Fukushima Nuclear Power Station Crisis - Union of Concerned Scientists Report. American Ambassador John Roos Advises Americans to Evacuate Immediately

Aerial view of Fukushima Nuclear power plant (click to enlarge)

Reports regarding the situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant have become more alarming amidst reports that radiation has leaked outside the buildings. The Union of Concerned scientists have issued an assessment which explains the problems that the engineers at the plant have to deal with.

Nuclear Crisis in Japan: What We Know

The massive earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan has caused a potentially catastrophic situation at one of Japan’s nuclear power plants. The situation is still evolving, but below is a preliminary assessment based on the facts as experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists currently understand them.

The plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), reported that at 2:46 p.m. local time (12:46 a.m. EST) “turbines and reactors of Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 1 … and Units 2 and 3 … automatically shut down due to the Miyagiken-oki Earthquake.”

These reactors are three of the six operating reactors at the Fukushima I nuclear facility. All are boiling water reactors. Unit 1 has a rated output of 460 megawatts, and Units 2 and 3 each have a rated output of 784 megawatts.

TEPCO went on to state the shutdowns were caused by the loss of off-site power “due to malfunction of one out of two off-site power systems.” This loss of power triggered emergency diesel generators, which automatically started to provide backup power to the reactors.

However, at 3:41 p.m. local time (1:46 a.m. EST), the emergency diesel generators shut down “due to malfunction, resulting in the complete loss of alternating current for all three units,” according to TEPCO. The failure of the diesel generators was most likely due to the arrival of the tsunami, which caused flooding in the area. The earthquake was centered 240 kilometers from Japan, and it would have taken the tsunami approximately an hour to reach the Japanese islands.

This power failure resulted in one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant—a “station blackout”—during which off-site power and on-site emergency alternating current (AC) power is lost. Nuclear plants generally need AC power to operate the motors, valves and instruments that control the systems that provide cooling water to the radioactive core. If all AC power is lost, the options to cool the core are limited.

The boiling water reactors at Fukushima are protected by a Reactor Core Isolation Cooling (RCIC) system, which can operate without AC power because it is steam-driven and therefore does not require electric pumps. However, it does require DC power from batteries for its valves and controls to function.

If battery power is depleted before AC power is restored, however, the RCIC will stop supplying water to the core and the water level in the reactor core could drop. If it drops far enough, the core would overheat and the fuel would become damaged. Ultimately, a “meltdown” could occur: the core could become so hot that it forms a molten mass that melts through the steel reactor vessel. This would release a large amount of radioactivity from the vessel into the containment building that surrounds the vessel.

The containment building’s main purpose is to keep radioactivity from being released into the environment. A meltdown would build up pressure in the containment building. At this point we do not know if the earthquake damaged the containment building enough to undermine its ability to contain the pressure and allow radioactivity to leak out.

According to technical documents translated by Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action in Japan, if the coolant level dropped to the top of the active fuel rods in the core, damage to the core would begin about 40 minutes later, and damage to the reactor vessel would occur 90 minutes after that.

Concern about a serious accident is high enough that while TEPCO is trying to restore cooling the government has evacuated a 3-km (2-mile) radius area around the reactor.

Bloomberg News reported that the battery life for the RCIC system is eight hours. This means that the batteries would have been depleted before 10 a.m. EST today. It is unclear if this report is accurate, since it suggests that several hours have elapsed without any core cooling. Bloomberg also reported that Japan had secured six backup batteries and planned to transport them to the site, possibly by military helicopter. It is unclear how long this operation would take.

There also have been news reports that Fukushima I Unit 2 has lost its core cooling, suggesting its RCIC stopped working, but that the situation “has been stabilized,” although it is not publicly known what the situation is. TEPCO reportedly plans to release steam from the reactor to reduce the pressure, which had risen 50 percent higher than normal. This venting will release some radioactivity.

UCS will issue updates as more information becomes available.

Meanwhile Al Jeezera reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency also confirm that two reactors at in the area have been affected.

