Arizona’s harsh new anti-immigration law, SB-1070, has already prompted an “exodus of people — both legal and illegal residents” — from the state. Of more concern, however, is the controversial immigration law’s impact on Arizona’s housing market recovery. Real estate advocates explain that before the housing market crashed, “thousands if not tens of thousands of people who are not legal residents…purchased houses” in Arizona. In Phoenix, AZ, eager lenders “didn’t check documentation” when issuing loans and many people involved in real estate operated on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Although the law has yet to go into effect, there are worries that the increasing departures will have a negative impact on Arizona’s housing market:
“Estimates are that there are several hundred thousand undocumented aliens residing in Arizona,” said Phoenix housing analyst Mike Orr, publisher of the Cromford Report, a daily housing-research report. “If the law has the intended effect and these people do leave, then both population and demand for housing will probably decline.”
Since the state’s employer-sanctions law passed in 2007, [Margie] O’Campo said she’s seen many undocumented homeowners lose homes to foreclosure, either because their lenders won’t work with them or because they can’t sell and want to leave the state. The 2007 law makes it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers in the state.
A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security found that “more than 100,000 illegal immigrants left Arizona in 2008, more than any other state. Metro Phoenix foreclosures and apartment vacancies both jumped that year.”
Today on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) discussed Arizona’s new anti-immigration law and claimed President Obama’s criticism of it demonstrates “that he has a default mechanism in him…that favors the black person.” While majorities of Americans and Arizonans support the new law, King also claimed that even Latinos favor it and that support is only getting stronger, despite “quasi-militant” opposition to the law:
KING: They’re getting stronger there because people understand you’ve got to have the rule of law and, I’ll say, the radical quasi-militant Latinos that are leading this; they are willfully misinforming the American people. And by the way I think that starts right down the line from the President of the United States willfully misinforming the American people, the Attorney General doing the same thing. … [D]o I believe them or do I believe my lying eyes when I read the language and understand that this doesn’t…promoteracial profiling. In fact it prohibits it.
Listen here:
It’s odd that King is somehow concerned about racial profiling now given that just last month he was saying that it “had better be used” to enforce immigration law and combat terrorism. And the Iowa congressman is wrong, Latinos overwhelmingly oppose Arizona’s new law.
Despite the serious unanswered questions about the safety of offshore drilling the BP spill has highlighted, a number of prominent conservative leaders have doubled down on their calls for an immediate expansion of drilling, even before the investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is complete. One such leader is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). His state has been hit the hardest by the Gulf spill, yet Jindal wrote a letter to President Obama earlier this month “criticizing his decision to implement a temporary moratorium of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico” and calling for more drilling now.
In an interview with ThinkProgress this morning, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said Jindal’s call for more dilling in the wake of the disaster would make this his “last term in office,” if he was a West Coast governor:
TP: So I’m curious about your response is to Republicans, conservatives, such as Governor Jindal whose state is clearly being ravaged by the Deepwater Horizon spill, but is still calling for more drilling tomorrow. [...]
MERKLEY: Well I can tell you, if he were governor on the West Coast, it’d be his last term in office. Becasue the senators all came together on the West Coast unanimously — all six, California, Oregon, and Washington — and said that drilling is not in the best interests of our states. … So we don’t want drilling at 30 miles, we don’t want it at 50 miles, we don’t want it at 100 miles, because that oil may end up both foul our commercial fisheries, our ecosystems, and our coastlines, and it’s not a risk worth taking.
Watch it:
Merkley and the five other senators representing the West Coast came together last month to propose legislation that would permanently ban new drilling in the Pacific. They want to restore a moratorium on new leases for offshore drilling in federal waters that was in place from 1981 to 2008. The West Coast has experienced the dangers of massive oil spills first hand. In one of the biggest spills in American history, 200,000 gallons of oil gushed from a well off of Santa Barbara, California for 11 days in 1969. This “environmental nightmare” prompted the congressional moratorium that Merkley and the other senators are trying to reinstate.
