Pages

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Alien in the White House

The Wall Street Journal

The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.
Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.
A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.
Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.
Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.
Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."
And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."
He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."
Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.

Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.
It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.
It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.
It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.
So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.
It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.
They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.
The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

Obama wins

 the right to detain people with no habeas review


Reuters/Jonathon Burch
A detainee holding cell is pictured at the detention centre at the U.S. Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
(updated below - Update II)
Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. As everyone knows, one of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- and then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court.  Back in the day, this was called "Bush's legal black hole."  In 2006, Congress codified that policy by enacting the Military Commissions Act, but in 2008, the Supreme Court, in Boumediene v. Bush, ruled that provision unconstitutional, holding that the Constitution grants habeas corpus rights even to foreign nationals held at Guantanamo.  Since then, detainees have won 35 out of 48 habeas hearings brought pursuant to Boumediene, on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to justify their detention.
Immediately following Boumediene, the Bush administration argued that the decision was inapplicable to detainees at Bagram -- including even those detained outside of Afghanistan but then flown to Afghanistan to be imprisoned.  Amazingly, the Bush DOJ -- in a lawsuit brought by Bagram detainees seeking habeas review of their detention -- contended that if they abduct someone and ship them to Guantanamo, then that person (under Boumediene) has the right to a habeas hearing, but if they instead ship them to Bagram, then the detainee has no rights of any kind.  In other words, the detainee's Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged.  One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when, last February, as The New York Times put it, Obama lawyers "told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team."
But last April, John Bates, the Bush-43-appointed, right-wing judge overseeing the case, rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that Boumediene applies to detainees picked up outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram.  I reviewed that ruling here, in which Judge Bates explained that the Bagram detainees are "virtually identical to the detainees in Boumediene," and that the Constitutional issue was exactly the same:  namely, "the concern that the President could move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely."
But the Obama administration was undeterred by this loss.  They quickly appealed Judge Bates' ruling.  As the NYT put it about that appeal:  "The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight."  Today, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the Bush/Obama position, holding that even detainees abducted outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram have no right to contest the legitimacy of their detention in a U.S. federal court, because Boumediene does not apply to prisons located within war zones (such as Afghanistan).
So congratulations to the United States and Barack Obama for winning the power to abduct people anywhere in the world and then imprison them for as long as they want with no judicial review of any kind.  When the Boumediene decision was issued in the middle of the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain called it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."  But Obama hailed it as "a rejection of the Bush Administration's attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo," and he praised the Court for "rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus."  Even worse, when Obama went to the Senate floor in September, 2006, to speak against the habeas-denying provisions of the Military Commissions Act, this is what he melodramatically intoned:

