Wednesday Open Thread
It’s Wednesday and it’s time for an open thread. Do you have any burning thoughts you want to share with the rest of us? Put your thoughts, non sequitors and links below. This thread is open!
There’s not too much I can add to this story of a Hutaree wedding:
Isn’t it romantic? Weddings always make me cry.
Code Pink tried to arrest Karl Rove at an author event.
Rove: “With all due respect, this shows the totalitarianism of the left.”
Gee, I thought it was patriotic to yell at public functions? What’s Rove’s problem? Oh, he also called the Downing Street memos a fabrication. Rove skittered away without signing any books either.
Tags: Open Thread
No blogging on another Obomba campaign lie, this time about supporting a moratorium on offshore driling? And did you catch his Justice Department filing another brief defending DADT in court this week? Obomba is the Tom Carper of Democratic Presidents.
Obama permitting drilling or oil off Virginia? Defend that libs.
Also, ole Blanche Lincoln is emailing voters in Arkansas that Bill Halter is addicted to prescription drugs and charges HIM with outsourcing jobs to India. What these corrupt politicans (on both side) won’t do to continue in power literally baffles the brain. Lets hope the voters send ole Blanche to India for her new position.
Oh, that picture of the Hutaree wedding is just too easy. Suffice it to say it reminds me of something from the backwoods of Alabama/Arkansas/Mississippi and on and on and on.
anonone, I hope you realize that Obama never lies according to these people. He has lied and broken many, many promises. However, these sheep are totally fine with it. They simply do as they’re told and bend over and take it without saying as much as a word.
Talk about your shotgun wedding.
Desmond – if the rethuglicans in Congress would cooperate and work in a partisan manner instead of just saying “no” to everything POTUS puts forward, then maybe we’d be able to see some of the programs he put forward during the campaign come to fruition. When you have closeted senators from SC, like Sen. BottomBoy, threatening to block the repeal of DADT, and then holding up other legislation or appointments, well, I challenge you to find a solution to that.
Blame it all on the republicans! That’s the ticket! They must still control the Justice Department, right, MJ?
An Energy Head Fake: The Administration is still hostile to oil drilling and nuclear power.
http://online.wsj.com ^ | Mar 11, 2010 | Wallstreet Journal
President Obama used his January State of the Union speech to promise “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” and “new offshore areas for oil and gas development.” Judging by its recent decisions, we’d say his Cabinet hasn’t received the memo.
Congress’s ban on offshore drilling expired in September 2008, and a Bush Administration plan for leasing the energy-rich Outer Continental Shelf was due to begin this year. Yet within a month of taking office, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar halted leasing by extending the public comment period by six months. When that period ended last September, Interior said it would take “several weeks” to analyze the results. It has yet to release a summary.
Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions group used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain Interior emails suggesting that the public comments ran 2-to-1 in favor of drilling. Instead of acknowledging this, Mr. Salazar last week informed Congress he was scrapping the Bush plan and that leasing will not begin for at least another two years.
The Administration failed to meet a deadline last month for submitting a court-ordered analysis of the environmental impact of new leases off the Alaskan coast. And in January, Mr. Salazar rebuffed Virginia’s request—endorsed by its governor and legislature—to allow drilling offshore. Sensing a pattern?….
PSchwartz: You ought to read facts instead of the WSJ’s highly slanted opinions once in a while. There is no basis for the claim that the outer continental shelf is “energy rich,” and the stuff that is cited is mostly GOP wah-wah-wah.
Do you have a thought of your own in your head? Because, you know, we actually know how to find your barrel-bottom-scrapings ourselves. In other words, why jerk off with one hand? Why not use two and leave us in peace?
As for the Fire Dog Lake crowd, suppose you lay out for us all the problems with offshore drilling that don’t involve the worst-case scenario of a spill? Good luck.
One would think you’d be happy he’s taking away Sarah Palin’s No. 1 applause line-turned-braindead chant.
A1 – if you recall, the Bushies politicized the hiring process at DOJ (and other agencies) and many of the political appointees from that reign burrowed into career jobs. Yeah, career civil servants can gum up the works for any administration they don’t particularly care for.
