Month: June 2021

So Not a Surprise

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Oregon State Represenstative Mike Nearman was indicted a month ago for allowing right wing terrorists entry into the state house.

Well, now we have video evidence that he he was coaching his constituents on the invasion of the Oregon Capitol.

While correlation is not causation, I wonder if perhaps there were  US representatives at the US Capitol who were similarly involved in the January 6 insurrection:

Just days before Rep. Mike Nearman helped armed protesters enter the closed Oregon Capitol building in December, endangering fellow lawmakers and Capitol employees, he coached constituents on the exact steps to get his help breaking in.

A video shows Nearman, a Republican from outside Independence, walking constituents through the step by step process of where to stand, how to text him and what help he would provide that would allow them to break the rules and get into the Capitol during the Dec. 21 special legislative session.

He does so with a wink and a nod, interspersing the instructions with disclaimers that he’s not giving out a real cell phone number (he is and it’s his number), that he knows nothing about the planned “Operation Hall Pass” and that nothing like that will actually happen.

In fact, exactly what he described did occur, prosecutors and investigators say. Protesters gathered outside the Capitol’s west entrance in obvious protest of the closure, Nearman left the House chambers where lawmakers were gathered doing state business and he walked out a Capitol entrance, leaving the open door hanging long enough for angry citizens to grab it and enter.

He can’t be alone in this.

Flip him, make him talk, and expose the whole rotten edifice.

He Does This Because They Let Him

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And they let him because they don’t want to get anything done.

I am referring, of course, to Joe Manchin, who latest Jihad for moderation literally threatens the right to franchise in the United States.

Seriously, Manchin can throw a monkey wrench into the works because it feeds his ego, and there are on consequences.

It’s one thing to have an big tent and working with conservative Democrats, and it’s another to work with disloyal Democrats.

Make him face consequences, and if he wants to bolt to the Republican Party, let’s see how he fares in a Republican primary in 2024: (He won’t, particularly since he voted for impeaching Trump)

Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said on Sunday in no uncertain terms that he would not vote for the Democrats’ far-reaching bill to combat voter suppression, nor would he ever end the legislative filibuster, a written promise that imperils much of President Biden’s agenda.

The bill, which all the other Senate Democrats had supported and the party had portrayed as an urgent effort to preserve American democracy, would roll back dozens of laws being passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting and empower partisan poll watchers. The measure, known as the For the People Act, would also restore many of the ethical controls on the presidency that Donald J. Trump shattered.

………

The 818-page bill would end partisan gerrymandering, tighten controls on campaign spending and ease voter registration. It would also force major-party candidates for president and vice president to release 10 years’ worth of personal and business tax returns and end the president’s and vice president’s exemption from conflict-of-interest rules, which allowed Mr. Trump to maintain businesses that profited off his presidency.

With Mr. Manchin’s vow, passage of the full For the People Act appears to be impossible, though parts of it could pass in other ways if Democrats are willing to break up the bill, a move that they have resisted. Mr. Manchin’s blockade of filibuster changes makes other Biden initiatives far less likely to pass, including any overhaul of immigration laws, a permanent expansion of the Affordable Care Act, controls of the price of prescription drugs and the most serious efforts to tackle climate change.

………

House liberals were more scathing. “Manchin’s op-ed might as well be titled ‘Why I’ll vote to preserve Jim Crow,’” Representative Mondaire Jones, Democrat of New York, wrote on Twitter. 

Senate Democrats should kick Manchin loose and stop obliging his narcissism.

First, Manchin has no where else to go, and second, it’s better to have him outside the tent pissing in than to have him inside the tent pissing in.

There is literally no upside to making even the smallest accommodation Joe Manchin.  It makes Democrats appear weak, and reinforces the belief among the electorate that Democrats cannot be trusted to deliver on their promises because they are cowards.

Cowardice is not a good look for any political institution.

Today in Hack Journalism

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The New York Times has an article about how how some drivers are trying to form a cooperative to compete with Uber and Lyft.

There are a lot of obstacles that this effort faces, but this paragraph is full of fail:

………

The Drivers Cooperative, which opened for business in New York this week, is the most recent attempt. The group, founded by a former Uber employee, a labor organizer and a black-car driver, began issuing ownership shares to drivers in early May and will start offering rides through its app on Sunday.

