rest http://gawker.com/5528762/its-the-seventh-anniversary-of-mission-accomplished-today
Saturday, May 1, 2010
If We Broke Up Standard Oil, We Can Break Up the Giant Banks
If we broke up standard oil, we can break up the giant banks.
Says who?
Senator Ted Kaufman (interviewed recently by The American Prospect's Tim Fernholz):
You and Senator Sherrod Brown have proposed an amendment that would cap the size of the largest banks and, in effect, break them up. How do you sell this to people who are leery of what seems like a radical move?
First off, we've broken up things before. We broke up Standard Oil, we broke up AT&T, we broke up the accountants, too. A lot of the changes we're talking about, the mergers, are just new. When you look at the reasons these banks are so big -- and you know how big they are -- remember the reason JP Morgan Chase is so big is because they bought Washington Mutual when it was in trouble, and Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, and Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch [during the crisis]. It is pretty straightforward, now that these are back on their feet, that it makes sense to break them up.
rest at http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/04/if-we-broke-up-standard-oil-we-can.html
Gulf oil spill triples in size overnight; unimaginable environmental catastrophe looms
The surface area of a catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill quickly tripled in size amid growing fears among experts that the slick could become vastly more devastating than it seemed just two days ago.
Frustrated fishermen eager to help contain the spill from a ruptured underwater well had to keep their boats idle Saturday as another day of rough seas kept crews away from the slick.
President Barack Obama planned a Sunday trip to the Gulf Coast to see the damage.
As Rachel Maddow has explored, this is going to have an impact on coastal life reminiscent of Katrina -- all bad. Indeed, with no end of the pollution in sight, and the spill having reached such massive size already, it's conceivable that not only will the entire Gulf of Mexico, and all its coastal areas, be rendered lifeless and unusable for generations, but that the entire Eastern Seaboard will be awash with oil as well.
rest http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/gulf-oil-spill-triples-size-overnigh
Chicago congressman U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez arrested at D.C. rally
The congressman was among 35 activists detained for failing to move from a sidewalk outside the White House.
"They were asked to move by park police and they did not and they were asked again a couple more times, then they started arresting folks," said Douglas Rivlin, a Gutierrez spokesman.
Rivlin said the protesters were taken in plastic handcuffs by U.S. Park Police and transported by bus to a processing center, where they were booked. Gutierrez was released around 7pm Eastern, Rivlin said.
Teachers With Foreign Accents Banned in Arizona Schools
photo: Edu-Tourist via Flickr
It's just beyond comprehension: Arizona has moved to eliminate ethnic studies courses and to purge schools of teachers with accents.
From the first article:
… Arizona's new immigration law is just about crime, its supporters say, but given that the state's new education policy equates ethnic studies programs with high treason, they may not be using the commonly accepted definition of "crime."
Under the ban, sent to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer by the state legislature Thursday, schools will lose state funding if they offer any courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."
As ThinkProgress notes, the Tucson Unified School District's popular Mexican-American studies department is the target here. The state superintendent charges that the program exhibits "ethnic chauvinism." …
It is particularly sickening that an education policy regime now based on white "nativist" racial hatred would accuse a Mexican-American studies department of "ethnic chauvinism".
An Unfolding Catastrophe in the Gulf
Awaiting Disaster courtesy Quantum Physics (flickr)
The underwater gusher dropping 200,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day continues unabated, and the unprecedented nature of the incident, basically an undersea volcano spitting oil out from a mile deep, makes it impossible to predict when it will ever be mitigated.
The problem with the April 20 spill is that it isn't really a spill: It's a gush, like an underwater oil volcano. A hot column of oil and gas is spurting into freezing, black waters nearly a mile down, where the pressure nears a ton per inch, impossible for divers to endure. Experts call it a continuous, round-the-clock calamity, unlike a leaking tanker, which might empty in hours or days.
"Everything about it is unprecedented," said geochemist Christopher Reddy, an oil-spill expert and head of the Coastal Ocean Institute at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "All our knowledge is based on a one-shot event…. With this, we don't know when it's going to stop." [...]
To BP falls the daunting task of trying to stop the gush before it becomes the most damaging spill in American history. If the flow is not stopped, it will exhaust the natural reservoir of oil beneath the sea floor, experts say. Many months, at least, could pass.
You can basically say goodbye to oil drilling in the Gulf at this point because it's about to all be gone, skimming to the surface and heading for shore. And this cleanup, far from the simple process claimed by shills for the oil industry, will take years if not decades.
rest http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/05/01/an-unfolding-catastrophe-in-the-gulf/
Shades of Katrina in oil spill politics W.H. steps up efforts to respond to oil spill
Even before the spilled oil reaches shore, the political game of assigning credit and blame is in full swing.
The White House Saturday stepped up its efforts to respond to the Gulf Coast oil slick now within days of making landfall in Mississippi and Alabama – designating a new incident commander, introducing a new website detailing their efforts and announcing President Barack Obama himself would visit the Gulf Coast on Sunday.
