No Bailouts for BP Rally Photos/Coverage

KDKA TV video @
http://kdka.com/video/?id=73157@kdka.dayport.com
As mentioned here, there was a rally yesterday in downtown Pittsburgh to protest BP.

The rally was hosted by the local chapters of MoveOn.org, Sierra Club and PennEnvironment.


Mellon Square, Pittsburgh, PA

Unfortunately, my camera is slowly dying and it took forever to "warm up" so no photos of City Paper talk show host Lynn Cullen or KDKA's Jon Delano. But, you can see Lynn interviewed in the link above.

As Lynn said on her show yesterday, she wanted to find some ray of light and so hoped that the BP Oil mega clusterfuck (my phrase, not hers) could be a "teachable moment." She spoke about the co-dependent relationship that we have with oil and how we've made a deal with the devil. She also mentioned an article in this week's City Paper about the dangers of drilling in the Marcellus Shale fields (of which we were all standing above).

It was raining cats and dogs leading up to the rally and for the first ten or fifteen minutes, so kudos to all those who braved the weather.

Randy Francisco, Sierra Club and Robert King, MoveOn
Joy Sabl gets creative as an oil-covered bird

Frack off!
(More photos after the jump)

The Global Socialist Climate Change Hoax Conspiracy Coninues

See (again) how high the conspiracy has gone.

From the most recent "State of the Climate" page at NOAA:

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for April 2010 was the warmest on record at 14.5°C (58.1°F), which is 0.76°C (1.37°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F). This was also the 34th consecutive April with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average.

And since we all know that global warming is a hoax, all the "official" pronouncements from "official" (and though none dare say it, taxpayer supported) guv'ment bureaucrats must be a damn lie.

The conspiracy is sooooo complicated, my friends. Look at what the socialists in charge have been able to accomplish. They've falsified the a huge amount of "data" to support their "theory." The "data" supposedly comes from across the globe in a myriad of different sources (surface readings, water readings, satellite readings, ice core readings, tree ring readings, and so on) and it's all been soooo ingeniously fabricated to all point to the conclusion the socialists want you to believe:

The earth is warming up and we're teh cause of it.

But since we all know that's totally and completely false (if only because of Climate-gate and that stupid "hockey stick" thing) we can only conclude and be awed by how widespread the conspiracy really is.

Be afraid, my friends. Be very afraid. First the "establish" the "fact" that global warming is real, next thing you know they'll be telling us teh gays aren't scary and that we descended from apes.

Jack Kelly CORRECTION

Remember this column by Jack Kelly?

Both Ed Heath and I blogged on it.

BTW, if you don't already know Ed's blog, go take a look. The wanker does a really really good job taking down Jack. I find myself grumbling, "Why the f**k didn't I think of that??" whenever I read his stuff. The wanker.

Anyway, back to Jack the Hack. The P-G published this in yesterday's paper:

Editor's Note / This column was changed to reflect this clarification, which was published on June 8:

Sunday Perspectives. Rep. Joe Sestak told Philadelphia radio host Larry Kane that he was offered a job by the Obama administration if he didn't run for the Senate seat held by Arlen Specter, but when asked if it was a high-ranking job, Mr. Sestak did not say "yes," as reported in a Jack Kelly column Sunday. The original account posted by the radio program on its website did have Mr. Sestak answering "yes" to the question. But a transcript subsequently posted on the site showed that Mr. Sestak refused to comment on whether it was the job of Navy secretary and a short time later responded this way when asked if it was a "big" job: "It was - never - let me not comment on it. We had a closed comm ... " The conversation was interrupted at this point by Mr. Kane's next question.

Something, I have to say in all honest, I had nothing to do with. But with glee in my heart and a twinkle in my eye I have to ask, "Another Jack Kelly correction?"

Kudos to the P-G for this one.

Trib Watch - Helen Thomas Edition

Before I say anything else let me say that what Helen Thomas said was 40 different ways of stupid and I can't disagree with anyone who thinks it was offensive, insulting, (fill in the blank).

