Former Arkansas governor and current Fox News personality Mike Huckabee has responded to the controversy surrounding his New Yorker profile, in which he calls gay relationships ‘ick[y]‘ and jokes that he would support gay marriage if he were forced into an affair with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
My use of the phrase ‘ick factor’ was as the established notion from within the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender (GLBT) community. It was not an indication of personal aversion, but rather a reference to an established phrase used mostly from same-sex marriage advocates and militants – not one I created.
Former colleague of then Professor Obama from the University of Chicago’s Law School, Dr. Martha Nussbaum, has often made reference to the ‘ick factor’ in her professional writings and is credited with applying the phrase to the GLBT community.
This phrase is not new. This phrase is not mine.
More over, the phrase ‘ick factor’ was widely used as early as the late 1990’s and was just the subject of an entire article written on April 12 of this year – by Joseph Erbentraut – and he even put ‘Ick Factor’ in the title.
I stand by my statement, and the misrepresentations of those who seek to dishonestly distort my views expose their duplicity and hypocrisy.
This is a rather bizarre defense, since Nussbaum uses the “ick factor” to argue that opponents of gay political initiatives are driven by their “aversion to man-on-man anal sex” (that’s the ick), not any sophisticated legal or Biblical theories of behavior. As Joseph Erbentraut explains in that April 12th article, “according to Nussbaum’s theory, those opposed to same-sex marriage, for example, maintain their beliefs largely due to an underlying, subconscious feeling of disgust at the thought of what defines ‘gay’ as, well, gay — as well as lesbian as lesbian: What is done in the bedroom.” So is Huckabee conceding the point — that his opposition to gay marriage is driven by “personal aversion”?
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”:
As Dave Weigel notes, the Spectator article “is a robust defense of what Barton said, knocking the Obama administration for ‘Alinsky’ tactics and hatred of business.” But Barton has since deleted the tweet. Greg Sargent reports that a Barton spokesperson is claiming responsibility:
Guilty as sin, your honor. Without thinking about it much, I added a headline from one of the daily news clips to a website that is, in turn, linked to the congressman’s Twitter account. I won’t be doing that again.
A new survey from Public Policy Polling finds that Barton’s fellow Texans are overwhelmingly siding with the President:
Texans think that Barack Obama’s right and Joe Barton’s wrong when it comes to BP’s responsibility for cleaning up the oil spill, and a plurality of voters in the state think Barton should lose his leadership post on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Only 18% of voters think that BP deserved the apology Barton sent its way last week to 65% who think it did not. Barton doesn’t even get much support from Republican voters on that front – only 23% of them say it was right to apologize to BP. With Democrats and independents the numbers are even lower at 17% and 12% respectively.
The poll also found that the “episode is having a negative impact on how Texas voters perceive Barton overall. Only 21% have a favorable opinion of him while 28% see him negatively.” Meanwhile, 64% of Texans think Obama was right to ask BP to compensate victims of the oil spill with only 27% opposed to that move.
“[I]f you’re scoring at home,” ABC News’ Rick Klein tweeted, “Joe Barton has now unapologized for apologizing for his apology.”
Speaking from the White House Rose Garden this afternoon, President Obama announced that he has accepted Gen. Stanley McChrystal resignation as head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, following the four-star general’s unprofessional remarks in a Rolling Stone interview. Obama said McChrystal’s remarks did not “meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general” and eroded trust among his national security team. McChrystal had reportedly acknowledged, “I’ve compromised the mission.”
Obama emphasized that McChrystal had served “faithfully,” that he was “grateful” for his service, and that the replacement is not a “personal insult.” In McChrystal’s place, Obama has nominated CentCom Commander David Petraeus, the general who oversaw the Iraq surge, to take charge of the upcoming Afghanistan surge. “I welcome debate among my team, but I won’t tolerate division,” Obama said. “It is a change in personnel, but it is not a change in policy,” he added, noting that Petraeus helped “design the policy that we have in place.”
Conservatives are likely to cheer Obama’s decision. Yesterday, The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol advised Obama to “ask Gen. David Petraeus to give up his CENTCOM post and take command of the war in Afghanistan.”
