Tabloids: Using some oil from the spill

The big news of the day is that the rate of the spill is somewhat slowed as BP manages to use some of it now. It’s like dipping a straw in an ocean to drink some of the water.

I think this PA headline is the most realistic: TUBE DRAWS OIL INTO TANKER:TINY BIT OF CRUDE CAPTURED. SPILL MAY BE SPREADING FAR

.The others are sounding chipper

Or at least cautiously optimistic

Sometimes factual factual

.Pbama Times, next to unrealistic headline on spill sports a spectacular photo of the unrest in Thailand (shared with several other papers)

.such as Wall Street Journal

.In election news, Specter is shown as more “D” party man than Sestak – can’t hurt him in this race where most voters are fed up with both parties

A cocktail of news from the Moonie Times

.Stars and Stripes informs us on a very surprising cut in the military: army chaplains

And in NYC local news: the war on bicyclists

.

The phony accounting in the jobs report – half of it – an accounting trick

Obama Times and the rest of the media reports victoriously

Economy Gains Impetus as U.S. Employers Add 290,000 Jobs

The problem with that headline is that is a lie. Who worked on this? Anderson?

At the very best, employers added 192,000 jobs, the other 188,000 were added by some accountant on a guess

The birth/death adjustment (guess) added 188,000 jobs,

Yes, the word “guess” is from the report, which is nothing more than a survey – a more extensive poll. It leads to ridiculously self-contradicting headlines such as this one

Second, there is a number of jobs the economy has to add monthly just to keep up with population growth. Looking at Robert Reich’s analysis for the March report

Second, since the start of the Great Recession, the economy has lost 8.4 million jobs and failed to create another 2.7 million needed just to keep up with population growth. That means we’re more than 11 million in the hole right now. And that hole keeps deepening every month we fail to add at least 150,000 new jobs, again reflecting population growth.

A census-taking job is better than no job, but it’s no substitute for the real thing.

In other words, 150,000 is the number needed to just keep stagnating rather than further sinking. And the rest of the 42.000 is less than the number of census jobs.

If Jake Tapper’s facebook entry is based on solid facts

More on job numbers — 65k of those new jobs are govt jobs, such as census, 231k private sector, including 44k in manufacturing

then indeed, the actual number of jobs created (not adjusted by technicality) is under the maintenance level.

Which is why the unemployment is at 9.9 and there’s a more interesting number buried in the actual report

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) con-
tinued to trend up over the month, reaching 6.7 million. In April, 45.9 percent
of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

Ha-ha-ha! Obama responsibility for spill! Ha_ha!

As the spill blackens the Atlantic coast, the news of Obama’s pay-off from BP made it out

BP Enjoys Lobbying Strength, Close Ties to Lawmakers as Federal Investigation Looms

During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP — a Center for Responsive Politics’ “heavy hitter” — contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.

.It wasn’t BP, silly, it was BP-s employees, B0botland offered. How many times do we have to explain this one – we already did with Goldman Sachs!

By the time the headline hit Politico as well

Obama biggest recipient of BP cash

.the Obama media had to spring in action. (or to use my recent lesson – not the media, silly, the B0bots in the media)

Here’s what New York Magazine had to say yesterday about it – note the quotation marks around “answer for”

Obama Has to ‘Answer For’ Donations From BP

they hand Politico a dose of righteous South Park snark

Now he and “members of Congress may have to answer for the millions in campaign contributions they’ve taken from the oil and gas giant over the years,” according to Politico. Why did you take money from a company whose oil rig was going to explode two years later, Obama?!? Bastard!

Be careful what you snark, New York Magazine. How many ways did those money pay off for BP? Let me count the ways:

We know that since his campaign, Obama changed his mind (flip-flopped – if this were a regular candidate) on off shore drilling. But as NY Magazine said he couldn’t know their rig was going to explode two years later, right?

Not quite. It seems that before he was to embark on this disastrous policy, there were inklings

NOAA Warned Interior It Was Underestimating Threat Of Serious Spill

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration officials last fall warned the Department of Interior, which regulates offshore oil drilling, that it was dramatically underestimating the frequency of offshore oil spills and was dangerously understating the risk and impacts a major spill would have on coastal residents.

