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You are here: Home / Economics / Free Markets Solve Everything / After All, Cancer Is Free

After All, Cancer Is Free

by John Cole|  March 8, 20114:47 pm| 113 Comments

This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Assholes, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, Teabagger Stupidity

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The new teahadist Governor of PA has released his budget, and it basically decimates the Pitt and Penn State budget, cuts funding for poison control, environmental regulation, “regional cancer institutes, poison control centers and programs for people with diabetes, lupus and epilepsy.” It includes this gem:

And in his speech, Mr. Corbett reiterated his opposition to taxing the gas that comes from the Marcellus Shale, saying the state should try to make itself the center of the drilling boom for Marcellus and the underlying Utica Shale.

That is how John Galt would want it. Let the producers produce without penalty, and those with cancer, diabetes, lupus, and epilepsy will just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Later on, long after Mr. Corbett is a well paid member of the board for one of the gas conglomerates, some other poor bastard can try to figure out how to come up with a way to clean up the poisoned watershed and the billions of dollars in unfunded clean-up that will no doubt be necessary after the natural gas firms drill for a decade with no one enforcing any environmental regulations (and that isn’t hyperbole, btw). And then we can all shrug our shoulders and say no one could have predicted.

On the other hand, I’m sure Reason magazine will have an awesome free market solution for the clean-up by then. Maybe they will even have a snazzy youtube video with the Fonz!

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Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    Bob L

    March 8, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    I believe Reasons reply is you can’t make a free-market omelet without breaking some eggs. Do you want us to be a bunch of communists quoting Lenin all the time? The communists treat people badly after all…

  2. 2.

    Warren Terra

    March 8, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    And in his speech, Mr. Corbett reiterated his opposition to taxing the gas that comes from the Marcellus Shale, saying the state should try to make itself the center of the drilling boom for Marcellus and the underlying Utica Shale.

    Leaving aside all the catastrophic environmental consequences of “fracking” (and I encourage anyone to read the excellent article published a few months ago in either Harpers or Mother Jones, I forget which), and with the caveat that I know nothing much about geology or petroleum extraction – isn’t any drilling going to have to happen where the gas is? I mean, Wyoming may give the Petroleum industry whatever it wants, and for that matter Somalia may be a regulation-free paradise, but both of them are suffering under some severe handicaps when it comes to their potential as the future center of the drilling boom that’s involved in extracting gas from under western New York and western Pennsylvania. I’m guessing that the center of the drilling boom is going to be somewhere near the drilling, which will be somewhere near the gas, no matter the tax rate.

  3. 3.

    danimal

    March 8, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    When did the cost-free pollution of the commons become a libertarian shibboleth? Milton Friedman wouldn’t make that argument, but it is taken for granted throughout today’s right-wing libertarian crowd. How did that happen?

  4. 4.

    Mike Kay (True Grit)

    March 8, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    Drill Baby, Drill!

  5. 5.

    Punchy

    March 8, 2011 at 4:55 pm

    I’m no accountant, but I fail to see how either univerisity can even operate on HALF the normal budget. Perhaps they’ll tap into some ginormous endowment, but dayum, when you cut a budget in half, you’ve effectively fucked them.

    Then again….elections have consequences, you fucking morans.

  6. 6.

    cleek

    March 8, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    And then we can all shrug our shoulders and say no one could have predicted.

    you need a link to a video of “The Circle Of Life” right there

  7. 7.

    demkat620

    March 8, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    Best part is, after this becomes a disaster, Corbett will cruise to re-election anyway.

    This is PA afterall. We only pick new governors every 8 years. No matter how bad they suck.

  8. 8.

    daize

    March 8, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    And let’s not forget continuing the Republican jihad against education. (Thank you, Saint Ronnie, for destroying affordable college education for the middle class.) PA state universities will have their funding halved under Gov Galt’s new budget.

  9. 9.

    Hunter Gathers

    March 8, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    Thanks for sitting on the sidelines during the last election, progressives. I’m sure the clean energy and single payer shitting unicorns are just beyond the horizon.

    It’s OK though. Obama hurt your feelings by not including a ‘robust’ public option and not using the bully pulpit enough to your liking. As we all know, voter apathy is the cure for all that ails us. There’s no difference between the parties anyway, right?

  10. 10.

    R-Jud

    March 8, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Ah, the Leukemiastone State.

  11. 11.

    Turgidson

    March 8, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Later on, long after Mr. Corbett is a well paid member of the board for one of the gas conglomerates, some other poor bastard can try to figure out how to come up with a way to clean up the poisoned watershed and the billions of dollars in unfunded clean-up that will no doubt be necessary after the natural gas firms drill for a decade with no one enforcing any environmental regulations (and that isn’t hyperbole, btw). And then we can all shrug our shoulders and say no one could have predicted.

    And that poor bastard, no matter how well-meaning or successful he is, will no doubt be quickly drummed out of office and replaced by an even crazier Koch-funded Teahadist. Because, you know, the last clusterfuck was conservatism being failed, not conservatism failing. Because shut up that’s why.

  12. 12.

    Phil Perspective

    March 8, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    @Punchy: the Democrats suck here in PA. Corbett’s Democratic opponent never attacked Corbett at all. And the only commercials he did run said he’d clean up Harrisburg. So Corbett smoked him by 10 points. It’s telling that Sestak made his race super close given what happened to Onorato. I don’t know that Onorato even campaigned in the Southeastern part of PA.

  13. 13.

    Poopyman

    March 8, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    @Punchy: Just to be clear, the state has always been very stingy with PA colleges and universities. They all need multiple income streams just to stay afloat, and my alma mater (PSU) has a ginormous alumni base that gives (sigh) freely.

