CPAniC

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the last of the possible Republican presidential candidates to address CPAC on Friday, strode to the podium at tonight’s Ronald Reagan Banquet and turned back the clock to the 1980s: the thing we have to fear, he said, is the growing Red Threat.

“In our nation, in our time, the friends of freedom have an assignment, as great as those of the 1860s, or the 1940s, or the long twilight of the Cold War,” he said. “As in those days, the American project is menaced by a survival-level threat.”

“I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence,” he added. “It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink.”

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Sleazy Returns to the Big Easy

(CNN) — Michael Brown, the Federal Emergency Management Agency leader who quit following widespread criticism of the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, is taking his radio show to New Orleans, Louisiana, on Wednesday and Thursday.

Brown, who is on KOA-850 AM in Denver, Colorado, confirmed his plans to CNN.

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Whistling in the Dark-o?

From Bloomberg Businessweek:

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the Texas oil company that owns 25 percent of the damaged well pouring crude into the Gulf of Mexico, said BP Plc, the project’s operator, should pay the costs from the spill because it acted recklessly and unsafely at the drilling site.

BP didn’t monitor or react to warning signs as the Macondo well was drilled, Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett said yesterday in a statement. BP is responsible for damages under such conditions, Anadarko said.

“BP’s behavior and actions likely represent gross negligence or willful misconduct and thus affect the obligations of the parties under the operating agreement,” Hackett said in the statement.

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Tony Hayward: Flying By the Seat of His Pants

From the Los Angeles Times:

His voice breaking as he spoke of a brother lost in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, Christopher K. Jones pleaded with lawmakers Tuesday to change a 90-year-old law that limits corporate liability for the 11 lives claimed in the April oil rig disaster.

Jones, a Baton Rouge attorney, displayed photos of his 28-year-old brother, Gordon, including one of an unfinished backyard fort his sibling had been building with his 2-year-old son. Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jones referred to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward’s remark that he “would like [his] life back” and said, “Well, Mr. Hayward, I want my brother’s life back.”

But Tony (seen here in his office) couldn’t hear Mr. Jones.

(Tony’s Photo Gallery, l to r: Deadeye Dick Cheney, Diaper David Vitter, Haley Barbour of Incivility)

Offshore Shilling

From The State:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The four Republicans running for governor of South Carolina support drilling for natural gas off South Carolina’s shores and pushing the federal government to remove nuclear waste from the state. But they have different views on the type of oil exploration that has led to the massive Gulf oil spill.

…snip…

Four-term U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, two-term Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, three-term state Rep. Nikki Haley and two-term Attorney General Henry McMaster all say natural gas reserves off South Carolina’s coast could be an economic boon to the state and help the country become energy independent.

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Good Time Charlie

From the St. Petersburg Times:

ST. PETERSBURG — Something peculiar is going on with Charlie Crist.

He’s on the cusp of losing public office, his lifelong party is attacking him mercilessly, and some of his closest friends are yanking their support now that he’s running for Senate as a nonpartisan candidate instead of a Republican. And yet even by the relentlessly cheerful standards of Gov. Crist, he seems even more upbeat and relaxed than ever.

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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.

Statuary Undrape

From the Chicago Tribune:

WASHINGTON—After 78 years of standing in the Capitol, Thomas Starr King is on his way out, ousted by a better-known Californian —Ronald Reagan.

A bronze statue of Reagan, who was born and raised in Illinois, will soon replace that of the relatively obscure King as one of California’s two representatives in Washington’s version of a national hall of fame. The Reagan likeness will be unveiled in a June ceremony to be attended by former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Well, thanks to your intrepid investigative reporter (that would be me, if you were wondering), we don’t have to wait until June! I have located the sculptor’s studio, and armed with my trust digital camera, I have recorded the statues he has been working on. Fittingly, that which Ronnie loved most is reflected in the artwork. No, not Nancy! Corporations!

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I like this one! It was during Ronnie’s time in office that the Clara Peller Where’s the beef? advertising campaign premiered. Perhaps, though, the question should be What the hell’s in the beef? after staff cutbacks at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service!