It appears as though Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, in whose coal mine 29 people died earlier this year in an entirely preventable disaster, has been booted from the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce.

As recently as June 29, Massey was listed as a member of the Chamber’s Board. But now, his name doesn’t appear on the list of current board members, and his specific profile page has been deleted from the website.

Today, the Comptroller of the City of New York along with the presidents of several large unions sent a letter to some of the biggest baddest banks in the foreclosure mess and told those banks to get their acts together and start making mortgage modifications.

When plans were first being disclosed last week for the installation of the new cap on the blown out BP oil well gushing beneath the Gulf of Mexico, the explanation was that the new cap and its associated piping system would be dedicated to catching all of the oil flowing from the well. Sometime on Tuesday, the story changed to a discussion of BP slowly closing all of the valves on the piping system in an attempt to stop the flow of oil rather than catch the flowing oil. Late Tuesday night, however, it was announced that BP’s test of closing the valves was abruptly halted before it began. The key determinant of whether the flow can be stopped from above with a series of valves appears to be whether the well bore itself can withstand the pressure that is needed to stop the oil flow.

While collective deficit hysteria fully grips Washington, what the American people really care about is jobs and the economy.

The Quitter is very upset that the NAACP is denouncing the Teabaggers’ racism. Like President Reagan, Tea Party Americans believe that “the glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.” Isn’t it time we put aside the divisive politics of the past once and for all and [...]

Harry Reid has a draft of a climate and energy bill that he plans to bring to the Senate floor within a couple weeks, the Majority Leader said. That would begin the climate debate right around the end of the July work period, so I don’t know what that means for pushing back the deadline on the August recess; it could mean that Reid just wants a vote to highlight GOP obstructionism.

If you can’t protect the population generally, from the perspective of COIN doctrine, you lose. If you lack a legitimate host nation government as a partner, you lose. And guess what? According to that doctrine — the doctrine used as the rationale for the troop-heavy American strategy in Afghanistan — the United States is losing. Badly.

Late yesterday, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin released a draft proposal for the November 2010 special election to replace Robert Byrd. I find it interesting because you essentially have the candidate writing the terms of their own election.

At the point in the World Cup when five South American teams had made it to the knockout round and European teams like Italy and England performed badly, I wondered whether this year’s Cup would be a kind of revenge on the IMF. All these South American countries that had spent much of the 80s and 90s struggling with onerous debt crises were winning. Teams from Europe, which is now being subjected to similar austerity measures, were losing or failing to qualify. I thought the Cup might end up marking a symbolic shift of dignity away from Europe at a time when Europe is being treated as South America once was.

State Rep. Robert Bentley was declared the winner of the Republican primary for governor. He defeated Bradley Byrne Tuesday night in a runoff election.