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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

All The News Fit To Share: Midweek Challenge

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People in China standing in line for a civil service exam.  

Welcome to your nearly-nightly news diary that we leave open throughout the weekend! JanF and I are combining forces for an open news thread we hope will please all of you.  

Please comment on any of the stories in the diary or comments, or share any news stories you like from anywhere!  I tend to share lesser-known stories, and especially look for stories from original journalists w/ byline credits.  And I frequently highlight my home state of Utah.  

News stories may be added in comments throughout the day and night, so please stop back if you are inclined.  

Arab Spring at Risk: Belaïd Assassination Exposes Deep Rifts in Tunisia

Der Spiegel: Christoph Scheuermann

After the murder, one of Belaïd’s brothers accused Ennahda Chairman Ghannouchi of being behind it. Ghannouchi is probably the most influential man in Tunisia. His party has plenty of money, along with hundreds of local organizations and youth groups. There is much speculation over Ghannouchi’s true agenda, but until now he has managed to bring together Islamist agitators and liberal Muslims. This is one of the reasons Ennahda is considered the most moderate of the Islamist parties in the region, far more moderate than the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for example. Ghannouchi is the animal tamer who keeps lions and zebras together in one cage.

The party leader walks with a stoop from his desk to a sofa at Ennahda headquarters. He will be 72 in June. He look as though he hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. Although Belaïd was one of his biggest political foes, Ghannouchi sees the assassination as a catastrophe. “We also suffer from it,” he says. “Instability harms us just as much as the others.”

Behind the scenes in Tunisian politics, and possible insight into Arab spring countries.

Coal bags carbon profit

The Age; Tom Arup

AUSTRALIA’S highly emitting brown coal power generators will reap $2.3 billion to $5.4 billion in windfall profits from carbon price compensation, an analysis by a leading energy market expert has found.

While brown coal power plants based in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley will get billions in compensation, the analysis suggests they have so far been able to pass on all of their extra costs of the carbon price – thus turning the compensation into pre-tax profit.

The analysis carried out by Bruce Mountain, director of consultants Carbon + Energy Markets, looked at half-hourly spot prices for electricity sold from four Victorian brown-coal fuelled power plants – Hazelwood, Yallourn, Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B – over the first six months of the carbon price.

This sounds like it needs additional context. Welcome to the brave new world of carbon markets.

Post-2014 Afghanistan: Pakistan’s nightmare?

Dawn.com; Madiha Sattar

They are Pakistanis, Afghans, Arabs, Germans, Turks, Libyans, Sudanese, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Uighurs. They operate from Bajaur in the north to the Waziristans in the south. And the areas they target range from Pakistan and its neighbourhood, including Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and China, to the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

In the event that civil war breaks out next door or the Afghan Taliban capture significant power after the Western withdrawal, will Afghanistan become a new safe haven for this motley crew of Fata-based militant groups?

“2014 and the Western withdrawal will not mean Pakistan’s problems are over,” says Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on Fata and Afghan militancy. “If the Taliban cannot capture Kabul, which is highly likely, they will be operating from the border areas. So they may still need to come to Pakistan for shelter, funds and medical treatment, and the Pakistani Taliban will find safe havens in Afghanistan.”

Mentally-handicapped US man to be put to death despite outrage

Mail & Guardian, AFP;

Warren Hill (52) is reported to have an IQ of 70, putting him below the threshold for mental disability.

“There is no dispute among the experts that Mr Hill is mentally retarded,” attorney Brian Kammer wrote in an appeal seeking leniency for his client.

“Because Mr Hill’s execution would be a fundamental miscarriage of justice, this court must stay Mr Hill’s imminent execution and vacate his death sentence,” he added in another appeal.

After spending the last 21 years on death row for killing a fellow inmate, Hill was scheduled to die last July.

Here are four international stories to get you started.  So many of our state legislatures are in session right now, even in the US Congress is on holiday.  

Let’s all share something from our state lawmakers.  Proposed bills, passed bills, hearings, meetings.  


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 28 Comments

28 comments

  1. JanF

    I voted this morning.

    The statewide race is for Supreme Court with the top two vote getters advancing to the April election. The incumbent is a Republican. This race will not have the excitement of the Supreme Court election 2 years ago when David “ChokeHer” Prosser, the incumbent, was challenged by JoAnn Kloppenberg. Virtual unknown Kloppenberg lost by only 7,500 votes statewide in a contest that most incumbents win handily. Last year, Kloppenberg won a seat on one of our appeals courts and, with her name recognition, I would not be surprised to see her run again some day.

