The Democrats' State of Play

Hillary pulled off a narrow victory against Bernie Sanders after leading in Nevada by double digits.  Once again the black bloc voted overwhelmingly for Ms. Clinton.  A bright spot for Sanders is that he polled a majority of Latino voters.  After three primaries the two candidates are tied for pledged delegates to the convention: 51 each.

But that unexpected situation does not tell the whole story.  Clinton has a large advantage in money since she is funded by Super Pacs not subject to limitations under Citizens' United (Mourning Nino?  Not so much!)  As the process wears on, money plays a crucial role in buying advertising intended to lure undecided voters.  The Sanders campaign has got to find a way to connect with minority voters.  It got off to a bad start when the candidate walked off the stage at a rally commandeered by a black activist group (Hillary supporters?).

That is not the only card the former Secretary of State has to play.  The Democratic Party establishment made up of big donors like George Soros, and elected Democratic officials and former officials are solidly behind Madam Secretary.  Superdelegates hold the balance of power in a convention deadlocked by elected delegates; this is an intended circumstance in a political party free to make its own rules of procedure and fearful of a runaway convention in which a presumed unelectable candidate is chosen in a moment of democratic excess.  US Person thinks this influential support that controls the party's superdelegates may go beyond the Beltway, across the river and into the Pentagon and Langley, the so-called "deep state".  The timing of a US air raid against ISIS-Libya was just about perfect in order to influence a tight race in Nevada.

Socialist Sanders is viewed as suspect by professional militarists.  Clinton, with her votes for the wars in the Middle East, a disastrous regime change in Libya, and her cover for the Benghazi fiasco has proven she is not unreliable.  Her past is no liability either; she supported Barry Goldwater in 1964.  Sanders was just one of sixty-six congressmen who had the courage to vote against the Patriot Act. Being a socialist in the right wing's opinion is just a person who does not have the cojones to admit being a communist.  And you know how godless they are!

COTW: The Charts of Our Discontent

Only the pundits are surprised by the ferocity of the anti-establishment sentiment in both parties and driving the presidential campaigns of two very different populists. These charts explain it all:

The middle class is being squeezed, hard. Pew Research tells us that 57 of Americans think their incomes are falling behind the growing cost of living. That's up from 47% in 2006. The percentage who think of themselves as "middle class" has fallen to 44% from 53% in 2008. The fact is that since 1973 when productivity slowed, wages have decoupled from economic growth--thus it has been "downhill since Nixon".

This last chart from Doug Short shows two measures of inflation. PCE is used to adjust GDP for inflation, so the chart shows the PCE has systematically overstated the amount of real GDP growth by understating inflation growth. If GDP were adjusted using the CPI, which is itself manipulated, GDP growth would actually be negative.  A symptom of a contracting economy--despite huge amounts of stimulus poured in by the government--is a collapsing home ownership rate, especially among prime age home buyers.

Southern California Gas Leak Plugged

It took the utility sixteen weeks to plug a well that spewed 90,000 tons of methane gas into the air and drove residents from their expensive homes in Porter Ranch.  A massive underground storage facility--the largest in the west--owned by Southern California Gas Co sprung a leak through a well drill in 1953 for oil and converted to natural gas storage in the 1970s.  The company expects to pay $300 million or more for residents' temporary lodging expenses.  They complained of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds.  But the company's troubles are not over.  Sixty-seven lawsuits including a wrongful death action have been filed against it, and the Los Angeles District Attorney has charged the utility with a misdemeanor crime for failing to report the leak immediately to state emergency officials.

Warren Buffet Killed Nevada Solar Industry

Bernie Sanders is campaigning hard against the plutocracy making life hard for the rest of us, and he made his point come home in Nevada. In Reno on Saturday he faced a small group of laid-off solar industry workers and wondered with them why they had lost their jobs in a state with abundant and unobstructed sunlight. The explanation is relatively simple if disturbing. In December the Nevada PUC, composed of three unelected, Republican office holders, hiked fees for rooftop solar installations and slashed rebates for supply power to the grid. The changes made it significantly more expensive for homeowners and businesspersons to install their own panels. This 3-0 decision came about despite a report issued by the PUC showing rooftop solar customers actually contributed more to the grid than they cost. The new solar rates were requested by NV Energy, the state's largest utility. Who owns NV Energy? Warren Buffet the billionare from Omaha. NV complained that solar customers were getting subsidized to such an extent they were harming the corporation's business, and they needed to be placed on an equal footing with other (fossil) fuel sources. So much for an outdated business plan--when you cannot adapt to a changing market, seek a bailout.

