The Bush Oil Co., er, Administration great scat!

A former disgraced official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality who resigned days after the New York Times reported he had changed some government reports on global warming is joining oil giant ExxonMobil .

Philip Cooney, the former chief of staff of the council and a former energy industry lobbyist, will be working for Exxon beginning in the fall, company spokesman Russ Roberts said on Tuesday.

The New York Times first reported Cooney's job with Exxon on its Web site. The newspaper said another Exxon spokesman declined to describe the former White House official's new job.

Cooney resigned from his White House post on Friday, two days after the newspaper reported he edited some descriptions of climate research in a way that cast doubt on links between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.

Bush Administration official, oil executive . . . same diff.

What a mess this is going to be. But look on the bright side: Until now, legal firms were laying off. Now they'll be hiring for years to come!

Fishermen and property owners along the Gulf Coast have filed hundreds of lawsuits since April against oil company BP and its contractors amid a legal landscape that has changed dramatically since the Exxon Valdez tanker spill sullied Alaska's Prince William Sound 21 years ago.

The Valdez spill prompted Congress to pass the 1990 Oil Pollution Act — intended to give fishermen and others harmed by such spills a quicker route for settling their claims — and nearly two decades of litigation over that spill also has redefined centuries-old maritime law on the issue.

Now, as hundreds of spill victims test those laws, attorneys say many questions remain about how far the protections will go and how long it will take to compensate the fishermen, landholders and beachside cities that have suffered from the spill.

"There are an unbelievable array of issues in this case," said Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, who argued the Exxon Valdez case for the commercial fishermen and other Alaska businesses before the U.S. Supreme Court. "One of the most painful things about the Exxon case was that it took us 20 years to get the case finished and get the money in the pockets of the victims. One can't help but wonder if the same thing is going to happen here."

Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded April 20 and sank two days later, already has asked a judge to limit claims against it to $27 million under an 1851 law that limits liability. A judge has suspended more than 100 claims against Transocean until that issue is decided.

[...] Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the company the Coast Guard says is responsible for a spill must pay up to $1 billion to clean it up and repair natural resource damage and up to $75 million in economic damages to compensate victims for lost income.

BP and its contractors could be forced to pay even more than that if the federal government's investigation finds widespread negligence, deliberate misconduct or violations of federal regulations.

The U.S. government also could bring criminal charges under the Clean Water Act, Migratory Bird Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws, Fisher says. The Justice Department did not return a call for comment.

The more we find out, the worse it gets:

According to a scientific analysis of footage from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, National Public Radio is claiming the growing ecological disaster is actually ten times worse than previously estimated, saying the rushing torrent of oil pouring into the ocean is equivalent to one Exxon-Valdez spill every four days.

That's more than 70,000 barrels a day -- when the U.S. Coast Guard had placed the figure at a seemingly modest 5,000 barrels a day.

Until this point in human history, the Exxon-Valdez disaster was just one of the worst oil spills ever, with nearly 11 million gallons of crude lost to the murky depths.

The Deepwater Horizon well has been jetting oil unabated for just short of one month at time of this writing. Already, the pollution exceeds a scale which most individual humans can fully grasp.

While government agencies continue to examine what led to the oil rig explosion that killed 11 people, environmental legal experts are already predicting that there will be criminal charges ahead for at least one of the companies involved in the oil spill.

A House energy panel looking into what might have caused the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico found yesterday that a vital piece of equipment intended to prevent such disasters had significant problems.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Wednesday outlined issues with the blowout preventer, a tool that BP claimed was 'fail safe,' that may have prevented it from engaging. The blowout preventer, reports the Washington Post, "Had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a "useless" test version of a key component and a cutting tool that wasn't strong enough to shear through steel joints in the well pipe and stop the flow of oil."

It was also revealed during the hearing that BP knew "hours" ahead of the deadly explosion that there were problems with the oil well.

(h/t Southern Studies.)

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Remember how the crowds at the 2008 Republican National Convention all chanted "Drill Baby Drill," led by the likes of Michael Steele, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and most of all by Sarah Palin? Here's what Palin said in her debate with Joe Biden:

The chant is "drill, baby, drill." And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into. They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America's largest and most you expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.

Barack Obama and Senator O'Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we're in. You even called drilling -- safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore -- as raping the outer continental shelf.

There -- with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that.

Yeah, it sure is safe:

Coast Guard officials were investigating reports on Friday that crude oil leaking from a well beneath the Gulf of Mexico had washed ashore, threatening wildlife in fragile marshes and islands along the Gulf Coast.

As the vast and growing oil slick spread across the Gulf and approached shore, fishermen in coastal towns feared for their businesses and the White House stepped up its response to the worsening situation.

President Obama ordered a freeze on new offshore drilling leases until a review of the oil rig accident that caused the spill could be concluded, and new safeguards put in place.

