The Iceland volcano eruption of 1783 changed the world

Or at least some parts of the world. It's interesting to see how a single volcano from Iceland could disrupt Europe, North America, Egypt and even the Asian monsoon season. It was even linked to the French revolution. Read the rest of this post...

Teabaggers are big Glenn Beck fans

538.com:

Another stereotype, however, rings true: tea-partiers are disproportionately attached to, and perhaps influenced by, FOX News. And they are particularly enamored of Glenn Beck. Nationally, just 18 percent of people have a favorable opinion of Beck (the majority have no opinion whatsoever about him). But most tea-partiers do. Do the math, and you'll find that 59 percent of those who do think highly of Beck consider themselves a part of the tea-party. This is, in fact, the single biggest differentiator of any of the items that the NYT asked about: not ideology, not any particular political belief, but whom they watch on television.

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TV show 'Glee' mocks Sarah Palin, conservatives melt down

It's funny, and seemingly irrelevant. But it's symbolic of the way conservatives fight fights. They don't let any detail slip by. It's also indicative of the level of paranoia, and downright whininess, on the right. Once upon a time the right used to accuse the left of always portraying themselves as "victims." Whether that was true or not, it's clearly what conservatives have been doing for the past several decades, starting with the religious right and their "war on Christmas" talk, and now it's a theme that pervades practically every conservative talking point. As for its effectiveness, it depends what their goal is. They're clearly riling up the far right. But they're also, I would argue, pushing the fringes towards violence. Read the rest of this post...

Bill Clinton calls out Gingrich and Armey for reprising their 1990s roles

This is a good role for Clinton to fill, and he's right. It's been incredibly annoying, and telling, to watch Dick Armey organize the Teabaggers, and then have them claim to be some new and independent political movement. They're far-right conservatives, that's it.

Speaking on Friday about the parallels between the fiery national mood during his presidency and the domestic unrest that grips the country today, former President Bill Clinton hit on a somewhat salient point: the political characters remain the same.

"I love seeing that picture in the [Washington] Post today, with that outline of [Former Majority Leader Dick] Armey with the cowboy hat on," Clinton said. "I remember when he called Hillary a 'socialist.' I remember when Newt Gingrich, shortly after becoming Speaker Elect, said that Hillary and I were the 'enemies of normal.' It didn't bother me a bit. I was planning to get in and mix it up. But what we learned from [the] Oklahoma City [bombing] is not that we should gag each other.... but that the words we use really do matter, because there is this vast echo chamber and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike."

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On behalf of their Wall Street benefactors, Senate GOPers will filibuster Wall Street reform

Via Huffington Post, it's official. The Republicans are going to filibuster Wall Street reform. It's not too hard to figure out why: The GOP is doing the work of Wall Street:

Mitch McConnell has rounded up the necessary votes to block Democrats from bringing Wall Street reform to the Senate floor, a spokesman for the Senate Minority Leader said on Friday afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Harry (D-Nev.) said on Thursday he planned to bring the bill to the floor next week where it would be debated and amendments added. McConnell has now persuaded 41 Republicans to vote against debating reform.

The Democrats better not back down. Not one inch. Make the Republicans filibuster. Make them vote on cloture over and over and over. Let's this spectacle play out for the American people, especially the teabaggers. They'll see whose side the GOP is on. Not theirs.

It's just a joke and a ruse that the GOPers are calling for bipartisanship on the Wall Street reform bill. As we've witnessed (and let's hope the White House has witnessed, too), for Republicans, bipartisanship is code for wanting to kill legislation.

So game on, GOP Senators. It's time to play hard ball. If Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins want to side with McConnell and the Wall Street bankers, Obama should take another trip to Maine. This time, he can talk about how Wall Street destroyed the American economy with the assistance of the Republican Party -- and how Maine's supposed moderates are siding with Wall Street over Main Street. Now, that would be fun to see (but it might be a little too mean.) Read the rest of this post...

National Day of Prayer ruled unconstitutional

Prepare for Armageddon.

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional Thursday, saying the day amounts to a call for religious action.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb wrote that the government can no more enact laws supporting a day of prayer than it can encourage citizens to fast during Ramadan, attend a synagogue or practice magic.

"In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision whether and when to pray," Crabb wrote.

