Data from Air France flight recorders recovered

When the flight recorders were found, there was a concern that maybe the data would not be recovered. Today it looks as though everything has been recovered so they will start reviewing the data. This is good news for airline safety.

The French air accident investigation agency BEA said Monday that an international team downloaded the material from the "black box" voice and data recorders over the weekend.

"These downloads gathered all of the data from the Flight Data recorder, as well as the whole recording of the last two hours of the flight from the Cockpit Voice Recorder," the agency said in a statement.

The BEA says investigators will now analyze the material, which will take several weeks, and will release a new accident report during the summer.

Read the rest of this post...

VIDEO: Wonderful tap dance with dog from 1941

Her name is Eleanor Powell and she reportedly shot this scene in her living room, because that's where the dog was comfortable doing its tricks. Read the rest of this post...

Exxon made $19 billion in profit and got a $150 million tax rebate in 2009 (repost)

[Note: Reposted; this was lost during the Blogger hiccup, and I'd like to keep it on the record.]
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We've been on this for a while, these extractive industry profits, but this Rachel Maddow segment makes it all so clear. We give them the store so they can sell it back to us. Watch:



"The U.S. government currently hands out $4 billion dollars per year in subsidies" to the most profitable corporations in the history of the planet (1:35 in the clip). Nice.

I'll say again — "We" (Americans) don't have domestic oil, because "we" don't have a nationalized oil industry. "Our oil" is actually their oil: Exxon's oil, or Shell's, or Chevron's. They own it. "We" just give them permission to extract it from the ground.

From there "our oil" goes onto the world market, where "we" bid against everyone else on the planet for the right to own it again.

We give them the store so they can sell it back to us. And don't let that nice pant-suited lady from the oil advertisements tell you otherwise. Her name is Brooke Alexander, and she's used to playing con artists; she played one on As The World Turns before her oil industry gig.

(By the way, and apropos of nothing I've already said, it will be interesting to see what Sen. Schumer (3:45 in the clip) actually does with that committee of his.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

GOP-imposed March budget deal actually increased spending this year - oops

Some hostage takers. It turns out that instead of killing the hostages, the hostages actually had babies on their watch (okay, bad analogy, but basically, they screwed up).

It turns out the six-month spending bill Congress passed in March increased discretionary outlays through the remainder of the fiscal year by a bit over $3 billion. In other words, total direct spending will be higher by the end of September than if Congress had just set spending on autopilot for the remainder of the fiscal year back in April.

"Total discretionary outlays in 2011 will be $3.2 billion higher as a result of the legislation, CBO estimates--an increase of $7.5 billion for defense programs, partially offset by a net reduction of $4.4 billion in other spending," reads a just-released report from the Congressional Budget Office -- Congress' non-partisan scorekeeper. Analysts there conclude that increase is due in large part to the fact that the six month spending bill shifted defense spending to more immediate activities, which means the bills will come due sooner than later.

The good news for Republicans? Their super duper budget cutting deal should cut spending in ten years by as much as they claimed it would by September.

Heckuva job, Boehner.

But in all seriousness, this is going to make Boehner's job all that more difficult as it's going to make the rabid wing that controls the GOP that much more rabid about enacting massive instant cuts to spending that will jeopardize our recovery. And with the Democrats' track record, it's not like they'r likely to stand up to the GOP. Then again, if the Dems cut more deals like this, maybe there's hope yet. Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich supported individual mandates for health insurance yesterday, but not today!

Via AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Stuff:

In an interview on Meet the Press on Sunday, Gingrich backed the individual mandate.

In the same interview Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama's health law.

The former House speaker's decision to stick with his previous support for an individual mandate comes days after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended the health revamp he championed as governor, which includes a mandate.

However, in a video posted to his website, Gingrich said he opposes federal mandates.

"I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional," he said in a video posted on his website on Monday and apparently shot this morning outside a Washington, D.C., hotel where Gingrich was addressing an Alzheimer's convention.

They've got an excellent Jon Stewart clip over at The Right's Field, not to be missed. Read the rest of this post...

Bunch of old white guys want to give states the power to repeal acts of Congress

I'm sure they'd never have supported the states repealing the Civil Rights Act.  Sure.  (There's a reason they're all old white Republican men proposing this nutty idea.)

