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West Virginia Pol Walt Helmick: Compared To Drug Overdoses, Coal Isn’t So Bad

By Brad Johnson on Aug 16, 2010 at 4:20 pm

Walt Helmick
State Sen. Walt Helmick (D-WV)

At an exclusive coal industry retreat this month, a top West Virginia politician bemoaned the negative image of the state’s coal industry in the wake of this year’s Upper Big Branch disaster that killed 29 miners. Looking for a silver lining, Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick (D-WV) contrasted the death toll from mining coal to the deaths from drug overdoses in McDowell County, West Virginia’s poorest. In a stream-of-consciousness speech during the annual West Virginia Coal Association membership meeting in White Sulphur Springs, Helmick complained that “we” — the coal industry and its political allies — “don’t give the press signs” to put coal’s deadly toll into context:

If we lose [deep mining] because of some things that have happened in the last couple of years — the mine disaster is obviously connected to the increase — we don’t give the press signs. Well, we lost 29 miners. That’s terrible. We understand that. We got to deal with mine safety — we all understand that. You guys work together to do what you folks do to make sure that doesn’t happen. But, you know, for instance, in McDowell County there are about eight or nine deaths a month with drug overdoses and that’s nothing to do with this. Talking about the issue, talking about the negatives.

Helmick went on to describe the “positives of coal.” He noted that coal severance taxes provide most of the income for West Virginia’s infrastructure bond fund: “21 million for water and sewage in West Virginia”:

Talk about the positives of coal? 24 million dollars a year that goes into the infrastructure — 21 comes from coal. 21 million for water and sewage in West Virginia. Coal has no damage whatsoever to any of my district, to be honest about it. But yet we use that infrastructure money in Pocahontas, Pendleton, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire, Morgan, all of those counties to offset that.

Unfortunately, West Virginia’s dependence on the coal industry is linked to its deadly endemic poverty. Drug-scourged McDowell County is West Virginia’s coal capital, having produced more coal than any other county in the state. Coal millionaires like Massey Energy’s Don Blankenship are killing West Virginia while they take billions in profits — killing the people with mining disasters and toxic pollution, destroying the mountains and streams with mountaintop removal, and destroying the economy by slashing jobs and fighting modernization and economic diversity.

Fixing the coal industry’s dirty reputation will take something more than better press relations, or as others at the coal retreat suggested, new propaganda in classrooms. Instead, West Virginians need to take the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s advice and embrace a cleaner, safer future.

Politics

Stimulus hypocrite Barton attends groundbreaking for health clinic funded by stimulus.

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 16, 2010 at 4:15 pm

Last year, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) — the same Joe Barton who felt the need to apologize to BP after the oil giant caused an environmental catastrophe — requested stimulus funds for NASA despite having voted against the stimulus. Last week, Barton was at it again, attending a groundbreaking “for an expansion of an Ellis County clinic” that received $250,000 in stimulus money:

“As I told the crowd at the groundbreaking, I was opposed to the stimulus bill and voted against it. It has been largely wasteful and failed to produce the jobs that were promised,” Barton, R-Arlington, said in a written statement. “However, expansion of the Hope Clinic is a worthy project that deserves our support.”

The construction grant “comes in addition to more than $1.4 million the clinic has received in stimulus funds, which clinic staff said was secured with the help of Barton’s office.” Barton has previously called the stimulus a “boondoggle,” “a lesson in how to waste a lot of money in a hurry,” and the “most anti-competitive, anti-consumer, anti-free market piece of legislation I’ve ever seen on the House floor.” As The Wonk Room noted, Barton is actually doubling down on the hypocrisy, as the clinic will also receive money from the Affordable Care Act, which Barton also voted against.

Yglesias

Today in Nazi Analogies

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 16, 2010 at 3:57 pm

newt-gingrich-1

Treating income earned as a partner in a private equity firm the same as ordinary labor income is like invading Poland:

President Obama and the business community have been at odds for months. But in July the chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms, amped up the rhetoric. Stephen Schwarzman—the leading John McCain supporter in a firm that, in 2008, gave more money to Obama—was addressing board members of a nonprofit organization when he let loose. “It’s a war,” Schwarzman said of the struggle with the administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, takes the view that building a mosque in Lower Manhattan “would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.”

