John Delaney, whose presidential run was demolished when Elizabeth Warren noted in the debates that he was, “Running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” has ended his Presidential campaign.
Good riddance to a man whose only political traction was that he was lending tens of millions of dollars to his own campaign.
The California State Attorney General’s Office (CA-OAG) sent a letter last week to DNS overlord ICANN asking for confidential information about the planned sale of the .org registry and a delay of the transaction.
ICANN, which disclosed the letter on Thursday, responded by notifying the Public Internet Registry (PIR), which intends to sell the .org registry to a private equity firm called Ethos Capital, that it has been asked to provide private data about the deal.
The DNS overseer, which bestowed .org oversight on PIR through a legal agreement, wants PIR to greenlight the CA-OAG’s disclosure demand and to wait longer before completing the sale. ICANN notes in its letter to PIR that the CA-OAG’s missive amounts to a subpoena, the implication being that the CA-OAG could file a lawsuit if compliance isn’t voluntary.
………
The CA-OAG is asking for all email correspondence between the parties involved in the deal, among other sensitive information, and for additional time to review the arrangement. It wants to understand the effect the sale would have on the non-profit community.
ICANN in turn has asked PIR [PDF] to agree an extension of ICANN’s review process from February 17, 2020 to April 20, 2020.
The Register asked PIR whether it intends to accept ICANN’s request for a delay. A PIR spokesperson responded by acknowledging ICANN’s letter but failed to say whether the organization is okay with the delay.
Here is hoping that this will lead to criminal indictments.
The Republicans have voted down the calling of witnesses at the impeachment.
What these folks may not realize is that they have literally written their obituaries.
By this I do not mean that their political careers have ended, but rather than, when they die, this vote will be in the first paragraph of their obituaries:
The Senate brought President Trump to the brink of acquittal on Friday of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress, as Republicans voted to block consideration of new witnesses and documents in his impeachment trial and shut down a final push by Democrats to bolster their case for the president’s removal.
In a nearly party-line vote after a bitter debate, Democrats failed to win support from the four Republicans they needed. With Mr. Trump’s acquittal virtually certain, the president’s allies rallied to his defense, though some conceded he was guilty of the central allegations against him.
The Democrats’ push for more witnesses and documents failed 49 to 51, with only two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, joining Democrats in favor. A vote on the verdict is planned for Wednesday.
On the bright side, the timing will be awfully inconvenient for Trump:
Senators recessed the trial for the weekend and will return Monday for closing arguments, with a vote on the verdict on Wednesday.
The timetable will rob Mr. Trump of the opportunity to use his State of the Union address scheduled for Tuesday night to boast about his acquittal, a prospect he has relished for several weeks. Instead, he will become the second president to deliver the speech during his own impeachment trial.
Here is hoping that Trump completely loses his sh%$ at the speech.
Exactly one year after PG&E Corp. filed for bankruptcy, Gov. Gavin Newsom said PG&E “no longer exists” and doubled down on a state takeover if the utility doesn’t shape up by June 30.
“There’s going to be a new company or the state of California will take it over,” Newsom said at an event with the Public Policy Institute of California in Sacramento about the future of the state’s energy Wednesday.
“Because if PG&E can’t do it, we’ll do it for them. Period, full stop. We’re sick of excuses and delays,” he said.
………
“Bankruptcy turned out to be an extraordinary opportunity for the state,” Newsom said Wednesday. “I never would have imagined that a year ago today. I thought it was a huge burden, one I didn’t anticipate spending as much time and energy on.”
What it gave state regulators is the chance to transform the 115-year-old company into a 21st-century utility, he said.
………
But if the governor doesn’t like PG&E’s new plan, he made clear on Wednesday what the next step was.
“If they can’t do it, we have no choice but to do it for them, because the economic and human cost, not just the environmental degradation, is so great that we will be in peril if we just sit back and let the markets do it for us,” he said.
Seriously, if there is a company that merits the corporate death penalty, it is PG&E.
Have the states and localities reorganize the assets as either a government utility or a cooperative.
An examination of Obama’s record shows that (at best) conclude that the administration was profoundly indifferent to the needs of traditional union members.
Biden has stapled his candidacy to his time as Obama’s VP, so he is dealing with the backlash from Barack Obama’s labor policies:
On the campaign trail, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has highlighted the first two years of the Obama administration as a time when he helped enact sweeping legislation to widen access to health care and revive the economy, accomplishments most Democrats revere.