Watch video of Obama’s remarks:
Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) apology to embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward for the government’s efforts to ensure compensation for Gulf coast residents last week highlighted two competing visions of government. The first is the progressive vision, that says government should aggressively champion the public interest, holding massive corporations accountable. The second, Barton’s, is the reflexive conservative embrace of big corporations.
GOP state senator Randy Brogdon (OK), who is the “tea party favorite” in his race for the Republican nomination for governor in his state, indicated that he fully and absolutely endorses the second vision. Instead of placing blame on BP for the massive environmental and economic disaster that it has caused in the Gulf of Mexico, Brogdon claimed that government is “the problem” and that the spill is a “perfect example of why government should never be involved in the private sector”:
In Oklahoma, where oil and natural gas drive the state’s economy, tea party favorite Randy Brogdon, a Republican candidate for governor, said federal involvement in the BP disaster is only making the situation worse.
“This is a perfect example of why government should never be involved in the private sector,” said Brogdon, a state senator campaigning on limited federal government. “Government is not the solution. It’s the problem. The more government tries to get in and regulate the free market, the worse things become.”
Of course, BP’s oil disaster may have resulted from too little — not too much — government involvement. Although the exact cause of the disaster is still unknown, there is a growing mountain of evidence that suggests BP’s own corporate negligence, combined with Bush-era regulators turning a blind eye to safety violations, are what created the environment that led to the oil spill.
It would be interesting to know exactly what Brogdon means by saying the oil disaster proves that the government should “never” be involved in the private sector. Does Brodgon believe, for example, that BP’s malfeasance should end government regulation of child labor, the minimum wage, food and drug safety, and airline travel?
After coming under pressure from the White House, BP agreed last week to forgo paying billions in dividends to investors for the rest of the year, freeing up cash to make initial payments into a $20 billion escrow fund that will help compensate those affected by the company’s oil spill. Now, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) is calling on BP to indefinitely suspend giving bonuses to its top execs, and to use the money that would have gone to them to assist Gulf residents instead. Melancon sent a letter today to BP Chairman Carl-Henrik Svanberg noting that the $3 million bonus that CEO Tony Hayward received last year would cover the salaries of 50 people who are out of work due the disaster:
I find it inexcusable for top BP executives to claim seven-figure bonuses while Louisianians suffer as a result of your company’s drilling disaster in the Gulf. In light of the persistent failures of BP’s top management, I am calling for all future bonuses to BP’s top executives to be suspended indefinitely.
These bonuses would be better applied toward meeting the company’s obligations to the thousands of Louisianians whose lives have been destroyed as a result of this disaster.
Executives who preside over a corporate culture that promotes cutting corners over safety, mislead the public, and stonewall Congress in their testimony do not deserve performance bonuses by any standard or measure. Suspending bonuses for top-ranking executives represents, in my view, a small first step in the long process of restoring some semblance of trust between the people of Louisiana and BP.
Svanberg was scorned earlier this month after saying BP “care[s] about the small people.” Cutting bonuses at his “big and important” company would be a way for Svanberg to put his words into action.
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.” [...]
Ms. Kagan’s Islamic Finance Project also has played a prominent role in encouraging the U.S. government to endorse Shariah-compliant finance. Notably, a founding adviser to the project, Harvard professor Samuel Hays III, conducted a “seminar for the policy community” in November 2008. It was sponsored by a former Goldman-Sachs-executive-turned-assistant-treasury-secretary, Neel Kashkari, who at the time was responsible for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The signal thus sent could not have been clearer, either to Mr. Kashkari’s colleagues in government or to those in the financial sector: At a moment when the very viability of major banks and investing institutions critically depended on this individual’s favor, it would be advisable to embrace Shariah-compliant finance.
Drawing Glenn Beck-like conspiratorial connections between Obama’s judicial nominees and plots to destroy America appears to be a conservative hobby. Both the Washington Times and Sean Hannity called district court nominee Judge Edward Chen “another Obama nominee who doesn’t appear to love America” because Chen correctly worried that the 9/11 attacks would harm race relations and religious tolerance in the United States. During the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a right-wing organization with close ties to Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) launched an ad claiming that Sotomayor “led a group supporting violent Puerto Rican terrorists.”
