Montana Street Fighter, which broke this story, now reports that the Helena Vigilante has picked it up. The guy sounds like your basic extreme dyed-in-the-wool teabagger nut, worried about the government "printing money" and making people weak and lazy. (Guess that's why he voted against providing affordable housing to returning vets.)

Need more evidence that Republicans in the Montana House of Representatives are total whack jobs? Read this letter in which a House Republican mocks single mothers and hungry kids and tells his tenants they should die sooner.

This month, Dave Hagstrom (R-Billings) sent his tenants one of the most bizarre and disturbing letters you might ever read. Hagstrom works for the Affordable Housing Development in Billings.In a lengthy letter (that is very much worth reading and can be found HERE), Hagstrom tells his tenants – you know, the people who pay him rent every month – that they are living “a fairly-tale life-style.” What “fairly-tale” means remains a mystery. Maybe Hagstrom meant to write “fairy-tale.”

The letter then gets extremely bizarre and mildly creepy when Hagstrom writes, “I feel it would not be loving of me not warn you about” the impending social crises facing Montana.

Hagstom contends that the root of all our problems “is a very bad practice” of providing “free healthcare services at Riverstone Health, more money for food in schools for the kids, more money to help pregnant single moms stop smoking, more money to help elderly people get out of nursing homes and get individualized care in their own homes, etc.”

Continue reading »

Amato lives and dies with the Yankees. What's your home team? How do your chances look this year? Or do you just hate baseball?

John Amato:

Prediction: The Yanks will not make the playoffs this year. I can't stand the Steinbrenner Sons and how they run the team. Look at how much money MLB is raking in these days. Why isn't there a minimum amount a team has to spend on their payroll, so that ownership doesn't pocket all the money and screws the community in the process?

After all, a few of the key numbers, as they relate to annual earnings for each and every ballclub, are nothing short of staggering. According to Forbes:

-- Franchise values increased by an average of 23% from last year, the largest increase since Forbes began doing these valuations in 1998'.
-- MLB’s new TV deal with Fox, TBS, and ESPN, which begins in 2014, is worth $12.4 billion — which translates to earnings of $52 million a season for each team in baseball through 2021.
-- MLB’s digital arm, which includes MLB.TV and MLB.com, generated an estimated $650 million in revenue last year, spread equally among 30 ballclubs. Forbes says the At Bat app for mobile devices is top-grossing sports app of all time.
-- Forbes calls baseball’s investment portfolio a “hidden gem.” Essentially it explains that MLB took some of the profits from the sale of the Expos/Nationals and invested them in hedge funds that produced double-digit returns, providing each team with another $40-45 million in investments.When you process those types of numbers, and then throw in the fact that both local teams profit further from their own TV networks — the Yankees, in particular, print money with the YES Network — it’s harder to justify their budgetary concerns, especially considering the high ticket prices they charge.

It's a travesty that Houston spends less on their entire payroll than is the cost of one year of A-Rod.

At the other end, Houston was last at $27.3 million, down from about $61 million opening day last year and less than the major league-leading $29 million for the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez. Houston's payroll is the lowest since the 2008 Florida Marlins were at $22 million.

.
By the way, the NBA and NHL playoffs are about to begin soon. Go Knicks.

This is pretty shocking news. (Scientists are currently investigating a possible link between antibiotics in the food supply and obesity in humans -- and by the way, animals are fed antibiotics to fatten them up.)

Rochester, NY – Today, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (NY-25), the only microbiologist in Congress, reacted to a new study that conclusively identified transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from livestock to humans. Currently, MRSA kills more Americans each year than HIV/AIDS.

The groundbreaking study was conducted by genetics researchers who analyzed the genomes of MRSA bacteria from patients and their farm animals, and found the samples to be genetically identical. Published on Tuesday in EMBO Molecular Medicine, the study confirms animal-to-human transmission of MRSA.

In reaction, Slaughter sent a letter to Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today calling for immediate action to reduce the use of antibiotics in livestock. Read the text of the letter by clicking here.

In sending the letter, Slaughter said, “This study ends any debate. The extreme overuse of antibiotics in livestock is endangering human health.” Slaughter continued, “For decades, the United States Food and Drug Administration has failed to act in the face of a growing threat. These findings make it clearer than ever that their failure is endangering human life. Starting today, the FDA must take strong federal action to reduce antibiotic use in livestock and protect human health.”

Continue reading »

Digby on the Sophie's Choice presented to Democrats with Obama's Grand Bargain:

Greg Sargent has frequently made the case that liberals are going to have to choose between the sequester cuts and the Grand Bargain and therefore will need to make the affirmative case for why they are choosing the sequester. (I never get the sense that if they "choose" the Grand Bargain that anyone other than a bunch of loser liberals will demand an explanation.)

And Greg is probably right that if the Republicans are smart enough to take yes for an answer, the liberals in the House will face the wrath of their Party apparatus and the president (and the liberal establishment) if they end up voting against a Grand Bargain. But it is NOT like the health care vote in which they were faced with the choice of walking away from a plan that greatly expanded healthcare for the working poor or giving up a public plan they wanted. That was a choice between two positive outcomes --- nobody was going to lose something they already had.

