Year: 2020

Be Still My Beating Heart

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After revelations of corruption and self-dealing, it appears that the IRS has initiating a criminal investigation of the NRA’s executive VP Wayne LaPierre.

It appears that he did not learn the lesson of Al Capone:

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating longtime National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre for possible criminal tax fraud related to his personal taxes, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. LaPierre was paid $2.2 million by the NRA in 2018, the most recent year available, the nonprofit group’s public filings show. His total reported pay from 2014 to 2018 was $11.2 million.

In August, he was charged in a civil suit by New York Attorney GeneralLetitia James with taking millions of dollars of allegedly undisclosed compensation from the NRA and its vendors, in the form of free yacht trips, private jet flights for his family, exotic safaris and other benefits.

Asked at a news conference announcing the lawsuit whether she believed Mr. LaPierre had evaded personal taxes, Ms. James declined to comment but said she was referring the matter to the IRS.

………

The IRS’s criminal investigation is being reported for the first time by The Wall Street Journal.

If the IRS believes a taxpayer has underreported income, the agency often pursues the matter through a civil audit, claiming the taxpayer owes back taxes and penalties. To show criminal behavior, tax specialists said, the IRS would have to demonstrate that a taxpayer willfully underreported income, typically over multiple years.

It couldn’t be determined how far along the investigation is, and such probes can end with no charges filed.

………

Details of Mr. LaPierre’s lavish expenses began to emerge in early 2019 amid a boardroom rift. Leaked documents showed that Mr. LaPierre had charged more than $540,000 in clothing and luxury travel to Europe and the Bahamas to the NRA’s longtime ad firm.

The Journal later reported that the NRA paid for private jets to ferry around Mr. LaPierre’s relatives. The NRA has said the clothing and travel expenses had valid business justifications.

The August lawsuit by Ms. James’s office added new allegations, including that Mr. LaPierre and his relatives flew at least eight times in recent years to the Bahamas on private jets that cost the NRA more than $500,000.

………

Criminal tax cases involving executives of large nonprofits are rare. In the 1990s, the late William Aramony, then-CEO of United Way, was forced out and indicted on criminal charges that included tax fraud for siphoning money from the charity for lavish expenses. He served six years in prison.

LaPierre ending up behind bars, I’m like this story treatment.

I’d pay to watch that movie.

We’ll See How Serious Senate Dems Are About Blocking Bennett Tomorrow

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Because Mitch McConnell is trying a maneuver that requires unanimous consent to accelerate the confirmation process, which means that only one senator objecting would require him to bring back the whole Senate, including those Senators quarantining after their exposure to Covid-19.

If the Democrats are serious about stopping her, and my guess it that they are NOT, they can throw a monkey wrench in the plans of Mitch McConnell and his Evil Minions™.

They won’t of course, because they are worthless cowards:

The first rule of Democratic Fight Club should be: Don’t ever do what Mitch McConnell wants you to do. On Monday, we will see if Senate Democrats understand that rule yet. They will have a rare opportunity to use their power to try to complicate McConnell’s plan to confirm Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

………

Here is the basic summary of what’s going on: Democrats have the power to potentially block McConnell’s attempt to maintain maximum control of Senate proceedings in order to keep their Supreme Court confirmation plan on track. That scheme was outlined in a McConnell press release yesterday saying he wants to secure a consent agreement to temporarily adjourn the Senate.

McConnell wants this adjournment resolution because keeping the chamber open might allow Democrats to use the normal legislative process — as they recently did — to complicate the GOP’s plans while Republican senators are either campaigning for reelection or under COVID quarantine (three have already tested positive for COVID, and there is evidence that a number of GOP senators could have been exposed to the virus).

Adjournment also would allow Republicans to stall any potential progress on a pandemic relief package for the next two weeks.

