Month: August 2018

Not Surprised by What this Mniscreant has Done

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In an effort by Steve Mnuchin to benefit his buddies, the Treasury Secretary has declared that banks are not financial institutions:

Do “financial services” include banking? Not according to the Trump administration, whose new rule, issued Wednesday by the Treasury Department, argues there is a difference — and then cites the alleged difference as a means of extending lucrative tax breaks to the banking industry. The new rule represents more than semantic hairsplitting and hands a huge windfall to the banking industry.

At issue is the Trump tax bill’s treatment of so-called pass-through income — or income that is gleaned from partnerships, LLCs and S corporations. The 2017 Republican tax legislation dramatically slashed tax rates on income from such entities, generating a firestorm of criticism that it was a giveaway to real estate moguls like Trump, U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) and other Republican backers of the legislation who have such entities in their personal portfolios. (The criticism became known as the “Corker Kickback” scandal.)

To reduce some of the cost of the overall tax cut bill — and to mute some of the specific criticism of the pass-through sections — GOP lawmakers included provisions prohibiting certain kinds of businesses from qualifying for the pass-through tax cut. One such business was “financial services,” and its removal countered assertions that the bill could enrich big banks.

However, less than a year after passage of the tax legislation, the Treasury Department, headed by former banker Steve Mnuchin, issued the proposed rule whose fine print asserts that “financial services” actually do not include banking. If that interpretation of the tax bill stands, hundreds of banks operating as S corporations — as well as their owners — could claim the tax cut.

Don’t you know?  Only little people pay taxes.

Kobach Blinks

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After a minor uproar, after Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach announcing that he would preside over his own recount, he has reversed himself:

Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach of Kansas, clinging to the slimmest of leads in the Republican primary for governor, said Thursday night that he planned to recuse himself from the vote-counting process. Earlier in the evening, his opponent, Gov. Jeff Colyer, said that some local election officials had been provided incorrect information by Mr. Kobach that could suppress votes.

“I’ll be happy to recuse myself,” Mr. Kobach, who oversees the state’s elections, said in an interview with CNN. Mr. Kobach, who has the endorsement of President Trump and has built a national reputation for warning of widespread vote fraud, suggested that his role in the Kansas count had been mostly symbolic anyway.

The governor’s fiery recusal request, and Mr. Kobach’s pledge to comply, came after the nationally watched primary left the candidates separated by only 191 votes entering Thursday.

In a letter, Mr. Colyer said some clerks had been provided incorrect information about which ballots to count, and he urged Mr. Kobach to appoint the state attorney general to handle future questions from local election workers.

 “It has come to my attention that your office is giving advice to county election officials — as recently as a conference call yesterday — and you are making public statements on national television which are inconsistent with Kansas law and may serve to suppress the vote in the ongoing Kansas primary election process,” Mr. Colyer wrote.

Yeah.  Classic Kobach.

He has made a carreer out of invalidating votes that he does not like.

The only difference this time is that he is disenfranchising white Republicans, not black and Hispanic Democrats.

When this is all over, there really needs to be a serious investigation of his behavior, because Kobach is crooked as hell.

Germany, Huh?

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It appears that elements of the German secret services have been advising the neo-Nazi AfD party:

Hans-Georg Maaßen, the president of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), met with former Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Frauke Petry several times in 2015, advising her how to avoid nationwide surveillance of the AfD by the German secret service and having her party designated as “right-wing extremist.”

This was revealed in a recently published book, Inside AfD, by AfD dropout Franziska Schreiber. The 28-year-old author was a close colleague of Petry’s and was chairperson of the AfD youth organization Junge Alternative in Saxony.

“Petry informed me later that Maaßen had told her what the AfD had to do to evade surveillance by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which he had not wanted himself,” writes Schreiber. “They both seem to have developed a certain sympathy for one another.”

Maaßen is said to have advised the AfD leader to expel Björn Höcke, a representative in the state parliament of Thuringia associated with the AfD’s ethnic nationalist wing. In December 2015, shortly after meeting with Maaßen, Petry did in fact call for Höcke’s resignation and prepared expulsion procedures against him. According to Schreiber, she did this “at the urgent advice” of the chief of intelligence.

