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GOP Plan to "Punish" Democrats Is Probably the Stupidest Thing You’ve Ever Heard Of

by AdelineTunstall Posted on December 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore highlights what must be the dumbest, whiniest, most ineffectual “protest” ever. Ladies and gentlemen, the Senate Republican caucus:

Senate Republicans will stage a more than 30-hour talkathon on the Senate floor to protest Democrats’ triggering of the “nuclear option” last month. The GOP protest, which could extend into the weekend, will throw a wrench in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) hopes of wrapping up legislative business for 2013 as soon as possible.

Republicans will delay a final vote on Cornelia Pillard, one of President Obama’s picks for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, until about 1 a.m. Thursday. Then, Senate Republicans will hold the floor throughout the night, speaking out against Reid’s use of the nuclear option.

….“When you blow up the Senate rules, there has to be a consequence,” said a Republican senator. “We’ll stretch this into the weekend if need be,” said the GOP lawmaker.

Seriously? They’re going to thunder away to an empty chamber in order to “punish” Democrats by forcing them to the floor at 1 am for a vote? That’ll show them! And then they’re going to thunder some more in order to—what? Delay everyone’s Christmas shopping?

Yeesh. Even the most moronic of the tea partiers isn’t going to be impressed by this display of buffoonery. Get a grip, folks.

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GOP Plan to "Punish" Democrats Is Probably the Stupidest Thing You’ve Ever Heard Of

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California Bullet Train Might Be Breathing Its Last

by ShaniHMTjxkn Posted on November 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny, following up on a ruling earlier this year, might have finally put a stake through the LA-San Francisco bullet train:

Kenny ruled that the state does not have a valid financing plan, which was required under the 2008 bond measure, Proposition 1A. The measure included provisions intended to ensure the state did not start the project if it did not have all of the necessary funds to complete a self-supporting, initial operating segment.

The state rail agency created a funding plan, but it was an estimated $25 billion short of the amount needed to complete a first working section of the line. Kenny ruled that the state must rescind the plan and create a new one, a difficult task because the state High-Speed Rail Authority hasn’t identified sources of additional revenue to allocate to the project.

As near as I can tell, the HSR authority’s plan all along has been to simply ignore the law and spend the bond money on a few initial miles of track. Once that was done, no one would ever have the guts to halt the project because it would already have $9 billion sunk into it. So one way or another, the legislature would keep it on a funding drip.

It’s a time-tested strategy, and it might have worked if not for a meddling judge. But I don’t see how Kenny could have ruled any other way. The bond measure is clear about the financing requirement, and the authority’s flouting of the requirement is equally clear. Not only does it not have a plan to fully fund even a part of the HSR project, there’s no remotely plausible plan they can put forward. The federal government is plainly not going to provide any further money, and the prospect of private funding is laughable. No one in his right mind believes either the authority’s ridership projections or its cost projections anymore.

I’ve been a skeptic of this project from the start. Its numbers never added up, its projections were woefully rose-colored, and it was fanciful to think it would ever provide the performance necessary to compete against air and highway travel. Since then, things have only gotten worse as cost projections have gone up, ridership projections have gone down, and travel time estimates have struggled to stay under three hours.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is the kind of project that gives liberals a bad name. It’s time to kill it. For a whole bunch of reasons, LA to San Francisco just isn’t a good choice for high-speed rail.

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California Bullet Train Might Be Breathing Its Last

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Nuclear industry scores a big win, but still no solution for nuclear waste

by cuppyteen Posted on November 21, 2013

Nuclear industry scores a big win, but still no solution for nuclear waste

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NRC

Construction efforts at Yucca Mountain were abandoned in 2010, leaving an empty tunnel in a mountainside.

So long as the U.S. government is going to stand around shrugging its shoulders over the nation’s growing nuclear waste stockpile, it must stop charging nuclear power plant owners $750 million a year in waste-storage fees.

That was the ruling of a federal appeals court on Tuesday. It’s the latest twist in a decades-long saga over the fate of the plutonium and other radioactive waste that’s piling up at nuclear plants across the country — more than 70,000 tons so far.

In 1987, Congress directed the federal government to prepare a nuclear waste dump site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The government has collected about $30 billion in fees from nuclear power plants to fund the project since then, and spent $15 billion on the controversial project, Bloomberg reports.

But for some reason the plan to dump all that waste in the Nevada countryside is not popular among Nevadans, most notably Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D). He helped convince the Obama administration in 2010 to abandon planning and construction efforts for the Yucca Mountain waste repository.

