Bill Clinton, in an interview with ABC News, proposing a deal on the debt ceiling impasse, emphasis mine:
“If they [the Republicans] said, look, that now is not the time for big tax increases to harm the recovery, they would be right. But it's also right to say that now's not the time for big spending cuts.
What I'd like to see them do is agree on the outlines of a 10-year plan and agree not to start either the revenue hikes or the spending cuts until we've got this recovery underway. The confidence that the Republicans say would be given to investors with a budget plan, they'd get whether we started this year or next year or the year after that, for that matter.”
Watch:
(The Clinton interview starts approximately 1:23 in.)
Mark Halperin, the former Palin worshipper, columnist hack for TIME magazine, regular contributor to MSNBC, and all around Conservative media jerk, called President Obama “a dick” on Morning Joe today:
MSNBC has suspended Halperin indefinitely, he has apologized both on air and on Twitter and has said that he “deeply regrets it”, but hey, I’m pretty sure Mark Halperin only regrets getting caught, and thus suspended.
Dr. Marcus Bachmann, husband of extremist presidential hopeful, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), offering advice to parents who may be concerned that a particular child is gay:
“We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined.”
When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s “strategist,” runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to “ungay” themselves.
“If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, the government would default on its legal obligations – an event unprecedented in American history. This would cause investors here and around the world to doubt, for the first time, whether the United States will meet its commitments. That would precipitate a self-inflicted financial crisis potentially more severe than the one from which we are now recovering.”
“By August 2nd, we run out of tools to make sure that all our bills are paid. So that is a hard deadline. And I want everybody to understand that this is a jobs issue. This is not an abstraction. If the United States government, for the first time, cannot pay its bills, if it defaults, then the consequences for the U.S. economy will be significant and unpredictable.”
Defacto Tea Party leader, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) June 26, on State of the Union (CNN):
“If we never raise the debt ceiling again, we're going to pay our bills, we're going to pay Social Security. …We won't default. We'll be going back to budget levels of about eight years ago.”
Founder and Leader of the Tea Party Caucus in the 112th Congress, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), June 26, on Face the Nation (CBS):
“It isn't true that the government would default on its debt because, very simply, the treasury secretary can pay the interest on the debt first and then, from there, we have to just prioritize our spending…. It is scare tactics because, Bob, the interest on the debt isn't any more than 10 percent of what we're taking in. In fact, it's less than that. And so the treasury secretary can very simply pay the interest on the debt first, then we're not in default.”
Republicans are running a con on the American people.
Contact your senators and representatives and tell them that they must raise the debt ceiling with out further delay. Everything else can come after that.
Leading congressional Democrats immediately recoiled Tuesday from a new proposal to cut $600 billion in Medicare spending over the next decade — in part by raising the eligibility age.
Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) unveiled the proposal as part of a bipartisan effort to produce the kind of savings necessary to achieve the $2 trillion in debt reduction both parties say is needed to convince reticent lawmakers to vote to raise the debt ceiling. It would raise Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 67 and assess higher premiums on wealthier seniors.
The proposal echoes Republican demands that entitlement reform — especially deep cuts in Medicare spending — be a part of any agreement to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
But the swift rejection of the proposal among Democrats reflects the significant obstacles that remain to any agreement to cut the deficit and raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit.
GOP presidential hopeful, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) at her finest….making a fool of herself:
“I think clearly what this demonstrates is that the president of the United States is afraid of my candidacy. He fears me.”
Bachmann was responding to a statement from Obama campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt, who issued a statement in response to Bachmann’s campaign launch in Iowa on Monday. LaBolt said that Bachmann’s policies "would erode the path to prosperity for middle class families", and went on to paint her as someone who would work for the wealthy and corporate interests.
Watch the full video of the press conference here.
TRANSCRIPT PRESIDENT OBAMA PRESS CONFERENCE JUNE 29, 2011
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning, everybody. Have a seat, please. I just want to say a few words about the economy before I take your questions.
There are a lot of folks out there who are still struggling with the effects of the recession. Many people are still looking for work or looking for a job that pays more. Families are wondering how they'd deal with a broken refrigerator or a busted transmission, or how they're going to finance their kids' college education, and they're also worrying about the possibility of layoffs.
