Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Long Overdue

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I’m not a big fan of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, but her proposal to allow defendants to use a public interest defense in cases of releases of classified information is an idea long overdue. 

Prosecutions under the Espionage Act frequently resemble a kangaroo court, particularly in Judge Leonie Brinkama’s court, where she has consistently made a vigorous defense by the defendant impossible.

Still, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop about it, because I do not trust Gabbard:

Legislation proposed in Congress would amend the United States Espionage Act and create a public interest defense for those prosecuted under the law.

“A defendant charged with an offense under section 793 or 798 [in the U.S. legal code] shall be permitted to testify about their purpose for engaging in the prohibited conduct,” according to a draft of the bill Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard introduced.

Such a reform would make it possible for whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, Terry Albury and Daniel Hale to inform the public why they disclosed information without authorization to the press.

The legislation called the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act is supported by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

“If this long-overdue revision of the 1917 Espionage Act had been law half a century ago, I myself could have had a fair trial for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971: justice under law unavailable to me and to every other national security whistleblower indicted and prosecuted since then,” Ellsberg declared.

………

As noted, government employees or contractors prosecuted under the Espionage Act would be allowed an “affirmative defense” under the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act that they engaged in the “prohibited conduct for purpose of disclosing to the public” violations of laws, rules or regulations, or to expose “gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”

………

However, the Espionage Act Reform bill appears to do more to prohibit the Justice Department from prosecuting journalists. It specifically ensures “only personnel with security clearances can be prosecuted for improperly revealing classified information” and aims to protect the rights of members of the press that “solicit, obtain or publish government secrets.”

“When brave whistleblowers come forward to expose wrongdoing within our government, they must have the confidence that they, and the press who publishes this information, will be protected from government retaliation,” stated Gabbard.

I like the bill, though my preferred solution, adopting the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) as an explicit constitutional right.

Anything that provides more accountability and exposure to the US state security apparatus is a good thing.

The Trump Stink

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Members of the Trump administration have discovered that with Donald Trump flagging in the polls, they have become toxic to future employers. 

They aren’t getting calls returned.

Oh the humanity:

Four years ago, some Republicans who said unsavory things during the campaign about the new president worried that such remarks might ruin their chances of redemption via employment in the Trump administration.

Today, some of those same Republicans are now quietly on the job hunt as President Trump’s standing in the polls continues to slide against Democratic nominee Joe Biden with decision time in just 18 days. But now, these GOPers are hoping the Trump presidency isn’t a disqualifying blemish on their resumes or Google footprint as the door revolves the other way and they seek to land, once again, in the private sector.

………

“There’s always a market for lobbyists, but look at someone like [former White House Press Secretary Sean] Spicer who had high-profile gigs in the White House and where did he land?” noted Amanda Carpenter, a Trump critic, CNN contributor and former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). “He’s a host on Newsmax right now. That’s not the kind of leg-up to high-profile communications in the corporate world that’s the typical path…. If he can’t do it, I think people with such a high profile will have similar problems.”

………

Over a dozen Republican strategists, former Trump administration staffers, current Capitol Hill hands and associates close to the Trump White House predict that many graduates of the Trump administration could have a tough time sticking a landing in the private sector.

They say Trump’s shaky standing in the campaign — and his pull on down-ballot races — is already making Republicans especially nervous.

“Quiet conversations in Gmail are more active now than would be expected a month before an election,” said a senior Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “I have a buddy in the administration who is starting to quietly move his resume around, and he’s noticed people who he thought would be quicker to respond to inquiries have been less so. He called it ‘the Trump stink. How much Trump stink is on my resume right now?‘”

………

This strategist said more prominent White House aides such as Mark Meadows and Stephen Miller may have bigger hurdles than more anonymous mid-tier aides seeking a job.

“But I don’t think Stephen Miller ever foresaw a job on K Street,” the strategist added.

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, is one of the most recognizable current Trump White House officials. Carpenter predicts she will have an even more difficult time than Spicer if and when she exits but adds that for someone like McEnany, who made her name defending Trumpism on cable news, the benefits of the job might have outweighed other prospects.

