Thursday Reads: Crazy Republicans, Nuclear Meltdowns, MLB Follies, and More
Posted: April 21, 2011 Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill, net-neutrality, Psychopaths in charge, the internet, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, bible, Boston Red Sox, BP Oil Gusher, Charles Manson, Eric Cantor, Frank McCourt, Fukushima nuclear plant, Gulf Of Mexico, JoAnne Kloppenburg, Kindle, LA Dogers, Major League Baseball, meltdown, net neutrality, public libraries, stupid Republicans, U.S. debt ceiling, Wall Street, wetlands. Louisiana, Wisconsin 62 Comments
Good Morning!!
According to Politico, Republicans are escalating their game of chicken with demands they want met before they agree to raise the debt limit.
One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP “will not grant their request for a debt limit increase” without major spending cuts or budget process reforms.
The Virginia Republican’s missive is a clear escalation in the long-running Washington spending war, with no less than the full faith and credit of the United States hanging in the balance.
Wait a minute…Obama put ERIC CANTOR on a deficit task force??!! Okay, the joke’s over. This guy cannot legitimately run on a Democratic ticket in 2012.
Cantor says he’s ready to plunge the nation into default if the GOP’s demands are not met. People close to Cantor say that he hopes to make clear that small concessions from Democrats, including President Barack Obama, will not be enough to deliver the GOP on a debt increase….
Republicans are floating a wide range of major structural reforms that could be attached to the debt limit vote, including statutory spending caps, a balanced budget amendment and a two-thirds vote requirement for tax increases and debt limit increases.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has finally admitted that nuclear fuel in reactors 1, 2, and 3 has melted. From reading the article, it isn’t exactly clear what has happened, but I still detect efforts to minimize the damage. There’s a little more detail in an article from the Irish Times:
The head of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, Takashi Sawada, said yesterday that fuel rods in reactors 1 and 3 have melted and settled at the bottom of their containment vessels, confirming fears that the plant suffered a partial meltdown after last month’s huge earthquake and tsunami.
Engineers have been struggling since to bring four reactors under control by pouring water onto overheating nuclear fuel, and that water is highly contaminated as a result. Mr Sawada warned the condition of the plant could worsen if another strong quake knocks out power to its cooling systems.
“That would destabilise pressure and temperatures inside the reactors and the situation would become extremely unpredictable again,” he said.
The story also says that there was an aftershock yesterday centered around 25 miles from the plant.
All the news outlets are covering the BP oil gusher and the damage it has done to the Gulf, because yesterday was the anniversary of the explosion that killed 11 oil rig workers. Don’t worry, they’ll drop the subject like a hot potato in a couple of days. Here’s an article from the NYT.
Even in the worst days of the BP spill, coastal advocates were looking past the immediate emergency to what the president’s oil spill commission called “the central question from the recovery of the spill — can or should such a major pollution event steer political energy, human resources and funding into solutions for a continuing systemic tragedy?”
That tragedy is the ill and declining health of the Gulf of Mexico, including the enormous dead zone off the mouth of the Mississippi and the alarmingly rapid disappearance of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, roughly 2,000 square miles smaller than they were 80 years ago. Few here would take issue with the commission’s question, but the answer to it is far from resolved.
Eclipsed by the spill’s uncertain environmental impact is the other fallout: the vast sums in penalties and fines BP will have to pay to the federal government. In addition to criminal fines and restitution, BP is facing civil liabilities that fall roughly into two categories: Clean Water Act penalties and claims from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process, whereby state and federal agencies tally the damage caused by the spill and put a price tag on it. This could add up to billions, perhaps tens of billions, of dollars.
Awwww, gee. Poor BP. It sounds like the writer feels sorry for them.
In Wisconsin, JoAnne Kloppenburg has asked for a recount in the race for the state supreme court.
