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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Miami-Dade Voters Remove Mayor Carlos Alvarez

If Miami can do it so can Wisconsin.........

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March 15, 2011
Mayor Carlos Alvarez was ousted Tuesday by voters angry over a property tax rate increase and salary raise for county employees in a county struggling to recover from the recession.
With 100 percent of precinct votes counted, 88 percent voted to oust the mayor, making Miami-Dade the most populous area, with more than 2.5 million people, ever to recall a local official. Just 12 percent of the 204,500 who cast ballots were in favor of allowing Alvarez to finish his second term, which ends in 2012.
Alvarez said he was confident the county's professional staff will work hard to ensure a smooth transition to a new administration.
"It has been an honor and privilege to serve this community for the past 35 years," Alvarez said in a statement. "The voters have spoken and a time of healing and reconciliation must now begin."
The county commission will most likely schedule a special election to fill the remainder of his term. The effort to remove Alvarez was led by billionaire car dealer Norman Braman.
"County voters have demonstrated by their ballots that they are tired of unaccountable officials, of being ignored and of being overtaxed in this very difficult recessionary time," Braman said at a news conference.
Alvarez maintained throughout the recall effort that raising taxes was necessary to fill a $444 million gap and avoid cuts to critical social services. He said those affected by the property tax increase had enjoyed an artificially low 3 percent annual cap on tax increases during the real estate boom, and that the last round of contract negotiations had authorized most of the employee raises.
Francisco Rodriguez, 58, a bus driver, said his property taxes increased by about $600 this year, leading him to cancel his health insurance. He voted to remove Alvarez.
"It's time for him to go," Rodriguez said. "We want a change."
There have been numerous recalls of state officials in recent years, but not any of a local government official in an area as big as Miami-Dade County, said Joshua Spivak, a recall expert and senior fellow at Wagner College in New York.
The Los Angeles mayor was recalled in 1938, but Spivak said the population at that time was smaller.
Braman, a former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles professional football team, gathered twice the 51,000 signatures needed to recall the mayor. County Commissioner Natacha Seijas was also on the recall ballot and removed from office.

Conservatives are right to go after Sarah Palin

Posted at 09:28 PM ET, 03/14/2011



I’m no conservative. And I'm certainly no intellectual. But I totally understand the freakout among conservative intellectuals over Sarah Palin. For a movement based on ideas, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee who sits astride the party as a powerhouse fundraiser and potential king- or queenmaker has been uninterested in setting forth a vision crafted after years of thorough study to match her outsized influence.
The Atlantic’s Joshua Green wags his finger at those worry-wart Republicans: “It's not hard to understand what these conservative intellectuals are trying to accomplish,” he writes, “They genuinely believe that a Palin candidacy would be disastrous, for their party and likely for their own influence over that party.”
The “they” include George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Heather MacDonald and Matt Labash. They should be applauded for not bowing down at the altar of Palin’s (dwindling) popularity. By criticizing her by name or by inference, they are defending the idea that those who would lead this nation should bring a whole lot more to the table than “energy and enthusiasm to what is shaping up as a torpid GOP field.”
Instead, Palin prefers to wallow in her put-upon world of grievance and victimhood. When really smart people try to keep her from sinking deeper, she ignores them. That’s what she did after Roger Ailes wisely advised her to “Lie low.... There’s no need to inject yourself into the story” after the Tucson shootings. We all know how well that worked out for Palin.
The criticism of Palin is bound to mount as the 2012 GOP sweepstakes get underway and she continues to play coy about her intentions. But Green asks a good question and raises a worrisome prospect:
When has disapproval from establishment Republicans stopped her in the past? And especially from conservative intellectuals? If the goal here is to intimidate Palin into staying on the sidelines, it seems to me the likelier effect is that it will goad her into entering the race.
Palin has been making money hand over fist since she jettisoned Juneau for television and the speaking circuit in 2009. If she does an “I’ll show them!” and jumps into the presidential race, she will have proven me wrong and proven that she isn’t nearly as smart as I think she is.

