Well, that was quite the seven days, wasn't it? When you've been president for a week, and the biggest debate in Washington is whether you're acting like a nut as a shrewd political gambit, or whether you're acting like a nut because, well, you're a nut, you certainly have carved yourself out a place in history—albeit a padded room in history where everybody sits around and sucks nitrous all day. What fresh hell will next week bring? Who can say? Who even wants to guess? Not this reporter.
Meanwhile, out in God's country, there was a couple of feet of snow in northern Iowa. Beneath the two feet of fresh-fallen snow, and a few feet below the ground, a pipeline broke, because pipelines break and the companies that own and operate them generally figure that inevitability into the cost of doing business. In this case, a company named Magellan Midstream Partners is probably figuring out how to get out from under the cost of having one of its pipelines burst and dump almost 140,000 gallons of diesel fuel into somebody's field in Worth County.
- "It's a big one — it's significant," said Jeff Vansteenburg, a field office supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. "The responsible party is Magellan, so they'll have to bear the cost of clean up." The pipeline leaked on private agricultural land, said Karen Grimes, spokeswoman for the Iowa DNR. There is a small stream near the leak, but Grimes said no surface water has been contaminated. The Iowa DNR has not uncovered any underground water contamination. The leak occurred when the pipeline ruptured and diesel sprayed out, Grimes said. Magellan reported the leak around 8 a.m. It was initially reported that 63,000 gallons leaked out, Grimes said. "They found that it's basically pooled into a farm field that's near the break and has not reached the water in the state," Grimes said. "There's a little creek, but it has not reached any surface waters at this time." Heine said it's unknown what caused the leak at this time. Vansteenburg said nothing struck the pipe that would cause it to leak. He said there are sensors in the pipeline that notify Magellan when a problem occurs. -
- Crews have sucked up about 25,000 gallons of diesel and a slush-diesel mixture that came from a pipeline that broke north of Hanlontown Tuesday morning, officials said. -
Gorp.
Tell you what. I bet the Magellan Board of Directors isn't doing much right now. What say we all chip in and buy 'em some nice boots, eh?
- The recording reveals a GOP that appears to be filled with doubts about how to make good on a long-standing promise to get rid of Obamacare without explicit guidance from President Trump or his administration. -
"Sorry, the president's watching The O'Reilly Factor now and tweeting about actresses who hate him. Can someone else be of assistance?"
- And the thorny issues lawmakers grapple with on tape — including who may end up either losing coverage or paying more under a revamped system — highlight the financial and political challenges that flow from upending the current law. Senators and House members expressed a range of concerns about the task ahead: how to prepare a replacement plan that can be ready to launch at the time of repeal; how to avoid deep damage to the health insurance market; how to keep premiums affordable for middle-class families; even how to avoid the political consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood, the women's health-care organization, as many Republicans hope to do with the repeal of the ACA. -
Pro Tip: you can't do any of that. It doesn't matter how often you make Susan Collins jump out of a hat .. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a52484/republicans-obamacare-replacement/ . The only way you can do all those things, and still keep millions of people from demanding your heads on a plate, is either to leave the ACA in place, or move toward a single-payer system. (Or, I suppose, you could let the entire American healthcare industry collapse and then blame it on the black guy. There's always that.)
This may be my favorite crime of all time. A guy goes into a West Virginia casino to gamble. For some reason, he decides to get up. As is customary, he puts down a $25 chip to hold his seat and the dealer obliges him. (Good dealer! Tip this dealer handsomely!) He then gets in his car, drives 12 miles, and robs a freaking bank! Does he then take it on the arches? Oh, hell no.
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