Hard Ball

post from Talking Points Memo on 15 December 2011 12:00:53 PM. © Talking Points Memo

As Republicans threaten a government shutdown if they don't get their way on the payroll tax fight, Pelosi tells them: you're on your own finding money to fund the government. No help from us. [...]

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Chuck Todd Flips the Bird on Live Television
Triggering Right's Latest Feigned Outrage for the Day

post from Crooks and Liars on 15 December 2011 12:00:41 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Chuck Todd Flips the Bird on Live Television Triggering Right's Latest Feigned Outrage for the Day

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There are a lot of reasons I'd like to see Chuck Todd off of the air at MSNBC, but this incident on Morning Joe this Wednesday when Todd thought he was off camera, is not one of them. Apparently he caused a bit of a dust up with the latest feigned outrage for the day as our web developer at C&L, Jamie noted earlier today:

Chuck Todd Flips The Bird On National Television, Triggering The Apocalypse:

Here comes today's outrage from the right wingers. During a lead in, in which Chuck Todd thought the cameras were off, he get's caught flipping that notorious middle finger.
This was captured by the wingnut site NewsBusters and has this added commentary:
Will there be repercussions for Todd? Stay tuned.
Even on the YouTube NewsBusters posted you have a bunch of wingnuts calling for Todd to be fired and now Fox has picked up on it.
But certainly a Republican would NEVER do something like this - would they? Read on...

This isn't the first time someone on Morning Joe got themselves into trouble for profanity on the air. Mark Halperin was suspended from MSNBC back in June for calling President Obama a dick on Morning Joe. And Scarborough dropped the f-bomb back in November of last year.

Chuck Todd did apologize for the incident on Twitter.

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http://crooksandliars.com/heather/chuck-todd-flips-bird-live-television-trig

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NY Mag on Romney using KKK slogan brouhaha

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 15 December 2011 12:00:15 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

From Brett Smiley at New York Magazine:

AMERICAblog's story appeared on its site on Tuesday, and it's backed by sources that indicate that the phrase was indeed used by the Klan. So then why did Hardball host Chris Matthews issue a vehement apology on behalf of MSNBC?

Was the report that Romney used a phrase once embraced by an extremist, white-clad hate group inaccurate? It appears not.

Matthews issued the MSNBC mea culpa for reporting what he termed an irresponsible and incendiary story, though, not an inaccuracy. Romney's campaign didn't specify what was misreported either, according to the New York Times.

We don't doubt that MSNBC is sorry for choosing the story, but probably not for the reasons cited.

Background on this story here.

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kkk-slogan.html

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The NBA and the Rise of Nerd Fashion

post from ThinkProgress on 15 December 2011 12:00:03 PM. © ThinkProgress

Wesley Morris’s piece on the rise of nerd fashion in the NBA is fascinating, but I’m kind of surprised he doesn’t mention David Stern’s dress code until the third-to-last paragraph of the piece:

When David Stern imposed the league’s reductive dress code six years ago, all this role-playing, reinvention, and experimentation didn’t seem a likely outcome. We all feared Today’s Man. But the players ? and the stylists ? were being challenged to think creatively about dismantling Stern’s black-male stereotyping. The upside of all this intentionality is that these guys are trying stuff out to see what works. Which can be exciting. No sport has undergone such a radical shift of self-expression and self-understanding, wearing the clothes of both the boys it once mocked and the men it desires to be.

I’d actually be really curious to hear more about the stylists in these equations, the people who mediate between the league’s expectations of the men who are the key to their profits, and those men’s expectations of themselves. If the rise of Kanye West and nerd hip-hop hadn’t coincided with the ban, what might the prevailing riff on the code have looked like? What inspirations would they have turned to?and because fashion evolves, where might they turn next? Malcolm X wore himself some crisply-cut but patterned suits back in the day is all I’m saying.

