Oceans acidifying at fastest pace ever

How will the anti-science, anti-environment, climate change deniers spin this? Why is it so bad to support a clean environment? It's not a battle between jobs or the environment, because both are possible and both are necessary. Bloomberg:

The Earth’s oceans may be acidifying faster than at any point during the last 300 million years due to industrial emissions, endangering marine life from oysters and reefs to sea-going salmon, researchers said. The scientists found surging levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere forced down the pH of the ocean by 0.1 unit in the last century, 10 times faster than the closest historical comparison from 56 million years ago, New York’s Columbia University, which led the research, said yesterday in a statement. The seas absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, forming carbonic acid. The lower the pH level in the seas, the more acidic they are. Past instances of ocean acidification have been linked with mass extinctions of marine creatures so the current one could also threaten important species, according to Baerbel Hoenisch, the paleoceanographer at Columbia who was lead author of the paper that appeared in the journal Science.

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Noted feminist Limbaugh declares the death of feminism

He already lost three advertisers on Friday, so how many more will cut their losses next week? MSNBC:

Despite an outcry that has crossed political lines, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh did not back down Friday from his criticism of a Georgetown student who advocated for the availability of birth control at a recent hearing before congressional Democrats. During his latest show, he mocked the fact that Sandra Fluke received a phone call from President Barack Obama, insisting that given her testimony about birth control, she should "disconnect the phone. I'd go into hiding and hope the media didn't find me." Limbaugh also denied he was opposed to birth control, according to a transcript of his show. “This is about expanding the reach and power of government into your womb, if you're a woman. This is about the Democrat Party wanting more and more control over you. What was early feminism all about? Emancipation, individuality, freedom, liberation, all of these things. Now here comes Danica Patrick out and she says, "I'm perfectly comfortable letting the government make my health decisions for me." Well, folks, I'm gonna tell you: Right there, that's the death and the end of feminism.”

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Marcy Wheeler: Most pro–Blunt-Rubio Amendment senators have likely used birth control

Marcy Wheeler has done a nice bit of original research on the Blunt-Rubio Amendment senators, and seems be close to calling for action. Good on both counts.

First the rationale. Writing at her digs at emptywheel.net, she notes (my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

I confess. I’m contemplating calling all the Senators who voted for the Blunt Amendment yesterday to ask for a statement detailing:

  ▪ What the Senators’ history of reproductive choice has been, including details on what kinds of birth control they’ve used and who paid for it

  ▪ Whether the Senators (or their spouses) have used erectile dysfunction drugs, and who paid for it

Mind you, I think such questions are inappropriate.

But given that 48 Senators–including 3 Democrats and 4 women–voted yesterday to say that employers should have really intrusive control over their employees’ healthcare decisions (including, but in no way limited, to reproductive health), it seems fair to at least inquire whether these men and women have been relying on birth control to plan their families, whether their use of birth control violates their religion’s stated doctrine, and whether taxpayers paid for birth control during their child-bearing years.

Then she offers the list she's compiled, and it's quite interesting. This is just a taste:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN): age 72, married 42 years, 4 children, Presbyterian, some federal and state employ during child-bearing years

Kelly Ayotte (R-NH): age 43, married, 2 children, Catholic, state employee during child-bearing years

Roy Blunt (R-MO): age 62, married 35 years, divorced and remarried, 3 children by first marriage plus one adopted child, Southern Baptist, county and state employ during child-bearing years

Scott Brown (R-MA): age 52, married 26 years, 2 children, Christian reform, National Guard during child-bearing years, though with private employ

Bob Casey (D-PA): age 52, married 27 years, 4 children, Catholic, state employ during late child-bearing years

Susan Collins (R-ME): age 59, engaged, Catholic, Federal employ during child-bearing years

John McCain (R-AZ): age 75, divorced, remarried, 3 adoptive and 4 biological children, Baptist, federal employ during entire life

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): age 54, married, 2 children, Catholic

Marco Rubio (R-FL): age 40, married, 4 children, Catholic, state employ during child-bearing years

The whole list is eye-opening. But just pick Susan Collins. Catholic, 59 years old, no children. Wikipedia lists no "spouse(s)". Was she celibate her whole life? Or did she "date" and use protection? (Oops, "sl-t" alert.) Someone should ask.