The cooperative has recruited around 2,500 drivers so far and intends to take a smaller commission than Uber or Lyft and charge riders a lower fare. It is an ambitious plan to challenge the ride-hailing giants, and it faces the same hurdles that tend to block other emerging players in the industry: Few have the technical prowess, the venture capital dollars or the supply of readily available drivers to subvert an established company like Uber.

(emphasis mine)

Clearly there are network effects, Uber and Lyft have a pool of drivers as well as customers who use theri apps, and both of the gypsy cab company firms have sufficient VC money to operate for years at a loss.  (In fact neither appears to have a path to profitability)

However, the claim that operating a ride share firm requires any significant technical prowess is false, and does not withstand 5 minutes of examination.

The creation of apps with review capabilities has been old school for over a decade.

Claiming that there is a need for specialized “technical prowess”, is a humbug, and it pisses me off.

The innovation of Uber and Lyft were never technical, but regulatory.

Their innovation was that the two firms found a way to break the law and bulldoze authorities into acquiescence, not any technical innovation.

Amazon is Evil, Part 12⁹

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I am not at all surprised that, Amazon’s warehouses have an 80% higher injury rate than the industry norm.

This is completely not a surprise:

Employees at US Amazon warehouses are injured at a higher rate than those doing similar jobs at other companies’ warehouses, a new report has found.

A union-backed study of safety data found Amazon workers had 5.9 serious injuries per 100 people – almost 80% higher than the rest of the industry.

The study’s organisers blamed Amazon’s “obsession with speed” as a main cause of the problem.

It is the latest in a string of controversies around worker safety. 

………

This new study comes from the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of labour unions. It analysed workplace safety data reported to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 2017 to 2020.

It found that “workers at Amazon warehouses are not only injured more frequently than in non-Amazon warehouses, they are also injured more severely”. 

………

And compared to its largest retail competitor Walmart, Amazon’s overall injury rate was more than double, at 6.5 per 100 employees compared with three.

An independent analysis of the same data by The Washington Post reached similar conclusions.

The Post conducted its own analysis of the OSHA data, and came to the same conclusions.

The Washington Postis owned by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, so this qualifies as a statement against its own interest..

The SOC characterised the report as an “epidemic of workplace injuries”.

………

But technology news site Motherboard has this week published an Amazon warehouse pamphlet issued under the “working well” branding, which tells workers they should think of themselves as “industrial athletes”.

“Just like an athlete who trains for an event, industrial athletes need to prepare their bodies to be able to perform their best at work,” it warns.

“Some positions will walk up to 13 miles a day… [others] will have a total of 20,000lb (9,072kg) lifted before they complete their shift,” it said.

The pamphlet, from a Tulsa warehouse, also offers tips on health and fitness. It encourages exercise on days off, a good diet to fuel the 400 calories an hour the company expects employees to burn, and tips on buying shoes to fit swollen feet from the active working environment.

Amazon told Motherboard that the pamphlet had been created in error and removed – though the employee who gave it to the publication said it was available on-site for months.

So, it appears that Amazon thinks that its employees should be Olympians, and sets metrics accordingly.

Your Amazon order is literally being paid for with the blood of its employees.

It’s time to find another online marketplace.

Finance Ruins Everything

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Case in point, the hacking of the MTA in New York City, which was caused by lapses at a private equity (PE) owned software firm.

PE is not about building a good company, long term success, or security.  It’s about pump and dump, and security is a cost that you can cut to juice your numbers before they sell out the company.

It’s all pump and dump:

Oh look, a hack of the New York subway system.

A hacking group believed to have links to the Chinese government penetrated the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s computer systems in April, exposing vulnerabilities in a vast transportation network that carries millions of people every day, according to an M.T.A. document that outlined the breach.

These hacks are becoming commonplace, but it’s not just because everything is connected to the internet. It turns out, hackers got in through commercial software.

To gain access to the M.T.A. and other systems, the hackers took advantage of vulnerabilities in Pulse Connect Secure, a widely used connectivity tool that offers workers remote access to their employers’ networks.

Pulse Connect Secure is owned by Ivanti, a software roll-up owned by private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. and TA Associates. I’ve written about the dangers of private equity owning cybersecurity firms – Solar Winds was such a case. (In fact, Thoma Bravo partners – which owns Solar Winds – continues to snap up cybersecurity and compliance firms such as Proofpoint.)