Republicans have tried to brand the oil spill "Obama's Katrina," as talker Rush Limbaugh put it Friday – a label they also tried to attach to the U.S. rescue efforts after the Haiti earthquake – and the administration has stepped up its efforts in recent days to demonstrate its command of the situation.
"The way we play politics right now, anytime something like this comes up the opposition is going to run it up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin. "And if they don't, everyone moves on and if they do, well, then the administration has got a problem."
Anthem Backs Off On Huge Rate Increase; Blames 'Flawed' Data
Wow. Good thing we had that independent audit, because otherwise we'd accidentally be paying all that extra money to Anthem Blue Cross for no good reason!
LOS ANGELES — Insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross withdrew plans to raise health insurance rates for Californians by as much as 39 percent after an independent audit determined the company's justification for raising premiums was based on flawed data, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said Thursday.
Omigod! We should have known it was just a mistake...
Anthem said separately it will file a new application for a rate increase with the California Department of Insurance and the Department of Managed Health Care, perhaps as early as next month. It added that any errors in its original application were inadvertent.
"The current application that was withdrawn today was just flawed," Poizner said during a conference call with reporters. He added that it contained mathematical errors and in some instances double counting of data.
rest http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/anthem-backs-huge-rate-increase-blame
Bill Maher Slams Obama, Oil Companies After Gulf Coast Oil Spill (VIDEO)
Bill Maher slammed President Obama Friday for supporting a repeal of the moratorium on offshore oil drilling.
During the panel segment on "Real Time," Maher pointed to the Gulf Coast oil spill and wondered why less than a month ago, President Obama proposed lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling along much of the East Coast.
While the president's proposal was part of a larger climate bill, for Maher, it was an unecessary concession to Republicans.
"I understand politics is the art of the compromise and all that," Maher said. "But you know, when you compromise on something like that, that's a bridge too far to me, as a supporter."
He went on to compare oil companies to banks that were too big to fail and suggested higher taxes for oil companies that will reflect the real cost of oil.
rest at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/01/bill-maher-slams-obama-oi_n_559596.html
Spain’s ‘Desempleo’ Rate at 20%
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/spains_desempleo_rate_at_20_20100501/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines
With all the focus on domestic unemployment rates we sometimes forget of the international impact the economic crisis—which originated in the U.S.—has affected other countries. Official figures in Spain, for example, show that that country's unemployment rate has hit 20 percent, the highest in the eurozone. —JCL
The BBC:
Spain's unemployment rate has hit 20% for the first time in nearly 13 years, official figures have shown.
There were 4,612,700 people unemployed in the country at the end of March, the national statistics agency INE said.
Spain's jobless rate has risen sharply during the economic downturn and is the highest in the eurozone.
Meanwhile, official European Union (EU) figures showed that the eurozone unemployment rate remained unchanged at 10% in March.
Thank Dick Cheney and His Meetings With Oil Industry Execs for Lack of Safeguards on Oil Rigs
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/papantonio-thank-dick-cheney-and-his-meeti
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As Karoli already noted, Halliburton has been tied to the Deepwater Horizon spill. Mike Papantonio implicated Dick Cheney as well on Ed Schultz's show. As Papantonio pointed out and The Wall Street Journal reported, the Leaking Oil Well Lacked [a] Safeguard Device:
The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.
The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.
...U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.
...The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.
...An acoustic trigger costs about $500,000, industry officials said. The Deepwater Horizon had a replacement cost of about $560 million, and BP says it is spending $6 million a day to battle the oil spill. On Wednesday, crews set fire to part of the oil spill in an attempt to limit environmental damage.
Some major oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC and France's Total SA, sometimes use the device even where regulators don't call for it. Read on...
Papantonio laid the blame squarely in Dick Cheney's lap and said this was one of the deregulations of the energy industry that was negotiated during his secret meetings with oil industry and other energy executives during George Bush's first term in office and called this the biggest under-reported aspect of this disaster. It would be nice if the media would look into this and start asking some more questions about why these companies were allowed not to have this last resort safeguard. I'm not holding my breath with most of them but maybe we'll see more information on this from the likes of Amy Goodman, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.
In the mean time most of the media is busy repeating the GOP talking point that this is "Obama's Katrina" like Mrs. Greenspan and Grandpa Pat on MSNBC.
h/t ericlewis0 at Daily KOS for the WSJ link.
