Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Friday June 25th 2010

It's Friday, ya bastids!
Well, yesterday the Republicans in the Senate torpedoed an extension of unemployment benefits… thereby pretty much assuring an extension of the recession. Democrats worked and worked, but they just couldn’t make this bill bad enough for Republicans. Republicans kept insisting on a smaller and smaller bill… and then they killed it anyway. And that’s pretty much their plan for government in general. Senator Debbie Stabenow says that the filibuster of the jobless extension shows that the Republicans want the economy to fail. She said “They have decided they want this economy to fail, and they’re willing to take the country down with them.” (video below). Somewhat harsh words, but for a much harsher action.
While Senate Republicans were reigning in those spoiled unemployed people, the rest of Congress was finally reigning in Wall Street. House and Senate leaders have finalized a financial reform bill. It’s hard to tell how good this bill is. But absolutely none of the Republicans in the conference committee supported it—so that’s a very good sign. The law includes consumer protections, and a requirement that banks segregate their derivatives activities into a separately capitalized subsidiary. If you have no idea what that means, that only highlights the need for the consumer protections. One of the compromises was to exempt auto dealers from oversight by the new consumer financial protection watchdog. Really? Car dealers are exempt? That’s kind of like exempting hot dogs from a food purity law… or exempting the NRA from a disclosure law. Finally, the National Enquirer is out with a piece about a masseuse who claims that Al Gore sexually assaulted her. Gee, I wonder if this story is going to have a happy ending… The woman had asked the magazine for $1 million for her story. I cannot imagine a story about sex with Al Gore would be worth $1 million even if it were true. For a million dollars, you don’t just tell your story of sex with Al Gore. No, you re-enact it, using state of the art computer graphics and a special appearance by Alec Baldwin playing the part of Al Gore. The tabloid refused to pay the woman, so she told her story for nothing. I hope she’s better at giving massages than she is at negotiating.

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Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Thursday June 24th 2019

The containment cap on the BP’s oil volcano is back on after being off for most of yesterday. One of the undersea robots bumped the cap off yesterday. Well obviously nobody’s mother is in charge, or she would have told them to screw that cap on tight in the first place. There’s no more sure way of getting yelled at than not screwing a cap back on tightly before putting the milk back in the fridge or the toothpaste back in the cabinet. The robots are remote controlled by operators at the surface. 99 percent of the 11-year olds in America can operate video game controls like Glenn Gould at the keyboard. Why not get them to operate these robots? Hell, not only could most 11-year old kids operate those remote control robots… they’d do it while eating snacks and talking on the phone. And you couldn’t get them to stop for your life. If a kid can navigate his way around the world of Grand Theft Auto at breakneck speed, I’m sure they can maneuver an undersea robot without knocking the caps off of oil volcanoes. Hey, it even sounds like a video game. The oil has now made it to the beaches of Pensacola , Florida . Watching the spread of the spill is like watching the first half of a World War II documentary where they show the Japanese armed forces spreading out from Japan through the Pacific. The difference is that with a concentrated effort we stopped and reversed the spread of the Japanese military. Of course during World War II there were no Congressmen like Joe Barton apologizing to the Japanese. And this oil is going to stick around longer than those fanatical Japanese soldiers they were pulling out of the jungle 30 years after the war ended. Give credit to BP for multi-tasking. Even as they’re contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, they’re planning their next environmental catastrophe in Alaska . Hey, at least those emergency plans for dealing with oil-soaked walruses will finally come in handy. The drilling project is called project Liberty , I guess because project “Foul the Arctic ” didn’t make it past focus groups. This drilling project is exempted from the moratorium on offshore drilling because it’s based on an artificial island created by BP. That’s nice—now BP is actually creating new shorelines to contaminate.>>> MORE

'Gasland' The Movie found on HBO

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Trailer

The Rollingstone McChrystal Interview & Playboy 'Rogues of K Street' Confession Links

The Rollingstone Interview: The Runaway General
Stanley McChrystal, Obama and top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

GREAT Playboy Article: Rogues of K Street - Confession of a Tea Bagger Consultant:http://www.playboy.com/articles/rogues-of-k-street/index.html?page=1

...And Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Wednesday June 23rd 2010

