil Spill Was An Inside Job, Obama Wants Poor Response
Following BP’s oil disaster, Republican lawmakers lined up to attack President Obama’s response to the spill, particularly efforts to rein in dangerous oil drilling and to create an escrow account to help expedite payments for BP’s victims. After a wave of Republicans attacked the escrow account as a “shakedown,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) went as far as formally apologizing to BP executives for how the Obama administration had treated them.
However, after rushing to the defense of a criminal multinational corporation like BP, now GOP lawmakers are ginning up conspiracy theories that Obama actually wants the oil disaster to be destructive. At a town hall yesterday in Athens, Georgia, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) said “maybe” Obama is “purposeful[ly]” giving a “poor response to this oil spill” so he “could promote his energy tax”:
BROUN: Our President he is utilizing this crisis of this oil spill to try to promote this energy tax. And I’ve had numerous people, all over the district, question whether his poor response to this oil spill was purposeful so that he could promote his energy tax. I don’t know, maybe.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » GOP Reps Push Conspiracy Theories: BP Oil Spill Was An Inside Job, Obama Wants Poor Response.
Town Hall Turns Ugly For Hatch, Conservatives Yell That He’s Shilling For Bankers
This past Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) held a town hall in Layton, Utah, to hear the concerns of his constituents. The senator covered issues ranging from immigration to his votes against confirming Supreme Court justices.
During one point of the town hall, Hatch opened up the floor for questions from his constituents. One asked him why, given the reckless and criminal behavior of Wall Street financial elites in the lead up to the financial crisis, there have not been more significant prosecutions of bankers who broke the law. While Hatch quickly agreed that some bankers may have committed crimes and should be investigated, he quickly veered off to attacking Democratic proposals to place new regulations on Wall Street.
The same questioner then followed up, “I don’t think you get it, sir. We’re angry at the bankers, I don’t want to hear all this about the government!” Hatch then changed his tone, put on an angry face, and replied that he thinks some bankers have committed crimes. He attacked Democrats, claiming Wall Street “keeps Democrats in power” and said Republicans “don’t get much help from them”:
Full Story: Think Progress » Town Hall Turns Ugly For Hatch, Conservatives Yell That He’s Shilling For Bankers.
Rep. Steve King has not participated in a formal debate since he was elected.
Right wing leader Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has built a policy platform on unfounded and radical assertions. On immigration: Deport a liberal. On health care reform: Maybe opponents should secede. On employment discrimination: Stop wearing your sexuality on your sleeve. Despite the outlandishness of his policy solutions, King himself has never had to answer for them in a formal debate since his election in 2003. But his 2010 challenger Matt Campbell (D) called out the incumbent yesterday and invited him to an “issue-oriented debate.” Citing debate as a “lynchpin” of democracy and an “obligation” of elected officials, Campbell says King’s participation is “long overdue”:
King has never formally debated an opponent since he’s been elected, and Campbell says it’s long overdue for King to respect the American democratic process.
“It’s long overdue for King to respect the American democratic process,” Campbell says.
Full Story: Think Progress » Rep. Steve King has not participated in a formal debate since he was elected..
Boehner Invites Lobbyists To Help Form GOP Agenda In Intimate Meeting At His Office
A few months ago, House Republicans launched an effort called Americans Speaking Out, which purports to give average Americans the ability to offer their input on what Congress should do. It became quickly apparent that the enterprise was little more than a taxpayer-funded PR gimmick to help Republicans market their agenda for this fall’s elections, even as they ignored any ideas they didn’t already support.
Now, under the banner of Americans Speaking Out, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has summoned advice from those who he truly seems interested in listening to: lobbyists. Roll Call reports that Boehner has invited “senior Republican lobbyists and top officials from several large trade groups” to a meeting at Boehner’s office to discuss “their suggestions for a new GOP agenda”:
The meeting is part of the House leaders’ initiative called America Speaking Out, which is intended to draw broad input to create a new policy agenda for the party to launch in the fall.
Full Story: Think Progress » Boehner Invites Lobbyists To Help Form GOP Agenda In Intimate Meeting At His Office.
Stephen Moore calls for raising taxes on the poor in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in January. President Obama has expressed a desire to preserve the cuts for the middle class while letting tax rates for the wealthy reset to where they were during the Clinton administration. Conservative lawmakers and pundits have been fearmongering that allowing the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire will kill job creation and small businesses (despite the fact that fewer than 2 percent of small business owners will be affected). Last night on CNBC, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore went so far as to say that he can’t “see the sense” of allowing cuts for the rich to expire, and then advocated that taxes be raised on the poorest Americans in order to finance more tax cuts for the rich:
I just don’t see the sense of this. In fact, if I could have my ‘druthers, I’d raise the ten percent tax rate to fifteen percent and lower the [top] rates.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Stephen Moore calls for raising taxes on the poor in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich..
No, Mr. Beck, Our Constitution is Not Based on the Book of Deuteronomy
This installment of my series debunking the American history lies told on Glenn Beck is about a study published in 1984 in The American Political Science Review, and how that study is misrepresented to make it appear that our founding documents were based on the Bible, especially the Book of Deuteronomy.
Here’s the transcript of what I said in the video, for those who can’t watch videos at work, or have slow connections:
The study referred to by Beck and Barton was conducted by Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston. Lutz published his findings in a 1984 article in The American Political Science Review, and misrepresentations of it began appearing a few years later. The first one was in John Eidsmoe’s 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which was soon followed by the version most often seen today — the one created by David Barton in his 1988 book The Myth of Separation.
What revisionists like Barton typically do to distort this study is to accurately present some of the charts of the study’s findings, but omit the parts of Lutz’s explanations of these findings that explain what the numbers in the charts actually mean. That way they can just replace the real explanations with whatever they want their followers to think the numbers mean.
Full Story: Talk To Action | No, Mr. Beck, Our Constitution is Not Based on the Book of Deuteronomy.
MN GOP Gov. Candidate’s Idea For Economic Growth: Cut The Minimum Wage Of Bartenders And Waiters
With the tough economy continuing to hit individuals, families, and businesses nationwide, progressive legislators have sought to protect vital public investment in the nation’s communities, while many conservative lawmakers have turned to slashing social support for the most vulnerable Americans.
Minnesota GOP candidate for governor Tom Emmer falls in the second camp. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Emmer proposed cutting the minimum wage for service workers who receive tips, such as bartenders and waiters. In order to justify the cut, Emmer said that some of these employees earn “over $100,000 a year,” and even make more than the people who employ them:
Tom Emmer, the GOP-endorsed candidate for governor, told reporters at the Eagle Street Grille in St. Paul on Monday that the minimum wage for service workers who earn tips should be cut. Some waiters and bartenders, he noted, can earn as much as $100,000 a year, which he said is unfair to the employers that hire them.
Full Story: Think Progress » MN GOP Gov. Candidate’s Idea For Economic Growth: Cut The Minimum Wage Of Bartenders And Waiters.
Arkansas cop killers were ‘sovereign citizens,’ right-wing extremists who believe they are exempt from the law.
