I’ve been holding off on this story until I had enough information to have something definitive to say.
While I would only give the TSA a C, because they did not notice that he was on the no-fly list until the third and final check. However, for the police and FBI to have identified him and tracked him down in less than sixty hours is superior police work. As a whole, I vive the Obama administration an A- for successfully stopping a terrorist attack.
I am disappointed that a naturalized US citizen, one whom we had accepted as one of us, would turn against us. I find it disturbing that he is a Muslim. Let us remember that the vender who first reported the smoking van to police was also a Muslim. I don’t know what motivated Shahzad, and look forward to more information on this. Cold the GOP hate against Islam have contributed? Because his native region in Pakistan has been the target of several predator drone attacks, could someone close to him have been killed, making it a personal agenda? Maybe. Those are only guesses. Remember that, as Christianity does not condone attacks on innocents, like that perpetrated by Tim McVeigh, neither does Islam. Extremist right-wing Muslims, who falsely claim justifications for such acts, are no different that extremist right-wing Christians, who justify bombing abortion clinics.
Rachel Maddow and Richard Engels provide excellent coverage.
The Republican response has been both expected and vile. Leader after leader has protested giving Shahzad Miranda rights. For the Underwear Bomber, they claimed that his non-citizenship was the justification for their protests. Now these torture-mongers show that citizenship was only an excuse. Shahzad is a citizen. John “McConJob” McCain has led the charge.
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment presents my position perfectly:
These Republicans just can’t stand Obama’s success in protecting us against terrorist attacks. As much as they claim to be the party of National Security, let me remind you of their success.
Yesterday I got a late start, but I still managed to reply to all outstanding comments and return visits. Today is my volunteer day to co facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners, so keeping up may be a problem.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:08. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Alternet: President Obama and Vice President Biden both met separately today with potential Supreme Court pick Diane Wood.
She would be an excellent choice.
From Crooks and Liars: Larry King talked to Robert Kennedy Jr. who is representing the fishermen in Louisiana in a class action law suit against British Petroleum and James Carville about the incident at the Deepwater Horizon rig. Besides the problems with Halliburton and their faulty work with the cementing process and the lack of and the lack of an acoustic switch, Kennedy said they were also violating their permit by drilling too deeply. Although they were only permitted to drill down 18,000 ft., Kennedy said they now have evidence that they were drilling as deeply as 25,000 ft. [emphasis added]
This clear violation of the law is yet another reason that BP should not be allowed a liability cap.
The developments in the Gulf situation in the past couple days have been troubling at best with BP starting to show their true colors.
Shifting and easing winds on Monday bought time for weather-beaten crews to bottle up and burn off a massive slick of rust-colored crude oil before it fouls fragile marshes and sugary beaches across four Gulf Coast states.
That reprieve, however, could also have a nasty ripple effect — pushing outlying plumes of polluted surface water and patches of tar balls into the Gulf of Mexico’s powerful loop current. That would propel the mess across the mangrove islands, seagrass beds and coral reefs of the Florida Keys, then up toward Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale and beyond.
Trajectories from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest the oil will remain offshore at least through Tuesday, and a University of Miami oceanographer said a weather front expected in 24 to 48 hours will likely begin pushing the spill away from the Gulf Coast and toward the loop current…
Once in the loop current, the toxic mess could move right up the eastern seaboard.
My friend Diane tipped me to this next item. Other BP wells in the Gulf may be even riskier.
BP is being investigated by US authorities over claims from a whistleblower that the oil company broke the law by not keeping key documents relating to a giant deepwater production platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian has learned.
The documents for the huge Atlantis platform act as an "operator’s manual", and a complete up-to-date set of records is vital to shut down the platform properly in case of an emergency.
BP said it was co-operating fully with the investigation and denies the allegations.
It is also dealing with the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Last week the rig sank in the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion. Eleven workers are missing presumed dead and up to 1,000 barrels of oil per day are being leaked, threatening to wreak havoc on the region’s fragile ecosystem.
