Category: Corruption

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.

More of This

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In Texas, Democrats in the Statehouse walked out, denying quorum for a vote, to stop the Republican voter suppression bill.

The Texas Governor is threatening to veto the budget for the legislature in response, because black and brown people voting is to their twisted minds is an affront to God, or at least THEIR god, because it’s clear that they are seriously into Mammon:

Democrats in the Texas Legislature staged a dramatic, late-night walkout on Sunday night to force the failure of a sweeping Republican overhaul of state election laws. The move, which deprived the session of the minimum number of lawmakers required for a vote before a midnight deadline, was a stunning setback for state Republicans who had made a new voting law one of their top priorities.

The effort is not entirely dead, however. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, indicated that he would call a special session of the Legislature, which could start as early as June 1, or Tuesday, to restart the process. The governor has said that he strongly supported an election bill, and in a statement he called the failure to reach one on Sunday “deeply disappointing.” He was widely expected to sign whatever measure Republicans passed.

“Election Integrity & Bail Reform were emergency items for this legislative session,” Mr. Abbott said on Twitter on Sunday night. “They will be added to the special session agenda.” He did not specify when the session would start.

While Republicans would still be favored to pass a bill in a special session, the unexpected turn of events on Sunday presents a new hurdle in their push to enact a far-reaching election law that would install some of the most rigid voting restrictions in the country, and cement the state as one of the hardest in which to cast a ballot.

………

After a lengthy debate in the State House of Representatives in which Democrats raised numerous objections, staged lengthy question-and-answer sessions and leveraged procedural maneuvers, Democrats departed en masse, leaving the chamber roughly 14 members short of the required 100-member quorum to continue business. Without the requisite number of legislators, Dade Phelan, the speaker of the State House, adjourned the session around 11 p.m. local time, effectively killing the bill for this legislative session.

Maybe if Democrats in the US Senate get their heads out of their asses, this will mean something in the end. 

I’m not holding my breath.

Candace Owens is the Worst Minstrel Show Ever

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It’s not fair to mock Candace Owens for not knowing Lee Harvey Oswald was a marine.

In her defense, she is a moron. pic.twitter.com/fFVMG8xli0

— JDP (@petee224) June 1, 2021

Candace Owens who has gone from not particularly talented actress to right-wing joke, just doubled down on the joke part.

You see, an internet prankster sent a (real) picture of a (real) US Marine to various right-wing figures, asking them to wish a happy memorial day on behalf of his (fake) grandfather.

It was a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald, a man who every US Marine would condemn, even if he had not shot JFK, because he also defected to the USSR.

Candace Owens was in high dudgeon about this, claiming that it was disrespectful to Photoshop his picture into a photo of a US Serviceman.

Of course, anyone who knows who Oswald was should know that he was (a pretty horrible, twice court martialed) US Marine.

You can object to the prank, I find it hilarious, but claiming that it is a Photoshop is beyond stupid.

I guess that this is what comes from a decade or so of channeling Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (Aka Stepin Fetchit).

It rots the mind.

How Utterly Appropriate

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Why am I not surprise that former DNC chair and former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez has just joined the staff of a union busting law firm.

This is the guy that Barack Obama heavily lobbied to be head of the DNC in order to prevent Keith Ellison from assuming the role.

So the former Labor Secretary is going to work to bust unions.

So why am I not at all surprised?

Considering the Obama administration’s indifference, if not outright hostility, to organized labor, this seems to be a natural progression:

Former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez announced on Thursday that he’s joining the law firm Venable LLP, whose website boasts that its lawyers “regularly counsel and train clients on union avoidance.”

Perez, who was the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair until January, joins a growing number of Obama officials who cashed in their government experience with jobs at union-busting companies. That list includes press secretaries Jay Carney, who became the top flack at Amazon, and Robert Gibbs, who spent several years as a top flack for McDonald’s. Obama senior advisor David Plouffe served as policy chief at Uber, while former senior adviser Valerie Jarrett has a board seat at Lyft.

Yeah, Obama also promised no revolving door in his administration, and we know how that worked out.

………

Perez served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under President Barack Obama, before serving as Obama’s Labor Secretary from 2013 to 2017.

Later, he served as DNC chair, after Obama and now-President Joe Biden reportedly worked the phones to help propel him to victory over progressive favorite Keith Ellison, who is now Minnesota’s attorney general.

The bright side is that Ellison worked assiduously to convict Derek Chauvin, while a more conventional prosecutor might have let the local DA throw the case.

It really is remarkable just how quickly former Obama Administration officials peddled their government connections for profit.  (How audacious)

Of Course They Did

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Is anyone surprised that Mitch McConnell and his Evil Minions™ have filibustered a bipartisan insurrection investigation?