But NOAA’s views were largely brushed aside as Obama went ahead and announced on March 31 that he would open vast swaths of American coastal waters to offshore drilling

And what else did BP money buy? WaPo has another headline

U.S. exempted BP’s Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study

.So, after being warned by their own agency of the potential consequences

The Interior Department exempted BP’s calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

So the recent empty promise that future leases will be given under further scrutiny merely meant :no more preferential treatment? (knowing there were no scheduled future leases).

And yet, the only headlines connecting Obama to the spill are

Obama vows ‘relentless’ response to oil spill

I bet he does. But he still didn’t change the off-shore drilling policy. Because as New York Magazine says

Why did you take money from a company whose oil rig was going to explode two years later, Obama?!? Bastard!

because as Condoleeza Rice famously said, “nobody expected planes to fly into towers”..

Today in Newsspeak: Women’s victory in Romneycare

I have to confess,  grew up in a Newspeak country. 1984 was quite the reality (and also forbidden there).

I especially remember one blood curling moment when old people were interviewed on TV about the upcoming lowering of pensions – and they were saying how happy this makes them.

And still, I was in for a shock reading this in WaPo today

Before giving up the quote, I have to preface that it comes from a political strategist, and which is more a John-I concede for the sake of the war Kerry strategist – Mary Beth Cahill. She thinks women are the biggest beneficiaries of Romney care because

Democratic female House members understood this and refused to let this bill die. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and pro-choice women stared down those who would have weakened further a woman’s right to choose and refused to accept any compromise in the legislation that would undercut women’s rights.

And if this wasn’t enough, she takes it a notch higher

Abigail Adams would be proud. The Democrats remembered the ladies — and they will benefit from it.

You see. this type of fake-out is way ahead that what I grew up with. At least those people cheering for lower pension were telling the truth about the upcoming law. With Cahill as consultant, they would have told everyone they would get an increase. Like this opening paragraph

Some argue that passage of the biggest advance in social justice since the Voting Rights Act will rally the liberal base. That is in part because some of the biggest beneficiaries are American women, who are so often key to Democratic victories.

Some argue that you are full of it, Mary.

Obama on gays: to the right of Orrin Hatch?

Ok, maybe that’s an overstatement, but look at them with intersecting trajectories : while Hatch seems to be evolving in the right direction,

“I believe there are very outstanding, patriotic gay people who serve in the military and they ought to be given credit for it. And they shouldn’t have to lie about being gay,” Hatch said.

Obama remains set in his ways

“We may disagree about gay marriage,” Mr. Obama said, “but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are,

The context of this is significant too. Separation of church and state be damned, Obama attended a prayer breakfast with

Barack Obama has drawn stinging criticism for addressing an annual National Prayer Breakfast today organised by a Christian evangelical group whose members include the Ugandan politician behind legislation to execute gay people.

The organisation is headed by Doug Coe, who critics say has praised the organising abilities of Hitler and Osama bin Laden.

Among the Fellowship’s members is David Bahati, a Ugandan MP who introduced legislation that would impose the death penalty on gay men who have sex with a partner under the age of 18

Right on cue, Ann Kornblut writes in Wa Po about Obama’s spirituality: he gets religious messages on his blackberry every morning! And

One senior official described the president as “a prayerful guy.” Another said that Obama has consulted religious leaders less often for his own personal guidance than for help walking through major public decisions — such as during the Afghanistan review process, when he sought advice on the ethical implications of war.

(the “just wars” ideas were picked – not shockingly- from some theologian)

Apologists beam about how Obama lectured the Ugandans (a compndium from B0botland), but the lectured ones left the breakfast without learning their lesson

“The purpose is completely at variance with what the U.S. media have reported,” he said. “It is not a ‘Kill the Gays’ bill. Rather, it is designed to kill the disease that some homosexuals spread through their reckless and irresponsible conduct and lifestyle.”

“If our media were accurately reporting this story,” he said, “reporters would be questioning why the Obama Administration is interfering with Uganda’s right of self-determination and desire to be free of the sexual immorality that has already engulfed the U.S.”

Yeah, it was all worth it, this breakfast prayer!

And how do gays and lesbians feel about this “defense”?