Brad Blog

Yesterday's horrific, tragic and enormous tornado in Moore, OK has been described as "the biggest, most destructive tornado in the history of the world."

In its wake, many are questioning the relationship between such monster storms and climate change. Here's a statement from Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in response to that question, as obtained via email today by Peter Sinclair (he, of the geat Climate Denial Crock of the Week website):

Warmer and moister conditions are the key for unstable air.

The climate change effect is probably only a 5 to 10% effect in terms of the instability and subsequent rainfall, but it translates into up to a 32% effect in terms of damage.

(It is highly nonlinear).

So there is a chain of events and climate change mainly affects the first link: the basic buoyancy of the air is increased. Whether that translates into a super-cell storm and one with a tornado is largely chance weather.

So, in short, Trenberth seems to suggest that while one cannot directly "blame" climate change itself for any particular storm, the altered weather patterns, thanks to global warming and the increased moisture in the air, increase, fairly radically, the probability of such storms and, in turn, their size and destructive power.

Or, if you prefer, you can listen to leading climate science denier Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma who has said many times in the past that concerns about man-made climate change are nothing more than "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and nothing to worry about.

While we haven't heard him say as much today yet, for some odd reason, he has explained that he --- like his fellow Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, will support federal disaster relief funding for his state, unlike their vote against federal disaster relief funding for the East Coast after Superstorm Sandy last year. Why? Because, as Inhofe explained today, the money for his state won't simply be a "slush fund", as he described the relief for the millions of East Coasters affected by Hurricane Sandy. "That won't happen in Oklahoma," he said.

Meanwhile, Coburn (who is also a climate change denier), after also voting against relief for Hurricane Sandy while tens of thousands were left homeless on the East Coast in the middle of winter, slammed those who charged hypocrisy in his promise of federal relief "without delay" for his own OK constituents.

"It is crass," his office said in a statement to reporters, "for critics to play disaster aid politics when first responders are pulling victims from the rubble."

By Coburn's reckoning, apparently, the time to "play disaster aid politics" is a few days or months later, as he did with Sandy aid, when victims were freezing and without power or homes.

In a white paper issued in March, the California Federation of Labor (CFL) called for reforms to "undo the damage" wrought by SB 899, a California GOP-sponsored workers' compensation "reform" bill that was touted by AP in April 2004 as “one of the biggest victories of [then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's] new political career".

The celluloid action hero insisted the "reform" was necessary to curtail the spiraling costs of workers' compensation insurance for California employers.

As the CFL white paper correctly notes, the rationale behind Schwarzenegger's workers' compensation "reform" legislation was largely a scam. Like so many other investment schemes, the source of spiraling workers' compensation costs can be found in the 1993 deregulation of the insurance industry and a subsequent burst of a workers' compensation insurance investment bubble. Yet, Schwarzenegger refused to include limits on the rates insurance companies could charge employers as part of his "reform" package.

Despite an initial drop in the cost of workers' compensation insurance in California, costs have again climbed --- so much so that, according to a May 15 article that appeared in the Ventura County Star, "the Port of Hueneme is preparing to pay 120 percent more for workers' compensation insurance" in the coming year.

Contrary to the philandering actor-turned-Governor's claims that the savings would not be extracted from the backs of injured workers, SB 899 contained drastic reductions in benefits --- so drastic that, in a 2004 letter published by Los Angeles Times, after pointing out that I had represented litigants in workers' compensation proceedings since 1979 and was regarded by my peers as an exceptionally effective litigator, I warned California employees that if they were injured on the job, God help them because I was not sure I could.

Whatever efforts are now made to "undo the damage" wrought by SB 899, they will come too late for my client, Charles Romano. Thanks to the law's massive reduction in prohibitive penalties that could have been assessed for bad faith refusals to furnish vital, life-sustaining medical treatment --- the new penalties are a drop-in-the-bucket compared to what it had cost to keep him alive --- Charles is no longer with us...

There are no 'minor' surgeries

At the time I first agreed to represent Charles there was no way either he or I could have anticipated the tragic events that would ensue. He had sustained what appeared to be a rather modest injury to his left shoulder and neck while employed by Ralph's Grocery Co. on Dec. 20, 2003. (Unlike smaller employers, Ralph's, which is a division of the nation's largest supermarket chain, Kroger Co., was not directly affected by the increase in workers' compensation premiums that the Schwarzenegger "reform" claimed to address. Ralph's was, and is, permissibly self-insured against workers' compensation liability.)

