For all of human history, people have been able to communicate privately with each other, and we don’t think that should go away in a modern society.
People who want to structure our society to enable police at the expense of the rest of us are literally advocating for a police state.
“Only our racist billionaire can beat their racist billionaire.“ – some Democratic pollster somewhere shopping for a new boat https://t.co/bPS4QAe2Zo— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) February 15, 2020
This is what the Bloomberg candidacy is all about, Democratic Party consultants desperately trying to get a piece of the money he is throwing around the campaign right now.
In response to his blatant corruption, many people are calling for Attorney General William Barr’s resignation.
I respectfully disagree. He should not resign.
He must be frog marched out of the DoJ in handcuffs
Lloyd Blankfein, the former head of Goldman Sachs, who during the financial crisis received tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars of direct and indirect bailouts from the taxpayers, is now whining that Bernie Sanders would ruin the economy if elected President.
This guy is literally the biggest welfare queen in history, and he’s lecturing us about how to save the economy?
You nearly blew up the world, and because of the corruption and cowardice of two administration, you personally walked away with billions in taxpayer money.
Shut the f%$# up, you leech.
I am beginning to think that Michael Bloomberg is running for President to provide cover for the racist resort of Pete Buttigieg.
Unlike Buttigieg, whose hostility can only be divined from his actions as mayor, Bloomberg is on tape many times saying unbelievably racist bullsh%$:
While promoting a multi-million dollar initiative to “reduce disparities” as the mayor of New York City in 2011, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said “enormous cohorts” of young black and Latino men “don’t know how to behave in the workplace where they have to work collaboratively and collectively.”
Bloomberg made the remarks during an interview with PBS Newshour, as he promoted his Young Men’s Initiative, a $127 million, three-year program funded in part by Bloomberg’s charitable organization, financier George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and the city of New York. “Blacks and Latinos score terribly in school testing compared to whites and Asians. If you look at our jails, it’s predominantly minorities,” Bloomberg said.
“If you look at where crime takes place, it’s in minority neighborhoods. If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators are, it’s virtually all minorities,” Bloomberg continued. “This is something that has gone on for a long time, I assume it’s prevalent elsewhere but it’s certainly true in New York City.”
This guy has made racism a central part of his public personae, and when juxtaposed with scores of allegations of sexual harassment at his company, this guy should not be able to be elected dog catcher.
In a report on the Syrian army pushing the Jihadist rebels out artillery range of Aleppo, the New York Times waits until paragraph to mention that the people or Aleppo were literally dancing in the streets over their new found safety:
Syrian President Bashar Assad congratulated his forces Monday for recent gains in northwestern Syria that led to his troops consolidating control over Aleppo province, pledging to press ahead with a military campaign to achieve complete victory “sooner or later.”
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In the past few weeks, government troops backed by Russian air power have captured more than 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles) in the northwest, consolidating their hold over Aleppo province after capturing over 30 villages and hamlets in the western countryside in a single day Sunday. The advance secured the provincial capital that had for years remained within range of opposition fire.
The new gains, along with securing a key highway through rebel territory, are set to better link northern and southern Syria, including the city of Aleppo, which was Syria’s commercial center before the war. The highway, known as the M5, links the country’s four largest cities and population centers and is key to controlling Syria.
The developments sparked late-night celebrations in the streets of Aleppo that continued through Monday, with state media showing residents waving flags and dancing in roads packed with vehicles.“We should not rest, but continue to prepare for the coming battles, and therefore the battle of liberating Aleppo countryside and Idlib will continue, despite the empty noise that is coming from the north (Turkey),” Assad said.
The refugees Idlib are little more hostages to Erdogans delusion that he is the rebirth of the Ottoman caliphate.
It is profoundly depressing that the best alternative for Syria is Bashar al-Assad, but considering the people who conspired to foment civil war in Syria, Erdogan, the House of Saud, the regime change mousketeers of various western state security apparatuses, it is not a surprise.
