BP catastrophe: Where were the regulators?

According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, British Petroleum’s favorability rating now stands at 6%,

That's worse than the favorability rating of Congress, presently standing at 12%.

Here are some numbers from Daily Kos that might take that 12% figure even lower:

Since 2006, Senators have received $3.39 million from the oil industry. 97.5% of that went to Republicans. 70% of it went to Senator John McCain. Some details:

John McCain (R-AZ, $36,649 from BP and $2,428,287 from Big Oil since 2006)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA, $16,200 from BP and $329,100 from Big Oil since 2006)
Mark Begich (D-AK, $8,550 from BP and $85,958 from Big Oil since 2006)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK, $8,500 from BP and $223,326 from Big Oil since 2006)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY, $8,500 from BP and $408,400 from Big Oil since 2006)

In the House of Representatives, it's been downright crazy. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas actually apologized to BP, claiming that President Obama had subjected the company to "a $20 billion shakedown." And she-who-endlessly-talks-crazy, Rep.Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, said that the Gulf escrow fund was "extortion."

The hugely catastrophic BP spill that began on April 20, when the 11 rig workers were killed, is presently flowing at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

So where were the regulators? ABC News reviewed federal records and reported on Thursday that "despite chronic safety problems, the Minerals Management Service, or MMS, imposed paltry fines that often took years to collect. In the overwhelming majority of cases where workers were actually killed, there was no record of fines being paid. Where fines did occur, the maximum penalty was only $25,000.. In a 20-year period, MMS has only fined the oil drilling industry $21 million for hundreds of serious safety violations -- about a million dollars in fines per year for an industry that made $800 billion in profits in that timeframe."

Crazy & dangerous in Arizona

Arizona's best known neo-Nazi, J.T. Ready of Phoenix, is as dangerous as he is crazy. Yesterday, according to the Arizona Daily Star, he asked people to bring "plenty of firearms and ammo" to a 24-hour operation that he was setting up in Pinal County,north of Tucson. He said he wanted a "show of force and solidarity of concerned patriots ... to stand the line near Interstate 8 to show the world that the line in the sand has been drawn." He talked about placing snipers in position.

One would think that Pinal Country Sheriff Paul Babeu (yes, the guy that did that deceptive commercial at the Nogales fence with immigration flip-flopper John McCain) would have had a fit over the Ready event. But he was wishy-washy about it. He said he discouraged this operation that would "not be helpful, " but he said he was appreciative of the offer to take up arms and patrol. He added that he did not have enough deputies to send a monitor team.

Ready also said, "Armed narco-terrorists are bringing in loads of chemical warfare into our nation. These incursions should be treated no less serious than Al-Qaeda terrorists smuggling Sarin nerve agent into our population centers."

The Star article reports that Ready is "an ex-Marine who was twice court-martialed and received a bad-conduct discharge, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was arrested in Florida in 1992 for aggravated assault with a weapon and damage to property, according to a 2006 Arizona Republic story. In 2008, three Arizona Republican legislators called for Ready's removal from a party precinct committee in Mesa's legislative District 18 because of his ties to the National Socialist Movement. Ready has regularly pitched the idea of putting minefields along the U.S.-Mexico border as a security solution."

Sigh. Just another one of those days in Arizona in 2010 that remind me of Mississippi or Alabama in the 1960s.

Cost of two ongoing wars

If you date the beginning of the Vietnam War from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Afghanistan War has now lasted longer - 104 months.

* US deaths so far (in and near Afghanistan): 1,008

* The cost in dollars: approaching $300 billion

The Iraq War has now been going on for over seven years.

* The most recent US military death was on June 4

* US military deaths since war began on Mar. 19, 2003: 4,403. Since Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech on May 1, 2003: 4,264. Since Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009: 175

* The official number of US wounded in Iraq: 31,844. Estimated number of US wounded: over 100,000

The estimated number of Iraqi casualties due to the US invasion (JustForeignPolicy.org): 1,366,360

As of May 30th the US had spent a total of $1 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,