Pretty good, with the 4 week moving average hitting an 8½ year low:
Initial jobless claims held steady at 287,000 last week.
Expectations were for claims to rise slightly to 295,000, up from last week’s 287,000.
Last week’s report was revised up slightly to 288,000.
The 4-week moving average of claims fell to 287,750, down 7,250 from last week, the lowest 4-week moving average since February 4, 2006.
Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the subcommittee that writes the Department Justice budget, has demanded an investigation of foreign money taken by think tanks:
The Justice Department should look into whether Washington think tanks may be violating federal law by accepting money from foreign governments — and then issuing reports that promote the donors’ agendas — without registering as a “foreign agent,” a senior House lawmaker has said in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
The request, from Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, who has already criticized the Brookings Institution for taking large donations from foreign governments, puts pressure on the Justice Department to get involved in the debate, particularly given that Mr. Wolf is the chairman of the House panel that controls the Justice Department‘s budget.
The letter, sent on Wednesday, refers to an article published in The New York Times in September that detailed the tens of millions of dollars that foreign governments, including Norway and the United Arab Emirates, have donated in recent years to think tanks as those governments have sought help in highlighting their priorities in Washington.
Federal law requires any organization taking money from a foreign government and acting at its request, direction or control to file documents with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
………
He noted in the letter that money has also been included in next year’s budget bill for the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the quality of the agency’s enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and to consider possible changes needed in the law. The legislation was first passed in 1938, based on fear that Germany was secretly funding Nazi propaganda in the United States.
The distinguished from Virginia should be aware that this can go places he does not intend.
Even ignoring the various peccadilloes of Grover Norquist, the right wing think tank ecosystem is at least as awash in foreign money as places like the Brookings Institute.
Honestly, in a perfect world, I think that we would be better off without think tanks, which on both sides of the which seem to primarily function be a full employment system for political hacks, defeated politicians, supporters of American empire, which ill serves both America and the world.
President Obama blasted Republicans as the party of “billionaires” on Tuesday while mingling with high-rollers at the $26 million estate of Rich Richman — yes, that’s his real name — in Greenwich, Conn.
Richman, who built his $10 billion company developing rental housing, lives in the Conyers Farm area, where the minimum lot size is 10 acres. Twenty-five donors paid $32,400 each to get their photo taken with the president. Others paid $10,000 for dinner.
To quote Depeche Mode, “I think that God has a sick sense of humor. “
Turkey has the 2nd biggest army in NATO, and much of it is stationed a few miles from ISIS, but, much to the disappointment of the Obama administration they are refusing to take any actions at all:
As fighters with the Islamic State bore down Tuesday on the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border, President Obama’s plan to fight the militant group without being drawn deeper into the Syrian civil war was coming under acute strain.
While Turkish troops watched the fighting in Kobani through a chicken-wire fence, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the town was about to fall and Kurdish fighters warned of an impending blood bath if they were not reinforced — fears the United States shares.
But Mr. Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would not get more deeply involved in the conflict with the Islamic State unless the United States agreed to give greater support to rebels trying to unseat the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That has deepened tensions with President Obama, who would like Turkey to take stronger action against the Islamic State and to leave the fight against Mr. Assad out of it.
It gets better.
While refusing to take any action, Istanbul is demanding that the US put boots on the ground (see vid).
It’s pretty clear that Erdogan has been aggressively supporting the rebels in Syria, including some of the most extreme Jihadis. (The so-called moderates could not fight their way out of a wet paper bag)
Turkey is reticent about taking action for a number of reasons:
I think that the last point is most of their concern wight now.
It’s why they went ape sh%$ over Biden’s comments regarding the Turkish role in the Syrian civil war.
Before ISIS was ISIS, Turkey and the House of Saud were the biggest backers of al Qaeda linked militants in Syria, and now that their little monster has become a potential threat, they are looking for plausible deniability.
I’ve always wondered why, when Irish banks failed at the beginning of the financial crisis, Ireland decided to make the bond holders whole.
I figured that it was some sort of delusion about being “business friendly.”
Basically, Ireland’s economic strategy at the time was to be an amazingly accommodating 3rd world nation that through an accident of history had access to the European financial system, and that they could not thing beyond this.
