Prairie Weather

Obama's Katrina?

down by the mississippi for the oil spill just talked to shrimpers who say they have been waiting for a disaster like this to happen

Generation upon generation of fishermen – its all they know – live down here in #louisiana they say now staring at wipeout from the oil spill

boatload of mexicans in an oyster boat near oil spill in louisiana: we will lose 10,000 dollars a week in business and our livelihoods

Dying wildlife, ruined wetlands, jump in unemployment.  What more do we need?  The twitters, above, came from a reporter for the Guardian, collected here.

The Times' "Lede" blog shows the oil spill reaching the Louisiana coast this evening.

Elsewhere, there are reports that this is being pumped up into "Obama's Katrina."  Certainly, this quote from "The Lede" has that flavor.

I was in the Marine Corps, and I know that if we need to we can strike heavily anywhere in the world in 24 hours. Why aren’t we using that kind of enthusiasm and drive to protect our coastland? I don’t think half the people in Washington have a clue of what’s at stake. This is a fragile ecosystem that has had to survive so much already. [...] These are federal waters. It’s not a natural disaster, whatever I hear people say on television. It’s so frustrating. The Federal government has known about this for 10 days. It should have said, “We’re going to act now,” and not wait for BP to take action.

Of course, it wasn't a major disaster until midweek revelations, and already the president has top people on site along with military coming in.  Earlier in the week we saw a continuing effort to cut off the flow of oil and -- it has to be said -- BP a little unwilling to admit to the severity.  And then there were people from US Fish and Wildlife dropping in chemical dispersants since last week.

So no. This is not the Dub and Dick show.  No inept Brownies have flown in with promises and incompetence. Instead, Obama sent in the brass and is suspending oil leases.  He doesn't appear to be doing a flyover or posing for a photo op.

Limbaugh blames the whole thing on "environmental wackos" -- only he (or Media Matters) spells it "whackos."   

Heads, Republicans lose; tails, they lose.

As Ezra Klein points out, a national biometric ID card is the most effective way to distinguish legals from illegals.  Imagine that.  One of the remedies most feared by the paranoid right may be its only option.

And, as Klein goes on to discover, immigration is now issue numero uno in the upcoming elections.  It's an issue which puts Republicans in an uncomfortable situation.  If they make things even more difficult for Hispanics, they lose votes they badly need.  The irony:  Republicans (in Arizona) did this to the Republicans (nationally) of their own free will at a time when Americans of Hispanic origin are moving towards becoming a majority of all voters.

Immigration is a dangerous issue to add into the election, but it's also an important one. Pretty much every Republican will admit that over the long haul, their party can't totally lose the Hispanic vote. Doing so would consign it to being a regional also-ran. If Republicans can't formulate a humane position on immigration for 2010, they're likely to poll abysmally with Hispanics come Election Day. And that may offer the necessary spur for them to attempt to solve this issue -- and repair that relationship -- before the 2012 election. Either way, for all that some might not want to see immigration added to this electoral environment, it's done. And it's Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature, not the Senate Democrats, that did it.

I wonder whether Jan Brewer will get to be as beloved within her party as her fellow opportunist, Katherine Harris.

Automatic shut off valve

Maybe what we Americans need -- in our political and economic and ecological environments-- are automatic shut off valves.  On Congress, on credit cards, on transnational corporations and, above all, on our offshore oil rigs. 

Automatic shut off valves are the law in other countries, but not here.  The spill in the Gulf has begun to do some major damage.  It will exceed (they're saying) the damage done by Exxon Valdez.  That is, the worst in history.

U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.

The efficacy of the devices is unclear. Major offshore oil-well blowouts are rare, and it remained unclear Wednesday evening whether acoustic switches have ever been put to the test in a real-world accident. When wells do surge out of control, the primary shut-off systems almost always work. Remote control systems such as the acoustic switch, which have been tested in simulations, are intended as a last resort.

Nevertheless, regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993.

The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. ...WSJ

Swatting at Goldman Sachs without drawing blood?

The SEC, which opened up a civil fraud suit against Goldman Sachs a couple of weeks ago, has handed the matter over to federal prosecutors, turning the civil suit into federal criminal investigation.

Federal prosecutors would face a higher bar in bringing a criminal case against Goldman, whose role in the mortgage market came under sharp scrutiny this week during a marathon hearing in the Senate. In contrast to civil cases, the burden of proof is higher in criminal ones, where prosecutors must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The stakes are high for Goldman, but they are also high for the United States attorney’s office. Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York lost a case last year filed against two hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, whose collapse presaged the turmoil on Wall Street.

Prosecutors built much of that case around internal e-mail messages at Bear Stearns, much the way the S.E.C. and senators have pointed to e-mail at Goldman in which employees had disparaged investments that they were selling to their customers.

In the end, however, prosecutors were unable to prove to a jury any criminal wrongdoing by the Bear Stearns employees.  ...NYT  

There's a real possibility that this is largely a dog and pony show.  The government needs a political boost from being "hard" on Wall Street; the government needs Wall Street.

Either way, the mere existence of federal prosecution hanging over the heads at Goldman Sachs could hurt the company.

