Interior Approves Shell Plan To Drill Arctic Starting In July

Servicing the Public
for Over 100 Years

In what can only be called an ill-considered but well-hidden hand‑job for Shell, the Department of the Interior announced on Monday its approval of Shell's plan to drill in Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean, beginning almost immediately: July. The approval is conditional on Shell's obtaining all legally required permits to drill (a virtual certainty), authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (surely already a done deal) and all required Biological Opinions under the Endangered Species Act (I'm afraid I don't know what this means, but I do know it is surely no obstacle to what one of the world's largest megacorp's wants to do). The precipitousness of implementation deals a blow to all organized efforts to prevent the drilling or mitigate the inevitable damage both to the environment in the Arctic and, perhaps more significantly, to the global climate. (Do you think they even noted your signature on an online petition opposing this action? Me either.)

The Earthjustice article linked above has a good summary of the damage such drilling could easily cause:

...

... The project Interior approved today is bigger, dirtier, and louder than any previous plan, calling for more sound disturbances and harassment of whales and seals, more water and air pollution, and more vessels and helicopters. It also runs the risk of a catastrophic oil spill that could not be cleaned in Arctic waters.

The company’s accident-filled efforts to drill in 2012 demonstrate that neither Shell nor any other company is ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean. Shell proved that again just last month when its Discoverer drillship was held in port due to pollution control failures. Drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean also takes us in the wrong direction on combating climate change.

...

I have done contract IT work for Shell (more than a decade ago; I would not accept such work today) and I knew some of the people involved in designing the more ambitious drilling projects. Those at Shell are neither better nor worse than typical in the industry, but it is the nature of things that they appear to be self-assured to the point of arrogance about the outcomes of their work, in deep water and/or extreme weather. What could possibly go wrong? (*cough* BP Deepwater Horizon *cough*) Apart from that,  as of a couple years ago, it looked as if all the big oil companies, including Shell, were partnering with one of two Russian companies, both of which have bad track records regarding safety and environment.

Shell Kulluk Rig Damaged, Mar. 2013
(credit: National Geographic)

I'll let you know if I find any letter-writing campaigns or petitions to sign, but I suspect it's a done deal.

TPP Fast-Track Fails Crucial Senate Vote

Wow; who knew (aside from Harry Reid) this would happen! Here's Yves Smith:

Fast Track Authority for Toxic Trade Fails Key Vote in Senate

From Reuters:

Legislation giving U.S. President Barack Obama authority to speed trade deals through Congress failed a crucial procedural test on Tuesday, delaying a measure that may be key to President Barack Obama’s diplomatic pivot to Asia.

In a setback to the White House trade agenda, the Senate voted 52-45 – eight votes short of the necessary 60 – to clear the way for debate on the legislation, which would allow a quick decision on granting the president so-called fast track authority to move trade deals quickly through Congress.

...

I am glad I am not a White House Laundry worker, because I'm certain Obama soiled his underwear over this...

(H/T Enfant, in comments to previous post.)

Clearing The Desktop

In fact, in Ubuntu Linux 12.04 with the Gnome 3 shell, the default desktop is completely clear, and many of us keep it that way in the interest of sanity. So I'm speaking only metaphorically...

• Tesla Announces New Product To ‘Fundamentally Change The Way The World Uses Energy’ (H/T ellroon. The new product is a battery.)
  
  
• Judge Halts Work On Maryland Pipeline Due To Environmental Concerns (Don't get your hopes up; the ruling is by a Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge, and I don't doubt the pipeline company has an appeals court judge securely in its pocket somewhere up the line.)
  
  
• Hawaii Will Soon Get All Of Its Electricity From Renewable Sources (Give me a few minutes to pack my bags, and a few more to earn another $1m or so to live on in Hawaii for a couple of years...)
  
  
• NSA Phone Data Collection Program Revealed By Edward Snowden Ruled Illegal (What a surprise! [/irony])
  
  
• French Lawmakers Approve Sweeping Expansion Of Spying Programs (Following in America's footsteps, despite all typical wisdom of the French...)
  
  
• Can Bernie Sanders Break Through the Status Quo?
  He may have already done it, with his unapologetic defense of social democracy and assaults on the “billionaire class.”
  
  

Mother's Day: Irma Hurley Bates

Before Mom lost everything to Alzheimer's disease, she was an excellent mother, a respectable singer and a damned fine English teacher. Anything I know about grammar and spelling, I owe to her. Anything I misspell or botch grammatically, the errors are most certainly my own; Mom would have known the proper spelling or grammatical construct.

Mom (1922-1990) grew up on a family farm in the red clay part of East Texas. Her entire family put the lie to the stereotype of farmers lacking in education or erudition. Some of them even had Master's degrees; Mom had "only" a Bachelor's, but used it to good effect, teaching English in parts of Texas in which Spanish was frequently the language spoken at home by her students. Of course she spoke Spanish.

Oh, yes, Mom was a Democrat for many of the same reasons I am today; she lived in an era in which "Democrat" was more or less synonymous with "liberal." I was a very lucky child.

---

(Much of this post is excerpted from a post on my original blog in 2007. The picture is a snapshot of a studio photo which I have only on paper, and I don't have a working scanner at the moment. Yes, Mom really was that strikingly beautiful... it's easy to see how as a college student she attracted the attention of the football star who later became her husband and my father!)

