"Not just small towns have values," he said, responding to one of Palin's signature lines.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
These nine billion-dollar disasters tie the record set in 2008, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The total damage done by all storms, tornadoes, flooding and heat waves so far this year adds up to about $35 billion. The National Climatic Data Center says it estimates the costs in terms of dollars and lives that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates and are likely to change as assessments become more complete. With four months to go in 2011, this year’s total amount of damage is likely to rise. Forecasters are already predicting further meteorological mayhem as hurricane season intensifies.
What we know for sure, however is that thanks largely to climate change, sea level is about 13 inches higher in the New York area than it was a century ago. The greatest damage from hurricanes comes not from high winds and torrential rains — although those do cause a lot of damage. It’s from the storm surge, the tsunami-like wall of water a hurricane pushes ahead of it to crash onto the land. It was Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge, not the wind or rain, that destroyed New Orleans back in 2005.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Dick Cheney Lies About His Undisclosed Location
A little advice to Dick Cheney: if you're going to lie, make sure it's nothing that can be uncovered.
Not so in the memoirs of the former vice-president, who, the Washington Post reports
notes that he was “surprised by the intensity of the media interest” in the “undisclosed location” where he was sometimes reported to be, mentioning a “Saturday Night Live” skit that imagined him in a cave in Afghanistan.
But, he writes, the “undisclosed location” was the more mundane Vice President’s Residence, his home in Wyoming and, most often, Camp David.
But it wasn't Wyoming and it wasn't Camp David, though very close to the latter. From a July 15, 2009 post entitled "Not Quite Undisclosed" on this site:
On December 16, 2001, Dennis Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote
Three hours after Osama bin Laden turned the Pentagon into a broken rectangle, five helicopters touched down a few hundred yards from Hal Neill's house at the base of Raven Rock Mountain along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.
Within minutes, a convoy of SUVs with black-tinted windows zoomed up Harbaugh Valley Road, turned left, and deposited the weight of the free world inside Site R, the inexplicably named city-in-a-mountain from which the Pentagon has operated and, from all indications Vice President Dick Cheney has directed his office in the days since the Sept. 11 attacks.
But.if you do a google search under "undisclosed location wikepedia," you'll find, as the second entry, "Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." The wikipedia entry on Blue Ridge Summit notes that is the location of Vice President Cheney's "undisclosed location," crediting this article as appearing in the Boston Globe on July 20, 2004. More specifically, the piece was written for Knight-Ridder by Steve Goldstein and appeared in not only the Boston Globe, but also The Philadelphia Inquirer and probably elsewhere. Goldstein visited the site, dubbed "the underground Pentagon" by "government insiders," and explained
The location is a highly secure complex of buildings inside Raven Rock Mountain near Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., close to the Maryland-Pennsylvania state line and about seven miles north of Camp David.
A recent book, "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies," by James Bamford, was credited with spilling the beans about the supposedly supersecret hideaway....
Site R -- also known as Raven Rock or the Alternate Joint Communications Center -- is a 53-year-old facility conceived at the start of the Cold War as an alternate command center in the event of nuclear war or an attack on Washington.
Sloping, round-humped Raven Rock Mountain sprouts a thicket of antennae, satellite dishes, and a microwave tower. From state Route 16, the main road that passes the mountain, two oversize metal doors in the hillside are visible through the heavy foliage giving it that Fortress of Solitude touch.
Bamford, Roddy, Goldstein, and maybe a few others performed their job and disclosed the "undisclosed location." To all others, including the Washington Post, it has been a punchline good for a snicker here and there. But the undisclosed location is in fact disclosed
Friday, August 26, 2011
Go either way- but stay firm. (I know what you're thinking.)
In December of 2010, Congress, as suggested the President, lowered the payroll tax for employees (not employers) one year from 6.2% to 4.2% as part of the agreement to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. This was done, presumably to help stimulate the economy and was especially welcome by Democrats eager to cut a regressive levy. Unfortunately, reducing the payroll tax reduces the solvency of the Social Security system, a bug for most Democrats, a benefit to most Republicans and President Obama, who continually whine about the need to "reform" a program more successful than almost anything Washington ever has done.
President Obama wants to extend the payroll tax cut; Republicans, therefore, want it to expire. But there are two suggestions better than either of these options.
Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed that the cap on the Social Security tax, now at $106,800, be adjusted so the "wealthiest Americans" pay. It should have been unnecessary to explain, but given the disinformation from conservatives and the mainstream media, Sanders' office reminded us that Social Security
has not contributed one dime to the federal deficit. It has a $2.5 trillion surplus, and it can pay out every nickel owed to every eligible American for at least the next 25 years, according to the Social Security Administration. A recent report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Social Security is in even better financial shape and can pay all promised benefits until 2038.
