SETI shutting down one of its main tools for finding life in the cosmos, until find more funding

Sad. They're probably the best known project searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence (thus S E T I, or SETI), and have been around for a while (1984). I know times are tough, but I still believe in science for science sake. And this stuff is pretty cool (and a donation is tax-deductible). I just gave $50, if you can give too, that'd be cool - give here.  (More info here.)

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Why doesn't the media hold the Republicans accountable for their "Democrat" slur?

It's not a slur, but they think it's one.  Republicans at the national level intentionally misuses the word "Democrat" as an adjective, thinking it comes across as a slur, or negative, somehow if they misuse the word.  It's done by Fox, the Republican leadership of the Congress, and by Republican leaders nationwide.  It's something widely known and acknowledged in Washington, DC And it's very weird.  There's a childishness, and pettiness, to it that's actually quite shocking.  Mitch McConnell did it again today, when talking about the Democratic budget, he called it the "Democrat budget."  And the media never comments on it, never talks about it, writes about it, or exposes it to the American people.

Imagine if the Democrats had decided a while back to misuse the word Republican on purpose - oh, I don't know, say we drop the "l" from now on.  It would be the talk of the media.  There'd be a national debate excoriating the Democrats for their childishness.  But when the Republicans do it, and have been doing it for years, not a peep.

Perhaps the media think (thinks?) that it's so petty and silly, it's just not worth reporting on. But it's the very nature of how petty and silly it is, how sophomoric it is, that makes it significant.  Mitch McConnell is the Republican leader in the Senate, the second most powerful Republican nationwide.  It's telling, in a seriously bad way, that the man would contort the word "Democrat" in an effort to secretly slur his political opponents.  It says something about the man.  And it's not good. Read the rest of this post...

Firefighters Union to freeze donations to federal elections, shifting funds to states

This could be a big deal, the start of a trend. Notice that, in effect, the Union is calling out federal Dems as not being worth sending money to.

USA Today (h/t Sam Seder; my emphasis):

The International Association of Fire Fighters announced today it is freezing donations to federal candidates and party committees and will shift its money to fight anti-union efforts in state legislatures around the country.

The decision could hurt Democrats, who received more than 80% of the money donated by the union's political action committee in 2010's midterm elections for Congress, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. In all, the union said it spent $15 million on federal politics last year.

General President Harold Schaitberger said the union faces legislative fights, ballot measures and recall elections that threaten workers' rights in at least nine states. At the same time, the union's traditional allies in Congress haven't aggressively defended firefighters, he said.

They say they are flat out "shutting down any contributions going to any federal candidates or to any federal PACs or committees" until federal Dems are willing to stand up for them.

This is either a very smart act, and they will make it stick (federal Dems have been AWOL on union issues) — in which case, good for them. Or it's the start of a negotiation with federal Dems — in which case, Don't Wimp Out, say I.

If nothing else, it's a conversation that needs having. This, along with the good single-payer news from Vermont, means that maybe the action really is shifting from the impossible Beltway to the doable states.

If so, a hopeful sign.

GP Read the rest of this post...

35 million have joined the middle class in Brazil recently

The US economy is obviously quite different but there's something exciting about adding so many people in such a brief period of time. After decades of going up and down, Brazil has been on a roll for a number of years and it looks like it will continue. The middle class has grown because politicians decided to make it a priority. Sure there are problems, but this growth is impressive.

Maybe someone in Washington might think about this issue one day and turn the tide of a shrinking middle class. For starters, leading Democrats need to stop the pathetic joke of praising the likes of Ronald Reagan and others who have exacerbated the problem that started in the 1970s. CNBC:

As the developed world struggles, Brazil grows faster, on the strength of its export economy, but also rising domestic demand. Its middle class continues to expand — and spend. An estimated 35 million people joined the middle class between 2003 to 2009, and 20 million more are expected to be included by 2014. Unemployment is at a relatively low 6.5 percent.

The Brazil story is not without its problems — inflation is running at more than 6.4 percent, near the top of its central bank's target range, its currency is arguably overvalued and real estate has seen outsized gains that seem unsustainable.