In late May, a father-son pair of so-called “sovereign citizens” shot and killed two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas after being pulled over on a routine traffic stop. Militia-like “sovereign citizens” take right-wing “tenther” beliefs to their logical extreme, declaring themselves exempt from federal law and from paying taxes, and believing they “don’t have to answer to any government authority.” The FBI lists the movement as a “domestic terror threat,” and as NBC Nightly News reported last night, the West Memphis shooting highlights that this growing anti-government movement may become violent:
Dan Senor Says It’s ‘Legitimate’ To Argue That The Iraq War Has Not Made The U.S. Safer
Prominent conservatives and Republicans in Congress have been attacking RNC chair Michael Steele and calling for his ouster after Steele’s recent comments that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won. Today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, conservative Pat Buchanan complained about the right’s reaction. “What bothers me is the effort here I think to force a position on the Republican Party before they’ve gone through their primary process,” Buchanan said, and addressed former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor about the foolish right-wing charge to wage war in Iraq:
BUCHANAN: What I’m saying is, don’t start purging a guy because he said something different. [...] You guys were wrong on Iraq and you got us into that. … You had all that intel on WMD and got us into an unnecessary war.
Time’s Mark Halperin came to Senor’s defense, asking, “Why aren’t you asking him if we’re safer with Saddam Hussein gone?” “Yeah, thank you, Mark,” Senor said, then asking Buchanan, “Would we have been safer if Saddam Hussein were in power?” Surprisingly, when Buchanan offered a suggestion as to why the U.S. is perhaps not safer, Senor called his argument “legitimate”:
Full Story: Think Progress » Dan Senor Says It’s ‘Legitimate’ To Argue That The Iraq War Has Not Made The U.S. Safer.
Republicans spar over ‘death’ of Tea Party movement
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) disagreed Sunday with a notion put forward by a fellow South Carolina Republican senator that the Tea Party would eventually “die out.”
“Lindsey’s a great friend but he is wrong on this,” DeMint said on Fox News.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine published last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said, “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.”
DeMint disagreed
Full Story: Republicans spar over ‘death’ of Tea Party movement | Raw Story.
Republicans spar over ‘death’ of Tea Party movement
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) disagreed Sunday with a notion put forward by a fellow South Carolina Republican senator that the Tea Party would eventually “die out.”
“Lindsey’s a great friend but he is wrong on this,” DeMint said on Fox News.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine published last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said, “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.”
DeMint disagreed
Full Story: Republicans spar over ‘death’ of Tea Party movement | Raw Story.
DEAN BAKER: Cut Social Security to Fund the War?
In a remarkable interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Republican Leader John Boehner explicitly called for cutting Social Security in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan. The article reports:
“Ensuring there’s enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country’s entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he’d favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.”
In principle Boehner gave the Democrats as much ammunition as a serious political party could want. After all raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security benefits to pay for the war in Afghanistan is an idea that consistently polls in the high single decimals. We should expect every Democratic politician in the country to be jumping up and down demanding to know whether the Republican leader speaks for all Republicans.
That would be the case, unless of course the Democrats actually hold similar views. After all, several prominent Democrats have been saying in public recently that we will have to cut Social Security benefits (benefits workers have already paid for). These prominent Democrats also support the war in Afghanistan.
Full Story: Dean Baker: Cut Social Security to Fund the War?.
Haley Barbour: ‘No one has more to lose in this deal than BP.’
Although the BP oil disaster has killed 11 men, poisoned thousands of animals, and ruined the livelihoods of millions of Americans, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) still believes that the foreign oil giant has suffered the most. Gov. Barbour has dismissed this catastrophe from day one, comparing the toxic oil to “toothpaste” and worrying about the impact of paying damages on BP’s finances. In an interview with NPR on Thursday, Barbour brushed off the suggestion that the conservative ideology of deregulation should be reconsidered, saying that “the idea that more regulation is necessarily better, I think a very suspect idea.” In fact, Barbour cited the greatest environmental catastrophe in American history as proof that “the market system works,” saying that BP is the biggest victim “in this deal”:
I think right now every oil company in the world says, I don’t want to pay $100 million a day to cut corners on drilling a well. And that’s where I believe the market system works. Nobody’s got more to lose in this deal than BP.
Listen here
Full Story: Think Progress » Haley Barbour: ‘No one has more to lose in this deal than BP.’.
OPS: The cluelessness, detachment and sociopathy of a republican, writ large
17 senators from states with double-digit jobless rates repeatedly vote to filibuster unemployment benefits.
Since the beginning of the Great Recession, 15 million Americans have lost their jobs. Almost half of them have been out of work for six months or more, and there are currently nearly five workers actively seeking work for every available job. However, the Senate has been unable to extend job benefits because of a Republican filibuster, which has been joined by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE). On three separate occasions, Democrats tried to break the filibuster but were unsuccessful. And while no senator voting to continue the filibuster should be allowed to escape responsibility, many voting to sustain it are from states that have been hit particularly hard by the unemployment crisis. Here are the 17 senators from states with double-digit unemployment who are willing to leave their constituents without a safety net:
Bachmann: ‘I Don’t Want The United States To Be In A Global Economy’
This past weekend, President Obama attended the G-20 Summit on international economic cooperation in Toronto, which ended with a declaration calling for member countries to work “to ensure a full return to growth with quality jobs, to reform and strengthen financial systems, and to create strong, sustainable and balanced global growth.” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), however, fears that the 20 countries were really working to set up “a one world government.”
In an interview on Scott Hennen’s radio show today, Bachmann claimed that the purpose of the G-20 was to “bind together the world’s economies.” Neglecting the already interconnected nature of the global economy, Bachman declared that “President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy”:
BACHMANN: What really concerned me was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that we don’t want to see one country’s economy doing better than another. What? This is the U.S. Treasury Secretary? We don’t want to see Zimbabwe’s economy do better than the United States? Aren’t we supposed to be about the United States and making sure that our economy can be the greatest in the world. If you look at the G20, what they’re trying to do is bind together the world’s economies. Look how that played out in the European Union when they bound all of those nations economies together and one of the smallest economies, Greece, when they got into trouble, that one little nation is bringing down the entire EU. Well, President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy where all of our nations come together in a global economy. I don’t want the United States to be in a global economy where, where our economic future is bound to that of Zimbabwe. I can’t, we can’t necessarily trust the decisions that are being made financially in other countries.
Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann: ‘I Don’t Want The United States To Be In A Global Economy’.
The GOP’s Genetic Link to Big Oil
by Jim Hightower
If scientists were to compare the DNA of Republican congress-critters and of oil corporations, I’ll bet they’d find that they match perfectly. After all, the two species have identical political instincts and seem to have a natural affinity for each other — so I’m pretty sure they sprang from the same genetic pool.
How else can you explain the remarkable gusher of compassion that Republican lawmakers are presently directing toward Big Oil in general and BP in particular? For example, only hours after winning his party’s nomination for a Kentucky Senate seat, GOP teabag darling Rand Paul was on national TV decrying Barack Obama as “un-American” for daring to demand that BP be held accountable for its human and ecological destruction in the Gulf of Mexico.
Next came Minnesota’s Lioness of Loopiness, Michelle Bachmann, implying that the hard-hit people of the gulf are shiftless moochers who’re using the oil disaster to grab corporate cash. Brimming with tears of compassion, the kooky congresswoman wailed that, “(BP) shouldn’t have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest.”
Full Story: The GOP’s Genetic Link to Big Oil by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.
Doctor testing drug to ‘prevent’ lesbianism, interest in ‘male careers’
Dr. Maria New has a new strategy for treating unborn fetuses: the use of a potentially dangerous steroid aimed at preventing a rare congenital disorder that affects the adrenal gland, potentially consigning the future child to a lifetime regime of drugs.