The political connections between NV Energy and state government are glaring, if not revealing: Governor Sandoval received maximum campaign contributions from NV Energy during his two campaigns, and two of his closest advisers, Peter Ernaut and Gregory W. Ferraro, are NV's primary state lobbyists. The end result of this manipulation by the Money Power is that Solar City announced in January it would leave Nevada and take with it 550 jobs. Vivint Solar also said it would leave as did Sunrun. All cited the change in rates as the reason they were leaving. Only Sanders met with the unemployed solar workers in Nevada. According to the Reno-Gazette Journal, Clinton was contacted by meeting organizer Great Basin Solar Exchange for an appearance, but received no response from the candidate. Sanders told the workers that moving to solar was a "moral responsibility" and that Nevada should be leading the way. He suggested that a few thousand displaced solar workers should petition Warren Buffet directly. So who feels your pain now, Nevada?

Annual Bison Slaughter May Kill 900 Buffalo

It may be a measure of this nation's schizophrenia that while conservationists struggle to reintroduce bison onto an empty western landscape that was once their home, the Park Service and the State of Montana have rounded up to nine hundred buffalo and caged them in secret corrals where they await slaughter starting Monday. This annual exercise in cruel excess is to protect Montana's cattle ranchers from the almost non-existent threat of brucellosis. While theoretically possible in the lab, transmission from bison to cattle has never been documented in the field. The argument is so discredited that officials are shifting their argument to "surplus" bison that need to be killed in order to preserve Yellowstone Park. That argument is not mentioned when it comes to elk which also carry the disease. Biologists think Yellowstone's carrying capacity for bison has not been reached¹; currently the park's herd stands at about 5000. The current cull is the largest since 2008 and represents about 18% of the herd.

One observer who has witnesses many of these culls over time writes in the New York Times, that the culls have very little to do with ecology or public safety, but much to do with politics. As the result of a lawsuit by the State of Montana, the federal government entered into a joint management plan for controlling bison numbers. Since that agreement in 2000, the federal government has spent $50 million in an annual round-up and shipment of capture animals to private slaughterhouses for disposal. That is 95% of the costs involved. Only about ninety buffalo have been killed by hunters this year. A former biologist with the Park Service says that the disease issue is a smoke screen.  The real reason the cull takes place is because a politically powerful livestock industry controls the process. As the result of more litigation by animal advocates, federal officials have to allow restricted access to media observers over four days of its choosing. Advocates argue this is an entirely too small a window from which to objectively view a slaughter that takes several weeks to complete. Clearly the US Park Service is not proud of its dirty work on behalf of Montana cattlemen. It is helping to destroy an iconic wild animal that the agency itself uses as a symbol of its mandate to protect the wild for posterity.

Of course the answer to this man-created problem is to allow bison to roam the western landscape as they once did. If domestic cows have to be moved, they can be transported much more easily to other ranges where they can await consumption. Montana is moving extremely slowly in this direction. Governor Bullock has proposed allowing no more than 600 bison to roam restricted areas beyond the park's western boundaries. There is no active cattle grazing in the areas proposed for bison use. But hazing of bison unaware of their limited tolerance in the "tolerance areas" will still be allowed if they overstep their place [photo]. The new policy is not a change of policy, but a modest, grudging concession to conservationists and wildlife advocates who want the unjustified annual killing of buffalo in Yellowstone to stop.

1.  A few scientists think some culling is necessary because the buffalo in the Park do no migrate anymore.  They can rapidly degrade grassland since the huge beasts devour 70 to 90% of Yellowstone's grasses.  But to US Person this opinion represents thinking inside the box.  Yellowstone is not an outdoor zoo and was never intended to be.  The solution lies in re-establishing a more natural balance between man's uses of the land and nature.   Yellowstone needs to be expanded in size, dramatically.  Its boarders should roughly coincide with the boundaries of the Yellowstone drainage basin.  Expanding Yellowstone will met with stiff resistance from private land owners who do not want to sell their private property.  The federal government has already spent $50 million killing bison; so generous offers to buy-out landowners does not pose an insurmountable barrier.  Buffalo numbers in an expanded Park could be controlled by limited sport hunting and translocation to former habitat throughout the west.  Yellowstone could be the genesis of a new and improved version of the American West.  Playing God?  Yes, because we were the Devil to begin with.

