The Last, Safe Place for Elephants?

Botswana is thought of as the last safe place for African elephants, but apparently that thought is no longer accurate.  At least 87 elephants whose remains were discovered in recent months were executed for their ivory by poachers.  The conservation organization, Elephants Without Boarders, was conducted an aerial survey when observers noticed carcasses around the Okavango Delta, far from the boarders where most poaching occurs.  This year's survey is only halfway complete.  The government disputes the embarrassing information, but the organization's director stands by the accuracy of the count.  He says each carcass has a noted GPS location; every flight has four people including a government observer.

Botswana is home to 130,000 elephants, about a third of the continent's population of savanna elephants.  The Great Elephant Census took place in 2016 and recorded a population drop of 30%.  Up until now Botswana's elephants largely have escaped the carnage wreaked by the poaching plague.  But the recording carcasses indicate organized poaching teams have infiltrated the country, just as the government decided to disarm rangers.  In 2014 Botswana adopted an unwritten shoot-to-kill policy, but in May new president Mokgweetsi Masisi disarmed the country's anti-poaching unit as a "corrective measure" since there was no legal authority for the prior policy.  According to filmmaker Dereck Joubert, there are still 800 armed BDF (Botswana Defense Force) soldiers in the field assigned to assist the Department of Wildlife and National Parks rangers.

A shoot to kill in defense of elephants policy is controversial, but there is little disagreement that rangers need to be armed, even if only for self-defense.  Poachers are organized criminal gangs that use military weapons to harvest ivory.  In 2012 three hundred elephants were killed in a mass slaughter by poachers using AK-47s and grenades in Cameroon.  Some observers say the government's hunting ban contributes to the increase in Botswana poaching. Elephants in neighboring countries have been decimated, and China's demand for ivory appears unabated despite its ban on ivory sales imposed in 2017.  Hong Kong and Japan both have legal ivory markets.

COTW: Paying for Medicare for All

'Crazy' Bernie Sanders has given us a menu of ways to pay for the increased cost of Medicare for All, which would save the government $2 trillion even with universal coverage, if the current broken system is not eliminated.  Critics argue that specific proposals for funding the change should be put forward.  Proposals will be made, once the basic concept of eliminating the role of insurance profit in the US health care system is accepted.  That in itself is a 'big lift'.  Here is a chart which shows the costs associated with Medicare for All:

The chart suggests that without the medical establishment accepting less for their services, Medicare for All would cost $3.4 trillion more.  According to the chart providers are expected to bear 70% of the cost reductions.  Ask yourself if the government is 'the only game in town' what option do doctors and hospitals have?  Not to accept Medicare patients when everybody has Medicare is to restrict their market to a tiny segment of wealthy patients who want gold-plated, Cadillac care for their elective treatments.  Unless these providers want to go out of business, they would be forced to accept the government's negotiated prices.

This is the major problem with health care in 'Merica--it is not about curing illness and keeping people well, it is about generating profits.  A regulated market for a social good is logically consistent, as well as morally justifiable. US Person thinks providers who espouse the Hippocratic Oath should understand that. Consulting  anesthesiologists, one of the most highly compensated specialists in the US, still can earn £173,000 a year ($260,000) under the National Health Service in the UK.  That's not chump change!

'Toontime: He Did It!

credit: R. Bolling
BC Idonwanna sez: Flying monkeys bad medicine!

According to CNN, Deutsche Bank has begun the process of turning over financial records of its business with Don Veto to New York's Attorney General. Last month Letitia James subpoenaed records related to his loans for several building projects and his failed bid to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills team. The investigation was prompted by Michael Cohen's sworn allegations that Don Veto inflated his assets in official documents as the situation required. The House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees have also subpoenaed similar records from the bank. Financial Services chair Maxine Waters, who supports impeachment, has said her committee is also receiving records from the bank.  However, Hair Further has already indicated refusal to comply with any subpoenas issued by Congress, or allow his subordinates to testify.  He is stonewalling to get to 2020 when he can rely on his delusional white supporters in rural 'Merica to swing their disproportional weight in the next 'horse race'.