If Democrats are able to vote down McConnell’s adjournment resolution, they could use their leverage to demand an adjournment resolution that defers the Supreme Court confirmation hearings and moves forward a pandemic relief package. At the very least, they could force Republican senators to leave the campaign trail and stay in Washington to cast procedural votes — which would only help Democratic senate candidates in their races.

………

The key thing to understand is this: McConnell desperately wants unanimous consent for his adjournment resolution, because he doesn’t want to force Republican senators to fly back to Washington to actually cast votes — and because of both the election campaign schedule and the COVID outbreak, he doesn’t have a clear sense of how many could actually make the journey. That uncertainty potentially gives Democrats the power to block McConnell’s adjournment resolution. As long as a majority of senators present are Democrats, they could vote it down.

It also adds days to the time required to make this motion, and any delay plays to the advantage of the Democrats.

I get that they have some fondness for the “collegiality” of the Senate, but, as been shown over the past at least 20 years, collegiality is a one way state, and never inconveniences the Republicans.

Shut it down.

………

In this particular case, if Democrats deny McConnell unanimous consent, vulnerable GOP senators in key battleground states may have to leave the campaign trail, because Republicans would potentially need every vote they have while three of the party’s senators are out with COVID. If Democrats gather enough of their caucus to the senate floor, they may be able to vote down an adjournment resolution on a roll call vote.

………

To be sure, Republicans’ reckless behavior in creating a COVID super-spreader event at the White House has turned the U.S. Capitol into a potential coronavirus hot zone right now (which is even more reason to halt the entire Supreme Court confirmation process!). Democratic senators going into that hot zone to try to procedurally stall Barrett’s nomination is not without some risk, even though masks and PPE can make the risk more manageable.

………

Of course, gumming up McConnell’s adjournment resolution is not a singular panacea. However, it can be one move in a larger series of maneuvers that makes it as difficult as possible for Republicans to get their way — and playing for time in such a fluid environment is critical.

For at least the past 30 years, the endless refrain of the Democratic Party has been, “We won’t support organized labor, or stop subsidizing companies moving jobs overseas, or stop the banks from doing you like a drunk sorority girl, but think of the Supreme Court.”

Well, your excuse for not doing sh%$ has been called.  Your butt needs to cash this check that your mouth has been making for decades.

Breonna Taylor Tape is Out

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Two very different accounts emerged on Friday from either side of an apartment door in Louisville, the one that police officers knocked off its hinges in March as they delivered a search warrant at the home of Breonna Taylor.

In newly released audio from closed-door grand jury proceedings, there was conflicting testimony over what happened in the seconds before the police shot and killed Ms. Taylor, a Black emergency room technician whose death pulled people to the streets in protests across the country.

………

The grand jury concluded its work by bringing an indictment against one former officer for endangering Ms. Taylor’s neighbors; it brought no charges against the two officers who shot her.

Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, released the recordings on Friday after a judge ordered him to do so, but the recordings did not include the instructions that prosecutors gave to the 12 jurors. One juror said Mr. Cameron was deflecting blame by saying it was jurors who had opted not to indict the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor.

………

The grand jurors met in person over three days and reviewed police interviews of officers and witnesses at the scene, 911 calls and body camera videos from after Ms. Taylor was shot. They also met directly with detectives who had investigated the killing.

At times the jurors sound inquisitive or skeptical on the recordings, peppering the detectives with questions and pointing out inconsistencies in some of the officers’ accounts. Below are highlights of the evidence presented in the new recordings.
The audio does not include prosecutors’ instructions, which came into question after a grand juror spoke out.

The audio files do not include statements or recommendations from prosecutors about which charges they think should be brought against the officers who took part in the raid. Mr. Cameron has said that jurors were told that the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor — Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove, both of whom are white — were justified in their actions.

Mr. Cameron said prosecutors’ statements and jurors’ deliberations “were not recorded, as they are not evidence.” He has insisted that the jurors were given “all of the evidence” and were free to pursue additional charges.