The Minerals Management Service (MMS), the US government agency responsible for overseeing offshore oil and renewable activities, is expected to launch an investigation into the disaster this week. But the Guardian has learned a separate MMS investigation into the Atlantis rig allegations is being launched. MMS said it would complete its report by the end of next month. Atlantis, 190 miles south of New Orleans, is the world’s largest platform of its kind and began operating in 2007 in the Gulf of Mexico at one of the deepest depths in the world.
A whistleblower employed by a contractor working for BP leaked internal emails from staffers dated August 2008 which appear to reveal concerns that BP may not have been keeping a complete accurate record of drawings of the components used to build the Atlantis platform.
Final "as-built" drawings show how generic parts are modified when they are assembled. They can be crucial to assess how such a complex structure operates in practice. It is federal law for rig operators to keep complete, up-to-date "as-built" drawings. If BP assumed the drawings were accurate and up-to-date, "this could lead to catastrophic operator errors", a BP executive involved in the project warned colleagues, according to one email.
At the end of February, the powerful House committee on natural resources wrote to MMS demanding it investigate the claims. The agency, which declined to provide further details to the Guardian , promised to launch the inquiry soon afterwards.
The Deepwater Horizon accident has reinforced environmental concerns in the US about offshore oil drilling and will put pressure on the MMS to ensure standards are fully met by all operators, particularly in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
US environmental consumer campaign group Food and Water Watch also passed to the Guardian what appears to be an official reply to the whistleblower from BP’s office of the ombudsman, which was set up to investigate internal safety concerns following the Texas refinery explosion of 2005. Dated 13 April 2010, deputy ombudsman Billie Pirner Garde is quoted responding to the whistleblower’s concerns over BP’s "Project Execution Plan" over Atlantis, centring on the alleged lack of documentation. "Your concerns about the project not following the terms of its own Project Execution Plan were substantiated, and addressed by a BP Management of Change document," he is quoted as writing.
The Guardian asked BP if it acknowledged the authenticity of the emails and ombudsman’s letter and their contents. A spokesman declined to comment. In a statement, the company said: "We are aware that the MMS is conducting an investigation in connection with past allegations made about our Atlantis platform. We will continue to co-operate fully with their requests for information… [emphasis added]
To out this in simpler terms, it appears that BP did not include engineering statements that justify experimental procedures and cut corners. Without that documentation, platform operators will be working with an invalid set of assumptions should anything go wrong. Why would they do this? I can only surmise that they were uncertain that engineers would sign off that the design changes and cut corners are safe, so they covered-up the ways that are surreptitiously cutting costs to increase profit.
The GOP has their own explanations.
Limbaugh: "Environmental whackos" may have blown up oil rig to "head off more oil drilling." On his April 29 radio show, Rush Limbaugh questioned "the timing" of the explosion and said: "Lest we forget … the cap and trade bill was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist whackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants." Limbaugh added: "[W]hat better way to head off more oil drilling and nuclear plants then by blowing up a rig? I’m just, I’m just noting the timing here."
Perino: "[W]as this deliberate?" On the May 3 broadcast of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Dana Perino said of the spill: "I’m not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory, but was this deliberate? You have to wonder…if there was sabotage involved."
Bolling falsely claimed it was "nine days before" the leak "was even addressed" and asked, "Did they let this thing leak? … if they’re going to try and pull drilling, that may be the way they do it." On the same broadcast of Fox & Friends, Fox Business Network host Eric Bolling said: "The question is … why the delay in the response? You guys were pointing out, nine days before it was even addressed, 12 days before he made a formal comment. The question is, did they let this thing leak? I mean, BP said maybe a thousand barrels a day, it went to five thousand. Did they let it leak a little bit and say, boy I don’t know. The conspiracy theorists would say, ‘maybe they’d let it leak for a while, and then they addressed the issue.’" Bolling added: "That would be a humongous accusation and probably the net result would be no different, but if they’re going to try and pull drilling, that may be the way they do it."… [emphasis original]
This article goes on to analyze the timeline of Obama’s response, demonstrating the perfidy of the GOP position.
