Month: November 2017

Say It Ain’t So, Al

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) faced swift condemnation and bipartisan calls for an ethics investigation on Thursday after a Los Angeles radio broadcaster accused him of forcibly kissing and groping her in 2006.

Franken first issued a brief apology, saying his actions were intended to be funny and that he didn’t recall the incident the way Leeann Tweeden did. He later issued a longer apology: “There’s no excuse,” he said in a subsequent statement, adding that he would “gladly cooperate” with an ethics investigation.

That looks likely to happen. At least half a dozen Senate Democrats urged their chamber’s six-member, bipartisan ethics committee to investigate the allegations. Franken could face censureship or even expulsion from the Senate.

Copy editing note here, it’s, “censure,” not “censureship,” you illiterate Saracen pig.

This sucks like 1000 Hoovers all going at once.

But of Course

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There has been a major leak of the Keystone Pipeline:

About 5,000 barrels of oil, or about 210,000 gallons, gushed out of the Keystone Pipeline on Thursday in South Dakota, blackening a grassy field in the remote northeast part of the state and sending cleanup crews and emergency workers scrambling to the site.

“This is not a little spill from any perspective,” said Kim McIntosh, an environmental scientist with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources. No livestock or drinking water sources appeared to be threatened, Ms. McIntosh said, and no farm buildings or houses are within a mile.

The spill, near Amherst, S.D., comes just days before regulators in neighboring Nebraska decide whether to grant the final permit needed to begin construction on a different pipeline proposal, the Keystone XL, which would be operated by the same company. An announcement in Nebraska is expected on Monday.

This is not a surprise.  TransCanada’s safety record sucks.

Good Day for Journalistic Malpractice

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Buzz Feed just published a story claiming that Russia wired to thousands dollars to its embassy in Washington, DC to influence the 2016 election.

Their evidence is a leak from someone in the FBI saying that they surveilled transfers to the embassy with “2016 election” in the memo field.

It turns out that if you ignore the headline, and the over the top tweets, and make it down 7 paragraphs, (Well, not any more, they rewrote the article) you discover that the money was to cover the expenses of setting up polling places for the 2016 Russian parliamentary elections: (Wapo link because I don’t want to raise their Google rank, and because of the rewrite)

There is a persistent belief among many Americans that there exists a piece of evidence that will, once and for all, prove that President Trump was aware that the Russian government hoped that he would win the presidency and, further, that he or his campaign encouraged and aided that Russian effort. That belief is informed by two things: the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the election and the surfeit of revelations that, looked at through the proper lens, indicate an awful lot of smoke masking an as-yet-unseen fire.

The result is that a lot of people are eager for any new bread crumbs that seem as though they might lead to clear proof of Trump’s collusion. And that, in turn, means stories that might serve as those bread crumbs tend to see a lot of traffic for the news outlets that write them.

On Tuesday afternoon, a new story at BuzzFeed seemed like it might find a place in the picture of Russian meddling. “Secret Finding,” the headline proclaimed, “60 Russian Payments ‘To Finance Election Campaign Of 2016.’ ” The quoted section of the headline referred to the memo fields of a wire transfer sent by the Russian government to the embassy in Washington. It was Aug. 3, and the embassy was being sent $30,000 earmarked for the “election campaign of 2016.”

………

There was just one detail that didn’t warrant mentioning in the blurb or the alert . . . or even the story until the seventh paragraph: Russia, too, had an election last year, for its own legislative body. That election was held in mid-September, six weeks or so after the payment to the embassy in Washington.

BuzzFeed noted that it wasn’t only the U.S. Embassy that had received money. So, too, did embassies in countries as widespread as Afghanistan and Nigeria, with the last payments being sent two days after the election. After the Russian election, that is.

 Someone got their journalism degree out of a Cracker Jack box.

The Distinguished Gentleman from Virginia Can Go Cheney Himself

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Virginia Senator Mark Warner is proposing legislation vitiating state regulation of the predatory practices of payday lenders, because, without the ability to f%$# poor people, we won’t see “innovation”:


A little over a year ago, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) addressed a small audience of political insiders at the Brookings Institution, one of the most prestigious think tanks in the nation’s capital. Times were changing, Warner told the crowd, and the old guard from Washington and Wall Street wasn’t keeping up with the needs of the modern workforce. The gig economy, outsourcing and automation had created an era of unprecedented “income volatility” for Americans. New financial technology firms had “an opportunity to bridge part of that new social contract,” to “lean forward and meet workers where they’re working.”

………

A year later, that tomorrow has arrived. And the grand financial technology breakthrough, it turns out, is to help payday lenders sidestep basic consumer protection laws.

In late July, Warner introduced the ingeniously titled “Protecting Consumers’ Access to Credit Act of 2017.” The legislation would allow payday lenders to ignore state interest rate caps on consumer loans as long as they partnered with a national bank.

