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Lawrence O'Donnell took Mary Landrieu to task for her blatant hypocrisy which Ryan Grim wrote about here at the Huffington Post.

Mary Landrieu: 'Obama-McConnell Plan' Is 'Almost Morally Corrupt':

Sen. Mary Landrieu, a conservative Democratic from Louisiana, lashed out Tuesday at President Obama's deal with congressional Republicans that allows tax cuts for the wealthy to be extended for two years.

Extending the tax cuts for those making more than a million dollars a year is borderline immoral, Landrieu charged. "I'm going to argue forcefully for the nonsensicalness and the almost, you know, moral corruptness of that particular policy," said Landrieu, walking into a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats. "This is beyond politics. This is about justice and doing what's right."

Landrieu was fuming about the deal. On her way into the meeting, she slammed the tax-cut extension as a needless giveaway, adding, "That's all I have to say." But it wasn't. She emerged from the meeting a few moments later to continue prosecuting her case to reporters.

"It's what I'm calling the Obama-McConnell plan. We're going to borrow $46 billion from the poor, from the middle class, from businesses of all sizes basically to give a tax cut to families in America today, that despite the recession, are making over a million dollars. I mean, this is unprecedented. Unprecedented. I want to repeat that," she said. Landrieu added, however, that she had yet to make a decision on the final package and was speaking strictly about the extension of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Go read the rest but as O'Donnell pointed out, Landrieu has been holding up appointments to try to get more off shore oil drilling in the Gulf and doing everything she can to distance herself from President Obama where he is hated in her state. She also voted for those Bush tax cuts when they first passed. And now she's calling a deal for partial extension "morally corrupt". That's something she ought to know a great deal about.

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In a totally unsurprising move, Sen. Landrieu once again stood up for her benefactors by opposing the proposed make-up of a commission consisting of independent scientists rather than her favored officials from the oil industry. We've seen this sort of behavior time and time again from Landrieu, and in a sense when a region is as reliant on an industry as hers is we somewhat expect it from some elected officials. What sets Landrieu apart from most like her is that she's quite proud of what she does, and her rationalizations are consistent if nothing else. And though she's not as stupid as Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) who would kiss BP's Tony Hayward's ass in public, her championing industry at every turn, even in time of crisis, is nothing short of appalling.

(NOLA) WASHINGTON -- On the same day the White House commission investigating the Gulf oil spill announced its first meetings -- July 12-13 in New Orleans -- a Senate committee cast what amounted to a no-confidence vote on the commission's objectivity.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted Wednesday to create a congressional bipartisan commission to investigate the spill, with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and others saying a separate panel is needed because the White House commission has four environmental advocates -- three members and the executive staff director -- but no oil industry representation.

"Maybe the commission that the Congress sets up, in a more balanced fashion, with both very strong environmental views and very strong industry views, could actually come up with something that really might work for the dilemma and the challenge that this nation faces, which briefly is this: We use 20 million barrels of oil a day," Landrieu said. "That was true the day before the Deepwater Horizon blew up. It is true today. And we need to get that oil from somewhere."

The video above from CNN investigates Landrieu's industry ties, somewhat timidly, but at least the mainstream media is beginning to ask the questions which to the rest of us is patently obvious. Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics makes some good points about Landrieu.

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Haley Barbour backtracked from his previous statement that the $20 billion escrow account would make it less likely that BP will pay for everything in regards to the damages from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Now that he's found out the money will only go out in payments of $5 billion a year, he's much less worried his campaign donor will go out of business any time soon.

GREGORY: Governor, you--Governor Barbour, you've been concerned about the idea of this escrow fund, this $20 billion fund. Why?

BARBOUR: Right. Well, I thought that they were talking about taking $20 billion from BP all at once, and my fear was if you took $20 billion from them all at once, put it in an escrow account, then they wouldn't have the working capital to generate the revenue to pay us. I think the president was smart, and I congratulate him and BP that they reached an agreement. Instead of $20 billion taken out of that working capital all at once, it's actually going to be $5 billion this year, $5 billion the next year, $5 billion the following year and $5 billion the fourth year. That makes sure--as Mary Landrieu says, we want to make sure that BP stays in business, generates the revenues that will pay what they owe the states and our citizens. And I think the--I don't know if it's a compromise or not--the agreement they worked out not to do all the $20 billion, put it in an escrow account all at once, means that we're much more likely to get everything paid by BP, who, by the way, is supposed to pay everything.

