Jts5665

Obama seeks $500 million to arm Syrian rebels...


(Second column, 9th story, link)

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I guess it's no surprise that the CIA would be institutionally against things like transparency and freedom of information. However, in the last couple weeks there have been two separate lawsuits filed by well known Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) activists over the CIA's general bad behavior in response to FOIA requests. First up is Michael Morisy and Muckrock, who have sued over a variety of failures by the CIA to adequately respond to a long list of FOIA requests that really should not be problematic at all.

...the Central Intelligence Agency has a track record of holding itself apart from, and largely above, the Freedom of Information Act, consistently ignoring deadlines, refusing to work with requesters, and capriciously rejecting even routine requests for what should be clearly public information.

After listing out all of the FOIA requests that the CIA failed on that Muckrock is suing over, Morisy notes:

Additionally, we are suing against the CIA's general practice of rejecting requests for email records which do not include the time frame, subject, and to and from fields, regardless of what other information is including to help narrow the request. This practice replaces the required functional test for whether or not a request reasonably describes the records sought with a per se test that automatically rejects any request for email records based on whether or not it includes all four pieces of information, virtually ensuring that vast amounts of CIA email records go unprocessed and unreleased.

Separately, two FOIA ninjas, Ryan Shapiro and Jason Leopold (both of whom have written about before, including the FBI declaring Shapiro a systematic problem for filing too many FOIA requests) have sued the CIA as well for its failure to respond to their FOIA requests concerning the CIA's spying on the Senate Intelligence staffers investigating the CIA's torture program.

"It's time for the CIA and the rest of the US intelligence community to recognize transparency not as a threat, but rather as an essential component of viable democracy," Shapiro said.

The FOIA request specifically was about communications between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA which set up the terms under which the Senate investigators would have access to CIA documents, among other related documents. As with Muckrock, it appears that the CIA basically has just decided to ignore the request entirely.

Yes, the CIA lives in a world of secrecy, but it's supposed to follow the law, and that includes living under FOIA transparency rules. It seems to be ignoring those at every turn, so hopefully these two lawsuits will begin to force the CIA to actually obey the law.

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David Boaz

Two weeks ago I wrote about the efforts of big business to defeat libertarian-leaning legislators in states across the country. To confirm my point, on the same day the article appeared the Michigan Chamber of Commerce endorsed the opponent of Rep. Justin Amash, the one of whom I had written, “Most members of Congress vote for unconstitutional bills. Few of them make it an explicit campaign promise.”

Now a battle is brewing in Congress that pits libertarians and Tea Party supporters against the country’s biggest businesses. The Wall Street Journal headlines, “GOP’s Attack on Export-Import Bank Alarms Business Allies.” The “rise of tea-party-aligned lawmakers” is threatening this most visible example of corporate welfare, and David Brat’s attacks on “crony capitalism” in his surprise defeat of Eric Cantor have made some Republicans nervous. Amash told the Journal, “There are some large corporations that would like corporate welfare to continue.”

The biggest beneficiaries of Ex-Im’s billions are companies such as Boeing, General Electric and Caterpillar,  according to Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. Cato scholars have made the same point, including Aaron Lukas and Ian Vasquez in 2002 and Sallie James in 2011.

Matthew Yglesias of Vox notes, “The Export-Import Bank is a great example of the kind of thing a libertarian populist might oppose. That’s because the bank is a pretty textbook example of the government stepping in to arbitrarily help certain business owners.” And he points out that supporters of the Bank include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the AFL-CIO, Haley Barbour, and Dick Gephardt. He could have added Tom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said he worried about “a libertarian theology that’s really starting to creep in.” I hope he’s right.

UPDATE: Dozens Of DC Cabbies Choke Streets To Protest Rideshare Companies...


(Second column, 15th story, link)

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Writing in Salon (“A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son“), Alecia Phonesavanh, the mother of Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, describes in her own words the horrific events her family experienced on May 29. Just before dawn, a paramilitary SWAT team armed with M16 rifles staged an unsuccessful, no-knock raid looking for drugs (none were found). Upon entering a home near Atlanta the heavily-armed SWAT team exploded a flashbang grenade in 19-month Bou Bou’s crib and blew a hole in his chest. He was recently taken out of a medically induced coma, but the hole in his chest hasn’t healed, and doctors are assessing whether there will be any lasting brain damage. Here’s Alecia’s story Drug War nightmare:

After our house burned down in Wisconsin a few months ago, my husband and I packed our four young kids and all our belongings into a gold minivan and drove to my sister-in-law’s place, just outside of Atlanta. On the back windshield, we pasted six stick figures: a dad, a mom, three young girls, and one baby boy.

That minivan was sitting in the front driveway of my sister-in-law’s place the night a SWAT team broke in, looking for a small amount of drugs they thought my husband’s nephew had. Some of my kids’ toys were in the front yard, but the officers claimed they had no way of knowing children might be present. Our whole family was sleeping in the same room, one bed for us, one for the girls, and a crib. After the SWAT team broke down the door, they threw a flashbang grenade inside. It landed in my son’s crib.

Flashbang grenades were created for soldiers to use during battle. When they explode, the noise is so loud and the flash is so bright that anyone close by is temporarily blinded and deafened. It’s been three weeks since the flashbang exploded next to my sleeping baby, and he’s still covered in burns. There’s still a hole in his chest that exposes his ribs. At least that’s what I’ve been told; I’m afraid to look.

My husband’s nephew, the one they were looking for, wasn’t there. He doesn’t even live in that house. After breaking down the door, throwing my husband to the ground, and screaming at my children, the officers – armed with M16s – filed through the house like they were playing war. They searched for drugs and never found any.

I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth. It was only hours later when they finally let us drive to the hospital that we found out Bou Bou was in the intensive burn unit and that he’d been placed into a medically induced coma.

For the last three weeks, my husband and I have been sleeping at the hospital. We tell our son that we love him and we’ll never leave him behind. His car seat is still in the minivan, right where it’s always been, and we whisper to him that soon we’ll be taking him home with us.

Every morning, I have to face the reality that my son is fighting for his life. It’s not clear whether he’ll live or die. All of this to find a small amount of drugs?

The only silver lining I can possibly see is that my baby Bou Bou’s story might make us angry enough that we stop accepting brutal SWAT raids as a normal way to fight the “war on drugs.” I know that this has happened to other families, here in Georgia and across the country. I know that SWAT teams are breaking into homes in the middle of the night, more often than not just to serve search warrants in drug cases. I know that too many local cops have stockpiled weapons that were made for soldiers to take to war. And as is usually the case with aggressive policing, I know that people of color and poor people are more likely to be targeted. I know these things because of the American Civil Liberties Union’s new report, and because I’m working with them to push for restraints on the use of SWAT.