Democrats who won control of Virginia’s legislature on the promise of sweeping gun control lost a battle over assault-style weapons on Monday, handing Gov. Ralph Northam a big defeat and giving a rare win to Second Amendment activists in a newly blue Capitol.
A Virginia Senate committee killed a bill that would have banned the sale of assault-style weapons and possession of high-capacity magazines. It had been a top priority for Northam (D), a former Army doctor who served in Operation Desert Storm and often remarks that he has “seen firsthand what weapons of war do to human beings.”
The bill was part of a package of eight gun-control measures Northam advanced after a shooter killed 12 people at a Virginia Beach municipal building on May 31. Republicans’ refusal to act on those bills last summer, in a special session they gaveled out in 90 minutes, became a rallying cry for Democrats in November elections. They flipped the state House and Senate blue for the first time in a generation.
The House has passed all eight of Northam’s bills, but a handful of Democrats in the less liberal Senate have quashed three of them amid fears that the newly empowered party might overplay its hand. The same tension has been playing out on other fronts, with the Senate taking a more cautious approach on issues such as the minimum wage, collective bargaining and state budgeting.
While the general public supports what could be called the Democratic Party agenda, they do not believe that when push comes to shove, they will muster the intestinal fortitude to actually get their policies implemented.
Voters hate cowards.
Australian 1960s SF show. Note the accents, they are all speaking “Beeb” more than an what is thought of as an Australian accent today. It’s reminiscent of the original Dark Shadows:
World Bank Chief Economist Pinelopi (Penny) Goldberg has left after the organization killed a report that showed that at least 5% of aid from the organization went into overseas accounts:
When autocratic, oil-rich nations enjoy a windfall from higher crude prices, where does the money go? One place to look is Swiss bank accounts. Sure enough, an increase in oil prices is followed by a spike in deposits held by these countries in financial havens, according to a 2017 paper by Jorgen Juel Andersen of BI Norwegian Business School, Niels Johannesen of the University of Copenhagen and their co-authors.
When Mr Johannesen presented this result at the World Bank in 2015, the audience included Bob Rijkers, a member of the bank’s research group. The two of them joined forces with Mr Andersen to investigate if something similar happened after another kind of windfall: infusions of aid from foreign donors. Their conclusion was dispiriting. World Bank payouts to 22 aid-dependent countries during 1990-2010 were followed by a jump in their deposits in foreign financial havens. The leaks averaged about 5% of the bank’s aid to these countries.
Mr Rijkers is part of a unit that reports to the bank’s chief economist, Pinelopi (Penny) Goldberg. The team publishes working papers on the understanding that their views do not represent the bank’s. But Mr Rijkers’s collaborative effort, which was leaked to The Economist, is not yet among them. It passed an exacting internal review by other researchers in November. But, according to informed sources, publication was blocked by higher officials. They may have been worried about how it would look if the bank’s own researchers said that a chunk of its aid ended up in Swiss bank accounts and the like.
The bank insists a final decision on publication has not been made and that it still has legitimate concerns about the paper. A correlation between aid disbursements and offshore deposits is not proof of causation. And the 5% of “leaks” might include some innocent money, earned by aid contractors who just happen to prefer offshore havens to other financial centres. But the paper had already answered similar objections in the review process.
The recycling of foreign into western banks through corruption is a feature, not a bug.
Corrupt officials are bribable, and if they store their money in western institutions, they are far more likely to buy into the neoliberal consensus favored by the west.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party establishment seems to think that Michael Bloomberg’s checkbook is the last firewall against a Bernie Sanders success:
As Mike Bloomberg celebrated his 48th birthday in 1990, a top aide at the company he founded presented him with a booklet of profane, sexist quotes she attributed to him.
A good salesperson is like a man who tries to pick up women at a bar by saying, “Do you want to f—? He gets turned down a lot — but he gets f—– a lot, too!” Bloomberg was quoted in the booklet as saying. Bloomberg also allegedly said that his company’s financial information computers “will do everything, including give you [oral sex]. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.”
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Several lawsuits have been filed over the years alleging that women were discriminated against at Bloomberg’s business-information company, including a case brought by a federal agency and one filed by a former employee, who blamed Bloomberg for creating a culture of sexual harassment and degradation.