Faux Noise even trotted out “Heckuva Job” Brownie to parrot the party line.
Oh well, like most Republicans, he is an expert at failure.
In advance of the Oil, the Gulf Coast has been overrun by a hoard of slithering, venomous snakes.
BP has been offering $5000 payments to residents of coastal Alabama areas, in exchange for essentially giving up their right to sue the oil giant over its deadly Gulf Coast spill, according to the state’s attorney general.
AG Troy King last night urged BP to stop the effort, and told Alabamians to be wary. "People need to proceed with caution and understand the ramifications before signing something like that," King said, according to the Alabama press.
A spokesman for BP told a reporter that the waiver clause had now been removed from the contracts, and that the company won’t enforce it in contracts that were previously signed. But King, a Republican, isn’t satisfied. He said last night he’s still concerned that the process could strip people of their right to sue.
Sid Jackson, a Mobile-based lawyer representing a shrimper who last week filed suit against BP, claiming that the spill had already taken a financial toll on his business, told TPMmuckraker that he believed BP would be wise to back down. "I think they kind of drop-kicked that [waiver] clause into the fine print," Jackson said. But, "I think it would backfire" if BP tried to enforce it… [emphasis added]
BP originally claimed that the waiver was left over from a previous incident and included by accident. That was an obvious lie, because the waiver included the correct dates and location.
Keith Olbermann and Chris Hayes had a good overview of the problem.
I have to express my concern that BP will use this bill to try to escape liability. I understand that Democratic Senators have introduced legislation to raise the limit. BP’s duplicity in their documentation provides more than enough justification for retroactivity, if only enough Republicans will support it to defeat the coming filibuster.
Residents of red states are reaping what they sowed. This is what they get for electing Republicans.
On July 1st, the Affordable Care Act will begin providing temporary health care coverage to Americans who can’t find affordable insurance in the individual health care market through high-risk insurance pools. The law allows states to decide whether they will 1) participate in a new high-risk health-insurance pool, 2) build on an existing program (if they have one), 3) establish a separate state-based high risk pool with federal funding, or 4) do nothing at all, in which case, the federal government would come in and administer the program. Last month, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote states to ask how they plan to implement the high-risk insurance pool provision. Last Friday, most of the states responded:
The states that opted out of the program complained that the $5 billion in federal dollars would not be enough to fully fund their pools, and they said that they could not cover the uninsured with state funds. While their concerns are not without merit, they raise two important questions. First, if the states can’t find enough dollars to cover the uninsured for three and a half years, how in the world would they have enough money to develop reform on a state level, as Republicans argue they should? And second, why are these mostly conservative states, relying on the federal government to cover the uninsurable population?
Yesterday I was swamped. By the time I answered my email, it was time to go, and bu the time I returned, I was pooped for the day. So I have two days of comments waiting for replies and return visits. I plan to catch that up today.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 3:13. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: Federal agents and police detectives arrested a Connecticut man, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, early Tuesday in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing, according to people briefed on the investigation.
The man, Faisal Shahzad, was believed to have recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was found loaded with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertilizer in the heart of Times Square, one of the people briefed on the development said.
Mr. Shahzad was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport, apparently trying to flee, one of the people said.
I’ve been holding off on this story until I have enough reliable information to have something valid to say.
From Think Progress: Last week, the Florida State Senate passed an anti-choice abortion measure that requires women seeking an abortion to first pay for an ultrasound out of pocket and “in most cases, view live images of the fetus.” During the floor debate on the amendment, GOP Senator Michael Bennett got caught looking at pornography on his government issued computer.
GOP ‘family values’ hypocrisy never ebbs, but what’s the big deal here? Anything that distracts Republicans from screwing up the country has to be a plus for America.
From Red State Update: The boys are upset that the Gulf is getting more attention than Tennessee.
