A Miner Problem For Massey

Hey folks, this weekend while the pictures of devastated coastline, decimated coastal communities and dead wildlife pour in from the Gulf, let's keep in mind that Deepwater Horizon's oil rig wasn't the only deadly energy company disaster borne of negligence just in the last month.

Massey Energy Co is under criminal investigation by the FBI after the deadly mine explosion in West Virginia, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said on Friday, news that sent the company's stock plummeting.

The FBI is probing the company and the circumstances surrounding the explosion which killed 29 miners, including for potential negligence, the officials said, declining further identification.

The miners died at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, on April 5, in the worst U.S. mining disaster since 1970.

April has been a very, very bad month for energy companies.  But never forget it's been far, far worse for the families of the people who were killed in these two accidents, people who risked their lives going into potentially lethal situations in order to obtain energy for us to use, and for these companies to profit handsomely off of.

Ask yourself if companies like BP and Massey could afford to increase safety precautions to prevent deadly accidents in the future.  The FBI is at least starting to ask questions.

Oh, and should the wellhead rupture in the gulf, that 200,000 a gallon per day oil spill could become two million gallons of oil a day.  Should THAT happen, it's an Exxon Valdez-level disaster.  Every five and a half days.

Moose Lady still says "Drill baby drill!" and wonders what the big deal is...

Your Papers, Please, Phoenix and Flagstaff, Part 8

Wonk Room's Andrea Nill drops something on a bombshell: an email from one the the legal eagles behind Arizona's immigration law that strongly suggests the entire point of the law is to build a legal framework that effectively allows racial profiling of Latinos.

Yesterday, Arizona lawmakers made a handful of changes to the immigration bill Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) recently signed into effect that appear to be in response to many of the criticisms aimed at the bill. One of those changes replaces the phrase “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest” to “apparently clarify that officers don’t need to question a victim or witness about their legal status.” However, the legislature also implemented a third change that some call “frightening.” As part of the amended bill, a police officer responding to city ordinance violations would also be required to determine the immigration status of an individual they have reasonable suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant. 

Now keep in mind, this law was considered "carefully crafted" and "legal from the get go".  The reality is that Arizona's legislature quietly amended the law because it was legally shaky the whole time.  It was a lie...otherwise, why the need to amend it just days after passing it?

So who's the genius behind this?  His name is Kris Kobach.  Remember the name.
(More after the jump...)

Orange Julius Lays Down A Hell Of A Marker

John Boehner is feeling quite confident these days.  Measuring the drapes in Nancy Pelosi's office is one thing.  Measuring the Democratic party for a political funeral is quite another.

Boehner said he believes there is no seat that the GOP cannot win during this election cycle, judging by Sen. Scott Brown's (R) improbable win in January's special election in Massachusetts.

Reflecting Republican optimism that they can win back control of the House this fall, Boehner said 2010 has the widest playing field for Republicans in a while.

"Let me remind you that Scott Brown won the Ted Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusetts," Boehner said during an appearance on National Public Radio. "If Scott Brown can win in America, there isn't a seat in America that Republicans can't win."

When pressed for a number, Boehner said he believed the GOP could win as many as 100 seats in this fall's elections."At least 100 seats," Boehner said when asked how wide the playing field for districts is. "I do," the top House Republican answered when asked if he thinks there are 100 seats in the U.S. "that could change hands."

That's a hell of a high bar to put up.  The loss of a hundred seats would represent not just a GOP victory, but the effective and total collapse of the Democrats as a political force in the country.  It would make 1994 look like a cake walk.

It also makes Orange Julius there look like he's higher than a kite on Mount Everest.  A hundred seats in the House, John?  Really?  Even worst case scenario (the dreaded Rasmussen Reality) the Dems lose what they did in 1994, 50 and some change.  But one hundred?

Look, as much as the Dems may have screwed up, I just don't see how the GOP fundamentally changes the reality of space and time in order to gain 100 seats in the House after the drubbing they've gotten in 2006 and again in 2008.  I think the GOP taking back the House is a majorly outside shot, I'm sticking with maybe 30 in the House and 6 in the Senate.

Even if my worst fears about the Dems' goofy national ID card crap come true, that's still 50-ish seats they lose.  Remember, confident, cocky, sloppy, dead.  Orange Julius is biting off way more than he can chew here.  The fundamental problems of the GOP still remain.  The voters aren't that unhappy with the Dems, and they certainly don't trust the Republicans more than they do Obama on many of the issues.

As much as you can count on the Dems finding a way to screw things up, you can count even more on the GOP being an arrogant bunch of assclowns that start believing their own echo chamber delusions of grandeur.

Marking this one down to revisit in November...

And The Dems Just Lost The Battle On Immigration

I honestly don't know how the Democrats can be this friggin' stupid, but there you go.

A plan by Senate Democratic leaders to reform the nation’s immigration laws ran into strong opposition from civil liberties defenders before lawmakers even unveiled it Thursday.

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.

Congrats, guys.  You actually managed to find a way to make Arizona's immigration nightmare look like a reasonable and controlled idea next to a NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARD PROGRAM.  Are you serious?  Fingerprint every American worker?  Really?

You know what?  You guys just lost the immigration battle and just fed the Teabagger outrage machine for years.  You blew it.  Completely.  And this time, the Teabaggers are right.  A national ID card is exactly the kind of stupidity that's going to cost the Dems dearly in 2010.  They're going to rage on this for months, if not years.  You managed to validate every paranoid fantasy the tinfoil hats have about the Democrats in one fell swoop.

Holy crap.  This is insane.  What were you guys thinking?  This is far, far worse than Arizona's law.  Ezra Klein thinks it's a game changer, but for the wrong reasons.

The oddity of this strategy, of course, is that anti-immigration sentiments run highest among the same communities that are most opposed to national ID cards. Now, it's also the case that if you're going to support citizenship searches for people with Hispanic-looking shoes, it's a bit odd to worry about an ID card to verify employment. But even so, without Republicans on the bill to give this strategy cover, it'll be interesting to see whether the anti-immigrant right embraces the ID card as a way of staunching the flow of illegal immigrants or assails Democrats for trying to create a biometric police state.

That thud you just head was my forehead hitting the desk.  Gee Ezra, you think the GOP might use the latter there?  Gosh, I sure as hell do.  It's a game changer alright.  Jesus.

Guest Starring Yours Truly

Filling in for Steve M again for a couple days at No More Mister Nice Blog.  Do check out the place when Steve and Aimai are in too, lord knows I ping Steve's stuff enough here. NMMNB has been running for 8 years now and it's still some of the best blogging commentary on the net.  It should be on your shortlist of places to go each morning.

Your Papers, Please, Phoenix and Flagstaff, Part 7

The argument that Arizona's immigration law is constitutional is that the law forbids officers from stopping people based on race alone, and that doing so is against the law itself.

Somebody might want to tell Sheriff Joe Arpaio that.  Steven D at Booman Tribune:

In Maricopa County, masked deputies of Sheriff Joe Arpaio are conducting massive sweeps of the streets in search of illegal aliens. That's right, the tactics of used by members of death squads in Latin America and in Iraq, are being employed to terrorize Hispanic-Americans who happen to live or pass through Sheriff Joe's jurisdiction for the crime of not looking white enough:

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is not waiting for the controversial law SB 1070 to take affect and so, he continues with police neighborhood sweeps under the guise of crime sweeps. This time, he will be carrying out his 15th sweep with over 150 deputies and Posse volunteers. No doubt, Arizona has become a police state where entire neighborhoods are corralled and its inhabitants are subject to police intrusion and arrest.

Here's more from a recommended diary at Daily Kos which describes the actions of Sheriff Joe and his posse in further detail:

William Crum Green Congressional candidate in Arizona spotted men dressed in black with their faces covered. Driving black unmarked vehicles as some other vehicles were being towed away. They stopped a hispanic male driving a white pick up truck, after 22 min a second car pulled up (four officers), two min after that another car now 5 officers on the one male and they just put the cuffs on him. [...] Source tells me that Arpaio gave post-sweep interview in which he stated that one reasonable suspicion is "if they speak Spanish."

