Month: March 2011

The Latest In Japan

by digby

You’ve probably already heard about this:

A third explosion in four days rocked the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan early Tuesday, the country’s nuclear safety agency said. The blast at Dai-ichi Unit 2 followed two hydrogen explosions at the plant — the latest on Monday — as authorities struggle to prevent the catastrophic release of radiation in the area devastated by a tsunami. The troubles at the Dai-ichi complex began when Friday’s massive quake and tsunami in Japan’s northeast knocked out power, crippling cooling systems needed to keep nuclear fuel from melting down. The latest explosion was heard at 6:10 a.m. Tuesday (2110 GMT Monday), a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety Agency said at a news conference. The plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the explosion occurred near the suppression pool in the reactor’s containment vessel. The pool was later found to have a defect. International scientists have said there are serious dangers but not at the level of the 1986 blast in Chornobyl.

Well that’s good. I guess.

Here’s a good primer on another lingering, frustrating question — the status of the spent fuel in these crippled plants — that’s well worth reading if you’re following this story in detail.

Concerns about a radiation release from the Fukushima Daiichi [1] power facility have focused on its stricken nuclear reactors, but the plants of that design also store highly radioactive spent fuel in pools outside the protective containment structure that surrounds the reactor itself.

Opponents of nuclear power have warned for years that if these pools drain, either by accident or terrorist attack, it could lead to a fire and a catastrophic release of radiation. Now, there have been hydrogen explosions [2] at two of the reactor buildings housing spent fuel pools at Fukushima.

This diagram [3] shows where spent fuel pools are typically located in the 1970s-vintage GE Mark I reactor design in use at Fukushima units 1, 2 and 3, where officials suspect reactor fuel has melted…The concern is that if the water in the pools ever drops too low, the zirconium cladding that holds the radioactive fuel pellets would begin to heat up and eventually burn. And if it did, the smoke from the fire could carry radiation away from the plant because the pool is outside the containment.

The nuclear story is riveting and understandably dominates much of the coverage. It’s a primal fear for the post WWII world and we have very little real experience with it. But the ongoing the horror of what’s happening to the people of Japan … oy.

This story is the best thing I’ve seen all day:

You can read this story here. They are lucky ones. How many thousands of people will not have such good news? Horror.

Update: Don’t read this article in the NY Times if you want to be able to sleep tonight.

h/t to Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones, who is doing a lot of good reporting on the nuclear story.

Tough Nerds and Tyrants

by digby

What the hell …

Reporters have been told they will not be allowed to broadcast sound and images from the Tuesday release of Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s budget plan.

Spokeswoman Connie Wehrkamp says journalists can bring only pens, notepads and tape recorders to the afternoon briefing, where Kasich is to announce the first details of his state spending blueprint for the next two years. She says videos and photos will be prohibited and the audio may not be used for anything but checking accuracy. Members of the Statehouse press corps registered complaints with the governor’s office on the matter. They noted a lack of precedent for such limits on their ability to cover a governor’s budget release. An invitation-only town hall meeting later Tuesday will be broadcast on government television.

No audio or footage, “invitation only” Townhalls? Excuse me?

Uhm, I hate to say anything uncivil, but there is something quite tyrannical going on in these United States right now. Get a load of this from McJoan:

Both chambers of the Michigan legislature have passed this bill. Under the governor’s authority, local officials can be fired, city and locality contracts broken, city assets seized and sold, services eliminated, school districts—entire city governments—eliminated. All under the authority of a governor with no public participation or oversight.

“It takes every decision in a city or school district and puts it in the hands of the manager, from when the streets get plowed to who plows them and how much they are paid,” said Michigan State AFL-CIO president Mark Gaffney. “In schools, the manager would decide academics or if you have athletics.” “This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen,“ Gaffney said.

Welcome to the new American dictatorship. Of course, Snyder’s own budget will so starve cities that he can create the fiscal emergency in them that will allow him to declare the emergency and seize control. But that’s just the beginning. His budget’s tax plan slashes corporate taxes by 81 percent, and hikes taxes on the working poor.

You may remember Governor Snyder as the guy who charmed the entire Village press corps with his “one tough nerd” campaign. I guess being a “nerd” these days includes a proclivity for dictatorship.

