Today in Health Data Insecurity

General practitioners in the UK are miffed because two software systems have been updated to allow 3rd parties to update patient records without the knowledge or approval of the patients or their doctors.

My guess is that this change is yet another attempt to bring the private sector into the operations of the NHS, but in any case, this appears to be insecure and dangerous for patients:

The UK's doctors' union has advised members running GP surgeries to turn off certain functionality in their IT system to prevent outside organizations adding to their workloads.

The row has broken out between the prestigious British Medical Association (BMA) and NHS England over data sharing capabilities in two common systems, TPP and EMIS.

In a YouTube video, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the BMA's GP Committee, said GP Connect – a feature that allows data to be shared between general practices and other healthcare organizations – had introduced a new function called Update Record. At the moment, it is only being used to allow pharmacists to add data to GP records in a limited way.

However, concerns had been raised when the GP system providers had "tipped off" the BMA that doctors' ability to turn off the Update Record function was set to be removed.


"EMIS and TPP tipped us off that NHS England have asked for that 'off switch' to be removed," she said.

Because GPs are legally controllers of patient data under the UK's data protection law, they need to be able to prevent third parties updating records when necessary.

Even without the data protection law, it would seem to me that GPs would have a professional and moral obligation to prevent third parties from updating patient records without permission.

………

In a prepared statement, Dr David Wrigley, deputy chair and digital lead of BMA's England GP Committee, said: "We are recommending to GPs that they turn off the Update Record facility on GP Connect at the present time while we engage in discussions with NHS England to better understand the implications of this software.

"We are concerned about changes that allow others to add diagnoses, observations, and medications. These changes could have unintended consequences and add further pressure to the GP needing to ensure follow-up and ongoing care is provided to the patient due to other clinicians' decisions and actions. This will include more requests for follow-ups and support for patients for work initiated by others outside the practice team."

Given the predilection for the now former Tory government to ward privatizing NHS functions, and they tried to push while the elections were going on.

I cannot attribute this to anything but a desire for the Conservative appointed NHS executives to further put the privatization camel's nose further in the tent .

Facebook, Twitter, and Jewish Passover Songs

Someone on Facebook post complained about a Tweet calling Obama a Neoliberal tool.

I observed that many of his behaviors served the neoliberal playbook, and they replied, "You’re wildly wrong on the powers of POTUS if you think Obama was able to singlehandedly do quite a lot of that list," and I replied:

He had a literal blank check or mortgage relief, and he "Foamed the Runways" (Geithner said that) for insolvent banks, it's on him.

His decisions on target assassinations and his embrace of torturers and torture enablers were his decisions as CinC, it's on him.

His decision not prosecute banksters was his AG's decision, and he supported it, it's on him.

He tried to push through TPP, it's on him.

He did not lift a finger to support card check, it's on him.

Sing to the tune of "Chad Gadya."

I am feeling very smug about my bon mot right now.

First, Walk the Damn Walk

Once again, the Democrats are looking at rolling out a class warfare message.

The problem here is that in order for this message to work, Democrats would have to actually support the average working man against their big dollar donors in finance.

If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you:

Democrats are ready to embrace a class war — and blame Republicans for starting it.

The GOP’s controversial dual effort to revamp the health care system and tax code has convinced Democrats they should bluntly assail Republicans as the defenders of out-of-touch plutocrats, a message party operatives have already begun to poll-test, include in attacks ads, and use against vulnerable incumbents even before Saturday’s passage of the Senate GOP bill.

And rather than wince at the inevitable retorts that the party is trying to instigate a class war, leading party strategists say they welcome the attack — confident the GOP’s legislative priorities make them a more likely culprit in the public’s mind.

“If Democrats are worried about class war, well, the Republicans started it,” said John Lapp, a veteran Democratic strategist. “And bring it on.”

Quipped one party operative: “If we’re eating the rich, they bit first.”

An avowed focus on the middle class is part of a well-worn playbook for Democrats, who traditionally regarded themselves as the defenders of workers. But they think the message has fresh resonance now, in the face of the GOP’s legislative agenda, and especially after President Donald Trump’s populist campaign promised repeatedly to defend the working class.

 Yeah.  NAFTA, TPP, CAFTA, the bank bailout, HAMP, etc.

You really build some meaningful credibility on that issue before trying to campaign on it.

Because people won't believe you otherwise, and they would be right.

Tweet of the Day

Trump is seeking small changes to NAFTA to make it more like the proposed TPP. Now that's how you break a promise! https://t.co/QkSeU7VU4E

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) March 30, 2017

H/t Ian Welsh.

Tweet of the Day

"NO TPP" was probably the #1 most popular sign at the Dem convention. The election of Trump caused the goal to be realized. Worth pondering. pic.twitter.com/S5MjIBuOep

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 24, 2017

H/t naked capitalism.

I'm Worried about His Other Promises

Donald Trump just officially pulled the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP):

President Trump formally abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday, pulling away from Asia and scrapping his predecessor’s most significant trade deal on his first full weekday in office, administration officials said.

Mr. Trump sharply criticized the partnership agreement during last year’s campaign, calling it a bad deal for American workers. Although the deal had not been approved by Congress, the decision to withdraw the American signature at the start of Mr. Trump’s administration is a signal that he plans to follow through on promises to take a more aggressive stance against foreign competitors.

In other action on a busy opening day, Mr. Trump ordered a hiring freeze in the federal work force, exempting the military. And he reinstituted limits on nongovernmental organizations that operate overseas and receive American taxpayer money from performing abortions. Republican presidents typically impose those restrictions soon after taking office, and Democratic presidents typically lift them when they take over.

The president’s withdrawal from the Asian-Pacific trade pact amounted to a drastic reversal of decades of economic policy in which presidents of both parties have lowered trade barriers and expanded ties around the world. Although candidates have often criticized trade deals on the campaign trail, those who made it to the White House, including President Barack Obama, ended up extending their reach.

He made the promise, and he kept it.

Bill Clinton promised side agreements, and never tried to get them, and Barack Obama moved heaven and earth in an attempt to pass the TPP and passed CAFTA and similar deals, with their pro big pharma, pro big Ag, pro Wall Street provisions.

Unfortunately, while putting a stake through the heart of the TPP is a good thing, Donald Trump promised a lot of stuff that is simply batsh%$ insane, and it looks like he's going to keep those promises too.

He's already at work on NAFTA:

Aides signaled that Mr. Trump may also move quickly on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. He is scheduling meetings with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, the two main partners in that pact, first negotiated by the elder President George Bush and pushed through Congress by President Bill Clinton. Nafta has been a major driver of American trade for nearly two decades, but it has long been divisive, with critics blaming it for lost jobs and lower wages.

Do not be heartened that the spray tan orange stopped clock is right once today.

We are, as the Chinese are wont to say, living in interesting times.