But this posting isn't about Helen Thomas. It's about the hypocrisy of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

From today's Midweek Briefing:

Veteran UPI reporter and Hearst News columnist Helen Thomas, soon to turn 90, has "retired" after her incendiary remarks that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany, Poland and the United States. No word on Mrs. Thomas' start date with Hamas.

I find this funny because w-a-a-a-a-a-y back in 2007 there was another columnist who:

• when asked whether the country would be better off if we all were Christian, answered "yea."
• when asked whether "we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then" answered with another "yea."
• said that we (meaning Christians) "just want Jews to be perfected" and that a Christian is a "perfected" Jew.

Meet Ann Coulter, a columnist published by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (as recently as June 4, 2010). No word on when Coulter will join the Inquisition. Or the Crusades to free the Holy Land from the infidel.

CIA Experimentation on Detainees

A newly released white paper by Physicians for Human Rights reports that there is 'Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program.'

According to the report:

PHR analyzes three instances of apparent illegal and unethical human subject research for this report:

1. Medical personnel were required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop, and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures;

2. Information on the effects of simultaneous versus sequential application of the interrogation techniques on detainees was collected and used to establish the policy for using tactics in combination. These data were gathered through an assessment of the presumed “susceptibility” of the subjects to severe pain;

3. Information collected by health professionals on the effects of sleep deprivation on detainees was used to establish the “enhanced” interrogation program’s (EIP) sleep deprivation policy.

The report indicates, that not only were detainees tortured (which we already know), but that the initial torture was heavily monitored by health professionals in order to establish a fake new definition of torture to try to cover their asses legally for subsequent torture sessions.

Of course in experimenting to see just how far they thought they could go while torturing, they actually managed to perpetuate additional crimes as human experimentation without the consent of the subject is, as the report states, illegal:

[It's] a violation of international human rights law to which the United States is subject; federal statutes; the Common Rule, which comprises the federal regulations for research on human subjects and applies to 17 federal agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD); and universally accepted health professional ethics, including the Nuremberg Code. Human experimentation on detainees also can constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity in certain circumstances.

You can download the report here (.PDF)

UPDATE: The New York Times calls for an investigation.
.

Stop All Bailouts of BP Rally! Tomorrow in Pgh

WHERE: Mellon Square (the corner of William Penn Place and 6th St., Downtown) 529 - 540 Smithfield St., Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (Map)

WHEN: Wednesday, June 9th, 12:00 PM

WHAT: "Join MoveOn and PennEnvironment in calling on Congress to stop all bailouts of BP and Big Oil with taxpayer money. That means BP, not taxpayers, need to pay every penny to clean up their disaster in the Gulf. In addition, Congress is considering another gift to Big Oil at the public's expense this week by voting to further delaying action on global warming at Big Oil's request. A new report will show that this will cost Pennsylvanians money at the gas pump and increase our dependence on oil, all for the sake of Big Oil's profit margin. We'll also call on Congress to support strong campaign finance and ethics reforms -- so that Congress starts working for the 98% of us who aren't represented by DC lobbyists."

RSVP: Here

Facebook Page: Here

UPDATE: Oil Spill Vigil in Irwin Tonight!
Island by Dunkin Donuts, Route 30 and 10th.
Irwin, PA 15642
Tuesday, June 8th, 7:00 PM
RSVP Here
.

More On The Trib Brain Trust

You'd think they'd know how to read over there at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Or at least research more carefully.

From Sunday's "Whispers" column:

Rock 'n' roll delivering messages of conservatism?

It happens more than you might think, according to National Review.

The magazine's June 5 edition lists rock's 50 greatest conservative anthems. To make the grade, songs' lyrics had to convey a conservative idea or sentiment, such as skepticism of government or support for traditional values.

They even supply the url:

Space constraints prevent us from publishing the entire list, which can be found online at article.nationalreview.com/281095/rockin-the-right/john-j-miller.

But if you were to actually go to that page, you'd see this:

See the date?

May 26, 2006.

You'd think that with all the words flying around over there at the Trib, someone would have picked up the fact the "June 5 edition" it references is from 4 years ago. Not that that's the issue. The issue is how could a "news" organization get something so simple so wrong?

Now onto the list.