  14. 14.

    Scott

    March 8, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Looks like Pennsylvania’s budget shortfall wasn’t even that steep, compared to some other states. :(

    The Teahadists won’t stop ’til they manage to hit national 50% unemployment.

  15. 15.

    Phil Perspective

    March 8, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @Hunter Gathers: Fuck you, too!! How do you know who stayed home? Maybe it was students and other marginally attached voters. If you don’t do stuff that compels them to vote, then that’s what happens. If you sell people out to the banksters and health insurance companies, that’s what happens.

  16. 16.

    Sean

    March 8, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @daize: Especially shitty in this case, when the fucker in question campaigned on this:

    As the next Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett will reduce the tax burden on Pennsylvania families, harness our energy potential, offer our children a world class education and restart our economy, which will create family sustaining jobs.

  17. 17.

    Poopyman

    March 8, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    @Phil Perspective: Watching from out of state it looked like Onorato was a particularly weak candidate, but for some reason was about the best the Dems could have managed in ’10. It is a mystery.

    Hell, maybe they could have drafted Arlen to run!

  18. 18.

    Kryptik

    March 8, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    @Turgidson:

    And don’t forget that the cost of all the cleanup will be blamed on Democrats being wild irresponsible liberal assholes who don’t care how broke everyone is, long as the gubment gets a new gold toilet.

  19. 19.

    Poopyman

    March 8, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    @Sean: A Republican candidate who lied???? Hoocoodanode?

  20. 20.

    Will C

    March 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Hope all the morons that got their fefes hurt by Obama like living in the shithole this country is about to become.

    All I could think when I saw this hit the Post-Gazette today was Lupe new song.. “Your child’s future was the first to go with budget cuts.”

    Too bad kids will never be able to appreciate that since they will be too f’n retarded from their crappy educational system to understand the spoken word and art.

  21. 21.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    March 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Don’t worry. David Koch will donate $100 million to UPenn (not those partially state-owned uni’s, Pitt and Penn State) to study the relationship between environmental pollution and cancer. And the New York Times will write an article fellating him for it and all will be well.

  22. 22.

    Turgidson

    March 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    @Kryptik:

    Good point. Of course, it was all that tax and spend librul sockulism that put the toxins in the environment. Our Galtian overlords would never dream of doing something like that unless some Democrat politician was secretly behind it. ACORN also too!

  23. 23.

    chopper

    March 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    “but i’m too weak with cancer to pull myself up by my bootstraps.”

    “well, then you need a lighter boot. i’ll sell you one for three easy payments of 39.95.”

  24. 24.

    Svensker

    March 8, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    Yes, but with all the profits that the companies make from getting that oil/gas, jobs and manna will fall from the skies like unicorns and rainbows and there will be enough Free Market Money to pay for all those things that are being cut from the Sockalist Taxpayer Funded Budget. If anyone is harmed by the oil/gas-getting companies putting toxic chemicals into ground water, let the deformed, dead* or cancer-ridden sue and all will be well and the companies will never do anything wrong again. This is how freedom works, don’t you get it?

    *next of kin will have to sub in this case

  25. 25.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    March 8, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    Uh John? Your new democratic senator is off his meds again. I think he’ll be joining the Tea Party any moment now.

  26. 26.

    Punchy

    March 8, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    @Poopyman: Stingy is one thing. Slicing funding by 50% is a whole new ballgame, all at once in one year. While I can see PSU with an endowment big enough to cover this, no way can I see PU’s ability to cover the bills. Even a huge jack in tuition couldn’t cover this.

    Maybe one of the two schools is sitting on valuable gas deposits, and can trade in a few dorms and the art department for a cool $100 mill from the frackers.

  27. 27.

    Scott

    March 8, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    @Svensker:

    *next of kin will have to sue in this case

    **lawsuits against corporations will only be legal if the corporation grants prior permission.

  28. 28.

    mk3872

    March 8, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    Yeah, why regulate mining industries? Look, it’s worked out GREAT for WV, right?

  29. 29.

    mk3872

    March 8, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    And why would taxing the product mean that mining companies would not come to PA?

    It’s a natural resource, for goodness sake, and so there’s only a limited supply and only a few good places to mine it anyway …

  30. 30.

    beltane

    March 8, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    “Dip him in the river, he who loves the water”-William Blake, Proverbs of Hell.

    Actual living and breathing humans voted for this, so one can safely presume that filth and disease are what they wanted. Maybe there are people out there who like cancer.

  31. 31.

    Poopyman

    March 8, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    @Punchy: True, the smaller schools are being nuked. And IIRC, even the in-state tuition has been getting unreal over the past several years.

  32. 32.

    kdaug

    March 8, 2011 at 5:15 pm

    Can we not wake up the 73%?

  33. 33.

    Davis X. Machina

    March 8, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    It’s all offset by massive increases in Freedom®, though. And we’ll get to keep our guns.

    (Freedom® and Free® are registered trademarks of the Republican National Committee. All rights reserved. Used with permission.)

  34. 34.

    daveNYC

    March 8, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    I think the plan is that enough children will get cancer and die before reaching college age, therefore the 50% cut in funding will allow for the same spending per-student.

  35. 35.

    beltane

    March 8, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    @mk3872: If there is money to be made selling the stuff, someone else will surely come around looking to do so regardless of taxes. We have devolved into a bizarro version of the Soviet system where the government subsidizes a bunch of polluting, grossly inefficient state industries. What does any of this have to do with their beloved capitalism? Once we were a land of welfare queens, now we are a land of welfare Titans.