The Glory of the US Medical Industrial Complex

Click for full size
Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

Our healthcare system under-performs by any sane measure of efficiency or outcomes:

Historically, the United States has spent more money than any other country on healthcare.

In the late 1990s, for example, the U.S. spent roughly 13% of GDP on healthcare, compared to about a 9.5% average for all high income countries.

However, in recent years, the difference has become more stark. Last year, as Obamacare continued to roll out, costs in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 17.5% of GDP. That’s over $3 trillion spent on healthcare annually, and the rate of spending is expected accelerate over the next decade.

………

Today’s chart comes to us from economist Max Roser (h/t @NinjaEconomics) and it shows the extreme divergence of the U.S. healthcare system using two simple stats: life expectancy vs. health expenditures per capita.

………

Not only is U.S. healthcare spending wildly inefficient, but it’s also relatively ineffective. It would be one thing to spend more money and get the same results, but according to the above data that is not true. In fact, Americans on average will have shorter lives people in other high income countries.

Life expectancy in the U.S. has nearly flatlined, and it hasn’t yet crossed the 80 year threshold. Meanwhile, Chileans, Greeks, and Israelis are all outliving their American counterparts for a fraction of the associated costs.

For any improvements that Obamacare has made to the medical situation, we still have narrow networks, balance billing, and a system where it is literally impossible to avoid being charged for out of network services, all the things that prevent people from seeking help except when the situation is dire.

Then again, Obama is getting lots of funding for his presidential library and his foundation from Wall Street and health insurance types, so I guess it all works out for him.

Just imagine what he could have netted if he had gotten the TPP through.  That library would have gold plated bidets in its executive offices.

H/t The Big Picture

Another Silver Lining

The Obama administration has given up on the idea of passing the TPP during the lame duck session of Congress.

This is unsurprising. Trump was uncharacteristically precise on his position on the trade deal during the campaign, and as such, it is highly unlikely that Obama would get the necessary support from Congressional Republicans that he would need to pass the trade agreement:

White House officials conceded on Friday that the president’s hard-fought-for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would not pass Congress, as lawmakers there prepared for the anti-global trade policies of President-elect Donald Trump.

Earlier this week, congressional leaders in both parties said they would not bring the trade deal forward during a lame-duck session of Congress, before the formal transition of power on 20 January.

The Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, who will be minority leader in the next Congress, told union leaders the trade deal would not pass. Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s Republican majority leader, told reporters “no” when asked if Congress would consider the TPP.

So, Barack Obama loses one items that he hoped would cement his legacy as President, and the rest of us win.

My heart bleeds borscht for you, Mr. President.

This is a Very Good Point

The ISDS for the TPP explicitly excludes tobacco from the ISDS.

This raises an interesting point: Why is this OK, but mining companies who poison the surrounding people, or Chiquita spraying its workers with toxic pesticides deserves protection.

Now, people are beginning to notice the moral inconsistency:

One of the last pieces of horse-trading that went on in order to conclude the TPP deal involved corporate sovereignty, aka investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), and tobacco. As we reported a year ago, a "carve-out" for tobacco was agreed, which was designed to assuage fears that tobacco companies would use TPP's ISDS mechanism to challenge health measures like plain packs -- something that Philip Morris attempted against both Australia and Uruguay. Now, it looks like the idea is spreading, as Simon Lester points out on the International Economic Law and Policy Blog: 

………

More generally, the appearance of this carve-out for tobacco raises a question Mike asked a year ago: if corporate sovereignty is such a bad idea for this industry, why not for others that can cause harm -- like the extractive industries, for example? And once people start asking these kinds of questions, it's not long before they realize that putting companies above national laws, and letting them sue governments in supranational tribunals, makes no sense at all for any sector. Calls to drop the entire ISDS system have been growing for a while; the latest move by Australia and Singapore is likely to make them louder.

True dat.

Oh Snap

It appears that the European Commission got a legal opinion about the ISDS (Investor State Dispute System) that is central to the TTIP, the TPP, the CETA, and they were told that it was illegal under EU law.

We cannot be certain, but the fact that the EC is refusing to release the opinion and they are now being sued over this:

The European Commission faces an EU court battle to keep secret its lawyers’ analysis on whether the controversial investor-state-dispute (ISDS) clause in draft trade deals with the USA and Canada is illegal.

ClientEarth, an NGO of environmental lawyers, has slapped the Commission with a lawsuit after applying for the legal opinion using EU transparency rules.

It received heavily redacted documents that make it impossible to see the analysis of whether ISDS is legal under EU law. The redactions will be embarrassing for an institution that regularly claims to be the most transparent in the world and far more so than national governments.

ISDS is controversial because critics argue it will allow powerful multinationals to sue governments in international tribunals, which can have a chilling effect on their willingness to regulate in the public interest.

The Commission claims that the black-out is needed to protect its negotiations with the US on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) but that will now be tested by judges in the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg. The executive is mandated by member states to handle free trade agreement talks.

………

Were the Commission to be ultimately forced to publish analysis that found ISDS was incompatible with EU law, it could call the much-debated TTIP deal into question.

A legal precedent would also be set but the Commission would be able to appeal any decision to the European Court of Justice, which has so far resisted calls to issue an opinion on the clause’s legality.

………

The London-based NGO argues that ISDS is a “discriminatory legal tool” that creates an alternative legal system and may not be compatible with EU law.

The German Association of Judges and European Association of Judges have also expressed strong reservations. The Belgian parliament of Wallonia has called on the ECJ to give an opinion on the issue.

Lets be clear on this:  Secrecy here is not about negotiating positions.  It is about deceiving the general public and promulgating a deal which will hurt ordinary folk for the benefit of banksters and other rent seekers.

Hell Yeah!

The House of Representatives and the US Senate just overrode Barack Obama's veto of a bill allowing Saudi Arabia to be sued for its support of terrorism:

Barack Obama suffered a unique political blow on Wednesday, when the US Congress overturned his veto of a bill that would allow families of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.

The overwhelming bipartisan vote in both the Senate and House inflicted the first veto override of Obama’s presidency, less than four months before he leaves office. The White House issued an unusually scathing response.

“I would venture to say that this is the single most embarrassing thing that the United States Senate has done, possibly, since 1983,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “Ultimately these senators are going to have to answer their own conscience and their constituents as they account for their actions today.”

Not even close to the worst thing that the Senate has done since 1983.

Not contesting the 2000 election, the invasion or Iraq, NAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, etc. were all way worse.

It wasn't even close:

The Senate voted 97-1, with the Democratic minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, alone in supporting the veto. The House followed suit a short time later, voting 348-77 to override and putting Congress directly at odds with the White House and national security establishment.

BTW, I would note that one of the arguments:

In a letter sent to [Senate Minority Leader Harry] Reid this week, Obama warned the bill would erode sovereign immunity principles that prevent foreign litigants “from second-guessing our counter-terrorism operations and other actions that we take every day”.

