It’s the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill,
But nobody’s worried about oil extraction’s ills.
With gas near four dollars,
People start to holler —
That Palin-esque refrain: “Drill, baby, drill!”
I have to hand it to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA), whose wardrobe choice for a recent roundtable with the president in Panama City helped him stand out. Charlie and the First Lady went with aqua, while the business owners, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and others stuck to neutrals. If you’re going to go, go bold, Crist seems to say, while sitting as far from Obama as possible without leaving the room. No doubt Crist wants to avoid more photos of himself seeming friendly with the president. The endless repetition by Republicans of a shot of Crist doing the one-armed man hug with Obama last year could have been one reason for his departure from their party as a candidate for U.S. Senate. Well that, and the fact that they are soulless jerks.
The only thing worse than a massive oil leak from the bottom of the ocean would be massive radioactive oil leak from the bottom of the ocean.
— Rep. Ed Markey (D – Mass.), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment and the president’s point man on the Gulf oil catastrophe, responding to calls from Donald Trump and others to nuke the oil spill. Markey was responsible for forcing BP to install its “spill cam” so the gushing oil could be viewed by the public.
BP's YouTube site: happy horse manootyI jumped awake in the early morning darkness this morning from a nightmare. In the dream, I was standing on the seawall watching a pod of dolphins surface for air, hearing them expel, then suck in new oxygen through the blowholes near the tops of their heads. Except suddenly the dolphins weren’t here on the east coast of Florida in my warm blue water, they were in the Gulf of Mexico. And when they surfaced to breathe, they were coated in thick brown oil, which they sucked deep into their lungs. Then they began to spasm and die…
One can only guess that the reason BP doesn’t want people to know the extent of the disaster is because they hope to be allowed to continue drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico
The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico already showed that BP has a basic disconnect between words and actions. The whole “Beyond Petroleum” campaign was just that: a media campaign, a tagline, an empty slogan. BP and the other oil companies have done almost nothing to move beyond petroleum, nor has there been any real pressure — by consumers, shareholders, or legislators — for them to do so.
But the company’s crisis communications is shaping into an even bigger sham. BP has done all the right things, according to the new media ethic. They have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. The message is the same at each of these sites: “BP cares, and no one is working harder than BP to make this thing right. Check out for yourself how hard we’re working.”
You’ve got to keep a cool head in order to win a hot game.
— U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA), commenting on the importance of his leadership in helping Florida deal with the BP oil spill disaster. It’s unclear what actions, if any, Crist has taken in the crisis outside of accepting federal relief, and calling upon BP to provide more compensation to Floridians affected by spoiled beaches, fisheries, and habitat. Crist already accepted $25 million from BP to promote tourism and has asked for another $50 million to cover additional state expenses.
We love a snarky challenge, and there’s a really good one on Twitter right now. #renamebp invites you to come up with a new name that the inititals “BP” stand for. Currently leading are “Bitch Please,” “Bush’s Pals,” and “Blame POTUS.”
…things are happening today. The oil that we showed you is being cleaned up. There’s equipment all over the parish and we do have a senior person from the Coast Guard in our office now that can make decisions and can hold BP’s feet to the fire, because they are the ones that should be stepping up to the plate. I think he cares and he’s a hands-on guy. I was real impressed.
Plaquemines Parish, LA. Pres. Billy Nungesser (R), commenting on Pres. Obama, and the current response to the BP oil spill.
The United States and Ukraine no longer seem to be in synch,
After Trump lifted Russia sanctions with a grin and a wink.
Trump coordinated it with Putin,
Who ramped up the drone shooting,
After Trump and Elon Musk throttled Ukraine’s Starlink.
“Take, for example, the French Revolution. Remember when Marie Antoinette said, ‘Let them eat cake’? Now, is that a problem of accountability and tyranny, a corrupt government? Or is it a problem of affordability and standard of living? It’s both! Authoritarianism and tyranny are extremely expensive for the people. And it’s the exact same thing when you go down the line with Donald Trump. So, are we going to go after the corruption? Yeah, you’re damn right. And are we going to go after affordability and making people’s lives easier? Yeah, you’re damn right. We’re going to do both of them.”
“Here’s the problem with the red meat: It becomes an addiction. Once you go there and you put that out there, then you’re forced to defend it. So what do they do? They double down. They triple down again.”
— Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D), quoted by the Washington Post, on Republicans relying on anti-Muslim attacks in the Michigan U.S. Senate race.
“If it wasn’t for President Trump the United States of America would not exist right now. This man saved America. He saved our military from collapse. He saved our economy from destruction. He saved our border from annihilation. He saved our country from threats at home and abroad which would have been the end of the American dream for ever.”
— Stephen Miller, quoted by The Guardian, pledging “total devotion” to President Trump.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