Read McJoan’s article for Rachel Maddow’s segment on this and further details. I hate to be a broken record, but you will not find a better example of disaster capitalism than this. There is no reason for such drastic actions. It’s not as if we’re in a state of emergency like they are in Japan. And yet these people are rushing through draconian changes to basic democratic systems without much debate or discussion. And if people around the country don’t wake up they are going to find that all this is a fait accompli.

Update: Oh, and there’s this.

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Teabag Priorities

by digby

The Young Tea Turks are losing patience:

In the House Republican Conference, freshmen and conservatives warn that there must be resolution soon on a budget funding measure that extends through the end of the fiscal year, so that the lawmakers can move on to bigger targets: the fiscal year 2012 budget and the tricky vote on the debt ceiling.

“I don’t think a lot of people have the stomach to do this ad infinitum,” said freshman Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), predicting that the debate on a short-term funding measure wouldn’t go on much longer.

Another GOP freshman, Rep. Allen West of Florida, said it isn’t playing well back home and that constituents “are tired of half-measures.”

At least one new Republican, Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a member of the Budget Committee, said he’s voting against the short-term bill because he wants to put in place longer-term cuts embraced last month by House Republicans.

“The priorities … are too critical to ignore for another three weeks — things like defunding the [Environmental Protection Agency], the pro-life provision [defunding Planned Parenthood] and Obamacare,” Huelskamp said in a statement.

That’s an interesting mix of priorities, don’t you think? I suppose you can make the stretch that defunding those programs are all in service of fiscal rectitude, but that wouldn’t exactly be the whole truth now would it? There’s a reason why those specific programs are in the crosshairs.

So what about our friend Huelscamp? Is he a Tea Partier? And did he run on those “priorities” he named in that quote?

Well, he’s definitely a Tea Partier:

There’s a hot primary in Kansas to replace Republican Todd Tiahart who is moving up to the Senate. Tim Huelskamp, currently in 3rd in a field of 7, is the Tea Party favorite.

From his website:

Yesterday at massive TEA Parties across Kansas, Senator Tim Huelskamp spoke about the importance of the 10th Amendment. “The 10th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution for one purpose – to restrict the power of the federal government. But for years,” noted Huelskamp, “Washington has increasingly ignored any limits on their power – especially with the passage of their most recent stimulus and bailout…

The farmer from Fowler, as many have dubbed him, ran on a platform of conservative values and used a conservative voting record in the state Senate to illustrate his ability to vote against tax increases, spending and government growth.

“This was a hard-fought race, and I had some very worthy opponents,” Huelskamp said following the announcement on his win Tuesday. “My focus going forward is going to be advancing the conservative principles that I’ve campaigned on.”

It does sound as if he ran on low taxes and cutting spending, doesn’t it? Yes, he’s a hard core Tenther, but if it’s all about spending cuts in DC, why not endorse across the board cuts in everything? Why single out Planned Parenthood, of all things, which is a drop in the bucket?

Guess what?

December 30, 2009

Senator Huelskamp to Continue Effort to Defund Planned Parenthood

FOWLER – Sen. Tim Huelskamp (R-Fowler) announced today that he will continue his previous efforts to defund Planned Parenthood of the taxpayer funding they receive from the state of Kansas. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States and promotes abortion as a means of “family planning” and routinely uses taxpayer dollars to fund their operations.

Huelskamp led the effort to remove the funding in last year’s legislative session. His measure passed the legislature, but was vetoed by Governor Parkinson.

“This is the right thing to do,” Huelskamp said. “Organizations that perform abortions and fail to report sexual abuse of young girls should never receive taxpayer subsidies. This flies in the face of basic Kansas values.”

Sen. Huelskamp also believes that cutting funding to groups like Planned Parenthood will help establish a responsible threshold for spending public dollars. Planned Parenthood has received approximately $1.2 million over the last four years in Kansas, including a dramatic 23% spike in funding from 2008 to 2009 at the same time that revenues were sharply in decline.

“Continuing to fund Planned Parenthood is every bit as embarrassing as funding ACORN. We need to get serious and let them know that they are no longer welcome at the public trough.”

