“Brad Johnson” - Climate hawks fight GOP efforts to shut down the clean energy economy

Brad Johnson

April 7, 2011

http://www.grist.org/climate-policy/2011-04-07-climate-hawks-fight-gop-efforts-to-shut-down-the-clean-energy

During yesterday's debate on the Upton-Inhofe bill (H.R. 910) to block climate pollution rules, Democrats who support clean energy manufacturing debunked conservative myths about the green economy. Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) discussed their amendment to study the economic impact to American competitiveness of abolishing climate standards while the rest of the world wins the future. With the help of Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), they debunked the myths of a hapless Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). Inslee decried the eagerness of the GOP to "shut down the government":

It is deeply disappointing that our Republican colleagues are so willing, able, and apparently eager to shut down the government. This bill fundamentally shuts down the government. It shuts down the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to help lead us into a clean energy future. Why shut down the agency that can help develop these biofuels that we were just talking about? Why do they want to shut down the engine of innovation? Shutting down the government is not a solution. Shutting down the EPA is not a solution. Shutting down American innovation is not a solution.

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“Andrew Leonard” - The GOP's economy problem

As the unemployment picture improves, voters may tire of Republican hardball tactics. Case in point: Glenn Beck

Andrew Leonard

April 7, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/04/07/john_boehner_shutdown_and_the_economy

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank has a provocative theory for why Glenn Beck and Fox are parting ways: The improving economy left Americans less receptive to Beck's non-stop apocalyptic gloom-and-doom patter.

When Beck's show made its debut on Fox News Channel in January 2009, the nation was in the throes of an economic collapse the likes of which had not been seen since the 1930s. Beck's angry broadcasts about the nation's imminent doom perfectly rode the wave of fear that had washed across the nation, and the relatively unknown entertainer suddenly had 3 million viewers a night...

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“David Swanson” - An Afghan Peace Movement, Not a US Peace Jirga

David Swanson, Truthout

April 7, 2011

http://truthout.org/afghan-peace-movement-not-us-peace-jirga

Kabul, Afghanistan - The United States, on the verge of shutting down its own government for lack of funds, just forked over another $50 million for a peace jirga (or council) to negotiate peace in Afghanistan or at least sponsor an upcoming conference in the United Arab Emirates and - perhaps more so - bribe Taliban fighters to temporarily stop fighting.

Talking is always preferable to bombing, and anything with the name peace in it has at least that going for it. But this particular boondoggle may not have much else. To almost all Afghans, the hard-core Taliban are vicious killers and the United States/NATO foreign occupiers have their own deceitful motives. Afghans who want independence, sovereignty and democratic self-rule want power over their country kept out of the hands of the United States, the Taliban, Pakistan, Iran, and anyone else who is not the Afghan people. While many fear a Taliban takeover following a US withdrawal, they also resent the idea that a foreign power and its puppets should be negotiating the future of the country with its murderous criminals and offering those criminals a chance to share power with more US-friendly war lords and drug lords. Forgiveness and reconciliation is one thing, they say, but power sharing is something else all together. Offering serious investment in infrastructure would be appropriate, many think, but offering power to criminals who are greatly feared is unacceptable.

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“Rocky Kistner” - Residents Say Sea Turtles Rot on Beaches of the Gulf

Rocky Kistner

April 7, 2011

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/07-9

Laurel Lockamy thought she had seen the worst of the oil disaster last summer when waves of oil and tar patties washed onto her beach in Gulfport, MS, taking a major toll on the local tourist industry.

But now a new disaster is unfolding, she says, just as beachgoers are heading back to the water. A large spike in the number of dead sea turtles is being reported across the beaches of the Magnolia State. Residents now find them rotting in the springtime sun along with other animals and birds that float in with the tides.

Laurel has photographed three dead sea turtles on this stretch of sand in the past two weeks. Like other Mississippi residents, she’s never seen one dead—or alive—before.   

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“Brett Zogker” - Ken Burns Defends Public Broadcasting

Brett Zogker

April 7, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/ken-burns-defends-public-_n_846388.html

WASHINGTON -- Ken Burns has a slew of documentary projects planned for the next six years, and he says they depend on funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Funding for the humanities and for public broadcasting has been targeted for deep cuts in Congress.

