I’m now positive that people who claim to have seen aliens have actually just seen baby owls. pic.twitter.com/CAr65NG9qR— Daniel Holland (@DannyDutch) November 14, 2019
It’s not aliens, it’s baby owls!
Month: November 2019
A Week Ago, I Could Not Find the Evil in This
I literally wrote, “I Cannot Find the Evil Here,” regarding the Trump Administration’s move against Gilead for violating the CDC’s patent on “Truvada for PrEP,” which used the drug as a prophylactic treatment for HIV.
Well, it turns out that the nature of the CDC patent is such that their attempted enforcement of their claims would allow big Pharma to “Evergreen” (maintain their drug monopoly) basically forever.
It turns out that the patent is not on the drug, but on the fact that taking one pill a day will prevent HIV infection.
This is wrong on a number of levels.
First, the PrEP treatment was not an invention, it was a discovery, which should not be patentable, and second, if upheld, this will provide drug makers with the ability to acquire IP based exclusivity forever:
The Trump administration appeared this month to finally act on a campaign promise to lower drug prices by taking the maker of an HIV drug to court for violating a government patent.
But as with all things Trump, what you see on the surface is not all that’s actually going on.
First, this is only about one drug, a crucial drug to prevent HIV, that was developed with taxpayer money. Its high price has been targeted by well-organized activists for the HIV/AIDS community because it costs more than 300 times as much in the United States as in Africa.
Second, and more importantly, the federal complaint may well help drug companies extend their patents and years of sales at inflated monopoly prices.
“Evergreening” patents and sales exclusivity by the pharmaceutical industry is one of key factors in the high price of prescription drugs in the United States. It keeps cheaper generics medicines off the market.
The specific patent that the U.S. government wants to protect, and get paid for, is one of the controversial group of patents for a process. It covers the prescribed regimen that says the patient must take one pill daily—but not the pill itself.
………
Critics think the government patent is weak. But they also worry that a court decision may validate patents for the regimen, which could create a government-supported precedent allowing drug companies to maintain monopoly prices for decades and possibly forever.
………
Prevention is a secondary use of Truvada. Patents for secondary uses, or for processes—telling patients what pill to take and when—have given drug companies essentially eternal monopolies on sales of those medicines.
“If the government protects this kind of patent, it could ultimately serve drug makers and enable them to keep recycling old patents,” said Love. His non-profit organization has been in the front of efforts to push Congress to force the Bush, Obama and now the Trump administrations to stop giving profitable, semi-permanent patent protection to makers of drugs developed through taxpayer-funded research.
………
The U.S. Government has rarely fought a major pharmaceutical corporation for royalties, though groups such as KEI and Public Citizen have been pushing for aggressive action related to drugs largely funded by American taxpayers.………
Gilead charges American patients with AIDS about $20,000 per year for the drug Truvada. The same/version of the drug sells in Africa for $60 per year. Truvada for PrEP is the term for applying the drug to prevent AIDS infection. PrEP is an acronym for pre-exposure prophylaxis. This preventive usage is crucial for public health strategies to eradicate HIV and AIDS by 2030, a target announced by Donald Trump this year.
………
Yale University’s Global Health Justice Program leadership, during Congressional hearings in May on PrEP access and costs, slammed Gilead for its refusal to share the proceeds from its sales of Truvada with the government or to significantly lower the price for patients in the United States.
In a letter to the House Oversight Committee, Yale’s health justice team also raised questions about the government’s patent of the secondary use and the treatment process. “We have serious concerns about the value that method of treatment patents like the CDC’s patents for PrEP (and still more other “secondary” patents),” the team wrote.
“Indeed, they are regularly used by the pharmaceutical industry to artificially extend patent protection on expensive brand name drug products, delay generic competition, and keep prices high,” the Yale letter continued.
………
KEI’s Love said the government has been slow to act. “HHS could have exercised march-in rights three years ago on this drug paid for by U.S. taxpayers,” Love said. The government could have applied for a patent that guaranteed the royalty payments to America, not profits to Gilead. “But getting a patent for the procedure is another way of “evergreening” a patent – it makes the United States a patent troll.”
