Lose

At the last kiddie table debate, Rick "A Frothy Mixture" Santorum suggested that debate watchers Google him:

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum encouraged viewers to Google him in Thursday's undercard Republican presidential debate, an unfortunate choice of words that reminded many of his search engine woes fueled by sex columnist Dan Savage.

"Go and Google Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton you'll see a five-minute debate. I'll let you decide who won the debate," he said during his closing statement. "I'll tell you who won, I know I'm out of time, I'm going to take some of Rand Paul's time here for a second."

The prompt recalled sex columnist Dan Savage's retribution campaign against Santorum for his anti-gay remarks, when Savage asked readers to come up with an alternate definition for "santorum." A highly NSFW entry rose to the top and has for years plagued top search engine results for Santorum's name across sites.

If you Google "Santorum", you will find multiple references to, "The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex," a neologism coined by Dan Savage in the late 2003.

If you are Rick Santorum, you should NEVER ask people to Google you.

Running a University Like a Business: Burning it Down for the Insurance Money

Current President of Mount St. Marys University, and former finance type, attempted to boot about 5% of the incoming freshman class in the first weeks of class. He called it Drowning Bunnies:

Amid a conversation about student retention this fall, the president of Mount St. Mary’s University told some professors that they need to stop thinking of freshmen as “cuddly bunnies,” and said: “You just have to drown the bunnies … put a Glock to their heads.”

Simon Newman was quoted in the campus newspaper, The Mountain Echo, on Tuesday, in a special edition that reported the university’s president had pushed a plan to improve retention rates by dismissing 20 to 25 freshmen judged unlikely to succeed early in the academic year. Removing students who are more likely to drop out could hypothetically lead to an improvement in a school’s federal retention data; the deadline for submitting enrollment data is in late September.

Newman, a private-equity chief executive officer and entrepreneur who was appointed president of the private university in Emmitsburg, Md., in 2015, said Tuesday that there are some accurate facts in the Echo story, but “the overall tone of the thing is highly inaccurate.”

“The inferences, the innuendo, it’s not accurate at all — the conclusions one would naturally draw from reading it,” Newman said in an interview with The Washington Post. He described an intensive, multi-pronged effort to improve retention rates, because the school loses 20 to 25 percent of its first-year students. School administrators, he said, want to be sure their customers, the students, are successful.

………

A professor who was part of the conversation The Echo quoted confirmed to The Post that the quotes were accurate.

(emphasis mine)

"Their customers, the students," 4 little words that show everything that is wrong with corporate management of education.

They call it, "Bringing a blunt, analytical business perspective to the management of the school." I call it arrogance and running their company into the ground, because after this, and the story is on their Wiki Page, (I put it there) they are in for a well deserved world of hurt.

BTW, the way he was running it was unethical and profoundly dishonest:

The Mountain Echo reporters wrote that Newman’s retention plan included administering a survey to all freshmen, with this introduction: “This year, we are going to start the Veritas Symposium by providing you with a very valuable tool that will help you discover more about yourself. This survey has been developed by a leadership team here at The Mount, and it is based on some of the leading thinking in the area of personal motivation and key factors that determine motivation, success, and happiness. We will ask you some questions about yourself that we would like you to answer as honestly as possible. There are no wrong answers.”

But the paper reported on an email exchange that expressed a desire to eliminate a certain number of students, based on the survey results, by the Sept. 25 cutoff date when the university would be required to report enrollment numbers to the federal government.

The plan, the paper reported, sparked strong pushback from some members of the faculty and the administration.

An email from Newman, the paper reported, explained: “My short term goal is to have 20-25 people leave by the 25th [of Sep.]. This one thing will boost our retention 4-5%. A larger committee or group needs to work on the details but I think you get the objective.”

………One of the goals of the symposium was to help ease students’ transition to college, and with this proposal they might be kicking out some students who would be successful.

Newman responded that “there will be some collateral damage.”

This is not only everything that is wrong the increasingly corporate business of education in the country, it is an indictment of business culture generally in the US, where callous selfishiness and indifference are viewed as virtues.

H/t CURMUDGUCATION.

The Tamir Rice Investigatation Gets Even Less Credible

It turns out that the grand jury investigating the two officers who shot 12 year old Tamir Rice to death never even took a vote on whether to indict:

The grand jury that opted not to indict Cleveland police officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback in the shooting death of Tamir Rice never actually took a vote on the matter, according to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office.

What actually happened in the most significant grand jury hearing in county history isn't quite clear, and the mechanism by which the grand jury "declined to indict" — in Prosecutor Timothy McGinty's own words — is equally unclear.

At the conclusion of a typical grand jury hearing, there are two possible outcomes achieved via vote: a "true bill," which results in criminal charges and a case number in the court system, or a "no bill," which is a decision not to bring charges. A "no-bill notification" is signed and stamped and kept on record at the county clerk's office.

Though Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty never explicitly said the grand jury voted not to indict — nor did he utter the phrase "no bill" — in his Dec. 28 press conference, he declared that that grand jury had declined to indict.

How, then, if not by voting?

After learning and confirming on Jan. 15 that there was no "no-bill notification" on file at the county clerk's office for the Tamir Rice grand jury proceedings, Scene formally requested the document officially showing the decision, however it was reached, and wherever said document might be. We were told that it didn't exist. Employees at both the clerk's and prosecutor's officers were unable to explain the lack of paperwork.

Tuesday, Scene spoke with Joe Frolik, the communications director for the Prosecutor's Office, who said no no-bill record exists because, "it's technically not a no-bill, because they didn't vote on charges."
He elaborated: “This was an investigative grand jury. This was kind of their role. Sometimes, a grand jury, after its investigation, will decide if there are no votes to be taken on charges.”
But how that decision was reached and the location of any record of that decision remain publicly unaccounted for. The term “investigative grand jury” appears nowhere in McGinty’s public statements and reports on the proceedings.

………

As for a case that went before a grand jury but didn't result in a vote, [Law Professor Jonathan] Witmer-Rich said, "I'm not aware of an example...It could happen, I suppose, but I've never heard anyone talk about that."
Professor Lewis Katz, a criminal law expert at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, noted that investigative grand juries are ordinarily held in secret. In his view, the Tamir Rice grand jury was not investigative.

………

Reached Tuesday, Subodh Chandra, the local attorney for the Rice family, said that the whole process has been "irregular.” He said he and his team had asked the county if the grand jury members were led through each possible charge for a vote or whether there was one overarching vote on all charges, but never received an answer. When informed no vote of any kind took place, Chandra said: "If it is true that the prosecutor didn't even call for an up or down vote on potential criminal charges, including aggravated murder, then it is truly the ultimate insult to the Rice family,” Chandra said, “that the prosecutor didn't even think it mattered to bring the grand jury proceedings to their proper conclusion."

Our system allows a lot of leeway for prosecutors to make decisions, so I don't think that there is any call here for a criminal investigation, but the good people of Cleveland need to put a permanent end to this guy's political career.