A few nights ago, my 8-year-old woke up in the middle of the night screaming, “No, don’t kill him! You’re hurting my brother! Don’t kill him.” How can I ever make that go away? I used to tell my kids that if they were ever in trouble, they should go to the police for help. Now my kids don’t want to go to sleep at night because they’re afraid the cops will kill them or their family. It’s time to remind the cops that they should be serving and protecting our neighborhoods, not waging war on the people in them.

I pray every minute that I’ll get to hear my son’s laugh again, that I’ll get to watch him eat French fries or hear him sing his favorite song from “Frozen.” I’d give anything to watch him chase after his sisters again. I want justice for my baby, and that means making sure no other family ever has to feel this horrible pain.

For more information about Bou Bou, go to www.justiceforbabyboubou.com.

MP: The nephew who the police were looking for didn’t even live in the house that was raided, and his alleged victimless crime that motivated the paramilitary SWAT raid? A single $50 meth sale. I’m confident that in a future, more enlightened, advanced, open-minded and tolerant America, we’ll look back on America’s Drug War — and the paramilitary SWAT raids like the one that blew a hole in Bou Bou’s chest — with shame, contempt and embarrassment for such cruel, intolerant and inhumane treatment of our fellow man (children).

Earlier this year, we wrote about a court saying that the FAA's rules that banned the use of drones for anything commercial were overstepping the FAA's mandate, and making it clear that such drones should be considered legal. The FAA has appealed, and in an attempt to drive home its point that not a single potential commercial use of a drone is legal, the FAA has doubled down by clearly laying out what's not allowed. Lots of people are pointing out that the FAA's claims are likely to ground the high profile plans by Amazon to deliver packages by drone, but it's some of the other things that are on the prohibited list that strike me as even more ridiculous: I can almost, kinda, barely, sorta see the rationale for saying that package delivery is not allowed, since you could see how that might interfere with other things or cause problems. And, in case you're wondering, the footnoted "6" after that "delivering packages to people for a fee" clarifies that "free shipping" on a purchased product doesn't count.

But... the rest of the items in the list all seem very troubling to me. None of those seem like cases where there's likely to be any interference with aircraft or any other kind of problem. Drone use for real estate videos is increasingly common and something that actually seems like a very good idea. Here's an example of one such video: Can anyone explain any reason why this should be illegal? Same with the use of drones to determine if commercial crops should be watered. That sounds like a really good idea. But it's not allowed. Because the FAA appears to basically want to control absolutely everything. This seems like a massive overreach in so many ways.

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Federal judge rules no-fly list violates Constitution...


(First column, 4th story, link)

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Actually trying to understand how those you disagree with think, rather than just accepting some straw man version, can make one a much better debater.  Bryan Caplan's ideological Turing test is not just about empathy and being open to opposing arguments, but it also pays dividends in making better arguments for one's own positions.  I love how Jesse Walker begins his pitch to Conservatives against the death penalty:

The typical conservative is well informed about the careless errors routinely made by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Postal Service, and city hall. If he's a policy wonk, he may have bookmarked the Office of Management and Budget's online list of federal programs that manage to issue more than $750 million in mistaken payments each year. He understands the incentives that can make an entrenched bureaucracy unwilling to acknowledge, let alone correct, its mistakes. He doesn't trust the government to manage anything properly, even the things he thinks it should be managing.

Except, apparently, the minor matter of who gets to live or die. Bring up the death penalty, and many conservatives will suddenly exhibit enough faith in government competence to keep the Center for American Progress afloat for a year. Yet the system that kills convicts is riddled with errors.

A former gatekeeper laments the publishing revolution:

The idea of writers being able to bring their creations directly to readers is widely touted as a radical advance in authorial control and a revolution in the creative process. Its popularity has soared and its champions, such as the writer and founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors, Orna Ross, proclaim it as something "radical, really revolutionary within my world".. Self-publishing is the revolution du jour, the change that will liberate writers and democratise publishing.

Unfortunately, self-publishing is neither radical nor liberating. And, as revolutions go, it is rather short on revolutionaries. It is actually reactionary, a contracted version of the traditional publishing model in which companies, who produce for a wide range of tastes and preferences, are replaced by individual producers each catering to very narrow range.

Self-publishing is supposed to democratise publishing. For Nicholas Lovell, writing in the Bookseller, "publishers no longer have an ability to determine which books get published and which books don't." In other words, democratisation is nothing more than the expansion of the publishing process from the few to the many. But this both overestimates the barriers to traditional publication – the vetting and selection process may be deeply flawed, but every writer can submit a manuscript – and underestimates the constraints of the marketplace. It also fails to consider whether the democratisation of publishing produces a similar democratisation for the reader by making literary culture more open.

By definition, self-publishing is an individualistic pursuit in which each writer is both publisher and market adventurer, with every other writer a potential competitor and the reader reduced to the status of consumer. Publishing then becomes timid, fearing to be adventurous and revolutionary lest it betray the expectations of its market. This is a natural tendency in traditional publishing but it is one restrained by the voices of its authors who are free to put their work first and entrepreneurship a distant second. With authorship and entrepreneurship now equal partners, the new authorpreneurs have thrown off the dictatorship of the editor to replace it with the tyranny of the market.

Gatekeepers are liberators! The freedom of the market is tyranny! War is peace! Black is white! Evil is good!

These people lie as automatically as they breathe. How absurd is it to say that traditional publishing is not as restricted as it appears because "every writer can submit a manuscript"? This article didn't convince me that self-publishing is a bad thing, it convinced me that in addition to being outdated, the traditional publishers are outright evil.

The ironic icing on the cake is the fact that the author, a former publisher, "has self-published his last three novels". His best-selling book ranks #700,264 on Amazon. Little wonder he despises "the tyranny of the market".

Couple rows 6,500 miles from Morocco to NYC...


(Third column, 21st story, link)

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Walter Olson

Earlier this week Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel won a much deserved Bradley Award for her work in investigative journalism. It’s at times like this, in which revelations about evidence destruction at the Internal Revenue Service almost defy belief, that everyone interested in American governance should follow her column and the Journal editorial page.

Some highlights since the email story broke last Friday: 

* According to Strassel’s column today, the contents of Lois Lerner’s hard drive were wiped out by forces unknown “about 10 days after the Camp letter arrived,” that is to say, a letter from House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp inquiring into targeting of conservative groups. (Lerner then replied to Camp denying targeting and subsequently pleaded the Fifth before Congress.) 

* A WSJ editorial this morning points out the remarkable timing of the IRS’s begrudging disclosure last Friday that evidence central to the case has been destroyed: more than a year after the investigation began and only when a deadline was impending in which the IRS commissioner would have to certify personally that the agency had produced to Congress all relevant communications. Were responsible agency officials determined to treat this as a high-priority investigation, to be carried on in good faith and with all deliberate speed? (There was no doubt about the seriousness of the scandal, as President Obama himself admitted—or seemed to be admitting—at the time.) Or did they instead stall and deflect until the very last moment? So un-forthcoming was the agency that, according to today’s Journal editorial, IRS staffers met with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) Monday and did not tell him that the external emails of six other IRS employees had gone missing too—he found that out only later in the week when he read a press release from the House side.  