The BfV has in the meantime indirectly confirmed that Maaßen met with Petry. One generally conducts conversations with representatives of all parties, a spokesperson told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not denying that the meetings took place. He did, however, deny that Maaßen advised the AfD or recommended the expulsion of specific leading members.

That there were close relations between Maaßen and Petry was already known long before the publication of Inside AfD. The news magazine Der Spiegel reported in early 2016 that they had “at Petry’s request” met several times in the fall of 2015. The magazine referred to “several AfD politicians,” including Petry.

Is anyone else getting a 1930s vibe from all this?

Never Stop Your Enemy from Stepping on His Own Dick

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VIDEO: Rep. Chris Collins speaking on his phone at last summer’s White House Congressional Picnic. The photo was taken at approximately 7:17 p.m. According to the indictment, Collins called his son Cameron at 7:16 p.m. (VIDEO: CBS) pic.twitter.com/EvSzrHTkY4

— News 4, WIVB-TV (@news4buffalo) August 8, 2018

Your honor, we find the defendants incredibly guilty

Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) has been charged with insider trading.

What’s more, he was caught on video calling his son about failed drug trials ……… At the White House:

Federal prosecutors charged Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), President Trump’s first congressional supporter, with insider trading on Wednesday, alleging the New York Republican schemed with his son to avoid significant losses on a biotechnology investment.

 Collins was at a congressional picnic at the White House last year when he learned that Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotechnology company, had received bad news about an important drug trial. Collins frantically attempted to reach his son, Cameron Collins, whom he tipped off to the confidential corporate information days before it would be made public, according to prosecutors. Cameron Collins and several others used the information to avoid more than $700,000 in losses, they said.

 Collins “helps write the laws of this country,” said Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. But Collins “acted as if the law did not apply to him.”

 Collins turned himself in to the FBI at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning and then appeared in a Manhattan federal court in the afternoon wearing a dark suit and white button-down shirt open at the collar. He spoke only briefly during the nearly 20-minute hearing, telling the judge: “I plead not guilty.”

 ………

 The charges could turn into a headache for several House Republicans who invested in Innate Immunotherapeutics at Collins’s encouragement. Prosecutors did not allege in the indictment that Collins tipped off any of his colleagues in Congress about the failed drug trial before it was made public, but Democrats pounced on the charges and said those lawmakers would have to answer tough questions about their investments in Innate.

 ………

 According to the indictment, while at the June 2017 congressional picnic at the White House, Collins received an email from Innate Immunotherapeutics’ chief executive alerting the company’s board that an eagerly anticipated drug trial had been a failure. Minutes later, Collins responded to the email: “Wow. Makes no sense. How are these results even possible???”

 Almost immediately, Collins tried to get in contact with his son, who owned millions of shares of the company’s stock, according to the indictment. Within a few minutes, Collins and his son called each other six times before connecting and talking for six minutes. During that last call, Collins told Cameron Collins, his son, about the failed drug trial, according to the indictment, which cites phone and bank records as well as texts.

It gets even better: It looks like a number of other Republican Congressmen are implicated in this:

………

Collins, worth $66 million, apparently urged Republican colleagues in Congress to invest.

“If you get in early, you’ll make a big profit,” Collins reportedly told House Republicans last summer.

At least six Republicans appear to have been convinced by Collins’ pitch (though at various times they claimed to have arrived at the stock purchase through media reports).

They were:

1. Tom Price, who served as Secretary of Health and Human Services. During his confirmation hearings, Price was accused of taking advantage of a special deal on Innate stock only available to a select number of lawmakers at a discount offered by Collins.

2. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX): The Texas Republican claimed he heard about Innate from media reports, but as the Houston Chronicle noted, it’s not clear which. At the time of his purchase, Innate was described as “a tiny pharmaceutical company from Australia that has no approved drugs and no backing from flashy venture capital firms.” The Chronicle pointed out that Culberson’s past investment history does not square with his purchase of biotech stocks and his opponent, a research physician, has wondered what led Culberson to invest, “since at the time he bought it in January there had been no published research articles or significant clinical trial updates on the drug, known as MIS416.”

3. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) is another Texas lawmaker who bought large shares in Innate. He does not appear to have purchased Innate stock at a discount.

4. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) sat Health Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Commerce at the time of his stock purchase, raising a possible conflict of interest, reports the Daily Beast.

5. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) sat on the subcommittee as well.

6. Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) reportedly became far more active in the stock market in 2015. Long sat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which addresses health policy.

Republicans, particularly Trump Republicans are not having a good time right now.

In 2006, it was Mark Foley, and now it seems that there a whole passel of Mark Foleys.

H/t Crooks and Liars.

More of This

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Baltimore City is send a city charter change to voters for prohibit privatizing its water and sewer:

Baltimore City Council members concerned about lobbying efforts to privatize the city’s water supply unanimously approved legislation Monday that, if approved by voters, would make Baltimore the first major city to ban the sale or lease of the water system.

City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young waived council rules to allow for fast-tracked approval of a charter amendment that will go to voters on the November ballot.

“Access to clean and affordable water should be looked at as a basic human right,” Young said.
Baltimore council considering charter amendment to ban sale of city water system

The move could make Baltimore the first city in the country to amend its charter to preserve public ownership and control over its water and sewer systems, and the largest U.S. city to prohibit sale or lease of its water system. Northampton, Mass., passed legislation in 2016 prohibiting the sale or lease of its water system.

Incorporating this into the city charter doesn’t make it more difficult to sell off the water system, it means that there has to be a public vote, and weeks, if not months, of public discussions, which the privatizers would probably lose.

Given the record of privatizing public services, this is a very good thing.

You Know How the Record Labels Talk about How You Need to Pay the Artists Whose Music You Listen To?

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Recording artists received just 12% of the $US43 billion that the music industry generated in 2017, according to a Citigroup report published on Monday, and led by analyst Jason B. Bazinet.

$US43 billion matches a 12-year peak that the industry hasn’t hit since 2006, the report said.

The proportion of the total music industry revenue artists are capturing has actually risen since 2000, when artists took home only a 7% share of the revenue.

But this increase is due in large part to the growth of concerts and touring as a revenue stream that is largely distinct from the intermediary of their music labels. Artists are still taking home a meager share of the increasing revenues in streaming for their music, where music labels and music streaming services act as intermediaries.

The report shows that “consumer outlays,” which includes streaming, concert sales, and purchased music, generated an all-time high of more than $US20 billion last year. But music businesses, including labels and publishers, took almost $US10 billion, while artists received just $US5.1 billion, the “bulk” of which came from touring.

If you want to support the artists, go to their concerts, because they do not get sh%$ from the record distributors.

Pass the Pop ……… F%$#it, Bring the Popcorn by Truck

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Omarosa is writing a book, and while in the White House, she taped conversations in the White House, including conversations with Donald Trump:

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, isn’t the only one with secretly recorded audio of the president.

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell The Daily Beast that Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the infamous former Apprentice star who followed Trump to the White House, secretly recorded conversations with the president—conversations she has since leveraged while shopping her forthcoming “tell-all” book, bluntly titled UNHINGED.

For months, it has been rumored that Manigault had clandestinely recorded on her smartphone “tapes” of unspecified private discussions she had in the West Wing. Audio actually does exist, and even stars Manigault’s former boss.

One person confirmed to The Daily Beast they had heard at least one of her recordings featuring President Trump. Multiple sources familiar with the “Omarosa tapes” described the recorded conversations between Trump and Manigault as anodyne, everyday chatter, but said they did appear to feature Trump’s voice, either over the phone or in-person.

The mere existence of such recordings represents a dramatic betrayal of trust by a onetime confidante who has since abandoned years of professed loyalty to the president and has apparently decided to profit off her years of closeness to Trump.

I am way more amused by this than I should be by this.

Kris Kobach is a Honey Badger

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It looks like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will refuse to recuse himself for the too-close-to-call recount of his Republican primary election:

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Wednesday that he has no plans to recuse himself from a recount process in the race for governor because any counting of ballots would take place at the county level.

