In a press conference today DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen attempted to use the oil spill to garner support for his politically motivated DISCLOSE bill. “We believe voters have the right to know who is spending this money because there are lots of organizations who hide behind nice-sounding names, like Americans for Clean Oceans funded by BP.” Whip Cantor has since called on Van Hollen to apologize for what is the most egregious example of a pattern of Democratic leaders exploiting the oil spill for blatantly political ends. Fix the leak; clean up the spill. Why is that so hard to grasp.
Here’s what we thought you should know …
Liberal Groups Look To Tee Off On Van Hollen Over NRA Deal. More than three dozen liberal-leaning groups vowed Wednesday to oppose Democratic campaign-reform legislation if it includes a special deal exempting the National Rifle Association, casting further doubt on the legislation’s prospects. … Many liberal groups have united in outrage over the deal negotiated earlier this week by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is attempting to garner support for a bill that would require most corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to identify top donors and other information related to spending on election advertising and other political activities. …The blowback from liberal groups presents another serious political challenge for Van Hollen, who is attempting to pull together enough Democratic votes to pass the bill amid concerted Republican opposition.  The Washington Post
Obey Holds Troop Funding Hostage Until Extenders Bill Passes.  With all the uncertainty on the scope of the extenders bill, David Obey has decided to take a hostage. Basically, there will be no war funding until the extenders bill gets resolved. … Clearly annoyed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called White House congressional liaison Phil Schiliro to her office Monday, and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey served notice that he would withhold action on Obama’s new war funding until the dust clears on domestic spending issues. … “I want to wait until the extenders bill is resolved,” Obey told POLITICO of the separate war funding measure. “All I can do is sit and wait until reality strikes home, and then maybe we’ll get somewhere.”  FireDogLake
Cantor On The Oil Spill:  President Obama Still Hasn’t Offered A Plan. Obama’s number two Republican critic in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor, welcomed the announcement but sharply criticized the president’s overall approach to the catastrophe.  “I do commend the president working with BP to establish that fund, and clearly BP has to pay. For their part, they’ve clearly stepped up, taken responsibility and support the escrow fund. But the president still has not offered a fix to the problem,” he said through a spokesman.  Cantor charged that Obama had “not offered any plan to help the people right now who need it most.”  AFP
Two Peas In A Pod: Pelosi Doubles Down, Follows President Obama’s Lead On Using The Oil Spill To Push Their Partisan Agenda. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday doubled down on her desire to pass sweeping climate change legislation this year in the wake of President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday night on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “If anybody needed any more eloquent message that we need climate change legislation to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, they need only look at what happened in the Gulf of Mexico,” Pelosi told reporters while calling Obama’s call for action on energy reform courageous and historic.  Roll Call
Losing The Left:  The President’s Speech Was Filled With “Vague Generalities and Empty, Convictionless Rhetoric.” The most depressing thing about President Obama’s profoundly underwhelming speech Tuesday night was that the White House thought it would change everything, when there was no good reason to think it would change anything. … But vague generalities and empty, convictionless rhetoric just don’t have that effect — certainly not in the midst of a real, concrete national emergency.  How unmoored from reality are Obama and his top advisers to think that some pretty words with so little substance could accomplish so much? It makes me wonder: Was that ultimately the lesson they took from the 2008 campaign — rather than that a nation was hungering for, you know, actual change?  The Huffington Post
The Populist Message Turns On The Once “Populist” President … Last year, he derided reluctant lenders as “fat cats” and called the bonuses of A.I.G. executives an “outrage”; more recently, he attacked health insurers as greedy and accused the owners of a West Virginia mining company of putting “their bottom line before the safety of their workers.”. …  And yet, somehow, the only potent grass-roots movement to emerge from this moment of dissatisfaction with America’s economic elite exists not in support of the president or his party, but far to the right instead in the form of the so-called Tea Party rebellions that are injecting new energy into the Republican cause. If Mr. Obama has so consistently cast himself as the populist scourge of corporate abusers, then why does so much of the popular anger seem to be directed at him instead? … What this means for Mr. Obama is that an anxious populace is now less likely to see his clash with BP as an instance of government’s standing up to a venal corporation, but rather as an instance of both sprawling institutions having once again failed to protect them.  The New York Times
ICYMI: Rep. Randy Neugebauer Takes To The Floor To Expose The Small Business Lending Fund Act As A TARP Like Program. Check it out HERE