‘Soft Summer Breeze’ — Eddie Heywood (Piano Solo), Or The Diamonds (Male Vocal Quartet)

Eddie Heywood, 1946

Music from my childhood! This song was #11 on the charts in 1956 when I was 8 years old. My parents, who loved to dance (slow dancing or jitterbug) somehow came by a 45 RPM record of songwriter Eddie Heywood soloing on his own too-cute love song, and I later somehow heard it on a cover by The Diamonds, a male vocal quartet typical of the time. One of my early play-by-ear efforts was an attempt to memorize Heywood's solo in the second chorus... I didn't yet have the technique to play it, but damn, it certainly was fun trying.

Through the miracle of YouTube, this charming bit of early music (heh) can be found online. First, Heywood; second, The Diamonds:

Oh, yeah; I almost forgot: lyrics!

♫ Once... I Had... A Secret Law... ♫The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Environment

NOT the logo, but should be...

If I have been absent from the blog a lot, it is because I've been reading Naomi Klein's prizewinning book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. The book is utterly essential reading for anyone who calls him- or herself an environmentalist, but I'd be the last to deny it is challenging reading on several levels. Especially on point regarding the environmental consequences of the TPP are two chapters: chapter 9, Blockadia: The New Climate Warriors; and chapter 10, Love Will Save This Place: Democracy, Divestment and the Wins So Far. It may be possible to read these chapters independently without starting at the beginning of the book; I'm not sure because I so strongly feel you should read the entire book.

Leaders of TPP member states
(courtesy Wikipedia))

Reading the chapters led me to pursue more information on TPP on the web. Goodness knows there's both a lot of it, and not enough of it: the damned thing is being written in secret, from the public of the involved nations and (in America) from Congress, by 600 people who might politely be called corporate lobbyists... no environmentalists involved. But someone leaked an early version of specifically the environmental section of the draft, WikiLeaks published it in January 2014, and a team assembled from Sierra Club (SC), World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published an analysis (.pdf), also in January 2014. This is surely not the final version, but it does include a comparison of two earlier versions of the environmental chapter. Believe me, it isn't pretty!

For background, you might want to read about the two decades of NAFTA, the only major trade agreement in town at the moment, and see how that has worked out. Back to TPP, here's a recent TechDirt article of possible interest, mostly about how the US thinks it can get around TPP's provisions... yes, the ones for which no one has been permitted to know the text... and an op‑ed by Sarah Rose at SFGate urging that TPP not be fast-tracked.

The whole thing sucks little green dog dicks. And I doubt we can stop it; TPTB have shown little interest in what the public thinks in any nation involved. But we have to try: democracy already means little enough, and IMO we are obliged to give it some help.

The National Noose

Stephanopoulos

"Good mourning, 'murka; I'm George Stephanopoulos. We lead with DeflateGate, DeflateGate and Tom Brady, Tom Brady and DeflateGate. [Puff piece on Brady... can you say "puff piece" about a QB?] Next, after these interminable messages, we'll tell you about the commercial plane forced to land because of smoke in the cabin, the earthquakes in northern Texas absolutely positively caused by a tornado not by fracking, ISIS online recruitment of youth in 'murka, scary storms in California (complete with a huge red spot on our ABC map to make them even scarier), and we'll probably close with a cuuuute kitten or puppy or baby, or maybe a courageous disabled person or injured 'murkan soldier. Now a word from those who bring all of that into your living room..." [/satire]

OK, maybe it wasn't Stephanopoulos, maybe that isn't quite what the announcer said, and maybe DeflateGate wasn't the very first story, but the prioritizing of DeflateGate over air travel hazards, earthquakes in an unusual place, terrorists among us and dangerous weather in America's dryest state was as real as it ever gets on the national noose... hey, am I growing cynical in my old age?

The Texas GOP Legislator Who Loathed Women

Yes, I know: there are quite a number of those. But I think Matt Shaefer (R-Tyler) may take the prize. Here's Leslie Salzillo at Kos:

Last week in Texas, a Republican lawmaker proposed an amendment so outrageous, that even some of his own GOP colleagues were repulsed. Andrea Grimes, with RH Reality, reports:

Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) put forward an amendment that would make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after 20 weeks, even if a fetus “has a severe and irreversible abnormality,” effectively forcing families with wanted, but unsustainable pregnancies to carry to term at the behest of the state and against the advice of their doctors or their own wishes.

What would cause a lawmaker to want the government to inflict more emotional pain onto an already grieving family, in addition to adding a major health risk to the mother? Does he not realize a woman can easily die of sepsis by carrying a nonviable fetus?

Schaefer said that suffering is “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”

Oh, for fucksake! Where do these people come from? More importantly, how do they hide their vile and odious ignorance long enough to get elected?

...

For fuck's sake indeed. I've observed over the years that when something like this happens to a male GOPer legislator's own wife (probably to the wife of any male GOPer, legislator or not), they address it in the obvious way: they carve out an exception for the women in their own family. No needless suffering or serious medical danger for their womenfolk; oh, no...

Wal-Mart Has Done Many Bad Things, But Not This One

This is from Ahiza Garcia at TPM:

Wal-Mart issued a statement Monday to TPM dismissing "rumors" that tunnels were being built by the U.S. military beneath closed stores in an attempt to launch a takeover of Texas.

