Fiorina Wins: Will She Remain a Far-Right Tea Party Corporate Insider?

The ex-HP chief rebranded herself as a conservative outsider to win the primary. Will she have to rebrand again for November?

By David Corn | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 9:15 PM PDT

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With the BP oil spill, the nation is currently witnessing one of the worst acts of corporate negligence—or crime—in history. This eco-nightmare is occurring during a time of economic trouble triggered by brazen corporate malfeasance in the financial sector. So it might not be a good moment for a politician to be a CEO. Yet in California, Republican voters on Tuesday flocked to two self-financing ex-corporate honchos, selecting ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman to be the party’s gubernatorial candidate (to face onetime Democratic governor and current state Attorney General Jerry Brown) and picking ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina to be the party’s senatorial candidate (to take on Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer). Whitman might make some sense as a candidate, given that she left the corporate world with a solid reputation, having presided over massive growth that brought eBay from a company of 30 employees to one of 15,000 workers (though she engaged in controversial "spinning" [1] while a member of the board of Goldman Sachs.) Yet Carly Fiorina had a controversial, if not troubled [2] tenure, at HP. Which raises the question: what are Californian GOPers (and Sarah Palin) thinking?
Fiorina, a marketing and sales expert, took over HP in 1999, as the tech boom was ending. Her solution to the company's many problems at the time was engineering a $19 billion acquisition of Compaq—a move opposed by many HP stockholders and that ultimately was not widely regarded as a slam-dunk. On her watch, HP downsized and canned almost 18,000 employees—as Fiorina joined with other corporate execs to defend outsourcing and oppose measures that would limit this practice. After six years in the job, she was pushed out, but her departure was eased by a $21 million severance package. On the day she was dumped, the company's stock price went up 7 percent. CBS News technology analyst Larry Magin noted [3],

There is plenty to criticize about Fiorina's tenure at HP. At this point, the changes that Fiorina made didn't turn out so well for the thousands of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq employees that were laid off and the millions of HP stockholders who lost equity since she took over. HP stock is worth less today than it was in 1999. Dell and IBM stock has increased in value.

Fiorina ended up symbolizing not one but three excesses of the corporate elite: mergers-and-acquisition mania, outsourcing, and golden parachutes. Yet during the Republican Senate campaign, this former corporate insider re-marketed [4] herself as an anti-establishment Tea Partier, even though one of her foes in the primary contest, Assemblyman Chuck Devore [5], had a stronger claim on the Tea Party label. (Fiorina was helped in the who’s-the-Tea-Partiest-of-them-all competition when Palin endorsed her.)

It is possible that by aligning herself so closely with the Tea Partiers—as she spent large sums of her own money to win the nomination—Fiorina has diminished her chances of clearing out Boxer. Fiorina has campaigned as a diehard conservative, but in the Golden State, far-right GOPers often do not win statewide contests. (Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a national voice for climate change action; Fiorina recently released a demagogic ad [6] blasting Boxer’s concern about climate change, comparing it to worrying about the weather.) Fiorina has so far played according to the basic rule of politics: in the primary, cater to the base, then in the general election move toward the center. But having veered so far to the right—she ran as a pro-lifer—she has plenty of ground to cover to reach the middle. Boxer, always a feisty campaigner, will spend much time and money in the coming months to remind California voters of Fiorina's Tea Party stylings. Also, this Senate primary suggests that the Tea Party may not be so potent in California. Were it so, DeVore, the genuine Tea Partier, could have better surfed the movement's anger, a la Rand Paul in Kentucky.
Moreover, a Washington Post/ABC poll [7] released this week shows that a growing number of Americans are not fans of the Tea Party. In March, 39 percent said they had an unfavorable impression of the Tea Party. Now, it's 50 percent. The percentage of people with no opinion of the Tea Party fell from 20 percent to 14 percent. This indicates that the more people learn about the Tea Party, the less they like it. That's no surprise. As Tea Party-fueled Republicans receive more attention—especially on issues other than President Barack Obama’s controversial health care reform initiaitve—the brew doesn’t seem so tasty. After all, Rand Paul noted he didn't support the entire 1964 Civil Rights Act and griped about Obama being too tough on BP (whining that this was un-American). Sharron Angle, the Tea Party favorite in the Nevada GOP Senate primary, called for [8] shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. (While there’s an oil spill of historic proportion?) Other Tea Partiers are urging repeal of the 17th Amendment (which mandates the direct election of senators).
Come November, the Tea Party tag might not be a winner—and a former but failed corporate titan who wrapped herself tight in its banner might not be seen by voters as the most compelling choice, even in a year of anti-incumbent fervor. Perhaps Fiorina, that onetime marketing wiz, will have to fire up one more rebranding campaign.

