Tag: Gaius Publius

Can “institutional inertia” save the EPA?

by Gaius Publius

Is it an emergency yet?

Trump’s plans for changes to and at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been leaked to a site called “Axios” and outlets like New York Magazine are treating the information as viable. We will as well.

From NYMag’s writeup (my emphasis throughout):

Anyone laboring under the impression that the new Trump administration will be all bark and no bite when it comes to overturning long-established bipartisan policies should watch Team Trump’s assault on the Environmental Protection Agency closely. Aside from appointing Scott Pruitt, who is mainly familiar with EPA as a hated adversary in court, to be in charge of that agency, plans for an initial regulatory wave and budgetary policies amount to a 180-degree turn in environmental enforcement, as reported today by Axios. They include the complete elimination of climate-change programs; a half-billion-dollars in funding cuts for EPA grants to state and local governments; an immediate halt to Clean Air Act regulations affecting new and existing power plants; an about-face on auto emissions standards; and a general defanging of EPA’s crucial ability to overrule federal and state regulations that pose environmental dangers.

That’s probably just the beginning, because these plans were formulated by Trump’s EPA transition director, Myron Ebell, mostly famous as a climate-change skeptic, but more generally active as a policy wonk at a very prominent libertarian-ish think tank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute, financed mostly by a rogue’s gallery of fossil-fuel industries and right-wing foundations.

That’s quite a wish-list.

From the Axios article by Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen (bolded emphasis mine):

We got a sneaky look at the Trump transition team’s EPA “agency action” plan. It’s the guiding (aspirational) document written by Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
One of the striking aspects of the document was its language about the agency’s use of scientific research and economic analysis to justify its actions. A section titled ‘Addendum on the problems with EPA science’ leads with this paragraph:

EPA does not use science to guide regulatory policy as much as it uses regulatory policy to steer the science. This is an old problem at EPA. In 1992, a blue-ribbon panel of EPA science advisers that [sic] ‘science should not be adjusted to fit policy.’ But rather than heed this advice, EPA has greatly increased its science manipulation.

The document goes on to recommend what can be done to “improve the use of science by EPA”:

• EPA should not be funding scientific research

• If EPA uses scientific data for regulation, that data must be publicly available so independent scientists can review it

• EPA’s science advisory process needs to be overhauled to eliminate conflicts of interest and inherent bias

• Science standards need to be developed and implemented to ensure that science policy decisions and epidemiological practices are based on sound science

If you look again at the italicized paragraph (quoted from the leaked document), you can see the Orwellian “up is down” basis for the statements in the bullets, the unsupported assertion that the EPA engages in “science manipulation.” From that “given” follows the rest: The first bulleted item is plain, no more science for you, EPA. The second hinges on the word “independent” (refer again to the quoted paragraph to see what kind of “independence” Trump’s team is looking for). The third turns on the meaning of “inherent bias.” The fourth turns on the meaning of “sound science” (as determined by the Administrator).

One person’s “overhaul” is another person’s “gutting.” Looks like the EPA is headed for a gutting.

Institutional inertia

I asked a person I know who was formerly high up at the EPA, a career civil servant, not a political appointee, about the effect of Pruitt on the EPA. This person advised me that it takes more than 20 months (almost two years) to overturn rulings and programs in an organization as big and complex as the EPA, which oversees laws, regulations and processes that are themselves very complex. I call that slow rate of change “institutional inertia.”

Can institutional inertia save the EPA, at least for a while? We’ll see. The writers at Axios are asking the same question and turned to a “tipster” for some context:

A tipster gives us three important contextual points regarding the executive orders:

• They may be able to implement some of them administratively, but there will be discomfort amongst some Republicans and it will cost the Administration political capital.

• It is not a binary process. In other words, they can’t just overturn them, it may take some time if they are already in the process of being implemented and opponents will have legal recourse to challenge some of the actions.

• There are huge, entrenched bureaucracies at these agencies, and especially at EPA, which is filled with true believers on the environmental movement, climate change, clean water and air. These thousands of people will dig in and make it very difficult for the thin layer of political appointees atop these agencies to move quickly to undo their years of work to put these things in place.

Take the prejudicial description — “true believers” — as showing the tipster to be a climate-denying Republican source. As to people “digging in,” I suspect they’ll do more than that. The “thin layer of political appointees” is very thin indeed, with extremely experienced career employees heading up each of the arms of the huge agency, with nothing but career employees beneath them. Will they revolt by pouring virtual molasses into the already-slow-moving gears of change? We’ll see.

If they do, Trump and Pruitt are likely to respond by developing enemies lists within the organization — civil servants and career employees they want to fire for (trumped up) cause. Or they may do this anyway, proactively. This could very well spark retaliation on the part of the rest of the employees. In other words, war, of a bureaucratic sort.

Stay tuned — as a spectator sport, this should be interesting. And as a spectacle with huge environmental and climate implications, read “interesting” in the sense of the Chinese curse.

Also, watch what happens at NASA and NOAA, agencies also deeply involved — as you’ve seen many times — in both responding to and creating the science around climate change. I’m sure they’re next to be “overhauled,” if that isn’t happening already.