As a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence. . . .
By giving suspects a chance -- even one chance -- to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . . .
Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer.  But restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.
Can you smell the hypocrisy?  How could anyone miss its pungent, suffocating odor?  Apparently, what Obama called "a legal black hole at Guantanamo" is a heinous injustice, but "a legal black hole at Bagram" is the Embodiment of Hope.  And evidently, Obama would only feel "terror" if his child were abducted and taken to Guantanamo and imprisoned "without even getting one chance to ask why and prove their innocence."  But if the very same child were instead taken to Bagram and treated exactly the same way, that would be called Justice -- or, to use his jargon, Pragmatism.  And what kind of person hails a Supreme Court decision as "protecting our core values" -- as Obama said of Boumediene -- only to then turn around and make a complete mockery of that ruling by insisting that the Cherished, Sacred Rights it recognized are purely a function of where the President orders a detainee-carrying military plane to land?
Independently, what happened to Obama's eloquent insistence that "restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer; in fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe"?  How does our policy of invading Afghanistan and then putting people at Bagram with no charges of any kind dispose people in that country, and the broader Muslim world, to the United States?  If a country invaded the U.S. and set up prisons where Americans from around the world where detained indefinitely and denied all rights to have their detention reviewed, how would it dispose you to the country which was doing that?
One other point:  this decision is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which serves to further highlight how important the Kagan-for-Stevens replacement could be.  If the Court were to accept the appeal, Kagan would be required to recuse herself (since it was her Solicitor General's office that argued the administration's position here), which means that a 4-4 ruling would be likely, thus leaving this appellate decision undisturbed.  More broadly, though, if Kagan were as sympathetic to Obama's executive power claims as her colleagues in the Obama administration are, then her confirmation could easily convert decisions on these types of questions from a 5-4 victory (which is what Boumediene was, with Stevens in the majority) into a 5-4 defeat.  Maybe we should try to find out what her views are before putting her on that Court for the next 40 years?
This is what Barack Obama has done to the habeas clause of the Constitution:  if you are in Thailand (as one of the petitioners in this case was) and the U.S. abducts you and flies you to Guantanamo, then you have the right to have a federal court determine if there is sufficient evidence to hold you.  If, however, President Obama orders that you be taken to from Thailand to Bagram rather than to Guantanamo, then you will have no rights of any kind, and he can order you detained there indefinitely without any right to a habeas review.  That type of change is so very inspiring -- almost an exact replica of his vow to close Guantanamo . . . all in order to move its core attributes (including indefinite detention) a few thousand miles North to Thompson, Illinois.
Real estate agents have long emphasized "location, location, location" as the all-determining market factor.  Before we elected this Constitutional Scholar as Commander-in-Chief, who knew that this platitude also shaped our entire Constitution?

UPDATE:  Law Professor Steve Vladeck has more on the ruling, including "the perverse incentive that today's decision supports," as predicted by Justice Scalia in his Boumediene dissent:  namely, that a President attempting to deny Constitutional rights to detainees can simply transfer them to a "war zone" instead of to Guantanamo and then claim that courts cannot interfere in the detention.  Barack Obama quickly adopted that tactic for rendering the rights in Boumediene moot -- the same rights which, less than two years ago, he was praising the Supreme Court for safeguarding and lambasting the Bush administration for denying.  Vladeck also explains why the appellate court's caveat -- that overt government manipulation to evade habeas rights (i.e., shipping them to a war zone with the specific intent of avoiding Boumediene) might alter the calculus -- is rather meaningless.

UPDATE II:  Guest-hosting for Rachel Maddow last night, Chris Hayes talked with Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights about the Bagram ruling and Obama's hypocrisy on these issues, and it was quite good, including a video clip of the 2006 Obama speech I excerpted above:

And in The New York Times, Charlie Savage has a typically thorough examination of the impact of the ruling.  As he writes:  "The decision was a broad victory for the Obama administration in its efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods without judicial oversight."  But GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (author of the habeas-denying provision in the Military Commissions Act) "called the ruling a 'big win' and praised the administration for appealing the lower court’s ruling," and that's what really matters.

Pelosi


nabs bevy of chairmen for conference on Wall Street reform

By Michael O'Brien - 06/09/10 06:19 PM ET
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) named 10 members of the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday to the conference committee on Wall Street reform.

Pelosi named the 10 members, along with 10 other members from committees of jurisdiction, to the conference on financial regulatory reform.

The House Democratic delegation will be led by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the head of the Financial Services Committee, and five other chairmen: Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), and Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.).

"The New Direction Congress is sending a clear message to Wall Street: the party is over,” Pelosi said in a statement. “No longer will big banks be able to gamble with the hard-earned dollars of America’s workers, and no longer will recklessness on Wall Street cause joblessness on Main Street.”


House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) meanwhile named 11 GOP members to represent Republicans in the conference, including the ranking members of the committees whose chairmen Pelosi nabbed.

Boehner's picks include: Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee; Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), ranking member of the House Small Business Committee; Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee; Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee; and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

“This conference is an opportunity to listen to the American people and work together on commonsense solutions to end the bailouts, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and hold Wall Street accountable for its actions," Boehner said. "I am confident that the Republican conferees will ask the tough questions and serve as strong voices for taxpayers.”