Obama is now aggressively pushing the TPP and TTIP, which include an Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) apparatus allow for just this sort of second guessing on environmental protections, regulation of speculation, labor protections, etc.

I really hope that Saudi Arabia retaliates over this, because any estrangement between the United States and the House of Saud is an unalloyed good.

Obama got a well deserved black eye over this.

Linkage

• Blow for Obama's TPP as Vietnam parliament defers ratification (Reuters) Good
• The Intellectual Yet Idiot (Medium) A description of the people who have the skills to get into elite schools, but not for much else.  Money quote, "The IYI pathologizes others for doing things he doesn’t understand without ever realizing it is his understanding that may be limited."
• Pharma company boosts the price of an old acne cream 3,900% (Ars Technica) To almost $10,000.00 a tube.  Yikes!
• Guess How Much That Anti-LGBTQ Law Is Costing North Carolina (WIRED) About $400 million so far. Bigots made to pay for their bigotry.
• Free trade lowers prices -- but not on things poor people need (and it pushes up housing prices) (Boing Boing) Free trade deals screwing the bottom ¾ of the populace is a feature, not a bug.

Philomwna Cunk explains time. (Devastating funny satire)

Revenge of the Chicago School

After the coup that killed Allende and thousands of Chileans, the economy was largely managed by American consultants from the Chicago School, who attempted to create a free market paradise.

It didn't work, and they had to roll back some of the more extreme examples of free market fundamentalism after 12-18 months due to widespread fraud and corruption.

One thing, arguably the single most disastrous "reform", did last and now Chileans are discovering that privatizing their retirement accounts has resulted in their nest eggs being eaten up by excessive fees and poor performance.

Seriously, every time someone tries to implement "Galt's Gulch", this is what happen: Corruption, fraud, incompetence, and instability:

Discontent has been brewing for years in Chile over pensions so low that most people must keep working past retirement age. All the while, privately run companies have reaped enormous profits by investing Chileans’ social security savings.

The bubbling anger boiled over in July when Chileans learned that the former wife of a Socialist Party leader was receiving a monthly pension of almost $7,800 after retiring from the prison police department. That figure dwarfs the average monthly pension of $315, which is even less than a monthly minimum-wage salary of $384.

In a country already battered by widespread political and corporate corruption, this was the last straw.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched through Santiago, the capital, and other cities to protest the privatized pension system. More than 1.3 million people, according to organizers, turned up in August, the largest demonstration since Chile’s return to civilian rule in 1990.

One protester was Luis Montero, 69, whose monthly pension is about $150. Like many Chileans, Mr. Montero has mainly worked informal jobs without a contract at wages too meager for him to save enough for retirement. He still does maintenance work at a school to make ends meet.

………

In 1981, the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet privatized the old pay-as-you-go pension system, in which workers, employers and the government all contributed.

Under the privatized system, which President George W. Bush hailed as an example to follow, workers must pay 10 percent of their earnings into accounts operated by private companies known as pension fund administrators, or A.F.P.s, the initials of the term in Spanish. The administrators invest the money and charge workers a commission for transactions and other fees. Employers and the government do not make any contributions to the workers’ accounts.

………

The money invested by the administrators bolstered Chile’s capital markets, which stimulated economic growth and yielded reasonable returns. Today six A.F.P.s — half of them owned by foreign companies — manage $171 billion in pension funds, equivalent to about 71 percent of Chile’s gross domestic product, according to the office of the supervisor of the pension funds.

………

A commission on pension reform, appointed in 2014 by President Michelle Bachelet, found that the median A.F.P. pension was equivalent to 34 percent of a retiree’s last average salary (24 percent in the case of women and 48 percent for men). The overall figure rose to 45 percent with supplements from a federally funded safety net established during Ms. Bachelet’s first term in office.………

“The median A.F.P. pension will be equivalent to 15 percent of the last wages,” he said. “When we have an entire generation retiring solely from the A.F.P. system, the picture gets even bleaker. We have to address this problem now.”

………

“The government’s proposals mean more of the same, and don’t solve the real problem,” said Luis Mesina, the secretary general of the Confederation of Bank Trade Unions and the face of the movement opposed to the private pension administrators. “We need to put an end to the A.F.P.s.”

………

Manuel Riesco, an economist with the National Center for Alternative Development Studies, agreed that the funds had done well — for themselves. The money they collect from salary deductions is more than twice as much as they pay out in pensions.

“That’s a huge surplus they will never give back,” Mr. Riesco said. “The state is spending large amounts of the federal budget to compensate for the failure of the private system. And as the population gets older, what do the A.F.P.s do? Reduce pensions even more. It’s a perverse and irrational system.”

This is typical, and under the Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) required by the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), any attempt to fix this would open up Chile to massive liability from the secretive tribunals.

The free market mouseketeer model is broken, and it always has been.

And Now We Have Very Serious People Coming Out Against the TPP

So, now we have a former Reagan and Clinton trade official and a retired general arguing that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a security risk to the United States because it will hasten the hollowing out of American manufacturing, which makes the US dependent on foreign manufacturers in places like China and Vietnam for the crucial building blocks of military equipment.

This is a rather interesting counterpoint to the Obama administration's argument that we have to pass the TPP as a counter weight to Chinese influence in the region.

The first OP/ED appeared in the New York Times. The second appeared in The Hill.

It doesn't get any more establishment than that.

I'm actually beginning to think that Obama won't be able to get it through during the lame duck session.

I hope that this is not irrational optimism.

Linkage

• One group is responsible for America’s culture of violence, and it isn’t cops, black Americans, Muslims or rednecks. It’s men (LA Times) It's true. Our culture of violence is overwhelmingly a masculine one.
• These Are Your 28 TPP House Democrat Targets (Our Future) The 28 House members who voted for Fast Track for TPP.  Call them and tell them that you want them to vote against a lame duck vote on the TPP, and that if there is one, you want them to vote no.  (Unsurprisingly, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is on this list)
• Make your own Downfall video (J. Fedor) You know the meme, Hitler ranting in the movie Downfall where someone rewrites the subtitles. This automates the process.
• Swedish Pokemon teens terrorised by laser-wielding 'sex pigs' (The Register) It's an old story:  Couple dons pig masks, and chases kids hunting for Pokemon out of the park, and then have public sex.
• NASA Study Nails Fracking as Source of Massive Methane 'Hot Spot' (Common Dreams) Filed under, "Well duh!"
•  Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire (The Guardian) Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of killings by the British fighting the Mau Mau uprising. The image of the benign British empire is a myth.
• Aetna, Obamacare and health insurers’ 10 dirty secrets (MarketWatch) Medical insurance is evil, and the problem, not the solution.
• Saudi Arabia Kills Civilians, the U.S. Looks the Other Way (New York Times) This is wrong, and stupid, and evil.