FYI, “March-In Rights” are a provision of Bayh-Dole, the 1980 law that privatized the proceeds of most federally funded research.
The “March-In Rights” allow the federal government to license patents to other entities if the patent holder fails to meet the, “Health and safety needs of consumers.”
Despite the egregious actions of big pharma, “March-In” has never been applied.
I would prefer for the Bayh-Dole to be completely repealed, but the case for “March-In” is incontrovertible.
The Onion Abides
There are times that it appears to be the only real news source in America, as evidenced by this headline:
Washington Post’ Impeachment Critic Gives Insipid Day One Inquiry 2 Out Of 5 Andrew Johnsons
I would note that The Onion‘s article is really not that different from some press coverage calling the impeachment hearings a “snoozer”.
Seriously, what the f%$# is wrong with the journalism schools?
God Bless America
Another mass shooting at a school.
Thank God that the NRA is here to protect us from common sense gun laws:
Authorities said the shooting at Saugus High School that left two students dead and three wounded occurred over a 16-second period in which a classmate pulled out a gun in the quad area and opened fire.
The gunfire broke out at 7:30 a.m., when students at the school were scheduled to be in their first-period classes, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
Paramedics rushed onto the campus, treating the wounded, and law enforcement officers searched nearby neighborhoods for a 16-year-old boy they thought had fled after the shooting. Authorities later said the suspect, identified by neighbors and sheriff’s officials as Nathaniel Berhow, was found on campus with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Officials said he was taken to a hospital and is in grave condition. Authorities said a message referencing the shooting, thought to have been posted before the attack, appeared on an Instagram account believed to be linked to the suspect. But Instagram said late Thursday, as first reported by BuzzFeed News, that the account didn’t belong to the teenager. A company representative said via email that the account has since been disabled “for violating our policies.”
Sheriff’s Capt. Kent Wegener said the teen was standing in the quad when he pulled a .45-caliber handgun from his backpack and opened fire on other students before turning the gun on himself. It was the suspect’s 16th birthday, authorities said.
What the f%$# is wrong with this country?
Not Had the Time to Read Up on the First Day of Impeachment Hearings
I listened to them for about 15 minutes while I was grabbing lunch, NPR had them on, and my take, such as it is, is that the Republicans are complete prats, but that is neither surprising nor new.
An interesting side story is that it appears that Trump is considering firing Nick Mulvaney as his chief of staff, but people are trying to stop this because they are concerned that if fired, he would flip on Trump.
At least that’s the context of that I read into that article:
President Trump has been threatening for weeks to fire acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, but senior advisers have counseled him to hold off on such a drastic step amid a high-stakes impeachment probe, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
Trump has expressed particular anger over Mulvaney’s performance in an Oct. 17 news conference in which Mulvaney stunned White House aides by saying military aid to Ukraine was withheld to pressure its government to launch investigations that could politically benefit Trump, two of the people said. Later, Mulvaney issued a statement saying the media had misconstrued his televised comments and that “there was absolutely no quid pro quo.”
Senior advisers have cautioned Trump that removing Mulvaney at such a sensitive time could be perilous, the people said — both because Mulvaney played an integral role in the decision to freeze the aid, and because of the disruption that would be caused by replacing one of Trump’s most senior aides.
………
Mulvaney had direct talks with Trump about the president’s desire to withhold nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine, The Washington Post has reported. At the same time, Trump and other allies were pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation of Democratic rival Joe Biden and of theories about the country’s role in the 2016 election, according to congressional testimony in the impeachment inquiry.
Trump’s advisers have cited as a cautionary tale the example of national security adviser John Bolton, who was dismissed in September. Bolton is now a sought-after witness for Democrats, and despite White House instructions to defy a congressional subpoena has expressed a willingness to testify if cleared by a judge.
Translation:
Don’t Fire Him, He Knows Where the Bodies Are Buried!!!!
It’s going to be interesting to see all the rats come after Donald Trump.