Brazil has taken steps to curb hot capital inflows, and it is trying to cool consumer credit growth from about 20 percent annually, to about 12 percent, by raising taxes on credit. The hyper-inflation of the 1990s is not such a distant memory, and the central bank is battling inflation with rate hikes and a current interest rate of 12 percent.

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Wash Post's "Fact Checker" rips Trump

Washington Post's "Fact Checker":

Trump speculated that maybe Obama was hiding the fact that the birth certificate said he was Muslim, even though the so-called “long form” does not ask for religion. He claimed, without offering evidence, that he had hired investigators who “cannot believe what they’re finding.” To his credit, CNN’s Anderson Cooper confronted Trump with the fact that there was no sign of any Trump-sponsored investigation in Hawaii.

Trump, in response, said that he had just learned that “the birth certificate is missing.” This was two days before the White House released the version that Trump claimed was gone.

Trump also suggested he would release his tax returns if Obama released the long-form document. After Obama took that step Wednesday, Trump said he would do so “at the appropriate time” — meaning it might be a very long wait.

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Wal-Mart CEO says his shoppers are running out of money

Oil prices are hammering the public and of course, the dollar is being destroyed on the global market these days which will make the problem worse. Is it asking for too much to have our political leadership implement policies that help the middle class as opposed to the continuing strategy that helps Wall Street? CNNMoney:

"We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact."

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.

"Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.

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Maddow calls out CNN — Why is the press abetting the "birther racket"?

It's been birther heaven the last few weeks, with Trump trumpeting his claims (and letting his freak flag fly) and everyone else covering it like it matters.

The O'Donnell program was particularly strange, in that he excoriated the whole world, it seems, for giving voice to The Donald ("that silly man") and to the racist claims he touts, yet doing so in a show devoted almost entirely those claims and those silly people.

He even dragged in Orly Taitz for a cameo. She didn't disappoint. It was, well, asking much to take it all in, but sometimes O'Donnell does ask much.

Rachel Maddow did the Diss-the-Donald thing much more succinctly (one segment) by calling out birtherism as "a racket," then asking, Why, mainstream press, are you covering it?

In her version, CNN's Ed Henry makes a cameo appearance, in the portion that starts at 11:40. (Ed appears for a close-up at 12:12.) Watch:



Yes, Ed Henry was indeed called out. It makes you wonder. Is he an unwitting tool? A closet "fellow traveler"? A common career-seeker? Or just a guy whose dog really did eat his homework? Who knows — I leave it to the Henry-followers to figure that out.

But something that slipped by me the first time, and didn't the second, was this (at 1:55) — you can help underwrite ads for the Corsi birther book with a monthly deduction from your account. A monthly deduction.

They might as well just stick their hand in the pocket of the rubes and ask, "Can I leave this here for a while?"

P.T. Barnum on steroids. At least with Barnum, you only paid once to get into the girlie tent. Jeez. (And I mean that literally, since Jesusland is the target for this stuff.)

But back to Maddow's main question. "Why is it being pushed by journalists?" Why indeed; I leave the reason to your conspiracy-addled imaginations.

GP Read the rest of this post...

GOP Oklahoma lawmaker: Blacks don't work as hard as whites

From ThinkProgress:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative.

“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”

Kern said women earn less than men because “they tend to spend more time at home with their families.”

Ironic that she trots out that argument since it's one of the reasons GOP lawmakers aren't interested in real health care reform: They've already got their cushy government-sponsored socialist health care reform, so why lift a finger for anyone else? Read the rest of this post...

Boehner's poll numbers slide

Gallup via Politico:

House Speaker John Boehner has become less popular with Americans across the political spectrum since taking the gavel in January.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll released Wednesday showed that 56 percent of Republicans view him favorably, down from 65 percent in January.

Among independents, his net favorable ratings are down a whopping 27 percentage points. About 29 percent of independents said they hold a favorable view of the speaker.

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Huge profits reported for Big Oil

Today:

Exxon--$10.65 billion--up more than 60%

Shell--$6.3 billion--up 30%

Yesterday:

ConocoPhillips--$3 billion--up 43%

BP--$5.48 billion--just shy of last year (despite a 10% drop in production after the Gulf oil disaster) Read the rest of this post...