The struggles of middle-class families were a big problem long before the recession hit in 2007. They weren’t created overnight, and the truth is our economic challenges are not going to be solved overnight. But there are more steps that we can take right now that would help businesses create jobs here in America.
I’ve worn out my fingers searching, but have not yet found a video of the press conference that’s embeddable. Once I find an embeddable version, along with a transcript, I’ll post them both here, so check back.
The full video of the press conference is available here.
Quotes from President Obama during today’s presser
On Medicare cuts:
“Before we ask our seniors to pay more for Medicare, before we cut our children's schools, we should ask corporate jet owners to pay more. I don't think that's real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that.”
And:
“We’re gonna have to look at entitlements. And that’s always difficult politically. But I’ve been willing to say we need to see where we can reduce the cost of health care spending and Medicare and Medicaid in the out years. Not by shifting costs on to seniors, as some have proposed, but rather by actually reducing those costs.”
On job creation:
“There are a number of steps that my administration is taking, but there are a number of steps that Congress could take. Many of these ideas have been tied up in Congress for some time.”
On the outcome of a default on the debt ceiling:
“By August 2, we run out of tools to make sure that all our bills are paid, so that is a hard deadline. If the United States government for the first time cannot pay its bills, if it defaults, then the consequences for the US economy will be significant and unpredictable. If by the end of this week we have not seen sustainable progress, we're going to start canceling things and making sure they're (Congress) here until its done.
August 2nd, we run out of tools to make sure our bills get paid. There is no reason we can't get this done now.
At a certain point, they (Congressional leaders) need to do their job. They're in one week, they're out one week ... They need to be here.”
On his requirement that tax increases (on the wealthy and corporations) be a part of the debt ceiling deal:
“If you are a wealthy CEO ... your taxes are lower than they've ever been. You can still afford to ride on your private jet, you're just going to have to pay a little more.”
Immediately after the presser, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that House Republicans will "not agree to a debt limit increase that raises taxes."
Adding.........we can always count on Cantor and Boehner to stand for the rich and the corportions.
Okay. So I’ve been doing a lousy job lately of keeping up with Rick Snyder’s dictatorship/regime in Michigan, primarily because I live in Michigan, and I can barely stand to read the stuff myself because it distresses me so much. It also absolutely infuriates me when I watch the local news and they try to paint it as normal goings on (ABC affiliate, WXYZ.com), so I have stopped watching local news. Blech. That said, I’ll try to do a better job of it as of now, and if I slack off, feel free to give me a friendly nudge.
Last week Sugar Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Michigan citizens seeking an injunction against Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law. At that time, Thom Hartmann talked to John Philo, the lead attorney in the lawsuit, and the resulting interview is well worth watching if you’d like to become more informed re the state of democracy in Michigan.
John Philo, Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, joins Thom Hartmann. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s “Financial Managers” will face their first legal test – as the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice filed suit today arguing his “Financial Managers” law violates the state constitution. Earlier this year – Republican Governor Snyder passed a bill that allows him to take over any city in Michigan that’s struggling financially – fire all the local elected officials – and put in place a crony of his own personal choosing – what’s called a Financial Manager – to handle the city’s finances. That Financial Manager has the power to do pretty much anything – from voiding union contracts – to cutting local government services – to even selling off huge chunks of the city like public parks and power plants to his buddies in private corporations at a fire-sale price. But as the Sugar Law Center says in a press release about the law: “It is a power grab by Lansing politicians ideologically committed to rewarding the private sector at the expense of the common god an attack on the very core of democracy.” And now Sugar Law Center is fighting back.
As the GOP rejects the legacy of George W. Bush, purely out of political self-interest, Sullivan has a few words for them on what is necessary for their reinvention:
“Pragmatism means cutting the Grand Bargain of the 21st Century: tax reform, revenue increases, and entitlement and defense cuts. You cannot take away one of these three legs and hope the stool will stay upright. By insisting on new no revenues, the GOP is not taking responsibility for its own role in creating this debt, is ignoring the real dangers of total gridlock, and refusing to play an adult role in resolving it. By never offering anything substantive to restrain healthcare costs or to insure more Americans, the GOP is unserious on healthcare policy. By refusing the only solution to immigration - tighter border controls and a path to citizenship for those already here - they are merely making amnesty a reality while making the lives of many hard-working people and their US-born children more precarious.”
