Last Call For King Coal

Thought Alison Lundergan Grimes was going to be happy out the EPA coal plant regulations?  Forget it Jake, it's Coal Country.

The Obama administration’s proposal for sharp cuts to emissions from power plants complicates the midterm elections this fall for Democrats, especially since some of the battleground states for control of the Senate are tied to the coal economy.

Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democrat who is challenging Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, here in the most high-profile Senate race this year, has already been portraying herself as a friend of coal and a sharp critic of Mr. Obama.

On Monday, Ms. Grimes pledged to “fiercely oppose the president’s attack on Kentucky’s coal industry” if elected.

Oh this, there's no difference from Mitch the Turtle.  But you knew that going in.  And folks, if you thought for a microsecond that Grimes wouldn't attack President Obama over the EPA, you just have no clue how Kentucky politics works.  You don't have to like it.

She's still better than Mitch.

The Long Hot Summer Begins

And really, it wouldn't be summer in America without somebody lynching President Obama in effigy.

Crews are investigating after a dummy bearing a President Obama face mask was found hanging from the Lesholz Bridge over I-70 near Grain Valley, Mo. Police received the report around 5:30 a.m. Monday.

Authorities rerouted traffic due to the distraction it caused Monday. Traffic across the bridge has since been allowed to cross.

Crews, using a robot, removed the dummy and took it into a nearby field where it was x-rayed for possible explosives.

So yes, it's officially summer now!  Hooray!

Breathe A Little Easier

Advanced info on today's EPA clean air rules for power plant emissions indicate what could be a massive cut:  the EPA is reportedly looking to impose 30% cut in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a draft proposal on Monday to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, according to people briefed on the plan.

The proposed rule amounts to the strongest action ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for trapping heat in the atmosphere and dangerously warming the planet.

The rule could trigger a fundamental transformation of the nation’s energy systems – if it withstands an expected onslaught of legal and legislative attacks.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that Congress did indeed grant the power to the EPA to regulate power plant emissions in the Clean Air Act.  But at this point, you would have to expect that red states are simply going to refuse and wait for the next Republican in the White House to eliminate the rules.

What can the federal government really do to states that refuse that won't harm regular citizens?  Me, I expect the regulations to be tied up, or for the EPA to simply be defunded or barred by legislation from enacting any emissions standards in another round of shutdown chicken.

We'll see what happens, but don't expect Big Energy to actually make emissions cuts.  They've got too many billions to take from you.

StupidiNews!

• Washington State law enforcement officials believe that six mountain climbers attempting to scale Mount Rainer fell to their deaths sometime Saturday.
• Cadbury chocolate has been pulled from the shelves in Saudi Arabia after possible traces of pig DNA were discovered in products in Malaysia.
• Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is warning against international recognition of a Palestinian unity government due to be unveiled this week.
• Thailand's military junta has deployed troops into Bangkok to put down protesters, blocking roads and shutting down the city's train service.
• Hacker site Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde has been arrested in Southern Sweden on Saturday in connection with a 2009 copyright conviction.

Last Call For A Qatar-ized Wound To FIFA

The current and growing scandal in the world's most popular sport this time?  Qatar's winning 2022 FIFA World Cup hosting bid got a boost from the outright bribery perpetrated by ex-FIFA official Mohamed bin Hammam, a guy so crooked he was banned from FIFA for -- now get this -- bribery.  Qatari officials have maintained bin Hammam was acting on his own accord.  New documents unearthed by the London Sunday Times says not only did Qatar's World Cup bid committee know what bin Hammam was up to, they're the ones who fronted him the $5 million he used for the bribes in the first place.

Deadspin's Sean Newell:

Bin Hammam, Qatar's top soccer official, was banned from world soccer in 2011 when he was caught trying to bribe his way into the FIFA presidency. The ban was later lifted on appeal, but he was not cleared of the charges. Qatar football has always maintained that he was not a member of the bid committee and was merely a rogue agent who, it turns out, just happened to be very helpful to the bid. The documents the Times received—which includes emails, faxes, bank statements—show a close tie between bin Hammam and the Qatar bid committee.

Following the money trail, it's easy to see how he hoped to gain favor for the 2022 bid.

Buying support across Africa was central to Bin Hammam's strategy because the members of CAF exerted collective influence over how its block of four Exco members should vote. Several of the officials he paid held seats on CAF's ruling executive committee and another nine currently sit on standing committees of the Fifa executive.
Bin Hammam was able to secure votes with "lavish junkets" and straight-up cash. According to the Times at least one of these junkets with money goodie-bags was actually paid for by the Qatar bid. In 2009 bin Hammam hosted three key voters, and 35 other soccer officials in Doha, all on Qatar's dime.

