Author Archives: Cynthia Perez

Clarence Thomas Suggests "Elites" Like Obama Because He’s What "They Expect From a Black Person"

Mother Jones

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says he always figured there’d be a black president, but that it would have to be someone “the elites” and “the media” approve of—an oblique shot at President Barack Obama.

“The thing I always knew is that it would have to be a black president who was approved by the elites and the media because anybody that they didn’t agree with, they would take apart,” Thomas said during a panel about his life and career at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in early April. “You pick your person. Any black person who says something that is not the prescribed things that they expect from a black person will be picked apart.”

The implication of Thomas’ remarks is that President Obama was only elected because he fits with the “prescribed things that they expect from a black person.” Thomas’ statements were were also aired on C-SPAN and picked up by Fox Nation.

It is unusual for sitting Supreme Court Justices to make public criticisms of sitting presidents. “Clarence Thomas seems more interested in becoming a Fox commentator than preserving the integrity of the Court,” says Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California School of Law. “Justices should not take pot shots at the president. It’s beneath the dignity of the court.”

Thomas’ perspective may stem in part from the difficult 1991 Supreme Court confirmation battle he faced after being accused of sexual harassment by former colleague Anita Hill. Indeed, they mirror remarks he made at the time, when he said that the confirmation process had become “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.” A narrow majority of the Senate ultimately voted to confirm Thomas’ appointment. Reporters Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson later published a book providing compelling evidence that Hill had in fact told the truth.

President Barack Obama was twice elected by a majority of the American electorate. Indeed, while there is some wisdom in Thomas’ remarks about race and social expectations, it’s virtually inevitable that any presidential candidate will seek to earn the approval of elites, both financial and in the media itself. Supreme Court justices, on the other hand, serve for life and are by design insulated from popular sentiment.

“There’s a great irony in that Thomas has his position because he was approved by elites in the Senate,” says Winkler, “while Obama owes his position to the voters.”

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Clarence Thomas Suggests "Elites" Like Obama Because He’s What "They Expect From a Black Person"

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Max Baucus Votes Against Gun Control—And Then Retires

Mother Jones

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Last Wednesday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) was one of four Democrats to vote against the Manchin–Toomey amendment to extend background checks to private gun sales. His vote helped kill the bill. On Tuesday, Baucus announced he would be retiring from the Senate at the end of next year.

Baucus’ vote made some sense at the time, considering that Montana has more gun businesses per capita than any other state (it’s not even close). But now that he’s officially a lame-duck, the decision is a bit more curious. It’s possible that Baucus really does think extending background checks are a stupid idea and stood on principle. It’s also possible that Baucus was simply being loyal to his allies in the firearms industry (He has a lifetime A+ rating from the National Rifle Association). But given the intense lobbying effort from President Obama—and the fact that the senator’s former chief of staff and campaign manager, Jim Messina, was leading the effort by Organizing for Action, the president’s re-purposed campaign organization, to build support for the background check measure—you can understand why the most common reaction on the left to Baucus’ retirement was “good riddance.”

The background checks vote is just one of many reasons why liberals won’t miss Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman whose office came to embody the term “revolving door.” Twenty-eight (28!) former Baucus staffers are currently employed as tax lobbyists. The senior counsel who drafted the health care legislation that would become the Affordable Care Act came back to Baucus’ offices after several years at the health care giant Wellpoint. (The Onion perhaps best summarized the liberal Baucus-hate here.)

That said, Baucus did have some redeeming qualities. Here are three interesting things I discovered while reporting on former-Rep. Denny Rehberg, the man he beat in his 1996 re-election fight:

  1. A River Runs Throught It was filmed on Baucus’ ranch.
  2. Twice—in 1978 and in 1996—Baucus walked the length of the state (820 miles) from East to West.
  3. When Rehberg decided to run for Congress in 1999, Baucus’ brother, John, signed a contract to care for Rehberg’s 600 cashmere goats.

Baucus’ most talked-about potential replacement is former two-term Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who had hinted at a run earlier this year. Here’s a video of Schweitzer vetoing a piece of legislation with a cattle brand:

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Max Baucus Votes Against Gun Control—And Then Retires

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To Understand Gold, Look Across the Ocean

Mother Jones

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Matthew Drudge reports today that panic is everywhere in the world of gold bugs. And sure enough, after drifting downward from $1,800 to $1,550 over the past six months, gold has plummeted another $200 over the past two days. Paul Krugman feels vindicated:

As Joe Weisenthal says, this should be seen as really good news, because it offers strong evidence that the goldbug/inflationista view of the world — which says that we need to stop all efforts at monetary and fiscal stimulus lest we turn into Weimar — is, in fact, all wrong.

