(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Wal-Mart: Our shoppers are ‘running out of money’

By Parija Kavilanz, senior writer, CNNMoney

April 28, 2011: 2:41 PM ET

“We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” (Wal-Mart CEO) Duke said at an event in New York. “There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.”

…

Now, with its strategy of low prices all the time back in place, Duke said making Wal-Mart a “one-stop shopping stop” is a critical response to dealing with the rising price of fuel.

Americans don’t have the luxury of driving all over town to do their shopping.

Wal-Mart brings guns back

By Parija Kavilanz, senior writer, CNNMoney

April 28, 2011: 1:24 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Wal-Mart said Thursday that it is bringing guns back to many of its U.S. stores in an effort to lift slumping sales.

…

Wal-Mart currently sells rifles, shotguns and ammunition in about 1,300 stores in the United States.

Those firearms will now be available at about half of Wal-Mart’s 4,000 stores.

Tip of the hat to Chris in Paris who opines-

Is it asking for too much to have our political leadership implement policies that help the middle class as opposed to the continuing strategy that helps Wall Street?

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Severe storms have swept across the Midwest and Southern United States that have killed over 300 people as massive tornadoes swept through the region. It isn’t just tornadoes that are causing the devastation but the heavy rains have caused flooding that is wiping out entire towns as levees along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers fail.

Mississippi River Floods 2011: Deep South Braces For Surge Of Water Not Seen Since 1927

NEW ORLEANS — A surge of water not seen since the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 is forecast in coming days to test the enormous levees lining the Mississippi River on its course through the Deep South, adding another element of danger to a region already raked by deadly tornadoes and thunderstorms.

Mississippi’s and Louisiana’s governors issued flood warnings Thursday and declared states of emergency. Authorities along the swollen waterway in both states are warning nearby residents to brace for the possibility of any flooding. River boat casinos in Mississippi are closing and levee managers are readying sand bags and supplies – and the manpower to build the defenses – to fight the rising river along hundreds of levees in both states where the river crosses en route to the Gulf of Mexico.

Missouri levee fails; prompting more evacuations

(CNN) — A compromised levee in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, failed Tuesday, forcing authorities to order more evacuations in the region.

The levee failed in at least four locations along a two-mile stretch along the Black River, City Manager Doug Bagby said.

The failure was sending floodwaters from the Black River into a populated but rural area of Butler County, sparing the city of Poplar Bluff, said the city’s deputy police chief, Jeff Rolland.

Authorities were worried about another one to three inches of rain in the forecast.

It was unclear how many people might eventually be affected by the flooding, Butler County Sheriff’s Detective Scott Phelps said. As of midafternoon Tuesday, several hundred homes had been evacuated in the county, he said. The breaks occurred between Poplar Bluff and the community of Qulin, about 12 miles to the southeast.

As reported at Think Progress, “the levee’s failure is a tragic reminder of the sorry state of America’s infrastructure.”

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, nearly ten percent of the levees in the country are expected to fail during a flood event. The Civil Corps. of Engineers gave the U.S. levee system a D- grade in 2009, and estimated that it would take a $50 billion investment to get those levees into adequate shape:

   During the past 50 years there has been tremendous development on lands protected by levees. Coupled with the fact that many levees have not been well maintained, this burgeoning growth has put people and infrastructure at risk-the perceived safety provided by levees has inadvertently increased flood risks by attracting development to the floodplain. Continued population growth and economic development behind levees is considered by many to be the dominant factor in the national flood risk equation, outpacing the effects of increased chance of flood occurrence and the degradation of levee condition.

Projected federal spending on levees in the next five years is expected to be just $1.13 billion, leaving a $48.87 billion shortfall in needed funding (pdf). According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “there are 881 counties – or 28 percent of all counties in the United States – that contain levees or other kinds of flood control and protection systems.” More than half of the U.S. population resides in those counties.

Overall, the U.S. has about $2.2 trillion in unaddressed infrastructure needs (pdf). The Congressional Progressive Caucus budget that was released earlier this month includes $30 billion “as start-up costs for a national infrastructure bank (pdf) that would leverage private financing to help rebuild America’s public capital stock,” and budgets for $1.2 trillion in public investment (pdf) over the next five years.