On Aug. 20, 2005 Charles underwent what appeared to be routine surgery in the form of a left shoulder arthroscopy. Post-surgery, his doctor, not noticing any irregularities upon visual inspection, prescribed physical therapy, a course of which began in October 2005.

After a brief period of modest improvement, Charles experienced increasing pain and stiffness --- to the point that he couldn't raise his arm above shoulder level and had to sleep in a chair. When he saw his therapist, she noted pustules at the surgery site that were exquisitely painful to the touch. The therapist failed to inform Charles of a need to immediately see his physician.

During the next few days, Charles began running a fever. He was driven to Ventura County Medical Center (VCMC) by a friend, losing consciousness on the way there. When he again awoke, inside the hospital's intensive care unit, to his horror, Charles learned that he had acquired methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas (the extraordinarily aggressive antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA). Worse, Charles learned that he had come dangerously close to dying. The blood-borne MRSA caused both renal and pulmonary failures as well as heart problems and retinal hemorrhages. The MRSA also produced a lesion on Charles' 8th cervical vertebrae that resulted in a permanent and complete paralysis from the level of his chest to his toes. He was left with some residual function in his hands, severe pain in his neck, but no sensation whatsoever in his torso and lower extremities.

When I asked one of Charles' physicians, Joel Rosen, M.D., a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northridge Hospital, what was meant by "complete," he responded by noting that a surgeon could amputate one of Charles' legs without an anesthetic, and Charles would not feel a thing.

From Nov. 30, 2005 to the date of his death, May 2, 2008, Charles was essentially bedridden, incapable of being transported without the assistance of at least two individuals, the use of a special, motorized wheelchair with a tilt and a wheelchair accessible van. His condition was such that he required access to a broad array of physicians, including specialists in physical medicine and rehabilitation, infectious disease, cardiologists, orthopedists, neurologists, pulmonary specialists, a podiatrist and psychiatrists. His paralysis was so extensive that he lacked complete muscle control over his breathing. He required the use of a BiPAP to insure that he did not stop breathing altogether in his sleep.

Legal struggle to survive

Although its position was at odds with the opinions of multiple treating and evaluation physicians, the employer, relying upon its own evaluating physician, disputed the causal relationship between the surgery and the MRSA infection. Since the conditions Charles suffered included MRSA-related pneumonia, the employer's internist postulated that Charles could have acquired an airborne MRSA.

A hospital study appended to my evaluating internist's report revealed that MRSA infections occur in the community at large, but they are far more frequent in a hospital setting. Of all areas within the hospital, the report noted, the highest rate of MRSA infections occurred in orthopedic surgery. And, of course, there were those pustules at the surgery site, which, as found by the VCMC physicians, contained high concentrations of MRSA.

During the time that this issue was litigated, Medi-Cal stepped up to the plate, covering Charles' lengthy hospitalization at VCMC (Nov. 30, 2005 to July 1, 2006) during which medical bills in excess of $1.1 million were generated.

Upon his release from VCMC, Charles self-procured treatment at an attendant care facility, Country Villa Oxnard Manor. The inadequacy of treatment offered by that facility was underscored by the testimony of Charles' friend, who, when responding to an emergency call from Charles, discovered that his Foley catheter bag was filled with blood and that Country Villa personnel had refused to call 911.

Transported by ambulance, Charles was twice taken to St John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, once in September 2006 and a second time in November 2006, shortly after a Workers' Compensation Judge issued an Oct. 26, 2006 amended findings and award, expressly finding that the MRSA infection and its horrific, life-threatening sequelae were industrially related. The court ruled that the employer was legally obligated to furnish medical care to cure or relieve the above conditions and to pay or adjust the bills for all of the outstanding treatment.

Extraordinary bad faith

Despite the award and despite (or perhaps because of) expert testimony that a delay in authorizing treatment of even seemingly minor infections could produce end organ failure and death, the employer, operating through its claims administrator, flat out refused to meet its affirmative obligation to ascertain and provide vital, life-sustaining care. Amongst the most disturbing actions was its refusal to authorize a BiPAP without which the administrator knew that Charles could stop breathing and die.

The claims administrator relented only after Dr. Rosen refused to discharge Charles to an outpatient nursing facility, Care Meridian, until the BiPAP and other vital, life-sustaining equipment was furnished. Where the cost of Charles' in-patient care at Northridge Hospital was approximately $24,000/day, the outpatient facility cost was $25,000/month.