But to many union officials, those years were a disappointment — a time when the administration failed to pass a labor rights bill that was their top priority and imposed a tax that would affect many union members’ health plans. And they partly blame Mr. Biden.
“They were in the driver’s seat for the first two years, and what did they get done from a labor perspective?” said Chris Laursen, the president of a United Automobile Workers local in Ottumwa, Iowa, with nearly 600 members. “Joe Biden is complete status quo.”
………
The reservations of union members could be a bigger problem for Mr. Biden than they were for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 Democratic race against Mr. Sanders. Some large unions, including the American Federation of Teachers, endorsed Mrs. Clinton, though many members later supported Mr. Sanders.
………
And the skepticism toward Mr. Biden among union voters may be even more pronounced in the less white, less male parts of the labor force.
Nicole McCormick, a West Virginia music teacher who helped organize a statewide walkout that made national headlines in 2018, said she worried that Mr. Biden wasn’t “willing to push for the things that we as Americans look at as radical, but the rest of the world looks at and is like, ‘We did that 50 years ago.’” She cited expanded access to unions, universal health care and paid parental leave as examples.
………
In voicing their concerns about Mr. Biden, union officials frequently cite dismay over the Obama years. They acknowledge a number of accomplishments, including the economic stimulus, the rescue of Chrysler and General Motors, and elements of the Affordable Care Act, as well as a variety of pro-labor appointments and regulations. But they express reservations about the administration’s focus on deficit reduction, its ties to Wall Street, and especially its efforts to lower barriers to foreign competition.
For those of you who have not seen the baseball movie, see it.
There is a mement were we are shown how it is never acceptable to call the umpire, “C^%$-sucker.”
Today, Elizabeth Warren gave a written question to Chief Justice John Roberts that had him literally questioning his own legitimacy:
During President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) submitted a question about the legitimacy of the Chief Justice—which the Chief Justice had to read.
Chief Justice John Roberts read the note card submitted by the presidential candidate: “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the Chief Justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?”
Roberts pursed his lips as he waited for lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff to respond.
(Emphasis mine)
What can I say to the distinguished gentlewoman from the great commonwealth of Massachusetts but, “Well played.”
This is particularly effective because it touches on what is a conceit of Supreme Court justices in general, and John Roberts in particular: Attacks on their legitimacy.
Seriously, the fact that, “John Bolton Likes Tweet Saying Trump Should ‘Fire the Moron Who Hired John Bolton’,” is a remarkable bit of wit from someone best known for being bat-sh%$ insane war monger.
I am amused.
It is increasingly likely for corrupt and brutal police officers to face consequences, large as a result of groups like Black Lives Matter.
That being said, I am profoundly surprised that a Prince George’s County police officer was charged with murder less than 24 hours after he shot a black man 7 times and killed him.
Admittedly, he did shoot the victim 7 times while he was in handcuffs, but I figured that the officer’s claim that murder victim was on PCP would have gotten him at least a month before an investigation started:
The Maryland police officer who killed a handcuffed black man Monday night has been taken into custody and charged with second degree murder — less than 24 hours after the incident.
………
Stawinski identified the victim as 49-year-old William Green.
Police responded to reports of a driver who had rammed his vehicle into several other cars at around 8 p.m. Monday. They told reporters later that night that they suspected Green was high, and smelled PCP coming from his car. Stawinski no longer thinks that’s the case.
“We do not believe PCP was involved,” Stawinski said.
An officer then cuffed Green with his arms behind his back and strapped him into the passenger seat of the police cruiser.
About 20 minutes later, Officer Michael Owen then got into the driver’s seat and shot him. According to ABC, Green had asked the officer if he could use the bathroom — then the officer shot him seven times. Officers at the scene attempted lifesaving measures on him before transporting him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
………
It’s extremely unusual for police departments to announce criminal charges against one of their own so soon after an officer-involved killing. Charges, if they come at all, can take weeks, if not months, to be filed — and often come after intense community pressure.
Hopefully, this is the start of a trend.
As a part of the plans for Brexit, Boris Johnson and his Evil Minions™ are planning to slash the minimum wage for foreign workers in the UK, because the Conservative Party wouldn’t be the Conservative Party if they weren’t attempting to screw the ordinary working bloke:
The UK should slash the main salary threshold for workers coming to Britain with a job offer to £25,600 per year after the post-Brexit transition period, say the government’s immigration advisers.
