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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says that if his Imaginary Family were victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, they would need to have military-style AR-15 assault rifles to protect themselves against "armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods."

During a hearing Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, the South Carolina Republican pressed Attorney General Eric Holder about his support for a proposed assault weapons ban.

"Can you imagine a circumstance where an AR-15 would be a better defense tool than, say, a double-barrel shotgun?" Graham asked. "Let me give you an example, that you have an lawless environment, where you have an natural disaster or some catastrophic event -- and those things unfortunately do happen, and law and order breaks down because the police can't travel, there's no communication. And there are armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods. Can you imagine a situation where your home happens to be in the crosshairs of this group that a better self-defense weapon may be a semiautomatic AR-15 vs. a double-barrel shotgun?"

Holder pointed out that the senator was "dealing with a hypothetical in a world that doesn't exist."

(Obviously, Eric Holder doesn't get it. That's where all wingnuts live!)

"I'm afraid that world does exist," Graham insisted. "It existed in New Orleans, to some extent up in Long Island [after Hurricane Sandy], it could exist tomorrow if there's a cyber attack against country and the power grid goes down and the dams are released and chemical plants are -- discharges."

(Lindsey really likes to think about --discharges.)

"I don't think that New Orleans would have been better served having people with AR-15s in a post-Katrina environment," Holder replied.

"What I'm saying is if my (imaginary) family was in the crosshairs of gangs that were roaming around neighborhoods in New Orleans or or any other location, the deterrent effect of an AR-15 to protect my family, I think, is greater than a double-barrel shotgun."

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there were reports of armed vigilantes with assault weapons shooting African-Americans.

"Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims," ProPublica's A.C. Thompson wrote in 2008. "Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about 15 to 30 residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply 'didn't belong.'"

Thompson found that at least 11 African-American men ended up being shot near the Algiers Point neighborhood by a militia of men who were apparently all white.

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Police in Winnsboro, Louisiana confirmed on Monday that a woman had been set on fire over the weekend and racial slurs were found scrawled on her car.

Sharmeka Moffitt told police that she was attacked and burned by three men wearing white hoodies at a park in Franklin Parish on Sunday, according to KNOE.

At a press conference on Monday, police said that the letters "KKK" were spray-painted on the hood of her car.

Winnsboro Police Chief Kevin Cobb said that the FBI was investigating whether the incident was a hate crime, but authorities declined to classify the attack as racially motivated on Monday. The Franklin Parish Sheriff, Louisiana State Police and the state fire Marshall's office were also participating in the investigation.

A friend of the Moffitt family told KNOE that the victim had burns on 90 percent of her body and was currently in stable condition at the LSU-Shreveport hospital.

The Facebook page "Prayers for Sharmeka Moffitt" was created on Sunday night to support the victim and encourage the media to cover the story. By Monday afternoon, that page had received over 8,000 "likes."

UPDATE: Investigators are now saying that the injuries and "attack" were self-inflicted:

Two days after multiple law enforcement agencies began an investigation into the attack and burning of a Winnsboro woman at Civitan Park, authorities now believe the wounds were self-inflicted.

According to Winnsboro Police Chief Lester Thomas, evidenced gathered at the scene of the incident shows 20-year-old Sharmeka Moffitt's initial claims that she was attacked and set on fire turned out to be false claims made up by Moffitt.

"This is a case in which the investigators had to pursue the facts that were presented," Thomas said. "It's been a very disturbing case for everyone involved."

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We're hearing a lot of tough talk from Republicans as we did from LA Gov. Bobby Jindal on this Sunday's Meet the Press about how they're not going to cooperate at all in enacting provisions in the Affordable Care Act now that the Supreme Court has ruled on its Constitutionality.

Howard Dean did a nice job of pointing out that states are going to get the insurance exchanges whether they're willing to cooperate or not because the federal government will set them up if governors like Jindal refuse to, as he was promising here. He also explained how it didn't make any sense economically for them to refuse the money in the Medicaid expansion.

Once you have hospitals and businesses and voters getting upset with the politicians for saying they're going to refuse that money and they start hearing from them after a lot of this national dust up is over, we'll see what Jindal actually does. This is the same guy who was calling the stimulus plan a failure and then did this: Jindal takes credit for stimulus, presents constituents with jumbo-sized stimulus check.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

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This is the kind of fact free claptrap that passes for political commentary on Fox every day of the week. From this Thursday's Your World with Neil Cavuto, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal joined Cavuto's show to critique President Obama's speech in Cleveland, Ohio this Thursday.

Naturally we had Jindal running through the list of typical Republican talking points about all the evils of "big gubmint" and how we're going to end up like those evil Socialists over in Europe and the public sector just needs to "get out of the way" and allow the private sector to unleash all of that awesome job creating they're going to do if they were just free from those over burdensome regulations and taxes they're having to pay.