Note the date. (And the ACORN reference!) Huelskamp is anything but a run-of-the-mill fiscal conservative — he’s a full blown conservative movement, anti-abortion, Christian Right zealot. Here’s far right fringe group Concerned Women for America’s endorsement:

As the father of four adopted children, Senator Tim Huelskamp understands the importance of protecting the future of this country. He defends families from the onslaught of a culture that rejects the sanctity of human life and traditional marriage. He safeguards our children from an endless stream of pornography and anti-Christian imagery.

During four consecutive terms to the State Senate, Huelskamp has spearheaded the charge to defund Planned Parenthood (2009), led numerous fights against judicial activism, and passed amendments to limit access to cyber porn. Not only did Huelskamp author the Kansas Marriage Amendment—he saw it approved by more than 70% of voters in 2005. Huelskamp also worked to pass the “Violence Against Unborn Children” bill in 2007, making it a criminal offense to maliciously harm an unborn child without the mother’s consent while defining the unborn child as a human being.

This man, like the vast majority of Tea Partiers, is as much a hard core social conservative as a fiscal conservative, maybe more. The ongoing delusion, even among liberal commentators, that the Tea Party is some sort of secular organization is absurd. They are, quite simply, the far right, same as it ever was. It would be helpful if everyone would just accept this and stop defining them as some new coalition of average Joes and Janes who have come together around deficit reduction or some such nonsense.

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Good-Ole-Boy Outreach

by digby

I’m not sure who’s going to win the crude good-ole-boy vote, but Haley Barbour’s campaign is giving Huckabee a run for his money:

Every morning, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s press secretary sends to Barbour’s staff and other allies a list of press clippings, along with a daily compendium of birthdays, historical notes, and jokes — which have recently included humor on the topics of the disastrous Japan Tsunami, Janet Reno’s gender, and the Cambodian genocide.

In Friday’s email, for instance, press secretary Dan Turner emailed that on that day in 1968:

Otis Redding posthumously received a gold record for his single, “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay”. (Not a big hit in Japan right now.)

In 1993: Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the first female attorney general. (It took longer to confirm her gender than to confirm her law license.)

What a jackass.

Barbour is very, very popular in the Village, beloved by everyone from Roberts to Quinn. Do they know what kind of person he is and with whom he associates? Do they care?

Update: Well, lookee here (h/t to @pastordan):

Republican Party of Wisconsin fundraiser
3/16/2011
5:30 p.m.

Barbour Griffith & Rogers LLC,
The Homer Building,
Eleventh Floor South,
601 Thirteenth St. NW,
Washington, DC

With Hosts:
Wisconsin Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald
along with Assistant Leaders Rep. Scott Suder and Senator Glenn Grothman;
and Joint Finance Co-Chairs Rep. Robin Vos and Senator Alberta Darling

With Special Guest:
Republican National Committee Chairman: Reince Priebus

Invited Guests:
Senator Ron Johnson
Congressman Sean Duffy
Congressman Tom Petri
Congressman Reid Ribble
Congressman Paul Ryan
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner

$5,000 to Host
$2,500 to Sponsor
$1,000 per person to attend
All PAC and Individual Donations are appreciated

Please make checks payable to:
Republican Party of Wisconsin-Federal Account
148 East Johnson Street
Madison, WI 53703

In case you were wondering about Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers.

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Kudlow apology

by digby

Over the week-end I posted that Larry Kudlow had issued a Shock Doctrine Cliff’s Notes when he said:

“The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll, and we can be grateful for that.”

He apologized:

I did not mean to say human toll in Japan less important than economic toll. Talking about markets. I flubbed the line. Sincere apology.

I have to say, however, that from what I’m seeing on the financial news, his first instinct was indicative of the reaction of most economic observers. But they are now issuing perfunctory disclaimers before they bemoan the loss of possible new nuclear plants etc.

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Meanwhile, in the middle east

by digby

There’s just too much happening. Obviously, the possibility of a bad nuclear accident in Japan is the most nerve wracking, but it’s hardly all there is. Have you heard about this one?