The Trib braintrust (and the folks at the National Review 4 years earlier) must not have paid too close attention to the "conservative" values on display on the list.

For instance "Bodies" by the Sex Pistols (they're conservatives??). The lyrics show that it's a song about a woman from Birmingham who'd just had an abortion. Are we led to believe that these lines sketch out the conservative position on abortion?

She was a no one who killed her baby
She sent her letters from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace

Are they really sending that message - that a woman who's had an abortion is "a bloody disgrace"? Ok, thanks for letting us know what you really think.

Then there's Revolution (do I really need to tell you what band? c'mon). If anything the song isn't about Conservatism as much as it's about moderation:

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out

So when the tea-partiers talk about how the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of tyrants, we can expect the Trib to shout them down, right?

And anyway, don't conservatives reject evolution? Some do, anyway. Just sayin'.

My favorite "conservative" song on the list is, of course, Sweet Home Alabama. The braintrust describes it thusly:

A tribute to the region of America that liberals love to loathe.

Let's not forget when the song was written (1973-4) and with that in mind, what do you think these lines from this "conservative" song about the "region of America liberals love to loathe" mean?

In Birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth

And who was the governor of Alabama in 1974? That would be George Wallace, then a segregationist. And Watergate doesn't bother them?

Yea, that's a good conservative message. They should have done their homework better.

Written on June 8 2010.

Another Two-Fer @ The Trib

Just a quickie this morning, sorry. Gotta get to work.

Trib Editorial:

If President Obama wants to bring some much-needed "discretion" to U.S. spending, as he insists, there's ample opportunity and valid reason to do so with what the United States spends at the United Nations. That's where fiscal discipline is a foreign concept.

In the past 10 years the U.N.'s regular biennial budget has more than doubled; its peacekeeping budget over the same period has increased threefold, according to the U.N.'s figures reviewed by The Heritage Foundation.

And the ever comical stand by Media Monday (with info from the Media Research Center) - both recipients of Scaife money that's never mentioned in the Scaife owned Trib.
Heritage Foundation: about $24 million from Scaife over the years.

Media Research Center: About $2.8 million from Scaife over the years.

Tell me again about how there's no vast right-wing conspiracy. Go ahead and tell me.

Jack Kelly Sunday

It's like clockwork. A story bubbles up in the conservative press and Jack Kelly regurgitates it onto the pages of the P-G. The column this week is on, as you might guess, "Sestak-Gate."

For months, the White House stonewalled inquiries about whether Mr. Sestak had been offered a federal job in exchange for dropping his challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary. But on May 28, White House Counsel Robert Bauer issued a statement that said:

"The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a presidential or other senior executive branch advisory board."

By stressing the offer was made by Mr. Clinton, who is not a member of the administration, and was for a non-paid job, Mr. Bauer's statement seemed contrived to get around 18 USC 600 and 18 USC 595, which make it a felony to offer a government job as a quid pro quo for a political favor.

The number of people who actually believe all of this is roughly akin to the number of people who believe President Clinton was telling the truth when he said: "I did not have sex with that woman."

Gratuitous jab at the Clenis aside, there are actually a lot of people who don't think a crime was committed here. Attorney type people. Even this attorney type person who was George W. Bush's chief ethics counsel from 2005 to 2007. On his blog, Richard Painter posted this:

The press is reporting continued controversy -- and threats of a Congressional ethics compliant -- over the White House having previously offered a political appointment to Congressman Joe Sestak “in return” for his agreeing not to run in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary against Democratic (formerly Republican) Senator Arlen Specter. Whatever offer the White House made, it didn’t work, and Sestak went on to win the primary.

“Nice try” is what I would say to the White House. I would prefer if the White House were to stay out of Democratic primaries and focus on the tasks at hand. Then again, President Bush occasionally intervened in Republican primaries (including on behalf of Senator Specter in 2004). The less partisan politics in the White House the better (I would like to see the President abolish the White House Office of Political Affairs). This, however, is nothing new and it hardly rises to the level of a major ethics controversy.

