Another Obama Official Resigns After Ginned Up
Conservative Outrage: A Timeline

post from TPMMuckraker on 01 May 2012 06:01:13 AM. © TPMMuckraker

From the moment President Obama took office, conservatives have made a small sport of attacking obscure functionaries within his administration -- surfacing old, often out-of-context statements and actions that make his political appointees appear extreme. Over the past three years, they've taken aim at a handful officials, and almost without exception, they've felled their targets. The goal isn't really to root bad actors out of the executive branch, but rather to amass a pile of scalps and contend that Obama is radicalizing the government.

Al Armendariz is the latest victim. He resigned from the EPA on Sunday after conservative media latched on to comments he made years ago about deterring bad actors in fossil fuel industries by making examples of -- or 'crucifying' -- those that get caught breaking the law. In context, his remarks were harmless, if a bit hyperbolic. Most reports ignored the context -- he said the word "crucify," after all.

His undoing differs from the Shirley Sherrod fiasco in two key respects: Armendariz insists he was not pressured to step down by the administration, and despite the harmless nature of his comments, he never proffered a defense of himself -- he apologized for his remarks, and insisted they ran counter to the spirit of the EPA's mission. But the timeline of events leading up to his resignation follows a pattern that will be familiar to anybody who watched Sherrod or Van Jones lose their jobs.

November 5, 2009 President Barack Obama appoints Armendariz administrator of the EPA's region six office in Dallas. He's charged with of managing EPA's activities in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and 66 tribal nations, according to a biography that has since been removed from EPA's website.

May 10, 2010 Armendariz appears at a town council meeting in Dash, Texas which had become a hub for natural gas pipelines the Barnett Shale project. One father complains that his 11-year-old son lost a baby tooth that wasn't replaced by an adult tooth and that his dentist said it was a common occurrence in the area and "way out of whack compared to the national average."

Answering a question about the EPA's enforcement power over oil companies, Armendariz uses a metaphor about how Romans "used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean" by finding five men to "crucify," as a deterrent to bad behavior. He prefaced the remark by saying that it was a little "crude" and "perhaps inappropriate" for the meeting, and, crucially, the full context of the remarks make clear he was referring to companies that break the law.

The "crucify" remark doesn't make the story that ran on the front page of the Denton Record-Chronicle the next morning, but the reporter who covered it said she believes she would have included it if it had created controversy at the time.

"The things I remembered from that night was that they were a pretty beaten-down group of people out in Dash and they'd had trouble for a very long time getting any meaningful response, and they're still having trouble," journalist Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe told TPM in a phone interview.

"It was a pretty full house that night," she said. "They were glad to hear there was going to be some federal enforcement, because they hadn't had anything meaningful up until that point."

May 12, 2010 - Dec 31, 2010 Nothing.

Jan 1, 2011 - Dec 31, 2011 Nothing.

Jan 1, 2012 - April 24, 2012 Nothing.

April 25, 2012 Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) speaks on the floor of the Senate chamber. Sometime in April, in the course of research, his Environment and Public Works Committee staffers discovered a video of Armendariz posted nearly two years ago by someone who had attended the meeting. Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for the Committee minority, told TPM that the original video was about an hour and a half long (it's since been taken down). Inhofe's clip was one minute and 49 seconds:

April 26, 2012: The media storm over the two-year-old comments kicks into full gear -- Wall Street Journal editorials, blog posts, Fox News segments, the works.

Rush Limbaugh addressed the controversy with typical restraint. "That's how this guy wanted to deal and was dealing with oil and gas companies, legitimate American and international corporations," he said. "He hates them, he wants to subjugate 'em, he wants to crucify 'em, just because he can. And he's bragging about how to do it. That's who they are, my friends."

April 27, 2012: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said she talked to Armendariz and is glad he apologized, calling his comments "disappointing."

April 29, 2012 Armendariz writes his resignation letter to Jackson.

April 30, 2012: Armendariz's resignation letter and Jackson's accompanying statement becomes public.