Saudi forces are preparing to intervene in neighbouring Bahrain, after a day of clashes between police and protesters who mounted the most serious challenge to the island’s royal family since demonstrations began a month ago.The Crown Prince of Bahrain is expected to formally invite security forces from Saudi Arabia into his country today, as part of a request for support from other members of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council.Thousands of demonstrators on Sunday cut off Bahrain’s financial centre and drove back police trying to eject them from the capital’s central square, while protesters also clashed with government supporters on the campus of the main university.Amid the revolt Bahrain also faces a potential sectarian conflict between the ruling minority of Sunnis Muslims and a majority of Shia Muslims, around 70% of the kingdom’s 525,000 residents.The crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, said in a televised statement that Bahrain had “witnessed tragic events” during a month of unprecedented political unrest.Warning that “the right to security and safety is above all else”, he added: “Any legitimate claims must not be made at the expanse of security and stability.”[…]The unrest is being closely watched in Saudi Arabia, where Shia are some 15% of the population.In an apparent reference to Iran, which Gulf Arab ruling elites fear may capitalise on an uprising by Shiites in Bahrain, he also expresssed “strong rejection of any foreign interference in the kingdom’s internal affairs, asserting that any acts aiming to destabilise the kingdom and sow dissension between its citizens represent a dangerous encroachment on the whole GCC security and stability.” Reports that the Saudi National Guard was poised to enter Bahrain were cited by the Foreign Office, alongside a recent increase in protests, as it changed its advice to advise British citizens against all travel to Bahrain.
[…]
The latest demonstrations took place a day after the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, visited Bahrain and said that the Khalifa family must go beyond “baby steps” reform and enact substantial economic and political change.

That can’t be good.

From the middle east turmoil to the Japanese reactor accidents, our endless thirst for energy is at the center of many of our current crises.

Update: And tribal/religious hatred, as usual. Sigh.

Saudi forces have reportedly arrived in Bahrain to reinforce its police, who clashed with protesters yesterday in an escalation of the month-long Shiite-led protests calling for democratic reform…The protest is led by Shiites, who make up about 70 percent of Bahrain’s population, which has been ruled by the Sunni Al Khalifa family since the late 1700s. The country’s Shiites complain of discrimination and have called for government reforms.Opposition groups said Monday that the Saudi intervention was a declaration of war. Protests that began with calls for democratic reform and an end to Shiite discrimination are now calling for regime change.“The entry of the Saudis does not mean these people are going to go back to their villages quietly,” says Toby Jones, a Gulf expert at Rutgers University. “It raises the stakes.”.

Unexpected Good News

by digby

I think we are overdue for some good news and this certainly qualifies. Dday reports:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, just two months from the tragic shooting in Tuscon where she suffered a bullet wound to the head, is doing so well in rehabilitation in Houston, Texas, that she may attend the shuttle launch of her husband, Mark Kelly, on April 19. Giffords’ doctors, who held a news conference Friday, said that the patient can speak in complete sentences, and is improving tangibly with each passing day. She is able to walk with some assistance. Giffords has no memory of the shooting itself, but doctors described that as normal. Nobody yet knows how long the rehabilitation process will last. But considering the injury sustained – a full bullet wound through the left side of her head, causing trauma in the left hemisphere of the brain – her doctors are simply transfixed by Giffords’ achievements thus far.

This is a testament to modern medicine, luck and whatever else you want to call a miraculous outcome. The world is crazy right now. It’s good to hear some good news.

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Good reasons for worry

by digby

There are lots of people giving sage advice about the possibilities of a nuclear disaster arising from the Japanese earthquake. I’m not a nuclear scientist or and engineer, so I don’t know anything more than the average dummy watching all this from afar. But I do know two things.

The first is that the Japanese government and the power company have reason to withhold information. The country is in deep crisis and they do not want to cause panic especially when services are so stretched that they are unlikely to be able to respond as efficiently they normally would to a nuclear disaster. The fact that they are going to the trouble of evacuating people in large numbers in this already catastrophic environment actually argues for the fact that they are quite seriously worried. It may be standard SOP, but it’s not as if those resources aren’t desperately needed elsewhere.

So, this isn’t business as usual. They are very concerned. It’s not insane for average people to be concerned as well.