In August, a federal appeals court declared that decision illegal, saying it ignored the 1987 law, and ordered the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume the Yucca planning efforts. The NRC says it lacks the needed funds, but it has begun begrudgingly moving forward with “an incremental approach.”

Meanwhile, power plant operators have been suing the U.S. government, successfully forcing it to pay their nuclear waste storage bills. That’s because the government has been collecting fees to pay for a solution to the waste problem but has failed to provide one. Last week alone, courts ordered the U.S. Department of Energy to compensate three power plant owners to the tune of more than $200 million for waste storage costs.

And now, Tuesday’s ruling threatens to cut off funding that could be used to pay for an eventual solution, if one is ever forthcoming. From Bloomberg:

The U.S. Department of Energy was ordered by a federal appeals court to move toward ending a fee utilities pay for nuclear waste disposal because the government has no alternative to the canceled Yucca Mountain repository. …

Because the agency hasn’t come up with a legally adequate fee assessment, it was ordered to send Congress a proposal to change the fee to zero until it “chooses to comply with the act as it is currently written, or until Congress enacts an alternative waste management plan,” the court ruled.

The decision today was hailed by the utilities and nuclear power-plant operators who brought the suit and have been frustrated with the Obama administration’s decision to stop work on Yucca without providing an alternative.

Nobody in the administration seems to want to think about the country’s nuclear waste problem — even though they’re all too happy to promote the construction of new reactors.

Some members of Congress, meanwhile, are trying to establish a new bureaucracy to give the waste conundrum the attention it deserves. The Nuclear Waste Administration Act [PDF], sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and currently before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, would create a nuclear waste administration and a process for finding sites where the waste could be stored.

Finding such sites would, of course, be a most unenviable task.


Source
Summary of the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013, U.S. Senate
Nuclear Reactor Waste Fees Ordered to Zero by Appeals Court, Bloomberg

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Nuclear industry scores a big win, but still no solution for nuclear waste

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Time For the Nuclear Option on Judges?

by nowy24login12 Posted on November 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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For the third time in a month, Senate Republicans have blocked the nomination of a judge to fill an open vacancy on the DC Circuit Court:

By a vote of 53 to 38, the Senate failed to break a filibuster of Robert L. Wilkins, a federal judge who was nominated to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit….The impasse over Mr. Wilkins followed Republican blockades of two other candidates for the court since Oct. 31. Unlike previous fights over judicial nominees, the dispute is not as much about the judges’ individual political leanings….Rather, Republicans are seeking to prevent Mr. Obama from filling any of the three existing vacancies on the 11-seat court, fearing that he will alter its conservative tilt.

….Republicans are on the verge of exhausting the last bit of tolerance Democrats have shown for such regular use of the filibuster on nominations. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Senate’s longest-serving current member, who has fought to safeguard the institution’s traditions, said Monday that momentum was building toward a rules change — a move so controversial that it is referred to as the nuclear option.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mr. Leahy said.

Leahy has been a pretty straight shooter on judicial nominations, honoring Republican holds and defending traditional Senate prerogatives. If he’s finally losing patience, it’s possible that Democrats are finally ready to eliminate the filibuster on judicial nominees. Here’s hoping.

(And while they’re at it, how about eliminating the filibuster on executive branch nominees too? That’s even less defensible.)

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Time For the Nuclear Option on Judges?

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Alabama District Attorney Seeks Prison Time for Rapist Sentenced to Probation

by JeffereyLarocqu Posted on November 16, 2013

Mother Jones

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An Alabama district attorney filed a motion today seeking prison time for Austin Smith Clem, who was convicted of repeatedly raping a teenager—twice when she was 14—but was given only probation and a stint in community corrections as punishment.

Brian Jones, the Limehouse County district attorney, told Mother Jones on Friday that his office was reviewing its options to “achieve a sentence that gives justice to our victim.” This afternoon, Jones emailed reporters a copy of a motion he filed to stay Clem’s sentence and incarcerate him.

Jones has also filed a petition for a writ of mandamus for the Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals. The petition argues that Clem’s current sentence is illegal, and it asks the appeals court to order the presiding judge in Clem’s case, Circuit Court Judge James Woodroof, to “vacate his sentencing order…and re-sentence the defendant according to the provisions of Alabama law.”

In September, a jury convicted Clem of two counts of second-degree rape and one count of first-degree rape. Woodroof sentenced Clem to 10 years in prison for each of the second-degree rape charges and 20 years for first-degree rape. But Woodroof “split” the sentence so that Clem would serve two years in Limestone County community corrections program, a program aimed at nonviolent criminals, and three years of probation.