It also prevents “some of the symptoms of [this disorder] in girls, namely ambiguous genitalia. Because the condition causes overproduction of male hormones in the womb, girls who are affected tend to have genitals that look more male than female, though internal sex organs are normal.”
Dr. New offers pregnant women dexamethasone, a risky steroid aimed at female fetuses that may have this disorder. Many exposed to dexamethasone through this off-label use are not being enrolled in controlled clinical trials.
Full Story: Doctor testing drug to ‘prevent’ lesbianism, interest in ‘male careers’ | Raw Story.
Angle Calls Unemployed Americans ‘Spoiled,’ Claims There Are Plenty Of Jobs Out There
Yesterday, after weeks of ducking interviews with the mainstream press, Senate candidate Sharron Angle — who is running on the Republican ticket in Nevada — appeared on Face to Face with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston to clarify some of her positions, including her view that unemployment benefits should be cut because “spoiled” workers are living off of them instead of getting a job.
Ralston asked Angle what she meant by that statement, and Angle replied that there are plenty of jobs out there for the unemployed, but extended benefits are discouraging workers from reentering the workforce because they pay more than entry-level work does:
They keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job because the job doesn’t pay as much as the unemployment benefit does. … What has happened is the system of entitlement has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job. … There are some jobs out there that are available. Because they have to enter at a lower grade and they cannot keep their unemployment, they have to make a choice now.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Angle Calls Unemployed Americans ‘Spoiled,’ Claims There Are Plenty Of Jobs Out There.
Obama Slams Boehner: Americans Know The Country Needs More Than An ‘Ant Swatter’ To Recover
In recent weeks, Republicans have been making headlines for their unabashed advocacy on behalf of Wall Street and big business at the expense of American taxpayers. In a recent interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) compared the financial crisis to a poor little ant, and criticized Democrats for “killing” it with a “nuclear weapon” (i.e. financial reform).
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went after Boehner and called him “completely out of touch with America.” A staffer for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded, “An ant, Mr. Boehner? It was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression — Americans lost 8 million jobs and $17 trillion in retirement savings and net worth.”
Today at a town hall event in Racine, WI, President Obama went directly after Boehner, telling him that most Americans don’t think “the financial crisis was an ant and we just need a little ant swatter to fix this thing”:
Full Story: Think Progress » Obama Slams Boehner: Americans Know The Country Needs More Than An ‘Ant Swatter’ To Recover.
Klobuchar Hits Coburn For Saying America Was More Free When There Were No Women On The Supreme Court
As confirmation hearings on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court proceed, Senate Republicans continue blustering through their arguments — even going as far as to lambast Kagan’s clerkship under Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice. Today, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) echoed classic Republican talking points under President Obama, lecturing the Supreme Court nominee about how Americans are “losing freedom,” and how we were more free “30 years ago.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) then responded to Coburn by pointing out that Coburn’s idea of a more “free” society was when women had fewer rights:
KLOBUCHAR: I was really interested and listening to Senator Coburn. … He was actually asking you, just now, back 30 years ago if you thought that we were more free. … But I was thinking back 30 years ago, was 1980. … And then I was thinking, were we really more free, if you were a woman in 1980? Do you know, solicitor general, how many women were on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980?
KAGAN: I guess zero.
KLOBUCHAR: That would be correct. There were no women on the Supreme Court. Do you know how many women were sitting up here 30 years ago in 1980?
Full Story: Think Progress » Klobuchar Hits Coburn For Saying America Was More Free When There Were No Women On The Supreme Court.
Boehner weeps for big business: The financial crisis was an ‘ant’ that Congress killed with a ‘nuclear weapon.’
In a new interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) blasts Democrats for everything from health care reform to the BP response to financial reform. “They’re snuffing out the America that I grew up in,” Boehner said, adding, “There’s a political rebellion brewing, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since 1776.” Taking up the GOP agenda of defending big business at all costs, he compared the financial crisis to an “ant” and criticized Congress for passing financial reform, which he likened to a “nuclear weapon“:
Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession. The bill would tighten restrictions on lending, create a consumer protection agency with broad oversight power and give the government an orderly way to dissolve the largest financial institutions if they run out of money.
“This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon,” Boehner said. What’s most needed is more transparency and better enforcement by regulators, he said.
Rubio Argues For Making Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Permanent: We Must Start ‘Doing It Now’
One of the key planks of Senate candidate Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) campaign is scaremongering about the nation’s deficit and debt. “The United States government spends more money than it takes in,” Rubio said. “It’s as simple as that. You can’t do that for long without getting into trouble.” Rubio has repeatedly called on President Obama to “stop spending money we don’t have.”
However, Rubio’s concern with the deficit seems to evaporate when it comes to tax cuts. Democrats in Congress want to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire on schedule at the end of the year, but yesterday on Fox News, Rubio wholeheartedly endorsed making the cuts permanent and “doing it now”:
RUBIO: I would argue in favor of making permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. And I would argue doing it now, before they recess, so that people have some level of certainty. [...]
VARNEY: You’re arguing economics. I put it to you that, if you suggested that we not increase taxes on the rich on January the 1st, you would be demagogued to death. You would be accused of giving money to the rich at a time of a nasty recession.
RUBIO: Well, the bottom line is that we need folks to create jobs in America. And jobs in America are created by people that have money or access to money.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Rubio Argues For Making Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Permanent: We Must Start ‘Doing It Now’.
Rick Santelli Launches Rant Against Government, Storms Off The CNBC Set When Challenged On Tax Cuts
On the Squawk Box yesterday, CNBC’s personalities argued over the value of government spending versus tax cuts in an economic downturn. CNBC personality Rick Santelli bemoaned federal economic aid as a “hard-headed” policy in which “paying firemen and teachers across the country” does nothing for the “unemployment situation.” Contributor Steve Liesman rebutted, asking Santelli, “Unaffected how? Unaffected by being much higher if more teachers and policemen were laid off?” Liesman also challenged the familiar conservative tax refrain, stating, “In general, I would say the rule is this, is that lower taxes generally do not pay for themselves.”
Liesman’s points threw Santelli into a mental breakdown. When prompted on whether tax cuts would truly help address the deficit, he and fellow right-wing economist Jeff Nielson launched into a childish tirade against government spending and the capital gains tax:
LIESMAN: Let me get this straight, all you guys wanna cut taxes en route to bringing down the deficit,
Full Story: Think Progress » Rick Santelli Launches Rant Against Government, Storms Off The CNBC Set When Challenged On Tax Cuts.
Lara Logan, You Suck
Matt Taibbi:
Lara Logan, come on down! You’re the next guest on Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010!
I thought I’d seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an “unspoken agreement” that journalists are not supposed to “embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter.”
Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn’t mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here’s CBS’s chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that’s killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag. And the part that really gets me is Logan bitching about how Hastings was dishonest to use human warmth and charm to build up enough of a rapport with his sources that they felt comfortable running their mouths off in front of him. According to Logan, that’s sneaky — and journalists aren’t supposed to be sneaky:
Full Story: Lara Logan, You Suck — RollingStone.com.
Top Republican: Raise Social Security’s retirement age to 70
A Republican-held Congress might look to raise the retirement age to 70, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested Monday.
Boehner, the top Republican lawmaker in the House, said raising the retirement age by five years, indexing benefits to the rate of inflation and means-testing benefits would make the massive entitlement program more solvent.