Is it an emergency yet? If it is, what do you suggest we do to prevent it? Don’t despair; humans are resourceful. I’m sure someone will come up with an response.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP

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What will Trump’s shiny new police state do about this?

by Gaius Publius

Recently you read here about Trump’s shiny new police state.

Wonder what he’ll do when this starts back up. Brad Johnson at Hill Heat:

Army Corps Grants Expedited Dakota Access Pipeline Easement

Cancelling an ongoing environmental review, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has given Congress 24 hours notice of its decision to grant an easement for the construction of the final leg of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. The action was directed by one of President Donald Trump’s first presidential memoranda.

In the waning days of the Obama administration, after global pressure built from sustained opposition by Native American tribes to the Bakken shale pipeline in North Dakota, the Army announced it would begin a new environmental impact statement review of the project. Trump’s presidential memorandum of January 24th directed the Army Corps to expedite the approval process for the pipeline by any legal means necessary. In memos issued by Douglas W. Lamont, acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, the corps terminated the environmental impact statement process and foreshortened the Congressional notification period from two weeks to one day.

Final construction on the pipeline could thus begin as early as tomorrow.

In other news, Arctic temperatures are nearing 50 degrees above normal, a massive crack is spreading across one of the major Antarctic ice shelves, and a massive tornado hit New Orleans.

Here’s what that confrontation looked like before Trump got his hands on the wheel:

I’ve said it many times — Trump will start a “rolling civil war.” Count on it.

Also, count it as opportunity, as he starts to collapse in on himself. Fortress White House? Could happen very soon.

P.S. If you want to up the ante against Trump and DAPL, CalPERS is voting on DAPL divestment on Monday. You could help them decide what to do by clicking here. Just a thought…

GP

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Climate Change in the Age of Trump — A “Profit-First Energy Plan”

by Gaius Publius

As you’ve noticed, we’ve turned our attention back to climate here at La Maison, and to the wreckage of the planet we may see manifest in the coming decade (singular).

The climate fight in the U.S. has entered a new phase. It’s moved from dealing with a political party that tried to seem to care about the climate, and with which a certain amount of small cold-comfort progress could be made — to dealing with a political party intent on causing the most climate damage it can manage at the fastest rate it can muster … before it’s booted out of office or loses the consent of the governed. (Ponder that last; it’s one of the items on offer.)

By now we’re all aware that all pipelines will be built, or attempted to be built. But that doesn’t encompass the full sweep of America’s new climate plan. The party now in power intends to dig all the carbon it can, give all the profits to the already-rich oil and gas industry, which will then sell it at the fastest rate possible to be burned into the air. U.S. carbon emission rates should shoot through the roof.

They’re calling that “An America First Energy Plan.” Not that Americans will see a dime of profit or wealth from this black-gold rush. It should be renamed “A Profit-First Energy Plan (and the species be damned).”

From the White House website (my emphasis):

An America First Energy Plan

Energy is an essential part of American life and a staple of the world economy. The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans and maximize the use of American resources, freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.

For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry. President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.

Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own. We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Less expensive energy will be a big boost to American agriculture, as well.

The Trump Administration is also committed to clean coal technology, and to reviving America’s coal industry, which has been hurting for too long.

In addition to being good for our economy, boosting domestic energy production is in America’s national security interest. President Trump is committed to achieving energy independence from the OPEC cartel and any nations hostile to our interests. At the same time, we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.

Lastly, our need for energy must go hand-in-hand with responsible stewardship of the environment. Protecting clean air and clean water, conserving our natural habitats, and preserving our natural reserves and resources will remain a high priority. President Trump will refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water.

A brighter future depends on energy policies that stimulate our economy, ensure our security, and protect our health. Under the Trump Administration’s energy policies, that future can become a reality.

Just a few notes; I’ll have more to say on this at a later time:

• Wherever this plan says “jobs,” substitute “profits.” Wherever it says “wages,” substitute “revenue.”

• “Reviving the coal industry” means just that. Dig it fast, burn it fast, and sell it as widely as possible everywhere in the world. 

• “Energy independence” is a meaningless phrase unless the U.S. nationalizes its oil. All fossil fuel, wherever extracted, is sold at market prices on a small number of exchanges, and only the sellers reap profit. Because the U.S. government is not a seller, it sees not one dime. Because of these markets, oil is fungible. The price of Saudi-dug oil is the same as the price of Exxon-dug oil, all other things being equal. All sellers will charge as much money as they can get; all will hold you hostage to get it.

• “Refocus the EPA on … protecting our air and water” means spending even more tax dollars on all the additional toxic waste cleanup effort this added drilling, fracking and mountaintop blasting will cause. The EPA will have only one role — the nation’s janitor, sweeping up after the energy industry’s mess-making.

And finally:

• This will roil the oil market, which is already glutted with supply at unsustainably low prices. Look for energy market crises — and business bankruptcies — to increase, perhaps exponentially. Many smaller fracked-oil companies will go bankrupt, and the banks that financed them may need another bailout.

How to address this? It’s still an emergency, just a different kind.