  36. 36.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 8, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    @Hunter Gathers:
    @Will C:
    This has become my response too. Just like baggers who refuse to look at their actions causing problems in this country, liberals who stayed home because Obama wasn’t liberal enough need to take a long look at their actions.

    @Phil Perspective:
    They, and I, are blaming the people who stayed home, because everyone needs to understand their action – and inaction – have consequences. Sorry if Obama has only given 40 percent of their expectation: Look at what the replacement party has done in 2 months.

    ETA: Somehow, those of us who voted – which might include you – knew this was going to happen. Ididknow.

  37. 37.

    cat48

    March 8, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    those with cancer, diabetes, lupus, and epilepsy will just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

    I really, really hate the Goopers. I can feel myself getting more depressed daily. My husband already thinks I’ve lost it b/c I keep ranting about them wanting to force women to have babies, while they cut nutritional programs like WIC to deny expectant mothers and their babies proper nourishment. Just enrages me.

  38. 38.

    BGinCHI

    March 8, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    I don’t see how any of this could be right after Rand Paul made it clear on Stewart that the financial crisis was caused by too much regulation.

    There’s a reason it’s called Reason, people.

  39. 39.

    Aaron

    March 8, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    @Punchy: Yeah, I am a grad student at Penn State and it is going to be a shit sandwich here in the coming year or two. However, it would be hard to blame Pitt and State College for Corbett, as these areas generally vote dem. pretty solidly

  40. 40.

    Turgidson

    March 8, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    Oh, and since this post mentions Reason, I’ll just go ahead and denounce Stalin. Just to be safe.

    F U Stalin.

  41. 41.

    Marc McKenzie

    March 8, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    “This has become my response too. Just like baggers who refuse to look at their actions causing problems in this country, liberals who stayed home because Obama wasn’t liberal enough need to take a long look at their actions.”

    ‘Tis very true, but don’t hold your breath. It obviously wasn’t done after 1968, 1980, 1994, and 2000. Unless people really have short memories.

    “They, and I, are blaming the people who stayed home, because everyone needs to understand their action – and inaction – have consequences. Sorry if Obama has only given 40 percent of their expectation: Look at what the replacement party has done in 2 months.”

    That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? They may not like Obama and they may be disappointed that he hasn’t given them the whole shebang–but they had better get ready for the reaming the Repubs will give them.

    With no vaseline, I might add.

  42. 42.

    ruemara

    March 8, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):
    I heard one today one Randi coming down hard on how Obama wasted his mandate and he had a veto proof majority and was lazy and how he voted for the teatard in control of his state to show Obama he needed to pull more left. And it all made perfect sense to him. I know it gets some knickers in a twist, but, yes, thank you people who thought sitting at home and/or voting teatardistan was going to craft a progressive utopia. This is just the first 3 months and we have to survive the rest of the 2 years.

  43. 43.

    kdaug

    March 8, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @cat48:

    I really, really hate the Goopers. I can feel myself getting more depressed daily. My husband already thinks I’ve lost it b/c I keep ranting about them wanting to force women to have babies, while they cut nutritional programs like WIC to deny expectant mothers and their babies proper nourishment. Just enrages me.

    Don’t come down here. It’s not fun.

  44. 44.

    Corner Stone

    March 8, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    @Hunter Gathers:

    It’s OK though. Obama hurt your feelings by not including a ‘robust’ public option and not using the bully pulpit enough to your liking. As we all know, voter apathy is the cure for all that ails us. There’s no difference between the parties anyway, right?

    Do you think we can take time out from the circular firing squad and focus on who’s doing this?! The REPUBLICANS!

  45. 45.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 8, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    PA isn’t the only idiot state WRT oil drilling. Big Oil as been drilling here in California since forever and the state has never charged them so much as a nickle in royalties or extraction fees. A person might have thought that with CA’s devastating multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall, the Republicans would have been amenable to charging the oil companies what amounts to chump change for pumping the state’s oil out of the ground. No way, baby. As long as one poor person is getting anything whatsoever from the state then we must cut, cut, cut. And lower taxes, also, too.

  46. 46.

    kindness

    March 8, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    I don’t care if Republemmings all jump over the cliff. I will fight from getting dragged over with them.

    At some point, someone is going to get killed, and I’m not talking cancer deaths 20 years from now. We all thought it would be some reichtwingnutz who would (and has so far) gone on assassination campaigns. I’m praying all these Teabaggers don’t prove us wrong on that one.

    I can live with being a DFH. Don’t want to be that kind of rebel though.

  47. 47.

    The Moar You Know

    March 8, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    Thanks for sitting on the sidelines during the last election, progressives. I’m sure the clean energy and single payer shitting unicorns are just beyond the horizon.
    __
    It’s OK though. Obama hurt your feelings by not including a ‘robust’ public option and not using the bully pulpit enough to your liking. As we all know, voter apathy is the cure for all that ails us. There’s no difference between the parties anyway, right?

    @Hunter Gathers: Thank you.

    Fuck you, too!! How do you know who stayed home? Maybe it was students and other marginally attached voters. If you don’t do stuff that compels them to vote, then that’s what happens. If you sell people out to the banksters and health insurance companies, that’s what happens.

    @Phil Perspective: And if you stay at home and cry like a little bitch about how Santa Obama didn’t bring you everything you wanted for Christmas, you get Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and a TeaTard Congress that will, before they are done, have accomplished Norquist’s goal of bankrupting the government and “drowning it in the bathtub”.

    So yeah. All this really is your fucking fault, and the fault of all the other fucktards who “couldn’t be bothered” to get off their asses and fill out a piece of paper at their kitchen table, or a nearby polling station.