The Vermont Independent was a little vague, not specifying whether all income over $106,800 would be taxed for Social Security or instead only that up to a certain figure (extremely unlikely) or only above a certain figure, $250,000, $1,000,000, or whatever.
Robert Reich, as an academic rather than politician, was more specific. A little over a week ago, outlining a series of steps to pull the nation out of its economic slump, he recommended Washington "exempt forst $20k of income from payroll taxes for two years. Make up shortfall by raising ceiling on income subject to payroll taxes." A year ago, he recommended the same, noting it "would give the economy an immediate boost by adding to the paychecks of just about every working American. 80 percent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. And because lower-income people would get most of the benefit, it's likely to be spent." Reich seemed to be advocating that the reduction apply to employers as well as to employees.
Keep it simple by simply eliminating the cap on Social Security taxes. Or eliminate the cap for incomes above $250,000 (for all income) and exempt the first $20,000 (or $30,000, if the numbers work), thereby introducing progressivity to the tax and stimulation to the economy. Either proposal would strengthen the Social Security system- as its critics always claim is necessary- and leave unscathed the lower and the middle classes. We must save Social Security for future generations, the Republicans, President Obama and other neo-liberals say; this is their chance.
And of course, this is the reason that Republicans won't go for it, inasmuch as the destruction of one of government's social insurance systems is one of the objectives of the anti-government party (except when its governors accept stimulus funds to balance their budgets; nope, even then). President Obama would like to see this reform occur because, as one who wishes to be remembered as a transformative President, he really would like to ensure the solvency of the Social Security system for the forseeable, or unforseeable, future. Unfortunately, he believes one way to do that is by a de facto reduction of benefits, whether by raising the eligibility age or the COLA formula, perhaps with chained CPI. And it is the same President Obama of whom (allegedly) God earlier this week tweeted
There was just a 6.0 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be a 3.4, but the Republicans wanted 6.0, so he compromised.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Blaming The Little Guy
The Daily Times of Farmington, New Mexico reported the protest that greeted Democratic Representative Ben Ray Lugjan on a tour of Goodwill Industries in Farmington. One member of the San Juan County 9/12 Project, a group aligned with the tea party movement
.... said he came for "a chance to see the elusive representative."
"He needs to get out of politics and make room for an American," Clark said.
Luján is a lifelong New Mexican. Clark later explained that he meant an "American patriot."
Pretty ugly that is, and reminiscent of Senator George Allen's infamous crack about S.R. Sidarth: "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere." Sidarth was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, U.S.A. A foreigner to George Allen. Lujan was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A. A foreigner to his critic, Darrel Clark.
Posting on the blog of the ardently pro-Obama Center for American Progress, Travis Waldron found Clark's comment "representative of the strains of racism and ethnocentrism that exist in the Tea Party movement."
However, Darrel Clark is, well, Darrel Clark, a private citizen about as famous as you, me, or your next-door neighbor. But Tom Coburn is a long-serving United States Senator, who recently responded to a negative comment from a constituent about President Obama by contending
His intent isn’t to destroy. It’s to create dependency because it worked so well for him. I don’t say that critically. Look at people for what they are. Don’t assume ulterior motives. I don’t think he doesn’t love our country. I think he does.
As an African American male, coming through the progress of everything he experienced, he got tremendous benefit through a lot of these programs. So he believes in them. I just don’t believe they work overall and in the long run they don’t help our country. But he doesn’t know that because his life experience is something different. So it’s very important not to get mad at the man.
This was, CAP's Ian Millhiser observed, an "outlandish theory."
So let's review. Darrel Clark, of whom we never had heard and never will again (unless he is roundly condemned for his ridiculous and offensive remark), is emblematic of the "strains of racism and ethnocentrism" coursing through the veins of tea party supporters. A respected United States Senator (without presenting evidence) says the first black President "is out to create dependency because it worked so well for him," apparently because "as an African American male...... he got tremendous benefit through a lot of these programs." And that president believes in "these programs" not because they work- Coburn argued they don't- but because of the "life experience of the African'American male."
But Coburn, apparently, has not succumbed to racism or ethnocentrism but- wait for it- to an "outlandish theory."
Mere slap on the wrist though that is, it is more than we've heard out of the first black President, his spokespeople or advisers. And it's more than we've heard from the otherwise ever-vigilant civil rights organizations, apparently unconcerned that an influential opinion maker and role model-a United States Senator- believes the first black president couldn't have gotten anywhere near the White House if he weren't black. And that "these programs" exist solely for the African-American male, for whom life is evidently is just swell.