* While some IRS critics focus almost to the exclusion of all else on the possible role of the Obama White House in directing the IRS, Strassel and the WSJ correctly will not let us forget that much of the pressure on the agency was coming from Congress itself. In particular, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), along with Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Elijah Cummings (both D-Md.), were among many Democrats seeking to enlist the IRS in a crackdown on politically antagonistic nonprofits.

Thank heavens for Kim Strassel and her colleagues at the WSJ, because otherwise it would seem as if few in the press were willing to focus serious investigative attention on this extraordinary scandal. (Many other press outlets have treated it as a dull page-A-18 story, run wire service coverage only, or–as with the New York Times–waited three days even to notice it.) 

People used to ask how Watergate might have turned out if the press had sided with Nixon instead of against him. Thanks to the work of Strassel and her WSJ colleagues, let’s hope we never find out.

PAPER: Vets died as VA obsessed over renewable 'green' energy...


(Third column, 12th story, link)

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Last week I wrote about the fine article in the Washington Post featuring people who had decided to opt-out of Obamacare, with a focus on those who had joined health sharing ministries. I also noted that many of the comments on the article revealed a great deal of confusion, ignorance, and even hostility to the whole idea of individuals choosing to voluntarily share medical bills amongst themselves.

Here’s one of the more lucid, less offensive (but still almost completely wrong) comments:

…if you actually go read [Christian Healthcare Ministries’] site, even the “Gold” level of protection is WORSE THAN the ACA-defined “Bronze” level, for anything excepting a person who has very little healthcare needs. 
 
CHM has [lousy] catastrophic coverage (even with their Brothers’ Keeper’s add-on). Given the immense costs of any chronic disease or accident, you’ll burn through their coverage almost instantly. A single fairly-serious car accident will bankrupt you quickly even with CHM.  
 
And, of course, ongoing drug costs (if you’re in “maintenance”, which most chronic conditions are) are going to NOT be covered.  
 
Lastly, you pay all bills up front, then seek reimbursement from CHM, with a 2-3 month lag time AFTER you’ve submitted the paperwork. 
 
Sounds like a real winner to me. The $150/unit cost isn’t a good deal either – with subsidies, most families of 4 will get better coverage under the ACA policies. I.e. family of 4, $60k income, you get a nice “enhanced Silver” package for $400/month, which is less than the CHM’s $450/month bill and provides FAR superior coverage. 

To just run through the biggest mistakes here:

1. Christian Health Ministries’ ‘Gold’ level plan has a ‘personal responsibility’ amount of $500, compared to most ‘bronze’ level insurance plans with a deductible in the $5,000 – $6,000 range.
2. The catastrophic coverage with the Brother’s Keeper add-on is unlimited for members of the ‘Gold’ plan, and even for the other plans is pretty generous too, ranging between $125,000 and $1 million.
3. Ongoing drug costs are in fact covered.
4. You don’t have to pay the bills up front for major illnesses and injuries
5. The subsidies on an ACA exchange are generous for some, less generous or nonexistent for others. A couple with no kids earning $65,000 gets no subsidy for example.

This particular commenter targeted Christian Healthcare Ministries so I focused on them in my response here, but a quick review of the other ministries will find pretty much the same thing. Samaritan Ministries, for example, has a program called Save to Share to pay medical bills beyond their $250,000 basic cap, and Christian Care Ministry (also known as Medishare) has no annual or lifetime limit at all. Both Liberty Healthshare and Altrua HealthShare also offer up to $1 million in benefits.

(One quick note – the average medical expense for someone in the top 1% of all healthcare consumers  was about $87,000 in 2010. You have to have an epically bad year or decade to even come close to the limits set by some of the ministries.)

But rather than go through each comment or complaint about health sharing ministries offered on the Washington Post article, I thought it might be more helpful just to provide some of the real stories of individuals who are members of the ministries and have had their medical bills paid by fellow members. I’ve picked one from each of the five.

Samaritan members have come through for us each time we had medical needs in our family. One medical need of my wife’s required an MRI and lumbar puncture procedure, as well as follow-up doctor visits. The bills totaled $9,566.00, but the medical providers gladly offered us discounts, simply because we asked kindly, eliminating $5,464.16 off our balance due. That left us a balance of only $4,101.84, which we were shared in full via personal checks from other members through the Samaritan Ministries International’s very organized system for assigning every medical… Additionally, our personal responsibility was $0 for this medical need, because of discount we negotiated. Our monthly share never exceeded our set amount, and our share hasn’t increased due to having a medical need.

The second medical need my wife had was for ingrown toe nail surgery in two toes. This surgery would have cost us $675 without help, but the final amount we’re out of pocket is $121, because like the previous medical need we asked for discounts from the doctor’s office and received shares from members.
Dustin & Melisa Cheatham

 
Our family joined Christian Healthcare Ministries in 1993… Since then we’ve experienced various medical incidents, including hemorrhoids; appendicitis; broken bones; accidents; gallbladder issues; Angelman syndrome; kidney stones; and my pregnancies with our five daughters—Olivia, Julia, Arianna, Victoria and Sophia.. We’re grateful to CHM members for sharing nearly $90,000 to help us with these many expenses.

Two of our daughters—Arianna and Victoria—at age six were each diagnosed with scoliosis… We knew that our daughters would need surgery in order to live longer. (Severe scoliosis can shorten lifespan by up to 20 percent because it affects internal organs and rib cage rotation.)

We found a remarkable surgeon who practices medicine about two hours away from where we live. Arianna underwent spinal fusion surgery in June 2012 and spent three weeks in the hospital…

Arianna’s medical bills totaled $345,504; the hospital bill alone was more than $300,000. Thankfully, with a lot of help from CHM, the hospital bill was reduced by 77 percent. Overall we received $251,948 in discounts and the remaining balance ($93,556) was shared by CHM members!
Kenneth & Debbie Seigal


While ice-skating at her granddaughter’s 7th birthday party, [Peggy] Sofran took a tumble face first onto the ice.  The fall caused her arm from her shoulder to her elbow to turn black and blue..

After a visit to her doctor, he confirmed that she had fractured her shoulder. After years of using traditional insurance, she was nervous the first time she handed her Liberty HealthShare card to her doctor’s receptionist.

“I was wondering what would happen once I used the card. I had explained to the nurse how it worked and then she took down the information on the card”, said Sofran.

Although the function of a health share plan was new to the nurse, she sent it to the billing department for processing without any hesitation. 

“They didn’t have a problem taking it at all; I thought ‘Oh wow, this is nice’!”, she said.  After Sofran’s second visit, her experience was even better. She went in for another x-ray, handed the card to the nurse who took it and gave her everything she needed for her procedure, without any questions.

