Immediate failure

You may or may not have noticed two things yesterday. One: you still didn't have a job. Two: Congress still wasn't doing anything to make it more likely that you could potentially find the job.

Well, you're probably used to the first one by now. You come to terms with it daily down at the bar as you beg for spare change from college kids and more successful panhandlers to "Help a poor man out" and buy you a shot or two or twelve of Vladimir. You might be a little more surprised at the second one. Not that surprised, this is the US government we're talking about after all, but our elected betters have been talking a good game recently about getting something done and in a fit of despair and cheap Russian vodka you might have been inebriated enough to place hope in these vague promises.

Well after having their initial attempts at getting a bill passed derailed by snow, they finally hunkered down to hammer out and pass a jobs bill... for a good, hard 15 minutes or so.

This afternoon, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus announced he'd reached accord with ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). They unveiled what was supposed to be a final jobs package.

Oh goodie, they did such a bang up job with the health care bill I'm so glad they were able to get their hands on a jobs bill. I think you see where this is going.

But the agreement didn't sit well with many Democrats, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pulled it out of their hands, and announced he'd move ahead with a smaller bill.
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Liberal Democrats were not pleased with the Baucus-Grassley compromise. Among other things, Baucus and Grassley said that jobs could only move forward if the Senate agreed to take up a bipartisan "reform" (a.k.a. slashing) of the estate tax.

Yep, certainly the critical pillar of getting Americans back to work and encouraging businesses to hire again is providing a massive tax break to multi-millionaires so that when they die they can leave those millions to their rich kids without Uncle Sam wetting his star-spangled beak. I'm glad someone in Congress valiantly stood up to fight for this trenchant economic theory that so many respected economists have claimed is the major reason unemployment is hovering around 10%. I mean why can't Paris Hilton collect as much as she's entitled to? Those extra millions could add a few more jobs in the economical ravaged small dog handler sector.

But good on the Democrats for showing that it is possible for them to learn. Sure they did the same old thing they always do: listen to Lucy say she's gonna let them kick the football, line up and then start running full bore at the football. But this time, perhaps due to the help of a beagle or chattering yellow bird, they realized on the run-up that pain and suffering was imminent and pulled up. Maybe there's hope for them yet.

Video of the day

Charlie Brooker of Newswipe explains how to report the news.

Same old, same old

It's hard to notice the battle going on over financial reform, what with our attention focused on the two most important issues of the day: the Tonight Show battle and various old white men coming up with new ways to say "fuck those darkies." But it seems that financial reform is going to go the way of health reform and the stimulus, where the bill starts off in a weak compromised position, is further compromised and weakened in an attempt to placate industry complaints, and is finally completely gutted when a hugely popular initiative that also serves as the most effective part of the reform is killed because it just benefits regular people a little too much.

The new shiny toy that Americans are deemed too childish to ever be allowed? The Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Because why would consumers need protection from financial companies? But at least one person is sounding the alarm bells and waving red flags: Elizabeth Warren.

Under pressure from big banks fighting hard to kill or weaken it, senators are said to be discussing downgrading the CFPA from an independent agency to something less than that.
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"The CFPA is the best indicator of whether Congress will reform Wall Street or whether it will continue to give Wall Street whatever it wants," she told Reuters in an interview.
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The problem is that a strong CFPA directly threatens the banks' ability to sell confusing, deceptive, fee-heavy financial products that generate huge profits, Warren said.
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"Right now we're writing the final chapter in this story. It will show whether we're going back to the first move, letting the industry write the rules again, or whether the crisis actually changed something."

One does appreciate the lengths with which Warren is going to explain that an independent government organization with power to regulate and shield Americans from abusive subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and other noxious shit that the financial industry used to loot money out of the general public... is a good idea. It's just a damn shame she's doing it with logic and a sense that what she's saying is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.

That's not the way government works. See one person yells "I have an obvious good idea that clearly helps our current situation", then business yells "But, but, but... profits"and then our elected betters decide that to err on the safe side they better listen to big business and, hell, just let them write the regulations in the first place.