BREAKING: McChrystal out; Petraeus in
On a day when the inflammatory statements of General Stanley McChrystal are grabbing all the headlines, the General still has plenty of competition in the “most embarrassing quotes” category. Let’s look at some of the contenders. Perennial embarrassment Sharron Angle, Senate hopeful from Nevada, has managed to spew as much stupidity as General McChrystal. And she didn’t have a reporter embedded for a month with her—she’s actually running away from reporters. Angle says the unemployed are spoiled: “We have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said ‘you don’t want the jobs that are available.’” So that’s the problem with the unemployed—they have it too good. I don’t know what is more shocking—the fact that Sharron Angle is extreme enough to have these kinds of veiws, or the fact that she’s stupid enough to say them out loud.
What would a “dumb quotes” contest be without Michael Steele? In an interview Michael Steele said “George Bush created a lot of jobs.” That was a mistake, if only because it made people look up the number of jobs that George Bush created. In fact, even the Wall Street Journal says that George Bush “shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” There’s George Bush’s biggest mistake—he shouldn’t have allowed anyone to keep records on this stuff.
In the “stupid lies” category, we have Jon Kyle, who flat out lied when he claimed President Obama said in an Oval Office meeting that he doesn’t want to secure the border. Here’s how you know Jon Kyl made that up—President Obama is not stupid enough to say something like that. But Jon Kyl is plenty stupid enough to say something like that.
Nice work, people. I didn’t even mention Orin Hatch, who wants to drug-test the unemployed or the judge who lifted the moratorium on deep water exploratory drilling in the Gulf. But the winner is still General McChrystal, who is evidently going to retire as the champion. So there’s an opening for a new champ. Are you listening, Rand Paul?

Today's Homework

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Tuesday June 22nd 2010

Today General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan , has been summoned to Washington over remarks about Obama administration and civilian officials that are openly contemptuous. A lot of the comments from McChrystal and his aides seem remarkably catty for military men. They read like excerpts from a new “Sex in the City” movie. The comments appear in an article in the new issue of Rolling Stone. It’s not good when quotes from military commanders sound cattier than quotes in the same magazine from Lady Gaga. When he’s not giving General McChrystal a piece of his mind today, President Obama was giving another piece to executives from the health insurance industry. In a meeting the President warned them not to use the new healthcare law as an excuse for rate increases meant only to increase profits. Consumers who buy individual policies already face an average premium increase of 20 percent this year. It’s getting to be more expensive to be insured than it is to be sick. Part of the reason for the increases is the lack of a public option. There’s no competition in the health insurance market. The only real competition is between the health insurance companies and the people they insure. In 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. So not only do we not have a public option… a lot of us don’t have any options at all. Want to know why you don’t hear more about health insurance company consolidation? Because of media consolidation. Want to know why you don’t hear more about media consolidation? You have one guess. If the media says that health insurance companies are becoming virtual monopolies, the health insurance companies can just respond “I know I am, but what are you?” It’s hard for the media to point fingers … when they have so few fingers. And now Comcast wants to swallow up NBC. You should know what that will mean to you… because after it happens, you’ll be less likely to know anything. One way or another, you’re going to stop hearing about media consolidation. Either it stops happening… or they’re going to stop telling you about it. >>> MORE



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Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Monday June 21st 2010

This weekend the President spent his weekly radio address blasting the Republicans for obstructionism, including a Senate filibuster of an extension to unemployment benefits. Senate Republicans are holding unemployed people hostage - which is about as close as the Republicans in the Senate are going to get to giving any of them permanent positions. Thanks to Republican obstructionism, 325,000 workers have already had their unemployment benefits cut off. The Senate Republicans don’t seem to grasp the difference between ending unemployment, and ending unemployment benefits.At least Senate hopeful Rand Paul has an answer to long-term unemployment: go get crappy jobs. I don’t know the answer to long term unemployment, but I do know that a good start would be to make sure Rand Paul does not get a job as US Senator. Paul says lazy Americans need to take lower paying jobs. He said “ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that’s less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again.” If Rand Paul had his way, American workers would go from wearing hard hats to wearing paper hats. Thanks for the minimum wage job, Rand. My only question for you now is “Do you want to supersize that?” I have some advice to Rand Paul - go back to talking about how you want to repeal the Civil Rights Act. You sounded more likeable then. In the world of people who have jobs but probably shouldn’t, BP CEO Tony Hayward went to a fancy yacht race this weekend. I guess the word “fancy” is unnecessary when you’re talking about a yacht race. What’s the last “down home” yacht race you attended? This yachting event was The J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race at the Isle of Wight. JP Morgan? Nice… there was a connection to the banking crisis in there too. The only way this event could have been more tasteless and wrong would be if Tony Hayward had done it in blackface. Tony, if you really want your life back, stop reminding people of just how disconnected it is from the lives of normal people. If you want to apologize, you can find us at Wendy’s, filling out an application.Today's Homework