This is complete crap.

The redacted tapes are clearly a coverup.


His release of the audiotapes came after a grand juror asked for the proceedings to be made public and accused Mr. Cameron of using the jurors to deflect blame over the decision. Grand jurors are given broad powers, but prosecutors often closely guide the jurors and inform them about their role. The process almost always remains secret.

………

After grand jurors heard a recording of the interview that Detective Cosgrove gave to investigators, one juror asked, “Does he have a history of panic attacks?” An investigator with the attorney general’s office said he did not know.

The grand jurors knew that the fix was in, but they were not told that they had sweeping powers to request information and issue subpoenas, even if the prosecutors did not want to.

………

Ms. Taylor’s next-door neighbors said they were awakened by banging but did not hear anyone announce that they were the police, according to interviews they gave to investigators. Once the shooting subsided, the neighbors said, they heard Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend sobbing and screaming for help.

………

In previous interviews with The New York Times, 11 of 12 witnesses on the scene that night said they never heard the police identify themselves. One of them said he heard the group say “police” just once.

Cops lie with impunity in court.  The current state Attorney General is fine with that.

………

The dozen grand jurors appeared inquisitive throughout the proceedings, asking witnesses about the evidence and sometimes sounding skeptical about what was provided to them.

………

The grand jurors asked a detective from the attorney general’s office several questions on the third and final day that they met, just hours before indicting Mr. Hankison.

They asked if the police had recovered drugs or money from the apartment; the detective said no, and that the police had not searched the apartment for drugs or paraphernalia after shooting Ms. Taylor. They asked whether he had diagrams of the scene (no) and why the officers’ body cameras were not activated (the detective said he did not know).

So, when the grand jurors asked for what they considered to be critical information, the response of the authorities was, “¯_(ツ)_/¯,” and they refused to tell those jurors that they have real and significant authority to investigate.

This is deeply corrupt.

It’s clear that the AG decided that they value the support of the cop unions over the over fair administration of justice.

Edgar Allen Poe, Not Stephen King

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A group of people ignore a beloved woman’s dying wish and rush to take advantage of her death.

They hold an event to announce their corrupt plan…

…and then one by one they start falling ill.

Gotta admit, it’s all very Stephen King.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 3, 2020

Surely, I cannot be the only one who thinks that the entire scenario more closely resembles Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death.

With his retinue at the center of an expanding Covid-19 outbreak, the parallels are striking.

Seriously:

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Adventures in Dad Humor

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I was in the Sukkah, doing kiddush, and it came time to say a blessing on the bread.  (Hamotzi)

After that, I asked where the knife was to cut the roll, and Sharon* said, “Just tear up the roll.”

So, I scowled at the roll, and shouted at it, “You’re ugly, and your mom dresses you funny.”

Minor mirth ensued.

*Love of my life, light of the  cosmos, she  who must be obeyed, my wife.

Being Evil

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Google congractors are being forced to signed non-disclosure agreements that forbid them from reporting wrong doing or writing novels about Silicon Valley:

Google contract employees are alleging the company’s confidentiality agreements prevent them from a range of legal rights from whistleblowing to telling their parents how much they make, according to a recent court filing.

A California appeals court recently discussed a lawsuit accusing Alphabet‘s Google and one of its staffing firms, Adecco, of violating a number of California labor laws, including free speech, by requiring workers to sign extensive confidentiality agreements.

The contractors state they can’t talk about their wages, working conditions or colleagues, among other things, according to the court filing. 

“As a practical matter, plaintiffs argue, they are forbidden even to write a novel about working in Silicon Valley or to reassure their parents they are making enough money to pay their bills, matters untethered to any legitimate need for confidentiality,” the filing states.

………

According to the lawsuit filing, contractors said the rules prevent them from “disclosing violations of state and federal law, either within Google to their managers or outside Google to private attorneys or government officials.”