I’ve gone through job reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed, and Ivanti seems to be a typical PE roll-up, ruining the product quality, offshoring jobs and firing people, and just generally destroying enterprise value. Here’s a typical review.

PE takeovers are frequently followed up by the collapse of the firms (usually) after the PE pukes have gotten their vigorish.

We really need to change bankruptcy laws so that these crooks aren’t able to leave someone else holding the bag.

I’ll Believe It When I See It

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United Airlines has put in an order for Boom Supersonic’s Overture airliner.

There has never been a meaningful Supersonic Transport (SST) that has entered service without billions in public subsidies, so I do not expect this aircraft to see service. 

The financial numbers are just not there, as shown by the recent demise of the Aerion supersonic business jet.

I don’t know why United put in an order, but I don’t ever expect them to actually fly the aircraft:

More than half a century after placing options for the European-made Concorde, United Airlines is once again banking on the commercial allure of speed by becoming the first operator to order its spiritual successor—Boom Supersonic’s Overture.

United never flew the Concorde.

The startling deal, which covers orders for 15 aircraft with options on a further 35, is a key milestone toward the revival of faster-than-sound commercial transport and a major boost for the Denver-based startup aircraft manufacturer.

………

The United deal envisages introduction of the first civil supersonic services on transatlantic and Pacific routes by 2029. The Overture will be designed to cruise at Mach 1.7 [Down from earlier goal of Mach 2.2] and carry up to 88 passengers on routes up to 4,250 nm using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Note that, much like the Concorde, this jet cannot operate at supersonic speeds over land, and even if it uses “Sustainable” fuel, a subsonic airliner will carry more 2 to 3 times people on a gallon of fuel.

The numbers just don’t add up.

NFL Was Doing What?

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The NFL has been engaging in “Race Norming” in evaluating players for brain damage from concussions.

To the uninitiated, race norming means that the Football league was assuming that Black people were stupid when evaluating players for impairment from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Gee, racism much?

The NFL and the lead attorney for about 20,000 former players on Wednesday both promised to end “race-norming” — a controversial practice that curves Black players’ cognitive test scores with data that assumes a lower level of function — as part of the payout process in the $1 billion-plus settlement of class-action concussion litigation against the league.

The statements from the NFL and attorney Chris Seeger came as the practice of race-norming in the settlement payout process, first brought to public attention last year in a lawsuit by two former players, has drawn heightened scrutiny in the courts and media.

………

The NFL, in its statement, maintained that no discrimination had occurred in the administration of the settlement, finalized in 2017, which has paid more than $800 million to more than 1,000 former players diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other brain-related diseases. But U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, who has overseen the settlement, has been so troubled by the revelation of race-norming that she took the unusual step of appointing a mediator earlier this year to investigate.

………

The use of race norms in the NFL’s concussion settlement payouts first came to light last August, when two former players accused the league in a lawsuit of discriminating against hundreds — and potentially thousands — of Black former players. In their suit, former players Najeh Davenport and Kevin Henry alleged that race-norming prevented them from getting settlement payouts. In Davenport’s case, he claimed that a doctor initially diagnosed him with dementia, but the NFL appealed and demanded his test scores get curved using race-normed data, which resulted in a reversal of the diagnosis.

Clearly the goal here was to maximize profits at the expense of black players.

Come to think of it, “Maximize profits at the expense of black players,” could be the motto for the NFL.

Karma, Neh?

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Postmaster, and Trump Evil Minion™ Louis DeJoy is being investigated for campaign finance violations.

It appears that he was using straw donors to launder his campaign donations.

I so hope that he goes away for a long, long, long time: 

The FBI is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in connection with campaign fundraising activity involving his former business, according to people familiar with the matter and a spokesman for DeJoy.

FBI agents in recent weeks interviewed current and former employees of DeJoy and the business, asking questions about political contributions and company activities, these people said. Prosecutors also issued a subpoena to DeJoy himself for information, one of the people said.

………

DeJoy — who was appointed to run the Postal Service by its board of governors last May — has been dogged by controversy for almost his entire time in office. Soon after starting in the job, he imposed cost-cutting moves that led to a reduction in overtime and limits on mail trips that mail carriers blamed for creating backlogs across the country.