In addition to these junkets, Hammam also made payments totalling up to $200,000 to accounts "controlled by the presidents of 30 African football associations" who were key to securing a pro-Qatar vote. Payments were made from 10 slush funds and bin Hammam's daughter's account.

Needless to say, FIFA's got a massive problem on its hands now.  There's already talk of holding a re-vote if the allegations against bin Hammam and Qatar's World Cup bid committee are true, and that's completely beside the point that migrant workers building Qatar's World Cup facilities are dying by the hundreds in construction accidents and heat-related casualties.

Remember, the country Qatar beat out for the 2022 World Cup?

The United States.  Things just got real.

The Cost To Breathe

This week President Obama is expected to announce new EPA rules to regulate coal plants under EPA authority, and it's going to be the next war between Big Energy and those of us with lungs.  The GOP, bought and paid by these interests will stop at nothing to destroy the EPA totally.  But it turns out that the Clean Air Act, which gives the EPA authority over regulating the air we breathe, is actually saving America trillions of dollars -- yes, trillions with a "t" -- in health care expenses.

As a part of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, Congress required the EPA to conduct "periodic, scientifically reviewed studies to assess the benefits and the costs of the Clean Air Act." In other words, Congress wanted to know whether the Act "was worth it." The initial report in what is now a series was released in October 1997. The evaluation provided a detailed retrospective analysis of costs and benefits from the years 1970 to 1990 and showed that the overwhelming benefits obtained from compliance with the Act far outweighed the costs of implementation.

How much?

The EPA concluded that the total monetized health benefits from the Act during the 20-year period ranged between $5.6 and $49.4 trillion. The central estimate for benefits was $22.2 trillion. During that period, the costs to comply with the act were estimated to be approximately $0.5 trillion. Thus the net direct benefits were between $5.1 and $48.9 trillion, with a central estimate of $21.7 trillion. The benefit-cost rations were 43.4:1 for the central estimate and 11:1 and 97.8:1 for the extreme estimates. Who among us has an investment that has performed this well?

The second prospective EPA cost-benefit analysis was released in March 2011. The results of this study reflect the vast improvements in our understanding of the effects of particulate matter on the risk of premature death. These improvements are a direct result of the publication of large epidemiological studies and emphasize the importance of continuing research in this area. In addition the second prospective report adds several endpoints such as changes in visibility due to improved air quality, a better understanding of the relationship between peaks in fine particle concentrations and acute myocardial infarcts, and better mathematical modeling of air quality. Any way one may choose to interpret these data, benefits consistently outweigh costs by very large margins.

The projected benefits are attributed primarily to reductions in the concentrations of ground-level ozone and fine particles. The EPA estimates that in 2020 the Clean Air Act amendments will result in a 17 percent reduction in the direct emissions of small particles, or a reduction from 6,368 to 5,297 tons. While reductions in the emission of these primary particulates are a positive development, the most significant reductions in the total concentration of fine particles are attributed to reducing sulfur dioxide emissions.

Reductions in premature deaths are the most important source of the monetized benefits associated with the Clean Air Act amendments. By the year 2020 the scenario predicted by the amended Act avoids 230,000 premature deaths among adults age 30 and above each year. The model also predicts avoiding the deaths of 280 infants each year. The monetary value of these two causes was set at $1.7 trillion for adults and $2.5 billion for infants. Reductions in the number of cases of bronchitis, asthma, myocardial infarction, and other health effects contribute to the predicted $2 trillion in annual benefits by the end of this decade.

Yeah.  Trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives each year,  Thanks to the government.

Now think about what Republicans want to do to the Clean Air Act and the EPA.

Complain About Everything And Anything

So yesterday we found out that President Obama worked to bring home one of our soldiers, captured as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan for five years.  But because Obama did it, he must be attacked by Republicans.

“Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl’s release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-Calif.) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), said in a joint statement.

Lawmakers were not notified of the Guantanamo detainees’ transfer until after it occurred.

The law requires the defense secretary to notify relevant congressional committees at least 30 days before making any transfers of prisoners, to explain the reason and to provide assurances that those released would not be in a position to reengage in activities that could threaten the United States or its interests.

Before the current law was enacted at the end of last year, the conditions were even more stringent. However, the administration and some Democrats had pressed for them to be loosened, in part to give them more flexibility to negotiate for Bergdahl’s release.

A senior administration official, agreeing to speak on the condition of anonymity to explain the timing of the congressional notification, acknowledged that the law was not followed. When he signed the law last year, Obama issued a signing statement contending that the notification requirement was an unconstitutional infringement on his powers as commander in chief and that he therefore could override it.

