Political Blog—May 2010

May 2—Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press

Last night, a car bomb failed to go off in New York's Times Square. It's too soon to tell who put it there or whether it were an attempted terrorist attack, but apparently the car bomb was quite amateurish, so I'm guessing it wasn't Al Qaeda.

On Meet the Press this morning, they discussed the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Admiral Thad Allen, the commandant of the U. S. Coast Guard, described the failsafe device that failed (it's a multi stage device above the well) that didn't activate. Then Janet Napolitano described the spill itself: It was an explosion, the rig sank, and now there's of course a giant oil slick. We already knew that, but what we still don't know is just how much of the blame will fall on BP.

Hillary Clinton discussed homeland security with regard to the oil spill. She said we must lessen our dependance on foreign oil, but obviously, it's a difficult balancing act since we certainly can't spend millions cleaning up spills. Speaking of national security, she discussed the controversial new immigration law in Arizona, calling it the result of frustration with our immigration system. She declined to comment on the dubious legality of the law, but she did say that she knew the Arizona Attorney General had voiced concerns regarding its legality, which I took to mean Clinton doesn't like the law either. As she pointed out, legal immigrants have to carry their papers with them at all times (well they would; illegals wouldn't have any papers to produce when asked, not legal papers, anyway), which is still taking the piss, because how are police supposed to know whom to ask? It boils down to racial profiling again. Somebody on the local news at a protest yesterday said they didn't think asking someone if they were a citizen was racial profiling, which is missing the point since it's not the question that's racist; it's how you determine whom to ask. Anyway, Clinton said that a lot of the immigration problem had to do with drugs since they are importing both drugs and people.

Then Clinton discussed Middle East politics, specifically, Sudan. It's times like this I wish I'd taken a course on the Middle East when I was going to UT. Oh well; it's highly likely I wouldn't have done well. Anyway, Clinton described the importance of avoiding further humanitarian crises in Sudan, specifically Darfur, which is old news really.

Finally, David Gregory asked Hillary Clinton if she wanted to be on the Supreme Court, which she vehemently denied since it's not her personality. Thank God. She said she wanted to see someone well qualified, whether male or female, which was refreshing after all the glass ceiling talk she made during her candidacy.

Anyway, Charlie Crist discussed his "independent" bid for the Senate. He said we needed a "true, honest discussion of what democracy is all about." For someone who wants truth and honesty, he sure was cagey about answering whether he would caucus with the Republicans or Democrats, finally saying if it were with one or the other, then so be it. Meaning yes, he's still a Republican. Then he had the gall to say it wasn't about right versus left but rather right versus wrong. Way to equate the left with wrong. At least he had the sense to say we should table the idea of offshore drilling and go to clean energy as quickly as we can. Too bad some people have to see disaster to believe it.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, when asked about Crist, said "when he changed his mind, I changed my mind about him." Alexander didn't like that Crist didn't like the rules and decided to play by different ones. Rock. Of course, he basically defended Lieberman for doing essentially the same thing, and he didn't even mention Arlen Specter, who outright admitted that he was switching parties so he could get reelected.

Then the topic shifted to Arizona's immigration law, which somebody actually defended by saying Obama had taken money away from immigration reform and that the border fence was a good idea. Lame! Bill Richardson said that it was an unconstitutional law, and we needed to solve it by increasing the border patrol and with improved technology. Neither was really right, and either way, we don't have the money it will take to solve this problem.

May 3—The Oil Spill

Today I want to talk about the oil spill off the Gulf Coast. I'm from Houston, so both oil and the Gulf Coast have been a big part of my life. I will start with a recap of the disaster.

