Year: 2016

Bullsh%$ Bingo Winner of the Day

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There is a mildly amusing parody web site that does a compare and contrast of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, things like:

  • Bernie: Star Wars is a great series, and I thought that episode 7 is a nice return to the Franchise’s roots,
  • Hillary: [Makes “Live long and prosper” hand signal]

It’s kind of silly, and not too deep, and pokes fun at Hillary Clinton’s perceived lack of authenticity,* but someone at Salon decided to use the meme to attack all Bernie Sanders supporters as male chauvinists, aka Bernie Bros:

………These jabs at Clinton’s imagined sonic preferences reinforce the tired idea that the tastes of non-cis-male cultural consumers—from teenagers on through boomers and beyond—are something to be mocked and disrespected.………

Don’t even bother trying.

Annie Zaleski has won the bullsh%$ bingo game for this month, and possibly for the entire f%$#ing presidential campaign.

She has her head so far up her ass that she resembles a Klein bottle.

*Not her fault.   Bill Clinton does authenticity so well that if he were sharing a bill with Pope Frank, the Pontiff would look like the Andy Kaufman character Tony Clifton.

Iowa Caucuses

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And tomorrow is Groundhog day, so expect the same crap from the pundits, day, after day, after day, after day

In terms of the actual numbers, as of 11:50 PM EST, with 98% of Republican caucuses reporting, a Ted Cruz has won the Republican caucuses, with Trump second, and Rubio a fairly close third.

Clearly, Rubio is not the (lame and not particularly intelligent) great white hope of the Republican establishment.

With 94% of Democratic caucuses reporting, it looks like the delegate talley will be pretty close, as Hillary Clintonhas 49.9%  and  has Bernie Sanders 49.6%, with O’Malley at ½%.

The race has not been called, and there are reports that O’Malley has dropped out of the race.

The Democratic caucus results seems to indicate that very little bit has been settled.

I would guess that the results will be the same in the morning, but given that the reporting software is written by Microsoft, I would wait about 48 hours for the final count.*

Ongoing results here.

*I am not suggesting fraud here, I am suggesting incompetence and poor execution, kind of like Windows Vista, Windows 8, Office 2007, and Microsoft Bob.

No Butts About It

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I am not referring to the tuchas. I am referring to the archery practice, which for many centuries was mandatory for English yeomen.

And now an English vicar has invoked this ancient law:

A vicar has revived an ancient law to call members of her parish together for archery practice.

 The Reverend Mary Edwards, of Collingbourne Ducis, near Marlborough, called residents to the village recreation ground on Friday.

 Residents were rewarded for complying with the law with a bar, a barbecue and live music.

 Church warden Mike Cox said: “It seems she’s still entitled to do that.”

 “I’ve been checking on the web and most archery experts and clergy seem to agree she is,” Mr Cox added.

 ………

 “We are celebrating the building of a new loo [bathroom] in the church. After all these years we have at long last brought running water to the church.”

It’s a wonderful story, but it appears that their understanding of the law is not accurate:

……… And, in fact, it appears that the archery requirement was repealed quite a while ago.

While I would have preferred to fly to England and go rummaging through the Parliamentary Archives to confirm this personally, I had a deadline to meet, plus I am not especially welcome there anymore because of what I see as a simple misunderstanding as to whether their reading rooms are clothing-optional. So I have relied on the Internet, which is less authoritative but also less judgmental.

It is clear that there were laws requiring archery practice dating back to at least the 13th century. The motive was to make sure England had enough men trained to use the longbow, which for centuries was a crucial weapon for the English. (The most famous example is Agincourt, a battle that Henry V won in 1415 and is still going on about.)

The training requirement was usually combined with prohibitions on other kinds of games and sports so that people would focus on archery instead of, for example, “tennis, football, [quoits], dice” and other “games inappropriate.” The point was not so much to condemn games as to make sure they did not get in the way of longbow training. In other words, they saw nothing morally wrong with tennis, it’s just that it is hard to kill a French knight with a tennis ball, no matter how good your serve is.