Democrats accused the prominent GOP fundraiser, who personally gave more than $1.1 million to the joint fundraising vehicle of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican Party, of trying to undermine his own organization because of Trump’s distrust of mail-in voting. Two Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), sent a letter to the FBI asking agents to investigate whether DeJoy or the Postal Service’s governing board “committed any crimes” in stalling mail.

………

In early September, The Washington Post published an extensive examination of how employees at DeJoy’s former company, North Carolina-based New Breed Logistics, alleged they were pressured by DeJoy or his aides to attend political fundraisers or make contributions to Republican candidates, and then were paid back through bonuses.

Such reimbursements could run afoul of state or federal laws, which prohibit “straw-donor” schemes meant to allow wealthy donors to evade individual contribution limits and obscure the source of a candidate’s money. In April, though, Wake County, N.C., District Attorney Lorrin Freeman (D) said that she would not pursue an investigation of DeJoy and that the matter was better left to federal authorities.

This behavior by Republican donors has a precedent, it’s what Dinesh D’Souza was convicted of a few years ago.  (Pardoned by Trump)

An extended stay at Club Fed should be in his future,

Just Desserts

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The explosion of arbitration clauses in business contracts, and the Supreme Court’s enthusiastic embrace of keeping ordinary folks away from fair courts, has led to a situation where there is often no recourse for people cheated by businesses.

People have now created companies that automate the application for arbitration, completely overwhelming the ability of the companies, and the arbitrators, to process:

For years, AT&T worked tirelessly to erode its customers’ legal rights, using mouse print in its terms of service preventing consumers from participating in lawsuits against the company. Instead, customers were forced into binding arbitration, where arbitrators, chosen and paid by the companies under fire, unsurprisingly rule in favor of companies more often than not. Initially, the lower courts derided this anti-consumer behavior for what it was, noting that however brutally flawed the class action is, binding arbitration, at least the way we let companies designed it, in many ways made things worse.

But these lower court roadblocks quickly evaporated when the Supreme Court ruled in 2011 (Mobility v. Concepcion) that what AT&T was doing was perfectly OK. While lower courts saw this as an “unconscionable” abuse of consumer rights and the law, the Supreme Court bought into the ongoing myth that binding arbitration is a hyper-efficient, modern alternative to class actions. In reality, it shifted things to a form of binding arbitration that was costly, lopsided, and cumbersome for consumers, and less transparent for those used to visiting Pacer to dig up legal histories.

Fast forward to a few years ago, when a growing number of companies and services (like Fairshake) began streamlining the arbitration process, making it easier and less expensive for consumers (and yeah, class action lawyers). This shifted the balance of power back toward consumers, and starting in 2018 or so companies like Uber, AT&T and Comcast began to complain they were being swamped with arbitration feuds. Now, a year later, even giants like Amazon are being forced to take consumer complaints back to the courtroom, in part because a system they constructed to dodge accountability is no longer helping them do that:

………

In short, corporations (beginning with AT&T) spent the better part of the last decade fighting for an arbitration system that resulted in fewer payouts, fewer successful complaints, and less overall transparency. And while happy about that initially, the second the internet and technology shifted the balance of power in the other direction, they were eager to flee back to the devil they knew. It should be curious to see if other giants like AT&T also begin stripping binding arbitration out of their end user agreements, or if this is just a temporary setback on the path toward less accountability.

By way of example, Uber has had 12,500 requests for arbitration filed, and it has refused to start the process, which is now being litigated, and Amazon has thrown in the towel, and is allowing customers to file in court:

Amazon.com Inc. has stopped requiring customers to pursue claims in arbitration — rather than a court of law — after tens of thousands of people inundated the company with complaints that the Alexa digital assistant was improperly collecting voice recordings.

Amazon’s terms of service, which govern everything from buying products on the company’s web store to using its consumer gadgets, now lets customers file class-action suits against the company in state or federal court. Previously claimants had to enter arbitration as individuals. All cases must be filed in King County, Washington, where Amazon is based, according to rules that were last updated on May 3.

The change follows the filing of some 75,000 Alexa-related arbitration claims — almost entirely from people represented by Chicago law firm Keller Lenkner LLC — in the last 16 months. The cases likely added up to tens of millions of dollars in filing fees payable by Amazon, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported the move earlier Tuesday.

Companies have created a biased process, and gone as far as possible to convince any litigant that this process is completely unfair so as to discourage filing.