ThinkProgress spoke with Merkley before an event at the Center for American Progress on the need to reduce our dependence on oil.
Tomorrow, the chief executives of the five big oil companies — including BP’s Tony Hayward — are going to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. According to an e-mail released by that Committee today, a BP drilling engineer warned that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was a “nightmare well” that had caused the company problems in the past. The e-mail came just six days before the well exploded:
More than five weeks before the disaster, the Deepwater rig was hit by several sudden pulsations of gas called “kicks” and a pipe had become stuck in the well. In fact, the well had to be shut down because of “one intense kick of natural gas.” The blowout preventer was discovered to be leaking fluid three separate times. “As early as June 2009, BP engineers had expressed concerns in internal documents about using certain casings for the well because they violated the company’s safety and design guidelines.”
Newsweek’s new cover features former Alaska governor Sarah Palin with a halo around her head and the words “Saint Sarah.” The accompanying article by Lisa Miller explores Palin’s popularity with the religious right, especially Christian women. While Miller notes the feminist criticisms directed at Palin and wonders about her “real motivations,” the article is certainly not a hit piece. “With her new faith-based message, Palin gathers up the Christian women that traditional feminism has left behind,” writes Miller.
But Palin wouldn’t know all this, because she hasn’t read the article. Nevertheless, on Friday, she went on the Fox News show of her good friend Greta Van Susteren and slammed it:
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, who could forget that infamous Newsweek cover? It shows Governor Sarah Palin in short shorts, running shorts. Well, check out Newsweek’s latest Palin cover. Things are a little different this time. It shows Governor Palin with a halo over her head. The headline, “Saint Sarah.” Now, the article’s about Governor Palin’s appeal to conservative Christian women.
Governor Palin is back with us. Governor, what do you make of the new cover? Now it’s Saint Sarah?
PALIN: Haven’t seen it, but if the title and what I hear about the content is any indication of where Newsweek is going, it’s no wonder that Newsweek is doing so poorly. People are not reading that stuff. It’s not relevant. It’s not interesting stuff that they’re making up and writing. And that’s why they’re going down.
Watch it:
On Twitter, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz criticized Palin for mocking it before reading it. “My point on Palin is, read the Newsweek piece and then rip it,” he wrote. “Rip Newsweek too, fair game. Cover WAS mocking. But engage on the substance.”
What makes Palin’s criticism even more ridiculous is that she has sharply reprimanded critics of Arizona’s anti-immigration law who haven’t read the full legislation. From her Facebook page on May 18:
On Fox News this morning, State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley became the third Obama administration official in short succession to admit that he hadn’t actually bothered to read Arizona’s 10-page long “secure the border” bill before condemning it and criticizing Americans who support Arizona’s necessary efforts to do the job the Obama Administration should be doing. Crowley’s statement follows similar admissions from Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
At first blush this revelation seemed unbelievable, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. This now seems “the Washington way” of doing things. If the party in power tells us they have to pass bills in order to find out what’s actually in them, they can also criticize bills (and divide the country with ensuing rhetoric) without actually reading them.
Maybe she didn’t get a chance to see the story because she’s too busy reading every single newspaper in the world.
Today on C-Span’s Washington Journal, Ryan Crocker, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon, noted that last week he told a congressional committee that “it makes sense” for the U.S. “to engage” Hezbollah because the group “is not just a proxy for foreign governments in Damascus and Tehran,” but also it is “a uniquely Lebanese entity”:
CROCKER: We talk to virtually everyone in Lebanon but we don’t talk to Hezbollah. And I think we are weakening our own hand by not talking to them. We don’t know very much about them because we don’t deal with them directly. […] By talking to them we would learn a lot more and we might see some advantages that currently we are blind to.