Dr. Rosen made it clear that Charles would require immediate access to multiple physicians. At Care Meridian, Charles had access to a single in-house physician, Dr. Feiss, who visited one time per week. The claims administrator failed to take steps to insure transportation and access to vital, life-sustaining, multi-modality care while at Care Meridian. Instead, on multiple occasions, the claims administrator refused to honor Dr. Feiss' prescriptions for referrals to other physicians, for diagnostic testing and for the appointment of a nurse case manager. When Charles was forced to resort to his own devices via the purchase of a wheelchair accessible van, the claims administrator refused to pay for it.

"We have rarely encountered a case in which a defendant has exhibited such blithe disregard for its legal and ethical obligation to provide medical care to a critically injured worker," a unanimous three-commissioner panel of the California Workers' Compensation Appeals Board wrote in their April 16, 2013 decision [PDF] in The Romano Trust vs. The Kroger Co.. "Sedgwick CMS, acting as claims administrator for The Kroger Company/Ralph's Grocery Company, demonstrated a callous indifference to the consequences of its delays, inaction, and outright neglect."

That callous indifference entailed not only unreasonable refusals and delays in authorizing treatment but refusals to pay for authorized treatment --- something which, according to one witness, was so stressful for Charles that he protested in the only way open to him --- by refusing medications and food. "They want me to die," Charles told the witness. "So I'll die."

Dr. Rosen's warnings about the catastrophic consequences of lack of access to appropriate care came to fruition. While at Care Meridian, Charles' health deteriorated to the point that he became gravely ill and had to be transferred to Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura. As revealed by the April 16, 2013 decision, the claims administrator then sought to "escape liability through a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil passive approach to claims administration in a catastrophic, life-and-death case." In essence, the claims administrator pretended not to know that Charles had been hospitalized for the very conditions that the Worker's Compensation Appeals Board had determined to be industrially-related.

SB 899 and the economics of bad faith

Even before passage of the 2004 "reform," injured employees were prevented from suing their employers or their carriers for a bad faith refusal to provide medical care. The Workers’ Compensation Act provides the "exclusive remedy" injured employees have against their employers and their insurance carriers. The "exclusive remedy" provisions were a product of a century-old bargain in which the Golden State's legislature created a no fault system in which employees would be compensated for work related injuries in exchange for a loss of the right to sue their employer in civil courts.

Under pre-SB 899 law, the remedy when an employer or carrier unreasonably delayed or refused to provide a benefit was a penalty equal to 10% of the value of the entire class of benefits. Thus, under the old system, a bad faith refusal to authorize the BiPAP would entail a penalty equal to 10% of the value of all expenditures for medical treatment necessary to cure or relieve the injury over the life of the file.

Under the old system, the size of the unreasonable delay penalty was proportional to the severity of the injury. A 10% penalty for an unreasonable refusal to furnish medical treatment in a finger injury case would be negligible. In a catastrophic case, where the value of medical care might exceed $10 million, a 10% penalty against medical care could be quite substantial. Moreover, under the old law, each separate and distinct act of unreasonable delay carried with it an additional 10% penalty. Here, the court found that there were eleven (11) separate and distinct instances in which the claims administrator unreasonably delayed or refused to provide vital medical care.

Add up eleven 10% penalties against a $10 million life time medical exposure, and you're suddenly talking real money. Thus, the old system provided a direct financial incentive for the employer to insure that a catastrophically injured employee promptly receives vital, life-sustaining care.

All that changed with the adoption of SB 899. Now the penalty entails a maximum of 25% of the amount of the unreasonably delayed item, not to exceed $10,000 --- a penalty that is negligible when measured against the perverse economic incentive that exists where death would put an end to the employer laying out some $24,000 for every day Charles Romano survived inside a hospital.

Take the BiPAP, which was vital to Charles' survival. That item costs between $1,600 and $2,000. Under SB 899, the maximum penalty that can be imposed upon the employer for a bad faith refusal to authorize this vital, life-sustaining device would be $500.

While, as revealed by the three-member panel decision, the level of claims administrator bad faith and callous disregard for the life of a gravely ill, injured employee was extraordinary, perhaps even criminal, one has to question whether it would have occurred if the employer had been faced with the prospect of prohibitively expensive penalties that existed under the old system.

By eliminating penalties as a meaningful deterrent, the Schwarzenegger "reform" of the California Workers' Compensation Act altered the economics and facilitated a bad faith course of conduct that, in all probability, hastened the death of Charles Romano.