In the Old Days, It Was Phone Jamming
For 2 days in a row, the Labour Party in the UK has been hit with DDoS attacks, and while no data has thought to have been lost, it HAS interfered with access to their site and their electoral tools:
The Labour party has faced a second cyber-attack, a day after experiencing what it called a “sophisticated and large-scale” attempt to disrupt its digital systems.
It is understood the party was the subject of a second distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Tuesday afternoon. Such attacks use “botnets” – networks of compromised computers – to flood a server with requests that overwhelm it.
………
Labour has not said who it suspects is behind the attacks, but said it was confident its security systems ensured there was no data breach.
………
Labour has not said which digital platforms were targeted, but it is understood some of them were election and campaigning tools, which would contain details about voters. The party has sent a message to campaigners to say what happened and to explain why the systems were working slowly on Monday.
This raises the obvious questions of who did this, and why did they do it now?
There is actually a fairly simple answer: A deadline is coming up for “Freepost” (in the US, they would be called “Business Reply Mail” leaflets, and currently the system to submit and gain approval for these mailers is offline.
Someone is monkey wrenching Labour voter organizing efforts.
Does anyone know about Labour candidates having big problems with party’s leaflet-creating website? One local campaign chief says: “it hasn’t been working properly & has now completely failed. Candidates can’t get their leaflets off it & approved. It appears to have been hacked.”— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) November 11, 2019
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) November 11, 2019
I’m told that some Labour candidates fear that unless the party can resolve the problem very soon, then they could miss the deadline for getting their Freepost leaflets written, designed and approved— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) November 11, 2019
Te Stooped! It Burnz Us!!!!
Just when you thought that the whole Russiagate meme could not get any more insane on MSNBC, they a guest on the show insisted that the Soviets may have been grooming Trump since 1977, when he married Ivana.Of course, Ivana is not Russia of Soviet, but, to quote Mason Williams, “Who needs truth if it is dull.”
MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance, long one of the network’s loudest voices when it comes to pushing Russiagate conspiracies, claimed Tuesday morning that President Donald Trump is a Russian asset who was compromised “as early as 1977” via his first marriage to Czech-born Ivana Trump.
………
Having established that he was aware that Russia was looking to interfere in the election at an early stage, Nance then dove headfirst into conspiratorial waters about Trump.
………
“They had ten years of collection and then they brought him to Moscow for what he wanted, which is Trump Tower,” Nance added. “But from that moment on, an enormous dossier of information was collected on him and more importantly, how to exploit him and his simple exploit—as we call it in the intelligence community—and he is avaricious to a fault. He wants money, they now own him. Modern Russia, with a former KGB director as president, they know how to exploit people, they know how to manipulate people, and they know how to buy people.”
………
According to Nance, “supervillain” Putin “took all the files of everyone he had ever flipped” during his Soviet days and “brought that into the business world when it became modern Russia,” claiming it was around 2014 they decided to move Trump from “useful idiot” to an “unwitting asset, where he’s being used and he doesn’t know it.”
Seriously, I Malcolm Nance is a walking avatar of Sinclair Lewis’ observation that, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Seriously this is f%$#ed up and sh%$.
Clearly this means that the Village People were Soviet targets as well: They came to prominence at around the same time, and they had access to military facilities:
I ♥ New York
Also, I ♠️ my cats, but this is not about proper care of one’s pets, this is about how the good people of the Big Apple heckled the sh%$ out of Donald Trump yesterday:
President Trump returned to his hometown on Monday to kick off the 100th annual New York City Veterans Day Parade, his second visit to the city since he announced he was making Florida his primary home.
In an 18-minute speech, Mr. Trump expressed his gratitude to American veterans, but also used his remarks to pay tribute to the city, where he remains deeply unpopular.
“Since the earliest days of our nation, New York has exemplified the American spirit and has been at the heart of our nation’s story of daring and defiance,” Mr. Trump said.
Defiance, in particular, was on display throughout Mr. Trump’s speech, at Madison Square Park in Manhattan, just two miles down Fifth Avenue from Trump Tower, which had been Mr. Trump’s primary residence since 1983, until he filed to switch it to Florida in late September.