Is Tim Scott the Next Black Republican Congressman?

An African-American conservative is headed to a runoff in the Republican primary for a South Carolina congressional seat.

By Nick Baumann | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 8:54 PM PDT

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Before adultery charges were leveled against South Carolina's GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, the Republican primary in the first congressional district was probably the state's most exciting race. Nine candidates were duking it out for the GOP nod in this deep red district, including legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond's son, Paul. But it was State Rep. Tim Scott, not Thurmond, who dominated the Republican field on Tuesday night, winning 32 percent of the vote. Since the winner of the GOP primary will stand a good chance of becoming the first district's next representative in Congress, Scott could very well become the first black Republican in either chamber since former Rep. J.C. Watts retired in 2003.
Scott will still have to face Thurmond, who finished second with 16 percent, in a June 22 runoff. But Scott's strict conservatism earned him the endorsement of the far-right Club for Growth, and that support could help carry him through the runoff as well.

We're Still at War:

 Photo of the Day for June 9, 2010

Wed Jun. 9, 2010 2:00 AM PDT

The rear-gunner in a Sikorsky UH-53 helicopter watches the end of the new Mazar-e-Sharif to Termez, Uzbekistan railroad stretch into the distance. When completed, the 47-mile long line will provide a valuable commercial link between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan across the Amu Darya River. Photo via the US Army by Petty Officer 1st Class Mark O'Donald.

Which Dems Are Backing Murkowski's Attack on Carbon Regs?

— By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

— epa/ZUMAPress.com

Thursday is D-Day for a play by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to kneecap the Environmental Protection Agency's power to curb carbon dioxide emissions. Murkowski's measure has the support of at least four Democrats, which has many environmental advocates on edge.
Murkowski has been threatening this gambit since January, shortly after the EPA finalized its conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger human health. That finding, which came in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, compels the agency to regulate such pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The senator is using what's called a resolution of disapproval, an obscure procedural tool that enables Congress to overturn regulations set by the executive branch. Because a resolution of disapproval requires only 51 votes to pass and is not susceptible to a filibuster, Murkowski's move presents a sizeable threat. So far, she has 40 co-sponsors, including three Democrats: Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who previously offered a bill that would have delayed EPA regulations for two years, said on Tuesday night that he'll vote for Murkowski's bill. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia has also expressed support for her effort. Several other coal-state Democrats, like Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, have remained studiously quiet on Murkowski's bill, though they cosponsored Rockefeller's proposal.
Majority Leader Harry Reid's office has gone on the offensive against Murkowski and her Republican supporters. Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, calling the measure a "giveaway to big oil companies" in a statement Tuesday. But Reid's office hasn't mentioned the measure's Democratic backers.