Confirmed: Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) walked out of negotiations on the debt ceiling because Democrats are demanding tax increases on the wealthy and corporations via the elimination of tax loopholes. Ezra Klein, emphasis mine:
A bit more information has trickled out over the last few days detailing the exact state of the budget negotiations when they collapsed. Both sides, as they often said, were shooting for about $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. They'd already agreed on around $1 trillion in spending cuts and were making good progress on the rest of it. But Democrats insisted that $400 billion -- so, 17 percent -- of the package be tax increases. And that's when Republicans walked.
Specifically, the Obama administration was looking at a rule that lets businesses value their inventory at less than they bought it for in order to lower their tax burden, a loophole that lets hedge-fund managers count their income as capital gains and pay a 15 percent marginal tax rate, the tax treatment of private jets, oil and gas subsidies, and a limit on itemized deductions for the wealthy.
UPDATE:Not really an “update” persay, so much as an addition. From Raw Story, emphasis mine:
The White House announced today that it is seeking to raise $600 billion in revenue through new taxes and the elimination of corporate subsidies as part of a deal to lower the deficit and raise the debt ceiling.
President Barack Obama is trying to ensure that any spending cuts agreed to are also offset by tax increases — something Republicans have said they will oppose at all costs.
White House Spokesman Jay Carney echoed the calls of many Democratic legislators, saying any deal must include tax hikes or the elimination of subsidies, setting the stage for a showdown with Republicans over the next five weeks.
And it sucks. Not as much as the Ryan plan sucks, but it still sucks.
The Lieberman-Coburn plan includes benefit cuts, and cost-shifting to seniors. It also raises the age for eligibility. The Hill:
But Lieberman and Coburn's proposal includes several politically risky benefit changes, such as making seniors pay more for their prescription drugs. It also would raise the eligibility age for Medicare.
The proposal would cap seniors' out-of-pocket costs depending on their income. The maximum would be set at $7,500 for people making less than $85,000 per year. Seniors with twice as much income would pay three times more in out-of-pocket Medicare costs. Seniors also would pay more for their prescription drugs. Premiums only cover about 11 percent of the total costs for Medicare Part D, the senators said. They would require seniors to pay the full cost of their drug coverage. They said the change would free up between $5 billion and $10 billion in tax money. The plan also would increase premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers drugs that are administered by a doctor. Part B premiums are more than $400 per year, and taxes currently cover only about a quarter of that cost. High-income seniors would have to pay the full cost of their Part B premiums under the Lieberman plan. Both the changes to Part D and Part B premiums would only apply to seniors making more than $150,000 per year, or couples making more than $300,000. "While it includes some much needed reforms to the Medicare program that achieve significant savings, we are opposed to additional cuts to patient care services provided by hospitals given all of the reductions we are already being asked to absorb," said a spokesperson for the American Hospital Association. The plan hasn't been evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office, but they estimated that it would save $600 billion over 10 years. The proposal also includes a three-year patch to the formula that Medicare uses to pay doctors.
Will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
Michele Bachmann and her hubby, Marcus Bachmann, accept money from both the federal and state government for a farm subsidy (for a defunct family farm that they don’t run) and Marcus Bachmann’s private business, a counseling center. From the LA Times report:
[T]he Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies. And she has sought to keep federal money flowing to her constituents. After publicly criticizing the Obama administration's stimulus program, Bachmann requested stimulus funds to support projects in her district. Although she has been a fierce critic of earmarks — calling them "part of the root problem with Washington's spending addiction" — the congresswoman nonetheless argued recently that transportation projects should not be considered congressional pork.
Gotta love the way Republicans are the biggest hypocrites on the planet.
GOP presidential hopeful, Michelle Bachmann, took a cheap shot at President Obama speaking in a banquet hall in Iowa on Sunday:
“I don’t have a teleprompter. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that up here. President Bachmann may be retiring that thing, by the way, when I get to the White House. We may not have a teleprompter in chief.”
