Year: 2019

William Barr Needs to Go to Jail, and His Law License Needs to be Revoked

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Even if he were just White House Counsel, William Barr’s active participation in covering up scandals would be criminal.

As Attorney General, his behavior is a disgrace that makes John Mitchell look like Clarence Darrow:

Attorney General Bill Barr is keeping busy. He previously announced in May that he had appointed John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to review the origins of the Russia investigation during the 2016 campaign. This week, multiple news outlets reported that Barr is putting the full weight of American diplomacy behind the probe. The attorney reportedly asked President Donald Trump to ask the Australian and British governments to aid his inquiry. He also personally traveled to Italy to meet with that country’s intelligence officials and gather evidence himself.

……….

It’s hard to think about Barr’s role in all of this without thinking about his predecessor. Jeff Sessions had been one of President Donald Trump’s earliest political allies and an unstinting champion of his policies in office. When his departure became public last November, I wrote that the former Alabama senator had “spent the last two years reshaping federal law enforcement into a blunter and more punitive instrument, squeezing legal and undocumented immigrants alike, and tilting the scales of justice away from disadvantaged communities.”

Sessions deserved the lion’s share of criticism he received, especially for his role in separating migrant children from their families at the border. The only exception was the criticism that came from Trump. Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation in early 2017 out of ethical and legal obligations, and the president never forgave him for doing so. The Mueller report is essentially a catalogue of Trump’s campaign to pressure Sessions into shutting down the inquiry. When Sessions refused to un-recuse himself or sabotage Mueller, Trump unceremoniously ousted him last November.

Barr, by comparison, seems to have no such scruples about carrying out Trump’s whims. He hasn’t really deviated from Sessions’s overall policy agenda since taking over DOJ. In some aspects of immigration and criminal-justice matters, he’s even gone further than Sessions ever did. But his greatest achievement so far is doing what his predecessor spent almost two years resisting: transforming the Justice Department from a semi-independent actor into an instrument of Trump’s political interests.

………

The irony is that Barr, more than any of his predecessors since the Watergate era, seems to think that his job is to help discredit his boss’ political opponents. He prefaced the Mueller report’s public release with an unabashed defense of Trump’s misdeeds, saying the president was “frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.” (Being mad is not a statutory exemption to obstruction of justice.) While testifying before Congress in April, he also asserted that U.S. intelligence agencies had spied on the Trump campaign, validating one of the president’s favorite complaints. FBI Director Christopher Wray and other U.S. intelligence officials have strenuously denied that any spying took place.

………

It’s worth noting that Jeff Sessions was no Elliot Richardson. It took a combination of public pressure and damaging revelations to force his eventual recusal from the Russia investigation in the spring of 2017. The trauma experienced by migrant families at the border during his tenure should also haunt Sessions for the rest of his life. If it does, he can at least take a small modicum of comfort in knowing that he was only the second-worst attorney general to ever serve under President Donald Trump.

I look forward to seeing Barr frog marched out of the Department of Justice in handcuffs.

Another CIA Officer is Lawyering Up

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Someone else in the US state security apparatus has contacted the IG in preparation of making a whistle-blower complaint:

A second intelligence official who was alarmed by President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.

The inspector general, Michael Atkinson, briefed lawmakers privately on Friday about how he substantiated the whistle-blower’s account. It was not clear whether he told lawmakers that the second official was considering filing a complaint.

A new complaint, particularly from someone closer to the events, would potentially add further credibility to the account of the first whistle-blower, a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to the National Security Council at one point. He said that he relied on information from more than a half-dozen American officials to compile his allegations about Mr. Trump’s campaign to solicit foreign election interference that could benefit him politically.

I still think that Congress should have a broad impeachment investigation, because the complete lawlessness of this administration needs to be made public, but this does make things for Trump and his Evil Minions™.

As an aside, excluding Trump’s rather incendiary tweets,  the reception that these whistle-blowers have received from the establishment and the intelligence agencies have been far more supportive than (for example) Binney, Drake, and Kiriakou.