  2. princesspat

    Inslee proclaims no tolerance for Hanford leaks

    The waste tanks continue to leak highly radioactive waste at The Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The tanks are old….RonK earned college money driving a crane doing testing for leaks in the 1960’s…..so the need for ongoing maintenance and cleanup is urgent.

    Meanwhile, the Tri-City Herald recently reported that Hanford could put 1,000 of its 9,000 workers on six weeks unpaid leave if automatic federal budgets cuts go into effect on March 1 because Democrats and Republicans cannot resolve their budget battles in Congress.

    Inslee called the multiple threats” the perfect radioactive storm. … I don’t see a better exampe why (the automatic and arbitrary federal budget cuts) is a bad idea.”

    Inslee is worried about DOE playing the fears about the new leak against the glalssification complex’s problems with the federal budget woes thrown in. “Money cannot be allowed to be used as an excuse for no action,” Inslee said. “We cannot allow ourselves to be trapped in a dead end, arguing over prioritization of these challenges.”

    Why the whole country should vote like us (by mail)

    Oregon and Washington are the only two states to conduct elections entirely by mail, which means that no one has to worry about access to a voting booth. Our kitchen tables are our voting booths, and we can take as long as we like to fill out a ballot without worrying about holding up a huge line of frustrated fellow voters snaking out the door of our local polling place.

    Just two states exceeded a 70 percent turnout in the 2010 mid-term elections (final figures for 2012 are not yet available for all states). Guess which ones? Yes! Oregon and Washington.

  5. JanF

    Congressman Considers Gabby Giffords A ‘Prop’ For Gun Regulations

    Jon Ralston of Ralston Reports, uncovered the audio of [Nevada Rep. Joe] Heck, speaking with conservative radio talk show host Alan Stock, agreed that Giffords was nothing more than a “prop” at the State of the Union:

       STOCK: At the end of the president’s State of the Union when he said have a vote for Gabby Giffords, have a vote for this and that. I found that to be nauseating and you know what else is nauseating too is putting Gabby Giffords up there, who can’t even clap her hands, as a figure of somebody being – having shot her. I think it’s a shameful act putting her up there as a prop. I’m sorry. I really do.

    HECK: Yeah, no I agree. I think again in the cloud of emotion surrounding Connecticut those who are anti-gun want to use that to limit their Second Amendment rights.

    Yes. A “figure” of someone who has been shot. Because she is someone who has been shot, dweeb. Sigh.

    McCain Jeered At Town Hall After Opposing Mass Deportation

    Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) got an earful from his constituents in his home state while defending his bipartisan immigration plan at a town hall.

    According to the Associated Press, an “angry crowd” reacted negatively as McCain described his proposal to grant a path to citizenship for many of the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

    You can’t just embrace nativism when it is convenient for getting nominated by your nativist party to the presidency.

    Panetta To Boehner: Sequester Will Cause Furloughs, Harm National Security

    Panetta is saying that 800,000 civilian workers will be furloughed. Boehner responds that it will be “President Obama’s fault”. Who will get blamed? History shows that Congress will but will Congress channel their inner Dick Cheney and say “So?”? The American people are not much in sync with the Republican House of Representatives these days on many issues but that has not really made much difference.

    Voting Rights Act In The Supreme Court’s Crosshairs

    The votes of down-the-line conservative justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are not in question. And Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, the likelier swing votes, both laid the groundwork to strike down Section 5 in a 2009 case when the Supreme Court held that a Texas jurisdiction was eligible to apply for a exemption to Section 5 but refrained from ruling on the constitutionality of the law.

    “Things have changed in the South,” Roberts famously wrote in the majority decision – a quote that has made proponents of the Voting Rights Act nervous ever since. “Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.”

    Watchdog Group Sues IRS Over Dark Money Rules

    David Gill, an emergency room physician, ran for Congress as a Democrat in Illinois’ 13th District last year. Gill’s platform included ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, eliminating subsidies for oil companies, defending gun rights in Congress, and reining in “profiteering” in health care. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, a dark money group called the American Action Network spent more than $1 million on negative ads opposing Gill. On Election Day, Gill lost to his opponent, Republican Rodney Davis, by .3 percent of the vote.

