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Tom Sullivan at Hullaballoo writes—Derp from Above:

As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill makes its way through the Senate this week, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have been arguing for new rules that would limit cargo pilots' flight time tonine hours between rests. We don't want any accidents.   

“Fatigue is a killer,” Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who executed the 2009 emergency airliner landing in the Hudson River, told a press conference. Then again, if you are a drone pilot in the business of deliberately killing people, workingsix or seven days a week, twelve hours a day is not a problem.

The drone program remains controversial and has its detractors and defenders. Al Jazeera English this week published the confessions of former Air Force drone technician, Cian Westmoreland. He and three other former operators last year called on the president to stop the program, calling the strategy "self-defeating," one that propagates anti-US hatred. Not to mention his own nightmares:

The nightmares encompassed everything I didn't understand. I had nightmares about bombing villages, about being bombed, about killing children and trying to save them.

I was emotionally detached from loved ones and had a battle with alcoholism.

And that's just one part - there's also an insidious part - the moral injury side of things, where the more you learn, the worse it gets. You're trying to figure out what you did, why you did it and what's going on in that country.

That's what brings you to a real point of hopelessness.

Where this story intersects with the FAA reauthorization is Section 334 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012: PUBLIC UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS. For the uninitiated, that section directs the FAA to make plans for integrating law enforcement and military drones into the national air space. There has been little public discussion about safety and privacy issues. And these drones are not the little quadracopters, mind you, but the big Corellian ships. Not that anybody in Congress is paying attention, unless it's to defense contractors:

General Atomics expects to begin training Predator pilots for its overseas customers at the Grand Sky UAS aviation and business park near Grand Forks, North Dakota, in April.

“One of our tenants—General Atomics—is going to commence flight training they believe in the April timeframe,” said Tom Sowyer president of Grand Sky Development Co. “That means foreign countries—foreign militaries—are going to be sending their pilots to Grand Forks, North Dakota, to learn how to fly Predators.”

No one is suggesting the military drones flying over North Dakota, New York, Nevada, and the border with Mexico will be armed anytime soon, or that the NSA will be hacking their video feeds to spy on unsuspecting Americans. But given Sens. Boxer's and Klobuchar's concerns about long hours for cargo pilots, if realism in training is important one wonders how many hours at a stretch General Atomics' foreign customers will be flying their shiny new Predators over Grand Forks.

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BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Paul Ryan's 'welfare state,' everything but tax cuts for the rich: 

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin & Armando offer up their reviews of the latest debate; a CT court allows the lawsuit by Sandy Hook families to go forward; more discussion on what’s next for Team Bernie; keep an eye and ear on the Internet of Industrial Spies. 

 On iTunes | On Stitcher | Support the show: Patreon; PayPal; PayPal Subscription

Deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy has long been criticized for the “management” of his herd of cattle. The Justice Department noted that his hands-off approach to the herd was borderline cruelty:

The Justice Department describes Bundy's ranching operation as negligent to the point of cruelty in sending half-wild cattle to graze illegally on protected lands without supervision. Unvaccinated and susceptible to illness, the cattle have little contact with humans and Bundy often has no idea where they are, the government said.

The cattle were left out during harsh winters, according to the Justice Department memo, their lives coming down to "fighting off predators and scrounging for the meager amounts of food and water available in the difficult and arid terrain that comprises the public lands" in the Nevada desert.

With winter behind us and the calendar well into the spring months, Bundy’s cows are still roaming the Nevada desert. Untreated, unvaccinated and with very little food or water. Due to Bundy’s negligent “management” over time, the herd has grown from 150 cattle to an estimated 1,000 cattle. And many are apparently slowly starving to death in the Nevada desert.

The Behavior Research Center continues to find a tight race between Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. This time, the two are tied 42-42; in late January, McCain led 38-37. No numbers were released for the August Arizona GOP primary, where McCain is trying to fend off ex-state Sen. Kelli Ward.

The poll’s demographics don’t make any sense though. BRC has McCain leading with Hispanics by a 50-37 margin. In 2012, Obama carried Arizona Hispanics 74-25: Needless to say, it’s extremely unlikely that McCain could be winning this group while being tied statewide. The geographic breakdowns are also strange. BRC has McCain leading 46-36 in Pima County, the home of Tucson and the second largest county in the state. When McCain was winning re-election 59-35 in 2010, he carried Pima 51-43, and it’s extremely unlikely that he’s wracking up a similar margin there this cycle while only being tied statewide. The two are also deadlocked 42-42 in Maricopa, the state’s dominant county. You would need to look very hard to find a statewide election where Maricopa was more Democratic than Pima.

Unfortunately, we don’t have many other polls here. The only other pollster to release general election numbers in 2016 is the Merrill Poll, which showed McCain ahead 41-40 in March. (Bruce Merrill, the longtime Arizona pollster who conducted that survey, recently died.) Hopefully, some other groups will take a look at Arizona soon to give us a better idea of what’s going on. Daily Kos Elections rates the general as Lean Republican.

