SAR #15124

American politics isn’t about who you love. It’s about who you fear.

What He Said: “There is no longer much point in questioning whether the glory days are over. The models and approaches developed to understand the post-war business cycle and its bias toward moderate inflation are worse than useless today... optimism is out of fashion.” Brad DeLong. 
 
Good Neighbors: The Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) is designed “to improve shared situational awareness” by having the Pentagon “partner” with DHS and the other alphabet of federal police agencies “to develop continuous, automated, standardized mechanisms for sharing information with... key allied and partner militaries, state and local governments, and the private sector.” The act will also “protect companies from lawsuits for oversharing information with the DHS.” They lost me at “shared situational awareness”, and I don't want none of that “oversharing” either.

Asked & Obvious: Many of our pundits, viewing the militarized police response to civic disturbances, wonder if Americans are being deliberately conditioned to accept martial law. Hey, guys, ever hear of Jade Helm?

The Real Deal: China took delivery of 50.8 tonnes of gold last week.

Hall Pass: Saudi Arabia has been using cluster bombs in Yemen. The Convention on Cluster Munitions" – signed by 108 nations - bans the stockpiling, transfer and use and cluster bombs. But these are US cluster bombs and the US is not a signatory because “their use reduces the number of aircraft and artillery systems needed to kill large numbers of civilians over long periods of time.

Slip Sliding... Auto sales have fallen for the fifth consecutive month, and have turned in the worst YTD record since the less than banner year of 2009. Construction spending is also falling and manufacturing employment is the lowest its been since 2009. New orders were also weak and exports fell. Boy, that darn winter weather sure is hanging on.

A Nutritious Lunch: An East Texas school served pork that had been languishing in a freezer for six years for lunch. With lots of gravy to hide the smell. But no Oreos.

Spaced Out: Lamar Smith (Stupid, TX) and the rest of the Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee plan to cut the NSAA budget for Earth Sciences by $320 million – 32% - so they will be forced to concentrate more on space travel and forget about global warming. This is the same group that only last week banned mention of the idea that there was any such thing as global climate change and if there was it certainly wasn't caused by humans operating coal companies. 
 
On Paper: When some Baltimore cops told an on-air CNN reporter to shut it down and move along, he asked “Are we under martial law?” The cops didn't answer, but told him rather forcefully it would be best for him to “comply.” A Guardian reporter was arrested and held without charges for 49 hours for thinking the Constitution applied in Baltimore. Silly fellow. And of course the guy who recorded Freddie Gray's arrest was himself arrested at gunpoint. A clever bunch in California have developed an app that allows you to send your recording of miscreant cops to their computers for safe-keeping before the cops can erase it. 
 
Winning Friends: US-led air strikes in Syria managed to kill 52 civilians and not a single ISIS fighter this time.