Someone made it as simple as going to a web site, and clicking, “I agree,” and now they are clicking their asses off.

And the Unders Win

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Job growth in May was less than the consensus forecast, 559,000 as versus the consensus prediction of 671,000.

We are in a recovery, one just wonders how fast, and when the benefits will start accruing to the top 1% again.

I would note that the progress of the recovery illustrates an important point:  A world wide pandemic is less capable of doing lasting damage to our society than does business of usual in global finance:

U.S. employers boosted hiring in May, but not enough for the labor market to keep pace with an overall economy that is heating up as the pandemic continues to ease.

Payrolls grew by 559,000 last month, the Labor Department reported Friday, up from a revised 278,000 in April, which marked a sharp drop from March’s figure. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% in May from 6.1% the prior month.

While the gains marked an uptick from April, they were lower than economists predicted and reflected businesses struggling to fill job openings as potential workers remained on the sidelines. The labor recovery has slowed from earlier in the year—in March, the economy added 785,000 jobs—a development economists say could delay a full labor recovery to well into next year.

That mixed picture cheered investors, who bet the numbers weren’t strong enough to change the Federal Reserve’s course on its easy-money policies. U.S. stocks rose, while the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury fell.

Why yes, the stock market is COMPLETELY disconnected from the well being of society, why are you asking? 

We need to stop coddling Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

A Little Late, Aaron Schwartz is Dead

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The Supreme Court has finally shot down the overbroad interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that was used to prosecute Aaron Schwartz to death.

I’d say, “About f%$#ing time,” but it’s at least 7 years too late: 

The Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday in Van Buren v. United States provides the court’s first serious look at one of the most important criminal statutes involving computer-related crime, the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s opinion for a majority 0f six firmly rejected the broad reading of that statute that the Department of Justice has pressed in recent years.

Among other things, the CFAA criminalizes conduct that “exceeds authorized access” of a computer. Crucially, the statute defines that term as meaning “to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain … information … that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain.” The question in Van Buren was whether users violate that statute by accessing information for improper purposes or instead whether users violate the statute only if they access information they were not entitled to obtain. In this case, for example, a Georgia police officer named Nathan Van Buren took a bribe to run a license-plate check. He was entitled to run license-plate checks, but not for illicit purposes. The lower courts upheld a conviction under the CFAA (because he was not entitled to check license-plate records for private purposes). The Supreme Court disagreed, adopting the narrower reading of the CFAA, under which it is a crime only if users access information they were not entitled to obtain.

To be clear: Van Buren should be in jail for a very long time, but his crime is violation of people’s civil rights, abuse of power, and taking bribes, not computer hacking.

And Amy Coney Barret gets to the heart of the matter, that the government’s position would literally make tens of millions of people unwitting felons:

Finally, Barrett turns to a topic that dominated the amicus filings and much of the time at oral argument: the “breathtaking amount of commonplace computer activity” that the Government’s reading would criminalize. For Barrett, that reality “underscores the implausibility of the Government’s interpretation,” which provides (in words Justice Elena Kagan coined in an earlier case) “extra icing on a cake already frosted.” Barrett notes that extending the statute to “every violation of a computer-use policy” would make criminals of “millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens,” offering examples of such trivial conduct as “embellishing on online-dating profile” and “using a pseudonym on Facebook” – activities that violate website use restrictions and thus would fall within the government’s understanding of the CFAA.

If there is a lesson from all of this, it is that prosecutors will take the most outrageous and extreme view of any criminal statue that they come across.

There needs to be some serious reform here.

Nuclear Power, Meet Blue Screen of Death

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I’ve written about Bill Gates plans to create a sodium cooled fast breeder reactor before. 

Well, they (Warren Buffet is involved as well) have now selected a location for the prototype reactor.

I have a number of problems with the reactor in addition to Bill Gates’ involvement:

  • Molten sodium will leak, and it is highly flammable, and is potentially explosive. (The history of sodium cooled reactors is universally horrible)
  • The reactor uses 20% Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), which enriched is enough to make a bomb.  (You can at levels in excess of 10% enrichment)
  • By design, it produces large amounts of Plutonium. (Traveling Wave Reactor)

Needless to say, I am not sanguine:

Power companies run by billionaire friends Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have chosen Wyoming to launch the first Natrium nuclear reactor project on the site of a retiring coal plant.

