Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Victoria Nuland’s Husband Calls for More War

No Comments

Robert Kagan’s latest screed is reactionary, shows no learning curve, and treats brown people as objects, so it was published on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Short version is, “Yadda Yadda, Munich, Nazis, appeasement, Neville Chamberlain.”

Normally, I would say, who cares what he thinks, but his wife, Victoria “F%$# the EU” Nuland, is the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, so one might surmise that he has more influence over our foreign policy than your average Wall Street Journal nutjob.

Welcome to the Handmaiden’s Tale

No Comments

We are now throwing mothers in jail for getting their daughters an abortion:

A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to up to 18 months in prison for obtaining so-called abortion pills online and providing them to her teenage daughter to end her pregnancy.

Jennifer Ann Whalen, 39, of Washingtonville, a single mother who works as a nursing home aide, pleaded guilty in August to obtaining the miscarriage-inducing pills from an online site in Europe for her daughter, 16, who did not want to have the child.

Whalen was sentenced on Friday by Montour County Court of Common Pleas Judge Gary Norton to serve 12 months to 18 months in prison for violating a state law that requires abortions to be performed by physicians.

………

Matthew Bingham Banks, Whalen’s lawyer, previously told Reuters criminal prosecutions of this kind were not common.

Whalen told authorities there was no local clinic available to perform an abortion and her daughter did not have health insurance to cover a hospital abortion, the Press Enterprise newspaper of Bloomsburg reported.

Her daughter experienced severe cramping and bleeding after taking the pills and Whalen took her to a hospital hear her home for treatment, the newspaper said.

The closest abortion clinic to Whalen’s home is about 74 miles away in Harrisburg.

The right wing woman haters are chuckling about this right.

First, they make it impossible to get a abortion by legal means, and they they start prosecuting when desperate women do desperate things.

Such is the way of the ISIS of the American body politic.

Linkage

No Comments

Yet Another Reason to Hate Andrew Cuomo

No Comments

It turns out that the Republican coup in the New York State Senatewas sided by hizzoner the Governor:

Andrew Cuomo has always been careful to maintain a plausible-looking deniability when it comes to his role in keeping his own party out of power in the State Senate.

Whenever he’s been asked about his involvement in the creation of the controlling Republican-Independent Democratic coalition, Cuomo has shrugged and suggested that it’s not the governor’s place to get involved in that sort of thing.

“This is an internal legislative matter,” he has said.

It’s on this basis that Cuomo has been able to put distance between himself and the coalition at opportune times—such as, say, when the Working Families Party threatened to endorse someone else for governor earlier this year. And it’s this distance that has allowed him (presumably) to keep a straight face as his running mate, Kathy Hochul, attempts to bolster her own Democratic credentials ahead of the Sept. 9 primary by complaining that the Senate coalition didn’t achieve enough for progressives.

But now, multiple sources with deep knowledge of the IDC and Republican conferences’ dealings confirm that in fact the governor was not a passive observer during the formation of the coalition. He was “deeply involved,” they say, and “absolutely” encouraged the marriage that allowed the Republicans to remain in leadership even after the election of a Democratic majority. Furthermore, they say, the governor was a key player after the coalition launched, privately offering advice about tactics and messaging.

………

But while the governor did not originate the idea of an actual coalition, sources say he and his staff were active in “nudging” it along behind the scenes.

The governor’s interest, say knowledgeable sources, was ensuring that Republicans had control over the agenda in the Senate, so that he wouldn’t be handing over power to New York City Democrats.

“The governor and [top aide] Larry [Schwartz] made it very clear they wanted the IDC to work with the Republicans to run the Senate,” one source explained.

Another recalled that there were “many, many conversations” between Schwartz, Cuomo and Republican leaders. The governor frequently expressed frustration with Democratic Senate leaders, and complained that he couldn’t work with them.

Before the coalition was announced, Cuomo privately made the IDC feel more comfortable working with Republicans and assured them they “wouldn’t get crucified,” or be “left out to dry” if they made the move.

This is not a surprise.

Cuomo was implicitly supportive of the renegade Democrats in the state senate, and now we see evidence of direct collusion.

He so deserves to lose his primary race.