So on the one hand you basically have Schwarzman making a mountain out of a molehill, suggesting that his effort to increase his take-home pay is analogous to a world-historical struggle over the future of human freedom. On the other hand you have Gingrich saying that the Islamic religion is on a par with Nazism and that Muslims worldwide are collectively responsible for the actions of a few dozen individuals. I’m going to say that Schwarzman is the winner here. He’s being grandiose and tasteless, but his basic point—this is a big deal for private equity managers and they intend to fight very hard to keep their taxes low—is perfectly cogent. Gingrich, by contrast, is just being loathesome and odious.

Alyssa

A Confession

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Aug 16, 2010 at 3:41 pm

I think I have a growing affection for Nicole Scherzinger. I feel very conflicted about this. I find the Pussycat Dolls insufferably irritating and tacky. I wish she would do something better with her career. It’s rare that I feel any sort of need to defend my affections for participants in our mass culture, or that I feel any real sour distaste for those I don’t like, but Scherzinger’s always been an exception because I felt like so much of what she was doing was such a waste. But then, perhaps she’s on the way to improvement. First, I thought she was completely, completely adorable on Dancing With the Stars, both in her level of commitment and execution:

And she’s really not a bad Maureen in the live production of Rent:

More could have been done with the choreography here, but that inner-thigh-reach-and-slide is nicely executed, and she sounds good. I hope folks keep her working. I don’t really know how one makes the step up from manufactured-band mediocrity to the real thing, but maybe they could get her a job on Glee, or something?

Economy

Stimulus Hypocrite Barton Attends Groundbreaking For Health Clinic Funded By Stimulus

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 16, 2010 at 3:35 pm

Last year, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) — the same Joe Barton who felt the need to apologize to BP after the oil giant caused an environmental catastrophe — requested stimulus funds for NASA despite having voted against the stimulus. Last week, Barton was at it again, attending a groundbreaking “for an expansion of an Ellis County clinic made possible under the law.”

As the Dallas Morning News reported, the clinic received $250,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services for the construction work. Barton tried to thread the needle by saying that the clinic is a “worthy project”:

“As I told the crowd at the groundbreaking, I was opposed to the stimulus bill and voted against it. It has been largely wasteful and failed to produce the jobs that were promised,” Barton, R-Arlington, said in a written statement. “However, expansion of the Hope Clinic is a worthy project that deserves our support.”

The construction grant “comes in addition to more than $1.4 million the clinic has received in stimulus funds, which clinic staff said was secured with the help of Barton’s office.” In fact, Lisa Caton, director of development for the clinic, said that Barton “really did play a critical role in a lot of the things that we accomplished.”

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus will have created or saved 3.7 million jobs by September, presumably some of them for work at this very clinic. But prior to appearing at the groundbreaking, Barton called the stimulus a “boondoggle,” “a lesson in how to waste a lot of money in a hurry,” and the “most anti-competitive, anti-consumer, anti-free market piece of legislation I’ve ever seen on the House floor.”

But Barton is actually doubling down on the hypocrisy here, as the clinic will also receive money from the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform bill that Barton voted against. “There were two pieces of legislation that helped bring this about,” said Joseph Gallegos, senior vice president of the National Association of Community Health Centers. “Part of this was economic stimulus funding, and the other was in the Affordable Care Act.”

At an event in Texas last week, President Obama riffed on this blatant hypocrisy on the part of the GOP. “I have to say, though, they do show up at the ribbon-cuttings for the infrastructure projects,” he noted. “They will fulminate and say it’s going to be Armageddon if we pass all this stuff, but then they’re cheesin’ and grinnin’ right there — got the shovel all ready — sending out the press releases.”

As ThinkProgress has exhaustively documented, at least 114 Republicans — more than half of the GOP caucus in Congress — is guilty of trying to take credit for projects funded by the stimulus bill that they voted against.