The only logical explanation for this is that this (relatively) benign behavior is a result of their being more supportive of the whistle-blowing regarding the Ukraine than they are of whistle-blowing regarding torture, spying on American citizens, and going to war under false pretense.

Whistle-blowers are generally treated like sh%$, and this needs to change.

Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen

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The Oregon Titan Fusion Center, a federally funded anti-terrorism center, was used to track peaceful environmental protesters.

This is not a surprise.  Repurposing resources in this way is pretty much baked into the whole “Fusion Center” concept, and we already know that law enforcement in Oregon is pro white supremacist and anti-environmentalist:

A federally sponsored anti-terrorism fusion center in Oregon assisted a taskforce monitoring protest groups organizing against a fossil fuel infrastructure project in the state, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

The Oregon Titan Fusion Center – part of a network set up to monitor terrorist activities – disseminated information gathered by that taskforce, and shared information provided by private security attached to the gas project with some of the task force members.

Observers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, argue these efforts break Oregon law.

………

The national network of fusion centers were created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as focal points for cooperation and information sharing between federal, state and local agencies in detecting and responding to terrorist and criminal activities. In 2018 the House homeland security committee counted 79 fusion centers around the country.

In its own materials, the Titan Fusion Center is described as “a collaborative effort of state and federal law enforcement agencies”, focused on “terrorism, organized crime and gang-related criminal activity”.

The center also says that it “may retain protected information that is based on a level of suspicion that is less than ‘reasonable suspicion’, such as tips and leads or suspicious activity report (SAR) information”.

National fusion center materials say that they “receive information from a variety of sources, including suspicious activity reporting (SAR) information from stakeholders within their jurisdictions, as well as federal information and intelligence”.

The center also says that it “will not seek or retain information about an individual or organization solely on the basis of their religious, political, racial, or social views or activities; their participation in a particular non-criminal organization or lawful event”.

The center states that its activities are governed by Oregon statutes that prevent the gathering of “information about the political, religious or social views, associations or activities of any individual, group, association, organization, corporation, business or partnership unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities”.

But it is precisely such statutes that observers like the ACLU of Oregon say that SWOJTF, and the fusion center, are breaking.

Kelly Simon, an ACLU of Oregon staff attorney, said: “These communications are just more evidence of the Coos county sheriff’s and Titan Fusion Center’s utter disregard for the bedrock principle of freedom of expression and of Oregon’s anti-profiling laws”.

It should be noted that the , “Titan Fusion Center’s utter disregard for the bedrock principle of freedom of expression and of Oregon’s anti-profiling laws,” is a feature, and not a bug of the program.

Whenever efforts like this are initiated, law enforcement uses them to avoid the legal and constitutional restrictions on how they do their jobs.

This is a fact that is frequently ignored when such programs are drawn up.

Well, Congress Has a Real Justification for Trump’s Tax Returns Now

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An Internal Revenue Service ­official has filed a whistleblower complaint reporting that he was told that at least one Treasury Department political appointee attempted to improperly interfere with the annual audit of the president’s or vice president’s tax returns, according to multiple people familiar with the document.

Trump administration officials dismissed the whistleblower’s complaint as flimsy because it is based on conversations with other government officials. But congressional Democrats were alarmed by the complaint, now circulating on Capitol Hill, and flagged it in a federal court filing. They are also discussing whether to make it public.

The details of the IRS complaint follow news of a separate, explosive whistleblower complaint filed in August by a member of the intelligence community. That complaint revealed Trump’s request of Ukranian leaders to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a political rival. It has spurred an impeachment probe on Capitol Hill.

The IRS complaint has come amid the escalating legal battle between the Treasury Department and House Democrats over the release of President Trump’s tax returns. Part of that inquiry from Democrats is over how the IRS conducts its annual audit of the president’s and vice president’s tax returns. That process is supposed to be walled off from political appointees and interference.

Of course political appointees are trying to interfere with Trump’s audits.