This is the type of action one sees in police states, in right wing dictatorships, in the mythical nation of Oceania of George Orwell's 1984. However, in those countries ordinary citizens had no guns, no weapons with which to oppose the tyrannical regimes oppressing them. That is not the case in Arizona. 

The rest of Steven D's case as to why and how Latinos in Arizona are eventually going to actually do what the Tea Party loudmouths have only been talking about up until now, that is take up arms against a fascist police state, is frightening.  Absolutely read it.

Arpaio knows exactly what he's doing however.  He's trying to make the case that an armed, military response on our borders is needed -- and that an armed military response inside the United States is needed as well -- to purge undesirables from America.  Best way to do that?  Foment a riot by sweeping through and making mass arrests.

Somebody's going to eventually fight back.  Joe Arpaio is counting on it.  And I'm betting a whole lot of other wingers are too.  Unlike their Teabagger fantasies, Arpaio and his jackbooted goon squad really are coming to round up people.  So when the lid finally blows on this little steam boiler, it's going to become a national catastrophe that will draw a brutal armed response in turn.

Democrats don't have a choice but to work out a national reform law and soon.

Mixed Messages On Immigration

Depending on your point of view, immigration reform is either full steam ahead or completely dead in 2010.  Yesterday congressional Dems released an outline on a plan called REPAIR:

Seeking to woo Republicans, the 26-page framework, which has not yet been written into a formal bill, emphasizes first taking steps to limit illegal immigration before offering new rights for those here illegally. But the REPAIR (Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform) proposal, as Democrats dubbed it, also would create a pathway to legal status for an estimated 10.8 million people who are already in the country illegally, an idea opposed by many conservatives.

Under the proposal, illegal immigrants currently in the United States would be eligible for legal status in eight years, as long as they learned English, had not committed a crime and paid their taxes. The federal government would increase funding for border security and require all American workers get a new version of their Social Security card that would include a biometric identifier to protect against the creation of counterfeits. 

Hey look, it's the REAL ID act again.  Interesting.  Republicans thought that was a great idea back when Bush was President.  Undoubtedly now that Obama's in charge they'll call it fascist.  That's a post for another time, however.  Today, the AP's Suzanne Gamboa is saying that immigration reform is dead, and Obama is the one killing it.

Immigration reform has become the first of President Barack Obama's major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment. Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.

The president noted that lawmakers may lack the "appetite" to take on immigration while many of them are up for re-election and while another big legislative issue — climate change — is already on their plate.

"I don't want us to do something just for the sake of politics that doesn't solve the problem," Obama told reporters Wednesday night aboard Air Force One.

Immigration reform was an issue Obama promised Latino groups that he would take up in his first year in office. But several hard realities — a tanked economy, a crowded agenda, election-year politics and lack of political will — led to so much foot-dragging in Congress that, ultimately, Obama decided to set the issue aside.

Set it aside?  Did Gamboa not read any of the news out of Congress on immigration yesterday?  Obama was saying that Congress may not have the guts to take this on, but apparently he was wrong.  Congress does seem eager indeed to tackle this.  They wouldn't have responded to his Wednesday night interview with yesterday's plan otherwise.

It's not a death knell.  The people saying that there's no chance of passing this are Republicans, not Democrats.  Gamboa's story is classic Village mendaciousness.

Oil's Well That Doesn't End Well For This Oil Well, Part 2

As The Blob Visible From Space heads for the Missisippi delta, lawmakers in another state with fragile coastal structures (North Carolina's famous Outer Banks) are blithely saying how unfortunate things are in the Gulf, but of course a disaster like that could never happen here.  State Senate leader Mark Basnight seems to think the Old North State has no choice:

Basnight, a Democrat, has softened his "never" stance on offshore drilling slightly in recent years, and said the spill hadn't changed his position: that there should be drilling only if energy companies sign ironclad agreements to not only pay for cleaning up any spills but to compensate coastal residents for any resulting loss in income.

Shrimpers and fishermen in Louisiana have already filed a lawsuit, claiming the spill there, which is growing by 5,000 barrels a day and now covers an area 600 miles around, will destroy their industry.

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue was once opposed to drilling, but in recent months has said that it appears inevitable. She said that if North Carolina must endure the risks, it should be compensated. She was in Europe on a trade mission and vacation Thursday, but spokesman Tim Crowley said the Louisiana spill underlined the wisdom of creating a group of experts.

"It emphasizes the importance of making sure that any drilling off our coast would be safe, which is why the governor put together an advisory panel of experts to review these issues and make recommendations," Crowley said.

Sure.  Ironclad guarantees to clean up and compensate.  I'm sure NC Republicans will go for that.  Perhaps Gov. Perdue's panel of experts can come up with a way to make sure those blowout preventers that are supposed to stop something like this from ever happening don't fail spectacularly, too.  And hey, should this ever happen in the furture, I'm sure energy companies like BP won't go to court anyway to protest ever spending a dime on the cleanup, even with those "ironclad" guarantees.

It seems to me the only way to enforce that ironclad guarantee is not to drill in the first place.  The situation in the Gulf is basically a near-worst case scenario, bordering on becoming a worst case scenario that could spew millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf for weeks.

Just some quick calculations show that the current rate, this wellhead is belching roughly 2 and a third gallons of oil into the Gulf per second.  The wellhead could tear and the flow rate could increase depending on the pressures down there, if debris settles or twists or breaks, who knows.  At this rate we'll surpass Exxon Valdez in about seven weeks.

This is one oil rig capable of this. One.  Worst case scenario, one oil rig is capable of an Exxon Valdez level 11 million gallon spill in seven weeks.

There are several thousand oil rigs off Louisiana alone.

Worried yet?  I'm thinking when the pictures of Louisiana's destroyed coast and its price tag become painfully clear (and especially should this mess spread to other states too) I'm thinking "Drill baby drill" is done baby done.

Real shame the Obama administration bought it hook, line, and sinker like a bunch of idiots.  Better hope the Dems' record of improving oil rig safety will be better than their record so far of improving mine safety, too.

Energy companies after all are making a killing.

[UPDATE]  The Axeman says no new drilling until an investigation into this is complete.

We've Been Hit By A Smooth Criminal

Federal prosecutors have finally decided that with all this smoke everywhere, there's got to be some fire coming out of Goldman Sachs.

Federal prosecutors would face a higher bar in bringing a criminal case against Goldman, whose role in the mortgage market came under sharp scrutiny this week during a marathon hearing in the Senate. In contrast to civil cases, the burden of proof is higher in criminal ones, where prosecutors must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The stakes are high for Goldman, but they are also high for the United States attorney’s office. Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York lost a case last year filed against two hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, whose collapse presaged the turmoil on Wall Street.

Prosecutors built much of that case around internal e-mail messages at Bear Stearns, much the way the S.E.C. and senators have pointed to e-mail at Goldman in which employees had disparaged investments that they were selling to their customers.

In the end, however, prosecutors were unable to prove to a jury any criminal wrongdoing by the Bear Stearns employees.

A spokesman for Goldman declined to say whether the bank knows about a criminal case, but he said “given the recent focus on the firm, we’re not surprised” to learn about a criminal inquiry. The spokesman said Goldman would cooperate with any investigators’ requests for information. 

It's nice to finally see somebody decide that what happened to our economy might have actually been a criminal act perpetrated by people who stood to gain a metric crapton of money by betting on the entire housing bubble detonating like a M-80 inside a paint can.

The argument I keep hearing (and the NY Times article continues along that thread) is that "Well, what they did was immoral and horrible and pretty bad and it wrecked the economy, but it wasn't illegal."  No offense, but doesn't that mean we need to change the law so that what happened is made illegal, so that people don't do this in the future?  That's the whole point of laws and punishment, in order to discourage people from breaking laws and causing untold havoc in society.