The Talibaptists Have Seized the USAF

No Comments

The Airforce is refusing to allow an athiest airman to reenlist unless he includes “Under God” in his oath:

An unnamed airman in the United States Air Force wants to continue to serve his country. Yet, the Air Force reportedly told him that his service is unwanted unless he swears an oath that concludes with the religious affirmation “so help me God.” According to the Air Force Times, the airman crossed out the words “so help me God” when he signed his reenlistment contract. He was subsequently told that he must either swear this religious oath or leave the service.

 In justifying this decision, an Air Force spokesperson pointed to a federal law, which requires “[e]ach person enlisting in an armed force” to take an oath that concludes with the four words this airman finds objectionable. He did agree to the other portions of the oath, which includes a promise to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”

This is clearly unconstitutional, as there is exhaustive judicial precedent saying that the government cannot coerce a person to profess belief, but this does not matter to the Air Force.

The US military in general, and USAF in particular, have been infiltrated by right wing Evangelicals looking to create an “Army of God”, and this is just an early consequence.

Here is the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s take on this is well worth reading as well.  In particular, they note that the legislation in question which the Air Force is siting to exclude this airman allows for a simple affirmation:

Regrettably, this truly horrific scenario is indeed the case within the United States Air Force (USAF). Just the other day, the USAF public affairs office at the Pentagon informed the world that “Reciting ‘So help me God’ in its official reenlistment and commissioning oaths is a statutory requirement under 10 U.S.C. §502“. In short, you had better repent and swear your oath to “God” or be gone. Interestingly, that just cited U.S. Code provision (which the Air Force is pathetically using to support its “sorry, our hands are tied” position of abject cowardice here) also makes it clear that armed forces members may “affirm”, in lieu of swearing, this enlistment or commissioning oath. When one “affirms” such an oath of office, there is NO need to “swear” to “God” to do so. Such is the very distinction between “swearing and affirming.” 10 U.S.C. §502 allows either to be done by the enlisting or commissioning Air Force member. The USAF’s transparent duplicity and specious motivations for basing its new decision to force service members to swear to God are dangerous, disingenuous and despicable.

Your mouth to ……… Well, you get the idea.

Sounds Like the Tories are Freaking Out Over the Scottish Referendum

No Comments

They set it up as an all or nothing vote, specifically leaving an option for autonomy of the Scottish independence referendum, and now that the polls are showing independence having a (small) lead, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has issued a statement saying that they intend to increase autonomy:

A last-minute all-party plan to devolve further powers to Scotland over tax, spending, welfare and a host of other areas will be unveiled in the next few days, George Osborne has said.

The announcement came after a YouGov poll showed the yes side taking a narrow lead, spreading fears at Westminster of a constitutional crisis.

The chancellor detailed the plans – the product of backroom talks – saying they would be unveiled in the next few days with a clear timetable for implementation in the event of a no vote. The offer is similar to the last-minute package offered to Quebec by the Canadian government in 1995, that staved off a vote for separation.

All the major political parties have presented different offers of further devolution, but there has been no agreement between them on far they should extend.

The announcement of the package also represents a shift away from the negative tone of the previous no campaign to a positive offer of the benefits of staying inside a United Kingdom. Many polls show support for wider devolution but there has been a lack of clarity about what it represents in practice.

The political parties said it was unlikely the joint statement would set out detailed new powers beyond those already promised, but focus on a credible timetable and process for the transfer to come about. The three parties have already issued a joint statement of further transfer of powers in June but, judging by the latest polls, this may have had little effect.

No specifics, of course, because they really do not want to allow Scotland to have authority on taxes and social welfare programs, because this would provide a nearby case study for the futility of benefit and tax cuts, but it appears that political reality is that some sort of retreat is essential for the Conservatives to defeat this referendum.

Still, I would not trust them do keep their word if I were a Scotsman who had to make up his mind about how to vote.

Time for Another Blogger Ethics Panel

No Comments
Noted intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian, who has written on intelligence issues for both the LA Times and Associated Press, has been revealed to have pre cleared his stories with the CIA:

A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers prior to publication, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times.