The former U.S. Ambassador cited his experience talking to insurgents in Iraq as a model for engaging similar groups. “We talked to anyone who would talk to us and we didn’t worry about labels and…the influence we were able to bring as a result of that engagement was a big help in winding down the Iraqi insurgency,” he said. The host then wondered if his thinking extended to the Taliban in Afghanistan:
HOST: So you’re ok with the idea of us talking to the Taliban for instance in Afghanistan?
CROCKER: I’m very much ok with it because again this doesn’t mean making concessions or conferring recognition or anything else any more than it did when we talked to insurgent elements in Iraq. You can’t really affect your adversary’s thinking and you can’t build up your own knowledge base about your adversary if you’re existing in total isolation to him.
Watch it:
The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman reported last week that Crocker also said that fiery rhetoric toward U.S. adversaries has hurt American interests in Afghanistan, noting that President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech led the Iranians to release an anti-American insurgent leader from house arrest in Iran:
CROCKER: [I]t certainly changed the tone. And the key Iranian response to the “Axis of Evil” was to send Gulbuddin Hekmatyar back into Afghanistan. We had been talking to the Iranians up to that point about the possibility of Hekmatyar, who was under house arrest, being transferred to the Karzai government.
Because of the speech, Ackerman notes, “the Iranian leadership hedged its bets on cooperating with with the U.S. on post-Taliban Afghanistan and released a murderer back into the war zone.”
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.
Perry’s stance has put him at odds with other Republican governors, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA). “I understand the need to pay for and restrain federal spending,” wrote Schwarzenegger in a letter. “But cutting the only funding designed to help states maintain the very safety-net programs Congress mandates us to preserve will have devastating consequences.” A spokesman for Gov. Jim Douglas (R-VT) added that “many states built this expectation of funds in their budgets, and without it, [there would be] either tax increases or the cuts to state government programs that would be pretty devastating.”
In a letter to lawmakers over the weekend, Obama pushed for Congress to provide more aid to states, and indeed, if states don’t receive help, they are going to be a substantial drag on the economy for the next couple of years. According to Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Economy.com, “state and local cutbacks may trim growth by about a quarter percentage point in 2010 and 2011 after shaving it by 0.02 point in 2010.” “The budget cutting that is dead ahead will be a significant impediment to economic growth later this year into 2011,” he said. An early sign of this potential drag was state and local governments cutting 22,000 jobs last month.
More at The Wonk Room.
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:
BP told KHOU in Houston that it has received “more than 200,000 phone messages from the Call Center in Houston,” but it couldn’t “say just what percentage of calls is returned.”
CAP Senior Fellow Tom Kenworthy and the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson have written that “[f]ederal agencies, not BP, should handle spill response hotlines for volunteers, technology ideas, affected wildlife, and others. Full call records need to be logged with incident reports and technology ideas presented publicly on dynamic websites.” (HT: Raw Story)
In a new ad, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) criticizes his Republican opponent, former Reno assemblywoman Sharron Angle, for wanting to privatize Social Security and Medicare. To support this claim, the Reid ad plays a clip of Angle saying, “We need to phase Medicare and Social Security out” in a May debate.
Angle’s campaign called Reid’s ad “a deception,” saying that she wants to protect those “who entered into the system on good faith” while creating “free market alternatives” and new personalized programs” for those not already in the system.
Angle has been “ducking the media” since winning the GOP nomination, but she granted an interview to Fox and Friends this morning. Host Steve Doocy obliged by trying to help her clean up her stance, suggesting that it’s “misinformation or mischaracterization” that she’s anti-Social Security:
DOOCY: Before you go, Sharron, just, you know, perhaps it’s misinformation or mischaracterization, but some have said that you are out to get rid of Social Security. That’s not true, right?
ANGLE: Well, that’s nonsense. I have always said that we need to make the lock box — a lock box. Put the money in there for our senior citizens. They came here in good faith paying into a system that Harry Reid has put an IOU in for 24 years. He has been raiding Social Security. And what we need to do is personalize Social Security and Medicare so that the government can no longer raid it.