The allegation that the job offer was somehow a “bribe” in return for Sestak not running in the primary is difficult to support. Sestak, if he had taken a job in the Administration, would not have been permitted to run in the Pennsylvania primary. The Hatch Act prohibits a federal employee from being a candidate for nomination or election to a partisan political office. 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(3). He had to choose one or the other, but he could not choose both.

The job offer may have been a way of getting Sestak out of Specter’s way, but this also is nothing new. Many candidates for top Administration appointments are politically active in the President’s political party. Many are candidates or are considering candidacy in primaries. White House political operatives don’t like contentious fights in their own party primaries and sometimes suggest jobs in the Administration for persons who otherwise would be contenders. For the White House, this is usually a “win-win” situation, giving the Administration politically savvy appointees in the Executive Branch and fewer contentious primaries for the Legislative Branch. This may not be best for voters who have less choice as a result, and Sestak thus should be commended for saying “no”. The job offer, however, is hardly a “bribe” when it is one of two alternatives that are mutually exclusive.

In the comments, he even addressed 18 USC 595:

This provision could be interpreted to prohibit any official decision that is motivated by a desire to affect the outcome of an election: tax cuts, construction projects in certain districts, other government contracts that bring money into certain districts, hiring decisions, military deployments, etc. Such an interpretation does not hold water because much of what elected officials and the people who work for them do is motivated by elections. Trying to sort out whether the motivation was principally political would immerse the courts into political questions in which they have no business.

The only workable application of the statute -- and the context in which the statute is actually enforced -- focuses on objective bright lines such as official capacity endorsement of a candidate, use of government funds for partisan political activity, etc. The subjective, motivation approach to interpreting the statute does not work and has not been implemented.

And 18 USC 600:

This statute also could be interpreted broadly to prohibit political appointments being given after an election to campaign workers in part because of their campaign work. It is not interpreted and certainly is not applied in that way. The statute can be applied when there is an explicit quid pro quo. If you do this (political work), we will do this (government job). I doubt there is any precedent for applying this to a request that a prospective appointee not participate in a partisan election as a candidate. Indeed, as I have explained before the Hatch Act prohibits a full time Executive Branch employee from running for office in a partisan election. The White House ethics lawyer or someone else will ask all successful job applicants to stand down from candidacy for elected office.

This from the White House Chief Ethics Counsel from 2005-2007. So while Jack ends his column with this:

But as Mr. Nixon could have told Mr. Obama, it isn't the crime that does you in. It's the cover-up.

We can ask, "what crime?" When George W. Bush's ethics counsel says it's a stretch and that no bribe occured, what crime was committed?

As opposed to say, torture and war crimes.

As I wrote before, this is all about going after Sestak. For a conservative like Jack, who undoubtedly would favor Pat Toomey, that's a no-brainer.

Facts Don't Count At The Trib

Another moment of illogic today from The Trib editorial board:

Talk about petty. The Obama administration excluded Republican Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum from Tuesday's meeting with state attorneys general from states "immediately" affected by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. That, of course, includes Florida. Mr. McCollum is one of several state AGs challenging ObamaCare in court. Hmmmm, think that might just be the reason?

Let's look at the facts. From the AP:

Attorney General Eric Holder plans to visit the Gulf Coast to see areas affected by the oil spill and meet with state attorneys general and U.S. prosecutors.

The Justice Department says Holder will visit the region Tuesday. He is scheduled to receive a Coast Guard tour, then meet with the attorneys general of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi and several U.S. attorneys.

More facts from the AP:

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is taking the lead and is joined by attorneys general from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Louisiana. All are Republicans except James "Buddy" Caldwell of Louisiana, who is a Democrat.

And then this from Reuters:

Five more U.S. states are joining a Florida-led group of states in a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, Florida's attorney general said on Wednesday.

Wait, wait. You guessed what comes next:

"We welcome the partnership of Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Nevada and Arizona as we continue fighting to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens and the sovereignty of our states," Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said.

So tell me again how because his involvement with a legal challenge to so-called "ObamaCare" McCollum was excluded from the meeting when the three AGs Holder met with are all involved in that same legal challenge.

Talk about petty. Talk about stupid.

Some Minor Pimping At The Trib.

