Fact-esque

29 Dead While Mineowners Duck Fines

Well, now we know. Of the 31 people in the mine when it exploded, 2 lived and 29 didn't. The press will now go through the obligatory and inevitable post-mortem in which they finally deign to notice problems they just didn't have time to bother with as long as, you know, only a few people died because of them. They're only interested when a lot of people die. That's sexy, I guess, and one or two is just, like, boooooring. As for shameless flouting of health and safety laws? Yawn.

This week's blast comes after a year in which the Upper Big Branch mine had repeated problems with methane buildups. Since April 2009, federal regulators have cited the mine eight times for "substantial" violations relating to the mine's methane control plans, according to the records.

In two instances, the regulators found the mine operator was calibrating methane monitors every three months even though it is supposed to be done every 31 days. The delays in attending to the monitors meant they could not properly detect the gas, a risk inspectors said could lead to severe injuries or prove fatal.

On April 30, 2009, federal regulators found that the mine had failed to follow methane-related safety precautions. Regulators stopped work in a section of the mine until the ventilation was corrected.

The NYT, for instance, just got around to doing a little investigative work and discovered - surprise! - that Massey Energy, them what owns the mine, has been much more concerned about fighting all the fines they've been wracking up than they were about making sure the pisspoor safety conditions actually got, you know, fixed.

Gingrich, the Village, and the CIA: Zombies Support a Vampire Over a Corpse

Amanda Terkel (any relation to Studs, one wonders idly?) at Think Progress notes that Gingrich calling for Nancy Pelosi's resignation just because she called the CIA liars is more than a little pot/kettle behaviour. (Via Jane Hamsher at FDL)

Gingrich himself has accused the CIA, among other U.S. intelligence agencies, of misleading Congress and undermining the president. In response to the release of the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program — Gingrich said that he believed the NIE and its authors were “damaging to our own national security.” He said that the document was “a deliberate attempt to undermine the policies of President Bush by members of his own government by suggesting that Iran no longer poses a serious threat to U.S. national security.”

But there's a much bigger hypocrisy here that neither Terkel nor Hamsher seems to be aware of and I think it's worth taking a moment for a recap.

In the mid-90's Gingrich made a series of speeches at the American Enterprise Institute castigating both the CIA's intelligence-gathering and its analyses of what it gathered. He accused the analysts in particular not just of lying but of forging and hiding evidence that Saddam Hussein was the kingpin of global terrorism. Seymour Hersh (via BuzzFlash):

Good Bye, So Long, Sayonara, Auf Wiedersehn, Ciao, Adios

Apparently Mr Bush's elegiac behaviour is threatening to open the floodgates to other officials defending their indefensible records. The Fabulous Condi is next up, taking credit for stopping the 2006 war. (This isn't my area but wasn't she just a trifle late to that particular party?) Following her husband's president's lead, she is likewise a tad bit testy.

"Transpartisanship" Is the Definition of Insanity

In the wake of the Rick Warren controversy (Joan Walsh is scathing about it), Glenn Greenwald wants to go beneath it and talk about the underlying issue: "transpartisanship". He finds it necessary to remind people of the history that, around here, we take it for granted everybody knows. Maybe he's right, but it's hard to believe. I mean, I know Karl Rove once said something to the effect that the life span of a Mayfly is longer than the memory of the electorate, but jeezum, have we really already forgotten everything that happened before last month?

The one question I always return to when I hear this -- and we've been hearing it a lot to explain the Warren selection -- is this:  in what conceivable sense is this approach "new"?  Even for those who are convinced this will work, isn't this exactly the same thing Democrats have been doing for the last two decades:  namely, accommodating and compromising with the Right in the name of bipartisan harmony and a desire to avoid partisan and cultural conflicts?  This harmonious approach may be many things, but the one thing it seems not to be is "new."

***

What did all of those post-partisan, cultural outreach efforts generate?  Hatred so undiluted that it led to endless investigations, accusations whose ugliness was boundless, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and ultimate impeachment over a sex scandal.  Bill Clinton was anything but a cultural or partisan warrior.  He was the opposite.  And that was what he had to show for it.

We've been saying for months and months and months that what most bothered us about Obama was his naive, Dick Morris-y belief that you can appease Republicans. For some reason Obama thinks he can get away with the very same behavior that got Bill Clinton publicly pilloried - giving the GOoPers everything they said they wanted only to have the bar raised yet again and have even more outrageous demands made than before, which is then followed by a vicious and personal attack culminating in near-impeachment. With Republicans as with Hitler, enough is never enough and appeasement is seen as a sign of weakness and therefore a signal to demand even more concessions, after you make which they jump up and down on your neck with stiletto heels.

The $700B Bail-Out Just Became a $2.7Trillion Theft

The $$$700B$$$ bail-out is -

Oops. Make that $$$$2.7 TRILLION$$$$. (Via TMiss)

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''

Bloomberg is suing under FOIA to force the Bush Administration to disclose who got these so-called "emergency loans" and what collateral has been given. But I beg to differ with Mr Fuss. Even if the market was as liquid as the 80's, this would still matter. It is a de facto stripping of the Treasury in violation of the Constitutional mandate that the power to disperse public funds rests with the Congress, specifically the House, alone. IOW, IT IS THEFT. There's no other word for it.