JoAnne Kloppenburg arrived at the state Government Accountability Board’s office in Madison barely an hour before the 5 p.m. local time deadline by which she had to ask for a recount or concede defeat. According to the vote count finalized by the state last week, she trails Justice David Prosser by 7,316 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast in the April 5 election.
“Today, my campaign is asking the Government Accountability Board to conduct a statewide recount,” Kloppenburg said at a news conference. The announcement was met with applause and cheers of “thank you.” She’s requesting the recount “in part to determine what the proper outcome of the election will be and to ensure that elections form this point forward will be fair.
“I do not make this decision lightly … I have weighed the options and I have considered the facts,” Kloppenburg, currently an assistant state attorney general, said. The tight margin — small enough to trigger a provision allowing the state to pay for the recount process — means that “the importance of every vote is magnified and doubts about every vote are magnified as well,” she said.
And in silly Republican news, eight Wisconsin doctorswho wrote excuses for protesting teachers are being investigated.
The state Department of Regulation and Licensing and the Medical Examining Board said Wednesday that they had opened investigations into eight individuals who allegedly wrote doctor excuse notes for protesters at the state Capitol during rallies in February.
Last month, the Department of Regulation and Licensing said it had identified 11 people who may have provided the medical excuses, and it asked them to submit information about their activities at the Capitol.
Three members of the Medical Examining Board reviewed the information and decided to open investigations on eight of the 11, according to a department news release.
The eight being investigated are all licensed physicians, department spokesman David Carlson said.
Are Wisconsin taxpayers going to have to pay for this silliness? How ridiculous.
As a Kindle owner, I’m excited about this news. Amazon’s Kindle Will Offer E-Books From Libraries
Bookworms who own Amazon.com Inc.’s popular Kindle electronic reader will finally be able to borrow digital books from public libraries….
The move is likely to have major repercussions for public libraries and the digital-reading market generally, since Amazon currently dominates the e-book industry and its actions in the space are closely watched. There are an estimated 7.5 million Kindles in the U.S., which gives Amazon a two-thirds share of the $1 billion digital-book market, said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey.
Many major public libraries, including those in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, offer free digital-book lending. A physical trip to the library isn’t required. Instead, library-card holders can download books from library websites. Each library sets its own digital-book lending policy, but typical lending periods are 14 or 21 days.
Major League Baseball has seized the LA Dodgers and will now control day-to-day operations for the team. Owner Frank McCourt is having financial problems.
The move was prompted by a number of issues surrounding the Dodgers, including owner Frank McCourt’s recent receipt of $30-million personal loan to meet payroll and the parking-lot attack at Dodger Stadium on March 31 that left a San Francisco Giants fan in a coma, according to a league source.
“This has been like watching a soap opera unfold,” said Gary Toebben, the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “We want a financially solvent Dodgers. We want a winning team.”
The league will now have approval rights over every significant expenditure by the team, including a trade or contract extension. This will likely put the franchise on the path to being sold.
The commissioner’s move adds to the turmoil surrounding a team already embroiled in divorce proceedings between McCourt and his wife, Jamie, who is seeking joint ownership.
McCourt tried to buy the Red Sox back when the the former owner died. Thank goodness he didn’t succeed in buying the team–they probably never would have beat the curse and won the World Series twice.
Some nutty right wing talk show host says the Bible forbids net neutrality.
The idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally is against the teachings of the Bible and America’s Founding Fathers, according to evangelical Christian minister and political activist David Barton.
During his radio show on Tuesday, he said that net neutrality violated the Biblical principle of free markets, a principle upheld by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.
“That is part of the reason we have prosperity,” Barton said. “This is what the Pilgrims brought in, the Puritans brought in, this is free market mentality. Net neutrality sounds really good, but it is socialism on the Internet.”
“This is really, I’m going to use the word wicked stuff, and I don’t use that word very often, but this is wicked stuff,” he added.
Well that settles it then!