“I’m working on a story about congressional oversight of drone strikes that can present a good opportunity for you guys,” Dilanian wrote in one email to a CIA press officer, explaining that what he intended to report would be “reassuring to the public” about CIA drone strikes. In another, after a series of back-and-forth emails about a pending story on CIA operations in Yemen, he sent a full draft of an unpublished report along with the subject line, “does this look better?” In another, he directly asks the flack: “You wouldn’t put out disinformation on this, would you?”

Dilanian’s emails were included in hundreds of pages of documents that the CIA turned over in response to two FOIA requests seeking records on the agency’s interactions with reporters. They include email exchanges with reporters for the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. In addition to Dilanian’s deferential relationship with the CIA’s press handlers, the documents show that the agency regularly invites journalists to its McLean, Va., headquarters for briefings and other events. Reporters who have addressed the CIA include the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, the former ombudsmen for the New York Times, NPR, and Washington Post, and Fox News’ Brett Baier, Juan Williams, and Catherine Herridge.

The money quote on this is, “Of course, journalists routinely curry favor with government sources (and others) by falsely suggesting that they intend to amplify the official point of view. But the emails show that Dilanian really meant it.”

Read the rest, but basically, not only did act as a CIA stooge, he uncritically regurgitated CIA lies about things like civilian drone strike casualties.

H/t Gawker.

Sucks to be British Petroleum Right Now

No Comments

Bummer of a birth mark, BP

A federal judge has ruled that not only was BP negligent,  BP was grossly negligent in the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill.

This has the effect of increasing their fines by a factor of 4:

In the four years since the blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has spent more than $28 billion on damage claims and cleanup costs, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and emerged a shrunken giant.

But through it all, the company has maintained that it was not chiefly responsible for the accident, and that its contractors in the operation, Halliburton and Transocean, should shoulder as much, if not more, of the blame.

On Thursday, a federal judge here for the first time bluntly rejected those arguments, finding that BP was indeed the primary culprit and that only it had acted with “conscious disregard of known risks.” He added that BP’s “conduct was reckless.”

By finding that BP was, in legal parlance, grossly negligent in the disaster, and not merely negligent, United States District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier opened the possibility of $18 billion in new civil penalties for BP, nearly quadruple the maximum Clean Water Act penalty for simple negligence and far more than the $3.5 billion the company has set aside.

Note, however, even at $18 billion, that is less than last year’s profits, which were just under $24 billion.

It ain’t enough.

In A Choice Between the Two Religions of Texas, the Christian Right Goes with Bigotry

No Comments

It is said that that there are two religions in Texas: Jesus and football.

The Dallas Cowboys, whose defense was pathetic last year, decided to add openly gay defensive end Michael Sam to their practice squad, and all hell breaks loose:

Right-wing Christians plan to protest the Dallas Cowboys signing of Michael Sam, the first openly gay NFL player.

 The outside linebacker was cut last week by the St. Louis Rams, which had drafted him in the seventh round out of the University of Missouri, and picked up by the defense-starved Cowboys.

 He will join the team’s practice squad if he passes a physical exam.

 The move angered anti-LGBT Christians, who had threatened to boycott the Rams before Sam was released.

 “We cannot just stand idly by as Christian values and morals are trampled,” said Jack Burkman, the GOP lobbyist working to keep Sam out of the NFL. “We will do whatever we can to preserve family values in this country.”

 Burkman has drafted legislation barring gay players from the NFL, but his brother said his efforts were a publicity stunt to draw clients to his lobbying firm.

 “I think the idea that he is pushing legislation that is just hurtful and ridiculous is just plain stupid,” said Jim Burkman, an anesthesiologist who is openly gay. “He is not a legislator and he can’t really push legislation. I don’t think there are any cosponsors for a bill. It is just an attention grab and a media grab to pander to those folks who pay him to lobby on their behalf.”

I’m about to say something that I never believed that I would ever say: Thank you Jerry Jones for doing the right thing.

I feel dirty now.

The Jobs Numbers Suck.

No Comments

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 142,000 in August. Generally improvement in the employment situation starts at about 200,000:

American employers hired fewer workers than forecast in August and the jobless rate dropped because people left the workforce, bolstering those on the Federal Reserve who want to be more deliberate in removing monetary stimulus.

