Hospital 6:45 AM

This will be the last of my blog for a while. Tomorrow I go under the surgeons knjfe and have my poor left knee replaced.  I will be undergoing physical therapy for a while.  So keep me in you thoughts and prayers.  thank you for your comments letting me know that you read my blog.  I never expected responses so they make me feel good.  I will try and keep you informed with what happens.........

Preview of Tuesday's Kabul show

Mon Jul 5, 2010 7:26 AM EDT

By Cory Gnazzo

Camp Phoenix from The Rachel Maddow Show on Vimeo.

Looking for the right camera view, without too much helicopter noise, for shows live from Afghanistan tomorrow and Wednesday.

Letters

Mon Jul 5, 2010 7:38 AM EDT

By The Rachel Maddow Show

Since we started blogging this trip to Afghanistan, you've been telling us why the story matters to you.

LaurenOh writes:

After losing 3 of my close friends in Afghanistan last October, and with about a dozen on the brink of deployment, this war, had been more of a distant issue was forced rather unceremoniously into my reality, and I'm grateful that you will be doing the same for your viewers, though in a much more palatable format. Thank you very much for your incredible journalism, and I hope you and your crew stay safe.

Sally Dodge writes:

Stay safe, Rachel. My son's been deployed once to Afghanistan and twice to Iraq. He says he knows what Hell must be like, especially this time of year. Thanks for going there. It means a lot to our troops when people like you show up to see the way things really are. Will be watching.

Livefrommuzbeckystan writes:

Please find some time to report on what we are achieving for our national security and the Afghanistan population. My husband will be deploying soon and I would like to tell my children, as well as myself, that what he is doing is making a difference for our country and theirs.

Rachel from Kabul this morning on Today

Tue Jul 6, 2010 10:56 AM EDT

By The Rachel Maddow Show

Rachel Maddow reports from Kabul on the Today show this morning.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ADDING: Here's a similar hit she did a little later on The Daily Rundown.

Richard Engel preps us for Kandahar Airfield from The Rachel Maddow Show on Vimeo.

Kandahar pics:

 Glasses, headscarf and a lot of really big guns

Tue Jul 6, 2010 3:45 PM EDT

By The Rachel Maddow Show

We're just hours away from the first of our live shows in Kabul. Rachel sends more pics from Afghanistan, including this one on the civilian side of the airport in Kandahar. She writes, "At civilian side of Kandahar Airport. Somehow I think the glasses aren't really complemented by the headscarf. "

Below is the counter for Pami Airways, where all tickets are written out by hand. After the jump, more pics, including Kandahar by air and the amazing military presence.

Kids and soldiers, south-central Kandahar City:

Checkpoint 7-10. That vehicle rolls forward and back across the entrance to function a sort of drawbridge/gate:

See?

Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, a lot of them:

Afghan national civil order policeman (ancop) carrying a folding chair at checkpoint 7-10, which marks the dividing line between Kandahar City and Arghandab District:

It's amazing trip, just flying in to Kandahar City. Behold the opportunity!

You can tell immediately where the land is irrigated. Produce becomes abundant and gorgeous -- pomegranates, melons, grapes, everything:

[TRMS on Flickr]

Fourth of July in Afghanistan

All rights reserved Uploaded on Jul 4, 2010

... but it's the Indonesian contractors who made it! (Photo by Rachel Maddow)

On the 4th, the American brass cuts the giant flag cake... (Photo by Rachel Maddow)

 

Flak jacket and head scarf

Rachel gets used to her new attire.

BP Slated To Claim $600 Million In Ethanol Tax Credits This Year

d To Claim $600 Million In Ethanol Tax Credits This Year

By Pat Garofalo at 6:35 pm

Earlier today, I pointed to a Stateline report about state government struggling to cut wasteful tax subsidies for corporations, even when they are faced with billions in budget shortfalls. And the federal government has a similar problem with promulgating tax credits that go to either mature industries that don’t need the help or wind up benefiting parties other than those intended.
For instance, paper companies will receive $6.6 billion this year in credits meant to discourage use of fossil fuels. But to qualify for this boondoggle, these companies will actually add diesel fuel to a fuel mix that is already carbon-free, “following the letter of the law while violating its spirit.”
In that vein, BP, the oil company responsible for the ongoing gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, is slated to be one of the largest beneficiaries of tax credits meant to encourage ethanol use:

BP could stand to reap federal tax credits approaching $600 million this year for blending gasoline with corn-based ethanol, making the British oil and gas giant one of the largest beneficiaries of the 45 cents-per-gallon ethanol incentive…A common misconception is that it’s the ethanol producer receiving the direct benefit, when it’s really the oil companies. “That’s the guy behind the curtain,” said one energy lobbyist. He said BP might be the largest ethanol credit beneficiary by virtue of a heavy Midwest presence, and noted BP was among the first companies to support the ethanol mandate.