At the Wheelhouse of the Titanic

A metaphor: During the Sanders campaign there was an opportunity to put a new captain in the wheelhouse of the Titanic, one who would actually try to turn the ship instead of just seeming to. Today, however, we’re back on the deck, outside looking in. The effort to turn the wheel — mobilize the economy for a fast and radical change of energy source — now has a preliminary step, a preliminary act of mobilization.

To turn the wheel we first have to take command of the wheelhouse, and yes, there are many non-violent ways to do it. It’s that or we have to give up, to relax and enjoy whatever days are left of this voyage. (I hear for many first-class passengers — many of those in first-world countries, in other words — the food and accommodations will be comfortable almost to the end, right before the fight for lifeboats begins.)

I mentioned “the coming decade (singular)” above as the window of time left to us. I don’t think this is the moment yet to give up, to go dancing, according to our metaphor, one last time on the chilly moonlit deck, the icy mass looming before us.

There really are ways to proceed, and with the change of enemy, new opportunities, avenues of approach we didn’t have before. More on that later. This is where we stand now.

GP
 

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Global warming has actually reached nearly +1.5°C already

by Gaius Publius

In honor of Trumps ascension, it’s going to be climate
week here at La Maison, just to help get people oriented to where we stand relative to Mother Earth and her interest in having our species around a while longer.

Note as you read, though —
this is not fatalistic, yet. There are always things to do before it’s
too late, and there’s not sign, yet, that it’s too late. More on the
“things to do” in a bit. For now, the state of things.

How to define “pre-Industrial” global temperature

I wrote recently about Trump, climate change and the upward march of global temperature: “Trump Takes Office Following the Three Hottest Years in Recorded History.” Now I’d like to extend that idea in a couple of easy charts and one added thought.

The first chart to look at is below. Let’s start with a broad look at average global temperature during the Holocene, the period during which our species came out of the Stone Age, became civilized (i.e., lived in settlements; “civilization” has the same root as “city”) and entered the modern era.

The Holocene starts around 12,000 years ago, at the end of the most recent ice age, as the last ice receded and the earth warmed to its current temperature range.

In this chart, “zero” on the Y-axis is the average global temperature in the years 1961–1990. The zero point doesn’t matter though; what matters is where the most recent low (the “pre-industrial global temperature”) is. I’ve pointed it out in the chart.

(“Pre-industrial temperature” refers to the average surface temperature of the
earth prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution — the year 1781
when the James Watt steam engine was invented. But it’s generally taken
to be around 1800, before the climate effects of industrialized
coal-burning became apparent. “Pre-Industrial temperature” is a commonly used start point for measuring global warming. A statement like “global warming of +2°C” means “a 2°C increase above pre-Industrial temperature.”)

Note, as you look at the chart of the entire Holocene above, that the oldest civilizations, like the Sumerian, date to only 5,000 BCE or so, and proto-writing appears no earlier than about 3,000 BCE or later.Through more than half of this period, humans remained in the Stone Age.

Note also that the Holocene temperature range, from lowest temperature to highest, is no greater than about 0.7°C — less than one full degree of average temperature fluctuation for the entire period. Of course, regional variations have been much greater, but it’s the globe as a whole we’re concerned about. Thanks to the narrowness of this temperature range, there have always been many places on earth, not just a few, for humans to flourish. Had there been just a few, our population would be much smaller and “civilization” (humans in settlements) would have been much less wide spread.

Put differently, all of human civilization existed on a planet whose average temperature fluctuation was about two-thirds of a degree Celsius. The “pre-Industrial temperature” is also the modern low of that temperature range.

In the next chart, let’s look at the end of the above time period, the final 1000 years, in greater detail.

The time frame covers from the year 1000 to about 2013 (2013 is the publication date; the last data sample may be from 2012). The blue line now shows the “PAGES2K” temperature reconstruction, but it gives similar results to the Marcott reconstruction (as discussed by climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf here).

Note that the global temperature low at about 1900–1910 (the first deep dip in the instrumental readings, the red line) is a good proxy for the pre-industrial temperature low pointed out in the chart. We can take the temperature in that later period (1900 or so) to be nearly the same as the “pre-Industrial low.”

Now look at the chart at the very top, from the recent “NOAA/NASA Annual Global Analysis for 2016” (pdf). Note that global average temperature from the low of 1910 to the 2016 high runs from –0.8°F to +1.8°F, a difference of 2.6°F — or 1.44°C — above the 1910 low. (It’s a little less in other datasets — for example, see Slide 4 of the same report — but not by enough to matter.)

Two points:

• The Paris climate agreement had hoped to hold global warming to no more than +1.5°C above the pre-Industrial temperature. This is not going to happen. We’re almost at that point now, and we’ll breach that goal in just a few years.

• From the chart at the top, note that the two-year rise from 2014 to 2016 was, converted to Celsius, +0.1 degrees all on its own. Three more two-year periods like this and global temperatures will cross +2°C, the extremely generous IPCC “magic barrier” after which, in lay language, “we’re mainly screwed.”

This doesn’t mean we should do nothing to adapt to the blow — it’s always necessary and wise to adapt, even if the start of adaptation is very late. But the window to mitigate — to lessen the blow — is rapidly closing. Remember, once the social and political chaos reaches critical mass (once there’s too much of it), global warming will run to its natural conclusion.