The Mad Emperor must be appeased, after all.

Congress needs to review all of Trump’s audits, which means that they need his tax returns.

Rats, Sinking Ship, You Know

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Senator Ron Johnson, (R-WI) just threw Donald Trump under the bus:

A Republican senator said he was told by an American diplomat in August that the release of U.S. aid to Ukraine was contingent on an investigation desired by President Trump and his allies, but Mr. Trump denied pursuing any such proposal when the lawmaker pressed him on it.

Sen. Ron Johnson said that Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, had described to him a quid pro quo involving a commitment by Kyiv to probe matters related to U.S. elections and the status of nearly $400 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine that the president had ordered to be held up in July.

Alarmed by that information, Mr. Johnson, who supports aid to Ukraine and is the chairman of a Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the region, said he raised the issue with Mr. Trump the next day, Aug. 31, in a phone call, days before the senator was to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. In the call, Mr. Trump flatly rejected the notion that he directed aides to make military aid to Ukraine contingent on a new probe by Kyiv, Mr. Johnson said.

“He said, ‘Expletive deleted—No way. I would never do that. Who told you that?” the Wisconsin senator recalled in an interview Friday. Mr. Johnson said he told the president he had learned of the arrangement from Mr. Sondland.

That Trump was trying to extort the Ukraine by delaying aid was obvious to anyone who was following the issues in aid going to Kiev. (I was not one of these people, but Johnson was).

He is releasing this statement now only because he’s afraid of being collateral damage in the every widening disaster.

I still don’t think that any Republicans will vote to convict in the Senate, but the cockroaches are fleeing the light.

Aggressive Enforcement of Metrics Lead to Cheating

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Ayn Rand style completion works about as well in the healthcare industry as it did at Sears:

On a Thursday morning this past April, 61-year-old Darryl Young was lying unconscious in the eighth-floor intensive care unit of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. After suffering from congestive heart failure for years, Young, a Navy veteran and former truck driver with three children, had received a heart transplant on Sept. 21, 2018. He didn’t wake up after the operation and had been in a vegetative state ever since.

Machines whirred in his room, pumping air into his lungs. Nutrients and fluids dripped from a tube into his stomach. Young had always been fastidious, but now his hair and toenails had grown long. A nurse suctioned mucus from his throat several times a day to keep him from choking, according to employees familiar with his care. His medical record would note: “He follows no commands. He looks very encephalopathic” — brain damaged.

That day, in another wing of the hospital, where a group of surgeons, cardiologists, transplant coordinators, nurses and social workers gathered for their weekly meeting in a second-floor conference room, his name came up.

“Anything on Darryl Young?” asked cardiologist Dr. Darko Vucicevic, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by ProPublica.

………

The recordings show that the transplant team was fixated on keeping him alive, rather than his quality of life or his family’s wishes, because of worries about the transplant program’s survival rate, the proportion of people undergoing transplants who are still alive a year after their operations. Federal regulators rely on this statistic to evaluate — and sometimes penalize — transplant programs, giving hospitals across the country a reputational and financial incentive to game it. Newark Beth Israel’s one-year survival rate for heart transplants had dipped, and if Young were to die too soon, the program’s standing and even its own survival might be in jeopardy.

June 30, Zucker explained at the meeting, was the date of the next report by a federally funded organization that tracks transplant survival rates. “If he’s not dead in this report, even if he’s dead in the next report, it becomes an issue that moves out six more months,” he said in the recording.

………

In the ensuing months, the doctors continued to leave Young’s family in the dark, according to his sister Andrea and employees familiar with Young’s care. They didn’t want to run any risk that the people who loved him would interfere with their agenda: boosting the program’s numbers. “I’m not sure that this is ethical, moral or right,” Zucker told the team at the April meeting, but it’s “for the global good of the future transplant recipients.”

………

Arthur Caplan, head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine, reviewed transcripts of the recordings, including discussions about Young. “The management of this patient is egregiously unethical,” he said. “Prolonging ‘dying’ to preserve a flawed transplant program makes a mockery of transplant medicine and is an assault on both ethics and compassion.”