See Pelosi's full list of conferees here. See Boehner's full list here.

Governors urge quick action

 on $24 billion in extra Medicaid funding

By Mike Lillis - 06/09/10 05:12 PM ET

The nation’s governors on Wednesday continued to lobby Congress for additional Medicaid dollars, warning that a failure to provide the funds would force thousands of layoffs.
In Kansas, for example, 4,000 teaching jobs would be lost if Congress doesn’t act, Gov. Mark Parkinson (D) told reporters during a phone briefing. In Wisconsin, lawmakers are eying $600 million in cuts over the next two years, said Gov. Jim Doyle (D). And in Pennsylvania, the additional $850 million that officials are banking on “can only be made up for by layoffs,” said Gov. Ed Rendell (D).
“There will be dire consequences if Congress turns its back,” Rendell said.
The additional funding is necessary due to a fundamental flaw in the way Medicaid is funded. During recessions, Medicaid enrollment tends to leap as states are the least able to absorb the extra costs. The flaw, which is not addressed in the new health reform law, has caused the federal government to step in with extra help during recent economic downturns. Under current law, the extra help expires at the end of 2010.
Senate lawmakers are eying an amendment to their tax extenders bill that would provide an additional six months of enhanced federal payments — money designed to see the states through next year’s budget season.
House leaders passed a similar bill last month, but not before clipping out the enhanced Medicaid funding — a $24 billion provision that brought howls from Blue Dog members, a group of Democratic budget hawks who objected to paying the tab with more deficit spending.
Rendell said Wednesday that, at least in Pennsylvania, the pressure on Congress from state officials is paying dividends. The Democrat said he’d met with the state’s five Blue Dogs recently. Three of them, Rendell said without naming names, would likely support the additional funding.

This Just In:

Mother
 Jones

 Politicians Lie

Are you surprised?

Lindsey Graham Said What About Climate Change?


Mother
 Jones



The Republican co-author of the climate bill flip flops big time on physics.

How tea parties changed activism


Panelists predict more grassroots movements are on their way.


Tea party activists could have a lasting effect on political activism long after their brew goes cold.
Many activists, liberal and conservative alike, will mimic how the tea parties used social media to get national attention, panelists argued during a talk at the conservative American Enterprise Institute Wednesday.
They made the case that technology allowed tea partyers – many of whom are first-time activists – to dominate the national debate on issues like health care without too much effort.
"Folks can now find time to get engaged," Kristen Soltis of the Winston Group said as she presented polling data on the activists. Many tea partyers are in their 50s and 60s, well into careers that prevent them from spending a lot of time on activism.
Now they can get involved simply by joining a Facebook group, Soltis argued.
"Barriers to entry when it comes to political engagement have decreased," she added.
Of course it wasn't tea partyers who pioneered the use of social media for a political purpose. Such sites played a big role during the previous presidential campaign, and Facebook groups about political causes have been around for years.
At February's tea party convention in Nashville, activists attended a session on how the Obama presidential campaign incorporated social media.
But that technology did provide an outlet for Americans who might otherwise have stayed quiet about their issues with government spending and high unemployment. It allowed them to find one another and organize into a group.
Expect more grassroots movements to spring up like that, the panelists said, and expect politicians to take them seriously.
Many lawmakers were caught off guard when tea partyers disrupted town hall meetings over health care last fall. But the experience taught them a valuable lesson.
"More and more, politicians are going to react to what people on Facebook are saying," The Washington Post's David Weigel said.
He predicted that the ease with which movements can organize online will also mean that they are less effective in the long run.
"We're going to see more movements peter out more quickly," he said.
-- Ambreen Ali, Congress.org

"The Lone Republican"

Mother
 Jones


Did Salazar mislead the public on drilling?

