Let’s start over on the left wing. Many pro-Bama blogs are reveling in the fact that the state of Texas hasn’t inspected the exploding manure plant since 1995. That is wrong. The plant was inspected in 2006. And it was found to be unsafe. And it was fined. But, because they paid the fine, they were never inspected again. Yeah, Texas rolls like that. The nice people at Think Progress have a succinct take on it all.
It’s impossible to know at this point whether unsafe workplace conditions were a direct cause of this disaster, but we do know that it was cited for failing to obtain or qualify for a permit in 2006 after a complaint of a strong ammonia smell, a smell that was reported to be “very bad last night.” The plant hasn’t been inspected in the past five years, and in fact only six Texas fertilizer plants were inspected in that time. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is chronically understaffed, which means that a given plant like West Fertilizer can only expect to get a state inspection once every 67 years on average.
Texas is a great state for companies. Not so much so for people. Of course Texas is the state where children who meet the state’s academic requirements in High School are ineligible for state college.
The report notes that the Fordham Institute gave the state’s history standards a grade of “D,” calling it a “politicized distortion of history,” that is “both unwieldy and troubling” while “offering misrepresentations at every turn.”
These misrepresentations, Erekson writes, include excluding Native Americans from the standards curriculum until recently and citing states’ rights as a cause of the Civil War when Texas did not cite it in their historical “Declaration of Causes.”
That’s actually the good news when it comes to education in Texas.
On the NRA front things seem to be circling the drain. Their current president avoided military service due to failing a psyche evaluation and the dude who set the tone they live by these days killed an illegal immigrant in Texas (which turns out to be legal down there).
But, despite those auspicious facts, one of their biggest sources or personal revenue just pulled the plug and ran away. Adolphus Busch IV, of Budweiser fame, has taken his rifles and gone home.
Adolphus Busch IV, heir to the Busch family brewing fortune, resigned his lifetime membership in the National Rifle Association on Thursday, writing in a letter to NRA President David Keene, “I fail to see how the NRA can disregard the overwhelming will of its members who see background checks as reasonable.”
The resignation, first reported by KSDK, came a day after the Senate rejected a series of amendments to a gun control bill, including a bipartisan deal to expand background checks for gun sales. The NRA had vigorously opposed all those measures.
“The NRA I see today has undermined the values upon which it was established,” wrote Busch. “Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of your 4 million individual members.”
I should note that Busch joined the NRA before they were overrun by nutjobs. He’s just a guy who likes to hunt. Speaking as someone who has hunted and enjoyed it and who was taught gun safety at a young age, I can empathize with him. But, since he is white, rich and republican, his word means much more in the circles of the NRA than mine ever will. Hopefully someone will listen.
Since we’re leaning to the right now, let’s tilt all the way over.
As anyone who has not been in a coma knows, the police captured Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon bomber, just a day after killing his brother in a wild shoot out (coming soon to a theater near you). He had hid in a boat which is, quite possibly, the worst get-away vehicle known to man when you are surrounded by concrete. Let him be a lesson to remind you that we all live with the decisions we make.
Okay, so he’s caught. His family is Chechan. Mine is Irish. Neither fact matters. He is Muslim. So is my next door neighbor. It doesn’t matter. He worshiped his older brother. So does almost every little brother. It doesn’t matter. The older brother got dissed after winning the Gold Gloves. That is cause for a well written letter to the editor, not an excuse for blowing up innocent civilians.
Simply put what we do know is almost meaningless, beyond the fact that they caught the right guy. Well, almost all of what we know is meaningless. News Busters is going to be keeping a close eye on the media to see if they report the important fact that Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev may have voted for Obama.
Several posts on what several news organizations have confirmed as the Twitter profile of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indicate that that the 19-year-old Chechnyan immigrant was a supporter of Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.
If that is indeed the case, it does not mean that Obama has any sort of connection with or responsibility for the bombing suspect or his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It does, however, completely reverse the fantasy that many American liberals were openly hoping for: that the bombing suspects might be revealed as Timothy McVeigh 2.0, someone whose very name they could use to smear and deride anyone who stands against their belief system. In other words, one of those “dog whistles” we keep hearing so much about.
Now that information has emerged which not only indicates the suspected bombers were not radical conservatives but that one of them appears to be a supporter of President Obama, how widely will it be spread in the endless series of reports trying to report as many details about the two suspects?
Several news agencies have tracked down a Twitter account which is believed to belong to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two brothers whom the FBI has identified as the people responsible for a pressure cooker bomb which killed three people and injured nearly 150.
Well, it was good of him to note that our president is not suspected of being involved in an act of terror. For the record Timothy McVeigh was a big fan of Bush the elder. I don’t remember that nugget coming up at his trial.
Do you know why?
IT DIDN’T FREAKING MATTER!!!!!!
Whatever drove the Tsarnaev brothers to do what they did is almost meaningless. There is no rationalization that justifies killing innocent people outside of a war zone. And even with that exception things get murky.
Nevertheless, I’m glad they caught him. If only to ensure that he is not part of a larger plot or a member of some organization that means to do us harm. Something which I doubt at this point.
BTW, big UPS to NBC for noting that using white terrorists is easier in America than using Arabs. I’m sure no one will take advantage of that. I mean, seriously, thank God there are no white people in the world who wish us ill otherwise that could prove horribly prophetic.
Oy freaking vey.
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