Not Unanticipated, but a Bummer None the Less

Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams has rejected a request for a subpoena to compell Officer William Porter to testify against his co-conspirators on the Baltimore Police Force:

A Baltimore judge on Wednesday rejected prosecutors' request to force an officer whose trial ended in a hung jury to testify against three of his fellow officers facing charges in the death of Freddie Gray.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams refused the state's motion to force William Porter to testify against Edward Nero, Garrett Miller and Lt. Brian Rice, who were the officers who initially arrested and detained Gray last April.

It was not until this month that prosecutors indicated that they wanted Porter to testify against the three officers. Previously, they identified him as a material witness only in the trials of two other officers, Caesar Goodson and Sgt. Alicia White.

………

Judge Williams ruled in December that Porter must testify against Goodson, despite Porter's own pending retrial. Porter's attorneys appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which postponed Goodson's trial until it decides whether to uphold or overturn the order. A hearing is scheduled for March 4.

Williams said he rejected the state's request to compel Porter to testify against Nero, Miller and Rice because it would result in all of the officers' trials being pushed back while the appeals court mulled whatever decision he made. Lawyers for the three officers had objected to pushing back their clients' trials.

I really hope that the fix isn't in.

Least Surprising News of the Day

Pharma bro Martin Shkreli hasw taken the 5^th in response to a Congressional inquiry into price gouging in drugs:

The founder and former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination on Wednesday, and he won't comply with a subpoena for documents issued from a Senate panel investigating pharma drug pricing tactics.

The 32-year-old Shkreli was also subpoenaed to appear before a different panel, the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to testify about the price of a life-saving drug he increased by more than 5,000 percent.

Shkreli became the poster child for greed last year after he raised the price of Daraprim—used to treat parasitic infections—from $13.50 a pill to $750. A single pill once sold for $1. Now facing criminal charges that he allegedly defrauded investors, Shkreli has said he should have boosted prices for the drug even more.

Let's be clear:  He has a right not to testify against himself, but generally it doesn't apply to, you know, physical proof.

And yes, he is a ratf%$# who deserves to spend the rest of his life in gaol.

Woo Hoo!

First real snow of the season!

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Outing Freeloaders is a Good Thing

UAW local 412 in Warren, MI has decided to publish the names of covered employees who have opted out of the Union:

A local United Auto Workers chapter in Warren is singling out workers who decide to opt out of the union.

In a recent UAW Local 412 newsletter obtained by The Detroit News, a list of 43 workers “who choose not to pay their fair share” was published alongside “conditions” that will apply to workers who opt out and no longer pay — or partially pay — union dues.

Listed conditions for “ex-UAW members” range from rudimentary things such as not being allowed to attend union functions or vote in local elections, to having to “pay all unpaid dues and/or dues in arrears as well as an initiation fee” if one decides to rejoin the union.

Singling out workers who decide to leave the union isn’t unprecedented, but it’s seen by some as an intimidation tactic to deter others from leaving — and pressure those who have left to rejoin.

My heart bleeds for those scabs ……… Not.

A Little Justice ……… Not Enough, but a Little Justice

The Pentagon is considering retroactively demoting David Petraeus for his mishandling of classified data and lying to investigators:

The defense secretary is looking to clamp down on misbehaving generals. Pentagon insiders say Petraeus could be the next general to face the consequences.

The Pentagon is considering retroactively demoting retired Gen. David Petraeus after he admitted to giving classified information to his biographer and mistress while he was still in uniform, three people with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast.

The decision now rests with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who is said to be willing to consider overruling an earlier recommendation by the Army that Petraeus not have his rank reduced. Such a demotion could cost the storied general hundreds of thousands of dollars—and deal an additional blow to his once-pristine reputation.

“The secretary is considering going in a different direction” from the Army, a defense official told The Daily Beast, because he wants to be consistent in his treatment of senior officers who engage in misconduct and to send a message that even men of Petraeus’s fame and esteemed reputation are not immune to punishment.

Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook told The Daily Beast that Carter had requested the information ex-Army Secretary John McHugh had when he made his recommendation on the matter, before reaching a final decision. McHugh had recommended taking no action against Petraeus.

“The Department of the Army is still in the process of providing the secretary with information relevant to former‎ Secretary McHugh’s recommendation,” Cook told The Daily Beast. “Once the secretary‎ has an opportunity to consider this information, he will make his decision about next steps, if any, in this matter.”

………

Reducing Petraeus’s rank, most likely to lieutenant general, could mean he’d have to pay back the difference in pension payments and other benefits that he received as a retired four-star general. That would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over his retirement. According to Pentagon figures, a four-star general with roughly the same years of experience as Petraeus was entitled to receive a yearly pension of nearly $220,000. A three-star officer would receive about $170,000.

Petraeus didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But the financial pain to Petraeus isn’t likely to be severe. He has confided to friends and acquaintances that he’s making a hefty sum from his job at a private equity firm and through speaking fees.

The demotion in rank would be a bigger, lasting blow, and take from Petraeus the rare achievement he’d set his eyes on many years ago.

This guy is getting a 6 figure pension, and what is likely a 7 figure gig at a private equity firm, and the most that can be done is to hurt his feelings.

He should be in jail, but absent that, dropping a star, or better dropping more than one stars, is quite literally the least that they can do.

La Cebolla

Univision has taken a controlling interest in the satirical publication The Onion:

The Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications announced Tuesday that it had acquired a large stake in The Onion, the comedy and satirical digital media group, as part of the company’s efforts to extend its digital reach and strengthen its portfolio of comedy outlets.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the transaction was said to be for a 40 percent stake, valued at less than $200 million, according to one person briefed on the deal.

“Comedy is playing an expanding role in our culture as a vehicle for audiences to explore, debate and understand the important ideas of our time,” said Isaac Lee, chief news and digital officer of Univision. “It has also proven to be an incredibly engaging format for millennial audiences and is expected to play a key part in the 2016 presidential election process via our robust content offerings in Spanish and English.”

Univision’s digital portfolio is undergoing a flurry of changes, part of an effort to build its footprint and reach as diverse a group of millennials as possible. News emerged last month that Univision was in talks with the Walt Disney Company to take full control of their joint venture Fusion, the English-language digital news service and cable channel. In November, Univision named Mr. Lee to a new position with responsibility for overseeing digital functions, leading multicultural efforts and creating a music strategy. He also is chief executive of Fusion.

According to NPR 40% is a controlling interest.

I have no f%$#ing clue how Univision plans to make a coherent business plan out of this.

My guess is that they don't have a plan, and notwithstanding promises to have a light touch, management will eventually feel compelled to bring it under the corporate wing, when they don't experience the requisite "Synergies", and then they will ruin it.

About Bloody Time

After years of Orthodox Jewish control of the East Ramapo School Board, where they have done little but strip the school system for parts, parents have sued the New York State Department of Education demanding a state takeover.

From their press release:

On January 14, parents of public school children in East Ramapo Central School District filed a petition in State Supreme Court in Albany, asking the court to direct the New York State Board of Regents and the State Education Department (SED) to take concrete remedial action to safeguard their children’s right to a sound basic education as guaranteed by the New York State Constitution.