The most high-profile case was from a former saleswoman. She sued Bloomberg personally as well as his company, alleging workplace discrimination. She alleged Bloomberg told her to “kill it” when he learned she was pregnant. Bloomberg has denied her allegation under oath, and he reached a confidential settlement with the saleswoman.
The Washington Post interviewed a former Bloomberg employee, David Zielenziger, who said he witnessed the conversation with the saleswoman. Zielenziger, who said he had not previously spoken publicly about the matter, said Bloomberg’s behavior toward the woman was “outrageous. I understood why she took offense.”
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A number of the cases have either been settled, dismissed in Bloomberg’s favor or closed because of a failure of the plaintiff to meet filing deadlines. The cases do not involve accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct; the allegations have centered around what Bloomberg has said and about the workplace culture he fostered.
Now, as Bloomberg is increasingly viewed as a viable Democratic candidate for president and the #MeToo era has raised the profile of workplace harassment, he is finding that his efforts to prevent disclosure are clashing against demands that he release former employees and complainants from their nondisclosure agreements.
This is some more commentary regarding L’affaire Roger Stone, specifically, Donald Trump’s tweet criticizing the sentence that the prosecutors recommended, the subsequent amended (reduced) sentencing recommendation that came straight from Barr’s office, and the withdrawal of the entire prosecution team in protest.
William Barr actually gave an interview stating that Trump’s tweets make it difficult for him to do his job.
In what is a profoundly depressing, is that the mainstream press has presented this as an example of the integrity of the Attorney General, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Even right wing knuckle dragger Laura Ingraham understood what was being said, “Barr was basically telling Trump, ‘don’t worry, I got this’.”
Barr is telling Trump to shut the f%$# up while he finishes the coverup.
This is not occurring in isolation, Barr is looking to sabotage the case against Michael Flynn in the sane way.
William Barr is not, and has never, functioned as an Attorney General.
He is Donald Trump’s consigliere, just as he was George H.W. Bush’s consigliere and covered up Bush’s role in Iran Contra.
I do not believe that William Barr needs to resign as AG, I believe that he needs to be frog-marched out of the Department of Justice in handcuffs.
Following a SEC inquiry of Tesla being closed, the SEC opens up another inquiry, because stock fraud is kind of Tesla’s thing:
Tesla Inc. isn’t yet in the clear with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Dec. 4, the same day the agency closed its second investigation into the electric-car maker in as many years, the SEC sent a subpoena seeking information on a fresh set of matters, Tesla disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday. The regulator is looking into “certain financial data and contracts including Tesla’s regular financing arrangements,” according to the company.
The investigation the SEC closed in December related to projections and public statements regarding Model 3 production rates. Earlier in 2019, the agency went to court with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk over tweets he sent about how many cars the company would build for the year. A judge forced the two sides to shore up a settlement reached in 2018 over claims Musk made during his short-lived efforts to take Tesla private.
If we actually enforces securities law in the United States, half of the Silicon Valley masters of the universe would have gone to jail.
One of those cute murderous bundles of mischief has just thrown up in our washing machine.
Thankfully, there were no clothes in there, so a quick wipe and a quick cycle, everything is OK.
I saw that it was Rolling Stone, and I saw the first paragraph of this article about Roger Stone’s legal problems, and I said that this HAD to be Matt Taibbi.
It isn’t, though it is a wonderful bit of prose:
It’s not every day that a degenerate former swinger and serial scumbag who built a career based on a single line of bullshit and self-fellation so constant and vigorous that it is practically a yogic art form stands before the bar of justice, but here we are. Roger Stone is, as he loves to be, in the center of a national political scandal, and with his sentencing approaching in just days, Stone hoped the Trump “Justice” Department would save him from a well-deserved sentence of seven to nine years in prison.
