Haley Barbour: open mouth, insert foot

Haley Barbour more than likely ended any chance, real or perceived, of his winning the GOP Presidential nomination. This past weekend top Republican 2012 hopefuls gathered in New Orleans for the Southern Leadership Conference. Such visionaries as Palin, Romney and Huckabee were in attendance. Haley, in an interview with CNN while in New Orleans, came to defense of embattled Virgina governor Bob McDonnell. McDonnell is the governor who declared April Confederate History Month with no mention of slavery. He was forced to apologize the next day, so you think Haley would have had a good idea of the fallout nationally his statement was going to make.

See Barbour on CNN.





Eugene Robinson lays Barbour to waste in the Washington Post.

What "doesn't amount to diddly" is the revisionist notion -- which Confederate History Month celebrations perpetuate -- that the Civil War was about something other than slavery. The "lost cause" diehards insist that the treasonous rebellion was a fight over freedom or the Constitution or states' rights. But the "right" that was being fought over was the ability to own human beings, compel their labor, buy and sell them as if they were livestock, exploit them sexually and torture or kill them if they tried to escape.

McDonnell's apology, at least, recognized that slavery was nothing to be proud of. It should be noted, however, that Virginia's previous two governors -- both Democrats -- did not feel the need to proclaim Confederate History Month. McDonnell's original proclamation, before he amended it, seemed designed to appeal to a fringe group for whom the Civil War is still an open question.

This is a free country -- for black people, too, thanks to the defeat of the Confederacy -- and so if some white Southerners want to celebrate the "heritage" of slavery, they are welcome to do so. But while they're entitled to their own set of opinions, they're not entitled to their own set of facts. I'd say that Haley Barbour's studied ignorance was "a bad thing," but that would be a gross understatement.

Here is what more oil gets you

Sixty more barrels of oil were spilled into the Mississippi today. Now they are finding oil in the mud of the mouth of the river. How much damage to the ecosystem can our area take? How many people as well as wildlife are going to die due to this pollution? How many deaths makes this story relevant to Mississippians who are sitting back while their natural resources are destroyed in the name of big oil? How many?

Oil Spill costs region $275 Million per day

This oil spill has caused untold and uncountable damage to our environment and native ecosystems. One thing you can put a dollar figure on is the economic damage. I wonder how many peoples health will be impacted by this toxic spill? A lot of people fish for food in this area. Someone should be liable and pay big.

From the AFP:

New Orleans city officials promised residents that the drinking water was safe, even as a chemical odor wafted over the waterfront city and scientists set up a rescue operation for oily birds and animals.

But some people including the head of the port of New Orleans were griping that authorities were not working fast enough to get the vital waterway open to commercial traffic.

The spill's effects and the closure of the port were costing the region a massive 275 million dollars per day, the New Orleans Times-Picayune cited port president Gary LaGrange as saying Friday.

Ninety-five vessels were waiting to transit the river as of mid-day Saturday, the Coast Guard reported.

I am sure residents of New Orleans trust the government. Thank George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Brownie for destroying governmental trust in the gulf.

419,000 gallons of oil spilled into Mississippi River

While we sleeping last night a large ecological disaster happened in the Mississippi river around New Orleans. Close to a half million gallons of oil were spilled into the Big River when a barge collided with a Liberian oil tanker. CNN has the story:

The spill is much smaller than the ones that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Mississippi and nearby waterways.

But Wilma Subra, a chemist who advises the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, said the oil could affect wildlife and work its way up the food chain into residents, many of whom fish for subsistence.

"This is a spill that occurred in a very urban area, and it can impact a very large number of people," she said.

The oil, widely used as marine fuel, is heavier than diesel but lighter than crude, and it is likely to stick to rocks, trees and wildlife, Stroh said.

Shock Doctrine 101

Gas prices are at an all-time high, oil is over $134 a barrel and steaming towards $200 a barrel and now two very interesting pieces of news from the political world of the oil and gas industry emerge in one week. First, the GOP leadership, manifested by the current President George W. Bush, and the Republican nominee Senator John McCain, make a complete about face on the issue of offshore drilling. Second, after over 30 years in exile, Big Oil finds its way back in to the lucrative business of servicing the gushing Iraqi oil fields.