The petition describes numerous State and federal investigations and reports documenting a continuing pattern of fiscal mismanagement and neglect by the East Ramapo Board of Education over the last decade. The Board’s mismanagement has resulted in a severe lack critical educational resources, resulting in poor student outcomes and depriving district students of a sound basic education. The reports, including two in the last year by State-appointed monitors, provide compelling and overwhelming evidence of a district on the brink of financial collapse. 

In these reports, State and federal officials document the Board’s failures to provide essential programs and services to vulnerable student populations, including English Language Learners (ELL) and students with disabilities. They also spell out the signficiant cuts made by the Board in the number of classroom teachers and support staff employed by the district and in essential school programs.

Over a year ago, a comprehensive report by a fiscal monitor appointed by former State Commissioner John King made numerous recommendations to address the Board’s mismanagement, reallocate funding within the district’s budget, and begin restoring essential resources cut from district schools. These recommendations were echoed in a December 14, 2015, report to the Board of Regents by Dennis Walcott and a team of monitors appointed by State Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia in August.

Despite the State’s best efforts to secure their voluntary cooperation, the Board has steadfastly refused to take meaningful steps to fix the problems identified in the reports and take prompt corrective action to provide students with a sound basic education.

The East Ramapo school board is attempt to destroy the public school system for two reasons:

• They don't want to pay any taxes.
• They are attempting to ethnically cleanse the town, and killing the public schools is a good start.

Unfortunately, the politicians, and hence the bureaucracy, is unwilling to take any political heat from New York's frum Jewish community, so nothing has happened.

If I were a plaintiff, I would be asking to move the elections to the November elections for President and Congress.

Having the elections at an odd time, Spring of odd-numbered years, is a recipe for this sort of crap.

I would also see any number of the board members prosecuted for corruption, as it is clear that they are engaging in sweetheart deals with the local Yeshivas, but I don't see that as being politically possible unless the Feds step in.

How Utterly Proper

This really shouldn't be a surprise.

Palin has been feeling persecuted by the Republican establishment since 2009 or so, and unlike Ted Cruz, Trump does know how to be charming when he wants to close a deal, so there is a twisted internal logic to her endorsement of Donald Trump:

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing him with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses.

“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Mrs. Palin said with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States — Donald Trump.”

Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican so far. It came the same day that Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he hoped that Senator Ted Cruz would be defeated in Iowa. The Feb. 1 caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls.

The endorsement came as Mr. Trump was bearing down in the state, holding multiple campaign events and raising expectations about his performance in the nation’s first nominating contest.

As Mrs. Palin announced her backing, Mr. Trump stood wearing a satisfied smile as she scolded mainstream Republicans as sellouts and praised how Mr. Trump had shaken up the party. “He’s been going rogue left and right,” Mrs. Palin said of Mr. Trump, using one of her signature phrases. “That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system.”

In literally related news, the son of Alaska's mom of the year, "Track Palin, Got Drunk And Beated Up A Lady With His Gun, Allegedly."

What a busy day for the Palin family! Sarah’s in Iowa making drunk faces about Makin’ America Great Again for Donald Trump, Bristol’s sitting at home COVERED in out-of-wedlock baby poo and “writing” internet letters about what a dick Ted Cruz is and OH LOL GUESS WHAT, Track Palin had to go to court, because he was arrested Monday night for beating up a lady, interfering with a domestic violence report, and also too brandishing a weapon while intoxicated.

Put in more Regular American talk, Track Palin was arrested for being a common drunk-brawlin’ Palin.

Allegedly.

Whoa if true, though, and we hope she’s OK. Here’s your press release from the Wasilla po-po’s office:

On 01/18/2016 at approximately 2204 hours, Wasilla Police responded to a residence for a disturbance. An investigation revealed Track Palin had committed a domestic violence assault on a female, interfered with her ability to report a crime of domestic violence, and possessed a firearm while intoxicated. Palin was arrested and charges of assault in the fourth degree (domestic violence), interfering with a domestic violence report, and misconduct involving weapons in the fourth degree were forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. Palin was held without bail until arraignment.

UH-OH! We are so shocked by this behavior, young man.

As the saying says, "First as tragedy, then as farce".

I believe that this farce is called "The Wasilla Hillbillies."

If Sharon Ever Kills Me, It Will be Justifiable Homicide

I worked late, and I am on my way home on the Baltimore Metro, when I get the following text from my wife,  "What is ur status"

I reply, "Married."

I am arguably the most obnoxious Saroff of my generation, and my delicate,  sweet flower blossom plighted her troth to me.

Well, 21 and change years, and no life threatening injuries .... so far.

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Headline of the Day

Cruz Camp: New York Values Include Men's Masturbation Booth

Not The Onion.

Quote of the Day

On one side, this elite is presumed to be a bunch of economic superheroes, able to deliver universal prosperity by summoning the magic of the marketplace. On the other side, they’re depicted as incredibly sensitive flowers who wilt in the face of adversity — raise their taxes a bit, subject them to a few regulations, or for that matter hurt their feelings in a speech or two, and they’ll stop creating jobs and go sulk in their tents, or more likely their mansions.

—Paul Krugman

Politics in Sweden is Odd

The newly elected liberal coalition in Sweden is looking at reinstating military conscription, reversing a decision by the center-right government in 2010 to abolish the practice:

Sweden's former centre-right government scrapped compulsory military service in 2010, but the current Social Democrat-Green coalition has said it is considering reintroducing the concept.

And a new survey carried out by major pollsters Ipsos on behalf of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper suggested on Monday that 72 percent of Swedes would throw their support behind conscription.

Only 16 percent of respondents said they believed it was a bad idea.

People are also making the argument that this could provide staffing for non military needs:

………

The foreign minister told a meeting of senior politicians and military chiefs, attending the annual Sälen Society and Defense conference, that the government needs to examine all viable options to resolve present and future manpower needs and recruitment challenges faced by the Swedish armed forces.

Wallström said that a reconstructed national service model could bolster the military's capacity to not only conduct core defense tasks, but would also deliver military support to assist civilian agencies dealing with emergencies such as natural disasters, search-and-rescue missions and environmental clean-up.

This is not something that I would expect from a, "Social Democrat-Green coalition," though I approve.

I think that a draftee army is likely to be more receptive to civilian control, and less likely to go along with a coup.

Reality: 1 - USAF: 0

Because they have nothing else that can do the job, the the United States Air Force has declared a hiatus on trying to scrap the A-10 Warthog:

The U.S. Air Force has reportedly decided to temporarily call off its campaign to retire the long-serving Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support aircraft. The service finally relented because the Warthog is in high demand fighting the Islamic State terrorist entity in Iraq and Syria.

With its distinctive, even ungainly design, the Warthog is nonetheless beloved by U.S. ground forces who have come to rely on the low flying jet to provide air cover during battles with militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Air Force was — until recently — trying to retire the jet in favor of the stealthy, supersonic Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

“It appears the administration is finally coming to its senses and recognizing the importance of A-10s to our troops’ lives and national security. Since before I took office and after, I’ve consistently highlighted the A-10’s irreplaceable capabilities and worked to expose the administration’s flawed argument for wanting to retire it prematurely,” Rep. Martha McSally — a former A-10 squadron commander and current member of the House Armed Services Committee — said in a statement.