    The bitter irony is that these people, like you, are those who whine the most about their lack of a pony, while failing completely to do anything to insure delivery of said pony. Guess what? Shoveling a lot of shit is a requirement to attain the pony.

    Apparently the idea of “least worst option” was never taught to you in school, if you went to school, something that, considering your imbecilic post, I find unlikely at best.

  48. 48.

    HyperIon

    March 8, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    Cole wrote:

    And then we can all shrug our shoulders and say no one could have predicted.

    IMO Hoocoodanode has totally displaced “No one could have predicted…”. Your post last week on Baucus cheating on his wife gave me hope you shared my view. Alas…

  49. 49.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 8, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    @Corner Stone: I don’t consider these to be mutually exclusive. I am going to write to my congress people (Ralph Hall + our wonderful Texas senators), write to the newspaper, post articles on Facebook showing my “friends” how wonderful the Republicans are going to screw over the very people who voted for them, and bitch about the liberals who didn’t go out and vote. Not voting is the same as voting against your own interests.

  50. 50.

    MattR

    March 8, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Not voting is the same as voting against your own interests.

    Regardless of the veracity of this point, bringing it up now does nothing but distract from the issue currently at hand. (If we were closer to an actual election, there would be a much more valid reason to bring it up)

  51. 51.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    March 8, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    The Fucking Republicans are out to destroy the country by handing everything to the rich so they can get a cut and a cushy job after leaving office.

    When in the fuck are the Democrats going to demand a special prosecutor and go after the Republicans using RICO? The Mafia wishes that they had the power and money that the Republicans have accumulated from criminal actions that they call ‘politics’.

    Today I heard Tweety say that Sen. DeMint (Criminal-Insane) now wants to turn the country into a right to work nation. Great, their shit sucks so badly that they want to drag everyone else down to their level too.

    People can whine all they want about Democrats but when the only option is to let the Republicans win then their bitching is nothing but pure vanity.

    I am sick as fuck of the shit we are getting shoveled on top of us. I will never vote for a Republican for the rest of my life. Never. Never never never. Fuck them. They want to destroy our country and they are doing a pretty effective job of it so far.

    If we can’t pull out of this shithole the Republicans have led us in to then we deserve to fail.

  52. 52.

    cat48

    March 8, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    Good News! Waterloo Demint is going to submit a Law to make the entire US, Right to Work, all 50 states! Per someone on Hardball. That might be good news for 2012! He’s a really big State’s Right’s guy too. Totally illogical.

  53. 53.

    jaywillie

    March 8, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    Not taxing Marchellus Shale drilling makes no sense. PA has one of the largest reservoirs of underground natural gas. If the drilling and energy companies want it, they have to come to us, and more than enough revenue would be generated to offset the budget shortfall, without destroying our universities and colleges, along with important social programs like poison control centers. Corbett has essentially invited them to rape our state, while he works over the public with a rubber hose.

    But what the fuck does Tom Corbett care? He and his cronies can afford health care and the increased costs of tuition/fees.

    The only possible silver lining here is that Pitt and Penn State have a lot of clout in this state. And both seem very eager to pick this fight with Crony Corbett (btw I’m pretty sure he’s employing fewer staff than Rendell at a higher costs, and, of course, is not asking for pay freezes or cuts from those SOBs).

  54. 54.

    cat48

    March 8, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    You beat me!

  55. 55.

    MattR

    March 8, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    @jaywillie:

    Not taxing Marchellus Shale drilling makes no sense. PA has one of the largest reservoirs of underground natural gas. If the drilling and energy companies want it, they have to come to us, and more than enough revenue would be generated to offset the budget shortfall, without destroying our universities and colleges, along with important social programs like poison control centers. Corbett has essentially invited them to rape our state, while he works over the public with a rubber hose.

    I am shocked to discover that “free market Republicans” aren’t paying any attention to the laws of supply and demand

  56. 56.

    Maude

    March 8, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:
    This

  57. 57.

    kdaug

    March 8, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Do you think we can take time out from the circular firing squad and focus on who’s doing this?! The REPUBLICANS!

    No, mate. In a class war, it helps to define your enemy.

  58. 58.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 8, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    @MattR: I am a look forward kind of person. I would not have survived my life so far if I wasn’t. But I’m still going to hunt for the best way to verbally slap around those who didn’t vote. They deserve it. (It’s probably an unrealistic hope that they’ll repent for their error and do something for the next two years, cause we’re gonna need everyone to do whatever they can.)

  59. 59.

    Davis X. Machina

    March 8, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    @cat48: I’m sure it involves interstate commerce, just as the PPACA doesn’t.

  60. 60.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 8, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Oh, goody! My favorite Juicebagger song: The people who don’t actually matter are convienently responsible for all the world’s ills.

    Now where have I heard that before?

  61. 61.

    Marc McKenzie

    March 8, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    @jaywillie:

    “But what the fuck does Tom Corbett care? He and his cronies can afford health care and the increased costs of tuition/fees.”

    And that, sir, is the bottom line. I gotta give you props–you cut right to the heart of the matter.

  62. 62.

    Observer

    March 8, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    @The Moar You Know:
    Ultimately what you write isn’t factual.

    The vast majority of “progressives” or any other voter sub-group in PA aren’t reading or posting on Balloon Juice or any other blog and whining about anything.

    Moreover, the average voter doesn’t need to know the “least worst option” theory. If a political party wants to strive to be only the least worst option rather than standing up for something, then the losses are on them not the voters.

    In this equation it’s the political party that’s the independent variable.