The 142,000 advance in payrolls was the smallest this year and followed a revised 212,000 gain in July, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The reading was lower than the most pessimistic estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent last month from 6.2 percent, reflecting a drop in joblessness among teenagers as well as the decline in labor participation.

………

The median projection in the Bloomberg survey of 91 economists called for a 230,000 increase in August payrolls. Estimates ranged from increases of 190,000 to 310,000 after a previously reported 209,000 July gain. Revisions to prior reports subtracted a total of 28,000 jobs from overall payrolls in the previous two months.

The participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased 0.1 percentage point to 62.8 percent, matching the lowest since 1978.

Basically, this just sucks.

Law Enforcement Technology Used to Steal Celebrity Pix

No Comments

This is we should not create technology allow for unlimited access to our private affairs by the state security apparatus. Because whatever technologies they develop will end up in the hands of criminals:

As nude celebrity photos spilled onto the web over the weekend, blame for the scandal has rotated from the scumbag hackers who stole the images to a researcher who released a tool used to crack victims’ iCloud passwords to Apple, whose security flaws may have made that cracking exploit possible in the first place. But one step in the hackers’ sext-stealing playbook has been ignored—a piece of software designed to let cops and spies siphon data from iPhones, but is instead being used by pervy criminals themselves.

On the web forum Anon-IB, one of the most popular anonymous image boards for posting stolen nude selfies, hackers openly discuss using a piece of software called EPPB or Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker to download their victims’ data from iCloud backups. That software is sold by Moscow-based forensics firm Elcomsoft and intended for government agency customers. In combination with iCloud credentials obtained with iBrute, the password-cracking software for iCloud released on Github over the weekend, EPPB lets anyone impersonate a victim’s iPhone and download its full backup rather than the more limited data accessible on iCloud.com. And as of Tuesday, it was still being used to steal revealing photos and post them on Anon-IB’s forum.

“Use the script to hack her passwd…use eppb to download the backup,” wrote one anonymous user on Anon-IB explaining the process to a less-experienced hacker. “Post your wins here ;-)”

Apple’s security nightmare began over the weekend, when hackers began leaking nude photos that included shots of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and Kirsten Dunst. The security community quickly pointed fingers at the iBrute software, a tool released by security researcher Alexey Troshichev designed to take advantage of a flaw in Apple’s “Find My iPhone” feature to “brute-force” users’ iCloud passwords, cycling through thousands of guesses to crack the account.

If a hacker can obtain a user’s iCloud username and password with iBrute, he or she can log in to the victim’s iCloud.com account to steal photos. But if attackers instead impersonate the user’s device with Elcomsoft’s tool, the desktop application allows them to download the entire iPhone or iPad backup as a single folder, says Jonathan Zdziarski, a forensics consult and security researcher. That gives the intruders access to far more data, he says, including videos, application data, contacts, and text messages.

You can be sure that whatever the NSA is using is light years ahead of this, and that at some point in the next 5 years, it will be available in the criminal underground, along with whatever back doors the NSA has managed to put into our network infrastructure.

DC Circuit Will Hear Obamacare Subsidy Case En Banc

No Comments

After a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in which Federalist type Neander-Conservative were the majority, ruled against subsidies for states that used the federal insurance exchanges, the DoJ asked for a hearing from the full court, an en banc hearing.

Well the court has agreed to this hearing, and they have stayed the decision of the original panel:

A vital part of the federal health care law will get a new review before the full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In a two-page order released Thursday, a majority of the eleven-member court granted the Obama administration’s request to consider en banc the legality of subsidies being given to consumers to help them afford health care insurance, if they shop for it at a federal marketplace (“exchange”). Such exchanges exist in thirty-four states, and nearly five million consumers have already received subsidies.

By granting further review of the controversy, the en banc court wiped out a three-judge panel’s two-to-one ruling on July 22 finding that such subsidies under the Affordable Care Act can only be provided to those who seek insurance on an exchange directly operated by a state government — a potentially crippling blow to the new law. Only sixteen states have set up exchanges.