I’m not, and this is a good thing:

  • It allows Democrats, if they have the guts, to use this as a hammer against the ‘Phants in 2022. 
  • It allows the House to set up a special select committee that won’t require Republican votes for a subpoena, so for example, House Minority Leader  Kevin McCarthy.
  • The committee staff won’t have half their members selected by Republicans and functioning as saboteurs.
  • The Democrats can set the rules, as opposed to the fiasco of the 911 commission, which never pressed the Bush administration, and, for example, allowed Condoleeza Rice to filibuster.

I hope that Democrats seize the opportunity, but I am not holding my breath.

Not Enough Bullets

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After engaging in one of the most brazen and delusional frauds in the history of history, former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann will get even more money as payment for leaving the criminal enterprise that he founded.

Whoever said that crime doesn’t pay has clearly never been funded by Softbank: 

Nearly two years ago, SoftBank Group Corp. sought to part ways with WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann when it bailed out the shared-office company. It hasn’t been an easy divorce.

Securities filings from earlier this month show WeWork in February gave Mr. Neumann an enhanced stock award worth roughly $245 million, a benefit that wasn’t extended to other early shareholders and hasn’t been previously reported.

The deal was part of a renegotiation of the former chief executive’s giant 2019 exit package meant to end a long-running dispute between him and SoftBank and help clear the way for a public listing for WeWork, according to people familiar with the matter.

In addition, the final package gave him nearly $200 million in cash, let him refinance $432 million in debt on favorable terms and allowed an entity Mr. Neumann controls to sell $578 million in WeWork stock.

………

The filings also show how, after Mr. Neumann’s exit in the fall of 2019, WeWork took big losses as it sold off a number of companies acquired at his direction. It garnered just $164 million on 10 investments that were initially purchased for $759 million in cash and WeWork stock.

………

Executive-severance experts said the package stands out not only for its enormous size, but also given Mr. Neumann’s record. The valuation of WeWork, which he co-founded in 2010, fell to around $8 billion when he left from $47 billion in early 2019. In all, WeWork has raised more than $11 billion to build a company worth $7.9 billion, not including debt.

This guy should be sharing a cell with Martin Shkreli, not getting hundreds of millions more dollars in remuneration.

The man looted the company, and has been rewarded for this.

Something is very wrong with our society’s incentives.

Pass the Popcorn

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Manhattan DA District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has convened a criminal grand jury to investigate the Trump Organization.

I am not going to get my hopes up, if prominent Republicans went to jail for crimes, Karl Rove would be sharing a cell with Dick Cheney:

Manhattan’s district attorney has convened the grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict former president Donald Trump, other executives at his company or the business itself, should prosecutors present the panel with criminal charges, according to two people familiar with the development.

………

The move indicates that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s investigation of the former president and his business has reached an advanced stage after more than two years. It suggests, too, that Vance thinks he has found evidence of a crime — if not by Trump, by someone potentially close to him or by his company.

I so want to see Trump in the dock.

When You’ve Lost Silly-Con Valley

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It looks like even the gonifs running Silicon Valley unicorns have decided that special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are too dodgy for them.

I did not think that there was a financial instrument sufficiently duplicitous for the masters of the universe to object.

I was misinformed:

Startup chief executives are turning a cold shoulder to SPACs.

Skeptical CEOs say they are turning down offers from special-purpose acquisition companies, deleting their solicitous emails and tapping the brakes on merger deals amid nosediving shares and disappointed investors.

So-called blank-check companies, which go public with no assets and then merge with private companies, exploded in popularity last year as a mechanism for startups to raise a lot of money with more speed and fewer regulatory hurdles than a traditional initial public offering.

Startup chief executives are turning a cold shoulder to SPACs.

Skeptical CEOs say they are turning down offers from special-purpose acquisition companies, deleting their solicitous emails and tapping the brakes on merger deals amid nosediving shares and disappointed investors.

So-called blank-check companies, which go public with no assets and then merge with private companies, exploded in popularity last year as a mechanism for startups to raise a lot of money with more speed and fewer regulatory hurdles than a traditional initial public offering.

………

Among 44 technology startups that completed a SPAC deal from the start of 2020 through this past April, share prices have on average fallen 12.6%, according to data provided by Minmo Gahng and Jay Ritter, public-stock researchers with the University of Florida. More than half of the tech stocks declined more than 20%. The research is based on the share closing price on May 17.

………

Enthusiasm for SPACs waned after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced new accounting mandates last month and stepped up scrutiny of other SPAC practices. Another deterrent for startups is mounting litigation from stock traders against SPACs, alleging conflicts of board members, breaches of fiduciary responsibilities and misleading statements, among other things. Some fund managers said they have put a moratorium on new SPAC investments, and one San Diego-based family office, Sky and Ray, said since last year it has slashed its SPAC holdings to five from 104. 