Take a look.

From today's Editorial Page:

Pittsburgh City Council plans to spend a quarter-of-a-million dollars to hire an out-of-state company to analyze Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's plan to lease city parking garage assets. We'll bet an outfit like the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy would do the job -- and a better one at that -- either as an outright public service or for a sum one heck of a lot less than $250,000.

Do we need to do this again?

Yes, I guess we do because this time it's a little different.

Ok - here goes. From an old blog post:

We should all remember that over the last 14 years, the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy got a full 87% of it's grant money from none other than Richard Mellon Scaife, owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review.

It's support to the tune of about $4million in case you're curious.

But look at what the Scaife's braintrust is doing today. Not only is it failing to point out the financial ties between the Allegheny Institute and Richard Mellon Scaife - that's bad enough - but with this editorial it's pushing to get a city contract for the Institute.

Nice going, my friends. You can now all add "pimp" to your resumes.

Avert your eyes

Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island
While BP has capped the well, oil is still gushing out. You can view it live here.

You can view more death and destruction that BP doesn't want you to see or hear about here.

Bush Admits To War Crimes

While the Trib Editorial Board is huffing and puffing about a special prosecutor for a non-crime, the former president admits to committing one - a big one.

So big it's a war crime.

From CNN:

In some of his most candid comments since leaving the White House, former President George W. Bush said Wednesday he has no regrets about authorizing the controversial waterboarding technique to interrogate terrorist suspects and wouldn't hesitate to do so again.

"Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," the former president said during an appearance at the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to the Grand Rapids Press.

"I'd do it again to save lives," he added.

Too bad it didn't. Oh, did I mention that IT'S ILLEGAL?

From Dan Froomkin at the Huffingtonpost:

Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years.

"As a nation, we have historically prosecuted it as such, going back to the time of the Spanish-American War," Irvine said. "Moreover, it cannot be demonstrated that any use of waterboarding by U.S. personnel in recent years has saved a single American life."

And then:

James P. Cullen, a retired brigadier general in the United States Army Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps, told HuffPost that the net effect of Bush's remarks -- and former Vice President Cheney's before him -- is "to establish a precedent where it will be permissible to our enemies to use waterboarding on our servicemen in future wars.

Cheney famously once agreed with an interviewer that "a dunk in the water" was "no-brainer" if it saves lives.

"This is not the last war we're going to fight," Cullen said. "Americans not yet born are going to be prisoners of war in those conflicts. And our enemies are going to be able to point back to President Bush and Vice President Cheney saying that waterboarding is OK.

"It's just shocking to me how he can be so flip about something that is so serious," Cullen said.

So in the future, some kid who's now in high school and who'll tonight be doing nothing more dangerous than fumbling around trying to figure out how to unhook his girlfriend's bra, is going to be tortured. His torturers will defend themselves by simply saying, "Yea, we tortured him and we'd do it again to save lives."

And we can have Bush to thank for that. Heckuva job you did there, dubya.

When can we expect a special prosecutor for this?

Toomey gets big bucks from Halliburton

Via Politico:

As Congress investigated its role in the doomed Deep Horizon oil rig, Halliburton donated $17,000 to candidates running for federal office, giving money to several lawmakers on committees that have launched inquiries into the massive spill.

The Texas-based oil giant’s political action committee made 14 contributions during the month of May, according to a federal campaign report filed Wednesday — 13 to Republicans and one to a Democrat. It was the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008.

Of the 10 current members of Congress who got money from Halliburton in May, seven are on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath.

[snip]

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce’s investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton's reelection effort. It was Halliburton’s second-largest donation of the month — topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate. [Emphasis added]

[snip]

Halliburton made the cement casings on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, and some experts have said the casings contributed to the cause of the disaster. Halliburton, in congressional testimony, has said it followed the orders of BP.

(h/t to Early Returns)

A nun being excommunicated for saving a woman's life is not the real story

Some of you may have heard about the excommunication of Sr. Margaret McBride in Phoenix, AZ.

The background (via NPR):

Last November, a 27-year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. She was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure," and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was "close to 100 percent."