In 1511 the requirement was expanded by “An Act concerning Shooting in Long Bows,” even though by then the importance of the bow was declining. This law provided that “All sorts of men under the age of 40 Years shall have bows and arrows” and practice using them. The playing of games continued, however, and in 1541 the law was expanded yet again by “An Act for the Maintenance of Artillery, and debarring unlawful Games,” the preamble to which declares that said games were believed to be the “Cause of the Decay of Archery” skills in England (There was another very important cause by then, namely guns–or, more specifically, bullets–but games always seem to get blamed for social problems.)

The archery requirement was extended to all men under age 60, and the list of banned games was expanded. As before, though, these restrictions did not apply to the aristocracy. They tended to become knights, not archers, plus they had the God-given right to play games if they liked. According to them, that is, not God.

At least some of this was still on the books well into the 19th century, but was probably repealed during the reign of Queen Victoria. In 1845, “An Act to Amend the Law concerning Games and Wagers” repealed any part of King Henry’s 1541 law making any “Game of Skill” unlawful or “which enacts any penalty for lacking bows or arrows … or which regulates the making, selling or using of bows and arrows.” If any of the older stuff survived, it was most likely repealed by more recent acts intended to get some of the ancient stuff off the books.

Seeing as how the good vicar did not threaten any sanctions against those who declined to practice archery, I won’t spoil her fun, but it appears that she does not have the law on her side.

H/t Jill Junkala on Facebook.

So Not a Surprise

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Global Witness, a not-for profit anti-money laundering organization, and ran a sting on lawyers who aid people in getting their ill gotten gains into the US:

With attention growing on the use of shell companies in high-end real estate, an activist organization released a report Sunday night that said several New York real estate lawyers had been caught on camera providing advice on how to move suspect money into the United States.

The report is the result of an undercover investigation carried out in 2014 by Global Witness, a nonprofit activist organization that has been pushing for stricter money-laundering rules.

The lawyers featured in the report include a recent president of the American Bar Association.

“It wasn’t hard to find lawyers to suggest ways to move suspect funds into the United States,” said Stefanie Ostfeld, a spokeswoman for Global Witness. “We went undercover because it is the only way we could show what really happens behind closed doors. The findings speak for themselves — something urgently needs to change.”

The real estate industry has been under growing scrutiny as evidence has emerged that suspect money is flowing into luxury real estate. Global Witness cited an investigation last year in The New York Times that documented numerous foreign officials and their family members buying multimillion-dollar properties in Manhattan and quantified the rising use of shell companies in real estate transactions.

This is not a surprise.

There is whole industry of unethical but (barely) legal money laundering, on Wall Street in New York, and in The City of London.

Hopefully a this additional attention will make doing this harder.

Our financial sector is aggressively complicit in the looting of the poorest societies on earth.
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A Good Start

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For profit academic research publishers are firmly in the category of, “Mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.”

A particularly nasty player in this sphere is Elsevier, the publisher of such items as The Lancet and Cell, and Gray’s Anatomy, and it is particularly aggressive in its charges, and in its aggressive use of copyright to enforce its charges.

All for publications where the content providers, and the editors work for volunteers.

It has now engendered a boycott in its home base of the Netherlands:

A long running dispute between Dutch universities and Elsevier has taken an interesting turn. Last week Koen Becking, chairman of the Executive Board of Tilburg University who has been negotiating with scientific publishers about an open access policy on behalf of Dutch universities with his colleague Gerard Meijer, announced a plan to start boycotting Elsevier.

As a first step in boycotting the publisher, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has asked all scientists that are editor in chief of a journal published by Elsevier to give up their post. If this way of putting pressure on the publishers does not work, the next step would be to ask reviewers to stop working for Elsevier. After that, scientists could be asked to stop publishing in Elsevier journals.

The Netherlands has a clear position on Open Access. Sander Dekker, the State Secretary of Education has taken a strong position on Open Access, stating at the opening of the 2014 academic year in Leiden that ‘Science is not a goal in itself. Just as art is only art once it is seen, knowledge only becomes knowledge once it is shared.’