Dempsy tells TPM it's "really hard to tell" whether Armendariz left on his own or whether he was under pressure by the Obama administration. "We have noticed this kind of shift in rhetoric and actions by the EPA in that they want to say one thing about natural gas and producing natural gas and yet when you look at their record, it's very clear that they want to be in line with the environmental community. It's a very difficult tightrope to walk."

The White House and EPA declined to comment on the record about whether Armendariz was pressured to leave. However Armendariz also wrote a letter to colleagues and friends insisting he wasn't. "This was not something that was asked of me by Administrator Jackson or the White House," he insists. "It is a decision I made myself. I had become too much of a distraction, and no one person is more important than the incredible work being done by the rest of the team at EPA."

"Over the weekend Dr. Armendariz offered his resignation, which I accepted," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in an official statement. "I respect the difficult decision he made and his wish to avoid distracting from the important work of the Agency. We are all grateful for Dr. Armendariz's service to EPA and to our nation."

You can read Armendariz' resignation letter here.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/ykS9sD2WxX0/epa_white_house_armend
ariz_oil_limbaugh.php

Digg this

Romney plays to nation's racial subconscious

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 01 May 2012 06:00:15 AM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Presidential politics is an increasingly exact science. Words are carefully chosen, poll-tested and fine-tuned before being used, and every catchphrase, slogan and sound bite is designed to maximize the campaign's appeal to their target audience.

This appeal takes place on two different levels- one conscious and one subconscious. While the term "subconscious" alludes to subliminal advertising, it generally only means appealing to implicit attitudes that are not consciously processed (although subliminal ads have entered presidential campaigns before). The best way to think of the distinction between the two is to consider what a candidate says as a conscious appeal, but how the candidate says it, or the choice to say it in the first place, a subconscious appeal.

Following the 1980 Republican Convention, Ronald Reagan launched his general election campaign with what have since become boilerplate GOP talking points. Here's an excerpt of what he said:

I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level And I believe that we've distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment. And if I do get the job I'm looking for, I'm going to devote myself to trying to reorder those priorities and to restore to the states and local communities those functions which properly belong there.

On a conscious level, what Reagan said was fairly innocuous. But how did he say it? The speech was framed around Regan's "[belief] in states' rights," and was delivered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the same place where three civil rights workers had been killed for attempting to register African-American voters.

The Reagan campaign chose the location under the advice of Strom Thurmond (who, ironically, was later found to have fathered an out-of-wedlock child with his African-American housekeeper), and used the frame and location of the speech to make an appeal to the "Dixiecrats" of the South. Jimmy Carter failed to call Reagan out for the implicit racial appeal, and Reagan went on to cream Carter, winning every Southern state which Carter had won in 1976, except for Georgia, Carter's home state.

Fast-forward to 2012.

Mitt Romney is the front-runner for the Republican nomination but has showed signs of weakness with rural voters, particularly in the South. Many Republican strategists are worried that Team Romney will not be able to generate enough enthusiasm to win crucial states such as North Carolina and Virginia. Moreover, the rhetoric necessary to generate such enthusiasm among the GOP base will likely alienate independents in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. How has the Romney campaign attempted to confront this dilemma? With a catchy, multi-faceted slogan:

The black guy "isn't working" - get it?

As Tommy Christopher of Mediaite notes:

When I first saw the banner...the multiple meanings were clear: President Obama's policies aren't working, the Obama presidency isn't working, President Obama...isn't working, as in, doing any work. That's not a nice thing to say about any president, but like it or not, it becomes a more loaded accusation when leveled at our first black president.

Subconscious appeals are called dog-whistles for a reason: Three different people can read the above phrase and get three very different messages. "Obama Isn't Working" has economic connotations for some and racial connotations for others. For the surprisingly high amount of Americans who hold implicit racial biases, the phrase also can trigger negative subconscious associations regarding President Obama based on the color of his skin, aka racism.