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http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2011/12/15/389737/the-nba-and-the-rise-of-nerd-fa
shion/

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San Francisco Requests Advance Notice Of Prop 8
Decision To Prepare For Protests

post from ThinkProgress on 15 December 2011 12:00:03 PM. © ThinkProgress

In a highly unusual letter, the City of San Francisco wrote the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit yesterday requesting advance notice of any decision upholding or striking down California’s anti-gay Proposition 8:

In several prior instances when decisions have been issued relating to the marriage rights of same-sex couples, there have been large gatherings, including protesters, at the courthouses and in the Civic Center area of San Francisco. . . . In any instance where crowds of protesters gather, and particularly where the issue is as emotional and contested as this one, it is helpful for the San Francisco Police Department to be aware of the gathering in advance to plan for and deploy an adequate number of officers to the areas where protests are likely to occur. We would therefore be grateful if the Court could provide advance notice of its intention to issue its decision in this case.

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-notice-of-prop-8-decision-to-prepare-for-protests/

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Riders In GOP Interior Appropriations Bill Reward
Shell Oil, Ban Light Bulb Standards

post from ThinkProgress on 15 December 2011 12:00:03 PM. © ThinkProgress

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, and Michael Conathan, Director of Ocean Policy, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Shell Oil's Noble Discoverer drill ship

Early this morning, House Republican appropriators unveiled their version of the 2012 spending bill for the Department of Interior (DOI), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and related agencies. Rather than focus on just spending provisions and monetary details, appropriators added a handful of nasty policy riders that would advance Republicans? Big Oil agenda and reward corporate polluters at the expense of public health and our lands and waters.

One of the worst of these riders is Section 432, which would make it easier for oil companies interested in drilling off the coast of Alaska to get Clean Air Act permits. Also, the bill would transfer air permitting authority from EPA to DOI, which ?in essence eliminates the Environmental Appeals Board from being able to review permits (and prevents legal challenges),? according to Earthjustice. This rider is designed to fast-track oil drilling in Alaska?s frigid and fragile Chukchi Sea, which Shell Oil has been pursuing for years.

Alaska native communities have been most successful in protecting their homes from Shell’s drilling operations by challenging EPA’s issuance of Clean Air Act permits. This provision would remove that safety net for their survival.

Other bad policy riders snuck into the bill include “light bulb ban” language and denial of climate rules:

- Section 122: Limits judicial review on lawsuits brought against grazing on public lands.
- Section 125: Prohibits the Secretary of the Interior from enforcing the ?wildlands? policy, which would have protected some of the last wild places on public lands. In one of last year?s spending bills, Republicans were successful in forcing Secretary Salazar to walkback this important policy, and they are ensuring that he is unable to enforce it next year.
- Section 315: A Tea Party favorite, prevents implementation of modern efficiency standards for light bulbs.
- Section 409: Allows the Secretary of Agriculture to rely on outdated forest plans, ignoring the reality that national forests are quickly changing in the face of climate change.
- Section 415: Circumvents environmental review for grazing under the National Environmental Policy Act by allowing grazing permits to be renewed, transferred, or issued without prior NEPA analyses.
- Section 425: Forces the president to submit a report ?describing in detail all Federal agency funding, domestic and international, for climate change programs, projects and activities.? Presumably this would become a spending hit list for Congressional climate deniers in the future.
- Section 426/427: Prohibits EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions–particularly potent methane– from livestock and manure from corporate livestock operations.
- Section 429: Prohibits EPA from regulating water pollution from logging roads under parts of the Clean Water Act. A landmark decision in the Ninth Circuit ruled in August 2010 that storm water runoff from logging roads should be regulated under the Clean Water Act.
- Section 431: Prevents the Forest Service from protecting wild bighorn sheep from diseases carried by domestic sheep, and for the Interior Department, adds a level of administrative interference in reducing conflicts.