Ever since corporate lobbyists and the right-wing media helped spark the tea party movement, the Republican Party has tried to co-opt this sizable army of disaffected, sometimes extremist Americans. Eager for new volunteers, anti-reform protesters, and a pool of potential donors, Republicans have pandered to the tea parties in a variety of ways. However, while the GOP has relied on the tea parties as a platform to obstruct progressive reforms, Republicans have rebuffed tea party candidates running for office in favor of establishment picks.
Rather than reward tea party support by backing tea party candidates, Republican lawmakers have been playing kingmaker in GOP primaries by funneling cash to candidates selected by national Republican committees, like the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The selected candidates, dubbed “Young Guns” for House races, are often polished state level or former Federal Republican politicians.
Despite a promise by RNC Chairman Michael Steele earlier this year that the “Republican Party will not to meddle in local races — especially GOP primaries featuring candidates backed by Tea Party activists,” the GOP appears to be focused on centrally planning their candidates. According to a report by ThinkProgress, Republican political action committees controlled by current GOP members of Congress have spent at least $2,162,790 on establishment-picked candidates in primaries against tea party candidates. Some key findings:
– Incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett’s (R-UT) GOP colleagues provided him with $215,000 to battle tea party challengers Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater, to no avail.
– Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) ERIC PAC, which is funded largely by Wall Street and the financial services industry, has spent $50,000 helping NRCC and NRSC picked candidates beat back tea party challenges. In his home state of Virginia, Cantor’s generous donations to NRCC-backed candidate state Sen. Robert Hurt (R-VA) fueled wide resentment among local tea parties.
– The NRSC faced widespread criticism among conservatives for backing Gov. Charlie Crist (I-FL) over tea party candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL). But according to ThinkProgress’ report, NRSC and NRCC PACs also dumped $85,000 into Trey Grayson’s (R-KY) losing bid against tea party leader Rand Paul, and has already spent $124,000 helping former Bush Interior Department Secretary Jane Norton (R-CO) in her Senate primary against tea party candidate Ken Buck. As Colorado bloggers uncovered, NRSC staffers even registered campaign websites for Norton before her announcement for the race.
Click here to read ThinkProgress’ report.
“During his round of phone calls to top officials of the Obama administration whom he and his team disparaged to a Rolling Stone reporter, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, ‘I’ve compromised the mission,’” ABC News reports. The White House will give McChrystal “a legitimate opportunity to make his case to keep his job,” sources said.
Several Afghan leaders are voicing their support for keeping McChrystal in place. “We hope there is not a change of leadership of the international forces here in Afghanistan and that we continue to partner with Gen. McChrystal,” said Afghan President Karzai’s spokesman. NATO diplomats are also voicing opposition to his ouster.
The uproar over McChyrstal and his team’s comments have “further set back U.S. prospects in a war that was already on shaky ground,” the Washington Post reports. Whether Obama decides to fire McChrystal or not, “much is different going forward,” a senior administration official told the Post. “It’s hard to brush past it.”
Responding to a decision by a federal judge to block the Obama administration’s deepwater drilling moratorium, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement last night “that within days he would issue a new order imposing a moratorium on deep-water drilling that would contain additional information showing why it was necessary.” The moratorium “was and is the right decision,” said Salazar.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) is “pushing for a change in the financial-overhaul legislation that would benefit a single bank in her home state.” The bank — which is owned by the Walton family, of Wal-Mart fame — “would be excused from a provision that could require banks to raise more capital” under Lincoln’s proposed plan.
Yesterday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) attended the ground-breaking of a transportation project in Lytton, IA, a small town in his district. In a glowing press release on his website, he praised the project:
“Today we celebrate a major milestone in the effort to complete a four-lane U.S. Highway 20 from Sioux City all the way to Dubuque and on to Chicago,” said King. “I supported this project before I was elected to the Iowa Senate and made it my number one transportation priority as a Member of Congress. In working with our state’s senators and House delegation, the Four-Lane Highway 20 Association, and local communities, I have networked the effort to secure millions in federal funds to help bring this project to western Iowa. I will continue to do all I can to keep it moving until the day we cut the ribbon on the final mile of four-lane Highway 20.”