So let's see, on one side we have a smart woman who has been at the forefront of this crisis warning people about the various dangers swirling around and advocating for serious, common sense measures to protect the country from falling into the same economic trap. On the other side we have the people who caused this mess, arguing that the status quo must be maintained so that they can cause all the same problems again. Gee, I wonder who will win that battle?

Still, nice try Elizabeth. Try not to gloat too hard when we fall into the same financial canyon again and the whole "who could have foreseen" wailing starts up again.

Unhappy new year

Ahhh, it's a new year and a new decade and things feel wonderful. That sense of new possibilities and opportunities permeating the air. What makes it great is... oh, what's that? Every economist in America, did you have something to add?

Speaking at American Economic Association's mammoth yearly gathering, experts from a range of political leanings were in surprising agreement when it came to the chances for a robust and sustained expansion:

They are slim.

Many predicted U.S. gross domestic product would expand less than 2 percent per year over the next 10 years. That stands in sharp contrast to the immediate aftermath of other steep economic downturns, which have usually elicited a growth surge in their wake.

Well fuck you too.

Sure the article quotes Martin Feldstein, Joseph Stiglitz, and Kenneth Rogoff, but who are they any way? Other than the former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Nobel laureate, and a former IMF economist/Fed Board member respectively? Just a bunch of gainsayers who can't let us get four days into a new year and decade without yelling about how shitty it's going to be, just because American's primary source of wealth, their homes, has been severely weakened, consumer debt is staggeringly high, there's nothing in place to replace the housing boom and consumer spending that previously drove growth, the banks are reliant on Fed funding and Treasury backing, and finance companies are artificially padding their bottom lines with zero cost government loans.

But what about America's undying sense of optimism, freedom, and, uh... wishing none of this had happened? Apparently none of these things count.

Even the relentlessly cheery, gumdrops and sunshine musings of the affable optimist Paul Krugman are filled with ill omens he's reading after consulting the bones and the increased swelling he's feeling in his pessimism gland. He says he's getting that 1937 feeling, where government and the Fed declared the Great Depression fixed and all over, cut spending, tightened monetary policy... and dove back into a depression. He sees the same signs and notes the fact that the Fed is already taking steps to tighten monetary policy.

So... happy new year. I know you were hoping for some fresh start, but the best and brightest economists in the country say no. Don't get mad at me. I wanted you to have a good economy, but they said no. Something about "the facts saying otherwise". The bright side? Well... I guess if you were an economist you could make a lot of money making economic predictions. For the rest of us though, it looks like a meandering decade of stagnant growth followed by a slow descent into the long awaited hobo economy. Sorry. I was going to let you bask in the optimism of a new year for a few more days, but the American Economic Association wanted to do it their way. I guess it's for the best.

Thomson is your new Gitmo

When you wanted the government's detainee holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba closed because it violated both US and International law, was a humanitarian blight, undermined our foreign policy, and provided a shiny recruiting tool for extremists and terrorists, one candidate rose up and said "I agree." His name was Barack Obama. Now that he's the President he has seen the problems Gitmo creates and has finally decided to do what we all implored him to to with the detainee facility: keep everything about it the same, but move it's location to Thomson, Illinois. That was all our big problem, right? That it was in Cuba? Let them explain it to you in a letter they sent explaining it to Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois.

If Thomson is selected, we do not anticipate that any detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay who are transferred to Thomson would be prosecuted in civilian courts.
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Nevertheless, and interagency review panel is in the final stages of determining the number of detainees who will continue to be held, and for whom no prosecution is planned.
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the Department of Justice will pursue prosecution of Guantanamo Bay detainees in Federal Court only when admissible evidence or potentially available admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.

So to recap: no one moved to Thomson will receive and actual trial in an American court, those who have deigned to have some measure of rights will be charged and tried under military commissions, and the rest will be held without charges of any kind. On the bright side, they will be beefing up security at Thomson beyond the standards of a Supermax prison, thus preventing the illiterate opium farmers from using their laser vision and super strength that only the walls of Gitmo could contain.