    Now, Gill has joined with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to sue the IRS, accusing the agency of creating a loophole that has allowed groups like the American Action Network to flourish. The civil suit, filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Gill suffered economic harm and harm to his reputation as a result of “false and misleading” ads financed by the American Action Network.

  6. princesspat

    Budget gridlock could cost Washington state 41,000 jobs, $3 billion

    WASHINGTON – Federal spending cuts planned for March 1 could hit Washington state hard, costing 41,700 jobs and removing $3.4 billion from its economy, according to state estimates.

    And that possibility has members of the state’s congressional delegation fretting big-time on Capitol Hill.

    Unless Congress reverses them, big cuts are in store for the military, schools, law enforcement, health care, food and workplace safety programs, nutritional assistance for the elderly, programs that help the homeless and small businesses and Indian tribes, and many more.

    Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.co…

    In Bellingham visit, DelBene hopes for immigration overhaul soon

    At an afternoon meeting with farm workers and immigrant rights advocates at SuperMario’s Restaurant, 3008 Northwest Ave., she heard stories of some local people whose families have been split by deportations.

    Farm worker Nelida Moreno recalled how her husband had been deported to Mexico about two years ago, leaving her in this country to raise their children alone. She said she didn’t understand how it could be considered right for the government to break up her family.

    “We’re not causing crimes,” Moreno told DelBene. “We’re working here with our children. … Without us there would be no harvest.”

    Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.co…

  7. jlms qkw

    Can LDS Church, Utahns find photos of state’s Vietnam fallen?

    By Kristen Moulton;The Salt Lake Tribune

    He hopes to enlist the help of Gov. Gary Herbert and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at a Wednesday afternoon event at the Capitol.

    The fund has photos of 210 lost Utah service members, but lacks photos of the other 154. Scruggs hopes the LDS Church will also help track down photos for 289 of the 589 fallen service members from throughout the country who identified themselves as LDS.

    The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is raising $85 million for The Education Center at the Wall, where photos and stories will be displayed using both state-of-the-art technology and memorabilia that has been left behind at the Wall.

  8. JanF

    Tampa Bay Times

    TALLAHASSEE – Saying his mother’s death last year provided “new perspective” on one of the biggest decisions he’s faced as Florida’s governor, Rick Scott announced Tuesday that he will urge the Legislature to accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid.

    “While the federal government is committed to pay 100 percent of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care,” Scott said at a hastily arranged press conference at the Governor’s Mansion.

    I wonder how the other teaparty governors are going to feel seeing that their ideology-bound hides have probably cost them a lot of federal dollars. My sense is that they will be begging for help when the hospitals in their states scream that their emergency rooms are inundated with poor people who got kicked off Medicaid.

  9. JanF

    Meet The Virginian Shaping The House GOP’s Immigration Plan

    “People have a pathway to citizenship right now: It’s to abide by the immigration laws, and if they have a family relationship, if they have a job skill that allows them to do that, they can obtain citizenship,” [Viriginia Republican Rep. Bob] Goodlatte says. “But simply, someone who broke the law, came here, [to] say, ‘I’ll give you citizenship now,’ that I don’t think is going to happen.”

    It annoys Goodlatte that President Obama has been weighing in on the immigration debate.

    “I think the president should calm down, back off and let the Congress do its work,” he says.

    HAHAHAHA!! Let the Do Nothing Congress “do” its work? Puhlease!

    How Obama’s Path To Citizenship Actually Works

    Any undocumented immigrant who was in the country before the bill was introduced is eligible to become a Legal Prospective Immigrant, a class that bars them from federal benefits but lets them reside and work in the country.

    Obama’s draft bill does not require applicants to leave the country as part of the legalization process and then reenter legally.

    According to the Obama draft, the legal prospective immigrants (or “LPI”s) created by the bill would have to wait for everyone who’s already applied legally to get through the process before they can apply themselves. But in some cases, the line for green card applicants is decades long. Obama has talked about speeding up the process somehow, but that part is still not in a bill. Wary of keeping immigrants stuck in provisional status indefinitely, the White House’s draft would let LPIs apply for green cards after eight years regardless of the backlog.

    The key point is that workers do not have to leave the country and somehow get in line from there. That is simply unworkable.

    The GOP “guest worker” program is a big sloppy kiss to the businessmen who need cheap labor but it would create a permanent underclass.

    And about that “butting out”? Ponder this, Congressman.


    Fifty percent of those surveyed said they prefer Obama on immigration, while just 33 percent said the congressional GOP has a better approach to the issue.

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