By granting further review, the D.C. Circuit has raised the chances that the administration will win in that court, as it did previously in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. If there is then no conflict among appeals courts on the question, that could reduce the chances that the Supreme Court would feel a need to step in. However, the issue is pending in other lower courts, so a conflict remains a possibility.

In the en banc hearing, unlike the original hearing, will not be stacked with partisan hacks, so it’s pretty much certain that they rule as the 4th Circuit.

The question now is whether the Supreme Court is going to hear this case.

And Now the Cops are Ratting Out Christie’s Bridge Scandal

No Comments

Props to the The Bergen Record for their coverage of Bridgegate.

Today, they revealed that senior staff at the Port Authority Police were aiding the bridge closures, and the rank and file cops are talking:

On the second day of the George Washington Bridge lane closures last year, a Port Authority police officer stationed at a gridlocked intersection picked up the two-way radio in his patrol car. The closures were creating “hazardous conditions” on Fort Lee’s streets, he told fellow officers according to his own account, and the lanes needed to be reopened.

 “Shut up,” a Port Authority police supervisor at the bridge allegedly replied, instructing the officer not to discuss the apparently secret operation over an open radio channel.

 That exchange, as described by officer Steve Pisciotta and involving the highest-ranking officer at the bridge, Deputy Inspector Darcy Licorish, is included in a summary of the recollections of nearly a dozen rank-and-file police officers that was provided to lawmakers investigating the lane closures, according to documents obtained by The Record.

The accounts of 11 officers at the bridge during the week of the closures share common threads and provide vivid new details about how the operation was put into effect on a Monday morning nearly a year ago.

 ………

 The instructions about the new lane configuration, many of them said, were delivered at roll call before the morning rush hour on the first day by Police Lt. Thomas “Chip” Michaels, who grew up with Governor Christie in the town of Livingston. He told the officers not to touch the traffic cones choking the number of access lanes out of Fort Lee from three down to one, according to the officers.

Later that morning, officers said they saw Michaels driving David Wildstein — the Port Authority executive who ordered the closures and also grew up with Christie — around Fort Lee’s gridlocked streets.

………

 Several immediately heard gossip in a police break room that the closures were part of a dispute between Christie and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who had declined to endorse the governor for re-election. The officers described the resulting traffic as “horrible” and “horrific,” and at least one urged a reversal of the operation, only to get warnings that his remarks over the radio were “inappropriate,” according to his attorney. It’s the first indication that police charged with patrolling the bridge recognized and notified superiors of the chaos being caused by the lane closures.

The summary, written by the legislative panel’s attorney Michael W. Knoo and based on an interview with the officers’ attorney Dan Bibb, renews questions about the role of some Port Authority police officers in what appears to have been an exercise motivated partly by politics.

The Record also obtained separate summaries of informal interviews with the two police supervisors at the bridge at the time, Michaels and Licorish. Those interviews were conducted prior to the one given on behalf of the 11 rank-and-file officers and do not address some of the allegations regarding the instructions – and warnings – the officers say they received.

………

 Some of the 11 rank-and-file officers at the bridge, however, described the supervisors as ordering them not to voice opposition to the lane closures as they were happening.

 Perhaps the most explosive anecdote was provided on behalf of Pisciotta, a 12-year officer who is typically one of the first to arrive at the bridge before the morning rush hour, according to the summary. Pisciotta’s attorney said his client, who had worked at the bridge for over five years, recognized early on that the closures were causing traffic safety problems and aired his concern over the radio on the second day, according to the summary.

………

 Licorish “replied to Pisciotta by radio, telling him to ‘shut up’ and that there could be no further discussion of the lane closures over the air,” according to Pisciotta’s attorney.

Michaels and a police sergeant then “visited him in person at his post to tell him that his radio communication had been inappropriate,” the attorney said.

A second officer, Angela Tait, said she witnessed both exchanges, according to the summary.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, of Teaneck, who is co-chairwoman of the legislative panel, said the summaries indicate that “law enforcement was in on this whole thing.”

 “It was bad enough that it was the Port Authority and people close to the governor, but now you’ve got the people who are responsible for keeping us safe,” she said. “Any time you have law enforcement involved in a political operation, that’s very troubling.”

