June 4, 2014

Clintons have always MARKETED themselves as 2 for PRICE of 1

Going back to Bill's first presidential campaign - elect me and you get my wife as well - it's a "2 for the price of 1" (his exact words). How appropriate that he referred to their "price". That has proved to be the operative factor with the Clintons. I expect the same would hold true if Hillary were elected.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/21/AR2007122102588.html


So let us remember Bill's attitude toward his Big Banking friends and those who dare criticize them:


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/hillary-clintons-goldman-sachs-problem

June 4, 2014

Judge approves Sandusky investigative report; Corbett to have chance to respond

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune Review

HARRISBURG — A judge overseeing the release of Attorney General Kathleen Kane's report on why the investigation of convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky took almost three years on Tuesday approved that report, which now goes to Gov. Tom Corbett, the former attorney general, for a response. The report examines whether Corbett delayed the investigation for political reasons as he ran for governor in 2010.

Kane told the Tribune-Review on Monday that the report may be released this month. She hired Widener University Law School professor H. Geoffery Moulton to conduct the investigation as a special deputy paid $74 an hour.

Moulton is a former federal prosecutor who investigated the FBI's handling of the 1993 Waco Branch Davidian compound in which 76 people were killed.

The report, fulfilling a campaign promise for Kane, a Democrat, comes at a critical time for the Republican governor, who is trying to tie together a difficult state budget while facing a deficit exceeding $1.2 billion in an election year. He trails Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom Wolf in an early poll for the November election.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6223333-74/report-kane-corbett#ixzz33fqI4GKJ
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Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6223333-74/report-kane-corbett#axzz33IFnYv9t

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Our female, Democatic state Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, continues to do an excellent job in office. Great timing on this, coming out just in time for campaign season - Corbett's running for re-election in November. Our Democratic candidate, Tom Wolf is ahead in the polls, 55% to 30%. Can't wait to get a Democratic governor back in Pennsylvania! And to see Corbett raked over the coals for covering up for Sandusky.

June 3, 2014

Obama Asks Congress to Back $1 Billion Effort to Boost US Military Presence In Europe

Source: Associated Press via Huffington Post



WARSAW, Poland (AP) — President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that the United States plans to boost its military presence in Europe as tensions simmer in the region over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Standing next to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, Obama said the U.S. would rotate more American troops into the region and called on Congress to provide up to $1 billion to support the effort.

"Under this effort, and with the support of Congress, the United States will preposition more equipment in Europe," Obama said at Warsaw's Belweder Palace.

If approved, the funding will be used to increase military exercises and training missions on the continent, as well as rotations of air and ground forces, the White House said. Officials said Obama was also seeking to ramp up U.S. Navy participation in NATO deployments in the Black and Baltic Seas, plus working to boost the military capacity of non-NATO countries that sit on Russia's border, including Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/03/obama-in-europe_n_5436146.html

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Attention Congress! Just Say No! Give the American taxpayers a break.
A billion dollars would be far better spent creating jobs for Americans to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure - highways, bridges, etc.

I thought Obama just gave a speech backing off from the US policing the world.

June 2, 2014

1st post primary poll: Wolf leads Corbett, 51 to 31%

HARRISBURG — In the first public poll since the May 20 primary, Democrat Tom Wolf holds a 20-point lead over Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, an independent New Jersey polling firm found.

Rasmussen Reports, of Asbury Park, a media company specializing in polling, said Wolf holds a 51-31 percent lead over Corbett. A company spokeswoman said Rasmussen does not do “commissioned” polls paid for by clients.

The poll, based on response of 750 likely Pennsylvania voters, was conducted May 27-28 and has an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6215474-74/corbett-wolf-gov#ixzz33VhSnGB6
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May 31, 2014

PA Gov.Corbett holding firesale on state's natural resources

Now that PA Governor Tom Corbett is facing historically massive odds against being re-elected, he's holding a fire sale for Big Fracking and Big Coal, opening up state parks and lands for fracking and long wall coal mining. The payback will be in major campaign contributions and/or post elective-office board appointments, consultancies, hiring by law firms representing fracking/mining interests, etc.

The Center for Coalfield Justice has appealed a state mining permit allowing a 3,175-acre expansion of Consol Energy's Bailey Mine that the center says will undermine and subside 14 streams in and around Ryerson Station State Park in Greene County.

According to the Washington, Pa.-based environmental organization, the planned longwall mining operation will damage and dry up several of the streams in the park where subsidence caused by the same longwall mine in 2005 resulted in the draining of Duke Lake, a popular 62-acre recreational lake. The lake remains dry today.