 Do try this at home, but kids should make sure that your parents are there:

How Utterly Proper

Hillary Clinton has selected right wing pro-fracking pro TPP DINO Ken Salazar to head her transition team:

Two big issues dogged Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary: the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP) and fracking. She had a long history of supporting both.

Under fire from Bernie Sanders, she came out against the TPP and took a more critical position on fracking. But critics wondered if this was a sincere conversion or simply campaign rhetoric.

Now, in two of the most significant personnel moves she will ever make, she has signaled a lack of sincerity.

She chose as her vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine, who voted to authorize fast-track powers for the TPP and praised the agreement just two days before he was chosen.

And now she has named former Colorado Democratic Senator and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to be the chair of her presidential transition team — the group tasked with helping set up the new administration should she win in November. That includes identifying, selecting, and vetting candidates for over 4,000 presidential appointments.

As a senator, Salazar was widely considered a reliable friend to the oil, gas, ranching and mining industries. As interior secretary, he opened the Arctic Ocean for oil drilling, and oversaw the botched response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since returning to the private sector, he has been an ardent supporter of the TPP, while pushing back against curbs on fracking.

He said this:

“We know that, from everything we’ve seen, there’s not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone,” Salazar told the attendees, who included the vice president of BP America, another keynote speaker at the conference. “We need to make sure that story is told.”

He is ignoring many cases of contaminated water, including some cases where the water would burn.

And he claims that there is not one single case of a problem.

As interior secretary, he was waiving environmental reviews for BP project as its as its Deepwater Horizon was still spewing thousands of barrels a day in to the Gulf of Mexico,

And this ratf%$# will be vetting her staff, which means that in a very real way, he will have more impact on the shape of her administration than anyone but her.

If you think that Clinton is a progressive, I have some of Donald Trump's debt to sell you.

Pelosi Comes Out Against TPP

I am inclined to believe that this not a change of heart, but rather political realities forcing her to do the right thing:

Today, EFF joined a broad coalition of other public interest groups at Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's office in San Francisco, to present her with a petition carrying an incredible 209,419 signatures with a request to oppose the introduction of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the post-election "lame duck" session of Congress. And with your help, we succeeded! In a letter that she handed us at our meeting, Leader Pelosi wrote:

As Congress and the American people review the finalized terms of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), we must put American workers first to allow our economy to grow and America to succeed. Please be assured that I will oppose the TPP as it is currently written or any deal that attempts to separate commerce from the environment and will work to ensure that our nation's trade policies include increased transparency, more consultation, and stronger protections to create jobs, strengthen human rights, and preserve the environment.

Yes, I am rather cynical about this.

Hoo Boy!

Wikileaks has released thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails, revealing that the organization was aggressively in the tank for Hillary Clinton. (Big surprise, though it is a violation of its organization charter)
These included discussions of using Sanders religion against him, which kind of surprised me, because it's "our side" that is doing it:

As Hillary Clinton prepared to announce her 2016 running mate, a trove of nearly 20,000 emails were released by WikiLeaks on Friday, providing an embarrassing inside look at Democratic Party operations on the eve of the Democrats' national convention.

The emails from the Democratic National Committee include discussions of Clinton's chief rival for the presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.); details of perks provided to party donors attending the convention; and email exchanges between party officials, journalists and others.

The emails were released with an announcement by WikiLeaks on Twitter that linked readers to a WikiLeaks page inviting visitors to "Search the DNC email database." A search box sits underneath a one-paragraph introduction:

………

Friday's digital document dump follows a report last month by The Washington Post that Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, gaining access to an entire database of opposition research. DNC and Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment Friday as reporters and campaign staff began to assess the situation.


One email written May 5 to DNC communications director Luis Miranda from another party official suggests looking at Bernie Sanders' faith.

"It might may [sic] no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief," the email from "marshall@dnc.org" says. "Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."

At the very least the author of the letter, DNC CFO Brad Marshall, the author of this email, should be fired, but I do not expect this to happen, since he is clearly a FoH. (Friend of Hillary)

Of further interest is that the emails contain information that Hillary Clinton's "Fund Raising" for the state party was actually laundered back into her campaign:

………

Other emails show DNC staff in damage control over allegations from the Sanders campaign, when a report—corroborated by a Politico—revealed the DNC’s joint fundraising committee with the Clinton campaign was laundering money to the Clinton campaign instead of fundraising for down-ticket Democrats.………

Between this and the choice of the pro-TPP, pro-abstinence education, pro-parental notification laws Tim Kaine as her VP pick, I think that a lot of the folks from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party are, to quote the Dixie Chicks, "Not ready to make nice."

Kaine? Seriously?

Hillary's choice of Tim Kaine as her running mate has confirmed that her opposition to the TPP was pure puffery.

Kaine is one of the staunchest supporters of the TPP in the Senate.

No big surprise actually.

In addition to everything else, it serves as some hippie punching which is so favored by the Democratic establishment.

I am so glad that I live in Maryland, where my Presidential vote does not matter.

I So Hope that DWS Loses the Primary

We now have reports that Bernie Sanders will cmapaign against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the upcoming Congressional primary:

In an interview with USA Today, Bernie Sanders announced plans for the Sanders Institute and other educational and political organizations to continue the revolution his campaign spawned.

Sanders will also be campaigning for at least 100 progressives around the country—including democrat Tim Canova, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s primary congressional challenger.

………

With Sanders’ endorsement for Clinton behind him, his next steps leading up to the Democratic National Convention are to maintain a progressive presence within the party. As Wasserman Schultz was spared in negotiations for Sanders’ endorsement, the next best way to maintain a progressive presence is by ensuring she loses her reelection bid to a more progressive alternative like Tim Canova.

Canova has already raised over $2 million in his congressional race against Wasserman Schultz, in large part thanks to contributions from disenfranchised Sanders supporters. His momentum has received backlash from Democrats keen on keeping Wasserman Schultz in Congress.

………

Even though Wasserman Schultz’s Democratic primary is just around the corner—on August 30—she has consistently refused to debate Canova, and has limited her exposure as DNC chair. While Wasserman Schultz has avoided the public eye, Canova has exposed a litany of her policy shortfalls among progressives. The Miami Herald reported that Wasserman Schultz broke down in tears after the Florida AFL-CIO declined to endorse her, due to her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement—which Canova staunchly opposes.

Gee. She has a sad, because a labor union declined to endorse her because she has proved herself implacably hostile to the needs and desires of that union.

This is how politics is supposed to work.

Canova’s support for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidelines pushed Wasserman Schultz to flip-flop in her support for payday lenders. He also recently challenged Wasserman Schultz’s vote in favor of the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act, which allows pension and benefit cuts to 400,000 American workers—many of them teamsters and union members.