That's right, Republicans are now lining up to accuse the President of being weak and encouraging more soldiers to be captured, and I guess they're now willing to start treating this as a Constitutional crisis or impeachment proceeding or something.

To recap Republicans care about our troops or something, but EVERYTHING IS ABOUT OBAMA.

But you know what?  The reason President Obama didn't inform Congress is that they would have blocked the deal and prevented Bergdahl's release, like they did in 2012, as Steve M. explains:

In July 2012, Rolling Stone published a story about Bergdahl by Michael Hastings. Hastings noted that negotiations for a prisoner exchange were taking place, but were meeting resistance, particularly from Republicans, who planned to demagogue the issue if the released happened before the November election: 

According to White House sources, Marc Grossman, who replaced Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was given a direct warning by the president's opponents in Congress about trading Bowe for five Taliban prisoners during an election year. "They keep telling me it's going to be Obama's Willie Horton moment," Grossman warned the White House. The threat was as ugly as it was clear: The president's political enemies were prepared to use the release of violent prisoners to paint Obama as a Dukakis-­like appeaser, just as Republicans did to the former Massachusetts governor during the 1988 campaign....

The tensions came to a boil in January, when administration officials went to Capitol Hill to brief a handful of senators on the possibility of a prisoner exchange....

So yeah.   Republicans are going to spend all summer attacking President Obama for this.

Please proceed, gentlemen.

Last Call For One Of Ours Coming Home

US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan for five years, is being released in exchange for five Taliban prisoners being held in Gitmo, to be delivered to the government of Qatar.

The lone American prisoner of war from the Afghan conflict, captured by insurgents nearly five years ago, has been released to American forces in exchange for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Obama administration officials said Saturday.

The soldier, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, was handed over to American Special Operations troops inside Afghanistan near the Pakistan border about 10:30 a.m. Saturday in a tense but uneventful exchange with 18 Taliban officials, American officials said. Moments later, Sergeant Bergdahl was whisked away by the helicopter-borne commandos, American officials said. He was found in good condition and able to walk.

The five Taliban detainees at Guantánamo, including two senior militant commanders said to be implicated in murdering thousands of Shiites in Afghanistan, were being transferred to the custody of officials from Qatar, who will accompany them back to that Persian Gulf state, where they will be subject to security restrictions, including a one-year travel ban.

President Obama spoke this evening at the White House Rose Garden to address the release, along with Bergdahl's parents, saying that Sgt. Bergdahl was "never forgotten" by the US.  Bowe's father Robert had this to say on Twitter:

To every single person who worked so hard to make this recovery possible, WE LOVE YOU! GOD IS GREAT AND HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER!
— Robert Bergdahl (@bobbergdahl) May 31, 2014

It's a good day for the Bergdahl family.  A very good day indeed.

"Not Sure" If Thousands Should Lose Health Coverage

That's our Sen. Rand Paul, showing leadership for Kentuckians with authentic frontier gibberish.

A reporter asked Paul if he thought Kynect should be dismantled. Paul responded that he was "not sure."

"You know I'm not sure — there's going to be … how we unravel or how we change things. I would rather —I always tell people there's a fork in the road. I was in healthcare for 20 years so we had problems in healthcare so we had problems in healthcare but we could have gone one of two directions," Paul said. "One was towards more competition and more marketplace and one was toward more government control. The people who think that the government can efficiently distribute medicine need to explain why the VA's been struggling for decade after decade in a much smaller system. And they also need to explain, even though I think we all want Medicare to work better, why Medicare is $35 trillion short. There's a lot of questions that are big questions that are beyond the exchange and the Kynect and things like that. It's whether or not how we're going to fund these things."

What happened to "It has to be repealed" Rand?   Suddenly Republicans like Rand and Mitch can't say if they want to get rid of Kynect or not.  They certainly hated it before and promised us it would surely fail.

Except for the fact Kynect has been a model for the entire country, and everything.  Suddenly it's the Palin-speak above.  Suddenly it's not a yes or no answer anymore.

Funny how that works.

We Ain't Got Time For Questions

Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald puts together a list of 16 questions that Brian Williams didn't ask Edward Snowden, but should have.  Most of them are very good, good enough that they deserve to be posed to the major players on both sides of this issue.  For example, question number 7:

Technologically, the world has changed dramatically since the original adoption of FISA. With wireless and disposable phones and devices that communicate directly over the Internet, old-style wiretapping is no longer possible. The NSA maintains that, because terrorists often use phones for a single call and an email account for a single message before disposing of them, it would be impossible to identify their numbers and emails without the collection of metadata that allows for retrospective searches. Is the agency lying? And if so, what methods are you aware of that would allow for the discovery of those numbers and email addresses that do not entail the retrospective analysis of metadata?

