The Sonics are an American garage rock band from Tacoma, Washington, originating in the early 1960s. Among the Sonics’ contemporaries were the Kingsmen, the Wailers, the Dynamics, the Regents, and Paul Revere & the Raiders. Their aggressive, hard-edged sound has been a major influence on punk, garage, and hard rock music worldwide, and they’ve been named as inspirations by Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, The Fall, and other major artists.
They played a mixture of garage rock standards (“Louie, Louie”, “Have Love, Will Travel”), early rock and roll (“Jenny, Jenny”, “Skinny Minnie”) and original compositions such as “Strychnine”, “Psycho”, and “The Witch”, all based upon simple chord sequences, played hard and fast.
Wow!!!
Jay Nixon’s veins must have racist ice water running through them!! How else to explain the man’s lack of compassion. Is he not a father? Or does he believe his own children are more deserving to live and thrive in this country, whereas Michael deserved to die – that his life was worthless and his parents undeserving of the empathy and closure Nixon himself would expect had it been one of his own. Is the stranglehold of the police that overpowering that nobody is willing to stand up to them? To tell the truth? To stand for the innocent victims casually murdered by police without repercussion? This is the Unites States of America!! How can people paid with our tax payer dollars to protect us, have this much power to scare the elected officials charged with overseeing them? How can America preach to and patrol the world with any moral authority when it can’t even call out the murderers in police uniform in our own country who act no different from the 3rd world nations we accuse of crimes to their citizens.
tell it
this is hilarious
…………
Cats welcoming soldiers home….
by chawbraw · 3 days ago
http://imgur.com/gallery/3UHGV
SundayReview| Editorial
The Piecemeal Assault on Health Care
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NOV. 22, 2014
Now that they will dominate both houses of Congress, Republicans are planning to dismantle the Affordable Care Act piece by piece instead of trying to repeal it entirely.
They are expected to hold at least one symbolic vote for repeal in the next session so that newly elected Republicans who campaigned against the law can honor their pledges to repeal it. But Republican leaders know they don’t have the supermajorities needed to override a presidential veto, so they will try to inflict death by multiple cuts.
All of the provisions they are targeting should be retained — they were put in the reform law for good reasons. Some may need adjustments now that they are in effect. But the Republicans are not interested in improving any provisions. They are bent on destruction.
MEDICAL DEVICE TAX Congressional Republicans are determined to repeal this tax and are virtually certain to succeed, thanks to strenuous lobbying and campaign contributions from the device industry.
The Affordable Care Act imposes a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices, like artificial joints and pacemakers, which will raise $29 billion over the next decade to help pay for health care reform. Last year, the Senate voted 79 to 20 to repeal the tax, with 34 Democrats joining the majority on a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate measure. Even stalwart liberals, like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Al Franken of Minnesota, who have device manufacturers in their states, voted against the tax.
There is no good reason to eliminate the tax. The Congressional Research Service estimated in a report this month that the tax will have “fairly minor effects” on the industry’s output and jobs (reducing them by a fraction of 1 percent) and a “negligible” effect on the price of health care.
EMPLOYER MANDATES The reform law penalizes firms with more than 50 full-time workers if they don’t offer affordable health insurance. The vast majority of bigger firms already cover their workers and seem inclined to continue to do so.
A few high-profile employers have converted full-time workers (employed at least 30 hours a week) to part-time to avoid the cost of providing insurance. Republicans want to raise the threshold to 40 hours to allow more businesses to escape providing insurance. Eliminating the mandate completely could increase the number of uninsured people by anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 and cost the federal treasury $46 billion to $130 billion over 10 years, according to estimates from the Urban Institute and the Congressional Budget Office. The cost includes additional federal spending for Medicaid and for marketplace subsidies to cover the increased number of workers without insurance, as well as the loss of the revenue from penalties on the employers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/opinion/sunday/the-piecemeal-assault-on-health-care.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
Terry McAuliffe To Dem Who Tanked Medicaid Expansion: ‘I Hope You Sleep Easy Tonight, Buddy’
BySahil Kapur
PublishedNovember 24, 2014, 10:25 AM EST 15460 views
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) called to leave a scathing message earlier this year with the Democratic state senator who sealed the demise of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, according to the Washington Post.
Phillip Puckett had resigned abruptly in June amid private talks with Virginia Republicans about a state job, swinging control of the closely divided chamber to the GOP, which was fighting the expansion for some 400,000 residents.