While King happily touts his role in the procurement of funds for U.S. 20’s expansion, he neglects to mention that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (commonly referred to as the stimulus package) — a bill that he heavily criticized and voted against — actually provides a majority of the funds for the project. Although King also secured federal funds for this project through the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, the congressman again overlooks his unequivocal opposition to the bill, which he previously described as a part of the “ongoing fiscal train wreck in Washington.”
Following the long tradition of Republican stimulus hypocrites before him, King fails to acknowledge the benefits of the stimulus to his state. In Iowa alone, nearly 9,000 jobs have been created as a result of stimulus dollars. Moreover, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery act has already saved or created 2.8 million jobs, an estimated 3.7 million by September.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission continues to keep state waters open to fishing despite contamination by the BP oil disaster, the Wonk Room has learned. On June 16, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) extended the federal fisheries closure to the federal waters seven miles off Panama City Beach. Meanwhile, the state encouraged fishing with the announcement that “all Florida residents and visitors are invited to fish statewide for saltwater species without a license during the upcoming Father’s Day weekend, June 19-20.” On June 19, tarballs began washing up on Panama City Beach. On June 20, the visible oil slick spread to one mile of the Panama City coast, well within the seven-mile state boundary, but the state did not put the waters off limits to fishing:
 Satellite image of oil slick one mile off Panama City, FL, June 20, 2010, from University of Miami. |
Gov. Charlie Crist’s (I-FL) office warned residents on June 21 that “the Florida Panhandle will continue to be threatened by shoreline contacts as far east as Panama City through Monday,” but the State Fish & Wildlife Commission kept the waters open, just off the impacted shore. Other than the “partial fishing closure in Escambia County” the commission belatedly imposed, the agency’s official position is that “the rest of Florida’s recreational and commercial fisheries have not been directly affected by the oil spill.”
Cross-posted on the Wonk Room.
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:
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you have any way of knowing that, for instance, the blow-out preventers work on these other 33 rigs, any way to guarantee that they have been, you know, inspected, that they’ve got all the sort of redundancy that’s necessary to make — to make sure they’re safe?
OLSON: Yes, ma’am. I would tell people look at the history of drilling in the gulf. We’ve been drilling there for over 50 years, 20 years in the deep water, and this is the first major accident we’ve had. [...]
VAN SUSTEREN: I think — it’s not history I’m looking for, it’s more assurances. [...]
OLSON: Yes, ma’am. And the administration, our government, clearly had no plan to do this. But again, this moratorium extends — again, it turns an economic challenge into an economic disaster.
Watch it:
But offshore oil drilling isn’t exactly 100 percent “safe,” nor will it ever be. And Olson is wrong about drilling “history.” Failures of blowout preventers and actual blowouts are fairly common. The largest oil spill in history (before BP’s) also occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, on an exploratory rig blowout.
It’s unclear why Olson ignores or seems to be unaware of these facts. Perhaps it could be because the Texas Republican’s biggest contributor is the oil and gas industry. In the two years he has been in Congress, Olson has collected $216,000 from oil and gas companies and in the current election cycle, polluter companies have given the most to Olson, nearly doubling the next highest industry contributor.
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:
ANGLE: As your U.S. Senator, I’m not in the business of creating jobs. … People ask me, “What are you gonna do to develop jobs in your state?” Well that’s not my job as a U.S. Senator — to bring industry to this state. That’s the lieutenant governor’s job, that’s your state senator’s and assemblymen’s job, that’s your secretary of state’s job to make a climate here in the state that says, “Y’all come.”
Watch it:
Yet despite her claim that a senator’s job is not to bring jobs to the state, Angle attacked Reid specifically for not bringing jobs to Nevada. From an interview interview with Human Events this week:
HUMAN EVENTS: What are the three reasons why Harry Reid needs to go come November?