Never mind that they had eight years under Bush which proved those theories aren't true. And now of course you're not supposed to be allowed to talk about that, because we can't have anyone daring to ask the voters to do something like remember their recent history over the last decade. That would just be terribly irresponsible.

Note to Bobby Jindal: until Republicans take some different economic stances than they have under Bush, or most of their candidates and leaders for the last half century or so, it's going to be fair game to run against those policies. It's only too late if your party has actually changed those policies, or stances, which they have not.

Here's how Fox's blog, Fox News Insider, characterized the interview: Bobby Jindal: It Sounds Like President Obama Is Trying to Run Against President Bush; He’s 8 Years Too Late:

Jindal described Obama’s remarks as “disappointing,” because he talked about the need for even more government spending in America. “What it shows is President Obama continues to believe that government is the source of our prosperity; he couldn’t be more wrong,” he added.

He pointed out the one thing he thought the president said that was right was when he said that this election is only about two clear choices. “We can either go the European way or the American way. We can either grow the government or grow the private sector.”

“He literally can’t ask people ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’” Jindal said. “So, instead of talking about his record, instead he has to attack Governor Romney and instead he has to try and distract us with his class warfare.”

Cavuto couldn't be bothered to point out that these days, the "European way" means a whole lot of painful austerity measures; the same kind which are being pushed by his party and their presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, that's not working out so well over there right now.

Jindal also seems to think that government spending and private sector spending are mutually exclusive, as though the government spending when the economy is otherwise stagnant doesn't help the private sector as well, or at least he pretended to here. I've already noted here at C&L, Jindal was more than happy to take credit for that government stimulus spending back in 2009, but wasn't willing to admit President Obama's policies were responsible for his state's recovery back then either. I guess we can at least give him an "A" for being consistent about sticking to his same lies a few years later.

Jindal was still being touted as a potential presidential contender himself until he gave his zombie-like performance after President Obama's State of the Union back in 2009. It seems he's brushed up his act on television a bit since then, but he's no less dishonest. And now he's supposedly on the short list for a spot as the vice presidential candidate on a Romney ticket.

Given Mittens' propensity to lie non-stop every time his mouth is opened, I'd say Jindal would fit right in.

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I've got to say I agree with Andrea Mitchell and Chris Cillizza here. It's really disgusting that in this day and age we've got people finding humor in the idea of someone shooting President Obama, or any politician for that matter. We've got a good deal of the nation absolutely disgusted at the shooting of Trayvon Martin and then there's this -- Santorum told to ‘pretend it’s Obama’ at shooting range:

At a shooting range in Louisiana on Friday, an onlooker encouraged Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to pretend the target he was firing at was President Barack Obama.

“Santorum is shooting a 1911 Colt,” Politico’s Juana Summers tweeted from the sheriff’s office shooting range in West Monroe. “Range master says ‘Well, it’s not your first rodeo.’ Someone here says ‘pretend its Obama.’”

As David noted, Santorum was wearing headphones and wasn't near the woman who made the remarks and here's how he responded:

SANTORUM: It's absurd. No, I'm not pretending it's anybody. We're shooting pistols. It's a very horrible and terrible remark and I'm glad I didn't hear it.

And as the Raw Story post reported, someone may be getting a visit from the Secret Service as a result of this.

MSNBC featured two very bright high school students on Hardball and then on Lawrence O'Donnell's Last Word and seeing these kids stand up to the history revisionists like Michele Bachmann or these people trying to push creationism into our school kids as science gives me some hope for our future.

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In the video above -- Andy Kopplin's son takes his anti-creationism campaign to 'Hardball':

Zack Kopplin, the son of Andy Kopplin, Mayor Mitch Landrieu's chief of administration, was featured on a segment of "Hardball with Chris Matthews" this evening.

Kopplin, a high school student, discussed his efforts to combat the Louisiana Science Education Act, a 2008 law that governs how local school systems can introduce supplemental materials into science lessons on topics such as evolutionary biology, global warming and cloning.

During the segement, Kopplin expressed his belief that Gov. Bobby Jindal, who graduated as a biology major from Brown University and signed the act into law, in his "heart of hearts" knows "how vital evolution is to biology."

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And the subject of the threats did not come up on O'Donnell's show, but here's a reminder of what this student put up with after challenging Bachmann that Dave wrote about last week -- Right-wingers flood teen who challenged Bachmann to a debate with threats of violence.

"To address the tragic shortage in stock photos of scary minorities, Stephen [Colbert] starts his own fear-based photo licensing service." Features campaign ads by Sharron Angle in Nevada and David Vitter in Lousiana using the same scary illegal aliens.