………

Silicon Valley has been toying with the high-interest consumer loan market for a few years. LendingClub, Prosper, LendUp and other FinTech companies have been billing themselves as hip, savvy alternatives to payday loans or pricey credit cards. They typically partner with a bank to avoid regulatory costs, and they are just as eager to bypass state usury laws as are their more notorious competitors. LendingClub, in particular, insists it will not be able to help people lower their credit card bills if it has to abide by state usury caps (banks that issue credit cards are mostly exempt from those laws, after all).

Someone please primary this SOB.

This Is America, of Course He Can’t Keep His Mass Shootings Straight

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There are simply too many mass shootings to keep track of them all:

It’s not uncommon for presidents to express condolences after a mass shooting in America, but it’s certainly unusual for them to forget the city in which it occurred.

 President Donald Trump took to Twitter Tuesday night after the shooting at the Rancho Tehema Elementary School in northern California. But instead of acknowledging the tragedy there, he name-checked the one in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which took place Nov. 5.

Mixed Emotions

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After Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round of Presidential elections in Zimbabwe in 2008, I followed developments there hoping for a peaceful transition to democracy for a few years before throwing in the towel.

I figured that nothing would change, and I felt that I had nothing to add.

Well, it appears that the Zimbabwe Defence Forces have deposed Robert Mugabe in a coup.

I’m not sure if this actually constitutes a change, or if it will lead to change:

Zimbabwe — After ruling Zimbabwe for nearly four decades, leading the country from the triumph of its independence struggle to economic collapse, the world’s oldest head of state became a prisoner of the military he once commanded.

Robert Mugabe, 93, was detained along with his wife, according to a military announcement Wednesday. The move appears to end one of Africa’s most controversial political dynasties while raising questions about what might come next — military rule, a transitional government or a settlement that would allow Mugabe to return to power.

No matter what happens, this appears to be a watershed moment for Zimbabwe and southern Africa, which have suffered from the tumult of Mugabe’s reign, even as his hold on power sometimes seemed unshakable.

Zimbabweans awoke early Wednesday to a televised announcement from an army general promising that there was “not a military takeover,” although Mugabe had been detained and armored vehicles were rolling into Harare, the capital.

………

Mugabe recently purged some key officials from the ruling party, ZANU-PF, paving the way for his 52-year-old spouse, Grace, to succeed him. Many see that move as a major miscalculation, alienating Mugabe from the civilians and military leaders on whom he had long depended. 

Seeing as how the military is part and parcel of the corruption and human rights disaster that is today’s Zimbabwe, I do not expect this to usher in an era freedom, prosperity, and democracy.

Hackitude

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Of course, it’s Ezra Klein who is the very modern model of cognitive dissonance.

He suggests that the Democratic establishment, of which the DNC is a part, tried to determine the outcome, and that somehow this is not an attempt to “rig” the primaries, because ……… Sparkle ponies.

It’s kind of like how he suggests that the DNC debate schedule, which foreclosed meaningful exposure to candidates not named “Clinton”, and the rules prohibiting other debates, weren’t an attempt to fix things because, “Debates are arguably her best medium,” despite the fact that Sanders more than held his own, and O’Malley excelled, while he lasted.

The concluding paragraph of the article summarizes this incoherent world salad:

The 2016 Democratic primary wasn’t rigged by the DNC, and it certainly wasn’t rigged against Sanders. But Democratic elites did try to make Clinton’s nomination as inevitable, as preordained, as possible. And the party is still managing the resentment that engendered in voters. “Once somebody doesn’t trust you,” sighs Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chair, “it’s very hard to get that trust back.”

Jeebus.  I wish that there were a cure for Michael Kinsley Disease. (Mindless contrarianism)

Crowdfunding Site Launched for Woman Who Gave Trump the Finger | Fortune

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Remember how I wrote about Julie Briskman, who was bicycling and was passed by Donald Trump’s motorcade, and gave him the bird?
I noted that she had been fired by Akima, a government contractor.just

Well, she crowded-funded over $50,000 $75,000 $96,355 and got a job offer:

Juli Briskman was fired when the picture of her flipping off the presidential motorcade went viral. But she’s doing just fine these days.

After word spread that her employer, government contractor Akima LLC, had terminated her, supporters quickly rallied and set up a fund-raising campaign in her name. To date, she has received pledges for nearly $75,000 in donations from people she has never met (and likely never will).

Over 3,000 donations, ranging from $5 to $250 have rolled in over the past week.

………

Briskman hasn’t yet announced a new job, but — rather predictably — she does have at least one offer. Porn company xHamster put an open offer on Twitter for her to join their marketing and social media team, following the long tradition of adult entertainment companies trying to catch a ride on pop culture events.