MJ DADT was 1993 when Clinton was President and Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. Clinton campaigned on allowing everyone to serve equally and dropped that idea like a hot potato at the first sign of opposition.
Clinton also signed DOMA, but that was 1996 so if you want to blame that one on the GOP you’d have more of a case, though if Clinton didn’t sign it, it would have died the death it deserved.
AS for “politicized” hirings, every new regime sweeps whatever opposition they can out of office and replaces them with friendlies. It’s nothing new, astonishing, or noteworthy.
Question,
Why does the Pied Piper of Global warming, Al Gore, who jets around the world sounding the clarion call of Rising Sea Levels…
Own a beach house?
Question?
Why does P. Schwartz post dumbass comments?
Geezer, are you arguing that the Obama administration isn’t blocking drilling?
or that they are but it’s ok cause there isn’t any oil out there anyway?
or that Salazar is blocking, but now Obama is going to change that?
MJ, the AG makes these decisions, not the career staff.
What’s you point, Geezer?
Geezer’s point is that he asked a pretty straightforward question in standard English — will you be answering that or just asking stalling questions?
Geezer’s comments are usually more to the point, which is why I asked him for clarification. Asking “suppose you lay out for us all the problems with offshore drilling that don’t involve the worst-case scenario of a spill?” is like asking “suppose you lay out for us all the problems with having a gun in the house that don’t involve someone getting shot?” or “suppose you lay out for us all the problems with nuclear weapons that don’t involve them getting used?”
The fact is that the risk of an environmental catastrophe isn’t worth the oil, and drilling for and burning more oil isn’t the solution to global warming.
Face it, cassandra_m, you just can’t stand the fact that your dear leader Obomba lied repeatedly to get elected and now keeps selling us out to the insurance, oil, and (next) banking industries.
A1 – I know that you were misinformed on a lot of things, but now I know that you’re also naive. Political appointees do not run the government – it’s the career civil servants. We are the ones who draft the legislation that is sent up to the Hill for a Member of Congress to introduce. And once a bill becomes law, we are the ones who write the regulations to put the law into action.
Face it A1 — Geezer asked you for a discussion of the issues that you have with off-shore drilling and you couldn’t muster the energy to answer him.
So thanks for demonstrating to us once again that you don’t know much about these issues that you are whinging about.
Well, the drilling worries me, for a number of reasons… starting with our lousy track record of policing OTHER environmental hazards. If anyone hasn’t read Shannyn Moore’s heartbreaking essay on the Exxon Valdez, I am again recommending it.
http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/exxon-spill-20-make-that-21-years-of-tears/
Never forget the real enemy:
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1388
There is NO WAY they read those books.
And this is how I know — wingnuts do not read anything that either isn’t a bribe for donations OR heavily pimped by their cohorts. They just don’t read this widely or this deeply.
Gad, that article ought to be an embarrassment to those fools.
Missundaztood – DADT came about because the know-it-alls at the Human Rights Campaign pushed too hard, and too early in the Clinton administration for doing away with the ban on gays in the military. You might recall a Democratic Senator named Sam Nunn, who was then chair of the Armed Services Committee, who vowed to put the ban into law, not just leaving it in military regulations. DADT was a compromise to avoid an embarrassing defeat for Clinton. And if he had vetoed it, it would have been overridden by Congress, and if not overridden, attached to the Defense spending bill. So your argument on DADT fails.
DOMA was also the result of self-appointed gay leaders who had no idea what they were doing, pushing for something they did not have the votes in Congress to back up. Yes, there were spineless Dems who supported it – but it also would have become law with or without Clinton’s signature.
The only government employees who are “swept out by the new regime” are those who are either Schedule C appointees not needing Senate confirmation or those who do require Senate confirmation. We saw that under Alberto Gonzalez, rank-and-file hiring of career attorneys was politicized by Monica Goodling (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/30/AR2007053001499.html). What more of these Schedule C employees who should have lost their jobs on 1/20/09 did was finagle a way to “burrow in” and get career jobs, many doing the same jobs they did as political appointees. And now as career civil servants, it basically takes an act of Congress (or them getting caught breaking the law) for them to lose their jobs.