The sad, hypocritical retirement of Evan Bayh

Posted at 04:53 PM ET, 03/15/2011



After two terms in the Senate, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) announced that he was done with Congress. "There are better ways to serve my fellow citizens," Bayh said. "I love working for the people of Indiana. I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but I do not love Congress." (Spencer Platt - Getty Images)
Evan Bayh wasn’t a particularly distinguished senator. You’ll not find much major legislation with his name on it, or a particularly coherent philosophy laced through his votes. He was a popular Democrat in a red state, and most of his efforts seemed to be devoted to keeping it that way. In practice, that meant talking a lot about the deficit, taking occasional potshots as liberals and avoiding any overly courageous legislative stands. “An ordinary politician,” I wrote when he retired.
But he was a very interesting near-retiree. When he decided not to seek reelection in 2010, he published a precise and devastating broadsideagainst the institution in which he and his father had served. Instead of merely condemning the bitter partisanship of the place, he proposed to close the loopholes that had enabled polarization to metastasize in paralysis. “Filibusters should require 35 senators to ... make a commitment to continually debate an issue in reality, not just in theory,” he wrote. And “the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60.” Strong stuff. He then went after money in politics, calling for “legislation to enhance disclosure requirements, require corporate donors to appear in the political ads they finance and prohibit government contractors or bailout beneficiaries from spending money on political campaigns,” not to mention “public matching funds for smaller contributions. Bayh had no record of leadership on any of these topics. But, in part for that reason, it was particularly potent to hear him speaking out on them.
An acknowledged moderate who’d taken on these crusades wouldn’t have just been a good senator. He’d have been a great one. This new incarnation of Evan Bayh, I wrote, should stay in the Senate, where he could do some good. But he didn’t want to stay in the Senate, he told me in subsequent interviews. He waxed rhapsodic over his time teaching at Indiana University’s Graduate School of Business. “It was real, it was tangible, and it was making a difference every day,” he said. He wanted that feeling again. He wanted to come home at night, he told me, and say, “Dear, do you know what we got done today? I’ve got this really bright kid in my class, and do you know what he asked me, and here’s what I told him, and I think I saw a little epiphany moment go off in his mind.” For a United States senator to explain his retirement by saying, “I want to be engaged in an honorable line of work,” was the single most persuasive and devastating critique I’d ever seen of the Senate as an institution.
But Bayh did not return to Indiana to teach. He did not, as he said he was thinking of doing, join a foundation. Rather, he went to the massive law firm McGuire Woods. And who does McGuire Woods work for? “Principal clients served from our Washington office include national energy companies, foreign countries, international manufacturing companies, trade associations and local and national businesses,” reads the company’s Web site. He followed that up by signing on as a senior adviser to Apollo Management Group, a giant public-equity firm. And, finally, this week, he joined Fox News as a contributor. It’s as if he’s systematically ticking off every poison he identified in the body politic and rushing to dump more of it into the water supply.
The “corrosive system of campaign financing” that Bayh considered such a threat? He’s being paid by both McGuire Woods and Apollo Global Management to act as a corroding agent on their behalf. The “strident partisanship” and “unyielding ideology” he complained was ruining the Senate? At Fox News, he’ll be right there on set while it gets cooked up. His warning that “what is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest” sounds, in retrospect, like a joke. Evan Bayh doing performance art as Evan Bayh. Exactly which of these new positions would Bayh say is against his self-interest, or in promotion of the general welfare?
I should say, for the record, that I got in touch with McGuire Woods to give Bayh an opportunity to comment, or offer an alternative interpretation of his career decisions. I didn’t hear from them, but I got a call back from a PR person at Fox News. “I’m going to decline the interview for Mr. Bayh,” the flack said. And I guess I’m not surprised: It’s one thing to take the positions Bayh took without much of a record on them. It’s a whole other to try to sustain them when his paychecks are being signed by people who profit from the very forces he lamented.
In our last interview, Bayh complained of the poor opinion the public had of him and his colleagues. “They look at us like we’re worse than used-car salesmen.” Yes. They do. And this is why.

54 GOPers buck leaders as short-term budget bill passes House

From Msnbc.com's Carrie Dann and NBC's Luke Russert
The House has passed a stopgap measure to continue funding the federal government until April 8, with over 50 Republicans bucking their leadership to oppose the three-week spending bill.

