Month: May 2011

Halflife

by digby

I wish I could explain why nobody seems to care about this anymore, but I can’t. Even though I do, I find that I’m not writing about it even though I read whatever I can get my hands on. There must be some psychological resistance to facing up to it.

Anyway:

Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan’s crippled nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a “dead zone” remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded.

Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels a square meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published May 24 and given to the government.

Radiation from the plant has spread over 600 square kilometers (230 square miles), according to the report. The extent of contamination shows the government must move fast to avoid the same future for the area around Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant as Chernobyl, scientists said. Technology has improved since the 1980s, meaning soil can be decontaminated with chemicals or by planting crops to absorb radioactive materials, allowing residents to return.

Would you believe that? I’m guessing that nobody with kids orwho hopes to have kids is going to live there. In fact, it will probably be inhabited, if it is, only by the elderly.

God, what a horror. I thought about it this week-end when I was on the central coast of California, one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world:

It’s true that California needs power. But we have a lot of sunlight and if Germany can do it, so can we. it’s time to get rid of them.

BTW: If you’re a Californian, check out this guy. And throw him some change if you have it.

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The Demographic Giant

The Best Political Team on Television

by digby

This morning I watched CNN spend at least 15 minutes interviewing Andrew Breitbart about a congressman’s penis after which they interviewed legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin about the interview.

Yesterday the main story was this:

JOHN KING, HOST: Thanks Candy and good evening tonight from one of America’s historic treasurers, the Gettysburg National Military Park. It’s a fitting place to spend any Memorial Day and on this national holiday, well a heavy rush of presidential politics.

The Sarah Palin mystery tour rolled into town just a short time ago, but no public events yet and we don’t know when she will appear because her aides simply won’t tell us. But as she made her way here, her stops included Ft. McHenry (ph), Star Spangled Banner (INAUDIBLE) and as she traveled she is being more than a little cagey on the subject of whether this is just a rolling civics lesson or a 2012 campaign preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: You know I believe that there are many more out there who have much more to add and competition breeds success. I would hope that there is going to be vigorous debates and a lot of (INAUDIBLE) competition (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Also this day, President Obama leads the traditional wreath laying at Arlington National Cemetery then announces another major change in his national security team. With America fighting three wars, we’ll explore whether the new War Council signals a new approach.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I’m announcing my choice for the successors today because it’s essential that this transition be seamless and that we stay focused on the urgent national security challenges before us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: But, first up, like it or not, she’s back. Sarah Palin is on a bus tour that mixes landmarks of America’s past and battlegrounds of her political presence. New Hampshire and Iowa in the days ahead, for example, but on this day George Washington’s Mt. Vern, the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and here at the turning point of the Civil War. Some of you I know are already rolling your eyes.

I’ve been getting e-mails and tweets all day. There is no question Governor Palin is a master of media manipulation. But spend a little time in this little town and you’ll also get a taste of the Palin factor. Look at these pictures we can show you right now. Families waiting for hours some of them eight or nine hours, 100-degree heat almost here to get a glimpse at the biggest remaining wild card in the 2012 presidential race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON CORRADO, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: I think she brings a perspective that is a little bit closer to home for most average Americans. I don’t think that she seems to have lost touch with what most people are concerned about right now. I think some of the candidates are not able to connect as well as she can.

JEANNE TULL, SELMA, TENNESSEE: I like her. I would just like to see her. I think a lot of her. I have a lot of respect for her. I have a lot of respect for her Christian values and her convictions. She seems like a family person and I like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, Governor Palin likes to call us the lame stream media and her organization refuses to give us a schedule of her planned route or stops. So it makes it a little fun, or frustrating to cover her depending on your perspective. I call it fun. She did of course allow a FOX News crew and host to travel in her entourage and that begs one of the big questions about all this.

Has she privately assured FOX she is not running and that this is just about self-promotion or does the network have a different standard for Governor Palin than it put in place for its other candidate contributors like Newt Gingrich or Mike Huckabee. Let’s dissect her message and her motives with three veterans of Republican politics.

CNN contributor Erick Erickson is the editor of the influential conservative site RedState.com. Susan Molinari is a former Republican congresswoman from New York and John Brabender is a top Republican campaign strategist who knows this state of Pennsylvania in particular quite well.

Palin and Breitbart understand something about the political press that others do not — they are driven by tabloid values. Give them some juicy gossip and they are as happy as can be.