Sofran exclaimed, “It was so easy, and the perfect experience. I couldn’t have asked for things to have gone smoother! My bills have been shared by the members and the doctors are paid…
Peggy Sofran


I have been a member of Altrua HealthShare since early 2002. I can say Altrua HealthShare has truly blessed my family over the years of being there in times of medical needs. In late 2004 my wife had a second round of cancer that created over 160k of medical bills after being clean of cancer for 12 years. In mid-2010 I had major neck surgery which created 80k of medical bills and Altrua HealthShare was there to provide for my family’s financial needs… I also would have been financially crippled without Altrua HealthShares assistance. A very special connection to Altrua HealthShare is Altrua Ministries… [which] assists the members of Altrua HealthShare in dealing with financial hardship and works with medical providers in lowering and finding discounts plans to lower the out of pocket expense…
Mr.  Jacobs

 Last but by no means least, here is an amazing video detailing the experience of Bobby and Sandra, Christian Care Ministry/Medishare members who faced over $1 million in medical bills following what was indeed an epically bad year medically speaking – 43 days in intensive care, pancreatitis, stroke, coma, and pulmonary failure, and those are just the highlights. Their ministry paid the entire bill.

As I’ve often said, health sharing ministries are not the right solution for everyone looking for alternatives to conventional health insurance or just for a way to save money on health care. But for those who do their homework and look at what each ministry really offers, as opposed to how they’re described by uninformed and hostile people, there’s a good chance they’ll find something that’s a match.

YOUTUBE to pull plug on indie stars...


(Second column, 17th story, link)

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The IRS is currently being investigated by Congress for some possibly politically-motivated "attention" it directed towards "Tea Party" and other conservative groups that operated as tax-exempt entities. Along the way, IRS official Lois Lerner, who was the first to publicly disclose the inappropriate targeting, was also one of the first government officials to plead the Fifth (twice) in government hearings.

The Congressional investigation demanded copies of Lois Lerner's emails from the IRS. Some were turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee, but not everything it sought. Now, the IRS is telling the committee that it's not going to get everything it asked for.

The IRS has told Congress that it lost more than two years’ worth of emails involving former IRS official Lois Lerner, due to a computer crash.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on Friday said it was “unacceptable” that he was just learning of this problem now, after a lengthy investigation into Lerner’s involvement in the IRS targeting scandal.

Camp points out that the IRS withheld these emails for over a year before suddenly "discovering" they were unavailable. The IRS says it can find everything Lerner sent to and received from other IRS employees but nothing containing correspondence with those outside the agency.

Obviously, this convenient "computer crash" has generated a lot of skepticism. For one thing, a "computer crash" doesn't really have the power to destroy electronic communications. Email is always almost stored somewhere else other than the local user's computer. And even if the IRS meant a "server crash" instead of a "computer crash," any decent server system contains multiple levels of redundancy.

The Blaze sought input from Norman Cillo, a former Microsoft project manager, who presented six reasons why he believes the IRS is lying about its inability to recover these emails. Number one on the list seems to be the most applicable.

I believe the government uses Microsoft Exchange for their email servers. They have built-in exchange mail database redundancy. So, unless they did not follow Microsoft's recommendations they are telling a falsehood.

The IRS's own policies on email state that its employees use both Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, which means it should have some form of backup available.

Secure Messaging enrollment is an automated process for all LAN accounts with an Exchange mailbox in IRS. You can find the instructions for configuring the Outlook client to use the certificates at the Secure Enterprise Messaging Systems (SEMS) web site: http://documentation.sems.enterprise.irs.gov/.

According to Cillo, the only other explanation for the IRS's inability to recover these emails is that the agency is "totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever." Unfortunately, the government seems to have a lot of mismanaged and terrible IT departments, so this may be closer to the truth than anyone would really like to admit. Perhaps the general ineptitude of large government agencies is behind the Treasury Department's policy that all email sent to or from IRS employees be "archived" via hard copy printouts.

If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy.

There's more information here, citing the IRS's own internal guidelines on tape backups, etc., that suggest further levels of redundancy, as well as the commissioner of the IRS testifying that the agency stores its emails on servers.

Critics believe the IRS has simply "vanished" the crucial emails in order to cut Lerner adrift and make it appear she acted alone. Any evidence that would tie outside government agencies (including the administration itself) into this situation has been deemed unrecoverable. Supposedly, there should be paper copies of the missing emails, but no one in Congress has requested these and the IRS certainly isn't offering to look.

But one Congressman thinks he has a solution to the missing email dilemma. Steve Stockman (last seen here threatening to bring a defamation lawsuit against someone who uttered true facts about his criminal past) knows some people who have a whole lot of email data just laying around.

“I have asked NSA Director Rogers to send me all metadata his agency has collected on Lois Lerner’s email accounts for the period which the House sought records,” said Stockman. “The metadata will establish who Lerner contacted and when, which helps investigators determine the extent of illegal activity by the IRS.”

Yeah, let me know how that works out for you, Steve. The NSA can't even confirm or deny its monthly water usage at its Utah data site, much less that it has metadata pertaining to Americans' communications.

[Sidebar: I do really love the fact that this sort of thing is becoming increasingly common -- the use of the NSA as the backup-of-last-resort for phone/email/internet communications data. If anyone claims it can't find email X or phone record Y, someone's going to say, "Hey, I'll bet the NSA has a copy!" Hilarious. The NSA will never again be allowed to pretend it doesn't harvest data on American citizens.]

The whole letter, which begins with some light ass-kissing of new NSA director Michael Rogers ("thank you for your 33 years of, and continued service to, our country...") and closes with a bit of grandstanding, surreally asking "the Agency" to send all relevant metadata on the missing Lerner emails to "Donny@mail.house.gov." All in all, probably one of the most incongruous demands the NSA has ever received, a letter which conjures up the image of a late-night meeting in an underground parking garage, with sunglassed NSA liaisons handing over a briefcase full of metadata to a 19-year-old intern dressed in his dad's suit.

It's pretty hard to shake the impression that this is a coverup. As always, the specter of pure ineptitude lurks in the background, as it often does when large bureaucracies tangle with technology. But until the IRS presents further evidence detailing how exactly these emails went missing, it's safe to assume there's been an active effort made to cover up government impropriety.

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Overturning centuries of English Common Law, false representation is now legal in the United States.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) won dismissal of a suit over $450 million in residential mortgage-backed securities, with a New York judge saying that the firms that bought the bonds should have done more research beforehand.

State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos dismissed the claims against Goldman Sachs today, saying the investors only reviewed data presented in offering documents for the securities and never asked to review files for the underlying loans.

“The true nature of the risk being assumed could, admittedly, have been ascertained from reviewing these loan files and plaintiffs never asked for them,” Ramos wrote.

In other words, it's perfectly legal to present someone with a fraudulent document claiming to be selling them a pig in the poke, because if they don't actually look in the sack to see that there is a dead rat, and not a live pig in there, it's their own fault. This is another sign of the continued collapse of the rule of law in the USA.