GREAT Playboy Article: Rogues of K Street - Confession of a Tea Bagger Consultant:
http://www.playboy.com/articles/rogues-of-k-street/index.html?page=1

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Thursday June 17th 2010

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward testified before Congress today. Not surprisingly, Hayward apologized for the spill. He knows what he has to say. Somewhat surprisingly, Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas (where else?) apologized to Hayward for making them BP for it! Really. I guess Joe Barton knows what he has to say too (video below).

Barton said he was “ashamed” of the meeting in the White House yesterday where BP agreed to create a $20 billion fund to help pay for the damage they caused. Sorry you find fundamental fairness so mortifying, Congressman. Barton apologized to Hayward , saying “I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown.” Joe Barton has an interesting notion of what constitutes “a tragedy.” He evidently would have thought 9/11 would have been many times worse if we had forced Al Qaeda to pay for the damage. It was interesting to watch Tony Hayward’s face while Barton was apologizing to him. He seemed to be saying to himself “Must…not&h ellip;let…jaw…drop.”

Barton said “I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize.” Come on Joe, you’re also speaking on behalf of that $1.4 million you’ve received from the oil and gas industry over the years. Really Congressman Barton, is $1.4 million enough to go in front of the cameras and say the most disgusting thing in recent memory that didn’t involve a racial slur? Joe Barton may have actually gone too far in serving his oily masters. It reminded me of when press corps plant and male prostitute Jeff Gannon asked a question that was way too softball and brought attention to himself.

Joe Barton has a long history of serving the powers that drill. In 2004, Barton crowed that deep water drilling could take place “all without so much as losing a gum wrapper over the side of the platform. It is truly amazing.” I will say this—I haven’t heard of any gum wrappers involved in this spill. Thank God—I would hate to see one of those poor Caribbean walruses choke on one.>>> MORE

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Wednesday June 16th 2010

Did you watch the President’s oil spill speech (video below)? If you didn’t, just let me put it this way: nobody comes out of an oil spill looking good. It wasn’t exactly a Winston Churchill “blood, sweat, and tears” speech. But then it’s hard to give a truly inspirational speech about mopping up an ugly mess. At least Churchill’s “we shall fight on the beaches” phrase would still have worked. But instead of repelling Nazi invaders, we’re stuck shoveling oily sand into garbage bags. Face it, no matter how necessary it is to scoop up globs of oil, it doesn’t feel like “our finest hour.”

The reviews were pretty negative. Frustration is building up under the surface like oil plumes. Things are going to get sticky when it hits the beach of approval ratings. To be fair, lefties wouldn’t be happy unless Obama was powering the TV lights by pedaling a stationary bike while he was speaking… and conservatives wouldn’t be happy unless he started drilling right then and there on the White House lawn. Of course, even when a speech by Obama can rightly be criticized, conservatives will criticize it wrongly. Moments after a speech in which the President vowed “We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes,” Fox News “analyst” Sarah Palin said “we haven’t heard that stopping the leak is his top priority.”