Gee, supporting loan sharks, the TPP, and gutting union pensions?  I can't imagine why, "the Florida AFL-CIO declined to endorse her."

I so hope she is sent packing in the primary.

While at the Other Ocean………

It appears that the elections called by Malcolm Trumbull just made Australia's approval of the TPP next to impossible in the near future:

With a new Senate likely to be hostile to free trade deals, the road to signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership just got bumpy, writes Richard Denniss.

One thing that is certain after Saturday’s election, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is dead, and along with it the Coalition’s economic agenda and narrative. The free trade agreements that Andrew Robb signed with China, Korea, and Japan were some of Tony Abbott’s proudest achievements, yet they are exactly the sort of deals that Pauline Hanson, Nick Xenophon, and Jacqui Lambie believe cost Australian manufacturing workers jobs.

And thanks to Malcolm Turnbull’s new Senate voting rules and double dissolution election, Hanson, Xenophon, and Lambie are now the block of votes that the Coalition will need to win over to pass their legislation when the ALP and Greens are opposed.

This may not kill the TPP, but it has the effect of making the timetable Obama that wants (he sees it as a presidential legacy issus), where there is a lame duck vote, next to impossible.

It is not clear who will win the election, but it is clear that the Colalition will not have the votes to pass TPP without significant support from smaller parties because the Senate is looking to be a complete mess, and unlike other upper houses in the British Commonwealth, the Australian Senate is much more powerful, being somewhat analogous to the US Senate in power.

Again, good news, because much like CETA and the TPIP, the TPP is a horribly flawed "trade deal."

Yeah, This is Going to Bring the Party Together

I understand that in US politics party platforms don't count for much.

Still, the fact Clinton and DNC members of the platform committee have voted against a meaningful increase to the minimum wage, and for fracking and the TPP promises to make the Democratic convention a mess:

The battle over the official Democratic Party platform began in earnest this Friday at a nine-hour meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, and already the sparks of tension seem to be outweighing the calls for “unity.”

The Democratic Party’s platform is an official statement of values on a wide range of issues, and while it is officially non-binding, the platform serves as a crucial guidepost for the entire party. The 2016 platform committee comprises fifteen members, with five members chosen by Bernie Sanders, six chosen by Hillary Clinton, and four chosen by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Bernie Sanders himself had conflicting feelings about the progress and concessions made on Friday, releasing a statement on his website that said he was “pleased” with certain aspects but was “disappointed and dismayed” at other decisions, particularly those regarding trade.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Sanders representative on the committee, attempted to insert language into the platform that stated Democrats would not hold a vote on the widely derided Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in order to effectively end the plan’s prospects, but the committee rejected Ellison’s proposal so as to avoid indirectly criticizing President Obama on the issue, despite both Sanders and Clinton being against the deal.

………

The Democrats also voted to include the $15 minimum wage into the platform, even calling the current rate of $7.25 a “starvation wage.” However, there arose some confusion over this particular issue among progressive critics, as two further amendments introduced by Ellison that would have indexed the minimum wage to inflation, making it a truly “livable wage,” were voted down.

………

Bill McKibben, a Sanders appointee to the committee and prominent environmentalist who co-founded 350.org, attempted to insert language on both a carbon tax and a national moratorium on fracking, but both proposals were rejected in perhaps the most disappointing move of the proceedings.

………

The committee also rejected a single-payer Medicare-for-All plan in a decisive blow to one of Sanders’ key domestic policies. Hillary Clinton has stated in this election cycle that single-payer healthcare will “never, ever come to pass” despite supporting universal healthcare for most of her career. According to a Gallup poll conducted in May, 58% of Americans support a federally funded healthcare option. Only 48% of those polled wished to continue the Affordable Care Act.

Progressives and Sanders supporters vocalized their frustrations with what they saw as continued obstinance in the face of wide support for these programs and ideas. “What was passed was a solidly neoliberal platform — 90% of what we wanted is not getting in,” said Caleb-Michael Files, the digital strategist for People for Bernie Sanders.

………

Sanders has repeatedly stressed since the end of the campaign season that his endorsement of Clinton would depend on her platform and how closely her goals aligned with his own campaign’s. Sanders remained defiant in the closing of his statement on the platform, vowing to continue to fight for the issues as the platform continues to be debated in the coming weeks:

“If our pro-worker amendments do not carry in St. Louis we will reintroduce them before the full platform committee in Orlando, Florida. If we do not win in Orlando we can carry them to the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Our job is to pass the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.”

This is not a surprise.  Neither Clinton nor Wasserman-Schultz feel the slightest need to make nice with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Their goal is to assert control, and this might very well throw the election to the short fingered vulgarian.

How Convenient

Over at IBT David Sirota relates how he requested Clinton's emails , and the is dragging its feet to keep the release until after election day:

Trade is a hot issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. But correspondence from Hillary Clinton and her top State Department aides about a controversial 12-nation trade deal will not be available for public review — at least not until after the election. The Obama administration abruptly blocked the release of Clinton’s State Department correspondence about the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), after first saying it expected to produce the emails this spring.

The decision came in response to International Business Times' open records request for correspondence between Clinton’s State Department office and the United States Trade Representative. The request, which was submitted in July 2015, specifically asked for all such correspondence that made reference to the TPP.

The State Department originally said it estimated the request would be completed by April 2016. Last week the agency said it had completed the search process for the correspondence but also said it was delaying the completion of the request until late November 2016 — weeks after the presidential election. The delay was issued in the same week the Obama administration filed a court motion to try to kill a lawsuit aimed at forcing the federal government to more quickly comply with open records requests for Clinton-era State Department documents.

Clinton’s shifting positions on the TPP have been a source of controversy during the campaign: She repeatedly promoted the deal as secretary of state but then in 2015 said, "I did not work on TPP," even though some leaked State Department cables show that her agency was involved in diplomatic discussions about the pact. Under pressure from her Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, Clinton announced in October that she now opposes the deal — and has disputed that she ever fully backed it in the first place.

It gets even better, the State department has set a release date of November 31, a non-existent date.

And now the Donald Trump Campaign has gotten into the act, and is demanding the emails as well.

I know!  She'll release the emails when everyone else does.

Yeah, This Really Inspires Support for the TTIP

The US ambassador to Italy, a political appointee by Obama, is saying that the US and Europe need to approve the trade deal in order to prevent prosecution of the banksters at the mega-banks:

On May 7th, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or German Economic News, headlined, “USA planen mit TTIP Frontal-Angriff auf Gerichte in Europa” or “U.S. Plans Frontal Attack on Europe’s Courts via TTIP,” and reported that, “America’s urgency to sign TTIP with Europe has solid reason: Megabanks must protect themselves from claims by European investors who allege that they were cheated during the debt crisis. … The U.S. Ambassador to Italy has now let the cat out of the bag on this — probably unintentionally.”