Burns says more than a third of his budgets come from those sources. A $1.3 million grant helped him make "The Civil War" series, and that money was quickly repaid through sales of his work.

He planned to tell Congress that cuts would devastate film producers. But a hearing Wednesday was canceled amid stalled budget talks.

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“Huffington Post” - Obama Issues Veto Threat As Government Shutdown Looms

The Huffington Post

April 7, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/obama-veto-threat-government-shutdown_n_846187.html

WASHINGTON -- President Obama promised on Thursday to veto a House Republican bill that would keep the government open for one extra week and cut $12 billion in spending, while also funding the military through the remainder of the fiscal year.

Obama had dismissed the gesture in private meetings and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the measure a "fantasy" and a "non-starter," but Thursday's veto threat was the president's clearest signal that the House Republican stopgap is doomed.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) criticized Obama's veto threat, saying in a statement, "I urge the President revisit his decision and work with us."

A government shutdown is looking increasingly likely, Reid warned Thursday morning, charging that Republicans are holding up a deal over ideological issues.

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"Stephen C. Webster" - Shock poll: 46% of Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal

Stephen C. Webster

April 7, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/07/shock-poll-46-of-mississippi-republicans-think-interracial-marriage-should-be-illegal/

A new poll out of Mississippi finds that in a bastion of America's south, many Republican voters have tightly held onto the old, hateful views of race as a dividing line in society.

A full 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans said they believe interracial marriage should be illegal, according to the left-leaning survey group Public Policy Polling. Only 40 percent said they thought it should remain legal, with the rest unsure.

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“Kunal Dutta” - Space privateers to launch biggest rocket since 70s

Kunal Dutta

April 7, 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/space-privateers-to-launch-biggest-rocket-since-70s-2264333.html

The space race is no longer just between nations. Space X, a private firm based in California, has stolen a march on Nasa by unveiling plans to launch the most powerful private rocket ever built.

Named Falcon Heavy, the new rocket can carry more cargo than a fully-laden Boeing 737 aircraft and does not only exist in blueprint form – it promises to be complete by the end of next year. It will be the the largest rocket since the Apollo-era Saturn V.

In 2010 Space X stunned the world after it became the first private company to launch a craft that orbited the Earth twice and landed safely within just three hours. Its founder Elon Musk, the American engineer-turned-entrepreneur who made his fortune after co-founding the global online payment system PayPal, promises that Falcon Heavy will bring "revolutionary change, not evolutionary change" to the field of space exploration. "The public should be very excited about this. It re-establishes US leadership in space," he said.

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"Ellen Cantarow" - The ugly truth about energy

Our "safe" Canadian oil imports are much more dangerous than we'd like to believe

Ellen Cantarow

April 7, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/env/energy/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/04/07/foreign_energy_sources_japan_mexico_canada

For years, "not in my backyard" has been the battle cry of residents in Cape Cod who stand opposed to an offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The giant turbines will forever mar the beauty of the landscape, they say.

Energy is ugly. Some forms more so than others, as nuclear near-meltdowns in Japan, the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and deaths in a West Virginia Coal Mine explosion have driven home in the last year. Energy kills plants, plankton, and people. It imperils the environment, poisons the oceans, and is threatening to turn part of Japan, one of the most advanced nations on the planet, into a contaminated zone for decades to come.

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“Steve Kormacki” - Countdown to the Tea Party's comeuppance

Steve Kornacki

April 7, 2011

http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/04/07/shutdown_tea_party

It remains to be seen whether a last-minute deal will be struck to avert a government shutdown, but whatever the outcome, the current budget impasse has vividly illustrated a political reality: The Republicans and their Tea Party base had it easy for the past two years -- but not any longer.

In 2009 and 2010, there just wasn't much that the Tea Party movement -- which ostensibly sprang up in response to TARP but quickly became synonymous with the most engaged and conservative elements of the GOP -- could do to hurt the Republican Party's midterm election prospects. Democrats tried over and over to point out -- correctly -- that the movement was fundamentally right-wing in nature, and not the broad, grassroots coalition that its leaders claimed it was.

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