 Bibb, who is representing the 11 officers, also told the lawmakers’ attorney that many of the officers have already been interviewed by federal investigators, who are conducting a criminal probe. Bibb provided the legislative panel a summary of what the officers stationed at the bridge would say if subpoenaed to appear before the committee and testify under oath, according to the memo, dated Aug. 27.

Seriously, the lower level cops have both gone to the union, and gone public about this.

This is like peeling an onion, but someone is clearly making onion rings out of this, hopefully the US Attorney.

Rick Perry is Toast

No Comments

This story predates Governor Perry’s indictment by about 4 months, but this goes straight from abuse of power to outright bribery:

Aides to Gov. Rick Perry offered Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg continued employment in the district attorney’s office if she resigned her elected post following a drunk-driving arrest, officials familiar with the offer said Thursday.

The offer came after Perry threatened and then vetoed $7.5 million in funding for the office’s anti-corruption unit, known as the Public Integrity Unit, because Lehmberg had refused to step down.

But several officials and sources told the Express-News that Perry — through intermediaries — offered various options to Lehmberg to entice her resignation, culminating in promises to restore funding to the unit, another position in the District Attorney’s office, and selection of her top lieutenant to serve as the new district attorney.

The offer was explicit; “they were clear,” the elected official said.

Something that Rachel Maddow has always said is that if you want to look at local corruption, you need to check the local press, in this case, The San Antonio News Express.

This is an explicit quid pro quo, but if you read the national press, it’s pundits complaining about the criminalization of ordinary politics.

It isn’t. It’s a classic bribery attempt.

Governor Ultrasound is Completely Fornicated

No Comments

After just 17 hours deliberation, despite having an epic set of instructions from the judge, the jury found former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell  and his wife Maureen of every major charge:

A federal jury on Thursday found former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, guilty of public corruption — sending an emphatic message that they believed the couple sold the office once occupied by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson to a free-spending Richmond businessman for golf outings, lavish vacations and $120,000 in sweetheart loans.

After three days of deliberations, the seven men and five women who heard weeks of gripping testimony about the ­McDonnells’ alleged misdeeds unanimously found that the couple conspired to lend the prestige of the governor’s office to Jonnie R. Williams Sr. in a nefarious exchange for his largesse.

The verdict means that Robert McDonnell, the first governor in Virginia history to be charged with a crime, now holds an even more unwanted distinction — the first to be convicted of one.

He and his wife face decades in federal prison, although their actual sentences are likely to fall well short of that. U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer set a sentencing hearing for Jan. 6.

The former governor, a onetime Republican rising star considered for the 2012 vice-presidential nomination, was convicted of all 11 corruption-related counts brought against him. In a small victory, he was acquitted of lying on loan documents.

………

It was a stunning outcome for the couple, all the more so because in December, McDonnell declined to accept a plea agreement in which he would have been found guilty of just one felony count of lying on a loan document, according to people familiar with the case. Maureen McDonnell would have faced no charges.

He was unbelievably guilty, and he somehow figured that he would get out of it, so he now faces many more years in jail, and he sold the mother of his  children down the river.

I’m not surprised. 

He thought that he was on the proverbial “Mission from God” only, unlike the Blues Brothers movie, he wasn’t joking.

It’s the same cycle as one sees in ancient Greek tragedies: Koros to Hubris to Ate to Nemesis.  (Success to arrogance to madness to comeuppance)

Republicans Aren’t Even Trying to Appear Non Corrupt Anymore

No Comments

Last night, Democratic Senate Candidate Chad Taylor withdrew from the race for US Senate:

Kansas voters have lost a chance to vote for a Democratic senator this fall — and Republicans could pay the price.

 Chad Taylor’s stunning decision Wednesday to withdraw from the U.S. Senate race forced partisans and analysts to recalculate the potential outcome of the Kansas contest.

 The consensus: Longtime incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts is in serious trouble, and the GOP’s chances of controlling the Senate could suffer as a result.

 “It’s extraordinary. It’s stunning. It’s shocking,” said Stu Rothenberg, a nationally known political analyst. Roberts “is still going to be the favorite, but the fact that those of us in Washington who look at races actually have Kansas on our radar is a significant development.”