In this particular case, the megabank that’s being sued isn’t American but German, Deutsche Bank, which the U.S. Ambassador to Italy has cited as his example to defend, perhaps so as to appeal to Germans to protect their megabanks against lawsuits from foreign investors (such as Italians) who complain. In that case it was investors in the Italian city of Trani, population 53,000. The smallness of the city was an issue the Ambassador raised against the suit’s having been brought there.

Reuters headlined on May 6th, “Italian prosecutor investigates Deutsche Bank over 2011 bond sale”, and reported that, “An Italian prosecutor is investigating Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) over its sale of 7 billion euros ($8 billion) of Italian government bonds five years ago, an investigative source told Reuters. A prosecutor in Trani, a town in southern Italy, is investigating because Deutsche Bank allegedly told clients in a research note in early 2011 that Italy’s public debt was no cause for concern, and then sold almost 90 percent of its own holding of the country’s bonds.” The U.S. bond-rating agencies are also subjects in this suit, because Trani had relied upon their ratings of those bonds.

The Obama Administration (through its Italian Ambassador) seems thus to be saying, in effect, that unless TTIP is passed into law, Europe’s megabanks (and the U.S. bond-rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) will be able successfully to be sued by cheated investors, just as has been happening with such American banks as JPMorgan/Chase and Goldman Sachs in the United States, which — since TTIP hasn’t yet been in force anywhere, including in the U.S. — were forced to pay billions to cheated investors. Apparently, Obama would be happier if those suits had been impossible in the U.S. The argument here, though only implicitly, seems to be that TTIP is the way to protect megabanks and the bond-rating firms. It concerns specifically the selling of sophisticated derivative investments.

I didn't think that there was any bit of news that would make me more opposed to the TTIP or TPP.

I was misinformed.

Linkage

• Biotech firm creates fake rhino horn to reduce poaching (Digital Journal) Ebay did this to people who stole from archeological sites. There was a flood of counterfeits, and prices dropped, and the numbewr of counterfeits skyrocketed, and people got out of the business.
• Barack Obama Readies For Final TPP Push, Which Could Benefit Presidential Library Donors (International Business Times) Much like his policies, Obama's corruption is pedestrian and incrementalist.
• Luxembourg Puts Journalist and Whistleblowers On Trial for Ruining Its “Magical Fairyland” of Tax Avoidance (The Intercept) Luxemburg's only real industry is money laundering, so they are trying to throw people who reveal this fact in jail.
• Microsoft Windows 95 on Apple Watch (Business Insider) The award for the person having too much free time award goes to………
• Cracker Jack's Prize In The Box Will Now Be Digitized : The Two-Way (NPR)This sucks wet farts from dead pigeons
• How Big Data Harms Poor Communities (The Atlantic)  Big data is the surveillance state privatized, and the surveillance state is about keeping down the poor and minorities. QED.
• Paul Ryan Wants To Kill Me (Cognitive Dissidence) Author is in treatment for cancer, and notes that Ryan's desire to return to the bad old days of pre-existing conditions would have him dead.
• Wifi hotspot with 'threatening name' grounds flight in Australia (The Independent) Naming your WiFi network to tether your laptop to your phone, "Mobile Detonation Device," is not a smart thing if you intend to use it while at the airport.
• I tried Go Cubes chewable coffee, and I'm pretty sure this is what cocaine feels like (The Next Web) This will not end well .

This is still the creepiest music video that I've ever seen:

Linkage

• Why the S.E.C. Didn’t Hit Goldman Sachs Harder (The New Yorker)Because they were all Barack Obama's former classmates at Harvard, or the Clinton's at Yale, etc. Obama could never bring himself to prosecute what he sees as, "People like us," and he surrounded himself with people who held the same views.
• Why I Blew the Whistle on the SEC's Investigation of Goldman Sachs (Watch The Circus) The whistle-blower for the above link, James A. Kidney, in his own words.
• Choosing to Skip the Upgrade and Care for the Gadget You’ve Got (New York Times) Using older tech that still does the job.
• Prescription meds get trapped in disturbing pee-to-food-to-pee loop (Ars Technica) Eww………
• Australian Case Shows Why Corporate Sovereignty Isn't Needed In TPP -- Or In Any Trade Agreement (Techdirt) Money quote, "The key point is that it is not absolutely necessary to include corporate sovereignty provisions in a trade deal to protect companies, because there is always the state-to-state mechanism that can be invoked if necessary."
• The Pentagon's Twisted Potlatch (Foreign Policy in Focus) The author refers to the excesses of Potlatch culture, where chiefs would destroy their own property in an attempt to gain status, and draws an amazingly trenchant comparison to the Pentagon's acquisition process.
• Bill That Obama Extolled Is Leading to Pension Cuts for Retirees (The Intercept) Not a surprise. As Obamacare shows, his solutions to the problems of America is to load more risk and reduce reward to ordinary Americans.
• Scientists Acquire More Proof That Only Beavers Can Save the World (Gizmodo) A little beaver solves everything.
• Firms that paid for Clinton speeches have US gov't interests (AP) The problem is not that the Clinton's did broke the law, they did not. The problem is that this is legal.
• Correcting Correct The Record’s Record (Medium) The Hillary Clinton campaign is paying trolls online.

This episode of linkage has Hamaytz. Here is the Ramen Song, by my little girl:

Notice How They are Not Discussing This on the Merits

In discussing the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, supporter have have stopped talking about the merits of the deal, and instead are suggesting that its defeat would be a blow for American prestige:

"Failure to move forward ... would be a profound setback for American interests in the region," Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. "It would be a signal that we do not have staying power and cause countries to hedge on their alignment with the United States."

The administration is running out of time to get the accord ratified by Congress and faces an uphill slog to win approval with the leading presidential candidates in both parties opposed to the deal. Republican front-runner Donald Trump has denounced free trade deals as harmful to American workers and a drag on the U.S. economy. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who supported the TPP as secretary of state under Obama, has come out against the TPP under pressure from the left, including labor unions and her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), who also opposes it.

But in a conference call with reporters, administration officials warned that China is poised to step into an economic and leadership void if the U.S. falters in the pact with 11 other nations, including Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia. While Trump and Sanders have called outsourcing and trade imbalances with China detrimental to the United States, White House allies said that the economic competition from China, which is not included in the TPP, is a reason to endorse the deal.

So apparently it's not a trade deal, and it won't provide meaningful benefits, it's a political and diplomatic ploy to be used in a war against China.

Do you want to lose your job just to f%$# with China?

Well, I don't either.

F%$# the Mouse

You know, now that Mickey has stopped palling around with Michael Eisner, Disney has really gone to the dark side:

The Walt Disney Company has a reputation for lobbying hard on copyright issues. The 1998 copyright extension has even been dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by activists like Lawrence Lessig that have worked to reform copyright laws.