Scott Walker might be a loser of a presidential candidate, but he's still doing his damnedest to impose his own horrible vision for the future on the nation. Specifically, more humiliation and punishment for people who are just trying to feed their families.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and 10 other GOP governors trumpeted the benefits of drug testing food stamp recipients in a letter to Republicans on Capitol Hill this week. 

Federal law doesn’t allow states to drug test Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients, but in February Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) introduced legislation that would pave the way. 

“The legislation authored by Congressman Robert Aderholt confirms states’ rights to drug test SNAP recipients, and we look forward to working with him on this crucial issue and implementing this common-sense reform in Wisconsin,” Walker said in a Tuesday statement.

The federal government has dealt with this before, halting Gov. Nathan Deal's plan to drug test SNAP recipients in Georgia in 2014. It's not allowed under current law, explained regional USDA administrator Robin Bailey. "Requiring SNAP applicants and recipients to pass a drug test in order to receive benefits would constitute an additional condition of eligibility, and therefore, is not allowable under law." That's federal law, which House Republicans are now trying to undermine with the support of Walker and Republican governors from the completely predictable states of Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah.

These monsters have a problem with people receiving average monthly benefits of $126.83 per person. To buy food. To survive on. Because kicking people while they’re down is the favorite sport of Republicans.

An interesting new civil suit in Blount County, Tennessee, has been filed by Douglas Franklin Jordan, a 45-year-old man who served almost nine years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. The suit names District Attorney Mike Flynn and former Assistant District Attorney James Brooks, as well as the former Blount County Sheriff's Office Detective Scott Carpenter as defendants. From The Daily Times:

The recently filed suit takes aim at the defendants — including Brooks and Carpenter, the lead prosecutor and detective on the case, respectively — for failing to hand over the evidence, which Jordan and his attorneys say led to his initial conviction.

The state Court of Criminal Appeals identified two key pieces of favorable evidence — a parring knife found about one month after the murder and some three-tenths of a mile from Byerley’s body and a police memo which could have been used to impugn the police investigation and strengthen Jordan’s defense.

Evidence violations are unfortunately nothing new—it seems like every day there’s a new story of a prosecutor failing to turn over sufficient evidence. This case is particularly interesting, though, because Jordan is not arguing that the DA or the ADA necessarily knew about the violation. Rather, Jordan argues that they should have known, and accuses Flynn especially of creating an environment where suppressing evidence was encouraged and allowed. According to Jordan, Flynn "instilled a policy which directed police to focus only on evidence which would help get a conviction, and to ignore evidence favorable to a defendant."

It’s unclear if Jordan's claim, filed in federal court, will go anywhere, but if it does it could be a groundbreaking way of holding prosecutors accountable in civil proceedings, and it could help close some of the loopholes in our current perception of responsibility.  

Jordan could not be reached for comment. 

Fresh off his defense of Kim Davis, Kentucky’s well-known bigoted county clerk, attorney Matthew Staver set his sights on a solution to a nonexistent problem—enabling bigotry in the name of religion:

"It is only about being free to pursue your faith," said Mathew Staver. "We have no interest in discriminating against anyone."

Staver is the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has affiliated attorneys in all 50 states -- drafting bills, advising lawmakers and defending clients in what they believe to be the great cultural clash of our time.

Matthew Staver doesn’t push back against the notion that these bills are a response to the Supreme Court legalizing marriage for all:

"The Supreme Court in the 5-4 opinion on marriage in 2015 lit the house on fire," Staver said. "All we're trying to do is control the fire at this point in time."

Why are so many lawmakers willing to pick up the bigoted ball and run with the bills Staver’s Liberty Counsel have written for them? Are they lazy? Are they bigots? Are they lazy bigots? Either way, this troubling trend of ultra-conservative organizations writing state laws has to end. Conservatives do well recruiting and fostering candidates at the state level and it’s time for the Democratic machine to do the same. Otherwise these never-ending bigoted bills are going to keep chugging their way through our state legislatures. 

Thank Freaking God we have Sarah Palin around to teach us all what science iz.

Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, said the man known for his show "Bill Nye the Science Guy" is using his position of authority to harm children by teaching them that climate change is real and man-made.

“Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am,” Palin said at a Capitol Hill event held to roll out a film that aims to discredit climate scientists. “He’s a kids’ show actor; he’s not a scientist.

At some point conservatives decided, as coordinated effort, that Bill Nye was the worst person in the world. This is because Nye talks about climate change, and conservatives don't like it when people talk about climate change, ergo Bill Nye Is Bad. Note that Palin is speaking here at an event premised on the notion that Bill Nye Is Bad, introducing a film declaring that Bill Nye Is Bad—well, him and everyone else who mentions the climate—sponsored by climate deniers for that purpose.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Late Night Snark: The Circus Continues

"House Speaker Paul Ryan this afternoon issued a formal statement ruling himself out as a potential replacement candidate if there is a contested Republican convention. You know things are bad in the Republican Party when people who aren’t even running are dropping out of the race."