It is rare for the government to indict a company, and even the threat of criminal prosecution can doom a business. A criminal investigation destroyed the Wall Street firm Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s even though the firm settled with authorities. And although the Supreme Court ultimately overturned the conviction, accounting firm Arthur Andersen collapsed after facing criminal charges in connection with corporate corruption at Enron in 2002. ...WaPo

Accessing conservative stupidity. Or is it criminality?

Lately we've been confronted with a debate inside conservative circles about a conservative flaw:  "epistemic closure."  That's the obscurantist phrase (who the hell knows off the top of their heads what "epistemic" means?) used by conservative writer, Julian Sanchez. 

Wait!  Don't dismiss the discussion.  If you're flummoxed by conservatives' absolute refusal to deal with anything not defined in their terms and to their advantage, you need to know that some leading conservatives are with you.  They have finally come around to believe that conservatives' inability -- no, deliberate refusal -- to accept reality is damaging the movement. 

That means they may actually change.  They may back off "givens" like Obama is an "alien" who's determined to impose "death panels" on decent Americans.

The very phrase Sanchez uses -- "epistemic closure" -- is being questioned. For a start, it  obscures the issue (stupidity and intransigence) by cloaking it in fancy language.  Anyway, clearheaded outsiders are chiming in with better descriptions of the problem.  One British philosopher says no, not epistemic but cognitive closure, defined as "the inability to arrive at knowledge of some given subject matter."  In other words, low IQ.   That's okay, but a better suggestion comes from Australia:  "'agnotology' — a word coined by the historian Robert Proctor 'to describe study of the manufacture of ignorance. '"

"The manufacture of ignorance" is perfect.  Above all, it suits Fox and EIB, the engines driving all those followers of movement conservatism to criminal ignorance.  The Australian offers a great parallel for what those conservative blowhards are up to:  "the efforts of the tobacco lobby to cast doubt on research demonstrating the link between smoking and cancer."  In other words, "epistemic closure" is nothing more or less fancy than the simple refusal to accept reality to a point where it become criminal behavior. 

At the National Review, Jonah Goldberg has his usual "yo mutha" response:  "For more than a generation, liberalism craved and ruthlessly enforced epistemic closure."

Of course, the phrase itself is way too much for most anti-education-elitism conservatives to handle (Goldberg is paid to deal with language like this).  But even the dumbest conservative is practiced in handling the concept, "don't wanna know." 

So we're back with the anti-American Americans -- about one-third of the population -- who are very familiar with epistemic closure, which they'd recognize as the same thing as "my mind is made up; don't confuse me with facts."

"The Republican party is shrinking..."

Some talk show hosts are responding to the mini-breakthrough yesterday in the Senate with the assurance that the path to financial reform legislation is smooth.  That only a simple Democratic majority is needed to pass the final bill. 

Not.

A more realistic take from Steve Benen goes like this:

Republicans haven't agreed to allow an up-or-down vote on the legislation; they're now just willing to let the Senate vote on a measure to let members debate the legislation. In other words, it's just a foot in the door. Republicans will continue to obstruct every step forward, and will no doubt filibuster the bill itself, filibuster attempts to choose members of the conference committee, and then filibuster final passage. This afternoon's news is encouraging, then, but we still have a long ways to go.

So it's a hard slog.  No one is off the hook.  But a twinkle of light has appeared ahead in the tunnel.

...The GOP blocked a vote on the debate because they saw it as a way of strengthening behind-closed-door negotiations. Now that it's clear that a bipartisan agreement won't be reached, and there's nothing more than can be accomplished through negotiations, Republicans are more inclined to let the bill advance. It seems bizarre, but the breakdown in negotiations means more progress, not less.

One senator who may not survive this vote with probity intact is Democrat Ben Nelson.  C'mon, Nebraska, would you vote for him again?  So far, Nelson is arch and defensive.  He's not to blame; we are.

"Today, Washington is a cesspool of gotcha politics," he said, leading off a conference call with reporters. "It’s out of control. You can’t even shake hands in the hallway with a Future Farmer of America without people questioning your motives." ...Omaha World-Herald

That's the word from the senator whose head can barely be seen above the cesspool.

Democrats (who have disowned Nelson for the most part) believe a solid year of Republican obstructionism has now done real damage to that party. In an interview with Nate Silver, DNC chair Tim Kaine is optimistic.

The DNC believes that the databases and voter contact lists that the Obama campaign built up during 2008 will prove to be a significant asset to the party, particularly as it gives them access to the 15 million people who voted for the first time in 2008. "Fifty percent of them are young or minority voters," Kaine said. "We know that their normal turnout rate in the midterm elections is low. But if we can increase the turnout by 10 percent over what the baseline would be, we can influence a number of elections especially in states or Congressional Districts that are going to be close. We know who they are, we know where they live, we know the precinct they vote in."

Republicans have their backs to the wall:  their fiery optimism may well be a symptom of desperation.

" ...When you lose big races and you lose a lot of them in a row, that does tend to energize folks. The Republican Party is shrinking -- narrower demographically, ideologically and geographically -- but there's energy in that core and we have to take that seriously."