It also stated they can’t talk about the skills they obtained at Google if they’re looking for a job at a competitor, and can’t recommend colleagues who might be receptive to a rival job offer.

Plaintiffs also allege Adecco has an illegal policy prohibiting temporary employees placed at Google from working directly for Google without Adecco’s permission, the filing states. They also allege policies illegally prevented them from speaking out about failures to pay overtime work hours. 

“The defendant argued they communicate with government agencies regarding violations of law however, plaintiffs allege these clauses are meaningless and contrary to Google’s policies and practices of enforcement, which threaten employees for disclosing any information at all,” the filings read.

In the filing, dated Sept. 21, the appeals court reversed a lower court decision and said that plaintiffs could go forward with the case.

This is not a surprise. We already know that the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Google, colluded to depress wages of their employees.

I Will Not Be Following Trump’s Medical Progress With Bated Breath

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SNL Mocked This 45 Years Ago

I just don’t think that I can add anything to the discussion.

That being said, it does make sense to follow-up on the rapidly spreading infection cluster.

So far, in addition to Donald Trump and Melania Trump, we have confirmed cases for:

  • White House aide Hope Hicks
  • RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel
  • Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)
  • Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
  • Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI)
  • Former Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway
  • Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien
  • Former NJ Governor Chris Christie

It should be noted that Tillis is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was at a committee hearing, and generally NOT wearing a mask, shortly before he tested positive.

This is going to get interesting, particularly given the accelerated schedule for confirming Judge Bennett.

And the Award for Most Ludicrous Reason Not to Prosecute a Cop Goes To………

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A special prosecutor investing the cesspool of corruption that is the Orange County Sheriff’s office has declined to prosecute deputies who filed false official reports, because, and as As Anna Russel would say, “I’m not making this up, you know,” they did not know that it was illegal to falsify official documents.

This is the most reprehensible excuse a prosecutor has ever given for letting corrupt cops walk:

Orange County (CA) sheriff’s deputies are the worst at law stuff. If the goal was to hire the stupidest, most plausibly-deniable candidates, the OCSD has hit the mark.

Deputies for this department have managed to achieve the impossible: turn local prosecutors against them by continuously mishandling evidence. Evidence must be managed carefully since it’s the thing prosecutors use to secure convictions. In the hands of deputies, evidence is just something that must be handled, however haphazardly, at whatever point they get around to it.

Since they can’t handle the job of correctly booking evidence, deputies have been faking reports, claiming evidence is booked in when it actually isn’t to avoid getting reprimanded for taking too long to process seized property. One deputy, Bryce Simpson, never did the job correctly. In 74 cases audited, 56 had no evidence booked at all and the other 18 only had some of the evidence booked.

Now, Deputy Bryce Simpson — along with Deputy Joseph Atkinson Jr. — are being given a pass by the special prosecutor presiding over the grand jury convened to decide whether these two slackers/liars should face criminal charges. According to the prosecutor, the deputies did nothing wrong because — wait for it — they didn’t know falsifying official documents was wrong.

………

You have got to be f%$#ing kidding me. Even if we believe the deputies — and there’s no reason we should — there has never been a case ever in any situation where falsifying official documents has been considered the right thing to do. That the deputies may have been unaware these actions could result in criminal charges is beside the point. The mens rea is the knowing falsification of documents, which has never been considered OK under any circumstances. And that’s even when the threat of criminal prosecution isn’t readily apparent.

And their testimony contradicts the Sheriff’s Department spokesperson, who says both deputies received training on the filing of evidence — training that presumably included the warning that faking these documents could result in criminal charges. If they didn’t pay attention to the criminal charge part of the training, that’s hardly an excuse. Ignorance of the law doesn’t help civilians. It shouldn’t aid and abet criminal actions committed by law enforcement officers.

This entire rotten edifice needs to be torn down root and branch.