Congress and the President are failing America with tax cuts and tax loopholes for the wealthy and billions in subsidies for corporations as they talk about reducing the deficits and spending cuts. Investing in infrastructure is vital to America’s survival. It would create jobs, reducing unemployment and increasing tax revenue.

America is circling the drain, the drain is clogged and now we are drowning.

Update (ek hornbeck):

Missouri House Speaker Steve Tilley: Flood Cairo, Illinois To Save Farmland

Huffington Post

04-28-11 05:00 PM

Missouri’s Republican House Speaker Steve Tilley was asked by reporters about the dilemma. “Would you rather have Missouri farmland flooded or Cairo underwater?” Tilley is asked.

Without hesitation, he replies, “Cairo. I’ve been there. Trust me. Cairo.”

…

Cairo, Illinois (pronounced KAY-roh) was at the turn of the 20th century a bustling trade center. The 2,800-person town is now largely abandoned, two-thirds African-American, and deeply impoverished: nearly 50 percent of children under the age of 18 in Cairo live below the poverty level.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

April 29 is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 246 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1946, Hideki Tojo, wartime premier of Japan, is indicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of war crimes. In September 1945, he tried to commit suicide by shooting himself but was saved by an American physician who gave him a transfusion of American blood. He was eventually hanged by the Americans in 1948 after having been found guilty of war crimes.

Capture, trial, and execution

After Japan’s unconditional surrender in 1945, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur issued orders for the arrest of the first forty alleged war criminals, including Tojo. Soon, Tojo’s home in Setagaya was besieged with newsmen and photographers. Inside, a doctor named Suzuki had marked Tojo’s chest with charcoal to indicate the location of his heart. When American military police surrounded the house on 8 September 1945, they heard a muffled shot from inside. Major Paul Kraus and a group of military police burst in, followed by George Jones, a reporter for The New York Times. Tojo had shot himself in the chest with a pistol, but despite shooting directly through the mark, the bullets missed his heart and penetrated his stomach. At 4:29, now disarmed and with blood gushing out of his chest, Tojo began to talk, and two Japanese reporters recorded his words. “I am very sorry it is taking me so long to die,” he murmured. “The Greater East Asia War was justified and righteous. I am very sorry for the nation and all the races of the Greater Asiatic powers. I wait for the righteous judgment of history. I wished to commit suicide but sometimes that fails.”

He was arrested and underwent emergency surgery in a U.S. Army hospital, where he was cared for postoperatively by Captain Roland Ladenson. After recovering from his injuries, Tojo was moved to the Sugamo Prison. While there he received a new set of dentures made by an American dentist. Secretly the phrase Remember Pearl Harbor had been drilled into the teeth in Morse Code.

He was tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for war crimes and found guilty of the following crimes:

   count 1 (waging wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law)

   count 27 (waging unprovoked war against the Republic of China)

   count 29 (waging aggressive war against the United States of America)

   count 31 (waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth of Nations)

   count 32 (waging aggressive war against the Kingdom of the Netherlands)

   count 33 (waging aggressive war against the French Republic)

   count 54 (ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others)

Hideki Tojo accepted full responsibility in the end for his actions during the war. Here is a passage from his statement, which he made during his war crimes trial:

   It is natural that I should bear entire responsibility for the war in general, and, needless to say, I am prepared to do so. Consequently, now that the war has been lost, it is presumably necessary that I be judged so that the circumstances of the time can be clarified and the future peace of the world be assured. Therefore, with respect to my trial, it is my intention to speak frankly, according to my recollection, even though when the vanquished stands before the victor, who has over him the power of life and death, he may be apt to toady and flatter. I mean to pay considerable attention to this in my actions, and say to the end that what is true is true and what is false is false. To shade one’s words in flattery to the point of untruthfulness would falsify the trial and do incalculable harm to the nation, and great care must be taken to avoid this.

He was sentenced to death on 12 November 1948 and executed by hanging on 23 December 1948. In his final statements, he apologized for the atrocities committed by the Japanese military and urged the American military to show compassion toward the Japanese people, who had suffered devastating air attacks and the two atomic bombings.

 711 – Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).