Congratulations, Justice Ramos. You may have just destroyed the securitization market. Who in their right minds will ever purchase a loan security again? If you were going to review each and every loan and ascertain the risks involved, you would already be a mortgage bank.

Fortunately for Goldman Sachs, there should be enough con artists out there for the apex con artist to continue preying upon. But what sane and honest individual would ever choose to do business with them in light of their behavior here? And can you imagine if this standard were applied across the board? No one would ever dare to buy something in a box or order anything off the Internet ever again.

Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels

Global Science Report is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”

———-

A week ago, the White House released a report on the health consequences of global warming that was meant to supplement and reinforce the heath benefit claims made during the roll-out of new Environmental Protection Agency regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.

Those claims, which border on the bizarre, were met with a great deal of pushback—and deservingly so. 

The supplemental White House report didn’t make things better. Take for example, how they handle extreme heat events and heat-related mortality.

To say that we are disappointed with how the White House/EPA presents the data on heat-related mortality is an understatement. No matter how many times we point out—through official means, op-eds, blogs posts, etc.—that they are mishandling the data to such an extent that they present the opposite conclusion from that reached in the scientific literature, it never gets better.

In fact, it seems to be getting worse.

Below the jump, in its entirety, is the section on heat waves from the new White House report, The Health Impacts of Climate Change on Americans:

 

Figure 1. Observed U.S. temperature change (source: White House report).

Notice that there is not a single study cited that links changes in heat waves to changes in heat-related mortality. Instead, it is strongly implied that increasing heat will lead to increasing deaths. We can’t think that any reader would reach the opposite conclusion given the White House discussion and presentation. And yet, that is precisely the case that scientific study after scientific study finds. Despite rising heat, fewer American’s die from heat-related causes (when properly adjusted, of course, for population increases and changes in age stricture).

But such information is nowhere to be found in the White House report. Instead, the section on extreme heat events shows a map of temperature trends across the United States and then goes on to say that extreme heat causes death, leading the readers to a false conclusion.

Here is a similar but more complete presentation from a scientific study looking at trends in temperature and trends in heat-related mortality across the United States.

Figure 2. Annual heat-related mortality rates (excess deaths per standard million population on days in which the decadal-varying threshold apparent temperature (AT) is equaled or exceeded) by city and decade, and long-term trend in summer afternoon AT. Each histogram bar indicates a different decade: from left to right, 1960s–1970s, 1980–1989, and 1990–1998. Decades without histogram bars exhibit no threshold ATs and no heat-related mortality. Decades with gray bars have mortality rates that are statistically significantly different from the decades indicated by black bars. The average excess deaths across all 28 cities is shown at the lower left. AT trends are indicated beneath each city abbreviation (from Davis et al., 2003).

The map in Figure 2 shows trends in summer time apparent temperature (AT)—a combination of heat and humidity—indicated by the small symbol under each city and explained by the right-hand legend. It indicates basically the same thing as the White House map—that summer temperatures are on the rise across the country. But this map also superimposes the trends in heat-related mortality on the trends in temperature (the bar charts for each city).

What it shows is that annual heat-related mortality was on the decline across the United States from the mid-1960s through the late 1990s (the end of the data used in this study). More recent studies confirm that the downward trend in heat-related mortality has continued even in the face of rising temperature (can you say “adaptation”?).

This more complete presentation of the data tells the exact opposite story than the one that the White House (mis)leads you to believe.

You have to ask yourself why the White House finds it necessary to lead you away from the best science in order to drum up support for its energy policies (another example here).

References:

Bobb, J.F., R.D. Peng, M.L. Bell, and F. Dominici. “Heat-Related Mortality and Adaptation in the United States.” Environmental Health Perspectives, 2014. Online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1307392.

Davis, R.E., P.C. Knappenbergre, P.J. Michaels, and W.M. Novicoff. “Changing Heat-Related Mortality in the United States.” Environmental Health Perspectives 111: 1712–18 (2003).

Kalkstein, L.S., Greene, S., Mills, D.M., and Samenow, J. “An Evaluation of the Progress in Reducing Heat-Related Human Mortality in Major U.S. Cities.” Natural Hazards 56(1): 113-29 (2011).

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $250,000 to the pro-Thad Cochran super PAC “Mississippi Conservatives” in late May, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings the organization provided show.

Bloomberg’s donation to the Super PAC supporting Cochran could end up becoming a kiss of death for Cochran in the heated runoff against conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who bested Cochran in the popular vote in the primary a little over a week ago, forcing a runoff a week from Tuesday.

Bloomberg supports gun control—something Cochran says he’s against.

“This is not a battle of dollars, this is a battle for the hearts and minds of America so that we can protect our children, protect innocent people,” Bloomberg said in a recent television interview about his renewed fight against the National Rifle Association.

“We’re the only civilized country in the world that has this problem,” Bloomberg added, while highlighting gun-related deaths in the country.

While the NRA has interestingly enough also thrown its weight—with Bloomberg—behind Cochran, pro-2nd Amendment groups like National Association of Gun Rights and Gun Owners of America have endorsed McDaniel.

But at the recent NRA convention in April, NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox attacked Bloomberg as if speaking directly to him: “Stay out of our homes, stay out of our gun cabinets... because this freedom is not for sale.”

“Mr. Bloomberg, you are an arrogant hypocrite,” Cox said.

Another of Bloomberg’s lobbying outfits—the Partnership for a New American Economy—is pushing comprehensive immigration reform. Support for amnesty was the driving force behind the crumbling of another GOP establishment titan, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, this week—where conservative challenger Dave Brat hammered Cantor on the issue day in and day out.

Cochran has cast several votes in Congress in favor of amnesty, weakened border security, and a massive increase in legal immigration. And while he voted against the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill last year at final passage, he didn’t say anything about it until months after it was introduced.

McDaniel, on the other hand, has come out swinging against amnesty—signing the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) pledge against it and against a massive increase in legal immigration. McDaniel has also called out Cochran for remaining silent on the efforts by Senate Democrats and President Obama’s administration to use America’s military as a tool to grant amnesty to illegal alien minors. After plans—pushed heavily by Cantor—to use the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to grant amnesty to illegal alien minors, or DREAMers, who enlist in the military fell apart, Sen. Dick Durbin sought to enact similar plans through the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee. Cochran is the ranking member of that Committee but hasn’t said anything to respond to or fight back against Durbin’s push—which includes a call from Durbin on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to administratively implement such a plan without Congress’ approval if conservatives successfully block the effort again.

Bloomberg is also pro-abortion, something that could swing many Mississippi voters McDaniel’s way as Mississippi is a very pro-life state working to shutter its only functioning abortion clinic. “The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America,” Bloomberg said when he endorsed Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. “One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision.”

Bloomberg is so pro-abortion that he actually criticized Sen. Chuck Schumer for not being pro-choice enough when Schumer backed pro-life Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) in order to beat the strongly pro-life now former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). Santorum—a 2012 GOP presidential candidate whose conservative views led him to win Mississippi in the primary over Mitt Romney—has endorsed McDaniel over his former colleague Cochran.