This is unalloyed evil, and everyone who knew of it, and refused to report it, should be banned from the practice of medicine forever.

Still Cheaper than the F-35 Mistake Jet

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The Snake-And-Alligator Border Moat: A Budget Analysis

—Defense One

Someone ran the numbers of Trump’s suggested border moat with various reptiles, and came up with, “$2.5 billion in set-up costs, plus annual operating costs of $1.8 billion.”

By comparison, the F-35 is expected to cost US$1.508 trillion through 2070, 64 years, or about $23½ billion a year.

Personally, I want Sharks with frikken lasers, or at least some ill-tempered mutated sea bass.

Almost Literally Shooting Someone on 5th Avenue

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Trump has doubled down on pressuring foreign government to investigate his political opponents, publicly urging China to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe’s kid.

Let me be clear, the complaint that Hunter Biden trades on his family name has validity, but this does not justify the President* using the power of his office to coerce foreign nations to do opposition research:

President Trump, already facing impeachment for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, publicly called on China on Thursday to examine former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as well, an extraordinary request for help from a foreign power that could benefit him in next year’s election.

“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left the White House to travel to Florida. His request came just moments after he discussed upcoming trade talks with China and said that “if they don’t do what we want, we have tremendous power.”

The president’s call for Chinese intervention means that Mr. Trump and his attorney general have now solicited assistance in discrediting the president’s political opponents from Ukraine, Australia, Italy and, according to one report, Britain. In speaking so publicly on Thursday, a defiant Mr. Trump pushed back against critics who have called such requests an abuse of power, essentially arguing that there was nothing wrong with seeking foreign help to fight corruption.

Clearly the sort of actions for which impeachment was originally conceived by the founders, but that still makes the chance of a conviction smaller than winning the lottery.

NIMBY, Silicon Valley Edition

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Silicon Valley techies really don’t want self-driving cars on their streets.

This is very different from the XKCD cartoon, where software experts disavow computerized voting for everyone, because it is most of the article is about the people wanting the testing to go on somewhere else:

Karen Brenchley [full disclosure, we dated in the mid 1980s] is a computer scientist with expertise in training artificial intelligence, but this longtime Silicon Valley resident has pangs of anxiety whenever she sees Waymo self-driving cars maneuver the streets near her home.

 The former product manager, who has worked for Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, wonders how engineers could teach the robocars operating on her tree-lined streets to make snap decisions, speed and slow with the flow of traffic and yield to pedestrians coming from the nearby park. She has asked her husband, an award-winning science-fiction author who doesn’t drive, to wear a shiny vest while cycling to ensure autonomous vehicles spot him in a rush of activity.

 The problem isn’t that she doesn’t understand the technology. It’s that she does, and she knows how flawed nascent technology can be.

 “I’m not skeptical long-term,” said Brenchley, who has lived in Silicon Valley for 30 years. “I don’t want to be the guinea pig. I don’t want my husband to be the guinea pig.”

Well, then who should be the guinea pig then?

If it’s not ready to share the roads with your bike-riding spouses or children they are not ready to share the roads with ANYONE‘S bike-riding spouses or children.

I expect to see commercial fusion power before we see truly autonomous cars outside of very limited roadways.

BTW, Elon Musk’s vision for a video only self driving scheme is even more hair-brained, as this Twitter thread demonstrates.   (after break)

Musk doesn’t care though, because he is one major facial scar away from being a Bond villain:

Your Worst Nightmare: Talibaptist Cops

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Two Tennessee Police officers used the threat of arrest to force a woman to be baptized.

When you read this account, you just know that this was not the first time that happened.

My guess is that they get their jollies by seeing a shivering wet woman in their underwear:

A woman in Tennessee said a sheriff’s deputy stripped down to his boxers and forcibly baptized her at a boat ramp late one night in February.

Now she’s suing for more than $10 million, according to court documents.