    Voters are voters are voters: they weren’t the ones who changed in the equation.

    And frankly (and gratuitiously) it’s better let Republicans win rather than have a bunch of losers who want to be the “least worst option” in charge. People can always move to another state with universities with real budgets and clean ground water; they don’t have to stay put. But voters having to put up be governed by a bunch of losers who strive to be the least worst option is something which is apparently worse than poisoned ground water. that’s your Dem party of today: worse than toxic water.

  63. 63.

    MattR

    March 8, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    It’s probably an unrealistic hope that they’ll repent for their error and do something for the next two years, cause we’re gonna need everyone to do whatever they can.

    Constantly harranguing them is probably a sure fire way to make sure that they don’t see the light. The point has already been made repeatedly and people are now just beating a dead horse. If this was the first example it might be worth pointing out or if we were close to an election where people might make a similar decision it would be useful to remind them of the consequences, but at this point nobody is changing anyone’s mind and it only serves to derail the conversation with an “Obama vs the far left” flame war.

  64. 64.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 8, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    Sssssshush! You are ruining the Juicebagger GOTV strategy for ’12.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    @Observer:

    that’s your Dem party of today: worse than toxic water.

    Seriously, do you think that might just be a bit hyperbolic? Just a bit?

  66. 66.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    March 8, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    @cat48:

    I think the term is “ninja’d”…lol

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    What else would you expect from an observer?

  67. 67.

    Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy

    March 8, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    Given that so many Juicebaggers are once-and-future-Republicans, it’s not surprising that “anyone’s fault but mine” falls so easily from their mouths.

    Now let’s have another thread about conspicuous consumption, as I need to drive up my AAPL holdings.

  68. 68.

    kdaug

    March 8, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    @Observer:

    The vast majority of “progressives” or any other voter sub-group in PA aren’t reading or posting on Balloon Juice…

    I think we can count our blessings that we have a comparatively small subset of sporadically intelligent “progressives” here, from PA or elsewhere.(Then again, the idiots tend to get crushed rather quickly, so there is a sort of mechanical selection).

    But I would be interested to know the reader v. poster ratio – what’s the percentage of lurkers here?

  69. 69.

    Mattminus

    March 8, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    Team Red done such a good job of pushing the “liberals are earth mother eco-fags that want to take your SUV and give it to a spotted owl” line, that they could pipeline toxic waste into an orphanages water fountain and no one would blink. They’ll just pull a Reaganesque “there they go again” when liberals complain about it.

    By the time the damage is evident it will be time to look forward, not back.

  70. 70.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    March 8, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    @demkat620:

    corbett, walker, many of the “wild eyed bomb throwing freshmen” in various legislatures, are dead and don’t know it.

    i don’t know if corbett gets re-upped like you expect, and would normally happen, but if he were smarter he would take the money and run, before he and the others are sacraficed for the faux redemption of team gop.

    this group is charged with pushing it as far as they can, rack some wins for their masters, accept the compromises because they are really more than any sane governance should yield anyway.

    but ultimately, after pushing the envelop, they have to go down, they will be too battle scarred and dangerous to the rest of the gop. the public will finally refudiate them, then they will be scandalled off, and the gop will claim they were held hostage all along, but today is a new day, and everyone will forget that the gop has been fracking the american electorate to release the crazy that put the 2010 nuts in power in the first place.

  71. 71.

    Svensker

    March 8, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Big Oil as been drilling here in California since forever and the state has never charged them so much as a nickle in royalties or extraction fees.

    ? ? ?

    ! ! !

    Good grief.

  72. 72.

    kindness

    March 8, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    @Svensker: That isn’t true.

  73. 73.

    Stefan

    March 8, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    And in his speech, Mr. Corbett reiterated his opposition to taxing the gas that comes from the Marcellus Shale, saying the state should try to make itself the center of the drilling boom for Marcellus and the underlying Utica Shale.

    This is good thinking. You don’t want to let, say, Hawaii becoming the new center for drilling the Marcellus and Utica Shale….

  74. 74.

    arguingwithsignposts

    March 8, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    @Observer:

    And frankly (and gratuitiously) it’s better let Republicans win rather than have a bunch of losers who want to be the “least worst option” in charge. People can always move to another state with universities with real budgets and clean ground water; they don’t have to stay put.

    Yes, just like they did in Grapes of Wrath. WTF kind of libertarian bullshit is that?

  75. 75.

    Svensker

    March 8, 2011 at 6:08 pm

    @kindness:

    What isn’t true? Splain pleez.

  76. 76.

    El Cid

    March 8, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    T. Boone Galt is in a good condition to help make sure there’s no regulation of the gigantic underground freshwater source [the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest freshwater body in the world] which allows our High Plains to be farmland, and which is already drying up (replenished far too slowly by groudwater), but which he can monopolize to run it out just as fast as he fucking wants and Texans feel like screwing over everyone else ’cause they ain’t a buncha damn Al Gore homososhullists:

    The Texas oil billionaire and corporate raider T Boone Pickens is after their water. He is proving to be the ultimate test of their free market gospel of the ‘right to capture’.
    __
    Ten years ago Pickens concluded that the prophets of climate-change may well be right, and if they were, that water would become more valuable than the oil that had made his fortune. He formed a company called Mesa Water, and began buying up Panhandle land with water rights over the Ogallala.
    __
    He is now the largest individual water owner in America, with rights over enough of the aquifer to drain an estimated 200,000 acre-feet a year, at least until the land goes dry. That is 65 billion gallons a year, or, to put it another way, 124,000 gallons a minute. The plan?
    __
    Ninety-five per cent of Ogallala water is now used for agriculture, but Pickens plans to pipe it 250 miles to Dallas, expected to triple in size in 30 years, with a demand for water far exceeding supply.
    __
    Pickens is making the hottest of climate-change bets: that water’s value will rocket as it runs dry. One man’s thirst is another man’s fortune. Irrigation farming would simply follow gold mining, open-range ranching and oil drilling in the traditional cycle of boom and bust. ‘There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it,’ Pickens has said. ‘That’s the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing.’
    __
    ‘Obviously it would be a disaster for the Panhandle,’ Steve Walthour, manager of the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District, says. ‘But if there are no limits, he can take all he wants. That’s the law of capture.’
    __
    Texas conservatives, at the core of America’s faith-and-business culture, root for Pickens.
    __
    Brent Connett, a policy analyst for the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute, pushes the view that trading farming for selling water is a ‘right’ upheld by 100 years of Texan law, and can only bring new prosperity. ‘The water business, if allowed to bloom,’ he believes, ‘can be the advent of another multi-billion-dollar business that will tremendously benefit all Texans, especially those who hold the rights to the water in the Panhandle.’
    __
    Connett does not offer a count of winners versus losers. But a group of landowners in the far north of the Panhandle could certainly be winners.
    __
    Taking advantage of another quirk of Texas law, they have voted against joining Walthour’s Conservation District. That was their democratic right even as it defied the attempts of their fellow farmers to protect water supplies for the benefit of all.
    __
    The other Ogallala states all have some form of government controls metering water use. Texas has the Conservation Districts instead, with the local farmers voting their own restrictions. The problem is that these are voluntary.
    __
    ‘The idea,’ Walthour says, ‘is to balance individual water rights with the common interest. It’s the best thing to do. Otherwise the biggest pump wins – and everyone goes dry.’

    It can’t go dry, though, because in the Bible God made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights and put a rainbow up there that he’d never kill us all again.

    And since Texas and these Real America states are closest to God, he will refill their underwater sea.

    Wouldn’t you know? There’s always a bunch of gloom and doom ‘scientist’ types who want to worry their elitist heads off because some area producing about a third of our irrigated farmland products might dry up.

    The drawdown of the aquifer raises an important issue that permeates discussions about the social and political responses to a global warming: discounting the future. Here is a good example of a choice that society must make — consume the groundwater resource today or conserve it for future generations when climate in the region might not be as favorable to agricultural production as it is today. At which time would the groundwater resource be of most value? And to whom?

    Future generations? Fuck them! If they were so worried about all this water, why aren’t they here competing in the free market system with Texan wild capitalist spirits?

    These ‘geology’ types probably wouldn’t even want a poster of Galtian hero T. Boone Pickens in their office even if he signed it himself.

  77. 77.

    Observer

    March 8, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ahh, you gotta have some fun with it.

    And besides, when it’s all said and done, nobody wants to vote for a weenie. Just about the only person in the Dem party who *doesn’t* come across this way is….Obama. To his credit.

  78. 78.

    Chuck Butcher

    March 8, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    Regarding the “hurt fee-fees” bullshit. Midterm turnout always sucks and it primarily sucks with the indie heroes. All elections turn on winning with that group and in many places the (D)s lost them in the low numbers that turned out.

    Now if you want to run on “I’m not as bad as the GOPers” that’s your fucking choice and as an election strategy it is stupid and sucks fucking eggs as a route to winning. If you want to run as GOP-lite that is a sure route to leaving the not real dedicated with no particular reason to bother with a work day vote.

    The fact that there is a (D) on a registration form has no bearing on left, progressive, or GOP-lite as voting trends. In mid-terms you lose the voters who are low information or low enthusiasm and that crosses all frames of political diversity from left to right.

    In a state with near parity in registration you have to win your base and some kind of better than even split of the “indies.” That is what you have to do and if it doesn’t matter to you – you lose.

    “You have to just get along with whatever we offer you – ’cause they suck,” is shitty politics and you deserve what you get for trying it. You want to excuse it and blame someone other than candidates and campaigns.

  79. 79.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 6:16 pm

    @Observer: And when you have a situation where there are no good options, would you prefer that both parties lie about it? Sometimes the least worst is the best available.

  80. 80.

    geg6

    March 8, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    @Observer:

    You really are full of shit and, obviously, don’t live in the real world where it’s not so simple for most people to pick up and move to another state. And what state do you propose, you asshole? Are you trying to tell me that not every single state will be affected by the crazies running the states and Congress?

    That said, I work at PSU. This is a huge hit for us, but the only comfort I take is that we were already down to about only 5-8% of our budget coming from the state. We are priced closer to local private colleges than to the state university system. Still, this is bad. Pitt is probably in even better shape, financially, than we are due to the killing they make through UPMC. Hershey Medical Center is in no way the source of revenue that UPMC is.

    I expect tuition will rise significantly from the projected increase of about 4-5%. It might even be comparable to the disastrous year when it went up 14% under Tom Ridge. Poor students. Poor parents. Difficult discussions I’ll be having this summer during my student aid and financing presentations to parents during summer orientation. Fuck.

  81. 81.

    Xelcho

    March 8, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    Having degrees in civil and environmental engineering, I found the documentary “GASLAND” great. Further, the counter attack by the gas industry and follow-up rebuttal is fascinating.
    about the movie:
    http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
    about the attack on the movie:
    http://www.damascuscitizens.org/Affirming-GASLAND.pdf

    disclaimer: I have absolutely no relation or know anyone or get anything outside of an education from the film makers or the film.