Second is this from Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones:

The question that arises out of the Japanese situation … is what happens when the actual earthquake exceeds the predicted risk. It’s become clear that the Fukushima reactors were not built to withstand a 9.0-magnitude quake, but rather were built on the expectation that a 7.9 was the maximum the plant would experience. The paper also touts Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power station as a case study in success, noting that it withstood a 2007 earthquake that was about three times stronger than it was designed to. But the paper also states, rather importantly, that “the Richter scale alone does not capture the dangers or risks posed by specific quakes.” This seems to be the real problem in Japan. The emergency situations affecting at least four nuclear power plants in the country seem to be more related to the their ability to withstand multiple disasters—an earthquake, tsunami, and the failure of both primary and back-up power—not just an earthquake alone.

This is one of those one-in-a-million situations that humans are rarely fully prepared for. It’s certainly possible that they will be able to contain this and that everything will go perfectly from here on in. We hope more than anything that it will. But it’s not being foolish or hysterical to be concerned about this. We are dealing with an unusual and difficult confluence of events.

It would be nice if everyone could keep an open mind — and that includes the scientists and pseudo-scientists who feel it’s necessary to browbeat people who are worried about this. Obviously, there’s no reason to assume the worst either. We just have to wait and see what happens.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is updating about the situation frequently at this link. This is their latest:

“While the authorities continue playing down the possibility of a breach of the primary containment at these reactors, I remain concerned.”

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Playing chicken in the kabuki pageant

by digby

So the Republicans are making it clearer than ever that they have every intention of playing chicken until 2012:

A whole host of Republican lawmakers are now angling to use the debt ceiling as leverage to enact severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other saftey net programs. Today on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) promised his entire caucus would vote against raisin the debt ceiling unless the White House agrees to cut entitlements.
[…]
If there is any question about Senate Republicans’ intentions, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) swiftly put it to bed. The “debt ceiling vote is ultimate leverage to get fiscal reform,” he tweeted yesterday.

I suppose we should prepare ourselves for the administration and the Democrats to “meet them half way” but we already know that’s kabuki:

So, where do we stand? There’s one bit of good news, which the Democrats, if they actually wanted to stop this austerity trainwreck, could use to great advantage in the upcoming “negotiations”:

At the House GOP retreat in Baltimore, “Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) delivered a stern message that the debt ceiling will eventually have to be raised to keep the government from defaulting. But he also promised that Republicans will ‘use the leverage’ they have to enact at least some of their spending-reduction goals. ‘It’s a leverage moment for Republicans,’ Cantor said in an interview Friday. ‘The president needs us. There are things we were elected to do. Let’s accomplish those if the president needs us to clean up the old mess.'”

I wonder what “old mess” he’s talking about — the mess the Republicans made in their eight years of useless wars and tax cuts or the old mess of “entitlement spending”? But that’s beside the point: Cantor just said that they will have to raise the debt ceiling. He said it out loud and on the record. Therefore, we now know that any capitulation made by the President and the Democrats in the negotiations will be made because they wanted to make them. There can be no doubt about that.

This doesn’t give me confidence that the Dems haven’t joined the dance:

President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austin Goolsbee said, “If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” But, as the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benan notes, Senate Republicans insists on the position of “do what I want,” or “I’ll cause catastrophe on purpose.”

If you give them this power, they will use it. They use this “I’m a crazy lunatic, you can’t stop me” routine all the time. It might be better if the Democrats channel Nancy Reagan and just say no.

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Privileged Elites

by digby

This is a good one:

The majority leader of the Arizona State Senate scuffled with his girlfriend during an argument on the side of the road late one night recently. He hit her and she hit him, according to the police, but the two suffered dramatically different fates.

The majority leader, Scott Bundgaard, told Phoenix police officers that he was a state senator, and he cited a provision of the Arizona Constitution that gives lawmakers limited immunity from arrest, the police said. Police Department lawyers were consulted, and they ordered that Mr. Bundgaard be uncuffed and released.

Aubry Ballard, Mr. Bundgaard’s girlfriend of about eight months, on the other hand, was arrested for domestic violence and spent the night in jail.

The article goes on to explain that this is part of the US Constitution as well as a number of other states and says that it’s been used quite a few times, although controversially in similar situations.

There is good reason to give lawmakers immunity from certain things while they are in office. (Imagine Scott Walker ordering the arrest of Democrats, for instance — oh wait.) But this is not one of them.

And there is nothing like seeing the hypocritical law and order/liberty loving Republicans use their government rank and privilege to elude accountability and responsibility for their actions. They just have an instinct for that sort of thing.

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