Elsewhere I’ve predicted the “natural conclusion,” barring conscious intervention, to be global warming of +7°C before humans are forced to stop emitting so much CO2, either through greatly diminished numbers, or greatly diminished technology, or both.

Global average temperature and Donald Trump

Now the added thought. As of this minute, we humans aren’t slowing or stopping our carbon emissions. We continue to add carbon emissions to the atmosphere at close to 10 GtC (gigatons of carbon) per year — or, if you measure the CO2 emitted instead of the carbon burned, by more than 3.67 GtCO2 per year. (GtC and GtCO2 are two ways of measuring the same thing. GtC measures the amount of carbon burned. GtCO2 measures the CO2 it becomes after being burned.)

With Trump in office, the rate will surely increase. First, he is determined to encourage exploitation and extraction of U.S. fossil fuels to the greatest extent possible. Any fuel extracted will be burned. Second, U.S. abandonment of “carbon restraint” will encourage the same behavior by other energy-poor countries like India. Third, world leadership, both moral and practical, in the fight against climate change will pass from the U.S. to either Europe, China, or both.

In which case, fourth, the U.S. will be come a pariah among nations, whether the rest of the world drowns itself or saves itself in the climate decade ahead.

Unless, of course, he pushes people too far and they “Easter Island” his regime instead.

There’s always a choice, and we make it every day. Just sayin’.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP
 

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Best Buy national repair techs routinely search customer devices, act as “paid informers” for the FBI

by Gaius Publius

(Note that the headline is in the present tense. We have no indication that this longstanding practice has stopped.)

Did you know that Best Buy’s central computer repair facility — their so-called “Geek Squad” — contains at least three employees who are also regular informers for the FBI? And that these employees routinely search through computers and other devices that Best Buy customers send in for repair? And when they find something they think the FBI would be interested in, they turn over the information for rewards of up to $500?

That’s a sideline business you probably didn’t imagine existed — outside of the old Soviet Union or communist East Germany.

I want to look briefly at two aspects of this — first, the story itself (it’s chilling) and second, its implications.

The Story — Best Buy Repair Techs Routinely Inform on Their Computer Repair Customers to the FBI

Let’s look first at the story via the OC Weekly in Orange County, California. Note, as you read, the use of phrases like “FBI informant” and “paid FBI informant.” We’ll also look at other versions of this story. In all versions, Best Buy repair employees routinely search customers’ computers for information they can sell to the FBI, and get paid if the FBI wants the info.

In the FBI-centered versions, the Best Buy employees act on their own and get paid as “honest citizens,” as it were, merely offering tips, even though this practice seems to be routine. For the FBI, the fact that the same employees frequently offer tips for which they get paid doesn’t make them “paid informers” in the sense that a regular street snitch regularly sells tips to cops.

For the Best Buy customer in question, that’s a distinction without a difference. But you’ll see that distinction made in articles about this incident, depending on whose side the writer seems to favor.

Now to the OC Weekly‘s write-up by R. Scott Moxley (h/t reddit user Spacewoman3, posting in the valuable link source r/WayOfTheBern; emphasis mine):

[Dr. Mark A.] Rettenmaier is a prominent Orange County physician and surgeon who had no idea that a Nov. 1, 2011, trip to a Mission Viejo Best Buy would jeopardize his freedom and eventually raise concerns about, at a minimum, FBI competency or, at worst, corruption. Unable to boot his HP Pavilion desktop computer, he sought the assistance of the store’s Geek Squad. At the time, nobody knew the company’s repair technicians routinely searched customers’ devices for files that could earn them $500 windfalls as FBI informants. This case produced that national revelation.

According to court records, Geek Squad technician John “Trey” Westphal, an FBI informant, reported he accidentally [sic] located on Rettenmaier’s computer an image of “a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck.” Westphal notified his boss, Justin Meade, also an FBI informant, who alerted colleague Randall Ratliff, another FBI informant at Best Buy, as well as the FBI. Claiming the image met the definition of child pornography and was tied to a series of illicit pictures known as the “Jenny” shots, agent Tracey Riley seized the hard drive.

The story goes on to detail rights violations committed by the FBI on its own, such as these:

Setting aside the issue of whether the search of Rettenmaier’s computer constituted an illegal search by private individuals acting as government agents, the FBI undertook a series of dishonest measures in hopes of building a case, according to James D. Riddet, Rettenmaier’s San Clemente-based defense attorney. Riddet says agents conducted two additional searches of the computer without obtaining necessary warrants, lied to trick a federal magistrate judge into authorizing a search warrant, then tried to cover up their misdeeds by initially hiding records.

To convict someone of child-pornography charges, the government must prove the suspect knowingly possessed the image. But in Rettenmaier’s case, the alleged “Jenny” image was found on unallocated “trash” space, meaning it could only be retrieved by “carving” with costly, highly sophisticated forensics tools. In other words, it’s arguable a computer’s owner wouldn’t know of its existence. (For example, malware can secretly implant files.) Worse for the FBI, a federal appellate court unequivocally declared in February 2011 (USA v. Andrew Flyer) that pictures found on unallocated space did not constitute knowing possession because it is impossible to determine when, why or who downloaded them.