I'd call the loss of eight million jobs "untold havoc in society".  I'm not saying it's all Goldman's fault, but given all the overwhelming evidence against them of profiting from a disaster and the repeated disdain they have shown time and time again for anybody who wasn't a Goldman Sachs executive, I'd say the law needs to be amended before it happens again.

Unless people think it's a good idea to have another financial crisis on our hands.  Any business plan that includes "and then the American economy collapses into a near depression and then we make a fortune" should be illegal.

It Depends On What You Mean By "Illegal Immigrant"

John Cole brings up another excellent point:  a decade ago Republicans were ruthlessly attacking the Clinton administration's decision to send young Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba.  These days, Republicans like California's Duncan Hunter, Jr. want to deport American citizens for having illegal parents.

At a tea party rally in Ramona in San Diego County over the weekend, Hunter fielded a question about the issue.

“Would you support deportation of natural born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?” a man in the audience asked.

“I would have to, yes,” Hunter said.

He continued:

You can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy. That’s a mean thing to do. That’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now.

“We just can’t afford it anymore,” Hunter said. “That’s it. And we’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.

Digby too picks up on this hypocrisy. 

The one group of Hispanics for whom the right wing has always wanted to leave the door completely open are Cubans. The fact that they have also been a very loyal Republican voting bloc is completely coincidental. As we all know, Republicans don't believe in pandering or playing partisan politics.

There's a reason why the Democrats are going ahead with their new immigration proposal called REPAIR:  it's going to absolutely trigger the worst, most vile, most racist impulses in the wingerverse and they are going to remind everybody why the American people threw them out of power in 2008.  While the GOP and their crackpot enablers sit around and scream SHAMNESTY at the top of their lungs and refuse to lift a finger towards a national solution, the Democrats will say "look, this is the Republican-based bipartisan 2006 DREAM Act with security improvements that the Republicans wanted" and the public will back them, not the GOP.

The Democrats really, really need to send Jan Brewer some flowers.

StupidiNews!

• As the EU struggles to contain Greece's financial woes, Spain's unemployment rate has reached 20%.
• World press freedom watchdog group Freedom House says world journalistic freedom declined again for the 8th straight year.
• Anthem Blue Cross says it "miscalculated" on the 39% health insurance rate hike it was imposing on some 700,000 Californians.
• Energy companies face a congressional grilling after last week's offshore oil rig disaster that is still spilling hundreds of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
• Critics of net neutrality say the concept should also apply to companies like search engine Google.

Last Call

Colonel Mustard argues that liberals think all immigration laws are racist.

Laws aren't racist.  The people who selectively choose to enforce them, or to attempt to enforce them, only on specific groups of people based on prejudicial criteria or personal bias on the other hand...

That's kind of a problem.  I've actually got a question for the guy since he's a law professor and all:  what's the legal definition of "reasonable suspicion that somebody is in the country illegally", and how do you consistently enforce that?  Should Arizona, say, put up random citizenship checkpoints the way police check license and registration at sobriety checkpoints?  I don't think the law is racist.  I think the law fails the void for vagueness test based on the lack of definition of "reasonable suspicion that somebody is in the country illegally", is therefore functionally unenforceable, and therefore a really craptastic law that's a minefield for police in Arizona.

I do think the law is mean-spirited, invasive, and unconstitutional.  Laws aren't racist.  People who write them and enforce them selectively sometimes can be.

A 3-Way With Extra Cheese

Cincinnati chili dish jokes aside, CNN's Ed Rollins thinks that Charlie Crist should have just rolled over and lost, because Marco Rubio and the Teapublican Party have passed him by.  Now that there's a three way race in Florida, let the games begin:

He was already viewed as traitor by many conservatives for his physical embrace of President Obama on a visit to Florida last year and his endorsement of the Democratic passed stimulus bill. He damaged his credibility during the 2008 presidential primary when, after committing his support to Rudy Giuliani, he switched to John McCain in the closing days before the Florida primary, giving McCain an important victory there.

That was after he switched from McCain earlier in the race when McCain's campaign faltered. In politics, a man's word is his bond, but not to Crist. As his closest aides are quoted as saying, "Charlie's all about Charlie."
Charlie so wanted to be the vice presidential candidate in 2008 it's reported he bargained with Giuliani's team for the slot and pushed the eventual nominee McCain likewise, but to no avail.

The final act of treason to Republicans, before the announcement he is making today to run as an independent, was his veto last week of a teacher pay and tenure reform bill supported by the Florida Republican legislative leadership and former Gov. Jeb Bush.

In typical fashion Gov. Crist was for the bill and then as teacher union protests mounted he was against it.

The irony of all this is that the damage to Charlie Crist is self-inflicted. He is a man of enormous ambition, but not much courage, who wants to be president. He could have easily been re-elected governor but didn't want to deal with the multibillion dollar deficits facing Florida now and in the coming years.

So he decided, to quote country singer Johnny Paycheck's lyrics, "You can take this job and shove it," and gave up the governor's mansion to move with his new bride to Washington, where he could hide behind the other 99 senators who spending taxpayers' dollars at record rates.

Now, if you believe Ed Rollins, you also believe that Charlie Crist is a traitor, that he is responsible for Florida's housing depression personally, that he should have rejected federal stimulus dollars, and that he should have cut or eliminated as many social programs as it took to eliminate the state's deficit.

That fact that he did not do any of that means he's a bad choice for national office, if you're Ed Rollins.

This tells me far, far more about how really awful Ed Rollins is (and Marco Rubio for that matter) than it does Charlie Crist.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Keith Olbermann is all of the following four things:

1. A really smart guy.
2. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about baseball.
3. A powerful political commentator.
4. Remarkably easily trolled on Twitter.

That last one he needs to work on.

Oil's Well That Doesn't End Well For This Oil Well

So, President Obama, about that whole offshore drilling expansion idea...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Thursday in preparation for the arrival of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was expected to reach land Friday.


The U.S. military may be called on to assist authorities scrambling to mitigate the potential environmental disaster posed by the spill that's expanding toward the Louisiana coastline, officials said Thursday.

At a White House briefing, federal authorities, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, pledged a robust response. Napolitano said she has designated the leak a "spill of national significance," meaning officials can draw down assets from other areas to combat it.

A command center already is open in Robert, Louisiana. A second will be opened in Mobile, Alabama, Napolitano said. She said she will travel Friday to the Gulf Coast, along with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson.

"Everything's on the table," as far as options under consideration, said David Hayes, deputy interior secretary.

I'm thinking that maybe you should have waited a few months to announce that  "Drill baby drill" policy.  No offense, but this is exactly what environmentalists (you know them as Dirty Effin Hippie Bloggers, the ones that Rahm is always complaining about) have been warning of.  Now you've got this huge national emergency sized oil spill that's more than likely going to cause massive damage to Louisiana's coast and may even be a larger disaster than Katrina, cutting through wildlife and coastal communities like a scythe.

It may take weeks or longer to cap this thing off, and meanwhile it's spreading 200,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico.  And our best idea right now is to set it on fire?  Look, any process that includes anywhere on the flowchart the words "Use Controlled Burn" and "Find Four Hundred Metric Tons Of Concrete To Plug Hole" is not a viable process.  Until we come up with a better and safer way to do this, expanding offshore drilling is ludicrous.

Oh wait, those safeguards exist, but BP just wasn't using them

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

And why aren't those remote cut-off switches used here?  Too expensive for the energy companies, of course...not like the cost of cleaning up after a catastrophe like this...because the real problem is that we're almost out of time.  This oil slick will be hitting land as early as tomorrow and when that happens, fire's just not an option anymore.

Oh, and this gets worse, guess who's involved in the operations of this particular oil rig?

The widow of a crew member killed in last week's oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has filed a lawsuit accusing the companies that operated the rig with negligence, court documents showed Tuesday.

The suit was filed by Natalie Roshto against Transocean Ltd, British Petroleum and Halliburton after the blast that killed her husband Shane, a seaman on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig.

Why, it's our old Bush/Cheney friends at Halliburton!  Gee, suddenly how we got into this mess starts making a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? 

