A debate about which party can better manage the federal government is a very small and short-sighted debate. If our vision is not bigger than that, we do not deserve to win.Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal • In a speech he plans to give to the Republican National Committee Thursday evening, during which he will use the phrase “recalibrate the compass of conservatism.” Jindal sounds like he’s running for president in 2016, and also like he’s hoping to score an era-defining speech akin to Rush Limbaugh’s defiant bit at 2009’s CPAC. Jindal’s response to the State of the Union that year didn’t get a lot of love from anyone, but he’s otherwise proven himself to be one of the country’s best Republican governors, so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of bandwidth he gets from this speech.
BREAKING NEWS: Oil rig explosion and fire off Louisiana coast, 2 missing
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that a Black Elk Energy Co. oil and natural gas platform had some sort of explosion occur in the gulf, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky over the water.
The coast guard is still searching for 2 missing people in the aftermath of the Black Elk platform explosion, and 11 have been taken to the hospital with injuries, some in critical condition.
Two BP Plc employees face criminal indictments for their part in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, and charges could be unveiled as early as Thursday, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
London-based BP is expected to pay a record U.S. criminal penalty and plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in the country’s history, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The sources told Reuters that a plea deal with the Justice Department over the 2010 disaster, in which 11 workers died, may be announced as soon as Thursday.
READ ON: BP workers face criminal charges from 2010 spill - source
Will be interesting to see if anyone goes to jail over this.
Scene from Isaac: “Beau Vige’ paddles his kayak down Johnson St. in Madisonville, which is taking on back water from Bayou De Zaire, to check out his neighbors who were still in their homes as Hurricane Isaac battered Madisonville Mandeville and the northshore with high winds and high tides, Wednesday August 29, 2012.” Isaac is quickly weakening this morning, but continues to drop heavy rains. (photo by Ted Jackson/The Times-Picayune)
Hurricane Isaac was downgraded Wednesday afternoon to a tropical storm but continued to hover over Louisiana with heavy rains and damaging winds. The storm, which was a Category 1 hurricane for 24 hours, has since sustained weakened winds of 75 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. The storm’s latest recorded location was about 50 miles west-southwest of New Orleans, moving to the northwest at 6 mph.
Isaac has knocked out power to more than 725,000 customers in five states as of Wednesday afternoon, the affected utilities reported. WWLTV in New Orleans reports that the CEO of Entergy Louisiana said power could be out for nearly half of the region’s customers for at least a week after the wind and rain plowed through the company’s energy grid.
While the situation on the ground is still far from ideal, it’s good to know that the billions spent on new levees in New Orleans actually yielded results. Unfortunately, $1.5 billion in insured damages are expected to be claimed, and flooding remains an issue in many parts of southern Louisiana as well.
» A large storm stays together: While not nearly as strong as Hurricane Katrina, the storm is nonetheless dropping a ton of rain — up to 20 inches in some places — and due to its large size, National Hurricane Center director Rick Knabb says that the storm is “not going to fall apart real quick.” Local officials are assessing rescue efforts needed for those stuck in flooded homes.
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» Authorities say an unidentified shooter opened fire on Deputy Scott Boyington in the parking lot of a steel plant in LaPlace, Louisiana. Though he was hit several times, Boyington was able to transmit a description of the suspect which led deputies to a local trailer park. After they began interviewing witnesses, a suspect emerged from a nearby trailer and ambushed Deputies Brandon Nielsen and Jeremy Triche with an “assault” weapon. Both officers were fatally wounded, and police have reportedly taken five people into custody.
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In a Louisiana public school, female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out and forced to undergo home schooling.
Welcome to Delhi Charter School, in Delhi, Louisiana, a school of 600 students that does not believe its female students have a right to education free from discrimination. According to its Student Pregnancy Policy, the school has a right to not only force testing upon girls, but to send them to a physician of the school administration’s choice. A positive test result, or failure to take the test at all, means administrators can forbid a girl from taking classes and force her to pursue a course of home study if she wishes to continue her education with the school.
Charter school or not, this seems like a pretty open violation of what should be an obvious example of a person’s right to privacy.
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
We assumed no debt and we end this campaign with money in the bank. Once again, we ran like we intended to serve. We received contributions averaging less than $50 each from thousands and thousands of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in all 50 states.
We were not included in a single one of the 23 nationally televised GOP debates, and yet received 7% of the popular vote in a national poll conducted just a few weeks ago. My team was amazing and I thank you.
Roemer nearly won ballot access on the Americans Elect ticket, being the lead candidate in their online vote. But Roemer did not reach the minor party’s threshold, and they shut down a couple weeks ago. Wonder if he’ll make a run for it in 2016.
Major newspaper downsizes to three “more robust” issues per week: The New Orleans Times-Picayune, the largest newspaper in Louisiana, will downsize and stop publishing a print edition daily, moving many of their resources to online-only publishing and probably cutting jobs along the way. This isn’t the first time the paper’s gone digital-only. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the city, forcing the paper to come out with a digital-only PDF for three days, because their printing presses were down. Eventually, the printing presses went back up, but the spirit of the paper never went down. Let’s hope for their community’s sake that these changes don’t strip the community of that spirit. (above, today’s cover, via Newseum)
EDIT: The Times-Picayune isn’t alone — three major Alabama newspapers are getting similar treatments.
If, during the last month of the campaign I discover I have no realistic chance of winning, I will ask my supporters to vote their conscience or their second choice so the issue of spoiler can be dropped once and for all.Presidential candidate Buddy Roemer • Pledging that, if he were to be in a losing battle for the presidency as the likely Americans Elect third-party candidate, he would drop out and ask his supporters to vote for someone else. Which is kind of a nice thing for him to do, considering the chances he’d screw up Obama’s re-election campaign are high — a Democrat-turned-Republican, Roemer’s just moderate enough that he might appeal to folks outside of the traditional Democrat-Republican prism. Like, for example, high-profile law-educator Lawrence Lessig, who suggests that even if he doesn’t spoil the election, “What he could spoil is the conspiracy of silence that now reigns about the corruption of this system. That’s the kind of spoiling this nation needs.” source (via • follow)
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