………

Many of those interviewed for this story did not want to go on the record in order to discuss private conversations with candor. But they say concerns about hiring people from Trumpworld are real.

………

The longtime GOP strategist who runs a public affairs firm recalled coming close to hiring a former Trump White House staffer until a Google search revealed the prospective hire’s track record defending Trump on race and immigration. It ground the interview process to a halt, the strategist said.

“A lot of people who came into this in 2015 and 2016, they knew that there would be a stigma going into this — and it’ll likely last for a very long time,” said a Trump campaign staffer. “Probably for the rest of their lives. I don’t think that’s lost on anyone.”

(Emphasis mine)

No sympathy from me.

You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!

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After an almost 6 month hiatus, we have the 3rd bank failure of the year, First City Bank of Florida, of Fort Walton Beach FL.

I’m not sure if it means anything, except the obvious that the economy is beginning to hit the banks.

It may be the first of a few, or the first of a tsunami.  No clue as to which one.

By way of context here is the Full FDIC list going back a number of years.

Still not at a number where graphing makes sense though.

Quote of the Day

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As for the Republicans — how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

—H.P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillip did love him some long and florid paragraphs, but this is spot on.

Initial Jobless Claims Up

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Initial unemployment claims rose by 53,000 to 898,000 last week. 

Some recovery, huh?

The much-touted recovery is increasingly looking like a dead cat bounce:

The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level since late August, with fresh layoffs adding to other signs the economic recovery is losing steam as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Claims increased to 898,000 last week, holding well above the pre-pandemic high point of 695,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. After declining from a peak of near 7 million in March, weekly claims have clocked in between 800,000 and 900,000 for more than a month as companies readjust their head counts.

The economy more broadly is flashing signs of slowdown. Monthly job gains have cooled recently, as has growth in consumer spending and factory output.

“The jobless claims continued to reflect very difficult labor market conditions,” said Kathy Bostjancic, an economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s representative of still uncertain and challenging economic conditions at large.”


The number of people collecting unemployment benefits through regular state programs, which cover most workers, fell to about 10 million in the week ended Oct. 3 from 11.2 million the previous week, according to the Labor Department. So-called continuing claims declined throughout the summer, indicating employers continued to hire workers.
However, some of the recent declines in continuing claims represent individuals who have exhausted the maximum duration of payments available through regular state programs, and are now collecting money through a federal program that provides an extra 13 weeks of benefits. About 2.8 million people were receiving aid through this extended-benefits program in the week ended Sept. 26—the largest number since the program began this spring, Labor Department data show.

………

This suggests many Americans are experiencing long spells of joblessness and relying on unemployment insurance to keep paying bills. The extended-benefits program is set to expire at the end of this year without additional federal stimulus. ………

………

Weekly figures can be volatile, but the four-week moving average for claims rose as well, to 866,250, a sign more workers are losing their jobs.

“We’ve seen a number of large firms report layoffs, some of it because the pace of recovery is slower than maybe they had hoped for,” Ms. Bostjancic said.

A Wall Street Journal survey found more than half of business and academic economists polled this month said they didn’t expect the labor market to regain all the jobs from the pandemic until 2023 or later. That is a slower timeline than economists predicted six months ago.

There will be no V-shaped recovery.

It’s a Sucker Bet

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So, you want your buddies to get their tax dollars so that they can buy a better boat, but you don’t want to tarnish your reputation as a good government Republican?

The solution is simple: A public-private partnership.

Your friends get their vig, and you get to pretend that you are working for the taxpayer.

Unfortunately, as Maryland Governor Larry “Governor Rat-F%$#: Hogan as demonstrated, these efforts never save a dime, and frequently cost money, as Richie Daley’s infamous Chicago Parking Meter Deal.

Well, sooner than anyone expected, Hogan’s public private partnerships are descending into chaos and litigation:

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan differs from President Trump about as much as possible for a Republican, but they share one characteristic: Both won their offices in part by selling themselves as experienced business executives who would run government efficiently and cheaply.

