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This time next year, we should all get together on the National Mall to see how the SuperPACs did on the Presidential race.
• Never got to this, but the WaPo engages in a baseless smear against writers for the Center for American Progress for daring to not take the lockstep AIPAC position on everything. Glenn Greenwald has more.
• Looks like House and Senate negotiators worked a deal that will avoid another FAA shutdown, and will allow a longer-term extension to go into effect. And I see it as a pretty unqualified win for organized labor. Basically, Republicans caved, and Delta will probably get unionized as a result.
• The US Conference of Catholic Bishops will sue now over the new regulations mandating contraceptive coverage for all employer-based insurance plans.
• Yes, Ron Wyden deserves a lot of credit, and lawmakers like Kirsten Gillibrand don’t, when it comes to stopping SOPA and PIPA.
• Michael Kinsley looks at the data on inflation, acknowledges he was wrong and that inflation hasn’t spiked, and then continues to overhype fears about looming high inflation.
• I don’t know why David Leonhardt thinks this is about ordinary Americans having a lower tax rate than they think. It’s about the principles of progressive taxation, and more to the point, the principles of rich people not abusing the tax code to their advantage. And we have the power to change this. Heck, even Rupert Murdoch gets it!
• I meant to go into the Newt Gingrich “food stamp President” thing, but suffice to say that more people are on food stamps because welfare has been taken away from them. Food stamp assistance has basically substituted for welfare. And yes, Republicans want to welfarize everything.
• Sounds like David Obey won’t be running for Governor in Wisconsin, and that he wants a moderate to challenge Scott Walker.
• France could be bugging out of Afghanistan. Surprise: it’s an election year in France! Meanwhile, this is just another sign that we have no business still being in Afghanistan.
• Juan Cole on the big story out of Israel, confirming that Iran hasn’t decided on building a nuclear weapons program. I haven’t seen this in a single domestic media source (if it’s in here, it’s well-hidden). It is good that Michael Hayden is talking down military action, however.
• The best thing about these new tourism measures is that it probably means other countries will charge less for visas to US tourists wanting to visit there.
• Yes, it’s only the beginning of the Keystone XL battle. But it’s quite a beginning, one that nobody in Washington really expected. The church of the savvy could give some credit.
• Elizbaeth Warren’s moneybomb netted over a million dollars yesterday. Good for her!
• No matter who Republicans choose at this point, they will have picked someone who supported parts of the Affordable Care Act at one time, including the mandate.
• I thought we fixed this: “A Maryland woman says she was denied the right to visit her same-sex partner at Washington Adventist Hospital.”
• The Greek deal on debt could get finalized any day now. Bullet, dodged.
• Interesting blog debate on income inequality and social mobility. The “high correlation” side is winning the argument.
• I think Matt’s reading some organization into the Administration’s plans for the Commerce Department, but he’s right that it probably won’t happen anyway. Which isn’t a bad thing at a time of high unemployment; I’d rather defer this to later.
• It’s Abu Ghraib right here in Los Angeles.
• Guess what, these days Bain Capital primarily gives donations to Democrats.
• The US may shut down the Syrian embassy due to security concerns. That would be from forces loyal to the government, by the way.
• Libya had undeclared chemical weapons. Why, then, didn’t Gadhafi use them?
• Hotel occupancy rates are getting back to normal, which is a good sign.
• Shut down the primaries, Chuck Norris endorsed Newt Gingrich. It’s all over.
• Stephen Colbert: a Ron Paul fan? How dare he! Doesn’t he know the ins and outs of why nobody should ever support anything he says?
• The President does have the singing chops, I’ll say that.
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About FDL News Desk
Does anybody outside of the Beltway care about what Michael Kinsley writes?
From a recent Kinsley review of Robert Frank’s Pity the Billionaire:
And David Leonhardt is an idiot. He’s conflating marginal and effective rates.
In conservative dogma, aren’t marginal rates supposed to be the
Incentivizing Force for Rational Economic Choice™?
In Fukushima they are now updating the kabuki…
http://www.google.com/search?q=fukushima+endoscope&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
TEPCO just stuck an industrial-grade endoscope, one specifically designed for extreme radiation environments, into a hole drilled into the Daiichi #2 reactor in order to look for the corium- the melted mass of fuel and core structures that used to be the reactor core.
Locating the corium is a critical step in evaluating the actual reactor situation and is months overdue. The oligarchs responsible for this delay should be required to spend a decade in jail for every day they refused to do it.
So TEPCO tried to find the corium or at least confirm the water level. What they found was high heat, massive amounts of steam and an equally massive radiation flux… this in a reactor that is supposedly in a state of “cold shutdown.”
It will be no surprise to FDL readers that they couldn’t find the corium amidst the steam and radiation “dazzle”. They couldn’t even find the water level.
They can’t find it because the core isn’t there. It hasn’t been there since the day of the quake.
The <1% already knew this, of course, but I'd guess that they are trying to "break the news gently"… or rather, they have begun trying to sync up the fantasy of lies they've been spinning with the reality of what they've actually done to the people of Japan.
This isn't going to end well.
Johnny Otis, son of Greek immigrants, 1921-2012, singing something as relevant today as then.
Leonhardt is the Ezra Klein of the NYT. Whatever populist soul he may have had he sold out long ago.
Lee Baca is the Don Rumsfeld of LA law enforcement. And still no one wants to run against him.
You don’t say.
CIA collaboration with New York Police Department was never legally approved
“New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly insisted in October that the arrangement was legal under a 1981 presidential order, which allows the CIA to provide local law enforcement with “specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of expert personnel,” provided the guidelines are spelled out in advance and the agency’s general counsel approves of the arrangement.
“The AP is now reporting, however, that according to intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, neither of those things was done in 2002 when then-CIA director George Tenet sent a veteran officer to set up “spying programs that transformed the NYPD into one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies.”’
LINK.
And here’s one for Miss Etta.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120117a1.html
thanks
WTF?
Bloomberg vs the Homeless
“Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration went to court on Friday to defend its controversial new application process at homeless shelters, arguing no rules were broken when the policy was adopted without public scrutiny.”
LINK.
Arizona Schools Ban Mex-Am Studies, Angry Kids Put On Janitorial Duty
” . . . the school district in Tucson has completely banned Mexican-American studies, seized all the textbooks and even wall posters from the classrooms, and punished the students who protested by sentencing them to janitorial duty.”
LINK.
Fracking Market to Grow 19% to $37 Billion Worldwide in 2012
“The global fracking market grew by 63 percent in 2011 to $31 billion, Spears said. Fracking is the practice of pumping millions of gallons of high-pressure water, chemicals and sand underground to crack fissures in the rock so oil and gas can flow. [Spears "advises about 400 oil producers, hedge funds, equipment providers and manufacturers on energy-industry trends."]
. . .
“In the U.S., horizontal drilling, the precursor to most fracking activity, is expected to rise to almost 19,000 new wells this year, breaking 2011’s record of 16,000, according to Spears.
. . .
“Four companies — Halliburton Co., Schlumberger Ltd., Baker Hughes Inc.’s BJ Services unit and Frac Tech Services LLC — provided more than half the North American fracking services last year, Spears said. Halliburton was at the top of the group with 18 percent of the horsepower, followed by Schlumberger with 13 percent, BJ Services with 12 percent and Frac Tech with 11 percent.”
LINK.
Anybody know any more about Spears?