1429 – Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orleans.

1483 – Gran Canaria, the main of the Canary Islands is conquered by the Kingdom of Castile, very important step in the expansion of Spain.

1587 – Francis Drake leads a raid in the Bay of Cadiz, sinking at least 23 ships of the Spanish fleet.

1672 – Franco-Dutch War: Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands.

1770 – James Cook arrives at and names Botany Bay, Australia.

1781 – American Revolutionary War: British and French ships clash in the Battle of Fort Royal off the coast of Martinique.

1832 – Evariste Galois released from prison.

1861 – American Civil War: Maryland’s House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union.

1862 – American Civil War: New Orleans, Louisiana falls to Union forces under Admiral David Farragut.

1882 – The “Elektromote” – forerunner of the trolleybus – is tested by Ernst Werner von Siemens in Berlin.

1909 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.

1916 – World War I: The British 6th Indian Division surrenders to Ottoman Forces at the Siege of Kut in one of the largest surrenders of British forces up to that point.

1916 – Easter Rebellion: Martial law in Ireland is lifted and the rebellion is officially over with the surrender of Irish nationalists to British authorities in Dublin.

1945 – World War II: The German Army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.

1945 – World War II: Start of Operation Manna.

1945 – World War II – Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Donitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun will commit suicide the next day.

1945 – The Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.

1945 – The Italian commune of Fornovo di Taro is liberated from German forces by Brazilian forces.

1946 – The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convenes and indicts former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders for war crimes.

1951 – Tibetan delegates to the Central People’s Government arrive in Beijing and draft a Seventeen Point Agreement for Chinese sovereignty and Tibetan autonomy.

1953 – The first U.S. experimental 3D-TV broadcast showed an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.

1965 – Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) successfully launches its seventh rocket in its Rehber series.

1967 – After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.

1968 – The controversial musical Hair opens on Broadway.

1970 – Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong.

1974 – Watergate Scandal: President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings related to the scandal.

1975 – Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The U.S. begins to evacuate U.S. citizens from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end.

1986 – A fire at the Central library of the City of Los Angeles Public Library damages or destroys 400,000 books and other items.

1991 – A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 mph, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless.

1992 – 1992 Los Angeles riots: Riots in Los Angeles, California, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.

1997 – The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories.

1999 – The Avala TV Tower near Belgrade is destroyed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

2004 – Dick Cheney and George W. Bush testify before the 9/11 Commission in a closed, unrecorded hearing in the Oval Office.

2004 – Oldsmobile builds its final car ending 107 years of production.

2005 – Syria completes withdrawal from Lebanon, ending 29 years of occupation.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day:

       Catherine of Siena

       Endelienta (Roman Catholic and Anglican Church)

       Hugh of Cluny

       Robert of Molesme

       Torpes of Pisa

       April 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

   * International Dance Day (International)

   * Queen’s Night (the Netherlands)

   * Showa Day, traditionally the start of the Golden Week holiday period. (Japan)

   * The beginning of Arita Ceramic Fair (Arita, Saga, Japan)

Searchers comb twister debris for victims; death toll nears 300

‘Neighborhoods … basically removed from the map,’ Tuscaloosa mayor says

NBC, msnbc.com and news services

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Survivors and rescuers combed through destroyed towns and neighborhoods on Thursday, looking for belongings and victims after dozens of tornadoes ripped through the South overnight.

The death toll continued to climb in Alabama, and at least 298 people in six states perished in the deadliest outbreak in nearly 40 years.

People in hard-hit Alabama, where at least 210 deaths occurred, walked through flattened, debris-strewn neighborhoods and told of pulling bodies from rubble after the storms passed.

“We have neighborhoods that have been basically removed from the map,” Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox said after surveying his city.

Robert Fisk: Out of Syria’s darkness come tales of terror

 Witnesses who fled across the Lebanon border tell our writer what they saw

Friday, 29 April 2011

In Damascus, the posters – in their tens of thousands around the streets – read: “Anxious or calm, you must obey the law.” But pictures of President Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez have been taken down, by the security police no less, in case they inflame Syrians.