In other words, all we've changed at Gitmo is the location. I guess symbolic measure are just as good as real ones, right? I'm sure that the worldwide legal and human rights community, the Red Cross, the UN, American's who opposed Gitmo, and the Muslim world will totally appreciate the difference. I mean Gitmo sounds like such a harsh name. Thomson? Thomson is your friend, Thomson is your buddy, Thomson wouldn't beat and torture you while he illegally imprisoned you. No, this is perfectly acceptable. This is exactly what we asked for: a change in scenery for our illegally held detainees. I'm glad Obama listened.

Oh, do you think you should do something?

The Obama Administration has looked at the economy and found, much to their surprise, that they might have to do something about the job market. Sure, when it was the financial sector in trouble, our elected betters swept in and threw out money like halloween candy. But when it's workers, they need months and months of evidence before they decide that maybe someone should do something. The epiphany came when economic adviser Paul Volcker explained to the White House that the 9.8 number they kept hearing in relation to jobs was not a positivity rating on a scale of 10, but the percentage of people unemployed. It was then everyone knew action was needed.

President Obama’s economic team discussed a wide range of ideas at a meeting on Monday, following his Saturday radio address in which he said it would “explore additional options to promote job creation.” But officials emphasized that a decision was still far off and that in any event the effort would not add up to a second economic stimulus package, only an extension of the first.
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Among the options for additional steps is some variation on Mr. Obama’s proposal during the stimulus debate to give employers a $3,000 tax credit for each new hire, which Congress rejected last winter partly out of concern that businesses would manipulate their payrolls to claim the credit. Another option would allow more businesses to deduct their net operating losses going back five years instead of the usual two; Congress limited the break to small businesses as part of the economic stimulus law.

The search for further remedies is part of a two-track effort in the White House and Congress. Democrats are also considering plans to continue through 2010 the extra unemployment assistance and health benefits available to people who are out of work for long periods.

Oooh, tax credits, deducting losses, extending unemployment benefits....these all sound exactly like things that were in the original stimulus bill and would have to be extended soon. You know, the stimulus bill that was too small and didn't actually stimulate job growth as much as it made sure the job numbers only crashed into the ground at an insane speed instead of a mindbogglingly insane speed? Of course they're just going to extend old non-working plans instead of creating better new ones. That's because Washington is a stupid place and no one is capable of learning anything or doing anything productive while the prospect of electoral gains are on the horizon in 2010....or 2012...or anytime really. Let's just say incapable.

What's funny is that when you read a comprehensive piece on the Obama team's stimulus efforts, like Ryan Lizza's in the New Yorker, you see that the Administration didn't really think that they'd be at this point despite warnings from people on that team that what they were doing was too small and too focused on tax cuts. Did I say funny? I meant horrifying. Ah well, I guess the solution is to extend everything. I'm sure that'll fix everything in amazing ways that didn't happen the first time around.

Sounds scientific

via ThinkProgress comes this little look into the House GOP group the Republican American Energy Solutions Group, aka oiloiloildrilldrilldrill, presenting its American Energy Act as a counter to Obama's poorly titled Un-American Energy Act, what with it's belief in climate change, clean energy, and pollution eating/gumdrop crapping unicorns. The House GOP is having none of that hippie shit.


Not only does it try to officially codify climate change as nonexistent (take that Al Gore), it attempts to prevent any regulation of any greenhouse gas, rolls back environmental protections, and give billions in tax breaks to the oil and coal industries. I guess "nothing to see here" and "let's do the same thing we always do" when combined together are...kind of a new solution. I guess this is a step forward, because at least they are recognizing the simple existence of greenhouse gases, if only to then quickly make it illegal to even consider doing something about it.

