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Seize BP…

Posted on May 21, 2010 By

It’s been a month.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20. An oil volcano 5,000 feet below, on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, has been gushing hundred of thousands of gallons of oil for 30 days.

Chemicals poured into the lethal mix to disperse the oil add to toxic stew.

Will the Gulf of Mexico survive this gross negligence?

Almost 20 percent of the Gulf of Mexico is now closed to fishing.

BP & the U.S. government have maintained all along the gusher has bee pouring 210,000 gallons of oil and gas each day into the Gulf. The evidence is now pretty clear: the rate is more like 1.1 million gallons each day – or close to 33 million gallons since the explosion occurred.

Why is this travesty not being treated as criminal negligence? Why are the top officials of BP, Transocean and Halliburton still walking around as free men? Why have then not been placed into custody?

Why has the U.S. government not seized the assets of those companies? Why have they not been shut down?  Why have the assets of those companies not be placed into a trust to immediately begin saving the Gulf’s wildlife and provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose communities and livelihoods have been – or will soon be – decimated by this travesty?

Why has the full force of the federal government, even the military if necessary, not been called in to stop this murder of one of the world’s great oceans?

Seriously.

We go crazy over terrorism. We stand on chairs and scream bloody murder because we fear some poor, barely-surviving Mexican might be within our borders without proper authorization. We rant incessantly about meaningless ideologies of right vs. left. We threaten financial institutions and – maybe, just maybe – pretend to have reined them in.

By its own figures, BP earned $5.6 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2010, a 135 percent increase over profits of the 2009 First Quarter. It earned $17 billion in profits in all of 2009.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case corporations should be treated as individuals, allowed to give as much money as they wished to politicians and office-seekers.

If corporations are now to be treated as individuals why should we not seize BP, Transocean & Halliburton? Why should the officers of those corporations not be arrested and charged with high crimes?

How long will this disaster be allowed to continue without a day of reckoning for those responsible and restitution made for the damage?

What is the price that should be paid if the Gulf of Mexico is destroyed?

Play dat funky hillbilly politics white boy!

Posted on May 12, 2010 By

‘Murka is a funky place.

You gotta admit that. We get even funkier when we ride election cycles fast down busy streets, hit a slight bump and find ourselves suddenly and quite pointedly reminded how hard the narrow saddle of democracy can be.

It all seems so painful at that very moment but we just keep peddlin’.

Whether you know it or not, we’re knee deep in a very funky election cycle and by that I don’t mean a good Art Neville funky beat.

If you believe the national press meme, incumbents are as endangered as the Gulf of Mexico and all those it sustains.

Two incumbents have gone down in the past five days – TWO – out of 471 congressional seats up for re-election this year and, oh my heavens, we got us a landslide!!

Add on top of that all this funky talk of a U.S. Supreme Court nominee being Lebanese.

The Wall Street Journal, that even handed newspaper of insightful journalism, even ran a photograph of SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan playing softball, which is apparently very popular in Lebanon.

Do we care if Supreme Court nominees play softball? No, we do not. We just want them to be good, decent, social-justice-lovin’, let-freedom-ring, radical left-wing jurists for a change.

– BREAKING: We interrupt this silliness to bring you the breaking news that Tampa, Florida has been selected as the site of the GOP National Convention in 2012. Do they know Tampa is home to brown, black and gay people? That is all. –

So, the second incumbent to fall in a week did so yesterday in West Virginia, which so often leads the nation in hillbilly politics.

U.S. Rep Alan Mollohan, a 14-term Democrat (sorta), lost a party primary battle to a young upstate state senator who out-GOPeed the quasi-Democrat for the victory by vilifying the incumbent as just not right-wing enough. AND THESE ARE THE DEMOCRATS!

The Republican who State Senator Mike Oliverio will meet in the November general election better be bringin’ those Neanderthal genes hot ‘n heavy to bring the cave people out in force.

Mollohan’s big crime was that he voted in favor of health care reform, this despite him carrying solid pro-life credentials.

Because he supported better health care for all Americans – and in West Virginia, dental care is a big deal – the pro-life crew aborted its long standing support. After all, one can’t claim the pro-life banner and be in favor of better health care.