Even before the president arrived, protesters had gathered along the streets, a number of them from an anti-Trump group, Rise and Resist. They carried signs calling for Mr. Trump’s impeachment and repeatedly shouted, “Shame!”
In the windows of a nearby glass tower overlooking the dais where Mr. Trump spoke, large signs placed in the windows spelled the word “impeach.” A few floors higher, letters spelling “convict” were placed in another set of windows.
………
But raucous boos and chants jeering Mr. Trump could also be heard throughout the president’s remarks. A chorus of people shouted “lock him up!” and “traitor” and blew whistles as he spoke, causing some veterans to complain that the din was drowning out the president’s speech.
Drowning him out is kind of the point.
Good Point
Over at the Gray Lady, Charles Blow makes a trenchant point about Mike Bloomberg, that he ran the most racist New York City mayor’s office in modern memory:
With his filing of paperwork on Friday to put his name on the ballot for the Democratic primary in Alabama, the billionaire businessman and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg inched closer to declaring a run for the Democratic nomination for president.
According to The New York Times, his advisers say he hasn’t made up his mind yet. But I have.
Let me plant the stake now: No black person — or Hispanic person or ally of people of color — should ever even consider voting for Michael Bloomberg in the primary. His expansion of the notoriously racist stop-and-frisk program in New York, which swept up millions of innocent New Yorkers, primarily young black and Hispanic men, is a complete and nonnegotiable deal killer.
Stop-and-frisk, pushed as a way to get guns and other contraband off the streets, became nothing short of a massive, enduring, city-sanctioned system of racial terror.
This system of terror exploded under Bloomberg, with his full advocacy and support.
………
A federal judge ruled in 2013 that New York’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the constitutional rights of racial minorities, calling it a “policy of indirect racial profiling.”
Yet, a little over a month before that ruling, Bloomberg said on a radio show, “I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little.” As USA Today pointed out at the time: “About 5 million stops have been made during the past decade. Eighty-seven percent of those stopped in the last two years were black or Hispanic.”
Not only has Bloomberg failed to express any regret for what he did, he has continued to defend it.
BAM!
It is worth noting that there is virtually no difference between Bloomberg cheerleading stop-and-frisk and Donald Trump musing during the last election about somehow instituting the program nationwide.
It’s not just that Mikey is a billionaire intent on preserving his privilege. It is that he is a bad man, and either profoundly racist, or a racist for crass and politically opportunistic reasons, which is worse.
I’m Busy Tonight
My wife just got back from Memphis, where she was visiting her mom, who is in hospital for complications of pneumonia. (She’s doing better now, but if you want to say a Mishabayrach, her mom’s Hebrew name is Miriam bat Chana Shifra)
I intend snuggle bunnies.
Least Surprising News of the Day
There is now an investigation of the consultant McKinsey & Company over what appears to be egregious self-dealing in its bankruptcy consulting:
McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm that advises many of the world’s largest and most powerful institutions, is facing a federal criminal investigation of its conduct advising bankrupt companies, according to five people familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors and other Justice Department officials in New York and Washington are trying to determine if McKinsey used its influence over insolvent companies in violation of the rules of Chapter 11 bankruptcy — where billions of dollars can change hands — by quietly steering valuable assets to itself or favoring its own clients over other creditors.
………
In the past two weeks, investigators have conducted interviews about McKinsey’s actions in the bankruptcies of at least two companies, Alpha Natural Resources, a coal producer, and SunEdison, an alternative energy company, said one of the people, who was questioned by F.B.I. agents.
The judges overseeing both those cases have already suggested that questions over McKinsey’s conduct could best be resolved by the Justice Department — either with civil actions or criminal charges.
In addition to the previously unreported criminal investigation, an investigation by the Office of the United States Trustee, a division of the Justice Department that polices the conduct of companies in the bankruptcy system, is underway.
The office, which can seek civil penalties and make criminal referrals to prosecutors, has told judges in at least three other bankruptcy cases that it was examining McKinsey’s practices. The firm said it had responded to questions from the United States Trustee.
American business is rotten to its core, and McKinsey is just a particularly brazen and corrupt avatar of this situation.