Basically this whole thing is a slower Katrina. Much like that disaster, this one is unfolding one catastrophe at a time. The oil rig exploded around ten p.m. on April 20th, leading to an all hands on deck attempt at salvaging it, which failed of course, and the rig sank just after eleven p.m. By the 23rd, the search and rescue was off, and BP said no oil was leaking. The next day, they said it was leaking one thousand barrels a day, and then they mobilized personnel to contain as much oil as they could, installing tens of thousands of feet of boom to prevent further spread of the oil spill. Obviously, that wasn't highly successful or even remotely successful; boom is not much more than a Styrofoam pool noodle, and eighty percent of the boom has failed. By the 28th, BP announced that five thousand barrels a day were leaking, and that was when they instituted the controlled burn, which of course didn't work all that well. The following day, Obama issued his first public comments on the situation, and Nepolitano said the spill was of national significance. The day after that, Secretary of Defense Gates mobilized the Louisiana National Guard, and the Navy and Air Force sent help. Coast Guard officer Thad Allen was appointed director of the response on the first of this month, and just yesterday Obama went down to Louisiana in person (a pleasant change from Dubya's infamous flyover of New Orleans in 2005). Today Obama ordered the Cabinet secretaries back to Louisiana.

So. The oil has now reached the coast. Chris Matthews complained about how it was BP's spill, but we had to clean it up, and he likened it to spilled coffee: "If it spills on the way to the table, the house has to clean it up." BP has thus far shown a remarkable lack of responsibility, with its president Tony Hayward saying "it wasn't our accident." So whose WAS it? The contractor they hired? Hayward said it was the contractor Transocean's rig, Transocean's people, Transocean's equipment, Transocean's processes . . . and Transocean's fault. Whatever. That's outsourcing for you. Anyway, BP was quick to pass the buck but at least had the decency to say they would pay for the cleanup. Of course they're expected to pay the costs, but regrettably, federal law may be on their side. BP's liability is capped at a relatively measly seventy-five million dollars, which is a fraction of the cost of the damage. Somewhat predictably, BP was a step ahead with trying to save money and resorted to bribery almost immediately: They approached shrimpers along the coast and got them to sign waivers promising they wouldn't sue, to the tune of $5,000 each. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money to a struggling shrimper, but very little compared to what they could have either earned from non-oil-spoiled shrimp or won in a lawsuit. Between thirty and forty class action lawsuits have already been filed.

Anyway, the oil has now reached the coast, and the oil volcano is not yet stemmed. There are some glimmers of progress in containment; one of the three sources has been capped, and the other two are due to be finished tomorrow. Of course, stopping more oil from spewing out is not going to stop the damage from getting worse; the volume of oil is still growing. Shipping along the Mississippi will soon be limited, which will have all kinds of long term effects for prices of food, rubber, and yes, oil, among other things that that main lane along the Mississippi usually transports.

At least some good came of it; Arnold Schwarzenegger withdrew his plan to expand offshore drilling off the coast of California after viewing the televised images of the devastation off the Gulf Coast. Ironically, Obama is now to the right of Schwarzenegger on that front. Eee. Small wonder, though; it's not just about demolishing our precious ecosystem; it's also about money. States already strapped for cash have to pay for damages until BP foots the bill, which, as I have already established, is not over likely to happen quickly. BP keeps saying they don't know what will happen yet with the oil slick, but they want people's ideas. In other words, they're so hopeless they have to ask a bunch of scared, anxious people who aren't used to this kind of thing for help? Great.

And of course nothing is ever good enough for the right; some right wingnuts are crying conspiracy already, saying that the spill was a deliberate attempt to foil offshore drilling. Rick Perry said it was an act of God that couldn't have been prevented. I thought it was an act of BP and Transocean that probably could have been prevented, but the eleven witnesses to it are all dead, so we'll never know now. I'd think the right would at least respect the dead instead of dismissing them so callously. When will the madness end?

If you live along the Gulf Coast and see any oil-covered wildlife, call U.S. Fish and Wildlife at 1-866-557-1401.