  82. 82.

    Citizen_X

    March 8, 2011 at 6:25 pm

    @El Cid:

    ‘The water business, if allowed to bloom,’ he believes, ‘can be the advent of another multi-billion-dollar business that will tremendously benefit all Texans, especially those who hold the rights to the water in the Panhandle.’

    Fucking idiot. It’ll be a boon for some in the Panhandle, all right, but only those who have, as the man said, the biggest pumps. Then once that water is gone, the Panhandle is fucked forever, no water no more, goodbye. The Ogallala water is from the ice ages–it will never get replenished in time to be of any use to anyone, for the next several generations.

  83. 83.

    weezer

    March 8, 2011 at 6:25 pm

    I’m a petroleum engineer here in Texas. The state collects a severance tax on gas(and oil) production – on gas it is essentially 7.5 per cent of the revenue stream. If it is a well that is categorized as a “high cost gas well” the operator is eligible for a reduced tax rate for a ten year period. This reduction is a function of the well cost and the date the well is completed. You can calculate your savings on your next Texas gas well at the the Texas Railroad commission website here:

    https://ourcpa.cpa.state.tx.us/ngrate/wellcalc.html

    The governor has his head up his ass. Severance taxes are just a cost of doing business and everyone in the industry expects to pay them. If a 7.5 % tax – or whatever reasonable tax – kills the deal it shouldn’t be drilled in the first place.

  84. 84.

    Chuck Butcher

    March 8, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    As for what the GOPers want and do when elected that is the result of running toward them for decsades and watching them run farther right. Since it has been held harmless it appears the only counter is to have actual demonstrations of policy. Some disasters are easily predictable, build your house on sand and then act surprised when it slips away isn’t … thoughtful.

  85. 85.

    Marc McKenzie

    March 8, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    @geg6:

    (I know this wasn’t directed at me, but you made a couple of good points)

    “You really are full of shit and, obviously, don’t live in the real world where it’s not so simple for most people to pick up and move to another state.”

    This. So very, very true. But remember, most people–and I say this with no rancor or vice–cannot or do not bother to look at the real world or even think in a pragmatic manner.

    “And what state do you propose, you asshole? Are you trying to tell me that not every single state will be affected by the crazies running the states and Congress?”

    True. And they were warned last year about what would happen if the crazies got in power. But some stayed home, pissed that they didn’t get their ponies.

    “That said, I work at PSU. This is a huge hit for us, but the only comfort I take is that we were already down to about only 5-8% of our budget coming from the state.”

    I very sorry to hear about that. I’m not a PSU alum, but my elder brother was, and he was very proud to have gone there (first to Erie and then State College).

    Why does it seem that for all their boasting, the Repubs really do not want people to get an education? Is it because they fear that an educated population will realize that they’ve been royally screwed by the Repubs (for 30+ years, natch) and will never even think of letting them back into power for a few generations?

  86. 86.

    Observer

    March 8, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    @geg6: Your anger might be real but it is misplaced.

    Nobody said it was simple or easy but the group in this “equation” as I mentioned who are the independent variable is the Dem party.

    So blame them; they got you into this situation and presented the voters with no good choices.

    Blaming me or calling me names is like blaming the post-game ESPN analysts for the outcome of the game when your side sucked eggs. The post-game analysts didn’t create the game plan and neither did I.

    And just in case this wasn’t clear enough; I’ll repeat myself: the vast majority of voters, in any sub-group you want to consider, don’t read blogs or go to Balloon Juice to get their political news. So it’s not the “progressives” bitching about Obama that’s to blame.

  87. 87.

    piratedan

    March 8, 2011 at 6:33 pm

    sorry I don’t buy the argument that progressives stayed home at all. I think it was the independents that sat out the midterms and we can talk about the failings of the Dems not getting the message out all we want but we still have to remember that the Republicans outspent them by a 5:1 margin (at least that was the number here in AZ Congressional District 8) thanks to that timely Citizens United decision which opened the floodgates for the smear ads and the like to sway those folks that do the bare minimum before they go out and casts those ballots. Do I believe that Tim Kaine could have done a better job, hell yeah, but our happy friendly Galtian overlords placed their fingers on the scales and our supplicant media focused on the usual Republican narrative without doing any work whatsoever regarding what the issues were. Lots of blame to fling, I’d just as soon see it stop being flung at people that we more or less agree with.

  88. 88.

    Marc McKenzie

    March 8, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    @Mattminus:

    Yep. And they pulled it off with the help of the “liberal” media, which doesn’t bother to really inform anyone and still puts things in a “he said/she said” way.

    But then again…well, we were warned last year about what they would do and the utter chaos that would follow if the Repubs got back into office. Honestly, no one should be surprised at what’s been going on.

  89. 89.

    Observer

    March 8, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Actually yes I would prefer that.

    Most normal people intuitively recognize that hardly nothing any good comes from people who willingly identify themselves as the least worse option.

    That’s human nature and if you believe in evolution then you’ll understand exactly why that is. It shouldn’t be up to me to explain that.

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    @Observer: Actually, people saying and repeating that here is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans do matter. As events in any number of states have shown, there is a difference.

  91. 91.

    Observer

    March 8, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think anyone really subscribes to that. They may say that in a pique of anger but I don’t know anyone that I’ve ever spoken too over drinks who will actually agree that there’s no difference.

    It’s just frustration with dealing with weenie candidates and positions that Washington Dems take.

    Blowing off steam.