This year, the company is turning to its employees to fund some of that battle. Disney CEO Bob Iger has sent a letter to the company’s employees, asking for them to open their hearts—and their wallets—to the company’s political action committee, DisneyPAC.

In the letter, which was provided to Ars by a Disney employee, Iger tells workers about his company's recent intellectual property victories, including stronger IP protections in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Supreme Court victory that destroyed Aereo, and continued vigilance about the "state of copyright law in the digital environment." It also mentions that Disney is seeking an opening to lower the corporate tax rate.

"With the support of the US Government we achieved a win in the Supreme Court against Aereo—an Internet service claiming the right to retransmit our broadcast signals without paying copyright or retransmission consent fees," writes Iger. "In the coming year, we expect Congress and the Administration to be active on copyright regime issues, efforts to enact legislation to approve and implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, tax reform, and more proposals to weaken retransmission consent, to name a few."

The source who provided the letter to Ars asked to remain anonymous, and they were bothered by the assumption that anyone who worked for Disney would agree with the company's political positions on tax, trade, intellectual property, and other matters.

"It just seems insensitive to folks that support the company but don't necessarily support all of its priorities," the source said. "Especially for something like TPP, which I view as particularly controversial. We do have a company position, but there's going to be a wide variety of opinion [within the company]."

………
The Disney letter has language explicitly reassuring employees that their jobs won't be affected by their decision whether or not to give to DisneyPAC.

"Your contribution is important to all of us, but I want to emphasize that all contributions are voluntary and have no impact on your job status, performance review, compensation, or employment," writes Iger. "Any amount given or the decision not to give will not advantage or disadvantage you."

If you believe that Disney won't be making a list and checking it twice, you still believe in Santa Claus.

This isn't a United Way drive, this is a demand to employees that they give to an organization promulgating Disney's interest.

As I said at the start, f%$# the mouse.

Reasons that People Don't Trust Her

This hed says it all:

45 Times Clinton Pushed the Trade Bill She Now Opposes

She needs to own who she is and what she has done.

In this case, she helped negotiate the TPP and TPIP.

I have a New Endorsement

Timothy Canova, who is running against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the Democratic primary.

It appears that dissatisfaction with DWS, both in her district and inside the DC Beltway that The Hill, a bastion of inside the Beltway thinking has taken notice:

For Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the problems with the left just keep coming.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) chief has infuriated many Democrats with her handling of the party’s presidential primary debates. She drew further howls from liberals for deeming a whole generation of young women "complacent" about their abortion freedoms.

And now she's facing a primary challenge from a liberal Wall Street reformer who says she's a corporate shill detached from her district.

The challenge highlights the difficulty facing Wasserman Schultz as she juggles her dual roles as Florida representative and head of the DNC — duties that sometimes come into conflict.

Timothy Canova, a professor at the Shepard Broad College of Law in Florida's Nova Southeastern University, says Wasserman Schultz's positions on trade, criminal justice, consumer protection and drug policy reform — among others — are evidence that she's sold out to corporate interests at the expense of her constituents.

It marks the first primary challenge to Wasserman Schultz since her arrival on Capitol Hill in 2005.

Canova launched his bid last week on a platform that pulls more than a few pages from that of populist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Democratic presidential hopeful who's waged a surprisingly strong challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton by attacking from the left.

In that mold, Canova is vowing to fight President Obama's trade agenda, reform the criminal justice system, rein in big banks and curtail the influence of money in politics — all issues where he sees Wasserman Schultz as vulnerable.

"People here on the ground — I hear left and right, you name it — are just dissatisfied that she's not responsive, she takes people for granted, and it's becoming evident in the way she votes on an awful lot of issues," Canova said Friday by phone.

"She takes a lot of corporate money, and she votes for corporate interests contrary to the interest of her own constituents."

Canova, a former aide to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.), is pointing to a host of votes that, he says, make Wasserman Schultz a bad fit for the district.

He says she fought against new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidelines governing car loans and pay-day lenders.

He's quick to note that she opposed a 2014 Florida referendum to legalize medical marijuana, calling her "a drug warrior" in the pockets of a private prison industry that promotes incarcerations.

And he's highlighting the fact that she was one of just 28 House Democrats to support the fast-track trade bill that's greased the skids for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a huge international accord that's a top priority of Obama but remains anathema to liberals in his own party.

Canova said the TPP would be an environmental catastrophe for South Florida, which "is really facing, in the long-term, an existential problem with climate change and rising oceans."

"In a democracy, you have to hold your officials accountable," Canova said. "I was hoping somebody would step forward and challenge her. Nobody else would, and that's really the basis of the challenge."

Canova has a tough road ahead. Wasserman Schultz, as head of the DNC, is the most prominent Democrat in Florida; she's a prodigious fundraiser for the party; and she glided to a sixth term in 2014 with 63 percent of the vote.

Still, in an environment when political non-conformers like Sanders and Donald Trump have attracted support by simple virtue of their outsider status, Canova sees an opening.

"There's a perception … that she's bullet-proof here at home because she wins by big majorities," he said. "But she's never been challenged in a primary."

Washerman Schultz has faced some difficulty representing her district while also serving as a figurehead role for her party.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz isn't having difficulties because she has duties as head of the DNC.

She is facing a backlash because she is a careerist political climber with no underlying beliefs beyond that, she is as dumb as a post, and she refuses to listen to people she needs for implementation of her agenda.

I am so hoping that she gets the boot in the primary.

In any case, I have added Dr. Canova to Matthew Saroff's Act Blue Page.

And this is Mild Compared to the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The WTO has just ruled that requiring the labeling of dolphin safe tuna is an unacceptable restraint of trade:

International trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) need to be carefully examined piece by piece because they can take precedence over a country’s own laws.

Case in point: the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday ruled that dolphin-safe tuna labeling rules — required by U.S. law, in an effort to protect intelligent mammals from slaughter — violate the rights of Mexican fishers.

As a result, the U.S. will have to either alter the law or face sanctions from Mexico.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how the “investor-state dispute settlement system” baked into trade agreements can force countries to compensate corporations when regulations cut into their profits.

The long-running quarrel over tuna reveals another way that domestic laws can be overturned by trade agreements: when countries can file trade challenges on behalf of domestic industries.

“This should serve as a warning against expansive trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would replicate rules that undermine safeguards for wildlife, clean air, and clean water,” said the Sierra Club’s Ilana Solomon in a statement.

This short of crap is a feature of trade deals, not a bug.

I Should Feel Good about This, but I Keep Waiting to the Other Shoe to Drop

Obama has now officially rejected the Keystone-XL pipeline.