This is the first time in a long time that I’ve heard of a Wall Street scam falling from favor because the intended pigeons came to their senses before it all collapsed.

It’s not the beginning of the end for Wall Street as casino, but perhaps, it is the end of the beginning.

H/T Naked Capitalism

So Not a Surprise

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Members of the National Endowment for Democracy were caught on tape claiming credit for the Belarus protests, which have generally been represented as internally driven.

So not a surprise.  The NED was created by William Casey to allow elements of the US State Security Apparatus to engege in regime change activities without supervision by civilian authorities.

Yes, I know, RT is the source, but they have it on tape:

A pair of notorious Russian pranksters posing as leading Belarusian opposition figures have duped the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into revealing the extent of US involvement in Eastern European political movements.

In a video call posted on the online channel of pranksters Vovan and Lexus, senior representatives of the American agency disclosed that they have actively financed and supported anti-government campaigns in the region. The officials from the NED, which is funded by Congress and describes its role as “supporting freedom around the world,” also revealed that they are coordinating efforts with prominent political activists in a range of countries, including Russia.

………

During the call, Nina Ognianova, who oversees the NED’s work with local groups in Belarus, outlined the wide-ranging programs the agency bankrolls in the country, insisting that “a lot of the people who have been trained by these hubs, who have been in touch with them and being educated, being involved in their work, have now taken the flag and started to lead in community organizing.”

Ognianova claimed that, through this work, the NED played a role in igniting the colossal street protests that rocked Belarus after long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko declared victory in the country’s presidential election last August. The opposition and many international observers say the vote was rigged in his favor, and tens of thousands took to the streets for demonstrations each weekend after the election.

………

The comments are likely to add fuel to Lukashenko’s previous controversial claims that the widespread domestic opposition to his government is being stoked from abroad.

Gee, you think? 

On a more serious note, allowing jokers from the CIA and other TLA acronym organizations to dictate US foreign policy without any civilian oversight is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.

Why Cap and Trade Sucks

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At the core of Cap and Trade carbon controls is trading of tax credits, and the creation and trading of tax credits is a function which actively encourages fraudulent behavior. 

Case in point is the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which announced its intention to log thousands of acres that it was preserving in western Massachusetts so that it could then sell credits for not chopping down the trees.

Of course, it never actually intended to chop down these cheese, this was just a way to create carbon credits that had no basis in reality, and then sell them to polluting business, with no actual reduction in emissions.

In addition to the Mass Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy is notorious for its sale of meaningless carbon offsets:

The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat. Nature lovers flock to these forests to enjoy bird-watching and quiet hikes, with the occasional bobcat or moose sighting.

But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California’s top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700 acres of its preserved forests over the next few years.

The group raised the possibility of chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its application to take part in California’s forest offset program.

Spoiler, the never intended to log this land.  They are engaging in a humbug.

The environmental organization has become a bunch of snollygosters.

………

The Air Resources Board accepted Mass Audubon’s project into its program, requiring the nonprofit to preserve its forests over the next century instead of heavily logging them. The nonprofit received more than 600,000 credits in exchange for its promise. The vast majority were sold through intermediaries to oil and gas companies, records show. The group earned about $6 million from the sales, Mass Audubon regional scientist Tom Lautzenheiser said.

On paper, the deal was a success. The fossil fuel companies were able to emit more CO2 while abiding by California’s climate laws. Mass Audubon earned enough money to acquire additional land for preservation, and to hire new staff working on climate change.

But it didn’t work out as well for the climate, unless Mass Audubon actually intended to start acting more like a timber company. The project wouldn’t achieve anywhere near the claimed levels of reduced carbon emissions if the nonprofit was getting credits for forests that were never in danger of aggressive logging. And every time a polluter uses a credit that didn’t actually save a ton of carbon, net emissions go up, undermining the point of the program.

………

New research by the San Francisco nonprofit CarbonPlan provides evidence that this is occurring: It shows that landowners in the program routinely maximize the number of trees they assert they could chop down if they weren’t given carbon credits, even if they have little history of logging or have mission statements in sharp opposition to such practices.

The research suggests the program could be significantly exaggerating the amount of carbon savings achieved.

“The nearly universal pattern we see in the data,” said Danny Cullenward, policy director at CarbonPlan and a coauthor of the study, corroborates concerns that “those projects are not delivering real climate benefits.”