“We’re all living a lot longer than anyone ever expected,” Boehner said in a meeting with the editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “And I think that raising the retirement age — going out 20 years, so you’re not affecting anyone close to retirement — and eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken.”
Full Story: Top Republican: Raise Social Security’s retirement age to 70 – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
Sharron Angle: Rape & Incest: Are Part Of God’s ‘Plan’
Sharron Angle Is Against Abortion In Cases Of Rape Or Incest: It Would Interfere With God’s ‘Plan’
In a radio interview with Bill Manders on Jan. 25, Sharron Angle — the GOP candidate and Tea Party darling challenging Harry Reid for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat — came out firmly against abortion. She even took the extreme position that women should not have control over their reproductive rights in cases of rape or incest, because it would interfere with God’s “plan” for them:
MANDERS: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?
ANGLE: Not in my book.
MANDERS: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?
ANGLE: You know, I’m a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.
Listen here:
Full Story: Think Progress » Sharron Angle Is Against Abortion In Cases Of Rape Or Incest: It Would Interfere With God’s ‘Plan’.
Sharron Angle’s energy plan: Deregulate the ‘mining industry,’ as well as the ‘oil and petroleum industry.’
On May 26, a few weeks after BP’s oil disaster began, U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) told a local media outlet that her solution to America’s energy policy would be to “deregulate” the oil industry. While both conservatives and liberals agree that this catastrophe could have been prevented if BP had invested more in safety and if regulators had been more attentive, few, if any, have taken the extreme view at there is actually too much regulation on the oil industry. However, last Wednesday, while appearing on the hate-filled website ResistNet’s Internet radio station, Angle reiterated her position and explained that if elected, she would ensure that “government isn’t over-regulating” the “oil and petroleum industry,” as well as the “mining industry.” Angle appeared to attack her opponent, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), for supporting the Mining in the Parks Act, a law that prohibits mining in National Parks:
Cuccinelli: Gay men and women are excluded from the 14th amendment’s protections.
In March, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told the state’s colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing that schools have no legal authority to adopt such statements. On Friday, Cuccinelli appeared at Boys State, where a high school student asked him, “How is that not a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?” Cuccinelli responded by suggesting that the amendment was not designed to protect gay men and women:
“State universities are not free to create any specially protected classes other than those dictated by the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli said. “Your question is, why is that not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment,” he said.
Full Story: Think Progress » Cuccinelli: Gay men and women are excluded from the 14th amendment’s protections..
Fox Business’ solution to financial crisis: Tax the poor more
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that the gap between the richest one percent of earners in the US and the middle class has more than tripled since 1979.
But that didn’t stop Fox Business host Cheryl Casone from using the report as the basis of her proposed solution to the US’s mushrooming budget deficit: Increase taxes on the poor.
In a discussion on the CBO report (PDF), which showed that 40 percent of income tax filers ended up paying no federal income tax in 2007, Casone argued that fixing this “imbalance” would solve the federal debt problem.
“The fact that most [sic] Americans are not paying any income tax at the end of the day kind of shows the imbalance,” Casone said on Cashin’ In Saturday.”What if everyone pays just a little bit — we’re out of debt in this country.”
Full Story: Fox Business’ solution to financial crisis: Tax the poor more | Raw Story.
Poll: Tea partiers want gov’t to protect manufacturing jobs, impose tariffs to safeguard environment.
One of the organizing principles of the conservative-led tea party movement is an “aversion to big government,” with tea party organizers turning their ire on comprehensive health reform, clean energy legislation, and even mandatory trash collection. Yet a new poll finds that, despite their anti-government rhetoric, a majority of tea partiers favor the government enacting policies to protect manufacturing jobs and placing tariffs on goods from countries with weak environmental standards:
A new poll contradicts the widely held belief that the the tea party movement is opposed to government action to help the economy. It shows that self-described Tea Party supporters are very much in favor of government action to revitalize America’s manufacturing base.
Seventy-four percent of self-described Tea Party Supporters would support a “national manufacturing strategy to make sure that economic, tax, labor, and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing in the United States,” according to the poll, put out by the Mellman Group and the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Likewise, 56 percent of self-described Tea Party Supporters “favor a tariff on products imported from other countries that are cheaper because they came from a country that does not have to comply with any climate change regulations in the country where the products were made.”
GOP Rep. Paul Broun criticizes federal government for saving depositors at failed bank he co-owned.
One of Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-GA) most frequent targets is the federal government, which he has in the past claimed is going to kill people by passing comprehensive health care reform and clean energy legislation. Now, the Atlanta Journal Constitution has discovered that Broun “was a part-owner of a bank” started by his brother that failed in March and had to be taken over by the FDIC to protect its depositors, meaning that the very same federal government the congressman demonizes was forced to save his failing business and its customers. Asked for comment by the paper, Broun attacked the federal government, saying that it’s “totally wrong” for the government to be taking over failed banks like his and protecting the depositors:
But after an Atlanta Journal-Constitution examination of congressional financial disclosure forms revealed that Broun was an investor in the [failed] bank, the Republican congressman from Athens had a very strong opinion about who’s to blame: the federal government. “The federal government is closing these banks down when there is absolutely no reason to do so,” he said. “It’s just totally wrong.”
State and federal regulators on March 26 shut down four-branch McIntosh Commercial and sold its assets to West Point, Ga.-based CharterBank after determining McIntosh was insolvent and unable to pay its debts. The bank, founded in 2002, lost $28 million over the past two years and had $88 million in troubled loans on its books. The failure was expected to cost the federal Deposit Insurance Fund more than $123 million. [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » GOP Rep. Paul Broun criticizes federal government for saving depositors at failed bank he co-owned..
Gulf Coast Governors Leaving National Guard Idle
Thousands of Troops Called Up to Fight Oil Spill Haven’t Been Deployed
All along the Gulf coast, local officials have been demanding more help from the federal government to fight the spill, yet the Gulf states have deployed just a fraction of the National Guard troops the Pentagon has made available, CBS News Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.
That’s a particular problem for the state of Louisiana, where the Republican governor has been the most vocal about using all resources.
Full Story: Gulf Coast Governors Leaving National Guard Idle – CBS Evening News – CBS News.
Washington Times Features Doctored Photo Of Kagan In A Turban To Claim She’s Subservient To Shariah Law
Six days ago, after Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) absurdly tried to link Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to “oppressive tenets of Shari’a-type law,” The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss jokingly predicted that anti-Islamic bigot Frank Gaffney would “claim[] that Elena Kagan ‘may still be a Muslim.’” Sadly, Duss’ prediction largely came true this week. In a Washington Times op-ed run alongside a doctored photo of Kagan in a turban (pictured to the right), Gaffney ropes Kagan into a bizarre fantasy involving Shariah law, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, somehow, the beleaguered Troubled Assets Relief Progam:
Dean Kagan had an even more direct connection to the Saudis’ Shariah-recruitment efforts at Harvard. She personally officiated in 2003 over the establishment of an Islamic Finance Project at the law school. The project’s purpose is to promote what is better known as Shariah-compliant finance (SCF) by enlisting in its service some of the nation’s most promising law students. [...]
Shariah-compliant finance dates back to the 1940s, when it was invented by leading figures in the Muslim Brotherhood. This international organization has as its stated mission “destroying Western civilization from within … by its own miserable hand.” [...]