Most key players in the climate debate agree that using the Clean Air Act to cut down carbon emissions is far from ideal—environmentalists, the Obama administration, even James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate's leading climate change denier. The Obama administration has said repeatedly that it would prefer Congress pass new legislation specifically to deal with global warming. But so far, the Senate hasn't done that (and its prospects for doing so anytime soon look grim.) And regardless of what Congress does, thanks to Supreme Court's decision and the science on global warming, the EPA is required by law to move forward with regulations.
If successful, Murkowski's resolution of disapproval would remove the only legal weapon the Obama administration has to cut carbon emissions should climate legislation fail this year. Right now, the fate of a climate bill remains in doubt, making the regulatory options even more important.
Murkowski says she's not trying to second-guess climate scientists. "This is not a resolution that in anyway pulls out the underpinnings of the science," she insisted in a press conference Tuesday. Instead, she says her goal is to "make … a statement as to whether Congress or unelected bureaucrats at the EPA should create climate policy." But while Murkowski occasionally talks a good game on climate, attesting that her state is "ground zero" for the impact of global warming, she has consistently rejected measures that would actually seek to address it.
It doesn’t help her case that the press conference she called on the measure Tuesday featured some of the Senate's all-stars of climate denial. There was Inhofe, who reaffirmed his belief that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." There was Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, who noted that, "Without carbon, my trees would die. Carbon occurs naturally." And there was Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, whose contribution was, "People are breathing out CO2 all the time. Would that be a violation of the Clean Air Act under this law?"
Murkowski's spokesman, Robert Dillon, argued that these kinds of remarks didn't undermine Murkowski's mission. "It's a big tent," he said. "I think the economic impacts is the major, overreaching theme here. Every senator is entitled to his own opinion, that's fine." He also downplayed the complaints from automakers that the resolution would cause the "collapse" of the deal they worked out last year with the administration and state governments to set new, national fuel economy and emission standards. Despite automakers' repeated pleas for a single national standard, Dillon argued that they were "forced to the table" and that the fuel economy standards should be left to the Department of Transportation.
The White House issued a statement on Tuesday vowing to veto the measure should it pass both chambers, adding that it would "undermine the Clean Air Act and hinder EPA’s ability to comply with a Supreme Court ruling on greenhouse gasses."
But the big question is why Democrats would want to lend support to Murkowski's effort to thwart the EPA—and at a time when moving to protect the environment might be less politically risky than usual. How many will jump ship? We'll find out Thursday.

Should Teachers' Raises Depend on Kids' Test Scores?

— Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Some states are getting serious about the idea.

— By Jessica Calefati

Wed Jun. 9, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

In late March, when Florida first-grade teacher Julie Mark first heard about a new bill that would make teachers' raises dependent on students' test scores in her state, she thought the bill's proposal sounded so outrageous that it didn't stand a chance at becoming law. "When I have a struggling student, my first thought is, 'What can I do to help this little boy or girl?'" says Mark, "not: 'What can I do to make sure this student is not the one who costs me my salary or my job?'"
But in a matter of weeks, a bill that seemed at first like an outlandish possibility was sitting on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's desk awaiting his signature. Senate Bill 6 would have dramatically changed the methods used to evaluate public school teachers in the Sunshine State by linking their qualifications for recertification and pay increases to students' standardized test scores. Those who failed to raise their students' scores four out of every five years could have lost their license to teach in Florida, effectively ending their careers as educators. Years of experience in the classroom, advanced degrees and professional credentials would no longer have influenced a teacher's job security and salary more than their students' ability to improve their performance on standardized tests each year.
In April, after weeks of debate pitting Florida's teachers' union against the Republican legislators who supported SB 6, Crist broke from his party and vetoed the bill. But in the month and a half since Crist's veto, two additional states have proposed changes to state law that would link teacher evaluations to standardized test scores, and Colorado has made a similar bill law. New York's bill proposes using student improvement on state exams to determine 20 percent of a teacher's overall evaluation. New Jersey hopes to create a statewide student data system and use it to track students' performance on exams every quarter. Colorado's new law calls for using "value added metrics"—a measure of student test-score improvement year to year—to account for as much as 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation. Teachers whose students aren't up to snuff for two consecutive years will go on probation and lose their right to a hearing before being fired.
Why the sudden flurry of interest in changing state education policies? These four states are among a pool of nearly 40 vying for a slice of the $3.4 billion President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will distribute in September to the second-round winners of Race to the Top, a competition designed to encourage and reward ambitious education reform at the state and local level. (They doled out a total of $600 million to winners Tennessee and Delaware in late March as part of the competition's first round.) To get some of the money—which states need desperately to fill gaping holes in their education budgets and save hundreds of thousands of teachers from scheduled layoffs—applicants must play by Duncan's rules.  These rules include adopting policies that favor charter-school growth, closing failing schools, and linking teacher evaluations to student test-score gains, even though there is little evidence that these strategies will work for the country's struggling schools.