Him I Want to Die in Poverty and Struggling to Breath

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He’s killed dozens, if not hundreds of minors with out a second thought, so I’m hoping that he gets turned down:

Robert E. Murray, the former CEO and president of the now-bankrupt Murray Energy, has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Labor for black lung benefits. For years, Murray and his company fought against federal mine safety regulations aimed at reducing the debilitating disease.

“I founded the company and created 8,000 jobs there until the move to end coal use. I am still chairman of the board,” he wrote on a Labor Department form that initiated his claim obtained by the Ohio Valley ReSource. “We’re in bankruptcy, and due to my health could not handle the president and CEO job any longer.”

According to sources, Murray’s claim is still in the initial stages and is being evaluated to determine the party potentially responsible for paying out the associated benefits. The Labor Department is required to determine a liable party before an initial ruling can be made on entitlement to benefits. If Murray’s claim were to go before an administrative law judge, some aspects of the claim would become a matter of public record.

………

Reached by phone, Murray declined an on-the-record interview for this story. Murray said he has black lung from working in underground mines and is entitled to benefits. Additionally, he disputed that he ever fought against regulations to quell the disease or fought miners from receiving benefits.

Murray also threatened to file a lawsuit if a story was published that indicated he had fought federal regulations and benefits.

Of course he threatened a lawsuit.  It’s what the Dr. Evil wannabee does, and it’s what led John Oliver to go after him hammer and tongs.

But Murray told NPR in October 2019 that he had a lung disease that was not caused by working underground in mines.

“It’s idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF, and it is not related to my work in the industry. They’ve checked for that,” Murray told NPR. “And it’s not — has anything to do with working in the coal mines, which I did for 17 years underground every day. And until I was 76, I went underground twice a week.”

I’m thinking of starting a Gofundme to pay for a guy in a squirrel suit to follow Bob Murray around telling him to eat sh%$.

Quote of the Day

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It’s really not complicated. Most hedge funds are brilliant vehicles designed to make their managers rich. That doesn’t mean they’re doing anything illegal, or maybe even unethical. It’s capitalism. It just means they’re generally a terrible investment, like a new car or a $30,000 handbag. Only with hedge funds, you don’t even get the car or the bag.

—Brett Arends at Marketwatch

This has been in plain sight for decades.  The only mystery us why so many people, and particularly nominally savvy investors, continue to throw their money away.

My theory is that there is corruption involved.

US unemployment rate falls to 7.9% in last look at jobs market before elections | Business | The Guardian

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Scariest jobs chart ever, H/T Calculated Risk

The monthly jobs numbers came out, and it missed expectations.

This is not surprising. The stimulus ended 2 months ago, and there is not a lot to move the economy along:

Hiring gains slowed sharply heading into the fall as more layoffs turned permanent, adding to signs that the U.S. economy faces a long slog to fully recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Employers added 661,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department said Friday. The increase in payrolls showed the labor market continued to dig out of the hole created by the pandemic, but at a much slower pace than over the summer.

The U.S. has replaced 11.4 million of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April, at the beginning of the pandemic. Job growth, though, is cooling, and last month marked the first time since April that net hiring was below one million.

………

Other signs of a slowing U.S. recovery include a drop in household income at the end of the summer and smaller gains in consumer spending, the economy’s main driver.

The unemployment rate fell to 7.9% in September from 8.4% the prior month. Though the jobless rate is down sharply from a pandemic high of near 15% in April, last month’s drop partially reflected an increase in permanent layoffs and more people leaving the labor force. That could stem from more workers quitting their job searches due to weak employment prospects or child-care responsibilities.

………

Large corporate layoffs are sweeping across the U.S. Walt Disney Co. earlier this week announced permanent layoffs for 28,000 theme park workers who were previously on temporary furlough. American Airlines Group Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. will proceed for now with a total of more than 32,000 job cuts after lawmakers were unable to agree on a broad coronavirus-relief package.

The recent layoff announcements aren’t reflected in the September jobs report, which includes data gathered in the first half of the month.