There are thieves with steel-tipped rubber coshes on the Damascus airport road at night, and in the terminal the cops ask arriving passengers to declare iPods and laptops. In the village of Hala outside Deraa, Muslim inhabitants told their Christian neighbours to join the demonstrations against the regime – or leave.

Tunisia angered by border clashes



irishtimes.com – Last Updated: Friday, April 29, 2011

Libya’s two-month civil war spilled over the border into Tunisia last night, provoking outrage in the western neighbour.

Fighting between forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy and rebels trying to end his of rule spilled over Libya’s land frontier yesterday, when Gadafy troops battled rebels on Tunisian territory for control of the Dehiba-Wazin frontier crossing.

The incursion was brief and limited, and Gadafy’s troops even apologised locally. But the response was nevertheless furious from Tunisia, where the Arab world’s wave of uprisings began late last year, leading to the overthrow of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January.

Palestinian deal rings alarm bells in Israel



Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner Jerusalem

April 29, 2011

THE two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, say they are putting aside years of bitter rivalry to create an interim unity government and hold elections within a year.

The surprise deal, brokered in secret talks by the caretaker Egyptian government, was announced at a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday where the two negotiators referred to each side as brothers and declared a new chapter in the Palestinian struggle for independence. That struggle has been hobbled in recent years by the split between the Fatah-run West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Bob’s ‘Lazarus moment’

 

JASON MOYO HARARE, ZIMBABWE – Apr 29 2011

The trick was obvious, and it worked; weary Zimbabweans picked up the papers and fantasised it was another name on the page.

Rumours about his health have never been this feverish, murmurs of dissent within the party continue, and the patience of his regional allies wears thin.

Yet it may be some time yet before local papers carry news of Mugabe’s fall.

Over the two years that he has been in coalition with Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe has carefully plotted a path towards what one of his top fixers, Jonathan Moyo, has described as Zanu-PF’s “Lazarus moment”.

South Africa’s new Internet cable link could bring economic boom

A new $650 million cable system connecting southern Africa with West Africa and Europe will double the capacity of South Africa’s mobile phone and Internet networks.

By Savious Kwinika, Correspondent, Scott Baldauf, Staff writer  

Johannesburg, South Africa

When the $650 million West Africa Cable System landed in South Africa last week, it was a major step forward for a region that remains the one of the least-connected in the world.

With one East African sea cable connecting South Africa with high-speed Internet systems in Asia and the Middle East, and now a second sea cable connecting southern Africa with West Africa and Europe, South Africa’s capacity of mobile phone networks and Internet networks will double. When the two systems are fully operational, South Africans will be able to send and receive up to 500 gigabytes per second.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck

Featured Essays for April 28, 2011-

• "Gray Eagle Draws First Blood" in Afghanistan by Jacob Freeze
• Three Cups of a Flawed Hero: The Limits of Greg Mortenson’s Model of Change by PaulLoeb
• Where is the outrage? It’s Here by TheMomCat
• Turning Japanese by ek hornbeck
• Cardinal George fires Fr. Pfleger – by Xanthe
• What Happens When You Tickle a Baby Penguin? by Jacob Freeze

DocuDharma

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 US economy slowed sharply in first quarter

by Paul Handley, AFP

1 hr 23 mins ago

AFP

2 Fed chief holds court, signals end of stimulus plan

by Andrew Beatty, AFP

Wed Apr 27, 6:40 pm ET

3 Britain withdraws Syria’s wedding invite

by Danny Kemp, AFP

Thu Apr 28, 7:47 am ET

4 New attack on Pakistan navy kills five

by Hasan Mansoor, AFP

Thu Apr 28, 7:40 am ET

5 Russia bans gasoline exports amid shortages

by Dmitry Zaks, AFP

Thu Apr 28, 7:07 am ET

Reuters

6 Economic growth slows, inflation surges

By Lucia Mutikani, Reuters

1 hr 40 mins ago

7 Bomb attack in Morocco tourist cafe kills 15

By Youssef Boudlal, Reuters

31 mins ago

8 Bahrain sentences four to die over police killing

Reuters

9 mins ago

9 Libyan forces overrun rebels on Tunisian border

By Lin Noueihed and Abdelaziz Boumzar, Reuters

1 hr 8 mins ago

10 Syria’s Assad facing dissent over Deraa crackdown

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 7:47 am ET

11 European push for U.N. condemnation of Syria fails

By Louis Charbonneau and Patrick Worsnip, Reuters

Wed Apr 27, 8:58 pm ET

12 AIG seeks to recoup billions it says lost to fraud

By Tom Hals, Reuters

13 mins ago

13 Ex-SAC manager pleads guilty to insider trading

By Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

56 mins ago

14 NYSE investors demand Nasdaq talks

By Jonathan Spicer and Luke Jeffs, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 12:20 pm ET