I’m sure that they will get off with a fine of a few bucks, so in the end, it’s just a cost of doing business.
H/t Eschaton.
Before You Give, Do Your Homework
Among the other potential impeachable offenses that are not being investigated at the moment, are the Trump foundation’s rampant self dealing and corruption.
The foundation is being liquidated, and paying a $2,000,000.00 fine.
This raises a bigger point though, that there is little in the way of oversight or accountability for so called charitable foundations:
The New York State attorney general’s case against the Trump Foundation — Donald Trump’s nonprofit that a court shut down earlier this year — has concluded. The Trumps have agreed to pay a $2 million fine, the attorney general’s office said in a press release on Thursday.
The deal follows years of incredible, careful reporting by a number of reporters but most of all the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold. As Fahrenthold discovered, the Trump Foundation often operated as a slush fund for the Trump family and Trump’s businesses. It bought Trump an autographed Tim Tebow helmet, a portrait of himself, and money for various lawsuit settlements. Less entertainingly but perhaps more importantly, he also used a foundation fundraiser, which was nationally televised a few days before the Iowa caucuses, to promote his presidential bid in 2016.
Now, per the deal with the New York attorney general’s office:
The $1.78 million in assets currently being held by the Trump Foundation, along with the $2 million in damages to be paid by Mr. Trump, will be disbursed equally to eight charities: Army Emergency Relief, the Children’s Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, United Negro College Fund, United Way of National Capital Area, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The charities — which were required as part of the resolution to be entities that did not have any relationship with Mr. Trump or entities he controlled — were approved by the Office of the Attorney General and the court.
It’s a fitting punishment: forcing a fake foundation that funneled money to bogus causes to actually use its money to benefit real charities. “My office will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the law — not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the president of the United States,” Attorney General Letitia James concluded in her statement.
It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not true: Plenty of foundations are and remain above the law. The investigation into the Trump Foundation was unusual. There are some 86,000 foundations in the United States, with total assets of around $890 billion, and the vast majority of them never face this kind of scrutiny.
………
The Trump case is egregious, but it didn’t merely happen because Trump is seemingly prone to playing fast and loose with tax law. It happened because there are tens of thousands of foundations in the US, and they operate with little or no regulatory oversight — from state attorneys general, from the IRS, from anyone.
This really is an area that needs a sh%$-load more oversight and requirements.
Cue the Death Squads
Following mass protests and demands from the military, Bolivian President Evo Morales has resigned.
We are now seeing the coordinated efforts to put the setting fire to official residences and the home of Morales’ sister.
I expect to see assassination of labor and environmental activists to proceed forthwith, as happened in Honduras following the 2009 coup.
It should be noted that, notwithstanding the OAS statements to the contrary, there were no statistical anomalies in the election returns indicative of fraud.
I’m sure that someone in Langley will be getting a permission over this.
Welcome to the Republic of Gilead
We now know that VP Mike Pence’s Office has been rerouting foreign aid money to favor Christians over other religions:
Last November, a top Trump appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development wrote a candid email to colleagues about pressure from the White House to reroute Middle East aid to religious minorities, particularly Christian groups.
“Sometimes this decision will be made for us by the White House (see… Iraq! And, increasingly, Syria),” said Hallam Ferguson, a senior official in USAID’s Middle East bureau, in an email seen by ProPublica. “We need to stay ahead of this curve everywhere lest our interventions be dictated to us.”
The email underscored what had become a stark reality under the Trump White House. Decisions about U.S. aid are often no longer being governed by career professionals applying a rigorous review of applicants and their capabilities. Over the last two years, political pressure, particularly from the office of Vice President Mike Pence, had seeped into aid deliberations and convinced key decision-makers that unless they fell in line, their jobs could be at stake.
Five months before Ferguson sent the email, his former boss had been ousted following a mandate from Pence’s chief of staff. Pence had grown displeased with USAID’s work in Iraq after Christian groups were turned down for aid.