Only 18 Percent Of Texans Think Rep. Joe ‘I’m Sorry BP’ Barton Was Right To Apologize
Shortly after Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for what he called a White House “shakedown” of the oil company, the Texas congressman apologized for apologizing. “I apologize for using the term ’shakedown’ with regard to yesterday’s actions at the White House this morning, and I retract my apology to BP,” he said in a statement.
But today on his official Twitter page, Barton appeared to take back that apology, linking to an article on the conservative American Spectator website saying “Joe Barton Was Right”:
Full Story: Think Progress » Only 18 Percent Of Texans Think Rep. Joe ‘I’m Sorry BP’ Barton Was Right To Apologize.
UT GOP Candidate Mike Lee Wants Low Liability Cap For Oil Companies, Even If It Places ‘Taxpayers On The Hook’
On Friday, U.S. Senate candidate Mike Lee (R-UT) sat down with the Salt Lake Tribune’s Robert Gehrke for a wide-ranging interview. With the help of corporate front groups like the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, Lee and businessman Tim Bridgewater defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) in the Republican primary convention over a month ago. Libertarian leader Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), as well as RedState, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and others have endorsed Lee over Bridgewater for the run-off election, which will be held today.
Lee was asked by the Tribune if he supported efforts, such as the one by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), to raise the liability cap for oil companies from the current $75 million to at least $10 billion. Lee’s response was a blunt, “no,” followed later by an explanation that the minuscule $75 million cap was part of a “set of settled expectations that you give to a business when it decides to make an investment.” Lee said it would be a “mistake” to raise the liability cap for companies like BP and Anadarko, even if maintaining the status quo leaves “taxpayers on the hook for part of the damage”:
SL TRIBUNE: Currently there’s a cap on liabilities that BP is expected to pay $75 million dollars. There’s legislation that Bill Nelson sponsored to increase that liability to $10 billion dollars. The oil companies say that will put them out of business. Is that something you would be supportive of, increasing that cap on liability for environmental damage?
MIKE LEE: No.
SL TRIBUNE: Why is that?
OPS: Idiot.
‘Shadow RNC’ attack group raises only $200 last month.
Disgruntled with perceived mismanagement by Chairman Michael Steele, Republican consultants Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie founded a network of right-wing attack groups to rival the power of the Republican National Committee. The “shadow RNC” consists of organizations like American Crossroads, a 527 to run campaign ads and the American Action Forum, a Wall Street-funded clearinghouse for pro-corporate ads and events. While Gillespie promised to raise $50 million dollars for his new venture, the Politico points to disclosures which reveal a far more modest haul:
The group, American Crossroads, raised only $200 last month, according to a report it filed Monday with the Internal Revenue Service, bringing its total raised since launching in March to a little more than $1.25 million. [...] Trevor Rees-Jones, president of Chief Oil and Gas, a privately held energy company in Dallas, in April contributed $1 million to American Crossroads while B. Wayne Hughes of Lexington, Ky., the chairman of Public Storage, contributed $250,000 in March.
Full Story: Think Progress » ‘Shadow RNC’ attack group raises only $200 last month..
Angle Calls Unemployed ‘Spoiled,’ Says Senators Are ‘Not In Business Of Creating Jobs’
Sharron Angle, the GOP Nevada Senate candidate and tea party favorite, has had a rough start to her general campaign to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). After facing criticism for wanting to privatize Social Security, Angle tried to “weasel her way out by calling it “personalization.” An Angle aide called a reporter an “idiot” for asking about Angle’s suggestion that “Second Amendment remedies” might be used to soothe voter anger.
Adding to her troubles, Angle said in an interview with a local Nevada affiliate that the country’s unemployed are “spoiled“:
ANGLE: You can make more money on unemployment then you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but [] doesn’t pay as much. And so that’s what’s happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said “you don’t want the jobs that are available.”
And in a campaign appearance last month, the GOP Senate nominee said she has no interest in bringing jobs to her state:
Full Story: Think Progress » Angle Calls Unemployed ‘Spoiled,’ Says Senators Are ‘Not In Business Of Creating Jobs’.
Oil And Gas Industry-Funded GOP Rep Can’t Give Safety Assurances For Lifting Drilling Moratorium
Today, a federal district court judge with financial investments in the oil industry ruled against the Obama administration’s 6-month moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling, which the President issued in the wake BP’s Gulf oil spill to ensure that future drilling is safe and environmentally sound. The White House has said it will appeal the decision.
Last week, Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) decided to take the legislative route, introducing a bill in the House to lift the moratorium, saying it “is turning a tragedy into a nightmare.” He called it a “job-killing policy” because it will cause, he said, “other oil rich nations to move their rig operations overseas.” But last night on Fox News, when host Greta Van Susteren asked Olson if he could guarantee that the rigs effected by the moratorium have been “inspected” and are “safe,” Olson dodged, citing the “history of drilling” and the economy:
Full Story: Think Progress » Oil And Gas Industry-Funded GOP Rep Can’t Give Safety Assurances For Lifting Drilling Moratorium.
Morning Joe hosts: Giuliani’s ‘baseless lies’ on spill left us stunned
MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski accused former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of coming on the show last week to “vomit out complete, baseless lies.”
Appearing on the show last Thursday, Giuliani claimed that the Obama administration had not talked with oil industry experts about how to stop the leaking well.
But Brzezinski said Monday the former New York mayor did not have his facts straight and initially left the hosts “stunned.”
“I’m glad there’s someone on the set who is actually asking questions when people come and vomit out complete and baseless lies on our set,” Brzezinski said of herself. “I’m sorry but that was so over the top, and we sat there like stunned in silence because it was so untrue because we could not believe it.”
She added, “But it was not true.”
Full Story: Morning Joe hosts: Giuliani’s ‘baseless lies’ on spill left us stunned | Raw Story.
Barbour backtracks on opposition to BP escrow account: ‘I think the President was smart.’
Last week, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) complained about a proposed escrow account that BP will fund in order to pay out claims resulting from its oil spill. Barbour claimed that it would cause BP to lose profits. “[I]t bothers me to talk about causing an escrow to be made,” he said, adding, “which makes it less likely that they’ll make the income that they need to pay us.” But yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press, when host David Gregory asked Barbour why he opposed the account now that the oil giant has agreed to pay into it, Barbour changed his mind:
BARBOUR: Right, well, I thought that they were talking about taking $20 billion from BP all at once and my fear was if you took $20 billion from them all at once, put it in an escrow account then they wouldn’t have the working capital to generate the revenue to pay us. I think the President was smart, and I congratulate him and BP that they reached an agreement on. Instead of $20 billion taken out of that working capital all at once, it’s actually going to be $5 billion this year, $5 billion the next year, $5 billion the following year and $5 billion the fourth year.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Barbour backtracks on opposition to BP escrow account: ‘I think the President was smart.’.
Tea Party Confessional Runs In Playboy
The new Playboy magazine has an anonymous confessional from a K Street consultant who lifts the curtain on many of the politically crafty, somewhat seedy underpinnings of the Tea Party movement.
The article has not received much attention. But its contents, if true, are illustrative and fascinating. The consultant, who doesn’t identify for whom he actually works, paints a picture of a movement that has strength in its legions of followers outside the Beltway but harnesses its power from the “black arts” of politicking.
Among the author’s various claims are the following:
* Tea Party strategists have “quietly acquired Service Employees International Union shirts to wear at Tea Party rallies,” which he or she describes as the equivalent of “handing out TSA uniforms in Kabul.”
