Not again... oil rig blows up in Gulf (not the same well):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_
The petrochemical money behind part of the anti-Obama, anti-Democrat tea party "movement":
http://www.newyorker.com/
You probably haven't heard of David & Charles Koch, but they control the 2nd largest private company in the US (Koch Industries), which is a major energy company as well as the people who brought you Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra. The Koch family has an oil legacy, and their rich father helped build refineries for the Soviet Union under Stalin. But after Koch's Russian business partners were caught up in Stalin's purges, Pappy Koch became strongly anti-communist, and one of the John Birch Society's founding members. The sons and current heirs to the empire modified those feelings into a rejection of centralized and federal government. They are hardcore libertarians and anti-environmentalists who are fundamentally devoted to declawing or dismantling the federal government (specifically taxation and environmental regulation), partly due to their financial interests in reducing pollution regulation, taxes, and fines for their businesses. This is quite hypocritical because the Kochs have also enjoyed millions in government energy subsidies, tax breaks, and no-bid contracts over the years, especially during the Bush years.
The Kochs founded the Cato institute, and one actually ran for vice president against Reagan/Bush from the right, but the ticket failed miserably (probably too extreme for 1980's America). Therefore the Kochs decided that direct political participation was not the best way to further their agenda, and think tanks can only spread a message so far, so now they are one of the biggest architects of the "tea party movement." One of the TP's major funding sources is Americans for Prosperity, which is run by the Kochs. So these mobs of grassroots, angry white people who don't like the feeling that their country is slipping away, and believe that their protests are acts of patriotism against socialist tyranny, are really just pawns of big business hoping to derail Obama's progressive agenda to keep their profits up, regardless of how the country and world suffer as a result. Of course the teabaggers are a very diverse group, from outright racists to mildly frustrated, law abiding conservatives, so it's not like the Kochs control them all. But their money and covert influence, with the complicit or fortuitous assistance of conservative media and somewhat justifiable public concern over the size and reach of government, is quietly advancing their ultra-libertarian agenda that most sub-billionaire Americans probably do not share.
How Obama can deal with the misinformation over his identity:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/
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