Fifty-four Republicans – more than many observers expected -- voted against the continuing resolution, which GOP critics said demonstrated a lack of seriousness about solving the nation’s long-term budget woes.

Earlier this month, only six Republicans opposed their House leaders and voted no on a similar two-week extension containing comparable budget cuts. But patience with the lurching funding measures has begun to run out in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle.

Despite the GOP revolt, the bill was propelled to passage by 85 Democrats who joined with Republican leaders to support the measure, which cuts about $6 billion in spending. Over 100 Democrats supported the similar measure that passed earlier this month.

The measure passed 271-158. The Senate is expected to approve it later this week, staving off a government shutdown for another 3 weeks.

But the defections mean that the chances are slim that yet another temporary funding bill could pass the House if both chambers fail to approve a budget before April 8 that covers the rest of the fiscal year.

*** UPDATE *** Here's the White House's statement:



"The short-term funding bill passed in the House of Representatives today gives Congress some breathing room to find consensus on a long-term measure that funds the government through the end of the fiscal year. The President urges the Senate to pass this bill to avoid a government shutdown that would be harmful to our economic recovery. But the President has been clear: with the wide range of issues facing our nation, we cannot keep funding the government in two or three week increments. It is time for us to come together, find common ground and resolve this issue in a sensible way. There is no disagreement on whether to cut spending to put us on a path to live within our means, but we can't sacrifice critical investments that will help us out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build our global competitors to win the future. We have already met Republicans halfway, and we are optimistic that Congress can get this done."

NBC's Domenico Montanaro notes: That last line, however, is going to cause raise questions among Republicans if the White House is negotiating in good faith. The White House's $50 billion contention is off a budget that never passed and funding levels they're not operating under.

Japanese earthquake aftershocks

Explore a time-lapse animation of the hundreds of aftershocks

to strike Japan following a massive 9.0-magnitude temblor on March 11


What is spent nuclear fuel?


NYT: 50 WORKERS BATTLE NUCLEAR DISASTER

Fire flares at building holding spent fuel rods

Workers evacuate stricken nuclear plant


Setback as Japan struggles to contain spiraling nuclear crisis
Workers are removed from Nuclear Plant due to rising radiation. What does this mean for the fore different containment facilities? What does this mean for Japan? Will another group of workers go in?

Radiation levels rise in Tokyo


Panic swept Tokyo on Tuesday as radiation levels surged in the city, causing some to leave the capital and others to stock up on food and supplies. Several embassies advised staff and citizens to leave affected areas, tourists cut short vacations and multinational companies either urged staff to leave or said they were considering plans to move outside Tokyo.
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 2 minutes ago


FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Workers at a quake-damaged atomic power plant suspended operations and evacuated Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous to remain there, dealing a setback to Japan’s frantic efforts to stem a nuclear crisis.

"All the workers there have suspended their operations. We have urged them to evacuate, and they have," Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano said, according to a translation by NHK television.

Edano said that a surge in radiation Wednesday meant workers were unable to continue even minimal efforts at the stricken nuclear plant.

Earlier Wednesday, a fire broke out anew at one damaged nuclear reactor, a day after the power plant emitted a burst of radiation that panicked an already edgy Japan.

Nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power, or TEPCO, said it was considering dispersing boric acid, a fire retardant, from a helicopter over the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's No. 4 reactor.

About three hours after the blaze erupted Wednesday, Japan's nuclear safety agency said flames could no longer be seen at No. 4. But it was unable to confirm that the blaze had been put out, and clouds of white smoke were billowing from the reactor, according to live video footage of the plant.

The newly troubled reactor left the Japanese government struggling to contain a spiraling crisis caused by last week's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which are estimated to have killed more than 10,000 people.

Damage to multiple reactors at the Dai-ichi plant sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo, prompting some people to flee the capital and triggering growing international alarm.

Also Wednesday, a fuel pool at the No. 3 reactor may have heated and produced steam, the plant's operator said.

The reactor on fire was one of four in serious trouble at the facility, home to six reactors. It was idle when the earthquake struck on Friday, but it had a fuel storage tank on top of the building — an area where spent nuclear fuel is kept cool.