Please, don’t try to explain the way the Federal government really works to a 25+ year career civil servant.
Face it, cassandra_m: I responded to Geezer’s question quite clearly when In wrote “The fact is that the risk of an environmental catastrophe isn’t worth the oil, and drilling for and burning more oil isn’t the solution to global warming.”
To bad that you can’t admit that your dear leader Obomba is a liar who is selling progressives out to big corporate interests every chance he gets. Just keep trying to change the subject, but eventually even you will see that your emperor is naked.
MJ, the Attorney General is in charge of the Justice Department. This particular brief was filed by an Obomba appointee, Tony West. It might behoove you to actually look up the facts before you accuse others of not knowing much about these issues.
The brief is here:
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM110_100330_log_cabin.html
The bio of the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division is here:
http://www.justice.gov/civil/Tony%20West%20Bio.htm
Is blind uncritical allegiance to a sell-out lying president a requirement for blogging at DL? Apparently so.
suppose you lay out for us all the problems with offshore drilling that don’t involve the worst-case scenario of a spill?
This was the question.
The one you are avoiding. And then lying about answering. You are a pathetic fool.
A1 – I have yet to meet a political appointee who actually writes a regulation or a brief and actually reads, from beginning to end, what they are signing. That’s what the careerists are for. Seriously, you actually believe that political appointees really do something besides photo ops? Again, very naive.
I answered the question. Ignoring the worst-case scenario of a spill is like asking Mrs. Lincoln how she like the play. You can’t ignore the worst-case scenario, particularly when the probability of that happening at some point is high. Not to mention that drilling for and burning more oil is not the way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Speaking of “avoiding,” when are you going to recognize what a shill you’ve become for a lying owned-by-corporations president. But I guess that you are now part of the Palin/Obomba “drill, baby, drill” crowd.
“Pathetic fool,” indeed. Look in the mirror.
Excuses and more excuses, MJ. It is both naive and ridiculous to think that West and Holder did not know and approve of what was in that brief.
I answered the question.
Liar. But we’ve stopped expecting anything else from you.
“The fact is that the risk of an environmental catastrophe isn’t worth the oil…”
“You can’t ignore the worst-case scenario, particularly when the probability of that happening at some point is high….”
The first statement is highly debatable. The second is pure bullshit. The probability isn’t high at all. In fact, there hasn’t been a major spill related to offshore drilling in more than 30 years, despite far more rigs that in the early years, when some horrible spills ocurred (there are, on the other hand, minor spills all the time). Half the spills these days are hurricane-related.
Here’s an article that might help you recover from your case of the vapors.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5897424.html
Next time, try doing some research before answering.
cassandra_m, do have little string hanging out of your back so all that you can write is “liar” whenever somebody pulls it? Or is your head so far up Obomba’s butt that you can’t see the words written on a screen? Also, I noticed that you’re expressing your opinions in using plural pronouns – do you have a multiple personality disorder, too?
Clearly and truthfully, I answered the question as anyone who can read the English language can see. But keep shilling for Obomba – I am sure his corporate sponsors appreciate you.
@P Schwartz: My point is that you’re a lazy fuck. All you do is post articles that you assume will piss off people here, without doing any research of your own so that you have something intelligent OF YOUR OWN to add.
The facts, available in about three seconds via search engine, can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_drilling_on_the_US_Atlantic_coast
To summarize for those who aren’t interested in the geology of oil/gas exploration, test wells in the North Atlantic have been mostly fruitless. Test wells in the mid-Atlantic have yielded one good gas find in the Baltimore Canyon (off the coast from NJ to Va), but it was determined back in the ’60s to be too expensive for the prices then. Florida seems more promising.
The further point is that the WSJ is boo-hooing over the lost year when any honest Obama foe would concede this is what they wanted, it’s what the public wanted, and God dammit, you can’t force us to say anything positive about the guy.
And you’re too lazy to improve on that immature reaction from a pathetic gang of talentless ideologues.