Because of the slogan's multiple meanings, the Romney campaign has plausible deniability when its racial component is brought up. However, given its history, the GOP has forfeited its right to the benefit of the doubt when it comes to race. Considering the level of scrutiny placed on every word used by a presidential candidate, and the emphasis Romney is placing on this new slogan (in addition to appearing on stage, it has its own website), I find it hard to believe that the racial connotations of "Obama Isn't Working" went unnoticed before the phrase was unveiled.

Moreover, considering the benefit Team Romney gains from being able to trigger implicit racial biases without getting taken to task for it on a conscious level, it is far more likely that the creation of the slogan was a deliberate play to America's dark, but very real, subconscious biases and prejudices based on race.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/4iPVo25R1Lc/romney-plays-to-nations
-racial.html

Digg this

Muse in the Morning

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 01 May 2012 06:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Muse in the MorningJoy I know you have talent. What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent. I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I'm a pretty darn good cook. :-)Let your talent[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29758/muse-in-the-morning

Digg this

The Chemical War on Women

post from Firedoglake on 01 May 2012 04:30:20 AM. © Firedoglake

When we last saw short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump he was embarrassing America in Scotland by declaring wind-power the worst thing that ever happened to that country.Somehow a nation that had to deal with the Romans, the Vikings, the English, the[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/kvgx2bSKBOM/

Digg this

New wind turbines produce water as well as energy

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 01 May 2012 04:00:12 AM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

This is an interesting new addition that could solve a lot of problems in many parts of the world. It may not generate substantial water everywhere, but even if it's only for some regions this could make a big difference. Single purpose products seem so outdated. CNN:

"This technology could enable rural areas to become self-sufficient in terms of water supply," says Thibault Janin, director of marketing at Eole Water."As the design and capabilities develop, the next step will be to create turbines that can provide water for small cities or areas with denser populations," he adds.Eole Water is currently displaying a working prototype of the 24 meter tall WMS1000 in the desert near Abu Dhabi that has been able to produce 62 liters of water an hour, says Janin.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/pqBbWxIAlIk/new-wind-turbines-produ
ce-water-as-well.html

Digg this

Cartnoon

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 01 May 2012 03:21:18 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Mouse and Garden [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29761/cartnoon-by-ek-hornbeck

Digg this

The Internationale

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 01 May 2012 03:07:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Arise ye workers from your slumbersArise ye prisoners of wantFor reason in revolt now thundersAnd at last ends the age of cant.Away with all your superstitionsServile masses arise, ariseWe'll change henceforth the old traditionAnd spurn the dust to win[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29760/the-internationale

Digg this

Late Night Karaoke

[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29741/late-night-karaoke

Digg this

USD Remains Bearish During Slow Trading Day

Source: ForexYard USD Remains Bearish During Slow Trading Day

The US dollar extended its bearish trend during yesterday's trading session, as investors continued to digest the disappointing US Advance GDP figure released last week. The greenback hit a two month low against the Japanese yen while the GBP/USD rose to an eight-month high. Turning to today, most European … [visit site to read . . . → Read More: USD Remains Bearish During Slow Trading Day

Read The Full Article:
http://jutiagroup.com/20120501-usd-remains-bearish-during-slow-trading-day/

Digg this

Austerity hit Spain also falls back into
recession

The other day it was the UK falling back into recession and now Spain, another country that implemented harsh austerity. Anyone else seeing a trend here? More on the latest bad news for Spain from Reuters via CNBC:

Spain's economy slipped into recession in the first quarter as domestic demand shrank, data showed on Monday, with deep government spending cuts in an uphill battle to trim the public deficit likely to delay any return to growth.Gross domestic product shrank 0.3 percent in January-March from the previous quarter according to preliminary National Statistics Institute data, unchanged from October-December and compared to a Reuters poll expecting a 0.4 percent contraction.

Who will be the first country in the EU to tell the bankers to pound go pound salt?