Daily Kos

Will there be a design contest for the trillion-dollar coin? Maybe the winner can participate in the secured walk to the federal reserve?

• The White House's response to the petition asking for the creation of a Death Star is an absolute must-read. Don't believe me? Here's how it begins:
  

  Official White House Response to Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.

  This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For

  If you don't understand why that's funny...well, I have a bad feeling about that.
• President Bill Clinton, owning up to mistakes:
  

  In the wake of Haiti's devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake exactly three years ago, former U.S. President Bill Clinton issued an unusual and now infamous apology. Calling his subsidies to American rice farmers in the 1990s a mistake because it undercut rice production in Haiti, Clinton said he had struck a "devil's bargain" that ultimately resulted in greater poverty and food insecurity in Haiti.

  "It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked," he said. "I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did."

• Either Fox News is stupid, or they're hoping their audience is. Actually, we know which one of those is more the case. But here they are, attempting to mislead their viewers into thinking that the trillion-dollar coin would actually contain a trillion dollars' worth of platinum. Which, of course, would defeat the purpose. Apparently, these jokers think that a hundred-collar bill contains a hundred times as much paper as a one-dollar bill.
• Climate change news is more of the same--namely, that bad things will continue to happen with increasing frequency:
  

  WASHINGTON — The impacts of climate change driven by human activity are spreading through the United States faster than had been predicted, increasingly threatening infrastructure, water supplies, crops and shorelines, according to a federal advisory committee.

  The draft Third National Climate Assessment, issued every four years, delivers a bracing picture of environmental changes and natural disasters that mounting scientific evidence indicates is fostered by climate change: heavier rains in the Northeast, Midwest and Plains that have overwhelmed storm drains and led to flooding and erosion; sea level rise that has battered coastal communities; drought that has turned much of the West into a tinderbox.

  But no need to make this a priority, right?
• Burnt Orange Report says, via The Hill, that former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) is being considered to replace Ray LaHood as President Obama's Secretary of Transportation. I'm still getting used to someone with the designation of (R-TX) being mentioned as a potential cabinet pick.
• Headline of the day:
  

  Satanists organize rally in support of Florida governor Rick Scott

• spocko's post on FireDogLake about the NRA is excellent reading on their messaging techniques.
• Read up on the largest structure heretofore discovered in the entire universe:
  

  Astronomers have discovered the largest known structure in the universe, a clump of active galactic cores that stretches 4 billion light-years from end to end.

  The structure is a large quasar group (LQG), a collection of extremely luminous galactic nuclei powered by supermassive central black holes. This particular group is so large that it challenges modern cosmological theory, researchers said.

  "While it is difficult to fathom the scale of this LQG, we can say quite definitely it is the largest structure ever seen in the entire universe," lead author Roger Clowes, of the University of Central Lancashire in England, said in a statement. "This is hugely exciting, not least because it runs counter to our current understanding of the scale of the universe."

  In other words, it's so big that it shouldn't exist, according to our current theories of the universe. And yet...there it is. Four billion light-years' worth of quasar.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

Last spring, California-based truck drivers for the Australian company Toll Group voted to unionize despite an intimidation campaign by the company, which is unionized in Australia. Now, the drivers have won their first contract, and it's a big improvement. For starters:

Fair wages –The day shift hourly rate increased from $12.72 to $19, and the night shift hourly rate from $13.22 to $19.75. In addition to the over $6/hour increase in hourly pay rates, drivers won $0.50/hour per year raises over the life of the contract, giving Toll port drivers over a 60% hourly wage boost over the life of the 3-year contract. Overtime pay of time-and-half kicks in after a typical full time 40-hour week, which is extremely rare in an industry where truckers are exempt from federal overtime laws and an average week hovers around 60 hours.

Secure retirement – Prior to the contract, less than a dozen Toll drivers could spare any extra dollars, even pre-tax, to participate in the corporate 401(k) plan. As Teamster Local 848 members, they have been automatically enrolled in the union’s Western Conference Pension Trust. Such a retirement plan at the port has rarely been seen since trucking was deregulated in 1980. Toll will make a pension contribution of $1/hour per driver until 2014, and a $1.50/hour per driver by 2015.