  92. 92.

    kindness

    March 8, 2011 at 6:40 pm

    @Svensker: Well, go here first: http://hep.ucsb.edu/clearview/calitide.html
    second – Federal fees: http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/energy/og.html
    third: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/aug/31/news/mn-5327

    No I will agree California doesn’t charge enough royalty fees, but plainly we do charge ’em.

  93. 93.

    kindness

    March 8, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    Am I the only one here that thinks the new comment editing system sucks? At home on my Mac I can’t do squat and here at work I can’t get it to go either.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    @Observer: You are talking about treating voters like children, and telling them everything is going to be just fine, rather than saying that things are going to be tough.

  95. 95.

    Observer

    March 8, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think so. Nobody is saying things are going to be tough: the Dems just pretend to be Republican lite.

    And all I’m just pointing out is that human nature dictates that you won’t gain people’s trust in large numbers by being the “least worst option”. Nobody wants that person.

    So Dems might try coming up with something different. Lying works if you secretly have some plan to fix things. I didn’t say what the “lies” needed to be.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    @Observer: How Straussian of you.

  97. 97.

    El Cid

    March 8, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Then once that water is gone, the Panhandle is fucked forever, no water no more, goodbye.

    So what? What does that have to do with some guys putting big money in the bank?

    They won’t have to be farming around there or worried about drinking water. They’ll have an underground aquifer of cash.

    The future can look after itself, right?

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    @El Cid:

    The future can look after itself, right?

    It always has in the past.

  99. 99.

    trollhattan

    March 8, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    I promise I’ll only buy gas extracted by companies that create fifty-percent fewer cancer cases, generate fifty-percent less flaming tapwater.

    There’s yer freemarketz(tm) at work!

  100. 100.

    Scott

    March 8, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    “The second part of the Republican health care plan is this: If you do get sick, Die Quickly.”

  101. 101.

    Comrade Dread

    March 8, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    @El Cid: Actually, the Almighty just promised he wouldn’t destroy the Earth with water again.

    He said nothing about not letting us poison our environment and screw up the place so badly that the plagues of Revelation start looking pretty good in comparison.

  102. 102.

    Kool Earl

    March 8, 2011 at 7:13 pm

    Was disaffected progressives sitting out the midterms really that much of a factor? My (admittedly cynical) take is that young voters were caught up with Obama as cultural phenom and saw the election as they would an American Idol competition and the thought of following up didnt even cross their minds in 2010

  103. 103.

    Citizen_X

    March 8, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    @Observer: What the fuck is wrong with being the least worst option? You’re supposed to pick the least worst option. People who don’t pick the least worst option are also known as the insane or the self-destructive. You should never let those people so much as drive. Why do you defend this sort of thinking?

    At best, you’re describing a marketing problem. It ain’t any more noble than that.

  104. 104.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 8, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    @Citizen_X: Yes, another term for least worst is best.

  105. 105.

    SensesFail

    March 8, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    Does anyone know how likely it is that this budget will pass in its current form?

  106. 106.

    bemused

    March 8, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    Maybe this has been mentioned already, but two injection wells have been temporarily shut down in Arkansas. Geologists are studying if there is a connection between the high number of earthquakes in central Ark (over 800 in 6 months) and the gas drilling.

    This was a recent local news report, iirc. I got the impression that the real focus is on this area because it is where the gas companies are disposing of fracking waste water deep below ground. A professor from Syracuse U said it was unlikely that NY state will allow deep disposal of waste fluids as is happening in Ark and other states.

  107. 107.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    March 8, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    @Kool Earl:

    IIRC the polling crosstabs suggested that the Dem base turnout was slightly below average for a midterm but not enough to create a wave election. The biggest factor was old people turning out in larger than usual numbers to vote for the GOP (so the damm govt would stay out of their damm Medicare and not DeathPanel them). This will probably turn out to be the highwater mark for the influence of Fox News on our elections, given the demographics of their viewers.

  108. 108.

    Emma

    March 8, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    El Cid: And if anyone wants to know what happens when water gets privatized, by all means google “Aguas Argentinas” or “Vivendi water privatization”. Good times.

  109. 109.

    Ija

    March 8, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @Observer:

    And frankly (and gratuitiously) it’s better let Republicans win rather than have a bunch of losers who want to be the “least worst option” in charge. People can always move to another state with universities with real budgets and clean ground water; they don’t have to stay put

    Careful, dear, your privilege is showing there. Hilllllarious. People can always move! It’s that easy. Now why haven’t anyone thought of that before this genius put it out there? Thank you sir for opening our blind, blind eyes to this easy solution.

  110. 110.

    ken

    March 8, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    We wouldn’t have any of these problems if more people on the left just voted in midterm elections. That is the solution for all of our problems.

  111. 111.

    Kool Earl

    March 8, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Thanks for the input. I would like to compare the 18-29 voting % for prior elections (both presidential and midterm) to see if there was a spike in youth turnout for the 2008 elections that didn’t follow up in 2010. Dotes anybody know where one could reference the data?

  112. 112.

    catpal

    March 8, 2011 at 9:04 pm

    Corrupt Corbett just threw Pitt and PSU in there for a chuckle, because both are pretty self sustaining financially.

    He was really aiming at closing Temple and Lincoln, as both are High Minority enrollments.

    PA Seniors really sold us out in 2010 election. Those Seniors pay Little or NO Taxes in PA, but they voted for Lying Toomey “to clean up Washington” and of course, those So Called Moral Cultural Conservative Issues.

  113. 113.

    Bizono

    March 8, 2011 at 11:07 pm

    @Hunter Gathers: Corbett’s name recognition vs Onorato certainly had nothing to do with it, right? Or the kind of campaign that Onorato ran.. but believe what you want to believe, asshole.

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