"There’s no truth to the rumors," Wal-Mart spokesperson Lorenzo Lopez told TPM via email.

The tunnels are part of a series of conspiracy theories surrounding "Jade Helm 15," a military training operation set to take place later this year in seven Western states. The conspiracy theorists have said the operation may be part of a covert attempt to takeover Texas and other states.

...

Maybe Wal-Mart would have gotten more attention if the announcement had been made by Lorenzo Lamas...

But seriously, folks, if the US Gummint took over Texas, there would be one fewer state in which Wal-Mart "employees" could use Medicaid, and you know the 'publicans wouldn't do anything to harm their buddies at Wally World... unless of course they could make a profit by doing so...

‘Politically Driven Science’ And The GOP-Driven US House Of Representatives

Emily DeMarco at Science Magazine poses the question: Under what circumstances would the US House of Representatives hold a committee subpanel meeting on alleged malfeasance in a scientific matter, but neglect to call even one single scientist to appear before the subpanel... not even any of the scientists accused of misconduct?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
"Darn laxative failed again..."

Representative Louie Gohmert (R–TX) is worried that scientists employed by the U.S. government have been running roughshod over the rights of Americans in pursuit of their personal political goals. So this week Gohmert, the chair of the oversight and investigations subpanel of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee, held a hearing to explore “the consequences of politically driven science.” Notably absent, however, were any scientists, including those alleged to have gone astray.

...

Right... we should have known that omission would have been the (ir)responsibility of Rep. Louie "Goober" Gohmert (R-TX). What a guy. He'd be entertaining if he weren't so dangerous as he climbs the political ladder. And I think this committee needs a formal slogan, perhaps this one: "It must have been an oversight..."

Music For Monday — Bill Evans: Peace Piece

Even without America's endless War on Everything and Everyone, Monday is a shock to the system after a weekend (whether restful or raucous). This piece by one of America's greatest musicians ever, the late Bill Evans, may be just what you need:

(View on YouTube site)

Need more? Listen (offsite) to the works by Erik Satie that were surely Evans's inspiration for the Peace Peace... different meter, different degree of dissonance, but very much in the same spirit: the three Gymnopedie.

Blissed out yet?

Miscellany: Police Behavior, Riots, Race, Nutjob GOPers And Their Guns

This post may not be particularly coherent, but I need to clean the accumulation of tabs in the browser...

• Bryan at Why Now? points us to CBC for a less ruthlessly "edited" view of police behavior in the news: Baltimore shows police killings America's real state of emergency
• Jon Sopel at BBC News explores What a riot does achieve
• Paul J. Weber at AP via TPM notes that TX Gov Orders State Guard to Monitor Possible Military Takeover of Texas, and similarly, Rand [Paul]: I'll Look Into Whether The Military Is Planning To Takeover The Southwest; together, these tend to prove that the Texas GOP is full-blown batshit fucking nuts
• Josh Marshall at TPM thinks we're crossing that Bridgegate exactly when we come to it
• Aniza Garcia at TPM reports that a Child Finds A Loaded Gun In John Boehner's Capitol Bathroom
• antifa at Kos poses and firmly answers ignorant white Americans' too-frequent question, "Why do they burn down their own neighborhood?"

Maybe next time I'll have something original to write. (Maybe not...)

Owen Jones Interviews Naomi Klein On This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

Naomi Klein

Here is the interview. It begins with a presentation by Klein of the essentials of the book, and concludes with a Q-and-A session driven by Jones. I am increasingly convinced that Klein is one of the dozen most articulate people (journalists, scholars, activists... choose your own term for her) alive today; the result is not nearly as subjectively interminable as its 1½-hour length might suggest. And unless you are a professional in some environment-related field, I can pretty much guarantee you that you will learn something.

Once you have viewed the interview, please find and read the book. The further into the book I read, the more I am convinced it is one of the essential books of our time. (One reviewer compared its impact to that of Silent Spring; most of you are probably too young to have encountered it when it was new, but I agree This Changes Everything is comparably powerful and, one can hope, influential.

Can't afford to run out and buy a copy? Public libraries seem to have it, though demand is high and you may have to queue up. Or you can try Amazon; several of their many affiliate bookstores offer quite inexpensive used copies... my experience on the one in my hand is that "Used - Like New" meant exactly that. And of course fans of e-books can find one, probably at a good price. (I don't have an e-reader.)

(Once again, the YouTube video is one of those restricted to being visible only through its YouTube page; sorry about the additional click.)

AAH Report: EPA Announces Refineries Under-Reporting Air Pollution Emissions

From an article in airCurrent News, a publication of Air Alliance Houston:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that flares at refineries and chemical plants emit about four times more volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a smog-forming air pollutant than previously reported.  EPA also found that Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units at refineries emit more than 10 times more hydrogen cyanide per year, releasing more than 3000 tons more of this powerful neurotoxin each year than previously reported, and more than one third the combined total of all hazardous air pollutants refineries reported to the Toxics Release Inventory in 2013.