Hogan has applied that approach to his two biggest transportation projects, the light-rail Purple Line and a plan to add toll lanes to the Capital Beltway, Interstate 270 and the American Legion Bridge. He brought in private companies to share responsibility with the state for the enterprises, saying they would complete the work more efficiently than the government and save taxpayers money.

If it saves taxpayers money, then how are the profits generated, particularly the ridiculously high profits that the finance types demand?

It isn’t working out that way, and the difficulties threaten to tarnish Hogan’s legacy as he approaches the midpoint of his second and final term as governor. (Maryland governors are limited to two terms.)

The construction contractor for the Purple Line quit mid-project in a dispute with the state over a reported $800 million in unpaid cost overruns. The Maryland Transit Administration has taken over hundreds of subcontracts to continue the work while the state negotiates with the consortium of companies managing the project over whether the larger $5.6 billion partnership can be salvaged.

The Purple Line problems raise fresh questions about whether the much larger toll lanes project will fare any better.

………

“With the Purple Line, we have basically a fiasco on our hands,” said Melissa Deckman, chair of the political science department at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. “It calls into question in some way his legacy, his promotion of having the private sector solve big public problems.”

The Purple Line project is structured as a public-private partnership (P3). The state is also pursuing a P3 for the toll lanes project. In such deals, private companies help finance and construct the projects, then receive a return over the long-term either from state payments or money earned while managing the enterprises.

The theory is that taxpayers gain more from the private investment and promised efficiency than they lose by letting the companies reap a profit.

Which never happens.  Just profits for the private sector, with perhaps a nickel on the dollar up front to the politicians.

The strategy has backfired with the Purple Line, a 16-mile light-rail line running from New Carrollton in Prince George’s County to Bethesda in Montgomery County. The construction contractor has quit and the consortium managing the project, Purple Line Transit Partners, is in a legal battle with the state over extra costs caused by more than 2½ years of delays.

………

Critics say the experience highlights the risk in some P3s that private companies get too much power.

“The private entity can essentially hold the government and taxpayers hostage to ask for more money,” said Jeremy Mohler, communications director for In the Public Interest, a think tank.

Meanwhile, concerns have arisen about Hogan’s ambitious plan to add four toll lanes — two in each direction — to I-270 and the Maryland portion of the Beltway and build a new, wider American Legion Bridge. Tolls would vary according to congestion, and the existing lanes would remain free.

Hogan famously promised that using a public-private partnership would mean the project, with an estimated total price of up to $11 billion, would not cost taxpayers any money. But a draft state study warned in July that the plan could require a government subsidy of up to $1 billion, depending on how toll revenue compares with construction and financing costs.

Oops.

………

Even if both projects collapsed entirely, which seems unlikely, Hogan could point to other accomplishments in what has generally been a politically successful governorship.

He was the state’s first Republican governor in 64 years to win reelection and has consistently had one of the highest favorability ratings among the nation’s state chief executives. He has blocked tax increases — his signature issue — and acted early to stem the coronavirus pandemic.

Which is what the PPP is all about:  He wants to keep his no new taxes pledge, and doesn’t care that he will be shafting the next 2-3 generations.  

Same as Richie Daley.

Sounds More and More Like a Hit

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We now have more witness reports of the shooting of Michael Reinoehl by a federal task force, and it reinforces the perception that they just rolled up and started shooting.

The reports now are that there were no lights or sirens, and no attempt by officers to get Reinoehl to surrender.

Considering the proclivities of law enforcement, the support for white supremacists is obvious, and the case of Fred Hampton comes to mind:

Michael Reinoehl was on the run.

A few days after a shooting left a far-right Trump supporter dead on the streets of Portland, Ore., Mr. Reinoehl, an antifa activist who had been named in the news media as a focus of the investigation, feared that vigilantes were after him, not to mention the police. Even some of his close friends did not know where he was.

But the authorities knew.

On Sept. 3, about 120 miles north of Portland, Mr. Reinoehl was getting into his Volkswagen station wagon when a pair of unmarked sport utility vehicles roared through the quiet streets, screeching to a halt just in front of his bumper. Members of a U.S. Marshals task force jumped out and unleashed a hail of bullets that shattered windows, whizzed past bystanders and left Mr. Reinoehl dead in the street.