“The recount thing is done on a county level, so the secretary of state does not actually participate directly in the recount,” Kobach said at a campaign event in Topeka after initial results showed him winning by fewer than 200 votes.

“The secretary of state’s office merely serves as a coordinating entity overseeing it all but not actually counting the votes,” Kobach said, contending that his role puts him at arm’s length from the actual recount.

No law requires Kobach to recuse himself, but legal and political experts said that he should do so to maintain trust in the election.

Kobach, the state’s top election official, led Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Republican primary by a mere 191 votes Wednesday morning after each of the state’s 105 counties had posted election returns after technical difficulties in Johnson County delayed results on election night.

Colyer has the right to request that Kobach’s office initiate a recount if he remains trailing after counties tabulate provisional ballots and mail-in ballots postmarked by the deadline.

He would also have to file a bond with Kobach’s office to cover the cost of a recount at a price set by Kobach. If a candidate wins following a recount, no action would be taken on the bond.

So if his opponent wants a recount, Kobach gets to set the price.

This is a Dr. Evil moment, “I demand the sum… OF 1 MILLION DOLLARS.……… ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.”

This is one seriously morally bankrupt, corrupt, bigoted, and shameless son of a bitch.

This is the Sort of Thing that Takes Down Authoritarian Regimes

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Vladimir Putin is experiencing significant political blow-back for cuts to pensions and an increase in the retirement age.

It’s part of the standard neoliberal playbook, and it is the sort of thing, rather than foreign adventurism or crack-downs on political rivals, that frequently result in major political shakeups:

Pension reform is genocide!” “You deprive us of our pension – we deprive you of your authority!” “We don’t want to die working!”

These were only some of the slogans shouted by Russian protesters during mass rallies last weekend, held in response to a new reform that will rise the retirement age in Russia. From Moscow to St Petersburg to Siberia to the country’s Far East, the rallies were a nationwide phenomenon across the world’s biggest country.

For Vladimir Putin, the situation represents a rare mis-step. The tough-guy president has, for years, presented himself as a national defender, fully in synch with the concerns of the Russian street.

The media were not beating about the bush. Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets defined the protests as the “most dangerous and risky reform of President Putin’s 20-year rule.”

More than three million Russian citizens have already signed an online petition against the pension reform which, starting from 2019, is due to gradually increase the retirement age from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 63 for women.

………

However, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has stated clearly that reform is necessary to save Russia’s pension system, which relies on state budget subsidies to stay afloat. Despite brave talk of sanctions resistance, a rising Russian economy, apparently successful overseas military adventures and the warm afterglow of the World Cup, low oil prices and Western sanctions continue to erode Moscow’s finances.

………

Regardless of whether it is essential or not, the reform is colossally unpopular – about 90% of Russians oppose it. Naturally, it is having a deep impact on the approval rating of the United Russia party.

………

As a result, Putin’s popularity rate has been already affected by the reform, falling sharply from 80% in May to 64% in late July, according to the VTsIOM state pollster. This is problematic for Putin, considering that a great deal of Russian trust in him depends on his reputation as “protector of the Russian people” against foreign threats and as guarantor of national stability, particularly after the chaos of the Yeltsin years.

I expect to see some sort of partial walk back from Putin, as well as long term political consequences.

The number of authoritarian governments that have been brought down by implementing these sorts of neoliberal remedies, frequently at the hands of the IMF, is legion.

More Good News from Yesterday’s Elections

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Missouri voters repealed a so-called “right to work” law by a 2 to 1 margin:

After a succession of political setbacks in onetime strongholds and a landmark defeat in the Supreme Court, organized labor has notched a hard-won victory as Missouri voters overrode a legislative move to curb union power.

A measure on the ballot on Tuesday asked voters to pass judgment on a prospective law barring private-sector unions from collecting mandatory fees from workers who choose not to become members. The law was rejected by a 2-to-1 margin.

Parody is Dead.

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Not the Onion

Reality has so far outstripped parody that the latter has become irrelevant.