Monday was the 40th anniversary of Charles Manson’s conviction, so some media types decided to give him an opportunity to spout a bunch on nonsense. Manson’s new lawyer has asked the president to let the maniac out of prison, but Manson ruined his chances by giving his honest opinion of Obama.
Manson, 76, called Obama foolish in reference to Wall Street, saying he considered the president “a slave of Wall Street.”
“He doesn’t realize what they are doing. They are playing with him,” he said, according to the magazine.
Bla, bla, bla … so what else is new?
That’s about it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Gut bacteria divide people into three types.
That’s exciting. Like bloodtypes.
…remind me again why McCain would have been so much worse than Obama.
Sorry, I’m not one of the brainwashed progs, so I don’t know.
Lol… they’re clueless class, so even they don’t know. But, being “creative” class, they’ll sure get started at creating a distraction. As a matter of fact, I hear Andrew Sullivan’s going after Trig’s birth certificate again.
Hmm… so here’s the link… guess it’s not Sully this time but a “professor”…
http://www.businessinsider.com/sarah-palin-baby-hoax-2011-4
Someone still giving a fig and going after Trig’s birth certificate helps Palin. High fiving was going on in the Palin house hold when this news broke. lol!
Well remember McCain was old and he would die right after he won making SP the Pres…
How IS his health anyway?
Right, hard to forget what with Matt Damon supplying the actuarial tables and everything ;). But I don’t think Palin being VP or even POTUS would have yielded anything on a presidential task force much more than marginally worse than Eric Cantor.
One word: Palin
Another word: Biden.
Excellent round up!
Eclipsed by the spill’s uncertain environmental impact is the other fallout: the vast sums in penalties and fines BP will have to pay to the federal government. In addition to criminal fines and restitution
The vast sums? What would they call the even bigger BP profit money pile ? In lieu of paying taxes….the new corporate tax : fines and restitution after some for profit on steroids disaster
We are witnessing the downside to when Reagan closed the mental institutions and some of those very same people are now running the country.
Demogogues, carnival barkers, religious fanatics, and frauds are now making policy that will take decades to correct.
Chaos has replaced commonsense.
ROFLOL!
That’s so untrue. The bunch you mention (demogogues, carnival barkers, etc.) are on financial easy street. The deinstitutionalized mentally ill are largely homeless and impoverished. They’re another group being screwed by TPTB, not TPTB.
I think she was being metaphorical. The poor were thrown out. The rich come and go as suits them.
Those who declare they are carrying out “god’s will” are listening to the voices in their own heads.
That spells delusional to me and has no basis in reality and is applicable.
Well, it’s a damn lousy metaphor as it manages to analogize a thoroughly oppressed and disenfranchised group with the most privileged group on earth.
Pat: The religious right pols running our country are not literally “hearing voices” in the same way as the mentally ill are, from seemingly external sources. They are cynically, cunningly and calculatedly carrying out their political agenda in a way the mentally ill are incapable of doing. And only a subset of the mentally ill are grandiose and think they are hearing “the voice of god.” A lot of hallucinatory voices are giving disparaging messages or are indistinct.
Branjor,
Please try not to be so literal-minded. Pat knows that. In a metaphorical sense, Reagan did loose the crazies on us. He really turned the tide toward the attitude in this country that rich = virtue. In the process, Reagan also created the new poor, including people with psychological disorders who can’t get treatment. What Reagan did to all of us was monstrous.
Branjor, read this which should explain where exactly I am coming from. My comments in now way is an attempt to put down the actual mentally ill it is just a demonstration of where this nation is headed when commonsense is upended by insane logic that bears little resemblance to reality.
http://thewiddershins2.wordpress.com/
Feel free to disagree with me but please do not misinterpret my intent.
Pat – your column was terrific and I posted it on FB earlier this morning!
I thought so too … I was applauding all the way down here in the bayou!!!
Good post, Pat. I think I’m just trying to say that the metaphor works two ways – it not only fuels contempt for those running our country in such evil ways, it also doubles back on the actually mentally ill in ways that are not immediately apparent.
