Year: 2019

This May be the Most Epic Self-Own of All Time

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Devin Nunes is suing Twitter and the Twitter parody accounts Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ Cow, claiming that they are mean to him, and that Twitter is “Shadow Banning” conservatives.

Needless to say, the mocking has been trending:

A US congressman is getting a crash course in the Streisand Effect after filing a lawsuit this week against Twitter and a handful of his harshest critics on the antisocial network.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) seeks a $250m payout from the micro-blogging site, and three tweeters who lampooned him in recent years. He also seeks $350,000 in punitive damages for what his lawyers call “censorship” and “shadow banning” of political conservatives on the site.

Nunes’ complaints almost immediately started trending on Twitter and elsewhere on the web.

While Nunes hopes his legal action will expose what he believes is a secretive campaign within Twitter to silence the voices of Twitter addicts on the political right, the 40-page complaint is also a greatest hits album of people making fun of the SoCal congresscritter.

Devin Nunes just nominated himself for the self-own Hall of Fame.

— Tom Tomorrow (@tomtomorrow) March 18, 2019

The lawsuit paperwork – which seeks defamation payouts from San-Francisco-based Twitter, plus former Republican campaign strategist and tweeter Liz Mair and two Twitter accounts dubbed “Devin Nunes’ Mom” (since suspended) and “Devin Nunes’ Cow” (still active as @DevinCow) – at various times spotlights tweets that are, to say the least, not particularly flattering for the congressman.

Of “Devin Nunes’ Mom”, the suit alleges it “falsely stated that Nunes would probably join the Proud Boys, if it weren’t for that unfortunate ‘no masturbating’ rule” and “falsely accused Nunes of being part of the President’s taint team,” as well as “Devin might be a unscrupulous, craven, back-stabbing, charlatan and traitor, but he’s no Ted Cruz,” and “falsely stated that @Devin Nunes is DEFINITELY a feckless c%$#.”

This is the most amazing case of self-ownership since Barbara Streisand sued to remove pictures of her home from the internet. (See the Wiki for “Streisand effect“)

Linkage

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Kermit rapping, I Like Pig Butts:

Monty Python Abides, Brexit Edition

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I see the similarities

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said that Theresa May is like the legless knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

It’s an inspired analogy:

“Tis but a scratch.” “A scratch?! Your arm’s off!” “No it isn’t.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte likened Theresa May to a Monty Python character who refuses to admit defeat despite losing all his limbs in a sword fight.

“I have a lot of respect for Theresa May. She reminds me occasionally of that Monty Python character where all his arms and legs are cut off and then says to his opponent: let’s call it a draw,” Rutte said in an interview on the “WNL op Zondag” TV show, Bloomberg reported.

He was referring to the Black Knight (played by John Cleese, a Brexiteer) in the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” who, even after having all of his limbs cut off by King Arthur, declares “I’m invincible.”

I have no clue as to why May has not been turfed out by her Tory colleagues, but the Dutch PM has her nailed.

What a Surprise: Ballot Fraud by Conservatives

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In this case, it was anti-gay bigots in the Methodist Church who were stuffing ballot boxes, because they need someone to hate:

It was a momentous vote for the United Methodist Church, as the future of the country’s second-largest Protestant church hung in the balance. In a former football stadium in St. Louis last month, church officials and lay leaders from around the world voted to strengthen their ban on same-sex marriage and gay clergy, a decision that could now split the church.

But at least four ballots were cast by individuals who were not authorized to vote, according to interviews and a review of the church’s records. The individuals were from African delegations whose votes were critical to restricting the church’s rules on homosexuality.

The final 54-vote margin against gay clergy and same-sex marriage exceeds the number of unauthorized votes discovered so far. But the voting irregularities raised questions about the process behind the divisive decision, which devastated progressive members. Some have discussed leaving the denomination and possibly creating a new alliance for gay-friendly churches.

Church leaders are now discussing whether new votes should be called, Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, who serves on the commission on the general conference, said in a phone interview.

………

 The United Methodist legal structure does not have a clear procedure on how to investigate or adjudicate improper election activity. The relevant ethics committee does not have jurisdiction when the general conference is not in session.

I’m not sure of the exact words to describe this behavor, but, “Godly,” and “Humane,” are most certainly not on this list.

America’s Worst Export

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I am referring, of course, to mass shootings.

The trend has reached New Zealand:

America has long been known for its cultural exports of Hollywood movies and rock ‘n’ roll and the all-American cool that went with them. But as the whole world seems to lurch towards the abyss, our cultural products seem to be changing. Sure, we’re still cranking out 14 Marvel blockbusters a year. But it increasingly appears we are creating and spreading the aesthetics of modern fascism via an intricate web of siloed online communities. Since Gamergate, toxic ideas have popped into the Internet ether in the guise of ironic memes or nihilistic trolling and linger there until they become real in the minds of far too many. It also seems we’re spreading our national disease: the mass murder of innocents at the point of a gun.