Geezer, in spite of the improved technology, all you have to do is Google “oil spills during katrina” to see that major spills have occurred in just the last 5 years. When you look at the potential damage that could occur from a major spill, yes, the risk is too high. And hurricanes happen up and down the east coast and their intensity is expected to increase, due to global warming. So you can’t just ignore them.
Finally, you fail to address how drilling for and burning more oil is a solution to global warming, which is a catastrophe orders of magnitude beyond an off-shore oil spill.
The bottom-line is that there is no good reason to risk environmental disaster by drilling off our coasts and Obomba was right when he campaigned against it. Unfortunately, he was lying.
“While a few eco-advocacy groups, like the Pew Environment Group, commended the Obama administration for its oil-drilling decision announced today, the majority, even those that have previously given the President high marks on the environment, are steamed.”
These include Pew Environment Group’s U.S. Arctic program, Oceana, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Environment America.
But I am sure that big oil will contribute much more to Obomba than these groups, so why listen to them?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/31/852906/-Eco-Groups-Weigh-in-on-Drilling-Reversal
“all you have to do is Google “oil spills during katrina” to see that major spills have occurred in just the last 5 years.”
First, define “major.” A few thousand gallons is not a “major” oil spill. And, quite obviously, the spills during Katrina were hurricane-related. We will not be getting level 5 storms in the mid-Atlantic, no matter what Al Gore told you.
“Hurricanes happen up and down the east coast and their intensity is expected to increase, due to global warming. So you can’t just ignore them.”
You’re really showing your lack of attention to detail here. Hurricanes lose strength as they move over cooler water. If the mid-Atlantic regularly experiences level 5 hurricanes in the next 100 years, you’re going to have a lot more to worry about than some spilled oil.
“you fail to address how drilling for and burning more oil is a solution to global warming, which is a catastrophe orders of magnitude beyond an off-shore oil spill.”
News flash: Oil will continue to be burned for the rest of your lifetime. We will burn the same amounts no matter how much comes from US waters and how much from foreign sources.
“there is no good reason to risk environmental disaster”
Substitute terrorism for environmental disaster and you have just articulated Dick Cheney’s philosophy: We must do whatever necessary, no matter how great, to avoid a worst-case scenario, no matter how unlikely. I dislike hyperventilating from either side of the political spectrum.
And now, instead of trying to defend your ignorance, try reading the link I provided. And grow up.
MJ Clinton ran in 1992 on lifting the ban on gays in the military, don’t blame the HRC for expecting Clinton to do what he promised.
Geezer,
“First, define “major.””
OK, from the Code of Federal Regulations used by the EPA and Coast Guard to evaluate oil spills:
“Major discharge means a discharge of more than 10,000 gallons of oil to the inland waters or more than 100,000 gallons of oil to the coastal waters.
Got it?
During Hurricanes Rita and Katrina:
“As a result of both storms, a total volume of 17,652 barrels (or roughly three-quarters of a million gallons) of total petroleum products, of which 13,137 barrels were crude oil and condensate, was spilled from platforms, rigs and pipelines. 4,514 barrels were refined products from platforms and rigs.”
~750,000 gallons is a major spill by any definition.
“If the mid-Atlantic regularly experiences level 5 hurricanes in the next 100 years, you’re going to have a lot more to worry about than some spilled oil’
This is definitely true, which is why global warming will be catastrophic. Warmer and more humid air and warmer waters mean more intense hurricanes. The New England Hurricane of 1938 was likely a category 5 hurricane that hit land in Long Island and Connecticut. The northeast coast is overdue for another like that.
“We will burn the same amounts no matter how much comes from US waters and how much from foreign sources.”
That is speculation and doesn’t have to happen (but it is likely to be true, unfortunately). We should be focusing on renewable resources, conservation, and alternative energy sources, such as nuclear fusion, instead of wasting billions of dollars looking for more oil like a junkie looks for a fix. There are no good reasons to put oil rigs off the coast of Delaware, and many good reasons not to.
Speaking of liars and fools, cassandra_m:
“Barack Obama said Friday that presidential rival John McCain’s proposal to allow offshore drilling “makes absolutely no sense at all” as he headed to Florida to put the Republican on the spot over the issue
Obama said opening up the U.S. coastline to oil exploration would not give Americans any appreciable savings until 2030.