On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the storage tank, causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere. TEPCO said the new blaze erupted because the initial fire had not been fully extinguished.Story: Pool holding spent nuclear fuel now at risk

Two workers inside the unit were missing after the first fire, Japan's nuclear safety agency said. The status of the nuclear reactor and storage pool inside the building was not known.

Also Wednesday, TEPCO estimated an estimated 70 percent of the nuclear fuel rods have been damaged at the No. 1 reactor and 33 percent were damaged at the No. 2 reactor.

Those reactors' cores are believed to have partially melted when the Friday quake disrupted their cooling functions, the Kyodo News Agency said.

Officials were also concerned about the reactors in Units 5 and 6.

Units 5 and 6 were loaded with nuclear fuel but not producing when Friday's quake and tsunami struck. They had been considered stable, but on Tuesday a senior Japanese official said temperatures there were also slightly elevated.

"The power for cooling is not working well and the temperature is gradually rising, so it is necessary to control it," Edano told reporters.

"Plant operators were considering the removal of panels from units 5 and 6 reactor buildings to prevent a possible buildup of hydrogen," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

"It was a buildup of hydrogen at units 1, 2, and 3 that led to explosions at the Dai-ichi facilities in recent days," it added.

After the first fire at reactor No. 4 was extinguished, a Japanese official said the pool used to cool the spent fuel rods might still be boiling.

Experts noted that much of the leaking radiation was apparently in steam from boiling water. It had not been emitted directly by fuel rods, which would be far more virulent, they said.

"It's not good, but I don't think it's a disaster," said Steve Crossley, an Australia-based radiation physicist.

The fuel rods are encased in safety containers meant to prevent them from resuming nuclear reactions, nuclear officials said. But they acknowledged that there could have been damage to the containers.

Tuesday night, Japan ordered TEPCO to inject water into the pool "as soon as possible to avert a major nuclear disaster."

The IAEA also said Tuesday that an explosion Monday at the plant, this one within Unit 2, "may have affected the integrity of its primary containment vessel." That means radioactivity could be leaking from the containment vessel.

After the first fire at No. 4, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said low levels of radiation had spread from the complex along Japan's northeastern coast.


 
"The possibility of further radioactive leakage is heightening," a grim-faced Kan said in an address to the nation.

Levels of 400 millisieverts per hour had been recorded near No. 4 after the first fire, the government said. Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level that can lead to cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association.

The radiation releases prompted Japan on Tuesday to order 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors and a 30-kilometer (19-mile) no-fly zone was imposed around the site for commercial traffic.

Weather forecasts for the Fukushima area were for snow and wind Wednesday, blowing toward the east out to sea. That's important because it shows which direction a possible nuclear cloud might blow.

'Clearly in a catastrophe'
Soon after the latest events, France's nuclear safety authority ASN said the disaster ranks as a level 6 on the international scale of 1 to 7.

Level 7 was used only once, for Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania was rated a level 5.

"It is very clear that we are at a level 6," ASN President Andre-Claude Lacoste told a news conference in Paris. "We are clearly in a catastrophe."

"Right now it's worse than Three Mile Island" but it's nowhere near the levels of radioactivity released during Chernobyl, added Donald Olander, a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

At Three Mile Island, the radiation leak was held inside the containment shell — thick concrete armor around the reactor. The Chernobyl reactor had no shell and was also operational when the disaster struck. The Japanese reactors automatically shut down when the quake hit.

The IAEA said about 150 people in Japan had received monitoring for radiation levels and that measures to "decontaminate" 23 of them had been taken.


How much radiation is dangerous?



Story: What you need to know about the twin disasters in Japan

In the worst-case scenario, one or more reactor cores would completely melt down, a disaster that would spew large amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Video: At least 15,000 people missing in Japan

Officials in Tokyo — 150 miles to the south of the plant — said radiation in the capital was 10 times normal by Tuesday evening but there was no threat to human health. The city is home to 13 million people.

Closer to the stricken nuclear complex, the streets in the coastal city of Soma were empty as the few residents who remained there heeded the government's warning to stay indoors.Interactive: How a nuclear plant works

Officials just south of Fukushima reported up to 100 times the normal levels of radiation Tuesday morning. While those figures are worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.

Officials warned there is danger of more leaks and told people living within 19 miles of the Dai-ichi complex to stay indoors.

"Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes airtight," Edano told residents in the danger zone.

"These are figures that potentially affect health. There is no mistake about that," he said.Japanese city now an eerie ghost town

Some 70,000 people had already been evacuated from a 12-mile radius from the Dai-ichi complex. About 140,000 are in the new warning zone.

Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami have killed more than 10,000 people.

70 workers at plant
Workers were desperately trying to stabilize the three reactors at Units 1, 2 and 3, which were operating when the quake and tsunami struck. Releases of hydrogen gas caused explosions that destroyed the outer structures at each unit.

Fourteen pumps have been brought in to get seawater into those three reactors, and TEPCO said it would try to inject seawater into the tank holding the spent rods at No. 4.
 Officials said 70 workers were at the complex, struggling with its myriad problems. The workers, all of them wearing protective gear, are being rotated in and out of the danger zone quickly to reduce their radiation exposure.

About 800 other staff were evacuated. The fires and explosions at the reactors have injured 15 workers and military personnel.

Prime Minister Kan himself lambasted TEPCO for taking so long to inform his office about one of the blasts, Kyodo news service reported.

"The TV reported an explosion. But nothing was said to the premier's office for about an hour," a Kyodo reporter quoted Kan as telling power company executives. "What the hell is going on?"Story: Millions in Japanese cold struggle without electricity, heat

The Dai-ichi plant is the most severely affected of three nuclear complexes that declared emergencies after suffering damage in Friday's quake and tsunami. The damage raised questions about the safety of such plants in coastal areas near fault lines and adding to global jitters over the industry.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi complex was due to be decommissioned in February but was given a new 10-year lease on life.

Its reactors were designed by General Electric. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture between NBC Universal and Microsoft. GE is a part owner of NBC Universal.)

Japan has a total of 55 reactors spread across 17 complexes nationwide.Story: Reactor design in Japan has long been questioned

The impact of the earthquake and tsunami dragged down stock markets. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock averageplunged for a second day Tuesday, nose-diving more than 10 percent to close at 8,605.15 while the broader Topix lost more than 8 percent. It bounced back about 6 percent in early trading Wednesday.

To lessen the damage, Japan's central bank has made several injections of cash into financial markets. The addition of $43 billion on Wednesday came after injections of $283 billion the previous two days.

Initial estimates put repair costs in the tens of billions of dollars, costs that would likely add to a massive public debt that, at 200 percent of gross domestic product, is the biggest among industrialized nations.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

What is a Nuclear Meltdown

         

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Live Coverage of Situation in Japan.

         

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Budget Stalemate Leaves Chaos at Many Agencies