Shandle Marie Riley accused two sheriff’s deputies and the Hamilton County government of civil rights violations and assault in a lawsuit filed Tuesday, saying she was “horribly violated” when one of the men got partially naked and dunked her in freezing cold water — all reportedly to keep her out of jail after a traffic stop.

“(The deputy) had no lawful basis to coerce (Riley) into obtaining towels, following (him) to a remote location, and participating in a baptism in exchange for not going to jail,” the complaint states. “No reasonable law enforcement officer would have acted in this manner.”

Representatives from the county and the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to McClatchy news group’s request for comment Wednesday.

………

During the traffic stop, the deputy accused Riley of having meth and ordered her to get out of the car, according to the suit.

“Without any lawful justification, Wilkey then conducted a search of the plaintiff’s person by feeling, through plaintiff’s clothing, her breasts, abdomen, buttocks, inner thighs and her crotch,” the complaint states.

He also reportedly asked her to “reach under her shirt and pull out her bra and shake the bra and the shirt.”

When Riley asked if a female officer should be present, Wilkey told her the law didn’t require it, according to the suit.

………

“Wilkey then told plaintiff that God was talking to him during the vehicle search, and Wilkey felt the lord wanted him to baptize the plaintiff,” the complaint states. “Wilkey further told plaintiff that he felt ‘the spirit.’”

In exchange for the baptism, the deputy told Riley he would not take her to jail but issue a criminal citation for the marijuana, according to the suit.

Per his instructions, Riley said she brought two towels from her friend’s home and followed the deputy to a boat ramp at Soddy Lake, more than 20 miles outside Chattanooga.

“Wilkey did not say where he was taking her,” the complaint states. “At no time did plaintiff feel free to simply ignore Wilkey and not do as he commanded.”

Another deputy, Jacob Goforth, reportedly met them at the boat ramp to serve as a witness and “attest to the ritual.”

Wilkey then stripped down to his boxer shorts and gave Riley the same option, which she declined, according to the suit.

The deputy led Riley waist-deep into “frigid water” and submerged her with one hand on her back and the other on her breasts “for several moments,” she said in court documents.

“(Riley) was shivering uncontrollably, and felt horribly violated,” the complaint states.

After toweling off, Riley said Goforth “smirked” at her but never attempted to intervene or report his colleague.

The New York Times also notes that officer Wilkey also faces an unrelated excessive force lawsuit.

Why are these guys still on the force.

Also, why are they not cooling their heels in jail.

It Keeps Getting Worse for Boeing

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A senior Boeing engineer filed an internal ethics complaint this year saying that during the development of the 737 Max jet the company had rejected a safety system to minimize costs, equipment that he felt could have reduced risks that contributed to two fatal crashes.

Boeing has provided the complaint, which was reviewed by The New York Times, to the Department of Justice as part of a criminal investigation into the design of the Max, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry, who requested anonymity given the active legal matter. Federal investigators have questioned at least one former Boeing employee about the allegations, said another person with knowledge of the discussions, who similarly requested anonymity.

It is unclear what, if any, assessment investigators have made of the complaint.

The complaint, filed after the two crashes, builds on concerns about Boeing’s corporate culture, as the company tries to repair its reputation and get the planes flying again.

Many current and former Boeing employees have privately discussed problems with the design and decision-making process on the 737 Max, outlining episodes when managers dismissed engineers’ recommendations or put a priority on profits. The engineer who filed the ethics concerns this year, Curtis Ewbank, went a step further, lodging a formal complaint and calling out the chief executive for publicly misrepresenting the safety of the plane.

During the development of the 737 Max, Mr. Ewbank worked on the cockpit systems that pilots use to monitor and control the airplane. In his complaint to Boeing, he said managers had been urged to study a backup system for calculating the plane’s airspeed. The system, known as synthetic airspeed, draws on several data sources to measure how fast a plane is moving.