Jones’ petition asks the appeals court to consider whether Woodroof, in doing so, violated the Alabama split-sentence statute and the Alabama Community Punishment and Corrections Act. The petition argues that Alabama law prohibits a sentence for a felony—such as forcible rape—from being served in a community corrections program. “Rape by force or compulsion must be treated by the criminal justice system as a violent offense,” the petition states. “To suggest otherwise runs afoul of thousands of years of both sound jurisprudence and experience.”

On Friday, in response to his punishment, Clem’s victim said she was “livid.”

In an interview with Mother Jones, Clem’s defense attorney, Dan Totten, defended the sentence, saying, “Clem’s lifestyle for the next six years is going to be very controlled…If he goes to a party and they’re serving beer, he can’t say, ‘Can I have one?’ If he wanted to go across the Tennessee line, which as the crow flies is eight or nine miles from his house, and buy a lottery ticket, he can’t do that.” Totten noted to Mother Jones that he has been friends with Woodroof since childhood. He did not call any witnesses in defense at Clem’s trial.

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Motion to Stay Proceedings in Albama v. Austin Smith Clem (PDF)

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Alabama District Attorney Seeks Prison Time for Rapist Sentenced to Probation

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The Republican Freakout Over This Feminist, Pro-Choice Federal Judicial Nominee

by Bernadine Posted on November 12, 2013

Mother Jones

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to hold a confirmation vote today for Cornelia “Nina” Pillard, who was nominated by President Obama to sit on the second-highest court in the United States: the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Pillard is a Georgetown University law professor and a magna cum laude graduate from Harvard Law School who has argued and filed briefs on dozens of cases that have come before the Supreme Court. She is also unabashedly feminist and pro-choice and supports access to contraception and comprehensive sexual education. As a result, she’s attracting a wave of attacks from Republicans, who are waging a battle to make sure she never gets to join the conservative-dominated court.

“I have concerns about your nomination…Your academic writing, to me, suggest that your views may well be considerably outside of the mainstream,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during Pillard’s July hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which in September voted to advance her confirmation to the full Senate. Conservative think tanks have been less diplomatic with their views: Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote that Pillard promotes “militant feminism,” and “America can’t afford to give a lifetime appointment to a radical ideologue.”

The two biggest Supreme Court cases that Pillard worked on helped affirm rights for both men and women in the United States. In 1996, her brief helped persuade the US Supreme Court to end the Virginia Military Institute’s decades-old men-only policy. And in 2003, her argument led the Supreme Court to uphold the inclusion of men in the Family and Medical Leave Act. It’s not these cases, but rather Pillard’s academic writings on reproductive rights, that have sparked Republican fears of her “militant feminism.”

At a September Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) went so far as to read Pillard’s writings to another DC Circuit judicial nominee to see if he disagreed—without revealing that Pillard wrote them. A Democratic Senate aid told the Huffington Post he found the exchange “super weird.” The writings Grassley quoted came from a 2007 Georgetown University Law Center paper, in which Pillard noted that “reproductive rights, including the rights to contraception and abortion, play a central role in freeing women from historically routine conscription into maternity.” That insurance plans were not required to cover women’s contraceptives was, she wrote, “emblematic of a much broader failure,” and she expressed support for more comprehensive sex education in schools.

In a 2006 entry for the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, Pillard wrote that “accurate health education can help to make abortion less necessary by teaching teens about reproduction and birth control.” Republicans aggressively attacked this viewpoint. “You have argued that if a state decides to teach abstinence-only, that that decision…in your judgment, may be unconstitutional. Is that indeed what you were arguing?” Cruz asked at the July hearing.

Pillard replied: “I’m a mother. I have two teenage children, one boy and one girl…I want both of my children to be taught to say no, not just my daughter. I want my son to be taught that too. The article was very explicit. I don’t see any constitutional objection to abstinence-only education that does not rely on sex-role stereotypes.”