She added:

“With A-10s deployed in the Middle East to fight ISIS, in Europe to deter Russian aggression, and along the Korean Peninsula, administration officials can no longer deny how invaluable these planes are to our arsenal and military capabilities. But our fight does not end here. The administration has been persistent in its efforts to send our best close air support asset to the boneyard without a replacement. That’s unacceptable, and I’ll continue to lead the fight to ensure we keep these planes flying until we know without a doubt we can replace their capabilities.”

The facts on the ground are no surprise, but the fact that the USAF has acknowledged reality is.

They have been soft pedaling their close air support duties since at least the Korean war, when they refused to deploy the P-47 Thunderbolt, and instead deployed the P-51 Mustang, which carried less ordinance and was far more vulnerable to ground fire because of its aft mounted radiator. (And the fact that the Thunderbolt was built like a f%$#ing tank)

I have a New Endorsement

Timothy Canova, who is running against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the Democratic primary.

It appears that dissatisfaction with DWS, both in her district and inside the DC Beltway that The Hill, a bastion of inside the Beltway thinking has taken notice:

For Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the problems with the left just keep coming.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) chief has infuriated many Democrats with her handling of the party’s presidential primary debates. She drew further howls from liberals for deeming a whole generation of young women "complacent" about their abortion freedoms.

And now she's facing a primary challenge from a liberal Wall Street reformer who says she's a corporate shill detached from her district.

The challenge highlights the difficulty facing Wasserman Schultz as she juggles her dual roles as Florida representative and head of the DNC — duties that sometimes come into conflict.

Timothy Canova, a professor at the Shepard Broad College of Law in Florida's Nova Southeastern University, says Wasserman Schultz's positions on trade, criminal justice, consumer protection and drug policy reform — among others — are evidence that she's sold out to corporate interests at the expense of her constituents.

It marks the first primary challenge to Wasserman Schultz since her arrival on Capitol Hill in 2005.

Canova launched his bid last week on a platform that pulls more than a few pages from that of populist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Democratic presidential hopeful who's waged a surprisingly strong challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton by attacking from the left.

In that mold, Canova is vowing to fight President Obama's trade agenda, reform the criminal justice system, rein in big banks and curtail the influence of money in politics — all issues where he sees Wasserman Schultz as vulnerable.

"People here on the ground — I hear left and right, you name it — are just dissatisfied that she's not responsive, she takes people for granted, and it's becoming evident in the way she votes on an awful lot of issues," Canova said Friday by phone.

"She takes a lot of corporate money, and she votes for corporate interests contrary to the interest of her own constituents."

Canova, a former aide to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.), is pointing to a host of votes that, he says, make Wasserman Schultz a bad fit for the district.

He says she fought against new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidelines governing car loans and pay-day lenders.

He's quick to note that she opposed a 2014 Florida referendum to legalize medical marijuana, calling her "a drug warrior" in the pockets of a private prison industry that promotes incarcerations.

And he's highlighting the fact that she was one of just 28 House Democrats to support the fast-track trade bill that's greased the skids for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a huge international accord that's a top priority of Obama but remains anathema to liberals in his own party.

Canova said the TPP would be an environmental catastrophe for South Florida, which "is really facing, in the long-term, an existential problem with climate change and rising oceans."

"In a democracy, you have to hold your officials accountable," Canova said. "I was hoping somebody would step forward and challenge her. Nobody else would, and that's really the basis of the challenge."

Canova has a tough road ahead. Wasserman Schultz, as head of the DNC, is the most prominent Democrat in Florida; she's a prodigious fundraiser for the party; and she glided to a sixth term in 2014 with 63 percent of the vote.

Still, in an environment when political non-conformers like Sanders and Donald Trump have attracted support by simple virtue of their outsider status, Canova sees an opening.

"There's a perception … that she's bullet-proof here at home because she wins by big majorities," he said. "But she's never been challenged in a primary."

Washerman Schultz has faced some difficulty representing her district while also serving as a figurehead role for her party.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz isn't having difficulties because she has duties as head of the DNC.

She is facing a backlash because she is a careerist political climber with no underlying beliefs beyond that, she is as dumb as a post, and she refuses to listen to people she needs for implementation of her agenda.

I am so hoping that she gets the boot in the primary.

In any case, I have added Dr. Canova to Matthew Saroff's Act Blue Page.

This Is Some Class A Trolling

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has invited Donald Trump to visit a London Mosque with him:

Britain's opposition leader invited U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who sparked an outcry by calling for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States, to join him on a visit to a London mosque.

The comments from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a socialist who represents a multi-ethnic district of north London, come a day before the British parliament debates a motion calling for a ban on half-Scottish Trump from visiting the country.

"I decided to invite Donald Trump on his visit to Britain to come with me to my constituency because he has problems with Mexicans and he has problems with Muslims," Corbyn told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"As you know my wife is Mexican and my constituency is very, very multi-cultural so what I was going to do was go down to the mosque with him and let him talk to people there," he said.

This is some truly epic trolling.

Labour made the right choice when they elected him party leader.

If So, I Approve this Camel's Nose………

Matt Bruenig has a very interesting perspective on Bernie Sanders' single payer program, specifically, he believes that it provide the fiscal basis for a massive expansion of social welfare programs:

Currently, total health expenditures in the US make up around 17% of GDP. The average for the OECD is 9.3%. Around half of our healthcare spending is public while the other half is private. Thus, very roughly speaking, to shift all of the current healthcare expenditures onto the public health insurance, you’d need initially to raise the tax level by 8.5 points of GDP (half of 17%).

If you believe, as I do, that switching to a single-payer healthcare system would allow us to better curb healthcare inflation and thus to control costs much more effectively than we currently do, then that means that the 17% of GDP we currently pay towards healthcare could be pushed down over time. Let’s assume that, by keeping healthcare inflation in check through single-payer, we could eventually bring health expenditures down to around 10% of GDP (slightly above the OECD average).

Under this scenario, we would initially raise the tax level by 8.5 points in order to cover the half of health expenditures that are currently paid out privately. Then, over time, we would cut healthcare expenditures by 7 points (from 17% to 10% of GDP). Assuming we didn’t lower the tax level over the expenditure-slimming period, we would be able to use those 7 points of savings towards other welfare programs (child care, child allowance, paid leave, etc.). And there is a lot of stuff you can get with 7 points of GDP.

He's an optimist.

My guess is that these savings, will go to bombs and bullets, because  ……… America!!!!

We have still not accepted the wisdom of Eisenhower's Chance for Peace speech, while we bankrupt ourselves through military procurement and military adventurism.

Can We Give Florida Back to Spain?

In response to donations from sub-par hospitals to the state Republican Party, Florida has abandoned surgical standards for hospitals:

Children’s heart doctors in Florida are reeling from a recent decision by the state to drop surgical standards for pediatric open heart surgery, CNN reports. To add insult to injury, doctors and medical experts suspect that the decision was purely political.