“I continue to believe that domestic oil production is an important part of our overall strategy for energy security,” Mr. Obama said on Friday, addressing concerns about whether the administration would continue with its plan to increase drilling in the Gulf.

Even so, he said, “the local economies and livelihoods of the people of the Gulf Coast as well as the ecology of the region are at stake.”

Of course, for some people, that's a negligible concern:

Fund managers and analysts in the City said they were deeply worried about the financial cost to BP of the kind of legal action that could be taken in the US by those damaged by the accident.

Why, nobody could have predicted this, right? Even though BP was fined a record $87 million last September for safety violations in Texas.

Well at least Newt Gingrich has remained consistent:

In 2008, Newt Gingrich began American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), the casino-funded 527 that used the slogan “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” to promote the false idea that new offshore drilling could lower gas prices. On its website, Gingrich’s ASWF is continuing its petition while reporting on the inevitable consequences of dependence on dirty oil.

And, as Brad Johnson at the Wonk Room reports, this is shaping up to be a worse environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez disaster.

We sure eager to hear what the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd will say now. No doubt they'll find a way to blame Obama for the mess.

UPDATE: Sure enough. Limbaugh: Oil spill is "Obama's Katrina". I understand this was the talking point this morning on "liberal" MSNBC's Morning Joe.

UPDATE II: Josh Nelson notes that Palin has tweeted her compassion:

Isn't that special? Gotta love the heartfelt compassion there. That and three bucks will get you a double-tall latte at Starbucks.

Congressional Democrats have just introduced a new package of legislation – the DISCLOSE Act – to blunt the Supreme Court’s disastrous January ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which opened American elections at all levels to unlimited corporate spending. The 5-4 ruling gave companies like Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil the same right as individual Americans to spend money in elections, but unlike you or me these companies have billions in the bank and billions more at stake in Congress and state legislatures.

Now Democrats are racing to pass legislation before a wave of corporate cash sweeps through the mid-term elections. They have overwhelming public opinion on their side, but the US Chamber of Commerce and other corporate lobbyists are working hard to head them off and time is short.

The newly unveiled DISCLOSE Act is all about forcing election spending out into the open, where it belongs. Thanks to the Roberts Court, giant companies can spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose candidates – without disclosing a dime of it. They can simply pass the money through a front group or PR agency. The legislation would close this glaring loophole, as Sen. Chuck Schumer explained on Thursday:

Our bill will follow the money. In cases where corporations try to mask their activities through shadow groups, we drill down so that ultimate funder of the expenditure is disclosed.

Corporations would be required to disclose political spending to their shareholders, and a broad array of corporations and advocacy groups would be required to disclose previously confidential details about their political spending, including funding sources. Foreign corporations, government contractors, and recipients of government bail-outs would be altogether banned from spending money in elections.

The DISCLOSE Act is a huge first step in restoring genuine democracy in the wake of the Roberts Court's irresponsible activism, but it's just a first step. Only a constitutional amendment or new ruling by a more progressive Supreme Court can truly 'fix' Citizens United.

In the meantime, maybe we should require politicians to wear the logos of their "sponsors." Hey, if it works for NASCAR, why not Congress:

The case we've all been waiting for – and dreading – is finally here. Citizens United v. FEC started off as an insignificant case about an anti-Hillary film, but the Roberts Court turned it into a vehicle for radically expanding the influence of corporations.

Here's the bottom line to today's 5-4 ruling: giant corporations can spend as much as they please on elections to advance their agendas. The right-wing Roberts court ruled that Exxon has the same free speech rights as you and me. In other words, Exxon is a person too.

While companies still won't be able to give directly to federal candidates, they'll be able to spend billions on attack ads, robocalls, and direct mail. You know, just like you and I are free to do.

Chief Justice Roberts claimed over and over during his hearing that he would respect precedent, exercise restraint, and issue narrow rulings. Well, we got to see the real John Roberts today. He'll gladly set aside principle and precdent whenever it suits his ideology. He cares about equal rights, you see. It's just that some rights are more equal than others.

So now that the highest court in the land has privileged corporations over people in elections, what can be done? Well, we don't really have a choice. We need to fight the ruling in Congress, fight it in the courts, and fight it in campaigns this fall.

The backlash has already begun. Campaign finance champion Russ Feingold has vowed to "pass legislation restoring as many of the critical restraints on corporate control of our elections as possible." Alan Grayson will pursue legislation in the House. And a constitutional amendment could even be in the works. Stay tuned.

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I'm planning on being around in ten years, Lawd willin'. And I'm really looking forward to holding up all these global-warming deniers, like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and all their absurd guests running around their shows screaming that "CRU e-mails prove global warming is a hoax!" for some serious, serious ridicule.

Like Hannity last night on his Fox show, hosting the best author Exxon/Mobil money could buy, Chris Horner, to natter at length about the fake CRU e-mails scandal. At the very end, Hannity comes up with an epithet for global warming:

Hannity: Biggest scientific fraud, I think, in our lifetime.

