Remember that last week President Barack Obama met with British Petroleum’s CEO. When they parted company BP agreed to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to compensate victims of the oil spill.
Next day the BP CEO and top executives appeared before a House Committee on which sits Republican Joe Barton of Texas.
Barton said he was “ashamed that a private company would be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown.” Nobody was twisting Barton’s arm to make the apology either.
Yesterday, Thomas Frank, wrote an opinion in the Wall Street Journal:
The remark was morally inverted but it was not, as Mr. Barton said, after being pressured to recant, a “misconstruction.” Instead, it was a glimpse into the soul of a certain sort of conservative, a reminder of just what kind of government we can expect if the reinvigorated right recaptures Congress this fall.
Today Republicans defeated Democrats’ showcase election-year jobs bill, including an extension of weekly unemployment benefits for millions of people out of work more than six months. [CBS News]
The 57-41 vote fell three votes short of the 60 required to crack a GOP filibuster.
The rejected bill would also have provided $16 billion in new aid to states, preserving the jobs of thousands of state and local government workers and providing what White House officials called an insurance policy against a double-dip recession. It also included dozens of tax breaks sought by business lobbyists, and tax increases on domestically produced oil and on investment fund managers.
The demise of the bill means that unemployment benefits will phase out for more than 200,000 people a week. Governors who had been counting on federal aid will now have to consider a fresh round of budget cuts, tax hikes and layoffs of state workers.
Also today Republican Bobby Jindal was railing about resuming deep water drilling for oil in the gulf because of the need for oil jobs and oil.
Republican Sharron Angle is complaining about payment of unemployment to the lazy unemployed.
Hard to figure out these Republicans. If this is the brand of conservatism the Republicans now strive for I don’t think many of us can handle it. I keep thinking this is really more of a class war than politics.
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