I was wrong. The Irish government was blackmailed into accepting a bailout deal that got bond holders 100¢ on the dollar:
Senior European and European Central Bank (ECB) officials agreed to threaten Ireland with national bankruptcy if the government made any attempt to burn bondholders, the Sunday Independent can reveal.
The threat was made at a high-level teleconference meeting, details of which have been revealed for the first time by the Central Bank governor, Dr Patrick Honohan.
Mr Honohan, who famously told the nation Ireland would be entering the Troika bailout programme live on radio as government ministers were publicly denying it, also revealed he was kept out of loop about the meeting.
In a new book about the late Brian Lenihan, Mr Honohan said he only found out about the meeting after the Troika delivered the ultimatum to Mr Lenihan on November 26, 2010.
“The Troika staff told Brian in categorical terms that burning the bondholders would mean no programme and, accordingly, could not be countenanced,” Dr Honohan writes. “For whatever reason, they waited until after this showdown to inform me of this decision, which had apparently been taken at a very high-level teleconference to which no Irish representative was invited.”
I think that it is time for the Irish to push back on this, and declare that the debts from their bailout to be odious debt, and repudiate it:
In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal theory that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable. Such debts are, thus, considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state. In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts signed under coercion.
The Irish government had an obligation to make the depositors whole, up to whatever limit their bank insurance is set, but the bond holders are covered by no such obligation.
When a bank goes under, its bond holders are not supposed to be at the front of the line.
The EU & IMF extorted a bailout to the commercial and investment banks that were born by the Irish citizenry.
This should be repudiated.
Marvel Comics is cancelling the Fantastic Four comic book, largely because Marvel Studios does not have the movie rights, having sold them to Fox during their broke as hell days:
That, as a result of Disney’s highest single shareholder and Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter’s anger with Fox Studios over negotiations regarding the film-and-related rights to The Fantastic Four, that Marvel would cancel the Fantastic Four comic rather than provide any promotion, however small it might be, towards the Fox Studios film. Merchandise and licenses were scrapped and even Fantastic Four posters in the offices were pulled down lest Perlmutter see one and have his ire raised. It may not have been logical, but it was a decision born of personal emotion. It was steadied by sense. X-Men wasn’t cancelled, for example as the Xbooks sell so well. But Fantastic Four? It may have been the first book of the Marvel Universe, but its sales have continued to drag, even after multiple relaunches with high profile creators. There would be less of a hit to the bottom line if this comic was dropped.
Our story was pooh-poohed by all and sundry, save for CBR who independently confirmed that it was intended for the Fantastic Four to be cancelled. Then the letter about sketch card artists being forbidden to use Fantastic Four characters was made public, Mondo talked about being forbidden to use Fantastic Four characters and today, we we were already planning to run another story about Diamond Select Toys confirming that they are unable to make any Fantastic Four toys.Right now we are not able to make characters from the FF, but as soon as that changes we will consider them.
But events moved on too quickly. Now the catalogues of Hachette, Marvel’s bookstore distributor, seems to confirm the cancellation at least. With June’s solicitation for James Robinson and Leonard Kirk‘s Fantastic Four: The End Is Fourever.
I get it that Marvel Studios wants the FF back, but they sold the rights when they were nearly bankrupt before they got bought by the Mouse, and killing off the Ff comic book in a fit of pique sucks.
What a surprise. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the 3rd Congressional district was drawn entirely on the basis of race, and so is unconstitutional:
A panel of federal judges on Tuesday declared Virginia’s congressional maps unconstitutional because they concentrate African American voters into a single district at the expense of their influence elsewhere.
The decision, handed down in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, orders the Virginia General Assembly to draw up new congressional maps by April — potentially launching a frenzied and highly political battle for survival within Virginia’s congressional delegation.
The order delivered another victory for Democratic plaintiffs hoping to break up black-majority districts, which they say have been drawn by Republicans who have used the Voting Rights Act to dilute the influence of minority voters.
A similar case in Alabama in which Republicans prevailed will be heard by the Supreme Court this term.
“We’re obviously thrilled with the results,” said Marc Elias, a lawyer on the Virginia case who represented two voters from the district where the unconstitutional redistricting took place. “The Republicans engaged in impermissible racial gerrymandering in a cynical effort to gain seats. . . . We look forward to the state doing a new redistricting to comply with the court’s orders.”