They also turned against him because he supported doing something to slow climate change and Lord knows we don’t need to change the climate in West Virginia.

Not to be outdone in hillbilly politics, the gubernatorial race in Alabama has turned the clock back to the 1920s where GOP front-runner Bradley Byrne (seriously) was accused of favoring the teaching of evolution in public schools. Byrne, for his part, countered that, by God, he believed every word in the Bible to be true and dictated directly by the Supreme Being to her secretary!

This after some weeks ago when fellow GOP candidate Tim James, son of former governor Fob, made a big deal out demanding driver’s license examinations be given only in English, the God-given language of the Bible.

Maybe the national punditry has it all wrong. Maybe this is not necessarily the year of the anti-incumbent. Maybe it’s just a good year to have a shallow gene pool.

Utah renames itself State of Confusion

Posted on May 10, 2010 By

In a stunning reversal, zigging when everyone thought he would zag, President Obama today nominated the forcibly retired Sen. Bob Bennett, noted leftist from Utah, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Naw…just kidding.

The SCOTUS nod goes to current U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, noted socialist and prostitute according to right-wing extremists who also say they don’t like her haircut, a little too short for their liking.

The political scene is really bonking for lack of adequate nutrition.

Here’s the good news about Kagan: no one, but no one, doubts her brilliance and precision as a thinker and writer, analyzer of exquisite detail and thoughtful narrative. The Senate’s already voted to confirm her as solicitor general.

Okay, okay…but will she vote to overturn Roe v. Wade…that’s what’s important to the extremists.

Answer: Oh, hell no! Now, y’all go on about the bidness of eating your own and leave the Supreme Court to the grown ups.

But they won’t. They’ll try anything they can think of to try to destroy Kagan, all reasons having nothing to do with her potential as a supreme court justice.

They’ve already called her a prostitute. How much lower can they sink?

Writing in the National Review, no less, some hack named Ed Whelan questioned Kagan’s principles with the famous G.B. Shaw quote, “We’ve already established what you are, ma’am. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

After being roundly criticized, the Whelan character backtracked a bit to explain everyone uses this quote – you know, to call people whores.

And speaking of solid principles and loyalty, the extremists ate one of their own heroes over the weekend.

The good people of the Utah GOPeeparty, meeting in convention, ousted three-term U.S. Senator Bob Bennett because he isn’t pure enough. It’s rumored he actually knows and has spoken with African Americans, Latin Americans and, perhaps, women!

You see, the Utah GOPers get together in a convention to decide which Republican Utah will elect to national offices such as the U.S. Senate. This year’s back room deal turned into a teabagger convention and out went Sen. Bennett.

The reason? Just not conservative enough. Heck, he voted in favor of President Bush bail-out of big banks and talked to Democrats about health care reform.

In the addled brains of teabaggers this simply will not do. I mean this guy was the employer of Howard Hunt when he and G. Gordon Liddy broke into the Watergate to bug the Democrats…and he’s no longer conservative enough for the baggers. Whew!!

Hmmm…Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich all like him. They are so out of step with the baggers.

And finally, from the “Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry” file, it seems farm animals are not safe in Florida.

Despite repeated attempts, the Florida Legislature failed to outlaw animal diddlin’ in the Sunshine State; an issue sure to raise its ugly head in the race for the U.S. Senate.

Why bother with nuclear weapons when we got demagoguery!!

Posted on April 12, 2010 By

Okay, sure, the President of the United States has assembled in Washington today the largest gathering of world leaders since FDR and, sure, they’re gonna talk about the dangers to the world of nuclear weapons, while also interviewing candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court.

But enough of the small stuff. The really important stuff happened in New Orleans over the weekend when the southern confederate Republican leadership wallowed in self-pity and self-hate to warn us of the dangers of this president who don’t look like all the other presidents.

Just like Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour explained, all the hub-bub over Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell proclaiming April as Confederate Heritage Month? Well, that don’t amount to diddly…and not Bo Diddley, neither, unless he wants to sing us a song and wail on that little box guitar!