While a rational person should see this as an unalloyed good, I keep thinking that if TranCanada had not attempted to defer its application, making it clear that they were planning for a Republican victory in 2016, Obama would still be hedging his bets:

Saying that "the Keystone XL Pipeline would not serve the national interests of the United States," President Obama rejected the much-debated project on Nov. 6. (AP)

President Obama rejected a presidential permit Friday for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, citing concerns about its impact on the climate.

"America’s now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change," Obama told reporters, standing in the Roosevelt Room beside Vice President Biden and Secretary of State John F. Kerry. "And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that's the biggest risk we face, not acting."

Also, I wonder if this might be some sort of attempt to disarm the left in an attempt to get the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal passed.

This is not a Surprise

Leaked documents from the TTIP have revealed that the EU negotiators are ignoring their promises on labor and environmental protections: 

As far as trade agreements are concerned, the recent focus here on Techdirt and elsewhere has been on TPP as it finally achieved some kind of agreement -- what kind, we still don't know, despite promises that the text would be released as soon as it was finished. But during this time, TPP's sibling, TAFTA/TTIP, has been grinding away slowly in the background. It's already well behind schedule -- there were rather ridiculous initial plans to get it finished by the end of last year -- and there's now evidence of growing panic among the negotiators that they won't even get it finished by the end of President Obama's second term, which would pose huge problems in terms of ratification.

One sign of that panic is that the original ambitions to include just about everything are being jettisoned, as it becomes clear that in some sectors -- cosmetics, for example -- the US and EU regulatory approaches are just too different to reconcile. Another indicator is an important leaked document obtained by the Guardian last week. It's the latest (29 September) draft proposal for the chapter on sustainable development. What emerges from every page of the document, embedded below, is that the European Commission is now so desperate for a deal -- any deal -- that it has gone back on just about every promise it made (pdf) to protect the environment and ensure that TTIP promoted sustainable development. Three environmental groups -- the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth Europe and PowerShift -- have taken advantage of this leak to offer an analysis of the European Commission's real intent in the environmental field. They see four key problems:

The leaked text fails to provide any adequate defense for environment-related policies likely to be undermined by TTIP. For example, nothing in the text would prevent foreign corporations from launching challenges against climate or other environmental policies adopted on either side of the Atlantic in unaccountable trade tribunals.

The environmental provisions are vaguely worded, creating loopholes that would allow governments to continue environmentally harmful practices. The chapter lacks any obligation to ratify multilateral agreements that would bolster environmental protection and includes a set of vague goals with respect to biological diversity, illegal wildlife trade, and chemicals.

The leaked text includes several provisions that the European Commission may claim as "safeguards," such as a recognition of the "right of each Party determine its sustainable development policies and priorities" but none would effectively shield environmental policies from being challenged by rules in TTIP.

There is no enforcement mechanism for any of the provisions mentioned in the text. Even if one were included, it would still be weaker than the enforcement mechanism provided for foreign investors either through the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism or the renamed investment court system.

This is how this is really supposed to work.

You make promises to protect the people, and then declare that an agreement is essential, so you cannot keep those promises.

The goals of these deals are, and have been for as long as I remember, has been to screw the ordinary citizen at the for the benefit of the already obscenely rich.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I'm not sure whether John Boehner is laughing or crying, but the fact that Congressman Malaprop, AKA current House Majority Leader has decided nto to run for Speaker is a bit of a surprise:

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California abruptly withdrew on Thursday from the race to succeed Speaker John A. Boehner, blindsiding his House Republican colleagues and throwing their already tumultuous chamber into deeper chaos with no clear leader in sight just weeks before a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.

As lawmakers ate barbecue and sipped sodas during what was expected to be a pro forma vote to select Mr. McCarthy as their nominee, he did an about-face, saying that he had concluded he could not unite the increasingly fractious Republican majority.

“I am not that guy,” said Mr. McCarthy, with his wife and family by his side, according to members who were in the room. Moments later, Mr. Boehner, who learned of Mr. McCarthy’s decision only minutes before he announced it, declared the vote postponed and the meeting adjourned even though there were two other candidates in the running, underscoring the weakness of the field.

Some Republicans, including Mr. Boehner and Mr. McCarthy, are pressing Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s nominee for vice president in 2012, to step up. Mr. Ryan, however, has repeatedly said he does not want the job, a point he reiterated Thursday even before his colleagues had left the meeting.

I've heard that there were some Republican Representatives crying in the coat closet crying after the announcement.

I love me some sweet Republican tears, but we are in for a really bumpy ride.

If someone like Jason Chaffetz ends up speaker, we will get of the Benghazi-Planned Parenthood-Fast and Furious freak show.

In fact, I would guess that it is even money that they will try to impeach Obama.

Actually, I would think that there is a 10% chance that they will try to retroactively impeach Bill Clinton.

About the only good that might come of this is if it ends up killing the TPP, because nothing else is going to get done.

Good News

Of course, if Europeans on the the TTIP trade deal, then the privacy ruling of the European High Court would go away:

Europe's top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), has struck down the 15-year-old Safe Harbour agreement that allowed the free flow of information between the US and EU. The most significant repercussion of this ruling is that American companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, may not be allowed to send user data from Europe back to the US.

It's important to note that the CJEU's ruling (PDF) will not immediately prevent US companies from sending data back to the motherland. Rather, the courts in each EU member state can now rule that the Safe Harbour agreement is illegal in their country. It is is very unlikely, however, that a national court would countermand the CJEU's ruling in this case.

The case was originally sent to the CJEU by the High Court of Ireland, after the Irish data protection authority rejected a complaint from Maximillian Schrems, an Austrian citizen. He had argued that in light of Snowden's revelations about the NSA, the data he provided to Facebook that was transferred from the company's Irish subsidiary to the US under the Safe Harbour scheme was not, in fact, safely harboured. Advocate General Yves Bot of the CJEU agreed with Schrems that the EU-US Safe Harbour system did not meet the requirements of the Data Protection Directive, because of NSA access to EU personal data.

According to an earlier CJEU statement (PDF), "the access enjoyed by the United States intelligence services to the transferred data constitutes an interference with the right to respect for private life and the right to protection of personal data, which are guaranteed by the [Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU]." Another issue, according to the Advocate General, was "the inability of citizens of the EU to be heard on the question of the surveillance and interception of their data in the United States," which therefore amounts to "an interference with the right of EU citizens to an effective remedy, protected by the Charter."

Because the CJEU was ruling on an issue in Ireland, the Irish court is expected to make its own judgement shortly. It is likely that the Irish court will side with the CJEU. When that happens, one of two things will need to happen: Facebook, and many other US companies with Irish subsidiaries, will need to keep European data within the EU; or the US will need to provide real privacy protection for EU data when it flows back to the US. As the latter is unlikely due to pressure from the NSA and other intelligence agencies, we suspect most US companies will opt for the former.

If the TTIP, the trans-Atlantic version of the TPP, is adopted, all of these protections go away, because profits trump people under these deals.