I don’t follow the gold market at all, but the interesting aspect of this to me is: what about China and India? My hazy understanding of the rise in gold prices over the past decade has been that increased demand in those two countries was a far more important factor than speculative fever among tea party types in the U.S. So if the price has dropped by a quarter over the past half year, it must have something to do with decreased demand in China and India. And sure enough, when I click on today’s story about gold in the Wall Street Journal, here’s what it tells me:

Worries are spreading that Asian buying, which has helped prop up gold prices for years, may slow. China reported that its economy unexpectedly slowed last quarter, spurring fears that Chinese consumers, faced with less cash, could stop purchases. In India, the largest gold industry group warned that the country is losing confidence in the metal because of its recent slide. Investors in Europe cashed out of gold en masse amid concerns that U.S. stimulus may come to an end earlier than expected, and following news that Cyprus may sell a chunk of its gold reserves to fund part of its bailout package.

It’s still not clear exactly what’s going on. If this report is right, there are merely fears that Chinese consumers “could” reduce their gold buying, and Indian purchasers are said to be reacting to gold’s recent slide, not causing it.

Still, I think that somehow China and India ought to be the focus of explanations about gold’s slide. Obviously, a bubble mentality can take over once a price drop has continued for a while, but the original source needs to be reduced demand. And that points to the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

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To Understand Gold, Look Across the Ocean

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Big Banks Getting a Fresh Look After Cyprus

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Simon Johnson writes today about the scourge of banks that are too big to fail. Cyprus is the latest example of what happens when a megabank fails, and it’s fresh on everyone’s minds:

The good news at the end of last week was that the Senate unanimously decided that the United States should go in another direction, by ending the funding advantages of megabanks.

….But making last week even more decisive, Ben Bernanke’s language shifted significantly….saying in the clearest possible terms during a news conference on March 20: “Too big to fail is not solved and gone,” adding, “It’s still here.” And in case anyone did not fully grasp his message, Mr. Bernanke explained, “Too big to fail was a major source of the crisis, and we will not have successfully responded to the crisis if we do not address that successfully.”

Now that the policy consensus has shifted, how exactly policy plays out remains to be seen….

Hmmm. This seems optimistic. Has the policy consensus really shifted? I hope I’m wrong, but what we’re seeing right now seems more like one of those little boomlets that crop up and then disappear regularly. Remember NGDP targeting? For a period of a few weeks when it got mentioned in a set of Fed minutes, the economics blogosphere couldn’t get enough of it. But it was never going anywhere, and it never did.

But enough pessimism! If there’s any movement at all toward going beyond Dodd-Frank to make banks safer, that’s good news. I’ve always been skeptical, on both political and practical grounds, that big banks can literally be broken up or their size capped, but they can certainly be made safer by requiring much higher capital levels. And you could probably go a long way toward encouraging smaller banks by introducing a formula that set higher capital levels for bigger banks. Who knows what would happen if required capital was a minimum of 10 percent or, say, double your bank’s assets as a percentage of U.S. GDP? If a bank the size of Citigroup had to hold twice the capital of a smaller bank, that would certainly provide a big incentive to break up.

I don’t know how feasible this kind of thing is on a national basis, and further international action doesn’t seem to be in the cards these days. But every little bit helps. We’ll see if the coming months produce anything more than a purely symbolic vote on a nonbinding resolution by the Senate.

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Big Banks Getting a Fresh Look After Cyprus

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Climate change is killing the corn cob pipe

Climate change is killing the corn cob pipe

Add another item to the list of things climate change will kill! But this one makes me a little gleeful.

NPR reports that “corn cob pipes have made a comeback in recent years” (which, what?), but now higher temperatures and drought are severely cutting into the supply of this “natural product.”

ilmo joe

The country’s one last mass producer of the pipes, Missouri Meerschaum Company, is suffering from a serious lack of decent corn cobs to fashion into $10 cancer-depositing machines for your lungs.

It’s probably fitting that drought could kill the corn cob pipe, though — after all, it’s also taking out tobacco crops (with a little help from hurricanes). Uh, thanks, climate change?

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Interested In Knowing More About Green Energy? Look Here!

Converting your home to green energy can provide numerous benefits to you as the home owner, as well as, to the environment and future generations. In this article, you will learn how to incorporate greener energy into your home, which will save you a considerable amount of money and reduce your carbon footprint.