WASHINGTON — Unsure from week to week how much money Congress will provide them as the two parties battle over the budget for the rest of this year, federal officials say many agencies have been operating in chaos, confusion and uncertainty.
Jim Cole/Associated Press
A new federal prison in Berlin, N.H., is ready to be occupied, but it remains empty because officials lack the financing to hire staff.
Officials at various agencies have frozen hiring, canceled projects, delayed contracts, reduced grants and curtailed training, travel and upgrades in information technology.
In northern New Hampshire, a new federal prison, with space for 1,280 inmates, sits vacant because the federal government has not been able to hire correctional officers and other employees.
For some Head Start programs around the country, federal officials are renewing grants at 60 percent of last year’s levels. Local Head Start managers say parents, unsure of the whether there will continue to be space for their children, are trying to arrange alternative child care for preschoolers.
Michael J. Astrue, the commissioner of Social Security, said the agency had cut back distribution of annual earnings and benefit statements and had suspended plans to open eight hearing offices that would tackle a huge backlog of appeals by people seeking disability benefits.
Like most of the government, the Social Security Administration has been financed for more than five months with short-term spending bills known as continuing resolutions. Congress is expected to pass another three-week spending bill this week that will continue to pare back financing from last year’s level.
“Because of the uncertainty of our budget,” Mr. Astrue said, “I have had to make choices that will begin to erode service.”
The Federal Transit Administration is parceling out grants in proportion to the time covered by stopgap spending bills.
Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, in Las Vegas, said his agency had received 40 percent of its usual federal grant — $10 million, rather than $25 million. As a result, he said, the agency has deferred purchases of buses and a security system for bus terminals, as well as construction of a new park-and-ride lot.
Budgetary uncertainty has caused the Defense Department to delay equipment repairs, the construction of a new Virginia-class submarine, the purchase of Chinook helicopters and the rebuilding of war-damaged Humvees. The Army has temporarily stopped some work on the Stryker Mobile Gun System, an armored fighting vehicle.
The Army and the Marine Corps have imposed a freeze on the hiring of civilian employees, who perform myriad duties, including payroll, security and air traffic control.
“The continuing resolution represents a crisis at our doorstep,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said. One result, he said, is “inefficient, start-and-stop management” of the armed forces, with greater use of one- and two-month contracts, which are inherently inefficient.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said the repeated use of stopgap spending bills not only hurt military readiness, but also imperiled jobs at shipyards, factories and military installations.
The budget impasse has stalled contracts for companies like NitroSecurity, a cybersecurity concern that does work for the Defense Department, NASA and the Food and Drug Administration.
“We have been selected for additional contracts, but the money is in limbo because of the continuing resolution,” said Kenneth R. Levine, the chief executive of NitroSecurity.
The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1, and Congress is supposed to pass annual appropriations bills before that date but often misses the deadline for one or more agencies. To fill the gap, Congress typically passes bills that allow agencies to continue spending temporarily at last year’s rates, with some adjustments.
For the current fiscal year, Congress has passed five stopgap spending bills that cover consecutive intervals of two months, two weeks, three days, 10 weeks and two weeks. The most recent one expires Friday. The next one will probably run for three weeks, during which Congressional leaders and President Obama hope to negotiate a broad agreement on spending, though they remain far apart.
Elizabeth M. Robinson, the chief financial officer at NASA, said: “Most agencies have pushed the renewal of major contracts into the winter and spring. Uncertainty has slowed down our spending. That uncertainty takes a toll.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been particularly hard hit. It is operating at 2010 spending levels, which were fixed before Congress vastly expanded its duties under a law signed last July.
Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and a co-author of the new law, said the spending constraints were “a deliberate and dangerous effort to frustrate increased regulation of the financial industry,” including hedge funds and derivatives.
Mary L. Schapiro, chairwoman of the commission, said the agency had curtailed travel by investigators and delayed work on a major information technology project that would help officials sift through tens of thousands of complaints and tips on securities law violations.
Paul G. Pittman Jr., executive director of the Head Start program in Hagerstown, Md., and Leah A. Pigatti, who runs the Head Start program in Detroit Lakes, Minn., said their federal grants had just been renewed at 60 percent of last year’s levels.
“We don’t know what our financial future is beyond the next couple of months,” Mr. Pittman said. “You can’t enter into a lease for the next school year because you don’t know if you will have the money. Working parents ask me: ‘Will you be there in 30 days? Should I be looking for other child care?’ ”
Ms. Pigatti, whose program serves 450 children from low-income families, said the latest grant award was highly unusual. “I’ve been in this business for more than 30 years,” Ms. Pigatti said, “and I have never received a grant award with such limitations.”
The National Institutes of Health has notified biomedical researchers that they will receive less money than previously promised, at least until Congress approves a final appropriations bill.
“Investigators are sitting on their hands, not knowing how much they will receive,” said Dr. Michael A. Caligiuri, director of the comprehensive cancer center at Ohio State University and president of the Association of American Cancer Institutes.
Farmers are also affected. The Farm Service Agency, a unit of the Agriculture Department that makes farm loans and disaster payments, has imposed a hiring freeze and curtailed overtime. The agency normally hires seasonal workers at this time of year, when large numbers of farmers and ranchers sign up for its programs.
The new federal prison in Berlin, N.H., is another symbol of the government’s predicament.
Pamela E. Laflamme, the city planner for Berlin, said: “The prison is fully constructed and ready to be occupied. The warden has been hired and is in the community. Federal officials are waiting for a budget to be passed before they can hire operating staff.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, expressed disbelief. “We now have a state-of-the-art, $276 million prison that is sitting vacant,” Ms. Shaheen said. “The federal Bureau of Prisons is spending $4 million a year to maintain an empty building.”

Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami

This is the only piece I will be doing on the Earthquake and Tsunami, there is enough coverage and I do not want to add to the misery of the Japanese people.  I will be covering the Nuclear Plants and what it means to the US and otheer countries.   

Take a look at these pictures, I could not put them here with the same options.  To look at the before and the after pictures it is overwhelming as a human and economic disaster.  I pray for the people of Japan.....


Move the slider to compare satellite images from before and after the disaster.

Health Care Law

Michelle Bachmann's very favorite poll to believe....I wonder why

62% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law

Support for repeal of the national health care law has reached its highest level since May of last year. The number of voters who believe the plan will increase the cost of care has tied its highest level since the law’s passage last March.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that 62% favor repeal of the health care law, including 51% who Strongly Favor it. Only 33% of voters oppose repeal, with 24% who are Strongly Opposed.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Support for repeal is at a 10-month high, with the number that Strongly Favors repeal at its highest level to date. Overall support for repeal has ranged from a low of 50% to a high of 63% since Democrats in Congress passed it a year ago. The Republican-led House of Representatives voted earlier this year to repeal the law, but the repeal effort is stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters believe the law will cause health care costs to go up. Just 17% expect costs to go down under the plan, while 15% expect them to remain about the same.
Overall, 54% of voters think the national health care plan will be bad for the country, a view shared by 48% to 56% since the law’s passage. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the plan will be good for the country.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 12-13, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. 
Most voters (54%) also think the quality of care will get worse under the new law, a number that has ranged from 48% to 55% since its passage. Only 24% think the quality of care will get better, while 17% expect quality to remain about the same. 
Fifty-nine percent (59%) believe the plan will increase the federal deficit. Since passage of the bill last year, the number expecting the law to increase the deficit has ranged from 51% to 63%. Seventeen percent (17%) say the plan will reduce the deficit, while 12% say it will have no impact.
Most voters would rather have a partial shutdown of the federal government than keep its spending at current levels.
Sizable majorities of Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party continue to support repeal of the health care law; most Democrats do not. While most Republicans (88%) and unaffiliated voters (60%) believe the law will drive up the cost of health care, just 35% of Democrats agree.
The numbers are similar when comparing Political Class and Mainstream voters. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Mainstream voters believe the plan will cause health care costs to increase, a view shared by just 35% of the Political Class.
Americans remain overwhelmingly concerned about the threat of inflation.
Recent polling shows that a plurality of U.S. voters think they are fiscal conservatives rather than fiscal liberals. But when it comes to social issues, voters are more evenly divided between liberals and conservatives.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only. 
Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.
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VIDEO: Durbin: GOP cuts too much


VIDEO: Obama on budget fight


President Obama staying in background on deficits

Barack Obama is shown speaking at a podium. | AP photo 



Obama lies low in deficit debate
By: Carrie Budoff Brown
March 14, 2011 07:18 PM EDT
When President Barack Obama opened the first meeting of his fiscal commission last April, he promised to be “standing with them” as they produced recommendations for curbing the nation’s escalating debt.

Republicans and Democrats say they are still waiting.

While Obama has said he’s committed to deficit reduction, he has also has made clear it is secondary, at least for now, to his “winning the future” agenda. And that reflects a strategy driven by what his senior aides believe voters care about most — jobs, not deficits.

Obama’s reluctance to join the debate in a sustained way has provoked rising frustration among lawmakers from both parties, who are speaking more forcefully about what they view as his absenteeism on one of the most pressing issues before them.

But until House Republicans join their Senate GOP counterparts in appearing open to raising revenues, the administration is reluctant to weigh in too heavily, believing that a grand bargain that would inflict bipartisan pain will be difficult to attain. So, Obama has kept at arm’s length a group of six Republican and Democratic senators working on a deficit-reduction framework, not yet convinced that their efforts will be the vehicle by which a deal is struck.

“The president’s approach to the larger set of budget issues raised by his own fiscal commission is very, very cautious up to now,” said William Galston, a policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton and a senior fellow at Brookings. “He has not embraced it, not by a long shot. It is clear that whatever he wants to accomplish, he doesn’t want to accomplish it alone and he doesn’t want to step out first.”