Denise Jerome-Curtin told me about one student she calls her "pride and joy," a teen who worked hard in class holding down a night job at a UPS distribution facility to help support his family. But when UPS slashed its staff and laid him off, he dropped out of school and racked up three felony convictions. He eventually graduated and joined the military, but only after Jerome-Curtin coaxed him back to school as a 17-year-old sophomore and helped him graduate. "Should I be evaluated on that work or on a 65-minute test?" Jerome-Curtin asked.
Colorado's 2006 teacher of the year, Adele Bravo, points out that students' home lives can affect their performance in school dramatically. "A couple of years ago, I was quite surprised to learn I had three families who were illiterate," says Bravo, who teaches second grade. "I love my parents, and they are doing the best they can, but I have to remember that I can't expect these parents to read to their children." Bravo made special accommodations for her students with illiterate families and sent those students off with homework they could do independently, or with stories they could read to their families. But that type of effort cannot be quantified properly with a standardized test.
Bob Schaeffer serves as the public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization that opposes high-stakes standardized exams and advocates other forms of teacher accountability, like students' performance in a course throughout the school year. As more bills linking teacher evaluations to student test scores become law, the results will be as damaging for students as they are unfair to teachers, Schaeffer says. Some of the many excellent teachers who consider test scores a poor measure of their performance could even leave the profession. Schaeffer says evaluating teachers based on student test-score improvement will harm teachers and students because he spends time each day trawling for the latest research on testing. So far, no definitive peer-reviewed study proves that students' test scores are an equitable measure of teacher performance, he says.
There is, however, a mountain of research showing that they don't work. A 2003 study by the RAND Corporation found that evaluating teachers based on students' year-to-year test-score improvements yields unreliable results. A 2009 study (PDF) by UC-Berkeley public policy professor Jesse Rothstein found a correlation between North Carolina elementary school students' fifth-grade classroom assignments and their fourth-grade standardized-test performance. To fairly evaluate teachers using student test scores, principals would need to assign students to classrooms randomly, but Rothstein's findings confirm what most teachers already know—classroom lists are generated using students' reading and math proficiency, their disciplinary records, and their parents' requests for specific teachers, among other factors. Teachers who instruct classes full of gifted students have a better chance at posting test-score gains than their counterparts who work with remedial learners. In his study's conclusion, Rothstein warns that tying teacher evaluations to student testing "will reward or punish teachers who do not deserve it and fail to reward or punish teachers who do."
Plans to use student test scores to evaluate teachers are still pending in New York and New Jersey. Meanwhile, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has insisted that his state's new law "is not a punitive measure, but a way to lift teachers up to a place of effectiveness." And although Colorado's chapter of the American Federation of Teachers ended up endorsing the bill in its 11th hour, the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers' union, remains opposed. Florida's plans to dramatically alter teacher evaluation died with Crist's veto, but bill author and state Sen. John Thrasher (who is also the state GOP's chair) believes nevertheless that Florida will fully implement his proposals one day.
Julie Mark worries that Thrasher's interests to evaluate teachers with student test scores might ultimately prevail, and if they do, she might find herself out of a job. She told me about one student who has severe ADHD, but whose family cannot always afford the medication that helps keep her calm and focused in class. "She couldn't sit still for more than a few minutes, and she was hypersensitive. Getting her through a day without a breakdown was a success," Mark says. "Having her sit for a standardized test would have been nearly impossible."

Taitz filed a "motion to reconsider"

Orly Taitz to Subpoena Pancake Painter

— By Stephanie Mencimer

| Wed Jun. 9, 2010 4:00 AM PDT

Just because she's spent the past few months campaigning to become California's next secretary of state doesn't mean that "birther" queen Dr. Orly Taitz has given up her many court battles seeking to prove that President Barack Obama is not an American citizen. On May 19, Taitz filed a "motion to reconsider" in her mostly failed lawsuit against Obama in DC federal court. And one basis for the motion was none other than a Mother Jones article! Yes, Taitz told the court that she has discovered new evidence of "intimidation and harassment" against her in my story on Dan Lacey, the Minnesota "Painter of Pancakes," who has painted some nude portraits of Taitz giving birth to a pancake.
Taitz told me in May that her opponents have sent copies of the painting to her children and family along with threatening emails in what she believes was an attempt to scare her into dropping her insurgent campaign to be the GOP's candidate for California's secretary of state. She suspects that one of Obama's powerful allies commissioned the painting. I asked Lacey about that and he was cagey on the subject. So Taitz wants to subpoena him to force him to out his benefactor. She writes:

"Recent article by Washington burro [sic] correspondent Stephanie Mencimer shows that “artist” Dan Lacey, who painted despicable art work series “Birther Orly Taitz”, showing Taitz nude, with her legs spread, giving birth and holding bloody placenta, which were sent to her children, posted on the Internet and a local paper, did not work on his own accord. Dan Lacey admitted, that he was commissioned, paid by someone to do this, it was a clear attempt to intimidate Taitz and pressure her to withdraw as a candidate...Lacey refused to provide the reporter Stephanie Mencimer with the name of the person who hired him, who paid him, however during the depositions and upon subpoena this information will be available and will be provided to [the] court. At this time Taitz cannot state with certainty who paid Dan Lacey, however it is common knowledge, that Billionaire George Soros, one of the biggest backers of Obama, through his organization Moveon.org, has commissioned numerous artists to promote Obama and denigrate his opponents and critics."

Lacey, for his part, has responded with a YouTube video in which he promises to reveal the identity of the "puppetmaster" behind the Pancake Birther series, pixel by pixel, as part of his new legal defense fundraising. He promises to enter the name of anyone who donates $2.37 to the defense fund into a drawing to win the new painting, which will be awarded at a "Colors of Orly" art show fundraiser in Minneapolis on July 4th. Watch the video here:



— June 08, 2010 — Wherein I promise to reveal the identity of the person or persons secretly funding my paintings of Orly Taitz giving birth to delicious pancakes.

Some election night results

Live Election Results

Source: AP

Key: * Incumbent | Winner

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Haley in runoff; Lincoln holds slight lead

Chris Cillizza | The Fix19 mins ago

Despite early attacks and a double-digit lead against opponents, Rep. Nikki Haley narrowly missed the Republican gubernatorial nomination outright. She and Rep. Grisham Barrett will advance to a June 22 runoff.
Read Full Article

Why so many Dems don't like Blanche Lincoln

Shailagh Murray

After years of cautious maneuvering, the Democratic senator committed a series of blunders that riled labor unions and other liberal groups.

Harry Reid takes a backseat to Bryce Harper in Nevada

Paul Kane

Move over Harry Reid -- the Senate majority leader may no longer be the most important Silver State resident hitched to the nation's capital. Stretched across four columns, Harper's draft selection dominated the front page of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Don't forget Utah

Amy Gardner

Utahns are getting ready to pick the Republican they want to replace Sen. Robert Bennett, the three-term senator from Salt Lake City who was ousted at the state convention last month.

What to watch: race by race, hour by hour

Chris Cillizza | The Fix

The marquee race of the night is the Arkansas Senate runoff between Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D).

Tea Party candidates see setback in Virginia

Ben Pershing

Republicans in Northern Virginia decided Tuesday to create a rerun of 2008, nominating Oakton businessman Keith Fimian to face Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D) for the second straight cycle.

Boxer, Fiorina launch preemptive strikes

Perry Bacon Jr. | 448:22 p.m. ET

California-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and former Carly Fiorina, the front-runner for the GOP Senate nomination, have already started launching attacks.

Reporting from the Women Deliver conference

Monday, Jun 7, 2010 18:45 ET

New commitments from the United Nations and the Gates Foundation at the largest maternal health conference ever