The good news is that the Obama administration is now "reevaluating" the offshore policy.  I don't see how they exactly have a choice, and the time to implement strict new safety measures before any more drilling happens is now.  Until the energy companies can prove that another disaster like this won't happen again, expanding offshore drilling needs to be off the table.

And as far as I'm concerned, that means off the table for good.

Greek Fire, Part 13

At this point the question goes from "Will Greece be bailed out?" to "Can the Euro survive this mess?" Everyone I've been looking as had their doubts.  First, Roubini:

Europe's current bailout plan for Greece "is not going to work" because "Greece is nearly insolvent," well-known economist Nouriel Roubini told CNBC Wednesday.

"A restructuring of its debt is going to be necessary," said Roubini, RGEmonitor.com chairman and NYU professor. 

A collapse of the Greek economy could have domino effect among other weak eurozone countries—including Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland, he said. 

“Suppose you have a disorderly collapse of Greece, two things will happen," he added. "Financial institutions holding Greek debt—mostly European—will have massive losses. Secondly, a contagion from Greece to Portugal to Spain to Italy to Ireland will have a domino effect." 

Eventually, debt increases and risk aversion is going to drive down the asset prices globally, as it happened yesterday and today.”

Then Krugman:

Think of it this way: the Greek government cannot announce a policy of leaving the euro — and I’m sure it has no intention of doing that. But at this point it’s all too easy to imagine a default on debt, triggering a crisis of confidence, which forces the government to impose a banking holiday — and at that point the logic of hanging on to the common currency come hell or high water becomes a lot less compelling.

And if Greece is in effect forced out of the euro, what happens to other shaky members?

(More ops after the jump...)

New From LuntzCo!

Greg Sargent spots the next mendacious Frank Luntz GOP Talking Point(tm):  Making banks pay for financial reform will be passed on to consumers as the "Checkbook Tax".  Sargent says you can count on hearing it this fall:

If Luntz says lots of candidates will be using the phrase “checkbook tax” to describe the alleged fees that will be passed on to consumers, we should take him at his word.

In a sense, this represents an evolution in Luntz’s thinking, and even possibly a concession on his part. In his much-discussed original memo intructing opponents of finanial reform on how to talk about it, he urged them to use the phrase “taxpayer-funded bailouts,” ignoring the argument altogether that banks, not taxpayers, are funding the bank liquidation fund. Now Luntz is at least acknowledging this argument — but he’s replaced it with the new claim that taxpayers will still pick up the tab when big institutions pass on costs in the form of a “checkbook tax.”

It’ll be interesting to track the evolution of this talking point and to see if candidates start using it on the trail.

I'm sure some will.  The real key is if the Village uses it over and over again, reducing it to a worthless sound bite that becomes short hand for "Obama made taxes go up again!"  That's of course Luntz's point, rather than "Banks are greedy and will raise fees even if we don't do this."

The "permanent bailout" Luntz point failed because even the Village wasn't buying it.  Democrats were clearly making the banks pay for the fund, not the taxpayer.  Luntz is now trying to say the taxpayer will be picking up the tab for it by saying the banks will pass along every penny...but isn't that the banks being greedy again?

I don't see this talking point going far, frankly.  "What my opponent is saying is that the banks are going to raise fees on you because they think you should pay for their mistakes.  Well, we're already tried that.  They admit the banks are greedy, and my opponent is on their side, not yours."

Back to the drawing board, Frank.  There's just no way out of this other than the GOP is on the side of the banks that wrecked out economy.

Primary Impetus

The May 4th primaries are next Tuesday for Ohio and Indiana, and there's a lot at stake for both states as the Senate races to replace the retiring Evan Bayh in Indiana and George Voinovich in Ohio may become pickup opportunities for both parties that could cancel each other out.  Evan-McMorris-Santoro handicaps both states, starting with Indiana:

Probably the most closely-watched race on May 4 will be the GOP Senate primary. When Sen. Evan Bayh (D) announced his retirement in February, it suddenly got much easier for Republicans to pickup his seat. Most expect the national party choice, former Sen. Dan Coats, to win the GOP nomination handily -- though state Sen. Marlin Stutzman has been making waves of late with an endorsement from tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). Former Rep. John Hostettler is also a factor, having earned the endorsement of another fringe Republican favorite, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).

The Democrats already have their man in the race: Rep. Brad Ellsworth. He's got Bayh's support and has been running hard for the seat for months. But polls show he's in trouble in a general election matchup so far.

The TPM Poll Average for a race against Coats shows the Republican ahead by a margin of 46.5-33.8.

Race ratings (general election):
CQ: Leans Republican, Washington Post: Toss up, Cook Report: Leans Republican

Meanwhile in Ohio:

It's another open seat in Ohio, where incumbent Sen. George Voinovich (R) is retiring. This time, the Democratic primary is the one to watch: Progressives are fired up about Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, though most predict the winner of the primary will be Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher.

Brunner's supporters are loud, vocal and promise an upset win, but Brunner has struggled with fundraising and trails Fisher in the polls. The TPM Poll Average for the Democratic primary shows Fisher ahead by a margin of 31.8-23.0.

Meanwhile, Republicans feel good about their nominee. Former Rep. Rob Portman has built a considerable campaign war chest and has had the advantage of running alone while Fisher and Brunner duke things out on the Democratic side. But the general election matchup is very much up for grabs. The TPM Poll Average of a Portman-Fisher race shows a dead heat, with Fisher just slightly ahead by a margin of 40.5-39.2. It's the same story with Brunner. The TPM Poll Average of that potential mathchup shows Portman ahead by a margin of just 39.6-39.3.

Race ratings (general election):
CQ: Tossup, Washington Post: Tossup, Cook Report: Tossup

So there's actually a pretty good chance a Dem pickup in Ohio will be offset by a Republican taking Indiana.  However, I wouldn't count either side out.  It's going to be close, and these races (along with Kentucky) will help determine which party will prevail in 2010 when it comes to picking up open seats, and the overwhelming anti-incumbent sentiment is not a factor.  My gut says that out of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky's open Senate seats that the GOP will take 2 of 3, and that one of those two will unfortunately be Rand Paul.

I could be wrong.  I hope I am.

By The Time I Get To Arizona, Part 2

The Justice Department is considering taking legal action against Arizona's immigration law on civil rights grounds.

The Arizona law criminalizes illegal immigration by defining it as trespassing and empowers police to question anyone they have a "reasonable suspicion" is an illegal immigrant. President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. have blasted the legislation, with Obama saying that it "threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness."

"The president had strong words to say and the attorney general had strong words to say," said one law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no decision has been made. "Considering that it's signed into law, and Arizona is doing a lot of pomp and circumstance, do you see a friendly way out of this?"

A key legal ground being considered, officials said, is the doctrine of "preemption" -- arguing that the state's law illegally intrudes on immigration enforcement, which is a federal responsibility.

The White House probably will make the final call, given that the issue is fraught with legal and political implications. Senior administration officials indicated Wednesday that Holder's remarks about the legislation -- he said he is "very concerned" that it could drive a "wedge" between law enforcement and immigrant communities -- should be taken very seriously.

The law will not take effect until summer, 90 days after the Arizona legislature adjourns. But the Justice Department could be in court by early to mid-May, the officials said.

The prospect of federal lawyers marching into court to challenge a state law would be most unusual, legal specialists said. Typically, the government files briefs or seeks to intervene in lawsuits filed by others against state statutes; federal officials said that could still happen in the Arizona case.

"It's relatively rare for the federal government to directly challenge a state law," said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University Law School, who could not cite a comparable example. "It's even more rare when there is no shortage of people challenging the law." A coalition of civil rights groups announced Wednesday that it is preparing its own suit against Arizona, and officials in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff said they are considering suing the state. 

So even if the White House does not go forward, there are plenty of groups willing to do so.  And unlike the legal challenge to health care reform, this one actually has a chance of getting parts of the law overturned on constitutional grounds.  I understand the need for immigration laws, but both Democrats and Republicans have balked at the idea of a comprehensive national law, and a national law is what's needed, otherwise you get a NIMBY effect that simply moves people from one state to another.