I'm still wondering when Barbour will admit that there is a need for the fund in his state and that the oil has washed up on the shores of Mississippi as well.

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Sen. Mary Landrieu even after all of the devastation in her state is calling for the moratorium on offshore drilling to be lifted. Landrieu is now calling for stronger regulation of the industry but says that stronger regulations won't make any difference if they're not enforced. Of course that's true but this is the same woman who back in November of 2009 was downplaying the impact of any spill in the Gulf during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing and lecturing the president of SkyTruth John Amos about the size of the oil spill in Australia.

During the hearing, Landrieu attacked the testimony of John Amos, president of SkyTruth, a group which monitors environmental conditions through satellite images, regarding the impact of the Australian spill. Though current estimates of the spill's magnitude range from 1.2 million to 9 million gallons, Landrieu insisted that it was 823,000 gallons.

"She was accusing SkyTruth of not being truthful," Amos tells HuffPost. "She took a photo [of the spill] produced by Sen. Menendez's staff, she pointed at it and said, 'The fact is, these things happen.' I was speechless."

At a hearing last month held by the same committee to discuss drilling, Landrieu repeated her line about the reflecting pool, adding:

I mean, just the gallons are so minuscule compared to the benefits of U.S. strength and security, the benefits of job creation and energy security. So while there are risks associated with everything, I think you understand that they are quite, quite minimal.

HuffPost asked Landrieu whether she still stands by her comments and whether she supports new safety regulations proposed by the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling, which are opposed by the oil industry, as first reported by HuffPost on Monday.

In response, the senator's office said she does support MMS's proposed safety rules and issued this statement:

Senator Landrieu has been very supportive of Secretary Salazar and believes that the MMS and the Coast Guard have generally been good stewards of human safety with respect to the oil and gas industry. The Senator has said repeatedly that what happened in the Gulf last week is a tragedy and should be fully investigated to find out what went wrong and how it can be prevented in the future.

But she also firmly believes that this accident should not be used as an excuse to abandon plans to make America more energy secure.

Consider the alternative: to stop all domestic offshore drilling. That would only export America's oil and gas production activities -- and the attendant jobs that go with it -- overseas to countries that have neither the will, nor the resources, to address the environmental impacts.

Even with the development of alternative energy sources, the United States will still need oil into the foreseeable future. With no offshore domestic production, that oil would be tankered from overseas into the United States. The one thing we do know is that such a policy would do nothing to protect our shores. In fact, the National Academies of Science has found that while drilling and extraction account for less than 1 percent of all the oil that enters the marine environment, tankering accounts for four times that much.

Over a month later and she hasn't changed her tune yet. She claims that we have some of the strictest regulations in the world, which we don't and that drilling can still be done safely and then says the regulations weren't being enforced in the next breath. Just shameless. I'm sure she'll do her best to make sure anything they do put in place doesn't have any teeth so she can blame the government for the oversight failures again when something else goes wrong.

According to Merriam-Webster, stewardship means:

1 : the office, duties, and obligations of a steward

2 : the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care (stewardship of our natural resources)

That is the word Mary Landrieu chose to emphasize in this Senate Energy Committee from Nov 19, 2009. Indeed, that was the official title given to the hearing:

FULL COMMITTEE HEARING: to receive testimony on environmental stewardship policies related to offshore energy production (Hearing Room SD-366).

Given Landrieu's history it was not surprising then that she would emphasize the economic benefits to the Gulf region, while minimizing the environmental risks. Landrieu had twice before downplayed the impact of any oil spill.

What was surprising, however, was her lecturing, her berating tone for those who were there to spell out the risks of deepwater drilling. The complete text is below. Landrieu's arrogance can be clearly seen in the video.

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The Chairman. Senator Landrieu.