Attorney General William P. Barr trumpeted the operation as a “significant accomplishment” that removed a “violent agitator.” The officers had opened fire, he said, when Mr. Reinoehl “attempted to escape arrest” and “produced a firearm” during the encounter. But a reconstruction of what happened that night, based on the accounts of people who witnessed the confrontation and the preliminary findings of investigators, produces a much different picture — one that raises questions about whether law enforcement officers made any serious attempt to arrest Mr. Reinoehl before killing him.

In interviews with 22 people who were near the scene, all but one said they did not hear officers identify themselves or give any commands before opening fire. In their official statements, not yet made public, the officers offered differing accounts of whether they saw Mr. Reinoehl with a weapon. One told investigators he thought he saw Mr. Reinoehl raise a gun inside the vehicle before the firing began, but two others said they did not.

………

Five eyewitnesses said in interviews that the gunfire began the instant the vehicles arrived. None of them saw Mr. Reinoehl holding a weapon. A single shell casing of the same caliber as the handgun he was carrying was found inside his car.

Garrett Louis, who watched the shooting begin while trying to get his 8-year-old son out of the line of fire, said the officers arrived with such speed and violence that he initially assumed they were drug dealers gunning down a foe — until he saw their law enforcement vests.

It increasingly looks like a preordained execution.

 

The Central Park “Karen” Story Gets Even Worse

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In addition to calling 911, and trying to convince police that a Black bird-watcher was a threat, Amy Cooper made a second call to the cops stating that he had assaulted her.

If the DA has any stones, he should charge her with attempted murder:

Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park, made a second, previously unreported call to 911 in which she falsely claimed that the man tried to assault her, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.

“The defendant twice reported that an African-American man was putting her in danger, first by stating that he was threatening her and her dog, then making a second call indicating that he tried to assault her in the Ramble area of the park,” Joan Illuzzi, a senior prosecutor, said.

The second call was disclosed as Ms. Cooper appeared remotely in Manhattan Criminal Court to answer a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

Not enough.

Ms. Cooper had been charged in July, and no additional charges were announced on Wednesday. Ms. Illuzzi said the Manhattan district attorney’s office was negotiating a possible plea deal with Ms. Cooper that would allow her to avoid jail.

No.  She tried to get police to kill this man, same as if she unleashed a shark into his swimming pool.

………

But prosecutors said Ms. Cooper made a later call to 911, which was not shown in the video. In that call, Ms. Cooper told the dispatcher that Mr. Cooper had tried to assault her, according to a criminal complaint.

When the police arrived, however, Ms. Cooper told an officer that her reports were untrue, and that Mr. Cooper had not touched or assaulted her, the complaint said.

………

Still, the prosecutor said the district attorney’s office was exploring a resolution to the case that would require Ms. Cooper to take responsibility for her actions in court and attend a program to educate her on how harmful they were.

No.  This is more white privelege bullsh%$.  If she were Muslim, she would still be in Rikers with no bail.

She needs some incarcerated time, because otherwise, we will see another Karen doing the same Karen thing.

Busy Night.

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A protrait of the cat as a young kitty

Destructo, our 7 year old long hair cat shut down yesterday.

He was just lying around.

He did not nip at us when he rubbed his stomach.

He did not react at all to catnip, when normally he’s a drug fiend.

Finally, in the evening, we took him to the veterinarian.

It turns out that he had a urinary tract blockage, not uncommon in male cats of a certain age, he is technically middle-aged now.

His blood work was good, and there is no sign of kidney damage, so it looks like we caught it early.

He has been catheterized.

We are probably going to have to change his diet, something lower in magnesium, I think, but I’m an engineer, not a veterinarian, dammit!*

The prognosis is pretty good.

*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

OK, This Looks Like a Semi Serious Proposal

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Antitrust regulators are looking forcing Google to sell its chrome browser as well as parts of its advertising network.

This is a good start.

What also should be applied is the remove the special stock that gives the founders outsize voting rights.