The current Congressman for this district won with 81% of the vote in the last election. Of course this is all about minimizing the black vote in the state by concentrating them in one place.
I wish that this had come down in time to effect this election.
In a stunning move that could reshape the face of city schools, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Monday to unilaterally cancel its teachers’ contract. The vote was unanimous.
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was given no advance word of the action — which happened at an early-morning SRC meeting called with minimal notice — and which figures to result in a legal challenge to the takeover law the SRC believes gives it the power to bypass negotiations and impose terms.
Jerry Jordan, PFT president, called the move “cowardly” and vowed to fight it strongly.
“I am taking nothing off the table,” a clearly angry Jordan said at an afternoon news conference. Job actions could be possible, once he determines what members want to do. “We are not indentured servants.”
………
Whether the state takeover law, known as Act 46, actually gives the SRC the power to cancel union contracts remains to be seen.
The SRC has imposed some work rules on the teachers’ union the past year, but has always bargained contracts since its creation in 2001.
“Unbelievable!” Ted Kirsch, president of the statewide AFT-PA and a former longtime president of the PFT, said Monday morning when he learned of the SRC’s action.
“They have mismanaged this system and now they’re following along with Corbett’s plan – it’s the teachers’ fault.”
Will Bunch, aka Attytood, responds in an analysis aptly titled, “A heartbreaking act of staggering cowardice,” and even by the standard of Pennsylvania politics, this is completely classless:
See this picture? This is what raw cowardice and utter contempt for democracy looks like.
Moments before meeting begins, crowd is mainly district staffers and journalists. pic.twitter.com/bx7TMw8jUW
— Kevin McCorry (@byKevinMcCorry) October 6, 2014
The picture was taken Monday morning and posted on Twitter by Kevin McCorry of WHYY’s Newsworks just before 9:30 a.m., at the Philadelphia School District headquarters building at 440 North Broad Street.
In a matter of seconds — in a meeting that would last all of 17 minutes, and with one hasty comment from the public — the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, the state agency that has presided over 14 years of ruination of public education here, is about to explode a political bombshell. The SRC is about to revoke its contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and cut the teachers’ benefits — and it’s about to do it before this nearly empty room.
This is no accident. The lack of a crowd, and the lack of public debate, was an act of careful calculation. The calculation of cowards.
The meeting was called on short notice, and not announced on their web site.
Instead, it was printed in small print in the Philadelphia Inquirer classified the day before.
Finally, there is this particularly astute bit of political analysis:
The contract stalemate between the SRC and the PFT has been going on for 21 months, so why take this vote in such a rash and arrogant fashion on this particular morning, October 6, 2014? Could it be because it’s exactly 29 days before Pennsylvania votes on whether to keep Gov. Corbett — who appointed the majority on the five-member SRC — or ditch him for Democrat Tom Wolf.
Do you remember that it was just last year that a Republican firm took a secret poll and used the report to urge Gov. Corbett that there was only one way that the foundering, unpopular governor could restore his image on education issues: To confront the Philadelphia teachers union. Now, with Corbett in the political fight of his life and losing badly, the school commission led by the governor’s appointees is starting a fight with the Philadelphia teachers’ union.
What a remarkable coincidence!
Look, I know what you’re thinking — Corbett is getting clobbered so badly in the polls that what does it matter at this point. I agree — but why do NFL teams keep lobbing Hail Mary passes when they’re losing by five touchdowns? Maybe Corbett figures a tough stance will appeal to suburban voters (although most of them are too freaked out by their own sky-high property taxes to notice). Maybe he’s desperate for the chaos of a teacher’s strike, which would violate a 1992 state law. Here’s a prominent Philadelphia Republican (yes, that’s a thing, apparently) who came out practically minutes after the SRC vote saying that a) he hates (yes, hates) the union but b) pleads with them to strike. Another coincidence? A strike (which I seriously doubt will happen — look for this to be fought in court) would be devastating to tens of thousands of schoolchildren. But, hey, politics ain’t beanbag.
Corbett hopes to pick up votes by running against Philadelphia, which is, of course a dog whistle for running against people with a high amount of melanin, and the children be damned.
Growing marijuana is illegal, so the growers tend not to be particularly solicitous of EPA regulations, and as a result the Fisher may be placed on the endangered species list:
A rare west coast mammal is up for Endangered Species protection thanks to the threat posed by California’s illegal marijuana industry.