Authorities in New Zealand say a man in his late 20s walked into two mosques in the town of Christchurch on Friday and started firing. He killed 49 people—41 at the al Noor mosque across from the sprawling Hagley Park, and 7 more at the Linwood mosque. There were more murders in New Zealand on Friday than there were nationwide in all of 2017, and gun homicides are normally in the single digits annually.

Why do young (and generally also white and Christian) men in the United States continue to do this, and why is it spreading world wide?

Credit Where Credit is Due

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  _   _
 ((___))
 [ x x ] 
     / 
  (' ') 
   (U) 

   cDc

Beto O’Rorke is cool as f%$#.

It’s not the skateboarding, it’s the fact that he was a part of the grey hat hacker collective Cult of the Dead Cow, and he brought in the only female hacker member of the group.

So basically, he’s a part of internet history.

He’s Seriously chill.

Still, he has studiously avoided talking about his positions about almost everything.

If we nominate another blank slate who is devoted to the status quo, the next Republican President will make Donald Trump look like Ike Eisenhower.

This Sh%$ is About to Get Real

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It looks like the coverup of the Jeffrey Epstein pedophilia and prostitution prosecution is about to become unraveled:

A federal court of appeals in New York on Monday took the first step in unsealing documents that could reveal evidence of an international sex trafficking operation allegedly run by multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein and his former partner, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit gave the parties until March 19 to establish good cause as to why they should remain sealed and, failing to do so, the summary judgment and supporting documents will be made public. The court reserved a ruling on the balance of the documents in the civil case, including discovery materials.

………

Most of the documents, including court orders and motions, were filed under seal or heavily redacted, similar to other cases in New York and Florida involving Epstein, a wealthy, politically connected money manager. Epstein, 66, was not a party to the lawsuit, which was filed against Maxwell in 2015 by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

………

But in an op-ed letter to The New York Times last week, Weinberg and three of Epstein’s other lawyers — including Kenneth Starr, known for his pursuit of President Bill Clinton over his sexual conduct — denied that Epstein ever ran a sex trafficking operation.

………

Attorneys for Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz and conservative social media blogger Michael Cernovich, two other parties to the appeal, also argued to unseal the entire case file. Dershowitz’s lawyer, Andrew G. Celli Jr., wanted the court to release three documents immediately, saying they were necessary to clear the name of his client, who has been accused of being involved in Epstein’s crimes.

Dershowitz was among a team of lawyers who represented Epstein when he came under criminal investigation in Palm Beach in 2005. Epstein was accused by more than three dozen girls, most of them 13 to 16, of luring them to his mansion to give him massages that turned into sex acts. He then used those same girls to recruit more girls over a period of several years, court and police records show.

………

In 2008, Epstein received a controversial plea deal that gave him and an untold number of others who were not named immunity from federal prosecution. The non-prosecution agreement, brokered by former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, is now the focus of a Justice Department investigation.

Acosta, now President Trump’s labor secretary, has said that the deal was approved at the highest levels of the agency.

………

A Miami Herald investigation, “Perversion of Justice,’’ showed that Acosta and other prosecutors deliberately kept Epstein’s victims in the dark so that they could not appear at his sentencing and possibly derail the deal. The sentencing judge was also misled about the scope of Epstein’s crimes and how many girls he abused, records indicate.

………

Epstein did not go to prison, but served 13 months in a private section of the Palm Beach County jail, where he was allowed to leave for 12 hours a day to go to his office in West Palm Beach under a work release program that is normally not granted to convicted sex offenders.

There is a whole bunch of slime under these rocks, and I really want to see the rocks turned over.

Not Enough Bullets

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After misrepresenting the risks and addictive properties of Oxycontin and launching a destructive hard sell campaign, Purdue Pharma is now looking to get FDA approval of a drug that will allow them to profit from the disaster that they created:

Notorious OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma—which has been widely criticized for deceptively marketing its highly addictive painkiller and for its role in spurring the current nationwide epidemic of opioid abuse and overdose deaths—is moving ahead with a new, potent drug, one said to be an antidote to opioid overdoses.

The company announced this week that the US Food and Drug Administration has granted fast-track status to its investigational drug nalmefene hydrochloride (HCl), an injectable, emergency treatment intended to rescue people suspected of having an opioid overdose. Purdue suggests that nalmefene HCl’s effects last longer than the similar emergency opioid antagonist naloxone. As such, the company hopes nalmefene HCl will out-compete naloxone at reversing overdoses from the most highly potent opioid, namely fentanyl, which is currently driving the alarming numbers of opioid overdose deaths. The FDA’s fast-track status will speed the development and regulatory review of the drug.

