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Hm. Wonder how long before this planned domestic-terrorism attack on a police headquarters in McKinney, Texas, is labeled "just another isolated incident":

A man apparently bent on destroying the police headquarters in McKinney was shot and killed this morning after spraying the building with bullets.

Police say 29-year-old Patrick Gray Sharp drove a Ford F150 pickup pulling a trailer to the station and set it on fire in an apparent attempt to draw people out of the building. Inside the trailer, police said, were wood chips, roadside flares, gasoline, and ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the type used in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

"He had a plan. He was executing his plan," McKinney Police Chief Doug Kowalski said at an afternoon news conference at which he confirmed Sharp's identity and talked about the unusual nature of the attack.

Kowalski said more than 100 shell casings were found in the area, and 23 windows were broken in the building. Officers returned fire, and Sharp was killed 50 to 200 yards south of the police station. It was unclear whether he was shot by police or died from a self-inflicted wound.

No one else was injured in the incident, which began about 9 a.m. and according to Kowalski lasted less than five minutes.

"We know the who, what, when, where. "We don't know the why," Kowalski said.

He said Sharp, who lived in Anna, did not have a criminal record.

"We're delving more into his background," the chief said.

CBS-11 has more details:

Police say Sharp may have been trying to draw people out of the building and blow up a trailer loaded with explosives. Kowalski says Sharp fired more than 100 rounds before he died.

During a morning news conference McKinney Police Deputy Chief Scott Brewer confirmed that around 9 a.m. a man driving a Ford F-150 truck drove up on south side of the Public Safety Building, pulling a trailer. The building houses both the McKinney Police and Fire Departments.

Immediately after Sharp exited the vehicle it became engulfed in flames. Police believed there was ammunition inside the pickup. "Subsequently the fire itself set off that ammunition, causing rounds to be dispersed in immediate area," explained Brewer.

Sharp began yelling something toward the building and opened fire. Officers in and outside the building began searching for the shooter. The suspect was located and there was an exchange of gunfire.

The Dallas Morning News went out and talked to his neighbors. Apparently Sharp had a roomie named Eric McClellan who was nowhere near the scene:

Continue reading »

This is good news. Vic Rawl has filed a formal protest of the election results in South Carolina that elevated an unknown unemployed veteran to primary frontrunner.

Via MSNBC:

Rawl says experts who have analyzed the data say they've noticed irregularities in the vote totals. He planned an afternoon news conference in Charleston.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn says he thinks someone put Greene up as a shell candidate to embarrass the Democratic Party. But Greene insists he saved for two years to pay the $10,000 filing fee.

I hope the DOJ and FBI is investigating the voting machines, too. Rawl will have a high barrier to climb, since the ES&S voting machines do not save an audit trail.

MSNBC: Los Alamos whistle blower silenced by beating?

Tommy Hook has a pending lawsuit against the University of California alleging whistle-blower retaliation. He had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear weapons lab.

"They left him in the parking lot for dead," Hook's lawyer, Robert Rothstein, said Monday at a news conference.

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I think this answers Buchanan and Liddy's question.

This is pretty important - not just because they need to know how much oil they have to clean up, but because any fine levied against BP will be based on the number of gallons. (Of course, that assumes they don't file for bankruptcy.)

The Deepwater Horizon well is most likely spewing at least 25,000 barrels of oil a day, and may be producing 40,000 or even 50,000 barrels a day, according to preliminary research from two teams of scientists appointed by the federal government to study the flow from the dark geyser at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Another scientific team, however, using a different methodology, estimates a somewhat more modest flow of 12,600 to 21,500 barrels.

The numbers are all over the place, acknowledged U.S. Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt in a news conference Thursday announcing the findings. Several other teams are preparing their own figures in what has been a protracted and often frustrating effort to get a handle on exactly how much oil is surging from the Macondo reservoir three and a half miles below the surface of the gulf.

One group, the so-called "plume team," examined video of the leaking riser pipe before it was sheared on June 3. The team concluded that 20,000 to 40,000 barrels may be flowing, with 25,000 to 30,000 barrels being the most likely rate. If that estimate is correct, and the flow has been more or less consistent, approximately 1.3 million to 1.5 million barrels -- or 53.6 million to 64.3 million gallons -- of oil have emerged from the well since the April 20 blowout. That is roughly five to six times the amount spilled in Alaskan waters in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez.

[...] The flow rate is significant on several fronts. First, it gives the government and BP a sense of how much capacity they'll need among surface ships to handle all the oil gushing out the well and up a pipe to the Discovery Enterprise drillship, which is capable of processing only about 18,000 barrels a day. Other ships are being added to the effort. The site above the blown out well has become crowded with 25 to 30 different vessels at any given time, Allen said Thursday.

Rolling Stone says the spill is even bigger, and notes the White House is doing its best to lowball the estimates:

"The upper bound from the plume group, if it had come out, is very high," says Timothy Crone, a marine geophysicist at Columbia University who has consulted with the government's team. "That's why they had resistance internally. We're talking 100,000 barrels a day."

