FDR with his famous black arm band.

Tina Dupuy on the Stephanie Miller Show (2011/11/11) by karlfrisch

Heartthrob John Fugelsang was subbing Friday when I was on to talk about vets and Occupy Wall Street.

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We already noticed that Exxon/Mobil officials were downplaying the severity of that oil spill in the Yellowstone River. Now it turns out -- to absolutely no one's surprise -- that they were lying through their teeth:

Federal documents show it took Exxon Mobil nearly twice as long as it publicly disclosed to fully seal a pipeline that spilled roughly 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River.

Details about the company's response to the Montana pipeline burst emerged late Tuesday as the Department of Transportation ordered the company bury the duct deeper beneath the riverbed, where it is buried 5 to 8 feet underground to deliver 40,000 barrels of oil a day to a refinery in Billings.

The federal agency's records indicate the pipeline was not fully shut down for 56 minutes after the break occurred Friday near Laurel. That's longer than the 30 minutes that company officials claimed Tuesday in a briefing with federal officials and Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

An Exxon Mobil spokesman said the longer time span was based on information provided to the agency by the company and the discrepancy might have come about because Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co. President Gary Pruessing was speaking without any notes in front of him when he addressed Schweitzer.

There's also been a startling lack of information for the people who are directly affected by the spill.

Gee, who could have foreseen this? Drill, baby, drill!

As I was trying to get from one end of Denver's airport to this past Friday after United Airlines screwed up my flight completely, I literally bumped into Michael Steele with coffee in my hand walking to the gate. The news of the Palin VP pick was just announced on TV and I asked him if he was voting for Obama now. He said, "No way." I yelled that McCain just lost the experience argument that he's been trying to use on Obama.

He picked up his walking pace as I continued.

"She's got plenty of experience," he said.

"And it was a move to try and win over some fictitious Hillary voters and appease the religious right, but one problem was that nobody knows who she is."

"Everyone knows her," he said.

"Really? In what way?" I asked. "Do you even know who she is?"

He then ran away...

abu muqawama: What does the phrase "time horizon" actually mean?

drinking liberally in new milford: The real reason for McCain's Friday night Phil Gramm dump

David Seaton's News Links: Will Afghanistan/Pakistan become be the new Vietnam, or an opportunity
to do something useful?
Kiko's House: David Carr & The Audacity of Dope

The Rude Pundit was ejected from Right Wing blogger's conference hotel! Wonder if there were any "Real Men" there?

The Opinion Mill's Sunday Bookchat: Takin' it to the geeks! Naomi Klein goes onto the Fox "Happy Hour" and turns those smiles upside down! Dave Sirota dismantles a Republican wingbot on television! Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book, a conservative clod has some old candidates, and Grandmaster Flash sounds as fresh on the page as he does on vinyl -- or CD!

Reuters:

Overflowing rivers in Iowa and other Midwest states forced evacuations and disrupted the region's economy on Friday with fears of worse to come from fragile levees and more rain.

A Cedar Rapids hospital was flooded and evacuated its patients after a levee break on the Cedar River turned the downtown area into a shallow lake. Thousands were forced to leave their homes in the worst Midwest flooding in 15 years. [..]

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said the damage to his state could cost billions of dollars. Scores of bridges spanning nine overflowing rivers have been swept away or weakened.

Clean, safe drinking water is a major concern right now. If there are local rescue agencies that can help in all the affected areas, please leave their names in the comments for other C&Lers.

Could it be any clearer that this?

The Defense Department was mum Friday on the reasons for the abrupt removal of a Guantánamo war court judge who had threatened to suspend the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr in a showdown with the controversial prison camp.

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Military prosecutors had been pressing Brownback to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence. At a hearing earlier this month, he threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether unless the detention center provided records of Khadr's confinement....read on

Guest roundup by Brad Jacobson of MediaBloodhound

War and Piece: Why is Israel “appeasing” Syria? And the real reason Bush is pissed at NBC.

Hullabaloo: dday digs beneath the surface of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ comment that we’re “stuck” with Gitmo.

David Corn: Addressing upset Hillary supporters, Corn notes they can vote for Obama in November or “vote for a guy who will appoint Supreme Court justices likely to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

After Downing Street: David Lindorff on Bush’s war crimes against children. In addition, of course, to these other war crimes against them.

Booman Tribune: Interesting breakdown of November’s electoral college strategy.

Scholars and Rogues: Hilarious new footage of Bill O’Reilly’s Inside Edition blow-up. And here’s an excellent song to jumpstart your next workout. (Warning: turn down volume if at work.)

Well, that’s all for me, C&L’ers. It’s been fun filling in for Mike. And I’d like to thank him, John and Nicole for the keys. (Final programming note: Hope you can stop by MediaBloodhound this Friday for a fresh satirical dispatch from The Wounded-Courier; it’s about this guy.) Take care, everyone!

Living off Dividends:

If you think that gas prices are high at over $3.50 per gallon (I just paid $3.95 for mid-grade for my wife's Acura TSX), wait until summer. There are reports that the refineries are absorbing the cost of high oil prices right now (and some of them have hedging contracts in place to mitigate this high price), but within a few months they'll be passing this burden on to the consumers. Oil prices at the pump could very well hit $5 and if this trend continues, it could hit $8/gallon.

Due of course to the outrageous oil costs, which are more than double what it was going for this time last year.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

Of course, that's what they're paying now in Europe. Fortunately for many Europeans, the choice of easy public transportation is available as well, unlike much of our country.

VetVoice:

The Pentagon has provided $30 billion in contracts to KBR during the Iraq War. Apparently that's just the Basic Troop Support Package, however, because it's not enough money to keep the contractor from electrocuting a dozen troops in showers and elsewhere throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. [..]

The New York Times piece goes on to explain:

The Army has provided little detailed information about the electrocutions, other than to say late Friday that 10 soldiers had been electrocuted in Iraq. A House committee has also reported that two marines died similarly.

One former KBR electrician was quite frank about what's going on:

And Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier standing next to him in Qalat, Afghanistan, receive a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were "not giving the Army what it needed," he said, "and not giving the soldiers what they deserved."