………

Amid the crisis, Purdue has been fiercely condemned for initially downplaying the addictiveness of OxyContin, which it began aggressively marketing in the mid-1990s, earning the company billions of dollars in sales. In 2007, the company and three executives pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal charges that they deceived doctors, patients, and regulators over the addictiveness of the drug. Since then, Purdue has been pummeled by lawsuits blaming the company for helping to spur the rise in opioid abuse and overdoses. The company has vigorously defended itself against the claims but is now considering filing for bankruptcy, which would soften the blow of litigation and judgments.

………

Still, according to internal discussions at Purdue that were made public in a lawsuit brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Purdue and members of the wealthy Sackler family that owns the company had carefully researched the money-making potential of treatments aimed at reversing the epidemic.

An un-redacted section of the lawsuit describes a secret plan called Project Tango, which explored Purdue’s expansion into selling treatment options. The lawsuit states that Purdue and a member of the Sackler family determined that the millions of people who had become addicted to opioids were a prime business opportunity. Purdue staff wrote in internal documents quoted in the lawsuit that “It is an attractive market. Large unmet need for vulnerable, underserved and stigmatized patient population suffering from substance abuse, dependence and addiction.” 

Seriously, there is not a hole deep enough for these people.

Linkage

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Yes, there is a promotional video for the penis cam: (Warning: [fake] Penis and base jumping)

Tweet of the Day

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"no idea put forth by Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is as harebrained or fantastical as the promise peddled by numerous leading Democrats that they will revive bipartisanship." https://t.co/rmLrabtR7o

— David Roberts (@drvox) March 13, 2019

Seriously, anyone who believes that the Republicans will behave in good faith absent a boot on their neck has the political acumen of Little Orphan Annie.

The Seinfeld Candidate

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I am referring, of course, to the candidate about nothing, Beto O’Rourke who has just announced his candidacy for President, and it appears that I am not the only one who notices that there is no “There” there:

Beto O’Rourke is finally ready to end the suspense. The former Texas congressman is expected to formally kick off his presidential campaign Thursday, one day after tipping his hand to a local TV station in Texas. “I’m really proud of what El Paso did and what El Paso represents,” O’Rourke told KTSM El Paso via text. “It’s a big part of why I’m running.” His apparent confirmation came on the heels of a new Vanity Fair cover story—complete with glossy photo shoot—in which he told the magazine that he wanted to run. “I want to be in it,” he said, after describing our current political moment as an existential fight. “Man, I’m just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.”

………

Beto is missing one important thing, though: an actual reason to run.

O’Rourke would enter the race as a man without a clear political ideology, a signature legislative achievement, a major policy issue, or a concrete agenda for the country. Those in the know tell the Atlantic that Beto is planning to run as a candidate “offering hope that America can be better than its current partisan and hate-filled politics, and that the country can come together,” but that—brace yourself—he hasn’t yet “landed on how he’ll propose to actually make that happen.” That’s more of the same empty words Beto’s been offering in public since his loss to Cruz. “I don’t know where I am on a [political] spectrum, and I almost could care less,” he said at a recent stop in Wisconsin. “I just want to get to better things for this country.”

………

Beto is missing one important thing, though: an actual reason to run.

O’Rourke would enter the race as a man without a clear political ideology, a signature legislative achievement, a major policy issue, or a concrete agenda for the country. Those in the know tell the Atlantic that Beto is planning to run as a candidate “offering hope that America can be better than its current partisan and hate-filled politics, and that the country can come together,” but that—brace yourself—he hasn’t yet “landed on how he’ll propose to actually make that happen.” That’s more of the same empty words Beto’s been offering in public since his loss to Cruz. “I don’t know where I am on a [political] spectrum, and I almost could care less,” he said at a recent stop in Wisconsin. “I just want to get to better things for this country.”

He is a telegenic candidate about nothing who hopes that voters will project their own opinions on him, with the help of some meaningless, but soaring, rhetoric.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

You’ve seen that T-shirt, the artist who did that logo was Shepard Fairey.

Not interested.

A Victory for Human Decency

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Thanks, Bernie

For the first time in longer than I can remember, The Senate has voted to stop US involvement in the war in Yemen:

The Senate on Wednesday again rebuked President Trump for his continued defense of Saudi Arabia after the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, voting for a second time to end American military assistance for the kingdom’s war in Yemen and to curtail presidential war powers.