The fisher, a carnivorous cousin of the weasel found in the old-growth forests in California, Oregon and Washington is already rare, its numbers reduced by fur trappers and loggers going back to the 1800s, as well as by urban development. Only two naturally occurring wild populations exist, according to the Center for Biological Diversity: one is in the southern Sierra, and the other is in southern Oregon and Northern California. A third was reintroduced into Washington’s Olympic National Park in 2008. But the motivation for the new level of protection, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, comes from the use of rat poison on marijuana plantations. Of 58 carcasses tested by one 2012 study, nearly 80 percent tested positive for traces of rodenticide.
“It is an illegal activity so it’s not like we know a lot yet,” explained Paul Henson, state supervisor for the FWS in Oregon. “But we know it’s fairly widespread within the range of the fisher, because that’s also where a certain amount of the illegal cultivation occurring on public lands.”
Make pot legal now.
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta has now revealed that Rahm Emanuel attempted to cut him a new one for his cooperation with the Senate investigation of torture:
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, in his new book, describes being summoned to a White House meeting and cussed out by President Obama’s chief of staff after he agreed to give the Senate intelligence committee access to documents chronicling the agency’s use of torture during the Bush administration.
“The president wants to know who the f%$# authorized this release to the committees,” Rahm Emanuel, who served as Obama’s chief of staff and enforcer in 2009 and 2010, is quoted as saying while slamming the table for emphasis.
Panetta’s book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace, is a blunt account of his time as Obama’s CIA director and, later, Secretary of Defense.
He describes being micromanaged and second-guessed by White House aides who seemed focused on political appearance over substance. White House pushback on the Senate torture inquiry, which came despite Obama’s pledge to run the most transparent administration ever, is in that way typical – as is Emanuel’s profane tirade. (Emanuel, as I’ve written before, saw even the most deeply moral and legal decisions in purely political terms.)
………
Panetta describes then-director of national intelligence Dennis Blair as coming to his rescue, asking Emanuel:
“If the president’s hair is on fire,” he retorted, “I want to know who the f%$# set his hair on fire.”
Blair was fired in May 2010 and replaced by James Clapper, with sources citing as a main reason “the mutual distrust between the White House and members of Mr. Blair’s staff.” John Brennan, who was then Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser and is now CIA director, was one of the people Panetta implied had set the president’s hair on fire.
I do not know whether Obama never had any intention to create openness, or if folks like James Clapper and John Brennan managed to get him to swallow their sky is falling bullsh%$.
It really doesn’t matter.
Hope and change, my flabby white ass.
If you ask me, and you’re not asking me but I’m saying so anyway, Georgia has suddenly become the most interesting Senate race in the country. It was mighty interesting during the Republican primary, but then slipped in status as the race devolved into a plain vanilla case of the Republican Business Robot holding a safe lead over the Centrist Democratic Robot. The Centrist Democratic Robot’s Robotic Centrist Democrat campaign strategy leaked, and the Republican Business Robot used it predictably to tar the Centrist Democratic Robot as a Terrorist ISIS Mexican Democratic Robot — the worst kind of robot there is.
But now, things — things are happening. The Republican Business Robot, David Perdue, apparently went on the record some years back describing how he’s spent “most of [his] career” outsourcing. This was in response to a direct question asking him, “Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?” It’s unambiguous and it reinforces the central attacks on both Perdue and Republican economic priorities. It is the sort of thing on which a late-stage move can be made.
It’s not complicated. You, Michelle Nunn’s campaign, make an ad quoting directly from the deposition. “Q: Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?” “A: Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that.” You just take this dialogue and cut the ad and then make like 10 more and show them all on every channel, for a month. Hey, look at that:
Perdue’s defense? That he is proud of his sending American jobs overseas:
U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue said Monday he is proud of outsourcing he has done in his career as a corporate executive, pushing blame for lost jobs back on Washington.
Perdue, a former CEO for Dollar General and Republican nominee to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, was stung by his own words last week in an article on Politico.com. The Washington political news website quoted Perdue from a 2005 deposition where he said he “spent most of my career” outsourcing.
“Defend it? I’m proud of it,” he said in a press stop at The White House restaurant in Buckhead. “This is a part of American business, part of any business. Outsourcing is the procurement of products and services to help your business run. People do that all day.”