Dekker has set two Open Access targets: 40% of scientific publications should be made available through Open Access by 2016, and 100% by 2024. The preferred route is through gold Open Access – where the work is ‘born Open Access’. This means there is no cost for readers – and no subscriptions.

However Gerard Meijer, who handles the negotiations with Elsevier, says that the parties have not been able to come close to an agreement.

 ………

The 2015 Dutch boycott is significant. Typically negotiations with publishers occur at an institutional level and with representatives from the university libraries. This makes sense as libraries have long standing relationships with publishers and understand the minutiae of the licencing processes . However the Dutch negotiations have been led by the Vice Chancellors of the universities.  It is a country-wide negotiation at the highest level. And Vice Chancellors have the ability to request behaviour change of their research communities.

This boycott has the potential to be a significant game changer in the relationship between the research community and the world’s largest academic publisher. The remainder of this blog looks at some of the facts and figures relating to expenditure on Open Access in the UK. It underlines the importance of the Dutch position.The 2015 Dutch boycott is significant. Typically negotiations with publishers occur at an institutional level and with representatives from the university libraries. This makes sense as libraries have long standing relationships with publishers and understand the minutiae of the licencing processes . However the Dutch negotiations have been led by the Vice Chancellors of the universities.  It is a country-wide negotiation at the highest level. And Vice Chancellors have the ability to request behaviour change of their research communities.

These folks are leeches, who have made their business plan out of the free effort of academics.

I’d love to dance on their corporate grave.

Interesting Factoid about Sanders

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When you take a look at at previous “insurgent” challengers, they tended to get a lot of support from more affluent Democrats.

Not for Sanders:

Sanders’s strength with voters making less than $50,000 a year  —  and his relative lack of appeal among voters making above $100,000  —  sets him apart from Democratic primary challengers in years past like Bill Bradley, Howard Dean, and Barack Obama. All these “progressive” underdogs attracted their strongest support from wealthier voters, while struggling, in relative terms, to win lower-income support. (Nate Cohn notices the same trend in today’s New York Times.) 

Also this:

Bernie Sanders’s coalition once looked very familiar: He had strong support among well-educated and affluent liberal white voters of the sort who backed Barack Obama, Bill Bradley and Jerry Brown. He struggled among less affluent voters.

But his coalition has evolved over the last few months. He now fares much better among less affluent whites than Mr. Obama did eight years ago, suggesting he’s attracting a group that traditionally supports more moderate establishment candidates, someone like Hillary Clinton. If confirmed in the voting, it would vindicate his hope of building a progressive coalition based more on class than the coalitions put together by liberal predecessors.

I’m not surprised that the Democratic establishment hates Sanders.

There is an saying, “Republicans fear their base, and Democrats hate their base.”

To the degree that Sanders talks to the base, and talks about the existential issues surrounding excessive (and undeserved) inequality in our society.

He is talking directly to the base, and they hate him.

It should make interesting time in South Carolina.

Lunchtime Thought on the Iowa Caucuses

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I think that Hillary is likely to win, even though I think that most of O’Malley’s support will end up in the Sanders camp, (O’Malley is also running a liberal populist campaign, like Sanders) because anyone who gets less than 15% in a caucus has to move to another candidate.

I think that it is going to be close though.

I think that Clinton has to win this, because if she loses it, then Sanders will clearly win in New Hampshire, and then South Carolina becomes iffy for Clinton, and Sanders is likely to run the table.

On the other hand, if Sanders loses, he still is likely to win in New Hampshire, particularly with the just announced debate on Thursday, which will be intensely watched by likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters.

Sanders is, I think, less effected by the results, because his campaign was intended as an issue campaign, and remains that at its core, and could return to that with a minor adjustment.

With his large base of small donors, and a low burn rate, he can run throughout the primaries.

In either case, I do not expect O’Malley to continue his campaign beyond the March. He’s just not getting any traction.