The 54-to-46 vote, condemning a nearly four-year conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians and inflicted a devastating famine, sets the foundation for what could become Mr. Trump’s first presidential veto, with the House expected to overwhelmingly pass the measure, possibly this month. The vote also might be the opening salvo in a week where Senate Republicans have the opportunity to hit back at the president’s aggressive use of executive power. On Thursday, the chamber will vote on a resolution that would overturn Mr. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to secure funding for his border wall.

“The United States Congress is going to reassert its constitutional responsibility over issues of war that have been abdicated for presidents, Democrats and Republicans, for too many years,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.

………

Supporters of the Yemen resolution have faced a long and grueling road to get the legislation onto the president’s desk. The Senate — led by the resolution’s authors, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Lee — first passed the measure 56 to 41 in December, but Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker at the time, refused to take up the resolution.

………

The resolution is a rare use of the 1973 War Powers Act, which gave Congress the ability to compel the removal of military forces absent a formal declaration of war. Those powers, created after the Vietnam War, have almost never been used, as lawmakers have demurred from intervening in politically delicate matters of war, peace and support for the troops.

Bernie Sanders has been the a point man on this, and he has been relentless.

He gets sh%$ done.

Not Enough Bullets

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Steve Cox runs the numbers on just how little it would mean to Jeff Bezos to fix the Flint water system:

$1 Billion is 1000 million. It will cost about $65 million to fix Flint’s water supply.

Jeff Bezos is worth 140,000 million dollars. He has a million dollars 140,000 times. He does nothing but hoard it.

Imagine having $140,000 and it’s only $65 to fix Flint’s water…

— Steve Cox (@RealSteveCox) March 12, 2019

It’s true, every billionaire is a policy failure.

The Scum of the Earth: No, This Is Not Comcast Edition

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As soon as a particularly gullible judges signed off in its merger with Time Warner, AT&T raised its prices, the exact opposite of what it claimed:

In light of AT&T’s decision to raise the prices on DirecTV Now subscribers by $10/month, and to drop channels like MTV, Comedy Central, BET, and BBC America (while adding more AT&T-owned content to the bundle), it’s worth reviewing some of what the telecom giant claimed during the recent trial over its merger with Time Warner:

[C]onsumer prices will not go up.

Modern antitrust law recognizes that mergers between suppliers, such as Time Warner, and distributors, such as AT&T, almost always create efficiencies and synergies that lead to lower consumer prices and greater innovation.

Vertical integration raises antitrust concerns only in the rare case where the government can prove that the merger will hobble rivals’ ability to check the merged firm’s pricing conduct, thereby allowing the merged firm to raise its own prices above competitive levels.

[T]his merger is likely to enhance competition substantially, because it will enable the merged company to reduce prices.


You can read more for yourself here and here. The rest of AT&T’s arguments were just about as (in)accurate, and it’s not the first time AT&T’s rosy claims have been proved false.

The current standards for antitrust in the US are way too lax.

The 737 MAX Is Grounded

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The U.S. FAA, relying on refined satellite tracking data and new physical evidence that more closely links two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8s, grounded Boeing’s newest narrowbody Mar. 13, with immediate effect.

The move ends three days of cascading groundings after the Mar. 10 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (ET302) accident, and leaves the world’s MAX fleet grounded.

“On Mar. 13, 2018, the investigation of the ET302 crash developed new information from the wreckage concerning the aircraft’s configuration just after takeoff that, taken together with newly refined data from satellite-based tracking of the aircraft’s flight path, indicates some similarities between the ET302 and [October 2018 Lion Air Flight] JT610 accidents that warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents that needs to be better understood and addressed,” FAA said in its emergency order.

FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell, speaking to reporters after the order was released, made it clear that FAA made the decision to ground the aircraft. “The FAA is the safety authority for emergency airworthiness directives and orders,” he said. “FAA made the decision.”

After the EU grounded the aircraft in Europe, the FAA really had no choice.

Point, AOC

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once again completely owns someone who tries to shame her by claiming that after going after unethical banksters, she will go after hard working bartenders.

It turns out that this is already the law of the land:

Actually, in NYC if you’re a bartender and knowingly over-serve to someone, you *ARE* liable for things they do after they leave the bar, because you knowingly put them at risk for $.

Its called the Dram Shop Act. It’s a big reason why bartenders cut people off. And it works. https://t.co/u2XMRuNOyb

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2019

It’s a legitimate question: Why is a bartender held to a higher liability for their work than the head of Wells-Fargo?

As Henry Farrell observes, this is a strength of AOC, that her, “Retorical style is that it often starts from the fact that non-professional classes know stuff and then builds up – a strong implicit contrast both to common liberal condescension and conservative cult of know-nothing-ism.”

I so want to vote for her to be President in 2024.