ProPublica viewed internal emails and conducted interviews with nearly 40 current and former U.S. officials and aid professionals that shed new light on the success of Pence and his allies in influencing the government’s long-standing process for awarding foreign aid. Most people spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration’s efforts to influence USAID funding sparked concern from career officials, who worried the agency risked violating constitutional prohibitions on favoring one religion over another. They also were concerned that being perceived as favoring Christians could worsen Iraq’s sectarian divides.
………
The Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed have previously reported Pence’s interest in increasing foreign aid to Christians and his displeasure with USAID’s activities in Iraq.
Please, impeach Pence first.
A Pox on Architects
It’s Also Ugly as Sin
The New York City Public Library spend $41,500,000.00 on its Hunters Point Library in Queens, which, in addition to being hideous, cannot function as a library, with severely restricted disabled access, insufficient elevator service, and significant portions of the building being too dangerous to be used in it’s intended manner.
This is what happens when you allow architects to design buildings according to their own masturbatory inclinations, as opposed to the actual needs of the people who will have to function in this space:
It has been heralded as an architectural triumph: A new $41.5 million public library in Long Island City that ascends over multiple landings and terraces, providing stunning Manhattan views to patrons as they browse books and explore.
But several of the terraces at the Hunters Point Library are inaccessible to people who cannot climb to them. A staircase and bleacher seating in the children’s section, judged too risky for small children, has been closed off. And the five-story, vertically designed building only has one elevator, creating bottlenecks at times.
………
It has also raised the question of how the pricey public building, nearly two decades in the works, made it through the lengthy planning process without more consideration for accessibility.
………
Some of the accessibility problems, though, are rooted in the design itself.
The placement of the adult fiction section on three terracelike levels between the library’s first and second floors was the first issue patrons noticed. A few complained that they couldn’t access the fiction books, because those levels were only accessible by stairs, Gothamist reported.
………
The disputed shelves are now bare; the library, responding to the criticism, has moved the 2,900 adult fiction books to an accessible area on the second floor, and is now figuring out how to use the vacated space.
Chris McVoy, a senior partner at Steven Holl Architects, the firm that designed the building, said that too much emphasis was being placed on the inaccessibility of the terraces, which he called a “small wrinkle in an incredibly successful project.” Concepts of accessibility, he added, have changed in the years since the building was designed in 2010.
So the response of the architect is that the peasants don’t appreciate their genius, and so don’t deserve to browse books.
………
But the decision to build only a single elevator is also causing grumbles. The congestion is compounded by the placement of the main stroller parking area on a second floor landing, which is insufficient for the dozens of strollers sometimes seeking a spot.
………
The closure of the children’s wing stairs is adding congestion to the elevator. Patrons who want to travel between the children’s levels must now either use the elevator, or take a circuitous route around the library, up and down flights of stairs.
In his 2010 renderings for the children’s wing, Steven Holl, the project’s lead architect, had sketched images of children reading on bleacher-like seats that spanned from the lower level of the wing to the upper one, adjoined by an interior staircase.
But library officials, in a walk-through before the building opened, instead saw a potential liability for small children who could jump and fall on them. They have closed off the stairs and the top five bleachers until fixes can be made, said Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the Queens Library.
Wood panels now block the staircase entrances and protective glass barriers have been added to the tallest bleachers. The bottom three bleachers remain open, however, and a security guard who usually stands there keeps an eye on them.
Seriously, architects need adult supervision.
Headline of the Day
Ukraine Crisis Put on Ice by Trump Staff Busy Working out How to Buy Greenland
Seriously, the stupid, it burns.
Tweet of the Day
Bloomberg is polling off the charts with cable TV hosts who own four or more homes https://t.co/7vAe26bo2j— Andrew Perez (@andrewperezdc) November 8, 2019
Anyone who thinks that Bloomberg’s appeal extends beyond this demographic is engaged in political malpractice.
Adding to the List of They Who Must Not Be Named
I’ve never written about him before, but I need to add Kanye West to my list of they who must not be named, after he announced that he is changing his name to, “Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West”, and that he will run for President in 2024.
Normally, my list has exception for people who run for office, but in the case of Kanye, Imma let you finish, but unless you actually win a caucus or a primary, you are out of here.