………

Mr. Ewbank noted in the complaint, “It is not possible to say for certain that any actual implementation of synthetic airspeed on the 737 Max would have prevented the accidents” in Ethiopia and Indonesia. But he said Boeing’s actions on the issue pointed to a culture that emphasized profit, in some cases, at the expense of safety.

Throughout the development of the Max, Boeing tried to avoid adding components that could force airlines to train pilots in flight simulators, costing tens of millions of dollars over the life of an aircraft. Significant changes to the Max could also have required the more onerous approval process for a new plane, rather than the streamlined certification for a derivative model.

………

According to Mr. Ewbank’s complaint, Ray Craig, a chief test pilot of the 737, and other engineers wanted to study the possibility of adding the synthetic airspeed system to the Max. But a Boeing executive decided not to look into the matter because of its potential cost and effect on training requirements for pilots.

Assuming that his allegations are accurate, and all reports indicate that they are, we need to send some senior management to jail over this.

This is what happens to a company when finance comes to dominate the culture.

Good

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Private prison firm GEO has been disavowed by all of its banks, because their business has finally become too toxic even for the likes of JP Morgan Chase:

All of the existing banking partners to private prison leader GEO Group have now officially committed to ending ties with the private prison and immigrant detention industry. These banks are JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust, BNP Paribas, Fifth Third Bancorp, Barclays, and PNC.

This exodus comes in the wake of demands by grassroots activists — many under the banner of the #FamiliesBelongTogether coalition — shareholders, policymakers, and investors. Major banks supporting the private prisons behind mass incarceration and immigrant detention have now committed to not renew $2.4B in credit lines and term loans to industry giants GEO Group and CoreCivic.

This shift represents an estimated shortfall of 87.4% of all future funding to the industry, which depends on these bank credit lines and loans to finance their day to day operations. Together, these banks commitments — alongside a federal judge’s block on the Trump administration’s plans to expand family detention this weekend, new policy initiatives such as California ending all contracts with private prisons, and Democratic primary candidates publicly raising the idea of a federal ban on for-profit incarceration — lead many to speculate a threat to the survival of the private prison industry all together.

One can only hope.  This is an industry that profits on misery and cruelty, and the sooner that these people need to work

As a note if you patronize the following banks, you might want to move your accounts:

Five banks have not yet made the commitment to stop extending their credit lines and term loans to CoreCivic: Regions (headquartered in Birmingham, AL), Citizens (Providence, Rhode Island), Pinnacle Bank (Nashville, TN), First Tennessee Bank (Memphis, TN), and Synovus Bank (Columbus, GA). In response to an inquiry, Pinnacle President and CEO Terry Turner said “while we don’t discuss details of client relationships, we base commercial credit decisions on several factors. In general we lend to businesses based in our markets that have strong leadership teams, sound credit histories and good operating leverage so they can create jobs and enhance the economic health of our markets.” Additionally, a spokesperson from Regions wrote “we recognize that people have differing views about the private sector’s involvement in prisons. This is a complex issue that government officials and policymakers are in the best position to address directly.”

I would note that private prisons are a new phenomenon, and they are hip deep in the creation of our carceral state:

As a brief historical recap: the American private prison industry is a relatively new phenomenon, with the first private prison opening in 1984. Given their business model depends on keeping a consistent and increasing number of people incarcerated, it’s been speculated and critiqued that this is why GEO Group and CoreCivic have spent $25M on lobbying over the past three decades to push for harsher criminal justice and immigration laws. A cycle emerges when one follows the money: everyday people put their money in banks, banks lend that money out to the private prison industry, the private prison industry uses that financing for their day to day work including lobbying, which successfully funnels more detainees into their facilities, and banks reap a payoff from their loans.

These companies need to be ended before their thirst for profits leads them to give IG Farben a run for their money.

It’s Strange to See Someone Who Has Already Completely Lost Their SH%$ Completely Losing Their SH%$

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Yes, I am talking about Trump’s press conference with the Finnish President, and he completely lost his sh%$:

The rowdy, meandering and combative news conference Wednesday began with President Trump marveling at the media.