Hopefully, the acceptance of Coburn's remarks is attributable only to the personal relationship between the popular Oklahoma Senator and the former Illinois Senator. Sadly, though, it may be related to privilege- the ease with which some guy in the southwestern U.S. can get slammed while a remark by a member of the world's greatest deliberative body can get affirmed by the silence of others.
Change We Can Believe In, indeed.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Finding no "evidence of research misconduct," the Arlington, Va.-based National Science Foundation closed its inquiry into Mann, according to an Aug. 15 report from its inspector general. In February, Pennsylvania State University, where Mann is a professor of meteorology, exonerated him of suppressing or falsifying data, deleting e-mails, and misusing privileged information.
Skeptics of climate change pointed to the stolen e-mails, which surfaced in blogs in 2009, as proof that researchers conspired to suppress studies questioning the link between warming and human activity. Last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, repeated the charge that scientists have "manipulated" data on climate change.
"It was a pretty definitive finding" that the charges "swirling around for over a year" were baseless, Mann said in an interview.
The report confirms findings from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's inspector general and a separate panel of seven scientists based at universities in Britain, the United States, and Switzerland.
The inquiries focused on the University of East Anglia's climate-research unit, which stored the poached e-mails on its computer server. The university's work contributed to some of the key findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued reports that blame rising temperatures on human activity.
E-mails to and from Mann were in the pilfered cache. One message discussing his work spoke of a "trick" to "hide the decline" and others suggested deleting correspondence.
Mann was lead author of the first reconstruction of North American warming going back 1,000 years, which showed recent temperatures increasing sharply. The 1998 findings have been confirmed by several studies, Mann said.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
President Obama isn’t kidding around; he means business. Though not yet announcing details
The president is thinking about proposing tax cuts for companies that hire workers, new spending for roads and construction, and other measures that would target the long-term unemployed, according to administration officials and other people familiar with the matter. Some ideas, such as providing mortgage relief for struggling homeowners, could come through executive action.
Obama also plans to announce a major push for new deficit reduction, urging the special congressional committee formed in the debt-ceiling deal this month to identify even more savings than the $1.5 trillion it has been tasked with finding.
At a town hall meeting on Wednesday in Illinois, the President stated
When folks tell you that we’ve got a choice between jobs now or dealing with our debt crisis, they’re wrong. They’re wrong. We can’t afford to just do one or the other. We’ve got to do both. And the way to do it is to make some -- reform the tax code, close loopholes, make some modest modifications in programs like Medicare and Social Security so they’re there for the next generation, stabilize those systems. And you could actually save so much money that you could actually pay for some of the things like additional infrastructure right now.
We can close the deficit and put people to work, but what’s required is that folks work together. That’s the big challenge. That’s the big challenge. (Applause.)
After the President's brief rhetorical "pivot" to job creation, which he had termed "the most imediate concern of most Americans," Obama has returned to the deficit fairy. The GOP's favorite euphemisms- "reform" and "stabilize"- for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have been resurrected at the White House, with addition of "modest modifications."
We know that our goal is to reduce spending. But we also know that America faces not just a budget deficit but also a jobs deficit. Nobody on this committee would be happy if we reduced the budget deficit but even more Americans end up losing their jobs.
So we are ready to get to work with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to report out a balanced plan, with the shared sacrifices this moment requires. One that moves past the partisan rancor, puts our nation back on strong fiscal footing, and allows us to continue shining bright in the world in this generation and for generations to come.
It would be helpful if at least the Democrats- who claim to favor a "balanced plan"- realized that the goal of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is deficit reduction, not “to reduce spending.” Not only is spending reduction not the goal, it is an odd strategy for a party aiming, at least rhetorically, to create jobs. But then this group also believes “our colleagues on both sides of the aisle” share its passion for “a balanced plan.” That “balanced plan,” to the other side of “the aisle,” means cutting the heart out of the social safety net- and maybe, in return, a revenue-neutral move to lower the corporate tax rate while reducing loopholes (which lobbyists will put back into the tax code in a few years, thank you very much). Digby speculates that Obama’s limited, GOP-friendly jobs plan will be “the liberal bait” and
I guess the "compromise" the SuperCommittee Dems will be agreeing to is to sell-off the safety net (because the pain won't hit for a while) in exchange for some mealy mouthed tax cut stimulus and maybe a little infrastructure to goose the economy. Oh, and hopefully some minor help for the long term unemployed --- until the election anyway.
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