It is very good to see the Holder DoJ want to take action.  But as always with Eric Holder, talk is cheap.  Action is needed...and even more so, action is needed from Congress.

If It's Thursday...

Weekly claims down 11k to 448k, continuing claims down 18k to 1.65 million.

Still kind of treading water at best, and while it'll keep you afloat, it's not going to get you any closer to the shore.

The Real Deal Appeal Of Repeal, Part 3

Looks like insurance companies (pilloried by bad press and the threat of Democrats doing something else to them) are waving the white flag and moving to implement health care reforms months ahead of their scheduled implementation.  Steve Benen:

In recent weeks, we've seen many major insurers begin implementing a provision of the law that allows young adults to stay on their family health care plan through their 26th birthday. What's more, the industry agreed to stop denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions (after initially intending to exploit an alleged loophole in the law).

And this week, consumers and families received more good news -- the industry will scrap its "rescission" practices, four months before the new federal ban was scheduled to go into effect.

The health insurance industry has decided to end its practice of cancelling claims once a patient gets sick next month, well before the new health care law would have required it, the industry's chief spokesman said Wednesday.

"While many health plans already abide by the standards outlined in the new law, our community is committed to implementing the new standards in May 2010 to ensure that individuals and families will have greater peace of mind when purchasing coverage on their own," AHIP president and chief executive Karen Ignagni said in a letter to top House Democrats.

The decision to end rescission, as the practice is known, was made during a Tuesday afternoon conference call of chief executives organized by their trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans, and represents the industry's latest attempt to build political good will after the bruising health care fight.

The heartening announcement on rescissions came on the heels of a Reuters report on WellPoint routinely dropping coverage for women diagnosed with breast cancer. Yesterday, the company said it would end the practice by this weekend.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer described all of this as "a clear sign of momentum for changing the health care status quo."

Go ahead, Republicans. Promise to undo all of this progress, turn back the clock, and eliminate these needed, popular advances. I dare you.

He's got a salient point there, and every time a major GOP figure goes on TV saying "Obamacare must be repealed!" the Democrats need to counter with "The Republicans want to take away your consumer rights."  Line up Newt and Mitchy and Moose Lady and Orange Julius on the screen and say "You want to have insurance companies cancel your policy because you get sick?  They do."  The commercials write themselves.

Health care reform is a winning issue for the Dems if they play off the losing issue of repeal for the Republicans.  You've noticed they've shifted away from health care to immigration too.  They keep flopping around from the economy (most people still blame Bush and the Republicans) to health care (most people still hate insurance companies) to financial reform (most people still hate Wall Street) and have gone on to immigration (which is splitting the GOP down the middle).  They don't have a winning issue for the same reason they didn't have one in 2006 or 2008.  They're on the wrong side of history again and again.

Standing around yelling NO at everything is not a way to solve the country's problems.

Arizona Erects A Somebody Else's Problem Field

The usual suspects over in the wingerverse are having a good laugh at this piece showing that illegal immigrants in Arizona are planning to leave the state.

"Nobody wants to pick us up," Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish as he and dozens of other men wait under the shade of palo verde trees and lean against a low brick wall outside the east Phoenix home improvement store.

Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.

Supporters of the law hope it creates jobs for thousands of Americans.

"We want to drive day labor away," says Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, one of the law's sponsors.

Our shortsighted friends on the right figure "Mission accomplished, don't let the door hit you on the way out!"   It's not that simple, but then again it never was.

A study of immigrants in Arizona published in 2008 found that non-citizens, mostly in the country illegally, held an estimated 280,000 full-time jobs. The study by researcher Judith Gans at the University of Arizona examined 2004 data, finding that they contributed about 8 percent of the state's economic output, or $29 billion.

Losing hundreds of thousands of unskilled laborers wouldn't hurt the state's economy in the short term, but it could limit the economy's ability to grow once it recovers, says Marshall Vest, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management.

Legal workers who are willing to take any available job now will become more choosy if the unemployment rate falls back to low levels seen before the recession hit.

"That's really the question, as to whether the existing population is willing to work those (low-level) jobs," Vest says. "I think economics provides the answer. If job openings have no applicants, then businesses need to address that by raising the offered wage."

And there's the crux of the argument.  When you have day laborers off the books you can pay in cash, and they have every incentive to keep their mouths shut, a readily available underclass that will do jobs for a fraction of the cost of hiring "REAL AMERICANS!!!" for the same work, you have a problem.  As an employer, you get to pocket the difference.  When 8 percent of the state's economy is powered by illegal immigrants, it's not the immigrants who are the problem, it's the economy that makes employing them under the table so desirable that is the issue.

(More after the jump...)

The Man From SIGTARP

Via Barry Ritholz, it looks like the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Neil Barofsky, may have the AIG coverup in his sights for a criminal investigation.  That means he's coming into direct conflict with Timmy Geithner and Treasury, and the battle between the two is getting...interesting.

That tense relationship has grown out of Barofsky’s mandate to monitor and root out fraud and waste in the management of TARP, the $700 billion program passed in October 2008 to remove toxic debt from the banks. The special inspector general, in a series of reports, interviews and congressional hearings, has heaped criticism on the Treasury Department’s operation of the program.

Barofsky’s most recent broadside came on April 20, when a SIGTARP report labeled a housing-loan modification program funded with $50 billion of TARP money as ineffectual.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams counters that the program has resulted in modifications for more than 230,000 homeowners.

The TARP watchdog has also criticized Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner in reports and in congressional testimony for his handling of the process by which insurance giant American International Group Inc. was saved from insolvency in 2008, when Geithner was head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The secrecy that enveloped the deal was unwarranted, Barofsky says, adding that his probe of an alleged New York Fed coverup in the AIG case could result in criminal or civil charges.

(More after the jump...)

StupidiNews!

• The growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico may be five times as large as believed, the wreckage of the offshore rig is leaking over 200,000 gallons of crude a day.
• The Obama administration has approved the nation's first offshore wind turbine farm off the coast of Cape Cod.
• Lawmakers say "too big to fail" doesn't mean "too big for jail."
• As the Greek debt crisis spreads, Germany vows quick action to shore up the reeling Euro.
• Will streaming video games bring the entire internet to a screeching halt?

Last Call

Over at Crooks & Liars, John Amato argues that a sports boycott of Arizona, starting with Major League Baseball, would be very effective.

Outrage is pouring out all across America over SB 1070. There's a ton of facebook groups popping up to help organize. The push is on to put pressure on MLB to stop supporting Arizona, their MLB franchise and now their Cactus League. Arizona has become host to 15 Major League teams that use the state for their spring training games before the start of the regular season. Cincinnati was the latest team to move their facilities over to the "police state." You may remember the departed Marge Schott, who owned the Reds was suspended from baseball for her racist epithets back in 1993.

The Cincinnati owner, the only female baseball owner, allegedly called two of her former players "million-dollar niggers" and also allegedly made disparaging remarks about Jews and Japanese.

Since almost 30% of MLB players are Latino, I'm trying to find out how many of those players are using work visas. I'm not attacking the players here, but if you were in America on a work visa to play baseball or any sport from another country and had to play in Arizona, wouldn't you be a bit unnerved? 

I certainly remember Marge Schott's remarks in 1993, coming soon after the Rodney King riots.  Boycotting MLB Spring training in Arizona next year I think is a bit far off the calendar to really be effective, but boycotting the Arizona Diamondbacks here and now seems like a smart move.  NFL preseason starts in August, the NBA Suns are in the playoffs now too although the Coyotes got knocked out in the first round in the NHL playoffs.

Seems to me the NBA and MLB can really make things miserable for Phoenix if they wanted to, and the NFL is the big dog in sports right now...they can REALLY cause a ruckus as the law will take effect about the same time August pre-season games get underway for the Cardinals.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Epic Lamestream Media Pundit Moose Fail

Bob Cesca catches Moose Lady deep, deep in EPIC FAIL territory without a map.

