Politics Plus

After watching and rewatching Obama’s speech, my feelings are mixed.  While he spelled out what is being done quite well, took the proper tone about BP’s obligation to pay for all the damages, and pointed out the need for clean energy, he missed the opportunity to present a clean energy plan himself.

President Obama vowed last night to make BP pay for the damage its oil disaster has wrought on the Gulf Coast’s people and environment, using a national address to assure an angry public that the victims will be compensated and the ravaged area restored.

In his first address from the Oval Office — an event that marked the gravity of the situation and Obama’s desire to show leadership on it — the president said he would insist that compensation be awarded by an independent entity, not controlled by the multibillion dollar oil company whose rig explosion killed 11 people, injured 17 others, and caused widespread economic and environmental damage to the coastal region.

“I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness,’’ Obama said, jabbing his finger in the air. He is set to meet chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and chief executive Tony Hayward for the first time at the White House today.

“Make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy,’’ he added.

As part of that effort, the president named Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former governor of Mississippi, to lead efforts on developing a plan to “restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region.’’

The president also announced a new head of the agency charged with regulating the oil industry, naming a former Justice Department official, Michael Bromwich, to revamp the Minerals Management Agency. The government entity has been attacked for being too cozy with the industry it is supposed to oversee, effectively letting oil companies monitor themselves and develop their own emergency plans for handling spills.

And Obama acknowledged that his decision a few months ago to expand offshore drilling may not have fully addressed concerns on safety, as he said he had been assured.

“That was obviously not the case on the Deepwater Horizon rig, and I want to know why. The American people deserve to know why. The families I met with last week who lost their loved ones in the explosion — these families deserve to know why,’’ Obama said…

Inserted from <Boston Globe>

You be the judge.  Here is the speech in its entirety.

Part 2

Where I have a problem is that stating his willingness to listen to all ideas from all parties sounds very much like his approach to health care.  Bipartisanship will serve him no better now than it did then.  The GOP is already sucking the oil tit too greedily to let it go.  They will make a big show at bipartisanship, but every time an agreement looks close, they will move the goalposts.  Instead of this approach, Obama should have presented a fully formed energy policy to serve as a starting point.  Then those who would weaken it, whether Republican or DINO, cannot do so without going on the record and exposing themselves to the wrath of a public sick to death of watching the oil destroying the Gulf and it’s wildlife.

Once upon a time the GOP’s star nominee, Sharon “obtuse” Angle was not a Republican.  GOP goose stepping was too liberal for Sharon.  She preferred one one of those extreme right, gun toting parties.

The key to understanding Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle may be the fact that she has not always been a Republican.

For at least six years in the 1990s before she held state-level elective office, Angle was a member of the little-known Independent American Party, a right-wing party that combines [wing-nuts delinked] elements of Ron Paul’s doctrinaire libertarianism — pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy, pro-states’ rights — with Christian social conservatism and fear of the "North American Union" and other forms of "global government." The small party attracted considerable controversy in 1994 when it took out a newspaper ad titled "Consequences of Sodomy: Ruin of a Nation," which suggested HIV could spread through the water.

Three members of the Independent American Party tell TPM that Angle, a Nye County, Nevada, school board member at the time, was an active member of the party in the 1990s. They say she only left the Independent American Party and became a Republican out of political expediency when she decided to seek a seat in the state assembly, to which she was elected in 1998.

"It was because she wanted to run for office. And it was difficult for members of our party to get elected at that time," Janine Hansen, executive director of the Independent American Party, tells TPM. "It was a strategic move on her part."

Hansen’s brother, the late Daniel Hansen, founded the Independent American Party in 1967 "after realizing that the Republican Party was growing too corrupt and socialistic," according to the party website [wing nuts delinked]. The party lost its ballot position in the late 1970s and didn’t get back on until a push by Hansen in 1992. That year, Angle signed the petition to get the Independent American Party back on the ballot, according to multiple party members and news reports.

That was a heady time for the reborn party. A 1992 Los Angeles Times article (via Nexis) describes Hansen at a political rally wearing a Stetson hat and bearing a sign that read, "If Guns Are Outlawed, How Can We Shoot the Liberals?" His rhetoric would not be out of place at a 2010 tea party.

