Unnatural Disaster

Earthquake, schmirthquake -- a real natural disaster is coming to PA next week. PoliticsPA is reporting that Lil Ricky Santorum is planning a "three-day fundraising blitz across Pennsylvania."

But all joking aside, there was a serious issue raised by yesterday's East Coast quake. The epicenter of the quake was only about 11 miles from the North Anna nuclear-power station in central Virginia.


Via AmericaBlog: "The red pin is the epicenter of the quake.
Note Lake Anna in the upper right corner. That's the area in
which the Anna nuclear facilities are located."
(Click graphic to enlarge)
According to The Wall Street Journal:

Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude earthquake created a state of emergency at the North Anna nuclear-power station in central Virginia, causing it to lose electricity and automatically shut down, although generators restored power.

[snip]

Twelve additional nuclear plants in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina and Michigan declared "unusual events," the lowest of four emergency situations. They included Calvert Cliffs, the closest nuclear plant to Washington, D.C. The plant remained stable at 100% of capacity, said Mark Sullivan, a spokesman with Constellation Energy Nuclear Group LLC, which owns the plant.

And, here's where it gets stupid. Really, deeply stupid. And, by that, I mean Tea Party/Wingnut stupid. Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel.net notes that the epicenter of the quake occurred in House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-VA) district (which also contains the nuclear plants).

Wheeler reminds all that:

"Back in March, after the Japanese earthquake, Eric Cantor defended Republican plans to cut funding from the USGS and warning systems to help in case of a disaster."

Furthermore:

"Apparently, budget cuts in the 1990s [in VA] led to the removal of seismic equipment at the North Anna plant. (h/t Kirk)"

[snip]

"Cantor was in VA’s House of Delegates from 1992 to 2001, so there’s a decent chance he had a part in those budget cuts."

What a patriot!

Good For Them

They don't condone the violence:

Republicans and Tea Party activists condemned the threats and violent actions directed at a host of lawmakers this week in the wake of the passage of health care reform, but warned Democrats not to make a political issue out of it.

Top Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said on Wednesday that they do not condone the violence, which has included broken windows at campaign offices, threatening phone calls and faxes, and a severed gas line at the home of a lawmaker's brother.

"I do not condone violence," Cantor said on Capitol Hill on Thursday. "There are no leaders in the building, no rank and file members that condone violence, period."

Cantor, however, went on to be come the punchline du jour.

How?

By trying to blame it on the Democrats:

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor just gave a brief speech accusing Democrats of using reports of recent threats of violence for political gain, and saying someone shot a bullet through the window of his campaign office this week.

That last part, the bullet, is the joke.

How?

Take a look at the press release from the Richmond Police:

The Richmond Police Department is investigating an act of vandalism at the Reagan Building, 25 E. Main St., Richmond, Virginia. A first floor window was struck by a bullet at approximately 1 a.m. on Tuesday, March 23. The building, which has several tenants including an office used by Congressman Eric Cantor, was unoccupied at the time.

A Richmond Police detective was assigned to the case. A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman.

The AP Summarizes:

A bullet that hit a window in Republican U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor’s office building was fired randomly into the air, police said Thursday.

Which is to say, that Cantor was not the target.

And here's the punchline:

“It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain,“ Cantor told reporters.

Ha. Funny.

The GOP in Washington: No Longer Relevant

Hey, that's not me talking, that's Representative Eric Cantor, Republican from Virginia in today's Washington Times:

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, poised to ascend to House Republicans' No. 2 leader this week, said the Republican Party in Washington is no longer "relevant" to voters and must stop simply espousing principles. Instead, it must craft real solutions to health care and the economy.

"Where we have really fallen down is, we have lacked the ability to be relevant to people's lives. Let's set aside the last eight years, and our falling down in living up to expectations of what we said we were going to do," Mr. Cantor told The Washington Times in his district office outside of Richmond. "It's the relevancy question."

As chief deputy whip, Mr. Cantor, 45, was the logical choice to move up when Republicans' current whip, Rep. Roy Blunt, stepped aside - something Mr. Blunt announced days after Republicans lost at least 20 seats in the House.

Those "last eight years" he mentions are, of course, the disastrous Bush Administration.

When the chief deputy whip (and possible next House whip) says your party in DC is irrelevant, your party in DC is irrelevant.