Case in point, following an EPA proposal to re-legalize asbestos, a Russian asbestos manufacturer has put Donald Trump’s on their packaging:

On 25 June 2018, a Russian mining company named Uralasbest, which is one of the world’s largest producers of asbestos, posted a message of support for President Trump on their official Facebook and VK (a Russian version of Facebook) pages. The post included photographs of packed asbestos material adorned with the face of Trump and the text “Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States.”

Asbestos is a mineral that was once widely used in construction projects for its fire resistant properties, but research has since linked it to a variety of cancers, most notably lung cancer and mesothelioma.

………

In June, when Uralasbest posted their message of support, then-Administrator of the EPA Scott Pruitt had recently announced new interpretations of the Toxic Substances Control Act that could allow for “new uses” of asbestos to be approved in the United States. While this move would not allow for previously banned uses to be considered, it was a reversal of Obama-era rules that barred the EPA from considering any new uses for asbestos.

While I’ve always thought that the Donald Trump was toxic, I had no idea that they were taking this concept so literally.

Ohio Supreme Court Puts Final Nail in Coffin of ECOT

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ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) was a virtual charter school in Ohio.

While technically a non-profit, it sub-contracted many services from its founder’s for profit companies, generating big bucks.

It also had mind boggling high dropout rate, and having more dropouts than any other school in the country.

The business model appears to pretend to educate students, and take that money and donate a portion of it to (usually Republican) politicians to get political cover.

Eventually, after burning through about a billion dollars in state money, the Ohio Department of Education, pushed by a New York Times expose, fined them for falsifying attendance numbers, and the state auditor subpoenaed their records to ensure that records are preserved in the event of a criminal investigation.

The school closed, and has been fighting the fine, but Ohio Supreme Court has decided that reports of their demise are not exaggerated:

The Ohio Supreme Court delivered what is likely a death blow on Wednesday to the state’s largest charter school, but the political fight over ECOT is expected to go strong through the November election.

In a 4-2 ruling, the high court said the Ohio Department of Education was legally permitted to require the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow to show student log-in duration data in order to verify its enrollment and justify its state funding.

“We determine that (state law) is unambiguous and authorizes ODE to require an e-school to provide data of the duration of a student’s participation to substantiate that school’s funding,” Justice Patrick Fischer wrote for the majority, joined by Justice Mary DeGenaro, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, and appellate Judge W. Scott Gwin, sitting in for Justice Judith French.

Like the lower courts, the majority struggled to accept the notion that online schools should get full payment for enrolled students even if they only rarely turn on their computers.

Starting in 2016, the Department of Education has ordered ECOT to repay $80 million for unverified enrollment over two years, after finding that a number of students were logging in far less than the 920 hours of instruction required by the state. ECOT sued, arguing that the department improperly changed the rules, illegally basing state funding on student participation, which is not the standard for traditional schools.

………

Today’s ruling confirms the expectation that Ohio’s online schools document the education they provide,” said Brittany Halpin, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Education. “Ultimately, this is what’s best for students and taxpayers alike. We’re pleased the Ohio Supreme Court agreed with the Department’s interpretation of the law and we remain committed to ensuring that all community schools receive their correct funding.”

I would note that this sort of corruption is the rule, not the exception with charter schools.

Almost every time that there is a comprehensive audit of a charter, a morass of self dealing and corruption is revealed.

A Great Evil Has Been Defeated in St. Louis County

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I am referring, of course, to soon-to be former County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, who was defeated in the primary by Ferguson Councilman, and Black Lives Matter Activist, Wesley Bell.

To refresh your memory, McCulloch was the prosecutor who corruptly, and deliberately, manipulated the grand jury investigating the gunning down of Michael Brown by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson:

Wesley Bell, a reform-minded City Council member from Ferguson, Mo., declared victory in the Democratic primary for St. Louis County prosecutor Tuesday evening, saying he had ousted the longtime incumbent Robert P. McCulloch, who came under national scrutiny for his handling of the investigation into the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer.

Mr. Bell led Mr. McCulloch by more than 13 points with all precincts reporting, bringing an end to Mr. McCulloch’s 27-year run as the county’s top elected prosecutor. There is no Republican candidate in the November general election, so Mr. Bell, 43, will most likely be a lock for the seat.