Politics

Senate Majority Leader Reid opposes Obama on mosque project: ‘Should be built someplace else.’

By Faiz Shakir on Aug 16, 2010 at 3:32 pm

reidStaking an unpopular political position, President Obama voiced his support Friday night for the right of American Muslims to build “a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan.” The Miami Herald reported today that Democratic candidates in Florida failed to exhibit the same courage. “Common sense and respect for those who lost their lives and loved ones gives sensible reason to build the mosque someplace else,” argued Senate candidate Jeff Greene. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink said 9/11 families “are opposed to this project and I share their view.” Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has joined the ranks of these weak-willed Democrats. Greg Sargent reports:

The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else. If the Republicans are being sincere, they would help us pass this long overdue bill to help the first responders whose health and livelihoods have been devastated because of their bravery on 911, rather than continuing to block this much-needed legislation.

The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss explains why the argument for relocating the mosque is so offensive. Duss writes, “It asks Muslim Americans to acknowledge the validity of the idea that the presence of a mosque at that location is an affront to those murdered — including the Muslims murdered — on 9/11. And while it’s important to understand the deep emotions involved, the idea that Muslims bear collective guilt for 9/11 is simply not valid, no matter how ‘thoughtfully’ phrased.”

Update

Haaretz reports that the leaders of the Cordoba House project “will soon back down, agreeing to move to a new site.” Cordoba House representatives are disputing the story.

Yglesias

Paul Ryan Wants to End Medicare As We Know It, While Lying About It

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 16, 2010 at 3:14 pm

160px-paulryan

On Friday, for some reason the custodians of the Washington Post’s op-ed page decided to let Paul Ryan write the following in their paper:

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the Democrats’ political machine has attacked my contribution to this debate, making the false claim that the only solution put forward to save Medicare would “end Medicare as we know it.”

As Ezra Klein, previously a defender of Ryan’s integrity, observes people are accusing him of wanting to end Medicare as we know it because his plan would end Medicare as we know it. The existing single-payer system would be scrapped. In its place would be a system of means-tested vouchers to buy private insurance whose value would grow more slowly than the cost of health care. Basically Ryan’s idea is that old people should get medical care if they’re rich, and not otherwise. Meanwhile, since the non-rich won’t be utilizing health care services as many health care services, per unit treatment costs for should decline. This is a pretty standard view of how things ought to work—people should get stuff if they’re rich enough to pay for it, and not otherwise. And it’s Ryan’s view of how health care should be apportioned among the elderly. But for a guy who’s being widely praised for his honesty and willingness to face up to tough choices, he’s incredibly reluctant to describe his plan with any clarity.

Security

Cordoba House Controversy A Proxy Fight Over American Pluralism

By Matt Duss on Aug 16, 2010 at 2:40 pm

Ross Douthat has a thoughtful take on the controversy over the Cordoba House Islamic cultural center — or at least more thoughtful than the vast majority of conservative commentary on the subject so far — in which he places the controversy within the ongoing American debate over immigration.

“There’s an America where it doesn’t matter what language you speak,” writes Douthat, “what god you worship, or how deep your New World roots run. An America where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides. An America where the newest arrival to our shores is no less American than the ever-so-great granddaughter of the Pilgrims.”

But there’s another America as well, one that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions. This America speaks English, not Spanish or Chinese or Arabic. It looks back to a particular religious heritage: Protestantism originally, and then a Judeo-Christian consensus that accommodated Jews and Catholics as well. It draws its social norms from the mores of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora — and it expects new arrivals to assimilate themselves to these norms, and quickly.

These two understandings of America, one constitutional and one cultural, have been in tension throughout our history. And they’re in tension again this summer, in the controversy over the Islamic mosque and cultural center scheduled to go up two blocks from ground zero.

