Antarctica’s 19-Mile Ice Crack Will Produce New York-Sized Iceberg

TPM

The Big Apple is about to get some competition down south. A New York City-sized iceberg will eventually split off of Antarctica as a result of a 19-mile long crack on a glacier on the Western part of the world’s southernmost continent, according to NASA.

The crack was first observed up-close on the Pine Island Glacier in mid-October 2011 by NASA scientists working on Antarctica, the agency explained.

Later in November, NASA’s Terra AM satellite — the same one that reportedly suffered “interference” from the ground that was speculated to be the result of Chinese hackers — snapped a photo of the crack using its ASTER instrument, a high spatial resolution instrument that serves as an orbital “zoom” lens, which can close-up on land features with incredible detail.............

Anti-Abortion Komen Vice President Pushed For Split From Planned Parenthood

THINK PROGRESS

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation caved to right-wing pressure and cut ties with Planned Parenthood. Their rationale was simple: Komen had new rules preventing it from funding any organization under investigation, so a spurious congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood led by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) prohibited Komen from continuing to fund breast exams through Planned Parenthood for women who otherwise wouldn’t receive them.

But now, new reporting from the Atlantic reveals that Komen adopted the new guidelines to cut off Planned Parenthood. That effort was led by Komen President Elizabeth Thompson, who knew that Planned Parenthood was the only group that would be affected by the rule, and Karen Handel, Komen’s new senior vice president for public policy.

Handel, who came on board in April, is a former secretary of state in Georgia and a Republican activist who describes herself as a “pro-life Christian.” Handel ran for governor of Georgia on an anti-abortion platform, and was endorsed by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. She wrote during her failed gubernatorial campaign that “since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

In December, Komen made the decision to stop supporting Planned Parenthood even though Komen’s professional staff recommended that the foundation continue to fund the organization. The decision caused an “uproar” at Komen, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports:

[T]he organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. [...]

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen’s senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public relations aspects of Komen’s Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. “Mollie is one of the most highly-respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn’t continue under these conditions,” Hammarley said. “The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very short-sighted to me.”

Hammarley, who was laid off from Komen last year, said that for about a year, a small group within Komen began discussing the ramifications of cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood. “As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public relations standpoint and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, ‘How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?’” he said.

Komen’s grants to Planned Parenthood totaled $680,000 in 2011 and $580,000 in 2010, going to at least 19 affiliates of Planned Parenthood to fund breast-cancer screenings and other breast-health services. Since the two organizations partnered in 2005, Komen’s grants have paid for roughly 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. But right-wing anti-choice organizations have targeted the partnership since 2005 because Planned Parenthood also provides abortions. In December, the Southern Baptist Convention recalled pink Bibles that it sold to raise money for breast cancer research, citing an “unacceptable link” between Komen and Planned Parenthood.

Conservatives cheered Komen’s decision, while others have found it awfully convenient that the grants to Planned Parenthood were stopped after the hiring of an anti-abortion activist.

Newt Gingrich's New Florida Ad

EXCLUSIVE: Major Romney Bundler Is Agent Of Foreign Government

THINK PROGRESS

Ignacio E. Sanchez is a lobbyist at DLA Piper, an influential global law firm and a major bundler for the Mitt Romney campaign. A ThinkProgress review of public records reveals Sanchez is also a registered foreign agent representing the interests of the United Arab Emirates and a former president of the Dominican Republic.

While political candidates are not legally required to identify bundlers — volunteer fundraisers who collect bundles of campaign contribution checks for the campaign — a 2007 law requires that federal candidates disclose the names of any registered lobbyists who bundle large amounts for their campaign. On Tuesday, Romney’s campaign reported that 14 lobbyists combined to raise more than $1.6 million last year in bundled contributions.

One of those lobbyist-bundlers was Sanchez, who raked in $86,700 for the former Massachusetts governor. This major fundraising raises questions about the level of access and influence Sanchez — and by extension, his corporate and international clients — would have in a Romney administration.

Unlike the other 13 identified lobbyist-bundlers, Sanchez is a registered foreign agent. A form filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Justice reveals that he beyond just representing the interests of those domestic clients, Sanchez also represents the embassy of the United Arab Emirates and the presidential campaign of Dominican Republic former president Hipolito Mejia.

Mejia is seeking to reclaim the job he held from 2000 to 2004 and lost in a landslide defeat, amid a national economic crisis and financial near-collapse.

The United Arab Emirates has been among the stronger U.S. allies in the Middle East and is a key player in OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. But the interests of the two countries don’t always converge and groups like Human Rights Watch have raised concerns about the country’s suppression of free speech and political disagreement.

In the past, Sanchez also represented the governments of Turkey and Ethiopia. Current federal lobbying disclosure forms show that he lobbies Congress and the administration on behalf of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide (which includes the Sheraton, W, and St. Regis brands) and Diageo North America, the makers of Guinness, Jose Cuervo, Captain Morgan, and dozens of other alcoholic beverages.

President Obama does not accept campaign contributions donated or bundled by federal lobbyists or foreign agents. In last week’s State of the Union address, he called for a ban on bundlers lobbying saying “Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa — an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.”

But Romney — who has not voluntarily disclosed any other bundlers — is apparently all too happy to accept money from those who are paid to influence policy decisions on behalf of special interests, foreign and domestic.

Happy 107th Birthday, Zombie Ayn Rand!