“Hey, Phil? Terry McAuliffe,” the governor said in what the Post described as a “seething voice message” to Puckett. “I want you to know we just lost the vote, 20 to 19, in the Senate. Medicaid is done. I hope you sleep easy tonight, buddy.”
Medicaid expansion was a high priority for McAuliffe, who had looked for legal avenues to end-run the legislature and establish it on his own, but came up empty.
Puckett landed in hot water after the Post reported in late June, weeks after he resigned, on secret talks he had with the Republican-led state tobacco commission about a job on the panel for the lawmaker. The position was to include a cell phone and a car, along with a judgeship for Puckett’s daughter, according to leaked emails.
Puckett subsequently took himself out of the running for the job.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/terry-mcauliffe-phillip-puckett-medicaid-expansion
https://twitter.com/Qerina_Bedeng/status/536903473716281344/photo/1
Report: Police Killings Are Utah’s Top Form Of Homicide
ByAhiza GarciaPublished
November 24, 2014, 11:31 AM EST 3721 views
There have been more deaths caused by police shootings than by gang members, drug dealers or from child abuse in the past five years in Utah, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
This year alone, the Tribune reported, police shootings have claimed more lives than violence between spouses or partners, for a total of 13 deaths. A toll, which includes 22-year-old Darrien Hunt who was fatally shot by police in September.
“The numbers reflect that there could be an issue, and it’s going to take a deeper understanding of these shootings,” Chris Gebhardt told the Tribune.
Gebhardt, a former police lieutenant and sergeant who served in Utah, continued by noting that the situation “definitely can’t be written off as citizen groups being upset with law enforcement.”
Since 2010, 45 people were killed by police officers in Utah, a number which accounted for 15 percent of all homicides, the Tribune reported. In a review that the paper conducted of approximately 300 homicides, fatal police shootings were the second most common contributor, outpaced only by intimate partner violence.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/utah-police-killings-higher
Emails Reveal How GOP Consultants Secretly Gerrymandered Florida
ByCatherine ThompsonPublishedNovember 24, 2014, 12:57 PM EST 3328 views
Last summer, a Florida judge ruled that the state’s legislature illegally redrew congressional districts in 2012 to benefit Republicans. In his ruling, Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ripped into political consultants who he said “made a mockery of the Legislature’s transparent and open process of redistricting” while “going to great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it.”
Now, newly released emails published Sunday shed light on the lengths those political consultants went to tweak the state’s congressional districts in favor of the GOP despite a gerrymandering ban.
The emails, which were obtained by the Naples Daily News and the Miami Herald, detail how “paranoid” consultants with the GOP consulting firm Data Targeting kept their efforts to redraw some of the state’s congressional maps under wraps. Earlier this month the Florida Supreme Court ordered that the documents, which were a part of the original lawsuit accused Republicans of manipulating Florida’s political map, must be unsealed. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas upheld that order on Friday, according to the Naples Daily News.
One exchange showed that the consultants discussed a map proposal that would kick longtime U.S. Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), who died last November, out of his seat.
“If you have to have a minority-majority seat, this does it,” Anthony Pedicini, a Tampa-based political consultant, wrote of a redistricting plan that he said would also “retire Bill Young,” according to the Naples Daily News.
That plan was never realized.
Another email thread shows Pat Bainter, Data Targeting’s founder, acknowledging that former state Sen. John Thrasher (R) did not live in his district centered around St. John’s County. Thrasher’s residency had been a sticking point when he ran for the seat in a 2009 special election, according to the Naples Daily News.
“He actually lives in Clay County and would hope to end up there,” Bainter wrote to another West Palm Beach-based consultant, as quoted by the newspaper.