Use rechargeable batteries. While they might cost a little bit more initially, they will save you a lot of money in the long run. Rechargeable batteries can be used hundreds of times, and they only need to be replaced about every five years. Another benefit is that you aren’t constantly adding corrosive batteries to the landfill.

Take your own bags to the supermarket to bag your groceries. You can use plastic or paper bags you have gotten on previous trips to the store or purchase cloth bags for this purpose. Some stores even offer discounts to customers who bring their own bags, so you can save money as well as the environment.

Green energy is not a priority everywhere. If you feel like you are not getting the help you need to set up your alternative energy solution, find out more about regulations and incentives in other towns or states. Moving to a nearby town or relocating in a different state might be a good idea.

Turn down the heat during the winter. The electricity which comes to your house from the city grid is likely not to come from renewable sources. Therefore, it does have a negative impact on the environment. Instead, wear a sweater and use extra blankets to keep warm and avoid having the furnace on if possible.

Try air drying both your dishes and your laundry to cut back on energy used for drying cycles. With the dishes, you need only set your dishwasher to a clean cycle then move the load to your sink-side strainer when it is done. Drying your laundry in the sun not only reduces energy used via your drier, it also results in fresher, less wrinkled clothes.

Plug your computer, televisions, stereos, and other electrical equipment into power bars. When you are not using these things, turn the power bar off entirely. This will reduce your energy consumption significantly as these items will use electricity even when they are not turned on if they are plugged directly into a wall.

For green energy use, always recycle your aluminum cans. The energy saved by just recycling one single aluminum can is enough to power a television for three hours. If everyone just recycled their aluminum cans, there would be more energy available for us to use for our everyday use and less energy wasted.

Get in touch with your local Business Bureau to find out more about local businesses specialized in green energy. Getting in touch with different business owners is a good way to explore your different options and get an idea of prices. Look for reviews on a business before you hire their services.

By changing your life at home, you’ll find that it has a greater impact on the world. If every person made the changes listed in this article, imagine how great the world could be! It’s important that you take your first steps towards being more green, so that everyone can benefit from the change.

Metal decking are the products and services helpful to produce even more intresting methods for Metal floor deck

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Maryland pushing ahead on offshore wind farm

Maryland pushing ahead on offshore wind farm

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/ F.SchmidtHere comes the offshore wind power …

Maryland is one big step closer to getting the offshore wind power that its residents want and its governor has fought for.

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has spent the past three years trying to convince lawmakers to approve his plans for a wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean to help power the state’s homes. On Monday, the General Assembly finally granted his wish with an 88-48 vote, following state Senate approval earlier this month.

Under legislation that O’Malley will soon sign (and that the state’s residents supported), residential electricity customers will see their bills rise slightly to help fund construction of wind turbines 10 to 20 miles off the coast of Ocean City.

From The Baltimore Sun:

The bill will require suppliers of electricity in the state to get up to 2.5 percent of their power from offshore wind as early as 2017. And it would offer a successful developer a subsidy of up to $1.7 billion over 20 years — paid for by Maryland’s residential and commercial electric ratepayers through slightly higher bills.

To pay for the subsidy, the Public Service Commission could authorize an additional charge of up to $1.50 a month for residential electricity customers. Commercial customers could see a charge of up to 1.5 percent of their electric bills. The higher rates would help assure that the wind energy developer takes in enough money to pay its investors.

The wind farm could produce 200 megawatts of electricity — shy of what O’Malley originally envisioned:

To keep customer costs that low, the governor scaled back the project that would be supported by Maryland ratepayers to 200 megawatts, about a third the size of offshore wind developments proposed in other states.

Some have said the smaller scale of the Maryland project could deter developer interest. Hopper said state officials hope developers can find ways to leverage the state subsidy to finance a larger wind facility.

The project still faces “regulatory, political and financial hurdles,” the Sun reports, and could be four to seven years away from construction even if everything goes as planned. Still, with no wind turbines yet in American offshore waters despite strong growth in the wind energy sector, Monday’s vote is being celebrated by environmentalists.

From the Sierra Club’s Compass blog:

This is a huge victory that is nationally significant for two reasons. First, it could well be the tipping point that allows us to finally tap the massive offshore wind potential off the East Coast. Second, it will ensure that historically underrepresented minority groups and small businesses will benefit from the jobs and investment dollars that offshore wind projects generate.

Not to mention how nice the turbines will look: Like graceful monuments to an energy economy in transition.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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