Republicans know their party is much better at convincing the public to do things, en masse, against its own interest.  So what better than to let states repeal individual acts of Congress.  Forget about those crazy old guys who wrote the Constitution, the guys who Republicans always tell us already thought of everything.  Apparently their original intent for how our country would work is no longer relevant.  Why?  Because the Republican party would like the ability to use the power, and terror, of the masses to do a lot of nasty stuff that would never make its way through Congress and past any president.  And that's just no fun when you're more autocrat than democrat.

In a very real way the Republicans hate our system of government and the fact that it guarantees a freedom from tyranny that often trumps the GOP's wackier ideas.  It's why you see the Republicans routinely undermining an independent judiciary, and now you see them undermining our entire system of federal governance.  They think the Framers got it wrong - that at its core, our country was made wrong - simply because they can't always get everything they want.

I'll close with the words of one of our commenters:

Well, it's called nullification, and there's nothing new about it. We fought a war that killed over 600,000 of our citizens to defeat this idea. And the adherents of the idea were regarded as traitors to the Union. These guys just want to re-fight the War of Southern Rebellion.

More on nullification here. Read the rest of this post...

FLASHBACK: Reagan warned of "incalculable damage" if debt ceiling not raised

From ThinkProgress:

However, Republicans poo-pooing the necessity of raising the debt ceiling might want to look to conservative icon Ronald Reagan. In 1983, Reagan warned that the consequences of failing to raise the nation’s borrowing limit “are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate”:

The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the costs, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.

In the end, it doesn't matter what the politicians think. What matters is what the experts say - the economists and Wall Street itself. And Wall Street has already warned Boehner to stop even threatening to block the increase.

The Wall Street executives say even pushing close to the deadline — or talking about it — could have grave consequences in the marketplace.

“They don’t seem to understand that you can’t put everything back in the box. Once that fear of default is in the markets, it doesn’t just go away. We’ll be paying the price for years in higher rates,” said one executive.

Another said that “anyone interested in ‘testing’ the debt ceiling should understand the U.S. debt traded wider [with a higher yield] than Greek debt roughly five years ago. Then go ask CBO what happens to our deficits/public debt to GDP, if the 10-year [Treasury bond] goes from 3.5 percent to 5.5 percent to 7.5 percent.” The executive said such an increase would result in a downgrade of U.S. debt by ratings agencies and an end to the dollar as the standard global reserve currency.

Another nugget from a new poll:

The poll also flashed an ominous sign for Republicans urging GOP leaders to fight raising the debt ceiling. Fifty-six percent believe failing to raise the debt ceiling will be “disastrous” for the country, compared with 32 percent who think it will not have a “serious impact.”

Oddly, in spite of the ongoing GOP lie machine, the American people seem to get it. Read the rest of this post...

GOP heartthrob Gov. Chris Christie refuses (R-NJ) refuses to say whether he believes in evolution

And while he claims it's okay for local school boards to decide to teach creationism, he did also seem last week to stand behind the state's apparent requirement that evolution be taught in every school. Which would seem to fly in the face of his faux-conservative "let local school boards decide" bs. So which one is it? Should Trenton stay out of the way of local school boards or not? Christie seems to be trying to have it both ways.

Here's Christie's own Department of Education spokesman:

As it turns out, the state does have a set of core curriculum standards that require what, at minimum, should be taught in New Jersey schools. Evolution is on the list for science classes; creationism isn’t.

“No, the state would not permit the teaching of creationism in place of evolution,” said Department of Education spokesman Alan Guenther. “Could teachers discuss creationism either in science or history classes? Of course. As long as they also teach the required material.”

So clearly Christie, in Trenton, does tell local school boards what they can and can't do, so why did he just claim he doesn't and shouldn't? (Hint: He's hoping you won't notice, and thus you'll think he's a far-right conservative when, on issues like creationism, it seems he isn't as dyed in the wool as the fundies would like.) Read the rest of this post...

Donald Trump is out, not running for Prez

It seems Trump suddenly realized he's more interesting in making money than ruling the land he claimed he loved.  Kind of funny he'd spend all this time pretending he was running for president, only now to "realize" he wasn't interested.  I wonder if he conducts business deals like this, realizing halfway through the negotiation that he's not interested.

Now, while one could argue that Trump got what he wanted, more publicity, I'm not so sure this presidential flirtation was the wisest thing for brand Trump. Note his favorability and unfavorability ratings since he threw his hat, kinda sorta, in the ring - the red line is unfavorable:

Looking at those plummeting numbers, Trump just declared the political equivalent of bankruptcy.