I am very amused.

Fabulous!

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Australia just had an official postal poll on gay marriage. The bigots lost decisively:

Australia has taken a decisive step towards legislating marriage equality by Christmas after 61.6% of voters in an unprecedented national postal survey approved a change to the law to allow couples of the same sex to marry.

The result, announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, will lead to consideration of a same-sex marriage bill in parliament with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, promising marriage equality should be law by Christmas.

With a turnout of 79.5% the result in the voluntary survey is considered a highly credible reflection of Australian opinion and gives marriage equality advocates enormous momentum to achieve the historic social reform. Australia’s chief statistician, David Kalisch, announced the results at a press conference in Canberra at 10am on Wednesday, revealing 7,817,247 people voted in favour and 4,873,987 voted against.

Two snaps up!

Well, This Explains a Lot

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has over $25 million in campaign funds, and for 6 months last year, he literally raised no small dollars at all:

At $25 million and counting, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sits atop the largest tower of campaign contributions of any Democratic politician in America. But this monument to his prodigious fund-raising strength also reveals one of his greatest vulnerabilities, especially if he harbors presidential ambitions.

He has virtually no small donors.

Since the beginning of 2015, Mr. Cuomo has raised over 99 percent of his campaign money from donations larger than $1,000 and nearly 99.9 percent of his funds from donors who gave at least $200, according to an analysis by The New York Times. At one point last year, Mr. Cuomo went six months without reporting a single individual donor who gave less than $200.

“You almost have to try to have that few,” said Michael Whitney, who served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s digital fund-raising manager on his 2016 presidential campaign. He said that if Mr. Cuomo were to run for president and maintain his “comically absent number of small donors,” it could cripple him in an era where both parties, but particularly Democrats, have become reliant on an army of small givers to compete at the national level.

(emphasis mine)

This is f%$#ed up on so many levels, it buggers the mind.

I am so hoping that he loses the primary in 2018, though there are 25 million reasons why this is unlikely.

He the epitome of everything that is wrong with “centrist” Democratic hypocrites.

But What if it Gets Used for Evil ……… Oh ………Wait ……… It Already Has

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Computer boffins in the land of Hobbits are using AI based chat bots to screw with scammers.

It’s a nice to see someone turning chat bots against the scammers:

Thousands of online scammers around the globe are being fooled by artificial intelligence bots posing as New Zealanders and created by the country’s internet watchdog to protect it from “phishing” scams.

Chatbots that use distinct New Zealand slang such as “aye” have been deployed by Netsafe in a bid to engage scammers in protracted email exchanges that waste their time, gather intelligence and lure them away from actual victims.

yber crime costs New Zealanders around NZ$250m annually. Computer programmers at Netsafe spent more than a year designing the bots as part of their Re:scam initiative, which went live on Wednesday.

Within 24 hours 6,000 scam emails had been sent to the Re:scam email address and there were 1000 active conversations taking place between scammers and chatbots.

So far, the longest exchange between a scammer and a chatbot pretending to be a New Zealander was 20 emails long.

The bots use humour, grammatical errors and local slang to make their “personas” believable, said Netsafe CEO Martin Cocker. As the programme engages in more fake conversations with scammers overseas, its vocabulary, intelligence and personality traits will grow.

Here’s hoping that the AIs will spend their time battling each other, and ,leave the rest of us alone.

Tweet of the Day

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Much of the decline in the US unemployment rate has been due to falling labour participation. Otherwise, the rate would be 8%, not half that at 4%. So it isn’t that much of a jobs miracle.@ProfSteveKeen @TheBubbleBubble @jtepper2 pic.twitter.com/p5Ldht35WY

— Philip Soos (@PhilipSoos) November 8, 2017

This is why people are not satisfied with the current economy even though the economists seem to think that it is wonderful.

Linkage

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How to Eat Sushi:

Aaron Burr’s Gift to the Republic

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While Alexander Hamilton was clearly a highly intelligent man, an examination of who and what he was reveals that he was the founding most hostile to the idea of a constitutional republic, and the one most likely to turn the US into a monarchy or dictatorship.

Among other things, he:

  • Advocated for the creation of a standing permanent army run by and for the Federalist party.
  • Called for the use of military force to prevent Thomas Jefferson becoming president after he was elected.
  • Attempted to foment a coup against the US government.
  • Was a slave trader, not an abolitionist.
  • Attempted to put that day’s big finance in charge of the government.

 Hamilton was a bad guy, and here is the money quote of this article:

But the agenda is hidden, because in America, no political leader, not even Donald Trump, can credibly come right out and pronounce democracy a bad thing and agitate for rule by big finance. And the reason for that is that Alexander Hamilton, despite his success in structuring Wall Street, lost the battle against American democracy. Thank God for that.