The doctor’s lawyer, of course, is contesting all of this, and the article’s main point is that these discoveries have the FBI on the defensive. From the article’s lead paragraph:

[A]n unusual child-pornography-possession case has placed officials on the defensive for nearly 26 months. Questions linger about law-enforcement honesty, unconstitutional searches, underhanded use of informants and twisted logic. Given that a judge recently ruled against government demands to derail a defense lawyer’s dogged inquiry into the mess, United States of America v. Mark A. Rettenmaier is likely to produce additional courthouse embarrassments in 2017.

I want to ignore the wrangling between the court, the FBI and the attorneys for this piece and focus on the practices of Best Buy’s employees and the government’s defense of those practices. After discussing attempts to manipulate the court by withholding information in order to get authorization for a raid, the author notes:

Assistant U.S. Attorney M. Anthony Brown … believes the “Jenny” image shouldn’t be suppressed because it’s only “wild speculation” that the Geek Squad performed searches at FBI instigation. To him, the defense is pushing a “flawed” theory slyly shifting focus to innocent FBI agents; he maintains that Rettenmaier—who is smart enough to have taught medicine at USC and UCLA—was dumb enough to seek Best Buy recovery of all of his computer files after knowingly storing child porn there.

Reading this, it’s easy to see that the issue of what constitutes a “paid informant” is being obscured. After all, what counts as “FBI instigation”? If someone pays you regularly for something that she never directly asks for, is that “innocent” behavior or caused behavior (“instigation”)?

Yes, Best Buy Did This Regularly

The article answers the questions above:

But the biggest issue remains whether Geek Squad technicians acted as secret law-enforcement agents and, thus, violated Fourth Amendment prohibitions against warrantless government searches. Riddet [the defendant’s lawyer] claims records show “FBI and Best Buy made sure that during the period from 2007 to the present, there was always at least one supervisor who was an active informant.” He also said, “The FBI appears to be able to access data at [Best Buy’s main repair facility in Brooks, Kentucky] whenever they want.” Calling the relationship between the agency and the Geek Squad relevant to pretrial motions, [Judge] Carney approved Riddet’s request to question agents under oath.

The writer goes on to discuss the ins and outs of this particular case. But consider just what’s above:

• Best Buy routinely takes in customer computers for repair.

• Those computers are, at least frequently, sent to a Best Buy’s national repair facility in Kentucky.

• Multiple people at that facility appear to be regular FBI informants.

• From 2007 on, at least one supervisor on duty at any times was “an active informant” for the FBI.

And finally, from the article’s lead:

• Informing like for the FBI pays at least $500 each incident.

The LA Times handles this question similarly in a piece when the case first broke (my emphasis):

An employee at Best Buy’s nationwide computer repair center served as a paid FBI informant who for years tipped off agents to illicit material found on customers’ hard drives, according to the lawyer for a Newport Beach doctor facing child pornography charges as a result of information from the employee.

Federal authorities deny they directed the man to actively look for illegal activity. But the attorney alleges the FBI essentially used the employee to perform warrantless searches on electronics that passed through the massive maintenance facility outside Louisville, Ky., where technicians known as Geek Squad agents work on devices from across the country.

And note:

The Geek Squad had to use specialized technical tools to recover the photos because they were either damaged or had been deleted, according to court papers.

This contrasts with the Best Buy assertion that “Geek Squad technician John “Trey” Westphal, an FBI informant, reported he accidentally located [the image] on Rettenmaier’s computer”.

The Times thinks this case could turn into a constitutional issue, regardless of whether the doctor is guilty or innocent. (For the record, I’ll note that the later (perhaps illegal as well) search of the doctor’s other devices turned up what is asserted to be more incriminating pictures, mere possession of which is a “sex crime” in the U.S.)

The Implications

First point — This is an eager prosecutorial society; we really are a punishing bunch, we Americans. We’ve never left the world of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. So we give our police great latitude, allowing them to shoot and kill almost anyone for almost any reason, so long as the stated reason is in the form “I was afraid for my safety.” Our prosecutors have great latitude in putting as many of our fellows in prison as possible. Our judges routinely clear their court calendars using plea-bargained guilty verdicts sans trial. This is the American judicial system, and it looks nothing like Law and Order, which is mainly propaganda.

And we, the spectators, are happy as clams to see the guilty (and the innocent) tortured and punished — witness our entertainment and the many popular programs that vilify the unworthy, from Judge Judy and her ilk, to Jerry Springer knockoffs, to all of those Lockup-type programs (extremely popular, by the way) on MSNBC. We love to see the “wicked” get it, in media and in life, much more so than people in many other first-world countries do. Witness our incarceration rate, the highest in the world.

Thus we give our “law enforcement” personnel — cops of all stripes, prosecutors, courts of all stripes (including the secret ones) — great latitude in finding people to punish and then making them truly miserable for as long as possible. We have been like this as a society for some time, all done with most people’s permission.