Total recall

by digby

Chris Bowers reports:

All six recall petitions against Republican state Senators in have now been found sufficient by the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB). In addition to the three petitions the GAB approved last week against Dan Kapanke, Randy Hopper, and Luther Olsen, this morning they approved the petitions against Sheila Harsdorf,Robert Cowles, and Alberta Darling.Further, the GAB has delayed the determination of sufficiency or insufficiency on the three recall petitions filed against Democratic state Senators, due to the stronger challenges filed against those petitions:

In an announcement sure to shake up the drive to recall politicians from both parties, the Government Accountability Board said Friday that its members would not be able to consider the recall petitions of three Democrats when they meet on Tuesday.

This might push the recall elections against Democrats back a week to July 19, push all recall elections to that date, or possibly prevent any recall elections against Democrats from taking place.

Blue America has a page set up if you want to help. If you think NY-26 was a bellwether, it will be an earthquake if those Republicans lose their seats.

Well this is about the most depressing way to start off the morning I can imagine. Greg Sargent reports:

There’s no way around it: Republicans have won the political war over the debt ceiling. The House is set to vote today on a proposal for a debt ceiling hike without any spending cuts attached. It will be rejected — the GOP is unified against it, and even some Democrats will vote No. This is the “clean” vote Dems originally sought, but it’s now clear that Dems think it’s politically impossible not to accede to the GOP demand for deep cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.And so, with the Biden-led deficit negotiations set to resume this week, Mitch McConnell has now begun insisting that big Medicare cuts will be necessary in exchange for GOP support for the debt ceiling hike. Thanks to their willingness to draw a hard line at the outset, Republicans now appear poised to win big concessions in exchange for supporting something that they and everyone else have already said is inevitable.

Well yeah. I go back to my first post on this issue back in January:

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.

There’s a lot of interesting chatter this morning about all of this, but this one, by Stan Collender in Roll Call is most intriguing. He says that just because the Republicans get their wish for a failure of a clean vote, it does not necessarily follow that they would vote for a “dirty” one either. He feels this vote is entirely a kabuki dance that’s necessary (because of the polls saying people don’t want to raise the debt ceiling) for the Republicans to record a “no” vote no matter what’s in it.

Many Members publicly insist that a big “no” vote on a clean bill will have little to no effect on financial markets. But here’s another dirty little secret: There is a growing suspicion that, like what happened the day after the House rejected the Troubled Asset Relief Program in September 2008 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by almost 7 percent, such a vote could quickly change market perceptions of the situation and have a substantial negative effect on interest rates and equity prices.

It’s even possible that’s part of the plan. Former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said last week that it is going to be difficult to get Members of Congress to agree to increase the debt ceiling without some kind of “turbulence” in the bond market. A big “no” vote on a debt ceiling increase bill could easily accelerate that type of disturbance in the financial force. Indeed, it might be what’s needed to precipitate it and the leadership may be counting on that happening.It’s even possible that’s part of the plan. Former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said last week that it is going to be difficult to get Members of Congress to agree to increase the debt ceiling without some kind of “turbulence” in the bond market. A big “no” vote on a debt ceiling increase bill could easily accelerate that type of disturbance in the financial force. Indeed, it might be what’s needed to precipitate it and the leadership may be counting on that happening.

I don’t know what kind of sick nihilism makes a scenario like that remotely possible, but again, I don’t believe it. We are talking about Big Money here and there are a lot of things that aren’t working right in this country right now, but the greed mechanism isn’t one of them. I don’t believe “the markets” are going along with that plan. And I don’t think even the Republicans are going to take that kind of risk going into an election year.

But if these people are actually planning a financial panic in order to destroy the safety net, can someone explain to me just how it is they can possibly be considered anything but criminals? This isn’t a joke. Panics have a way of getting out of hand — it’s not like you can wave a magic wand and it stops. At the very least can we at least admit that every single sentence they’ve ever uttered about the desperate need for market “confidence” and “uncertainty” was unadulterated rubbish? (If this happens keep an eye on the short sellers because somebody’s going to make money on it and you have to assume the people who caused it are among them …)

The Democrats can turn this clean vote against the Republicans if they want to. The polls may say that the people don’t want the debt ceiling raised, but they also don’t want the government shut down, Medicare to get privatized and the economy to get worse. If the Democrats have even a modicum of guts they’ll relentlessly hammer this vote home for the next two months as a sign of the Republicans’ willingness to do anything to destroy Medicare, even destroy the economy. There are several months of negotiations ahead and they could tie this albatross around their necks right along with the dead Ryan plan if they want to. The real question is whether they want to.