Houston Ship Channel
on a crystal-clear day

The new EPA guidelines were prompted by a 2013 lawsuit by the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of Air Alliance Houston, Community In-Power and Development, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services.  EPA revised its methodology for estimating emissions from flares used at various industries, including refineries and chemical plants after determining that they release four times more VOCs than reported by industry in the past.  VOCs contribute to smog and include benzene and other carcinogens.  Although EPA is apparently informing reporters that these emission factors should not be used to estimate VOC releases from flares and oil and gas drilling sites, the agency has not made this distinction in the guidance it has published today or in previous versions.

“The VOC air pollution plume from flares is four times larger than we thought, and that multiplies their contribution to health problems,” said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project.  “Based on this new data, flares deserve more attention from state and local regulators.”

...

Ah, yes, the lying bastards diligent corporate citizens hard at work for their own profit your city's benefit. Please read the rest of the article, if you survive the air you breathe long enough to reach the end...

François Couperin (le Grand): Soeur Monique

I don't feel like writing today this week; there's just too much violence and tragedy in the world. Here... put all that aside and listen as Couperin, himself the signature harpsichordist of the Court of Louis XIV, sketches a nun (one of his teachers?) ambling through a convent in no terrible hurry, but not without a certain grace in her deliberate motion. Written for publicantion in 1722 as a movement in Ordre 18ème de clavecin in Couperin's Troisième livre de pièces de clavecin; performed here by Nancy Kito (who??) on a harpsichord of unknown origin:



(View on YouTube site. This is a better performance by Pastor de Lasala (who??) on a Flemish two-manual harpsichord appropriate to Couperin, built in 1988 by Carey Beebe, Sydney, Australia. The good Pastor declines to allow his better performance to be viewed from another site, i.e., this one. Hey, it's at his discretion...)

(View a recently created .pdf of the score.)

Nepal Earthquake: The Basics

Where is Nepal? Here (link to Google map; click for large map in new window). North of India, south of China (Tibet). Government less than stable.

---

Quake basics from AP via TPM, reported by Gregory Katz, April 25, 2015, 10:53 AM EDT:

• Magnitude: 7.8
• Location: here. Location includes capital Kathmandu (heavily populated) and Mt. Everest. Worst quake in Nepal in 8 decades
• Time of quake: 2015-04-25 06:11:26 (UTC)
• Deaths: 906 reported early; likely 1,000 to 100,000 expected

I'd suggest checking your usual disaster response charities to see what they're doing, but at this point, information is probably sparse.

Misread Of The Day

... occurred when I glanced at this headline...

American al-Qaeda leaders killed in U.S. counterterror strikes

... and misread it as follows:

American al-Qaeda leaders killed in U.S. COUNTERTENOR strikes

Actually, I think we should try it. Take three of the free world's finest countertenors (i.e., adult male altos) and turn them loose on an Al Qaeda cell...

---

AFTERWORD: Well, that turned out not only to be not humorous, but actually to be tragic: apparently the drone also killed two additional people at the site, one of them American, neither of them Al Qaeda. My thoughts are with the families. And despite my initial joking, I find the entire episode, as now revealed, anything but funny. [/sigh]

UPDATE: Obama apologizes for the American drone strike which killed "[a]n American aid worker and another man held hostage by Al Qaeda". Apparently the CIA had no intelligence (there's a temptation to end the sentence right there) indicating these hostages were present, and thus went forward with the strike.

A Hell Of A ‘Compromise’ To Get Loretta Lynch Confirmed — UPDATED

Emily Crockett, Federal Policy Reporter at RH Reality Check, explains what Turtle McConnell has done:

Senators announced a compromise Tuesday that would move two long-stalled legislative items: a human trafficking bill that has been embroiled in a fight over abortion restrictions, and the confirmation of Loretta Lynch to be the nation’s first Black female attorney general.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had refused to bring Lynch’s confirmation up for a vote until the Senate passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA), despite Lynch’s undisputed qualifications and strong record on prosecuting human traffickers. The tactic enraged advocates and Black leaders, some of whom staged a hunger strike in protest.

McConnell said Tuesday that once the JVTA is passed, the Senate will move on to Lynch “in the next day or so.”

...

Lynch

Apart from the raw unmitigated arrogance Sen. McConnell displayed in his throw-away remark about "the next day or so," and (IMHO) the very real possibility he will get the bill he wants and then fuck the removal of the anti‑abortion language, the bad news here is that it establishes Turtle's ability to blackmail the entire US Senate... hardly any senator opposes the essence of the bill, or Ms. Lynch's confirmation... to get whatever he goddamned well wants. I am glad Lynch will be confirmed, but I am far from confident we will not live to regret this "compromise."

UPDATE: an agreement has been reached. The bill has passed; Ms. Lynch will be voted on... on Tuesday. It seems goddamned Turtle is in no hurry to fulfill his part of the bargain... what else is new?

How Six (6) Catholics On SCOTUS Can Be Bad For American Women's Rights

Pieklo

Kennedy

Jessica Mason Pieklo, senior legal analyst at RH Reality Check, explains in considerable detail how SCOTUS, in particular Justice Anthony Kennedy, has undertaken a proactive anti-abortion-rights stand in Gonzales v. Carhart. If you ever thought the Supreme Court was independent of politics and uninfluenced by the religion of its current members, particularly its old men, this story should disabuse you of that notion. Young American women, please take note: Kennedy is no moderate but rather your sworn adversary, and believe me, he won't let you forget it.