Senator Landrieu. Thank you.

Let me begin, quickly, Mr. Chairman, by just thanking you for holding this very important hearing, because, like several of my colleagues have said, I think it's important for us to really examine the facts and to try to seek the truth, relative to the benefits and the risk associated with energy production.

I particularly like the term "stewardship," and I believe that stewardship actually begins with presenting facts in a way that tell the truth about what's really happening in offshore and onshore oil and gas.

So, knowing, Mr. Amos, that you would bring your charts, I brought some of my own. I'd like to start with a picture first.

I think my colleagues need to see a satellite image from NASA in the Gulf of Mexico, because most of the offshore oil and gas drilling in the Nation, of course, has gone on, as Mr. Amos said, for 40 years off of the State that I represent. So, we would know a lot about this. So, I brought a picture of what the Gulf looks like.

These are oil spills in the Gulf. This was taken, Tom, when? 2007. But, Mr. Amos, as you know, none of these spills are spills, they're leakages, natural seepage in the Gulf of Mexico. On any day, you could take a shot from NASA, in any ocean, in any place in the world, and you will see the oil like this, because of this chart. I'm going to ask Mr. Amos to read this chart. Go ahead, please.

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Rachel Maddow recounts the lip service given to the need for our country to get off of its oil dependence by our political leaders while one disaster after another continues to wreak havoc our environment.

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The Senator from Louisiana continues her defense of the oil industry even as the massive oil slick caused by the Deepwater Horizon disaster threatens to destroy much of the Gulf coast's economy and downplays the potential environmental damage the slick may cause. I really don't know how this woman sleeps at night.

I don't know if anyone else has been watching HBO's new series on Sunday nights, Treme. I think it's wonderful if you haven't seen it. It's hard to watch the show without thinking about how ironic it is that just when someone decided to shine a spotlight on what happened after Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans and give that forgotten area some much needed attention, something like this happens.

Our ambulance chasing media is paying attention to the Gulf coast because of the oil spill, but they are still ignoring how devastated that region already was after those storms. They only seem capable of paying attention to anything long enough to go from one shiny object to the next. This oil slick story sadly won't be going away any time soon, but I'm quite sure John King asking very many politicians about their campaign contributions will.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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From The Daily Show May 3, 2010:

As the oil spill heads towards the Louisiana coast, Wyatt Cenac tries to figure out who'd want to kill New Orleans.

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Sen. Jon Kyl is asked by Candy Crowley how Republicans can object to the tax cuts for small businesses in the jobs bill Harry Reid is proposing and no shock here, Kyl objects to the proposals and thinks instead the solution is to keep the tax rates where they're at and don't increase them. That doesn't sound like anything that targets small businesses to me.

Although Kyl is claiming he's concerned for small businesses I would imagine he's much more upset about losing what the bill that came out of the Finance Committee would have done for big business instead.

The K Street Kickback: The Giveaway That Reid Stripped From The Jobs Bill:

The GOP is outraged that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) spiked the bipartisan jobs bill unveiled on Thursday, dropping some of its major provisions. But what exactly was cut from the bill that made them so angry -- was it the loss of the COBRA subsidies or the unemployment extension?

No, it was the K Street Kickback, which extends huge tax credits to large corporations. Unlike the Louisiana Purchase or the Cornhusker Kickback, which won the support of Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) for the health care reform bill, the K Street payoff is counted in the tens of billions of dollars, rather than a few hundred million. While Democratic senators come cheap, getting Republicans to buy into a jobs bill seems to cost taxpayers serious money.

One of the top priorities of Big Business lobbyists is the "tax extender" issue, the extension of expiring tax credits worth tens of billions of dollars to major corporations, which is favored by Republicans. Read on...

Transcript below the fold via CNN.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Feb. 1, 2010 with winner Bill O'Reilly -- EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: O'Reilly's math blunder: 4-year trial at $200 million a year equals "almost a trillion dollars"

Runners up James O'Keefe -- Clown Time: James O'Keefe Explains Himself and Mark Levin -- Levin suggests Sen. Patrick Leahy drunk on Senate floor.