The patient, who was too ill to be moved to the operating room much less another hospital, agreed to an abortion. But there was a complication: She was at a Catholic hospital.

"They were in quite a dilemma," says Lisa Sowle Cahill, who teaches Catholic theology at Boston College. "There was no good way out of it. The official church position would mandate that the correct solution would be to let both the mother and the child die. I think in the practical situation that would be a very hard choice to make."

But the hospital felt it could proceed because of an exception — called Directive 47 in the U.S. Catholic Church's ethical guidelines for health care providers — that allows, in some circumstance, procedures that could kill the fetus to save the mother. Sister Margaret McBride, who was an administrator at the hospital as well as its liaison to the diocese, gave her approval.

The woman survived. When Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted heard about the abortion, he declared that McBride was automatically excommunicated — the most serious penalty the church can levy.

[You can also view a 'Today Show' segment on this here.]

Now you may be thinking -- especially if you're not Catholic -- that this is merely a story about an interesting theological or philosophical debate, but that ignores the larger issue.

Why should non Catholics be concerned?

More On McCullough Corruption (The Kathleen Edition)

I stumbled across this in the P-G yesterday while enjoying yet another good fine lunchtime meal downtown.

The news isn't good:

An Allegheny County jury found a Collier woman guilty Tuesday of stealing more than $1.3 million from two separate employers over a period of several years.

Kathleen A. McCullough, 47, was charged with taking $1.2 million from Mackin Engineering, where she worked as the company's controller, and later from the Radiance Surgery Center in Upper St. Clair, where she worked as office manager.

The jury in the case before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos deliberated less than three hours before returning the verdict: guilty on all counts. Ms. McCullough will be sentenced on Aug. 27. She could face a sentence of up to three to six years in prison.

You remember Kathleen McCullough, right? You will in a minute.

Here's a clue:

Ms. McCullough is charged in a separate case, along with her brother, attorney and Allegheny County Councilman Charles McCullough, with defrauding an elderly Upper St. Clair widow. Mr. McCullough is charged with taking nearly $200,000 from her while acting as her attorney.

Ms. McCullough is accused of being paid to be a companion to the woman though she had no professional experience or licenses.

That case is scheduled to go to trial in October.

While the two are in charged in that separate case, the P-G reported awhile ago that Chuck McCullough was involved in this case as well:

Italo V. Mackin, president and CEO of Mackin Engineering, testified that when Ms. McCullough handled the finances and accounting for the company, she wrote more than $1 million worth of checks to herself, primarily to pay bills for her American Express card that were as high as $94,000 for a month. Mr. Mackin said he did not authorize the payments.

Mr. Mackin said he fired Ms. McCullough on a Friday in July 2006 once he learned she had been making unauthorized payments to herself. The following Monday, he said, Charles McCullough and an attorney were in his office. They met privately with Mackin vice president Jerome Schwertz.

In the meeting, Mr. Schwertz testified, Mr. McCullough maintained that the money was not stolen and accused Mr. Schwertz and Ms. McCullough of having an affair, saying Mr. Schwertz had authorized the payments. Mr. Schwertz testified that he did have an affair with Ms. McCullough for several years, but he denied it at the time.

A paragraph or so later:

Then the parties drew up a confidentiality agreement that neither side would press criminal charges or sue. Mr. Mackin said he did so to protect his family and prevent the affair from becoming public. Mr. Schwertz is married to Mr. Mackin's daughter.

From his website:

Council Member Chuck McCullough has served as an At-Large representative for the citizens of Allegheny County since January 2008. He views his role as doing whatever he can to try to help the residents of Allegheny County who are in need and is committed to doing so.

Isn't it nice to see an Allegheny County Councilman working so hard on behalf of a constituent?

Excerpts from President Obama's Remarks at CMU Today

Via White House press release:

Excerpts from President Obama’s Remarks at Carnegie Mellon University

As Prepared for Delivery-

America does not stand still. We move forward. That is why I’ve said that as we emerge from this recession, we cannot return to the pre-crisis status quo. We cannot go back to an economy that was too dependent on bubbles and debt and financial speculation. We cannot accept economic growth that leaves the middle-class owing more and making less. We must build a new, stronger foundation for growth and prosperity – and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for the last sixteen months.