The median figure for Crone's independent calculations is 55,000 barrels a day – the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez every five days. "That's what the plume team's numbers show too," Crone says. A source privy to internal discussions at one of the world's top oil companies confirms that the industry privately agrees with such estimates. "The industry definitely believes the higher-end values," the source says. "That's accurate – if not more than that." The reason, he adds, is that BP appears to have unleashed one of the 10 most productive wells in the Gulf. "BP screwed up a really big, big find," the source says. "And if they can't cap this, it's not going to blow itself out anytime soon."

(Graph courtesy of Enviroknow.)

50 Killed, 114 Wounded in Coordinated Series of 17 Bombings
3 Americans Killed, 7 wounded

via Juan Cole

The guerrilla movement pulled off a spectacular set of bombings in Iraq on Friday, as though responding decisively to President Bush's news conference Thursday night in which he said, " "I believe we're making really good progress in Iraq . . ." In Azamiyah, a relatively well-off Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad known for its Sunni fundamentalism, guerillas detonated 4 bombs in quick succession, mainly targeting police and military. This set of attacks alone left 20 dead....read on

via Liberal Oasis:

Freshman Sen. Ken Salazar, who has been trying to position himself as a moderate Dem and describes himself as a “person of faith,” is under attack by Focus On The Family over the nuclear option.

And he’s not taking it sitting down. Scripps Howard reports:

"I do think that what has happened here is there has been a hijacking of the U.S. Senate by what I call the religious right wing of the country," Salazar told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.

He singled out Focus on the Family by name, objecting to full-page newspaper ads the ministry's political arm recently placed, targeting 20 senators in 15 states.

"I think what has happened is Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and become an appendage of the Republican Party," Salazar said in an interview. "I think it's using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way."

The dollar continued its decline in global currency markets yesterday, intensifying worries among some economists that mounting U.S. budget and trade deficits could send the U.S. currency into a tailspin.

But John B. Taylor, the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, defended the Bush administration view that the deficits pose no danger of a dollar collapse. He issued a detailed rebuttal of what he called "scare stories."

But, I was struck by this paragraph in the article:

Taylor said administration policies already in place will help shrink the trade deficit. One is President Bush's pledge to cut the budget deficit in half, as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, by 2009. That would decrease the trade deficit because lower government spending or higher taxes would reduce the amount of money consumers spend on imported goods.

This is a fascinating passage. He's arguing deficit reduction plans will reduce aggregate demand, and therefore spending on imports, and that's a good thing. In other words, the president's policies are great because they'll reduce the trade deficit by making us all poorer?

This is a basic simple short run Keynesian argument - increase taxes/reduce spending and demand/output fall. But, it isn't the kind of argument Bush administration officials usually make (unless they're justifying tax cuts to increase employment after their other justifications disappear). It isn't the kind of argument sensible people really make over a 5 year time horizon. It isn't an argument that actually makes sense unless the guy is promising recession.

weird.

Though, this passage at the end is really the kicker:

President Bush's news conference yesterday did little to lessen concerns over the deficits, Wall Street analysts and currency traders said. Bush simultaneously promised not to raise taxes under the guise of tax simplification, to pursue a costly restructuring of Social Security and to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009.

The currency markets aren't buying it, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

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On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck decided to finally confront Anthony Weiner's investigation of his Goldline scam -- in predictable Beck fashion:

Step A: Frame such attacks in a paranoid light -- "They're out to destroy me because I speak the truth to you!"

Step B: Double down on the scam by promoting it directly on the show.

Yet as Rep. Weiner noted:

"It is not surprising that Glenn Beck is attempting to deflect from his behavior in promoting Goldline," Weiner told Yahoo! News in a statement. "But the facts are clear. Goldline rips off consumers and Glenn Beck helps."

In the report (on Weiner's House website as a PDF), Weiner charges that Goldline "grossly overcharges" for coins and makes false claims about gold being a good investment. Goldline touts gold as a more solid investment in this economic climate.

The report says the gold retailer has entered "an unholy alliance with conservative pundits" — among them Beck, Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham — to "promote Goldline by playing off the fear of inflation."

"What we have found, by looking through the public records, is that very often they use their public programs to advocate purchasing gold, and then immediately, advertisements begin for Goldline," Weiner said in a news conference Tuesday.

As Will Bunch notes, Mother Jones just published a months-long investigation of the practices of Goldline and its gold-industry cohorts, and the results aren't pretty:

The price of gold has increased 133 percent since the beginning of 2006, yet many Goldline customers say they have lost money on their purchases after discovering—as Richardson did—that they had badly overpaid for their gold coins. Richardson is one of 44 people across the country who have filed complaints against Goldline with the Los Angeles BBB in the past three years; customers have also griped about their dealings with the company on message boards such as Ripoff Report and PissedOffConsumer.com. Regulators in Missouri have sanctioned the company for pressuring an elderly couple to liquidate their other investments to buy overpriced coins.

The Federal Trade Commission received 17 separate complaints about Goldline's sales tactics between early 2006 and May 2010, according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Many of those stories mirror Richardson's.