The emails also show that consultants discussed “packing” Democratic-leaning minority voters into a single district in order to bolster the Republican vote in surrounding districts. Bainter and Pedicini had approached lawyers with a strategy to shift some of the population in GOP-leaning state Senate districts in the Panhandle region into Democratic-leaning minority districts, according to the Naples Daily News.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/emails-detail-florida-gop-gerrymandering-effort
Understanding the Economics of Uber
ByJosh MarshallPublishedNovember 23, 2014, 11:33 PM EST 8484 views
Tonight I got TPM Reader HH’s deep, deep dive into the economics of Uber and some interesting questions about whether it’s current valuation makes sense in anything that looks like established transportation economics. There’s a lot here that gave me food for thought. One point I’ll add first is to say that a basic question I’ve long had about Uber (and its competitors, for that matter) is that the one thing that seems really new and different about it is the addition of geolocation and ride ordering made possible by the app. That’s a big thing, especially if you’re outside of the pretty small number of highly concentrated urban areas where taxis are ubiquitous. But it’s something local cab companies or whole industries could duplicate if they set their minds to it. In any case, over to TPM Reader HH …
Longtime reader and early Prime member. You seemed to be looking for some help understanding the Uber debate, so I thought some background notes might be useful. I have no relationship with Uber or any Uber competitors, but have spent a lifetime in transportation (aviation mostly, also railroads and transit) and think I have a pretty solid grounding in the economics and competitive dynamics at play here. The thoughts here are based on Uber debates on an airline listserv, that quickly degenerated into partisan/ideological flamethrowing that overwhelmed all efforts to apply basic MBA-type analysis to actual industry evidence. I don’t think you (or most other Uber observers) are all that interested in detailed discussions of taxicab economics. But I think there are hugely important questions that you and your readers would consider important. How did a new entrant in a small industry manage to generate such enormous, mostly favorable press coverage? Why is it that this huge public discussion of taxi industry competition never includes any information that might actually be helpful to one’s understanding of taxi industry competition? (are current companies wasteful or inefficient? Would Uber actually be significantly more efficient? What is the economic basis for capital markets thinking Uber could achieve $18 billion in an industry where no one else has ever made much money?)
Why do Uber debates sound just like partisan debates in Washington? Is this a case where investors have found sharp mangers with innovative ideas who will create clear value to society if they succeed, is this another parasitic attempt to become rich by screwing workers, consumers and eliminating competition, or is this like all those ultra-hyped dot-com bubble startups based totally on hot air that will go away before too long?
Again, this is just intended as an rough outline of some of the things to think about as you continue to cover the story, but please let me know if you have any questions
1. The issue is tomorrow’s Uber, not today’s Uber. Uber’s current consumer reputation is based on serving niche markets in a limited number of large, wealthy urban markets. It has a tiny share of the overall taxi/livery/limo market in those cities, which (based on its publicity) seems much stronger in certain demographics than others (e.g. Silicon Valley, not East Bay; weekend clubbing, not conventioneers). Uber publicity often features quotes from users in wealthy cities (Manhattan, Washington) talking about how much they prefer the nice Uber cars and drivers to regular cabs. But the growing public debate about Uber would not be taking place if its corporate ambition was limited to providing a premium taxicab alternative for wealthy urbanites. That debate is occurring because Uber claims it is currently valued at $18 billion, well into the stratosphere of start-up valuations, and Uber has recently raised the prospect of new investments that could push its valuation above $30 billion. Uber’s financial ambitions could only be achieved with many years of staggering growth, which means becoming wildly different from the company its Santa Clara/Brooklyn customers are familiar with. The question is what does Uber need to do to achieve the massive growth needed to justify an $18 billion valuation, and what kind of company would that be?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/understanding-the-economics-of-uber
from TOD:
Gazelle
November 24, 2014 at 2:11 pm
Could any NYC TODers tell me why there seems to be increasingly loud criticism of Mayor De Blasio. Ending stop & frisk seems to have brought a reduction in crime, not increased it. He was late to the Flight 587 memorial service, but why the angst? My instinct is the 1% are starting a campaign to make him a “one-term”. Here’s one article:
http://observer.com/2014/11/mayor-de-blasioss-lateness-is-inexcusable/
Am I missing something that only NYers can get?
DNC: finalist cities under consideration to host the 2016 Democratic National Convention: Columbus, New York, and Philadelphia
mollenbeckWTOP @mollenbeckWTOP
Mayor Gray says Marion Barry will lie in state at the Wilson Building. It will likely be next week, but no firm date(s) set. @WTOP
Rand Paul equates immigration action, internment camps
11/24/14 09:30 AM—UPDATED 11/24/14 09:55 AM
By Steve Benen
For proponents of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration policy, it’s become easy to draw parallels to similar actions taken by several modern presidents from both parties.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), however, has a very different kind of comparison in mind.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) likened President Barack Obama’s decision to take executive action on immigration to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order authorizing putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II.
Paul made the comments on Friday, a day after Obama formally announced the executive actions, at the Kentucky Association of Counties conference in Lexington, Kentucky.
In his remarks, the Republican senator said, “I care that too much power gets in one place. Why? Because there are instances in our history where we allow power to gravitate toward one person and that one person then makes decisions that really are egregious. Think of what happened in World War II where they made the decision. The president issued an executive order. He said to Japanese people, ‘We’re going to put you in a camp. We’re going to take away all your rights and liberties and we’re going to intern you in a camp.’ We shouldn’t allow that much power to gravitate to one individual.”