On Aug. 9, 2014, a white police officer named Darren Wilson shot and killed a black teenager named Michael Brown in Ferguson, igniting weeks of chaos and uprisings in the city that gripped the nation’s attention.

After a grand jury declined to bring charges against Mr. Wilson, Mr. McCulloch, 67, faced allegations that he was too close to law enforcement officials in the area to properly oversee the investigation. He has repeatedly defended his handling of the case, but in St. Louis and on social media on Tuesday, criminal justice advocates reveled in his defeat.

“I’ll never forget how smug Bob McCullough was when he announced the non-indictment of Darren Wilson,” tweeted DeRay Mckesson, an activist who was in Ferguson at the time of the uprisings. “We all needed Tonight’s win. #ByeBob.”

Yes, hashtag ByeBob.

I hope that when Bell takes control of the prosecutor’s office, he does a seriously deep dive into their records.

I would expect that this is not the only case where McCullouch behaved inappropriately, and there is probably a lot for the state Bar to chew on.

Damn

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Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s candidate, Gretchen Whitmer just won the Democratic Party primary for Governor in Michigan.

Details on her ties to the insurance company here.

The special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional district, which has been presented as a bellwether* for November is too close to call, but it looks like the Republican has a vote lead of a little bit more than a thousand votes.

*The etymology of the word “bellwether” is interesting, it literally means a castrated sheep with a bell around its neck.†
†I find the juxtaposition of politics and castrated sheep remarkably apropos.

Yeah, Pretty Much

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One of the problems in America today is that no one is going after white collar criminals any more, so we are seeing a lot more white collar crime:

One possible lesson of the many brazen, conspicuous scandals related to President Trump and others in his orbit: The U.S. government has been massively underinvesting in enforcement and prosecution of white-collar crime.

Trumpkins argue that the pileup of charges against onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is a sign that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gone rogue. After all, many of the allegations against Manafort — laundering $30 million in income, submitting false tax returns, lying to banks, failing to register as a foreign agent, obstructing justice — stem from his work in and for Ukraine before 2016. They’re not directly related to his time on the Trump campaign.

………

There was the apparent treatment of the Trump Foundation as a personal checkbook, from which Trump used other people’s charitable donations to settle his for-profit businesses’ legal disputes and to purchase gigantic portraits of himself. The operation of Eric Trump’s personal foundation also has raised similar questions of self-dealing, according to Forbes.

Or there’s the fishy stock trades by Trump cronies, including Carl Icahn and even the current commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross. Ross shorted the stock of a Kremlin-linked company days after he learned journalists were reporting a potentially negative story about the firm. (Both Icahn and Ross have denied engaging in insider trading.)

Or former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s failure to register as a foreign agent working on behalf of Turkey.

There’s a clear reason so many Trump-related figures likely felt free to engage in dodgy behavior in broad daylight: They didn’t expect anyone to care. And absent the scrutiny that came with Trump’s political success, such activities probably would have gone ignored.

Federal prosecutions of white-collar crime — a category that includes tax, corporate, health-care or securities fraud, among other crimes — are on track this year to reach their lowest level on record. That’s according to data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), whose data go back to 1986. Prosecutions of crimes related to public corruption are also on pace to set a record low.

………

 Some argue that big corporations and the wealthy have become too politically influential. Jesse Eisinger, in his excellent book “The Chickensh%$ Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives ,” blames a culture of risk aversion in the ranks of the Justice Department. Eric H. Holder Jr., an attorney general under Obama, once suggested that corporate consolidation left some firms too big to jail.

We can add to these examples to the case of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose dubious business history led Forbes magazine to note, “If even half of the accusations are legitimate, the current United States secretary of commerce could rank among the biggest grifters in American history.“

I would argue that the current antipathy of prosecutors to go after white collar criminals has led to an explosion in criminal behavior.

It really is time for broken windows policing to apply to white people.