"First, Consol destroyed Duke Lake in the middle of Ryerson Station State Park," said Patrick Grenter, CCJ executive director. "Now, they're looking to destroy the streams that flow through the dry lake bed. When will the DEP learn its lesson and just deny the permit? How many more public lands will the state sacrifice to this company?"

The appeal, filed Friday with the state Environmental Hearing Board, seeks revocation of the permit, which, Mr. Grenter said, allows Consol to add five new longwall "panels" and mine an additional 50 million tons of coal from the Pittsburgh coal seam. The state Department of Environmental Protection declined to comment.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/2014/05/30/Environmental-group-appeals-Consol-mining-permit-for-Greene-County-park/stories/201405300187#ixzz33ILUOcZy

And just three days after the state primary, and on the Friday before a 3 day holiday weekend, Corbett opened the frackgates to poisoning the air and water at our state parks and forests.



http://alleghenysc.org/#18487

May 28, 2014

Marcellus Shale Sludge Rejected in Washington County(PA) Sent to West Virginia

Source: Tribune Review

Range Resources on Tuesday disposed of Marcellus shale drilling sludge in West Virginia that was deemed too radioactive for a Washington County landfill.

The Cecil-based company sent two roll-off boxes of material from a well pad in Smith Township in Washington County to Meadowfill Landfill in Bridgeport, W.Va., spokesman Matt Pitzarella said. On March 1, representatives from Arden Landfill in Chartiers turned the material away after it tripped radioactivity monitors.



Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6184655-74/material-landfill-washington#axzz32t8dkuIi

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This news story broke around 8:30 p.m. tonight. This is the latest development on the story of radioactive fracking waste/sludge being turned down by Pennsylvania dumps/landfills. The Pennsylvania DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) would better be known as the Department of Environmental Prostitution. GOP Governor Corbett has so thoroughly sold out the state's DEP to Big Fracking that he has appointed political hacks from Big Oil at top spots, slashed the number of field inspectors even as the number of wells, well pads, processing stations has figuratively, and in some cases, literally exploded, and even stripped field inspectors of the ability to issue citations in the field, regardless of how egregious the violations.

The background story on this is at: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/05/27/Two-more-containers-found-with-Marcellus-Shale-sludge-radioactivity-in-Washington-County/stories/201405270162

The DEP states it is (merely) "encouraging" enforcement of radioactivity rules. “We’ve been talking to landfills and ENCOURAGING them to reject loads with radioactivity higher than 150 microcuries because we want more thought given to how we handle this and what goes into landfills,” Mr. Poister said. “It’s something we feel is necessary given the oil and gas boom.” I suggest the time is well past for thinking about how to handle this and merely ENCOURAGING the profiteers to exercise care. Safety guidelines should have been researched and documented, at the Frackers' expense, before fracking commenced and should be rigorously enforced.

Now a recent study determines that the test used by PA's DEP to measure radioactivity in fracking wastewater grossly UNDERESTIMATES radioactivity. "When energy companies extract natural gas from shale using hydraulic fracturing, they generate flowback wastewater, a brine solution that contains naturally occurring radionuclides, including radium isotopes. Because some of this wastewater is diverted to treatment plants and eventually discharged into local waterways, state environmental agencies have started to establish procedures for monitoring radium levels in the wastewater. However, a new study cautions that one test state agencies are considering could underestimate radium levels by as much as 99%." (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2014, DOI: 10.1021/ez5000379). http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/03/Analytical-Test-Underestimate-Radioactivity-Fracking.html

May 26, 2014

War Is A Racket speech by most decorated Marine General, Smedley Butler

This link is to a professional actor reading the words of
Smedley Darlington Butler, a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. Thanks to my old friend (and Army vet) Fran for sharing this with me. &feature=share

"War Is a Racket", circa 1935, outlines the connections between war and profiteering businesses. War is driven by enterprise. Don't send your kids off to fight for "our country" unless your loyalty is to Halliburton. I mourn for all who died in wars - both soldiers and civilians. They didn't die "for our freedom" or "to keep us free" - they died for war profiteers, and General Butler spells it out with moral authority, in absolute detail and no uncertain terms.

May 17, 2014

Tom Wolf's letter to Marcellus Shale Coalition

While any of the Democratic candidates for governor in next Tuesday's primary would make far better governors than Corbett, I feel Tom Wolf would be the best. Corbett is certainly afraid of him! Here are (1) my comments in the Tribune-Review and (2) the letter Tom Wolf sent to the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Wolf is the candidate Corbett is most threatened by. I have received THREE oversize, full color, multi-page campaign brochures, identified as "Paid for by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania", containing hyped-up, grossly distorted attacks on Wolf, mostly for actions taken by Obama, like the Affordable Care Act. They vaguely cite the likes of the uber-conservative Heritage Foundation (GAG!). I was undecided which Democrat to vote for in the primary - any of them would be a huge improvement over Corbett, but leaning toward Wolf. The campaign garbage from the GOP (doubtless subsidized by the fracking companies) has solidified my decision to vote for Wolf. It DID occur to me that the GOP's massive investment in these attack ads (never seen that in a Democratic primary in my 50 years of voting), COULD be an extremely clever psy-ops, reverse psychology move. But nah! That would mean the state GOP believed in science, and that would go hand in hand with believing massive climate change is occurring, exacerbated by human action, or that the earth is more than 6,000 years old, or gasp! believing in evolution.