Deutsch Bank has a history of shady dealings; it was fined a mere $630 million by the Justice Department in 2017 for laundering money out of Russia. US Person thinks that Individual I is implicated in the documented history of widespread laundering of dirty money from the collapse of the Soviet Union. This involvement is the raison d'etre for Don Veto's Russian connection, and explains in part the Kremlin's willingness to help 'their man' win the 2016 election over a hostile and uncooperative Hillary Clinton.

A massive investigation of Don Veto's business dealings, conducted by New York Times revealed that he routinely inflated his assets in loan documentation. In order to prove he had the means to buy the NFL football team, Don Veto submitted a financial statement stating he was worth $8.7 billion! To offset his known propensity for lying, the bank regularly reduced his reported figures by 70%. After being sued by Trump over his Chicago tower project in 2008, the bank settled his $500 million default, and yet made two more loans to him. He still owes the bank $340 million. Providing false information on loan applications is illegal in New York, but the state Attorney General's investigation is only a civil one.  One more reason the nation needs impeachment¹.

Impeachment is a political process as well as a fact-finding one.  The investigating House committees should lay a factual ground work, begun by a cautious and partisan Special Counsel investigation, to bring a bill of particulars before the House of Representatives for a vote.  The additional fact-finding will also serve to justify Trump's impeachment to the public at large. Even after Special Prosecutor Leon Jarworski laid bare the facts of Nixon's obstruction of justice and his eventual resignation to avoid a Senate trial, the public did not support impeachment of the President². An impeachment is an indictment not a trial; whether partisans in the Senate would vote not to convict is a question that can only be answered in the event.  But to do nothing and allow the unAmerican imposter's removal from office to be decided by the result of a rigged election, or not enforce the Constitution for fear of partisan nullification, would be to destroy what remains of the rule of law in this nation. If Senate partisans attempt to fall on their puny swords in a last ditch defense of Hair Further, the public will ensure their political demise.  Senators are, thanks to an amendment to that tattered document, elected by direct popular vote.

credit: M Streeter, Savannah Morning News
Wackydoiodle sez: His hands were in his pockets at the time!

¹Two former federal prosecutors express their opinion in print that if Trump were not President he would be indicted for obstruction of justice now. US Person believes that Mueller may have taken two years to reach his decision not to prosecute, perhaps in the mistaken belief that impeachment would be bad for the country, in order to allow the President political cover to reach the next election cycle.  Think that the Russian agitprop campaign was insignificant?  Think again, Sherlock!  The margin of Don Veto's Electoral College victory was 70,000 votes across three states.  The IRA ads reached 100,000,000 voters. That's MAGA!
²“Nobody jumped to conclusions about impeachment with Richard Nixon,” U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said of the former president who resigned in 1974. “The whole world was educated about what Nixon was doing, and it got to the point where they didn’t need to impeach, because when the world found out what he was doing, he decided the jig was up."  A similar scenario could play out for Don Veto, but he is such a sociopath he could end up like Little Caesar, who said with his dying breath, "No copper will ever put the cuffs on me--is this the end of Little Caesar?"  US Person sees some value in detailing the "high crimes and misdemeanors": illegal emoluments and campaign finance payments, abetting a foreign power to influence a federal election, tax fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and obstruction of justice, but not if it means dragging the fact-finding out until the next election! The toxicity resides in the Very White House, but it is a symptom NOT a cause.  The cause lies in the failure to recognize the flaws (Electoral College) in the foundation documents and the political unwillingness to enforce their strengths (Separation of Powers).

Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article229580524.html#storylink=cpy

COTW: The Debt Bomb

When the next economic crisis hits, it will probably be related to the problem graphically illustrated above.  The world's economy is punch drunk on easy money, which is propping up an illusory 'economic expansion'.  After ten years of inflating balance sheets, central banks including the FED, are trapped in a corner of continuing the policies that got us here, or risking an historic economic collapse.  As the minutes from the latest FED policy meeting noted, "A few participants observed that the appropriate path for policy, insofar as it implied lower interest rates for longer periods of time, could lead to greater financial stability risks".

