Conservative NE cattle ranchers upset over EPA flyovers

If I'm understanding this new outrage from Nebraska, government drones looking for illegal immigrants is just honky dory and makes sense but when the EPA flies over cattle ranches to photograph, that's an invasion of privacy. Suddenly the "if you have nothing to hide, why should you care?" mentality is out the window when it's them. I see.

Have I missed something here or are the Republican politicians and cattle ranchers hypocrites?

A Nebraska cattlemen’s group is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution-control flights over ranches, claiming it amounts to spying on citizens. EPA, meanwhile, says the flights are an effective way to quickly spot -- and stop -- pollution from manure lagoons and other waste at large livestock operations.

Nebraska's five federal lawmakers joined the fight this week, demanding to know on what authority EPA is flying over and photographing private property. The lawmakers sent their demands to EPA chief Lisa Jackson on Tuesday, listing a battery of questions and demanding answers by June 10.

EPA has been operating these flights across the country for nearly 10 years.

When the GOP owned Washington, aggressive invasions of privacy (including obviously the EPA flights) somehow made sense and were for freedom and protection. Why was it OK then or for other issues? Both parties will easily abuse any rights given to them as we are about to see with drones flying over the country.

In the case of EPA flyovers, it's difficult to imagine how much more the flights can provide compared to satellite images that have been possible for decades. Read the rest of this post...

Connecticut becomes 17th state to legalize medical marijuana

Why is this still such a big deal among the national political class? If doctors are OK with it then why the worry? Reuters:

The state's Governor Dannel Malloy signed into law legislation allowing licensed physicians to certify an adult patient's use of marijuana for medical purposes, according to a statement from the governor's office.

The new law puts in place restrictions to prevent the kind of abuse that has plagued some of the 16 other states and the District of Columbia where pot is legal for medical use.

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Krugman the radical: "The drive for austerity was about using the crisis, not solving it"

The State of the Krugman is radical.

This is what it looks like when someone with something like mainstream cred looks behind the curtain — in public. You get a narrative, an explanation, that (a) makes perfect sense, and (b) runs exactly counter to the "straight" (mainstream) analysis — what "everyone knows" to be true.

"Everyone knows" that the drive for austerity is sincere, but wrong-headed. Wrong, says the Professor. The goal of austerity is to destroy.

Krugman is in the U.K. at the moment and asking everyone he can find "why austerity now?" (my emphasis everywhere):

Over the past few days, I’ve posed that question to a number of supporters of the government of Prime Minister David Cameron, sometimes in private, sometimes on TV. And all these conversations followed the same arc: They began with a bad metaphor and ended with the revelation of ulterior motives.

I'll leave you to read about the bad metaphor. It's an excellent, clear explanation of why a national economy is the opposite of a household economy.

Let's jump instead to those "ulterior motives":

[W]hen you push “austerians” on the badness of their metaphor, they almost always retreat to assertions along the lines of: “But it’s essential that we shrink the size of the state.”

Again, factual, so far. Now the radical analysis:

So the austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs. And this is, of course, exactly the same thing that has been happening in America. ... the direction of policy is the same [in the U.S. and the U.K.] — and so is the fundamental insincerity of the calls for austerity.

The big question here is whether the evident failure of austerity to produce an economic recovery will lead to a “Plan B.” Maybe. But my guess is that even if such a plan is announced, it won’t amount to much. For economic recovery was never the point; the drive for austerity was about using the crisis, not solving it. And it still is.

Excellent work, sir. Blessings on you and your Times column inches.

I would just add this for our readers. Think a little down the road.

If the plan of Our Betters is to not-solve the crisis (see? I told you the analysis was radical), what will the country look like when they achieve their real goal — a big-time economic crisis during which the safety net is devastated?

Tick-tick-tick.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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JPMorgan's "London Whale" had been making mega trades for years

In other words, the myth about Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan being risk experts was a load of dog dirt all along. Is this really a surprise for anyone outside of the boot licking Wall Street cheerleaders media? Wall Street is full of ego and BS specialists, which is fine, when it's their own money and governments aren't bailing them out to save a country. It's a much greater problem when we have public policy that bends to their every desire.

We really need to forget about Dodd-Frank and go far beyond that. Bring back Glass-Steagall, which worked well for decades until Clinton and the GOP ripped it apart. Bloomberg:

Iksil’s value-at-risk, a measure of how much a trader might lose in one day, was typically $30 million to $40 million even before this year’s buildup, said the person, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the trades. Sometimes the figure, known as VaR, could surpass $60 million, the person said. That’s about as high as the level for the firm’s entire investment bank, which employs 26,000 people.

