SAR #13086

Things often look darkest just before they go completely black.

The Dog Ate My Homework: The Fed and the OCC have told Senator Warren and Representative Cummings that they'll have to be happy with “two partial responses and only one full response” to the 14 specific requests they had made. They further explained to the legislators that the administration was too busy protecting Wall Street predators to be bothered with their nonsense.

Who You Lookin' At? President Muris is warning unnamed foreign parties not to meddle in Egypt's affairs. He is perfectly capable of sabotaging himself without outside help.

Shrinkage: Arctic sea ice is near its record minimum extent for this time of year, and has shrunk 80% from its 1980 extent. The 'missing' ice causes disruption in the jet stream path which in turn is responsible for the late-season extreme weather across the US. Yes, global warming in the Arctic is causing snow storms in the Carolinas; weather is a complicated beast.

Footnotes & Invisible Ink: The ACLU is demanding that Homeland Security let us all get a look at their copy of the Constitution, so we can see where they get the right to randomly decide who can and cannot fly, and can then pretend there is no list and that they don't know who is on it and most certainly they can't divulge the charges against the banned traveler nor who made them. The government cites the 'state secrets' doctrine that is in their copy of the Constitution, in tiny footnotes written in invisible ink.

Unclear On The Concept: Walmart is suing the UFCW union for conducting protest actions on company property. They'll be much happier if the pickets are several miles away in designated free speech areas, monitored by company drones.

Great Expectations: Natural gas in US goes for $4 per thousand cubic feet (mcf), it's $12 in Europe and $17 in Japan. The US may (note, may) be about to have an enormous increase in its gas supply from fracking, but even if it does, The Market says that the little piggies will go to there. So it will not be forever cheap in the US – it would rise to the level that yields the same profit it would bring in Europe or Japan. It would, that is, if it ever happened. But it will take at least $7 or $8mcf to make new fracking worth while, and with an 85% drop in production in the first two years, it will take ever more wells drilled in ever less attractive locations at ever higher costs just to break even. We're not going to have abundant cheap gas very long, and it will probably never be profitable to sell it abroad. It is, as Art Berman keeps pointing out, an improbable business model.

Good Enough: Republican Governor Walker in his continuing drive to demolish civilization in Wisconsin proposes to let school boards convert the entire public school system into for-profit charter schools at nearly $8,000 per child, using uncertified teachers with no educational background or training. He would also create a state board that could approve 'nonprofit charter schools' around the state and give charter schools sole discretion over budgets, curriculum, staffing and employment practices.

Freedom Of Choice: Democrats in Kentucky, under the impression that pandering to the religious nuts will earn them some votes, are seeking to override Republican Governor Beshear's veto of a ridiculously unconstitutional bill that would let anyone (presumably defined as right wing fundamentalist Christians) disregard any federal, state or local law that they pretend violates their religious beliefs.

Vigilance: Tennessee's Republican lawmakers are resting easier now, having determined that a new sink installed in the state capitol is not for Muslims to bathe their feet in, but just a convenience for the janitors' mops. They have to go around cleaning up after the Republicans after all.

The Parting Shot:

Trout Lily, under construction.