Now. In other news, the investigation of the attempted bombing of Times Square has progressed a bit. Surveillance camera footage revealed a white man in his forties (I knew it. It's bound to a be a tea partier.) changing his shirt as he walked away from the scene. Then the bomb squad went through the truck that failed to blow up and found a bunch of ordinary fireworks, one hundred pounds of non-explosive grade fertilizer, two gas cans, and three propane cans that weren't even open. Yeah, that sounds like the work of a tea partier working from instructions copied from the first Google return. Yes, I am laughing at how pathetic it is, but it's still pretty scary that somebody with evil intent could just drive a truck into the middle of Times Square and leave it. If that yutz had known what he was doing and actually used ammonium nitrate and fuel oil instead of closed propane cans, this could have been something on the scale of the Oklahoma City bombing. Sooner or later, somebody will figure out how to blow a truck up in Times Square, and it's important to prepare for it now so we can avoid the political overreaction of September 11th. We cannot have another Patriot Act, hard shift to the right, and expensive and wholly unnecessary wars.

Speaking of unnecessary and illegal moves, the Arizona immigrant law is growing still more ridiculous. They are now going after English teachers with accents and people in Mexican American studies programs. So if I had taken a course on Middle Eastern studies at UT as I often wished I had . . . could I have been arrested on suspicion of being a Jihadist? You know, it's not like illegal immigrants are criminals; they are for the most part not guilty of anything other than illegally immigrating. Of course, most United States citizens who are in Mexico illegally are criminals. Let's hope Mexico passes a similar law to keep us out; it might actually have a leg to stand on there.

Now, I hate make this seem like such a footnote, but in case you haven't heard, a lot of Tennessee and some of Kentucky is deep underwater at the moment. Parts of Tennessee are in over fifty feet of water. At least the Country Music Hall of Fame has been ruined. Sorry, didn't mean to make light of it, but that's seriously all the news I've really been able to glean regarding this latest national natural disaster. If it weren't for that oil spill, it would be all over the news, and as the news of the oil spill begins to wane with the initiation of the cleanup process, we will hear more about the flooding. In the meantime, you can text "redcross" to 90999 to donate ten dollars to the cause.

May 4—Faisal Shahzad = Tool.

Early this morning, I walked downstairs to do my usual exercise routine at six o'clock. I turned on the TV, which was set to MSNBC, to see the headline that they had just arrested Faisal Shahzad, the guy who failed to blow up Times Square with a truck bomb. He was on a plane bound for Dubai, where he was going to return to Pakistan. So he was Middle Eastern, not white as they first thought. There goes my theory that he was a tea partier. Anyway, they tracked him down by the truck that failed to blow up. He had purchased it off Craigslist, so it was easy enough to find details about it. Then it turned out he was on the watch list, so it's alarming that he was able to get on the plane at all. Just like with the underwear bomber of last Christmas, that list is flawed and bloated beyond all usefulness.

Speaking of useless tools, Joe Lieberman apparently has no familiarity with the Constitution, or at least the Fourteenth Amendment. He proposed stripping citizenship of anyone "affiliated with" terrorist organizations. He equated it to Miranda rights, which all conservatives hate until they get arrested. But Miranda rights have nothing to do with citizenship, you cannot strip anyone of his citizenship, and besides, Shahzad was Mirandized and kept talking anyway. Funny how the Miranda rights argument only seems to crop up with non-white guys.

May 5—A Scapegoat

Faisal Shahzad is, in all probability, not a moron, so I can only consider that he must have been scared out of his wits when he tried to blow up Times Square. For, you see, he left the keys to his getaway car and his house in the truck that failed to blow up, so he had to take a train home and call his landlord to let him in. And yet it's still undetermined if he were actually working for Al Qaeda. Somebody on Countdown optimistically stated that we were no longer dealing with the pros now, and it looked like terrorist attacks nowadays would come from individuals and be less severe. Rubbish. It's only a matter of time before Al Qaeda realizes that that isn't working before they revert to trying to fly planes into buildings. Worse still, they might accelerate their tactics to biological warfare.

In other news, we now have a scapegoat for the Gulf Coast: Ken Salazar. Salazar is the Secretary of the Interior and an oil man, to quote There Will Be Blood. Anyway, the Department of the Interior is supposed to read environmental impact statements, and the statement of the rig behind this disaster was a joke. They might have known trouble was coming as soon as they saw the name Haliburton on it, really, since Haliburton supposedly cemented the well right before it blew up.

