APOLOGIZED! He called it a "shakedown".

BP ran a poorly constructed oil rig in the most dangerous way possible, allowed the rig to become critical in the face of an obvious, impending blowout, lied to the entire world about how much oil was coming out of the damaged riser, had millions of tons of dispersants dropped on the oil in the hopes of making it look like there wasn't that much oil (even though that just makes the oil less visible and the dispersants themselves are highly toxic), has faked clean-up operations while Obama was on the beach reviewing the situation, has refused to deploy enough skimmers and boom operators to keep the oil from the beaches, has tried to pay off fisherman to keep quiet, has threatened oil clean up workers with being fired if they tried to supplement the wholely inadequate safety apparel and equipment provided with their own hazmat suits and breathing masks, and has at every single turn tried to divert blame from themselves and downplay the overall environmental and economic disaster, and Barton APOLOGIZED because Obama wanted BP to pony up $20 billion to mitigate the cost of the clean-up. Not pay for, because the overall bill is going to be hundreds of billions, not just tens of billions, and Barton APOLOGIZED.

What an ass.

The bill would help unemployed people who are having trouble finding jobs in this recession by extending the deadline to file for federal unemployment benefits until the end of November. The GOP obviously hates the common working man.

The bill would renew expired tax provisions. The GOP hates paying down the debt.

It would lengthens a small-business lending program. The GOP hates small business.

It would adds to infrastructure investments. The GOP hates highways and communications.

It also increases the tax on money paid to managers of hedge funds and investment partnerships to ordinary income levels instead of the much-lower capital gains rate. The GOP loves giving their investment buddies tax breaks and making the rest of us should the tax burden.

It would cut Medicare costs $16.4 billion over 10 years. The GOP wants to strangle Medicare.

It would raise the per-barrel tax on oil that goes into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to 49 cents a barrel, up from 8 cents a barrel. This is projected to raise $18.3 billion over 10 years. The GOP hates cleaning up oil spills, and they love their oil buddies.

It would push back the deadline to close on home purchases and still qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $8,000. The GOP hates the very idea of getting the housing market kickstarted.

All in all, the GOP loves big business, thinks the American taxpayer should pay for everything and get nothing, is completely comfortable allowing corporations to destroy the environment, and wants social net programs should be axed.

The GOP hates America. Why? WHY?!

Prop 16 was put forward by PG&E and requires that any funds that a municipality wants to use for a third party power company have a two-thirds vote of the people. Two-thirds vote. Why should it require two-thirds? Because PG&E wants to shut down its competition. PG&E's ads for this measure make it sound like it's some kind of people's rights measure, giving the people control over the purse strings, but it's really a way to set the bar as high as possible on allowing the people access to the purse strings at all.

Prop 17 is billed as "ending the penalty on drivers for changing insurance companies," but what it really does is allow insurance companies to jack up your rates if you, for any reason and any length of time, drop your insurance. Say you start taking municipal transportation, or just don't own a car, and you drop your insurance for a period of time. When you go back to get insurance, the insurance company can charge you an exhorbitant amount of money to get back into a policy, something they can't do now. Back when California passed a law requiring everyone to have car insurance if you intend to operate a vehicle, part of that law required that car insurance be affordable, and only certain criteria could be used to determine your rates. If Prop 17 passes, that will no longer be the case. And who is sponsoring the bill? Mercury Insurance. Surprise.

So why is the GOP sending out flyers supporting these bills?

Because they're short on money, desperate to get back in office, and they'll suck up to ANYONE that will pay them to represent their position. It's pay-to-play on a whole lot scummier level. The GOP in California is selling out EVERYONE in order to get their greasy fingers on the reins of power again.

I usually don't care about primaries, but the GOP has motivated me to get out and vote tomorrow just to stop the evil...

She has since parlayed the media hype surrounding the first woman to hold the CEO position of a Fortune 20 company into a number of top positions at other companies and universities, but even if you ignore her ugly record at HP, she's still bad for governance. She has always been a big propoonent of expanding the H1-B visa program that has decimated the pay scales for high tech jobs. She can be personally blamed for the impetus that has made high tech jobs unattractive to emerging college students. If anyone still wonders why fewer young adults are shooting for science and high tech degrees and why we are therefore loosing our technological and research edge, it's because of cheap-asses like Carly Fiorna. She uses globalization as her excuse for shipping in cheap labor from other countries or off-shoring projects rather than hiring Americans.

In 2008 she was part of the miserable failure that was John McCain's campaign. She defended Sarah Palin as a viable vice presidential candidate. After she blew an interview in which she admitted that Palin didn't have the experience to run a corporation, McCain's campaign cancelled her public appearances. Basically, even she knew that Palin was underqualified but wasn't willing to admit it, choosing instead to toe the party line and support a VP candidate based on her gender and looks rather than her ability to take the reins the in the event that McCain could no longer lead. Palin is a dolt, but Fiorina didn't have the integrity to say it out loud.