I’m still in the dark however as to how the post at Widdershins relates to what we are talking about here. It is all about lack of common sense and “mental illness” is never mentioned. I don’t see the connection.
I understood what Pat meant, but the metaphor did give me pause for a moment.. I don’t know who’d they be institutionalizing these days. All the cassandras probably.
I loved your post, Pat. Left you a comment at Widdershins.
Yes, Wonk, the “metaphor” still gives me pause. Actually, I’m not sure if she made a metaphor or committed the fallacy of equivocation.
At any rate, Pat, when you wrote:
***We are witnessing the downside to when Reagan closed the mental institutions and some of those very same people are now running the country.***
I first took you to be saying that the same people who were deinstitutionalized by Reagan are now those running the country. But you apparently mean the “deinstitutionalizing” of the rich and greedy whose attitude that rich=virtue, once considered insane, is now mainstream and considered normal. But by speaking of that “deinstitutionalizing” exactly as though it were one and the same as the deinstitutionalizing of the mentally ill, you make a clear and negative statement about the deinstitutionalizing of the mentally ill, which is an entirely separate issue and deserves to be considered as such. You also trivialize the issue of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill by not treating it as separate, and that is very offensive.
Well like I said, I understood what Pat meant. So I didn’t take offense. But it did get me thinking who would really be institutionalized right now… certainly not the Paul Ryans. Probably Elizabeth Warren.
I do understand what Pat means and I still think it’s offensive for the reason given above, but I definitely don’t think she intended it that way.
As to who would really be institutionalized now – yes, the cassandras like Elizabeth Warren. The thing is though, cassandras who are poor and have no political power have been institutionalized since forever. Our “mental health system” has operated like the one in the old Soviet Union, diagnosing and institutionalizing the dissident along with the truly crazy all along.
This should stand as a reminder to those women who insist they will only vote for women regardless of their political leanings. Those “gender driven” votes do not guarantee women’s rights under any circumstances as this latest law in Oklahoma illustrates:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/oklahoma-abortion-bill-law_n_851825.html
Actually, I am for limiting abortion after a certain time period. If by the third trimester, the mother hasn’t made the decision to abort the fetus, barring any risk to the mother’s health or barring any risk of a premature or unhealthy baby being delivered, the baby should be carried to term. But this ONLY if the opportunity for her to have a safe and legal abortion is granted to her (and every other woman in this land). That said, the gov in OK is an Asshat.
Asshat.
Hillary 2012
Granted to her and every other woman for the first TWO trimesters. Sorry. That got omitted……
That’s pretty much the law of the land. Ob/Gyns don’t consider anything during the third trimester to be an abortion, btw. It’s a delivery. If everything is going right, there won’t be any deliveries that are for purposes other than extraordinary circumstances or just, hopefully, successful births. I think that people don’t know this is the situation is basically because the fetus fetishists have spread so much misinformation about medical procedures. There is no such thing as a third trimester abortion. It’s either a successful delivery or a problem delivery.
I didn’t know that. The struggle now has to be stopping the religious right from redefining what ‘late-term’ is. By backing it up to 5 months, they are making it illegal to do something legal. Thanks for the clarification.
Asshats.
Nice post BB. And by the way, the BoSox are on a bit of a run. Dice-K pitched well in his last game and Crawford is starting to hit the ball. Youk is being youk as always – consistent!!
“Wait a minute…Obama put ERIC CANTOR on a deficit task force??!! Okay, the joke’s over. This guy cannot legitimately run on a Democratic ticket in 2012.
What will it take for democrats to wake up? I thought putting Immelt on his jobs whatever was going to do it, but this is a new low.
Asshat.
Hillary 2012
Thanks TheRock. The Red Sox are doing better, but it’s going to take them awhile to get to .500.
The Bible is all about Free Markets??
What F Bible does HE read??