“Even then you’re looking at cents on a gallon of gas,” Obama told Democratic governors at a meeting in his hometown. “Who knows 22 years from now, what would gas be at the pace that we’re going right now?”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/20/politics/main4198831.shtml?source=related_story&tag=related
A1 and Missunda – I challenge you to spend one week working in a Federal government office in DC and then come back and report that the politcals actually run the government.
And Bush promised to be a uniter not a divider, and Nixon promised to end the war in Viet Nam within his first year in office, and Carter promised to get us off of foreign oil , as did Reagan. So what is your point?
Funny, then, how Bush and Ashcroft managed to get their agenda going quickly with all those Clinton leftovers.
And I do blame HRC for pushing the issue too early in Clinton’s Presidency when they knew they didn’t have the votes to support any type of change. Same with ENDA and equal marriage and non-discrimination. HRC’s only purpose is to continually raise millions of dollars to pay outsized salaries to staff who haven’t produced much of anything to benefit the gay community since 1990. I know – I was involved on the inside as a major donor to HRC before I stopped drinking the kool aid they were serving at functions.
Have to agree with you there, MJ. I was flat out HORRIFIED when he announced that. I was in the march saying, “WTH is that about? After all we’ve done in the election, trying to get AIDS programs fully funded, trying to address a network of custody problems and job discrimination, he decides to blow ALL his momentum on an unwinable fight with the military? Are you frimpin’ SERIOUS?” I was heartsick.
The first of so many opportunities lost, with that administration. 🙁
And for the liar and fool A1 —
Obama did a pretty famous turn around on drilling in September 2008.
So when you actually had a reason to pop your gasket, you missed your chance. Fool.
Thanks for pointing out that Obomba is a flip-flopper as well as a liar and a fool. First he says offshore drilling “makes absolutely no sense at all” and then 2 months later “We’re going to have to explore new ways to get more oil, and that includes offshore drilling.”
He must have just received his payments and marching orders from the energy companies.
Why does this drilling thing strike me as more politics than policy?
A1 – very few Clintonites burrowed in – the Director of OPM would not approve the appointments. Not so with the Bushies. Again, unless you know what you’re speaking about, you shouldn’t spout off with your so-called “facts.” You sound like Sarah Palin.
“HRC’s only purpose is to continually raise millions of dollars to pay outsized salaries to staff who haven’t produced much of anything to benefit the gay community since 1990. I know – I was involved on the inside as a major donor to HRC before I stopped drinking the kool aid they were serving at functions.”
HRC has been a very helpful ally in bringing more equality to Delaware. They have provided very qualified staff at coalition meetings, including sending their chief legislative director to the meeting this week with Governor Markell.
I can’t speak to the HRC’s practices in the 1990s, or their compensation policies. I do know that we have marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnership laws in several states, which I consider serious benefits to the gay community since 1990. Clearly HRC did not accomplish this alone, nor was this done without the involvement of HRC.
HRC had very little to do with the marriage equality bill enacted by the DC City Council (actually, they were against David Catania introducing it). There is actually a group of former donors and supporters who are fed up with HRC and are withholding their money until Joe Solmonese goes. Take it from me, NGLTF, with a tenth of the money that HRC has, has accomplished more in the past 5 years than HRC.
MJ, the ridiculousness of you trying to absolve Holder and West of responsibility for that brief is utter.
Beau blows another case. He wanted to give probation to a guy with a long history of violence but the judge says no way:
“Superior Court Judge John A. Parkins Jr. said the facts of Whitaker’s crime and his lengthy and troubling violent criminal record not only prompted him to ignore — and openly question — the prosecution’s recommendation, but also to impose the maximum possible sentence to protect society from Whitaker.
“This recommendation [of probation] is a mystery to me,” Parkins said in court.”
Beau makes Jane Brady look like Perry Mason.
http://www.delawareonline.com/comments/article/20100401/NEWS01/4010346/Delaware-courts-Judge-nixes-plea-deal-gives-8-years
Boo hoo. “O’Donnell “spending more time with familiy.”
I had hoped that she would unleash the crazy.