Second point — With a Democrat in the White House, we’re inclined to think this setup is mainly well-managed (even when it obviously isn’t). Thus it has our blessing, more or less — or at least it has the blessing of middle class and working class white people — the bulk of people who vote.

Third point — We therefore fail to ask the most obvious questions. For example, about this Best Buy case, we ought to be asking this:

Much to think about. I don’t see the practice ending soon. I do see this as the tip of what could be a very large iceberg.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP

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Two ways of looking at U.S. industrial policy

by Gaius Publius

Much of the debate around U.S. trade policy — or “trade” policy, since so much of it really concerns capital flow and “investor rights” than it does actual trade — is really an attempt to define and direct U.S. industrial policy.

Here’s one definition of “industrial policy”:

The industrial policy of a country, sometimes denoted IP, is its official strategic effort to encourage the development and growth of part or all of the manufacturing sector as well as other sectors of the economy.[1][2][3] The government takes measures “aimed at improving the competitiveness and capabilities of domestic firms and promoting structural transformation.”[4] A country’s infrastructure (transportation, telecommunications and energy industry) is a major part of the manufacturing sector that often has a key role in IP.

Ignore the part about “aimed at improving the competitiveness of domestic firms,” since industrial policy can have other, more pernicious goals, as you’ll see shortly. Industrial policy certainly promotes “structural transformation” when it acts. In the same way, by inaction industrial policy leaves in place structures it prefers not to disturb.

In short, “industrial policy” is what a nation does or does not do to structure its manufacturing capability — its ability to produce good domestically, with domestic labor — as it wishes. In other words, the goal of a nation’s industrial policy is to enable the wishes of the nation’s leaders, whatever they are, even when those wishes are other than “improving the competitiveness of domestic firms.”

Let’s look at two definitions of current U.S. industrial policy, in particular, mine and Marcy Wheeler’s. While quite different, these definitions are not mutually exclusive, since, as the piece quoted above points out, “Industrial policies are sector-specific.” One (mine) deals largely with manufacturing for the privately financed consumer-based economy. Wheeler’s deals largely with the publicly financed and supposedly military-based economy.

First my own definition, then Wheeler’s.

U.S. Industrial Policy — Beggar the Nation to Enrich the Wealthy

If you consider the effect (i.e., the goal as practiced) of U.S. industrial policy, you can’t in good conscience say it’s “aimed at improving the competitiveness of domestic firms,” since what would improve that competitiveness (that is, bolster the competitiveness of goods manufactured domestically) is the kind of protectionism practiced during the first 200 years of the nation’s history, explicitly argued by Alexander Hamilton and adopted under the George Washington administration.

The Washington administration, and every administration until Reagan’s, had as a goal to increase the competitive success of the domestic manufacturing sector, the sector powered by U.S. labor, relative to both domestic (U.S.) markets and world markets. Under Reagan, and under every president since — Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama — the U.S. manufacturing sector, or that part of it that services the consumer economy, has been systematically dismantled. (The arguments that this is true are legion, but for the short version, think NAFTA.)

Thus my definition of U.S. industrial policy as practiced:

Current U.S. industrial policy is to move our consumer manufacturing capability out of the country at the fastest possible rate and to hand the (untaxed) savings to billionaires, using corporations as a pass-through.

That is, the people who control U.S. government policy vis-à-vis the manufacture of consumer products make sure that the nation’s manufacturing worker class is made poorer so that the savings in labor cost can go into the pockets of the corporate ownership and financier classes. They do this to the greatest extent possible, and at the fastest rate allowable under current conditions.

They do this by action — through treaties like NAFTA, for example, as well as numerous bilateral agreements — and by inaction, through tax policies that don’t interrupt, or in many cases accelerate, the wealth drain out of the worker class (including white collar workers) into the pockets of the international wealthy.

Regarding U.S. industrial policy for the consumer manufacturing sector, a person would be hard put, I think, to disagree. Which is why I wrote at the start of this piece that the “wishes” or goals of a nation’s policy don’t necessarily have to be beneficial to its manufacturing sector. In this case, the U.S. beggars (dismantles) its manufacturing sector for another goal — the enrichment of those who control the political and political-messaging processes.

The F-35 As U.S. Industrial Policy

Marcy Wheeler takes another approach to determining what U.S. industrial policy is, and hits the nail on the head, at least as regards the military-industrial-congressional sector. Wheeler discusses that here (my emphasis):

Our Industrial Policy Is the F-35

…I actually think the [Carrier] deal ought to elicit a more interesting discussion of industrial policy — the kind of systematic intervention that [economist Jared] Bernstein talks about that might actually do something about the hollowing out of America’s manufacturing base.

Such a discussion has long been forbidden in American political discourse, in part because the same economists pretending such whack-a-mole bribes haven’t become the norm in American political life also pretend that an unfettered “free” market (always defined to include mobile capital and goods, but not labor) will benefit everyone.

Yet even during the period when any discussion of industrial policy has been forbidden, we’ve had one.