June 9, 2010, 2:19 pm

After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Obama Administration instituted a moratorium on all drilling that could have cost Louisiana as many as 20,000 jobs [1] over 12 months to 18 months.
The move smelled of politics then, and now there is more proof that it may have been just that [1].
Members of a panel of experts brought in to advise the Obama administration on how to address offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon disaster now say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar falsely implied they supported a six-month drilling moratorium they actually oppose.
Salazar’s May 27 report to President Barack Obama said a panel of seven experts “peer reviewed” his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on all ongoing drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. That prohibition took effect a few days later, but the angry panel members and some others who contributed to the Salazar report said they had reviewed only an earlier version of the secretary’s report that suggested a six-month moratorium only on new drilling, and then only in waters deeper than 1,000 feet.
Keeping his boot on the neck of … something [2].

S.J.Resolution 26

 Happening right now: Senate voting on Murkowski resolution to block the EPA from regulating CO2.

 Will the senate vote to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases? Stay tuned. #climate

Breaking: Murkowski resolution to block EPA from regulating greenhouse gases rejected 47-53.


Recent VotesRefreshed every 20 minutes.
VoteDateQuestionResultDescription
0018410-Jun On the Motion to Proceed Rejected Motion to Proceed to S.J. Res. 26; A joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the endangerment finding and the cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act


Senate Votes Down Murkowski EPA Block

— By Kate Sheppard
| Thu Jun. 10, 2010 2:24 PM PDT

The Senate defeated a bid by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski to neuter the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by a vote of 53-47 vote on Thursday afternoon. Advocates for action on climate change chalked it up as a win—but it wasn't without some blood.

Six Democrats crossed over and sided with Republicans on the bill: Mary Landrieu (La.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Evan Bayh (Ind.) , and Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.).

The vote came after six hours of debate. Murkowski painted the effort as move to protect the economy from regulations she thinks would be crippling. It would just take away the EPA's ability to act "while we work on a more responsible solution," said Murkowski. Other Republicans chose to stick with the argument that greenhouse gases aren't a problem and anyone who believes they are is perpetrating a hoax on the public.

Most among the Democrats portrayed the resolution of disapproval as a bid to protect big polluters. "This is the moment," said California Democrat Barbara Boxer. "Two sides: protecting polluters or protecting our families."

But among the Democrats, there was also Rockefeller, who stated, among other things, that he doesn't care about the Environmental Protection Agency or the Supreme Court, whose 2007 decision directed the EPA to reach a determination about whether or not greenhouse gases pose a threat to humans.

Enviro groups cheered the win, while casting scorn upon the "yes" voters. "The Senators who voted for this resolution should be ashamed of themselves," said Gillian Caldwell, campaign director for 1Sky.

Although some enviro groups, and even Murkowski, insisted that this is "not a referendum on any other legislation pending in the Senate" (i.e., a climate and energy package that may or may not come to a vote later this year), it could still be cast that way. Senators may yet decide to move forward with a bill regulating carbon dioxide. That is what the Obama administration and many others have repeatedly stated would be the ideal situation anyway.

But very few of those voting for today's resolution have expressed much enthusiasm about the Senate passing a new law this year. While Murkowski's loss might make some folks optimistic, it still means that there are 41 Republicans and six Democrats who think that it's okay to tell the EPA that science doesn't matter, and neither does the Supreme Court. It depends on how you want to look at it.

West Wing Report

tweets that i thought needed retweeting



Seems unlikely to WWR that sanctions will have much, if any impact on Iran. Many foreign policy ; natl. security analysts are looking ahead
Nuclear Iran would likely force the U.S. to make security guarantees to the Mideast; i.e. Sunni states like Saudi Arabia that fear Iran

As “forcibly interrupting” Iran’s program – even Sec. Def. Gates says it would only slow Tehran down for a short period.

The Pentagon has war-gamed various conflict scenarios with Iran; the results are said to be disturbing.