American Ambassador John Roos has advised all Americans living within ten km of Fukushima plant should evacuate immediately. Apparently the emergency diesel generators used to cool down the reactors are all inoperable.

UPDATE:

Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists joined Rachel Maddow to discuss the events at Fukushima.

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

8.9 Earthquake Hits Japan Live News -- Thousands Left Stranded in Tokyo and Many Power Failures. Fire at Nuclear Reactor and Oil Refinery.

By Kathleen

One of the largest earthquakes since 1900 hit Japan today and triggered a powerful, 4 meter high, tsunami which crashed across the eastern coastline of the country, causing wholesale destruction as people, cars, ships and boats have been swept away. Reports confirm that at least 44 people have been killed but it is expected that these numbers will rise greatly as eyewitness accounts confirm that at least one cruise ship, with over 100 people on it, was overpowered by the waves.

TV images reveal waves of water and debris have been moving across the coast, rural areas and sweeping into cities. Further images of boats and ships crashed against bridges, bypasses and against each other show the immediate extent of the damage that the infrastructure in Japan faces as a result of this disaster.

Video and live reports:

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

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

And recorded images of the tsunami swamping the Sendai coastline:

The Telegraph accounts that fires have broken out at the Onagawa nuclear plant in the Miyagi prefecture, which is one of areas most badly effected by the tsunami, and that an emergency core-cooling unit has been activated at the Fukushima plant in Kyodo.

So far there have been no reported radiation leaks however many fires are burning out of control across the coast including one at an oil refinery in Ichinara city.

According to The Independent an alert was issued to countries and islands in the Pacific area that further tsunamis could hit them. Fifty countries are thought to be affected and the main concern is for low lying islands in the Pacific. California, Hawaii and Oregon have been included in the warnings from the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. More can be read here.

UPDATE:

The Telegraph reports:

Fears of a great disaster have been realised as hundreds of bodies have been found along the Japanese coastline following the earthquake and tsunami which hit Japan last night. Hundreds more have been reported as missing. Powerful after shocks are continuing to hit Japan, some of which have been recorded at least 6.3, the level of the earthquake that hit New Zealand last week.

UPDATE:

Link to livestream on the Oregon coast:

http://www.kgw.com/live-stream

Hat tip to Wes in Oregon.

++++++++++++++++++++

Further devastation in Japan as CNN reports that a dam has burst in the Fukushima area. The dam is nearby the nuclear power station which has malfunctioned following the activation of an emergency cooling unit. Officials do not think that there will be any serious danger as a result of the malfunction.

hat tip to older_wiser

UPDATE:

A CNN reporter has twittered that Japan's trade minister, Banri Kaieda, says that a small leak could occur at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. More than 3,000 people living in the area surrounding the power plant have been ordered to evacuate the immediate area.

According to the Kyodo News Agency Yukio Edano said " We have a situation where one of the reactors (of the plant) cannot be cooled down." The Chief Cabinet secretary said the evacuation instruction was precautionary.

Edano said: No radiation has leaked outside the reactor. the incident poses no danger to the environment at the moment." He also said early Saturday in Tokyo the incident was under control.

Another reporter, Steve Herman Bureau Chief of Voice of America, just twittered that nuclear "radiation levels at the plant are rising."

Kyodo news advises that it has been told that radiation is rising in the turbine building and the pressure has risen to 1.5 times the designed capacity.

Yahoo news reports:

Experts said there could be leakage if water levels in the Fukushima reactor fell and the temperature of the nuclear rods rose, though this might not happen immediately.

"Even if fuel rods are exposed, it does not mean they would start melting right away," said Tomoko Murakami, leader of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics.

"Even if fuel rods melt and the pressure inside the reactor builds up, radiation would not leak as long as the reactor container functions well."

TEPCO confirmed that water levels were falling but it was working to avert any exposure of the nuclear fuel rods.

"There is a falling trend (in water levels) but we have not confirmed an exposure of nuclear fuel rods," a TEPCO spokesman said."