The problem with the comparison, whether Paul appreciates this or not, is that by his reasoning, practically all executive actions taken by any president on any issue are the first step on the road to internment camps.
Indeed, it’s quite possible the senator actually believes this. Paul said in September that he supported repeal of every executive order ever issued, which would include policies created by George Washington. Apparently, the Kentucky Republican’s hostility towards executive power really is that strong.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rand-paul-equates-immigration-action-internment-camps
Please proceed, GOP
………………..
Poll: Latino Voters Overwhelmingly Support Obama’s Immigration Actions
The first poll of Latino voters since Obama’s executive actions, first given to BuzzFeed News, shows that nearly 90% support his move, while 80% think it would be a mistake for the GOP to oppose them.posted on Nov. 24, 2014, at 11:00 a.m.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/poll-latino-voters-overwhelmingly-support-obamas-immigration
Former DOT chief: ‘Our infrastructure is on life support’
11/24/14 12:50 PM—UPDATED 11/24/14 01:05 PM
By Steve Benen
There was an interesting segment on “60 Minutes” last night on one my favorite topics: infrastructure. Steve Kroft told viewers:
“Business leaders, labor unions, governors, mayors, congressmen and presidents have complained about a lack of funding for years, but aside from a one-time cash infusion from the stimulus program, nothing much has changed. There is still no consensus on how to solve the problem or where to get the massive amounts of money needed to fix it, just another example of political paralysis in Washington.
“Tens of millions of American cross over bridges every day without giving it much thought, unless they hit a pothole. But the infrastructure problem goes much deeper than pavement. It goes to crumbling concrete and corroded steel and the fact that nearly 70,000 bridges in America – one out of every nine – is now considered to be structurally deficient.”
Kroft talked to Ray LaHood, the former Republican congressman who served as President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation, who did his part to raise the alarm. “Our infrastructure is on life support right now,” LaHood said. “That’s what we’re on.”
He’s right. The United States had a reputation for the finest infrastructure in the world, but as investments drop to their lowest level since 1947, the CBS segment added that we now rank 16th according to the World Economic Forum.
It’s the sort of thing that hurts the economy, hurts U.S. competitiveness, and poses potential hazards to the public. The problem includes everything from highways to seaports, runways to railways. We’ve neglected infrastructure, and the more we delay investing, the more expensive the problem becomes to fix.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/former-dot-chief-our-infrastructure-life-support
William K. Wolfrum @Wolfrum
Black on Black Crime is one of those important issues for White people that somehow only comes up when a White person kills a Black person.
Marissa Alexander agrees to 3 year minimum mandatory sentence with State Attorney… 65 more days remaining on mandatory sentence. via @WJXTvic
mad about this, but I understand
BREAKING- Mariss Alexander has entered into a plea agreement with State Attorney’s Office. Will NOT go to trial….
That’s her!! That Rosa Brooks the woman who did a lot of the attacks and bad mouthing of President Obama after he didn’t appoint her boss Michele Flournoy Sec of Defense. She was counselor to the Undersecretary and like the Clinton tentacles, they all were looking for their own relevance and job security.
Ladies, check your email.
Oh please John McCain who gave Chuck Hagel such a hard time during his confirmation even though they used to be friends, now wants to ‘defend’ him now that he’s leaving.
IKR. John McCain is only fronting. It’s all fake.
Watching and you can see that Joe Biden isn’t pleased. Hagel is his guy too. They’re great friends.
I wonder what happened?
Sharp elbows and saboteurs. Chuck Hagel is anti-war and the hawks couldn’t abide him. Just like Joe Biden, he’s old school loyal. An honest broker who didn’t much suffer fools. That didn’t always make him friends especially in the high intensity D.C game of power and influence, and earning the President’s ear. I’d rather a man of Hagel’s calibre than a seemingly effective asshole like Panetta.
The disrespectful venom being spewed by certain udual suspects once Hagel’s resignation was announced, is telling. And the fact that they all are pushing hawk Michele Flournoy, who’s only claim to fame is that she was the top ranking woman at Defense, is extremely suspect. It would be foolhardy in my opinion to hire back a woman so petty she not only quit her job when she didn’t get the Defense Sec. post, but went around in typical Clinton form, smearing the President via her former press secretary. Quitting her job in a huff doesn’t exactly scream integrity. And integrity and trust are key attributes necessary for this high and delicate position that has the military industrial complex alert and on 24 hour strategizing to either penetrate and win, or undermine and destroy.