Maybe Sarah didn’t actually listen to the speech. Maybe she doesn’t know the meaning of the word “priority.” If the President fell a little short for once as an orator, at least he came through as a collection agent. Today BP has tentatively agreed to create a $20 billion fund to pay oil spill claims. “Tentatively” means that the details have yet to be worked out. And it also means that I’m sure BP was far from enthusiastic about it. If the $20 billion estimate is anything like the estimates of the amount of oil actually spilling, expect it to double several times. The actual cost, that is, not the amount BP is willing to put out. The plan would give BP several years to deposit the full amount into the fund so it could better manage cash flow. I just hope they’re better at managing cash flow than they are at managing oil flow. Today’s Homework

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Tuesday June 15th 2010

If you’re tired of watching pelicans squirm, you might want to tune into today’s hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee and watch some oil executives squirm. The oil executives testifying today tried to say that the BP spill was an aberration. Essentially they’re saying “It won’t happen again.” Unfortunately, these are the same people who told us it wouldn’t happen in the first place. Is saying it won’t happen again the best they could come up with? “That is absolutely the last time that we will destroy the Gulf of Mexico . Promise.”
The execs from the other oil companies were called upon to explain how their safety practices differed from BP’s. Well, if they had any safety practices at all, that would be a difference right there. Rex W. Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Mobil, testified that if companies do things right, then spills like the BP spill “should not occur.” Right. And if I drive under the speed limit, then a car accident should not occur. But I’d be an idiot to count on that. By the way, it’s nice getting safety assurances from Exxon Mobile! BP created a disaster by drilling at record depths. In the Valdez spill, Exxon managed to create a disaster with nothing more than a tanker full of oil and a captain full of vodka.
Chevron’s chief executive said “Chevron’s deepwater drilling and well control practices are safe and environmentally sound.” Great, except that I’m sure Tony Hayward would have said the exact same thing 3 months ago. Actually, Tony Hayward has enough chutzpah that I’m sure he’ll say the same thing even now when it’s his turn to testify.
Lamar McKay, the president of BP America, said that reducing offshore drilling would “place millions of additional barrels per day into tanker ships that must traverse the world’s oceans.” Well, I would say that oil is a lot safer than any oil that’s under the authority of you idiots at BP. Is McKay saying that without offshore drilling there would be a bigger risk of a tanker crash? Because oil tankers would have to crash at the rate of one a week to match the amount of oil that BP is spewing into the gulf as Lamar McKay is speaking! And that thought brings us back to the squirming pelicans…>>> MORE



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Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Monday June. 14th 2010

In South Carolina , the bizarre-even-for-South-Carolina saga of Alvin Greene continues to play out. Representative James Clyburn suspects Greene is a plant. Clyburn said on Sunday that there was “elephant dung all over the place” in regard to the Alvin Greene candidacy. Hey, South Carolina politics is a circus. You have to expect elephant dung at the circus. An interview on CNN with Alvin Greene got so bizarre that the interviewer asked Greene if he was OK. Alvin Greene was not talking like a guy who just won an election. He was talking like a guy who had just been rescued after 3 weeks adrift on the open sea. It’s bad enough that other South Carolina politicians are questioning Alvin Greene’s “mental status.” Hmmm… I think that’s a nice way of saying that Alvin Greene may suffer from “Michelle Bachmann Syndrome.

”President Obama is heading back to the gulf today for his fourth visit since the oil spill. He should just get a timeshare down in Grande Isle or one of those gulf vacation spots. I’m sure there are plenty of vacancies. I have a question: is it safe to expose the President of the United States to all these toxic chemicals so often? If President Obama spends much more time around this oil spill he’s going to end up as sick as some of the cleanup workers. Today Obama begins a two-day tour of Mississippi , Alabama , and Florida . Mississippi ? Bring a milk jug, Mr. President. If Haley Bar bour is right, you can just take all the spilled oil in Mississippi away with you. Heck, the folks in Mississippi would be so appreciative that you might win there come 2012.

President Obama plans to demand that BP create an escrow account to handle claims from the spill. Essentially Obama is trying to put someone between BP’s victims and BP’s lawyers. Senate Democrats have asked BP to set up an account of $20 billion. The infuriating part of that is that $20 billion is not a lot of money to BP. The more infuriating part is that they’re still going to fight it tooth and nail. BP wants to avoid any plan that that could create a potentially unlimited liability. Maybe they shouldn’t have caused a potentially unlimited catastrophe.

