Joe Barton Retracts Apology: Being A Republican Congressman In The Pocket Of The Oil Industry Means Never Having To Stick To Having Said You’re Sorry

We know that the primary function of the Republican Party is to protect the interests of the ultra-wealthy and they know this, but they are not supposed to be blatant in demonstrating this. Joe Barton forgot this when he defended BP against what he called a “shakedown” by the Obama administration.

Barton apologized to BP for this “shakedown” to pay those who were harmed by the negligence of BP. This led to negative responses even even one Republican who realized that in such matters they should not really say what they are thinking. David Plouffe didn’t waste any time using this in a fund raising letter from Organizing for America:

When BP CEO Tony Hayward testified before Congress this morning, many expected to hear him apologize for the disaster his company has caused. Instead, GOP Congressman Joe Barton was the one saying he was sorry — to BP.

In his opening statement, Barton, the top Republican on the committee overseeing the oil spill and its aftermath, delivered a personal apology to the oil giant. He said the $20 billion fund that President Obama directed BP to establish to provide relief to the victims of the oil disaster was a “tragedy in the first proportion.”

Other Republicans are echoing his call. Sen. John Cornyn said he “shares” Barton’s concern. Rep. Michele Bachmann said that BP shouldn’t agree to be “fleeced.” Rush Limbaugh called it a “bailout.” The Republican Study Committee, with its 114 members in the House, called it a “shakedown.”

Let’s be clear. This fund is a major victory for the people of the Gulf. It’s a key step toward making them whole again. BP has a responsibility to those whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the disaster. And BP oil executives don’t deserve an apology — the people of the Gulf do.

Stand with us to show that the American people support holding BP accountable — and we won’t apologize for doing so.

Barton wound up retracting his apology today. I guess being a Republican Congressman in the pocket of the oil industry means never having to stick to having said you’re sorry. (Joe Barton meet Erich Segal.)

A Republican Operative Explains How The Right Wing Manipulates The Tea Parties

The tea party movements have been characterized by angry people who are ignorant of the issues and are being misled by operatives from the far right. Playboy has interviewed one of the right wing operatives who has explained how he manipulates their followers by appealing to the Reptilian portions of the brain as opposed to their logic centers. We’ve seen his type of work before:

Did you get an automated call from the sister of a 9/11 victim asking you to reelect President Bush in 2004? That was me. Did you get a piece of mail with the phrase supports abortion on demand as a means of birth control? That may have been me too.

The people the source deals with “may not read much, but they all know their Ayn Rand.” He described the “black arts” techniques used to manipulate them:

A good piece of mail gets its message across in 10 seconds. Television gives you 30 seconds, maybe. We’re playing to the reptilian brain rather than the logic centers, so we look for key words and images to leverage the intense rage and anxiety of white working-class conservatives. In other words, I talk to the same part of your brain that causes road rage.

In other words, this is a continuation of the usual right wing misinformation campaign. New York Magazine noted the similarity and questions if Democrats will be prepared to counter it:

Think Swift Boating, or the James O’Keefe ACORN project. It sounds dark the way this person describes it (“black arts” never sound particularly appetizing, unless they are practiced by Robert Pattinson), but it’s really nothing new. The question is whether Barack Obama, as head of the Democratic Party, is going to retain his frustrating coolness in the fall as these tactics are being used against liberal candidates across the country in an effort to take away the Democratic majority in Congress. No matter how rational he can be, is reason any good when it’s up against road rage?

New Blog Features & Social Media Integration

I’ve been experimenting with a few new blog features which readers might be interested in. One is the addition of tags to posts. Categories have been used since the start and will link to posts of any age but there is a limited number of categories. I’m using a wider variety of tags but for now they are limited to recent and a handful of older posts. The feature will become of greater value as more posts are tagged but for now they provide another way to find hot topics such as BP Oil Spill. There is also a tag cloud on the right margin which lists tags in use with larger fonts for more commonly used tags.

I’ve also activated Gravatars, which are Globally Recognized Avatar pictures which can be used on any participating blog. This will allow you to have a picture attached to your comments here and at any other blogs which use Gravatars. You can set up a Gravatar at this site.

A new mobile theme has been set up for those accessing the blog on mobile web browsers which will make it easier to read posts and add comments. (At present there’s one minor issue with the format. The “share or print” icons following all the posts are listed at one per line. It is only a minor inconvenience if I can’t find a fix for this. At least on my Droid it only takes a second to flip the screen past all of them to get to the comments section.)

I’m also restoring some of the Twitter integration including the Topsy widget. For those wanting to retweet a post here, the Twitter icon in the long row of social icons will use the full file name in the tweet while the icon from Topsy below it will substitute a short file name.

