News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-05-21/news-roundup-hour-1
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano surveying the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on April 30
U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Cory J. Mendenhall/uscgd8 via Flickr
The status of financial reform legislation in the Senate. Lessons learned from Tuesday’s primaries. And oil from the massive B.P. Gulf of Mexico disaster begins to wash ashore. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Naftali Bendavid
national correspondent, "TheWall Street Journal"; author of "The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution."
Shailagh Murray
reporter, "The Washington Post."
Ron Elving
Washington editor for NPR.
Comments
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On the oil disaster:
Why aren't other deep drilling operations similar to the one that has caused this disaster being shut down to safeguard from complete devastation of the Gulf and our shores ?
The Kevin Costner oil separator is being tested next week, a boom called a Gunderboom that catches the oil below the surface is available in Maine, what is being done to coordinate the need for many tankers, ramping up of refineries?
Why hasn't the administration more aggressively taken control of the disaster in the Gulf? A month has gone by and BP's efforts have not improved the situation at all, in fact it is worsening and scarily threatening the ecosystems and economy of the Gulf region. All resources should be brought to bear to solve this problem, including the military, and BP should pay for all of it.
Please ask about the former BP safety consultant (Kenneth Abbott) who has asked a federal judge in Houston to issue an injunction to force BP to stop oil production at its Atlantis platform, which is in 7000 feet of water. He claims that Atlantis is several wells and has 3-4 times the destructive possibilities as the Deepwater Horizon well.
It's not really going to help things to throw the incumbents out unless we reform the way these folks are financed! All we'll do until then is replace one person funded by special intrests with another person funded by special intrests. (often the same intrests sponser both sides)
The anger expressed by the earlier caller (and the Tea Party) seems irrational. Voters need to be less emotional and vote rationally instead. It is not a consistent position to be opposed to all incumbents. Some incumbents are extremists in their parties, but some are willing to compromise. If you get rid of them all, you may end up with more extremist replacements for moderate incumbents or vice versa (moderates to replace extremists). You can't want both outcomes.
I sort of disagree with most commentators about the primary and by-elections. Yes, there is a degree of anger but it is less to do with the so-called anti-incumbency then a reflection of the polarizing nature of the US politics. Other than the John Murta's district, it seems that every other district's winner, Republican or Democrat, point to the dissatisfaction of the incumbent or newcomer's position as not being too far to the right or left.
For the Republicans, this polarization began with the past Bush-Cheney campaigns at least. For the Democrats, the President has to bear some responsibility as some file and rank are disillusion with the pace of the change as well as the its content. His administration has way too many insiders.