Many of the anti-competitive behaviors flow from the belief of their founders that they are supermen beyond the limitations of mortal men, and so they need not concern themselves with the rules.

See Neumann at WeWork, Zuckerberg at Facebook, and Musk at ……… well ……… everything, as well as Page and Brin at Google.

What’s more, the recompense for the loss of these voting rights would be small, so you can do it on the cheap.

Also, prohibit any corporate acquisitions by these companies.  

As was the case with Facebook and Instagram, this was a purchase happened because Facebook was relentlessly tracking its users, and came to see it as a threat:

Regulators are considering a breakup of the Google empire, including a forced sale of its dominant web browser Google Chrome and certain aspects of its ad-tech stack.

A Politico report cites several sources with knowledge of the discussions taking place as the U.S. Department of Justice and several state attorneys general prepare to file suit against the online behemoth.

Official proceedings are expected to take place within weeks, following months of speculation over how government officials intend to rein in Google’s dominance of the $130 billion a year online advertising business—of which Google controls 37.2%.

Google Chrome commands a 66.3% share of the global web browser market, according to GlobalStats. Its ad stack, popularly referred to as DoubleClick, comprises both buy- and sell-side tools as well as its dominant ad-serving tool.

This set of tools, as well as Google’s “closed” operating model, has prompted many to accuse Google of exerting undue control over all aspects of the online advertising market (see video below), and its 2015 decision to block third-party ad-buying tools from purchasing ad space on YouTube was widely criticized.

………


The latest media reports come within a week of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust publishing a 449-page report roundly criticizing Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

Among the recommendations in the report were that authorities impose “structural separations,” either by way of a forced sale of certain parts of each company’s assets or assurances parts of their businesses are firewalled. Other recommendations included rules to prevent “self-preferencing,” plus the promotion of “interoperability” with third parties and an overhaul of M&A laws.

………

Speaking at Adweek’s virtual NexTech conference on the same day the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google were appearing before the congressional subcommittee behind last week’s report, NYU professor Scott Galloway said, “They need to be broken up.”

It Looks Like Jeff Bezos Did Something Good (By Accident)

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It appears that the debacle that was Amazon’s HQ2 competition, where we were subjected to the disgusting beauty pageant of cities abasing themselves competing for a second headquarters that eventually went to where Bezos owned mansions, is finally bearing fruit.

The horror at the that spectacle, was one of the reasons that Scott Walker’s Foxconn deal became so toxic in Wisconsin, which led in large part to his reelection loss in 2018.

Another result is that we are seeing efforts to claw back subsidies from companies that have not fulfilled their requirements, first in Ohio’s claw-back demands to GM, and now Wisconsin is threatening to cancel its disasterous deal with Foxconn. 

Much as I said with Ohio’s decision, about f%$#ing time:

Wisconsin is denying Foxconn Technology Group billions of dollars in state tax credits until officials with the company come to the table to draw up a new contract for the Racine County project — once touted as the “eighth wonder of the world” by President Donald Trump.

The company might also face financial penalties through claw-back provisions included in the existing contract if a new agreement isn’t reached.

In a letter sent Monday to the Taiwan-based company’s Vice Chairman Jay Lee, Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Secretary Melissa Hughes said “Foxconn’s activities and investments in Wisconsin to date are not eligible for credit” under the more than $3 billion contract first signed back in 2017. The letter also underscores that negotiation attempts between the state and company this summer failed to result in a new contract.

………

The company reported in the summer it had created enough jobs in southeastern Wisconsin last year to receive state funds — despite being told almost a year ago that the $3 billion in tax subsidies would not be doled out until a new contract was drafted to match the project. State officials say tax subsidies agreed to in the contract are tied to jobs and capital investment for specific projects, which Foxconn is failing to deliver.

………
Regardless of how many jobs were added, WEDC said in the letter, the state is unable to calculate job creation or capital investment tax credits because Foxconn has failed to carry out the project as promised.

………

Claw-back provisions in Foxconn’s original contract show that, if the agreement is not amended by the end of 2023, the company could face up to $500 million in recovery payments.

