Chart of the day.

Via Scott Nance at On The Hill...

It's been hard to resist…

…abandoning my general dislike for what the initiative system has become. Taxing the rich, legal pot and Costco vodka all have their appeal. Still, if that's what the people want, there's nothing in any of them that couldn't be accomplished by a more courageous and representative legislature, and an engaged electorate pressuring them to do the people's business as the people see fit. It's called "representative democracy" and I'm old-fashioned enough to think it's worth a try.

It's kind of reassuring, then, to see big oil lining up behind Tim Eyman's latest tax craziness. The Big Oil Initiative (that's what we're going to call it, right?) should be a big enough target for my hostility that even if I can't bring myself to wave the flag for the apparently good guys, I can leave 'em mostly alone.

Dave Reichert finds the cost of freedom.

Texas Freedom, that is, as in Republican energy boss Joe Barton's Texas Freedom fund, which he uses…

...to funnel vast sums of cash from Big Oil executives and lobbyists into competitive campaigns around the country, particularly into campaigns where filthy oil money might prove embarrassing to the recipients.

Most of it goes out in $1000 chunks, but Reichert's worth $2500 to the GOP apologist in chief and his big oil benefactors. That's the seventh largest of the 31 contributions the Fund has doled out to Republican House candidates this cycle, according to Open Secrets.

A not so open secret is what situational environmentalist Dave Reichert's done to become one of Big Oil's best buddies.

Hat tip to desmoinesdem.

Truth in advertising.

Oliver's got 'em.

What’s wrong in the Gulf of Mexico?

Lots of things, of course, but Dean Corgey, Seafarers International Union vice president for the Gulf Coast region, notes one that kind of surprises me, though on reflection I suppose it shouldn't...

The offshore exploration, production and service industry in the Gulf of Mexico, to the best of our knowledge, is 100 percent nonunion and increasingly foreign. Past attempts to organize these workers have been met with bitter opposition–not from employees but from employers.

Unions train workers, enforce safety regs and protect whistle blowers. How much difference would a union workforce have made in the decisions and actions that led up to the current crisis?

100% nonunion and totally screwed up. Seems to go hand in hand.

Good questions?

Cookie Jill's got a batch of 'em…

· why aren't we working on energy efficiency?
· why aren't we talking about our infrastructure's dependency upon oil?
· why are we so dependent upon the ooey gooey stuff?
· where are the "drill baby, drill" folks now?
· why is offshore drilling here in the u.s. not ok for the u.s. environmentalists but they are silent when the drilling is offshore in other countries? shouldn't we be concerned about their environment too?
· how much oil is required to ship food all over the united states?
· why is bp more powerful than the u.s?
· why are activists arrested but oil company executives are not?
· why aren't people being questioned about what they would be willing to give up to lessen our country's dependency upon oil?

…and "Because" isn't an answer.

Maybe it's time to open a "Sic 'Em, Barry" file...

...for stuff like this...

[W]e got our mops and our brooms out, we're cleaning stuff out, and they're sitting there saying, 'Hold the broom better.' 'That's not how you mop.' Don't tell me how to mop. Pick up a mop! Do some work on behalf of the American people to solve some of these problems.

...and this...

After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want to keys back. No! You can't drive. We don't want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.

...and this, too...

I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of B.P. and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else.

More, please.