Is that the one where Jesus does business with the money lenders in the temple??
Hey, never let the truth get in the way of an agenda… ends justify the means and all that. Capitalism is a distinctly 19th century invention.
old as the hills….
The Man Nobody Knows (1925) is the second book by the American author and advertising executive Bruce Fairchild Barton. Barton presents Jesus as “the founder of modern business,” in an effort to make the Christian story accessible to businessmen of the time.
When published in 1925, The Man Nobody Knows topped the nonfiction bestseller list, and is one of the best selling non-fiction books of the 20th century.
As Dak says: never let the truth get in the way of an agenda. How did Christianity get from ” Do onto other as you would have them do to you” to the Crusades? …and what passes for it today
This was a comment posted at Hilllaryis44 last night which I thought was pretty neat…
The first political philosopher of the western world, Thucydides, provides answers to the pressing political questions of our time.
Q-1. How has Obama managed to succeed in his effort to destroy the United States?
“In the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.” (Note: in our case, the elite interests backing Obama are the strong and the American People are the weak, because they got bamboozled, and gave him the power to destroy their country, their constitution and their future. He is now on our 20 yard line thanks to big media).
Q-2. Will the American People ever wake up and realize he is destroying their future?
“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”
Q-3. What makes Donald Trump a great man?:
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”
Donald Trump is a con artist who deserves no quarter in the public realm.
I still the remember the widow of the senior citizen who committed suicide after loosing all their life savings in a Trump venture. Funny, but I went to find the articles of the protests too and couldn’t find them online.
1) He is a cheater, who paid his wife ONE DOLLAR a year to work and promote him and she is the one that coined ‘The Donald’, not him.
2) How many business people do you know that are serial bankruptcy filers?
3) How many people would set up a business seminar venture and call it a ‘University’ and take people for a ride who thought they were indeed attending a ‘University’? BTW, the government stopped him from this deceit, which he says he didn’t know was illegal??? The Ole ‘I didn’t know’ lie…
I wouldn’t vote for Trump.
Here’s a group of Christians that know the real Donald Trump:
Don’t know why it all went bold…oops sorry.
Mine did the same thing. I was more focused on the first and second question. Trump is a nice novelty. That said, he has no business being president. I’m not saying anybody else in the GOP is worthy, but he ain’t. I like that he is putting pressure on Obumbles, though.
Trump is a red herring that the oligarchy loves. He’s keeping everyone’s attention on him so that a genuine third party figure can’t arise. I don’t think he’s putting any pressure on O. If he is, then great, but somehow I think Axelrod et al think Trump is useful in driving O’s coalition back to him in 2012.
They should be sending him flowers along with Michelle Bachmann. Nothing drives the independents to the Democrats better than nutterz.
Thanks for posting Rock, I enjoyed that!
Radioactive Leaks in the sea from Japan are 20,000 times over the safe limit
You are saying the earth has a life threatening malignant tumor.
Have you all seen this:
Pakistan court frees five alleged attackers in gang rape | World news | The Guardian
She was raped because her brother fooled around? Talk about lack of common sense!
No BB, it is more involved than that:
Pakistani Court Upholds 5 Acquittals in Rape Case – NYTimes.com
Down in FLA this:
Teen Triangle Leads to Vicious Murder of Florida15-Year-Old – ABC News
try this one on from the land of minnesota ‘nice’
Sleepover Suicide Pact: Two Bullied 14-Year Old Girls Hang Themselves
Evidently they were being called “Gay, Girly Fag” by their school mates.
Damn, it is all so freaking disturbing. Sad very Sad.
{wiping away tears}
Nobel laureates push repeal of Louisiana Science Education law
There’s suppose to be a ban on ‘religious’ materials .. but you know they sneak that creationist crap in … Jindal wants us to be a center for medical technology. He’s not going to get far if he comes pushing all this stuff that overrides science.
I agree Trump is a red herring. 🙂
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