Democrats share blame

What occurred in the California state legislature in April of 2004 has all too often become a hallmark of gutless Democratic Party "leaders" in the face of an effective, right wing propaganda blitz. In this case, a slick, well-funded propaganda blitz, coupled with the popularity of an actor-turned-politician led to the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis (D).

Amongst those who funded that well-orchestrated campaign was one Darrell Issa (R-CA) --- a Congressman with a past criminal record who now spends his time spearheading an attempt to manufacture a "scandal" through his endless investigation of what took place in the aftermath of the tragic assault on the consulate in Benghazi. Issa, who is the richest member of Congress, donated $1.7 million of his own money towards the successful recall campaign, while Schwarzenegger took dead aim at the California workers' compensation system during the campaign.

The level of propaganda was so pervasive that, by late 2004, the party of the one percent (aka the GOP) floated the idea of amending the U.S. Constitution so that the foreign born movie star and steroid enhanced, body builder could run for President.

Cowering in the face of Schwarzenegger's manufactured popularity, CA Democratic "leaders" simply abandoned their posts and the injured workers who depended upon them. Instead of displaying courageous leadership by challenging the efficacy of the so-called workers' compensation "reform," the bill was passed (77-3 in the Assembly; 33-3 in the Senate) sans anything resembling due diligence.

It would take another year before California voters would come to realize that Emperor Schwarzenegger had no clothes. On Nov. 9, 2005 California voters delivered a "stinging rebuke" to the Republican governor by defeating all four ballot measures he supported at the polls. That was good news for the nurses, firefighters and teachers who had opposed those measures, but it came too late for injured workers, like Charles Romano, who was left to needlessly suffer and die.

* * *Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing.

Despite completely misreporting on Administration emails related to the pretend Benghazi "scandal", after they were misquoted (and/or fabricated) to him by a reportedly Republican source, ABC News and their White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl still refuse to properly correct and apologize for having lied about "obtaining" those emails.

Had Karl's error --- compounded by his "cover-up" even more than his original "crime" --- contained news that falsely appeared good for Democrats instead of for Republicans, he would have been hammered and forever discredited by the Right until finally fired by ABC News. But, alas, his completely false report on Benghazi benefited Republicans rather than Democrats, so no biggie, it seems. He gets to keep his career!

ABC's Karl, however, wasn't the only top-tier network newsman who blew it big time, further tarnishing the profession over the past week, not by a long shot.

Here's how NBC's Brian Williams opened --- opened! --- NBC Nightly News last Tuesday, the same day that the Treasury Department's Inspector General report was released, offering zero evidence of White House involvement in the so-called IRS "scandal"...

Odd. The "last time" we "not so fondly remember...the government...found looking into the phone calls of reporters and using the IRS for political purposes", was during the George W. Bush era, not the Nixon era. Did Williams sleep through that decade? Seemingly so. Or, its safer to allude to the discredited Nixon than the off-scot-free Dubya. Or, Williams simply felt like lying to his audience. Either way, why has Williams also failed to correct or apologize for his grotesquely absurd, remarkably misleading and demonstrably inaccurate opening? And why has he seemingly faced little or no pressure to do so (unlike Karl) from others in the media?

Finally, the network Sunday news shows this week, what we were able to catch of them, anyway, proved to be the usual misinformative lock-step knee-jerkery that keeps us from even bothering to check in on them much anymore. From ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos (which, astonishingly failed to even mention Karl's extraordinary journalistic lapse, but managed to end its broadcast nonetheless with the straight-faced voice-over: "ABC News: Accurate. Credible. Unmatched.") to NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory to Fox "News" Sunday, they all pretended that last week's week of "scandals" was on par with Watergate, Iran-Contra, Tea Pot Dome and other actual Presidential scandals. That must be what they train for.

But the award for irresponsible knee-jerkery under the guise of seasoned journalistic commentary, must certainly go to CBS' Bob Schieffer, who, as seen on his Twitter account, appears quite proud of his breathless "dumb and dumber" finger wagging on this week's Face The Nation, despite its lack of tether to reality or verifiable facts...

So, ya didn't even bother to read the IG's report before describing the IRS scandal as "dumb and dumber", did ya, Bob? We've sent that question to CBS and will update if we receive a response. But based on his commentary, it seems he clearly has not. Else, he could not have described the IRS as trying to "get away with" having "gone after the tea party" --- not based on the currently existing evidence, anyway. Nor could he have made his completely irresponsible comparison to Watergate in the bargain.