BBC has a good video report which explains the problems in Fukushima. Says that the bottom line is that nuclear engineers at Fukushima can't be sure that they will be able to contain the situation there.

Wisconsin -- Live Podcast Inside Madison Capitol State Building and Reactions to the Vote in Madison..

By Kathleen

Protesters sleep in the Madison Capitol Building -- photo from twitpic taken by News3David click on the link for more.

++++++++++++++++++

In "Experimental America", and in direct defiance of the State of Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law, Scott Walker today had the audacity to remove all the fiscal material from his Budget Repair Bill which will affect the rights of state employees to collective bargaining and split it in two. The non fiscal part of the Bill (the anti union part) was then passed through the Senate without any Democratic representation. The Bill passed 18 votes to one and the one Republican dissenter, Senator Dale Schultz, issued the following statement:

Senator Dale Schultz

www.senatordaleschultz.com

For release March 9, 2011

Contact: Dale Schultz 800.978.8008

Senator Schultz Statement on Budget Repair Bill Vote

“As someone who as spent the better part of the last four weeks working toward and

hoping for a compromise, this is a difficult night.

I’ve had the honor and privilege of representing folks in Southwest and South Central

Wisconsin for 28 years, and where I come from ‘compromise’ isn’t a dirty word.

I’ve received tens of thousands of emails, thousands of phone calls and letters, and spent

hours meeting with thousands of citizens in my district. I’ve heard personal and heartfelt

stories of friends and neighbors, and they ask for just two things.

First, be inclusive by listening and working with your colleagues on both sides of the

aisle to reach a compromise which addresses our fiscal crisis. Second, public employees

are willing to make sacrifices on things like wages and benefits, but we need to preserve

collective bargaining as a tool which has helped keep labor peace in this state for

decades.

Ultimately, I voted my conscience which I feel reflects the core beliefs of the majority of

voters who sent me here to represent them.

I look forward to working with my colleagues in the days ahead as we now need to join

together to work through what promises to be a difficult budget.”

- 30 -

Senator Schultz is a Republican from Richland Center representing Wisconsin’s 17th

State Senate.

The Bill now has to go before the General Assembly tomorrow.

I think that the biggest question surrounding Walker's latest tactic is just why did he have to rush through the non fiscal part of the Bill? Walker has stated that the Bill was a budget repair bill directly related to the State's finances. The non fiscal part does not affect the State finances.

Protesters inside the building have been asked to leave as the session has now closed. It looks as if there will be a stand off as the protesters are determined to stay the night.

UPDATE:

More reactions to the vote in Wisconsin yesterday

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

UPDATE:

Rachel Maddow addresses the "nuclear option" employed by Scott Walker in Madison yesterday.

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

Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore discuss the "desperation move" by Scott Walker in Madison last night.

Part 1

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

Part 2

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

Going Back in Time: A Progressive Economic Vision (from 1944)

By Blueberry Tart

Following up on the economic theme that I posted on this past week (here and here), I hopped into my time machine and went in search of a progressive message that would set forth a reasonable, clear and strong message as counterpoint to the prevailing conservative politico-economic themes that I had explored in those posts. I could have stopped at the New Frontier or the Great Society, but went farther back in time to the 1944 State of the Union speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. President Roosevelt set forth an “Economic Bill of Rights” that many of us, ranging from progressives to the middle, could still look to, 67 years later, for inspiration and guidance.

Ironically, the conservatives’ attacks on the progressive economics so often invoke fear of how the country -- the world -- is going to hell in a handbasket, and remind us that we have everything to fear, including fear itself. Yet certainly the peril we face today, while real, does not compare to the Great Depression or World War II – the era of Roosevelt’s presidency. Nevertheless, Roosevelt, while still in the midst of the war, turned his attention to setting forth a doctrine of economic fairness that remains applicable (with the explicit addition of women) today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The Economic Bill of Rights”

Excerpt from 11 January 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union

“It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.”

I imagine that, if Roosevelt could have looked forward to today, he would have added "the right of workers to unionize and bargain collectively" (perhaps he assumed it was already established) and further protections of women workers, including access to safe and affordable child care.