Affordable health care – The Toll Group health care plan was financially out of reach for most of its truck drivers. The few who managed to meet the premium, deductibles and copayments will now keep significant more money in their pocket without sacrificing coverage, and the rest of their co-workers finally have access to quality, affordable health insurance coverage, including dental and vision care.  The company will pay 95% of the premium for individuals and 90% for family coverage. Drivers who previously had to shell out $125/month for individual or $400/month per family will drop to roughly $30 or $150, respectively.

That's not all the drivers won, and, according to driver Jose Ortega, Jr., "Justice ... it’s sort of an indescribable feeling, but it is overwhelming and incredible to finally have the American Dream at our reach."

This is a relatively small group of drivers who have the advantage of working for a company that came under pressure from its unionized workers in its home country. And many port truck drivers are considered (often wrongly, but that's another story) independent contractors who will have to first fight for the right to even try to unionize. But the mostly Latino drivers at Toll Group have a huge win to celebrate, and hopefully they're just the beginning.

Click "there's more" to continue reading about Hilda Solis, life as a line cook, carwasheros, rights for exotic dancers, and more.

2012 was a presidential election year, so you knew the hate would be strong. But which was the strongest of all? You decide!

The worthy contestants below the fold.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In January 2011, when the new Republican-controlled House took over, I warned of the coming War on Women.

And oh how the war came. And oh how we fought back. Hard. We defeated some of their worst attempted legislation, and in the 2012 election, we managed to shrink their wretched rape caucus and send some of the worst offenders packing. And when Mitt Romney vowed to get rid of Planned Parenthood, we got rid of him.

But it's not over, and Republicans in Congress are vowing once again to devote themselves to restricting our rights—from blocking renewal of the Violence Against Women Act to defunding our health care to codifying their ridiculous belief that fertilized eggs deserve greater rights and protections than, you know, the women who carry them.

Rep. Paul Ryan is once again co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which would recognize fertilized eggs as people. The personhood movement is extremely unpopular and has yet to garner a single victory in any of the states where it has appeared on a ballot, but that didn't stop House Republicans, including Ryan, from supporting it, and now they're going to try again.

And of course it wouldn't be a Republican-controlled House without the same old tired attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. As I wrote earlier this week:

By now, the myriad reasons this is just plain dumb are well known. Like how thanks to the despicable Hyde Amendment, Planned Parenthood is prevented from using any of its government funding for abortion care. Like how abortion comprises a mere 3 percent of its services anyway, which means, for those who have trouble counting, 97 percent of its services have nothing to do with abortion. Like how Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest—and in many areas, only—health care provider for low-income women. Like how we have a very long list of serious problems to fix in this country, and figuring out how to further screw over women shouldn't be one of them.

In Texas, we are already witnessing the consequences of Gov. Rick "Oops" Perry's exclusion of Planned Parenthood from the state's Women's Health Program, and it's exactly what we knew would happen. Low-income women are scrambling to find health care providers who qualify under the state's new guidelines and are accepting new patients. The new regulations have been in effect for less than two weeks, but so far, it isn't looking good for those 130,000 low-income women who are been sacrificed at the screw-Planned-Parenthood altar.

Just imagine me how much worse it would be for women across the country if Republicans succeeded in defunding Planned Parenthood at the national level.

Yeah. That bad.

So here we go again. To your battle stations, ladies and friends of ladies. Because the war isn't over yet.

Sign the petition to tell House Republicans not to screw with Planned Parenthood.

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This week's good, bad and ugly below the fold.

The BBWAA may have struck out earlier this week, but The Stupid Analogies Hall of Fame just got a new member, courtesy of former United States senator and current Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint:

It used to be said that Willie Mays’s glove was where triples went to die. Well, Congress has become the place where good ideas go to die.

Congress is like Willie Mays? Ouch. That hurts. That hurts really badly. But don't worry, while Congress may be just as awful as Willie Mays, you have nothing to fear, because the Heritage Foundation will save the day:

In contrast, think tanks such as Heritage use objective analysis to discover why ideas work or don’t.