Investigators are examining how long senior executives knew about Iksil’s swelling bets at the chief investment office before losses approached $2 billion. One focal point is why the formula used to calculate Iksil’s VaR was altered early this year, cutting the reported risk by half. The change followed an internal analysis in late 2011 and was approved by top risk executives, said a person close to the bank. About the same time, half a dozen managers typically involved in such decisions moved to new jobs.
“If it was something that had that large an impact, it would have to be agreed to at the very-most-senior level within risk management,” probably including the bank’s chief risk officer, said Steve Allen, a former head of risk methodology for JPMorgan who retired in 2004. “You’re not going to make a change of that magnitude on the basis of one risk manager."

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Mubarak gets life in prison for ordering attack on protesters

Hosni Mubarak should have the pleasure of spending out the rest of his life in one of the prisons that he so often used for opponents, though he's more likely to have special conditions. CNN:

Handing down the verdict before a packed courtroom, Refaat praised the revolution and said it offered people relief after living "in 30 years of dark without any hope."

While the judge found Mubarak guilty for his role in the killings, he cleared the deposed leader of corruption and misappropriation of funds.

Refaat also chose the lesser of two sentences. Mubarak could have received the death penalty.

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Bill Clinton plays the "Cory Booker card"—Stop being mean to Bain Capital

Really, Bill Clinton? Really? This is Cory Booker territory.

Yes, really. Arnie Parnes at The Hill:

Former President Bill Clinton on Thursday night became the latest surrogate for President Obama to stray from campaign talking points, saying GOP nominee Mitt Romney's business experience "crosses the qualification threshold."

In an interview on the Piers Morgan show on CNN, Clinton said the Obama campaign shouldn't spend its energy criticizing Romney's work at Bain Capital, an argument that has taken central stage in the debate over which candidate can better lead the U.S. economy.

"I don't think we ought to get into the position where we say, 'This is bad work. This is good work,'" Clinton told guest host Harvey Weinstein, a staunch Obama supporter who has helped raise millions of dollars for the president's reelection campaign.

Go to the middle paragraph, to the phrase "the debate over which candidate can better lead the U.S. economy." That's one framing, the kind one.

The unkind framing is "the debate over whether the predatory rich are destroying the U.S. economy."

It's that second frame, that second narrative, that can't ever be acknowledged — at least among the straights.

And that's what Clinton is doing — heading off that narrative.

Remember, Clinton used politics to lever himself into the low end of the upper class. He gave us NAFTA, Telecom "reform" and the end of Glass–Steagall — and after leaving office had enough "thank you" money to pony up $3,000,000 for a wedding.

If he ever was on the side of us Littles (he may well have been, once), he's not now. This description of Barack Obama by James Galbraith, written shortly after Obama's debt-deal, could apply to either man, Obama or Clinton:

The President is not a progressive – he is not what Americans still call a “liberal.” He is a willful player in an epic drama of faux-politics, an operative for the money power, whose job is to neutralize the left with fear and distraction and then to pivot rightward and deliver a conservative result.

What Barack Obama got from the debt deal was exactly what his sponsors have wanted: a long-term lock-in of domestic spending cuts, and a path toward severe cuts in the core New Deal and Great Society insurance programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And, of course, no tax increases at all.

To see the arc of political strategy, recall that from the beginning Obama handed economic policy to retainers recruited from the stables of Robert Rubin.

Clinton loves his Rubin, at which altar Obama also worships. Does more need saying?

It's unlikely that Clinton will "Booker" himself — take himself out of the conversation — with this defense. He's actually upped the Bain pushback against Obama's campaign team. It will be interesting to see if it works.

But just in case Clinton does manage to rebrand himself instead of Bain, I offer this little video to help the cause along:



Clinton and Ryan, sittin' in a tree, killing Social Securi-tee.

Not much more needs saying, in my estimation.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen

Is there really any other way to kick off Queen Elizabeth's jubilee? It's important to show the proper amount of respect for the royal family and nothing does it quite as well as the Pistols. Yesterday's Guardian had an interview with the Pistols front man, John Lydon that's worth a read.

After a very slow and delayed start to the season, Paris weather is finally amazing and about as good as it can get. Not too hot, not rainy, not cold. The upside of the slow start though is one of the best rose seasons that I've seen here. Rose bushes are packed with flowers this year and they're stunning.

My wall of hydrangeas is slowly building and should start blooming soon. Even the plants that looked like death a few months ago are coming around. I'm still not sure if they will all bloom but just see a leaf or two on one is a major development. Read the rest of this post...