As I mentioned in my first post on this topic, I believe that there is a clear conservative strategy (I would be tempted to call it the "Conservative Manifesto") that is at the root of the politico-economic trends that are becoming all the more apparent with time – indeed, right-wingers like Scott Walker are now so emboldened that they shout their anti-worker slogans with arrogance and bravado.

But Walker and others are overplaying their hand. Their extremism is so blatant that a lot of people, who normally wouldn't be paying attention, can see it for what it is. Much credit to the brave and persistent protesters! This presents an opportunity to reclaim the high ground in the public debate.

I believe that if progressives are to gain the public's (middle's) attention and support, one of the things we need to do is to counter the right-wing extremists with a set of principles and message that are fair, reasonable, clear and inspiring. Recognizing that the world has changed and the economy is global, I still think that Roosevelt’s words are a possible starting place. Let’s start talking about “The Economic Bill of Rights.”

There were several excellent links since the economics post. First, with H/T to Maria Maria, check out this post by economics professor Richard Wolff on "How the Rich Soaked the Rest of Us." Here is one of his graphs:

Yep, the top 1% is really in need of protection, eh? Honestly, we MUST get this message about the growing chasm of wealth inequity to be seen far and wide! It is ABSURD that we cannot gain the political will to tax this income group.

Here is Krugman again on “How to kill a recovery.” Richard Reich weighed in on how the Democrats can become relevant again.

Sarah Palin BBC Newsnight Interview -- Considering an Election Run

By Kathleen

In an interview last week with BBC Newsnight Sarah Palin revealed two issues which she has under consideration before she decides whether or not she will put herself forward as a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. She indicated that the two issues were the need to raise significant campaign funds, and whether or not American voters were ready to vote for an “unconventional candidate.” Her deliberations appear to me rather misguided if not downright contrived.

In the BBC interview Palin stated to the reporter, Jackie Long, that “Understanding that Obama, he's already said that he’s going to rake in and spend a billion dollars in this race, so money is certainly going to be a consideration.”

Typically, Palin completely distorts the facts. Obama did not say that he was going to spend a billion dollars on the 2012 race. More accurately, as the Washingtion Post reported last December, a former unnamed Obama administration official was quoted as saying that" it is not unrealistic that Obama could raise a billion." It was also reported in the same article that in the 2012 race the Republican Party nominee can also opt out of public financing and so will be free to collect as much money as they are able.

Regardless of the actual election financing, can Palin raise the necessary funds to see her launch a bid for the primaries? I suspect (but admit I have no facts) that she has already been given some assurances that support will be forthcoming if she agrees to put herself in the ring and that her mention of “money” as “a consideration” is merely her blowing a whistle in the direction of perspective donors in an effort to stimulate even more direct promises of support.

Moreover, Palin must be aware that if she were to come through as the top candidate at the end of the primaries, and be selected by the Republican Party, there should be no problem with fundraising as she too would be able to opt out of the restraints of public financing. It is also extremely unlikely that the GOP machine would not get behind her if she emerged as the preferred candidate.

Palin, in a previous interview with Barbara Walters, said that she believed that she could beat President Obama. What Palin seems unsure about in the interview with the BBC reporter, Jackie Long, is whether or not the American people want her and her “tell it as it is” ways enough for her to beat Obama.

However, Palin will also know that the economic situation in the USA and/or other social/political issues could decline between now and the election and that such problems could certainly play into her “unconventional candidate” hands. It is at times of economic instability and uncertainty that confused voters look towards what appears to be the brightest, loudest, shiniest “tool” in the box for answers. Especially if the “tool” comes wrapped in a patriotic flag, spouts simple solutions and is stamped with the “commonsense” seal of approval.

Sarah Palin enjoys playing games with the media. She will continue to bait, taunt and hint at her intentions for as long as she possibly can. Why should Palin make an early announcement one way or other when she can continue to make money and be given a free platform for her extreme views on Fox News? She has the best of both worlds and she knows it and I believe that she will wait until the last minute to announce her intentions.