I despise this Colonel Jack Jacobs this rightwing a-hole who’s the military analyst for MSNBC. What a petty, spiteful, gossip. No dignity, no integrity and so flippant. Of course he’s rooting for their hawk Michele Flournoy. That should be our red flag!!
Breaking News: Defense Secy Hagel stepping down.
I’m quite sad about this. I don’t like the leaks from admin officials saying that he wasn’t ‘up to the job’. This is the type of disrespectful stuff that cuts personally and turns a person vengeful. But Chuck Hagel has integrity in spades so there won’t be that petty sliming from his end. But he deserved better than this. He’s decidedly anti-war and met a lot of resistance from the the Military Industrial Complex and their paid and elected mouthpieces including defense lobbyists who fought and undermined him every step of the way. Whoever his replacement is, I hope it isn’t Clintonite Michele Flournoy. She showed her loser butt after she campaigned intensely for the position. Like Hillary she wants to be first woman. But was passed over for Chuck Hagel. She not only quit her Undersecretary position, but she and her fellow entitled white women brigade went on a rampage against President Obama. It was the sort of media bashing that made Geraldine Ferraro look sweet in comparison. They tried to discredit Chuck Hagel with their planted lies about Hagel being anti Israel and soft on Iran etc. When the GOP and especially John McCain the war addict loves you, that’s a terrible sign. I wish Mr Hagel all the best.
MSNBC Rachel Maddow reports on how the Heritage Foundation is pushing Republicans to retaliate against President Obama’s immigration plan with a government shutdown just like the one Heritage helped orchestrate in 2013.
http://youtu.be/3IFkvPVbpXQ
Pray for the folks of Buffalo. Seven FEET of snow melting fast…this can’t end well :(
Republicans have found a new part of Obamacare they think is illegal
Updated by Sarah Kliff on November 21, 2014, 12:20 p.m. ET
House Republicans filed a lawsuit today challenging the legality of how the White House has implemented Obamacare. This is not a surprise: House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has been pursuing this case for months now.
But there is at least one unexpected feature of the House Republicans’ suit against Obamacare, which you can read here: alongside the challenge to the employer mandate, it also argues that the White House is also breaking the law by giving insurance companies money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.
The government makes these payments to insurance companies for a little-known program called “cost-sharing reductions.” These are subsidies that low-income people get to help cover the out-of-pocket costs above and beyond monthly premiums. Cost-sharing subsidies essentially cap how much Obamacare enrollees have to pay for co-payments, co-insurance, and other forms of cost-sharing.
The limit is on a sliding scale by income, so someone right at the poverty line would be expected to spend no more than $2,250 on out-of-pocket insurance costs. The cost-sharing reduction would kick in to cover anything above and beyond this. You can see how the cost-sharing limit goes up with income in this chart from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/21/7259947/republican-lawsuit-obamacare-illegal
https://twitter.com/Fascinatingpics/status/536594212448661504/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Fascinatingpics/status/536674838883360768/photo/1
BWA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAA
Nevada Speaker-designate steps down amid controversy
11/24/14 09:00 AM
By Steve Benen
As recently as Saturday, Republican Ira Hansen, the Speaker-designate in Nevada’s state Assembly, sounded a defiant note. The public learned last week about inflammatory remarks he’d made about African Americans, women, Latinos, and gay people, but the GOP leader suggested he’d persevere.
Hansen told supporters, “I have gotten an overwhelming amount of emails and phone calls to my cell and business phone asking me to not give up because in doing so the politics of character assassination win.”
A day later, however, that posture had become unsustainable. The Las Vegas Sun reported yesterday:
After facing a firestorm of criticism for racist comments he made publicly, incoming Assembly Speaker Ira Hansen announced that he would not lead the chamber during the upcoming legislative session.
After announcing to his legislative colleagues that he was stepping down, Hansen issued a news release today saying the controversy surrounding him had been an “orchestrated attack.”
“Politics of personal destruction win,” he wrote in a message to Nevada lawmakers. “I need to step down. I hope that you all know that the Ira that you have known through these years and weeks is the real Ira and not what the media is painting me to be.”
It’s not yet clear whether Hansen intends to resign from the Nevada Assembly or whether he’ll remain in office in a lesser role.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/nevada-speaker-designate-steps-down-amid-controversy
Palin identifies the key threat to America’s future: Americans
11/21/14 04:26 PM
By Steve Benen
The rules as applied to Sarah Palin haven’t changed. As we talked about over the summer, the former half-term governor of Alaska remains a deeply silly person whose opinions are not to be taken seriously. When news organizations routinely make a fuss about her random missives, they’re lending credence to a former officeholder who doesn’t deserve it.