Since 2003 global debt has soared.  It is now pegged at $247 trillion, or 318% of global GDP.  Corporate debt in the US is also historically high at $9 trillion.  Of course all that debt has to be serviced at interest, and interest rates are rising so it may cause distress for some firms unable to rollover at higher rates.  Cash to debt ratio fell to 12% in 2017, the lowest level ever.  Some formerly guilt-edged companies like GE are seeing their corporate bonds slide from low investment grade to junk. U.S. consumers are more than 13 trillion dollars in debt--its all part of the Bubble Everything economy!

More Wolves in Oregon

alpha male, new Chesnimnus pack

Wolf numbers continue to slowly increase in Oregon according to the latest annual report from the state's wildlife management agency.  Biologists counted 137 wolves in 16 packs, up 10% from last year.  A pack is defined as four or more wolves traveling together in winter. Fifteen of those successfully reproduced. One pack, the Wenaha, apparently lost its oldest alpha female, who disappeared during 2018. She was at least ten years old, and appeared in poor condition in camera trap pictures.   Oregon wolves are now reclaiming their range into the central Cascades.

This population increase continues despite illegal human depredations and alleged preying on livestock. Two wolves were illegally killed in 2018, a juvenile believed to belong to the Grouse Flats (Washington) pack, and a collared female from the Mt. Emily pack.  Rewards for information are offered for these and other incidents.  The agency reports 28 confirmed wolf kills, including two guard dogs.  Three packs seem to be responsible for the majority of preying incidents.  Notably, despite increase in wolf population, predation has not increased at the same rate.  Oregon's proposed wolf management plan mandates that non-lethal actions be taken before culling is allowed.  US Person wants to encourage livestock owners to consider using guardian dogs, which are less expensive than humans, and used with great success in Europe. The Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Wolf Depredation Compensation and Financial Assistance Grant Program awarded $160,890 in grant funds to compensate livestock producers for losses and to fund preventive non-lethal measures.

Oregon's Fish & Wildlife Commission is expected to vote on the proposed Wolf Management Plan at its public June 7th meeting in Salem.  Public comment on the plan can be submitted to odfw.commission@state.or.us or at the meeting.

'Toontime: The Stain that Abides

What the release of the redacted Mueller Report proves [image above]--and US Person thinks it proves a lot including the impeachable offense of illegal campaign finance contributions--is two fold: one, the decision not to indict Don Veto for obstruction of justice was a policy decision, not one based on the evidence.  DOJ has a policy of not indicting sitting presidents¹ espoused in two Office of Legal Counsel memorandums; two, any "fake news" about the so-called "witch hunt" is only that created by the Very White House's extensive propaganda machine.

There may be no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of Don Veto's illegal conspiracy (a term of legal art with a specific definition) with foreign agents (Russia's Internet Research Agency) running a "sweeping" agitprop operation intended to undermine our political institutions, but as columnist David Brooks points out, while there was no evidence of illegal conspiracy,  "[the report] also shows that working relationships were beginning to be built [i.e.collusion²], through networkers like Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and Roger Stone. More important, it shows that many of the Trumpists, the Russians and the WikiLeaks crowd all understood that they were somehow adjacent actors in the same project." Trump said nothing--worse, he publicly denied what was going on in the shadows³.  As one Democratic congresswomen put it, "Eisenhower would not recognize this presidency." The bottom line is: Individual I and his senior campaign officials had guilty knowledge of foreign influence in the 2016 election. Further, his minions expressed willingness to use any derogatory information Russian operatives could provide them.  If an ordinary individual has knowledge of a felony being committed and does not report it to authorities, that person could be prosecuted for being an accessory to the crime. If you are a candidate for president, not so much. His disloyalty is astonishing.