Watch it:
The Fox and Friends interview — where host Gretchen Carlson falsely claimed that Angle is a political newcomer who received Sarah Palin’s endorsement — is being derided by the “dean of the press corps in Nevada,” Jon Ralston, as a “softball interview.” On his Ralston’s Flash blog, the host of Face to Face wrote that Angle was “not challenged on anything” and the Fox hosts “seem not to know who she is or who endorsed her.”
Politico’s Ben Smith printed a note from an “appalled” Ralston that further ripped the interview and Angle’s performance in it:
U.S. Senate hopeful Sharron Angle said that during an astonishing interview on “Fox and Friends” this morning in which the hosts claimed she is a political newcomer (not so) and was endorsed by Sarah Palin (not so).
[...]
Personalize?
That’s quite the different spin from Angle after her past comments about privatization –and her onetime view that Social Security is “hard to justify.” (Of course, Reid is going to have to justify his policies on Social Security, but Angle clearly has been told to massage (no, not the Scientology massages) her position for popular consumption.)
Follow-up? Don’t be silly….
As Media Matters notes, Angle’s own website says that she believes that Social Security should be “transitioned out” in favor of “personal retirement account options” for “young workers.” Perhaps Doocy thinks Angle’s own website is filled with “misinformation” about her positions.
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:
This isn’t the first time Broun has claimed that congressional legislation is going to kill people. Last July, the congressman claimed that if Congress were to pass comprehensive health care reform, “a lot of people are going to die.” It is worth noting that, according to a 2007 study by Harvard University researchers, that global warming could lead to a significant rise in heat-related deaths. (HT: Media Matters)
Yesterday, President Bush’s 28-year old daughter Barbara was named Fox News Sunday’s “Power Player of the Week” for her work as co-founder of Global Health Corps, a group of young professionals promoting global health equality. During the interview with Fox, Barbara Bush’s comments on health care sounded like, as host Chris Wallace put it, “a mission statement from the Obama White House”:
BARBARA BUSH: Why do basically people with money have good health care and why do people that live on lower salaries not have good health care? You know, health should be a right for everyone. [...]
WALLACE: What do you think of Obama health care reform?
BUSH: That is a good question. And obviously, the health care reform bill, you know, was highly debated by a lot of people. And I guess I’m glad that, you know, a bill was passed.
Watch it:
While his daughter appears to value the passage of health reform, former President Bush hasn’t been nearly as complimentary. Before the passage of the new law, he told the Washington Times last year, “I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care.”
Embracing an idea first offered by CAP, the Obama administration announced yesterday that it will demand BP turn over a “substantial” amount of money in escrow to handle claims from people and businesses harmed by the environmental disaster. BP’s costs for responding to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have risen to $1.6 billion.
“In an effort to dampen international criticism and stave off calls for an international inquiry, Israel’s cabinet unanimously approved a government-appointed commission” to investigate the deadly raid on the Gaza flotilla. The panel will be led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court justice, and will include “two Israeli experts in international law and two foreign observers.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling on Israel to lift its Gaza blockade, saying that the closure is “having a devastating impact on the 1.5 million people” who live in the Palestinian territory. The aid group cites the area’s “electricity crisis,” “lack of proper sanitation,” an “ailing health-care system,” and ruined livelihoods.
In his run to be the next Governor of Kansas, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) proposed revamping an existing state position to create “a new Kansas entity, the State Office of the Repealer” that is charged with eliminating state regulations deemed “silly, needless,” and “over-the-top.” Brownback says the idea resonates with Kansans who “feel like they’re getting their brains regulated out of them.”
The United States “has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself,” according to senior U.S. officials. An internal Pentagon memo dubs Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”
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:
To illustrate what Paul views as “a hill or two,” here’s a satellite-taken before-and-after image of a mountaintop removal site in Mud River, West Virginia:
As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has pointed out, “Mountain-top mining has been more accurately described as the ‘rape of Appalachia,’ as rural communities are destroyed economically and environmentally for coal industry.”