And of course, our favorite Insane Wingnut plays an important role in all this:

Beck, whose various media enterprises brought in $32 million last year, according to Forbes, has a particular interest in plugging gold. Since 2008, Goldline has been one of his most reliable sponsors, underwriting his comedy tours and investing heavily in his radio show. Last year, after Beck called President Obama a racist, and mainstream advertisers bailed on his cable show, Goldline stuck by him. And its loyalty appears to have paid off. In an email, Goldline's executive vice president Scott Carter says that while its Beck sponsorship doesn't bring in the majority of its customers, it "has improved sales," which exceed $500 million a year.

... The more worked up Beck gets about the economy or encroaching socialism, the more Goldline can employ those fears in pitching their products to his audience. But in putting his seal of approval on Goldline, "the people I've trusted for years and years," Beck has gone beyond simply endorsing an advertiser.

No doubt Mother Jones will be appearing on Beck's chalkboard soon, too.

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Awwwwwww. We're shocked, shocked we tell you:

Indiana Republican Rep. Mark Souder announced Tuesday he would resign from Congress, effective Friday, because he had an affair with a staffer.

The eight-term congressman apologized for his actions but provided no details.

"I am so ashamed to have hurt the ones I love," he said at a news conference in Fort Wayne. "I am sorry to have let so many friends down, people who have worked so hard for me."

... Souder, 59, said he would not be a candidate in the fall election. It will be up to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels to decide whether to call a special election to fill the vacancy or wait until the November ballot.

"I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff," Souder said. "In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon and twisted for political gain. I am resigning rather than put my family through a painful drawn out process.

Yeah, it's the nasty environment in Washington that made him resign, you see.

According to Fox News, Souder had an affair with a part-time staffer named Tracy Jackson -- the woman you see interviewing Souder in the video above.

As Justin Elliott at TPM Muckraker notes:

The eight-term Indiana congressman is, of course, a vocal proponent of traditional family values. He has been married since 1974 and has three grown children.

"I believe that Congress must fight to uphold the traditional values that undergird the strength of our nation," he says on his official website. "The family plays a fundamental role in our society. Studies consistently demonstrate that it is best for a child to have a mother and father, and I am committed to preserving traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman."

Souder adds: "I am committed to fighting the assault on American values."

Including, evidently, the value of boinking your staffers.

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California is such a beautiful place to live, especially if you come from the East Coast like I do, but this land-o-plenty has been devastated by Governor Schwarnegger's leadership and a Republican minority that can veto anything.

Proposing a budget that would eliminate the state's welfare-to-work program and most child care for the poor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday outlined a stark vision of a California that would sharply limit aid to some of its poorest and neediest citizens.

His $83.4-billion plan would also freeze funding for local schools, further cut state workers' pay and take away 60% of state money for local mental health programs. State parks and higher education are among the few areas the governor's proposal would spare.

The proposal, which would not raise taxes, also relies on $3.4 billion in help from Washington — roughly half of what the governor sought earlier this year — to help close a budget gap now estimated at $19.1 billion. Billions more would be saved through accounting moves and fund shifts.

"California no longer has low-hanging fruits," said Schwarzenegger at an afternoon news conference in Sacramento. "I now have no choice but to … call for elimination of some very important programs."

Elimination of CalWorks, the state's main welfare program, would affect 1.3 million people, including about 1 million children. The program, which requires recipients to eventually have jobs, gives families an average $500 a month. Ending those payments would save the state $1.6 billion, the administration said. It would also make California the only state not to offer a welfare-to-work program for low-income families with children.

Lawmakers rejected previous attempts by the governor to eliminate the program.

Families would also lose state-subsidized day care under the governor's proposal; about 142,000 low-income children would be affected. That would save the state $1.2 billion. Preschool and after-school care would remain in place, as would some federally subsidized day care.

Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal is a starting point for negotiations that typically stretch well into the summer. His previous attempts to eliminate landmark state services have been upended by lawmakers who nevertheless agreed to substantial cuts last year. Their alternatives are limited, however; their tens of billions of dollars in temporary tax hikes and program cuts in recent years failed to end the state's chronic budget problems.

The governor blamed legislative inaction for the deep wound to state services. He said if controls on state spending that he has long sought were in place, the budget gap would be much smaller. He also accused the Legislature of failing to move quickly to rein in spending after he called an emergency session of the Assembly and Senate in January for that purpose.

The Democrats who control the Legislature noted that Schwarzenegger vetoed measures they approved earlier this year to address a piece of the deficit. Voters twice rejected the spending controls the governor seeks.

Democratic leaders immediately vowed to reject the governor's plans and craft alternatives, which they said could include new taxes on oil companies as well as the abolition of some corporate tax breaks.

"I am disappointed that the governor has chosen to surrender," said Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), "that he proposes a budget that kills the economy and harms so many. … We will not be a party to devastating children and families."

Outside the governor's news conference, scores of union workers shouted, "Shame on you."

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers, who hold enough votes to block tax increases and budgets, embraced the governor's approach.