So that's a major fail, by the very highest echelons of each and every broadcast news outlet in a single week. And yet some dare to criticize us --- a mere "blog" after all --- for getting the story right, time and time again?! Seriously?!

* * *

Recently related at The BRAD BLOG...
• 5/15/13: "Republicans Suddenly Decide to Care About Big Government Overreach"
• 5/16/13: "'Misconduct'?: What's NOT in the Inspector General's Report on IRS Identifying 'Tea Party' Groups for Additional Tax-Exempt Scrutiny"
• 5/17/13: "IRS 'Scandal' Appears Nearly as Phony as Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones, ACORN 'Scandals'"

"Listening to the nightly news, this appears to be just the latest example of a culture of cover-ups --- and political intimidation --- in this administration," declared the opportunistic Republican Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee during a hearing today on the "scandal" related to the IRS use of Rightwing words such as "Tea Party" to help identify groups applying for tax-exempt status which might be operating in violation of the tax code.

The key phrase there is: "Listening to the nightly news..."

Rep. David Camp (R-MI) was correct in at least that part of his statement. If you listened to the way this supposed "scandal" is being reported by the bulk of the corporate media, you'd think the poorly chosen criteria used by low-level IRS officials in trying to identify taxpayer-subsidized organizations that might be carrying out political operations in violation of the law, was part of a "culture of cover-up" and "political intimidation" on par with Richard Nixon ordering his Dept. of Justice to target political enemies.

Then again, if you listened only to the corporate media, you --- like the Obama Administration --- also probably thought that the phony, trumped-up "scandals" that led to the inappropriate firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, the cowardly firing of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones and the outrageous federal defunding of ACORN were also the unhappy result of an endemic culture of corruption by the Obama Administration, the Democratic Party and its insidious political apparatchiks.

Those fake scandals, however, all three of them, were shams. They were eventually identified as such, though only after a great deal of harm to Sherrod, Jones and ACORN had already been done by the Democrats who fell for them and acted out of knee-jerk and cowardly fear to try and contain the perception of "scandal" which was, naturally, helped along by the very loud misreporting of "the nightly news".

The supposed IRS "scandal", as we detailed yesterday both here at The BRAD BLOG and at Salon --- after having bothered to actually read the full Treasury Department Inspector General's report [PDF] before reporting on it (didn't anybody else?!) --- appears almost as phony as those other three "scandals", despite the "outrage" over seemingly non-existent "misconduct", as Obama described it, by IRS employees.

Our general assessment --- based on the IG's findings --- that this "scandal" appears to be an enormous over-reaction to poorly thought out procedures and lousy management by low-level IRS officials, has been shored up since publishing our article yesterday, both by today's House hearings and by scattered media coverage elsewhere.

As usual, with these things, the Republicans cry "COVER-UP!", "OUTRAGE!", "SCANDAL!"; the corporate media credulously, unskeptically and dutifully reports it as such; the Obama Administration knee-jerks out of fear and starts firing people (like the Acting Commissioner of the IRS who wasn't even at the agency during the period in question) in hopes of showing how they are on top of things and will not tolerate such "outrages!"; and Republicans opportunistically use the entire matter to create a phony sense of partisanship, incompetence and tyranny (seemingly opposite notions, but never mind that) on the part of the Administration.

It works every time, it seems, since the very top-tier corporate media, as well as the Obama Administration, keep falling for it over and over and over again...

"Despite repeated attempts," during today's three-hour U.S. House hearing, according to the Guardian, "Republicans on the committee failed to establish a link between the IRS scandal and either the White House or the 2012 Obama re-election campaign."

While Steven Miller, the now-fired Acting IRS Commissioner (it was a George W. Bush appointee who left last year who actually headed the agency during the period in question) "conceded that 'foolish' mistakes were made by people trying to be more 'efficient'," the Guardian reports, adding: "No new major details about the scandal emerged" during hearings which they describe as having "fizzled".

"I do not believe partisanship motivated the people involved in the practices described," Miller testified. "I think what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selections." He explained that the IRS had received some 70,000 applications for tax-exempt status, but that they have just 150 staffers assigned to process them all.

Of course, Miller could be wrong or even lying for some unknown reason, and the IG's report could also be wrong or deficient in uncovering the full story of what really went on --- further investigation is certainly called for --- but no evidence, none, has surfaced at this point to counter the actual information offered by either of them.