15 Buffett’s Berkshire says Sokol deceived and broke law

By Ben Berkowitz, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 1:37 am ET

16 Nuclear regulator scrutinizes back-up power plans

By Roberta Rampton and Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters

1 hr 37 mins ago

17 Portugal bailout terms seen ready in days: source

By Sergio Goncalves, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 9:52 am ET

18 Royal wedding no tonic for fragile UK recovery

By Christina Fincher

Thu Apr 28, 9:39 am ET

19 Sony faces global legal action over data theft

By Nathan Layne and Tom Hals, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 10:27 am ET

20 Panasonic to axe thousands of jobs, close dozens of plants

By Isabel Reynolds and Reiji Murai, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 6:48 am ET

21 BOJ believes Japan in recession, stands pat on policy

By Leika Kihara and Rie Ishiguro, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 8:05 am ET

22 Deutsche Bank acquisitions drive near-record profit

By Edward Taylor and Arno Schuetze, Reuters

Thu Apr 28, 6:56 am ET

23 Bernanke signals no rush to reverse stimulus

By Mark Felsenthal and Glenn Somerville, Reuters

Wed Apr 27, 6:49 pm ET

24 Apple denies tracking iPhone customers

By Paul Thomasch, Reuters

Wed Apr 27, 5:00 pm ET

AP

25 Analysis: Obama had no choice in ‘birther’ fight

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

Thu Apr 28, 6:35 am ET

26 Some blacks see racism in ‘birther’ questions

By SONYA ROSS, Associated Press

46 mins ago

27 In one stroke, a new Obama national security team

By ERICA WERNER and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press

16 mins ago

28 Gadhafi forces shell frontline city in west Libya

By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press

25 mins ago

29 Cheaper eye drug proves as good as pricier one

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer

6 mins ago

30 Economy slowed by high gas prices, bad weather

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

1 hr 41 mins ago

31 Exxon earns nearly $11B in 1Q, best since ’08

By CHRIS KAHN, AP Energy Writer

1 hr 41 mins ago

32 Govt urging food companies to limit ads for kids

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

36 mins ago

33 Terrorist attack hits cafe in Morocco, 14 dead

By HASSAN ALAOUI, Associated Press

50 mins ago

34 Unity among North Waziristan groups crumbles

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press

Thu Apr 28, 6:35 am ET

35 Ivorian warlord spox says he was beaten, killed

Associated Press

58 mins ago

36 Afghan officer opens fire, kills 9 Americans

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 10:00 pm ET

37 DNA tests link Southern leprosy cases to armadillo

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer

Wed Apr 27, 9:17 pm ET

38 NJ voters approve 80 percent of school budgets

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

2 hrs 6 mins ago

39 UN fails to agree on condemning Syria

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 11:27 pm ET

40 Mo. Gov. Nixon signs compromise dog-breeding bill

By CHRIS BLANK, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 10:06 pm ET

41 Blowout could spill 58 million gallons in Arctic

By DAN JOLING, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 9:24 pm ET

42 Judge rules against gag order in Idaho prison suit

By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 9:23 pm ET

43 Reid: US must compete with China to lead on energy

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 8:25 pm ET

44 Obama proposes broadening EPA’s power over water

By JOHN FLESHER, AP Environmental Writer

Wed Apr 27, 8:12 pm ET

45 Federal judge rules Muslims can’t see FBI files

By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press

Wed Apr 27, 7:41 pm ET

46 For Fed chief, no news makes for a successful day

By PAUL WISEMAN and JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writers

Wed Apr 27, 6:39 pm ET

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Goldie Taylor: Why Obama shouldn’t have had to ‘show his papers’

“Show me your papers!”