The recommendation by the Migration Advisory Committee, published on Tuesday, would relax conditions for employers seeking to bring in workers from outside the European Economic Area, who currently face a salary threshold of £30,000 for most roles, but would make it far tougher for those recruiting from within the EEA — the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein — after Brexit.
………
The report produced detailed recommendations on salary thresholds for different sectors, including higher levels for some well-paid occupations and lower ones for jobs in education and the National Health Service, which have high numbers of vacancies.
They have a high number of vacancies because the jobs are hard, and you want to pay them crap wages.
The solution is to pay them more, particularly for more junior employees.
………
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, the umbrella body for the service’s employers, welcomed the reduced salary threshold for NHS staff but said there were “mixed messages” in other areas. “We are disappointed that there are no proposals to ensure we can recruit the staff we need to ensure sustainable social care services,” he said.
Translation: We need to keep wages low of the actual workers so that we can pay outrageous salaries to upper management as we proceed to privatize the NHS and f%$# both the workers and the patients.
Hospital, schmospital, there is looting to be done.
Feinstein and the Times seem to be on the same page about this, the paper has issued an update correcting the story, but I blame Feinstein for her eagerness to preen and play the bipartisanship game for this sh%$ storm to have blown up in the first place, and this likely makes it easier for someone like Joe Manchin to allow their cowardice to overrule their constitutional duties:
The fate of key votes in President Trump’s impeachment trial remained uncertain Tuesday as his defense lawyers concluded their arguments and Republicans led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell struggled to muster the votes to bring the trial to a speedy close without calling witnesses.
But even as McConnell struggled to corral Republicans, Sen. Dianne Feinstein seemed to signal fissures in the unity of Senate Democrats. Feinstein suggested that while she had serious concerns about Trump’s character, she is still weighing her ultimate vote on whether to acquit him.
………
Feinstein’s comments came initially in remarks to reporters outside the Senate chamber in which she said she had leaned against impeachment at the outset.
“Nine months left to go [before the election], the people should judge. We are a republic, we are based on the will of the people — the people should judge,” she said.
She then added: “That was my view and it still is my view.”
Still, she indicated that arguments in the trial about Trump’s character and fitness for office had shifted her thinking. “What changed my opinion as this went on,” she said, is a realization that “impeachment isn’t about one offense. It’s really about the character and ability and physical and mental fitness of the individual to serve the people, not themselves.”
In a later written statement, in which she said she had initially been “misunderstood,” Feinstein said “it’s clear the president’s actions were wrong.”
There are 39½ million people in California, and something north of 20 million registered voters, and this boneheaded play to civility will not change a single vote.
It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.
*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers, though we have never met, either in person or electronically.
I frankly don't believe Third Way's great fear is that Bernie will lose to Trump; it's that he will win. https://t.co/K1b1wvsPvR
— Sam Adler-Bell (@SamAdlerBell) January 28, 2020
Tru dat.
If Bernie had no chance, the stories would be about his quirky supporters quixotic quest.
Why not? She was the most factor in electing him in 2016Bankole: Is Hillary Clinton helping to elect Trump? https://t.co/yKgjoUeMnE via @detroitnews
— Another Nobody for #Bernie2020 (@laughingliberal) January 27, 2020
Hillary Clinton, even more than her minions, has completely eschewed any responsibility for her loss.
I am not the most self-aware individual, but even I see a serious need for some introspection here.
People are finally noticing that Silicon Valley’s vision of the future is a nightmare:
Vanessa Bain was less than a year into her gig as an Instacart shopper when the company announced it would no longer allow tipping on its app. Instacart instead began imposing a 10 percent “service fee” that replaced the previous default tip of 10 percent. The change had no impact on customers, who could be forgiven for assuming that the new fee would still go to the workers who shopped for their groceries and delivered them to their homes. “It was deceptive to customers,” Bain said. “They thought they were still tipping us, when instead it went to the company. It wasn’t being passed to us at all.”
When Bain, who lives in Palo Alto, California, became a shopper in 2016, she believed that gig work would provide her with both financial stability and schedule flexibility to take care of her young daughter. However, as independent contractors, Bain and her husband, a fellow shopper, don’t receive sick leave or holidays. And in practice, the “be your own boss” promise of the gig economy instantly vanishes the moment you take on a gig job: It is, instead, a system that relentlessly dictates your schedule. “We are controlled. We are treated like employees but without the perks,” Jennifer Cotten, a Los Angeles area–based shopper, told me. “We’re told what order to deliver in and when to go.”