Stone earned the recommended sentence not because he is a Trump ally, but because he threatened witnesses, lied to the court and to the House of Representatives, and got caught. Worst of all, he threatened Judge Amy Berman-Jackson online, defied various gag orders, and engaged in his usual rat-fuckery. He made the mistake of thinking that Judge Berman-Jackson is as gullible as the claque of hangers-on, wanna-be catamites, and scumbag errand boys with whom Stone usually surrounds himself.
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Stone deserved everything in the first sentencing memo. Every minute. He deserves to be dragged from the courtroom in shackles and issued his itchy, federal-prison poly-cotton orange scrubs. Karmically, he deserves it because he was one of Trump’s lifelong enablers, and because once Trump was elected, Stone trafficked in the most lunatic and corrosive conspiracy theories under the sun. Stone’s gift for sleaze-bag political tactics was always that — tactical. He was great at piling on a wounded victim (see Elliot Spitzer), but it was Trump who kept Stone afloat for decades.
It is a wonderfully savage account of Roger Stone, and his current conviction for lying to Congress.
Read the whole thing.
In 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany because the mainstream parties were unwilling to make common cause with the left.
Now discover that the German Christian Democrats are cutting deals with the Fascist AfD because they are unwilling to make common cause with the left, specifically die Linke:
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats have prided themselves on the strict cordon sanitaire they built around the far-right Alternative for Germany — ruling out any co-operation or contact. Many now wonder whether it is time for the barrier to come down.
Events of the past week, where a local row over dealings with the AfD culminated in national leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer deciding to quit, have shown just how consequential the CDU’s attitude to the far-right has become.
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This month’s upheaval was sparked in Thuringia, where the CDU sided with the AfD in the eastern state’s parliament to elect a little-known politician as prime minister. He was the first regional leader in post-war German history brought to power with the support of the populist right.
It was also a startling rebuff to Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had warned the Thuringian branch of the party not to vote alongside the AfD. Her authority in tatters, she announced on Monday that she would step down as CDU chairwoman and abandon her campaign to succeed Ms Merkel as chancellor.
Since then more CDU politicians have come forward to criticise the party’s anti-AfD fatwa. Raymond Walk, secretary-general of the CDU in Thuringia, described it as a “straitjacket” and demanded a rethink.
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In Germany, the issue is even more emotional. Any discussion of a possible tie-up between CDU and AfD is overlaid with memories of the Nazi era and of how mainstream conservative parties facilitated Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.
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The AfD itself, which is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, with 89 seats, has strongly criticised the CDU’s cordon sanitaire. Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD group in the German parliament, has called such “rejectionism” “foolish and deeply undemocratic”.
But for most in the CDU, the AfD, with its stridently anti-Islam and anti-immigration tone and its revisionist views of Germany’s 20th century history, is beyond the pale. Its Thuringian branch, led by the right-wing radical Björn Höcke, presents a particular problem: a court in the state ruled last year that Mr Höcke could legally be termed a “fascist”, saying such a designation “rests on verifiable fact”.
The CDU’s problems are compounded by the equally strict firewall it has constructed around another radical party — the hard-left Die Linke, which has its roots in the East German communist party.
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Ms Prien pointed to the CDU’s refusal to back Thuringia’s previous prime minister, Bodo Ramelow, a relatively moderate trade unionist from Die Linke. By boycotting him, the party had in effect equated him with Mr Höcke.
Ms Prien insisted she was a “committed anti-Communist”, but to put “a respectable prime minister like Bodo Ramelow on a par with someone like Mr Höcke is a political and historical distortion”.
Germany in general, and the CDU in particular, seem determined to recreate the conditions which led to the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, whether it is its insistence on austerity, or its refusal to deal with the non-racist left.
This will not end well.
*Once again, though this quote is frequently attributed to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, but he almost certainly did not create the quote.
We’ve had the first bank failure of the year,Ericson State Bank of Ericson, NE.
It’s a single data point, so really are no trends to draw a conclusion, but you can follow bank closing data at the FDIC bank failure web site.
The degree to which taxpayers are effectively funding fraudulent non-profit activities buggers the mind:
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is helping to fund a Super PAC launching attack ads against Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada on Saturday, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement. The ads are being run by a group called Democratic Majority for Israel, founded by longtime AIPAC strategist Mark Mellman.