While the National Right-to-Life Committee has endorsed Cochran, McDaniel serves as pro bono counsel for Pro Life Mississippi—a state-based pro-life group.

To top it off, Bloomberg also supports Common Core—something Cochran now claims he’s against but in 2010 offered public support for in a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

“We have to make sure that we give our kids constantly the opportunity to move towards the major leagues,” Bloomberg said in comments in which he praised Common Core.

Bloomberg’s money for Cochran is going into the Super PAC that high-profile conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell—of the American Conservative Union and Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund—says received an illegal bank loan from Trustmark National Bank. Mitchell has filed an FEC complaint against Mississippi Conservatives, which is run by former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s nephew, Henry Barbour.

Ironically enough, Henry and Haley Barbour—and many other Cochran supporters—argued that Tea Party and conservative groups which have spent millions backing McDaniel’s candidacy but are now taking money from one of the most liberal elites in America to push for Cochran in the primary and now runoff.

Obama Admin Forbids Lawmakers From Taking Photos Of Facility...


(Second column, 5th story, link)

---

Related stories:

BIPARTISAN: Cantor Says Immigration Views Angered People in Both Parties...
AZ threatens legal action on Fed's immigrant dumping...
Teenage Latin Horde...
Border Patrol Threatened With Criminal Charges for Speaking to Reporters...
Agents changing diapers, heating baby formula for surge of children...
OBAMA: 'Our Future Rests' on DREAMers...
Honduran President: 'Misinformation'...
More than 35,000 illegals entering TX each month...
PAPER: Orchestrated campaign to create chaos...

Following the BEA release yesterday of US state GDP data for 2013, I was able to update the map above, which appeared on CD in February using 2012 data.

The map above was created by matching economic output in US states in 2013 to foreign countries with comparable GDPs, using BEA data for GDP by US state and GDP by country from the International Monetary Fund, via Wikipedia here. For each US state (and the District of Columbia), I tried to find the country closest in economic size in 2013 (measured by GDP), and for each state there was a country with a pretty close match – those countries are displayed in the map above and in the table below. Obviously, in some cases the closest match was a country that produced slightly more, or slightly less, economic output in 2013 than a given US state.

It’s pretty amazing how ridiculously large the US economy is, and the map above helps put America’s GDP of $16.8 trillion in 2013 (and more than $17 trillion in Q4 2013 and Q1 in 2014) into perspective by comparing the GDP of US states to other country’s entire national GDP. For example:

1. America’s largest state economy is California, which produced $2.2 trillion of economic output in 2013, just slightly below Brazil’s GDP in the same year of $2.24 trillion. In 2013, California as a separate country would have been the 8th largest economy in the world, ahead of Russia ($2.1 trillion) and Italy ($2.07 trillion). And California’s population is only 38 million compared to Brazil’s population of almost 200 million, which means California produces the same economic output as Brazil with about 80% fewer people. That’s a testament to the superior, world-class productivity of the American worker.

2. America’s second largest state economy – Texas – produced $1.53 trillion of economic output in 2013, placing it just slightly ahead of the world’s 12th largest country by GDP – Australia – with $1.50 trillion of economic output.

3. Even with all of its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia’s GDP in 2013 at $711 billion was less than the state GDP of Illinois ($720 billion).

4. America’s third largest state – New York with a GDP in 2013 of $1.3 trillion – produced slightly less economic output than Spain’s GDP of $1.35 trillion, even though Spain’s population of 47 million people is more than twice the number of people living in New York (19.6 million). Another example of the world-class productivity of the American workforce.

5. Other comparisons: Florida produces about the same GDP as the Netherlands ($800 billion), Pennsylvania ($644 billion) produces almost as much as the entire country of Switzerland ($650 billion) and Ohio produces more than the entire country of Sweden.

MP: Overall, the US produced 22.7% of world GDP in 2013, with only about 4.4% of the world’s population. Three of America’s states (California, Texas and New York) – as separate countries – would rank in the world’s top 13 largest economies. And one of those states – California – produced more than $2 trillion in economic output in 2013 – and the other two (Texas and New York) produced more than $1.5 trillion and $1.3 trillion of GDP in 2013 respectively. The map and these statistics help remind us of the enormity of the economic powerhouse we live in. So let’s not lose sight of how ridiculously large and powerful the US economy is, and how much wealth and prosperity is being created all the time in the world’s largest economic engine.

US State	GDP (millions), 2013	Country	GDP (Millions), 2013
California	$2,202,678	Brazil	$2,242,000
Texas	$1,532,623	Australia	$1,505,277
New York	$1,310,712	Spain	$1,358,000
Florida	$800,492	Netherlands	$800,007
Illinois	$720,692	Saudi Arabia	$711,050
Pennsylvania	$644,915	Switzerland	$650,000
Ohio	$565,272	Sweden	$557,000
New Jersey	$543,071	Poland	$516,000
North Carolina	$471,365	Norway	$511,000
Georgia	$454,532	Belgium	$506,000
Virginia	$452,585	Taiwan	$489,000
Massachusetts	$446,323	Argentina	$488,000
Michigan	$432,573	Austria	$415,000
Washington	$408,049	UAE	$396,000
Maryland	$342,382	South Africa	$351,000
Indiana	$317,102	Denmark	$331,000
Minnesota	$312,081	Malaysia	$312,000
Colorado	$294,443	Singapore	$295,000
Tennessee	$287,633	Nigeria	$286,000
Wisconsin	$282,486	Chile	$276,000
Arizona	$279,024	Hong Kong	$273,000
Missouri	$276,345	Phillipines	$272,000
Louisiana	$253,576	Finland	$256,000
Connecticut	$249,251	Greece	$241,000
Oregon	$219,590	Portugal	$219,000
Alabama	$193,566	Qatar	$202,000
South Carolina	$183,561	Czech Republic	$198,000
Kentucky	$183,373	Kuwait	$185,000
Oklahoma	$182,086	New Zealand	$181,000
Iowa	$165,767	Ukraine	$176,000
Kansas	$144,062	Vietnam	$170,000
Utah	$141,240	Bangladesh	$141,000
Nevada	$132,024	Hungary	$133,000
Arkansas	$124,218	Angola	$122,000
District of Columbia	$113,362	Hungary	$124,600
Nebraska	$109,614	Morocco	$105,000
Mississippi	$105,163	Slovakia	$96,000
New Mexico	$92,245	Ecuador	$94,000
Hawaii	$75,235	Azerbaijan	$74,000
West Virginia	$73,970	Belarus	$71,000
New Hampshire	$67,848	Libya	$67,000
Delaware	$62,703	Sri Lanka	$66,000
Idaho	$62,247	Dominican Republic	$61,000
Alaska	$59,355	Luxembourg	$59,000
North Dakota	$56,329	Uzbekistan	$57,000
Maine	$54,755	Guatemala	$54,000
Rhode Island	$53,184	Bulgaria	$53,000
South Dakota	$46,732	Slovenia	$47,000
Wyoming	$45,432	Kenya	$45,000
Montana	$44,040	Lebanon	$44,000
Vermont	$29,509	Bolivia	$29,000

Chris Edwards

The programs, regulations, and laws that define most federal activities are so numerous and complex that it strangles effective governance. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is no exception. During the Hurricane Katrina disaster, DHS officials were in a fog of confusion, overwhelmed by events and all the complicated emergency rules and procedures.