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Finally

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After nearly a decade of parallel construction and lying to courts and defense attorneys, the first case regarding whether the use of a cell tower simulator (aka “Stingray”) needs a warrant for its application has made it to a federal appelate court:

A criminal case examining the Fourth Amendment implications of cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays, has finally reached the 7th Circuit for the first time. Now one step below the Supreme Court, this case also likely marks the first time that warrantless use of stingrays has reached any federal appellate court.

Stingrays determine a phone’s location by spoofing a cell tower. In some cases, they can intercept calls and text messages. Once deployed, the devices intercept data from a target phone along with information from other phones within the vicinity. At times, police have falsely claimed the use of a confidential informant while in fact deploying this particularly sweeping and intrusive surveillance tool.

The 7th Circuit will now consider a 2013 case known as United States v. Patrick. It involves a Milwaukee man wanted on a probation violation who was suddenly located and arrested by local police with help from the FBI. There is very strong evidence to suggest that he was apprehended through the warrantless use of a stingray.

Patrick’s attorney, Chris Donovan, filed his opening brief in the appeal earlier this month. The case is so notable that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also filed an amicus brief earlier this week. The organizations note that the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution requires that search warrants demonstrate probable cause of a crime. And, they note, Wisconsin passed a 2014 state law mandating warrants for stingray deployment.

It’s about f%$#ing time.

Law enforcement has been trying to conceal their warrantless use of this devices, because they are afraid that the courts will require warrants for this.

I hope that their concerns are justified.

It’s not that big deal to get a warrant, but lazy incompetent cops want short cuts.

Time to Get Your Geek ON

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Click for Slide Show

The Smithsonian is conducting a full refurbishment of the original 11 foot long Star Ship Enterprise model from the original series.

They are going whole hog on this, using multi-spectral and chemical analysis to determine original colors, as well as observing colors that were preserved in between pieces of the assembly:

The final painting of the Enterprise model will begin in April, using newly discovered reference photos from our appeal to Trek fans in the fall. The team will also build new nacelle domes with LED lights to mimic the spinning effect seen on television. For reference, they will first build a 1:1 mock-up of the original mechanism, which utilized mirrors, motors, nails, and Christmas lights. Conservator Ariel O’Connor explains, “Although the original nacelle dome lights did not survive, we can replicate the original effect in a way that is safe to install on the model. The LED lights can be programmed to match the original VFX footage while eliminating the burnt-out bulbs, extreme heat, and motor problems that troubled the original lights. It is a wonderful solution to re-light the nacelles while ensuring the model’s safety and longevity.”

The Enterprise model has been carefully separated into its individual components—saucer section; secondary hull; port and starboard nacelles and pylons; deflector dish array; hangar bay doors; and the bridge. Each section is being meticulously studied to determine its construction and condition and will be documented with visible, ultraviolet, and infrared photography. We completed X-ray photography, with help from our colleagues at the Smithsonian Zoological Park, in spring 2015.

Needless to say, once they are done, I will seriously get down to the Air and Space museum to get my geek on.

H/t Ars Technica.

It Was Inevitable

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It seems that whenever you have a conspiracy theory nutcase, they will eventually descend into antisemitism and/or Holocaust denial.

Case in point, Oscar winning director Oliver Stone:

Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust, prominent Hollywood director Oliver Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that the U.S. Jewish lobby was controlling Washington’s foreign policy for years.

In the Sunday interview, Stone reportedly said U.S. public opinion was focused on the Holocaust as a result of the “Jewish domination of the media,” adding that an upcoming film of him aims to put Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

“There’s a major lobby in the United States,” Stone said, adding that “they are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington.”

The famed Hollywood director of such films as “Platoon” and “JFK,” also said that while “Hitler was a Frankenstein,” there was also a “Dr Frankenstein.”

“German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support,” Stone told the Sunday Times, adding that “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed].”

Referring to the alleged influence of the powerful Jewish lobby on U.S. foreign policy, Stone said that Israel had distorted “United States foreign policy for years,” adding he felt U.S. policy toward Iran was “horrible.”

So not a surprise.

Quote of the Day

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I owe almost my entire Wall Street career to the Clintons.