ANGLE: Fourteen percent unemployment in the state of Nevada, the highest foreclosure rate in the nation in Nevada, and the highest rate of bankruptcy in Nevada. That is where people have really held Harry Reid accountable because Harry Reid doesn’t care about their jobs. He doesn’t care that they are having trouble staying in their homes and that’s why Harry Reid needs to be fired.
Angle also echoed that same sentiment in an interview with Sean Hannity last week. “We have 14 percent unemployment,” she said. “We’re tired of it. And it’s time to say Harry Reid, you’ve failed.”
Perhaps most outlandish is Angle’s most recent Web ad, attacking Reid for challenging her when he should be focusing on problems like, you guessed it, unemployment. (HT: Little Green Footballs.)
Today, Judge Martin Feldman, a U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana, sided with a drilling company which had argued that the Obama administration’s blanket, 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was illegal. The drilling company, Hornbeck Offshore Services of Covington, LA, claimed financial distress from the imposition of the moratorium. In the ruling handed down this afternoon, Judge Feldman agreed, writing that the administration made an “arbitrary and capricious” decision that would have an “immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.” Like many judges presiding in the Gulf region, Feldman owns lots of energy stocks, including Transocean, Halliburton, and two of BP’s largest U.S. private shareholders — BlackRock (7.1%) and JP Morgan Chase (28.3%). Here’s a list of Feldman’s income in 2008 (amounts listed unless under $1,000):
BlackRock ($12000- $36000)
Ocean Energy ($1000 – $2500)
NGP Capital Resources ($1000 – $2500)
Quicksilver Resources ($5000 – $15000)
Hercules Offshore ($6000 – $17500)
Provident Energy
Peabody Energy
PenGrowth Energy
RPC Inc
Atlas Energy Resources
Parker Drilling
TXCO Resources
EV Energy Partners
Rowan Companies
BPZ Resources
El Paso Corp
KBR Inc
Chesapeake Energy
ATP Oil & Gas
In his opinion today, Feldman wrote, “Oil and gas production is quite simply elemental to Gulf communities.” Indeed, it is so elemental that the justice system is invested in the oil and gas industry. As TP’s Ian Millhiser has written, “Industry ties among federal judges are so widespread that they are beginning to endanger the courts’ ability to conduct routine business. Last month, so many members of the right-wing Fifth Circuit were forced to recuse themselves from an appeal against various energy and chemical companies that there weren’t enough untainted judges left to allow the court to hear the case.”
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.
In sum, outside of two large checks, American Crossroads has failed to attract any widespread support so far. While the low fundraising numbers may lead some critics to discount Rove and Gillespie, both have many connections to deep-pocketed donors. Gillespie has been meeting with financial executives, and Rove has recruited a top official from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to assist with his efforts. On the other hand, the right-wing establishment promised in 2008 to press forward with a similar attack network, called Freedom’s Watch, which eventually dissolved despite months of similar hype.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared on CNBC this morning to bash President Obama for supposedly not having a clear plan to create jobs. But when hosts Erin Burnett and Mark Haines pressed Steele to present an alternative, all he could offer were predictable Republican talking points like, “Don’t trust the government to get it done.” When Burnett pressed again, asking, “What specifically is the Republican Party going to offer?” Steele simply continued attacking Obama, adding that we should “trust” job creators, like Wall Street.
Steele then suggested that we return to the failed economic polices of President Bush, because, Steele said, Bush “created a lot of jobs.” Haines, obviously stunned by the remark, exclaimed, “Beg your pardon?”:
STEELE: George Bush created a lot of jobs.
HAINES: Beg your pardon?
STEELE: I think there were jobs created in the eight years that George Bush was in office.
HAINES: No I’m sorry, you’re mistaken. [...]
STEELE: I think jobs were created. I’m almost confident about that. And I think the markets reflect that. [...]
HAINES: So, did the Lehman blow up and all, that didn’t happen on Bush’s watch? … You were talking about the markets. The markets tanked. [...]
