Court orders Obama to decide on Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site

A federal appellate court on Tuesday ordered the Obama administration to stop stalling its review of a nuclear waste facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “is simply flouting the law” in failing to make a final ruling on a Department of Energy application to store nuclear waste at the Nevada site. The court ordered the commission to act.

A review of the site was supposed to be completed by 2011, three years after the initial application was filed, but the commission has not acted since then. Republicans have characterized the dispute as another example of how the executive branch under President Obama has ignored the will of Congress.

"The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections,” the court wrote in its consenting opinion.

The court ruling was expected. The same court last year pushed the commission to make a decision unless Congress decided to cancel funding for a review of the application, which it did not do.

The request for court intervention came from Washington state and South Carolina, which are currently forced to hold onto nuclear waste until a long-term storage site is approved.

"The court rightly rebuked the Obama administration for delaying a decision on this important national security matter,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “Yucca Mountain remains the appropriate nuclear waste storage site.”

The nuclear commission has blamed a lack of funding for the delay. The $11 million Congress approved to study the project was only a fraction of the $100 million needed to complete the review.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Judge Merrick Garland said it was pointless to order the commission to move forward if it didn't have enough money to finish the task.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading...

Meet the Press Ratings Plummet to 21-Year Low

Making up the News is their MO

NBC’s venerable “Meet the Press” show has fallen on hard times, suffering an embarrassing third-place ratings finish for the third straight week, according to the website Mediaite.

Touted as the longest-running show on network television, “Meet the Press’” overall ratings have hit a 21-year low, finishing behind CBS’ “Face the Nation,” and ABC’s “This Week” on each of the last three Sundays.

Nielsen estimates the total viewing audience for “Meet the Press” at 2.913 million with only 854,000 in the all-important demographic of 25 to 54 — the show’s worst performance in 18 years for that demographic, Mediaite reports.

Host David Gregory took over the show in December of 2008 following the death of popular host Tim Russert. His network rivals include CBS’ Bob Schieffer and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. 

Compounding the show’s poor ratings of late, Greg Gutfield of Fox’s “The Five’s,” described “Meet the Press” as “the Sunday show for people who eat Kale,” Mediaite adds.

Via: Newsmax

Continue Reading...

Study ObamaCare: Half who now buy own health plan to get aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — About half the people who now buy their own health insurance — and potentially would face higher premiums next year under President Barack Obama's health care law — would qualify for federal tax credits to offset rate shock, according to a new private study.

Many other people, however, earn too much money to be eligible for help, and could end up paying more.

The estimate, released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, tries to answer one of the biggest remaining questions about the impact of Obama's law on American families: Will consumers wince — or even balk — when they see the premiums for the new plans?

The study found that 48 percent of families currently buying their own coverage would be eligible for tax credits next year, averaging $5,548 per family, or 66 percent of the average cost of a benchmark "silver" policy offered through new state insurance markets.

"About half of the people won't be paying the sticker price," said Gary Claxton, director of the health care marketplace project at Kaiser, an information clearinghouse on the health care system. "The people who get help will get quite a lot of help."

"Many, but certainly not all, of the people who don't get tax credits will pay more," he said. "How much more will be a function of a lot of different things."

For example, some people who don't qualify for tax credits may get jobs that offer coverage, added Claxton, a co-author of the study. And the bottom line on premiums may not be clear until sometime this fall, after the Health and Human Services Department releases rates for more than 30 states where the federal government is taking the lead setting up new insurance markets for individuals and small businesses.

Via: Yahoo News

Continue Reading...

MSNBC’s Now Parodies Itself With Tortured Claim Boston Bombers Were Right-Wing

If someone designed a computer program that randomly generated nuggets of liberal conventional wisdom, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner could sue them for violating her intellectual property. In a segment on that cable news network’s hour of bias confirmation, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok, spokesman for a group Floyd Lee Corkins admitted had motivated him to kill as many people at the Family Research Council as he could, alleged that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were motivated to their act of terrorism by conservative thinkers. They laughably centered this claim on the fact that the elder Boston Marathon bomber was partially influenced by Alex Jones – a conspiracy theorist slash entertainer without a political home. But this panel segment also displayed flagrant, and intentional, intellectual dishonesty by ignoring the bombers’ other sources of political influence. 

Perhaps the summer lull is to blame for Now’s decision to broadcast a segment about racial animus motivating the American right in for umpteenth time. Perhaps it is a psychological compulsion. No matter. To summarize the predictable segment below, Potok alleged that the Tsarnaevs were motivated to their bloody act of terrorism by Jones’ unhinged rants. This led the panel to decry the rise of racism in America which has followed the political ascension of President Barack Obama.

Judging by this segment alone, one would suspect that there is no investigative reporting into what actually motivated the Tsarnaevs. In fact, there is a wealth of journalism which would inform that conversation – that is, if informing had been the objective.

Via: Mediaite

Continue Reading....

Egypt Imposes State of Emergency After at Least 149 People Killed

Riot police swept in with armored vehicles, bulldozers and helicopters Wednesday to clear two sprawling encampments of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, sparking running street battles elsewhere in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. At least 149 people were killed nationwide, many of them in the assaults on the protest vigils.

The interim government declared a monthlong state of emergency, ordering the armed forces to support the police in efforts to restore law and order and protect state facilities. A nighttime curfew for Cairo and 10 provinces also was put into effect.

Clashes also broke out elsewhere in the capital and other provinces across the country, injuring more than 1,400 people nationwide, as Islamist anger spread over the crackdown on the 6-week-old sit-ins of Morsi supporters that divided the counrty. Police stations, government buildings and Coptic Christian churches were attacked or set ablaze.

Smoke clogged the sky above Cairo and fires smoldered on the streets, which were lined with charred poles and tarps after several tents were burned. The smaller camp was cleared relatively quickly, but clashes continued at the main site near a mosque that has served as the epicenter of the pro-Morsi campaign.

Via: Newsmax

Continue Reading....