That's actually the kind of question we need to be focused on.  What roles should the NSA be allowed to fill in 2014, and what boundaries should be placed on those roles?  This is a perfect example of the real debate over the NSA and the duties it should be allowed to pursue.  But there are some other issues involving Snowden that should have been asked.

Question number 10 is short, but very important:

Do you believe that surveillance in foreign nations is intrinsically wrong?

There are a number of people who would answer yes to that question, and of those I'm betting 99.5% are backing Snowden and his actions as necessary.

That leads into 11:

You say that you do not believe your actions damaged United States security and that the government has failed to reveal instances where it did. Two questions: What kind of analysis did you conduct to be sure that the information you were taking did not compromise security? And, secondly, given that journalists do not have security clearances, why did you think they were the best placed to determine what would compromise national security and what didn’t?

Is America allowed to even have a foreign intelligence service?  Because the distinct impression I'm getting is that singularly so, the United States is not.  The fact we have one is the root cause, many would argue, of our foreign entanglements.

And then there's 13:

Your passport was revoked while you were in Hong Kong. How did you get out and manage to fly to Russia?

Nobody seems to have an answer to this that I've heard.  I'd like to know.

Hell, there are a lot of things I'd like to know.  Maybe some enterprising journalist types should get on that.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• White House press secretary Jay Carney is stepping down in the next few weeks, to be replaced by current deputy press secretary Josh Earnest.
• Wreckage of a Canadian WW II-era plane has been found and confirmed, putting to rest a 72-year old mystery as the plane vanished during a training flight in 1942 with 4 aboard.
• The FBI and SEC are looking into possible insider trading involving billionaire investor Carl Icann, golfer Phil Mickelson, and others.
• A Pentagon spokesman confirms that Russia has indeed pulled back most of its troops from the Ukraine border.
• High costs and low sales of the Moto X smartphone means Google will close a manufacturing facility in Texas by the end of the year.

Last Call For Twin Bees

It hasn't happened in 52 years, but last night's Scripps National Spelling Bee final ended in a tie.

Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe correctly spelled so many words Thursday that the Scripps National Spelling Bee had to declare them both winners.

Why? Because there weren't enough words left on the competition's list for them to keep facing off until only one was left standing.

In the bee's final round, Hathwar, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Painted Post, New York, correctly spelled the word "stichomythia" -- dialogue especially of altercation delivered by two actors.

Sujoe, a 13-year-old seventh-grader from Fort Worth, Texas, correctly spelled the word "feuilleton" -- part of a European newspaper.

You win at life when you make the National Spelling Bee run out of words to spell. B-A-D-A-S-S.

It's the first time the bee has ended in a tie in more than 50 years. The last time there were co-champions was in 1962, organizers said. Ties also ended the bees in 1950 and 1957.

"I think we both know that the competition was against the dictionary, not against each other," Hathwar said on ESPN after the win. "I am happy to share this trophy with him."

And like any great national champions, they got a shoutout from POTUS.

Congrats to Ansun and Sriram, the incredible co-champs of the #ScrippsNationalSpellingBee. You make us all proud! -bo
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 30, 2014

Well done.

Shinseki Sacked, Sadly

This morning President Obama announced that he has accepted VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation.  Shinseki will be replaced for now by Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson.  In the wake of Wednesday's devastating report on the issue, I don't see how Shinseki could have survived the firestorm anyway.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has resigned amid widespread troubles in the VA health care system.

President Barack Obama says he accepted the resignation with "considerable regret." He and Shinseki met in the Oval Office on Friday morning.

Shinseki had faced mounting calls to step down from lawmakers in both parties.

Shinseki's resignation comes two days after a scathing internal report found broad and deep-seated problems in the sprawling health care system. The system provides care to about 6.5 million veterans annually.

I gave Alison Grimes a hard time about calling for Shinseki's head last week, but she's looking pretty shrewd right now.  I don't know if that's good or bad.

The report is pretty damning.

The report said 1,700 veterans using a Phoenix VA hospital were kept on unofficial wait lists, adding that “these veterans were and continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix HCS’s convoluted scheduling process.”

Auditors determined that the hospital’s leadership “significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment in their FY 2013 performance appraisal accomplishments, which is one of the factors considered for awards and salary increases.” 