The decision follows a 2014 medical review and a June 2015 report by CNN, which found that one particular medical facility, St. Mary’s Medical Center and Palm Beach Children’s Hospital, had an abysmal track record for pediatric open-heart surgery—a death rate more than three times the national average. And the two reports found that the facility was failing to meet the now-repealed standards, which include proficiency in performing the surgeries themselves.

The St. Mary’s facility is run by Tenet Healthcare, which coincidentally donated $200,000 to the state’s republicans between 2013 and 2014, including $100,000 to Republican Governor Rick Scott’s political action committee. Those donations were the highest of any Tenet gave to political groups in other states.

A month after CNN’s report, the state announced that it would repeal the standards for children’s heart surgery. Florida’s health department explained the move by saying that the standards were never properly approved by the legislature, but it failed to explain to reporters why legislative approval was not sought upon realizing the lapse.

It appears that Florida is in a competition with Texas for most repulsively corrupt politics in the United States.

My Take on the Democratic Debates

I missed the first 20 minutes, so this effects my review of the debate.

My two big take-aways are that but this debate was far more combative than any of the prior encounters, and that the debate moderators were trying very hard to completely ignore Martin O'Malley.

In terms of performance, I think that Clinton is a more accomplished debater, but that Sanders challenged her honesty, which is, and remains a weak point with the voters.

I'm not sure how this is going to pay out.

My guess is that the press will declare it a Cinton victory.

but I do want to say that the decision by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to schedule this debate opposite the NFL playoffs, much like her decision to schedule an earlier debate on the Saturday before Christmas.

DWS really needs to be fired.

Well, This is Getting Interesting

David Brock, a proxy for Hillary Clinton has been demanding that the 74 year old Bernie Sanders release his complete medical records.

Interestingly, the Clinton campaign has done its level best to get him to STFU:

A top surrogate for Hillary Clinton is prepping a new attack in an intensifying and increasingly personal war against rival Bernie Sanders — calling on the 74-year-old to release his medical records before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.

Clinton defender David Brock — founder of the Correct the Record PAC, which coordinates directly with Clinton’s campaign — is expected to hit the airwaves this weekend from Charleston, the scene of the third Democratic debate on Sunday night, and challenge Sanders to cough up a clean bill of health and doctor’s note in the next 16 days, according to a Democrat familiar with his thinking who was not authorized to preview any strategy.

Clinton released her medical records, showing she is “fit to serve as President,” last July. A spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign declined to comment on the strategy.

But hours later, after this report was published and Brock's planned tactics were widely criticized on Twitter, campaign chairman John Podesta distanced himself from the surrogate’s attack.

“@DavidBrockDC chill out,” Podesta tweeted Saturday night. “We’re fighting on who would make a better President, not on who has a better Physical Fitness Test.”

Podesta's belated comment also came after the Sanders campaign issued its own fundraising plea off of this report, calling it "a new, vile super PAC attack on Bernie."

I don't think that it was a fundraising plea.

I think that the Clinton campaign does not want a detailed investigation of her health records.  (She is 68)

Here is the analysis from Naked Capitalism: (note that Coumadin is a brand name for the generic Wafarin)

……… People in glass houses should not throw stones! Hillary’s medical report reads as if it was written by lawyer, and it’s from an MD in the town next to Chappaqua, when you have to think her and Bill’s main doctors are big ticket MDs in Manhattan, and the local just part of the team. But most important, she’s on Coumadin, which is an anti-clotting drug used often in post stroke patients to reduce the risk of recurrence. Coumadin has to be tightly managed. And read this analysis….be sure to get as far as the discussion of the cumulative odds of death were she to be a 2 term president on Coumadin. Are there any doctors in the house who can weigh in on the article? Update: This came in by e-mail from a doctor who treats in this area that I asked to opine:

Clinton apparently had a rare type of stroke, cerebral venous thrombosis. For what it’s worth, I had never seen a patient with that kind of stroke in my career. In the blog post, Dr Cundiff analyzed the fairly minimal data available on that kind of stroke. One study showed a surprisingly high bleeding risk for patients on long-term Coumadin. But the study was apparently funded by the manufacturer of a drug that was brought out to be a supposedly safer alternative to Coumadin, the COIs affecting the study were not properly disclosed, and the design of the study was such that the likelihood it was biased is high.

And of course it’s actually very difficult to accurately predict what will happen to any patient, much less at a distance using limited information for a patient who had a relatively rare problem.

All patients on Coumadin (and other kinds of anticoagulants) have elevated bleeding risks. How elevated it may be difficult to say for many. Really good medical care and monitoring ought to decrease this risk. Falling and hitting one’s head, or having major trauma surely increase it. So I would advise Ms Clinton, from a distance, to avoid contact sports and activities with high risks of trauma (sky-diving, race car driving, working for the police, fire departments, going into military combat, etc). But that’s probably not so useful in this context.

All of this is significant because I guarantee that the Republican opposition researchers are looking to use all of this against the eventual Democratic nominee.

Whether it's Clinton or Sanders (O'Malley is really not in the game), we are going to see health issues raised by Republican operatives.

Some History Perspective on Bank Failures

FDIC Data


Data from 1921

The good folks at Calculated Risk have put together some very interesting on bank failure going back almost 100 years.

It should be noted that the current bank failures are dwarfed by the failures during the S&L crisis, (Also known as the bailout of the Texas banking industry) but that we routinely saw more failures than that before the creation of the FDIC.

The next time that someone complains about how excessive regulation constrains the dynamism of the US economy, show them these graphs.  (click for slide show)

Muck Ficrosoft

It's clear that since the clusterf%$# that was Windows 8, Microsoft has been running scared.

Now, it appears that they will be doing their best to cripple earlier versions of their operating systems with the current hardware:

Soon, when you buy a new PC, it won't support Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft has announced a change to its support policy that lays out its plans for future updates to its older operating systems, and the new rules mean that future PC owners with next-generation Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm processors will need to use Windows 10.

It's not usual for old PCs to fall short of the minimum requirements of a brand new operating system, but in this case, the opposite is happening. Microsoft and its partners will not be putting in the significant work necessary to make new hardware work with older versions of Windows. The old operating systems, at best, will merely lack the latest updates. At worst, they might not function properly.

Policy starts with Intel's current processors, Skylake

"Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support," Microsoft notes in a blog post published on Friday. "Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel's upcoming 'Kaby Lake' silicon, Qualcomm's upcoming '8996' silicon, and AMD's upcoming 'Bristol Ridge' silicon."

This new policy doesn't mean that Windows 7 and 8.1 are no longer supported in general. The two operating systems will continue to get updates through January 14, 2020 and January 10, 2023, respectively. But that's only if you're using hardware that was contemporaneous with those operating systems.

For current PC owners, the detail to note is that Intel's current, sixth generation processors, known as Skylake, are the first that won't support either of the older versions of Windows. (Intel and Microsoft say that the platform and Windows 10 were designed for each other.) Microsoft is phasing in the policy now.