We're just lucky it didn't read something like this:

(b) IMPACT OF GREENHOUSE GASES...WHICH DO NOT EXIST.--We recognize that CO2 is something that humans breathe out and plants need to grow and stuff, and therefore a totally natural process gifted to us by the Baby Jesus. We hereby reclassify factory smokestacks as "industrial breathing" and make it illegal to regulate them in any way. Besides, how can Congress regulate God?

We dodged a bullet. This counts as scientific progress for the House GOP.

New GM: Kind of like the old GM

Well the New GM is off to a roaring start. They've announced their new plans and , more importantly, are running weird ads featuring prosthetic legged runners, random stock footage of hockey players lying injured on the ice, Joe Lewis, a butterfly, random footage from sporting events relative to Pennsylvanians, lists all the general ways in which their actions over the past decade were stupid, and uses a slogan that is basically "yeah, we fucked up horrifically, so give us a second chance already." Also: New GM's New CEO is admitting he's ill prepared to run GM. That's the classic GM we all remember, glad they remembered to keep that.

The 6-foot-4-inch Texan nicknamed “Big Ed” said steering the nation’s largest automaker after bankruptcy is “a public service.” People who know him say he can meet GM’s need for the type of transformation he orchestrated at Dallas-based AT&T.

“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”

I'm no business expert, but from the looks of things it seemed like GM's problem was that no one wanted to buy their cars. A large part of that seemed to be because nobody liked the cars GM was making, because no one at GM seemed to know enough about cars to actually know what a normal human being would want. But then again the people supposedly running Gm and other American car companies were "auto experts", so really how much worse can a guy who knows nothing do? On second thought, how hard is it to tell everyone to "do what Toyota does".

So there is the new GM: weirdly terrible "my bad" ads and a CEO who admits he is completely clueless when it comes to the failing industry he has been tasked to completely revamp and overhaul. Doesn't it make you wish we had put more taxpayer money into GM?

Chump change

Want to know exactly how much local, state and federal governments are spending on health, justice, family assistance, and "education" because of the concerted effort to treat drugs/tobacco/alcohol as a reactionary problem of not enough prisons and hospitals instead of one of treatment, research, and prevention? Since it was done by a national research organization at an Ivy League school and was written about in the New York Times complete with charts and graphics, I'm going to guess the number is large. Like half a trillion a year large.

Government spending related to smoking and the abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs reached $468 billion in 2005, accounting for more than one-tenth of combined federal, state and local expenditures for all purposes, according to a new study.

Most abuse-related spending went toward direct health care costs for lung disease, cirrhosis and overdoses, for example, or for law enforcement expenses including incarceration, according to the report released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, a private group at Columbia University. Just over 2 percent of the total went to prevention, treatment and addiction research. The study is the first to calculate abuse-related spending by all three levels of government.

“This is such a stunning misallocation of resources,” said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the center, referring to the lack of preventive measures. “It’s a commentary on the stigma attached to addictions and the failure of governments to make investments in the short run that would pay enormous dividends to taxpayers over time.”

Beyond resulting in poor health and crime, addictions and substance abuse — especially alcohol — are major underlying factors in other costly social problems like homelessness, domestic violence and child abuse.

"Stunning misallocation of resources". Apparently Mr. Califano hasn't noticed this country starts wars on whims and throws trillions at Wall Street to thank them for almost destroying the world economy. Half a tril because our drugs policy is "Lock 'em up" , our health policy is "The existence of emergency rooms, for when you get really close to death, is equal to comprehensive health care", and our governmental notions of preventative measures is "Ain't that what them European socialists do? No thanks" is a drop in the bucket. And "failure of governments to make investments in the short run"? Maybe you didn't notice during this economic crisis: we have problems acting in the short run.

But thanks for showing us just what our policies cost us each year. I'm sure it will result in something productive from government. Like more prisons with higher walls and stronger bars, more mandatory minimums, and finding out a better way to tax people well on their way to a cirrhosis and lung cancer filled death/medical bankruptcy. You know, because "treatment" and "preventative measures" sound really gay in a heated primary fight.