Our industrial policy consists of massive US [taxpayer-financed] investments in manufacturing war and intelligence toys that we then sell to foreign governments. When done with Middle Eastern petro-states like Saudi Arabia, that trade goes a long way to equalize our foreign trade deficit, but it contributes directly to instability that then requires us to intervene and build more war toys. That investment in war leads, in turn, to a disinvestment in publicly funded infrastructure that could also provide jobs in the heartland.

The most obvious symbol of our unacknowledged industrial policy is the F-35…

Wheeler goes on to add:

Our current industrial policy, you see, feeds so few prime contractors that they are virtually immune from the competition that might pressure them to deliver quality goods. Which leads, in turn, to rework, contract overruns, and contractors walking out of the building with our government’s most closely guarded secrets, all with no consequences.

Let’s stop pretending (as this piece does) that America’s manufacturing, increasingly dominated by the production of war toys, exists in a a real market, shall we?

Which is where our views converge:

Once we do that, we might begin to address the diseases of our defense contracting and — more importantly — rediscover the value of investing in other kinds of manufacturing that our country needs to have. Justify these investments by some future defense need, I don’t give a damn (though there are military officials who will soberly explain the risks of the hollowing out of our manufacturing base). But invest in the technologies the US needs to stay competitive and retain a manufacturing base.

And there it is, two definitions of “U.S. industrial policy,” one for manufacturers in the privately financed consumer sector and one for manufacturers in the tax-payer financed military-industrial-congressional sector.

Interesting how the source of the money used — whether it comes from the public pocket (yours and mine) or the pocket of those who own the business — determines where the manufacturing occurs. It probably helps a lot that publicly financed manufacturing includes a very generous profit guarantee (which Wheeler also discusses), a guarantee not available to private corporations.

These must guarantee their profit — and their mahogany suite compensation and “golden parachutes” packages — by taking from tax-payers in another way. They take from them directly, in other words, in the form of lost wages, since they can’t use the IRS as an extraction tool.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP

Climate change in the Age of Trump: A “humanitarian crisis of epic proportions”

by Gaius Publius

Sometimes I really think people don’t know what we’re in for…

We’re about to witness a kind of “perfect storm,” perhaps in our lifetime — the confluence of soon-to-be out-of-control climate degradation with the perfect person in the perfect place to make that degradation worse, President Donald Trump.

First, on the effect of Trump on military climate policy, from Scientific American (emphasis mine):

The military and intelligence communities may soon turn a blinder eye toward some climate change-related threats, indicated by
President-Elect Donald Trump’s recent choices of climate-change skeptics for  national security jobs, along with his own dismissive comments. But though experts say Trump and his team could roll back some recent initiatives, the momentum of bureaucracy, along with a military need to take the long view, mean climate-related plans are unlikely to be
abandoned entirely.

The Department of Defense and the intelligence community have long considered climate change a crucial input into national security planning and policy. Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said climate “can significantly add to the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict.” The Pentagon calls this a “threat multiplier.”

Yet Trump has tapped retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn to be his national security advisor, and Flynn has ridiculed the idea that climate change poses any particular threat to the country. Congressman Mike Pompeo (R–KS) has been named to head the CIA, and he has questioned the scientific consensus on climate change and has voted for more oil drilling and against any regulation of carbon emissions. Joshua Busby, an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied the intersection of climate change and national security, says the appointments mean “some of the gains made by the Pentagon and other executive agencies to prepare for the security consequences of climate change could be undone.”

Anti-climate policy changes at the Pentagon will almost certainly be replicated in NASA via the defunding of its climate science research:

Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.

Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.

This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.

Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”.

Let’s set aside the fact that this and similar moves will make the U.S. a pariah among nations. Set aside the consequences of moving, but not quickly enough, to mitigate (lessen) the climate disaster — a likely outcome under Clinton. Consider instead the consequences of moving as aggressively as possible to increase the problem and magnify the disaster.

That’s climate change in the Age of Trump — accelerating over the cliff.

The Coming Climate Refugee Crisis — 200 Million and Counting

It’s estimated that in the world today there are more than 36 million refugees from climate and other natural disasters, more than for any other cause, including war. Under any president that number would increase, but certainly under Trump it’s set to increase to disastrous proportions. Let’s start with what the National Geographic thinks would happen anyway: 

The International Red Cross estimates that there are more environmental refugees than political refugees fleeing from wars and other conflicts. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says 36 million people were displaced by natural disasters in 2009, the last year such a report was taken. Scientists predict this number will rise to at least 50 million by 2050. Some say it could be as high as 200 million.

Two hundred million refugees isn’t just a humanitarian crisis; it’s a military one as well. This is what Europe looked like when an unchecked mass migration took place in Roman times.

Every border in Europe was politically and ethnically redrawn. 

What you see above took place in roughly 400 years. Imagine a migration of this scale taking place in one tenth the time — in just 30 years, roughly the time between now and the article’s mentioned date of 2050.

What If the Estimates Are Too Conservative?

Now consider that no recent reputable climate estimate has been wrong in a conservative direction — wrong because things are moving more slowly than anticipated. Almost nothing in the climate world is moving more slowly than expected. In fact, a great many climate estimates are very wrong in the other direction — because things are moving a whole lot faster than anyone thought they would.