Cruz said that he found that to be “an extraordinary position,” and Ed Whelan, writing in the National Review, accused Pillard of “false testimony” on the abstinence education issue. “No one who seeks to use the Constitution to impose and advance her own dogmatic belief…should be trusted with judicial power,” he wrote. Pillard has said repeatedly that her personal views will have no place in her judicial decision-making, and Media Matters has called the National Review‘s attacks on Pillard “sexist, hypocritical, and flawed.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also brought up Pillard’s writings at the July hearing, accusing Pillard of comparing anti-abortion protesters to white supremacists. “Do you believe that pro-life protesters are fairly analogous to Klu Klux Klan members who lynched African Americans?” he asked. Pillard disagreed, noting that the brief in question referred to why protesters shouldn’t interfere with law enforcement, and, at the time, there wasn’t a more relevant statute to cite. She said that after that case, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act in 1994, which made it illegal for protesters to obstruct people going to health clinics.

If Pillard’s confirmation is blocked by Republicans, it will be because they can’t handle an openly feminist, pro-choice federal judge—or because, as Reid has pointed out, they are stonewalling all of the Obama administration’s nominees, no matter their background. Obama has nominated two others to the DC Circuit, one of whom has already been filibustered by Republicans. “While Senate Republicans are blocking President Obama’s nominees to this vital court, they were happy to confirm several judges to the DC Circuit when Presidents Reagan and Bush were in office…Pillard is incredibly qualified and dedicated,” Reid said.

At least one conservative legal scholar agrees: “I know well Professor Pillard’s intellect, integrity, and temperament…I know her to be a straight shooter when it comes to the law and legal interpretation,” wrote Viet D. Dinh, who served as the assistant attorney general for legal policy under President George W. Bush. “I am confident that she would approach the judicial task of applying law to facts in a fair and meticulous mannerâ&#128;&#139;.”

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The Republican Freakout Over This Feminist, Pro-Choice Federal Judicial Nominee

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Chevron scores legal and PR victories in Ecuador pollution case

by graptorm Posted on September 23, 2013

Chevron scores legal and PR victories in Ecuador pollution case

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Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco drilled for oil in the Ecuadorian Amazon and left an outrageous mess, dumping 18.5 billion gallons of toxic sludge and wastewater into local waterways. Chevron, which acquired Texaco in 2001, was ordered by an Ecuadorian judge in 2011 to pay $19 billion for the damage. Chevron said, to paraphrase, “Eff you,” and has been fighting the judgment ever since.

It’s little wonder, then, that Ecuador’s president is calling for a boycott of Chevron. In launching the “Chevron’s Dirty Hand” campaign last week, President Rafael Correa visited a rainforest area left polluted by the company, plunged his hand into a pool of oil, and held it up for members of the media to photograph.

Reuters/Guillermo Granja

A nice photo op, but Chevron is still winning the war.

Here are the latest legal developments from ABC News:

Plaintiffs’ hopes for collecting a $19 billion judgment awarded by an Ecuadorean court against Chevron Corp. for oil contamination in the Amazon have suffered another potential setback.

A three-judge international arbitration panel in The Hague has ruled that an agreement signed in 1995 by Texaco Corp., which Chevron later purchased, released the oil giant from financial responsibility from any claims of “collective damage.”

However, the interim ruling Tuesday by the Permanent Court of Arbitration left open the possibility that Chevron could still be liable for damages incurred by individuals.

And the U.S. government appears to be doing its part to help Chevron avoid bad PR.  From PressTV:

Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry says the US has denied visas to a delegation, which was to travel to the UN General Assembly in New York to present testimony against oil giant Chevron.

In a statement on Friday, the ministry announced that the American Embassy in Quito returned the visas for five Ecuadorian nationals “without any explanation.”

The delegation was scheduled to give testimony during a special event at the UN regarding the environmental impact of the oil giant’s operations in the Ecuadoran region of the Amazon forest.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Kalamazoo pipeline protester could get two years in jail

by Maniekpci Posted on August 30, 2013

Kalamazoo pipeline protester could get two years in jail

By

Erica F

One oil spill in his community was more than enough for Kalamazoo resident Christopher Wahmhoff.

To protest Enbridge’s replacement of the pipeline that burst along a Michigan riverbank in 2010, Wahmhoff spent 10 hours of his 35th birthday inside the new pipe, slowing construction for a single day in June.

Now Wahmhoff, a member of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands, has been charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor, charges that could see him put behind bars for more than two years.

“It was worth it, without a doubt,” he told the Battle Creek Enquirer on Tuesday following a preliminary hearing before a district judge. “We got awareness out.”

The prosecutorial overreaction is all the more striking because of the peacefulness of Wahmhoff’s protest. Though he refused to come out of the pipeline until 5 p.m., Sheriff Department Detective Steve Hinkley told the court, “He was very cooperative.”

