SATURDAY NIGHT MUSIC
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*Van Morrison -- Evening in June*
* The Decemberists -- June Hymn*
1 hour ago
Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground..Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.
Look, the government's in charge of this. I want to know who's going to get it. Who's going to get this money? Union activists? ACORN people? Who's going to get this money? Let's keep a sharp eye on who Feinberg gives this money to, because I'm telling you, this is another bailout fund called something else, and we'll see who gets it. If Obama's past is prologue -- and it is -- then this is going to be used as a little miniature slush fund. [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 6/16/10]
TP: He announced the $20 billion dollar escrow fund, funded by BP, to compensate some of the victims of this catastrophe. The Republican Study Committee put out a press release last night saying it’s a Chicago style power grab, do you agree with that sentiment?
FLEMING: I do because what we have seen from this administration is whenever something like this happens — look at automotive industry, financial industry — what they do is take control of dollars then they begin to disperse them along political agendas. And we’ve seen this happen before, and it looks like its the development here. BP has said, time and time again, that they will process all legitimate claims, we have no reason to believe they won’t. Why does the administration feel like it’s got to take control of all the money from BP?
TP: So Congressman, the Republican Study Committee last night said that the $20 billion dollar escrow fund is just another Chicago style politics kind of power grab. Do you agree with that, do you think that’s a fair characterization?
JORDAN: I’m, look, I’m always worried about this unprecedented involvement by the government in the private sector and look, BP obviously made some mistakes, but do we really believe the Federal government is going to do a better job?
TP: What do you think about Joe Barton in the hearing this morning, he said ‘I apologize’ to the BP executives for the escrow fund, saying again it’s a shakedown [...] Do you have any kind of reaction to a member of Congress apologizing to BP executives?
NUNES: Look, every member of Congress represents seven, eight hundred thousand people and they can do what they want.
BARBOUR: If BP is the responsible party under the law, they’re to pay for everything. I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income. … But this escrow bothers me that it’s going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us. And that concerns me. … [I]t bothers me to talk about causing an escrow to be made, which will — which makes it less likely that they’ll make the income that they need to pay us.BP made $163 billion in profits from 2001 through 2009 and nearly $6 billion in the first quarter of 2010 alone. As the Washington Post noted, in the early days of the spill, BP paid $17.5 million per day while the company made on average $93 million per day in the first quarter.
In the course of every attempt to establish or develop free government, a struggle between Special Privilege and Equal Rights is inevitable. Our great industrial organizations [are] in control of politics, government, and natural resources. They manage conventions, make platforms, dictate legislation. They rule through the very men elected to represent them.LaFollette then went on to say that the “battle” against corporate takeover of government “will be the longest and hardest ever fought for Democracy.” That was 100 years ago. Progressives today are still fighting that battle.
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"In standard economic models, defense spending is a direct drain on the economy, reducing efficiency, slowing growth and costing jobs. ...[S]tandard economic models...project that the increase in defense spending since 2000 will cost the economy close to two million jobs in the long run."Baker's point in his article was that groups that scream about potential "job loss" from government "interference" never put that "loss" in any context. Government spending does stimulate economic activity during a downturn. The question is, how stimulative is one type of spending versus another? So let's make sure we're playing fair and put this in some perspective in terms of job creation.
...[B]y addressing social needs in the areas of health care, education, mass transit, home weatherization and infrastructure repairs, we would also create more jobs and, depending on the specifics of how such a reallocation is pursued, both an overall higher level of compensation for working people in the U.S. and a better average quality of jobs.
A repeat of the BP Deepwater Horizon spill would have grave economic consequences for regional commerce and do further damage to the environment.Good for you President Obama! Do not cave to these greedy oil company addicted snakes. And speaking of snakes here's a good read from Think Progress. Can you say Halliburton??
Among the drilling rigs that have frozen exploration in the Gulf are 2 operated by BP, and 2 jointly operated by BP and another company. Proceeding without the moratorium would mean that BP would continue deepwater exploration in the Gulf.
Economic impacts were certainly taken into account - the moratorium is surgical and shallow water drilling, in which the risks are better known, is continuing under stricter safety rules. Additionally, oil and gas production is continuing at the existing set of production wells, so we are not expecting short term effects on our oil and gas supply.
Under the administration's legislative proposal to assist those harmed by the spill, workers unemployed because of the 6-month moratorium would be eligible for unemployment assistance. The proposal would also create jobs for cleanup, restoration, renovation and recovery. And the Small Business Administration is currently offering economic injury loans to impacted businesses on the Gulf Coast.