In the meantime, a handful of other journalists seem to finally be taking a closer look at what really happened here, now that the bulk of them have already allowed the opportunistic "scandal" genie to escape from the Drudge Report/Fox "News" bottle.

Bloomberg News, for example, reports that several Democratic-leaning organizations also received the same close scrutiny and seemingly invasive questioning from the IRS that "Tea Party" related groups received.

As the IG's report details (to those who actually bothered to read it!), all of this was a part of the federal agency's poorly executed attempt to screen a flood of incoming applications for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) status in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. That infamous ruling, essentially paving the way for unrestricted money for campaign spending, resulted in an exponential increase in political organizations attempting to take part in a tax-exempt "social welfare organization" racket which illegally flooded the 2010 and 2012 election cycles with transparently partisan spending on direct political advertisements and other related efforts --- in violation of the (unenforced) law.

The number of applications by politically-related groups that the IRS was attempting to deal with had doubled between 2010 and 2012, following Citizens United, and the initial, poorly-thought-out attempts to identify such applications by the agency's department tasked with doing so, according to the IG, resulted in the SNAFU ("Situation Normal, All Fucked Up") currently in question.

The IGs report similarly:

• failed to offer any evidence that nefarious partisan politics played any role in the bad IRS decisions;
• failed to offer evidence that either the Obama Administration or any of its political operatives had anything to do with any of it;
• found that "Tea Party" related groups made up only a minority --- just one-third --- of the total number of groups flagged for closer scrutiny (the report doesn't offer the political leanings of the majority two-thirds which were also flagged);
• and revealed that none of the flagged organizations had their application for tax-exempt status denied (though, as we would later learn, a Democratic-leaning group did.)

As we noted yesterday, new information could still emerge to change our views on all of this. A criminal investigation has been announced by the DoJ, and it's our guess that Republicans won't ever stop pretending this is a "Nixonian"-like administration "cover-up!", even if they are able to see an independent Special Prosecutor appointed (which might be perfectly appropriate here.) We would, however, prefer to fall on the side of not ruining people's lives unnecessarily until actual evidence emerges to support the idea of doing so. That consideration doesn't seem to play a part in the calculations of much of the corporate media, the Republican Party or even the Obama Administration, unfortunately.

At the end of this week of "scandals" --- one ("Benghazi") which is completely fake, one ("IRS") which appears to be little more than a non-criminal bureaucratic blunder that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Obama Administration; and one (DoJ caught massively spying on the phone records of AP reporters) which is very real, but which both Obama and the Republicans seem to feel perfectly fine about --- it appears that in its frantic rush to judgment, the Obama administration has once again, in the case of the IRS "scandal", helped to amplify a non-scandal in order to appear "tough" and "in control" of it.

They never learn. Or they don't want to.

Recall that "massive budget deficit!!!" which was to be the death of our nation, as Republicans described it during the 2012 election cycle? Yes, the $1.4 trillion deficit inherited by Obama has been cut by more than half, according to the latest projection, and has all but returned to the size of Bush's second-to-last budget deficit prior to the global economic meltdown. (See CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION at end of story below for more details.) But it seems, for some reason, the GOP forget to tell people, for some reason...

While the rapidly disappearing deficit seen above is not necessarily a good thing --- at least for those interested in putting people back to work and the overall long-term health of the economy that would otherwise come with smart federal investments right now --- you'd think Republicans would be celebrating. But, of course, they're not, because they don't care now, nor have they ever, about budget deficits --- unless they can be used as a blunt object to try and harm their political opponents.

Rachel Maddow offered more last night on the chart above. Video follows below...

* * *

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION 5/20/2013: As commenters have noted, describing "Our Federal Budget Deficit" as having "All But Disappeared", as the original headline read, is not particularly accurate. Moreover, taken in combination with the chart we used above, from the Rachel Maddow Show, it's even more misleading, since one has to notice that the chart begins at $500 billion. It's marked as such, but difficult to notice and, therefore, misleading.

In fact, George W. Bush's final budget, signed in 2008, was for fiscal year 2008-2009 and led to a deficit of approximately $1.4 trillion, as explained by the conservative Cato Institute that year. The year prior, fiscal year 2007-2008, saw a deficit of approximately $402 billion (the biggest reason, by far, for the jump between Bush's '08 and '09 budgets was the crashed economy and the crash of tax revenues along with it.)