It’s not just Arizona. That state is a symptom of a broader malaise. For the GOP, American equals white.
Don’t blame it all on Arizona. The Grand Canyon State simply happened to be in the right place at the right time to tilt over to the dark side. Its hysteria is but another symptom of a political virus that can’t be quarantined and whose cure is as yet unknown.
If many of Arizona’s defenders and critics hold one belief in common, it’s that the new “show me your papers” law is sui generis: it’s seen as one angry border state’s response to its outsized share of America’s illegal immigration crisis. But to label this development “Arizona’s folly” trivializes its import and reach. The more you examine the law’s provisions and proponents, the more you realize that it’s the latest and (so far) most vicious battle in a far broader movement that is not just about illegal immigrants — and that is steadily increasing its annexation of one of America’s two major political parties.
Arizonans, like all Americans, have every right to be furious about Washington’s protracted and bipartisan failure to address the immigration stalemate. To be angry about illegal immigration is hardly tantamount to being a bigot. But the Arizona law expressing that anger is bigoted, and in a very particular way. The law dovetails seamlessly with the national “Take Back America” crusade that has attended the rise of Barack Obama and the accelerating demographic shift our first African-American president represents.
The crowd that wants Latinos to show their papers if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” of illegality is often the same crowd still demanding that the president produce a document proving his own citizenship. Lest there be any doubt of that confluence, Rush Limbaugh hammered the point home after Obama criticized Arizona’s action. “I can understand Obama being touchy on the subject of producing your papers,” he said. “Maybe he’s afraid somebody’s going to ask him for his.” Or, as Glenn Beck chimed in about the president last week: “What has he said that sounds like American?”
The legislators who voted for both it and the immigration law were exclusively Republicans, but what happened in the Arizona G.O.P. is not staying in Arizona. Officials in at least 10 other states are now teeing up their own new immigration legislation. They are doing so even in un-Arizonan places like Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and Nebraska, none of them on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 list of the 10 states that contain three-quarters of America’s illegal immigrant population… [emphasis added]
The nativist movement is an attempt by the GOP to steal power through misinforming the public. The following individuals would recognize their tactics. nThe fourth would approve.
Fascism will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible. ~ Sinclair Lewis 1935
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. – Voltaire
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders…tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. – Herman Goering
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. — James Madison
I posted just the first page of an excellent three page article. I encourage you to read the rest,
Friday was the last installment of Bill Moyers Journal.
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. Once upon a time, a whole lot of just plain Americans woke up to realize the economic system was working against them. They had believed in it; they worked hard to make it work for them. They knew its shortcomings but saw in it the way to a decent return for their labor and a better future for their families.
Then, one day, calamity struck: The system turned on them. And they discovered that they had been betrayed, bamboozled, by the people at the top.
But they didn’t hang their heads and turn tail, like a dog whipped by its master. They organized and fought back — millions of them in a grass roots movement for democracy. What they did became known as the Populist Moment, an extraordinary time in our country’s history.
But, the flimflam gang returned with a vengeance in our time — the monied interests and political mercenaries who connived to bring on a calamity that lost eleven million Americans their jobs, robbed people of their homes and pensions, and brought the world’s economy crashing down.
But once again, people are organizing and fighting back; as they did in that early Populist Moment that took on the monopolies and financial trusts. The stirrings of a popular insurgency could be seen late this week as thousands marched on Wall Street. These people are angry at the banks that have cost them so dearly and they want reforms to prevent similar disasters in the future. They want to break up the Wall Street oligarchy and require the banks to use their capital to build and revitalize and innovate, to create jobs and security…
Yesterday I had a bad air day I felt exhausted all day long and severe coughing kept me awake. After5 finishing my paperwork and errands, I went back to bed. Today I have a volunteer appointment, so expect little. It was also a slow news day, so I have little to put up and no short takes.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:27. To do it, click here. How did you do?
I’ve been holding off on this story until I had enough information to have something definitive to say.
.