Alzheimer's Disease: Duke U. Researchers Find Likely Cause, Successfully Halt Memory Loss In Mice

Charlie Cooper at The Independent gives us the basics:

...

How Alzheimer's disease manifests itself

Researchers at Duke announced that their studies of Alzheimer’s in mice had thrown up a new process they believe contributes to the disease’s development.

They observed that in Alzheimer’s, immune cells that normally protect the brain instead begin to consume a vital nutrient called arginine.

By blocking this process with a drug, they were able to prevent the formation of ‘plaques’ in the brain that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, and also halted memory loss in the mice.

...

The drug that was used to block the body’s immune response to arginine – known as difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) – is already being investigated in drug trials for certain types of cancer and may be suitable for testing as a potential Alzheimer’s therapy.

...

Those of you who know how my mother died will understand why this is exciting news to me: I look forward to the day when no one has to suffer what she suffered, and no family faces the heartache we faced as she declined into dementia. Seeing humanity rid of Alzheimer's disease would be a medical breakthrough the significance of which can scarcely be overstated: if this treatment works in humans, it is a really big deal.

Yes, there is a political component to this story. Mom died in 1990, so I've been following the research that has been done, as best a layman can follow a subject so intrinsically complex, for more than 25 years. After a few years I began to realize that drug companies, in the face of repeated failures to find the cause of Alzheimer's (let alone any serious leads toward a cure), eventually began withdrawing research funding, presumably because there appeared to be so little potential for finding a drug they could sell profitably to justify the extreme expense of the research.

If you ever gave a minute's thought to why the so-called free market is ineffective in solving some problems of great import to society, you'll probably stumble upon this situation, if not this very disease: until now, pursuing a cure for Alzheimer's has been unprofitable. And profitability is the sacred goal of every corporation in anything resembling a free market economy. In other words, if you insist on a government-free approach to funding Alzheimer's research, you are likely condemning Alzheimer's sufferers and their families to a life of sorrow. If you do insist on that approach for ideological reasons... don't come knocking on my door for any reason whatsoever; you're liable to leave with a broken nose.

(H/T Ruth Curran for the graphic on Cranium Crunches; Walter Einenkel at Kos for the ref to the Independent article.)

Hillary's Positions On Several Issues

What kind of president would Hillary be? Here are a few posts on some issues:

• Hillary Clinton's Big Shift On Same-Sex Marriage
• Here’s What a Hillary Clinton Presidency Would Mean for Global Warming
• Hillary Clinton Is Noncommittal On Social Security Expansion — For Now

As I've said before, Hillary is no progressive, at least not as I use the term. But if you read the articles, you'll see she's at least a Democrat. Things could be worse!

A New Cold War?Salon's Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson interview Noam Chomsky on the Middle East, Russia, and America's whitewash of its own war crimes

An interview of Noam Chomsky by Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson at Salon is a bit unfocused as to topic, but each section is vintage Chomsky: full of information about America's mismanagement of relations with Israel, proxy wars old and new with the old Soviet Union and Russia, education of Muslim girls in madrassas, "how [America can] perform better in stabilizing the Middle East," etc. It's a quick read, and international relations neophytes like me are well‑rewarded for the short time it takes.

My Tepid Nod To Hillary

So Hillary is in the race in 2016. One-legged man that I am, I'm not dancing in the streets... Hillary is many things I am not... but considering the field of GOP terrorists already announced or contemplating a run, and that it appears there will never be a genuinely progressive major party candidate for president in my lifetime, I will back Hillary if she gets the Democratic nomination. One can contend against intraparty politics, but contending against such a clear trend is truly tilting at windmills, and I'm too old for that. So, yeah, Hillary 2016. It's her year.

This is from WaPo, at the above link:

Clinton summed her long and colorful biography in cheeky fashion when she joined Twitter in 2013: "Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD..."

Not a bad summary. TBD indeed: it's going to be a long 1½ years of determining. Those of us who love the country of our founders and its actual living Constitution as amended (not the one that exists only in the minds of tea-baggers) had better put aside our reservations and get busy determining right away.

Hillary 2016!

Katrina Vanden Heuvel Offers Opposition To TPP

Katrina vanden Heuvel, weekly columnist at the WaPo and editor/publisher of The Nation, believes that the "Trans‑Pacific Partnership treaty will help neither workers nor consumers".

I agree we must not fast-track a treaty that would override our federal and state laws with little if any advantage to any ordinary Americans. This is another sop tossed to corporate America to the disadvantage of working Americans. If it can be stopped, let's stop it.

ACRONYM Ensemble Plays Giovanni Valentini: Canzona A 5 in G Major — UPDATED

Delicious music performed by a strikingly good ensemble formed only in 2012...



Now that you've heard that, see what YouTube has under "ACRONYM ensemble"; then visit ACRONYM's own web site. There are lots of Oberlin-educated folk in this group; that's probably part of why I like their sound... two of my private teachers studied there, and one of them taught there.

Yes, "ACRONYM" is an acronym, one with many expansions. See the group's web site.

---

AFTERTHOUGHT: this piece by Johann Pezel may be more generally representative of the kind of high baroque music that is ACRONYM's stock‑in‑trade:

Mom! Look! I'm Cleaning My Plate!