While I would agree with the general proposition that managing the tension between the Americas that Douthat describes has been among the key projects of the United States — along with managing the tension between liberty and security, and between federalism and states’ rights — I reject the moral equivalence that Douthat seems to be asserting here between pluralism and xenophobia:

The steady pressure to conform to American norms, exerted through fair means and foul, eventually persuaded the Mormons to abandon polygamy, smoothing their assimilation into the American mainstream. Nativist concerns about Catholicism’s illiberal tendencies inspired American Catholics to prod their church toward a recognition of the virtues of democracy, making it possible for generations of immigrants to feel unambiguously Catholic and American.

Whatever positive function nativism and bigotry, institutionalized and otherwise, may have performed in encouraging greater, faster assimilation is far outweighed by the harassment and discrimination endured by new immigrants as a result. This attempt at even-handedness also leads Douthat to underappreciate the extent to which, just as newly arriving Catholic, Jewish, Italian, German, and Chinese immigrants became more American upon arriving here, America itself became more Catholic, Jewish, Italian, German, and Chinese as a result of their arrival.

This, also, is part of what I think makes America unique: “Assimilation” has never been a one-way street. New arrivals to America have adopted American ways as their own, but they’ve also changed the way that we define and understand what it is to be American. Resistance to this is, I think, a big part of what underlies much of the opposition to the Cordoba House: Many Americans are uncomfortable with the fact — and it is a fact — that America will become, is becoming, more Islamic. Read more

Politics

Neo-Nazis Stage Anti-Immigrant Rally In TN, Demand We ‘Put Race And Nation First’

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Aug 16, 2010 at 2:40 pm

This past weekend, anti-immigrant activists staged rallies in three different locations: “anti-amnesty” protesters gathered in Farmers Branch, TX, Tea Party members rallied at the border in Arizona, and neo-Nazis marched down the streets of Knoxville, TN. The three separate, but related protests illustrate how the white supremacist movement has latched onto the immigration issue.

As proponents of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law insist that their support of the law has nothing to do with race, they can’t deny that for some people it boils down to “white people who are not afraid to stand up,” as one Tennessee rally attendee noted. Watch coverage of the Tennessee rally:

At the neo-Nazi rally in Knoxville, protesters proudly displayed swastikas. One demonstrator explained the motivations guiding the march: “Federal economic policies are unsustainable. Our country is going broke. Stop giving away our jobs to countries that hate us. Secure our border. Put race and nation first.” The rhetoric in Farmers Branch and Arizona was not remarkably different.

In Hereford, AZ, where approximately 400 Tea Party activists gathered yesterday, Tucson radio host proclaimed, “[i]nstead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders.” Cindy Kolb, “a border activist” who attended the gathering screamed over the border fence, said “[w]e don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.”

The Farmers Branch rally was organized by the Salt Lake City-based Americans Against Immigration Amnesty, which states on its website, “Many of those seeking amnesty refuse to assimilate to our culture or language and refuse to respect our citizens and laws. Rather, they demand we assimilate to them and their culture, teach our children their language and shamelessly fly their country’s flag over ours.”

Meanwhile, a recent poll revealed that many Arizonans think the immigration debate has “exposed a deeper sense of racism in our community.” The Wonk Room has extensive coverage of this weekend’s anti-immigrant events.

Yglesias

Is KIPP Racist?

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 16, 2010 at 2:29 pm

It’s difficult to obtain unimpeachable statistical data on how to improve life outcomes for children. But as best we can tell, the average charter school performs about the same as the average public school. Some charter schools, however, are much better than average. And the best research available indicates that the schools affiliated with the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) are extremely successful at improving outcomes for poor kids.

Part of how this came about is that KIPP’s founders and leaders are specifically trying to teach poor kids in cities, which results in the outcome that KIPP schools, much like traditional public schools located in low-income urban neighborhoods, have an overwhelmingly minority enrollment. Meanwhile, though KIPP has consistently increased the number of students it serves, serious questions remain about how far its model can be scaled up. Consequently, KIPP strikes me as a very worth recipient of money from the Obama administration’s now-controversial “i3″ program, which is supposed to bolster educational innovation.

Jeffbinc at OpenLeft not only disagrees, he says that thanks to i3 “tax dollars are being spent on racist education policies,” specifically KIPP.
Read more

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