Major Blackard, then just 19 years old, dug into his trousers in search of his wallet. He padded his jacket, but could not find his billfold.

“Sir, I done left my wallet…” Blackard said. Before he could finish his sentence, the young man was posted against the brick wall, cuffed and taken to the St. Louis city jail. Unable to prove his identity, he would spend the next 21 days in a cramped, musty cell. That’s where his older brother Matt found him, beaten and bloodied. Matt returned with Major’s employer later that day, wallet and identification card in hand, to post bond.

The year was 1899. Major Blackard was my great, great grandfather.

The real crime, as Pulitzer Prize winning author Doug Blackmon points on in his seminal work Slavery by Any Other Name, was that my grandfather was a colored man in America.

This morning, as White House staffers released copies of the president’s long form birth certificate, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something very ugly was going on. For the first time in recorded history, a sitting president of the United States found it necessary to produce his original birth certificate for public inspection. Not once, in 235 years, have we ever demanded proof that our president was born on American soil.

Glen Ford: Michigan’s “Emergency” Financial Regime: What Fascism Looks Like

Fascism is not all about jack-boots and guys with mustaches. It is a system of economic and social control. The particularities of fascism in any given nation grow out of the special dynamics of that country. Fascism in the United States will be blow-dried. And its legal and bureaucratic form will take shape in places like Michigan, where an innocuous sounding piece of legislation called the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act is the prototype for a host of laws designed to make government – the state – a compliant tool for the dictatorial rule of the most predatory sections of the ruling class. In 2011 America, that’s Wall Street, finance capital.

Michigan’s law allows the state to appoint emergency managers to nullify contracts, including labor agreements – which is what has unions upset. But the scope and intention of the law is much deeper and wider than simply anti-union. The legislation allows emergency managers to nullify the powers and authority of local governments of all kinds. One of its supporters gave the game away when he spoke of the need to impose a kind of “financial martial law” in which all pretense of democracy would be abolished in targeted communities. The community the Republican politician had in mind was Detroit, the Black metropolis, where the public schools were promptly put under emergency state control. But there is nothing to stop the state from abolishing democratic governance in any of Michigan’s cities, if an emergency can be declared or created. On April 15, the mostly Black city of Benton Harbor, the poorest jurisdiction in the state, was placed under total financial martial law, its citizens suddenly made more powerless than Blacks in Selma, Alabama, prior to the civil rights movement.

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke held a first ever news conference after the central bank’s meeting of Federal Open Market Committee which determines interest rates. His statement and the Q&A after were really boring as Bernanke droned in a monotone voice and filibustered questions. It took a bit, as David Dayen noted, to get to the meat, jobs, and what is the Fed doing to create them.

Bernanke answered that, while he has been engaged in extraordinary efforts to aid the economy, he had to be concerned about inflation as well. So basically, the Fed is failing at one of their mandates (maximizing employment) because they’re worried about their other mandate (price stability)… which they are ALSO FAILING AT! There’s also no awareness that, if inflation rises unacceptably, you can deal with it at that time. Refusing to stop the human suffering of mass unemployment because of the possibility of an inflation rise that can be dealt with if it happens is just a giveaway that the inflation mandate matters overwhelmingly more than the employment mandate.

Jobs? Never mind, too busy trying to control the inflation that hasn’t happened? Do these people shop or drive?

The first quarter growth rate report wasn’t encouraging either, coming in at a dismal 1.8% which was not unexpected due to “Higher commodity prices and winter blizzards that shuttered businesses and delayed construction were among the main causes of the slowdown, along with a large decrease in federal government spending and a sharp increase in imports, which are subtracted from output.” This will effect jobs no matter how optimist Bernanke is about the slow down being “transient”

(G)iven the ground lost during the Great Recession, the economy has a long way to go before its job market and output are back on track. And there are fears that the slow growth in the first quarter may weigh on job growth going forward, since employment trends tend to lag what happens in the rest of the economy.

“We may see employment growth weaken a little bit in the coming months, with more modest increases,” said Paul Dales, a senior United States economist for Capital Economics.

