Month: March 2011

Anonymous Gets Scalp of HBGary Fedral CEO

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Following revelations by Anonymous that HBGary Federal was developing a plan of Nixonian dirty tricks, with false identities, forged documents, and other disinformation, the CEO of HBGary Federal has been fired resigned:

Aaron Barr’s departure as CEO of HBGary Federal represented the latest twist for the company and its Sacramento affiliate, HBGary Inc. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento company confirmed the resignation.

According to numerous reports, Barr’s company, which is based in Colorado and Washington, D.C., proposed conducting a disinformation campaign against critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The plan was presented to the chamber’s law firm, but the chamber says it wasn’t aware of it.

The plan was aborted after the hacker group Anonymous stole tens of thousands of e-mails from both HBGary and HBGary Federal – and posted many of the messages on the Web.

And now Democratic members of Congress are calling for an investigation of these activities.

Of course, there won’t be an investigation in the House.  The Republicans are busy looking for a blue dress.

Economics Update

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The Fed’s Beige Book is out, and it is the same old, same old, a slow recovery that will take years before we are back to what should be normal:

The Federal Reserve said the labor market improved throughout the country early this year, driven by rising retail sales and “solid growth” in manufacturing.

“Labor market conditions continued to strengthen modestly, with all Districts reporting some degree of improvement,” the Fed said today in its Beige Book report, an anecdotal account of the economy released two weeks before meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Its last survey, released Jan. 12, said the job market was “firming somewhat.”

Overall, the economy “continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace,” the central bank said in Washington. Eleven of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, described their regions as expanding, improving or experiencing moderate growth. Only Chicago reported growth “at a pace not quite as strong” as before.

This translates to, “Well, stocks are up, but this is not really a recovery.”

I am uncertain just how much this fragile and slow recovery might be harmed by the recent spike in oil prices.

We also have conflicting job news, with Challenger, Gray, and Christmas saying that large planned layoffs are up, largely on the loss of jobs at state and local government level, but ADP is forecasting fairly strong private sector job growth.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

The man who pursued William Jefferson Clinton’s penis from Arkansas to the District of Columbia, Richard Mellon Scaife, has lambasted Republicans on their attempts to completely defund family planning:

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives — urged on by conservatives opposed to abortion — has voted to defund Planned Parenthood. On this issue, Republicans and conservatives are dead wrong.

My grandmother was a friend and a supporter of Margaret Sanger, one of America’s earliest, most effective advocates of birth control.

I met Sanger several times before her death in 1966 and was impressed by her intellect and her commitment to many issues, not the least of which was enabling every woman to be “the absolute mistress of her own body,” as she put it.

I didn’t agree with everything the formidable Mrs. Sanger espoused. Yet I respected her dedication to making health-care and birth-control services available to all Americans, especially to those with low incomes, no insurance and no other recourse to medical services.

When you have gotten too combative for rabid right wing Pit Bull for Dick Scaife, you have seriously gone off the rails.

AT&T Has No Right to Privacy

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In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court decided that corporations do not have a right to personal privacy under the Freedom of Information Act statute.

It was not even close.  It was unanimous, and there wasn’t even a separate concurring opinion.

The facts are clear:  AT&T cheated the government when it was wiring up schools and libraries, got caught, and paid a fine.

What happened next was that its competitors made FOIA requests to find out exactly what they did, and AT&T claimed that this would constitute an unwarranted intrusion of the corporation’s personal privacy which might “embarrass” it, which some some federal appellate judge who did too much LDS in the 60s actually bought that crap.

In reviewing the opinion, written by John Roberts (see here)what is exceedinbly clear is that John Roberts thought that this was an opportunity to sound “arch” or “witty”:

We disagree. Adjectives typically reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns, but not always. Sometimes they acquire distinct meanings of their own. The noun “crab” refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective “crabbed” can refer to handwriting that is “difficult to read,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 527 (2002); “corny” can mean “using familiar and stereotyped formulas believed to appeal to the unsophisticated,” id., at 509, which has little to do with “corn,” id., at 507 (“the seeds of any of the cereal grasses used for food”); and while “crank” is “a part of an axis bent at right angles,” “cranky” can mean “given to fretful fussiness,” id., at 530.

Maybe it’s just me, but he sounds neither “arch” nor “witty”, but rather like an 8th grade student who thinks that he is far more clever than he actually is.

It was a good decision, but Roberts’ opinion is just plain lame.

This is Not Going to End Well

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So, the Republicans got a 2 week extension on the debt ceiling, just long enough to make them sound reasonable, and short enough that they can try to destroy the economy for the 2012 elections with stupid budget cuts.

It’s like the Democrats are playing to lose.

If Obama had any guts, he would make sure that it was Republican oxen were gored by a shutdown, canceling things like the farm aid, etc., but since he doesn’t, you can be sure that the cuts when a shutdown occurs, and it is when, not if, will fall disproportionately on the poor and the Democratic base.