BP is the fourth-largest U.S. ethanol blender, behind Valero Energy, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil, and it’s worth asking whether the movement toward a green economy is at all aided by sending free money to oil companies for mixing some ethanol into their blend. “Is it actually promoting the environment’s health? Is the subsidy making a difference, and for whom?” asked Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).
Indeed, these tax credits for the oil industry, which reaps record profits year after year, should be very closely examined, particularly since many of them contribute to the country’s reliance on oil by making it artificially cheaper to look for and extract. There are currently nine different federal subsidies given to the oil industry, and taxpayers would save $45 billion if they were all cut. But, as CAP’s Sima Gandhi pointed out, making such cuts would require Congress “to overcome lobbyist arguments that killing subsidies will harm the economy”:

Profitable and powerful oil companies, such as BP and ExxonMobil, pay lobbyists millions of dollars to scare lawmakers into believing that ending subsidies to oil companies will wreak havoc on the American economy. These arguments are advanced by trade organizations such as the American Petroleum Institute, and they suggest that eliminating subsidies “could mean less U.S. energy production, fewer American jobs,” and higher oil prices. The evidence suggests otherwise.

New Clean Air Rule To Tame The Coal Plant Monster

 Air Rule To Tame The Coal Plant Monster

By Guest Blogger at 5:02 pm

Our guest blogger is Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
Today, the Obama administration proposed asweeping plan to reduce power plant emissions that cross state lines and kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. The proposed Clean Air Transport Rule replaces the Bush administration’s so-called “clean air interstate rule” (CAIR) that was shot down by the courts because it permitted so much interstate emission trading that even some power companies filed suit. A federal court ordered EPA to fix the shaky legal grounds of the Bush plan. Power industry pollution remains so pervasive — and so often blows from one state to another — that it basically handcuffs state efforts to reduce pollution within a state’s borders. As EPA noted in a fact sheet:

Specifically, this proposal would require significant reductions in sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions that cross state lines. These pollutants react in the atmosphere to form fine particles and ground-level ozone and are transported long distances, making it difficult for other states to achieve national clean air standards.

Emissions reductions will begin in 2012. By 2014, “the rule and other state and EPA actions would reduce power plant SO2 emissions by 71 percent over 2005 levels,” and power plant NOx emissions “would drop by 52 percent.”
It has been nearly 40 years since passage of the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970. Since then, we’ve made significant progress towards cleaner air. Cars are dramatically cleaner. Lead is gone from gasoline. New trucks no longer belch out the familiar puff of smoke. And EPA statistics document the continuing overall trend of cleaner air with respect to traditional pollutants. Despite that progress, one major source of air pollution remains a notorious problem: the electric power industry. Indeed a recent assessment by Ceres, the Natural Resources Defense Council and several power companies described the footprint of fossil-fueled power plants:

In 2008, power plants were responsible for 66 percent of SO2 [sulfur dioxide] emissions, 19 percent of NOx [smog-forming nitrogen oxides] emissions, and 72 percent of toxic mercury emissions in the U.S. – not to mention that the electric industry also pumps out nearly 40 percent of the nation’s heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions.

A recent Clean Air Watch survey noted that no fewer than 40 states and the District of Columbia have experienced unhealthful levels of smog so far this year.
The Obama EPA hopes to put the cleanup concept on a sound legal footing by limiting the amount of emission trading. Anyone interested in clean air should hope this plan holds up in court. EPA projects the plan could prevent up to 36,000 premature deaths a year – and bring monetary benefits of at least $120 billion a year – at an annual cost of about $2.2 billion.
It is a big step towards taming the environmental monster known as the coal-fired power plant. But it is only the first step. EPA plans nest year to propose rules to limit mercury and other toxic emissions including arsenic, dioxins and hydrochloric acid. The power industry has been evading toxic pollution requirements for two decades.
EPA has also pledged to follow up with a subsequent interstate pollution rule, if needed, as it surely will be, to make further reductions in smog-forming power plant emissions after the agency moves to set tougher national health standards for ozone, or smog, as it plans to do by the end of the summer.