Then consider the Trump Effect, that what would have happened anyway will certainly be made worse by Trump, both by his acceleration of the cause (CO2 and methane emissions) and by his armed and deadly reaction to its results.

With that in mind, let’s look again at that perfect refugee storm we’ve been talking about.

First, consider the population-size estimate. The National Geographic article mentions up to 200 million refugees. The nation of Bangladesh alone holds 158 million people. Most of its land will be quickly under water or be threatened by water under any significant sea level rise (see map above). Where will they go? India is already planning to keep them out. And that’s just one small region. The entire world holds a human population of 7.5 billion and many similar low-lying regions and large deltas.

So, what if the estimates above are too conservative? An world environmental refugee population of 200 million in 35 years seems like a lot, but it’s really only 2.5% of world population. Climate threatens far more people than that. If 150 million in just Bangladesh are panicked and trying to escape, they alone would account for most of that total.

What if not just 2.5% of world population, but 10% or 20% of world population fell into environmental refugee status? We’re now looking at 700 million to 1.5 billion people, not just fleeing, but starving, fighting and dying as well. In other words, utter world chaos of every type imaginable. It would in fact be far worse than the migrations through Europe pictured above, and not just because of the time compression. People didn’t mass-migrate into Europe from the east during Roman times because they were dying at home and bringing epidemia with them. The mass migration pictured above involved people who were, in the main, healthy.

Next, consider the time estimate. Nothing says this crisis has to be linear, with a relatively slow and steady ramp-up to the (totally arbitrarily chosen) year of 2050. Donald Trump will be president (one presumes) through 2020. Collapses often happen very quickly. What if the bottom falls out between now and, say, 2024, perhaps while he’s still in office, then picks up speed? A world refugee crisis that blows up in the next 10 years compresses the time scale to an impossible-to-deal-with degree, yet anyone still alive in the next ten years or so might watch it. The Trump Effect.

As I said above, climate change in the Age of Trump could be a perfect storm, a disaster in which no way to make it worse goes unexplored.

The One Road Out

Interestingly, from that horrific possibility comes the route away, the one road home. Imagine what would happen, in this pre-revolutionary country, if Trump doubles down on this, in North Dakota?

‘People Are Going to Die’: Father of Wounded DAPL Activist Sophia Wilansky Speaks Out

Is devastating policy brutality against water protectors in North Dakota a harbinger of what’s to come when Donald Trump takes office?

Sunday’s brutal police assault against peaceful Dakota Access Pipeline activists left one water protector, Sophia Wilansky, at risk of losing an arm, and her distraught father spoke out Tuesday and Wednesday against the shocking show of force and demanded government action.

Wayne Wilansky, a 61-year-old lawyer and yoga teacher from New York City, spoke to a reporter in a Facebook live feed about his daughter’s devastating injury, allegedly caused by a concussion grenade.

“This is the wound of someone who’s a warrior, who was sent to fight in a war,” Wayne said. “It’s not supposed to be a war. She’s peacefully trying to get people to not destroy the water supply. And they’re trying to kill her.”

Most of the muscle tissue between Sophia’s left elbow and wrist as well as two major arteries were completely destroyed, Wayne said, and doctors pulled shrapnel out of the wound.

The Morton County Sheriff’s Department has denied using concussion grenades or any equipment that could cause an injury like Sophia’s, despite witness accounts and the shrapnel recovered by surgeons from Sophia’s arm. [Note: There’s video of recovered cannisters.]

The police in Morton County, North Dakota are acting with such brutality, Wayne warned, that eventually “people are going to die.”

“Eventually, people are going to die.” And then what? The murder of more non-violent protesters as people gather in response? Before the 2008 economic crisis, this would not have occurred. But after that crisis, with nearly everyone in the country in revolt (remember, they elected Trump and nearly elected Sanders), I don’t see either side standing down.

This is the rolling civil war I talked about, something the nation’s leaders seem determined to push people into. It would be a terrible way to settle the nation’s economic disputes, but when it comes to racial murder or climate justice for all succeeding generations, I’m not sure I see the alternative, sad as it is to say that.

Stay tuned.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP

Within the ballpark, time moves differently

by Gaius Publius

On baseball and time, the great sport writer (and writer) Roger Angell:

The last dimension is time. Within the ballpark, time moves differently, marked by no clock except the events of the game. This is the unique, unchangeable feature of baseball, and perhaps explains why this sport, for all the enormous changes it has undergone in the past decade or two, remains somehow rustic, unviolent, and introspective. Baseball’s time is seamless and invisible, a bubble within which players move at exactly the same pace and rhythms as all their predecessors. This is the way the game was played in our youth and in our fathers’ youth, and even back then—back in the country days—there must have been the same feeling that time could be stopped. Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young. Sitting in the stands, we sense this, if only dimly. The players below us—Mays, DiMaggio, Ruth, Snodgrass—swim and blur in memory, the ball floats over to Terry Turner, and the end of this game may never come.

You remain forever young. The players below us — Mays, DiMaggio, Ruth, Snodgrass — swim and blur in memory, the ball floats over to Terry Turner, and the end of this game may never come.

Poetry. Also, baseball exactly.

GP