Most of the discussion of posts has been on Facebook the last few months. I’ve partially fixed some of the recent problems with sharing blog posts. Unfortunately it has gone back to the older problem in which it picks up text from a recent comment rather than the linked text. One work around is to cut the desired text from the post, click on the text in Facebook, and replace it with the selected text. Alternatively you can share a link already on Facebook or Networked Blogs and avoid this problem.

Advice For Republican Candidates

Former House majority leader Dick Armey has two pieces of advice for Republican candidates: don’t self- identify as a tea party candidate and stay off of MSNBC. This advice makes sense.Why would anyone in their right mind self-identify as a member of a band of people who have no understanding of the issues and limit their thought to simplistic bumper-sticker slogans? As for the second, it makes sense that Republican candidates avoid difficult interviews which would show they have no understanding of the issues and limit their thought to simplistic bumper-sticker slogans.

While the fundamentals work in favor of the Republicans in the upcoming off-year election, it is likely any gains will be a dead cat bounce unless Republicans take some additional action. Here’s some more advice I’d like to offer to them:

  • Don’t call yourself a supporter of small government and then support policies which increase the influence of the government in the lives of individuals.
  • Don’t call yourself fiscally conservative and then increase spending on credit while simultaneously cutting taxes for the ultra-wealthy.
  • Don’t run on national security credentials until you understand that going to war should be reserved as a last resort, and should not be done based upon lies.
  • Don’t talk about socialism unless you are really talking about socialists, and not centrist politicians such as Barack Obama.

Majority Wants Democrats To Control Congress

It has become very easy to find polls which show that whichever party you prefer now has the momentum going into this November’s elections. I tend to discount such polls as I don’t believe the vast majority of people (as opposed to blog readers) are even paying that much attention to politics yet or have made up their minds. That said, for those who are looking for good news for the Democrats, an Associated Press-GfK Poll shows that a majority want the Democrats to retain control of Congress by a 46 percent to 39 percent margin.

While I don’t believe such polls are terribly predictive, this does help counter the conventional wisdom of a Republican resurgence. This is the second straight month in which the Democrats win a majority compared to April when when 44 percent preferred Republican control as opposed to  41 percent for the Democrats.

Movement Of Blog Completed

If you are seeing this, you are seeing the new as opposed to the old copy of the blog. There’s still a few items to touch up in the new home. One issue I haven’t gotten to is fixing the bizarre characters which are in some of the items quoted from other sites. (Now almost fixed) I’m sure I’ll find more items to fix up as some of the configuration changes and fixes made over time on the old blog might not have transferred over.

For the next few days it is possible that the blog might misbehave and not always be visible. I’ve been so busy with the moving that I don’t have any real posts up today, but once posting resumes (hopefully tonight or at least by tomorrow) I will also put copies at the emergency site until things are stabilized. This is at: http://liberalvalues.wordpress.com/

Blog Movement in Progress

I am in the process of moving the blog to a new host. As of now the old posts have been imported here but the old theme and most of the plug-ins have not so the blog might look odd until it is fully restored.

Until things are stabilized if the blog is not available posting will be here: http://liberalvalues.wordpress.com/

Update: Most of the plug-ins and the theme are now restored. Hopefully by the time anyone actually sees this version of the blog things will be near normal.

Quote of the Day

“One thing’s for sure: Palin did not have brain implants.” –Andy Borowitz

SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who, Torchwood Returns; True Blood Returns With More Vampire Sex

There’s just a quickie edition of Scifi Weekend this week while I’m out of town. American viewers of Doctor Who saw the first of a two part story in which the Doctor met some beings from down under. The BBC had the doctor try to fit in among normal people, including a game of soccer. This was far more fun than the World Cup.

Next week (BBC): The Pandorica opens.

The big news of the week was reported in a separate post: Torchwood to return with a bigger budget as a joint venture between the BBC and Starz.

True Blood returns, meaning more hot vampire sex. Anna Paquin discussed her nude scenes with Entertainment Weekly:

Anna Paquin (who plays Sookie Stackhouse) is certainly used to getting naked on the show, but says the graphic love scenes are the least of her concerns. It doesn’t really bother me, she admits. “I’m really close with all of our cast, and we’ve all seen each other in various compromising and odd situations.” The actress is, of course, particularly close with fiance Stephen Moyer (who plays Sookie’s vampire lover Bill), and Moyer says their real-life romance definitely adds to their love scenes. Jokes the actor, “I think that one great bonus is we don’t need a fluffer.”

Quote of the Day

“Remember the good old days, when ‘tea bagging’ just meant dropping your balls into someone’s mouth?”
–Wil Wheaton