We were skimming the FoxNews.com website looking for some of those “free Medicare scooter” ads, but got distracted by the important news of terrible writer/awful person Ayn Rand’s 107th birthday. She doesn’t look a day over 106 … objectively. Objectively-ist. Anyway, we hope she’s enjoying being tortured for Eternity in Hell, for not believing in Jesus and denying His one command for all humanity: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must Love one another.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Anyway, how are Ayn Rand’s terrible followers celebrating the day a kind woman selflessly gave birth to a child and then cared for it, instead of feeding Baby Ayn to the cat? READ MORE »

Before Endorsement, Trump Trashed Romney: ‘He’s Going To Lose,’ ‘He’d Get Rid Of Jobs’

THINK PROGRESS

Donald Trump is expected to endorse GOP front-runner Mitt Romney today in Las Vegas. But The Donald wasn’t always so hot on Romney. Some thoughts Trump offered on Romney over the past year:

– Trump told Daily Beast columnist Meghan McCain that Romney is “going to lose” because he can’t connect with voters. “No, he’s going to lose. He doesn’t resonate, you know? Or he would have won last time, in all fairness to your father! He was scheduled to win last time, and he didn’t because your father outdid him. You understand. I watched [Romney] make a speech, and it was all these little trivial statements.”

– Trump told CNN that Romney killed jobs at Bain Capital. “Mitt Romney is basically a small business guy.” “He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. He worked there, he didn’t create. He would buy companies, he’d close companies, he’d get rid of jobs.”

– Trump slammed Romney’s record as governor on ABC. “If you look at his record as governor, it wasn’t totally stellar. His job production was not great at all. In fact, it was the third worst in the nation. There are some pretty negative things with respect to Mitt Romney, which frankly he’s going to have to overcome.”

– Trump chided Romney’s $10,000 bet. “I don’t talk about how rich I am. Other people do. I don’t want to talk about how rich I am.”

– When Romney turned down Trump’s debate, Trump was not happy. “I was particularly surprised with Mitt Romney because he wants my endorsement very badly.”

And when the two met at the Trump Tower in September, Romney snuck out to avoid a photo-op and both were conspicuously tepid in their praise for each other afterwards. “It was a nice meeting,” Trump told the New York Daily News.

Why, Yes, Mitt Romney Does Lie a Great Deal

By Jonathan Chait

I’ve always had a soft spot for Mitt Romney, who strikes me, in a way I can’t completely define, as a good guy. The fact that he is an audacious liar does not strike me as a definitive judgment on his character, but primarily a reflection of the circumstances he finds himself in – having to transition from winning a majority of a fairly liberal electorate to winning a majority of a rabidly conservative one, one that cannot be placated without indulging in all sorts of fantasies.

So I do understand David Frum’s sympathy for Romney. What I don’t quite get is Frum’s claim that Romney is not an audacious liar. He made this claim in a joint interview we gave on Canadian television, and again the other day in the Daily Beast:

Mitt Romney cares a great deal about speaking accurately and truthfully. He uses statistics carefully in his speeches and debates, unlike former leading rival Rick Perry.

He eschews the audacious somersaulting of reality we often hear from current rival Newt Gingrich …

So long as we are in the world of facts and specifics, Romney has shown himself scrupulous not to overstate or misrepresent. Even where he has changed his mind, on abortion for example, you'll see no equivalent of the glaring disregard for the factual record of a Ron Paul

Really? It seems to me that Romney makes factual, specific claims that are false all the time. Some of them are minor, daily stories, such as his denials, when convenient, that he knows anything about the ads he is running against Newt Gingrich. Others are obvious attempts to mislead the public about his own history:

When first asked as a 1994 US Senate candidate about records showing him voting in the 1992 Democratic primary, Romney said he couldn’t recall for whom he voted.

Then Romney told the Globe he voted for Tsongas because he preferred his ideas to his then-opponent for the nomination, Bill Clinton. Later, he added that it was proof he was not a partisan politician.

Yet in 2007, while making his first run for president, Romney offered a new explanation: He said he voted for Tsongas as a tactical maneuver, aiming to present the “weakest opponent” possible for Bush.

Or important components of the claims that undergird his policy arguments:

At last night’s debate, for instance, Romney claimed that Obama “went before the United Nations” and “said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.”

This is flat out false. Obama talked about the rockets hitting Israel in two speeches before the U.N.: One in 2009, and the other in 2011.

These are just a couple of examples plucked from the last day of campaigning. There is an endless supply, large and small. Romney’s whole line of attack against Obama rests upon facts that are verifiably false. His main foreign policy indictment is a lie that Obama went around the world apologizing for the United States – this is the basis for his slogan that he "believes in America," as well as the title of his campaign book, No Apology. His domestic indictment of Obama rests upon his ludicrous claims that Obama "has no jobs plan" and his repeated, specific assertion that Obama wants to create full equality of outcome.

Even by the standards of politicians, Romney seems unusually prone to dishonesty. Again, you can ascribe this to circumstance rather than character. I see him as a patrician pol, like George H.W. Bush, who believes deeply in public service but regards elections as a cynical process of pandering to rubes. I think you can plausibly make other interpretations, and you can separate Romney the man or even Romney the president from Romney the candidate. But I don’t see how you can paint Romney the candidate as in any way scrupulous about the truth in any form.

Alabama Senator: It’s Against Bible To Pay Teachers Too Much

Why aren’t teachers allowed to earn more money according to Alabama state Senator/ evil leprechaun “Shadrack McGill?” Uh, because it is against the Bible to trick people who are not supposed to be teachers according to God’s will into wanting to be teachers just for the sweet, sweet salary. “It’s a Biblical principle.

If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach,” McGill argues alarmingly earnestly for an adult human. That’s cool, so teachers should all think of themselves as wise, poor socialists doing the Lord’s work, like Jesus? READ MORE »