"This is the problem with that lamestream media throughout our country, it's not just this issue but so many. One of the media outlets the other day just, ah, just was killin' me on this one, Sean, where they had a caption across their screen that said this Arizona law will make it -- it will make it illegal to be an illegal immigrant -- some bizarre type 'a headline like that where it was just this illustration that they just don't get it." Sarah Palin on the Hannity show last night

Uh, Sarah?

Come fail away, come fail away, come faaaaaaail away with me...

EPIC FAIL that is.  I mean we've got the Sarah Palin disses FOX angle, Sarah Palin dissing FOX while on FOX angle, and the Sarah Palin dissing FOX while on FOX while WORKING FOR FOX angle.

It's a fractal fail.  If you zoom in really close on any one smaller part of the fail, it resembles the entire larger fail in structure.

The Count Of Charlie Crist, Oh! Part 15

Florida papers are reporting that Charlie Crist has lined up his biggest donors to appear with him tomorrow in St. Pete to announce he's going to run as an independent.

So the word is out: Gov. Charlie Crist is telling key financial backers that he's running for the U.S. SenateCrist3 with no party affiliation. The announcement is scheduled for 5 p.m. in Straub Park in downtown St. Petersburg. They're expecting a small army of media, and it looks like Crist may have no Republican press staffers with him, and will rely on folks like local supporter Greg Truax and finance director Dane Eagle to deal with press inquiries.

His kick-off fundraiser is tentatively scheduled for Fisher Island off Miami Beach, where his wife owns a home.

Sadly, this means I have to retire this post name.  It was one of my better ones, too.  Three way race, here we come...

Unleash Joe Biden, Jobapalooza Edition

I missed this story last week, but it explains why Joe Biden should never, ever be considered for SecTreas or SecLabor.  I love the guy, but when it comes to economics he has no goddamn clue what he's talking about.

"All in all, we're going to be creating somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs next month, I predict," Biden was quoted as saying, while acknowledging he "got in trouble" for a job growth prediction in March.

"Even some in the White House said 'Hey, don't get ahead of yourself.' Well I'm here to tell you some time in the next couple of months we're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month."

OK Joe?  Buddy?  Pal?  Just stop.  250,000 new jobs per month for the next few months would be great.  500,000 new jobs a month for the next few months would be supernaturally phenomenal to the point of Obama being the Greatest President of All Time.

There's just no way this is going to happen.  None.  I love you Joe, but this time you're overestimating things by about a factor of 3 or 4 here, and that's a pretty goddamn big hole you just dug your boss and your party.  Half a million jobs a month isn't happening.  Hell, 250,000 a month would be a mighty accomplishment.  Even at the height of the Clinton boom we never did that well, maybe just over 220,000 new jobs a month.

Talking half a million is just irresponsible and stupid.  Even for Joe Biden.  My God I hope he's right, but...this is just wishful thinking.

Financial Reform Fighter III: Third Strike

And today's revote failed 56-42.  Ben Nelson?  Still an idiot.  There's lots of happy talk about a deal still coming however.  Several Republicans keep acting like one's just around the corner and the Dems are talking about making the Republicans stay all night to keep filibustering the bill.

This apparently is Harry Reid's Plan C.  I hope it's more effective than Plans A and B have been, because right now the Republicans sure aren't acting like there ever going to stop filibustering the bill.

Ever.

I don't buy the happy talk for a second.

[UPDATE] TPM is reporting there's now a deal according to GOP Sen. Richard Shelby.  Perhaps Plan C really did work...but what's the price?  The bailout fund, the derivatives rules, both, or something more?  Who caved here, the GOP or the Dems?

I'd like to know.

[UPDATE 2] Greg Sargent is reporting that the GOP apparently really did fold.

So what happened here? As the GOP aide candidly told me earlier today, Shelby’s negotiations were about buying time to win as many concessions as possible, and if it looked as if Dems were not going to concede any more, the GOP would have little choice but to allow debate and hope to win more concessions on the floor. That’s what appears to have happened.

I'm sure ads like this had something to do with it too.




I am pleasantly surprised.

[UPDATE 3] And the GOP has completely collapsed, going from filibuster to a unanimous consent motion that means there's not even a need for a vote.   Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and crew actually did it, and won completely.

Of course, now the real battle begins and the GOP can in fact filibuster the bill again to stop a final bill from being voted on, but frankly I'm very glad to be wrong here.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

It no longer ceases to amaze me that Republicans on one hand will scream about health care reform and say the "government getting between you and your doctor" is unforgiveable and worthy of an armed revolution and how horrible that is, and then pass a law that actually does that whole government/doctor thing...but you know, only for women, because that doesn't count as fascism or whatever.

The Oklahoma Legislature voted Tuesday to override the governor’s vetoes of two abortion measures, one of which requires women to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before getting an abortion.


Though other states have passed similar measures requiring women to have ultrasounds, Oklahoma’s law goes further, mandating that a doctor or technician set up the monitor so the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims.

A second measure passed into law on Tuesday prevents women who have had a disabled baby from suing a doctor for withholding information about birth defects while the child was in the womb. 

How nice.  The state mandates giving you a lecture before getting an abortion because anyone who chooses to do so must be too stupid to know the forces at play, especially the woman making the decision.  How noble of Oklahoma to inform these errant, mindless second-class citizens with their faulty girl brains of the argument against having this procedure done.

Better yet, how nice of Oklahoma to make it safe for doctors to lie to women about birth defects in the womb.  After all, preggo brains don't work right with their estrogen and their hormones and whatever, so decisions for them must be made by rock-ribbed Oklahoma men.  We'll just make it legal to withhold the information from them...they might want to choose to have an abortion, after all.  You can't trust anyone with a vagina, after all.  Not in our free society.

It's a good thing we have Oklahoma leading the way against medical fascism like Obamacare, too.  Can't have government making health care decisions for people, that's just wrong.  Making decisions for women on the other hand, well...who said women were people in Oklahoma?

The Down-Home Dauphin Deals The Drama

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says he'll pick up his climate change ball and go home and filibuster his own bill unless the Democrats drop immigration reform completely.  Brian Beutler:

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided that he would bump climate-and-energy legislation behind immigration reform as his next priority, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was apoplectic. Graham, along with Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), had spent months drafting a climate/energy bill, and was prepared to introduce it Monday, when, enraged by Reid's plan, he backed out.

Earlier today, Reid appeared to reverse course, saying climate/energy would be the next logical issue to address, followed only afterward by immigration reform. So everything's groovy, right?

Far from it. Tonight, Graham told me that he will filibuster his own climate change bill, unless Reid drops all plans to turn to immigration this Congress.

"Immigration was interjected before we rolled out the [climate and energy] bill not because anybody's serious about passing it, but because Harry has got a political problem with the Hispanic community," Graham told me tonight. "It makes the heavy lift of energy and climate impossible and everybody knows that."

That's funny.  Seems to me that the people that made the heavy lift impossible by forcing immigration into the national spotlight are Arizona Republicans who passed the country's most draconian immigration law.  In fact, if there's anything both sides in the Arizona debate agree on, it's the need for a federal response.  Even Graham himself wanted one.

But that's before he became a hated RINO in the eyes of the Tea Party.  Now he has bridges to burn, and the time for the rope-a-dope strategy is over.  He's hitting back hard.

Graham has said for days that he's dropped out of climate/energy talks, but pressed tonight, he said that he will filibuster his own bill if Reid tries to bring it up without tabling immigration altogether.

"If they can do this without me, go ahead.... I am not going to be part of an energy-climate process that has no hope of success," Graham said. "I am not going to let that happen with my vote."

The petulant Party of No wants it their way or no way at all.  Given their own chance at immigration reform, the Republicans failed miserably.  But they'll be damned if they let the Democrats pass the bill they tried to in 2006.  The Democrats proved they can get things done with health care reform.  The Republicans aren't going to make that same mistake again now that they have 41 votes in the Senate.  The tyranny of the majority continues, and Dauphin Graham here is letting the peasants know they can eat cake.