Here are some significant items from the past few days (if this thunderstorm doesn't take my system down)...

• Paul Krugman: A Victory Against The Shadows
  

  "GE Capital was a quintessential example of the rise of shadow banking. In most important respects it acted like a bank; it created systemic risks very much like a bank; but it was effectively unregulated," - PK

• Peterr at FDL: 150 Years After Appomattox, the GOP Revises Their Views
  

  "Consider, for example, the remarks of a rather well known Republican leader, speaking in 1865 on the eve of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox" - Peterr

• Katha Pollitt at The Nation: There Are No Abortion Cakes
  

  "If CEOs are worried that their LGBT employees won’t be treated as equals in Indiana, they should show as much concern for their pregnant and potentially pregnant employees." - KP

• Joan McCarter at Kos: Dick Cheney: Obama is the 'worst president we've ever had'
  

  [For Dick, an irony lesson... obviously unlearned - SB]

• NYT Editorial Board: A New Phase in Anti-Obama Attacks
  

  "It is a peculiar, but unmistakable, phenomenon: As Barack Obama’s presidency heads into its twilight, the rage of the Republican establishment toward him is growing louder, angrier and more destructive." - NYT [NFK - SB]

• Joan McCarter at Kos: Rand Paul: America's hungry seniors should turn to charity
  

  [And this man would be President? - SB]

• BlankBeat at Kos: You won't see Hillary Clinton in the same light ever again
  

  [As any reasonable hope of Elizabeth Warren as the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate fades, I find myself looking for legitimate justifications for voting for Hillary, which in fact I will do in preference to pitching my vote into a third-party sinkhole. This article expresses a decent and substantive reason for such a vote. - SB]

Budgets: Obama's Vs. GOP's; Krugman On GOP Budget Lies; Senate Vs. Ringling Bros.

NYT on Obama vs. GOP budgets; Marian Wright Edelman on Big Winners and Big Losers in congressional budgets; Paul Krugman on the Trillion Dollar Fraudsters, the truly dumbfounding increase in the degree to which the GOP is trying to play us all... yes, compared to anything the Dems are doing, and yes, compared to previous years' and Congress's GOP budgets. This is not your grandparents' Republican Party!


Oh, and here is a USA Today article titled Republican-controlled Senate approves budget plan, on the same web page as a small insert titled Ringling Bros. retiring elephants. Too bad it's only Ringling Bros. ...

US Government Has Spied On Your Phone Calls For Longer Than Anyone Knew

Every time we think we've seen it all, reached the limit, learned all the bad stuff there is to learn about US government agencies engaged in illicit surveillance of American citizens, we are disabused of that comfortable notion with a metaphorical slap upside the head. This time it's Peter van Buren at FDL who administers the slap, and we should be grateful to him for doing so:

DEA Secretly Tracked Billions of Americans’ Calls a Decade Before 9/11

While the Snowden-NSA revelations continue to shock Americans on a daily basis, and illustrate how intrusive the government is in our lives, and how casually it violates our Fourth Amendment right against unwarranted searches, it just got worse.

It turns out the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was spying on Americans, gathering metadata on our phone calls, almost a decade before 9/11, and right up to 2013. With help from the U.S. military.

...

In an exclusive report, USA Today learned the U.S. government started keeping secret records of Americans’ international telephone calls nearly a decade before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, harvesting billions of calls in a program that provided a blueprint for the far broader National Security Agency surveillance that followed. The DEA spying only stopped, supposedly, in 2013, no longer needed due to the NSA.

For more than two decades, the Justice Department and the DEA amassed databases of virtually all telephone calls from the U.S. to as many as 116 countries “linked to drug trafficking.” ...

...

(or substitute GeeDubya Bush)

I seldom talk on the phone with my American friends in Europe; international phone calls (apart from emergencies) are not in my budget. But you may be comforted to know that on the rare occasions I've spoken to them in earlier years, the DEA was on the "wire" assuring that we were not talking about drugs. Not that we talked about drugs when we were face-to-face decades ago in the US... you may be comforted, but I sure as fuck am not.

The notion that any government action is justifiable if it leads to the capture and trial of someone engaged in a criminal act is one that our nation's founders were familiar with: when enough acts are criminalized that government must eliminate all citizens' privacy to enforce the laws, the essence of America's Bill of Rights (especially the Fourth Amendment) is destroyed. And that's where we are today. Privacy is gone, and has been gone for at least two decades.

In my youth I was convinced of the superiority of America's form of government. Why do I now think that that "superiority" is a pile of rank, steaming bullshit?

If there is a god, and if that god can damn, then god damn the people who did this and continue to do this... god damn them.

Man Who Took Video Of SC Cop Shooting/Killing Fleeing Suspect Feared For His Life

Caitlin MacNeal at TPM:

Man Who Videoed S.C. Cop Shooting: I Thought My Life 'Might Be In Danger'

Feidin Santana, the witness whose video led to murder charges against a South Carolina police officer, spoke out on Wednesday for the first time since the incident and said that he was so scared he thought about deleting his recording.

"I even thought about erasing the video," he said during an interview on MSNBC with Craig Melvin. "I felt that my life, with this information, might be in danger.”

...

Is Santana's fear justified?

