Visual source: Newseum
Paul Krugman:
All of which goes to confirm that the rich are different from you and me: when they break the law, it’s the prosecutors who find themselves on trial.
There's an old Yiddish saying for when a bird poops on your windshield: for the rich, they sing.
For a good readable overview of the Japan reactor issues, see NY Times:
Usually when a reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat.
But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not be used. Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling. But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel to the atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as “feed and bleed.”
When the fuel was intact, the steam they were releasing had only modest amounts of radioactive material, in a nontroublesome form. With damaged fuel, that steam is getting dirtier.
Nuclear reactors mixed with earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis — what could possibly go wrong?
WaPo:
The Democratic state senators who left Wisconsin to protest Republican legislation to weaken union rights for public workers returned Saturday to thousands of supporters who pledged to continue fighting.
Politico:
Democrats in Wisconsin are vowing to transform virtually every upcoming state and local election there into a referendum on Walker’s administration. Party leaders from Madison to Washington are gearing up for a major fight in the hope of sending an unmistakable signal to other ambitious GOP state executives.
Their efforts to make Walker and his supports pay a high political price for their victory has led Republicans to activate their own campaign machinery. Few expect the conflict will stay contained in Wisconsin.
Philadelphia Inquirer editorial:
Conservative public officials across the country are using deficits caused primarily by the recession as a pretext to weaken public unions and gain a partisan edge against labor's Democratic allies. Fortunately, people are seeing this ruse for what it is and banding together to stop this partisan scheme before it's too late.
Green Bay [WI] Press Gazette:
For all the unrest that's stemmed from the State Capitol this month — protests that attracted people by the tens of thousands, Capitol lockdowns with increased security and philosophical conflicts that have shaken communities — the fallout doesn't end with the passage of a provision that removes collective bargaining powers for most public employees.
It may just be the start.
Greg Dworkin (that's me):
While we all anxiously watch the Japanese nuclear facility damaged in the earthquake and tsunami and hope for the best from the aftermath, this is a reminder that regulation, preparation and preparedness are key, and the government has an important role in assuring the best possible outcome from a natural (Japan) or manmade (Chernobyl) disaster.
Those who want to starve the government of needed funds are simply wrong - let's keep the argument to unneeded funds, and while there are a lot less of those than conservatives claim, they don't include disaster preparation. Pandemics, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and blizzards - outsourcing or underfunding FEMA and CDC is a really bad idea.
Politico:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has come out in opposition to the House’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, making her the first Republican senator to specifically support the beleaguered organization.
“I believe Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need and disagree with their funding cuts in the bill,” Murkowski wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Vice Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “I ask you to consider these programs going forward to determine if there is room for allowing continued funding.”