Kanye West is now on my list of my list of They Who Must Not Be Named:
Kanye West knows what’s going to put him in the Oval Office in 2024 — he’s reaffirming his plans to run while revealing his platform and a name change … a huge one.
………
Ye also complained about Forbes’ reluctance to label him a billionaire and announced he’ll change his name to “Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West” … just to stick it to the outlet.
As near as I can tell, this is not some sort of performance art for a mockumentary.
It Now Looks Like Jeff Bezos Set a Few Million Bucks on Fire for Nothing
After over of a million dollars of super PAC money, it now appears taht Jeff Bezos and his Evil Minions™ have not managed to flip a single seat in the Seattle city council:
Council Member Kshama Sawant has all but assured her victory over Egan Orion after a Friday night ballot drop put her 1,515 votes and 3.62 percentage points over her Amazon-approved challenger. With an estimated 1,157 votes left to count in District 3, Sawant has essentially guaranteed that she will be reelected to her third term on the council.
Friday night’s ballot drop also delivered some unfortunate news for the council race’s other socialist. Shaun Scott is still sitting 5 percentage points behind Amazon-backed Alex Pedersen in District 4. With Scott trailing by 1,579 votes his chances of a win have sadly ended. Although Scott’s final vote count is far better than what many observers expected and far better than the nearly 16 percentage points he was trailing on Tuesday’s election night.
………
Andrew Lewis expanded his lead over Jim Pugel in District 7. Lewis is now over 2,000 votes ahead of Pugel, a dramatic swing from the 200-vote deficit Lewis started with on Tuesday night.
Friday night’s vote tally essentially guarantees terrible results for Amazon and the Chamber of Commerce’s record-breaking election spending spree. If the results Friday night hold—and there’s little reason to think the outcomes will change—the chamber supported only two winning candidates: Pedersen and Debora Juarez in District 7. Both of those candidates were already favorites before the chamber started spending millions in this election.
………
Only 5 percent of King County’s votes still need to be counted after Friday’s two ballot drops, according to a spokesperson for King County Elections.
Just in case you are wondering, the reason for the delays in counting is Washington State’s vote by mail system, where late arriving votes tend to be more progressive:
Raise your hand if you are confused by the way the vote totals have been counted in the days post-election. Okay, great. And is this your first time paying attention to a local election? Noted. Now, do you know how mail-in elections work?
Mail-in elections have been the standard in Washington state since 2009. This means the gradual process for counting ballots has been around for 10 years, so people should really know what’s going on. “It’s always been this way,” Kendall Hodson, chief of staff for King County Elections, told The Stranger, “People do tend to forget every year.”
………
To put things in perspective, mail-in elections are tough because 60,000 ballots came in the mail the day after election day. They were all good and kosher, post-marked on election day as they should be. Snail mail is just, snail mail. Add to that the 215,000 they collected from drop boxes that were delivered on election night that weren’t counted until the days after and it starts to seem less of a conspiracy theory and more of an “oh, that’s just the process.”
I know that there is going to be some sort of pablum about needing to work together coming from the Seattle Times and its ilk, but this should be ignored.
Amazon, Chamber of Commerce, the real estate industry, etc. went nuclear, and made a shambles of Seattle’s public election financing system, and they will keep coming back again, and again, and again until they realize that they have made implacable enemies on the council.
To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.”
With progressives having a 5:2 majority on the City Council, they need focus on reducing the political power of the “rich pigs” in Seattle.
Burying the Lede
So, the Washington Post has an article titled Four big facts that blow up the GOP’s latest defense of Trump, and the 4th fact should be the bloody headline, on page 1 in 72 point bold:
………
Pence directly delivered the message about suspended aid to Ukraine.
On Sept. 1, the same day Sondland informed a top Zelensky aide that the military aid was conditional, Vice President Pence met with Zelensky.
Zelensky raised the withheld aid with Pence. And as The Post reports, Pence informed Zelensky that the administration was “still looking at” the aid, i.e., it was on hold. Pence also told Zelensky he needed to do more to fight “corruption.”
So, Mike Pence is a co-conspirator.
One hopes that the House looks into this in a through manner.
I wouldn’t mind a few months of President Pelosi.