A key marker of excess bureaucracy is the generous use of acronyms. In government, acronyms are used to identify the building blocks of bureaucracies, such as agencies, committees, programs, job titles, procedures, rules, and systems.

Recently, I’ve looked at aid-to-state programs run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of DHS. Acronyms abound at FEMA. To get a sense of the bureaucracy, I looked for acronyms in this 84-page Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for one of FEMA’s many aid programs.

Below is a list of all the bureaucratic structures that were capitalized and had acronyms in this document for one program. Actually, I left out some common acronyms that many people already know, including OMB, FBI, CDC, CBP, EIN, DOT, EMS, IED, FTE, MSA, DOL, GIS, FCC, TDD, and NIST. So the list below mainly includes specialized acronyms that workers in this policy area would need to know. Many of the acronyms refer to government structures that have their own lengthy documents full of acronyms.

H.L. Mencken said “The true bureaucrat is a man of really remarkable talents. He writes a kind of English that is unknown elsewhere in the world, and he has an almost infinite capacity for forming complicated and unworkable rules.”

DHS must be full of “true bureaucrats” because by the time I read to the end of this document, I had counted 113 acronyms. That is an impressive achievement in True Bureaucratic Excellence (TBE).

Bureaucratic Structures with Acronyms in the FOA for the HSGP
Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP)
State Homeland Security Program (SHSP)
Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI)
Operation Stonegarden (OPSG)
Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA)
State Preparedness Report (SPR)
National Preparedness Report (NPR)
Information Bulletin (IB)
Investment Justification (IJ)
State Administrative Agency (SAA)
Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)
National Incident Management System (NIMS)
Federal Emergency Response Official (FERO)
Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)
Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG)
Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA)
Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Activity (LETPA)
Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation (EHP)
Border Patrol (BP)
Federal Financial Report (FFR)
Biannual Strategy Implementation Report (BSIR)
Initial Strategy Implementation Plan (ISIP)
Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP)
Planning, Organization, Equipment, Training, and Exercises (POETE)
Grants Program Directorate (GPD)
Grant Adjustment Notice (GAN)
Centralized Scheduling and Information Desk (CSID)
Unified Reporting Tool (URT)
Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS)
System for Award Management (SAM)
Grant Reporting Tool (GRT)
Statewide Communication Interoperable Plan (SCIP)
Statewide Interoperability Coordinator (SWIC)
Statewide Interoperability Governance Board (SIGB)
State Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA)
Critical Operational Capability (COC)
Enabling Capability (EC)
Information Sharing Environment (ISE)
Training and Exercise Plan (TEP)
Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP)
Training and Exercise Planning Workshop (TEPW)
National Exercise Scheduling System (NEXS)
After Action Report/Improvement Plan (AAR/IP)
Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP)
Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR)
Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP)
Senior Advisory Committee (SAC)
Port Security Grant Program (PSGP)
Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP)
Transit Security Grant Program (TSGP)
Area Maritime Security Committee (AMSC)
Regional Transportation Security Working Group (RTSWG)
Homeland Security Advisor (HSA)
Emergency Management Agency (EMA)
Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC)
Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI)
Baseline Assessment and Security Enhancement (BASE)
National Capital Region (NCR)
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)
Integrated Planning Team (IPT)
Emergency Systems for Advance Registration (ESAR)
Volunteer Health Professional (VHP)
Metropolitian Medical Response System (MMRS)
Cyber Security Framework (CSF)
Citizens Corps Program (CCP)
Core Capabilities Tool (CCT)
National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS)
National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP)
Logistic Management Directorate (LMD)
Operational Pack (OPack)
Western Hemispheres Travel Initiative (WHTI)
Driver’s License Security Grant Program (DLSGP)
National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP)
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA)
National Crime Information Center (NCIC)
Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS)
Fusion Liaison Officers (FLO)
National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF)
National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System (NEFRLS)
National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS)
Regional Resiliency Assessment Program (RRAP)
Communications Assets and Mapping (CASM)
Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN)
National Counter-IED Capabilities Analysis Database (NCCAD)
Multi-Jurisdictional IED Security Planning (MJIEDSP)
Corrective Action Plan (CAP)
Continuity of Operations/Continuity of Government (COOP/COG)
Medical Reserve Corps (MRC)
Volunteers in Public Service (VIPS)
National Preparedness Directorate (NPD)
Technical Assistance (TA)
Authorized Equipment List (AEL)
Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP)
Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
Field Intelligence Group (FIG)
Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF)
Office of Emergency Communications (OEC)
Personnel Reimbursement for Intelligence Cooperation and Enhancement (PRICE)
Bomb-Making Materials Awareness Program (BMAP)
Responder Training Development Center (RTDC)
National Training and Education Division (NTED)
National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC)
Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium (RDPC)
Emergency Management Institute (EMI)
Point of Contact (POC)
Single Point of Contact (SPOC)
Training Point of Contact (TPOC)
Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model (MSRAM)
Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)
Urban Area Working Groups (UAWG)
Emergency Operation Plan (EOP)
Tactical Interoperable Communications Plan (TICP)

Matthew Feeney

Today, thousands of drivers of London’s iconic black cabs are taking part in a possibly illegal demonstration in response to how Transport for London (TfL), the city’s transportation agency, is treating Uber. The drivers plan to cause congestion which Kabbee, a mini cab app company, believes will cost the London economy an estimated £125 million. Licensed taxi drivers are also holding protests related to Uber across other European cities today.

The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) believes that Uber, the San Francisco-based transport technology company, is operating illegally in London. Thanks to the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, it is illegal for a London vehicle with a private hire vehicle license to have a taximeter. Up until yesterday Uber’s website stated that anyone who wanted to be an Uber driver in London must have a private hire vehicle license. Today those requirements remain the same, however in response to the London protest Uber has opened to licensed black cabs.

TfL disagrees with LTDA and believes that the phones used by Uber should not be considered taximeters because they are not physically attached to the vehicle:

Smartphones used by private hire drivers – which act as GPS tracking devices to measure journey distances and relay information so that fares can be calculated remotely from the vehicle – do not constitute the equipping of a vehicle with a taxi meter.

However, TfL has asked the High Court to rule on the matter. LTDA’s secretary general, Steve McNamara, believes the court is unlikely to announce a ruling before the end of the year.

McNamara has used blunt language when discussing Uber and its presence in London:

This is not some philanthropic friendly society, it’s an American monster that has no qualms about breaching any and all laws in the pursuit of profit, most of which will never see a penny of tax paid in the UK.