Yes, that's what we'd call it too -- not global warming, but this fake scandal, as Media Matters explains in thorough detail.

Particularly when it comes to Hannity's and Horner's doubts that the e-mails were "stolen" (Hannity says: "I don't think that's an accurate story," and Horner says, "There is no evidence this was a hacking.") As MM explains:

CRU officials have stated that emails were obtained through "a criminal breach of our security systems." In its initial response to the reported theft, officials at the University of East Anglia stated: "Recently thousands of files and emails illegally obtained from a research server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have been posted on various sites on the web." In a statement about the controversy, CRU vice chancellor of research Trevor Davies stated: "We are committed to furthering this debate despite being faced with difficult circumstances related to a criminal breach of our security systems and our concern to protect colleagues from the more extreme behaviour of some who have responded in irrational and unpleasant ways to the publication of personal information."

But beyond the fact that this is just another right-wing water-muddying exercise to advance their own propaganda, you really have to wonder how the rest of the media can so eagerly lap up such a non-story. Especially when confronted with the actual evidence of what in fact is occurring in the Real World, i.e., the natural world, to wit:

Climate change speeds up since 1997 Kyoto accord

Since the 1997 Kyoto international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest warnings made back then.

As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the Arctic's once-frozen summer sea ice. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before.

And it's not just the frozen parts of the world that have felt the heat in the years leading up to next month's climate summit in Copenhagen:

• The world's oceans have risen about an inch and a half.

• Droughts and wildfires have turned more severe, from the U.S. West to Australia to the Sahel desert of North Africa.

• Species now in trouble because of changing climate include not just the polar bear, which has become a symbol of global warming, but also fragile butterflies, colorful frogs and entire stands of North American pine forests.

• Temperatures over the past 12 years are 0.4 degree warmer than in the dozen years leading up to 1997.

"The latest science is telling us we are in more trouble than we thought," said Janos Pasztor, climate adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Continue reading »

Greg Palast: Supreme Court rewards Exxon for Valdez oil spill.

Wonk Room: The fact that Richard Perle has been reliably and disastrously wrong on any issue he addresses doesn't stop our arrogantly unaccountable and proudly dysfunctional press from providing him space to spew more dangerous drivel.

The Carpetbagger Report: Speaking of reliably and disastrously wrong....

Politics in the Zeros: An interview with the Freeway Blogger, who's put up over 6000 signs on California freeways, reaching millions of people with an anti-war message.

Angry Bear: WSJ/Luskin flunk basic arithmetic

The Aristocrats: Other $ prizes proposed by McCain

Editor&Publisher: Finally! The MSM will grudgingly report that St. McCain actively sought and accepted the endorsement of a couple old pals of the Bush White House. This minister is anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and wants war with Iran now. The sainted solon has dubbed the other radical cleric a "spiritual guide." Neither, however, is a scary black man.

The Largest Minority: Exxon loses Venezuelan asset freeze and ordered to pay compensation.

Shakesville: Women's and children's issues don't count

Danger Room: Counting the dead in Iraq

Voice Your Choice in the Corporate Hall of Shame 2008. This year's nominees made headlines for breaking the law, influencing elected officials, undermining democratic decision-making and outright endangering the environment and public health.

Well, what do you expect her to say?

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

When asked for her take on Hillary Clinton's big laugh at the Democratic debate that it took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush presidency and it may well take another Clinton to clean up after this one (good line, but in reality, I think we'll be cleaning up after Bush for a very, very long time.) Republican hack...er, apologist, hmm...strategist Mary Matalin starts whining that every thinking Democrat knows it's not about Bush:

MATALIN: You know, this…even Democrats—thinking Democrats—this is not going to be a race about Bush. They have united, this party’s been united under one organizing principle for eight years: it’s anti-Bush. People are over it.

RUSSERT: But in a Democratic primary?

MATALIN: Even Democrats are over it. What are you going to do? What are you going to…and always, elections are about the future. They’re not about the past. She’s just…it’s just a…it’s cute, it was clever, but in the end, it was sophistry.

Sorry, Mary. As I look at the tatters of the Constitution whose bright promise brought my grandparents here many years ago; as I look over pictures of the horrors and brutality done in our name in the Middle East and places like Guantanamo; as I read over the decisions made by the Roberts Supreme Court that value corporations over citizens and read that in a time of war Exxon has posted record breaking earnings yet again; as I realize that most Americans are just one tragic circumstance from being homeless and bankrupt from medical bills, I must tell you that we are most assuredly NOT over Bush.

The candidate who can convince me that they can undo this damage is the one who will get my vote. YOUR opinion, Mrs. Iraq Study Group--given your enabling of all that I've listed above--disqualifies you from saying what is sophistry or not.