++++++++++

PalinTV has the full 19 minute Newsnight report here.

Weekly Roundup, February 28-March 6, 2011

By Blueberry Tart

Monday, February 28, 2011

Multi-national Corporations’ Opposition to Labor Reform in China

In another outstanding guest post, Nomadic Joe questions claims that corporations are motivated to do business in China to help “liberalize” (interesting choice of words) its authoritarian policies and build democratic institutions. He points out that China’s vast and cheap labor supply makes the wage and other demands of workers in the U.S. and other countries appear uncompetitive in comparison. He examines corporate opposition to labor reform in China, including lobbying against legislation allowing collective bargaining and labor contracts. Key message: “But US based corporations are trying to block legislation designed to improve the remuneration, treatment, health and safety, and other standards of Chinese workers.” Reform legislation eventually passed in watered-down form, but the lobbying revealed the corporations’ intent to quash expansion of workers’ rights in this dominant labor market. This is in opposition to the principles on labor rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ILO’s worker protection principles.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Con Econ 101

My first con-econ post is an attempt to shine a light on what I will call the “Conservative Manifesto” – a long-term strategy that is reversing progress in building a stronger middle class and better life for working-class Americans. The observable trends reveal the strategy, which is becoming more and more blatant, as formerly extremist ideas – and their spokespeople – become mainstream. (Think Scott Walker, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck et.al. and their puppet masters.) The Conservative Manifesto principles include: increasing wealth inequity; shifting the tax burden from the wealthy and corporations to the middle class; increasing the deficit and using that as an excuse to weaken the social safety net and regulations; privatizing profit and socializing risk; weakening worker protections and unions; and increasing corporate control of the media and government. It is a “con” game and the American middle-working class is the loser.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Con Econ 102

Following up, I’ve collected the thoughts of a range of progressive-moderate thinkers on economics and politics (along with a few conservatives). The post includes some revealing graphs that show stunning trends in the redistribution of wealth and tax burden, for example. (Funny how then-candidate Obama got skewered for talking about redistributing wealth in his exchange with Joe the Phony Plumber – many people called Obama a socialist for using those words – but a closer look at the actual economic data shows that wealth redistribution in the opposite direction, toward the wealthiest Americans, is occurring at an astonishing pace.) This information simply has to get out to people more effectively. I hope that we can help put this information together in a way that people can understand, and help push this issue into the public eye, so that regular Americans can begin to see how they are being exploited. Ambitious, I know…

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Anti-Woman, Anti-Choice Politics

ProChoice Grandma has put together a very important post on the right-wing assault on the rights of women. With H/T to Jason Linkins at HuffPo, the list of anti-women/anti-choice measures that are being pushed by the right-wing is a major wake-up call about their ultra-extreme agenda. From laws that would allow murders of abortion-providers and family planners to criminalizing miscarriages to redefining rape and defunding Planned Parenthood, we have entered a twilight zone where the lunatic fringe is now openly setting a national agenda to roll back the rights and protections that women so painstakingly achieved over the past 40 years. Some of this agenda is already LAW. For all of us, but especially those women who do not know what it was like before ~1970, it is time to wake up and fight back.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

America is Not Broke!

Michael Moore hopped a plane to Madison, WI to deliver a stirring speech to the protesters, now 3 weeks into their opposition to der Führer Scott Walker’s union-busting campaign.

“America is not broke… [Its wealth] has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich. Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined… [more] than the assets of 155 million Americans combined…a financial coup d'état…

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It's part of the Big Lie… The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates…

Until now. On Wisconsin! …You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America…

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on…

America is with you, Madison…Don’t give up. Hang in there, buddies!”

I also want to tip my hat to Honestyingov for sending his excellent photos of a rally last week!

Comments and Links of the Week:

Cheeriogirl and Linda1961 found this: "A unionized public employee, a teabagger, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, then looks at the teabagger and says "watch out for that union guy-- he wants a piece of your cookie."