It's a garden of delight, this list — if by "garden" you mean "swamp" and by "delight" you mean the opposite. Hypocrites all, it appears. Good work compiling it

Finally, I want to highlight the opportunity for action:

[C]onsider that the great majority of [these] Senators ... seem to have families that have been shaped by birth control.

As noted above, she's thinking about "calling all the Senators who voted for the Blunt Amendment yesterday to ask for a statement" on her two bulleted items above — basically:

      What birth control has your family used?
      What erectile dysfunction drugs have your family used?
      Who covered the cost?

As an action, this sounds nearly perfect — high-leverage and doable without a ton of organization. Plus the timing is perfect. Sounds like a Yes to me (but that's just me).

If she decides to go with it, you can probably offer your help at emptywheel.net.

Mes centimes,

GP Read the rest of this post...

Geithner: Wall Street has "financial crisis amnesia"

He doesn't exactly call out Wall Street, but Wall Street is who he's talking about. (Now that he announced he won't be around if Obama has a second term, he does need to keep those job opportunities on the back burner.) You know things have to be bad if even Tim Geithner is blasting the anti-reform masses from Wall Street. LA Times:

"There was no memory of extreme crisis, no memory of what can happen when a nation allows huge amounts of risk to build up outside of the safeguards all economies require,'' Geithner said. "The financial safeguards in the law at that moment were tragically antiquated and weak." The 2010 regulatory overhaul, which included tough new restrictions still being crafted by regulators on the risks financial firms can take, was needed to prevent a future crisis, he said. "Yet only four years after the financial crisis began to unfold, some people seem to be suffering from amnesia about how close America came to complete financial collapse under the outdated regulatory system we had before Wall Street reform," Geithner wrote.

Ummm, not exactly. The regulatory system worked for decades until Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and the GOP extremists ripped it to shreds. The system in place at the time of the crash was relatively new, but it was outdated. Read the rest of this post...

Dept. of Justice makes arrests for 1%, again

You have to seriously wonder about the priorities of the US Department of Justice under Attorney General Holder. He's ignored the Wall Street problem that triggered the global recession and focused on helping the 1% in the recording industry. Now, he's going back to the well and organizing a global effort to shut down counterfeit luxury goods. How is it possible to spend so much precious bandwidth on small issues like this rather than the big issue of Wall Street? A $325 million dollar (tops) industry is a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions spent on fixing the problems created by Wall Street. This Justice Department looks a lot like what one would expect from a Republican, or even what Romney might have. CNBC:

Federal agents were in the process of arresting as many as 26 people who have been charged in the scheme to produce knock-off goods in China and sell them in the U.S., the Department said. A spokesperson told CNBC that the items mimicked by the alleged smugglers included Ugg boots, Timberland boots, Nike [NKE 108.23 -0.31 (-0.29%) ] shoes, and Burberry scarves. Other brand names impacted were Gucci, Lacoste, Coach [COH 76.9601 0.2201 (+0.29%) ], Ralph Lauren [RL 176.41 -1.50 (-0.84%) ], and Louis Vuitton. If those goods had been authentic, their total value would have been as much as $325 million, the spokesperson said. Officials called it one of the largest counterfeit goods smuggling operations ever charged.

What's next? Another Wall Street insider trading case that has nothing to do with the 2008 collapse? But of course! Read the rest of this post...

Obama phones woman Limbaugh called a "sl-t"

Nice.  The old Obama wouldn't have done this.  Too "confrontational."  The new Obama is much cheekier.  And understands a good political opportunity.  This will only help to make the Limbaugh story grow further.  Background here. Read the rest of this post...

Carly Fiorina rips Limbaugh over "sl-t" comment

@LukeRussert: To date no significant #GOP leader has denounced Limbaugh's comments re Fluke. Shows the grip and power of conservative media machine.

Politico:

Carly Fiorina, National Republican Senatorial Committee Vice-Chairman, on Friday condemned Rush Limbaugh for calling law student Sandra Fluke a “sl-t.”