So, sum total, Carly Fiorina as a leader has failed to live up to the hype, she's sexist, she's a koolaid drinker, and she's anti-American middle class. She's was good for HP, and she's a really poor choice for California Senator.

And all I can say is: EW!

That obese, ugly, lying sack of crap, Oxycontin and off-market Viagra mixing, sex tourist is going to marry an attractive 33 year old blonde, and I have to wonder what the attraction is. Let me spell it out: He's freakin' gross! And next year this still-young lady is going to be, at the age of 34, married to a 60 year old jiggling, sagging, nasty, insane, right wing tool.

There is just something beyond creepy about the whole affair, but it's not hard to figure out. It's got to be that she wants some media attention, or his money, or access to his political connections. Could it be love? Yeah, if she's as insane as he is, then sure, it could be whatever evil, black, disgusting spilth neocons call "love", but the more easily digested possibility is that she's an opportunist and she's gotten his ugly ass wrapped around her little finger.

I'm telling you, it just gives me the heebie-jeebies. The "huhs", as a good friend of mine used to put it.

Speaking of Crist and Florida, if Marco Rubio actually manages to win the governorship, does that not prove that the GOP is a party of followers and not thinkers? And isn't that what the GOP has built over the last 20 years, a party of sheep gathered by touting a plank of God, guns, anti-gays and anti-women's rights? They've been screaming about small government and no taxes for so long, all while knowing that no such thing would actually work, that their followers, not big on reality or math, have taken up the banner and begun marching with it on their own even deeper into the uncharted and increasingly bizarro wilderness. The weirdos you see on TV are in fact the Republican Party's constituents! As ugly as the truth may be, these are the Fox News indoctrinated dopes that voted Bush into power a second time in 2004 and carried John McCain as far as they did in 2008. These are the people that actually believed in death panels! These are the people that actually bought Sara Palin's book! These idiots comprise the distilled muck of the hardcore GOP faithful. Congratulations Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, and Rupert Murdoch, this is what you've created, this Frankenstein monster, this brainless, marauding Skynet, this five story tall tarantula you can no longer control that does in fact threaten the very structure of this country...

... Okay, hang on... Catching my breath... I have one more beaut for you...

And then there's Sue Lowden, candidate for U.S. Senator from Nevada. She seriously proposes that people trade chickens for healthcare. No, really. She's supports repealing the healthcare reform law that just passed in favor of people bartering, among other things, chickens, painting services, and gardening services to pay for such things as open-heart surgery or chemotherapy. And just lately it turns out she announced at a press conference that she received an RV as a donation. When reminded that donations, by law, cannot exceed $5000, she sputtered, thought fast, and corrected herself by saying it to a private lease. Which was a lie. Her name is now on the title. It was a donation, honey. Don't be such a typical Republican...

Anyway, all I can say is that the teabaggers, along with Rand Paul and Sue Lowden, are the greatest gifts of the year to the Democratic Party! Because at the end of the day, the monster has already turned on its creator, and the Democrats have only to stand back and watch the carnage. It's a sweet payback for the crap Ralph Nader pulled in 2004.

In case I haven't conveyed the sentiment yet, I'd get the clean up to the level it should have been the minute they knew what was happening, and I'd hand the cost to BP. I'd kick the crap out of TransOcean for not doing any better now than they did 30 years ago. I'd make sure Halliburton put all the money they got during the Iraq War to good use cleaning the mess they created by ignoring federal regulations during the building of this rig. I'd kick ass, I'd take names, and I'd make sure Emeril Lagasse kept the finest cajun food in the world on the tables in his restaurants.

Compare and contrast the GOP reaction to Acorn and BP.

"Kids In The Hall" predicts Glenn Beck!!

In case you don't think the immigration reform movement in Arizona is grounded in racism, you have got to watch this next segment.

Rachel Maddow's crew digs up news reports of TransOcean killing the gulf in 1979, just like they've done today. Things don't change much when the lessons learned cost money and no one forces oil companies to spend the money to put the lessons to use.

Maddown again, this time covering the damage to the marshes.

Anderson Cooper kicks the crap out of BP.

This one is sobering. The part where Anderson's guide points out that the marsh is silent is an extremely sad moment. This is one of the few times that Bobby Jindal didn't sound like a complete tool. This spill is really hitting Louisiana hard, it's going to stomp on their economy and way of life.

I'm a big fan of James Carville. He's a Democrat, but an honest one, and he's not shy about sounding off on stupidity no matter the source. Combine that with the destruction of the way of life in his home state and you get a passionate, erudite man eloquently emoting the pain thousands of people are feeling over this spill.

3/22/2010:   The following Democrats could not be convinced to do the right thing where healthcare reform was concerned. As such, they must be replaced:

These elected officials are either ignorant or they've sold their souls to the Republican Party. Either way, it's time that the Democrats built a party that could be relied upon to do the right thing. These people need to be replaced at the next election.

Full transcript of the bill, "debate", and vote can be found at: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=H5733&dbname=2008_record. You'll need to flip to about page 11 using the irritating little links at the bottom because apparently no one has notified Congress that PDFs can be more than one page long...