These separate events, when viewed through a collective lens, offer a perfect example of radical right wing measures being pushed on a populous staggering from the effect of an economic "shock", in what Naomi Klein would describe in detail in her brilliant book "The Shock Doctrine". The most impressive book I have read in quite some time is Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in a book on the effects of globalization.

Without giving a complete book review, allow me to give brief insight in to the central premise of "The Shock Doctrine". Klein suggests that extreme right-wing measures such as mass privatization, complete economic deregulation, and the opening of all financial markets to foreign investment, most especially when dealing with the opening of new markets and the expansion of free market capitalism, have always been accompanied by a "shock". The shock may come in the form of a natural disaster, war, or even as an economic shock.

While under the effects of a shock, people are willing to part with freedoms, rights, and public properties, among many others just to bring back a semblance of stability. A perfect example of this phenomenon would be the mass privatization of the New Orleans public schools after Hurricane Katrina. Instead of fixing the publicly owned school system, a for-profit charter school system was created in its place. New Orleans now only has four public schools remaining, yet the taxpayers would not be able to reflect such in their tax bill, since their tax dollars now go to fund the charter schools, something they as citizens have zero stake in. For reference Jackson Mississippi has over 60 public schools in the Jackson Public School District. Certainly the people of New Orleans would have never allowed this grab of public property for private gain had they not been under the stress of as a severe a shock we have seen in the U.S. in modern times.

The rapid rise of the price of oil over the the last few years has created an economic shock now being manifested in the pocketbooks of everyday Americans as well as the rising costs of operation for industry nationwide. People are faced with making hard decisions as the size of their fuel budgets have now risen to levels comparable to their housing and food budgets. Industries are facing the stress of the rising costs of production and distribution.

Americans are notorious procrastinators. Even though many pointy headed intellectuals (Carter, Gore to name a pair) have insisted that we are on borrowed time as an oil-based economy, we have for the most part ignored their advice and continued to enjoy the benefits of artificially low gas prices. Now in a brief seven year period we have seen the price of gas nearly triple. Real economic pain with its accompanying fear of worse pain, is the "shock" now being collectively felt across the country.

Big Oil has made an all out media campaign calling for the immediate opening of ANWR and to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. The right wing political machine sees a golden opportunity for a political two-for-one. One, they get to make political points with the public by offering a "solution" to the gas price shock, by calling for more drilling. Granted they are counting on an uninformed public, and for a change it looks like the mainstream media is not buying their argument. Two, they get to scratch the backs of one of the most powerful GOP lobbies, Big Oil, and do it under the cover of the "shock".

Some, including our own Haley Barbour, have gone as far as to blame former President Bill Clinton for the current gas prices. Haley is too smart and too well informed to not know that the demand for oil has increased exponentially with the rise of China, Russia, India, and other emerging market based economies. It is not a problem that a small, time consuming increase in supply can adjust, the demand is just growing too fast.

The more people in China trade in their bicycles for automobiles, the higher the demand on oil. What limited resources we have in the United States (3% of the world's supply), does not match with our demand (25% of the world's demand). Besides any free market economist will tell you that the oil gained by Exxon-Mobile or Shell by drilling would go to the global marketplace to be sold at market price. There is no way the shareholders of these oil behemoths are going to allow the sale of oil in the United States at a fraction of market cost just because it was discovered and harvested from the our own soil.

As any right-winger will tell you, the government has no right to interfere with the market. I certainly don't agree with them, but that is certainly their position. So don't be disillusioned by the false prospect of cheap oil just because our oil industries have access to more oil in the U.S. If you truly believe this, I beg you to ask your Republican leaders what they plan to do with this oil that will be owned by Shell, BP and Exxon-Mobile. I doubt anything comes up about protectionism and keeping the profits down by selling cheap at home. The market is their god.

