James DildO’Keefe

From Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon:

It isn’t entirely clear what James O’Keefe hoped would happen when he invited CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau onto his floating “sex den.” But the conservative prankster, who gained notoriety through his undercover ACORN sting, has certainly provided plenty of laughs this afternoon based on his proposed props for the stunt: dildos, lube, fuzzy handcuffs, Viagra and a mirrored ceiling. What, no edible undies or penis straws? O’Keefe says his plan was to “seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video,” as payback for “trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me.” A planning document obtained by the network reads, “The joke is that the tables have turned on CNN. Using hot blondes to seduce interviewees to get screwed on television, you are faux seducing her in order to screw her on television.” If you can follow that logic, congrats: You must be a young conservative.

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Yeah, Tony, It’s All About You

There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.
—Tony Hayward, BP CEO, May 30, 2010

From Reuters:

Here are developments in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest in U.S. history:

* After BP Plc (BP.L) said the complex “top kill” maneuver to plug its Gulf of Mexico oil well had failed on Saturday, it is moving to the next option — the lower marine riser package cap, which will capture oil from the well rather than plug it.

…snip…

* Government scientists estimated that cutting the riser pipe coming out of the blowout preventer to prepare for the next containment option could result in a temporary oil flow increase of up to 20 percent.

…snip…

* The huge oil slick from the gushing well could threaten the Mississippi and Alabama coasts this week, driven by moderate southerly and southwesterly winds, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

…snip…

* The NOAA forecast was a sober reminder that oil from the unchecked spill, broken up and carried by winds and ocean currents, could threaten a vast area of the U.S. Gulf Coast, including Florida, as well as Cuba and Mexico.

…snip…

* President Barack Obama met on Tuesday with the co-chairs of a commission he set up to investigate the spill, former Senator Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly. Obama vowed to overhaul U.S. laws and regulations governing offshore drilling to prevent a repeat of the catastrophe.

* Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department has launched a criminal and civil investigation into the spill and rig explosion that killed 11 workers. The FBI is taking part.

The hell with all those polite investigations. I want it to look more like this…

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(left to right:  Tony I’m-Wearing-Rand-Paul’s-Hair Hayward, William No-I’m-Not-Bob-Newhart Reilly, Bob Graham, Eric Holder, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen)

The Wizards of Oil

From The Washington Post:

Three major oil industry executives agreed on one thing in a pair of Senate hearings Tuesday: Someone else was to blame for the drilling rig accident that triggered the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The senior executives from the oil behemoth BP, the offshore oil drilling company Transocean and the oilfield services contractor Halliburton pointed fingers at each other in seeking to explain what caused the accident that set afire and sank the Deepwater Horizon rig, killing 11 people.

…snip…

BP blamed the failure of Transocean’s blowout preventer and raised a new question about whether Transocean disregarded “anomalous pressure test readings” just hours before the explosion. Transocean blamed decisions made by BP and cited possible flaws in the cementing job done by Halliburton. And Halliburton said that it had faithfully followed BP’s instructions and that Transocean had started replacing a heavy drilling mud with seawater before the well was sealed with a cement plug.

To the tune of If I Only Had a Brain, written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, as performed by the fabulous Ray Bolger:

Lamar McKay:

I sit here, oh so coyly, don’t know why the gulf’s so oily,
But I’m here to proclaim,
That I couldn’t say for certain,
But I think that Halliburton,
Is the company to blame.

Hannity for the Defense

From David Zurawik at THE BALTIMORE SUN:

Give Sean Hannity credit: At least, he had James O’Keefe, the ACORN video boy, on his show Monday night. Unlike some other folks at Fox News, he didn’t act like this comic-book crusader was suddenly dead to him after O’Keefe was arrested for entering the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu under false pretenses.

On the other hand, maybe he should have ditched O’Keefe, too. What a sorry excuse for an interview and a lame defense O’Keefe offered for his actions. Hannity struck one of his favorite interview poses in such situations — that of a defense attorney trying to establish his client’s version of the facts of the case. But the 25-year-old O’Keefe wasn’t able to even do the light lifting that his half of the game required.

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Get Outta Here, Boys, Ya Bug Me!

From David Weigel at THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT:

On Monday morning, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, both age 24, dressed up as telephone company workers and walked into the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Inside the office, waiting for them, was James O’Keefe, the 25-year-old conservative activist who posed as a pimp in 2009 for a series of undercover videos that badly damaged the national community organization ACORN. As Basel and Flanagan clumsily worked on the phones, O’Keefe was recording them for a reason that remains unknown. When the “repairmen” and accomplices were asked for ID, they gave themselves up and were arrested.

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So much for that whole “southern gentleman” thing

From The Advocate:

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said Friday that she is not dwelling on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s silence on the derogatory remarks leveled against her by some of his supporters.

Jindal initially publicly defended Landrieu, D-La., but that changed after conservative heavyweights began bashing her for money she got for Louisiana before voting on the controversial health-care bill.

The governor, a Republican, has refused to field media questions about whether it was inappropriate for conservatives to characterize Landrieu as a prostitute.

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Rethugs, I hope this gives you some cloture…I mean, closure

From POLITICS DAILY:

With no votes to spare, Democratic senators moved health care reform past its first major hurdle Saturday night, with a party-line, 60-to-39 vote to begin consideration of the 2,000-plus page bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled this week.

…snip…

The bill that senators will begin debating after Thanksgiving combines proposals passed by the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), and is designed to make health insurance more accessible and affordable. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans at a cost of $848 billion over the next 10 years.

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(Shnooks and ninnies, from the top:  Chinless Mitch McConnell, Kit So-Not-James Bond, Orrin Down-The Hatch, Richard Who? Burr, Mean Mike Enzi,  Chuck Yer-Ass-Is Grassley, Captain Underpants, Limpy Snowe, Diaper David Vitter)

Banking to the Right

From the Los Angeles Times:

The financial services industry is in trouble over its role in crashing the world economy, but that doesn’t mean its lobbyists have lost all their muscle on Capitol Hill.

Exhibit A: The Senate delivered a stinging rebuff to President Obama and consumer advocates Thursday by rejecting a measure to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

The vote was 51 to 45, with 12 Democrats joining Republicans in opposing the proposal, under which bankruptcy judges could order lenders to reduce the principal on home mortgages.

The proposal, which sailed through the House in March, was a key part of Obama’s plan to reduce the tide of home foreclosures.

Damn! Even Evan Bayh voted yes! Not so these twelve, who…

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