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The Commentariat -- The Ides of March
Tom Zeller, Jr., of the New York Times: "The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a Mark 1 nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment. Now, with one Mark 1 containment vessel damaged at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan and other vessels there under severe strain, the weaknesses of the design — developed in the 1960s by General Electric — could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe." ...
... Felix Salmon of Reuters urges you not to donate money to Japan for earthquake/tsunami relief. He explains why. ...
... ** Greg Palast in TruthOut: "The [Obama] administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas -- by [Tokyo Electric] and local partners." Palast, a former nuclear plant fraud investigator, explains why this is a horrible idea. What he reveals is not just the obvious -- that some of Japan's nuclear reactors are in meltdown after the quake. It's worse. Far worse. ...
... Rob Hotakainen, et al., of McClatchy News: "As Japan copes with one crisis after another at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, a review of federal records indicates that nearly a quarter of America's nuclear reactors in 13 states share the same design of the ill-fated Japanese reactors. The plants, called Mark I Boiling Water Reactors, were designed by General Electric.... On Monday, the Japanese blasts prompted calls for an immediate review of the 104 nuclear plants now operating in the United States...." With U.S. map showing the general location of plants. ...
... BUT. Sam Youngman & Ben Geman of The Hill: "President Obama continues to believe that nuclear energy is key to U.S. energy policy even as uncertainty and fear grip Japan, where plants were damaged during last week’s earthquake and tsunami." ...
... AND. Josh Marshall of TPM: fossil fuels are killers, too. "We should ... consider the possibility that nuclear power is actually safer for our own health and that of the planet."
... Without comment or reporting, the Guardian has published WikiLeaked cables describing comments from Taro Kono, a prominent member of the Japanese Diet, who "voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security.... He also accused METI of covering up nuclear accidents, and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry." Read the cables here. ...
... At long last, after months of pounding from Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher & others, the MSM speaks out against the abusive treatment of Bradley Manning:
... New York Times Editors: "Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted. Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects. Inexplicably, it appears to have President Obama’s support to do so." ...
... Los Angeles Times Editors: "It's hard to resist the conclusion that punishment, not protection, is the purpose of these degrading measures." The editors say Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. Mabus should review Manning's complaint, and "we expect he will agree with Crowley that the treatment of Manning has been 'ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.'"
Michael Hudson & Jeffrey Sommers of the Guardian: Wisconsin Gov. "Scott Walker ... is seeking to re-open the asset-grabbing Gilded Age style. A plague of rent-seekers is seeking quick gains by privatising the public sector and erecting tollbooths to charge access fees to roads, power plants and other basic infrastructure.... A peek into Governor Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" reveals a shop of horrors that is just the opposite of actually repairing the budget.... His policy threatens to pauperise the state and deal a coup de grace to Progressive Era institutions and impoverish the state's middle class." ...
... Andy Szal of Wisconsin Politics Budget Blog: Wisconsin "Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald wrote this afternoon in an email to his caucus that Senate Dems remain in contempt of the Senate and will not be allowed to vote in committees despite returning from their out-of-state boycott of the budget repair bill vote." ...
... Kevin Hall of McClatchy News: "Some members of Congress haven't been shy about criticizing underfunded state and local pension plans, even though they themselves enjoy much heftier retirement packages than most private-sector employees and state workers do.... Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said 'we've got to get real about what we can and cannot afford' in state pensions.' ... Lawmakers also pay less into their pensions, and get a better match from taxpayers, than most state employees do across the nation. 'They still reserve to themselves a more generous formula than rank-and-file members of the federal government,' said Peter Sepp.... By McClatchy's calculation..., [members of Congress who] have served at least 25 years and accrued annual pensions worth at least $50,000. By comparison, for average U.S. former workers 65 or older who receive private pension payments, the median annual amount is $8,016...." CW: the comparison is somewhat apples & oranges here. The Congress also pays itself a lot more than an average federal employee makes, so, hey, they deserve a pension worth more than six times what a lowly bureaucrat receives. ...
... CW: this story by Kevin Hall is more than a week old, but the facts aren't stale: "Corporate pensions ... are woefully underfunded, and the [Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.,] the federal agency that insures them against losses is facing a dangerous deficit that taxpayers may end up covering.... [The Government Accountability Office] says the federal insurance funds are at 'high risk' of failure. Moreover, the Obama administration's proposal to fix this is meeting stiff resistance from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business interests."
Phil Angelides, who headed up the Congressional Financial Crisis Committee, speaks about the committee's report at a recent Commonwealth Club (of California) forum. Thanks to reader Haley S. for the suggestion:
... You can access the report itself here.