DeMint goes on to take credit on behalf of Heritage for everything from defending Israel from missile attacks to reforming welfare. One thing he doesn't mention, however, is that Heritage was instrumental in developing the health care mandate and was a strong supporter of Romneycare which in turn paved the way for Obamacare. That's probably the best thing the Heritage Foundation has ever done, so of course Jim DeMint pretends that it never happened.

h/t: Simon Maloy

By the end of next year, America’s war in Afghanistan will be over.

Hot on the heels of his meeting with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai yesterday, President Obama explicitly tied the draw-down of troops in Afghanistan to nation-building at home—with a specific call to address gun violence in America:

After more than a decade of war, the nation we need to rebuild is our own.

As we do, we have to care for our troops and veterans who fought in our name. We have to grow our economy and shrink our deficits. Create new jobs and boost family incomes. We have to fix our infrastructure and our immigration system. We have to protect our planet from the destructive effects of climate change—and protect our children from the horrors of gun violence.

While admitting it's not an easy list of items he meant to address, the president told listeners that if our soldiers can lay their lives on the line for years in the Middle East, surely the rest of us can do them proud by rebuilding the country and having services in place to help them with their transition home.

These, too, will be difficult missions for America. But they must be met. And if we can summon just a fraction of the determination of our men and women in uniform, I know we can meet them. And I intend to work as hard as I know how to make sure we do.

To read the transcript in full, check below the fold or visit the White House website.

Not that this will persuade the zombie liars, but it's official:

This week the National Climate Data Center confirmed what most had long believed: 2012 was the warmest year on record for the United States. Ever. And not just a bit warmer: a full Fahrenheit degree warmer than in 1998, the previous high. In the land of climatology statistics, that is immense. In the understatement of one climate scientist, these findings are "a big deal."

• Meet the House pseudoscience committee.
• After many dollars and years, the Discovery Channel now has the holy grail of natural wildlife photography: video of a living giant squid in its natural habitat!
• Flu is now widespread in almost every state. Don't forget to check in with DemFromCT and the medicos at the Flu Wiki to keep up.
• Machine to Machine: the next big thing.
• A new revolutionary space module under development by a NASA subcontractor goes up tiny, then gets big enough for a space traveler to stretch her legs or house delicate machinery from the rigors of space.

NASA and Bigelow Aerospace have reached an agreement that could pave the way for attaching a Bigelow-built inflatable space habitat to the International Space Station, a NASA spokesman said.

WH responds to petition to build the Death Star:

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.
This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For
By Paul Shawcross

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

Tweeting is powerful:

Greg Sargent:

In a letter to the White House signed by the four leaders that will soon be made public — and was sent over by a source — the Democrats say:

“In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension as part of an unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promise and trigger a global economic crisis — without Congressional approval, if necessary.”

That’s key, because it means top Dems will support a unilateral executive resolution to the crisis even in response to a legislative solution passed by House Republicans that they deem unacceptable — such as a bill that contains a debt ceiling hike and only spending cuts.

Ian Reifowitz:

Racism and Obama: The dog that didn't bark (twice)

A look at the numbers shows the President's skin color was not a serious hindrance on Election Day

Prof. Reifowitz will be around in comments for questions this morning about his article.

Frank Luntz:

Congressional Republicans are currently defined as nothing more than opponents of the president and friends of the powerful. This isn’t my opinion — it’s America’s opinion. My polling firm asked voters nationwide on election night to identify who or what the GOP was fighting for. Twice as many said “the wealthy” and “big business” than “hardworking taxpayers” or “small business.”

Their image is even worse today. The congressional Republicans’ message during the “fiscal cliff” debate last month was confused and chaotic. The debt-ceiling vote next month and the budget debate after that promise more of the same — unless House and Senate Republicans stop bickering and start coordinating and talking differently.

Just saying “no” to the president has its limits. House Republicans, since they have a megaphone that Senate Republicans don’t , will continue to be diminished until they start defining and stop being defined.

Kathleen Parker:

In one remarkable incident in May 1967, as recounted in The Atlantic by UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, 24 men and six women, all armed, ascended the California capitol steps, read a proclamation about gun rights and proceeded inside — with their guns, which was legal at the time.

Needless to say, conservatives, including then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, were suddenly very, very interested in gun control. That afternoon, Reagan told reporters there was “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

The degree of one’s allegiance to principle apparently depends mainly on who is holding the gun.