Meantime, DOD is quietly & quickly rushing production of its biggest bunker buster bomb – the 15-ton massive ordnance penetrator (MOP)

MOP is 6x bigger than the largest bunker buster in the U.S. arsenal now; designed to hit targets deep underground in Iran or N.Korea

MOP – delivered by a B-2 or B-52 - will be deployable in December. A weapon available to Obama that no other President has had.

Gibbs told WWR the concession to Russia allowing it to sell missiles to #Iran doesn't mean Moscow will. Says they're acting w/restraint.

WWR asked Gibbs why the U.S. made a concession to Russia allowing it to sell missiles to #Iran. Gibbs: Kremlin acting w/restraint.

WWR pointed out the concession to Russia could potentially jeopardize American lives; Gibbs downplayed this possibility

What's Really In BP's Oil Spill Dispersants?


| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 10:22 AM PDT
As the BP leak has dumped thousands of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico each day—and the responses of the oil firm and the Obama administration have been questioned—one critical issue has been the use of dispersants, especially the main dispersants deployed by BP: Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527. The Obama administration and members of Congress have raised concerns about the substances, which are supposedly more toxic than available alternatives.
This week the EPA, with no fanfare, posted on its website the chemical components of these two dispersants. Here's the list:
Chemical Name
1,2-Propanediol
Ethanol, 2-butoxy-
Butanedioic acid, 2-sulfo-, 1,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl) ester, sodium salt (1:1)
Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate
Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs.
Sorbitan, tri-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs
2-Propanol, 1-(2-butoxy-1-methylethoxy)-
Distillates (petroleum), hydrotreated light
We don't have on-staff chemists at Mother Jones. And if you look up these compounds, you find that Sorbitan, for example, is used to make chemicals that allowing liquid to spread more easily and allow two liquids to mix better. But we already knew that—that's what dispersants do. Unfortunately, it's hard to determine from the list itself if dumping these chemicals into the Gulf might create more problems than they are supposed to solve. But we'll look for experts who can assess these compounds. And if you happen to know anything about octadecenoate, let us know.
Update: A spokesman for NALCO, the company that makes Corexit, writes in to scoop [at] motherjones [dot] com (You can, too! Try it!):
I read Nick Baumann's posting on the EPA's release of the ingredients in our COREXIT dispersants. Please note that since their original posting they have updated the information to clarify the Ethanol, 2-butoxy- is included only in COREXIT 9527 and is not in COREXIT 9500.
This is a key point since COREXIT 9500 is the sole product we have been making for Gulf responders since the spill began. Only limited quantities of COREXIT 9527, which were drawn from existing dispersant stockpiles from around the world, have been used in the Gulf spill response.
Both COREXIT dispersants have been approved by the EPA as part of the National Contingency Plan for treating oil spills.
In addition, a May 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control concluded that ‘because of the strict guidelines that must be followed to utilize dispersants, it is unlikely that the general public will be exposed (directly) to (the) product.’ The report further states that ‘ingredients are not considered to cause chemical sensitization; the dispersants contain proven, biodegradable and low toxicity surfactants.’
We have posted information about the ingredients in COREXIT dispersants on our website: http://nalco.com/news-and-events/4297.htm
I hope you find this in formation useful.
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2010/05/oil-spill-dispersant-corex...
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2010/05/health-concerns-for-gulf-c...


We published details of the dispersant being used in the Gulf of Mexico in an article on Palingates (in the updates):
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/06/sarah-palins-oily-finger-points-b...
The main ingredient of Corexit 9527 is 2-Butoxy Ethanol.
From a government fact sheet of 2-Butoxy-Ethanol (PDF):
http://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/0275.pdf
"Acute Health Effects
The following acute (short-term) health effects may occur
immediately or shortly after exposure to 2-Butoxy Ethanol:

If You Spill It, He Will Come

| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 3:36 PM PDT

Kevin Costner is definitely not an oil spill expert. Flanked by four seasoned marine scientists with doctoral degrees in the subject, he was the least likely member of a panel testifying to a House subcommittee about oil spill clean ups on Wednesday. He acknowledged as much in opening remarks. "There's been some question as to why I'm here," he said. "It's not because I heard a voice in a cornfield."
But over three hours of hearings Wednesday, Costner became the unlikely voice expressing the heart of an issue that has become very clear in the past 7 weeks. Neither oil companies nor the government were adequately prepared for a major oil spill. In fact, no one really believed that one would ever happen, and for years under-invested in and under-planned response technology.
Costner seems to have developed somewhat of an obsession with oil spill clean up. He got interested in the subject in 1995, and although he says he was inspired by the Exxon Valdez spill, some have pointed out that the interest also arose right around the time he released the post-apocalypse epic Waterworld. Since then, he's spent $24 million funding Ocean Therapy Solutions, a company that has created a centrifuge device that separates oil from water.
"I have spent all my profits on oil spill clean up," Costner told the panel. The amount of money he has personally spent becomes even more significant when you consider that an official from the Minerals Management Service told the panel yesterday that it only receives between $6 million and $7 million in government funding for the research and development of oil spill clean-up technology every year.
For more than a decade now, he's presented the contraption to oil companies and government agencies, but his enthusiasm was "met with apathy," he said. "I was told it was too expensive, that spills were becoming less frequent."
The contraption is best described as a portable, vacuum-like metal unit that spins the oil out of the water. They have five different models, the largest of which can separate 210,000 gallons of water and oil per day. The company says it leaves the water 99 percent clean. BP has run several tests on the technology since the leak began, and approved it for use last month. Since then, BP has placed an order for 32 machines, the company reports, and ten machines are already out working in the Gulf. Ocean Therapy Solutions CEO John W. Houghtaling said he believes that when all these are in use, they will be able to clean 6 million gallons of water per day. (It's not clear how much of a dent this could put in the spill, the total volume of which has not been determined. And since much of the oil has been dispersed into the Gulf using chemicals, it may be harder to do much with Costner's contraption). The company envisions hundreds of these mobile units deployed around the world, ready for the next spill wherever it may occur.
Like many, I at first thought the idea of Kevin Costner as Gulf savior sounded absurd. But unlike BP or the federal government, he's actually been thinking about this issue for the past 15 years. Meanwhile, the government's response plans have remained essentially unchanged in the two decades since our last big oil spill. The two panels of independent scientists and government officials more than made that clear on Wednesday.
Costner, at least, may finally see his work validated after all these years: "If we're going to continue to see oil coming up on shore and the best we can do is hay and rubber boots," he told the committee, "maybe we can do better."


Waterworld Meets BP Spill

| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 7:00 AM PDT

Kevin Costner, best known for his role in Bull Durham (or Dances with Wolves, or Waterworld, depending on whom you ask), will appear before a House panel today to discuss the need for research and development of technologies to clean up oil spills, in light of the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
At first blush, it might seem rather strange to invite Costner to this hearing, rather than, I don't know, one of the 92,000 members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. But Costner has invested $24 million in oil-spill technology over the last 15 years. And yes, 15 years ago was when the post-apocalypse epic Waterworld was released. The research he funded for Ocean Therapy Solutions has created a centrifuge that can separate oil from water (see a demonstration here). In fact, his solution seems a lot more credible than some of the bizarre ideas we've heard from BP in the past seven weeks, a company that clearly was not prepared to deal with this catastrophe. Costner, meanwhile, has been preparing for this for years. BP approved the device last month for use in the Gulf.
I'll be live-Tweeting from this morning's hearing, which you can follow here:



Kate Sheppard Live-Tweets the #bphearing 

Yikes. Newest gov't estimate of #BP #spill is 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.
 8 minutes ago by kate_sheppard from Twitter
New flow-rate call starting now. #BP #oilspill
 14 minutes ago by kate_sheppard from Twitter
RT @DanielSchulman: The USG is issuing press releases containing facts/figures provided by #BP that gov hasn't even bothered to check: http://mojo.ly/9fSahR
 5 hours ago by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Dick Cheney's Last Laugh http://bit.ly/b565rn #BP #oilspill
 8 hours ago by kate_sheppard from Twitter
If You Spill It, They Will Come .... Kevin Costner gets his big chance on #BP #oilspill http://bit.ly/9KPvre
 22 hours ago by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Baird: "This business of we're going to make this right. You're going to disperse this problem in space and time. It's baloney." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Costner: "I have spent all my profits on oil spill clean up." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Ahahahahaa .. RT @grist If you spill it, he will come #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Costner says they had two successful tests with BP, they're now placing initial order for machines. #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Costner: "I was told it was too expensive, that spills were becoming less frequent." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Costner says he took his oil spill contraction to oil companies, gov't agencies, but "my enthusiasm was met with apathy." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Costner: "There's been some question as to why I'm here. It's not because I heard a voice in a cornfield." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Dr. Kinner of U of NH: "The road to funding oil spill R&D has been paved with good intentions but relatively few dollars." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Joye on dispersants: "We should have known the impacts of these dispersants before they were ever used." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Dr. Joye of U of Georgia calls this an "environmental assault on Gulf of Mexico." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Dr. Short of Oceana says cuts to gov't "has the effect of turning it over to industries that benefit most from resource exploitation." #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Hey look, it's Kevin Costner. http://twitpic.com/1vb07p #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Helton of NOAA just avoided answering whether we have any real idea how much oil has spilled. #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter
Pretty sure that would be categorically false. #BP
 yesterday by kate_sheppard from Twitter


How Does Kevin Costner's Oil Cleaning Machine Work, Exactly?

By Derek Thompson
Actor Kevin Costner told Congress that his company has developed a high-tech machine for separating oil and water that could slurp up as much as 200 gallons of oil every minute from the massive spill in the Gulf. BP has already tested the technology and put ten machines to use in the water.

Sounds great! How does it work?

The company, Oil Therapy Solutions, explains the mechanics of the machine on its website. If you want to read the description verbatim, it's at the end of the article.* Greg Lowry, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, helped me translate the jargon into simpler English.

"It's basically a centrifuge," Lowry says, a machine that spins rapidly to separate fluids using centrifugal (well, technically centripetal) force. Think about a washing machine in spin cycle. If you open it up, you'll see the wet clothes flung against the side of the washer. That's the same force Costner's machine employs. It spins the oily water, flinging the denser liquid, water, away from the lighter liquid, oil (which you know is lighter since you've seen the picture of it floating on top of the Gulf). It's the same technology beer companies use to spin the solid yeast particles of out their brew.

Oil-water separation devices exist, Lowry says, but many of them use holding ponds to drain the liquids. The centrifuge is the new part of this solution, but from what he can tell, "it's not exotic at all."

One challenge for the centrifuge in the Gulf is that the chemicals BP used to disperse the oil under water might complicate the cleaning."Think about it," Lowry says. "You're operating on phase [liquid] separation. You want one phase to move in one direction and the other phase in another. If small droplets are stuck in the water they might move with the water. So those tiny droplets could hurt the efficiency of this process."

In his testimony in front of the House Energy and Environment subcommittee, Costner requested Congress to mandate the purchase of these oil vacuums for every oil company as "insurance" against the likelihood they might spill crude into the sea -- kind of like a life vest for oil clean-ups. Now that BP has employed at least ten of his most powerful centrifuges, we'll see if Costner's investment pays off.

_______
OTS describes the oil vacuum: "Two mixed liquid phases, such as water and oil, are drawn into the annulus between the contacter body and the rotar. Liquids gravitate downward in the annulus where rotational liquid motion is slowed by radial vanes in the bottom plate. After entering a hole at the base of the rotar, the liquid phases are then centrifugally separated into a duel vortex because of the density difference between the two fluids. In the case of water and oil, because of the density difference, heavier water exits the rotar from a hole at the top of the unit, while the lighter oil is recovered near the central shaft."