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Shows Disastrous Legacy of Halliburton and the Real Cost of the Oil Era
Oil is a dirty business. It's not just the politics of oil, which are dirty enough by themselves -- it's also the environmental toll of the substance. Even when used correctly, its chemical byproducts cause air pollution and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But the real mess comes when things go terribly wrong -- much like what happened recently when the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank to the ocean floor off the coast of Louisiana. This set in motion a chain of disastrous events that are only now beginning to unfold. Nearly 50% of the seafood consumed by Americans comes from the Gulf of Mexico, by the way. That explains why seafood contains such an alarmingly high concentration of mercury as well as industrial chemicals -- because the Gulf of Mexico is America's toilet where every toxic chemical, heavy metal and pharmaceutical that's flushed down the drain ends up getting dumped. No wonder the Gulf of Mexico is home to one of the planet's largest ocean "dead zones" -- over 6,000 square miles of dead water where fish can't even survive. And that was before the oil spill. Now, thanks to a creeping oil slick that's approaching shorelines throughout the gulf, the breeding grounds for a huge number of marine species is now threatened. Species from pelicans to shrimp are likely to be devastated by this oil slick.
rest http://www.naturalnews.com/028693_Gulf_of_Mexico_Halliburton.html
rest http://www.naturalnews.com/028693_Gulf_of_Mexico_Halliburton.html
Boehner Wants Credit 4Passing Health Care Reform & Promises To Repeal It When He's Speaker
One of the most peculiar stories in yesterday's news cycle made me wonder if John Boehner really does spend all his time on the golf course-- 119 or 120 days in 2009 (there is a raging dispute over the exact number of days he did no work for his Ohio constituents). After hearing him on NPR trying, rather desperately, to take credit for the healthcare reform he never ceased demonizing and obstructing, I started wondering if maybe the golf thing is just a cover for severe alcoholism. Maybe he was out for those 119 or 120 days drinking with notorious lush Duncan Hunter, Jr. Actually, while he was claiming credit, he was also predicting that the GOP would win 100 seats in November (which, unless you're drunk, is actually the equivalent of a net loss of 77 seats) and then repeal healthcare reform.
rest at http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/05/boehner-wants-credit-for-passing-health.html
Secretive Right-Wing Plutocrats Use Front Groups To Attack New Campaign Finance Disclosure Bill
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/01/koch-rich-donohue/
The status quo of electioneering allows corporate powers, billionaires, and even domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations to essentially manipulate American elections without ever revealing themselves. The DISCLOSE Act is a tremendous start at addressing this crisis of open democracy. But predictably, secretive right-wing power brokers are pushing back. As soon as Van Hollen's bill was introduced, front groups funded by the most elusive conservative elite fired back, swiftly criticizing the new transparency requirements as a so-called threat to their First Amendment rights:
– U.S. Chamber of Commerce: The DISCLOSE Act "stifles free speech." Chamber President Tom Donohue quickly issued a statement condemning the bill as an attempt to "silence constitutionally protected speech and abridge First Amendment rights." Donohue may feel threatened because the DISCLOSE Act undermines the very purpose of the Chamber: to attack progressive reforms while concealing the corporate money behind those attacks. For instance, the Chamber is running millions of dollars of ads against Wall Street reform, but the ads only say paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In fact, some of the nation's largest financial conglomerates, including banks bailed out by taxpayers like CitiGroup, are funding the Chamber and in doing so, are underwriting these ads. Last year, the Chamber ran nearly $100 million dollars in advertising against health reform, dwarfing any other group against or for the bills in Congress. However, the Chamber never revealed that health insurance companies were secretly paying for much of those ads.
– Howie Rich's Front Group: The DISCLOSE Act is "disclosure overkill." The Center for Competitive Politics, one of real estate tycoon Howie Rich's many anti-government front groups, quickly slammed the bill and absurdly argued that the "stand by your ad" mandate "provid[es] no informational benefit and reduc[e] the amount of available political speech" in an ad. This laughable claim that more disclosure gives less information is a cynical cover to help Rich stay behind closed doors as he operates a massive political machine from the perch of his SoHo apartment. Rich funds the right-wing attack group the Club for Growth, as well as the Sam Adams Alliance, the libertarian group that helped Eric Odom mastermind the very first tea party protests. A PBS expose on Rich found that he had funneled $7 million dollars into anti-government state initiatives throughout the country, while carefully hiding his identity and relationship to the "movement."
– David and Charles Koch's Front Group: The DISCLOSE Act is a "gambit to chill speech." John Samples, a staffer at the Cato Institute — an anti-government think-tank founded by Charles Koch and funded still by David Koch — wrote an op-ed decrying the bill for curbing the speech of foreign-owned companies and for exposing the corporate backers of ads. David Koch funds Americans for Prosperity, which runs millions of dollars of attack ads against clean energy and health reform. But Americans for Prosperity bills itself as a grassroots citizens group, and never reveals that the Kochs founded the group and continues to finance it. The Koch brothers also fund a network of other secretive front groups and think tanks, but almost none of these right-wing groups openly bare the Koch name.
Notably, the Cato Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Center for Competitive Politics filed amicus briefs to the Supreme Court to help knock down campaign finance laws in the first place.
The legislation also bars foreign corporations with domestic subsidiaries, federal contractors and TARP recipients who have not repaid their funds from spending their money on politics.
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