—Chris Arnade

Mr. Arnade continues, “I am not alone; most bankers owe their careers, and their wealth, to them. Over the last 25 years they – with the Clintons it is never just Bill or Hillary – implemented policies that placed Wall Street at the center of the Democratic economic agenda, turning it from a party against Wall Street to a party of Wall Street.”

He goes on to explain that the history of the Clintons is that they are creatures of big finance, and he uses the 1995 bailout of Mexico, which was really a bailout of big finance.

If you like Rubinomics, and believe that an excessively financialized economy is the future of America, by all means, vote for her in the primary.

Me, I’m hoping that my vote matters when Maryland votes on 26 April.

Hillary Clinton is Scared, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Loses

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It appears that the DNC is reversing itself, and there will be more debates:

After days of jostling over whether to meet for more debates, and how many, aides to Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders have reached an agreement, of sorts, they said Saturday: The two will meet next week in New Hampshire and will hold three more debates thereafter.

 A Clinton aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss continuing negotiations, confirmed the tentative agreement for four additional debates, which was first reported by BuzzFeed.

 The two campaigns have engaged in a measure of brinkmanship in recent days, with Mr. Sanders’s team one-upping Mrs. Clinton’s by saying it would agree to an additional debate in New Hampshire if her team agreed to more beyond that.

 Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, said the agreement was still being discussed. “I’m optimistic,” he said, but he added, “The details are still being worked out.”

 The Democratic National Committee has yet to weigh in on whether it would sanction the added debates.

 The New Hampshire debate next week was originally scheduled as an unsanctioned one, sponsored by MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper. But a Democratic National Committee official said The Union Leader would not be a sponsor.

 Still, it would mean a highly watched showdown between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders before the Feb. 9 primary in New Hampshire.

 After working in 2015 to restrict the number of debates, Mrs. Clinton’s team has since expressed regret about that as Mr. Sanders surged in the polls, especially because she has generally delivered strong performances in the debates.

I don’t know who wins in this arrangement.

Clinton is clearly more comfortable debating, but the more that people see of Sanders, the more that they like him. (OK, this is a win for O’Malley, because he has nothing to lose in the debates, and everything to gain)

I can tell you who loses, however, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the incompetent and widely loathed head of the DNC, who had been steadfast in resisting debates after scheduling a pittance on weekends up against things like NFL playoff games.

This is an Inspired Protest

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Britain has an official board, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), to review and censor movies.

It charges the film makers for the costs of censoring their movies, to the tune of  £101.50 plys £7.09 per minute of film.

British film maker and journalist Charlie Lyne had a kickstarter to make a protest film, and when he totaled up the costs, he submitted a 10+ hour of film of paint drying:

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has determined that Charlie Lyne’s 10-hour Paint Drying contains “no material likely to offend or harm”, and has accordingly awarded it a “suitable for all” U certificate.

Nicely described by the BBFC as “a film showing paint drying on a wall”, Paint Drying is the result of a Kickstarter campaign aimed at highlighting the “prohibitively expensive” cost of presenting cinematic works for classification.

The BBFC charges a £101.50 submission fee and £7.09 per minute of film. However, it is obliged to sit through every single frame of material, so Lyne decided he’d make the censors work for their money.

He originally planned to raise £109 for a symbolic one-minute submission of paint drying, but ultimately attracted pledges of £5,936, financing an extended 607-minute submission to the BBFC.

It took 2 days for the BBFC to review the film.

Joseph Heller is Spinning in His Grave

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Admiral Ted “Twig” Branch is the head of Naval Intelligence, but for the past 2 years, while at this position, his clearance has been suspended, and so he cannot read, review, or discuss classified material:

For more than two years, the Navy’s intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap: He’s not allowed to know any secrets.

 Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel.

 Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaders suspended his access to classified materials. They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations.

 More than 800 days later, neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged. But neither has been cleared, either. Their access to classified information remains blocked.

 Although the Navy transferred Loveless to a slightly less sensitive post, it kept Branch in charge of its intelligence division. That has resulted in an awkward arrangement, akin to sending a warship into battle with its skipper stuck onshore.