Despite his well-earned reputation for catering to the far right, Texas Gov. Rick Perry released a statement in April criticizing Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, saying that “it would not be the right direction for Texas.” But at the Texas Republican state convention yesterday, right-wing activists bucked “Perry by pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration similar to Arizona’s new law“:
The immigration proposal, a hard-line approach that Perry has said isn’t right for Texas, was one of several initiatives debated as delegates wrapped up the two-day convention. The Republican Party platform is a blueprint of the policies that GOP activists want elected officials to pursue.
Delegates voted to include a plank advocating for a state law that would bar illegal immigrants from “intentionally or knowingly” living in Texas. Similar to Arizona’s strict law that has sparked nationwide debate, the proposal would require local police to verify U.S. residency when making arrests.
Perry has said the Arizona law, if adopted in Texas, would unduly burden police.
The convention also saw delegates “ditch their firebrand leader, conservative activist Cathie Adams, in favor of Houston businessman Steve Munisteri.” Adams had recently “angered some GOP activists by declining to release financial information about the party.” Munisteri, who said he “shared many of Adams’ socially conservative views,” “focused his campaign on the party’s $500,000 debt” and said that “Republicans should be in better financial shape since they control both houses of the Legislature and all statewide offices.” Ironically, though the delegates pushed for an Arizona-style law, Munisteri “pledged to reach out to independents, disenchanted Republicans and minority groups, especially the burgeoning Hispanic community, to strengthen the party.”
Earlier this week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was asked by a reporter if “taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up” of the Gulf in the wake of the BP oil disaster. “I think the people responsible in the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what’s happening there,” replied Boehner, echoing an argument by the Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers should pay for part of the clean up.
Boehner’s office quickly tried to walk back his comments, saying that Boehner stood by an early May statement that “not a dime of taxpayer money should be used to clean up [BP's] mess.” On ABC News’ This Week today, Boehner continued his effort to clean up his comments, claiming that he’s said “from the beginning” that BP is fully responsible:
BOEHNER: The American people want this oil leak stopped now. They want to know what happened. They want the Gulf cleaned up. And they want it all done now. And I just think that BP ought to be held responsible for all of the costs that are involved in this. I’ve said that right from the beginning. And I continue to believe that. I’m not sure that the federal government, though, was, isn’t also responsible. The laws that were in place. The materials that should have been in place for a spill this size were not. And the reaction, I think, on the part of the administration has been slow. But having said that, it’s time to get this thing stopped now.
TAPPER: Alright, so just to clear, just to clear up what you said earlier this week. On Thursday, you said that BP and the federal government should take full responsibility. To clarify that, you think BP needs to pay?
BOEHNER: I’ve said from the beginning, BP needs to pay for the entire cost of this. But the federal government — this is a failure of government. Government is there to protect our shores, to protect our environment, and there’s been a real failure here.
Tapper then asked Boehner if he supports the effort by Democrats “to lift the liability cap” on BP for the spill. “I believe that lifting the liability cap on BP and for this spill is appropriate,” replied Boehner. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) interjected that “the Republicans have been holding up lifting the cap in the Senate.” Watch it:
Last month, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) blocked legislation lifting the liability cap from coming to a vote.
Yesterday, Chevron discovered a leaking pipeline that was spewing 50 gallons of crude oil per minute into Red Butte Creek in Salt Lake City, UT. By the time crews capped the leak, more than 21,000 gallons — between 400-500 barrels — of oil had spilled out, “coating geese and ducks” and closing the city’s largest park. The Salt Lake City Tribune writes:
Chevron pledged to clean up the 6-mile mess, but the company could not quantify the damage. As of late Saturday, Chevron said the leak had been stopped. But company representatives could not say when it began, how much oil spilled into city waterways and why — despite pipeline monitors — it apparently took hours to learn of the accident. [...]