“Look at all the press that you attract,” he told Finnish President Sauli Niinisto as the two men faced a room of reporters. “Do you believe this? Very impressive.”

It ended with Trump excoriating the press as “corrupt people” who undermine U.S. democracy.

“If the press were straight and honest and forthright and tough we would be a far greater nation,” he said.

For the 40 minutes in between, the East Room of the White House played host to a roller coaster display of the grievances, victimhood, falsehoods and braggadocio that have come to define Trump’s presidency — a combustible mix that has only become more potent as the president faces the growing threat of impeachment.

………

Trump, playing the role of statesman during his scripted opening remarks, offered condolences to Finland for a recent stabbing attack. He pledged to increase trade with the U.S. ally and encouraged Finnish companies to invest in the United States.

………

But as the event turned to the unscripted question-and-answer session, Trump’s other personas emerged. He presented himself as a victim, a survivor, a “stable genius,” a ruthless counterpuncher and the most productive president in history.

Niinisto looked on, his face betraying his surprise and bewilderment at the dramatic arc of the Trump show. As Trump held court, the Finnish leader hardly got a word in. At one point, when Trump boasted of his wins before the World Trade Organization, Niinisto interjected: “I think the question is for me.”

Trump grew most animated as he listed his grievances and described all the forces he believed are arrayed against him and his presidency.

He repeated words like “hoax” “scam” and “fraud” as casually as another president might say NATO or “shared values.”

I’m pretty sure that President Niinisto will not look on this day fondly, because he was an involuntary participant in a complete sh%$ show.

Crap, Crap, Crap, Crap, Crap

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Bernie Sanders was just admitted to hospital after experiencing chest pains, and he got a stent:

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders was treated for an artery blockage this week, sidelining him for at least a few days from a race in which the candidates’ age and physical health have been significant factors.

The senator from Vermont was hospitalized after experiencing chest pains at a Tuesday campaign event, according to Jeff Weaver, a senior Sanders adviser. Doctors found a blockage in one artery and inserted two stents, Weaver said in a Wednesday statement. Sanders was “in good spirits” but canceled campaign events “until further notice” so he can rest in the coming days, Weaver said.

Sanders thanked well-wishers Wednesday and used the moment to draw attention to his signature universal-health-care proposal. “None of us know when a medical emergency might affect us. And no one should fear going bankrupt if it occurs. Medicare-for-all!” he tweeted.

My dad, a life long runner, lived about 15 years after getting his stent (lousy genetics), so I’m inclined to believe that Sanders should be fine in a few days, but this is not good for his campaign.

I Heard an Ad from Doctor Patient Unity on the Radio, and Did Some Digging

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Congress is getting close to advancing one of the few significant bipartisan reforms to the health care system still on the docket: legislation to curb the practice of “surprise medical billing.”

Naturally, that progress has sparked a last-ditch, dark money blitz bent on sinking these relatively modest bills, which aim to make it harder for unsuspecting patients to get hit with exorbitant bills if they see the wrong doctor in an emergency situation.

A group called “Doctor Patient Unity,” formed in June, has bankrolled a sweeping campaign of radio and television ads to pressure senators up for re-election in 2020 to oppose proposals to reform surprise medical billing.

Now, the dark money group is going after key lawmakers with direct appeals to their constituents. A mailer paid for by Doctor Patient Unity, obtained by The Daily Beast, urges Rep. Tim Walberg’s (R-MI) constituents to call his office and tell him to “say no to rate-setting” and “to put patients first.”

………

“They’re throwing the full kitchen sink at our efforts here and seeing what will stick,” said a congressional aide, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. “It’s unclear whether or not members are seeing a huge influx of constituent calls, but it’s obvious what they’re trying to do here, which is to back members off this proposal.”

………

Those hospitals and doctors have led the charge in publicly opposing the changes Congress is mulling. But as for who exactly is pouring money into the mailers and TV ads, Doctor Patient Unity appears to have taken pains to conceal the identities of the individuals or organizations running and financing the effort. Public records provide some clues, however. Incorporation documents on file in Virginia list an address in the town of Warrenton that is shared by the prominent Republican law firm Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky.