The Nevada attack ads, which will air in media markets in Reno and Las Vegas, follow a similar spending blitz by DMFI ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Like the ads that aired in Iowa, the Nevada ads will attack Sanders on the idea that he’s not electable, Mediaite reported.
DMFI spent $800,000 on the Iowa ads, while the spending on the Nevada ads remains private. AIPAC is helping bankroll the anti-Sanders project by allowing donations to DMFI to count as contributions to AIPAC, the sources said. As is typical with most big-money giving programs, the more a donor gives to AIPAC, the higher tier they can claim — $100,000 level, $1 million level, and so on — and the more benefits accrue to them. A $100,000 donor gets more access to members of Congress at private functions, for instance, than someone who merely pays AIPAC’s conference fee. A $1 million donor gets still more, which means that it is important to donors to have their contributions tallied. There is also status within social networks attached to one’s tier of giving. The arrangement allows donors to give directly to DMFI, which is required to file disclosures naming its donors, without AIPAC’s fingerprints.
Rachel Rosen, a spokesperson for DMFI, said she was unaware of any AIPAC encouragement to donate to the organization. “As far as we know, what you are suggesting is completely untrue,” she said. “But because we are a separate organization, we can’t know exactly what other organizations are doing. Therefore, we are the wrong address for the the specific questions you ask — they need to [be] directed to AIPAC.”
AIPAC denied the arrangement. “AIPAC is not and has not been involved in the ad campaigns of any political action committee,” spokesperson Marshall Wittmann wrote in an email. “The accusation that AIPAC is providing benefits to members for donating to fund these political ads or this political action committee is completely false and has no basis in fact.”
If you believe AIPAC’s denials, I have some prime swamp land in Tel Hazor to sell you.
This is likely to harm Democratic candidates who are running for offices other than President:
While I am generally supportive of businesses bidding up the salaries of their employees, Bloomberg is strip mining the political operations of Democratic oice seekers from top to bottom, and it is the Republicans who will benefit from this:
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The former New York City mayor, who has committed to directing his money in support of whoever the eventual Democratic nominee is, claims that his billions of dollars will save the party. Neither Leeper nor her campaign managers responded to requests for comment, but hers is a story that is unfolding in local, state, and federal races across the country. The promise of Bloomberg’s campaign — “Mike Will Get it Done” — is meant to assure anxious Democrats that he and his money will rescue a moribund party. For staffers, working for Bloomberg means guaranteed employment through November, something campaigns that are competing in primaries can’t promise to their employees. The billionaire is now opening an office in New Hampshire, just as other presidential campaigns are packing up and leaving after Tuesday’s primary. For a swath of voters, there’s something comforting about the money he’s willing to spend. But for candidates across the country — the type needed to hold majorities in Congress and in state legislatures, and to boost turnout for the presidential election — the billions in spending means quite the opposite.
Progressive groups, local campaigns, and presidential operations are either losing staff to the Bloomberg campaign, or are struggling to hire people because the former mayor has picked so many political operatives and canvassers up, according to interviews, emails, and messages from dozens of people involved in hiring. Several of them spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity, either not to offend the biggest spender in political history, or not to expose publicly that they are having a hard time finding staff, which the public could perceive as suggestive of weakness.
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The Bloomberg campaign is offering field organizers, or FOs) $6,000 per month and guaranteed pay through November, and many have realized that if they demand more, they will likely get it, according to hiring managers. A typical salary for that position at the state or federal level might be $3,000 to $4,000, and multiple operatives in charge of hiring FOs say they’ve never had a harder time recruiting, and applicants are making extreme demands. Regional organizing directors are being offered $8,000 a month to start, significantly more than typical campaigns.