By then [just before 8 a.m., when Chevron shut down the pipe], oil had reached Liberty Park’s pond, drenching Canada geese and Mallard ducks. At least 150 birds were rescued from the pond and taken to Hogle Zoo to be cleaned. Some were goslings and chicks as young as a week old. [...]
Depending on amounts, the spill could disrupt the food chain for the long term, killing bottom-dwelling invertebrates that feed fish, said Walt Baker, director of the state Division of Water Quality.
Gov. Gary Herbert (R) put out a statement calling the spill a “devastating situation.” This disaster comes just four days after the governor put out his energy plan, which called for more oil production in Utah:
For example, just recently a Utah company partnered with Utah State University’s Energy Dynamics Lab to announce new technology that will purify contaminated water and clear the air during on‐shore oil and gas recovery, such as the production in eastern and central Utah. Put in the context of the ongoing off‐shore Gulf Coast petroleum disaster, this has even greater significance. One might ask: “Why are we drilling in the middle of the ocean where there is extreme environmental risk when we could be meeting the demand for domestic production from on‐shore development in areas with minimal environmental risk such as Utah?”
Last month, both Herbert and Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) tried to block the Interior Department’s reforms for onshore oil and gas leasing. Herbert “said that if Interior doesn’t reconsider its drilling reforms, Utah might sue the federal government.”
In response to numerous media reports that BP has been blocking journalists from covering the oil spill and speaking with clean-up workers, BP CEO Doug Suttles issued a letter on Wednesday saying that such reports were “untrue” and reporters should have full access:
Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the cleanup operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply untrue. BP fully supports and defends all individuals rights to share their personal thoughts and experiences with journalists if they so choose.
BP has not and will not prevent anyone working in the cleanup operation from sharing his or her own experiences or opinions.
However, this message isn’t being strictly enforced. Yesterday, WDSU, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans, tried to speak with clean-up crews on an oil-stained portion of Grand Isle, Louisiana. Private security officials confronted reporter Scott Walker and said he couldn’t even have access to the public beach. From the exchange:
OFFICIAL 1: Every single security guard here has given the instructions to every single news crew that you can be outside of 100 yards of the workers or along the boom.
WALKER: And who’s saying that? Because no one can tell me that, unless you’re the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, you’re the Coast Guard, or you’re the military, can you tell me where to go on this public beach.
OFFICIAL 1: I can tell you where to go because I’m employed to keep this beach safe. And right now, those are my instructions. I’d like to keep the workers safe as well.
WALKER: I’m going to try to talk to the worker under the tent. Can I do that?
OFFICIAL 1: No, no.
WALKER: He’s on break.
OFFICIAL 1: You are not allowed to interview any workers.
WALKER: The workers can talk to the media, according to the BP CEO two days ago. Still hasn’t trickled down to you all?
OFFICIAL 2: We already heard that one too.
WALKER: What do you mean you’ve “heard that one”? It’s true.
OFFICIAL 1: The e-mail did not explicitly give you permission to do that.
Watch the confrontation:
Walker was eventually able to go over to the tent after an intervention from an official in the sheriff’s office, but none of the workers would talk to him, since the security official was telling them that they didn’t have to say anything.
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”:
Q: I take it you’re familiar with the DREAM Act, where do you stand on that?
McCAIN: I think it’s fine, I would take a look at that issue, it’s a heartbreaking issue, to see young people who were separated from their parents and all that, but the way you solve it –
Q: They’re people that were brought here at age two or four, not their own decision necessarily –
McCAIN: Yeah, that’s a heart-rending situation, but if we could secure the border, and make sure that there isn’t going to be a repeat of this kind of human tragedy, we can address that issue, and I think we can address it in a humane, compassionate fashion. But just to pass the DREAM Act now, what’s to prevent further of these humanitarian cases?
Host: Another 10 to 15 to 20 million —
McCain: Exactly.