Official VA data showed that 226 patients in a sampling from the Phoenix clinic had waited just 24 days on average for their first primary care appointments. But the inspector general’s office determined that those veterans had actually waited an average of 115 days. 

The unofficial wait lists may represent the “secret” list that whistleblowers claim the Phoenix clinic used to cover up treatment delays, according to the report.

In other words, this looks like a complete cover-up.  Yes, Republicans blocked the VA from getting the funding necessary to help correct this problem, but that doesn't absolve Shinseki's VA from lying about what was going on at the expense of veterans who needed health care, didn't get it, and suffered greatly because of it.

I'm hoping now that Shinseki is out of the way, that the problem can then be addressed.  A bill to fix the VA like the one Senate Democrats put forth in February will be tough to block.  I figure it'll just die a quiet death in the House instead.

Why would Republicans choose to fix a problem when they can do nothing and successfully blame Democrats for things not getting fixed?

That's been the story of the last six years, and it's worked for them to an extent.  But this is where Democrats need to make it clear that this was definitely a problem that Obama inherited from Bush.

But according to VA inspector general reports and other documents that have gone overlooked in the current firestorm, federal officials knew about the scheme at the heart of the scandal—falsifying VA records to cover up treatment delays—years before Obama became president. VA officials first learned of the problems in 2005, when George W. Bush was entering his second term, and the problems went unfixed for the duration of his presidency.

The underlying issues date back even further. In 1995, as part of a broader overhaul, the VA began pressing clinics to cut wait times for new patient appointments to 30 days. But there was no system for tracking which facilities were meeting this target until 2002, when the VA introduced electronic waiting lists to keep tabs on patients who couldn't be seen within a month. Managers who slashed wait times were given bonuses and other perks. This created an incentive to game the system, especially after veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars began flooding into VA clinics and straining their already stretched resources.

Got this?  Good.  Shinseki's head will probably roll because, hey, politics. But following that Democrats need to kick some Republican ass for this. These problems go back to 2005, and that means all the Republican efforts to block legislation to fix the problem since then are part of the problem as well.

And finally, it's important to remember that firing Shinseki won't do anything to fix the VA.

The fundamental problems at the VA are systemic and not individual, though some individuals undoubtedly did very bad things. In large organizations, it is systems that drive behavior. No one individual, even a cabinet secretary, can dictate systemic behavior to such a degree.

In the case of the disinformation about waiting times at VA hospitals, there was a system in place that set a standard that no wait time should be longer than 14 days. There was also an individual performance review system that would be affected positively with more money or promotions for meeting the standard, and negatively for missing the standard.

There were other systems in place regarding resources – personnel, facilities, financial, and computing systems – that apparently made it impossible to meet this lofty wait time standard. If you don’t have enough psychologists to treat veterans with PTSD, for example, it is impossible to make an appointment for them when no service is available. There may also have been sheer incompetence at some facilities, but it is important to eliminate the systemic problems before assuming incompetence or malfeasance.

Once again, Democrats in the Senate intended to pass legislation to do this.  41 GOP senators blocked it.

Joe The Dumber

I can't possibly imagine why this particular moron hasn't been elected to higher office yet.

Samuel Wurzelbacher -- better known as Joe the Plumber -- likes guns. And he wants everyone to know why.

"Guns are mostly for hunting down politicians who would actively seek to take your freedoms and liberty away from you," Wurzelbacher wrote on Thursday in a blog post on his website. "Google 'Hitler, Mao, Kim Jung Il, Castro, Stalin' just for starters."

Nope.  Can't think of a reason why at all.  He ends his diatribe with:

As far as me being nice, cordial, respectful – don’t hurt people’s feelings… bla bla? We tried that and look where it got us?

Sure.  Hey, good luck running for office with your admission that your solution to politicians who don't agree with you is to shoot them.

StupidiNews!

• Former Microsoft CEO and co-founder Steve Ballmer will reportedly be buying the NBA's LA Clippers from the Sterling family for $2 billion.
• The San Diego office of GOP House candidate Carl DeMaio, one of three openly gay Republicans running for Congress this year, was vandalized just days before next week's primary.
• Ford is recalling nearly 1.4 million SUVs over possible power steering failure issues, including late model Explorers, Escapes, Mercury Mariners and Ford Taurus sedans.
• US regulators are seeking a $10 billion plus penalty from French banking giant BNP Paribas to settle multiple investigations into sanction-breaking dealings with Syria and Iran.
• Space enthusiast have re-established communications with the ISEE-3 satellite, originally launched in 1978, after the solar wind studying satellite finally caught back up with Earth's orbit after 16 years.