By Joan Walsh

Women Deliver video screen shot

I'm taking a break from my normal work to attend a conference sponsored by Women Deliver, an organization that pushes for more funding and better programs to advance maternal and child health globally. It's a global convening, bringing 3,500 speakers and participants from 140 countries.
I've been writing about these issues for a while, and it's thrilling to see how much progress has been made in just the last few years. First, on the messaging front: The Women Deliver pitch -- that investing in the health, education and workforce training of women has a multiplier effect, lifting up families and communities -- has become accepted by hundreds of groups who work on these issues, as well as global political leaders, and the United Nations. U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon opened the conference with a call to push funding for maternal and child health to the top of the global agenda.
And there has been progress: An estimated 526,000 women died of complications relating to childbirth in 1980; that's down to 342,900 in 2008. Those numbers, though, mask a lot of global variation: There was only a small drop in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where maternal mortality is highest. Secretary General Ban told a small round table of journalists this afternoon that of the U.N.'s eight "Millennium Development Goals," adopted at the dawn of the new century to encourage progress in reducing poverty, hunger, illness and AIDS, as well as maternal and child mortality, the world has made the least progress on the two MDGs related to the health of mothers and children.

• Continue reading

Ban and Melinda Gates appeared together to announce a new $1.5 million Gates Foundation initiative in the field. Gates was surprisingly (to me) blunt in a lunchtime speech: "Frankly, policymakers have acted as though the lives of women and children matter less than the lives of men."
Although there's near consensus on the message of Women Deliver, the field is not without its divisions. Lancet editor Richard Horton asked Ban and Gates whether they were pushing for more funds for "safe abortion services," since, according to Horton, an estimated one in seven maternal deaths are actually the result of unsafe abortions. Ban said the U.N. pushes to make sure that "wherever abortion is legal, it is safe" -- that's almost exactly the language of Women Deliver, which backs "safe abortion, when and where legal" -- and Gates said the foundation's money isn't going to abortion services.
But one of the things I admire about this global movement is its ability to focus on areas where there's consensus, on saving as many lives as possible, and (mostly) putting aside issues where there's a lot of disagreement, leaving individual groups to pursue their own separate agendas as well. There's also a little tension about focusing on women primarily as mothers, rather than as autonomous individuals. I understand those reservations, but I've always felt you make progress where you can: It's hard enough to get investment in women as mothers. Let's win that fight and move on to others down the line. (I'm moderating a panel on the language used by movement advocates on Wednesday, where I'm sure all these issues will come up.)
Anyway, it's an inspiring group of people. I'll pop in with more later in the week.

BIG OIL ACCOUNTABILITY!

Contact Alaska Senator Murkowski and Senator Inhoff today! Don’t let them block big oil accountability! The Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act would have spiked the maximum liability for oil companies from a pitiful $75 million to $10 billion—making sure that BP paid for the current man-made catastrophe. But unbelievably, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) opposed the bill and blocked it from even coming to a vote.

Who Really Owns the Gulf of Mexico?

MAP: A sobering look at how oil and gas companies view our coastal assets.

By Michael Mechanic | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 12:34 PM PDT

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Who owns the Gulf of Mexico? That's a question you have to ask while perusing Offshore [1] magazine's 2010 poster of the Gulf—downloadable here [2] as a large PDF, but well worth checking out. Where most people look at the Gulf, they see a vast marine ecosystem, wetlands, and, until recently, gorgeous beaches.
What energy executives see is a massive grid, tangled with scores of oil and gas pipelines and rival fields with macho names that sound like heavy metal bands, black-diamond ski runs, and weapons systems. (See "Quiz: What Do BP and Kurt Cobain Have in Common? [3]") Here's a small detail, slightly blurry, but you get the point. (Red lines are gas pipelines and pink are gas fields, green lines are oil pipelines and green blurbs are oil fields.)

How energy execs view the Gulf: Black dots are Fourchon (left), and Grand Isle, Louisiana
Next, here's another map detail from farther offshore. I circled the site of the ongoing BP Deepwater Horizon spill in yellow.

Map detail: Mississippi Canyon; BP spill site circled.

What these maps really show is the degree to which the Gulf has played host to a feeding frenzy by big energy interests that snap up drilling leases on the cheap. Each of these numbered squares represents a lease site. As you can see from this Offshore magazine chart, the highest bid for a lease this year was about $53 million. Which, when you consider the value of the oil coming out of the Gulf, is chicken feed.