Becoming a driver of one of London’s black cabs is a long process. In order to be a London black cab driver you need to pass “The Knowledge,” a rigorous test on London’s thousands of streets, roads, and landmarks, which takes years to prepare for. Not only do those hoping to become London cabbies have to spend years studying London, they also have to pay the relevant fees to complete the application process.

Speaking to the BBC, London black cab driver Lloyd Baldwin said:

Our beef with Uber is that these drivers have come straight into London, and have been licensed straight away by Transport for London. We’re regulated to within an inch of our lives.

We don’t do protests willy-nilly for petty things, we feel it’s our only course.

and,

We just want them to be treated exactly the same as we are.

Baldwin’s frustrations make sense in light of the time and money invested into becoming a driver of one of London’s iconic taxis. But, as in other jurisdictions, the answer is not to make new and innovative companies like Uber conform to already out-of-date regulations and legislation, but rather to liberalize the market Uber and London black cabs are competing in. When the Private Hire Vehicles Act was signed in 1998 the iPhone was still nine years away, and “The Knowledge” test, which began almost 150 years ago, predates cell phones (never mind smartphones). Regulations such as the ban on private hire vehicle license holders from having taxi meters are out of date, and it is long past due for them to be repealed in order to allow traditional cabs to compete with companies like Uber.

(Don Boudreaux)

Here’s a letter to Roll Call:

Tom Udall (D-NM) and 42 other incumbent U.S. senators propose a Constitutional amendment with the following key provision: “To advance the fundamental principle of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and electoral processes, Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on – (1) the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; (2) the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates” (“Senate Democrats Begin Efforts to Amend Constitution,” June 6th).

Never mind that this amendment strikes at the heart of the First amendment values of freedom of speech and freedom of petition.  Focus instead on the fact that, if ratified, this amendment would create far greater political inequality and eat like a cancer at electoral processes.  It would do so by shielding incumbent politicians from competition.

Suppose that Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and other of today’s successful automakers seek, and get, the power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to auto advertising.  Do you think that these incumbent automakers - whose brands are currently established and well-known - would never succumb to the temptation to use this power to protect themselves from the competition of upstart automakers?

Would you take at face value all the fine rhetoric from these incumbent automakers about the need to protect members of the car-buying public from being overwhelmed and misled by expensive and glitzy ads?  And would you be confident that allowing incumbent automakers to regulate spending on auto ads and on sales campaigns would improve the quality of competition among automakers and heighten these firms’ responsiveness to the ‘true’ demands of the car-buying public?

I suspect that most people would correctly see such an effort by incumbent automakers as being a scheme to restrict competition - a scheme that would benefit greedy incumbent automakers and make them less responsive to the general public.  It’s astonishing, therefore, that so many people continue to believe that the very same such scheme by incumbent politicians is a noble endeavor to improve political competition - an endeavor that, we are unbelievably assured, will make politicians more responsive to the general public.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030​​

….

Richard Epstein has more here.  (HT George White)

DELTA, UNITED and AMERICAN press Congress to block international airline offering cheap fares...


(Third column, 25th story, link)

---

A Chicago woman is suing the city, along with ten police officers, for the abuse she was subjected to during a raid of the massage parlor she worked at. The entire interaction (which lasted more than 40 minutes) was caught on tape by the business' camera system.

Here's the beginning of the raid, which shows Chicago's finest interacting with Jianqing Klyzek using a combination of physical force and verbal abuse.

Here's the charming stuff Officer Di Pasquale had to say to Klyzek during their brief conversation.

Defendant DI PASQUALE: You're not fucking American! I'll put you in a UPS box and send you back to wherever the fuck you came from!

Plaintiff: I'm a citizen, OK?

Defendant DI PASQUALE: No you're not! No, you're not a citizen! No, you're not! No, you're not! You're here on our borrowed time. So mind your fucking business before I shut this whole fucking place down. And I'll take this place and then whoever owns it will fucking kill you because they don't care about you, OK? I'll take this building. You'll be dead and your family will be dead.

Note that this follows Officer Messina asking for permission to tase the 5'2" Klyzek "ten fucking times."

Also note -- especially those of you who claim bad cops are anomalies and not representative of the entire force -- that not a single officer (the plain-clothed men lined up against the counter impassively watching a small Asian woman being berated and manhandled by two "uniformed" cops) tried to dial back the aggression or suggested that some of things being said weren't appropriate or helpful. If anyone wants to know why there are so many bad cops, this is part of the problem -- the tacit approval offered by better cops who let this sort of thing happen without intervening.

Not only did these cops not try to defuse a situation that had gotten ridiculously out of hand, but they also assisted Di Pasquale and Messina in their search for the recording device in order to remove the evidence of their misconduct. Unfortunately for them, the device stored recordings off site. (Apparently, this fruitless search made up a large part of the 40-minute "raid.")

Since the officers couldn't find any evidence of prostitution (or human-sized shipping boxes), they fell back on weak claims that Klyzek assaulted an officer by "biting and scratching" as they attempted to restrain her. That failed as well when the judge threw the case out at a preliminary hearing.

But these officers weren't done failing. From the lawsuit:

On information and belief, sometime after the preliminary hearing, one or more of Defendant OFFICERS, contacted an Assistant State's Attorney in order to pursue a Grand Jury indictment for the offense of Aggravated Battery of a Police Officer against Plaintiff.

Based on Officer Sako's (allegedly) false testimony, the grand jury indicted Klyzek for aggravated battery. This was swiftly reversed when her lawyer brought some actual evidence to the grand jury.

On January 13, 2014, after viewing the video recording of Plaintiff's arrest, the State's Attorney's Office dismissed the aggravated battery of a police officer charges against Plaintiff.

Months later, the Chicago PD has yet to arrive at the same conclusion, despite being in possession of the same recorded evidence.

Police spokesman Adam Collins released a statement saying the matter is being investigated by the Independent Police Review Authority and that "the alleged comments, if true, are reprehensible and completely intolerable in our police department."

"If true." So, an officer's word is good enough to secure a grand jury indictment, but a recording -- containing both audio and video -- clearly depicting the chain of events detailed in the lawsuit -- is still up for discussion. If the IPRA ever gets around to using its eyes and ears, maybe it will finally be able to unload Officers Messina and Di Pasquale, something it should have done a half-decade ago.

A separate federal lawsuit alleged that DiPasquale and Messina were among a group of vice squad officers accused of abusing an immigrant during a 2008 prostitution sting. In the 2009 suit, DiPasquale was accused of sticking a gun in one man's face and slamming him into the dashboard of his car, breaking his nose.

The man's attorney, Richard Dvorak, said Monday that the case was settled out of court for less than $100,000.

There's the other reason bad cops are prevalent. The legal system pays victims minimal amounts using taxpayers' money. And those costing the city money simply man a desk or get a few weeks off from work before being given back their badges, guns and, most importantly, power.



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