Welcome to the Wednesday edition of your open thread. Fire away!
It’s time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way the public know what’s going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP’s strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the President is ultimately in charge.
If the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and the auto giant General Motors and replace their CEOs, in order to keep them financially solvent, it should be able to put BP’s north American operations into temporary receivership in order to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.
We’re having a weird spectacle of crazy Michele Bachmann calling for the government to commandeer private boats (to do what exactly – we don’t know that) and Bobby Jindal begging for the federal government to come save them. Of course it seems equally weird for Louisiana Senator David Vitter to uphold oil companies’ damage caps.
Leadership PACs are a scam. I’m shocked, SHOCKED to learn that politicians are using PACs to line their own pockets and the pockets of their friends.
Minority Leader John A. Boehner has collected more than $1.4 million from business interests this election cycle for a committee he says he created to help fellow Republican lawmakers. But Boehner’s committee has spent only about a third of its money helping other candidates.
About two-thirds of its expenditures have gone instead to costs the committee describes as necessary to raise money, including fine meals and trips to luxurious resorts where the congressman mingles with corporate-directed groups and lobbyists. Boehner (Ohio) has spent more than $182,000 through the committee on frequent travel with donors to Florida and similar vacation spots, according to Federal Election Commission records, including $70,403 at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples and more than $30,000 at Disney Resort Destinations.
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Instead, the PACs spend the bulk of their money funding their own operations, spending sizeable sums on fundraisers that also offer sweet perquisites for members and their aides. The PACs have financed distant resort stays and expensive meals for members in New York, Miami, Beverly Hills and elsewhere and paid for private jets, liquor, flowers, limousines, ski lift and baseball tickets, and even horse track visits, according to tallies submitted monthly to the FEC.
Remember how Sarah Palin’s PAC spent money to buy her own books? She’s just a follower, not a leader in this trend to rip off your followers and wallow in corporate money.