………

The number of unemployed individuals saying their layoffs were temporary declined in September, which could reflect more people returning to work. Meanwhile, the number of workers who saw their layoffs as permanent rose for the month, a sign workers may be in for long spells of unemployment.

One of the reasons that the unemployment rate is down is that the denominator is shrinking, as people become discouraged, or leave the market because of the unavailability of child care.

To my mind, the employment-population ratio shows a better picture, and the picture is less rosy.

This is the last monthly jobs report before the elections, and I’m pretty sure that both sides will claim that the numbers support them.

Looks like I Picked the Wrong Week to Quit Sniffing Glue

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President* Trump has been helicoptered to Walter Reed after testing positive for the Corona virus.

They are claiming that it’s moderate symptoms, but it’s only been about 24 hours since he started to showing signs of the infection, so it’s likely to get worse.

What’s more, it appears that there was a super-spreading event at the roll-out of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett, with numerous reporters, staffers, and a few Senators testing positive.

There seems to be a plethora of folks who are offering insincere. “Thoughts and prayers,” for Trump.

I will not be one of them.

Today in IP Law Abuse

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The posted a video of their new “Truck” driving down the road, but it turned out that there was no propulsion system.

They just let it roll down hill and made it look like it was powered with camera angles:

Nikola has issued copyright-takedown notices targeting critics on YouTube who used clips of the promotional video in which a Nikola prototype truck was seen rolling down a hill.

Nikola last month admitted that the promotional video of a supposedly functional Nikola One electric truck moving along a highway actually consisted of the company’s vehicle rolling downhill. This week, Nikola “forced the removal of several critical videos from YouTube, saying they infringed its copyright by using footage from the company,” including the truck-rolling-downhill video, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

Sam Alexander is one of at least two financial commentators who had videos removed by Google subsidiary YouTube at Nikola’s request. He says that four of his videos were taken down.

“The claim is from when I showed 30 seconds of their Nikola One in Motion footage, which is what they put on Twitter and it’s of their Nikola One rolling down the hill,” Alexander said in a YouTube video he posted Wednesday.

………

“Right now my main concern is that Nikola is using copyright strikes to silence their critics,” Alexander told the Financial Times. Another YouTuber named Tom Nash “was required to take down three videos that featured criticism of Nikola,” including one that used footage of the moving truck, and has appealed YouTube’s decision, the Financial Times article said.

Meanwhile, both Nikola and Youtube are pointing fingers at each other, but my money is on Nikola

………

A Nikola statement sent to Ars and other media outlets tries to portray YouTube as the party that initiated the video-removal process. “YouTube regularly identifies copyright violations of Nikola content and shares the lists of videos with us,” a Nikola spokesperson told Ars. “Based on YouTube’s information, our initial action was to submit takedown requests to remove the content that was used without our permission. We will continue to evaluate flagged videos on a case-by-case basis.”

YouTube offered a different description, saying that Nikola simply took advantage of the Copyright Match Tool that’s available to people in the YouTube Partner Program.

“Nikola has access to our copyright match tool, which does not automatically remove any videos,” YouTube told the FT. “Users must fill out a copyright removal request form, and when doing so we remind them to consider exceptions to copyright law. Anyone who believes their reuse of a video or segment is protected by fair use can file a counter-notice.”

This is why there should be real, and severe, penalties for misuse of the take-down process in law.

The Root of Currency is “Current”, and Cryptocurrency Isn’t

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That’s why a court has ruled that a $100 million initial crypto coin offering (ICO) by Kin was an illegal unregistered securities sale.

When all is said and done, currency is supposed to allow one to spend a store of value on goods and services essentially instantly.