“That language is insulting, in my opinion. It’s incendiary and most of all, it’s a distraction. It’s a distraction from what are very real and important issues,” said Fiorina on CBS’s “This Morning.”

This will be interesting since no other senior Republican has yet gotten away with holding Limbaugh responsible for his irresponsible language.  Background here. Read the rest of this post...

Anti-pork, anti-DC Romney in 2002: “The money is in Washington" and I know how to get it

Not that anything should surprise us about Mitt Romney, but he's also a big hypocrite on DC and federal spending -- Romney now claims to be an "outsider" and criticized Gingrich and Santorum for going after Washington pork. This should endear him even more to the teabaggers. ABC has the scoop and the video:

In a long-forgotten tape from the 2002 Massachusetts governor’s race obtained by ABC News, Mitt Romney is seen touting his Washington connections and his ability to get millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal government.

“I am big believer in getting money where the money is,” Romney says on the video, “The money is in Washington.”

“I want to go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington to assure that we are taking advantage of economic development opportunities,” Romney tells the group.

And while Romney now often criticizes his opponents for being Washington insiders, in this video he touts his Washington connections.

Romney has frequently criticized Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for their roles in getting federal money — so-called earmarks — to fund special projects in their states while they were in Congress.

Video is here. It's a short clip, but you have to watch the ad first. Worth it:
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Lead gay group, HRC, names new president, Chad Griffin - this is a big deal

As I mentioned over on AMERICAblog Gay, Chad is a great choice to head the largest gay rights group in the US.  A lot of us were expecting the worst, and we ended up with the best. Read the rest of this post...

Andrew Sullivan on Iran: Obama's most dangerous political opponent is now Netanyahu

I'm watching the run-up to war with Iran very closely, since I think we might get one. I also want to know who's behind it.

■ Some background: We started here, by noticing a quiet bombardment in the "press." If you go back to that post, note that Obama's Pentagon chief Panetta is in the parade.

These two posts (here and here) looked at the role of Israel as the potential hand up the press puppet's ... behavior. From the latter post:

Based on my eleven-dimensional reading of this recent Iran article, another major one, this time by Dennis Ross in the New York Times, I believe it's now a two-handed game between Netanyahu and Obama, with Iran being the downer bull they're jointly punishing.

Netanyahu's position — "If you keep kicking Iran, I don't have to pull out this gun and make him really mad." Ross says it this way:

Israel worries that it could lose its military option, and it may be reluctant to wait for diplomacy to bear fruit. That said, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently called for “crippling sanctions,” reflecting a belief that Iran’s behavior could be changed with sufficient pressure. The fact that crippling sanctions have finally been applied means that Israel is more likely to give these sanctions and the related diplomatic offensive a chance to work. And it should.

"Crippling sanctions" means just that; think I was joking with my "punishing the downer bull" metaphor?

Shorter Ross: "Bibi to Barack, don't make me do something stupid; it's all on you if I do."

■ All to prepare you for this blockbuster news and analysis from Andrew Sullivan, no raving lunatic.

He takes my idea of a two-handed game between Netanyahu and Obama, and gives it an eleven-dimensional twist, this time by spotting a controlling Israeli hand. Sullivan says Netanyahu is using the American Right — AIPAC (like Dennis Ross, quoted above) and the pro-Zion Left Behind crowd — to secure his own base and topple Obama from power.

I know; sounds ... novelish. Still, this stuff happens. Let's let Sullivan make his case (my emphases and some reparagraphing):

This is disturbing news [source FoxNews, 2/27/12]:

Israeli officials say they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.

What it amounts to is a formal declaration that, if the US attempts at any point to differ seriously with Israel's far right, the alliance is over.

That's after the most serious sanctions ever imposed on Iran, a covert war, and greater isolation for the Tehran regime both at home and abroad than at any point since 1979. ... Israel would, without warning, put US troops and Western civilians at direct risk of terrorist assaults, would likely tip Pakistan into even more outright hostility to any cooperation with the West, and rally the Iranian opposition to its foul regime. [And lots of etc.]

Note that the first quote comes from Fox (not unreliable in reporting Netanyahu, and a go-to spokes-source for Bibi).

