Virginia nuke plant “venting steam” — Spokesman says “no release of radioactive material” (PHOTO & VIDEO)

Virginia nuke plant “venting steam” — Spokesman says “no release of radioactive material” (PHOTO & VIDEO):

North Anna Power plant reactors shuts down -- 5 pm, WAVY, ...Read More

Ben Stein Destroys Bill O'Reilly's Idea Taxing The Rich Hurts The Economy

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Bil O'Reilly started his program off with his Talking Points Memo attacking Obama's vacation. See, Liberals were upset that George Bush took over 1000 vacation days were just as wrong headed as conservatives who say that Obama's 26 days off are more than Bush's downtime. He's the king of keeping it real.

Bill did his usual propaganda, blaming all our deficit problems on Obama and says he's glad the President is on vacation. His real point of TPM (and mission in life) is to cut our social safety nets and to spread his anti-tax increase on the rich dogma. He's outraged at the idea we should raise taxes on the right-wing job producers because that's a job killer in every economic time and Warren Buffett is out of his mind in Margaritaville for saying we need to raise taxes on the wealthy. (He really said Margaritaville) Anyway, Fox News stock "market gurus" Ben Stein (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Wayne Rogers (M.A.S.H) joined him to discuss Bill's brilliance. However, Stein didn't play the game and he's usually on board with the whole taxing thing.

O'Reilly: Alright Mr. Stein, you know, you know that everything I said in the memo was true, correct?

Stein: Absolutely not, I would say that almost every part of it is wrong except for the fact that it's better he's on vacation because he works terribly hard and he deserves a vacation...

Then BillO did his usual interrupting routine by asking him if he thought Obama was a positive force in the economy. Stein shot back that Bush caused the recession and debt and Billie started yelling I mean now, now, now...Rogers said he was a neutral force because it's up to Congress to pass the laws. They were brought on to talk about his opening remarks (of which Ayn Rand would be proud) but that's Bill and that's why he's good at his job. I usually don't find Ben Stein agreeable, but in this segment he flat out beat back the lie.

Bill then held up the lie chart about IRS stats produced by the WSJ to prove his points about there are less wealthy people now to tax so what's the point? By the way, that WSJ report was thoroughly debunked by Chelsea Rudman.

O'Reilly: You get more money the better the economy is

Stein: Absolutely.

O'Reilly: If you take (meaning taxes from millionaires) then you're helping the recession. You're feeding the flames o fit.

Stein: That's not true.

O'Reilly: Sure it is

Stein: There's no correlation, I'm going to call you Mr. O'Reilly. There's no correlation Mr. O'Reilly, between tax rates on millionaires and people above that level (billionaires) and the growth of the economy... We had the highest growth in capitol and productivity and in the economy in general in the 40's, 50's and 60's when we had much higher taxes then..(Bill: yea, but they were inaudible ) Higher taxes don't correlate with inaudible growth...

(Below is the TPM video that they discussed)

Virginia Nuclear Plant Had Quake Sensors Removed Due to Budget Cuts

FAIL!!!

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A nuclear power plant that was shut down after an earthquake struck central Virginia Tuesday had seismographs removed in 1990s due to budget cuts.

U.S. nuclear officials said that the North Anna Power Station, which has two nuclear reactors, had lost offsite power and was using diesel generators to maintain cooling operations after an 5.9 earthquake hit the region.

The North Anna plant, which was near the epicenter of Tuesday's quake, is reportedly located on a fault line.

Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Senior Scholar Bob Alvarez told the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that the North Anna plant was built to withstand a 5.9-6.1 quake.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission rates the plant as the seventh most likely to receive core damage from a quake. But they say the chances of that are only 1 in 22,727.

According to the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME), the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory (VTSO) removed all seismographs from around the plant in the 1990s due to budget cuts.

In February, Dominion Virginia Power confirmed its commitment to add a third reactor to the plant.

"While Dominion has not decided on the schedule to build the unit, the company will continue to move forward with the federal combined operating license process and preliminary site development work," Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II said in a statement.