CBS' Bob Schieffer accuses Trump of racism

Bob Schieffer writing at CBSNews.com:

Donald Trump has moved on from the "birther" conspiracy to allege President Barack Obama didn't get good enough grades to warrant entry to Harvard Law School, an assertion that CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer called absurd on the "CBS Evening News" on Wednesday.

"That's just code for saying he got into law school because he's black. This is an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing. We can hope that kind of comes to an end too, but we'll have to see," Schieffer said.

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Over 200 killed across South by yesterday's tornados

UPDATED @ 9:30 AM: CNN just reported that the death toll from the has hit 194 surpassed 200.

There's a lot of stunning video coming out of Alabama:


From the Birmingham News, which calls it a "Day of Devastation in Alabama":

Hardest hit was metro Birmingham, where at least 26 people were confirmed dead as of late Wednesday -- 13 in Walker County, 11 in Jefferson County, including a child whose parents have not been located, and two in St. Clair County.

"We are going to retrieve the bodies we can right now," said Jefferson County Chief Deputy Coroner Pat Curry. "In a situation like this, the first step is to make sure we have a positive ID."

Fifteen deaths were counted in Tuscaloosa County and more than 100 injuries.

"This is probably one of the biggest outbreaks in the Southeast in quite some time and that's saying something given the recent ones we've had," said Tom Bradshaw, National Weather Service meteorologist in the Southern Region headquarters in Fort Worth.

DC's been under a tornado watch for the past day. The latest update lasts until 3 PM. This morning, local news preempted the first half hour of the TODAY Show because of a tornado warning in Montgomery County, Maryland. (And, my friends mock me for being a weather geek, but when there's a situation, who do they call?) Read the rest of this post...

BP records $7.2 bn for Q1, Exxon braces for public outcry over profits

All is well in Big Oil land. Profits are up for BP and Exxon is so worried about the stunning profit headlines that are about to hit today that they are scrambling to soften the blow. Now more than ever, it's time to bring an end to their freeloading handouts. They want capitalism, so let's give it to them. No more handouts to the richest industry on the planet.

BP expects to be back drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, where a rig explosion last year killed 11 men and caused the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, in the second half of this year.

After BP PLC reported Wednesday that net profits rose 16 percent in the first quarter, company officials acknowledged the company has applied for permits to restart drilling in the Gulf.

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UN fails to sanction Syria

This is sickening.

The deeply divided UN Security Council failed to agree on a European and US-backed statement condemning Syrian violence against peaceful protesters on Wednesday, with Russia saying security forces were also killed and the actions don't threaten international peace.

"A real threat could arise from outside interference or taking of sides," Russia's deputy UN ambassador Alexander Pankin warned the UN's most powerful body during a public session that followed, saying this could lead to civil war.

China and India called for political dialogue and peaceful resolution of the crisis, with no mention of condemnation. And Lebanon's UN Ambasador Nawaf Salam stressed the country's special relationship with Syria, saying "the hearts and minds" of the Lebanese people are with the Syrian people and are suppporting President Bashar Assad's lifting of the state of emergency and reforms.

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British economy - stagnating, at best

What happened to all of the talk about austerity bringing prosperity? The worst part now is that some of the harshest cuts are only now kicking in, so things can and likely will get even worse. The Independent:

Superficially respectable growth figures disguise an economy that is stagnating, at best, or even contracting again, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

Although the economy formally grew by 0.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2011, in line with expectations, this was widely regarded by analysts as confirmation that the underlying recovery is fragile at best, and that the economy has escaped a relapse into a "double-dip" recession only by the narrowest of margins.

Keep this in mind as the radical GOP tries to cut everything. Read the rest of this post...

Radiation readings at crippled Japanese nuke plant highest since accident

Bloomberg:

Radiation readings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station rose to the highest since an earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems, impeding efforts to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Two robots sent into the reactor No. 1 building at the plant yesterday took readings as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Co., said today. That’s more than four times the annual dose permitted to nuclear workers at the stricken plant.

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