She used notes, by the way. As if there's a meaningful difference between using a teleprompter and using notes.
Adding.........I am feeling a little obsessive about Bachmann. Yes, I know she's batshit crazy. Unfortunately, she is not with out brains. She is leaps and bounds beyond Palin, even as she is just as extreme, if not more so. Drives my blood pressure way up to deal with a vision of this extremist crackpot as the president.
“Well, what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too.”
In an interview with the Conservative site, Newsmaxx, Bachmann made a similar pronouncement, saying “We're seeing the nation move into decline. I'm not willing to do that. I'm not satisfied. I grew up with John Wayne’s America. I was proud that you grew up in John Wayne’s America: Proud to be an American, thrilled to be a patriot."
In both instances, Bachmann meant, of course, the John Wayne, the movie star. Only one tiny little problem. John Wayne the movie star was born in Winterset, Iowa—no connection to Waterloo.
There was, however, a “John Wayne [Gacy]” who lived in Waterloo, Iowa where he evolved in to a serial killer. Gacy was executed in 1994, after his conviction for 33 murders.
Either Michele Bachmann is no more up on American folk history than she is on the Constitution, or she really does see herself as embodying the spirit of a sociopathic serial killer.
[Cantor], the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, bought up to $15,000 in shares of ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF last December, according to his 2009 financial disclosure statement. The exchange-traded fund takes a short position in long-dated government bonds. In effect, it is a bet against U.S. government bonds — and perhaps on inflation in the future.
Is House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) still shorting U.S. government bonds (betting on the economic failure of the U.S.)?
Possibly. Or not. But, if he is, Cantor has a financial stake in the outcome of the debt ceiling talks. If he is still shorting U.S. government bonds, he will make money if the U.S. defaults on debt obligations, which would be the inevitable outcome if Republicans in Congress refuse to raise the debt ceiling.
Image of Cooper Union Station in Nebraska on Friday | Lane Hickenbottom - Reuters When I first posted about the situation in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska last week, the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant had not yet undergone any flooding. Now it has, even though the flooding is supposedly slight (and plant workers are still plugging potential leaks with sandbags):
OMAHA -- Missouri River floodwater seeped into the turbine building at a nuclear power plant near Omaha on Monday, but plant officials said the seepage was expected and posed no safety risk because the building contains no nuclear material.
An 8-foot-tall, water-filled temporary berm protecting the plant collapsed early Sunday. Vendor workers were at the plant Monday to determine whether the 2,000-foot berm can be repaired.
At Cooper on Sunday, plant officials led Gregory B. Jaczko, the N.R.C. chairman, on a tour, past thousands of feet of new berms and buildings where every doorway was barricaded with four-foot-high water barriers that are intended to survive even if an earthquake hits during a flood. Mr. Jaczko also toured the building that holds the diesel generators, which would supply vital electricity if the water knocked out the power grid.
Ezra Klein on two differing scenarios for a debt ceiling outcome:
“Whichever party wins, the country is likely to lose. If the Republicans win, we’re going to get an unbalanced debt deal that relies too heavily on frontloaded spending cuts, forgoes tax hikes that could further reduce the deficit, and rewards a reckless and dysfunctional model of negotiating through brink.manship. If the Democrats win, we’re likely to see some sort of crisis before we see any sort of action, and this isn’t an economy or market that can handle much more bad news. Heads, dysfunction. Tails, catastrophe.”
The differences are in the details.
Democrats are fighting to ensure that the poor and the middle class don’t pay the entire price via entitlement cuts, along with holding out for tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans, on the other hand, are demanding deep cuts to entitlement programs, while also refusing any tax increases for the wealthy.
Should be a no-brainer, but Republicans have chosen to hold the country hostage for the sake of the very wealthy.
“I think the president should be, frankly, enforcing that act [DOMA], and I think we are drifting toward a terrible muddle which I think is going to be very, very difficult and painful to work our way out of.”
People who marry because they love each other are going to be the cause of a “terrible muddle”.