TerraPower, founded by Gates about 15 years ago, and power company PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, said on Wednesday that the exact site of the Natrium reactor demonstration plant was expected to be announced by the end of the year.

Small advanced reactors, which run on different fuels to traditional reactors, are regarded by some as a critical carbon-free technology than can supplement intermittent power sources like wind and solar as states strive to cut emissions that cause climate change.

“Regarded by some,” Huh?  

Maybe if your last name is, “Strangelove.”

………

“This is our fastest and clearest course to becoming carbon negative,” Wyoming’s governor, Mark Gordon, said. “Nuclear power is clearly a part of my all-of-the-above strategy for energy” in Wyoming, the country’s top coal-producing state.

This statement is absolutely false.  The construction of time for reactors is measured in decades, while wind turbines go up in a few months. 

If we need to move now, pretty much any other power source is online faster.

The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system’s power output to 500MW during peak power demand. TerraPower said last year that the plants would cost about $1bn.

The molten salt energy storage, but using mechanical storage like pumped water is simpler, cheaper, and more efficient.

About the only thing more terrifying than Bill Gates starting up a bunch of nuclear reactors, he’s alreay half way to a bond villain, would be if Comcast were to be running those plants.

Support Your Local Police

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West Hazleton, Pennsylvania (why does ALL this crap seem to happen in the Keystone State?) police chief Brian Buglio threatened an online critic with arrest on trumped up charges.

The FBI got involved, and he’s now pled guilty to federal civil rights charges.

Am I a cynic for thinking that the only thing special about this story is that THIS time, the dirty cop got caught:

A police chief in Pennsylvania who threatened a critic with false arrest unless the person deleted Facebook posts attacking him has agreed to plead guilty to a federal civil rights violation.

The chief, Brian Buglio of the West Hazleton, Pa., Police Department, made the threats in March 2020 to a private citizen, telling the person that he would pursue felony charges in retaliation for several social media posts that were directed at him and the police, the authorities said.

The person agreed at the time to remove the posts from Facebook and to refrain from making future comments about Chief Buglio and the police, according to a criminal complaint that was filed on Thursday in federal court in Scranton, Pa.

“During the meeting, Brian Buglio acknowledged that the threatened felony charges lacked merit,” federal prosecutors said in the criminal complaint, adding that Chief Buglio and the person had shaken hands over the “deal.”

………

Chief Buglio could face up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine, according to the plea agreement, which still must be finalized in court.

Here is hoping that the judge will throw the book at him.

New Post Pandemic Low on Initial Unemployment Claims

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I just HAD to meme this

Jobless Claims fell to 385,000 last week.

We are not at a level that is firmly consistent with a normal recession.

I hope that the end of extended unemployment benefits in many states won’t send this backward:

Worker filings for initial jobless claims have dropped by 35% since late April, adding to signs of a healing labor market as the U.S. economy ramps up.

Weekly unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell to 385,000 last week from a revised 405,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said Thursday. Last week’s decline in claims marked the fifth straight week that new filings fell, from 590,000 the week ended April 24.

“Claims remain elevated by normal standards, but the downward trend has been relentless in recent months, and a return to the pre-Covid level over the summer seems a decent bet,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Thursday’s reading brings the four-week average of initial claims—which smooths out volatility in the weekly figure—to 428,000, the lowest point since the pandemic began, though still well above pre-pandemic levels. Weekly claims averaged around 220,000 in the year before the pandemic.

Economists separately expect that the May employment report, set to be released Friday, will show that the economy added 671,000 jobs last month, after gaining 266,000 in April, and that the unemployment rate fell to 5.9% in May from 6.1% the prior month.

 My guess is that the jobs number will be close to the consensus, but (as always) I’ll take the under.

One Study, but Not a Surprise

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The San Francisco Fed has issued a report that the labor market is throwing out thoroughly conflicting signs, which means that the current main employment numbers may be overstating the recovery:

U.S. labor market signals are conflicting to an “unprecedented” degree, but those suggesting labor market slack should be given more weight than those pointing to tightness, according a paper published Monday by the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.

The paper looked at 26 labor market measures that typically move in tandem and found that during the current recovery they are giving wildly divergent signals about the health of the job market.

