Remember when the BP oil spill was being touted as “Barack Obama’s Katrina“? Despite the fact that Coast Guard vessels were on site working the spill from day one, and the Federal government mobilized heavily to contain the disaster, partisan critics of the Obama Administration insisted that not enough was being done to prevent oil from reaching Lousiana shores. And because it is an article of faith among the news media that every instance of Republican incompetence, corruption or greed must be counterbalanced by a corresponding incidence of Democratic incompetence, corruption or greed much of the new media and the chattering classes seemed perfectly happy to go along with the idea that the BP oil spill was, indeed, “Barack Obama’s Katrina.” Of course, to sucessfully argue this point it was necessary to show that there were effective countermeasures available that the administration, either through sloth or incompetence, was failing to implement. Enter Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Always ready to savage the government for doing too much useless volcano monitoring, Jindall took to the airwaves to denounce the administration for not doing enough useful berm building. Berms, we were told over and over again, were the immediate, desperately needed, effective solution to the oil spill problem that the Administration was, for inexplicable reasons, failing to implement. There was only one little problem with this urgent claim: the experts disagreed. The building of berms, they told us, was an expensive way to accomplish very little. But never mind. All we heard from Jindall, the right-wing talks shows and much of the media was berms, berms, berms… and so under pressure from local legislators and the relentless, right-wing message machine, the Obama administration relented and pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to approve Jindal’s dubious project.  Read more »

So, about last night… Here’s all you need to know:

Reid and McConnell are now negotiating the terms of a short-term spending bill that can pass unanimously, punting the issue of federal funding into next year when the Republican House will likely demand significant spending cuts.

In other words, if you’re looking forward to a replay of the 1995 Clinton-Gingrich Rumble in the Jungle, time to start stocking up your Netflix queue instead: The 112th Congress hasn’t even begun, and already Democrats are scrambling in fear of a threatened government shutdown.

What failed last night because of shocking! Republican intransigence was the bog-standard annual spending bill, a $1.1 trillion cornucopia festooned with earmarks from both parties, but still meeting Mitch the Turtle’s budget target. (Democrats are adorable for taking Republicans at their word!)

The bill failed — with a majority, of course, because that’s what the Founders wanted.

Read more »

Word now comes that the Big Munnie Bill ($1.1tn, give or take a few billion) is dead over in The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body — thanks to GOP senators’ objections to it. 

And thus the Grand Plan (“pass the tax-cut extension and the Omnibus to Hell, and then we might let you vote on DADT, DREAM and START… mebbie”) comes crashing apart.  At least on the Senate side.  There may be a DADT vote this weekend, but Snowe, Brown et al may jump ship again, because of the failure of the bill relating to munnie.

Meanwhile, the House is now set to vote on the tax cut side of things at around 2300 Eastern War Time.  Debate/grandstanding happening now, LIVE, on C-SPAN.  (“Live” is, naturally, a loaded term.)  Dems, in debate I’ve seen in the last few minutes, seem spoiling for a fight. 

God only knows what will happen.  One thing seems clear, though.  Black Eagle’s attempt to bring peace to the valley by ditching the dirty hippies to appease people who hate him?  FAIL.

“An activist for a sub-group of the anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage is speaking out against the use of the rainbow as a symbol for gay rights. ‘We are the real rainbow coalition. The gay lobby does not own the rainbow,’ she said.” [TPM]

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Mr. Speaker-in-Waiting!

While it’s impossible to know, some are beginning to speculate that Boehner’s penchant for turning on the waterworks might have some connection to his consumption of wine. Liberal MSNBC host Ed Shultz, half-jokingly, called Boehner a “cheap drunk” the other day, Capitol Hill aides of both parties are wondering, and there’s even a web page devoted to it.

Finally, something to obsess over besides birth certificates.

John Boehner’s Crying: Is He Drinking Too Much? [AOL]

John Boehner Booze Watch

Blake Edwards, director of many screwball comedies, died today* of pneumonia.  His movies included Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther, and Victor/Victoria, starring his wife, Julie Andrews.

Enjoy “The Pink Flea” and some Henry Mancini.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36JbQcZkYMQ

*Update/Clarification thanks to the LA Times: Early today for the East Coast, he actually died last night (10:30 PST) in Santa Monica. Damn Gray Lady and her East Coast centrism.

[NYT]

Jim DeMint recently had some choice words for Harry Reid and Senate Democrats. Incensed at Reid’s plan to keep congress in session until several key spending bills and an arms control treaty had passed, DeMint noted just how un-Christian a thing this was to do:

We shouldn’t be jamming a major arms control treaty up against Christmas; it’s sacrilegious and disrespectful,” he told POLITICO. “What’s going on here is just wrong. This is the most sacred holiday for Christians. They did the same thing last year – they kept everybody here until [Christmas Eve] to force something down everybody’s throat. I think Americans are sick of this

As logically unassailable as DeMint’s brilliant analysis of the sacreligious underpinnings of Reid’s move is, we think his most salient and insightful revelation is just how sick the American people are of Jim DeMint being forced to go to work right on up to Christmas Eve itself. This new insight piqued our interest and made us wonder: what other things does Jim DeMint think that the American people are sick of? So we did a little research and came up with the following. After the jump:  Five Things the American People are Sick of (according to Jim DeMint) Read more »