Who could have foreseen?: Spying

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
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As part of that investigation, a senior F.B.I. agent recently came forward with what the inspector general’s office described as accusations of “significant misconduct” in the surveillance program, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those accusations are said to involve whether the N.S.A. made Americans targets in eavesdropping operations based on insufficient evidence tying them to terrorism.

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Hey Congress and Justice Department, give a shit yet? A member of Congress was getting spied on illegally, surely that's enough to make you stand up and take notice. It wasn't just one of the random faceless millions getting their Constitutional rights violated, it was our precious privileged elected betters suffering the indignity. Surely this will spur some action, enforcement of law, or at least a stern talking to, right? No? Fine, we'll just wait for Spain to get around to fixing it.

It's hard to even find the anger/disgust any more, since this was such an obvious, foreseeable, and predictable outcome. The whole purpose of that new FISA law all our buddies in Congress passed was to completely gut FISA and provide legal cover for everyone doing it, so who's really surprised that a lack of oversight and enforcement resulted in "overcollection." Which is just a fancy word for "extensive massive rights violations of the American public". But hey, I'm sure these abuses were just a few bad apples who didn't....oh, it says abuses were "significant and systemic".

But hey, I'm sure everything is all right now and just pointing out that these things happened and doing nothing to correct the total gutting of FISA that allowed this will mean that this sort of thing will never ever ever happen again. Hey, the Obama JD says everything is alright and they totally fixed things and there's no need to worry. Which is so relaxing, just like it was so relaxing to hear then Senator Obama tell us, back when it was up for vote, that the new FISA law would strengthen civil liberties protection and improve oversight. That worked out so well, I totally believe him this time.

Thanks for the confirmation

Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails
Secret Report Implies That U.S. Violated International Law

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.

The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hey WaPo headline writers, you might want to actually read that report you reported on. The report doesn't "imply" the US violated international torture law, it flat out says it. But we already knew this.

I guess we just put that in the "No Shit, Sherlock" file for a while until we're ready to move it over to the "...and Nothing of Consequence Ever Happened To Anyone Who Ordered It or Conducted It" file in a few decades. Then we get to hear the government belt out "Rah Rah Rah, America", "This Will Never Happen Again", close with "Nation of Laws", and come out for an encore of "Things We Learned", "It Was the Guy Before Me Who Did That" and "Nation of Laws (reprise)". Then our elected betters awkwardly yawn and talk about hittin' the dusty trail and we go home happy. Sure we've seen the show a hundred times, but it's a good show and we never get tired of it. It's like a Vegas show, except more morally corrupting and not as much topless dancing, French-Canadian acrobats, or magic. Good times.

Word shift

One of the confusing halfway points of the Bush/Obama transition has been word definitions. What were words and phrases going to mean now? Were words going to mean what they've meant since linguistic dwarves forged them in their secret mountain dictionary factories or were words going to mean what the Bush Administration pretended they meant? The American populace forced to go along with these new changes, lest Dana Perino or Scott McClellan furrow their brows over this "torture" thing you were talking about, instead of the new, better phrase: coercive interrogation. Good news, we got torture back, now we've pried a second away.

The Obama administration stopped calling Guantanamo inmates "enemy combatants" on Friday and incorporated international law as its basis for holding the prisoners while it works to close the facility.

The U.S. Justice Department filed court papers outlining a further legal and linguistic shift from the anti-terrorism policies of Republican President George W. Bush, which drew worldwide condemnation as violations of human rights and international law.

They didn't give us a new phrase to use. Are they to be referred to as 'hostages', 'criminals', 'innocently imprisoned', 'some mistakes mixed in with the scum of the earth', 'our national shame', or are they to be declared legal persons at a later date?

One problem? Yeah.....he didn't really change the law, just dropped the phrase. Oh sure, they'll rely on laws passed by Congress and the Geneva conventions, not solely the authority of the President, but Obama still reserves the right to detain battlefield/'far from the battlefield' combatants. Well, at least we get to refer to the detainment as what it really is this time, which I guess was what the Obama JD thought was most important: the words, not any of the major ideas behind the words.