This, on the other hand, is a choice between two negatives. Essentially, as before, the White House and the Democratic centrists are holding hostages but this time they're basically telling the progressives that a hostage is going to get shot no matter what: Head Start and food inspections today or the elderly, the sick and the veterans tomorrow and they have to choose which one. Why should progressives bear that responsibility? They didn't get us into this mess.

I say they should just say no. Republicans do it all the time and everybody just throws up their hands and says, "well, I guess we'd better figure out something else." They should hold fast and say "the sequester sucks and so does the Grand Bargain and we don't support either one." Most of the progressives didn't vote for the sequester in the first place and bear no responsibility for it. (And even those who did have no obligation to defend the monster that everyone assured them had no chance of ever becoming law.) This is a failure of the leadership of both parties and progressives are not required to betray their most fundamental values and defend any of these ridiculous cuts to anyone.

Just say no. The "sequester vs Grand Bargain" is a phony construct made by man, not God, and there's no reason on earth why any progressive should be forced to own either one. Find another way.

Continue reading »

Huh. So maybe these pipelines are shoddy or poorly designed, since this is the third accident in a week. If only there was some kind of movement to keep these pipelines out of ecologically sensitive areas like the Gulf of Mexico! Oh, wait....

Thousands of gallons of oil have spilled from a pipeline in Texas, the third accident of its kind in only a week.

Shell Pipeline, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, shut down their West Columbia, Texas, pipeline last Friday after electronic calculations conducted by the US National Response Center showed that upwards of 700 barrels had been lost, amounting to almost 30,000 gallons of crude oil.

By Monday, Shell spokespeople said inspectors found “no evidence” of an oil leak, but days later it was revealed that a breach did occur. Representatives with the US Coast Guard confirmed to Dow Jones on Thursday that roughly 50 barrels of oil spilled from a pipe near Houston, Texas and entered a waterway that connects to the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Steven Lehman said that Shell had dispatched clean-up crews that were working hard to correct any damage to Vince Bayou, a small waterway that runs for less than 20 miles from the Houston area into a shipping channel that opens into the Gulf.

Y'all come on down and enjoy some of our oil-soaked shrimp!

The spill was contained, said Lehman, who was hesitant to offer an official number on how much crude was lost in the accident. According to Shell spokeswoman Kim Windon, though, the damage could have been quite significant. After being presented with the estimate that said as much as 700 barrels were found to have leaked from the pipeline due to an unknown cause, investigators determined that 60 barrels entered the bayou.

"That's a very early estimate--things can change," Officer Lehman told Dow Jones.

Documents in the Aurora shooting investigation were unsealed this week, and they show that James Holmes had been reported as a threat to campus police by the psychiatrist who treated him. However, she did not place him on a 72-hour psychiatric hold, according to the Denver Post.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and it's good that doctors don't use commitment lightly, but maybe this shooting could have been prevented:

CENTENNIAL — Thirty-eight days before the attack on the Century Aurora 16 movie theater, the psychiatrist treating suspect James Holmes told a police officer that her patient had confessed homicidal thoughts and was a danger to the public, according to newly unsealed court documents in the murder case against Holmes.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton, also told the officer that Holmes had stopped seeing her and had been threatening her in text messages and e-mails, the documents state. The officer, Lynn Whitten, responded by deactivating Holmes' key-card access to secure areas of University of Colorado medical campus buildings, according to search warrant affidavits.

But the documents don't reveal what — if anything — campus authorities did to investigate Holmes until 38 days later, when 12 people were dead in the July 20 movie theater shootings, 58 more were injured by gunfire and

Continue reading »

It's official, folks. The Grand Bargain is here.

Time to take action. If we don't unleash holy hell, this will go through.

Even though we've been warning you for a long time, it's still hard to believe that a Democratic president is offering up the crown jewels of Democratic policy -- and for a mere pittance. We need to fight back. You can call or write your congressperson or the White House if you want, but it's most useful to start with your senators. Tell them you're not willing to starve Granny to make the Republicans happy.

We're going to concentrate on the Senate, because they'll probably send a bipartisan bill to the House in order to bypass Boehner's Hastert rule. Even if you called last week, call today. Be prepared to call every day for the next week. (Here's the link.) Please leave a note in comments telling us how your call went.

President Obama will release a budget next week that proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security and fewer tax hikes than in the past, a conciliatory approach that he hopes will convince Republicans to sign onto a grand bargain that would curb government borrowing and replace deep spending cuts that took effect March 1.

Obama will break with the tradition of providing a sweeping vision of his ideal spending priorities, untethered from political realities. Instead, the document will incorporate the compromise offer Obama made to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) last December in the discussions over the “fiscal cliff” – which included $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction through spending cuts and tax increases.

(Editor's note: Krugman calls it "desperately seeking approval from the Serious People." He's right. Dean Baker says Obama is asking for a bigger hit to seniors than to the rich.)

