No Tea For Me

Link Kyle Tasker, New Hampshire State Legislator, Drops Gun During Committee Meeting.A Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who once posted a comment on Facebook about shooting at police officers accidentally dropped one of his guns on the floor at the start of a committee meeting Tuesday morning.

Link House Republicans Assault Social Security
Latest House Budget Plan Would Lead to Cuts in Social Security.The latest House Republican budget plan asks low-income and middle-class Americans to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while simultaneously delivering massive tax breaks to the richest 1 percent and preserving huge giveaways to Big Oil. It’s a recipe for repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration, during which middle-class incomes stagnated and only the privileged few enjoyed enormous gains.

Link Faith Leaders Blast House GOP Budget As ‘Immoral Disaster’ That ‘Robs The Poor’.When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released his Medicare-ending, safety net-gutting 2012 budget plan last year, he was slammed by faith leaders who denounced his cuts to programs that aid the poor and middle class. Ryan released the 2013 version of that budget yesterday, and he is again facing criticism from a diverse group of faith leaders.
Ryan often says it is “morally wrong” not to address America’s debt, but faith leaders like Bishop Gene Robinson said the budget Ryan crafted fails basic moral tests. “The Ryan budget robs the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable of the safety net so integral to their survival,” Robinson said. “By any measure of civility and regard for one’s neighbor, it is an immoral disaster.”Father Thomas Kelly, a Catholic priest and constituent of Ryan’s, felt similarly:
“As a constituent of Congressman Ryan and a Catholic priest, I’m disappointed by his cruel budget plan and outraged that he defends it on moral grounds. Ryan is Catholic, and he knows that justice for the poor and economic fairness are core elements of our church’s social teaching. It’s shameful that he disregarded these principles in his budget.”
That the GOP cuts vital programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and other safety net programs while giving tax breaks to the richest Americans is “immoral” and “unconscionable,” other leaders said. “The poor are not statistics,” Rabbi Jackie Moline said. “Whatever one thinks of Congressman Ryan’s ideas, it is unimaginable to look into the face of a child who would go hungry without government assistance and say, ‘Sorry — we need to reduce the deficit.’”

Link Paul Ryan’s Budget Includes $3 Trillion Giveaway To Corporations, The Rich

Link Texans Say No to the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline.With news that President Obama will fast track the building of the southern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Texans in its path say their health and property rights are endangered by a torrent of corrosive tar sands oil from Canada. From landowners in the northern parts of the state to residents in the polluted refinery towns along the Gulf, the message is clear: the TransCanada pipeline will bring widespread risk of potential economic and environmental disaster to a state that already is burdened by toxic assaults from the massive petrochemical industry.

“All my life we’ve lived in the shadows of refineries and chemical plants”, says community activist Hilton Kelley, a Port Arthur native son who received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize and met with President Obama last year. “We grew up with the smell of sulfur and various other chemicals that’s being dumped into our environment. A large number of people are suffering from bronchitis, acute asthma, and there’s a lot of folks in this community with liver disease and cancer due to the emissions I believe that are being dumped into our air and the types of chemicals that we’re breathing….we say no to the Keystone XL pipeline because we don’t need any additional pollution being dumped into our air, and that’s what it’s going to bring.”

Link Enbridge Oil Spill in Michigan.On Sunday, July 25th 2010 an estimated 840,000 gallons of raw tar sands crude oil burst from a pipeline into a creek that feeds the Kalamazoo River. The oil spreading quickly in the flooded river, coating wildlife, saturating marshlands, backyards, businesses and farm land. The flow of the oil was contained before reaching Lake Michigan.The raw tar sands oil disaster was caused by a break in a pipeline owned by Canadian tar sands giant, Enbridge. The company was cited for safety violations in the pipeline before it ruptured, and Enbridge was recently found responsible for safety violations in a 2007 pipeline explosion that killed two employees in Minnesota.

Link Oil Spill Cleanup Continues More Than A Year Later In Michigan River After Company Misses Deadline.In late July 2010, millions of gallons of oil flowed into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan from a leak in one of the world’s largest pipeline systems. Enbridge Energy, the Canadian company that owned the pipeline, had been warned that old pipes could rupture, according to the Detroit Free Press. And while Michigan’s spill represented only 32 percent of the amount of oil spilled per day in the BP disaster that was ongoing at the same time, it had immediate environmental consequences for the area.And more than a year later, the cleanup from the spill — and concerns about exposure to its contents — continues. Enbridge missed an Aug. 31 deadline to remove 200 acres from the Kalamazoo River and surround bodies of water. In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, which imposed the deadline, Enbridge said factors such as “the expanded scope of the spill” delayed the processThe oil removal process has had “unique challenges” because of what flowed through the pipeline — tar sands oil mixed with a diluent:

Link List of oil spills

Link Michigan oil spill caused by 5-ft tear in pipeline.CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Oil that fouled a
Michigan river system spewed from a rip less than five feet
long in an Enbridge Inc pipeline, a
company executive said Saturday after crews extracted the
ruptured piece.
The pipeline, part of Enbridge's system that carries most
of Canada's crude oil exports into the United States, ruptured
nearly two weeks ago near Marshall, Michigan, and there is
still no estimate when it might be restarted.

Link Santorum suggests that re-electing Obama would be better than a Romney presidency

Link Republicans Still Pining For The One That Got Away; Sarah Palin

Link Proposed Canada pipelines: A crude gesture.The latest monthly report from respected Scotiabank commodities analyst Patricia Mohr says the Canadian crude-oil “discount” has now reached above $30 CDN a barrel. That’s largely because of regulatory and political bottlenecks. Almost all that Alberta crude is headed to the U.S. Midwest, where the refineries are flush, instead of to the West Coast, where it could be shipped to China and fetch considerably higher prices on the world market.

Link Violence Against Women Act Receives Opposition from Republicans