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Bloomberg’s network is even trying to recruit the children of big donors. As one donor messaged a friend: “Saw Nancy Pelosi yesterday at a fundraiser. Very inspiring. Lots of folks are starting to agree with [us] about Bloomberg. I know [your daughter] is a progressive but we have to win this time. One of the sons of our group is now on Bloomberg’s staff and he said they’re hiring young people with no experience at $8k a month. Any way we can talk [your daughter] into getting paid for real on the campaign?” (A Sanders supporter, the daughter declined and forwarded the message to The Intercept. It is edited to conceal identifying information, so as to avoid an unpleasant conversation with mom.)
Rob Quan, a political operative in Los Angeles, is currently consulting for a local city council candidate. “This is hands down the toughest time I’ve ever had finding field staff,” he said. He’s posting jobs for canvassers, paying $18 an hour, and is “getting crickets.”
Following the clusterf%$# that used to be known as the Iowa caucuses, Troy Price, the head of the state Democratic Party has resigned:
Troy Price, the beleaguered chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, resigned on Wednesday, a week after overseeing the chaotic Iowa caucuses that embarrassed the state and national party and left Democrats open to accusations of incompetence by President Trump’s re-election campaign.
The Iowa Democratic Party failed to report any results from its first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses on Feb. 3 until the next afternoon. When it did report results, they were filled with errors. Even once the Iowa Democratic Party released what it said were full results, errors remained in the tabulations, and the campaigns of the two victors, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and Senator Bernie Sanders, have both asked for a partial recanvass of the results.
Mr. Price, 39, has been the public face of the Iowa caucus debacle, as he has struggled to offer reassuring explanations about the integrity of the caucus reporting process and final results.
“While it is my desire to stay in this role and see this process through to completion, I do believe it is time for the Iowa Democratic Party to begin looking forward, and my presence in my current role makes that more difficult,” Mr. Price wrote in a letter to party officials. “Therefore, I will resign as chair of the Iowa Democratic Party effective upon the election of my replacement.” The party said its State Central Committee would elect an interim chair on Saturday.
How could one human being screw this up so badly?
The answer is that it takes a village:
In a conference call with his central committee two days after the caucuses, Mr. Price was pressed by two members over the appearance of cronyism because of his friendships, dating to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, with a senior adviser to Mr. Buttigieg who is married to the founder of the company that developed the caucus app. (The New York Times was provided with a call-in number for the call.)
“We have seen the pictures of you, Troy, with app developers and people with the Buttigieg campaign, and that’s concerning,” said Holly Brown, a committee member. She told Mr. Price he should not be involved in a planned post-mortem of what went wrong. “We’d like to have you removed from this,” she said.………
Sean Bagniewski, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, which includes Des Moines, said the coziness between state party leaders, vendors and candidates did not originate under Mr. Price. “I think it’s been this way for quite some time,” he said. “It’s kind of like the little families that control petroleum countries. You’ve got access to resources that everybody wants, and you kind of become your own little kingdom of consultants and advisers.”
It ain’t just Iowa.
Is anyone here shocked that we now know that Juul was literally purchasing ads on children’s cartoon shows for its vaping products?I’m not:
Popular e-cigarette maker Juul intentionally and egregiously tailored its marketing to appeal to underage youth, according to a lawsuit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on February 12. The company’s early marketing in 2015 and 2016 purposefully used young, “cool” models in its launch campaign, recruited teen “influencers” on social media, and bought banner and video advertisements on numerous websites aimed at teens and children, including Cartoon Network’s cartoonnetwork.com and Nickelodeon’s sites Nick.com and NickJr.com. Juul even went so far as to give advice to underage consumers over email on how to get around age restrictions to make online purchases of the company’s e-cigarettes.
The lawsuit lands as public health officials across the nation are still grappling with an explosion in e-cigarette use by youth, which the Food and Drug Administration has referred to as an “epidemic.” Between 2011 and 2019, recent use of e-cigarettes by middle schoolers increased from 0.6 percent to 10.5 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For high schoolers, use increased from 1.5 percent to 27.5 percent in that timeframe. That means that by 2019, more than 1 in every 4 high school students said they had used e-cigarettes within the last 30-days from the time of the survey.
I really hope that there are criminal prosecutions int he future, but I doubt it.
They will just pay some fines, and it will be considered a cost of doing business.