 Branch can’t meet with other senior U.S. intelligence leaders to discuss sensitive operations, or hear updates from his staff about secret missions or projects. It can be a chore just to set foot in colleagues’ offices; in keeping with regulations, they must conduct a sweep beforehand to make sure any classified documents are locked up.

What the f%$# is wrong with the military?

The guy is forbidden by to do his job, and as opposed to doing the sane thing, and transfer him to a new post where he can do his job, you cripple a crucial department.

The idea that anyone in the Pentagon would allow this to happen for more than 2½ years is an indication that the bureaucracy and the general officer corps have become a dysfunctional carrerist dystopia.

Smedley Butler was right.  It’s a racket.

Protect and Serve, My Ass

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What a surprise. Chicago cops are actively sabotaging their dashcams:

Why are so many police dashcam videos silent?

 Chicago Police Department officers stashed microphones in their squad car glove boxes. They pulled out batteries. Microphone antennas got busted or went missing. And sometimes, dashcam systems didn’t have any microphones at all, DNAinfo Chicago has learned.

 Police officials last month blamed the absence of audio in 80 percent of dashcam videos on officer error and “intentional destruction.”

 A DNAinfo Chicago review of more than 1,800 police maintenance logs sheds light on the no-sound syndrome plaguing Police Department videos — including its most notorious dashcam case.

 Maintenance records of the squad car used by Jason Van Dyke, who shot and killed Laquan McDonald, and his partner, Joseph Walsh, show monthslong delays for two dashcam repairs, including a long wait to fix “intentional damage.”

 On June 17, 2014, police technicians reported fixing a dashcam wiring issue in police vehicle No. 6412, the squad shared by Van Dyke and Walsh, about three months after it was reported broken, records show.

 A day later, the same vehicle’s dashcam system was reported busted again. It took until Oct. 8, 2014, to complete repairs of what technicians deemed “intentional damage,” according to reports.

 Just 12 days later, on Oct. 20, 2014, dashcam video recorded from squad car No. 6412 on the night Van Dyke shot and killed McDonald did not record audio. The video that went viral showing Van Dyke killing Laquan was taken from a different squad car, but it, too, had no audio.

………

Police officials quickly placed the blame on officers and shift supervisors responsible for making sure dashcam systems work properly before officers go on patrol.

In December, interim Police Supt. John Escalante warned the rank and file that they would be disciplined for failing to follow proper dashcam protocol. Weeks later, he followed through by hitting some officers and supervisors with formal reprimands and up-to-three-day suspensions.

“To boil this down, the Police Department will not tolerate officers maliciously destructing equipment,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Note that there are threats, but when the president of the local police union complains, he does not complain about actual punishments, just the threat of punishment.

This isn’t going to be fixed until someone from the outside excises the rot at the department’s core.

The Overton Window has Shifted

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The editorial board of the New York Times has come out in favor of a financial transaction tax.

It does not get any more establishment than that:

A financial transaction tax — a per-trade charge on the buying and selling of stocks, bonds and derivatives — is an idea whose time has finally come. It has begun percolating in the Democratic presidential campaign, with all three candidates offering proposals.

 Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley have proposed a worthy but narrow tax on certain high-frequency trades, which generate windfall profits on small and fleeting differences in prices at the expense of ordinary investors and market stability. Bernie Sanders supports a hefty tax on a broader range of transactions to raise revenue from Wall Street, also a worthy goal, but his proposal would be likely to squeeze investors too hard. Republicans have not engaged the debate, except to say no to taxes no matter what.

 A well-designed financial transaction tax — one that applies a tiny tax rate to an array of transactions and is split between buyers and sellers — would be a progressive way to raise substantial revenue without damaging the markets. A new study by researchers at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has found that a 0.1 percent tax rate could bring in $66 billion a year, with 40 percent coming from the top 1 percent of income earners and 75 percent from the top 20 percent. As the rate rises, however, traders would most likely curtail their activity. The tax could bring in $76 billion a year if it was set at 0.3 percent, but above that rate, trading would probably decrease and the total revenue raised would start to fall.