Even the most established crypto-currency, Bitcoin, takes hours, if not days, to process a transaction.
It is not a meaningful medium of exchange for even the most basic commercial activities:

The 2017 launch of the Kin cryptocurrency broke federal securities laws, a federal judge has ruled. Federal law requires anyone who offers a new security to the general public to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The messaging app maker Kik didn’t do that when it sold $100 million worth of Kin in 2017.

The company argued that Kin was legally a new virtual currency, not a security. In a Wednesday ruling, Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected that claim. The ruling could have big consequences for the cryptocurrency world.

Since 2016, hundreds of cryptocurrency projects have held Kin-like “initial coin offerings” that raised millions—in a few cases, hundreds of millions—of dollars. Few of these offerings went through the traditional steps required to register a securities offering with the SEC. So Wednesday’s ruling could create legal headaches for existing blockchain projects launched via an ICO. It also limits the options for launching cryptocurrencies in the future.

Judge Hellerstein gave Kik and the SEC three weeks to come up with a joint recommendation on appropriate remedies. Kik says it is considering appealing the ruling.
How a cryptocurrency offering is like an orange grove

A security is an asset that investors purchase in hopes of making a profit. It includes traditional investment vehicles like stocks and bonds, but it also includes a catch-all category called an investment contract. The Supreme Court laid out the legal criteria for investment contracts in a landmark 1946 ruling.

………

In his Wednesday ruling, Hellerstein concluded that similar logic applies to the Kin tokens Kik sold in 2017. Officially, Kin owners are not entitled to any profits generated by the Kin ecosystem. But practically speaking, people bought Kin because they hoped a thriving Kin ecosystem would push up Kin’s value the same way that bitcoins and ether had become more valuable over time.

Hellerstein notes that Kik CEO Ted Livingston repeatedly touted Kin’s potential as an investment opportunity. “If you could grow the demand for it, then the price—the value of that cryptocurrency would go up, such that if you set some aside for yourself at the beginning, you could make a lot of money,” Livingston said.

………

This was a common way to bootstrap a new cryptocurrency during the 2017 ICO boom, and the Kik ruling could slam the door shut on this method for getting a new blockchain project off the ground. Registering as a security comes with a lot of regulations. Complying with those regulations will, at a minimum, require a lot of legal work. And some cryptocurrency projects might not fit into existing SEC rules at all.

This is a good thing.

ICO’s are a recipe for fraud.

Boy, This is Turning into a Sh%$ Show

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First, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale creates the most convincing shirtless suspect audition tape for an episode of Cops ever, and now serial securities fraudster Jacob Wohl, and his partner in crime Jack Burkman, have been charged with election fraud and face the prospect of decades in prison.

The wheels really do seem to be coming off of Trump’s Evil Minions™ right now:

Conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman were charged on Thursday for allegedly orchestrating a series of robocalls aimed at suppressing the vote in the November presidential election, Michigan authorities said.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a slew of charges against Burkman, 54, and Wohl, 22, including conspiracy to commit an election law violation and using a computer to commit the crime of election law – intimidating voters. Prosecutors allege the two political operatives were using a robocall system aimed at scaring Detroit voters away from using mail-in voting ballots. The calls, which were made in August, went out to nearly 12,000 Detroit residents.

Both Wohl and Burkman face four felony counts and a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison.

The voice on the call attributed to Wohl and Burkman attempts to trick listeners into not sending in mail-in ballots, falsely warning that the information would be used to track fugitives, collect on credit card debts, and enforce “mandatory vaccines.” The calls also told residents to “beware of vote by mail.”

………

Wohl and Burkman didn’t respond to immediate requests for comment. In August, Burkman denied being behind the robocall, claiming it was suspicious that it was connected to his personal cell phone number.

“No one in their right mind would put their own cell on a robocall,” Burkman told The Daily Beast.

Ummmm ………We’ve seen your other frauds and scams (also here, here, and here) 

You areally ARE that f%$#ing stupid.