Wahmhoff’s wrongdoings certainly pale in comparison to Enbridge’s. When the company’s improperly maintained pipeline ruptured in 2010, it led to the nation’s largest-ever onshore oil spill. More than a million gallons of goopy, toxic tar-sands oil spilled into the Kalamazoo River and a tributary, and up to 180,000 gallons are still contaminating the river bottom today. So who’s the criminal here?

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Vermont can’t shut down nuke plant, court says

by Charlie Smith Posted on August 15, 2013

Vermont can’t shut down nuke plant, court says

By John Upton

NRC

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, on the Connecticut River.

An unwanted nuclear power plant is going to be sticking around in Vermont like a drunk uncle after the party has ended.

State lawmakers have been trying to force the closure of the 41-year-old Vermont Yankee plant by denying it permits following radioactive leaks and other safety concerns. But a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that doing so was beyond the legislature’s power, upholding a lower court’s ruling that states are “pre-empted” by federal law from regulating nuclear safety.

“The nuclear power industry has just been delivered a tremendous victory against the attempt by any state to shut down federally regulated nuclear power plants,” Kathleen Sullivan, a lawyer for power plant owner Entergy, told The New York Times. From the Times article:

[T]he court said Vermont was unpersuasive when it said that the reasons for the denial were that the reactor was too costly and unreliable, and that closing it would encourage the development of renewable energy from wind or wood.

In hearings and floor debate, Vermont legislators referred often to the idea that they could not legislate over the safety of the plant, which is on the Connecticut River near the Massachusetts border, and would have to find other reasons to close it.

“Vermont tried to escape the prohibition by saying, ‘Oh, no, we were really trying to encourage energy diversity,’ ” Ms. Sullivan said.

The court also found that because the reactor operated in a competitive market for electricity, Vermont could not close it because it was too expensive.

The ruling comes as nuclear power is increasingly being seen as uneconomical in America in an era of cheap natural gas and renewable power. Earlier this year, Entergy announced that it would shed 30 of the 650 jobs at Vermont Yankee.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Historic lawsuit alleges ag-gag is unconstitutional

by Vladyslava7u1 Posted on July 23, 2013

Historic lawsuit alleges ag-gag is unconstitutional

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Should their suffering be broadcast?

A lawsuit filed in Utah on Monday is the first big legal challenge to an ag-gag law.

Animal welfare groups, journalists, and a woman who was briefly charged with violating Utah’s year-old Agricultural Operation Interference law sued the state in U.S. District Court, alleging that the ag-gag law violates the U.S. Constitution.

The law makes it a misdemeanor to record images or sound while inside an agricultural operation without the owner’s consent. It also makes it a crime to apply for work at a slaughterhouse or farm with the intention of making such recordings, or to obtain access to such an operation “under false pretenses.” The legislation was approved by state lawmakers amid a surge in such laws nationwide.

From the Deseret News:

“In essence the law criminalizes undercover investigations and videography at slaughterhouses, factory farms, and other agricultural operations, thus ‘gagging’ speech that is critical of industrial animal agriculture,” according to the 41-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, CounterPunch magazine and five individuals claim the law violates their rights to free speech and equal protection. They want a federal judge to strike down the law.

Supporters of the law argue that it is simply intended to protect “property rights,” the AP reports:

“It has nothing to do with animals — it’s people trespassing on farms” to make recordings, said state Sen. David Hinkins, R-Orangeville, a cattle operator who also breeds race horses. “If people can sneak onto anybody’s property, then we don’t have any rights.”

But the first person charged with violating the law wasn’t trespassing. Amy Meyer, one of the litigants in the suit, was charged after she filmed a cow being pushed by a bulldozer at Dale T. Smith and Sons Meatpacking. Charges against her were later dropped after a prosecutor reviewed the video footage and concluded that she made her film while standing on nearby public property.

Another litigant is Will Potter, an activist journalist. From his blog:

Utah’s law, and others like it, directly place both me and my sources at risk. There’s a long history of investigative journalism in this country based on exactly the type of research and whistleblowing that these laws criminalize. What if Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle were released today, accompanied by a YouTube video? He would undoubtedly be prosecuted under ag-gag.

Even if journalists themselves escape prosecution, ag-gag laws would make it impossible to report stories that are vitally important to the public. Whistleblowers and undercover investigators shine a light on criminal activity, and also standard industry practices. Without them, there is no meaningful window into animal agriculture; there would be no insight into the industry except for what the industry approves.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund produced this video explaining the case:

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Historic lawsuit alleges ag-gag is unconstitutional

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