The job openings rate, for instance, suggests the job market is much tighter than the unemployment rate; the labor force participation rate points to much more slack than detected in the unemployment rate.

Because the pandemic has forced so many people out of the workforce, “negative signals such as the low labor force participation rate provide a better read than do the positive signals,” the researchers argued. “Overall, our findings reveal that the labor market situation is worse than some headline numbers suggest.”

That’s what my gut says as well, but my gut does not routinely access finer granularity employment and economic data.

Speaking of Delicate Snowflakes

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It should surprise no one that the Stanford chapter of the Federalist Society attempted to get a law student expelled for making fun of them.

I guess that in the Federalist Society, they only believe in the 1st Amendment if it applies to union busting businesses and themselves.

I’m pretty sure that the OED has “The Federalist Society” as an alternate definition of hypocrisy:

Facing forceful criticism and many questions, Stanford University moved Wednesday to allow a law-school student full graduation privileges after the student’s “satirical” letter, sent months ago, provoked the ire of a conservative student organization and a strong defense from a student-rights group.

Law student Nicholas Wallace was poised to graduate June 12, but his degree was held up while the school probed the missive, which took the form of a flyer advertising a made-up event titled “The Originalist Case for Insurrection,” supposedly sponsored by the campus chapter of the right-wing Federalist Society. According to the flyer, the “event” would include appearances by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton “to discuss violent insurrection.” It added that “riot information” would be emailed the morning of the event.

“Violent insurrection, also known as doing a coup, is a classical system of installing a government,” the flyer said. “Although widely believed to conflict in every way with the rule of law, violent insurrection can be an effective approach to upholding the principle of limited government.”

………

Despite Wallace’s flyer being sent January 25 and advertising an event to be held three weeks earlier, on January 6, Stanford put his upcoming degree on hold two weeks before he was to graduate, after Stanford Law’s student Federalist Society chapter complained about the flyer.

After a Slate report Wednesday on the school’s action went viral on social media, and this news organization asked the university to explain its actions, Stanford announced Wednesday that its investigation was done, the flyer was

………

The school’s Federalist Society chapter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Of course the, “school’s Federalist Society chapter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”  Bullies hate it when you fight back.

Also: Shame on Stanford University not laughing this out of the in-box.

Wimp

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It appears that Donald Trump shut down his blog, because not enough people were clicking in to his musings.

I’ve been blogging since 2007,* and I’m not giving up.

In fact, I think that I have missed fewer than 10 days since I’ve started blogging.

To be fair, if I did not have this outlet for my unsolicited opinions, I am certain that Sharon† would have murdered me long ago:

Former president Donald Trump’s blog, celebrated by advisers as a “beacon of freedom” that would keep him relevant in an online world he once dominated, is dead. It was 29 days old.

Upset by reports from The Washington Post and other outlets highlighting its measly readership and concerns that it could detract from a social media platform he wants to launch later this year, Trump ordered his team Tuesday to put the blog out of its misery, advisers said.

On its last day, the site received just 1,500 shares or comments on Facebook and Twitter — a staggering drop for someone whose every tweet once garnered hundreds of thousands of reactions.

It should surprise no one that delicate snow-flake Donald Trump threw a tantrum about not being treated like a king.

What a prima donna.

*Holy sh%$. That’s almost 14 years. I need to get a life.
†Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Best First Paragraph of a Book Review Ever

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When you read this, you know that you are in for one hell of a ride:

I was hired as an assassin. You don’t bring in a 37-year-old woman to review John Updike in the year of our Lord 2019 unless you’re hoping to see blood on the ceiling. ‘Absolutely not,’ I said when first approached, because I knew I would try to read everything, and fail, and spend days trying to write an adequate description of his nostrils, and all I would be left with after months of standing tiptoe on the balance beam of objectivity and fair assessment would be a letter to the editor from some guy named Norbert accusing me of cutting off a great man’s dong in print. But then the editors cornered me drunk at a party, and here we are.

—Patricia Lockwood in London Review of Books

Just in case you are wondering, while many admire the author’s prose, it also considered to be extremely misogynistic by many.

H/t Naked Capitalism for finding this 2019 gem.

Eat the Rich

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Am I the only one not surprised that rich people behaved like complete turds throughout the pandemic?