No siree, bob…we got real problems in this country and they all start with smart, insightful people regaining control of the fedrul guv’munt and, well, we just can’t have that. They might do something – already have – to help us progress toward a better world when what we really want is to roll back the clock 150 years and fight the slavery war all over again!

You see, in addition to protectin’ their only source of power – ig’nurt hillbillies who are easily persuaded to vote against their own interests – bombast and demagoguery are the only talent they got. Sure ain’t governin’. (See history: 2000-2008.)

Where, oh where is Andrew Jackson when we really need him? What? Drunk and mean again? Great, bring ‘im on!

It’s hard to explain, though, how a Yankee like Mittens Romney won the straw poll at the southern confederate Republican leadership gathering. But be something about a shiny object that glimmers in the lights. Sheen is good.

“Don’t retreat. Reload!” shouted shiny object Sarah Palin, while quickly explaining she doesn’t mean by that we should not resort to violence. By, “reload,” she means putting more ammunition into guns.

She also reportedly distributed reindeer jerk on which the mob could chew while she talked.

“Don’t tell me you’re a Republican and then go spend all the money,” said Texas Gov. Rick Perry. (Again, see history: 2000-2008)

Eye-of-the-Newt Gingrich warned the crowd Obama and the Democrats are a secular, socialist machine. “Two plus two equals four,” Gingrich said, which is just about all the math the crowd could handle.

Oh well, it appears bombast alone won’t save the nation so it will be up to the “snake oil-based, global warming, Gore-gate crowd,” as Palin up it, to save ‘Murka and the world – from itself.

But, oh blessed Jesus, they can always rely on the superior wit of folks like alleged comedian Victorian Jackson who told a separate (but equal) teabagger rally over the weekend, “it doesn’t matter if (Obama) has a birth certificate or not, he’s not an American.”

Sweet.

Shoot ‘em up at the Starbucks Corral!

Posted on March 5, 2010 By

“I’d love to meet you at Starbucks…but I’m out of ammo.”

Or…

“I’ll take a venti triple mocha latte with two extra shots…one in the cup and one at your head.”

That’s right. If you haven’t heard by now, you need to know the pin-head knuckle draggers who insist on carrying guns in their pants because they fear they have little else to carry in their pants are pulling the trigger on sanity around the country by staging gun-toting gatherings at Starbucks.

Their aim, you see, is to prove to the world what extreme bullies they can be by carrying guns into Starbucks – and other restaurants – in states where it’s legal to openly carry guns – 24 states, to be exact.

Yes, you read that correctly: it is now legal to openly carry guns in 24 states and two more – Virginia and Arizona – are expected soon to follow suit and become a backdrop for cowboy movies. Guns are allowed now in playgrounds and sports fields in Tennessee.

It’s insanity, really.

Seriously, give me a good reason for carrying a gun into a Starbucks or a California Pizza Kitchen or a Buckhorn Grill or any other restaurant…except, of course, to rob it at gun point.

You’re right. There isn’t one. But that matters little to the mouth breathers who continue to insist they need guns to make up for their lack of self esteem.

Hey morons! Try a little therapy…or contemplative prayer…or yoga, for Heaven’s sake.

The good news is The Brady Center is trying to counter this craziness.

All this comes as the U.S. Supreme Court may be on the brink of relaxing gun laws even more and…oh, yea, did we mention that last night a gun-toter shot up the Pentagon and wounded two police officers?

And from the Tell-Us-Something-We-Don’t-Already-Know Department, comes a leaked memo and PowerPoint show in which Republican operatives suggest using “fear” as a tactic to raise money and win votes in the 2010 elections.

Hmmm, really? Gee, we’ve never seen Republicans do that before. (See: Senator Joseph McCarthy; See: Donald Segretti; See: Karl Rove) But, apparently, this time they mean it.

The strategy, unveiled by the Republican National Committee’s finance group at a gathering of party officials February 18th in Boca Grande, Florida, suggests the best way to raise money from the very rich is to scare them with cartoons and tell them socialism and President Obama will take away all their money!

Cartoons mocking President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warn of “the evil empire” run by “Curella DeVille and Scooby Doo.”

Issues, anyone? Debate, anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Guns, fear and cartoons! That’s what made ‘Murka great!