When juxtaposed with Microsoft's attempts to move to software as a service, it's yet another reason to move to Linux.

"If They Want the Germans to Accept Arab Women Wearing Headscarves Then They Must Accept Germans Sunbathing and Swimming Naked in Public Parks and Rivers."

One of the reasons that there are problems integrating immigrants into European societies is because there is very little effort to actual integrate them into society.

So this course in Europe is a very positive step:

Skinny-dipping, gay relationships and parenting all form part of Magdi Gohary’s crash-course introduction to a strange new home, Learn to Understand Germany, given at a huge refugee camp on the outskirts of Munich.

Many of those who join his seminars headed to the country in search of security and gave little thought to what else awaited them there, says the 74-year-old, a retired chemist who left his native Egypt for Munich half a century ago.

“We talk about homosexuality, which a lot of my course members tend to see as criminal. I go on to explain to them that Germans don’t see it that way and that they will have to accept that if they want to live here,” he says.

They are warned that their children will have more independence if they grow up German than they might have expected in the Arab world.

“Arabs are often shocked here when they see the Bavarians go swimming naked in the River Isar. But I tell them that if they want the Germans to accept Arab women wearing headscarves then they must accept Germans sunbathing and swimming naked in public parks and rivers.”

In the wake of mass assaults on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve – which police believe were largely carried out by men of Arab and North African backgrounds, including several asylum seekers – Germany is being pushed into a public debate about the challenges of integration.

The conversation is a delicate one. Refugees, those who work with them and the millions of Germans who support chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of welcoming new arrivals are all very wary of giving more ammunition to far-right groups who have already made political capital from the attacks. But many are also frustrated by assumptions that it would take little more than a change of clothes and passports for new arrivals to settle in, and say the conversation is a very necessary one for Germans and refugees alike.

There is very little effort to make immigrants in Germany, France, Italy, Holland, etc. into Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, etc.

Instead, Europe has tacitly accepted the creation of segregated ghettos, with little meaningful integration into the surrounding culture.

Taking a Prank That Necessary Extra Step

As you are no doubt aware, the terrorists occupying the Malheur sanctuary offices in Oregon have been asking for people to send them stuff so that they can maintain their presence.

They've asked for things like food and warm clothing, what they have been getting is dildos and other sex toys.

Well, Max Temkin, co-creator of the game Cards Against Humanity, saw this as problematic, so he sent the protesters a 55 gallon drum of Passion Natural Water Based Lubricant.

Epic.

Misquoting Deming

It turns out that a common argument for expanded school testing is based on a selective quote of the efficiency expert Edward Deming which reverses its meaning:

………

If challenged, test fans often quote the late Dr. W. Edward Deming, the world-famous quality guru who showed Japanese companies how to build better stuff than anybody else. In his book, “The New Economics,” Deming wrote, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Here’s the whole sentence as he wrote it: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it — a costly myth.”

This full Demings quote is not a surprise.

One of the central conceits of his theories statistical quality control is that testing is a sign of faulty process and faulty product.

Of course accurate quotes do not matter to the educational reform community. Mendacity is at the core of their modus operandi.

The school reform movement is largely driven by two things, the desire to crush teachers' unions, and the desire to turn public tax dollars into private profit.

Truth is not, nor has it ever been, a meaningful part of their process.

Jimmy McMillan Was Right

The divergance becomes


A convergence when rent is removed

Over at the Wall Steet Journal, they note that reason for the divergence between the CPI and PCE when juxtaposed wit the PPI is that the PPI does not include rent:

Prices in the U.S. are either rising or falling, depending on how you measure them.

The best-known measure of consumer inflation, the Labor Department’s consumer-price index, rose 0.5% from a year earlier in November. The Federal Reserve prefers to use the Commerce Department’s personal-consumption expenditures price index, which rose 0.4% on the year in November.

So why did another Labor Department inflation yardstick, the producer-price index, decline 1.1% on the year in November? The answer may be simple: Housing costs are rising faster than pretty much anything else, and they’re not part of the PPI.

A little background first. The PPI tracks price changes at the business level, and it was overhauled two years ago to cover a broader base of goods and services. In some cases, it can reveal inflationary pressures in the pipeline before they show up in consumer prices.

It also happens to be first broad inflation gauge released each month, earning it extra attention from economists and investors. The December PPI report will be released Friday morning, while the CPI won’t be out until next Wednesday and the PCE price index won’t be available until Feb. 1.

The PPI has generally moved in tandem with the two consumer-facing price gauges, but it has diverged from both measures over the past year. All three inflation gauges fell toward zero after oil prices began to tumble in mid-2014. The PPI kept going, dropping into negative annual territory and staying there, while the CPI and PCE measures have stabilized at low levels.

The likely culprit: rising rents. The cost of shelter, as measured by the CPI, rose 3.2% in November from a year earlier for the third consecutive month—the fastest growth in eight years. But while rent (and its equivalent for homeowners) makes up nearly a third of the CPI basket and a smaller but still substantial share of the PCE index, it’s absent from the PPI. That may explain why the path for PPI looks a lot like the path of CPI if you exclude shelter costs from the latter index.

There are a number of take aways here.

First, and most obvious is (of course) that the rent is too damn high.

The second is that an increasing proportion of our economy is going to rents of various forms rather than productive activities, which does nto indicate an economy that is progressing.

The third, and most important take away is that we are actually in a deflationary economy, like the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The reason that our economic recovery doesn't feel like an economic recovery is because it really isn't one.

We are in a deflationary spiral.

Populism Done Right, UK Edition

By being the first Labour leader in a generation to actually take that whole "labo(u)r" bit seriously, Jeremy Corbyn has presided over an explosion in interest and members:

Jeremy Corbyn’s hopes of remoulding Labour have been boosted by a detailed Guardian survey into the party at grassroots level that shows overwhelming support for him, a decisive shift to the left and unhappiness with squabbling among MPs.

The Guardian has interviewed Labour secretaries, chairs, other office holders and members from more than 100 of the 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. Almost every constituency party across the country we contacted reported doubling, trebling, quadrupling or even quintupling membership, and a revival of branches that had been moribund for years and close to folding.

100 Labour officials from across Britain tell of the new members surging to join the party, some young idealists, some returning prodigals - and one who was last a member when Harold Wilson was prime minister

Reflecting increased interest among the young, university cities and towns recorded some of the biggest rises, with Bath jumping from 300 to 1,322 members (911 full members, 120 affiliated supporters and 291 registered supporters) and Colchester from 200-250 to almost 1,000. Neither are traditional Labour seats.

The survey findings are borne out by Labour’s national figures, released to the Guardian in a break with party tradition of keeping them secret. Membership jumped from 201,293 on 6 May last year, the day before the general election, to 388,407 on 10 January.

The Blairites, of course, of course are apoplectic, because they think that the "Wrong Sort" are joining, even at a 10:1 ratio of joiners to leavers.