"Don’t give up your guns, folks," he told a crowd. "That’s all we’ve got to protect us against the advance of socialism. America is in a survival phase."

Angle’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment…

Inserted from <TPM>

Now we know where Angle gets her love of Second Amendment Solutions, as she has said that her follows will need them if ballots don’t work.  She and other Republican nominees have implied that violent revolt is the next step if they are not elected.

Teabaggers do some crazy things, and lately the collection of insanity has been sufficient to cause a worldwide shortage of tin foil. Lets start with Keith Olbermann’s take on Sharon “Obtuse” Angle and and Rand “I’m only a racist on days that end in Y” Paul.

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More on Angle later.  If Paul even lies about being board certified, can we believe him about anything?"

Next, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes discuss Angle’s rehabilitation, demonstrating how the GOP tries to mischaracterize  their true positions.

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No matter how hard they try, they can’t remove the stripe from this pole cat.

No collection of Teabuggery would be complete without a contribution from Michelle “Batshit” Bachmann.

…In an interview Friday with Fox Business’ David Asman — who asked in a recent blog post, “Is the president funding terrorism?” [Faux Noise delinked] — Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) claimed that the aid “rewarded” Hamas, and that it showed Obama was siding with Iran and Hamas over Israel:

BACHMANN: I also don’t think it was a a good signal for the president to give $400 million in aid to Gaza. He had a choice to make last week. The president had a choice between standing with Benjamin Netanyahu, or standing with Ahmadinejad and Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. This should not have been a difficult choice, but the President chose to stand with Hamas and then they were rewarded this week with $400 million in aid. Gee, you don’t think that will embolden them to take future aggressive actions against Israel, do you? […]

ASMAN: Are you going to start up some sort of congressional investigation to look into this, because it would literally be against the law to contribute money to an organization that funnels money to terrorists. […]

BACHMANN: And again, I’m against sending this $400 million to Hamas. I think it’s a very foolish thing to do to reward them for these aggressive actions that were taken last week.

Watch it:

 

Just about every part of Bachmann’s argument, from the facts to the conclusions, is wrong. First of all, the $400 million Obama promised goes to Gaza and the West Bank, and the majority of it will almost certainly go to the larger West Bank. Secondly, none of the money will go to Hamas. The funds will instead be distributed through NGOs and the U.N., as has been U.S. policy in Gaza for some time.

Moreover, Bachmann’s claim that the aid package means Obama “chose” Hamas over Israel is complete nonsense. Beyond that fact that Obama has repeatedly stressed his support for Israel, U.S. aid to Israel easily dwarfs that to the Palestinian territories, and aid to Israel has actually increased under Obama. This fiscal year, the administration budgeted $2.7 billion for Israel, while it plans to give $2.85 billion in FY 2011… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

If anything, Obama has refused to commit while most of the world is condemning Israel’s illegal blockade.

For last, I’m saving an example of Teabuggery that borders on treason, suggesting the violent overthrow of the US government.

Add another to the growing collection of strange and disturbing political ads coming out of Alabama these days.

Rick Barber, a candidate in the Republican primary for the state’s second district, has released a one-minute ad in which he implies he supports impeaching President Barack Obama, then goes on a protracted criticism of the IRS, concluding with an actor dressed as George Washington declaring, "Gather your armies."

The ad begins with the Tea Party-backed Barber implying support for Obama’s impeachment. "And I would impeach him," Barber says in the ad’s opening line as he sits at a table with actors dressed as Washington, Sam Adams and Ben Franklin…

Inserted from <Raw Story>

Here’s the ad itself.

It’s as offensive as it is infantile.

I don’t understand why the GOP do not repudiate such people as Democrats did Alan Greene.  But the Republicans have embraced them, their only reaction, attempts to cosmetically disguise their extreme positions.  This we must not allow.  We need to keep presenting them for what they are.  A weakness of the left is that we tend to tell the truth and figure we’ve dealt with it.  The GOP, on the other hand, repeats their lies, no matter how outrageous, over and over again, until people start believing it because they hear the lies from them so much more often than they hear the truth from us.  If they have been successful through repeating lies, cannot we be more so by repeating the truth?