But every now and then, one of Palin’s tirades stands out as newsworthy.
The right-wing personality released a new online video today, complaining about President Obama and immigration, offering the usual lines in a style that can charitably be compared to a teenager delivering a report about a book she hasn’t read (via Simon Maloy).
But then Palin added this:
“We’ll survive this president. The question is (overdramatic pause) can we survive the people who voted for him, twice?”
I don’t know, can we?
Look, I realize that Palin holds the president in contempt. It’s not entirely clear why, but she’s not an Obama fan. I get it.
But this struck me as interesting because Palin seems to be arguing that her most pressing concern about America’s future is the president that disgusts her; it’s Americans themselves.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/palin-identifies-the-key-threat-americas-future-americans
Mo Brooks and the power of denial
11/24/14 08:30 AM
By Steve Benen
When Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was confronted with new evidence, put together by his House Republicans allies, that Benghazi conspiracy theories are completely wrong, the Republican senator was angrily dismissive. The evidence, he said, must be “crap.”
Denial can be a powerful emotional response, can’t it? If the right believes President Obama’s economic policies have failed, and they’re confronted with evidence of a falling unemployment rate, then there must be a conspiracy involving the jobless numbers. If the right believes Benghazi conspiracies are real, and they’re confronted with proof to the contrary, then the proof must be rejected.
But on Friday’s “All in with Chris Hayes,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) took this to a whole new level.
Brooks, you’ll recall, believes President Obama’s executive actions on immigration may be criminal acts that could land the president in prison. With this in mind, Chris asked a good question: “When President Reagan granted deferred action from 200,000 people from El Salvador who come here illegally, was he breaking the law in the same way?” It led to this exchange:
BROOKS: I have not examined what Bill Clinton did. This is a very serious manner. The Constitution imposes a heavy burden on us–
HAYES: No, no, no, I’m sorry. President Ronald Reagan. President Ronald Reagan, sir?
BROOKS: I think the individual facts are important, the mental intent of the actor. That case, Bill Clinton, now Barack Obama, those factors are important.
At a certain level, the cognitive dissonance must be disorienting. Republicans are convinced Reagan was a man without flaw. Republicans are then confronted with the fact that Reagan relied on executive actions to change immigration policy when Congress’ efforts fell short. That creates a problem: either Reagan took steps the right now finds abhorrent, or Obama’s actions are neither shocking nor unprecedented.
What to do? Decide that Ronald Reagan’s name is pronounced “Bill Clinton” when it comes to immigration policy.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mo-brooks-and-the-power-denial
In North Dakota, Rising Unease Over Oil’s Effects
The New York Times
In early August 2013, Arlene Skurupey of Blacksburg, Va., got an animated call from the normally taciturn farmer who rents her family land in Billings County, N.D. There had been an accident at the Skurupey 1-9H oil well. “Oh, my gosh, the gold is blowing,” she said he told her. “Bakken gold.”
It was the 11th blowout since 2006 at a North Dakota well operated by Continental Resources, the most prolific producer in the booming Bakken oil patch. Spewing some 173,250 gallons of potential pollutants, the eruption, undisclosed at the time, was serious enough to bring the Oklahoma-based company’s chairman and chief executive, Harold G. Hamm, to the remote scene.
It was not the first or most catastrophic blowout visited by Mr. Hamm, a sharecropper’s son who became the wealthiest oilman in America and energy adviser to Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign. Two years earlier, a towering derrick in Golden Valley County had erupted into flames and toppled, leaving three workers badly burned. “I was a human torch,” said the driller, Andrew J. Rohr.
Blowouts represent the riskiest failure in the oil business. Yet, despite these serious injuries and some 115,000 gallons spilled in those first 10 blowouts, the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which regulates the drilling and production of oil and gas, did not penalize Continental until the 11th.
The commission — the governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner — imposed a $75,000 penalty. Earlier this year, though, the commission, as it often does, suspended 90 percent of the fine, settling for $7,500 after Continental blamed “an irresponsible supervisor” — just as it had blamed Mr. Rohr and his crew, contract workers, for the blowout that left them traumatized.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/in-north-dakota-rising-unease-over-oil%e2%80%99s-effects/ar-BBfvuJ0?ocid=HPCDHP
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Morning!
happy Monday, Everyone!