Rule 1 of Today’s FCC: Ajit Pai Lies

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Rule number 2 is see rule 1:

An investigation carried out by Federal Communication Commission’s own inspector general officially refutes controversial claims that a cyberattack was responsible for disrupting the FCC’s comment system in May 2017, at the height of the agency’s efforts to kill off net neutrality.

The investigation also uncovered that the FCC provided false information to member of Congress regarding advice provided by FBI to the FCC (or not provided) after the incident.

A report from the inspector general’s office (OIG) released Tuesday finds that the comment system issues were not caused by a cyberattack, as the FCC has alleged for over a year, but more likely by a combination of “system design issues” and a massive surge in traffic, which came after Last Week Tonight host John Oliver told millions of TV viewers to flood the FCC’s website with pro-net neutrality comments.

Investigators were unable to “substantiate the allegations of multiple DDoS attacks” alleged by then-FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray, the report says. “At best, the published reports were the result of a rush to judgment and the failure to conduct analyses needed to identify the true cause of the disruption to system availability.”

It continues:

“While we identified a small amount of anomalous activity and could not entirely rule out the possibility of individual DoS attempts during the period from May 7 through May 9, 2017, we do not believe this activity resulted in any measurable degradation of system availability given the minuscule scale of the anomalous activity relative to the contemporaneous voluminous viral traffic.”

………

The focus of the OIG investigation was initially centered on the allegations that the FCC was targeted by DDoS attacks, the report states. But it eventually shifted after OIG became concerned that three FCC officials may have broken the law by lying to members of Congress.

………

The OIG report also describes an interview with two FBI employees, one a special agent and another working with the FBI cyber task force in Washington. Both appear to implicate the FCC in providing false information to members of Congress, specifically when describing what the FBI agents and FCC officials discussed following the incident.

………

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai sought to distance himself from any of the institutional failings described by the inspector general’s report ahead of its release on Monday, placing full blame at the feet of his former chief information officer and his subordinates. In a statement on Monday, Pai accused Bray of providing him with “inaccurate information” about the May 2017 incident, which Pai then personally relayed to members of Congress.

In a June 2017 letter, for example, Pai informed Wyden and Schatz that the FCC’s comment system had been disrupted by a “cyber-based attack.”

………

“This report shows that the American people were deceived by the FCC and Chairman Pai as they went about doing the bidding of Big Cable,” Sen. Wyden said in a statement late Tuesday. “It appears that maintaining a bogus story about a cyberattack was convenient cover to ignore the voices of millions of people who were fighting to protect a free and open internet.”

Unfortunately, prosecutors have decided not to prosecute, which is a shame, because I’d love to see CIO Bray cop a plea and flip on Pai.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Paul

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We’ve had a 2nd day of testimony by Rick Gates, Paul Manafort’s former partner and protege, and it ain’t pretty.

He testified that he conspired to break the law with Paul Manafort, AND he embezzled from Paul Manafort.

Sharper than a serpent’s tooth, neh?

Rick Gates, the star witness in Paul Manafort’s fraud trial, admitted that he stole money from his former boss to pay for an extramarital affair, lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and may have submitted false expenses to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.

But even under two hours of withering cross-examination, Gates stuck to his basic account, insisting that he’s telling the truth now about how he helped Manafort hide millions of dollars from U.S. tax authorities and lie to banks to obtain loans.

Gates, who pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Mueller’s prosecutors, has testified over two days, detailing his criminal conduct in helping Manafort hide the money he made as a political consultant in Ukraine. He said he lied to Manafort’s accountants and bookkeepers, used offshore accounts in Cyprus to move millions of dollars for him, and fabricated several documents to deceive banks when his boss was drowning in debt.

Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing mocked and belittled Gates, browbeat and embarrassed him, and branded him repeatedly as a liar unworthy of the jury’s trust and respect. Gates wobbled in the first hour and appeared uncertain, but he regained his footing in the last hour of questioning.

“I’m here to tell the truth,’’ Gates said. “I’m taking responsibility for my actions. Mr. Manafort had the same path. I’m here. I’ve accepted the responsibility, and I’m trying to change.’’