Gail Collins:

Maybe the national über-angst is because the last two years were really light ones for flu, and we’ve forgotten what a bad one feels like. Also, it’s possible that we’re talking about it more because there isn’t all that much going on. In other Januaries, we might have been anticipating the actions of the new Congress. This year, we know in advance that there won’t be any.

This brings me to my theory about how to calm the flu panic. We can pin everything on John Boehner, the speaker of the House.

Think about it. One of the worst side-effects of illness is the feeling of a lack of control. Your symptoms seem to descend out of nowhere. Picking somebody to hold responsible gives a little more sense of order to the universe.

“Nothing will make you feel better like finding somebody to blame,” says a new Facebook app called “Help, My Friend Gave Me the Flu.” That app, which is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, lets you prowl through the social network looking for which of your acquaintances got symptoms before you did.

 Flu basics from my pre-pandemic 2009 series available here:

So this year, get your flu shot (you, too, health care workers!), and take your doctor's advice about medications, but don't expect 100% flu-proofing. That typically doesn't happen even when the stars are aligned and we have a good year for vaccine matching.

Crafting legislation is often compared to making sausage (both are grisly tasks, you see), so every once in a while you hear Congress being referred to as the sausage factory. I must confess the analogy never struck me as particularly apt.

I suppose I could see it if the sausage factory was, say, only open two or three days a week. Or if any one employee of the sausage factory could put a blanket hold on the making of today's sausage, or tomorrow's, or next week's. Or if half the employees kept trying to put rat poison in the sausages.

But I guess where the analogy really breaks down for me is that I just can't see workers at an actual sausage factory having that kind of top-notch health insurance.

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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Science Friday: There is No Controversy:

Ever since the terms "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" first made the news, the right has been engaged in an effort to ridicule the whole notion.  Man could have an effect on the atmosphere? Pshaw!  Okay, so Rush Limbaugh and the Fox airheads don't actually say pshaw.  Instead, they've said that the idea of a human-caused climate change is "ridiculous," and "malarkey" and a "farce." (I'd give you links for those, but adding a link to Limbaugh and friends would give me a rash).   Most of all, they've pushed the idea that our increasing thirst for flammable hydrocarbons might just cause an eensy change in the environment is controversial.  Sure, sure, we might be having a hot year -- or two, or ten -- but that doesn't mean people had anything to do with it.  After all, we're so small and the atmosphere is just so big. How could a little old us possibly have more effect than volcanoes, or cyclical changes, or the bad old carbon fairy, or whatever cause the right wants to put forward this week?  We changed the air?  Huh, that's just controversial.   They've depended on paid shills to generate pop-science FUD, and like the mercenaries of ignorance who constantly try to make it seem as if there's some scientific debate around evolution, they've created smoke in the hopes of making people believe there's a fire.  They've created fake organizations dedicated to spreading misinformation (current headline "Earth's plants tell us they're loving the CO2 increase!")  They've even made a hero out of Michael Crichton (the one man whose ego might be larger than Bush and Rush combined) and his account of a Global Warming "conspiracy," frequently citing his poorly-researched fictional tome as proof of the evil left wing environmentalist attempt to strip away your Hummer. The trouble with this notion is that the folks who stole the "it's only a theory" page from the whacko creationists are lying.  There is no controversy.  There's been none in scientific journals, and no, scientists did not think we were going to freeze just a decade ago, no matter how many times the shills say they did.  With every passing day, the evidence becomes more compelling.

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Tweet of the Day:

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High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson It's starting to feel like a sad routine—the confirmation, after the suicide or early death of another football player, that he had chronic brain damage. Junior Seau, who played for the San Diego Chargers, the Miami Dolphins, and the New England Patriots, is the latest. Seau shot himself in the chest in May, allowing his brain to be studied.

Seau's ex-wife, Gina, and his oldest son Tyler, 23, told ABC News and ESPN in an exclusive interview they were informed last week that Seau's brain had tested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease that can lead to dementia, memory loss and depression.

"I think it's important for everyone to know that Junior did indeed suffer from CTE," Gina Seau said. "It's important that we take steps to help these players. We certainly don't want to see anything like this happen again to any of our athletes."