With all of that explained, we have changed the headline of this article to read "Federal Budget Deficit Shrinks by Half Since Obama Took Office" and have modified the text of the article above to more accurately reflect that. We apologies for our hasty error and for the unintended confusion in the bargain.

Desi Doyen of The BRAD BLOG's Green News Report is guest hosting The Young Turks LIVE right now

LIVE FEED HERE... (6p - 7p PT, 9p - 10p ET)...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hysterical Fox 'News' flip-floppery on Tesla; Consensus strikes again: 97% of climate scientists say global warming is man-made, but the public thinks it's evenly split; CO2 levels pass 400ppm; You're already paying a 'disaster tax'; PLUS: Thanks to renewable energy, one town now has too much money ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Explosive pig poo foam!; Supreme Court rules for Monsanto; Floods could overwhelm London barriers; Conoco-Philips CEO admits humans cause global warming - but is against getting off oil; Interior Dept issues new fracking rules; Ernie Moniz confirmed as Energy Secretary; Stephen Chu wishes he'd accomplished more on climate change; Japan takes first step to a permanent reactor shutdown after Fukushima ... PLUS: Vote with your wallet in the supermarket? There's an app for that ... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Hilarious: VIDEO: Fox's Tesla Re-Coil (MediaMatters.org):





• Consensus Confirmed: 97% of Climate Scientists Say Global Warming is Man-Made:
• Closing the Consensus Gap on Climate Change (Weather Underground) [emphasis added]:
  The consensus gap has real-world consequences. When people correctly understand that climate scientists agree on human-caused global warming, they are more likely to support policy to mitigate global warming. The consensus gap is directly linked to a lack of public support for climate action. This underscores the importance of clearly communicating the consensus and closing the consensus gap.
• Scientists say united on global warming, at odds with public view (Reuters)
• VIDEO: 97 Percent of Climate Scientists Can't Be Wrong (Mother Jones):
  Telling Americans that scientists don't agree is the classic climate denial strategy. It's been over a decade since consultant Frank Luntz famously furnished the GOP with strategies to kill climate action during the Bush years, recommending in a leaked memo [PDF]: "you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue." Oh, yeah, and avoid truth: "A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth." It seems to have worked: Only a minority of Americans believes global warming is caused by humans: 42 percent, according to a 2012 Pew study.





• 400ppm CO2 Threshold Reached:
• Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears (NY Times);
  "It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster," said Maureen E. Raymo, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a unit of Columbia University.
• Life on Earth under threat from CO2 levels, say scientists (Independent UK):
  There will be a dramatic global decline in the number of animal and plant species this century if the world continues to procrastinate over measures to cut carbon dioxide emissions to limit climate change, a study has found.
• Visiting Sweden, Kerry offers 'regret' that US hasn't done more on climate (The Hill's e2 Wire):
  "I have to say that I regret that my own country - and President Obama knows this and is committed to changing it - needs to do more and we are committed to doing more..."
• VIDEO: Sec. of State John Kerry Calls for International Action on Climate Change:: Secretary Kerry Delivers Remarks at the Arctic Council Ministerial Session (State Dept)
• Climate Scientist Mann: There's Still Time to Avoid 450ppm:
• VIDEO: Climate Desk Live: A Conversation With Climate Scientist Michael Mann (ClimateDesk.org)
• This Is Life in a 400 PPM World (Motherboard)
• Exteme Weather Whiplash: You're Already Paying a 'Climate Disruption Tax':
• VIDEO: We're Already Paying a Carbon Tax in Disaster Relief (Peter Sinclair's Climate Crocks): You might like a carbon tax.





• Extreme Weather Whiplash Is Expensive:
• Taxpayers Get $96 Billion Bill For 2012 Extreme Weather = One-Sixth of Non-Defense Discretionary Spending (Climate Progress)
• Climate change will bring greater extremes in weather, warns Government's chief scientific adviser (Independent UK)
• USGS: Spring 2012 Earliest on Record (US Geological Survey): 2012 was the earliest spring over the 48 U.S. states since 1900 when systematic weather data began to be available for the entire area.
• Extreme Weather Whiplash: 106° in Iowa on the Heels of Record May Snows (Dr. Jeff Masters' Weather Underground blog) [emphasis added]:
  [H]ow's this for a definition of "Weather Whiplash": Sioux City, Iowa had their first-ever snowfall on record in the month of May on May 1 (1.4"), but hit an astonishing 106° yesterday. Not only was this their hottest temperature ever measured in the month of May, but only two June days in recorded history have been hotter (June, 10, 1933: 107° and June 21, 1988: 108°.) On May 12th they registered 29°, and thus had a 77° rise over 56 hours (from 6 a.m. May 12 to 1:30 p.m May 14.)
• Thanks to Wnd Energy: Tiny Town Has Too Much Money
• Arfons Budget: French Town Has Too Much Money To Spend Thanks To Wind Turbines, Mayor Says (Huffington Post Green)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