Cheeriogirl also quoted this: [Walker’s] budget repair bill has nothing to do with solving an emergency budget crisis, nor does it have to do with curbing the excesses of labor unions. This is about political power: Destroy the unions and you have destroyed a key institution representing the interests of the middle and working class.

Nicky in NY had some great titles for Bristol’s book:

Grifting for Dummies
101 Damn Lies
Bristol of Dairygate Farm
Chronicles of No Abstinence
The Lyin', The Bitch, and The Open Robe
Memoirs of a Grifter
No Sense, and No Sensibility
Bristolita
Brave New Grifting
Grifter in the Rye
Pompous and Pregnant
Whatnot and Tease
A Tale of Two Babies

To which NJ fan added: "Not Afraid to Lie"

Maria Maria found this great quote in comments on HuffPo: "The last time a Republican cared about me, I was a fetus"

TurtleTears: Today's conservative economic policy does not seem to be concerned with what is actually good for the nation as a whole. Instead it seems designed to reward not only our millionaire senate, but the people and corporations who fund their elections and keep them in power, while further marginalizing the opposition. There is no idealism or altruism that seeks to make our world a cleaner, happier, more peaceful place with a decent standard of living for all our citizens. There is only a consolidation of wealth and power, so that they may continue to consolidate their wealth and power.

ProChoiceGrandma: So, does this mean Sarah is starting her own party by capitalizing Commonsense Conservatives? Maybe she should call it the Christian Commonsense Conservative Party, i.e. CCCP. She would appoint her Palinbots as the uterus police, name them Keep God's Babies, i.e. the KGB.

Dusty17: …and a fetus will lead them. OMG what idiots.

Juicyfruityy: …those who scream the loudest have the most to hide.

Bluerinse and HIG pointed out another great piece by Jon Stewart.

HIG linked to this excellent post by Keith Olbermann.

Arpil linked to Martin Bashar on msnbc interviewing Matt Taibbi on the failure to prosecute despite “massive widespread fraud” in the financial sector and the myth that these are “victimless crimes” – excellent.

Maria Maria found this excellent piece on “How the rich soaked the rest of us.” Nice addendum to the economics posts.

Ifitismygame linked to a wonderful post at margaretandhelen, complementing PCG’s post.

sunnyjane linked to Rachel Maddow interviewing Wisconsin legislator Nick Milroy. Stay with it and watch the second segment, where she covers how Walker fired the union security guards in Milwaukee, replaced them with private, non-union workers from foreign-owned security firm Wachenhut (infamous for malfeascance in Kabul), supervised by a felon. Then had to hire back the union guards, so now Wisconsin is paying double.

UPDATE: Maria Maria and cheeriogirl linked to this excellent table:

Open Post -- Michael Moore's powerful speech in Madison: "America is not Broke" - UPDATE: Pictures from Sacramento

I will post late tomorrow evening -- we need a little break and will attend a parade on Sunday which should be a lot of fun.

Michael Moore gave a speech in Madison today entitled "America is not broke." His view is that money is in the hands of the wrong people ie the "bankers and the super-rich."

Here are some great photos from Michael Moore's speech today in Madison...

...and the video of his complete, very powerful speech, in which he pulls no punches:

Link to the full transcript of the speech.

Excerpts from Michael Moore's speech:

America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It's part of the Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.

Bill O'Reilly believes that Michael Moore is a crazy socialist who is dumb because he is suing the Weinsteins because an independent auditor found that they had re-routed millions of dollars belonging to Moore. I'd love to know what O'Reilly would do if he were to find out that he had been cheated out of millions of dollars.

Treat this as an open post.

+++

Please re-tweet:

http://twitter.com/#!/politicalgates/status/44233494771150848

UPDATE:

HonestyinGov took the following photos in Sacramento last Saturday at a demonstration in support of the protesters in Wisconsin. He has kindly given us permission to post them here at Politicalgates. Thanks a lot, Honestyingov!

These photos remind us that citizens all over the USA are taking to the streets to protect the collective bargaining rights of themselves and others.

Special thanks also to GinaM for helping make the photos available.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.