In study after study, the rich are shown to be less charitable, less empathic, and more likely to cheat, so bad behavior is the rule, not the exception:

Heather checked her phone when a text arrived from her mom saying her wealthy cousin from Los Angeles had just flown to Puerto Rico; it was his annual weeklong fishing trip with the boys and the pandemic wasn’t stopping them. He jetted off to stay in a private house with a chef, housekeeper, and fishing guides.

It was the peak of the pandemic in California, when 1 in 5 people in LA County were testing positive for COVID-19 in January, and Heather, who is a nurse and asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her privacy, was working a busy shift. “I had double the amount of patients I was legally allowed and they were all on death’s doorstep,” she said.

………

As the pandemic revealed stark inequalities in American society, it also changed how many people view money and privilege. Sen. Ted Cruz was caught flying to Cancun while Texas buckled under both COVID and a power crisis during a deadly winter storm. Kim Kardashian hosted an island birthday romp for friends and family in Tahiti while the pandemic raged. They were just two of many wealthy people who were seen carelessly using their vast resources for their own pleasure rather than to help as millions struggled with the impacts of COVID: unemployment, displacement, poverty, and hunger. Meanwhile, essential workers like Heather stayed put to provide necessary services, sometimes for low wages.

………

Jacquelyn Delgado, a 53-year-old graduate student, said years of living in Mamaroneck, New York, an affluent area, prepared her for how the wealthy would respond in a crisis. “Rich people gonna rich people,” she told BuzzFeed News.

(Emphasis mine)

………

“I fully expected the wealthy to do what they always do,” said Delgado. “And it was the Trump era, so ‘Screw you, I got mine’ was just lived out loud.”

………

She’s not alone in seeing wealth impact her friendships. Sheeny Ng, a college student from Los Angeles, said a group of her high school friends started posting videos on Snapchat of their trip to Hawaii to celebrate a 21st birthday party before any of them had been vaccinated. “The wealthier ones are able to travel and not care whether it would impact low-income and marginalized communities that don’t have access to healthcare resources,” she told BuzzFeed News. “Wealth and money are so powerful, yet toxic,” she said.

………

Nikki, a 32-year-old teacher who lost her job because of the pandemic, watched in frustration as her siblings-in-law flew to Hawaii on the same day Los Angeles implemented a stay-at-home order. “They remind me of Daisy and Tom in Gatsby, not caring about the destruction they might leave in their wake,” said Nikki, who lives in San Diego and asked not to be identified by her full name. “I think the pandemic really actually unmasked us all,” she said. Nikki hasn’t allowed them to see her newborn baby due to safety concerns from their reckless travel.

(Emphasis mine)


………

Watching people host parties maskless, eat indoors, and go to clubs while hundreds of thousands of people were dying and receiving little support from their government pushed Holly Bruneau, a 34-year-old from Minneapolis who works in nonprofits, deeper into progressive politics.

“I’ve always been a tree-hugging liberal, now I’m a pissed-off socialist,” she said.

Your mouth to God’s ear, Ms. Bruneau.

The Calvinist conflation of wealth and virtue has permeated the culture of the United States, and it’s an unalloyed evil.

F%$# the Pilgrims and their Plymouth Colony.

What I Did This Memorial Day Weekend

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My old Weber kettle grill having given up the ghost, the vent on the bottom had rusted through, I looked to get a new grill. 

It had to be a charcoal grill, because while I may be a jerk, I’m not a complete git.  Gas grills are for posers.  (They are OK for camp stoves though)

I liked the Weber, and would recommend it, it’s a solid basic grill, but I was thinking.

I actually spent some time debating between just getting a new Weber, and this grill, a “Nexgrill 29 in. Barrel Charcoal Grill with Smoker,” which was about 30 bucks more, but included a thermometer, a side smoker box,and a side table.

The clincher was that I could get this assembled from Home Depot. (It just fit in Sharon’s* station wagon with the back seats folded.)

So, I fired it up empty to cook off any manufacturing residue, and then yesterday afternoon, I grilled some chicken.

I’m not sure if it is as sturdy as the Weber, but it has a thermometer, more grill space, a top grill, its 2-piece grills actually fit in our dish washer, and with careful use of the side box, I can do some relatively low temperature smoking.  

I could hold it steady about 225°F [107°C] on the kettle grill, and I’m figuring that I could reliably go as low as 150°F [66°C] on this.

Made lamb for Sharon* and me, and chicken for the kids last evening.

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