But if the strikingly good membership numbers have the Blairites freaking out, then Corbyn's proposals to limit excessive executive pay has their heads exploding:

Companies would be banned from paying senior executives vastly higher wages than junior employees, and would not be allowed to hand out dividends until all staff were earning the Living Wage, under plans signalled today by Jeremy Corbyn.

The Labour leader, who is setting out proposals to close the gap between top earners and low-paid staff, will commit the party to act to “institutionalise fairness”.

He also repeated his support for bringing the railways back into public ownership and for “democratic control” of the energy giants.

Mr Corbyn’s critics, both inside and outside the party, will seize on his plans as evidence that he is trying to drive its platform to the left. Any move to intervene in company pay is also bound to face fierce criticism from business.

But the Labour leader’s allies insist his commitment to tackling inequality will strike a chord with the public who are dismayed by the excesses of company bosses.

Mr Corbyn told a Fabian conference in London: “Too much of the proceeds of growth have accumulated to those at the top.”

He argued: “Everyone benefits when companies succeed. One proposal is pay ratios between top and bottom, so that the rewards don’t just accrue to those at the top.

………

Mr Corbyn also floated a plan to ban or restrict firms from distributing dividends to shareholders if they are not paying the Living Wage to all staff. “Only profitable employers will be paying dividends. If they depend on cheap labour for those profits, then I think there is a question over whether that is a business model to which we should be turning a blind eye.”

He pointed to research by the OECD which concluded that failure to distribute wealth more evenly hinders economic growth. “A more equal society is not only fairer, it does better in terms of economic stability and wealth creation,” he said.

The Labour leader argued that train fares would fall and investment increase if the railways were returned to public ownership. “It would be governed not remotely from Whitehall, but by passengers, rail workers and politicians, local and national,” he added.

Bringing gas and electricity companies under “democratic control” would also help to reduce costs and ease the transition to carbon-free energy supplies, he claimed.

Without excessive executive compensation, how will Blairites cash in when they retire from politics?

We've had about 40 years of so-called liberal politicians buying into conservative framing, and the only beneficiaries are the top 1% of the top 1%.

It's time for a change.

Oh, Snap!

Roll Tape!

One of the issues that seems to be giving the Bernie Sanders campaign its legs is the perception that Hillary Clinton is too close to the Banksters on Wall Street.

This 2007 video of Hillary Clinton giving a speech before banksters blaming ordinary people for the mortgage crisis is not going to help her campaign:

When Clinton ran for president during her second term as New York’s U.S. Senator, she gave a tepid speech at the NASDAQ headquarters on December 5, 2007 — before the financial crisis reached a boiling point — about reforming Wall Street’s housing loan practices, largely excusing financial criminals for their behavior.

“Now these economic problems are certainly not all Wall Street’s fault – not by a long shot,” Clinton said early in the speech.

Clinton’s NASDAQ address amounted to essentially asking the financiers assembled to take voluntary action or else she would “consider legislation” to stop banks from kicking families out of their homes. But early on in the speech, Clinton placed equal blame for the subprime mortgage crisis on low-income homeowners alongside Wall Street.

“Homebuyers who paid extra fees to avoid documenting their income should have known they were getting in over their heads,” Clinton said.

One YouTube user found video of the statement and put it side-by-side with her claim at the first Democratic debate in which she said she went to Wall Street before the crisis and told them to “cut it out.”

This sort of crap is like death to her campaing, because it plays into her greatest weakness, a perceived lack of authenticity.

She is firmly in the Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner,  Barack Obama wing of the Democratic Party.

Trying to pretend that she is more of a populist than Bernie Sanders is laughable.

And Police Wonder Why Some People Call Them "Pigs"

The sense of self-entitled hostility directed toward the public for whom they nominally work is clear when they pull this sort of sh%$:

In April 2015, the New York City television station NY1 filed a open-records request for “unedited video files from the NYPD’s body camera program” captured during five specific weeks in 2014 and 2015. Four months later, the New York City Police Department agreed to review and release the footage—but only after NY1 paid a $36,000 “copying fee.” NY1 appealed the N.Y.P.D.’s decision and, in a letter dated September 16 of last year, was once again denied by the N.Y.P.D.’s deputy commissioner of legal matters.

As the New York Post reported yesterday, the details of the N.Y.P.D.’s response, including the exorbitant fee (charged by a public agency with a budget of $4.8 billion*), were revealed in a lawsuit NY1 filed against the N.Y.P.D. in the Supreme Court of New York County on Wednesday. In it, the channel accuses the department of violating New York State’s Freedom of Information Law by inflating the cost of producing the requested body camera footage—a process that, according to the N.Y.P.D., involves copying video segments that could be withheld under certain privacy and security exemptions.

The fee does indeed come from a curious calculation of labor costs. In a letter to NY1 explaining the administrative denial of the channel’s appeal, a police official explained:

The [record access officer]’s estimate of the cost of processing a copy of the [body camera footage] was reasonable based on an estimate that the total time of footage recorded during the five weeks specified in the FOIL request was approximately 190 hours, and that in addition to the 190 hours required to view the recordings in real time, an additional 60% (or 114 hours) will be required to copy the footage in a manner that will redact the exempt portions of the [body camera footage], for a total of approximately 304 hours. The lowest paid NYPD employee with the skills required to prepare a redacted copy of the recordings is in the rank of police officer, and the cost of compensating a police officer is $120.00 per hour. Multiplying $120.00 by 304 hours equals $36,480, which closely approximates the amount estimated by the [records access officer].

It’s unclear where exactly these figures came from. A police officer is the third-lowest rank within the N.Y.P.D.’s rank structure; individuals holding that title make nowhere near $120 per hour, which is the equivalent of $249,600 per year (assuming a 40-hour workweek).

This is, of course, complete bullsh%$.

A sledge hammer needs to be taken wall that the police place between themselves and the general public.

It breeds contempt, and corruption, and abuse.

Finally, One of Those Ratf%$#S Got Arrested

One of the terrorists in Oregon got arrested for driving a stolen vehicle, specifically a Fish and Wildlife Service truck from the Malheur refuge:

Oregon State Police on Friday arrested one of the protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after he drove into town, accusing him of having a stolen vehicle.

The man was identified as Kenneth Medenbach, 62, of Crescent. He was arrested on suspicion of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison. He was to be booked into the Deschutes County Jail in Bend with bail set at $10,000, officials said.

According to federal court records, Medenbach is currently facing federal charges in Medford and was released from custody in November. A condition of his release was that he would not "occupy" any federal land. He was accused of illegally camping on federal property.

He is the first person arrested in connection with the armed occupation of the wildlife refuge, taken over two weeks ago.

He was arrested in the Safeway parking lot in one vehicle bearing federal government license plates. A second federal vehicle was parked next to him, but the man police suspect of driving that into town already had gone into the grocery before police arrived.

Both vehicles -- a pickup and a passenger van, bore door signs reading "Harney County Resource Center." That's the new name occupiers have given to the bird sanctuary they occupy, which is about 30 miles southeast of Burns.