Mitt Romney Embraces The Far Right’s Dangerous Nuclear Extremism In Opposing START

While Mitt Romney’s oped today in the Washington Post is largely a politically-motivated effort to boost his far-right foreign policy bonafides, it does however demonstrate how dangerous and extreme the anti-Obama narrative has become. That Mitt Romney’s oped attacking the New START Treaty in the Washington Post is full of distortions and false claims is not surprising. But what is really jaw-dropping however is Romney’s assessment that the treaty is Obama’s “worst foreign policy mistake.”
The fact that Romney thinks that the worst foreign policy mistake of the Obama administration is a modest treaty that reduces limits on nuclear weapons and extends and updates the verification and monitoring measures that Ronald Reagan himself negotiated in the initial START treaty, says something about how far out of the mainstream the conservative right has moved.
But moreover this vividly shows that there is an emerging civil war within the Republican establishment. This treaty has unanimous support from the military and is supported by senior and respected Republican foreign policy officials from every Republican administration of the last 40 years, including Nixon and Ford administration officials (Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger) Reagan administration officials (George Schultz, Frank Carlucci), Bush Sr. administration officials (Brent Scowcroft, James Baker) and George W. Bush administration officials (Stephen Hadley, Colin Powell, and Linton Brooks). Opposition to this treaty puts Mitt Romney and the far right fringe that has seemingly taken over the reigns of the Republican foreign policy to the extreme right of even Ronald Reagan.
The fact that there is overwhelming support for the treaty from serious thinkers, is not surprising given the weakness of the recycled arguments Romney puts forth.
Apparently when a Republican former (and perhaps current) presidential candidate lies in the Washington Post it’s okay. Mitt Romney claims that Obama “acceded to Russia’s No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.” This is just false.
The Obama administration last September didn’t “abandon” missile defense. Instead itexpanded and improved the European missile defense program to focus not just on the long range missiles that the Iranians didn’t have, but on short and medium range Iranian missiles that they actually have. Yet the new program still contained long range missile interceptors, which has severely irked the Russians and was one of the main sticking points of the START negotiations and the reason why talks dragged on past December 5th – the date when the original treaty expired. If Obama caved to the Russians in September of last year, what was there to fight about?
But what makes this claim even sillier is that Romney spends the rest of the oped saying START “jeopardizes our missile defense system.” But how could this be, since according to the first paragraph of Romney’s oped the Obama administration had already abandoned it? If you are going to claim that Obama has killed missile defense in Europe then how can you possibly claim that the New START treaty “jeopardizes” something that Obama already ‘abandoned.’
The rest of the oped is just as logically inept and is filled with recycled Heritage talking points that have been thoroughly debunked (for a point by point refutation of Romney’s claims see these posts on the bomber counter rule, on rail-mobile missiles, on limits on missile defense, on tactical nuclear weapons, and on rushing the treaty through the Senate).
But what is never expressed and is conveniently missing in the op-ed is the alternative vision to the START treaty that Romney is proposing. That vision is nuclear anarchy.
Rejecting START means eliminating the treaty that has ensured nuclear stability between the US and Russia in the post Cold War era. START’s collapse would also likely break the back of the brittle nuclear non-proliferation regime, which rests on a fragile bargain between nuclear and non-nuclear states. With the nuclear order in chaos, the world could quite easily slide past the nuclear tipping point, where – following the lead of others and with no disincentive (such as international sanctions) – a cascade of states like Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Myanmar, Venezuela could all decide to become nuclear powers. Consequently, any effort to control nuclear materials and to stop nuclear terrorism would also cease and the threat of nuclear terrorism would grow.
Furthermore, relations between the US and Russia would descend into acrimony. With the loss of nuclear monitoring, suspicions and tension would grow. With our right wing vigorously advocating the US start a new Cold War with Russia, it wouldn’t be long before the right wing gets there way and we begin building and testing new nuclear weapons, such an effort would lead Russia and perhaps China to do the same and suddenly we are in the midst of a new multi-polar arms race. This is the vision that Romney is posing and it is immensely dangerous.