Karoli, of Crooks & Liars, in her piece “I Obot?”:
“I’m done apologizing for my support for this President, who has worked hard since the day he took office, done his best, isn’t a slacker, and can’t please everyone. I support him unapologetically and wholeheartedly. That’s my right, just as it is the right of others not to. I respect that right, but will no longer waste time or give attention to self-indulgent complaints. It’s time to be strategic rather than spewing scattershot criticism. If you can’t do that, then really, I’m probably not going to help your cause anyway because I will assume your goal is to elect a Republican, and I will oppose you with all the might I can muster.”
Could not agree more. Please go read Karoli’s entire missive.
In a discussion on the disgraceful travesty of hunger amongst senior citizens, American senior citizens, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Senator Al Franken (D-MN) stood up. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) did not.
Now, you may think “so what? This was entirely predictable.” But despite that, this video perfectly illustrates a major philosophical difference between Republicans and most other people. And that difference is that Republicans, as was illustrated so well in this discussion, simply do not care.
Republicans are for and by the wealthy, and have no qualms about throwing our most vulnerable citizens under the proverbial bus.Rand Paul might just as well have said "let them eat cake", because that is precisely what he meant.
Watch:
TRANSCRIPT (transcribed by myself)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Making sure that seniors have the nutrition that they need is not only the right and moral thing to do, it is the financially smart thing to do.
It is estimated today that 5 million seniors face the threat of hunger, 3 million seniors are at risk of hunger, and 1 million seniors go hungry because they can not afford to buy food.
But in some cases it's not just money. In some cases it's the transportation to get to the store. In some cases it's the ability to think through when you're 85 or 90 and alone what kind of food you need and how you purchase it. Persistent hunger and malnutrition leads to multiple chronic diseases, resulting in extended hospital stays and premature nursing home placements. There's some studies out there that are quite sure about significant percentage of seniors today who are in nursing homes who need not be in that expensive care if they had good nutrition and somebody visiting them on a regular basis. That seems to me to be pretty dumb.
SEN. AL FRANKEN (D-MN):Make no mistake, Rand (Sen. Rand Paul), The Older Americans Act saves money. It allows seniors to stay in their homes who wouldn't otherwise be able to stay in their homes.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY):It's curious that, uh, only in Washington can you spend 2 biliion dollars and claim that you're saving money. Here's a thought. Perhaps the 2 billian dollars we spend on OAA if we subsumed that in to another program and didn't spend it, that might be saving money.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Senator Paul has suggested that only in Washington can people actually believe that spending money actually saves money. I think that is the kind of philosophy which results in us spending almost twice as much on healthcare as any other country on earth. Because we have millions and millions of Americans who can't get to a doctor on time, some of them die, some of them become very, very ill. They end up in the emergency room, they end up in a hospital at great cost rather than making sure they have access to a doctor. Maybe it's the same reason why we have more people in jail than any other country on earth including China, tied to the fact that we have the highest poverty rate among children than any other major country on earth. So the point is, and I think we have a bit of a difference here, I believe, and I think Senator Franken has spoken to the fact that prevention, keeping people healthy, taking care of their needs at home, does actually save money. And that if you deny those resources, you leave a senior citizen at home today alone, isolated, confused about medicine, not getting the nutrition they need, you know what happens to that person? That person collapses. That person ends up in an emergency room. That person ends up in a nursing home at much greater cost to the system.
SEN. AL FRANKEN: Here's my very precise question. Does the Older Americans Act save taxpayers money by allowing seniors to stay in their homes as opposed to going to nursing homes?
MS. GREENLEE, Assistant Secretary, Administration on Aging: Yes Senator.
SEN. AL FRANKEN: Thank you.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Um, I appreciate the great and very, um, I think collegial discussion, And we do have different opinions, you know, some of us believe more in the ability of government to cure problems, and some of us believe more in the ability of private charity to cure these problems. I guess what I still find curious is though that if we are saving money with the 2 billion dollars we spend, perhaps we should give you 20 billion. Is there a limit? Where would we get to? How much money should we give you in order to save money so if we spend federal money to save money, where is the limit? I think we could reach a point of absurdity. Thank you.