How does this help Trump, alienating far more Americans than ever before? That certainly doesn't help his TV brand, nor his hotels/casinos, etc. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: Obama "might as well move out of the White House" if not willing to "draw a line" with GOP over debt limit

Here's Krugman's latest; he's essentially calling Obama out. This current crisis, the raising of the debt ceiling, is no longer about the Republicans; it's about Obama himself, the steely-eyed hero of Got-Bin-Laden. Looks like Boehner's got his steely-eyed number.

First, Krugman recounts the original Obama cave-in to Republican hostage-taking — the one December last, when Obama was "forced" to extend the Bush II tax cuts on the very very rich.

Then, after listing all the ways not raising the debt ceiling would be disastrous (the article is worth reading for that alone), Krugman says this (my emphasis):

[H]itting the debt ceiling ... may be unavoidable. ... Because this is a hostage situation. If the president and his allies operate on the principle that failure to raise the debt ceiling is an unthinkable outcome, to be avoided at all cost, then they have ceded all power to those willing to bring that outcome about. In effect, they will have ripped up the Constitution and given control over America’s government to a party that only controls one house of Congress, but claims to be willing to bring down the economy unless it gets what it wants. ...

According to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, Mr. Obama has told Democrats not to draw any “line in the sand” in debt negotiations. Well, count me among those who find this strategy completely baffling. At some point — and sooner rather than later — the president has to draw a line. Otherwise, he might as well move out of the White House, and hand the keys over to the Tea Party.

I wrote yesterday that I feared Krugman is "not optimistic" about the Obama outcome. Let's change that; I now think Krugman is as afraid as the rest of us, and is indeed calling Obama out as a last resort.

Good luck with that.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich’s latest race-baiting against Obama

Joan Walsh of Salon informs us of the GOP's latest slur for President, and that this isn't the first time Gingrich has come up with thinly-veiled racism to attack Democrats. And of course, Gingrich's minions are now attacking Joan on Twitter, accusing her of being racist because - get this - she equated Gingrich's comments with race, so it's really Joan who thinks "food stamps" are a black thing.

As I noted in my Twitter feed, and have written here before, the Republicans have a "tell."  They attack Democrats for things Democrats aren't doing, but Republicans are doing (thus accusing Joan of being the racist), in the hopes of deflecting attention from their own sins and creating a he-said-she-said where both sides are lobbing the same charge, so clearly neither can be right.  (To wit: One of the people attacking Joan is a Tea Party leader.  You've heard of the Tea Party, that racist bastion.  Just read through the Google links on "tea party" and "racism.")  The GOP is also good at a second tactic witnessed here: going after our strengths.  If Joan is one of our top messengers, and she is, then she must be destroyed.

Here's an excerpt of Joan's piece.  Considering how much the right is freaking out over it, she's clearly on to something.

Newt Gingrich doubled down on his clever new slur against President Obama as "the food stamp president." He tried the line in a Friday speech to the Georgia Republican convention, and he used it again on "Meet the Press Sunday." It's a short hop from Gingrich's slur to Ronald Reagan's attacks on "strapping young bucks" buying "T-bone steaks" with food stamps. Blaming our first black president for the sharp rise in food-stamp reliance (which resulted from the economic crash that happened on the watch of our most recent white president) is just the latest version of Rush Limbaugh suggesting that Obama's social policy amounts to "reparations" for black people.

But when host David Gregory suggested the term had racial overtones, Gingrich replied "That's bizarre," and added, "I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist." That's not quite as extreme or silly as Donald Trump declaring "I am the least racist person there is," but it's up there. He also told Georgia Republicans Friday that 2012 will be the most momentous election "since 1860," which happens to be the year we elected the anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln president, and he suggested the U.S. bring back a "voting standard" that requires voters to prove they know American history -- which sounds a lot like the "poll tests" outlawed by the Voting Rights Act.

Just last week Gingrich said Obama "knows how to get the whole country to resemble Detroit," which just happens to be home to many black people. And last year Gingrich accused Obama of "Kenyan anti-colonialist behavior" that made him "outside our comprehension" as Americans, spreading Dinesh D'Souza's idiocy that Obama inherited angry African anti-colonialism from the Kenyan father he never knew. “This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich told the National Review Online last year.

Read the rest of this post...

But can you spell "Atchafalaya"?

We can all spell "Mississippi": "M-eye-SS-eye-SS-eye-PP-eye."