Let us not forget all of our previous discussions on the myths being purported by the right-wing noise machine related to drilling. It will be year 2030 before any real benefits could possibly be felt in the markets due to an increase in supply. Demand is expanding exponentially, so I don't think a modest gain in supply will effect the market more than pennies on a tank of gas. Don't let them fool you, they know this too. But they think you are so distressed about the price of gas that any B.S. story they manufacture around the need for drilling as a panacea to our energy problems, will have you jumping jump in line to support their money grab. Sad, but true.

I thoroughly detailed the thievery going on Iraq by our oil giants of Iraq's most precious resource, its oil. After being shut out of the Iraq market for over 30 years by Saddam Hussein, Big Oil has found the moment they have been waiting for. Like circling vultures, they have descended upon their wounded prey ready to feed. Never mind that the oil belongs to the people of Iraq to profit from, not our oil and gas corporations. While I am not against foreign investment by our energy corporations, I do oppose the plundering of a nation crippled by war. The people of Iraq would never allow this in normal circumstances, and neither would the people of the U.S.

The "shock" of rising gas prices has created the political environment the oil barons have been waiting for to make these outlandish moves. While I do not think Big Oil created the gas "shock", at least not directly with intent, but they are looking to use the pain at the pump felt by regular Americans as a means to push through unpopular legislation and outright thievery overseas. This is "The Shock Doctrine" at its finest.

Straight Talk Express blows a tire in Baton Rouge

John McCain held a town hall meeting in Baton Rouge today where he faced tough questions surrounding his votes on Katrina. Senator McCain seems to have developed selective memory recall. Maybe someone needs to remind him of his abysmal voting record.

At one point a reporter asked why he “voted twice against the creation of a commission to investigate the levee failures in New Orleans.”

McCain: I’ve supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy. I’ve been here to New Orleans. I’ve met with people on the ground. I’ve met with the governor. I’m not familiar with exactly what you said, but I’ve been as active as anybody in efforts to restore the city.

He must not remember this vote in 2005 or this vote in 2006.

Straight Talk Express? Nope, just same old same old.

Thank You John Edwards For Class And A Focus On Poverty And Recovery

John Edwards ended his campaign the same place he started it.

"to remind the country that we as citizens and as a government have a moral responsibility to each other and what we do together matters"

thecount said it very well in the comments:

Thank you John and Elizabeth Edwards for fighting the good fight. Thank you for speaking up for the poor. Thank you for pushing for universal health care. Thank you for keeping the discussion on these topics which are so important. I can't help but think he was doing the Lord's work. God bless him.

It is with his return to New Orleans that I go back to certain numbers:
There are 35,129 Mississippians are still living in FEMA housing and only $1.64 billion of that money had actually been spent re-building the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Edwards Expected To Drop Out Of Race In New Orleans

Edwards expected to drop out of race today

Video I and a friend put together after we attended the John Edwards event in Canton, MS on his poverty tour.

FEMA Failures Meet Democratic Oversight

"We have lost a great deal through our dealings with FEMA," said Paul Stewart, a former Army officer living in a trailer with his wife in Mississippi, "not the least of which is our faith in government."

When a retired military officer has lost faith in Bush’s government, that is a bell weather indicator of what many of us predicted since that horrendous day back in December 2000.

You remember that day in December in which the United States Supreme Court legally stopped the vote counting in a U.S. election. The self-proclaimed greatest democracy on the planet no longer believed that counting the votes counted in determining an election outcome. The case was Bush v. Gore, and a New York Times editorial last August summarized it succinctly.

The Supreme Court’s highly partisan resolution of the 2000 election was a severe blow to American democracy . . ..

And what we’ve learned since that day is just how true it is when we say that elections have consequences. Here we are with another set of scandals that negatively impact American lives directly in a real and palpable manner. One scandal centers on millions of dollars of ice for hurricane survivors melting in the sun. The other on FEMA deliberately weighing the cost of lawsuits against testing for the adverse health effects of its formaldehyde-filled trailers. Read more . . .

Update (John Leek): Paul Stewart is now running for Southern District Transportation Commissioner. He may just get my vote. :)