The indignities of the gig economy are well established at this point, as the laissez-faire labor practices of companies like Uber, Instacart, Door Dash, and Lyft draw more critical scrutiny. Bain, Cotton, and their fellow shoppers are among the millions of precariously employed workers who rely on part-time jobs or side gigs to scrape together a living, all without the safety net of employer-based insurance.
But what is less widely acknowledged is how the gig economy interacts with other trends in California and forces unleashed by Silicon Valley—rising housing costs, choked infrastructure—to make life hell for those who live at or near the epicenter of America’s technology industry. Together, they constitute a nightmare vision of what the world would look like if it were run by our digital overlords, as they sit atop a growing underclass that does their shopping and drives their cars—all while barely able to make ends meet.
It’s not just Instacart, Door Dash, Uber and Lyft. It’s the dockless scooter companies making cities unwalkable, it’s Amazon’s conscious sales of dangerous fakes and abuse of its employees, Facebook’s continuous lying about privacy, Twitter’s sh%$ show, PayPal’s abuse of its customers, etc.
Who knew that view of the future in William Gibson’s stories would be so wildly optimistic as compared to the reality that we face?
In news that should surprise no one, hedge funds run by white guys under perform those of women and minorities by about 41%.
A reason is not given, but my guess is that members of the white guys club are more able to fail upwards, which is the very definition of white privilege:
Hedge funds not controlled by white men had returns almost double their peers the last three years, according to a Bloomberg analysis of hedge fund data.
Within Bloomberg’s database of 2,935 funds, the analysis found 35 managed by minorities or women and compared them with 908 peer funds. The database includes over 65% of the industry’s top 1,500 managers by assets under management.
Hedge funds either controlled or managed by a minority or female leader had a return of about 6.6% over the past three years, compared to about 3.9% for their peers, the analysis of Bloomberg’s hedge fund database found.
Liberals Say Sanders’s Acceptance Of Rogan Endorsement Sends Dangerous Message He Trying To Win Election
Truly, The Onion abides.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo completely lost his sh%$ with NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly.
I’m beginning to think that Trump’s minions are coming to realize that they are going down with the ship:
In his brief interview Friday with NPR host Mary Louise Kelly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talked about a couple of pressing issues. On the State Department’s inexcusable failure to stand up for ousted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch — victim of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s Ukraine pressure campaign — Pompeo told Kelly, “I’ve defended every single person on this team.”
On Iran, Pompeo said, “This is a regime that has been working to develop its nuclear program for years and years and years. And the nuclear deal guaranteed them a pathway to having a nuclear program.”
The most telling part of the interview, however, was nonverbal: “Immediately after the questions on Ukraine, the interview concluded. Pompeo stood, leaned in and silently glared at Kelly for several seconds before leaving the room,” notes the NPR account of the interview.
The secretary of state, a man entrusted with spreading and maintaining the good will of the United States throughout the world, is now on record as menacing an NPR co-host of “All Things Considered.”
Then the proceedings moved to insults. An aide invited Kelly into Pompeo’s private living room at the State Department. “Inside the room, Pompeo shouted his displeasure at being questioned about Ukraine. He used repeated expletives, according to Kelly, and asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He then said, ‘People will hear about this.’”
Kelly provided a more thorough account in a chat with colleague Ari Shapiro:
Moments later the same staffer who had stopped the interview reappeared, asked me to come with her, just me — no recorder, though she did not say we were off the record, nor would I have agreed. I was taken to the secretary’s private living room, where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself had lasted. He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine. He asked ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the ‘f’ word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes. He called out for his aides to bring out a map of the world with no writing, no countries marked. I pointed to Ukraine, he put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this.’
I’m beginning to think that Donald Trump’s state of the Union is going to resemble Captain Queeg’s meltdown in The Caine Mutiny.
The Republicans, of course, will ignore this, and pretend that everything is normal, just like they are pretending that Pompeo’s meltdown is somehow the fault of a biased media.
It appears that in John Bolton’s book, he explicitly states that Donald Trump withheld aid to the Ukraine to coerce an investigation of political rivals:
President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.
Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.
………
Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.