The deposition was taken as part of a lawsuit in the bankruptcy of Pillowtex, a failed textile company where Perdue was CEO in 2002 and 2003. In remarks Monday, he attempted to draw a line between his business decisions and Washington policies.
Yeah, this is going to go over to all those folks who lost their jobs in the textile industry.
There is a peculiar kind hubris that is a part and parcel to the American management class.
They cannot allow themselves to admit that what they do is not a heroic John Galtesque exercise, because once they do that, the fact that they are parasites (moochers) becomes inescapable.
Yes, Justice Kennedy did grant an injunction preventing same sex marriages in Idaho and Nevada, but this is a fairly standard technical ruling to allow the Idaho AG to file an appeal:
With same-sex couples in Idaho legally free to seek marriage licenses this morning, state officials filed a last-minute plea to the Supreme Court to delay that opportunity. The plea came hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had struck down Idaho’s ban on gay and lesbian marriages, and then had put its ruling into immediate effect.
The filing said that the state had asked the Ninth Circuit to put its ruling back on hold so that it could be challenged before the en banc Ninth Circuit and, later, before the Supreme Court. The request was submitted to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Idaho. He has the option either of acting alone or of referring the request to the full Court.
In their application, Idaho officials argued that their case, if it gets to the Supreme Court, is narrower in scope than the other same-sex marriage cases that the Justices had refused to review on Monday. The questions it would raise are only preliminary to a return of the case to the Ninth Circuit, the document argued.
Originally this ruing included Nevada, but this appears to have been in error, as Kennedy subsequently limited the scope of the injunction to just Idaho:
UPDATE 3:18 p.m. Justice Kennedy on Wednesday afternoon issued a revised order, limiting the postponement to the situation in Idaho, thus excluding Nevada. That puts back into effect a Ninth Circuit ruling nullifying the Nevada ban, and thus clears the way for issuing marriage licenses in that state to gay and lesbian couples. The order contained no explanation of the change, but it apparently was due to the captions the Ninth Circuit had put on its order putting its decision into effect. Lawyers for a gay rights advocacy group, Lambda Legal, had asked for a clarification of the earlier Kennedy order.
Basically this is limited, and should be (relatively) short term, to allow for Idaho to file for either an en banc hearing from the Ninth Circuit or an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Obviously, committed couples in Idaho must be bumming, but this is a procedural move without a much long term significance.
When I left for work today, and as I unlocked the door, I looked down, and saw a dead feral kitten by the curb.
I think that it might have been hit by a car.
It was gray, and perhaps 12 weeks old. I had seen it around the neighborhood.
I put on some gloves, and put the cat in a bag, and then in the trash.
It was putrefying, and it was leaking fluid, and it was the worst smell of my life.
In life, it had been a kitten, with all that this entails.
Still kind of freaking, though I managed to put it behind me enough to function at work.
*If you don’t know #1, you do not need to know.
The new headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security used to be an insane asylum:
Washington D.C. is often used as a backdrop for tales of idiosyncratic power (Veep, House of Cards, Homeland, 24, Newsroom, The West Wing, just to name a few) and why not? The architecture’s symbolism and ideology can be matched only by the cynicism and suspicion these structures inspire. So therefore it seems somehow fitting that DC’s next major addition, the Headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), will be perched on a hilltop just across the Anacostia River, physically and gesturally overseeing all before it.
Yet beyond maintaining constant visuals on the terrain, this headquarters represents a change in the city’s views on temporality, functionality and even irony. Because this is a space with a past, one it both embraces and fears.
The Ghost Across the River
In 2007, the announcement came that a long abandoned former mental institution was to be renovated in order to create a headquarters for the DHS (the agency which oversees immigration, customs, border control and the secret service, along with several other federal functions). Aside from sounding like the plot to a bad action/horror movie, the site was a bit of an odd-duck: an enormous campus, fifteen minutes drive from the White House and full of old buildings barely anyone had ever heard of. For its own part, St. Elizabeths Hospital was founded in the 1850s as “The Government Hospital for the Insane”, hosting generations of doctors, nurses and patients. Some of which having been infamously linked to the powerful of DC, including: Ezra Pound, brought there on charges of treason in 1945; John Hinckley Jr., for shooting President Reagan in bizarre attempt to impress actress Jodie Foster in 1981; Richard Lawrence, who attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson in 1835, failed, and was then beaten mercilessly by the President himself and Charles Guiteau, after killing President Garfield in 1881.