Watch it:
While Steele is “almost confident” that Bush created jobs, the facts disagree. As the Wall Street Journal noted in the last month of Bush’s term — in an article that Burnett references on air while fact checking Steele — Bush’s job data “shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” A paltry 1 million jobs were created under Bush; that’s “a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration.” Even President Carter — who conservatives love to cite as the paragon of poor economic management, and who only served one term — created 10.5 million jobs. That’s more than three times as many jobs as Bush, in half as much time. More jobs may be created under Obama in this year alone than in Bush’s eight.
The Journal article doesn’t even account for the jobs lost after it was published due to Bush’s economic policy, and before President Obama’s began to take effect, as this chart demonstrates:
As Haines tells Steele, “we tried” Bush’s economic plan, and “we wound up with a disaster.” Indeed, Bush’s supply side economics “fostered the weakest jobs and income growth in more than six decades,” along with “sluggish business investment and weak gross domestic product growth,” the Center for American Progress’ Joshua Picker noted. Meanwhile, the Bush years saw an additional 8.3 million people fall below the poverty line. “On every major measurement” of income, “the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms,” the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein observed, citing Census data.
The American public disagrees with Steele as well. More Americans continue to blame Bush, rather than Obama, for the country’s current economic woes, according to a recent Rasmussen poll.
At the end of the interview, after Steele delivers his laughably vague “plan” to “take the billions of dollars we’re spending on government intrusion into the markets and turn it over to the capitalist,” Kernan concludes, “You must be used to, like, buying time and speaking without interruption.”
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?
LEE: This company is reliant, the entire industry, is reliant on the insurance its provided by law. Now had that cap not been in place, we would be facing a completely different question. But you have a set of settled expectations that you give to a business when it decides to make an investment in this. Our country benefits from this type of activity and allows us to produce more oil and allows more of our petro dollars to remain in the United States. We’ve relied on that, and to take that away I think would be a mistake.
SL TRIBUNE: Does that leave taxpayers on the hook for part of the damage?
LEE: Well yea probably does. And the government can look at that and say look, we put this damages cap in place, so we understood what that meant.
SL TRIBUNE: Isn’t that equivalent to a bailout?
LEE: I don’t think, well, I don’t think that’s equivalent to a bailout. I think that’s the government saying there’s some things its going to — if you look at the Outer Continental Shelf, something over which the United States has jurisdiction, and the United State wants to clean that up, then it’s free to do so. There’s nothing in that liability cap that requires the Federal government to do it. Well I’m not sure that necessarily means the taxpayers will end up paying the bill. It maybe the industry generally will just contribute to it. In fact I would expect other people involved in offshore drilling will have a part of the clean up because they would want to to show this can be done safely and when disasters do happen it can be cleaned up.
Watch it:
Lee’s candid answers place him in ideological alignment with other leaders of the conservative movement who have fought aggressively to block bills aimed at raising the liability cap for BP and other oil companies. Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have repeatedly prevented the bill to lift the cap from reaching the floor of the Senate for debate.
Lee also said he expects industry to act out of charity to clean up the spill and pay for BP’s damage. Of course, ExxonMobil fought the victims of the Exxon Valdez spill all the way to the Supreme Court, where the Roberts Court drastically lowered the compensation levels by 80%.
Despite the history of oil companies doing everything possible not to pay for their pollution, this widely held conservative belief, that industry will always do the right thing without government intervention, is emblematic of the modern American right. In every major policy battle of the Obama era — energy, financial reform, health reform, etc. — Republicans have decried any form of regulation and oversight as an unjust “government takeover” of private business. Even when businesses act in a criminal way, like on Wall Street before the financial crisis or with BP’s deadly skirting of best drilling practices, the GOP has stepped up to apologize to industry while obstructing every attempt for reform.
The broken wellhead gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is tilting over, potentially threatening further disaster. The Deepwater Horizon riser package that sits on the seabed a mile below the ocean surface weighs over 450 tons, including the 48-foot-tall failed blowout preventer. In a press teleconference Monday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen announced that the riser package is tilting “10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular,” twice the 5.5 degree tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa:
The entire arrangement is kind of listed a little bit. I think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite straight up.