In other environmental news, the news is drawing endless comparisons between this oil spill and the Exxon Valdez over twenty years ago. Exxon has consistently had record profits, yet it has failed to recompense (as promised) most of those who lost money as a result of the oil spill. Obviously, the fear is that the same fate will befall BP's victims this time around. Worse still, this time around is likely to be far worse since the oil is bound for the delicate marshes along the coastline. The marshes not only serve as wildlife habitat and a source of economy for the people in those areas, but they also act as a buffer between the land and hurricanes. Once the marshes are damaged, that damage can't be undone. Let's hope the damage is minimal.

May 26—Old News. Oxymoron.

Unsurprisingly, the main news item lately has been the ongoing spill in the Gulf. BP failed to successfully cap the well as planned, so now they've moved to a top kill effort (a large-scale method of jamming gum in the end of the well), which they say is going "according to plan." Those quotation marks will probably prove accurate. It will only work if the mud they're injecting into it doesn't damage any pipes, the thing it's supposed to be stopping, etc. So it'll be fine if everything goes according to plan. (Hint: It won't.)

In other news, Arizona's "Papers, Please" law has cost the GOP virtually all of its Hispanic supporters. Big surprise. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D Arizona) talked about the porous borders in her district in Arizona. She opposes the law but admitted there was a big problem with border security; she said national security ought to mean border security. Fair enough; I mean, she pointed out that drug cartels were a huge part of the problem along the border, and with them comes violence. Also, the potential for big money in drug trafficking is likely to attract terrorists.

Also in recent embarrassing news, the Texas State Board of Education actually passed its controversial changes to the textbooks. They're downplaying the Civil Rights movement and all that shit. There was a rally at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago protesting the proposed changes. A friend asked me what the rally was about, and I replied, "Protesting antidisestablishmentarianism"—How often do you get to use that word in a sentence? Sadly, I got sick the night before and wasn't able to make the rally. Nothing serious; I just gotta quit eating grocery store sushi. Not that my presence, or indeed anyone's presence, at the rally would have made any difference since the changes passed anyway. At least California resolved not to use any of the textbooks we're using. I sure hope these changes are repealed soon, or at least that teachers don't actively enforce them. I wouldn't.

Also, Congress is finally starting to discuss repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It never should have been instituted, of course, but all the more so because they can't even figure out how to go about repealing it. That means we'll be stuck with it for some time, and not much will actually change since the military has always had gay members. And those in the service have fairly consistently said that pulling one's weight in a unit is a hell of a lot more important than whom one is sleeping with. Still, at least Congress is actually discussing it now; tomorrow will likely be a big day.

May 27—Modesty: Something Hayward should learn.

In the news today, we mostly heard about the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf. BP ceased operations briefly today but began again. Even if they succeed in capping the well right this instant, it will still be twice as bad as Valdez. All this in the name of arrogance and greed. I hope BP goes out of business and the people responsible spend the rest of their lives in jail. Eleven people died, and seven people cleaning up the coast have been hospitalized due to the toxicity of the stuff they're working with. And that's only the fringe. There are more than sixty cubic miles of oil on the way. And, appallingly, BP's CEO had the stones to say that the oil spill's impact "will be very very modest." What the fuck! What a complete tool.

Charlie Melancon, Democratic Representative from Louisiana, got choked up discussing the oil spill's effects on his state, talking about how it threatened their whole culture. It made me cry, too. It's getting harder and harder to look at the images of the Gulf. As Melancon said, the recovery is just as critical as the response, because the real disaster hasn't even struck yet. At least twelve thousand barrels a day are spilling into the Gulf; it could be as much as twenty five thousand barrels a day. Much of it is not on the surface; it's in vertical undersea plumes that can settle to the ocean floor, killing all the marine life down there. That oil must be kept off the shores, but without anywhere else to go, it's bound to wind up there.

In other news, John McCain is on board with keeping Don't Ask Don't Tell . . . purely to appeal to those crackpots in Arizona. Considering that it's fucking Arizona, the state that legalized arresting people for being Mexican, what the hell do you expect? Ugh. That's just icing on the fucking cake.