You'll also note that bids are way down from their peak in 2007-2008, but making a strong comeback. As Offshore notes here [4] (scroll down), 77 companies put in 642 bids on 468 tracts totalling more than 2.4 million acres. But the next lease sale, slated for August 18, is unlikely to go so swimmingly.
You can find all of our breaking coverage of the BP disaster here [5].
Follow Michael Mechanic on Twitter [6].



Links:
[1] http://www.offshore-mag.com/index.html
[2] http://www.offshore-mag.com/etc/medialib/platform-7/offshore/maps-and_posters.Par.36859.File.dat/0110 GOM OS Map-ADs.pdf
[3] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/quiz-bp-spill-gulf-oil-gas-fields-kurt-cobain
[4] http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/2980608907/articles/offshore/volume-70/issue-50/departments/gulf-of_mexico.html
[5] http://motherjones.com/../../../../../../../category/primary-tags/bp
[6] http://www.twitter.com/MichaelMechanic

Taxes and the Rich

By Kevin Drum | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 8:55 AM PDT

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Felix Salmon notes Jeff Sachs's suggestion that tax rates on the rich should rise substantially, and demurs: [1]

I don't think this is possible, politically, in either the US or the UK. In the US, the middle classes are implacably opposed to tax hikes on people making more money than they themselves will ever make. I'm not entirely clear on the reasons for this, but I suspect it has something to do with the American Dream of becoming incredibly successful: no one wants to reach that gilded land only to find it full of taxes.

Someone — a journalist or an academic, I'm not sure which — should consider this an assignment desk piece: Why are Americans so unsympathetic to higher taxes on zillionaires? Does it really have something to do with an unfounded optimism about themselves someday becoming rich? I've heard this explanation a thousand times, but there's really never any evidence for it except for one thing: an old poll (which I can't locate just at the moment) showing that 19% of Americans think that someday they'll be millionaires. The problem is that (a) it's just one poll and (b) it's still only 19%. If that were really the reason Americans were opposed to taxing the rich, we'd still have about 80% of the country in favor.
So what is the reason? The "American Dream" answer is one possibility. Generic anti-tax fervor is a possibility. A principled sense of justice (i.e., no one should have to pay more than half their income in taxes, or some such) is a possibility. Widespread delusion about how much the rich currently pay in taxes is a possibility. There are lots of possibilities. But which of these are actually the prime motivators? Someone should try to find out.

Senators Intro Bill to Give Oil Spill Panel Power of Subpoena

By Kate Sheppard | Tue Jun. 8, 2010 11:59 AM PDT

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A group of 10 Democratic senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would grant subpoena power to the oil spill commission that President Obama appointed last month. The power of subpoena would allow the panel to force witnesses to testify or produce evidence for the investigation.
"Subpoena power is absolutely necessary to make sure that all responsible parties provide us with the information and evidence we need in order to prevent an economic and environmental disaster of this magnitude from ever happening again," said Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), one of the bill's cosponsors.
John Kerry (D-Mass.), another sponsor of the legislation, said that without subpoena power, "a commission is just window dressing."
Obama announced the formation of the panel on May 22, appointing former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and former Republican EPA administrator William K. Reilly as the two co-chairs. The panel is charged with investigating what happened to lead up to the explosion and spill from the Deepwater Horizon, and how to move forward with offshore drilling. Additional members will be added to the panel in the coming weeks. The president, however, cannot grant the commission subpoena power, which would allow it to access crucial information -- documents, videos, witnesses and anything else that might be needed for the investigation.
In addition to Kerry and Shaheen, the bill's sponsors are: Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mark Begich (D-Ark.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).
The commission is expected to issue a report on the Deepwater Horizon spill and recommendations for future of offshore drilling to the president by the end of the year. But as of last week, Graham said it still hadn't talked to BP [1]. Meanwhile, some have criticized Reilly's ties to the oil industry [2] as possibly affecting his ability to preside over the panel.
UPDATE: The White House issued a statement noting that while the president can't give the commission subpoena power, he "has committed the full cooperation of the federal government to the Commission and its mandate," said spokesman Ben LaBolt. "The President looks forward to working with Members of Congress to ensure that the Commission has the tools and resources it needs to get the job done and that nothing slows down the efforts to get the Commission up and running as soon as possible."