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Friday June 11th 2010

It’s Friday, ya bastids!
Last night the mystery Democratic Senate candidate from South Carolina , Alvin Green, was interviewed on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. I don’t know if this guy was a Republican plant, but he’s clearly a plant… in the sense that he has the verbal skills of a potted azalea. The Democrats would be better off running a potted fern against Jim DeMint. On the other hand, a potted fern would make a better Senator than Jim DeMint.
Last night Green basically kept his mouth shut and avoided answering any questions. I hope Sharron Angle was taking notes. South Carolina Senator James Clyburn wants an investigation into who paid for Green’s candidacy. Clyburn says he had a feeling that “something was going on in South Carolina that was untoward.” The first clue? It’s South Carolina ! Looking for something untoward in South Carolina politics is like looking for something oily in the Gulf of Mexico .
Speaking of which, new estimates essentially doubled the amount of oil believed to be leaking into the gulf. The new estimates are 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day. To put those numbers into perspective, that means that the REAL numbers are probably twice even that. If you want to get a handle on how much oil is leaking into the gulf, take a dozen estimates… and then add them all together. You’ll probably come up with a number that approaches the real amount. On the upside, it turns out that there’s a lot more oil reserves under the Gulf of Mexico than anybody ever imagined. Unfortunately, they’re not staying under the Gulf of Mexico .>>> MORE

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Wednesday June 9th 2010

Well, the election results are in, and it’s good news for candidates who happen to be women, rich, or crazy. There were wins by everyone from entrenched incumbents to wealthy businesswomen, to upstart Tea Partiers. In Arkansas , Blanche Lincoln survived a challenge from the Democratic Party’s left wing. What do you call the portion of the Democratic Party that’s left of Blanche Lincoln? The Democratic Party. I think Blanche Lincoln has gotten more money from Wal-Mart than all the employees of Wal-Mart combined have gotten from Wal-Mart. But then that’s not a very high bar. In California , Carly Fiorina won the Republican primary to run for the Senate against Barbara Boxer. Well, if Fiorina wins, Barbara Boxer will hardly be the first person to lose their job because of Carly Fiorina.Meg Whitman won the Republican nomination to run for Governor of California. Well, to be more accurate, Meg Whitman bought the Republican nomination. She spent $80 million of her own money, beating Steve Poizner, who spent $24 million of his money. This wasn’t an election, it was a competitive bidding contest. But then what do you expect from a former Ebay executive? In Nevada , Tea Party darling Sharron Angle won the Republican nomination to run against Harry Reid. Give her this much: Sharron Angle ran a brilliant campaign, if by “brilliant,” you mean she avoided suggesting that people pay for health insurance with chickens. She definitely has some wacky, fringe views of her own. Now Harry Reid has the race he wanted. He damned well better win it… or we’re going to have somebody in the Senate who makes Jim DeMint look sane. If you’re looking for a trend in yesterday’s results, the only discernible one seems to be that women candidates win. You know what that means—look for John McCain to announce that he is a woman.

Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Monday June 7th 2010

If you are having trouble getting your oil spill-related claim paid, visit DisasterAssistance.govAfter 50 years of covering the White House, Helen Thomas resigned today at the age 89 amid a wave of controversy regarding a statements she made ( video) regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict.Up to 460,000 gallons of oil a day are being captured by “Cut & Cap”, but the feds estimate anywhere that amount only accounts for 37-77% of the crude still gushing into the Gulf. And settle in for a long, painful ride… Adm. Thad Allen, the commander in charge of the federal response, acknowledges that even a best case scenario (a successful relief well being completed in August) still means dealing with this catastrophe well into the fall, if not longer.There’s little appetite out there for BP’s $50 million PR campaign, and they aren’t just plastering the airwaves and newspapers with ads, they’re buying search terms from the major search engines in hopes of driving info-seekers to their own website. Over half of the federal judges where spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to Big Oil. And if history is any guide, don’t expect to see BP’s CEO being frog-marched regardless of what criminal charges stick.The life that BP CEO Tony Hayward wants back: a multi-million dollar salary, no work on weekends, and he never misses a holiday. Plus, how a gay escort service helped him get there.Frank Rich: Don’t Get Mad, Mr. President. Get Even.More heartbreaking news on the economy… 46% of those unemployed have been out of work for 6 months or longer, making it harder and harder to land a job. A gross new phenomenon: want ads stating that the unemployed need not apply. And according to Robert Reich, if we’re going to avoid a double dip recession, we need more government stimulus, tax cuts for the middle class, and tax hikes for the rich.MORE >>>
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Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Friday June 4th 2010