Not quite getting it

If you're interested in the third rate unconstitutional shenanigans our favorite ex-President and his posse of crooks got us into, well the Obama Administration has gone to the trouble of releasing nine documents that shed light on their malfeasance. Revealing is how quickly the Bush Administration saw September 11th as an opportunity to disabuse themselves of the quaint notions of legality and ethics. You couldn't have boiled an egg in the time the towers fell until they decided warrantless wiretapping was a solid plan. But don't take my word for it.

The Obama administration threw open the curtain on years of Bush-era secrets Monday, revealing anti-terror memos that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects.

The Justice Department released nine legal opinions showing that, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S. conversations without warrants.
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"Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech a few hours before the documents were released. "Not only is that school of thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good."

While the Obama Administration is to be somewhat commended for releasing these documents they don't really seem to be getting it. Because while they are quick to shed light on some of the grossly illegal tactic of Bush, they're quick to embrace other unseemly ones. Like trying to block a judicial ruling on warrantless wiretapping and embracing the notion that no court evidently has the power to order the use of classified documents in a judicial process, only the President does. That would be the work of the same Eric Holder so nobly spouting off about doing more harm than good and the misguided view of a zero-sum battle.

The only real way that the unabashed declaration of secrecy and executive power by the Bush Administration wasn't viewed as a bigger threat is because the whole torture and illegal spying things were still hanging above it, sucking up the outrage. But now that those last two seem to be gone, it's still a pretty major deal that the Obama DOJ and White House still want to cling on to all the secrecy. It was a problem when Bush did it, it's a problem when you do it too Barry. You didn't get elected to dump the really bad stuff but keep the kinda bad stuff, you got elected to dump it all. To tout the release of documents as some sort of blow against the criminality and secrecy of the previous administration while at the same time heading to court and claiming the exact same secrecy privileges is...well, gutless.

You know if you voted for him and bought into the whole hope and change thing, this (and his venture into the 'state secrets' obfuscation) should really bother you. By which I mean piss you off.

EPA to twiddle thumbs, shuffle feet.

Seems as if earlier skepticism was right. I know, I know, I'm great. You can stop applauding me for foreseeing an obvious turn of events. Simply put, despite Bush agreeing to a vague and non-specific goal of cutting emissions at the G8 meeting, the EPA isn't going to implement anything new this year.

On one level this is good. We won't have the Bush Administration making up ludicrous policies with no benefit to the country or the environment. They might just decide we need to be exposed to more arsenic in the air, or that 1 out of 3 homes need a coal strip-mine in their backyard. On another level, it's bad that nothing will get done for yet another year, and we do another year's worth of damage from the already slashed and gutted EPA regulations and almost non-existent enforcement.

But the article is worth reading just to see how far the Bush EPA is willing to go to deny science, mangle facts and figures to their liking, bury reports, and mangle future projections. For instance they estimate that oil will cost 1/3 of it's current price so that they can claim a lower benefit for enacting stricter fuel standards. Or how the EPA is not allowed to admit that global warming harms stuff because that would legally trigger regulatory requirements. Or as Ed Markey (D-Mass) puts it "If this administration spent the same effort fighting global warming as they do editing and censoring global warming documents, the planet might not be in such dire straits." Not to mention that Bush Administration officials like Chase Hutto were more worried about greenhouse gas controls doing away with large American automobiles instead of the damage to the environment which his agency is supposed to protect (hence the clever EPA name). Did I mention his grandfather was a Ford bigwig? You probably guessed it anyway.

This is just the exact same pattern and attitude that has permeated every Bush fiasco. Ignore the career experts cause we know better. Suppress fact that don't say what we want. Ignore trends that don't show what we want. If the experts don't say what we want, change the experts. When in doubt, lie with every breath. When the inevitable failure occurs, claim "No one could have foreseen this." Eye up the next victim. Salt the earth on your way out.