 The burden of this tax would be concentrated at the top, because that’s where the ownership of financial assets is concentrated. However, individuals who buy and hold investments, including those who invest in index funds that trade infrequently, would be largely unaffected. Pension funds that devote a portion of their portfolios to speculative trading, often through hedge funds, would be hit, but some pension funds have already stopped using hedge funds because the returns do not justify the costs. A financial transaction tax that encouraged other pension funds to follow suit could actually benefit pension participants in the long run.

 Such a tax would also bring the United States more in line with other countries. There are already financial transaction taxes in Britain, Switzerland and South Korea as well as in Hong Kong and other developed markets and emerging nations, generally at rates of 0.1 percent to 0.5 percent on stock transfers. In addition, 10 countries in the European Union, including Germany and France, have agreed to apply a common financial transaction tax starting in 2017, though relentless lobbying by investment banks and hedge funds threatens to delay and even derail the effort.

There are a number of arguments against this.

The strongest one is that it will collect less revenue than expected, because it would disincentivize speculation.

As if that were a bad thing.

Today in Blithering Idiocy

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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is wondering where the compassionate conservatives have gone in the Republican Party:

Back in 2000, George W. Bush did something fascinating: On the campaign trail he preached “compassionate conservatism,” telling wealthy Republicans about the travails of Mexican-American immigrants and declaring to women in pearls that “the hardest job in America” is that of a single mother.

Those well-heeled audiences looked baffled, but applauded.

That instinct to show a little heart helped elect Bush but then largely disappeared from Republican playbooks and policy. Yet now, amid the Republican Party’s civil war, there are intriguing initiatives by the House speaker, Paul Ryan, and some other conservatives to revive an interest in the needy.

Has the columnist, aka Mr. “Sh%$ for Brains” actually read these proposals?

They are all the same:  “Make the alternative starvation, and the poor will pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

As fellow Times pundit Paul Krugman noted Eight Years Ago, “Compassionate Conservatism” was, “A dog-whistle to the religious right:

Oy. Why are political writers still unaware that Bush’s phrase “compassionate conservatism” wasn’t an acceptance of the Great Society, but rather a dog-whistle to the religious right? It comes from Marvin Olasky’s The Tragedy of American Compassion. From the Publisher’s Weekly review:

Compassion means tough love in which those who give must demand self-help from those who receive … Olasky adds a proviso that the giver too must be personally involved. He holds up the example of 19th-century charity workers, whose religious beliefs made them compassionate and willing to deal intimately with the poor … Olasky does not blame the system for poverty. He faults the poor, along with social workers back to Jane Addams and the founders of the settlement house movement.

Paul Ryan and the rest of them have no plan beyond making the poor even poorer.

My conclusion is that Nicholas Kristof is in a competition with Tom Friedman for dumb-assery.

Seriously?

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Maine’s Governor, Paul LePage, aka the “Human Bowling Jacket”, is proposing a return to the guillotine:

Maine Gov. Paul LePage says his state is too easy on drug crimes, suggesting it should bring back the guillotine for serious offenders.

The Republican governor, known for his controversial statements, was speaking on local radio Tuesday about combating the drug epidemic in his state.

“What I think we ought to do is bring the guillotine back,” he told WVOM. “We could have public executions and have, you know, we could even have (guessing) which hole it falls in.”

He said that he was “all in” on fighting drug criminals and said a recent proposal to establish a minimum sentence of four years for drug traffickers was too lenient.

“I think the death penalty should be appropriate for people that kill Mainers,” LePage said.

………

Even as the hosts of the show tried to wrap the interview, LePage interrupted to show his resolve, suggesting the guillotine be used for public executions, joking that the idea was part of his French ancestry.

“I like French history,” he said.

It’s only the latest controversial comments from LePage. Earlier this month, he made waves talking about drug dealers in his state.

“These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” he said. “They come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.”

Seriously, can the legislators of Maine please impeach his flabby white ass?

We already know that he has abused his official power to engage in a personal vendetta, and the investigation is ongoing, but it needs to move faster.

This guy is a clear and present danger to the state of Maine.

H/t Charlie Pierce.