 After surviving a brutal GOP primary in August, Roberts — and other Republicans — were counting on a four-way election to split his opposition, giving the veteran a chance to win in November with less than a majority of votes.

 The likelihood of that outcome tumbled dramatically Wednesday when Taylor quit.

 A recent poll found remaining independent candidate Greg Orman leading Roberts by 10 points in a one-on-one matchup. The Olathe businessman enjoyed the same margin in a different mid-August poll.

Chad Taylor was in 3rd place, and Dems in Kansas are focused on the governor’s race, so it makes sense to do this.

Senator Roberts nearly lost the primary to a doctor whose hobby was posting gunshot victims’ X-Rays on Facebook, and so his going from 2 opponents to one is a very big deal, as the poll numbers show.

In going from a 3 person to a 2 person race, Pat Roberts gains just 1% against Greg Orman, while he picked up 10% and Taylor was still behind in the polling, so from a tactical perspective (Orman would likely caucus with the Dems) it makes sense for everyone involved.

Of course, this story is not complete.  After contacting the Secretary of State’s office, and getting explicit instruction on withdrawing from the race, but Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach is trying to invoke the heretofore not used in a Senate race no backsie rule:

Chad Taylor doesn’t want to be in the race for U.S. Senate, but he’s going to remain on the ballot at least for now.

 Taylor, the Democratic nominee for Senate and district attorney of Shawnee County, submitted a formal letter to the Secretary of State’s Office to withdraw his candidacy on Wednesday, the deadline to drop out of the race.

 Political analysts said his withdrawal would give a boost to independent candidate Greg Orman against U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts in November. But Secretary of State Kris Kobach announced Thursday afternoon that Taylor must remain on the ballot.

 A few hours later, Taylor announced plans to challenge that decision, saying that Assistant Secretary of State Brad Bryant had assured him he met all the requirements to withdraw.

 “I specifically asked Mr. Bryant if the letter contained all the information necessary to remove my name from the ballot. Mr. Bryant said, ‘Yes,’ affirming to me, and my campaign manager, that the letter was sufficient to withdraw my name from the ballot,” Taylor said in a statement

Kris Kobach has been at the forefront of the Republican efforts to keep Blacks and Hispanics to vote, and he’s on Senator Roberts’ steering committee, but it appears that the words “ethics” and “recusal” are not in his vocabulary.

This ratf%$# makes Katherine Harris look like a responsible public servant.

But having a completely corrupt partisan in charge of the election is not enough for the national Republican party, so they have brought in national political operatives to run the Roberts campaign:

National Republicans on Thursday moved to take control of the campaign of Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas by sending a longtime party strategist to the state to advise him, a day after his hopes for re-election and those of his party for taking control of the Senate were threatened by the attempted withdrawal of the Democrat in the race.

………

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is sending Chris LaCivita, who has served as a political troubleshooter in past Republican campaigns, to counsel Mr. Roberts and help oversee his campaign. The committee will also seek to hire a local lawyer in any legal challenge against Mr. Taylor, who had tried to drop off the ballot on the last day candidates were allowed to do so.

Just when I think that Republican politics can’t get any more repulsive, they exceed my own low expectations.

The Revolving Door Spins Again

No Comments

A Russian bank targeted by US sanctions, has hired Trent Lott and John Breaux as lobbyists:

Gazprombank GPB (OJSC), a Russian bank targeted with sanctions by President Obama over the Ukraine crisis, has hired two former U.S. senators to lobby against those sanctions, according to a new disclosure filed with the Senate.
Gazprombank is controlled by Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom, the country’s largest gas producer; it supplies about a third of Europe’s natural gas.

 In a filing submitted Friday and effective that day, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and former Senator John Breaux, D-La., are listed as the main lobbyists under the Gazprombank account for the firm Squire Patton Boggs, lobbying on “banking laws and regulations including applicable sanctions.”

Truth be told, the fact that these two are lobbying for Gazprombank is not the real problem, it is the fact that they never went home, and are now paid obscene amounts of money as employees of Squire Patton Boggs (BTW, the Boggs in the name of the firm is Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., son of Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., former House Majority Leader).

More back loaded bribery of our elected officials.