SEN. AL FRANKEN:I think you just did (reach a point of absurdity).
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Uh, I would suggest, Senator Paul, when you have seniors in this country who are dealing with food insecurity, who are not getting the nutrition that they need, my guess is that the government is wasting substantial sums of money by not taking care of those seniors, who will end up in emergency rooms, in hospitals, uh, and in nursing homes, so, you asked that question, my answer is I don't want to see one senior in this country go hungry. It's the morally right thing to do, and from a fiscally conservative point of view, saving government money, in my view it is the right thing to do.
But other than that, I don’t see why the wingers shouldn’t do it. Create an economic calamity, blame Obama for it, put a bunch of editorials in Kaplan blaming Obama for it, publish a few think tank studies blaming Obama for it, run endless Crossroads-funded ads blaming Obama for it, etc. David Brooks and Gail Collins will agree that both sides are at fault here. Charles Lane and Ruth Marcus will conclude that it is mostly Obama’s fault. Andrew Sullivan will praise Cantor’s principled Thatcherite exuberance. Joe Klein will blame it all on the hippies and black panthers. Glenn Kessler will award Paul Krugman four pinnochios for blaming Cantor.”
Yep. It’s all about blaming Obama. And oh, by the way, today Majority Whip, Eric Cantor (R-VA), walked out on negotiations with Joe Biden, citing the tax increases Democrats want, and he won’t agree to.
Currently unofficial, the word is that Perry will announce in August.
Republican campaign veteran tells us that Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to run for President, though the official word from Team Perry is still a definite maybe.
Our normally reliable Republican source reports that Mr. Perry has surveyed the field and decided to get in the race later this summer, perhaps around the time of the national prayer meeting that Mr. Perry is hosting on August 6 at a Houston football stadium. Our source also reports that Mr. Perry is aiming to compete in the Iowa Straw Poll, even though it occurs just a week later, on August 13. The thinking is that apparent front-runner Mitt Romney "does not reflect the Republican Party" and is therefore vulnerable to a credible challenge from the right, especially after Mr. Romney's recent squishy remarks on global warming.
Very predictable. We knew that Romney nor Huntsman would go over well with the far right loons.
Image of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) via The Wall Street Journal.
The most recent short film from Brave New Films/Robert Greenwald, a primer on the right wing propaganda machine, and in particular, Charles and David Koch’s very successful efforts to undermine support for social security via dissemination of lies/propaganda.
BNF is taking on the Kochs specifically and they are major kingpins in this operation. But the conservative infrastructure project has been underwritten for years by a variety of wealthy benefactors. This goes all the way back to the Powell Memo, but their infrastructure is so well entrenched decades later that it has an organic quality that's taken for granted in the political bloodstream. It's important to take it apart and explain it so that people can see this.
You can read the Powell Memo in its entirety here.
Adding….I can’t stress enough how important it is to share this video, and others like it, with your family, friends, and so forth. If we are to be successful in ending such corporate influence in our politics, people must first become aware of how it affects them.
On June 7, a fire knocked out the cooling pumps at the Fort Calhoun plant, bringing with it fears of Fukushima in Nebraska. Pro Publica:
A fire [1] in an electrical switch room on Tuesday briefly knocked out cooling for a pool holding spent nuclear fuel at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant [2] outside Omaha, Neb., plant officials said.
The safety of deep pools used to store used radioactive fuel at nuclear plants has been an issue since the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in March. If the cooling water a pool is lost, the used nuclear fuel could catch fire and release radiation.
Officials at Fort Calhoun said the situation at their plant came nowhere near to Fukushima's. They said it would have taken 88 hours for the heat produced by the fuel to boil away the cooling water.
Workers restored cooling in about 90 minutes, and plant officials said the temperature in the pool only increased by two degrees.
The fire, reported at 9:30 a.m., led to the loss of electrical power for the system that circulates cooling water through the spent fuel pool, according to a report [5] from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A chemical fire suppression system discharged, and the plant's fire brigade cleared smoke from the room and reported that the fire was out at 10:20 a.m., the NRC said.