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I've just got to wonder if it's possible to find a bigger political hack than Louisiana Senator David Vitter. Mr. Drill-baby-drill Diaper-boy apparently thinks that unless the President just did a few more photo ops down in Louisiana and caused who knows what kind of problems for anyone within ten miles or more of him with the security involved when a President of the United States goes anywhere, the media isn't going to cover what's going on.

That or the more likely scenario which is that he's just taking a cheap shot for political purposes and trying to put President Obama in the same box as George Bush who couldn't be interrupted from his vacation to even bother watching news coverage during Hurricane Katrina.

I've got a ton of criticisms for how this disaster has been managed. How many photo ops the President has done in Louisiana isn't one of them. If David Vitter is worried about this story being moved off of the front page, he's got ample opportunity to make sure it doesn't himself as he did here.

I'd prefer Vitter be asked if he thinks the industry that's he's taking that campaign cash from was regulated properly so something like this doesn't happen again rather than listening to Chris Wallace give him a chance to just play politics with this disaster.

WALLACE: Senator Vitter, let's get to this question of the cleanup, because both of you are exactly right.

VITTER: Sure.

WALLACE: Even if not a drop more oil is spilled into the gulf, according to some estimates...

VITTER: Right.

WALLACE: ... as much as 200 million gallons of oil are already in the water.

Senator Vitter, how long will it...

VITTER: Right.

WALLACE: ... take to clean that up? And how long will it take to restore your state's coastline and especially, as we're seeing here on the screen, that very fragile marsh land?

VITTER: Well, ultimately, it will take years, Chris, and I hope everyone in the nation realizes that so we just don't forget about this story once the flow is stopped.

I also hope President Obama realizes that. He hasn't been to Louisiana since June 4th. I'm afraid he's decided to deal with this issue at least politically by not coming back here and trying to move it off of the front page rather than dealing with the situation forcefully.

Again, even if this flow is stopped permanently, we have major challenges ahead, number one in terms of cleanup, number two in terms of economic devastation, including the drilling moratorium.

WALLACE: But let me just follow up with you there, Senator Vitter.

VITTER: Sure.

WALLACE: Why do you -- why do you say that he's moving it off? I know you were very critical -- and we'll get to Mr. Nungesser in a second -- initially in how the Obama administration is handling this. Are you saying they're trying to sweep it under the rug now?

VITTER: I get the impression that is the president's political motivation, his way of dealing with this. He was coming here on a pretty regular basis trying to deal with the issues personally. He hasn't done that in Louisiana since June 4th. That's personally disappointing to me.

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A security contractor who was once responsible for keeping reporters away from cleanup workers is now coming forward to blow the whistle on BP.

Adam Dillon claims he was fired by the oil company after he took pictures showing how dispersants were being used in the Gulf.

WDSU anchor Scott Walker first met Dillon in June while trying to report on cleanup efforts on Grand Isle, Louisiana.

"When you met me, and you were straight with me and I saw the way that you were being treated, I told you I wished I could tell you more," Dillon told Walker in an interview Friday. "And after the way BP treated me, I'm telling you now that you deserve an answer, and that's why you're getting an answer."

Dillon maintains that he was fired several weeks later. "I took pictures of something and I brought it to the attention of the command structure and whatever I took pictures of, 12 hours later I was gone," he said.

"Dillon believes the photos showed how dispersants were being used in the Gulf of Mexico," reported WDSU. The former security contractor did not provide specifics about how photos of dispersants might have angered BP management.

"What this company is doing to this country right now is just wrong," said Dillon.

WDSU did not find anyone at BP willing to comment on Dillon's dismissal.

h/t The Political Carnival

This needs to be investigated to find out if the allegations are true.

Allegations emerge BP is dumping sand to cover oil:

C.S.’s original goal was to gain access to some of the areas being guarded by BP contractors and deemed “off limits” to reporters, but yesterday he, along with Save Our Shores‘s Judson Parker, made an unexpected discovery.

They believe that BP has been dumping sand on the beaches in order to cover up oil. You can view some video Judson shot of the beach over here. Read on...

The above video apparently got the attention of Fox News who featured it in the segment below, and naturally they asked if there was any proof BP was doing the dumping, which there's not. When they're already trucking in sand for those berms and keeping everyone away from the areas covered in oil, I would not expect there to be any evidence unless some employee came forward and said this is what they are doing.

Pair that with this set of videos taken in Pensacola Florida and it raises more questions about what they're doing with this supposed "cleanup". h/t Hechicera

Pensacola Beach June 23rd:

Same beach (same videographer a few days later):

So questions. Are they trucking in sand and just covering up the mess? Are they trying to clean it up and the efforts just aren't doing a bit of good with the tides full of oil coming in and out? No matter what they're doing it doesn't appear to be making any difference. The beaches still have oil on them underneath the sand as the above video clips show. It would be nice if the media would get out there and demand some access to these sites and find out. If they are just dumping sand over the oil it needs to stop immediately.