If true, this is "essential[ly] blackmail" as Sullivan says. After which the right-wing Israeli government would use their agents (my word) in "Congress, the entire GOP, its media outlets (like Fox, and the Washington Post), and a key part of the Democratic fundraising machinery" to side with them — against Obama.

I can't see how to disagree with that analysis — again, if the initial Fox report is true.

Then Sullivan gets multi-dimensional:

I don't think you can understand the Republican strategy for this election without factoring in a key GOP player, Benjamin Netanyahu. He already has core members of the US Congress siding openly with him against the US president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. ... Netanyahu's war would ... encourage American evangelical voters to turn out against Obama, the "anti-Christ", while other Greater Israel fanatics, like Sheldon Adelson, keep bankrolling as many Greater Israel GOP nominees as they can.

A global war which polarizes America and the world is exactly what Netanyahu wants. And it is exactly what the GOP needs to cut through Obama's foreign policy advantage in this election.

Be sure to read Sullivan's conclusion.

There's much I disagree with Andrew Sullivan about, but this analysis has me thinking. Would Movement Conservatives be part of this plan? As my old Uncle Straight Talk says: "Son, they'll do anything to win; anything. But you knew that, right?"

GP Read the rest of this post...

Politico reporter creates false firestorm around Energy Secretary

If we're going to try to get the man fired, could it at least be for a question he actually was asked, and answered, rather than one a reporter made up?  From Media Matters:

A Politico story fueling misguided attacks on Energy Secretary Steven Chu is not borne out by what actually occurred. The article titled, "Chu: DOE working to wean U.S. off oil, not lower prices," claimed:

The Energy Department isn't working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

But this report is based on an assumption made by Politico reporter Alex Guillen about how Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-MS) was going to finish a question. If that wasn't bad enough, Politico doubled down with another article today about Newt Gingrich -- who cited Guillen's story -- calling for Chu to be fired for the remarks.

Here's what actually happened in the hearing (fuller video and transcript below):

REP. NUNNELEE: But is the overall goal to get our price--

CHU: No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil to -- to build and strengthen our economy and to decrease our dependency on oil.

But here's Politico's version of what happened:

"But is the overall goal to get our price" of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.

"No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy," Chu replied.

Guillen built his story on what he assumed Nunnelee was asking and gave no indication that the question was, in fact, ambiguous. There is good reason to believe that Chu thought Nunnelee was actually asking, "Is the overall goal to get our price up to European levels," since this was Nunnelee's previous question:

NUNNELEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary for being here. Before you were nominated, you were quoted as saying, quote, "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." I can't look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration, the price of gasoline is doubled. While bumping $4 a gallon in North Mississippi, today the price of gasoline in Europe is about $8 a gallon, and the people of North Mississippi can't be here.

So, I have to be here and be their voice for them. And I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It's a cruel tax on the people of North Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It's a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation, and it appears to me this administration continues to drag its feet on oil exploration on fossil fuel development and recovery. How do you respond to that?

It's an innocent mistake, and I do think it's innocent - even I read that first quote and said "come on, of course he was gonna say "get our price down". Then I read the rest of the story and saw that the Congressman was asking more generally about whether it was true the administration was trying to raise gasoline prices. Knowing that, Media Matters is right - the reporter got this wrong by assuming what the question was, and by assuming the secretary thought the question was. Politico should correct this. Read the rest of this post...

The Cherry Blossoms are coming early this year

Just an FYI to all those who care. Wash Post:

Washington’s centennial cherry blossom bloom will probably take place early this year and happen from March 22 through early April, a government expert announced Thursday.

And here's an interesting point I hadn't realized. I figured all the warm weather until now mattered.

“It really only matters as to what happens from now on,” he said. “All the warm weather before did not move the cherries along. But now, yes. Now is the time where, if it gets really, really warm, things could accelerate.”

It can be a bit of a zoo, the Cherry Blossom festival, but it really is pretty. If you're ever in DC during that time, it's worth the crowds to see. Of course, this town is one big walking allergy in spring (and summer, and fall, and winter), so be prepared. Read the rest of this post...