Dayen also reminds us that:

The first quarter saw a pretty modest decrease in spending – $10 billion from two continuing resolutions while negotiations on 2011 appropriations continued. If that was enough of a factor to contribute to sending growth down, then the impact will be the same in the next two quarters. And the fourth quarter, on the 2012 budget, is grand bargain time. So there’s no quarter that won’t be affected by contractionary fiscal policy. And don’t forget the debt limit, a failure to increase with will play havoc with the financial system and economic growth as well.

snip

Growth out of a recession is supposed to be sky-high. This homemade chart from Steve Benen is nice, but he knows that growth has sagged well below where a recovery should be for five straight quarters now. He even says it: “We can and must do much better than 1.8%, but we won’t if the nation pursues a conservative approach that focuses on one problem that doesn’t exist (inflation) rather than the problem that does exist (weak economic growth).”

How does this affect jobs? Job growth was actually above expectations for the quarter given this growth number. But realistically, you cannot expect to lower the unemployment rate without growth of 3% or higher. And as Paul Krugman noted yesterday, if you look at the employment-population ratio or other datum, you’ll see that job growth is totally stagnant. Which is in line with the stagnant growth in GDP.

Also a note about the Budget Battle in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) decided to take the bull by the horns and ride the wave of protests at townhall meetings over Wisconsin Republican Rep Paul Ryan’s disastrous budget that passed the House on a strict partisan vote. Reid announced that he will bring the budget up for a vote in the Senate:

“Republicans seem to be in love with the Ryan budget. And they are going to have an opportunity here in the Senate to vote on the Ryan budget and see (how many) Republican senators like the Ryan budget as much as their House colleagues did, he said.

Reid spokesman Jon Summers said that the timing of the vote has not yet been determined.

The idea behind Reid’s plan is to force Senate Republicans to vote on the measure, which could put incumbents facing tough reelections on the spot.

The Ryan budget is not expected to pass the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats.

“I would hope they do”, Reid said when asked if he thinks the Senate will reject the plan. “It would be one of the worst things to happen to this country if that came into effect.”

Talk of a Republican split emerged alst week when centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she would not vote for Ryan’s plan.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

April 28 is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 247 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day, two events occurred involving the South Pacific. Separated by 158 years, one was a mutiny, the other a grand adventure.

Apr 28, 1789: Mutiny on the HMS Bounty Mutiny on the Bounty: The mutiny  was led by Fletcher Christian against the commanding officer, William Bligh. The sailors were attracted to the idyllic life on the Pacific island, and repelled by the alleged cruelty of their captain. Captain Bligh and 18 sailors were set a drift in the South Pacific, near the island of Tonga. Christian along with some of the mutineers and native Tahitians eventually settled on Pitcairn Island an uninhabited volcanic island about 1000 miles south of Tahiti. The mutineers who remained behind on Tahiti were eventually arrested and returned to England where three were hanged. The British never found Christian and the others. Captain Bligh and the 18 others eventually arrived in Timor.

Years later on 1808. am American whaling vessel discovered the colony of women and children led by the sole surviving mutineer, John Adams. The Bounty had been stripped and burned. Christian and the other 8 mutineers were dead. Adams was eventually granted amnesty and remained the patriarch of Pitcairn Island until his death in 1829.

1947 Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. His crew of six fellow Norwegians set sail from Peru on a raft constructed from balsa logs and other materials that were indigenous to the region at the time of the Spanish Conquistadors. After 101 days crossing over 400 miles they crashed into a reef at Raroia  in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. Heyerdahl’s book, “The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas”, became a best seller, the documentary won an Academy Award in 1951. The original raft is on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo. Heyerdahl died April 18, 2002 in Italy.

 1192 – Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin.

1253 – Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk, propounds Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the very first time and declares it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.

1503 – The Battle of Cerignola is fought. It is noted as the first battle in history won by small arms fire using gunpowder.

1611 – Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, the largest Catholic university in the world.

1788 – Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.

1792 – France invades the Austrian Netherlands (present day Belgium), beginning the French Revolutionary War.

1796 – The Armistice of Cherasco is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, the King of Sardinia, expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast.

1869 – Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad working on the First Transcontinental Railroad lay 10 miles of track in one day, a feat which has never been matched.