* Sarah Palin isn’t the leader of the movement. Big Government’s Andrew Breitbart is. “Breitbart is one of them, except smarter, better connected and angrier; compared with him, Palin is Las Vegas dinner theater. That’s why he is loved by Tea Partyers in a way Palin can never hope to be loved.”
* Actual elected officials are bowing down to the Tea Party throng in
Full Story: Tea Party Confessional Runs In Playboy.
Top Republicans Offer BP Apologies, Tips to Avoid Accountability
It was BP that provided unsound information about the crisis and its aftermath, creating a false sense that the spill could be more easily contained than was reasonable to imagine.
It was BP that tried to prevent monitoring of the spill that so threatens the Gulf Coast and the environments and economies of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
So now that President Obama is getting a little tougher on the company—and it should be emphasized that the White House remains far too cautious a player—who are key Republicans in Congress feeling sorry for?
BP.
Full Story: Top Republicans Offer BP Apologies, Tips to Avoid Accountability | The Nation.
School Says Representative Kirk Never Taught There
A leader of the church in upstate New York where Representative Mark S. Kirk of Illinois claims he worked as a nursery school teacher said on Friday that he had overstated his role there.
The leader, Sally Grubb, a member of the administrative council at Forest Home Chapel, a Methodist church in Ithaca, N.Y., said Mr. Kirk had a limited role while working part-time as a student in a work-study program at Cornell University.
“He was never, ever considered a teacher,” Ms. Grubb said in a phone interview after spending two days researching the history of Mr. Kirk’s association with the nursery school. “He was just an additional pair of hands to help a primary teaching person.”
The church has been trying to determine whether Mr. Kirk worked there after The New York Times reported on Thursday about the brevity of Mr. Kirk’s teaching experience. Mr. Kirk, a five-term congressman, is the Republican nominee in Illinois for the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama.
Full Story: School Says Representative Kirk Never Taught There – NYTimes.com.
If GOP wins House, Obama’s ‘chief antagonist’ aims to be ’subpoena machine’
According to a Politico report, “Rep. Darrell Issa, the conservative firebrand whose specialty is lobbing corruption allegations at the Obama White House, is making plans to hire dozens of subpoena-wielding investigators if Republicans win the House this fall.”
The California Republican’s daily denunciations draw cheers from partisans and bookings from cable TV producers. He even bought his own earphone for live shots. But his bombastic style and attention-seeking investigations draw eye rolls from other quarters. Now, he’s making clear he won’t be so easy to shrug off if he becomes chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in 2011.
Issa has told Republican leadership that if he becomes chairman, he wants to roughly double his staff from 40 to between 70 and 80. And he is not subtle about what that means for President Barack Obama.
Full Story: If GOP wins House, Obama’s ‘chief antagonist’ aims to be ’subpoena machine’ | Raw Story.
After Blaming Dems For ‘Spending Money We Don’t Have,’ Rubio Faces Foreclosure On House He Can’t Afford
Across the country, homeowners have been facing foreclosure after seeing their payments on adjustable mortgages increase while housing prices fell. According to the Palm Beach Post, this problem has even afflicted the Republican senate candidate in Florida, Marco Rubio.
Rubio is reportedly facing foreclosure on a Tallahassee home that he co-owns with David Rivera, a Florida state lawmaker. The duo “stopped making payments in February after a dispute about the amount [of the mortgage payment] once the interest-only period ended.” Rubio’s campaign has claimed that the issue has “been resolved,” even though documents do not show that the foreclosure process has been halted.
Rubio, of course, is basing his entire campaign on his version of fiscal conservatism, and has repeatedly criticized the Obama administration (as well as Republicans) for spending money that it doesn’t have:
Eric Cantor’s financial disclosures reveal that he bets against U.S. Treasury bonds.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) has often expressed concern for how Obama administration policies are supposedly a “grave danger to America’s prosperity.” Now, the Wall Street Journal finds that Cantor actually invests in an exchange-traded fund that “takes a short position in long-dated government bonds” — effectively betting against the U.S. Treasury bonds that the government uses to fund its operations:
[Cantor], the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, bought up to $15,000 in shares of ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF last December, according to his 2009 financial disclosure statement. The exchange-traded fund takes a short position in long-dated government bonds. In effect, it is a bet against U.S. government bonds — and perhaps on inflation in the future.
Full Story: Think Progress » Eric Cantor’s financial disclosures reveal that he bets against U.S. Treasury bonds..
As Barton Apologizes, Senate GOP Continues To Block Measures To Hold BP Accountable
Republicans on Thursday once again blocked the Senate from voting on separate bills designed to hold energy giant BP accountable for the monster oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The action in the Senate came on the same day a senior House Republican also came under fire for apologizing to the fourth-largest corporation on the planet for the federal government’s efforts to force it to take responsibility for disaster, which continues to drain oil into the waters off the Louisiana coast two months after the initial explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) sought to overcome what’s been a weeks-long filibuster of his Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act, once again casting the issue in a single question: “Whose side are you on?”
Full Story: On The Hill: As Barton Apologizes, Senate GOP Continues To Block Measures To Hold BP Accountable.
Mark Kirk’s Teaching Experience Questioned By The New York Times
After Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk was caught “embellishing” several aspects of his military service record, people began looking into other claims Kirk has made about his history–and discovering some serious inconsistencies.
On Wednesday, the New York Times published a story examining Kirk’s teaching experience, which he has touted in campaign ads and on the House floor. Reporter Jeff Zeleny explains that Kirk has been less than forthcoming about how brief his teaching experience was, and had trouble confirming his alleged employment at a New York nursery school.
The Times reports (emphasis added):
Full Story: Mark Kirk’s Teaching Experience Questioned By The New York Times.
BP ‘shakedown’ remark sets off US political furor
A US lawmaker kicked off a political storm Thursday and embarrassed his own Republican party by apologizing to BP chief Tony Hayward for what he termed a White House “shakedown.”
“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday,” Joe Barton told Hayward during a congressional hearing, referring to the fact that BP bosses summoned to a meeting with US President Barack Obama had then agreed to set up an oil spill disaster fund.
“I apologize,” said the Texas representative. “It is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a 20-billion-dollar shakedown.”
Full Story: BP ‘shakedown’ remark sets off US political furor – Yahoo! News.
OPS: more proof that republicans actually hate Americans.
Limbaugh’s solution to childhood hunger: Kids should ‘dumpster dive’ | Raw Story
Rush Limbaugh believes he knows why 16 million American schoolchildren will go hungry this summer, and it has nothing to do with soaring job losses or endemic poverty — the problem is kids can’t find their refrigerator or the local neighborhood McDonald’s.
Responding to an article Wednesday at AOL.com that reports 16 million children will go hungry this summer once free or subsidized school lunches are no longer available, Limbaugh suggested he would run a daily feature on his radio show all summer entitled “Where to find food.”
And, of course, the first will be: “Try your house.” It’s a thing called the refrigerator. You probably already know about it. Try looking there. There are also things in what’s called the kitchen of your house called cupboards. And in those cupboards, most likely you’re going to find Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, Lays ridgy potato chips, all kinds of dips and maybe a can of corn that you don’t want, but it will be there. If that doesn’t work, try a Happy Meal at McDonald’s….
Full Story: Limbaugh’s solution to childhood hunger: Kids should ‘dumpster dive’ | Raw Story.