………
The White House did not provide responses to questions about Mr. Bolton’s assertions, and representatives for Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment on Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Bolton’s lawyer blamed the White House for the disclosure of the book’s contents. “It is clear, regrettably, from the New York Times article published today that the pre-publication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” the lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, said Sunday night.
He said he provided a copy of the book to the White House on Dec. 30 — 12 days after Mr. Trump was impeached — to be reviewed for classified information, though, he said, Mr. Bolton believed it contained none.
………
Mr. Bolton would like to testify for several reasons, according to associates. He believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.
………
Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.
This has got to be a bit awkward for Trump, McConnell, and their Evil Minions™.
Unfortunately, this has turned into a completely non-functional sh%$ show.
In response, Lockheed and the Pentagon have given the system a new name, and started back at square one on the software.
To quote Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
The US military is dumping its Autonomous Logistics Information System (ALIS) in favour of ODIN as it tries to break with the complex past of its ailing F-35 fighter jet maintenance IT suite.
ALIS is the software suite that comes bundled with the F-35 fighter jet. A Lockheed Martin product, ALIS is intended to be a proactive maintenance suite: it tracks the health of each jet, tells supply systems when to order parts and tells maintainers what needs doing and when.
At least, that was the theory. Instead the all-encompassing suite has become so unwieldy and problem-ridden that the US armed forces are ditching it in favour of a new thing called ODIN, or Operational Data Integrated Network.
………
Far from meeting its originally envisioned role, ALIS was so bad that the US Government Accountability Office, an auditor similar to Britain’s National Audit Office, reckoned one US Air Force unit wasted 45,000 working hours per year working around ALIS’s shortcomings. In 2018, US Marine Corps station Beaufort was suffering spare part shortages of up to two years, thanks to ALIS making a hash of its spare part systems.
So, you have the same folks who made a complete dogs breakfast out of maintaining the F-35 are going to start from square one, with the same people, and make it all better.
Seriously?
This is unbelievably f%$#ing stupid:
Backed into a corner and influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks been promoting a plan to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials from both countries told Middle East Eye.
The US efforts, the officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties’ attempts to expel American troops from their country.
Iraq represents a strategic land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.
Establishing a US-controlled Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of using land routes into Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
For Washington, the idea of carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007 proposition by Joe Biden, who is now vying to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
It was hoped that the scheme could tighten US control over Iraq and provide protection for Sunnis during the 2006-08 sectarian civil conflict, in which tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis from both the Sunni and Shia communities were slaughtered.
But opposition to Iraq being divided along sectarian and ethnic lines, as well as Americans’ insistence on keeping the country united, has postponed attempts at its implementation.
Now efforts to expel US troops have breathed new life into the project, and the creation of a Sunni region is just one of the options being considered by Washington to counter Iranian pressure, a top Iraqi Shia official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told MEE.
Iraqi unity “is no longer a priority now for the US,” the Shia official said.
“If the Americans reach a dead-end in terms of the presence of their forces in Iraq, they will work to implement this project vigorously.”
A former US official familiar with the project confirmed that the Americans have worked on “taking this project out of the drawer and putting it on the table”.
“The creation of a Sunni region has always been an option for the US. The Iranians cannot be allowed to reach the Mediterranean Sea or benefit from the land bridge connecting them to Hezbollah” in Lebanon, the former US official told MEE.
“The project is American, not Sunni. The presence of the American forces has been the guarantor for the Sunnis and the Kurds, so if the US has to leave Iraq, then establishing a Sunni region in western Iraq is its plan to curb Iran and its arms in the Middle East,” he added.
“We are talking about establishing a country, not an administrative region.”
Seriously, what passes for the conventional wisdom among the US defense and foreign policy establishment is remarkably stupid.
If Joe Manchin flips, his career needs to be ended:
President Trump and White House officials are looking for at least one Senate Democrat to vote against removing the president from office at the end of his impeachment trial, and they see Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) as the most likely candidate.
Trump took particular pride that three House Democrats voted against his impeachment, White House officials said, and he would like to be able to get at least one Senate Democrat to vote for his acquittal so he can claim the decision was bipartisan.
Manchin has sided with Trump on tough votes before, such as the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. But voting to acquit the president would be an even more politically charged decision, one that could help him maintain his reputation as a moderate back home but would probably make him a pariah within his own party.
For his Kavanaugh vote, he should ALREADY be a pariah.
For his string pulling for his pharma executive looter daughter, he should ALREADY be a pariah.
Still, if he flips on this, he needs to be gone. Period, full stop.