Most photographers who have often wandered the streets looking for interesting material have confronted a question like this at one time or another. While toting my camera, I've never confronted a cop, but I've confronted an angry business owner who didn't like my taking pics of his storefront sign even though I was standing on the city sidewalk in front of his business. I faced the man down and demanded that he call the cops; he repeatedly refused to do so, perhaps knowing that he hadn't a leg to stand on. (Now I'm the one... oh, never mind!)

But that was an easy case. I knew my rights, and the business owner was an ordinary asshole, not an asshole credentialed by the city to put lead in my back. If I had been in Santana's circumstance, I'd have felt the same doubts he did.

So what are your rights in the streets with a camera, still or video?

Let's let ACLU tell us. The good news: courts have ruled you have rights. The bad news: they're not absolute. Here's what ACLU says, quoted directly from their article on the subject:

(Updated July 2014)

Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply. Learn more »

Your rights as a photographer: 

• When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public oversight over the government and is important in a free society.
• When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner's rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply).
• Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant. The Supreme Court has ruled that police may not search your cell phone when they arrest you, unless they get a warrant. Although the court did not specifically rule on whether law enforcement may search other electronic devices such as a standalone camera, the ACLU believes that the constitution broadly prevents warrantless searches of your digital data. It is possible that courts may approve the temporary warrantless seizure of a camera in certain extreme “exigent” circumstances such as where necessary to save a life, or where police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that doing so is necessary to prevent the destruction of evidence of a crime while they seek a warrant.
• Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances. Officers have faced felony charges of evidence tampering as well as obstruction and theft for taking a photographer’s memory card.
• Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations. Professional officers, however, realize that such operations are subject to public scrutiny, including by citizens photographing them.
• Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. For example, if you are trespassing to take photographs, you may still be charged with trespass.

The remainder of that ACLU article explains what you should do if the police stop you from photographing, and special rules particular to video recording (hint: the video and audio portions may be treated differently under the law, although ACLU says that constitutionally they should not be).

Unfortunately, these days, Santana's fear that the cops will not treat him in accordance with the law and the Constitution are not wholly unjustified. We live in parlous times: the police officers associated with the alleged killer may or may not be Santana's friend.

If you carry a camera (and a lot of people do these days, even if they call it a "cell phone," almost as many as carry guns), good luck to you.

Reading For Wednesday

Left over from earlier in the week, but not to be forgotten:

• Judge Denies DOJ Request To Remove Hold On Immigration Executive Actions
  

  First, debatable president George W. Bush attempted to control everything directly by executive order and appointments in his eight stolen years in office. Now that those years are over, his political heirs control everything through his judicial appointments. Unitary executive, then unitary judiciary... either way, the Rethuglicans rule. Got it? You think maybe the same conditions should apply to Obama's executive orders as to Baby Bush's? One of Junior's judges will inform you otherwise. Yes, it's being appealed

• Poverty may affect the growth of children’s brains
  

  With time and various studies, this phenomenon looks more and more likely: poverty denies kids their literal intellectual birthright.

• A 'different' Rand Paul will launch his 2016 bid today
  

  I can't imagine Child Paul making a credible presidential run, but I've been fooled before about what Repub's would or wouldn't do.

• American tragedy: At least 50% of police shooting victims struggled with mental illness
  

  And remember, this article was published before the cop in SC shot an unarmed man in the back. Eight times. Killing him. On video, all set for the national news.

• American police killed more people in March (111) than the entire UK police have killed since 1900
  

  I never thought I'd live to see a day that I fervently pray each time I leave my home that I do not encounter a cop... even though I'm white. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Feel free to post some good news in comments. (Sorry; salvation doesn't count.)

Easter Churchgoer Accidentally Shoots Self With Own Gun

UU Chalice

When I was about 25 years old, a fellow student (actually a woman) at a music workshop, on learning in a lunchtime chat that I am a Unitarian Universalist, accused me of being "dangerous." Really? More dangerous than this guy?

From a TV news transcript at that link:

...

Catholic
Cross

Police say a gun went off at about 11 p.m. Saturday at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament...

...

Jason Wagler was sitting with his fiancee at Mass and heard the gunshot.

...

Interdenominational
Pistol

"We were standing for a few minutes and just before the final procession started, the gunshot went off," Wagler said.

Wagler said at first no one seemed to know what had happened. Some people thought a speaker blew. But then he saw smoke.  Wagler took several photos with his phone shortly after the incident happened.

"I immediately took a step back and was about to take cover. You never know if you're safe anymore in this world. It's a shame to know you can't go into church without having something like this happen," Wagler said.

Police say a man had a gun in his pocket and it discharged when he stood up. The bullet grazed the man's hand.

... newspaper reported the trigger caught on the man's pants and the gun's safety was not on.

"I noticed the gun was handed to another gentleman. He immediately concealed it in a white program, so I took pictures of the gun inside this program," Wagler said.

The man was taken to the hospital. Police haven't released his name.

It's unclear why he brought a gun into church. At this point, no charges have been filed.

(NOTE: I believe that in this church the proper term for "program" is "disorder of service." But what do I know... like most UU's, I am not Christian... see the video linked above for a shot (ahem) of the paper in which the gun was hidden. - SB)

So... this happened in Houston, TX, right? Ummm... try Altoona, PA, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh. Oh, and surely it happened in a "dangerous" Unitarian Universalist church, right? Ahhhh... no. Catholic.