It?s unclear exactly what the next step will be on this bill, as the Senate is determining its own version of a spending bill that will need to be conferenced with this House version. But the Continuing Resolution for spending this year runs out tomorrow, which means unless an emergency short-term bill is passed, the government would shut down.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/15/390032/riders-in-gop-interior-appropria
tions-bill-reward-shell-oil-ban-light-bulb-standards/

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Facebook Goes Green

post from ThinkProgress on 15 December 2011 12:00:03 PM. © ThinkProgress

After 20 months of mobilizing, agitating and negotiating by Greenpeace activists to green Facebook, the Internet behemoth announced today its goal to run on clean, renewable energy:

Facebook is committed to supporting the development of clean and renewable sources of energy, and our goal is to power all of our operations with clean and renewable energy. Building on our leadership in energy efficiency (through the Open Compute Project), we are working in partnership with Greenpeace and others to create a world that is highly efficient and powered by clean and renewable energy.

Facebook’s 2010 data center is primarily powered by coal, spurring the worldwide campaign.

Greenpeace mobilized Facebook users across the world, including Israel, Sweden, Italy, India, and Senegal. In one day, supporters posted over 80,000 comments in at least eleven languages on the Facebook Unfriend Coal page.

Greenpeace is looking to Apple, Microsoft, and Twitter as the next tech companies to commit to renewable energy.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/15/390037/facebook-goes-green/

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Democrats Question Wyden’s Decision To Join
Hands With Ryan On Premium Support

Some Democrats are questioning Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) decision to join forces with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to propose a bipartisan Medicare premium support plan, arguing that his involvement offers Ryan’s vision greater legitimacy. As Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) told Bloomberg this morning, “I don?t know why Ron Wyden is giving cover? to Ryan. Other Democratic aides piled on: “For starters, this is bad policy and a complete political loser,? an aide told Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler. ?On top of the terrible politics, they even admit that it dismantles Medicare but achieves no budgetary savings while doing so ? the worst of all worlds. Thanks for nothing.” During an event unveiling the proposal at the Bipartisan Policy Center this morning, however, Wyden tried to argue that Ryan and other Republicans would still have to own their votes for the GOP budget, which aims to phase out traditional Medicare. ?No one ducks their previous votes or their past statements,? Wyden The Hill’s Sam Baker.

Update

Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) weighs in: “Despite Wyden’s claims otherwise, the Wyden-Ryan plan ends Medicare as we know it, plain and simple. If these two get their way, senior citizens’ health coverage will depend on what big insurance offers and what seniors — most of them on modest, fixed incomes — can afford. That combination will jeopardize health and economic security for seniors.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/12/15/390075/democrats-question-wydens-decis
ion-to-join-hands-with-ryan-on-premium-support/

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Pay For American CEOs Rose 27 To 40 Percent Last
Year

According to a new survey by the corporate governance group GMI Ratings, “America’s top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year.” The top ten CEOs in the country took home a combined $770 million. Meanwhile, workers saw their average wage go up just two percent in the same year.

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/15/389942/ceo-pay-increase-2010/

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L.A. Times: Earth’s Top 10 Biggest Enemies
in Congress

Republicans launched an unprecedented frontal assault against environmental protections and regulations this year, prompting Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to call his chamber “the most anti-environment House in history.” Here are the 10 most powerful and outspoken opponents of clean air, clean water, conservation and climate action.

That’s the Los Angeles Times editorial board opening its “Year in Review: Congress’ 10 biggest enemies of the Earth,” what they call “Observations and provocations from The Times’ Opinion staff.”