Right Wing World
Fox "News" graphic via Media Matters.Exclusive! "Fox News Discovers Nuclear Reactor in Japanese Disco." Simon Maloy of Media Matters checked out the map above which Neil Cavuto ran on his very informative Fox "News" show. See that plant at "Shibuyaeggman"? Shibuya is a trendy Toyko neighborhood, & Eggman is a dance club in the hood.
Matt Yglesias: former Indiana Governor & Sen. Evan Byan, a "high-minded" ConservaDem, plans to "get rich as a lobbyist. Today we learn that he’ll also be acquiring a secondary gig as a conservative television pundit" on Fix 'News.' This way he can be an "on-air television spokesman, presumably one whose client affiliations won’t be disclosed to the viewing public. And since as best we can tell Fox has no journalistic standards, it’ll be an ideal venue for peddling whatever nonsense he likes." CW: Bayh was on Obama's short, short list for vice president.
Local News
A Feral Swine in the Kansas Legislature. Scott Rothschild of the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World: "A legislator said Monday it might be a good idea to control illegal immigration the way the feral hog population has been controlled: with gunmen shooting from helicopters. Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, said he was just joking.... Peck made his comment during a discussion by the House Appropriations Committee on state spending for controlling feral swine." Here's the audio:
... More Right-Wing "Jokes," via Ben Smith: In his daily e-mails to Gov. Haley Barbour & staff, Barbour's press secretary Dan Turner punctuates the briefing with his own special schtick. "In Friday's email, for instance..., he 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.)
... Update. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has accepted the resignation of his press secretary, just hours after it was reported that the spokesman sent e-mails with off-color jokes...."
Anybody Can Get Elected in New Hampshire. Tom Fahey of the Manchester Union Leader: "Rep. Martin Harty, a Barrington Republican, has resigned his House seat.... Harty, who turns 92 this month, came into spotlight last week after telling a voter during a phone call that he thought the best treatment for the mentally ill would be a one-way trip to Siberia. He also said population growth and mental illness could be controlled with eugenics, a form of genetic engineering commonly associated with Hitler's Germany." In addition, Harty has said he didn't understand how the legislature worked; he just voted the way the people around him were voting without knowing what he was voting for. CW: He's 92! Looks as if Michele Bachmann, who last week moved Lexington & Concord from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, could still win the New Hampshire primary. ...
... The Boston Globe has a hilarious editorial on Bachmann's misplacing Lexington & Concord. It begins, "It’s less than a year until the New Hampshire primary, and many GOP hopefuls are testing the waters, including Michele Bachmann of the great state of Minnesota, proud home of Mount Rushmore," and goes on from there. In case you're about ten percent as fuzzy on your geography as is Bachmann, the editors footnote the actual sites they misplaced in the text.
News Ledes
New York Times: "A small crew of technicians, braving radiation and fire, became the only people remaining at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Tuesday — and perhaps ’s last chance of preventing a broader nuclear catastrophe." ...
... New York Times: "Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday after an explosion damaged the vessel containing the nuclear core at one reactor and a fire at another spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air.... In a brief morning address to the nation Tokyo time, Prime Minister pleaded for calm, but warned that radiation had already spread from the crippled reactors and there was 'a very high risk' of further leakage." The Times has a useful interactive graphic which explains how a reactor shuts down & what happens in a meltdown. ...
... New York Times: "With the crisis in Japan raising fears about nuclear power, Chancellor said on Tuesday that she will temporarily shut down seven German nuclear power plants that began operations before the end of 1980 as officials begin a three-month safety review of all of the country’s 17 plants." ...
... Yahoo News: "Last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan has actually moved the island closer to the United States and shifted the planet's axis.The quake caused a rift 15 miles below the sea floor that stretched 186 miles long and 93 miles wide.... The areas closest to the epicenter of the quake jumped a full 13 feet closer to the United States."
Washington Post: "Saudi armored personnel carriers rolled over a causeway into Bahrain on Monday in an extraordinary intervention aimed at helping a neighboring Sunni monarchy bring an end to weeks of Shiite-led protests that have unnerved kingdoms and emirates throughout the Persian Gulf region." ...
... New York Times: "A day after ’s military rolled into , the Iranian government branded the move 'unacceptable' on Tuesday, threatening to escalate a local political conflict into a regional showdown with .... Even as predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran pursues a determined crackdown against dissent at home, Tehran has supported the protests led by the Shiite majority in Bahrain." ...
... New York Times: "Monday’s action, in which more than 2,000 Saudi-led troops from gulf states crossed the narrow causeway into , demonstrated that the Saudis were willing to back their threats with firepower. The move created another quandary for the Obama administration, which obliquely criticized the Saudi action without explicitly condemning the kingdom, its most important Arab ally.
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