I am amused, but not particularly surprised.
So of course, he had to apologize for it:
A diplomatic rift between Turkey and the United States was patched over late Saturday after the American vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., officially apologized to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for remarks suggesting that Turkey helped facilitate the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group.
In remarks at Harvard University on Thursday, Mr. Biden said Mr. Erdogan had admitted erring in allowing foreign fighters to cross Turkey’s border into Syria, eventually leading to the formation of the group, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman, Kendra Barkoff, said in an emailed statement that the two leaders spoke by phone on Saturday. “The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria,” Ms. Barkoff said. “The United States greatly values the commitments and sacrifices made by our allies and partners from around the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey.”
………
Mr. Erdogan, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, denied that Turkey’s long, porous border had enabled thousands of militants to cross onto the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. “Foreign fighters never crossed into Syria from our country,” Mr. Erdogan said. “They would cross into Syria from Turkey on tourist passports, but nobody can claim that they have crossed with arms.”
Seriously? How f%$#ing stupid do we think we are?
BTW, this is what Biden said:
Speaking at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Mr. Biden said allies including Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had extended unconditional financial and logistical support to Sunni fighters trying to oust the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
“President Erdogan told me,” he said, according to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, “ ‘You were right. We let too many people through. Now we are trying to seal the border.’
“Our allies poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against al-Assad,” he said, including jihadists planning to join the Nusra Front and Al Qaeda.
I think that the appropriate response to Erdogan’s hissy fit is to tell him to go pound sand, which is why I would make a lousy diplomat.
He, and rest of the Sunni hegemonists were hip deep in supporting Al Qaedal linked militants, and Saudi Arabia directly supported what would become ISIS in their bid to overthrow the Assad regime.
The fact that this is not a part of the dialog about the US intervention in Iraq and Syria is a sign of just how completely the House of Saud owns our foreign policy apparatus.
We are now deploying attack helicopters to Iraq:
The United States sent attack helicopters into combat against Islamic State targets west of Baghdad on Sunday, the first time low-flying Army aircraft have been committed to fighting in an engagement that the Obama administration has promised would not include “boots on the ground.”
The U.S. Central Command, in a statement about U.S. activities against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, provided few specifics about the helicopters. But they were likely AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which were deployed to Baghdad International Airport in June to provide protection for U.S. military and diplomatic facilities.
Until Sunday, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq have been limited to fast-moving Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft and drones. But the use of the relatively slow-flying helicopters represents an escalation of American military involvement and is a sign that the security situation in Iraq’s Anbar province is deteriorating. Last week, the Islamic State militants overran numerous Iraqi bases and towns and were becoming a widespread presence in Abu Ghraib, the last major town outside of Baghdad’s western suburbs.
Jeffrey White, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who closely follows developments in Iraq, said the use of helicopter gunships by the United States means that U.S. troops effectively are now directly involved in ground battles.
(emphasis mine)
Note that, notwithstanding their design for damage resistance, Apaches have been taken down by small arms fire.
Add a few ZSUs (self propelled anti-aircraft artillery) to the mix, and we are going be have helicopters shot down, and either a very risky rescue mission or US troops held prisoner.
We are going to be back in ground combat sooner rather than later.
Barack Obama now owns the “stupid war” that he opposed in 2003.
Which means that the Supreme Court has begun its new session.
Rather unsurprisingly, the court punted on gay marriage, declining to hear any of the appeals of the recent ruling striking down gay marriage bans.
This has the effect of massively expanding gay marriage, or the recognition of gay marriage:
With not a single dependable hint of its own constitutional view of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court in one fell swoop on Monday cleared the way for gays and lesbians to wed in a batch of new states — starting first in five more states, and probably adding six more in the coming weeks. If that happens in all eleven, it will mean that same-sex marriages would then be legal in thirty states and Washington, D.C.
In seven one-line orders, released without explanation and with no report on how any Justice voted, the Court surprisingly refused to review any same-sex marriage case now before it and, in the process, prepared to lift a series of orders that had delayed such marriages while the issue remained in the Court. Almost no one had expected that to happen.