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Tales from the fringe

Dday has a great post today featuring Krugman’s column today and ex-Biden economic advisor Jared Bernstein’s response. He notes a little piece of information in Bernstein’s post that sheds some light on our ongoing quest to understand the decision making in the administration over the past few years. I’ll just excerpt a small bit here:

1) on a WPA program, Bernstein explicitly says it was the White House, not Republicans, who had no appetite for direct, public job creation during the first term. Bernstein says he made the arguments about public works jobs inside the White House, but he was clearly outvoted. He doesn’t give the arguments made in response, tantalizingly alluding to “interesting” reasons that he will “speak to another day.” But he says very clearly that the reason we did all of this hoops-jumping and nudging in the stimulus package rather than just paying people to work at jobs that needed to be done was a philosophical decision inside the White House. In a sense we already knew this, but it’s important that a former White House insider re-emphasized it.

2) on mortgage modification, Bernstein agrees that this would be a wise course of action. But he adds that there’s a restraint on politicians, presumably also at the White House, about moral hazard, about the “wrong kind of people” getting a mod. He references the Rick Santelli rant, which happened over two years ago, as proof for this difficulty.

I can’t wait to hear what the “interesting” reasons for #1 are, but if I had to guess, it probably goes something like this:

Clinton’s experience shows what such pressure can do to a president’s agenda. Promises of spending on education, public works and a middle-class tax cut fell by the wayside as advisers led by Robert Rubin, who later became Treasury secretary, convinced the new president the best thing he could do for the economy was to show investors his resolve on fiscal discipline.

“You mean to tell me that the success of the economic program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” Clinton raged at aides, according to journalist Bob Woodward’s book, “The Agenda.’

As for the second piece well … I guess they really believed that offering help to people destroyed by the greatest case of systemic mortgage fraud and reckless Wall Street gambling in history would send the wrong message to the polloi. They should have known better. We just can’t sanction such lack of personal responsibility and moral hazard in our society.

No, what we needed to do was discharge a nuclear powered firehose full of money at the people who perpetrated the fraud and ask them nicely, if they didn’t mind, not to do it again. Just as the institutions in question are all Too Big To Fail, these very, very important people are Too Rich To Fuck With.

Twitpic-gate

by digby

Those of you who have lives have probably missed this latest Breitbart atrocity, and lucky for you. It’s since been debunked as a standard wingnut hoax, but I think the only person who truly does justice to the idiocy of it is Tbogg, who caught that screen shot above.

I wonder if the best political team on television might have any thoughts about the fact that their official Tea Party commentator, the comely Dana Loesch, is implicated in this hoax?

The First Memorial Day

by digby

This op-ed in today’s NY Times is a fascinating history of Memorial Day which describes how it came to be after the shocking death toll of the Civil War. I was somewhat aware of the tribal politics surrounding the holiday during the Lost Cause decades, but I had never heard about this:

[F]or the earliest and most remarkable Memorial Day, we must return to where the war began. By the spring of 1865, after a long siege and prolonged bombardment, the beautiful port city of Charleston, S.C., lay in ruin and occupied by Union troops. Among the first soldiers to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the 21st United States Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the city’s official surrender.

Whites had largely abandoned the city, but thousands of blacks, mostly former slaves, had remained, and they conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war.

The largest of these events, forgotten until I had some extraordinary luck in an archive at Harvard, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the city’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison. Union captives were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.

After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

The symbolic power of this Low Country planter aristocracy’s bastion was not lost on the freedpeople, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.”

Fascinating yes?

When I read a story like that I’m always struck again by just how much of American history is African American history — how intrinsic to every American’s national identity it is. Hopefully kids in school are being taught about this nowadays — I certainly wasn’t.

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A Veteran’s Story

by digby

The woman walks toward the wall.

She presses a fingertip into the shiny, dark stone, traces it down the wall, left to right, left to right, name after carved name, a roster of the dead palpable against her skin…

Zwit knows this stretch of wall as well as he knows his scars, the pink welts that run from below his navel to his right nipple, the sinkhole of puckered skin where he once had ribs.

This is Panel 4W. The names of the eight men who died the night he earned his scars begin close to the bottom, at Line 123.

Robert. Jerry. Charles. Terry. Ronald. Rex. Paul. William.

Over the past four decades, Zwit has dedicated himself to finding their families so he could tell their mothers or fathers, their brothers or sisters or cousins, how they fought, how they died, and that they weren’t alone.

He has tracked down relatives of all the men. All except one. William. William Ward. No matter how he searched, every clue went cold.

The woman drops onto a knee. Zwit walks over, kneels down next to her, rests a hand on her shoulder. He feels the rustle of a dormant hope.

“Can I help you find something?” he says.