Here are the opponents 10 to 8:

10. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Thought to be the biggest lifetime recipient of oil-industry contributions in the Senate, Cornyn has rewarded Exxon-Mobil?s largesse by supporting the industry?s position on pretty much every energy or environmental issue that has ever appeared before him. That’s why he, like everyone on this list, has a “0″ on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard for pro-environment votes.
9. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska. A tireless advocate for opening Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, Young was involved in one of the more entertaining name-calling spats in Congress this year when he got into a tiff over the refuge with author and professor Doug Brinkley. You can be the judge of who won by watching the video replay.
8. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista [CA]. There may have been a time when the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee lived up to its name, investigating and bringing to light incidents of government waste, fraud and abuse. But I can’t remember back that far. In recent decades it has served as a tool for the majority party in the House to bash and embarrass the presidential administration, at least during times such as now when the House isn’t controlled by the president’s party. Issa, the committee’s current chairman, has turned such political gamesmanship into an art form, and has been particularly keen to attack environmental regulators and policymakers. In so doing he has turned up precious little waste or fraud, but provided plenty of political theater for those who want to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency or end subsidies for clean energy.

Here are the worst 7:

7. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio. Latta has the distinction of sponsoring the most far-reaching and destructive amendment to the most egregious anti-environment bill passed by the House this year. The TRAIN Act, approved by the House in September but not expected to get through the Senate, is a breathtaking (literally) gift to polluters that creates a committee to study the costs but ignore the benefits of environmental regulation, while also blocking EPA efforts to crack down on deadly emissions from power plants. Latta’s contribution is an amendment that undermines a cornerstone of the Clean Air Act, requiring the EPA to take industry costs into account when setting health-based standards. This would allow corporate polluters to overrule scientists and strikes at the heart of the polluter-pays principle that has guided environmental policy for 40 years.
6. Rep. Edward Whitfield, R-Ky. Another architect of the TRAIN wreck, Whitfield offered an amendment that would block the EPA from regulating mercury and other toxics from power plants, and from coming up with a rule on smog and soot that crosses state lines. Together, these two regulations would save an estimated 51,000 lives per year. But what are a few thousand lives when utility profits are at stake?
5. Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla. One of the most outspoken climate-change deniers in the Senate (he’s renowned for calling global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”), Inhofe is also one of the most influential Republicans in the country when it comes to environmental policy. As ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, he uses his position to push for expanded oil drilling and reduce environmental regulation. Inhofe sometimes even finds himself to the right of the polluter-packed U.S. Chamber of Commerce; this summer he placed a hold on President Obama’s nominee John Bryson as Commerce secretary, even though Bryson had the blessing of the Chamber, because Inhofe felt Bryson was too pro-environment.
4. Rep. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho. Simpson has stepped to the front lines of his party’s war on Mother Nature by adding dozens of anti-environment riders to must-pass budget legislation. Among other things, Simpson aims to let mountaintop coal-mining operations continue to pollute streams, prevent the EPA from regulating coal-ash disposal, and exempt pesticide sprayers from complying with the Clean Water Act.
3. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The enforcer of Republican Party discipline, Senate Minority Leader McConnell is among the key architects of his party’s stance on environmental issues. In 2009, when Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was among the few Republicans willing to discuss a bipartisan climate bill with Democrats, it was McConnell who reportedly convinced him to back away. This spring he led a failed effort to block the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and overrule its finding that climate change threatens public health — tantamount to a statement that politicians know more about the dangers of climate change than scientists.
2. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. The House Majority Leader released a memo in late August listing the top 10 “job-destroying regulations” his party would battle in the remainder of the congressional session. Seven were environmental rules opposed by the fossil fuel industry, including restrictions on emissions from industrial boilers and cement plants, and proposed rulemaking on smog, farm soot and greenhouse gases. None of these rules really threaten jobs, but failing to approve them would certainly threaten lives.
1. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Upton is the gatekeeper for many of the disastrous anti-environment bills that have been approved or proposed in the House this year. Ironically, he was once known among his state’s conservatives as “Red Fred” because of a somewhat pro-environment voting record, but a recent electoral challenge from his right changed all that. Because of his powerful position and newfound disdain for green regulation, he represents one of the biggest threats to planet Earth on planet Earth.