I've never been fully comfortable with the National Day of Prayer. I'm a Christian. And it has nothing to do with my government. Quite the contrary. I don't want my government getting anywhere near my religion, or anyone else's. Far too often, you see corrupt governments, and corrupt religions, influencing each other. If politicians want to pray on their own time, great. But Congress shouldn't be mandating special prayer time. It's creepy in a democracy, in my view. Yours? Read the rest of this post...

SEC files civil suit against Goldman Sachs for securities fraud

Finally. Finally. There may be some accountability on Wall Street. This is only a civil suit. Many of these big bankers should probably be in jail, so I'm holding out for criminal charges. But, the SEC showed it has some teeth. This is a good start:

Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail.

The move marks the first time that regulators have taken action against a Wall Street deal that helped investors capitalize on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman itself profited by betting against the very mortgage investments that it sold to its customers.

The suit also named Fabrice Tourre, a vice president at Goldman who helped create and sell the investment.

I just finished reading "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis and am about to start "13 Bankers" by Simon Johnson and James Kwak. What happened on Wall Street with the subprime mortgages, CDOs and all of the other schemes just reeked of fraud and criminality.

UPDATE: I have to add the statement from Senator Bernie Sanders, which I received via email. It's the perfect tone:

“While its action was slow in coming, I applaud the SEC for finally beginning to deal with the illegal behavior of major Wall Street firms which, in my view, knowingly sold junk products and as a result helped cause the worst recession since the 1930s.”

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Glenn Beck's ratings show slight drop

Jed Lewison notes that Beck's ratings are dropping slight, and certainly not going up. This is interesting in the context of the post I published yesterday about whether FOX News was bad for Republicans.

You know how Glenn Beck's TV show is a ratings juggernaut fueled by the tea party movement?

Well, maybe it's time to rethink that assumption -- because now that tea party 2010 is here, Beck's ratings are down from tea party 2009.

From April 1 to April 14, 2009 (the two weeks immediately preceding tea party 2009) the Glenn Beck show averaged 2.23 million viewers.

Meanwhile, from April 1 to April 14, 2010 his show averaged 2.15 million viewers.

That's right -- in 2010, Beck's ratings have actually dropped slightly from 2009 levels in the runup to Fox's second annual tea party day, falling about 4%.

That's not a dramatic decline, and Beck clearly still has a loyal audience. But his audience is not growing.

Beck's April-April ratings performance undercuts the notion that he's building a sustainable ratings juggernaut.

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Particularly scary gun nuts coming to DC on Monday

From David Corn:

On April 19, an assortment of gun-rights groups will mount the Second Amendment March at the grounds of the Washington Monument. On the Web site for the march, its founder, Skip Coryell, calls it a "peaceful" event. But these folks, as the Violence Policy Center points out in a new report, are pushing a virulent strain of anti-government extremism that certainly could drive a body to take violent action.

Last month in an article for Human Events, a conservative magazine, Coryell noted that one aim of the march is to imply the threat of violence:

My question to everyone reading this article is this: "For you, as an individual, when do you draw your saber? When do you say "Yes, I am willing to rise up and overthrow an oppressive, totalitarian government?"

Is it when the government takes away your private business?
Is it when the government rigs elections?
Is it when the government imposes martial law?
Is it when the government takes away your firearms?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating the immediate use of force against the government. It isn't time, and hopefully that time will never come. But one thing is certain: "Now is the time to rattle your sabers." If not now, then when?

...I understand that sounds harsh, but these are harsh times....

Notice that Coryell says he's not advocating the immediate use of force against the violence. That sure makes it sound like he's revving up the gun-rights troops for possible rebellion down the road.

Put this all together -- saber rattlng, militia fomenting, demonizing government -- and you have a brew of far-right paranoia mixed with guns. When have we seen this before? Oh yeah, Timothy McVeigh and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. And here's the kicker: this pro-gun march will happen on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma tragedy. This is not insensitivity; it's a message.

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Krugman says 'don't be fooled' by Mitch McConnell. He's fighting for Wall Street.

Chris Dodd has been on fire about Wall Street reform. He's not letting Mitch McConnell and the GOPers spin this one. Yesterday, Dodd said, "We don't work for the big banks." But, Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans do work for the big banks.


Today, Paul Krugman eviscerates McConnell, too. McConnell, on behalf of Wall Street, is trying to deceive the American people. It's despicable. And, it's just blatant:

It’s a truly shameless performance: Mr. McConnell is pretending to stand up for taxpayers against Wall Street while in fact doing just the opposite. In recent weeks, he and other Republican leaders have held meetings with Wall Street executives and lobbyists, in which the G.O.P. and the financial industry have sought to coordinate their political strategy.

