News Roundup for 6/2/10

Jan Brewer?

-Headline of the day-
"Brewer Tells Conflicting Story About Her Father."

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has had it! Just because she signed a bill into law that would require a certain group of people to present their papers wherever they go, everyone's saying she's like a Nazi. It doesn't help any that she wasn't elected to power, just like you-know-who. It's unfair. Because she's a fine American and she has the pedigree to prove it. She just doesn't have it with her at the moment.

"The Nazi comments... they are awful," Jan says. "Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that... and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced." I'll believe you're not Hitler's daughter when you present the proper papers to prove it, lady. Until then, I'm going to have to do what you insist is the logical and safe thing and go ahead and assume that you're literally the spawn of Adolph. We can't be too careful and the fate of our nation may depend on our caution.

And there's reason to believe she's not being on the up-and-up here. According to the report, "One problem: The Arizona Guardian reports Brewer's father worked during the war as a civilian supervisor of a naval munitions depot and died of lung disease in California in 1955."

You have some explaining to do Gov. Brewer -- or should I say, Frau Hitler? (Political Wire)


-According to Adm. Thad Allen, "(drill)(inaudible)(blow out of air)"-
Last night, I came across this alarming blurb at Bloomberg News:


BP Plc has decided not to attach a second blowout preventer on its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico and efforts to end the flow are over until the relief wells are finished, according to the U.S. Coast Guard's Thad Allen, who spoke at a press conference today.


Holy crap! BP had quit trying and we were all going to have to drink oil and die forever -- yikes! But after a while, I noticed that no other news source was picking up the story. Whatever was the deal?

So I went straight to the source. I looked up the transcript of said press conference, to see what Adm. Allen had to say about the blowout preventer. I swear to God, this was what I saw -- verbatim:


Q: Yes, Anthony Guegel with "Upstream." Admiral, President Obama said the federal government had insisted that a second relief well be drilled. And I understand that operation has been suspended in order to ready the rig's BOP stack for that possible option of stabbing over the existing BOP.

But couldn't another BOP stack be secured from another rig, especially now that deepwater drilling has been suspended for six months?

ADM. ALLEN: That's a good question. Let me explain, because in fact, they are back drilling again. When the second (inaudible) is deployed in the second relief well, it was an opportunity to bring bring a blowout preventer down to site in case that should be the way we wanted to cap the well.

And after we went out and inspected the (inaudible) itself on the rig, one of the reasons it takes an oil rig to move one of these things is the (marine rider package) and the (blowout center) together are about a million pounds. And it takes an actual drilling apparatus to be able to (inaudible) it.

So what they did was, they put a second (inaudible) on the (inaudible) before (last port), (inaudible) solution. As they moved into (top drill), they stopped drilling on (each) (inaudible) and moved the drill rig over with the (blow out of air) ready to put it down and (inaudible) pressure with the mud (inaudible). That did not happen. (At this point that) (inaudible) (drilling) (inaudible) to (get back) (inaudible).

Next question.


No really, go check. I'm not screwing around here. I don't know if the Bloomberg reporter was working from this or what, but this is pretty much the definition of useless. Did BP really quit? No, they hadn't. But how the fuck was I supposed to know from this?

These pressers are apparently done by phone, so the next question should've been, "Hey, how about we all pitch in and get you a freakin' land line?" (Bloomberg, DeepwaterHorizonResponse.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Halliburton campaign donations spike."

This wouldn't have anything to do with a criminal probe into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, would it? When you're in trouble, you throw money around like it's going out of style.

It's the Dubai way. (Politico)