Barbour Is Concerned That Escrow Account Will Cut Into BP’s Profits: ‘It Bothers Me’
The Obama administration announced this week that it wants BP to transfer “substantial” funds to an escrow account overseen by an independent third party that will handle claims from individuals and businesses affected by the company’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “We need to make sure that the interests of people in the Gulf are protected,” senior White House adviser David Axelrod said on Sunday. Congressional Democrats have asked BP to create a $20 billion fund.
Sticking with the “Obama is a socialist” meme, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) called the account a “redistribution of wealth fund.” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) also thinks it is a bad idea. Although he noted on Fox News last night that BP is “saying that they have the ability to pay and that they will pay,” Barbour expressed concern that BP will lose some profits:
BARBOUR: If BP is the responsible party under the law, they’re to pay for everything. I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income. … But this escrow bothers me that it’s going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us. And that concerns me. … [I]t bothers me to talk about causing an escrow to be made, which will — which makes it less likely that they’ll make the income that they need to pay us.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Barbour Is Concerned That Escrow Account Will Cut Into BP’s Profits: ‘It Bothers Me’.
After meeting with Sharron Angle, Sen. Johnny Isakson refers to Nevada voters as ‘the unwashed back home.’
Yesterday, Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle “introduced herself to a very curious Senate Republican Conference” at their weekly caucus lunch. Apparently, the “Republicans walked away impressed.” “I hadn’t met her. I was impressed by what she had to say, and she did interact with several of our Members,” Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told Roll Call. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) said she “did a good job” and gave the kind of speech she wouldn’t “give to the unwashed back home”:
Republicans, who heard Angle’s presentation were, to a letter, impressed. “She said she won, she needed money, and wanted to be a part of the team and was glad to be here today,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA, who said Ensign also showed a recent Rasmussen poll showing Angle up 11 points against Reid. “She did a good job. She’s an articulate lady…This was an introduction. It wasn’t the kind of speech you would give to the unwashed back home, she was talking to her colleagues,” Isakson recounted.
GOP congressional candidate: The federal government and BP colluded to spill oil in the Gulf.
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, disgraced FEMA director Michael Brown went on Fox News and claimed that the Obama administration wanted the devastating oil spill as an excuse to backtrack on its offshore drilling plan. Around the same time, Rush Limbaugh unleashed a conspiracy theory suggesting that someone intentionally blew up the rig in order to “head off more oil drilling.” After widespread mockery and criticism, these types of oil spill truthers have largely gone quiet. Now, however, Bill Randall, who’s competing to be the GOP nominee in a congressional race in North Carolina and identifies with the Tea Party movement, is going even further by saying that the federal government and BP worked together to spill oil:
“Now, I’m not necessarily a conspiracy person, but I don’t think enough investigation has been done on this,” Randall said at a media conference on Tuesday. “Someone needs to be digging into that situation. Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don’t know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company violating a safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak.
Full Story: Think Progress » GOP congressional candidate: The federal government and BP colluded to spill oil in the Gulf..
After making ‘American English’ the official language of Texas, GOP recruits Latinos in Spanish.
This weekend, delegates of the Texas Republican Party voted to include a provision in their state party platform advocating for an immigration law similar to Arizona’s SB-1070. The platform also proposes “making American English the official language of Texas and the United States.” Nonetheless, the first video of a YouTube campaign aimed at attracting more Latinos to the party that was launched yesterday…in Spanish.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » After making ‘American English’ the official language of Texas, GOP recruits Latinos in Spanish..
Paul On Mountaintop Removal: ‘I Don’t Think Anyone’s Going To Be Missing A Hill Or Two Here And There’
One of the themes of U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul’s (R-KY) campaign has been that businesses are burdened with overregulation, with Paul even decrying the anti-discrimination provisions imposed on private businesses in the Civil Rights Act.
Now, Crooks and Liars has unearthed an interview Rand Paul gave in 2009 where the candidate aired these strident views with respect to mountaintop removal. When asked about the environmentally disastrous process, Paul told the interviewer that he thinks “whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine.” To justify his hands-off approach to environmental regulation, Paul then went on to explain that mountaintop removal isn’t that bad, anyway, saying, “I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there”:
INTERVIEWER: What about mountaintop removal?
PAUL: I think whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine. The other thing I think is that I think coal gets a bad name, because I think a lot of the land apparently is quite desirable once it’s been flattened out. As I came over here from Harlan, you’ve got quite a few hills. I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there.
Watch it:
Rep. Broun says clean energy legislation will cause southerners to die from hyperthermia.
Late last week, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) went to the floor of the House to slam clean energy legislation. As part of his bizarre rant against a progressive energy bill, the congressman said that, as a result of the bill, people throughout the “southeast and southwest” who “depend on air condition just to live” will no longer be able to afford it. Broun went on to claim that these people will then go into hyperthermia, where their body temperatures skyrocket, and then “people are gonna die because of that”:
BROUN: A lot of old people in Georgia and Florida and all out through the southeast and southwest they’re depending upon air condition just to live. And if their electricity goes sky high, and the energy bill is gonna make that happen if it ever passes. And a lot of people aren’t gonna be able to afford to run their air condition anymore. And a lot of people are gonna have a hard time with, hyperthermia is what we call in medicine as a medical doctor, their body temperature is gonna go up. They’re gonna get dehydration and people are gonna have a lot of problems and it’s gonna have a greater impact on our health care system and people are gonna die because of that. And it’s gonna kill jobs too.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Rep. Broun says clean energy legislation will cause southerners to die from hyperthermia..
Operator At BP Call Center Says Company Never Does Anything With The Calls: We’re Just A ‘Diversion’
To demonstrate that it’s responsibly taking care of the oil spill and listening to public complaints, BP has touted the fact that it has set up call centers to handle the response. However, one of the operators at the BP Call Center in West Houston has revealed that she and the other 100 employees are just PR props; BP isn’t actually doing anything with the thousands of calls it receives:
“We take all your information and then we have nothing to give them, nothing to give them,” said Janice.
Janice said calls about the oil disaster are non-stop and that operators are just warm bodies on the other end of the phone.
“We’re a diversion to stop them from really getting to the corporate office, to the big people,” said Janice. … Because the operators believe the calls never get past them, some don’t even bother taking notes.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Operator At BP Call Center Says Company Never Does Anything With The Calls: We’re Just A ‘Diversion’.
After Balancing His Budget With The Stimulus, Perry Again Says He’ll Reject Federal Funding
When the economic recovery act (i.e. the stimulus) was initially passed, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) garnered a lot of headlines and the adoration of conservatives for loudly proclaiming that he would reject a portion of the funding meant to help states extend unemployment benefits. Though Perry was eventually forced by the Texas state legislature to accept the funding, he continued to rail against it.
Perry’s blustering belied the fact that Texas was only able to balance its budget because of the Recovery Act. And now that Congress is contemplating a tax extenders package that includes $24 billion to aid states with their Medicaid costs, Perry is up to his old tricks:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who was one of six governors who considered turning down stimulus dollars last year, may also reject the new round of funds. Perry’s office said Washington’s push for more spending was exacerbating healthcare problems. “This temporary [Medicaid] proposal, like their new health care bill, spends money they don’t have,” Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said.
Full Story: Think Progress » After Balancing His Budget With The Stimulus, Perry Again Says He’ll Reject Federal Funding.
Michael Bloomberg: Leave BP Alone!
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of the Bloomberg Bloombergs, thinks that everyone is being unnecessarily hard on BP, and hopes that we can all avoid a “rush to judgment.” Per the New York Post:
The billionaire former CEO mayor is known for defending private businesses dealing with public relations problems. Friday was no different.
Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show that the head of British Petroleum “didn’t exactly go down there and blow up the well.”
Full Story: Michael Bloomberg: Leave BP Alone!.
Tea Party and FreedomWorks plan demonstration against mandatory trash collection.
The tea party movement and their corporate-funded astroturf backers at FreedomWorks often claim to be fighting “big government.” For instance, FreedomWorks complained that the individual mandate in the new health care law was an “unacceptable, unconscionable, … complete perversion of the liberties our founders fought and died to protect.” Now, local chapters of the tea party and FreedomWorks are collaborating to plan a protest in Gwinnet County, Georgia, to voice their latest grievance against government powers — mandatory home trash collection:
Three political activist groups are joining together Saturday to protest Gwinnett County’s new trash plan, which begins July 1. The Four Corners Tea Party, FreedomWorks Gwinnett and Gwinnett Citizens for Responsible Government have organized the protest, which will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the gazebo next to the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse on the Lawrenceville square. [...]
“It’s our way of letting the commissioners know we remember their vote and we’re not going to forget it,” said Debbie Dooley, a Dacula resident and the Georgia grassroots coordinator for FreedomWorks. “We want to make sure they are held accountable for their vote.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Tea Party and FreedomWorks plan demonstration against mandatory trash collection..
OPS: Ideology trumps everything – even survival
More than half the members of the GOP’s ‘Young Guns’ program are eligible for AARP membership.
The National Republican Congressional Committee often touts its “Young Guns” program, an initiative “dedicated to identifying, recruiting, and mobilizing a new generation of conservative leaders.” But as the Daily Beast points out, this fresh-faced group really isn’t that young:
In fact, the current crop of the 22 Young Guns looks very much like the old generation of conservative leaders. These upstarts together average an age of 49.6 years old — two months shy of the average age of new members who joined Congress in 2008. And those current reps are no spring chickens themselves. According to one analysis, the 111th Congress is the oldest, on average, of any since 1907.
Full Story: Think Progress » More than half the members of the GOP’s ‘Young Guns’ program are eligible for AARP membership..
Rove Says Obama Should Hear From Academics On Oil Spill, Then Complains He Is Surrounded By Academics
In his latest Wall Street Journal column, Karl Rove drudges out the old 2008 campaign attack on President Obama’s “present” votes as a state senator in Illinois, and wittily remarks that Obama “may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present” in dealing with BP’s oil spill.
On Fox News last night, Rove discussed the column and advised Obama to get ideas from academics around the country on dealing with the oil disaster:
ROVE: So why has he not met with industry experts to say, Explain to me what we ought to be doing? And if he doesn’t want to meet with people in the oil industry, then you — there are plenty of very smart petroleum engineering professors in America’s great colleges and universities he could meet with. [...]
McCain Pretends That He Now Opposes The DREAM Act For ‘Humanitarian’ Reasons
One of the areas where Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) veer to the far right in his struggle for re-election has been the most apparent is on immigration. In 2003, 2005, and 2007, for example, McCain co-sponsored the DREAM Act, which would provide provide undocumented high school graduates a path to legal residency and the chance to attend college.
McCain now opposes the DREAM Act. This shift came while he was running for president. In 2007, he skipped a vote on this legislation, which he had co-sponsored earlier in the year, and said he would probably have voted “against it in its present form.” Yesterday in an interview with KTAR, McCain reiterated his opposition to the DREAM Act, trying to argue that his stance of securing the border first was more “humane” because it would fully address the “human tragedy”:
Full Story: Think Progress » McCain Pretends That He Now Opposes The DREAM Act For ‘Humanitarian’ Reasons.
10 Things That Terrify Right-Wingers
These are some of the things that keep American conservatives awake at night.
Modern American conservatism is based on an almost endless series of grievances. Author Thomas Frank coined a term for it: the conservative “plenty-plaint” — a long and ever-evolving list of personal and cultural gripes dressed up as an ideology.
But there’s also fear! And while it spans the breadth of the movement, this is the year of the Tea Party revolt, when the grassroots right, disgusted with the idea of semi-affordable health-care and tepid financial reforms is rebelling against even its own establishment. And the divide between the grassroots base and its leadership extends to the very fears that animate them. As we’ll see, the conservative movement’s business-attired hacks and the hard-right Tea Party types waving misspelled signs out in the streets have some very different causes for alarm.
So, here are ten of the most interesting things that absolutely terrify Wingnuttia. First, a few terrors of the real hard-core Right. For the Tea Partier, the midterm GOP primary voter, it’s not just the anxiety over social change that typifies more traditional conservatism. A broad chunk of the GOP base today is animated by wildly unrealistic terrors — monsters stalking them as the sun sets, perhaps hovering just beyond their peripheral vision.
1. Government Concentration Camps
Full Story: 10 Things That Terrify Right-Wingers | News & Politics | AlterNet.
Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon has a message for Sen. David Vitter: you’re a liar.
Offshore Drilling Halt Puts Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon In Tough Spot
Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon has a message for Sen. David Vitter: you’re a liar.
Melancon, a Democratic congressman from the state’s third district who is vying capture Vitter’s Senate seat, said exactly that about his opponent this week after Vitter asserted that Melancon supports the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling.
“He’s out there doing what David Vitter does all the time and that is lying,” Melancon said during a conference-call-turned-vitriolic-rant on Wednesday. “First, he sent out a solicitation which was a lie. Second, he started robocalling people around the state basically perpetuating the same lie… I want it out that David Vitter is doing another David Vitter!”
Full Story: Offshore Drilling Halt Puts Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon In Tough Spot.
House GOP Targets Underwater Homeowners
GOP Congressman: Unemployment Benefits Keep People From Looking For Work
The House GOP launched an assault Thursday on homeowners who walk away from underwater mortgages, arguing that such foreclosed-on former homeowners are using the money they save to dine out and go on cruises.
“The Wall Street Journal has reported on families that have chosen to stop paying their mortgage and instead use the extra money they are saving each month to 'buy season tickets to Disneyland…take a Carnival cruise to Mexico…' and go out to dinner more often,” says House Republican leadership in an e-mail to colleagues explaining the anti-strategic-default effort.
In other words, consumers with more money tend to spend it, spurring demand — exactly what the economy needs. More than a few economists argue that the ongoing jobless crisis is a direct result of a lack of consumer demand. A homeowner stuck in an underwater mortgage is, each month, paying off a mortgage that is worth more than their home. The increased cost of housing means that money that could otherwise could be circulated through the economy – at restaurants, Disneyland, or on cruises, for instance – is sent off to Wall Street, whose profits have been soaring despite the economic downturn.
Full Story: House Targets Underwater Homeowners.
Former Bush Official Josh Bolten Advising BP On How To ‘Defend Its Interests’ And Restore Its Reputation
BP has embarked on an aggressive campaign to repair its public image in the wake of its disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It has repeatedly run full-page ads in major newspapers, retained high-powered lobbying and public relations firms, and launched a series of television ads with CEO Tony Hayward looking apologetic. The company has even hired Anne Womack-Kolton, a former top aide to Vice President Cheney, to be its new spokesperson.
Now, joining Womack-Kolton in helping BP repair its image is former chief of staff to President Bush, Josh Bolten:
The former European Commission president Romano Prodi is understood to be assisting BP in its attempt to restore its battered reputation in the United States.