• Buycott app lets you vote with your wallet in the supermarket (CNET):
  Think you know what's in your grocery cart? Think again. Or use the Buycott app to check.
• VIDEO: Mysterious Poop Foam Causes Explosions on Hog Farms (Mother Jones)
• Supreme Court says you can violate a patent by planting a seed (Washington Post):
  Farmer Vernon Bowman thought he’d found a legal way to get proprietary soybeans at cheap, generic prices. But the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling Monday that he was guilty of patent infringement.
• Q&A: Steven Chu on returning to Stanford, his time as U.S. Energy Secretary (Stanford Univ.)
• Japan takes first step to a permanent reactor shutdown after Fukushima (Retuers)
• Floods could overwhelm London as sea levels rise - unless Thames Barrier is upgraded (Independent UK): Study concludes there is 1 in 20 chance that existing defences would be unable to cope with extreme storm surge
• Oil CEO: Humans are involved with climate change (Fuel Fix):
  But when asked about the role of government in discouraging greenhouse gas emissions, Lance said it needed careful consideration, even though ConocoPhillips operates in countries with such rules...."But we do think, as we think about this and try to tackle this issue as a global community, it needs to be tackled on a global scale and it needs to be industry blind. It needs to cut across all industries. you shouldn't be picking on one industry or another to try to solve the problem."
• Interior issues new drilling rule on public land (AP) [emphasis added]:
  The Obama administration said Thursday it will require companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands to publicly disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations. The new ''fracking'' rule replaces a draft proposed last year that was withdrawn amid industry complaints that federal regulation could hinder an ongoing boom in natural gas production.
• Senate Confirms Ernest Moniz As Energy Secretary (Huffington Post Green)
• America's first climate refugees Newtok, Alaska is losing ground to the sea at a dangerous rate and for its residents, exile is inevitable. (Guardian UK):
  These villages, whose residents are nearly all native Alaskans, are already experiencing the flooding and erosion that are the signature effects of climate change in Alaska. The residents of a number of villages - including Newtok - are now actively working to leave their homes and the lands they have occupied for centuries and move to safer locations.
• Wall Street Journal's Idiocracy: CO2 Is What Plants Crave (Media Matters.org)
• U.S. Supreme Court Rules for Monsanto in Patent Fight (Reuters)
• Plans to Export U.S. Natural Gas Stir Debate: (AP):
  A domestic natural gas boom already has lowered U.S. energy prices while stoking fears of environmental disaster. Now U.S. producers are poised to ship vast quantities of gas overseas as energy companies seek permits for proposed export projects that could set off a renewed frenzy of fracking.
• CNRL hopes to turn CO2 emissions into algae (Calgary Herald) [emphasis added]:
  As it blooms, the algae develops fat - in other words, oil, said Joy Romero, vice-president of technology development at Canadian Natural. That oil can be blended with heavy bitumen to make it flow more easily through pipelines, or sold to refiners, who can turn it into diesel or gasoline. The material left behind once the oil has been stripped out can be used as a fertilizer, which CNRL could use in reclaiming oilsands mines. John Parr, Canadian Natural's vice-president of thermal projects, said the biomass is high in protein and carbohydrates, making it a "perfect" animal feed.
• Warning: Even in the best-case scenario, climate change will kick our asses (Grist)
• Conventional Wisdom About Clean Energy Is Still Way Out of Date (GreenTech Media): "We're fifteen to twenty years out of date in how we think about renewables," said Dr. Eric Martinot to an audience at the first Pathways to 100% Renewables Conference held April 16 in San Francisco. "It's not 1990 anymore."
• Unburnable fuel: Either governments are not serious about climate change or fossil-fuel firms are overvalued (The Economist) [emphasis added]:
  But what if some of those [fossil fuel] reserves can never be dug up and burned? ... If governments were determined to implement their climate policies, a lot of that carbon would have to be left in the ground...