She said the family was told that Seau's disease resulted from "a lot of head-to-head collisions over the course of 20 years of playing in the NFL. And that it gradually, you know, developed the deterioration of his brain and his ability to think logically."

The diagnosis was reached by three independent neuropathologists who were given three brains to examine in a blind study. All three, plus two government researchers, found CTE. According to ESPN, Seau's teams never in the course of his long career described him as having a concussion; until recently, though, the NFL was less than scrupulous about such diagnoses. Additionally, brain damage can accrue through routine hits that don't cause concussions. And of course, coaches, players, and the entire football culture at all levels is implicated in a "being a man means denying you're hurt" ethos.

Thousands of former players are suing the NFL for denying the link between football and brain damage after the discovery of solid evidence linking the two. These players and their loved ones face changed personalities and shortened lives and it's something the sport—led by its leading employer, the NFL—has yet to fully reckon with despite changes that have been made in recent seasons.

I still have to wonder how much of a crapsack you have to be before a network like NBC would be done with you, but prominent conspiracy promoter Donald Trump will apparently remain in good standing:

“We live in this country where you can say anything you want as long as you are not harming other people,” NBC chief Bob Greenblatt said during the NBC TCA executive session. “He has his political belief system but I really don’t think what he’s doing in his personal life is going to corrupt what he’s doing on the show.” However, “if he becomes somehow hurtful and says or does things that cross a line, we would figure out what to do with that.”

Keep in mind, the Hair Helmet of Wisdom was last seen promoting racist conspiracy theories and tweeting for revolution because Barack Obama had won reelection. That didn't cross any line, because freedomz, so I can only assume by "crossing the line" Greenblatt is talking about some sort of potential wardrobe malfunction.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to respond to Trump and his enablers, at this point. That his show is actually a Thing, in America, is I'm sure a symptom of something horribly, horribly depressing—possibly rampant alcoholism among the population, more likely an infatuation with ostentatious faux-wealth and buffoonery because Christ, there sure isn't enough of that on the teevee these days. And NBC is in the entertainment "industry," which is a lot more credible of a place to be than the Republicans that actually effing made him a political voice. That last part may very well go down in history as one of the more inarguable signals of the party's eventual decay and collapse. (Trump, for his part, I suspect would himself be happy with that designation, so long as the textbooks included a flattering picture.)

Greenblatt does, however, plead for a little recognition as to NBC's good deeds to date:

“We talked him out of running for president, wasn’t that good enough?,” Greenblatt said.

Hmm. I ... don't know. It really is a reminder that even the worst of the worst conspiracy theorists won't suffer a bit for their efforts at intentionally misleading the public, though. It's all just a game. Next election, it'll be someone else.

Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is getting some backup for his opposition to Jack Lew, President Obama's nominee to be Treasury secretary, in the "Young Guns Network." The group, allied with Majority Leader Eric Cantor, launched a "Spending Hullaba-Lew" page (yes, they are that unsubtle—what do you expect from a group that thinks it's cool to call themselves "young guns"?), “10 Questions on Spending & Debt for the Obama Administration & Treasury Nominee Jack Lew.”

And, yes, the questions are as predictable and silly as you would expect. And as blatantly dishonest as you would expect. Like this one:

4. Has The Obama Administration Ignored Paying Off Old Bills, Instead Using The Debt Ceiling Increase On New Spending? If Not, What Past Bills Did The Obama Administration Pay With The Last Debt Ceiling Agreement (Considering Our Debt INCREASED Since Its Passage)?

These guys used to work for Cantor, they know how the debt ceiling works and they know that the debt ceiling needs to be raised to pay for the spending that Congress has already authorized.

And then there's this one:

5. As President Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Will Jack Lew Ensure That Using Past Bipartisan Debt Reduction Agreements As Precedent Remains “The Right Way To Do It”?  If So, What Spending Cuts And Entitlement Reforms Will The Administration Be Open To Negotiating?

House Republicans still haven't released what specific spending cuts to entitlements they want, so to that one, show us yours first, young guns.

If nothing else, it's a good preview of the rhetoric we're going to be seeing coming from the Republicans over the interminable fights they're going to create over the next sequester fight, the debt ceiling negotiations, and the Lew confirmation.