I look forward to the fall election, and voting for Wolf, (BA, Dartmouth; MA , University of London: Ph.D. from MIT). I particularly like that he demonstrated a commitment to public service by serving 2 years in an agricultural assignment for the Peace Corps in India and has both business and government experience. By contrast, Corbett went to a tiny religious college & had to teach as a 9th grade sub for a year before finally finding a third tier Texas law school which would admit him.

October 18, 2013
Pittsburgh, PA
Dear Board Members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition:
As a fellow Chief Executive Officer and as a lifelong resident of Pennsylvania, I believe
the Marcellus Shale must be a key component of any plan for our state's economic
future. I believe we all have an obligation to get this new energy era right, and unlike Governor
Corbett, I will make sure state agencies tasked with environmental oversight are
adequately funded, staffed, and supervised to prevent reckless drilling, and that
irresponsible companies are held accountable.

And I will also make sure that if Texas, Wyoming, Louisiana, New Mexico, West
Virginia, and Oklahoma and most other states in the country currently benefit as oil and
gas companies cash in on those states' environmental resources, that Pennsylvania
does, too.

I believe this because when my wife and I bought back my kitchen and bath products
business, we turned it around by investing in people, innovating, and thinking about the
future differently. We turned the business from a wholesale distributor of
other people's products, into a company that sources our own American made kitchen cabinets and other building products that compete directly with products made in China. And we did it the right way --treating workers fairly and providing good benefits. We even return twenty to thirty
percent of all of our company's profits back to the workers -- because their work is what
truly makes my company successful.

I have no doubt that the natural gas operations of your companies are likewise
successful because of the leadership of your management teams, the innovation of
your engineers, and the hard work of your employees who work the drilling rigs.
But what also makes these operations successful is access to abundant recoverable
natural gas and direct access to the biggest markets in the world --and only
Pennsylvania offers businesses both. That's what makes us the Keystone State.
If done right and if its benefits are broadly shared, continued development of natural
gas is a bridge to a clean energy future and will allow Pennsylvania to have good
-paying energy jobs; a safe and secure environment; and the ability to make critical
investments in education, health care, and safe, reliable infrastructure.
Texas, Wyoming, Louisiana, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Oklahoma are just a few
of the places that use a severance tax to ensure that a fair portion of the profits from
their natural resources are used to fund key priorities. In fact, Pennsylvania is the only major gas producing state that doesn't accomplish this with a severance tax.

Unfortunately, the Marcellus Shale Coalition recently issued a press release that
misrepresents basic economic facts about a severance tax, while also stoking
unwarranted fears about job loss in a state that is too slowly recovering from the
economic recession. While it is true that Pennsylvania's corporate tax structure and corporate net income tax is one of the highest in the entire country, and we need to make our tax system fairer, few companies engaged in natural gas drilling pay corporate taxes thanks to loopholes.
According to a recent New York Times article, more than two thirds of the companies in
the Marcellus Shale Coalition are registered to a single address in Wilmington,
Delaware. And in 2008, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center found that only 15
percent of gas companies actually paid Corporate Net Income taxes to the
Commonwealth. In addition to avoiding corporate taxes, it has also been alleged in the
Pittsburgh Post Gazette that Marcellus Shale Coalition members have been picking the pockets of landowners by drawing up leases that deduct impact fees from royalty payments in
direct violation of Pennsylvania law. While many Marcellus Shale Coalition members act responsibly and want to share in the benefits of this remarkable natural resource, it seems that others may be more interested in cutting corners to increase profits at the expense of taxpayers, landowners, and the environment.