Nothing will pass.  The GOP will block everything, financial reform, cap and trade, immigration reform, everything.  They will not give Obama another victory, period.  And they figure the American people will aid and abet them come November.  It's scorched earth as far as the Republicans are concerned.  They figure things can't get worse for them, they're out of power.

Things certainly can get worse for us, however.

Your Papers, Please, Phoenix and Flagstaff, Part 6

Eugene Robinson with the column du jour on Arizona, Police State:

Arizona's draconian new immigration law is an abomination -- racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean-spirited, unjust. About the only hopeful thing that can be said is that the legislation, which Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed Friday, goes so outrageously far that it may well be unconstitutional.

Brewer, who caved to xenophobic pressures that previous governors had the backbone to resist, should be ashamed of herself. The law requires police to question anyone they "reasonably suspect" of being an undocumented immigrant -- a mandate for racial profiling on a massive scale. Legal immigrants will be required to carry papers proving that they have a right to be in the United States. Those without documentation can be charged with the crime of trespassing and jailed for up to six months.

Activists for Latino and immigrant rights -- and supporters of sane governance -- held weekend rallies denouncing the new law and vowing to do everything they can to overturn it. But where was the Tea Party crowd? Isn't the whole premise of the Tea Party movement that overreaching government poses a grave threat to individual freedom? It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim -- and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state -- would send the Tea Partyers into apoplexy. Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish?

Absolutely.  This law violates every argument the Tea Party has brought up against Obama:  it's more government, it's intrusive on a personal scale, it's reactionary, it's unconstitutional, it's fascist, it's an increase in spending, and it's immoral.

In fact, any Tea Party member who doesn't come out fully against this measure is a hypocrite of the worst sort.  The fact that the Tea Party supports this measure just proves basically everything I've been saying about them from the beginning:  they're a bunch of loudmouthed bigots who are so angry that the rest of America is passing them by that they are furious.  It's just raw anger that's developed into full-blown racism and bigotry and hatred.

This law is everything you feared in the Democrats doing and everything you've accused Barack Obama of doing.  And you sit there silently or worse, applaud the measure?  At best you're Marco Rubio, who today said there were concerns about the law bu stopped short of supporting or condemning it.  At worst, you're Byron York, who says:

The bottom line is, it's a good law, sensibly written and rigorously focused -- no matter what the critics say.

The bottom line is folks like Byron York have no problem when Republicans enshrine unconstitutional bigotry into law, and then call Obama a fascist.

Kentucky Refried Chickens

With a generous thanks to Yellow Dog for the tip this morning the in the comments, indeed Kentucky is considering its own version of Arizona's repugnant immigration law.

Lawmakers who have supported previous attempts to crack down on illegal immigration at the state level say the Kentucky General Assembly isn't likely to approve a law that allows local police to detain people they suspect are in the country illegally.

But they say recent developments should cause Kentucky to consider more carefully other legislative proposals aimed at the illegal immigration issue. "I've filed a number of bills to try to alleviate (the illegal immigration) problem in Kentucky and we've never got much traction on it," said state Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington.

Members of the Lexington-based group Kentuckians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, which supports the Arizona law, say Kentucky lawmakers should first pass a measure that would penalize business owners if they don't verify the immigration status of their employees, said president Douglas Roy.

"We're not experiencing the level of violence that Arizona is seeing," Roy said. ''But we will if we don't do anything."

The renewed interest in illegal immigration is a worrisome development for immigrant advocates, who have successfully turned back previous attempts to enforce immigration laws at the state level.

Officials with the Kentucky Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights issued a statement this week condemning the Arizona law as racial profiling and urging Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform to prevent other states from following suit.

The group is also calling for federal intervention to keep the Arizona law from being enacted.

"We condemn the law and the fervor that went into passing it," said Rachel Newton, an immigration attorney and a board member for the coalition.

Newton said she was concerned about the law's effect on Kentucky.

"Fear makes way and ignorance makes way for these kinds of proposals to gain traction," she said.

Gee, you think?  Let's be honest here, no matter which state you're in, on the border with Mexico or not, Republicans are going to be scaring the other 49 states in the country with the notion that the Great Brown Horde is coming for their jobs, their women, and their lives.  (Well, maybe not so much Hawaii, make that 48 states.  Yes Alaska, I'm looking at you still.)

Kentucky will be experiencing the "level of violence" that Arizona is unless we do...what, exactly?  Seal the border with Ohio with the Kentucky Colonels?  Put angry Teabaggers on the Brent Spence Bridge?  It's fearmongering that simply hasn't been thought through (it's fearmongering after all) and it's nothing but reactionary stupidity.

Then again, these are Kentucky Republicans we're talking about here.  Luckily, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear is highly unlikely to sign any foolishness like that into law.  Of course, the next time a Republican is in charge of Frankfort...

But hey, it's not like racial fearmongering is new in a state like Kentucky, folks.

Greek Fire, Part 12

With Germany refusing to eat Der Schissesammich on Greece's bailout, the game's finally up on pretending Greek Fire isn't an existential threat to the Euro.  Yesterday Greek debt was downgraded to junk status and that has now all but forced the EU's hand to act now before the Greek Fire burns the Euro to ashes.

Europe’s worsening debt crisis is intensifying pressure on policy makers to widen a bailout package beyond Greece after a cut in the nation’s rating to junk drove up borrowing costs from Italy to Portugal and Ireland.

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel delays approval of a 45 billion-euro ($59 billion) Greek rescue, the crisis is spreading. Portugal’s benchmark stock index yesterday fell the most since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse, while the extra yield that investors demand to hold Italian and Irish debt over bunds remained near yesterday’s 10-month high.

The danger for European officials is that the fiscal turmoil which started six months ago with fudged Greek budget data will spin out of their control. As Greece waits for its euro-region partners to disburse funds, the European Union has announced no concrete plans to help other nations should aid be needed. The euro yesterday weakened to the lowest in a year.

“Policy makers need to get ahead of the curve,” Eric Fine, who manages Van’s Eck’s G-175 Strategies emerging-market hedge fund. “This is no longer a problem about Greece or Portugal, but about the euro system.”

Governments will hold a summit by around May 10 to discuss Greece, EU President Herman Van Rompuy said today in Tokyo. 

May 10 may frankly be too late.  I've been saying in this series of posts that Greece's debt problem and Europe's refusal to fix it was going to break something, and that something looks like the Euro itself.  Now the Greek Fire is indeed spreading.  The Dow took a 200 plus point hit yesterday, the Nikkei lost 2.5% and Europe is struggling with a day deep in the red this morning as well.  Tyler Durden tells us what's next as the Greek Fire spreads:

The CDS market, as always, is prophetic to the dot: after main deriskers in the past two weeks were Spain, Portugal and France, so far the spread blow out in these markets has materialized like a Swiss watch. Which is why Ambrose Evans-Pritchard better be looking at this week's DTCC data, because the credit market is flashing a bright red warning light over his favorite bankrupt country - the UK (incidentally, the week's largest net derisker, just after Goldman Sachs). Second in order of sovereign implosion - Ireland. The British Isles, at least according to CDS traders who time after time prove they have far more sense than their equity equivalents, are about to become a hotbed of credit activity, and not in a good way. The other countries that fill out the top 10 deriskers in the prior week: Brazil, Germany (yeah, failed auctions do that), Argentina (yeah, persistent threat of default does that too), Mexico (yeah, living next to a money printing terrorist does that), Ukraine, Korea, Belgium and China. 

And as things get worse in the Eurozone, that will affect the res of the world, including the US.  After all, we're not in any shape to bail out Europe either.  This one's only going to get worse, folks.  Batten down the hatches.  Greek Fire just keeps on burning.

StupidiNews!