Walker’s contract with Foxconn would provide incentives totaling as much as $3 billion over 15 years if the company reached the 13,000-employee benchmark and made a $10 billion capital investment in the state.

………

While originally promised as a Generation 10.5 facility that would build larger panels for TV screens, the project has downsized to Generation 6, which would manufacture small screens for mobile phones, tablets, notebooks and wearable devices.

“Today’s announcement cements Foxconn’s legacy in Wisconsin as one of broken promises, a lack of transparency, and a complete failure to create the jobs and infrastructure the company touted in 2017,” Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, and longtime Foxconn critic, said in a statement. “Looking to the future, I hope lawmakers will assess projects based on what is best for Wisconsin, and utilize rigorous, independent economic analysis based in reality, rather than chasing pie-in-the-sky projects reeking of short-term political motives.”

Foxconn officials first came to the state in March 2019 to discuss amendments to the contract. Late last year, Evers’ administration told the company it no longer was eligible for tax subsidies under the existing contract, and a new document would need to be drafted. While amending a contract is a common practice, officials have said the state cannot unilaterally change the agreement without Foxconn’s participation.

I so hope that Foxconn gets gigged like a flounder.

This deal was a disaster, and thoroughly corrupt, and it needs to be ended.

Facebook is Ineluctably Evil

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On a company discussion board, a Facebook employee noted that senior management had repeatedly reversed decisions to flag conservative groups and media for posting false and deceptive information, and  was promptly fired. 

So much for social media having a liberal bias.

Also, this should be a lesson for the Dems:  Oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg care about nothing but themselves.  They are not to be trusted.

Seeing as how the US has not done what Yeltsin did when he selected his oligarchs, he overwhelmingly selected them from a despised minority, Jews, so that he would have public support if he needed to take them down.  (He didn’t, but Putin did.)

Break up Facebook:

After months of debate and disagreement over the handling of inflammatory or misleading posts from Donald Trump, Facebook employees want CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain what the company would do if the leader of the free world uses the social network to undermine the results of the 2020 US presidential election.

“I do think we’re headed for a problematic scenario where Facebook is going to be used to aggressively undermine the legitimacy of the US elections, in a way that has never been possible in history,” one Facebook employee wrote in a group on Workplace, the company’s internal communication platform, earlier this week.

For the past week, this scenario has been a topic of heated discussion inside Facebook and was a top question for its leader. Some 2,900 employees asked Zuckerberg to address it publicly during a company-wide meeting on Thursday, which he partly did, calling it “an unprecedented position.”

………

While there are signs Facebook will stand up to Trump in cases where he violates its rules — as on Wednesday when it removed a video post from the president in which he claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19 — there are others who suggest the company is caving to critical voices on the right. In another recent Workplace post, a senior engineer collected internal evidence that showed Facebook was giving preferential treatment to prominent conservative accounts to help them remove fact-checks from their content.

The company responded by removing his post and restricting internal access to the information he cited. On Wednesday the engineer was fired, according to internal posts seen by BuzzFeed News.

………

Last Friday, at another all-hands meeting, employees asked Zuckerberg how right-wing publication Breitbart News could remain a Facebook News partner after sharing a video that promoted unproven treatments and said masks were unnecessary to combat the novel coronavirus. The video racked up 14 million views in six hours before it was removed from Breitbart’s page, though other accounts continued to share it.

Zuckerberg danced around the question but did note that Breitbart could be removed from the company’s news tab if it were to receive two strikes for publishing misinformation within 90 days of each other. (Facebook News partners, which include dozens of publications such as BuzzFeed News and the Washington Post, receive compensation and placement in a special news tab on the social network.)

………

But some of Facebook’s own employees gathered evidence they say shows Breitbart — along with other right-wing outlets and figures including Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Trump supporters Diamond and Silk, and conservative video production nonprofit Prager University — has received special treatment that helped it avoid running afoul of company policy. They see it as part of a pattern of preferential treatment for right-wing publishers and pages, many of which have alleged that the social network is biased against conservatives.

………

On July 22, a Facebook employee posted a message to the company’s internal misinformation policy group noting that some misinformation strikes against Breitbart had been cleared by someone at Facebook seemingly acting on the publication’s behalf.