It's Friday, ya bastids!
A cap has been lowered onto the sheared well pipe in the Gulf and we should know soon if the endeavor to “Cut & Cap” has been successful. Remember, this is not a fix, it’s just a stop gap to siphon off at least some of the gushing oil until a successful relief well is completed (August at best) – a stop gap that could net BP $1.4 million a day in oil revenues, by the way.
Meanwhile, the pictures of crude-coated wildlife are simply heartbreaking ( video). Oil sheen and tar balls have been reported in the Florida Keys. Oil-soaked vegetation has begun washing ashore in Pensacola . And a new computer modeling study demonstrates how the oil could climb all the way up the East Coast. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal lays into BP’s CEO, but on the same day tells Obama to drill, baby, drill – the White House was not impressed. If fact, new drilling permits issued this week have been rescinded. Obama has spent the day in Louisiana meeting with locals and he was on last night’s Larry King Live. In that interview, the president said that a hurricane hitting the spill might, ironically, be a good thing. Maybe, maybe not.On the immigration front, Arizona ’s governor Jan Brewer cools her tough talk after meeting with Obama.
And as we told you yesterday on the show, the FBI reports that the US/Mexico border and border cities are among the safest places in America .The jobs report for May is somewhat discouraging… while 431,000 jobs were added, 411,000 of them belong to temporary Census workers. But even for those with jobs, life is getting harder and harder. The last couple of decades have seen the ultra-rich wildly benefiting at the expense of the average wage slave, and for 1 in 4 Americans the paid vacation is a thing of the past.
Also, Rush Limbaugh will be wed for the fourth time this weekend. McDonald’s recalls 12 million toxic Shrek glasses. Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga gets a Corvette as a consolation prize for being robbed of his perfect game. A South Carolina state senator plays the “raghead card” (geez!). Mixed-race marriages are on the rise. Golden Girl Rue McClanahan has died of a brain hemorrhage at 76. And something to look forward to: happiness comes with age.Have a great weekend!



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Randi Rhodes Newsletter Wednesday June 2nd 2010

After hours of trying to free a stuck saw, the "Cut & Cap" attempt to of trying to stop the oil volcano in the Gulf has resumed.Oil has begun washing ashore in Alabama and Mississippi. Next in line: Florida. President Obama must now come to terms with the pitfalls of believing BP had the crap together despite the horrendous track record of Big Oil. Criminal investigations are underway. And movie director James Cameron finds himself with a seat at the “how the hell do we stop this thing” table.Meanwhile, Arizona governor Jan Brewer will be meeting with Obama tomorrow to discuss immigration. If all the undocumented immigrants just disappeared, Arizona would face approximant losses of $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and 140,324 jobs. And in spite of the lazy and often race-based rhetoric, the facts show that providing a path to legalization would boost the economy and create jobs. Also, an Alaska newspaper warns a Sarah Palin biographer that “ Alaska has a law that allows the use of deadly force in protection of life and property” – then apologizes for any misunderstanding of the “catchy ending”. That catchy ending dovetails nicely with the death threats author Joe McGinniss has been receiving.>>> MORE



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Randi Rhodes Newsletter for Tuesday June 2nd 2010

BP’s “Top Kill“ plan has officially failed; now they move on the risky “Cut & Cap” procedure which could release even more oil into the Gulf. If the 1979 Gulf spill that took 10 months to stop can be viewed as any type of barometer, the only thing that might stop the gushing are the relief wells currently being drilled and will hopefully be ready by August. As the Obama Administration distances itself from BP and sends the Attorney General to the Gulf, could criminal charges be next? BP denies that there are massive underwater plumes of crude/dispersant despite multiple scientists confirming just that – now the man who forced BP to release the live streaming video wants to know what evidence BP has to back up their denial. Cleanup workers are being denied respirators even as more and more of them fall ill, but BP’s CEO just wants his life back (cue violins). >;>> MORE

Al & Tipper Call It Quits After 40 years of marriage, Al and Tipper Gore are getting separated. It seems like just yesterday when Al planted that big kiss on Tipper at the 2000 Democratic National Convention ( video).


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