That rhythmic chant is embedded deeply in my memory. Whenever it comes to the fore, it runs around and around in a loop, just like it did when I was a kid. And it's been on my mind lately, what with the troubling news from the Mississippi River region.

No doubt you've heard: record-high water levels from one of the wettest springtimes in history have inundated huge swaths of the lower Midwest. Now the surge is hitting further south. In an effort to save the New Orleans region from what, in some places, could be a flood dozens of feet deep -- perhaps worse than Katrina -- the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has opened the humongous gates above Baton Rouge, diverting what they hope will be enough of the water to prevent the worst-case flood. (For a one-stop summation, see this post by DailyKos diarist Stranded Wind.

With this news comes the realization that we better all learn how to spell "Atchafalaya," and that doesn't roll off the tongue quite like "M-eye-SS-eye-SS-eye-PP-eye."

See, the Atchafalaya flows close by the Mississippi, and it's a river whose path to the Gulf of Mexico is much straighter and steeper than that of the Mississippi. Since all rivers seek the fastest, straightest-possible route to sea level, it's only a matter of time before the Atchafalaya captures all of the Mississippi's flow, which would destroy the lower Mississippi's river-dependent industrial economy. New Orleans would literally become a backwater.

The Army Corps of Engineers realized this decades ago and set about to stop it. The Corps built an earth- and water-work the likes of which had never been seen on Earth. The flood gates opened by the Corps this week are part of this massive engineering project.

But here's the point of this post: The Corps is in a difficult position. If it didn't open the floodgates -- certain disaster down river. Now that it has, another disaster might come to pass -- the inevitable day when the Atchafalaya River captures the Mighty Mississippi might be hastened.

If you want the deep background on this, be sure to read this 1987 New Yorker essay by the great John McPhee. It's a long -- 27 web pages -- and fascinating account of how the Corps' Mississippi/Atchafalaya project came to be, how it works, and why it is destined eventually to fail. The question is: could this flood be the one that makes it fail? Read the rest of this post...

Strauss-Kahn to undergo medical tests as second claim of assault emerges

If the charges from the weekend don't end his public career, the new older claim from France may begin to tip the scales. Most voters in France care little about affairs by politicians - they almost expect it - but rape is another story. The older story is from 2002 and though she never went public, it has similarities to the story from this past weekend. If any other stories like this emerge, DSK is going to finish his career in disgrace and possibly more. The Guardian:

A local official of the Socialist party claimed that Strauss-Kahn had attacked her daughter, who is goddaughter to Strauss-Kahn's second wife, in 2002.

Tristane Banon was in her 20s and writing a book when she approached Strauss-Kahn for an interview in 2002. In a TV programme in 2007, in which Strauss-Kahn's name had been bleeped out, Banon allegedly described him as a "rutting chimpanzee" and described how she was forced to fight him off. "It finished badly … very violently … I kicked him," Banon said. "When we were fighting, I mentioned the word 'rape' to make him afraid, but it didn't have any effect. I managed to get out."

Banon consulted a lawyer, but did not press charges. "I didn't want to be known to the end of my days as the girl who had a problem with the politician."

On the other spectrum of this story is an article in Le Monde that mentions a tweet by a "UMP youth"(UMP is Sarkozy's center-right party). Amazingly enough, he tweeted about the DSK being picked up from the Air France flight minutes after the arrest. Pretty good timing considering the tweet was from someone in Paris. What are the odds? Read the rest of this post...

ICC to issue war crimes arrest warrant today for Gaddafi

Fine, but why not for Assad as well who has been every bit as brutal in Syria? The Independent:

The international Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is today expected to formally seek the arrest of Muammar Gaddafi for crimes linked to the brutal suppression of demonstrations against his 42-year rule.

The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is expected to issue warrants against Colonel Gaddafi and at least two other leading members of the Libyan regime on charges related to killing unarmed protesters and displacing civilians.

Read the rest of this post...

China dissident allowed to see wife

Small, but progress.

Ai Weiwei's wife has been able to meet the detained artist and activist for the first time since he went missing 43 days ago, a relative said today.

No one had been able to contact the 53-year-old since officials stopped him at Beijing airport on 3 April.

But his sister Gao Ge said police took Ai's wife Lu Qing to meet him at an undisclosed location on Sunday night. She was able to see and speak to him briefly and reported that he seemed healthy and was being given access to the medication he needs for diabetes.

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