Mueller generally corroborates reporting on the Russian Connection investigation which began as an FBI counterintelligence investigation code named "Crossfire Hurricane", and tosses the ball to Congress on the issue of obstruction.  Mueller wrote, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state."  "Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgement."  If the congressional investigations go forward on a legitimate basis, and it seems at this point they will, impeachment will be necessary to uphold the integrity of the country's justice system.  Trial in the Senate is for another day.

credit: Dave Granlund
Wackydoodle sez: Garunteed to get the dirt out!

¹ That policy is not written in stone.  It is a legal opinion that can be disputed, and is disputed because both opinions,
in 1973 and another in 2000, were written by DOJ lawyers working for an Executive Branch wherein a chief executive was under threat of impeachment for wrongdoing. In 1973 it was Nixon bag man Spiro Agnew; in 2000 it was the morally unreliable Bill Clinton.  Scholars have called the opinions "shaky and political".
²Collusion is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as, "agreement, especially in secret, for an illegal or dishonest reason".  It is unarguably illegal for a foreign agent to seek to influence a US federal election, thus the reason for the indictment of GRU agents by the Special Counsel.
³As expected--for no sovereign nation engaged in espionage voluntarily gives up the principle of plausible deniability--the Kremlin continues to deny that it interfered with the 2016 election. It suggests the Mueller report is "low quality" and a waste of American taxpayers' money.  To all those pundits counting senators on their fingers, US Person would like to remind them Bill 'Issy' Clinton escaped conviction by only one vote, and Nixon resigned rather than be tried. The point being that the evidence eventually amassed against this President may be so clear and convincing that even Repugnants could not afford politically to exonerate the pseudo mobster, Don Veto Trumpilini. And what if Congress abdicates its constitutional duties by leaving the removal of a corrupt president to the voters in another demonstrably unrepresentative election, as suggested by some inexperienced presidential candidates?  If he wins again with the support of the sixty-three million members of his personality cult, the demigod would justifiably declare complete and total victory over "democracy". No governmental institution would then be capable of stopping his march to fascist dictatorship.

Follow the Dirty Money

It is well known that Deutsche Bank has a 'special relationship' with Don Veto.  The bank was lending him money when no one else on Wall Street would bear the "Donald risk".  Now, the House Intelligence and Finance Committees want to know why Deutsche gave such favorable treatment to the bankrupt welsher.  US Person wishes to suggest why the connection exists in two words: money laundering.  When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, billions in formerly state owned assets were ferreted out of the country during the ensuing chaos.  A lot of that money ended up in western banks, especially Deutsche Bank.  The bank had money to burn, so to speak, so why not invest it in Trump-owned real estate and businesses?  The parties sued each other over rotten deals, but already in a co-dependent relationship, they continued to do business.  Trump still owes the bank hundreds of millions, and he keeps substantial millions in Deutsche wealth management accounts.

On Monday, Congressional investigators subpoenaed records from the bank regarding its loyal customer, as well as records from Citicorp and Chase. “The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern,” Representative Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, said in a statement.  Don Veto may have been a witting enabler of the washing scheme, so his relationship with Deutsche is coming under intense scrutiny.  Russian mobsters were known to frequent Trump's Atlantic City casino, perhaps to keep an eye on their money. If US Person were forced to speculate, Russian money laundering operations may be the source of kompromat, which explains Don Veto's conspicuous policy tilt towards the Kremlin.

Deutsche bank has lent over $2 billion to Individual I, and he is the bank's biggest creditor at $300 million in debt.  According to investigating officials, the bank is cooperating with the committees' record demands.  A joint subpoena has been negotiated for two months; the bank wanted to limit its scope to reduce its compliance costs and speed up production.  The family owned Trump Organization, speaking through son Eric Trump, is understandably unhappy with the probing saying it "sets a horrible precedent for all taxpayers".  The feds are not the only ones interested in Trump-Deutsche dealings.  The state of New York has also issued its subpoena for bank records.  I do not know about you dear reader, but US Person does not owe anybody $300 million.  When you owe that much to a bank, you become a business partner, not just a customer.  As they say in DC, 'the truth will out'; just ask William Barr.