From January 2009 through June 2012, the top five fracking operators in Pennsylvania
were Chesapeake Energy, Range Resources, Shell Western, Talisman Energy, and
Anadarko--all of which are headquartered outside of the state. And according to
NPR's StateImpact Project these five companies were responsible for 1,786 en
vironmental violations totaling $2,548,156 in fines--or fifty-two percent of both the
total number of violations and total dollar amount fined for all operators.So let's end the empty rhetoric that gets us nowhere--and let's get to work on how best to share in the benefits of the Marcellus Shale to move both business and Pennsylvania forward. And if you think differently about a severance tax, it's easy to see how it will help boost demand for natural gas products--and thus increase profits for gas companies such as yours --by providing the state of Pennsylvania with the incentive and the revenue it needs to help build the natural gas infrastructure of tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Tom Wolf

http://action.wolfforpa.com/page/-/pdf/20131018_TomWolf_Letter_Marcellus_Shale_final.pdf

May 17, 2014

Websites Throttle FCC Staffers to Protest Gutting of Net Neutrality

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/fcc-throttling/?mbid=social_twitter

People worry that new rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission will allow internet service providers like Comcast or Time Warner to throttle download speeds for the next YouTube or Netflix. And some are actively pushing back against the FCC through the press and political channels. But that’s not the only way to protest the commission’s new rules. Various companies and organizations have added code to their websites that kicks in whenever there’s a visit from someone who works at the FCC. While everyone else is enjoying these websites at ordinary broadband speeds, this code ensures that FCC staffers view them at dial-up speeds reminiscent of the 1990s.

The online protest is the brainchild of Kyle Drake, a Portland-based software developer. “If it bothers you that I’m doing this, I want to point out that everyone is going to be doing crap like this after the FCC rips apart Net Neutrality,” Drake wrote on his blog. He posted the code to his website on May 9, saying he would throttle the FCC’s bandwidth until the agency paid him $1,000 per year to get what he calls his “Ferengi plan,” a tip of the hat to the unscrupulous money-grubbing Star Trek aliens. Now countless others are using his code.

Drake’s code works with the popular Nginx web server, and now there’s a version for Apache, too. The software doesn’t actually slow the FCC’s internet. It merely serves webpages to the agency much more slowly, after checking a visitor’s IP address against a list of known FCC addresses.

Earlier this week, MaxCDN, a web service provider, rolled Drake’s code into its web management console, so any of its customers can throttle the FCC with the click of a button. So far, more than 130 have done so, says Justin Dorfman, the company’s director of developer relations. “We could have written a ‘me too’ blog post saying ‘MaxCDN supports Net Neutrality — blah, blah, blah,’” he explains. “But we decided this was a way to raise awareness of this issue, not only to our customers but anyone with an Nginx server who wanted to do the same.”

May 16, 2014

Bill C.charges up to $750,000 per speech-Clintons solidly in 1 %

While HC was Secretary of State, she had to disclose amounts & sources of her husband's income on govt. employee financial disclosure forms. That's where all the details in this 2013 article come from. Now, and for as long as she is not a declared candidate for president, the Clintons' speechifying and all other income sources remain confidential - between them & the IRS. The details are almost impossible to believe - he was paid over $200,000 by a financially failing "non-profit" hospital. A newspaper publishing company in Nigeria paid him $700,000 each for speeches in two successive years - 2011 and 2012. Any politically cognizant person can draw conclusions about what quid pro quos are expected by domestic and foreign special interests groups and businesses in anticipation of Bill Clinton's wife being elected president.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/23/first-on-cnn-bill-clintons-106-million-speech-circuit-windfall/

http://www.politico.com/playbook/0213/playbook10052.html?hp=l6



[blockquote

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/bill-clinton-paid-500-000-speaking-advance-45-minute-speech-earning-11-100-minute-article-1.1361928#ixzz31uB4y4ch

Bill Clinton accepted a $225,000 speaking fee from the nonprofit Washington Hospital Center smack in the middle of two big rounds of layoffs in 2012 — one of a number of tax-exempt organizations that have paid big money to hear the former president talk.

The $225,000 payment wasn’t made public by the hospital on its annual Internal Revenue Service forms, but rather appeared among dozens of lucrative speeches by Mr. Clinton reported on his wife’s final ethics filing as secretary of state.

“No disrespect to Bill Clinton, but that money could’ve gone a long way and been put to better use,” said Dan Fields Jr., president of the Service Employees International Union Local 722 representing hospital workers. “Our contract expires on June 30, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to come to the table and talk about how they’re losing money, so this concerns me greatly.”

The hospital is hardly the only 501(c)(3) organization to shell out big money to hear Mr. Clinton speak. The Naples Philharmonic Center in Florida paid Mr. Clinton $200,000. Later, the nonprofit filed IRS forms showing that it lost $338,000 in overall revenue of about $24 million that same year. Another organization listed on Mrs. Clinton’s ethics form, the Bushnell Center, shelled out a six-figure check to Mr. Clinton. IRS forms show it reported a $1.8 million deficit during the same tax year it hired the former president.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/6/bill-clinton-cashes-in-on-nonprofit-hospital/#ixzz31uDdyZfU
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