Sperm Whales Stranding in Europe

courtesy: Maritime & Coast Guard Agency

More:  Scientific investigation into the deaths of six sperm whales has begun by Cetacean Strandings Investigation Program (CSIP).  Under a royal law from the 13th century, all whales, sturgeon and porpoises are regarded as "royal fish" so that when stranded or caught by fisherman they become crown property.  They are no longer placed on the Queen's table but formal record keeping of stranding began in 1913.  Speculation is building concerning the cause of the recent rash of strandings in Europe.  The leading cause is the whales got lost.  Their echo-location navigation system does not work well in shallow water and the North Sea is one of the shallowest in the world. Whether climatic change which has brought tropical species north is responsible for the whales leaving deep water is unknown.  Disease from parasite infection has also been posited.  More worrisome is the potential for toxic overloads of PCBs and heavy metals.  Heavy metals are now so concentrated in fish that pregnant women and small children are warned not to eat more than two portions of affected fish in a week.  A pod of pilot whales that stranded in Scotland contained high levels of cadmium in their brains.  Mercury concentrations were also high enough to cause stress on the mammals' bodies.

{04.02.16}Six sperm whales have washed ashore in Britain in recent weeks, of twenty-nine total throughout Europe. Volunteers were unable to re-float the mammal due to its massive size between 25 and 30 tons. The male died on the Norfolk beach of kidney failure, most likely [photo, credit]. Whales' massive bulk is supported by water, but when they beach their weight damages internal organs and muscles. People tried to make the whale more comfortable in its last hours by pouring water over its body. The UK does not possess the methods to humanely euthanize such large mammals. The tide arrived while it was still alive, but it did not recover. Scientists said it is likely the male came in with a pod to feed in shallow water, but it is not known whether any human activity was responsible for the spike in strandings. All six whales were males and were probably members of the same bachelor pod. Sperm whales are deep-sea carnivores and easily become disoriented in shallow water.  Once a necropsy
is completed, the carcass will be cut up and taken to a land fill or incinerated.

Three New Monuments

Driving the length of California's Central Valley, US Person was able to observe just how radically man has altered the natural landscape to suit his economic needs. It is very difficult for wild things to live in these massive monocultures because the natural food chain has been replaced or destroyed. So as a good steward of Earth it is man's responsibility to preserve those increasingly small regions where nature still balances the land.

Mojave Cholla cactus; credit Kolby

President Obama is leaving a legacy of natural monuments to his enduring credit, in the absence of progress through a deadlocked Congress. On February 12th he designated by executive authority three more national monuments sheltering 1.8m acres of public land in the deserts of Southern California: Mohave Trails National Monument, Sand to Snow National Monument and Castle Mountains National Monument. He has made more monument designations than any other president in history of 265m acres. The designations are located in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties and protect unique wildlife habitat, historic resources and cultural sites. Most importantly they connect existing reserves: Mohave National Preserve, Joshua Tree National Park, San Bernardino National Forest and fifteen wildlife reserves previously designated by Congress. This is conservation on a landscape scale. Senator Dianne Finestein provided leadership in the decades long effort to protect special areas of the southern California desert. The land remains open to current uses such as grazing, military practice ranges, hunting, and outdoor recreations.

Route 66

Mojave Trails National Monument spans 1.6m acres of Mojave desert landscape including 400,000 acres of previously designated wilderness and one of the last remaining stretches of undeveloped Route 66. Sand to Snow Monument provides abundant opportunities for recreation along thirty miles of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail while protecting important connective corridors for wildlife amid its 154,000 acres. Castle Mountains National Monument will serve as critical connection between two mountain ranges that are home to golden eagles, mountain lion, bighorn sheep and bobcats. The President is following a precedent set by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 and exercised by 16 presidents since to preserve special natural areas under the federal Antiquities Act.