 


Obama’s light touch isn’t winning over the Hill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made the latest attempt to draw Obama into the debate sooner than the president would like, threatening to withhold Republican votes on the administration’s request to raise the debt limit unless it is coupled with a “credible” effort to rein in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending.

McConnell’s move followed a nudge by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to broaden talks on the short-term budget to include entitlements and revenue increases, a scathing speech by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) for Obama to get more involved in budget issues and increasing calls by Democratic lawmakers for presidential leadership.

Administration aides said Obama fully supports efforts to tackle the country’s long-term budget problems but that it is Washington — not the public — that is agitating for the president to wade into every legislative debate. This is a subtle shift in strategy from the past two years, when the president could be mistaken for a prime minister, expending much of his political capital in ushering bills through Congress.

The gripes, which have flowed steadily from Capitol Hill regardless of the level of White House immersion, are really more a plea by lawmakers for presidential cover on tough decisions, aides have said.

“This is a process. It is not a one-act play,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who has done messaging work on the deficit debate for Senate Democrats. “We are early in Act 1 of a four-act play.”

But the growing divide between Congress and the White House isn’t simply about presidential involvement. Often, the president doesn’t seem to be speaking the Hill’s language.

After the Senate deadlocked last week over how to cut billions from the budget, Obama on Monday called for a rewrite of the federal education law — and made a full-throated pledge to shield education from the budget knife.

“I’m determined to cut our deficits. But I refuse to do it by telling students here who are so full of promise that we’re not willing to invest in your future,” Obama said during a visit to Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Va. “I’m not willing to tell these young people right here that their education isn’t a priority.”
In the eyes of deficit hawks, Obama has passed up several opportunities to push the issue to the center of his agenda.

He convened the fiscal commission last February, a move cast as an attempt to start an adult conversation about a metastasizing problem. It was quintessential Obama — the professor who likes to take the long view and serve up a bit of castor oil because it’s the right thing to do.

“Everything is on the table,” he said at the time. “That’s how this thing is going to work.”

When the commission chairmen offered their final recommendations in December, several months after Obama promised that he would be “standing with them,” the president declined to endorse the report, saying only that it was important work that he would study closely.

The State of the Union address and his 2012 budget request came and went without Obama embracing any major components of the commission’s plan, which called for raising the retirement age for Social Security and cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits. He did adopt some elements, including an overhaul of the corporate tax code and a freeze in pay for federal workers.

Now, with lawmakers suggesting a look at entitlement reform during the short-term budget negotiations, White House aides said they aren’t ruling it out, but their preference is to finish the continuing resolution first and deal with the long-term budget issues later, once the threat of a government shutdown is averted.

The administration has also signaled that it wants an unfettered vote on the debt-limit increase — the next major spending vote, as early as April, after the short-term budget is finished — rejecting McConnell’s threat to withhold Republican support unless the vote was coupled with a broader deficit-reduction plan,

“The president believes it would be reckless and irresponsible to put the full faith and credit of the U.S. at risk by refusing to increase the debt limit,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement. “Failing to act would have devastating consequences for our economy and middle-class Americans, and Republicans agree.”

White House attempts to put off the debate will work as long as House Republicans go along on the debt limit, which isn’t clear yet. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said defaulting on the country’s debt would be a “financial disaster,” suggesting that he would avoid such an outcome at all costs. But with a caucus anxious to make real progress on spending cuts, Boehner will face pressure to link it to deficit-reduction measures — finally forcing the administration’s hand.

Boehner has promised to release a budget soon that tackles entitlement reform, but even he has acknowledged that the public isn’t ready to accept the tough medicine and that lawmakers need to educate voters.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) agreed. A leader of the bipartisan Senate negotiating group, Conrad said its biggest obstacle is public opinion.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls found that Americans across all age groups and ideologies, including tea party supporters, believe it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs as a way to shrink the deficit.

Conrad joked that he isn’t in “huge demand on a lot of the comedy shows” — the kind of forums to which politicians turn in order to reach voters who aren’t glued to cable news programs.

“There is only one president,” Conrad conceded, when asked whether Obama was the one who should be doing that.

“The question is, when does he wade in? I believe, as I have said a lot of times, it needs to start [in Congress] on a bipartisan basis and at some key moment, I’m confident the president will lead.”