Listen here:
There is nothing “compassionate” about McCain’s position, and these “humanitarian cases” will get worse without the DREAM Act. Currently, the children of undocumented immigrants — who didn’t make the decision to come to the United States illegally — face a cruel fate: Each year, about 65,000 of these young people graduate from high school and are then denied opportunities to pursue higher education, barred from “in-state tuition rates, state and federal grants and loans, most private scholarships, and the ability to legally work their way through college.”
The DREAM Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), would give 360,000 undocumented high school graduates with a “legal means to work and attend college,” and provide incentives for another 715,000 children between the ages of five and 17 to finish high school and pursue postsecondary education.
Last month, five immigrants dressed in academic caps and gowns staged a sit-in at Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) Tucson, AZ office and called on him to co-sponsor the DREAM Act. Four of them — including three who were undocumented — were arrested and faced the threat of deportation. Underscoring how necessary the DREAM Act is to address “humanitarian cases,” one of those students, Mohammad Abdollahi, came from Iran with his parents when he was three years old. Now, returning could be deadly since Abdollahi is gay, and Iran is known for putting LGBT individuals to death.
This weekend, the National League’s Chicago Cubs are facing off against their crosstown American League rivals, the Chicago White Sox. The interleague showdown is being sponsored by BP. The British company signed a three-year deal with the teams on April 26, just days after the oil disaster in the Gulf occurred.
BP’s sponsorship of the games features broad dissemination of their company logo and includes the presentation of an official trophy — the “BP Crosstown Cup” — to the victor:
As the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers notes, instead of wasting money on this marketing exercise, BP could probably “use every dollar it can get to try to get to the bottom of the devastating leak in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Before the game, the trophy was wheeled out to the home-plate area and presented to the fans. As might be expected, the fans responded by booing loudly. Watch a local report:
Promotions during the games have been “scaled back.” Both teams, however, sent out press releases on Friday saying they stand with their corporate sponsor:
– Brooks Boyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the White Sox: “But just like we have tough seasons, our partners have tough times and we aren’t going to turn our back on our partners. We hope that in the coming years, the BP Crosstown Cup will be part of the social fabric of Chicago.”
– Cubs spokesman Kevin Saghy said: “We’re trying to stand behind our sponsor, but at the same time be respectful of what’s happening off the ballfield.”
The teams are out of touch with what their respective fans think. Cubs fan Chris Silva said he is upset at how BP has handled the oil spill. “It’s ruined the environment. It’s ridiculous how can you support them doing this cup between the two teams. It’s sad,” he said.
Local Fox reporter Tera Williams said she tried to look for baseball fans who thought that the BP cup was a good idea, “but we couldn’t find anyone. In fact, a lot of fans telling us that they are boycotting BP gas stations.”
Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson frequently stresses the importance of monogamous heterosexual relationships and is happy to offer his viewers advice on how to maintain them. As Media Matters documents, Robertson fielded a question on yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club from a woman who was concerned that her husband frequently flirts with “other women he finds attractive.” Naturally, Robertson blamed the wife, advising her to “make yourself as attractive as possible,” and to not “hassle him about it,” lest she “drive him away”:
CO-HOST: Pat, this is from Anne who says, “My husband has always been a flirt and loves to talk with other women he finds attractive. He says he would never cheat on me but his actions are starting to get to me. What should I do?”
ROBERTSON: Anne, first thing is you need to make yourself as attractive as possible and don’t hassle him about it. And why is he doing this? Well, he’s doing it because he wants affirmation that he is still a man, that he is attractive — and he gets an affirmation of himself. That means he’s got an inferiority complex that’s coming out. And he’s not gonna cheat on you. He’s just playing.
But you need to not drive him away or start hassling and hounding on him, but make yourself as beautiful as you can, as fun as you can, and say let’s go out here, let’s go there, let’s go to the other thing.
Roberts has a long history of making outrageously chauvinistic comments. He famously once said, “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women,” but is rather “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” On the proper role of a wife, Robertson has said, “Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.”
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