“The president has made clear that he is willing to compromise and do tough things to reduce the deficit,” a senior administration official said, “but only in the context of a package like this one that has balance and includes revenues from the wealthiest Americans and that is designed to promote economic growth.”

The Huffington Post has more

The specifics are as follows:

• The budget would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over ten years -- $600 billion of this reduction would come from revenue raisers, and $1.2 trillion would come from spending reductions and entitlement reforms;
• It would change the benefit structure of Social Security (chained-CPI);
• It would means test additional programs in Medicare;
• All told, it would include $400 billion in health care savings (or cuts);
• It would cut $200 billion from other areas, identified by The New York Times as “farm subsidies, federal employee retirement programs, the Postal Services and the unemployment compensation system;”
• It would pay for expanded access to pre-K (an Obama priority) by increasing the tobacco tax;
• It would set limits on tax-preferred retirement accounts for the wealthy, prohibiting individuals from putting more than $3 million in IRAs and other tax-preferred retirement accounts;
• And it would stop people from collecting full disability benefits and unemployment benefits that cover the same period of time.

Not bad, Jake Tapper. Not bad!

CNN host Jake Tapper on Wednesday questioned former Gov. Mark Sanford regarding views on same sex marriage in light of his own affair.

Tapper wondered why people should respect the Republican South Carolina congressional candidate’s opposition to same sex marriage when he himself “did not lead an exemplary life as a husband.”

“Who are you to deny love between two men or two women, when you are somebody who talks about following his heart, regardless of the laws and traditions of the state of South Carolina? Why are you sitting in judgment of same sex couples, when you have had the life you have had?” he asked.

Sanford admitted voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1999, which prohibited same sex couples from receiving federal benefits. He said “unelected judges” shouldn’t be defining marriage for the whole country, but suggested it was also wrong for the federal government do so as well.

“I think that if you’re a conservative, you believe in this notion of federalism, that one size does not fit all and that we shouldn’t have prescriptive answers coming out of Washington, D.C., for any of the different things ultimately that we have got to resolve as a family of Americans,” he explained.

Except tax cuts. And wars. They're so selective, these Republicans!

DOWNLOADS: (62)

PLAYS: (552)

Embed

A group of Massachusetts parents are outraged and at least one worker has been placed on administrative leave after about 25 students Robert J. Coelho Middle School in Attleboro were forced to throw away their lunches over concerns that they could not pay for the food.

Parents said that some students cried and went home hungry.

School officials told The Sun Chronicle that Whitson’s, the contractor responsible for providing lunches, made the decision to stop students from eating their lunch if there was not enough credit in the student’s pre-paid account or they were not able to provide cash for the meal.

Superintendent Pia Durkin on Wednesday said that the on-site director had been placed on administrative leave and Whitson’s had been instructed not to deny lunch to any student in the future.

“There is no way any child in my school district will ever go hungry,” Durkin insisted. “Children need to eat.”

A school policy requires that the cafeteria provide a cheese sandwich and milk to any student who cannot pay for regular meals.

“I’m pissed that when there are people in prison who are getting meals, my daughter, an honor student, is going hungry,” parent John Greaves told the paper, adding that he would have brought lunch money to the school if he had been notified.

In a statement provided to WFXT, Whitson’s apologized for the incident.

“We regret that these students were denied meals and agree that this situation should have been handled differently,” the statement said. “We apologize to the students and the community for this incident and are conducting a full investigation.”

Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate/wingnut Ken Cuccinelli is asking the 4th Circuit to reconsider a previous ruling that found a prohibition against oral sex unconstitutional. Since this has a snowball's chance in hell of ever being reheard, guess old Ken is just performing for the anti-sex fundamentalist flying monkeys who make up so much of the state's electorate.

According to Buzzfeed, the alleged reason is that a 47-year-old man solicited a 17-year-old girl for a BJ. She refused, and the man then accused her of "performing oral sex against my will." That charge was later dropped, but apparently was enough for an ambitious crusading prosecutor who's running for governor. Via Mother Jones:

Last month, three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit deemed a Virginia anti-sodomy law unconstitutional. The provision, part of the state's "Crimes Against Nature" law, has been moot since the 2003 US Supreme Court decision overruled state laws barring consensual gay sex, but Virginia has kept the prohibition on the books.

Now Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is asking the full 4th Circuit to reconsider the case. Cuccinelli wants the court to revive the prohibition on consensual anal and oral sex, for both gay and straight people. (The case at hand involves consensual, heterosexual oral sex.)

Here's more from the Washington Blade:

Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli has filed a petition with the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond asking the full 15-judge court to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel last month that overturned the state’s sodomy law.

The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 on March 12 that a section of Virginia’s "Crimes Against Nature" statute that outlaws sodomy between consenting adults, gay or straight, is unconstitutional based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2003 known as Lawrence v. Texas.

A clerk with the 4th Circuit appeals court said a representative of the Virginia Attorney General's office filed the petition on Cuccinelli's behalf on March 26. The petition requests what is known as an en banc hearing before the full 15 judges to reconsider the earlier ruling by the three-judge panel.