A nuclear emergency alert was issued:
Maddow on current problems with nuclear power plants in the U.S., including the imminent/building crisis at the Fort Calhoun power plant in Nebraska pictured above (image from the Maddow Show). As you watch, keep in mind that the Fukushima reactor’s cooling pumps were knocked out by the flooding from the tsunami which hit Japan last Spring.
Watch:
900 feet vs. 903 feet. And a broken gauge. Gee, we should all feel absolutely safe. /sarcasm
All this, and yet, the national media still has not picked it up.
“Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government.
In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy -- crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.”
I don’t usually do actual rants cause I'm just not that good at it, but I guess that thinking about this topic has driven me there. Plus, AngryBlackLady inspired me, although I will never be able to measure up to her awesome, awesome rants. NSFW.
So let me be clear at the outset. My purpose is not to denigrate our Democratic lawmakers for their intentions, but rather it is to denigrate them for their inaction, lack of action, or as Olbermann says, their damn TIMIDITY!!
I have spent the last year (since June 27, 2010) blogging here, posting stuff that I felt people should be aware of, trying to do my part because our media no longer does their job. During much of that time, I’ve been sick, and as a self-employed person I’ve lost income because I focused on blogging instead of earning. Since sometime in April of this year I’ve had writer’s block, which started shortly after Michigan’s GOP legislature enabled and encouraged, Michigan’s Republican fucking governor, Rick Snyder, to turn Michigan in to a corporation. The ONLY media person that really did her job and reported on this mess, was the inimitable Rachel Maddow, along with myself and my fellow lefty bloggers such as Eclectablog, Ashby and Bob, Karoli, ExtremeLiberal, and a few others. That’s IT.
Not only that, but while these Republican governors and legislatures have been (see ALEX) busily rewriting laws in many states (Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, et al), busting unions, destroying our public education system, privatizing everything in sight, NO ONE said a fucking word. Not even ONE damn Democratic lawmaker spoke out or showed any get up and go except for the Wisconsin 10.
Then, we watched as Anthony Weiner went down, brought down not by Republicans, but by the Democratic leadership. Yes, I know that what he did was bloody damn stupid, but come on. There wasn’t even any physical fucking contact. He did not do anything that hurt his constituents in any way except for to get caught. I’ll let Olbermann say what needs to be said on this issue because he nailed it. Watch:
The law was enacted by Michigan’s Republican controlled legislature in April, and has caused a massive uproar with citizens seeking to recall legislators, Gov. Rick Snyder, and a repeal of the law itself. From the Michigan Messenger:
The Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act allows the governor to appoint Emergency Managers to take over local units of government, fire elected officials, sell off or privatize community assets and even dissolve whole cities.
The measure was rushed through the Republican-controlled legislature this spring as a move to protect against widespread municipal bankruptcies, with some of its supporters referring to it as “financial martial law.”
But in legal arguments filed in court this morning a group of 25 plaintiffs say the right of citizens to elect their local officials is guaranteed in the state Constitution and financial stress is not a legitimate ground for scrapping the democratic process.
“This is an infringement on basic democracy,” said plaintiffs attorney John Philo of the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice. “It really is an experiment in a new form of government — one person rule.”
The complaint alleges that the law “violates the rights of local voters by attempting to delegate law-making power and the power to adopt local acts to unelected emergency mangers, by suspending the rights of local electors to establish charters and to elect local officials, and by imposing substantial new costs and expenses upon local municipalities without providing new revenue,” the group argues.
The law is so extreme, the plaintiffs say, that it “establishes a new form of local government, previously unknown within the United States or the State of Michigan, where the people within local municipalities may be governed by an unelected official who establishes local law by decree.”
Please note: The term “Emergency Financial Manager” is extinct. The correct term is now “Emergency Manager”, the qualifier, “financial”, having been removed. It really shouldn’t have been there to begin with since the law granted such broad authority to the EM, not just financial authority.
Olbermann discusses the Walmart ruling and the resignation of Justice Fortis with former White House Counsel under Nixon, John Dean, on Countdown last night:
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Cartoonist – John Darkow
Cartoonist – R.J. Matson
I meant to post this earlier in the week, but forgot. 
Currently unofficial, 
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