I no longer attend church, but during the dozen or so years I did, I didn't know a single congregant of First UU Church Houston (apart from the occasional law enforcement officer) who entered a church service there carrying a firearm... let alone careless enough to have the safety off. Of course, YMMV...

(H/T Brendan James at TPM.)

Deepwater Horizon — Five Years Later

Oiled pelican - Deepwater Horizon

Here's a podcast by Susanne Bard featuring Science Editor-in-Chief Marcia McNutt and other Science staff assessing many aspects of the current state of the Gulf, the coast and their ecosystems five years after the worst oil spill in US history (at least). The 'cast is about 34 minutes long and there's very little fluff... I learned as much in those minutes as I have in the same period spent reading one or another article on the disaster over the last few years. I may have to revise my earlier opinion of the information density of podcasts!

(Thanks to NTodd for alerting me to the availability of much of the Science web site via free registration. You'll probably have to register to hear this podcast.)

Another 5-4 Supreme Court Ruling Hammers Medicaid For 68 Million Americans

Elizabeth G. Taylor and Jane Perkins of the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) (see also Taylor's blog), writing at TPM:

When it comes to health care at the Supreme Court this year, all eyes are focused on the Obamacare tax credits case, King v. Burwell. But a case decided this week, Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., has raised significant concerns for the availability of quality health care for those who need it most.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court turned against decades of legal precedent and ruled that Medicaid providers cannot use the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution to stop state provider payment policies that are inconsistent with the federal Medicaid Act’s requirement for adequate reimbursement rates. That may sound like a bunch of legalese, but the outcome has a real impact on the 68 million-plus people relying on Medicaid. If a state’s Medicaid payment rates are too low (and many providers complain these rates are below their cost of providing services), then provider participation in Medicaid—and the ability of enrollees to obtain care—is at risk.

...

[/face-palm] Yes, that's our Supreme Court, all right.

Dr. GOPer 'fixes' Medicaid

And unfortunately, that's our Medicaid system. Taylor and Perkins note that "Congress established Medicaid in 1965 as a cooperative program between states and the federal government"; the operative word there is "cooperative" ... in states run mostly by Republicans, the state implementation of Medicaid is as obstructionist as the state's governor and legislature can make it. I know: my late mother finally qualified for Medicaid to help with my late father's payments for her otherwise uninsured institutionalization for Alzheimer's disease... the week my mother died in 1990. Dad ended up nearly broke from paying for her treatment. Texas GOPers can be very proud [/irony] of what they accomplished in that case, goddamn them.

If there is one good reason above all others to hold your nose and vote for a Democratic president in 2016, it is to make sure the effing bastards of the Greedy Oppressive Party lack the power to appoint another Supreme Court Justice for at least another four years. A Democratic president will not assure an optimal replacement for a Justice who retires or dies... the GOPers can continue playing their obstructionist politics as surely as they obstruct Mr. Obama... but if the GOP has the presidency and both houses of Congress, it will be an utter disaster for healthcare in America. Don't let that happen!

Right-Wing Nut-Job Welfare: More Lucrative By Far Than Selling Pizzas, And A Splendid ‘Christian’ Example For Easter

AP via TPM:

Indiana Pizza Shop Still Raking In Money, Over $840K

WALKERTON, Ind. (AP) — A crowdfunding campaign for an Indiana pizzeria that came under fire after its owners said their religious beliefs wouldn't allow them to cater a gay wedding has raised more than $840,000.

Memories Pizza in Walkerton is closed indefinitely and its operators say they've gone into hiding.

...

Look, muthafuckas: religion is about belief; bigotry is about action. No aspect of genuine religious freedom can ever allow you to override secular law in pursuing a business which is a  public accommodation. And if you're Christian, and you're getting fucking rich by exercising that same bigotry, you're defying just about everything Jesus ever said: you're transforming your own moral exemplar into his exact opposite. You're setting a fine example for the rest of us, eh?

Happy Fv<king Easter, muthafuckas.

Chicago Police Systematically Deny Counsel To Arrestees

Is this still true?
Even in Chicago?

In my not-so-humble opinion, denying the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to people arrested in the context of exercising their First Amendment right to free speech in protest of government action, especially denying that right systematically, is arguably one of the most egregious sorts of police misconduct possible. I mean, if Chicago PD is doing this, they might as well be firing rubber bullets into crowds, assaulting peaceful protesters with billy clubs, using tasers on nonviolent protesters, etc. (Oh, wait...) Police denying arrestees' access to an attorney is behavior characteristic of a totalitarian government, not a representative democracy.

Kevin Gosztola at FDL has details. This is no April Fool's joke!

Miscellany

Each worth reading, even if together they don't make up a coherent list post...

Laura Flanders, Truthout: The Fight Against High-Stakes Testing: A Civil Rights Movement Dean Baker, Truthout: Don't Worry About the Robots; the Fed Might Take Your Job David Roberts, Grist: Congress is trying to squash one of the few examples of American leadership on climate George Takei (Star Trek's "Sulu"; gay activist) via Gwenned, Daily Kos: The Awesome Response to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Flanders Baker Roberts Takei