1887 – A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police, Alsatian police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé is released on order of German Emperor William I, defusing a possible war.

1920 – Azerbaijan is added to the Soviet Union.

1930 – The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.

1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans.

1944 – World War II: Nine German S-boots attacked US and UK units during Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 946.

1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

1949 – Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 others are also killed.

1950 – Bhumibol Adulyadej marries Queen Sirikit after their quiet engagement in Lausanne, Switzerland on July 19, 1949.

1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

1952 – Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ends as the Treaty of San Francisco, ratified September 8, 1951, comes into force.

1952 – The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) is signed in Taipei, Taiwan between Japan and the Republic of China to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.

1965 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic: American troops land in the Dominican Republic to “forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship” and to evacuate U.S. Army troops.

1969 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France.

1970 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia.

1975 – General Cao Van Vien, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on victory.

1977 – The Red Army Faction trial ends, with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder.

1977 – The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure is signed.

1978 – President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.

1986 – The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea.

1987 – American engineer Ben Linder is killed in an ambush by U.S.-funded Contras in northern Nicaragua.

1988 – Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle “C.B.” Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane’s fuselage rips open in mid-flight.

1994 – Former Central Intelligence Agency counter-intelligence officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia.

1996 – Whitewater controversy: President Bill Clinton gives a 4 1/2 hour videotaped testimony for the defense.

1996 – In Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more.

2001 – Millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the world’s first space tourist.

2008 – A train collision in Shandong, China, kills 72 people and injures 416 more.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day:

       Louis de Montfort

       Peter Chanel

       Vitalis and Valeria of Milan

       April 28 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

   * Feast of Jamal (“Beauty”), the first day of the third month of the Baha’i calendar. (Baha’i Faith)

   * National Day of Mourning, to commemorate workers killed, injured, or suffering illness from occupational hazards and accidents. (Canada)

       Workers Memorial Day (International)

       World Day for Safety and Health at Work (International)

   * National Heroes Day (Barbados)

   * National Day (Sardinia)

   * The first day of the Floralia, in honor of Flora. (Roman Empire)

Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant

By NORIMITSU ONISHI and KEN BELSON, The New York Times

Published: April 26, 2011

Despite a new law shielding whistle-blowers, the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, divulged Mr. Sugaoka’s identity to Tokyo Electric, effectively blackballing him from the industry. Instead of immediately deploying its own investigators to Daiichi, the agency instructed the company to inspect its own reactors. Regulators allowed the company to keep operating its reactors for the next two years even though, an investigation ultimately revealed, its executives had actually hidden other, far more serious problems, including cracks in the shrouds that cover reactor cores.

Investigators may take months or years to decide to what extent safety problems or weak regulation contributed to the disaster at Daiichi, the worst of its kind since Chernobyl. But as troubles at the plant and fears over radiation continue to rattle the nation, the Japanese are increasingly raising the possibility that a culture of complicity made the plant especially vulnerable to the natural disaster that struck the country on March 11.

…

A 10-year extension for the oldest of Daiichi’s reactors suggests that the regulatory system was allowed to remain lax by politicians, bureaucrats and industry executives single-mindedly focused on expanding nuclear power. Regulators approved the extension beyond the reactor’s 40-year statutory limit just weeks before the tsunami despite warnings about its safety and subsequent admissions by Tokyo Electric, often called Tepco, that it had failed to carry out proper inspections of critical equipment.

The mild punishment meted out for past safety infractions has reinforced the belief that nuclear power’s main players are more interested in protecting their interests than increasing safety. In 2002, after Tepco’s cover-ups finally became public, its chairman and president resigned, only to be given advisory posts at the company. Other executives were demoted, but later took jobs at companies that do business with Tepco. Still others received tiny pay cuts for their role in the cover-up. And after a temporary shutdown and repairs at Daiichi, Tepco resumed operating the plant.

…

In Japan, the web of connections between the nuclear industry and government officials is now popularly referred to as the “nuclear power village.” The expression connotes the nontransparent, collusive interests that underlie the establishment’s push to increase nuclear power despite the discovery of active fault lines under plants, new projections about the size of tsunamis and a long history of cover-ups of safety problems.

Sound like anyplace we know?