---Seth Meyers

"After losing in Wisconsin, there has been a big shakeup in the Trump campaign staff. The guy in charge of racist comments is now in charge of sexist comments."

---Conan O'Brien

"[Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump] are both on medications. Hillary is on blood thinners and Trump is on skin thinners."

---Bill Maher

"In 2004 Ted Cruz fought to preserve a law that banned the sale of dildos in Texas. This really gets me. It's such a shame to see dildos persecuted and marginalized by one of their own."

---Larry Wilmore

"Bernie Sanders said on Friday that his goal for financial reform is to ‘make banking boring again.’ I think I speak for all Americans when I say, let’s just make elections boring again."

---Jimmy Fallon

And one year ago:

"Rand Paul announced that he's running for president, and his slogan will be, 'Defeat the Washington machine, unleash the American dream.' Which is a lot better than Jeb Bush's slogan: 'Buy two Bushes, get one free.'"

---Michael Che, SNL

Please clap.

Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

The Federal Communications Commission has a proposed rule to save cable subscribers an average of $231 a year. It's a pretty straightforward idea: break the monopoly cable companies have on how you watch their content by making them make the content you subscribe to available on devices other than the one they now force you to rent and pay for every month. President Obama likes the idea so much, he's promoting it, and proposing it as a model for expanding competition in all kinds of areas.

"The potential here is for cheaper, more effective services that are provided," Obama said in an interview with Yahoo. "Across the board, if we have more players that can potentially participate, fewer barriers to entry, the rules aren't rigged, then you get more people trying to get your business and you get better products at cheaper prices."

Jason Furman, who advises the president on economic policy, said the administration sparingly weighs in on FCC rulemaking. When the president gets involved, Furman said, the issue is of "real great importance in his mind to consumers, to competition and to the economy more broadly." […]

Obama also signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to explore areas in which they could promote more competition. The agencies will be required to report back with their findings in 60 days. The White House called the cable box issue a "mascot" for the broader initiative.

Of course there's industry opposition, because that's what this industry does—oppose anything that could cut into their profit margins, regardless of whether it's good for the consumer. They threaten the typical stuff, that "the FCC's proposal could lead to higher prices, 'eliminates security protections, and provides no reassurance on privacy rights.'" Because, don't you know, your privacy is their highest priority.

March temperature smashes 100-year global record

and

We Just Crushed The Global Record For Hottest Start Of Any Year

Under that first headline at The Guardian, Damian Carrington reports:

The global temperature in March has shattered a century-long record and by the greatest margin yet seen for any month.

February was far above the long-term average globally, driven largely by climate change, and was described by scientists as a “shocker” and signalling “a kind of climate emergency”. But data released by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) shows that March was even hotter.

Compared to the 20th-century average, March was 1.07C hotter across the globe, according to the JMA figures, while February was 1.04C higher. The JMA measurements go back to 1891 and show that every one of the last 11 months has been the hottest ever recorded for that month.

Under the second headline at ClimateProgress, Joe Romm writes:

NASA reports that this was the hottest three-month start (January to March) of any year on record. It beat the previous record — just set in 2015 — by a stunning 0.7°F (0.39°C). Normally, such multi-month records are measured in the hundredths of a degree

Last month was the hottest February on record by far. It followed the hottest January on record by far, which followed the hottest December by far, which followed the hottest November on record by far, which followed the hottest October on record by far. Some may detect a pattern here.

New York's primary matters for the first time in decades, and all of the remaining candidates are doing some campaign pandering in the Big Apple. Events are scheduled in the rest of the state of course, but with 8 million people, and the headquarters of the media, there's been substantially more emphasis on NYC.

I couldn't resist including a little Easter egg for my fellow Red Sox fans. I'm thankful baseball season's back, where even the Yankees-Sox rivalry is more civil than electoral politics.

Republican presidential also-ran John Kasich continues to have issues when speaking to the womenfolks. Here he is capping off a response to a college student's question about campus sexual assault.

“This ought to be done in the country,” Kasich said. “That our coeds know exactly what the rules are, what the opportunities are, what the confidential policies are, so that you are not vulnerable, at risk, and can be preyed upon. I have two 16-year-old daughters, and I don’t even like to think about it.”

"It’s sad, but it’s something that I have to worry about," the female student replied, according to ABC News.

"Well, I would give you—I’d also give you one bit of advice," Kasich added. "Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol."

To critics, there's more than a touch of well if you didn't want to be raped you shouldn'ta been drinking that in that response.

On the other hand, Gov. John Kasich giving bad answers to audience questions is pretty much the only press he gets these days, so his handlers are probably just telling him to go nuts. It's not like it'll make any difference at this point.