The “integrity of the well casing is a major concern,” Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil, told the Houston Chronicle last week. Engineers and geologists fear the stack atop the well could tip over if the well integrity further degrades, leading to the “unlikely, but not implausible” scenario of “oil gushing through the sea floor.”
After Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward last week for what he said was a “shakedown” when the White House got British oil company to set up a $20 billion escrow fund, the three top House Republican leaders issued a statement calling Barton’s comments “wrong” and then forced him to apologize. On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh defended Barton, saying that “it was a shakedown pure and simple and somebody had the audacity to call it what it was.”
On CNN last night, John King asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) if Rush was right or if the House GOP leadership was right. Coburn refused to take a definitive position, though he faintly argued that the White House didn’t engage in “fair negotiations”:
KING: Rush right or is the Republican leadership in the House right?
COBURN: Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s the cynicism of our politics today. Nobody in either party wants to be vulnerable on any issue and where’s the real leadership? You know what we lack is where is the clarity of purpose. Nobody disagrees that BP is going to be held accountable. The question is how and when and that’s a small matter right now in terms of the problem that we have.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Do you have any problem with the White House negotiating this deal?
COBURN: Well I’m not sure it’s fair negotiations because you’re dealing with one very strong party and one very weak party in terms of public relations. But you know basically holding them accountable is where we want to be and this is one way of doing it.
Watch it:
It’s not surprising that Coburn would decline an opportunity to disagree with Limbaugh, since most Republicans are loathe to cross the right-wing talker. In early 2009, RNC Chairman Michael Steele called Limbaugh’s shtick “incendiary” and “ugly,” but then quickly recanted, calling Limbaugh a “very valuable conservative voice for our party.” Other conservative leaders, like Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford have bowed before Rush after expressing public criticism of the hate radio host.
BP CEO Tony Hayward was scheduled to speak at a meeting of the World National Oil Companies Congress today in London, which would mark his “first public appearance in the UK” since the disaster in the Gulf. But this morning the embattled chief announced that he is cancelling his appearance at the conference to “focus on the Gulf of Mexico relief effort”:
Tony Hayward, the chief executive of BP, has pulled out of a scheduled appearance at an oil conference in London on Tuesday as pressure grew after he was pictured sailing at the weekend.
Hayward said his decision was made in order to focus on the Gulf of Mexico relief effort but the British oil chief has faced severe criticism after pictures were published of him enjoying a yacht race off the Isle of Wight on Saturday.
BP spokesman Jon Pack said that Hayward’s “very heavy schedule of commitments to the Gulf of Mexico” had led him to cancel his appearance at the World National Oil Companies Congress.
Chief of staff Steve Westwell attended the conference today in Hayward’s place. Twice during his address to the conference attendees Westwell was interrupted by demonstrators chanting, “We need to end the oil age!”
Gen. Stanley McChrystal “was ordered back to Washington” today “after a magazine article portrayed him and his staff as openly contemptuous of some senior members of the Obama administration.” McChrystal is expected to appear at the White House tomorrow to answer for his interview that appears in an upcoming Rolling Stone article.
“The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country,” says a new congressional report. The report says the security arrangements “violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations.”
“The Senate approved a trio of district court nominees” last night, “making a small amount of headway in a nominations logjam that could get far greater attention this week.” Additionally, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) indicated that “an agreement might be reached on clearing a package of as many as 60 nominees,” which “would represent almost half of the more than 130 pending nominations.”
57 percent of residents in Fremont, NE voted Monday to “banish illegal immigrants from jobs and rental homes,” overturning an earlier decision by city leaders. “Within minutes” of its passage, the A.C.L.U Nebraska “pledged to file a lawsuit” against the ordinance on grounds that it would “cause discrimination and racial profiling.”
Under orders from President Obama, the Labor Department is set to “expand the rights of gay workers by allowing them to take family and medical leave to care for sick or newborn children of same-sex partners.” Those who work for a company with 50 or more employees are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave “to care for a newborn or for a spouse, son or daughter with ‘a serious health condition.’”
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