John Aravosis at AmericaBlog uncovers visual evidence that BP photoshopped a fake picture of the crisis command center on the main page of its website. “I guess if you’re doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center,” Aravosis writes. Acknowledging that the photo was altered, a BP spokesman “said that there was nothing sinister” about its intent.
BP is considering a plan that could permanently seal the oil leak on its well in the Gulf of Mexico. Senior Vice President Kent Wells said the company “was studying the possibility of a ‘static kill,’ in which heavy mud would be pumped into the recently capped well.”
The House Administration Committee signed off on Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) request to form — and lead — a House Tea Party Caucus yesterday. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has already said that he will be joining, while Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are undecided. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said he will not be part of the effort.
Rep. Walt Minnick (D-ID), the only Democrat endorsed by Tea Party Express, rejected the group’s support yesterday over an offensive blog post written by its spokesperson Mark Williams, which Minnick called “reprehensible.” “Since the Tea Party Express refuses to reject and rebuke Mr. Williams, I have no choice but to decline your endorsement,” he wrote in a letter to the group.
A “tug of war is unfolding over” who will direct the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the financial regulatory reform bill, with progressives rallying behind TARP watchdog and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. The Huffington Post notes that Treasury could appoint Warren to head the new bureau as an “interim head” until an official director is voted on by the Senate.
British Prime Minister David Cameron rejected suggestions that BP “played any part” in the release of Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, from a Scottish jail last year. In an attempt to “shield BP,” Cameron said the “‘misguided’ decision” was taken by ministers in the devolved Scottish Executive on compassionate grounds and not due to BP lobbying over oil contracts in Libya.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg “strongly disagreed with Sarah Palin’s call” to oppose a proposed Muslim center and mosque near Ground Zero, saying everything “New York stands for is tolerance and openness.” When asked whether he agreed with a City Hall aide who implied Palin was appealing to racists, Bloomberg said he doesn’t agree with Palin “on a lot of things,” but she is not “remotely a racist.”
A new poll found that voters are “twice as likely” to blame President Bush over President Obama for the economic downturn. “When asked whether Bush or Obama was responsible for the recession, 53 percent of likely voters said Bush and 26 percent said Obama, according to the poll from Third Way, a think tank with close ties to centrist Democrats.”
According to a new Field Poll, 51 percent of Californians favor allowing same-sex marriage, while 42 percent were opposed and 7 percent undecided. Those results “were close” to the results the same polling firm found in May, 2008, “six months before voters banned gay marriage by approving Proposition 8, 52 to 48 percent.”
And finally: Vice President Biden: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is “the mother of health care.”
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