The group’s treasurer, according to filings with the FCC, is a woman named Janna Rutland. She serves as treasurer for a handful of other political and policy organizations, and appears to be an employee of the GOP consulting firm Crosby Ottenhoff, which counts a number of high-profile Republican candidates and party organs among its clients.

Emergency, anesthesiology, and neonatal intensive care practices are prime targets for private equity buys because the are typically involve people who are too desperate to do the deep digging required to avoid outrageous charging, which gives them almost unlimited pricing power.

Once again, there is nothing that Wall Street finance cannot get worse.

The Cancer on the Presidency* Metastasizes

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We already know that Trump tried to coerce the President of the Ukraine into digging dirt up on the Bidens, because of the now-public whistle-blower complaint filed by an intelligence operative.

It’s what led to the Democrats in the House officially opening an impeachment investigation.

What we have now learned that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in on the call, which makes the Secretary of State complicit, and that  Attorney General William Barr was personally involved in an investigation to discredit the Mueller report to the point of his personally going to Rome to listen to tapes of a crucial witness, which is certainly inappropriate, and almost certainly conflicted and corrupt.

So pretty much everyone in his most senior cabinet members are implicated in the coverup, but wait, there is more!

It now appears that Trump also strong-armed Australia in his efforts to discredit the Mueller report.

The impeachment investigation should be broadened, because the level of crime here makes the Nixon and Reagan investigations look like an exercise in good governance.

*It’s a quote from Nixon White House counsel John Dean. Seriously, know your history.

This is Important

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Absent an injunction, we can be sure that Donald Trump and his Evil Minions™ will be shredding furiously.

Of particular concern is the DoJ’s arguments against this, in which they appear to say that they have the shredders and burn bags on deck:

A government watchdog group asked a federal judge on Tuesday to issue an emergency order requiring the White House to preserve records of all of President Donald Trump’s calls with foreign leaders.

At a court hearing later in the day, a Justice Department lawyer told the judge that she couldn’t immediately commit to assuring that the administration would preserve records of all of Trump’s conversations, as well as other records about how the administration had handled those documents. The judge gave the government until Wednesday afternoon to make a decision.

The case, which accuses the Trump administration of failing to meet its legal obligations to create — and properly save — records of Trump’s and other officials’ conversations with foreign leaders, was originally filed in May. But the plaintiffs are now arguing that the judge needs to take immediate action in light of recent events.

The lawsuit predates the recent flood of information about Trump’s communications with foreign officials, including a July call with the Ukrainian president — when Trump asked for help investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — which the White House sought to keep secret, a whistleblower complaint alleges. Recent reporting has also uncovered the Trump administration’s overtures to other countries to aid in an inquiry into the origins of the Mueller probe, including records of other calls with foreign leaders the White House has sought to restrict access to.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Justice Department lawyer Kathryn Wyer repeatedly pushed back when US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked why the administration couldn’t voluntarily give its assurance that it would maintain the “status quo” and not destroy any documents relevant to the case while the judge decided key legal issues, including whether the court has authority to hear the case at all.

Jackson, who sits in Washington, DC, has strongly and repeatedly suggested that the government should consider giving a voluntary assurance, as opposed to having her formally rule on the request filed by the challengers for an emergency order and issue a decision that she said one side “might not appreciate.”

Wyer told Jackson that the department had notified the plaintiffs that it advised administration officials of their obligation to preserve records, and she insisted there was no evidence of any risk that officials would destroy documents in the meantime. Jackson expressed puzzlement at Wyer’s resistance to go a step further and explicitly confirm that documents would remain intact. The government maintains that the assurances the plaintiffs asked for would involve giving up privileged legal advice.

“I’m not sure I understand that position at all,” Jackson said.

It’s pretty easy to understand.

Corrupt and shameless covers it all.