"The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is grateful for the quick actions from law enforcement," said Megan Nagel, spokeswoman for the agency, which manages the refuge. "We will continue to work with law enforcement to recover vehicles bought and paid for by the American people to care for their national wildlife refuge."

………

In 1995, Medenbach was convicted on federal charges for illegally camping on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state. He was ordered held in custody because of evidence that Medenbach poses a risk to the safety of other persons or the community because [he] acknowledges intimidation practices, references 'Ruby Ridge' and 'Waco, Texas,' and clearly would not follow conditions of release restraining his presence at the scene of the alleged unlawful activity," according to a federal appellate court ruling upholding his conviction.

The appellate ruling said there was "evidence that Medenbach had attempted to protect his forest campsite with fifty to a hundred pounds of the explosive ammonium sulfate, a pellet gun, and what appeared to be a hand grenade with trip wires. The government also proffered evidence that Medenbach had warned Forest Service officers of potential armed resistance to the federal government's continued control of the forest lands in question."

Despite his prior record, the judge released him on bail, though he was, "Ordered not to occupy federal property as condition of his release from federal charges now pending in Medford."

Yeah, like that order is going to be obeyed.

Well, it's a start.

H/t Daily Kos.

Headline of the Day

Ted Cruz Accidentally Proves Donald Trump Is Human

I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, but his response to Cruz' "New York values" jibe is a thing of beauty:

First, he corrected Cruz—Manhattan produces conservatives, he said, “including William F. Buckley and others” (and what kind of Democrat would name-drop William F. Buckley?), and then he seemed to stand up taller.

“He insulted a lot of people,” Trump said of Cruz. “New York is a great place. It’s got great people, it’s got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.”

The crowd applauded and, as if to admit defeat, so did Cruz.

“Everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”

“You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down, thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there,” Trump said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, and the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death—nobody understood it, and it was with us for months. The smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”

Cruz just looked at the camera with a nervous smile. Suddenly his suit seemed too tight.

I really think that we saw some honest emotion from the Donald here.

Even if it was a preplanned comeback, he just force fed Ted Cruz his own shit.

It was brilliant.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!

We have yet to have the first bank failure of the year, but we now have the first credit union failure, Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union of ​Clarkston, MI.

I'm wondering if there was a change in policy over the past year tha might have credit unions failing at a faster rate than commercial banks.

Bought and Paid for by the Vampire Squid

It appears that during his first campaign for the Texas Senate, Ted Cruz got a million dollar loan from Goldman Sachs, and then in contravention of campaign finance laws, did not report it to the Federal Election Commission:

As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple.

“Sweetheart, I’d like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,” he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed.

But the couple’s decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz’s successful Tea Party-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports.

Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz — currently a leading contender for his party’s presidential nomination — put “personal funds” totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before a scheduled runoff election, he added more, bringing the total to $1.2 million — “which is all we had saved,” as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago.

A review of personal financial disclosures that Mr. Cruz filed later with the Senate does not find a liquidation of assets that would have accounted for all the money he spent on his campaign. What it does show, however, is that in the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose.

Neither loan appears in reports the Ted Cruz for Senate Committee filed with the Federal Election Commission, in which candidates are required to disclose the source of money they borrow to finance their campaigns. Other campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders. There is no evidence that the Cruzes got a break on their loans.

He should take a hit for this, particularly because much of his personal story is about how he risked it all to run for the US Senate, but it won't make a difference in the primaries, because the Republican Party base has drunk too much Flint municipal tap water.

Oh Snap!

Hillary Clinton has been going after Bernie Sanders' single payer healthcare proposals, claiming that single payer would take their healthcare away, and she's rolled out Chelsea on the campaign trail.

It is ludicrous and dishonest, and it has led to a huge spike in contributions to the Sanders campaign:

Hillary Clinton’s new barrage against Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential primary opponent she has all but ignored through most of her campaign, is having an effect — though probably not the one she intended.

Sanders’s underdog campaign said it is seeing a surge of contributions as a direct result of the new attention it is getting from the Democratic front-runner, with money coming in at a clip nearly four times the average daily rate reported in the last quarter of 2015.

………

The former secretary of state and her team have stepped up their criticism of Sanders on a variety of fronts in recent days as polls have begun to show him edging even with her in Iowa — and, for the first time, looking competitive in a national poll. But the Clinton strategy may be backfiring in some ways.

………

“As of now, we are at about $1.4 million raised since yesterday when the panic attacks by the Clinton campaign began,” Briggs said. “We’ve gotten 47,000 contributions. We’re projecting 60,000 donations. Even for our people-powered campaign, this is pretty darn impressive.”

………

Even her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, got into the act, bashing Sanders during her first campaign appearance on behalf of her mother this election season.

“Senator Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the [Children’s Health Insurance Program], dismantle Medicare and dismantle private insurance,” Chelsea Clinton said at a stop in New Hampshire. “I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we’ll go back to an era — before we had the Affordable Care Act — that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance.”

Ludicrous, and dishonest, and more significantly, desperate.

Hillary's strength this cycle was her aura of inevitability, and that appears to be vanishing like the mist

As I recall, inevitability was her perceived strength in 2008 as well.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?

Normally, I pay little attention to the various awards, but I heard that Mad Max Fury Road was nominated for a best picture Oscar.

This not something I would expect from the Academy:

George Miller and Margaret Sixel were asleep in their Sydney home when, just before 1am, a torrent of text messages, emails and phone calls from well wishers lit up their phones.

The husband-and-wife filmmakers quickly discovered their film, Mad Max: Fury Road, had made Australian film history with 10 Oscar nominations.

Not only did Miller score directing and, as producer, best picture nods, but Sixel was nominated for her editing and 11 other Aussies crew members were among the nominees for their work on the post-apocalyptic action-adventure.

I gotta watch this now.

F$#@ Me, I Agree with Peter King

You know Peter King, the Congressman from New York.

This is the guy who raised funds for the terrorist organization the IRA, called for the assassination of Snowden, Greenwals, and Poitras, and pretty much accused every Muslim in America of being a part of a 5^th column.

But credit where credit is due, he just told Ted Cruz to go back under the rock he crawled out of:

New York Republican Rep. Peter King has some harsh advice for Ted Cruz: “Go back under a rock."

"Memo to Ted Cruz: New York Values are the heroes of 9/11; the cops who fight terror; and the people you ask for campaign donations. Go back under a rock,” King said in a statement mailed to POLITICO Thursday regarding Cruz’s comments about “New York values.”

The Texas senator, who had been avoiding going after Donald Trump for much of the campaign cycle, finally hit back after Trump questioned Cruz’s eligibility for the White House. Cruz suggested in an interview with “The Howie Carr Show” Tuesday that Trump "may shift in his new rallies to playing 'New York, New York,' because you know Donald comes from New York and he embodies New York values."

I really hate agreeing with him, but he's right, though incomplete.

When Ted Cruz talks about "New York values", he's really accusing Donald Trump of being in the thrall of the secret Jewish cabal that runs the world.

It's how Cruz is trying to appeal to the Talibaptist wing of the Republican party.

I miss the Republican Party of Richard Milhous Nixon.