“A Breitbart escalation marked ‘urgent: end of day’ was resolved on the same day, with all misinformation strikes against Breitbart’s page and against their domain cleared without explanation,” the employee wrote.

The same employee said a partly false rating applied to an Instagram post from Charlie Kirk was flagged for “priority” escalation by Joel Kaplan, the company’s vice president of global public policy. Kaplan once served in George W. Bush’s administration and drew criticism for publicly supporting Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial nomination to the Supreme Court.

………

Past Facebook employees, including Yaël Eisenstat, Facebook’s former global election ads integrity lead, have expressed concerns with Kaplan’s influence over content enforcement decisions. She previously told BuzzFeed News a member of Kaplan’s Washington policy team attempted to influence ad enforcement decisions for an ad placed by a conservative organization.

Facebook did not respond to questions about why Kaplan would personally intervene in matters like this.

………

“It appears that policy people have been intervening in fact-checks on behalf of *exclusively* right-wing publishers, to avoid them getting repeat-offender status,” wrote another employee in the company’s internal “misinformation policy” discussion group.

Individuals that spoke out about the apparent special treatment of right-wing pages have also faced consequences. In one case, a senior Facebook engineer collected multiple instances of conservative figures receiving unique help from Facebook employees, including those on the policy team, to remove fact-checks on their content. His July post was removed because it violated the company’s “respectful communication policy.”

Bullsh%$.

Zuckerberg has absolute authority over Facebook, and Joel Kaplan is his guy, and has no authority beyond what Zuckerberg gives him.

Psychopaths like Mark Zuckerberg is why anti-trust law was created.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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Sen. Ted Cruz is appearing virtually. He has tested negative for COVID but has been self-quarantining after coming into contact with Sen. Mike Lee…who tested positive and delivered his in-person maskless opening statement in the hearing room.

— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) October 12, 2020

We Are Doomed

OK, imagine a situation where there are two people in a similar situation.

One behaves responsibly, and the other acts likes an asshole.

One of the people is Ted Cruz, and the other ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

And finally, the asshole in this situation ……… Isn’t Ted Cruz.

If this is not an end of the world scenario, if not an end of all existence.

At the very least, Thanos is snapping his fingers like Frank Sinatra right now.

Linkage

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Normally, I have no interest in watching anything with Mel Gibson, he’s a racist and anti-Semite, but this Movie looks intriguing:

Today in Appropriate Priorities

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I’m taking on a new mission, one that keeps my feet planted here firmly on Earth and prioritizes my most important crew – my family. I’ll still be working hard with the #Starliner team and the @NASA_Astronauts on our crew. pic.twitter.com/PgdhPqwYQS

— Christopher Ferguson (@Astro_Ferg) October 7, 2020

Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson has bowed out of the first manned flight of the first “Starliner” flight because it conflicts with his daughter’s wedding. 

 I wholeheartedly approve:

It was a defining moment for Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson when he chose dedication to family over a flight to the International Space Station.

Serving as the commander of Boeing’s first astronaut-led flight, Ferguson announced Wednesday that he has pulled himself off the crew so he can attend his daughter’s wedding next year. Ferguson posted a video on Twitter that revealed his decision to stay at home with family.

Good.

Finally!

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From Friday to now, over $150,000 in fines from 62 summonses were handed out by City agents in the Red, Orange and Yellow zones, including 5 to non-compliant religious congregations.

— City of New York (@nycgov) October 11, 2020

New York is finally enforcing tanctions against people who violate social distancing and mask mandates.

Notably, this includes members of New York’s Ultra-orthodox Jewish community, who have been been notorious for ignoring rules against mass gatherings.

I get that these communities have a lot of political pull, but their reckless behavior needs to be checked:

Authorities cracked down this weekend on some of the city’s coronavirus hot spots, issuing more than 60 summonses and tens of thousands of dollars in fines to people, businesses and houses of worship that did not follow newly imposed restrictions on gatherings or mask-wearing and social-distancing requirements.