• Protests in Thailand continue as "red shirts" and security forces square off in Bangkok.
• Laura Bush's new memoir talks about poisoning, fatal car accidents, and faith.
• The American Red Cross is seeing its Haiti donation spending called into question as conditions continue to deteriorate on the island country.
• The solution to the growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico may be a controlled burn by the Coast Guard.
• Sen. Al Franken and three other Democrats are asking Facebook to fix its privacy policy or face federal action.

Last Call

Just over the river in Butler County, north of Cincy, the Wingers are already demanding that Ohio pass Arizona's immigration law.  You know, because we're right on the border.  With Canada.

Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones and state House Rep. Courtney Combs have sent a letter to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland asking him to pass a law that "mirrors" the one in Arizona, reports WLWT channel 5 in Cincinnati.

“Our federal government has failed us when it comes to securing the border and stopping the flow of thousands of illegals entering this country on a daily basis," WLWT quoted Rep. Jones as saying. "If the federal government won’t do it, it is time that states take that responsibility upon themselves."

Arizona's law allows police to stop and question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, even if they don't suspect that person of any other wrongdoing. Critics say the bill will lead to racial profiling, and some commentators have even compared the measure to race-based laws in Nazi Germany.

For Sheriff Jones, the push to allow police greater powers to combat illegal immigration may be partly personal. Last week, his office paid $100,000 to settle a lawsuit brought against Jones by a man who said he was unconstitutionally detained by deputies during a 2007 illegal immigrant raid on a construction site.

Of course Arizona's law is going to spread to other states unless it's stopped by the courts or a national immigration reform law, or both.  If you don't think Republicans in the state where you live are planning their own Arizona-style immigration police state, think again.  You'd better believe that some of them are planning on passing a bill as tough or even tougher, too.

Like it or not, Republicans just made immigration one of the big issues of 2010 and 2012.  Democrats need to get on the ball and do more than talk, it's time to sic the DoJ's Civil Rights division on these slimeballs.

A Few Fries Short Of A Happy Meal

Steve M. FTMFW:

The right doesn't think the Arizona immigration law is jackbooted big government run amok. You know what the right does think is jackbooted big government run amok?

This:

...Convinced that Happy Meals and other food promotions aimed at children could make kids fat as well as happy, county officials in Silicon Valley are poised to outlaw the little toys that often come with high-calorie offerings.

... the proposal would forbid the inclusion of a toy in any restaurant meal that has more than 485 calories, more than 600 mg of salt or high amounts of sugar or fat. In the case of McDonald's, the limits would include all of the chain's Happy Meals....

... The California Restaurant Assn. has taken out full-page newspaper advertisements against the proposed ordinance in local newspapers. One shows a little girl with her hands cuffed behind her back as she holds a stuffed animal.

Another opponent wrote in a YouTube posting, "I want to know when the pitchforks and torches and rope is going to come out.... We need to run these Frankenstein politician monsters the hell out of town!" ...

(Emphasis added.) 

If you think Arizona's immigration law is proof of how great America is, and you think banning toys from Happy Meals is worthy of an armed revolution, you need to get some f'ckin' perspective.

On second thought, don't get perspective.  This kind of unhinged stupidity makes you easily identifiable for everyone else's safety.

Second Verse, Same As The First

TPM is reporting today's revote to beat the GOP filibuster on financial reform regulation failed along the exact same lines as before, 57-41.

This includes Ben Nelson, who apparently is still just as much of an idiot as he was 24 hours ago.  As I said earlier today Harry Reid...what do you do when the Republicans continue to say no?  How and when do they pay a price and what will that price be?

He Said A Wordy Dird

For the record, Goldman Sachs called it a "shitty deal" first in their own e-mail. Also, for the record, Carl Levin is made of Awesome and Win.

Chairman Carl Levin, to the delight of the crowd at the hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, continually repeated a descriptive, colorful word typically left out of family newspapers that was used by a top Goldman executive to describe a deal it made for clients.

The security, named Timberwolf I, a collateralized debt obligation of other CDOs that were based not on actual home mortgage bonds but instead on those bonds' movements, was referenced in a June 22, 2007, email from one Goldman senior executive, Tom Montag, to another, Dan Sparks. Sparks is testifying today before Levin's panel.

In his email, Montag remarked of the Timberwolf I deal, "[B]oy, that timeberwof [sic] was one shitty deal."

Levin used the word "shitty" 11 times -- eliciting multiple rounds of quiet giggles -- in questioning Sparks, the former head of Goldman's mortgage department, about why Montag would describe it as "shitty," how long they had known it was "shitty," and whether they knew the deal was "shitty" when they peddled it to clients.

C-SPAN3.  Because you never know what'll happen next.

In all seriousness, this one's classic.  Good for Levin calling them out with their own e-mail.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

The Washington Examiner would of had to have been a real newspaper at some point in order to have jumped the shark with this headline.

PS, Drudge has less overhead and more sirens, guys. Stop trying to compete.

PPS, Also, white guys really are outnumbered in America by everyone else who's not a white guy. That's just fact. Obama got elected because he appealed to women and minorities to vote in overwhelming numbers. He's doing so again in 2010 to help the Dems with that enthusiasm gap. That's just smart politics in 2010. You know, unless you think that over the next few years there's going to be fewer blacks, latinos, and women...

PPPS, you know like Arizona.

Methodology To The Madness

Nate Silver takes a look at the methods behind the recent Rasmussen poll on Arizona's new immigration law.  As usual, it depends on how you phrase those poll questions.

And here is how Rasmussen polled on the question:

Do you favor or oppose legislation that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant?

Granted, there are some ambiguities about what the law actually does. And coming up with the appropriate poll wording for complex questions like these is never easy.

But Rasmussen's portrayal of the law is very gentle. There's no mention of the provisions that liberals and civil libertarians find most odious: that the law would charge legal immigrants with trespassing for failure to carry documentation papers (although -- note -- this is already required under federal law); that it would give law enforcement officers new powers of detention (rather than mere "verification"); that it would allow officers, without a warrant, to arrest people who they suspected might be guilty of offenses that could lead to deportation, and that it would prohibit certain types of work-for-hire involving moving vehicles.

The Rasmussen poll says that 60 percent of Americans (and 70 percent of Arizonans) favor the new law, but how would those numbers change if people were read a longer or more complete description of the measure? Since there's been no other polling on the subject, we have no idea. It wouldn't shock me if the law indeed proved to be popular, especially in Arizona, if a fuller description were read. (Liberals, who uniformly seem to think that the law will be unpopular with certain key demographic groups, are a bit too sanguine about this). But this poll is so simplistic as to provide very little informational value.

To their credit, Rasmussen later asked people whether they were concerned that "efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens"; 58 percent said they were in fact somewhat or very concerned. But that finding did not get their lede, nor was that concern expressed relative to Arizona's law itself.

Simplistic. Yeah, that certainly describes Rasmussen's usual MO.  Taking a complicated issue and then drawing yellow smiley faces on it.  If that what this law did, allow cops to "stop and verify" that would be one thing.  But it forces them to do so.  Rasmussen is almost certainly trying to make the law seem innocuous as possible in order to gain support for it.


If the truth were told about the law being unconstitutional because it doesn't define criteria for what a reasonable suspicion of being illegal is, that it's effectively void for vagueness as a criminal statute because it doesn't specify what officers should do if they FIND someone who is illegal, and it almost certainly violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution on top of all of that, I doubt the law would gain 60% approval.


Has anyone thought all this out?  Mass arrests flooding the deportation infrastructure?  People suing police for violation of civil rights, and also for not checking people stringently enough for the most virulent anti-immigration Arizonans?  Possible violence?  Sweeps through communities?  Cops getting informants and anonymous tips that so-and-so is an illegal?  What about family members of those arrested?  Does this ONLY cover Mexicans in the country illegally?  What if the police bust a Canadian, German, Japanese or Russian in the country illegally?  What about checkpoints?


All of this is a legal nightmare.  Rasmussen is pretending it's just a peachy law with no problems.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Rachel Maddow breaks it down.





This is a hideous law from a legal standpoint, not just a moral one.