It may take a few weeks for the Court’s action to take effect in real-world terms, in the geographic areas where federal appeals courts have struck down bans in five states — the decisions that the Justices have now left intact. Because those appeals court rulings are binding on all federal courts in their regions, those decisions almost certainly dictate the outcome in six more states.
As Maddow noted, it only takes 4 judges to put a case up for review, and the 4 right wing judges voted to support DOMA in US v. Windsor, it means that at least one judge (My money is on Roberts) who voted against gay rights voted against reviewing the cases.
It is either an acknowledgement by one of the conservative justices that society has changed, or it it a tactical decision, hoping that the next justice will be appointed by a Republican to replace Ginsbert.
In addition, we have a very interesting 4th amendment case, where the question of whether a search is legal if the stop is is based on a misunderstanding of the law.
We also have a patent case, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., where the court is going to review whether the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Patent Court) can review the facts presented in the district court on appeal, or only address matters of law or “clear error.” (Interestingly enough, the Patent Court ruled against the patent, and the district judge ruled for the patent.)
The fact that the Supreme Court is taking it implies to me that at least 4 justices are looking to slap down the Patent Court yet again, which has for a while engaged in a de novo review of patents when it heard appeals.
I’m also interested in Tibble v. Edison International, where workers sued their employer, because their retirement plans were high fee plans, because Edison was getting kickbacks from the plan manager.
It’s actually a statute of limitations case, since the investment choices were initially made more than 6 years before the suit was filed, but the plan was maintained for long enough that the last day was within the statute of limitations.
More on other cases here.
Minnesota has changed the law to require a conviction or guilty plea before allowing civil forfeiture:
In a big win for property rights and due process, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill yesterday to curb an abusive—and little known—police practice called civil forfeiture. Unlike criminal forfeiture, under civil forfeiture someone does not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose his or her cash, car or home.
The newly signed legislation, SF 874, corrects that injustice. Now the government can only take property if it obtains a criminal conviction or its equivalent, like if a property owner pleads guilty to a crime or becomes an informant. The bill also shifts the burden of proof onto the government, where it rightfully belongs. Previously, if owners wanted to get their property back, they had to prove their property was not the instrument or proceeds of the charged drug crime. In other words, owners had to prove a negative in civil court. Being acquitted of the drug charge in criminal court did not matter to the forfeiture case in civil court.
As Lee McGrath, the executive director of the Institute for Justice’s Minnesota chapter, put it, “No one acquitted in criminal court should lose his property in civil court. This change makes Minnesota’s law consistent with the great American presumption that a person and his property are innocent until proven guilty.”
The bill faced stiff opposition from law enforcement and a bottleneck in the legislature. In March, the Star Tribune called it an “outrage” that lawmakers were “dragging their feet on one of the big, common-sense changes” to the state’s forfeiture laws. Ultimately, SF 874 found wide, bipartisan support, passing the state senate 55 to 5 and the state house unanimously. The reforms will go into effect starting August 1, 2014.
The story is from May, but I just found about it, and I also found this presentation from John Oliver on this issue, and I it was just too good not to discuss.
Civil forfeiture statute has clearly morphed into a deeply corrupt enterprise, and it needs to be completely restructured.
The Minnesota law is a good start, but I would also change the disposition of funds.
When law enforcement is paid for sh%$ like this, it rapidly begins to resemble a protection racket.
My suggestion would be a scholarship funds.
I’ve had the theme from The Prisoner going through my head for 3 days.
It’s not so bad, I like the theme, but it adds a surreal aspect to my day.
This is the extended opening from the first episode, “Arrival,” and I noticed a couple of things that I Had not before: McGoohan’s character drives under the gate before it opens, and he enters through what is clearly labeled an exit.
I am definitely going to have to go through the whole series looking for Easter eggs.
The huge cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase that touched more than 83 million households and businesses was one of the most serious computer intrusions into an American corporation. But it could have been much worse.
Questions over who the hackers are and the approach of their attack concern government and industry officials. Also troubling is that about nine other financial institutions — a number that has not been previously reported — were also infiltrated by the same group of overseas hackers, according to people briefed on the matter. The hackers are thought to be operating from Russia and appear to have at least loose connections with officials of the Russian government, the people briefed on the matter said.
I have a real hard time choosing sides between Russian Hackers and Wall Street.