And let me assure you, Wall Street isn’t lobbying to prevent future bank bailouts. If anything, it’s trying to ensure that there will be more bailouts. By depriving regulators of the tools they need to seize failing financial firms, financial lobbyists increase the chances that when the next crisis strikes, taxpayers will end up paying a ransom to stockholders and executives as the price of avoiding collapse.

Even more important, however, the financial industry wants to avoid serious regulation; it wants to be left free to engage in the same behavior that created this crisis.

And, a final warning from Krugman:

So don’t be fooled. When Mitch McConnell denounces big bank bailouts, what he’s really trying to do is give the bankers everything they want.

Exactly.

It's good to see that the Senate Democrats are in a fighting mood. They're not letting the GOP lie on this issue. McConnell really thinks the American people are too stupid to figure out his lies. This time, he's wrong. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Obama has two big meetings today on two major issues: Afghanistan and the economy. In the morning, he's meeting with his full national security team, including Sec. Clinton, Admiral Mullen, General Petraeus, the ambassadors to Afghanistan and Pakistan and several others. The top commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, will participate by videoconference.

In the afternoon, Obama is meeting with President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB). According to the Daily Guidance, "The President will discuss the urgent need to pass strong financial reform legislation, and the momentum behind reform efforts currently in the Senate. He will specifically address the steps we must take to strengthen oversight of derivatives, the same financial products that led to the near collapse of AIG, warning that the problems of the future will rest on the steps we take to address derivatives now." So, they're holding strong on derivatives. That's a good sign. The reform bill could move to the Senate floor late next week or the week after. Expect a GOP filibuster, which should fail.

Last night, the President ordered new rules on hospital visits for LGBT patients and families. It's a welcome development. Now, get let's get moving to fulfill the rest of those campaign promises -- the ones that require more than a two-page memo.

And, let's get moving on the news... Read the rest of this post...

Pope talks repentance as new case emerges of sheltering child rapist priest

It's a start to change the tone of the dialogue though he really needs to stop talking about "attacks" as if the church is the victim. It's not. It's the attacker. In the crusty, slow to change Vatican the talk of repentance is probably considered to be a radical and significant move. In the real world though, it's slow. Now that yet another revolting story is emerging, the time for vague talk is long gone.

Is hiding a rapist really showing moral leadership? When hiding or shuffling to new locations happens across countries and continents for years, there's an obvious trend.

Meanwhile on Thursday, the Vatican confirmed the authenticity of a 2001 letter written by a top cardinal, Darío Castrillón Hoyos, praising a French bishop who was jailed for three months for not reporting a pedophile priest to civil authorities.

“I rejoice to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and all the other bishops of the world, preferred prison rather than denouncing one of his sons, a priest,” the letter to the bishop, Pierre Pican, read. The letter was first published on the French Catholic Web site Golias.

The Vatican confirmation was unusual because it cast an important cardinal in a bad light. In doing so, the pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, also sought to bolster the argument that Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, worked actively to strengthen measures against pedophile priests.

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Volcanic ash disrupting flights in Europe

Mother nature has decided to reset flight schedules. Last night I read that flights may be disrupted for a few days or problems could continue for months. The problem with volcanic ash is that it can stop engines and severely damage the plane in other ways. Flights into or out of the UK were stopped yesterday and the biggest problems seem to be the UK and Scandinavia though today, even here in France there are problems. Travelers wanting to fly out of the UK were flocking onto the Eurostar to make it to Paris yesterday but that may be slowing now that there are cancellations here as well.

An unprecedented no-fly zone imposed across Europe following a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland is set to remain in force into the weekend, causing travel chaos for over a million air passengers.

Airspace stretching from Ireland to Finland, including airports in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, was closed today following the violent eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in south-east Iceland which sent a plume of ash across some of the world's busiest flight paths.

All UK airspace was closed from noon except for "agreed emergencies". It is likely to stay shut tomorrow, with the force of the eruption showing no sign of abating.

Last night north-westerly winds continued to blow the eight mile high plume across the continent, raising fears that airlines could be grounded for days. One volcanologist said the ash could present intermittent problems to air traffic for six months if the eruption continued. The last time the volcano erupted in 1821, it spewed ash for two years.

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