Among those issued a summons by the New York City sheriff were a restaurant and at least five houses of worship in the city’s “red zones,” where coronavirus infection rates are the highest. Each of those locations was given a summons that could result in up to $15,000 in fines, said Sheriff Joseph Fucito.

That means some of these were synagogues.

There are certain things that only can be done in a group in Jewish worship, but you only need 10 people, a minyan, to do that.  You don’t need 200 crammed together in a synagogue, it can be 10 folks in a living room.

In total, officials issued 62 tickets and more than $150,000 in fines during the first weekend the new restrictions were in effect, the New York City government Twitter account said on Sunday.

The city is wrestling with its most acute pandemic crisis since the virus first swept through the five boroughs in March. Since mid-August, city and state officials say large gatherings and lax social distancing have caused a surge in new cases in pockets of Brooklyn and Queens, many of them in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. The spike prompted Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to issue new restrictions on large gatherings and nonessential businesses in certain parts of the city.

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One of the Orthodox Jewish men who led protests against the restrictions, Heshy Tischler, was taken into custody by the police department’s warrants squad Sunday night, a police official said. Mr. Tischler, a talk radio personality, is expected to be charged with inciting a riot and unlawful imprisonment in connection with an incident in Borough Park, Brooklyn, last week in which a Jewish journalist, Jacob Kornbluh, was attacked by a crowd during a protest.

The sense of entitlement in this community is mind boggling.

Jews are supposed to be a light unto the nations, not a group of self-important thugs.

Clearly, We Are in a Post-Racial Society

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While walking down the street in Beverly Hills, a Black senior Versace executive was stopped and searched by police:

This is the rule, not an exception.

A black Versace executive says he was racially profiled close to the Beverly Hills branch of the Italian luxury fashion brand.

Salehe Bembury, the vice-president of sneakers and men’s footwear at Versace, was stopped and searched for jaywalking in Rodeo Drive, near Camden Drive and Wilshire Boulevard.

“What’s unfortunate is I literally designed the shoes that are in the bag and I’m f%$#ing being searched for them,” Bembury appears telling police officers in a video of the incident.

(%$# mine)

First, “VP of sneakers?”  That’s just kind of weird. 

Second, if you think that there is no more racism in the United States, you are either an egregious racist, or you are brain dead.

Inmates Running the Asylum

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In what might the most extreme example of Stockholm Syndrome ever, USPTO chief Andrei Iancu has declared that patents are in no way slowing the emergence of new Covid-19 treatments.

Less than a week later, major pharma manufacturers were sued for ……… wait for it ……… patent infringement:

A week or so ago, the head of the US Patent and Trademark Office, Andrei Iancu, who has been an extreme patent maximalist over the years, insisted that there was simply no evidence that patents hold back COVID treatments. This is a debate we’ve been having over the past few months. We’ve seen some aggressive actions by patent holders, and the usual crew of patent system supporters claiming, without evidence that no one would create a vaccine without much longer patent terms.

Iancu was questioned about how patents might hold back life-saving innovation and he brushed it off like this was a crazy question:

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Iancu also shot down the idea that patents might be used to limit access to a vaccine:

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But just to highlight how ridiculous Iancu’s statements were, just days later, Pfizer, Regeneron, and BioNTech — all working on COVID treatments (including the antibody cocktail that President Trump took from Regeneron) — were all sued for patent infringement for their COVID treatments.

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And then to make an even stronger point, pharma company Moderna — which had been facing a ton of questions about how its patents might delay COVID-19 treatment — has announced that it will voluntarily agree not to enforce the patents during the pandemic.

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The key point: even if Iancu pretends otherwise, people actually in the space know that patents can and will get in the way of life-saving innovation, rather than acting as an important incentive.

It’s long past the time we recognized how damaging patents are for innovation in many different industries, including pharma, and having a Patent Office boss who simply denies reality is fundamentally unhelpful and anti-innovation.

As I have noted many times, IP law is at its core public interest law.

As it says in the US Constitution, copyright and patent are created to, “To promote the progress of science and useful arts,” not to reward maniacal rent-seeking, which is what it has become.