Downing began undermining Gates’s credibility in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, even as he faces the arduous task of overcoming a raft of emails and other documents that suggest Manafort’s guilt.

Downing suggested that Gates stole $3 million through 40 wire transfers from Manafort’s accounts in Cyprus. Gates admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said Manafort authorized some of the transactions, although he couldn’t identify which ones. The question of just how much Gates stole from the brilliant political strategist who initially hired him as an intern out of college was left unresolved.

Even with a nut job as a judge,  U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III has a long history of eccentric behavior, it seems to me that Manafort is, “Attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis.” (Screwed)

Oh, Snap!

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Normally, I try to eschew direct comparisons between Trump’s problems and Watergate.

It’s not that they aren’t entertaining, but I think that all too frequently they misconstrue the underlying context.

That’s being said, when the person invoking Watergate is Bill Ruckelshaus, I take notice:

President Trump is acting with a desperation I’ve seen only once before in Washington: 45 years ago when President Richard M. Nixon ordered the firing of special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. Nixon was fixated on ending the Watergate investigation, just as Trump wants to shut down the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A lesson for the president from history: It turned out badly for Nixon. Not only could he not derail the investigation, but also, 10 months later, he was forced to resign the presidency.

………

In October 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. As deputy attorney general and next in line, I was ordered by the president to fire Cox; I also refused and resigned. Cox was finally fired by Solicitor General Robert H. Bork. The result is what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Neither Richardson nor I saw any justifiable reason for Cox’s dismissal. When it became clear that Cox would not give up his pursuit of the Oval Office tapes, Nixon took the only action he could to protect himself: He tried to get rid of the man charged with investigating him.

Ignoring the obvious,* I think that there are some significant differences:  The most notable is that, unlike in 1973, pretty much the entire Republican Party are opposed to even the idea of an independent investigation.

I Republicans are projecting:  They think that all investigations of a President will be conducted as corruptly as Ken Starr’s.

*Bob Bork was an asshole even then.

Interesting What Happens When Your Own Ox Is Gored

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Case in point, New York Times opinion columnist Frank Bruni, who is freaking out over the possibility of Trump being impeached and Mike Pence becoming President.

If you look at some of his recent articles, you find a paean to Maryland’s Republican Governor, that the real problem with Trump is that his supporters are excessively partisan, how, the political center is sexy (his term, not mine), and that we should not inconvenience politicians doing unspeakable evil while they dine.

But Mike Pence, Bruni is running around with his hair on fire over that:

There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.

That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.

To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.

I agree with Bruni that Pence is an absolute horror show.

He is the Handmaiden’s Tale made flesh.

But this is not what has diverted Bruni from his normal invocations toward bipartisan kumbayas, it is the fact that Mike Pence is a very unique and personal threat to him, because while his bigotries are legion,  Mike Pence hates gays with a particular ferocity, and Frank Bruni is gay.

It’s why Bruni finds Pence scarier than Trump, because it hits him where he lives.

This is a normal human reaction, but as a journalist, Bruni should have known that there was a real possibility that the would end up on the hate hit parade when he was concern trolling over Robert De Niro or the comfort of child snatchers and pathological liars at restaurants.

OK, Maybe the Whole “Wave Election” Thing is Real

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This past Thursday, Democratic Party candidates clubbed their Republican counterparts like a baby seal in Shelby County: (The county that Memphis is in.)

Shelby County Democrats trounced Republicans last night.

Of the 26 county offices up for grabs, Democrats won all but five — and those were previously Republican commission seats. Before the election, Republicans held nine of the 10 most high-profile county offices, including mayor and sheriff. Now, they hold zero.

How to describe the devastation of last night’s win for Republicans? It was a rout. A sweep. A wave that overwhelmed Republicans who had largely controlled the county — not counting the commission, which had a scant Democratic majority — since 2008.

Of course, all eyes were on the mayor’s race, where Democrat Lee Harris easily won by more than 10 percentage points:

Of particular note is that Harris won and he campaigned heavily on expanding mass transit, which is significant, since Tennessee’s other large city, Nashville, had its mass transit plans shot down though the efforts of the Koch brothers.

Not a result that I would have expected.