………

The attorney general’s office added that during the investigation into the robocalls, investigators communicated with officials in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois—all of whom reported similar robocalls being made to residents in their states. All the calls, they said, were made to residents in “urban areas with significant minority populations,” the Michigan attorney general’s office said.

………

The Michigan charges aren’t the only legal charges facing the pair. Wohl has been charged with two felonies over alleged violations of California securities law. On Saturday, The Daily Beast reported on a secret FBI investigation into Wohl and Burkman over the leak of confidential juror questionnaires and grand jury testimony in the trial of Trump associate Roger Stone.

Wohl and Burkman became notorious online in 2018, after a failed attempt to manufacture a sexual assault allegation against Robert Mueller collapsed in spectacular fashion. Since then, they have tried to create hoaxes against other Trump opponents, but the schemes always fail almost immediately, often due to Wohl and Burkman’s own errors.

Seriously, these folks are flipping out. 

My deepest wish is that the inevitable shrapnel that results from their flying to pieces so spectacularly only injures their fellow travelers.

Another Thursday, More Bad Economic News

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Unemployment claims remained largely unchanged in the last week, which is to say that it’s still about 30% more than any other report that was not in 2020:

New applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. fell slightly last week but remained between 800,000 and 900,000 for the fifth straight week, reflecting a labor-market recovery that is losing momentum.

Weekly initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 837,000 in the week ended Sept. 26, the Labor Department said Thursday. In a positive sign, the number of people collecting unemployment benefits through regular state programs, which cover most workers, decreased by 980,000 to about 11.8 million for the week ended Sept. 19. That was the lowest level since March.

The totals for unemployment applications and payments remain well above pre-pandemic peaks but are down significantly from this spring, when the coronavirus pandemic and related shutdowns caused both measures to rise to the highest levels on record back to the 1960s.

………

Thursday’s data was complicated by California pausing the processing of new claims for two weeks. State officials said last month they needed to clear a backlog of nearly 600,000 Californians who have applied for benefits more than 3 weeks earlier, and about 1 million cases where individuals received payments but subsequently modified their claim and are awaiting resolution.

The U.S. Labor Department said Thursday that this week’s national report reflects California’s level during the last week before the pause. Data will be revised at a later date, the government said.

Of more significance, it appears that household income is cratering, which means that the reason that the drop in unemployment claims are flattening out might be that the much touted “recovery” is running out of steam:

A drop in household income and persistently high layoffs are threatening to further slow the U.S. economic recovery, which already appears to be losing momentum as the pandemic continues.

Personal income—what households received from salaries, investments and government aid—fell 2.7% in August as enhanced unemployment checks shrank, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Meanwhile, another 837,000 workers filed for unemployment compensation last week after being recently laid off, the Labor Department said. In total, nearly 12 million workers are receiving unemployment compensation through regular state programs.

The level of weekly jobless claims shows layoffs remain persistent in some industries, and more companies announced cuts this week. American Airlines Group Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. told employees they will go forward with more than 32,000 job cuts Thursday, after lawmakers were unable to agree on a broad coronavirus-relief package. Insurer Allstate Corp. on Wednesday said it planned to lay off 3,800 employees. Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday announced permanent layoffs for 28,000 theme-park workers who were previously on temporary furlough.

The economy up to now has rebounded more quickly than many economists thought. But with federal aid fading and job growth slowing, consumer spending—the key driver of economic activity in the U.S.—could weaken. Economists believe the recovery is entering into a modest and more grinding phase.

We are coasting on the now expired stimulus and supplemental unemployment payments.

Friday’s jobless rate will be interesting, as will the next few weeks of economic data.

Clearly, Young Skywalker Has Completed His Training

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This is not just the best response to the debates, it’s the best possible response to the debates:

That debate was the worst thing I’ve ever seen & I was in The Star Wars Holiday Special.

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) September 30, 2020

That being said, Weird Al Yankovic is a pretty close second:

It’s actually pretty impressive that he got together a song based on the actual event in such a short time.