It’s a foundation based on investments in our people and their future. Investments in the skills and education we need to compete. Investments in a 21st century infrastructure for America – from high-speed railroads to high-speed internet. Investments in research and technology, like clean energy, that can lead to new jobs and new exports and new industries.

This new foundation is also based on reforms that will make our economy stronger and our businesses more competitive – reforms that will make health care cheaper, our financial system more secure, and our government less burdened with debt.
…

Now, some of you may have noticed that we have been building this foundation without much help from our friends in the other party. From our efforts to rescue the economy to health insurance reform to financial reform, most have sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers. They said no to tax cuts for small businesses; no to tax credits for college tuition; no to investments in clean energy. They said no to protecting patients from insurance companies and consumers from big banks.
…

But to be fair, a good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government. It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.
…

As November approaches, leaders in the other party will campaign furiously on the same economic argument they’ve been making for decades. Fortunately, we don’t have to look back too many years to see how it turns out. For much of the last ten years, we tried it their way. They gave tax cuts that weren’t paid for to millionaires who didn’t need them. They gutted regulations, and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight. They shortchanged investments in clean energy and education; in research and technology. And despite all their current moralizing about the need to curb spending, this is the same crowd who took the record $237 billion surplus that President Clinton left them and turned it into a record $1.3 trillion deficit.

So we already know where their ideas led us. And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward.

I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward.
…

The catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf right now may prove to be a result of human error – or corporations taking dangerous short-cuts that compromised safety. But we have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth – risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes. Just like we have to acknowledge that an America run solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision we have for our children and grandchildren.

…The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future. That means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks more energy efficient. It means tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants. And it means rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.

But the only way the transition to clean energy will succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future – if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed. And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.

…The House of Representatives has already passed a comprehensive energy and climate bill, and there is currently a plan in the Senate – a plan that was developed with ideas from Democrats and Republicans – that would achieve the same goals. The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months. I will make the case for a clean energy future wherever I can, and I will work with anyone from either party to get this done. But we will get this done. The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century. We will not move back. America will move forward.

Call Us. We'll Do It!

Chris Potter does us a favor:

Somebody get the 2 Political Junkies on the phone. Dick Scaife's web o' influence might -- just might -- expand to include a nationally known weekly magazine.

As you may have heard, Newsweek is bust and looking for a buyer. And according to a Wall Street Journal dispatch late last week, among the interested parties is a protege of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review publisher Richard Mellon Scaife.

We can be reached at: 412 555-2PJs

In This Corner...And In That Corner

Recently we reported on the Tribune-Review's habit of promoting a climate skeptic while ignoring the National Research Council's report on climate change.

They did it again this morning. It does not inspire confidence:

It took Steve Goreham about a year to build the logical, comprehensive and convincing case against those who blame mankind for global warming he presents in "Climatism!" (New Lenox Books), his first book.

A whitewater kayaking enthusiast, father of three and business executive who holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Goreham began researching the topic in December 2008 and finished the book, except for some late additions dealing with Climategate and the Copenhagen conference, in November 2009.

We first notice the lack of expertise in the field of climate science. Ok so Mr Goreham holds a Master's electrical engineering. What does that have to do with climatology?

Next we notice the amount of time it took to research and write this skeptical guide. One year? What sort of research is that?

Luckily, the braintrust has an answer:

Goreham "read about 20 books and dozens of articles" in writing the book, which "became a project of about a hundred four- to five-page research papers." He based his conclusions on the evidence he reviewed -- which makes his approach exactly opposite that of the movement "Climatism!" debunks.

Wow. 20 books and "dozens of articles."

That's the extent of the research from this non-climatologist. And yet the Trib, as far as I can tell, has yet to mention this panel of a 2 dozen or so PhDs all writing in favor of climate change.

One guy, an MBA kayaking enthusiast business executive vs all those PhDs writing for the National Research Council and the Trib goes against the scientists.

Interesting.

Memorial Day

National Moment of Remembrance
3:00 PM (local time)