(emphasis mine)

If you have direct tax on carbon, you eliminate this sort of fraud, what’s more you can treat the carbon tax in the same way that a value added tax is, and refund upon export, and charge upon import, so as to make sure that bad actors on global warming don’t get an effective subsidy for that bad behavior.

Consider the Source

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The New York Times editorial board is a font of conventional thinking. (Note that I did not say, “Wisdom.”)

You won’t find bold new or visionary ideas, but it is a good marker of where the conventional, “Wisdom,” is going, so their OP/ED calling for the end of qualified immunity for police officers might be an indication of a sea change in the elite consensus:

When a Minneapolis jury last month convicted the former police officer Derek Chauvin of murdering George Floyd on May 25, 2020, many Americans celebrated. At last, a moment of accountability, if not quite justice, in the face of persistent police brutality.

But for all the justified relief at the verdict, a troubling reality lurks: Had Mr. Chauvin not been criminally prosecuted — as the vast majority of police who kill in the line of duty are not — he may well have faced no consequences at all.

………

Qualified immunity arose out of an 1871 civil rights law that made government officials, including police officers, financially liable for violating a person’s constitutional rights. In a series of rulings starting in the late 1960s, the Supreme Court decided that an officer is immune from liability unless it can be shown that he or she broke “clearly established” law in the process. The burden is on the plaintiff to make this showing, and the bar is absurdly high: If no other court has previously ruled in a case involving an essentially identical set of facts, the law is determined to be not “clearly established.”

Examples of courts splitting hairs to give a pass to even egregious misconduct abound: the prison guard who pepper-sprayed an inmate in the face “for no reason at all”; the officer who fired at a nonthreatening dog and missed, accidentally hitting a 10-year-old child lying nearby on the ground; the officers who stole $225,000 in cash and rare coins while executing a search warrant; the officer who shot a 14-year-old boy after he had dropped a BB gun and raised his hands.

“I don’t think there’s any serious argument but that the qualified immunity doctrine as it currently exists is completely off the rails,” said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University and a founder of the Policing Project, which aims to give the general public a role in shaping law enforcement policy. “It makes no sense whatsoever and gives police officers far more leeway than they ought to have.”

In short, it’s hard to see what is qualified about qualified immunity.

………

In practice, qualified immunity has become what Justice Sonia Sotomayor has called an “absolute shield” that “tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished.”

The court has also expressed the concern that individual cops will be bankrupted by judgments. This simply doesn’t happen. To the contrary, governments virtually always foot the bill for police wrongdoing. One study found that officers personally paid only .02 percent of the dollars that plaintiffs were awarded.

………

Ending or curtailing qualified immunity would not be a cure-all for police brutality. By the time it becomes an issue, the harm has already been done. While holding people and departments accountable is important, it’s even more important to ensure that the harm doesn’t occur in the first place. “Police misconduct is often a systemic problem. These are not just bad apples but bad barrels,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at U.C.L.A. who studies police misconduct. “We should be thinking about how to reduce the harm, not just pay people.”

………

The more immediate solution is legislative. Congress is currently considering the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a far-reaching bill addressing racial discrimination and excessive force by law enforcement officers. One provision would eliminate the “clearly established” defense and prevent cops from relying on their own belief that their conduct was lawful. Unfortunately, that has become the bill’s main sticking point, as most Republicans have sided with police unions in opposing any liability for individual officers.

………

If the rule of law means anything, it means that those sworn to enforce it should not be above it.

The current state of policing int he United States is needlessly corrupt and brutal. 

It must be reformed, and many, if not most, of its current members need to removed.

He is an Evil Son of a Bitch

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I am referring to Charles Koch, who has been lobbying for increased evictions relaxed regulations while investing in real estate.

The famously Libertarian Koch, whose family fortune came from selling energy technology to Stalin, is engaging in a classic case of rent seeking behavior, basically being a leech on society by the definition of Ayn Rand (יִמַּח שְׁמו) who Charles Koch is a big fan of.

I guess it’s capitalism for thee and socialism for me from him:

Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in America.

At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its real estate purchases during the pandemic – including making large investments in real estate companies with a potential financial interest in eliminating eviction restrictions.

………

But since the Covid-19 pandemic began, Koch Industries has been plowing money into real estate.

In March this year, the Wall Street Journal published a report headlined Charles Koch Is Betting Big on Distressed Real Estate. The paper reported that the billionaire’s corporate conglomerate “is emerging as a major real-estate investor during the pandemic, using its robust cash reserves to buy properties at beaten-down prices and betting on a longer-term recovery”.

I might suggest that Mr. Koch arrange for burial at see when he passes on, because the line to piss on his grave would be awfully long otherwise.

As Atrios Says

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“Time For Another Blogger Ethics Panel.”

It’s the thing that Mr. Black says whenever a prominent member of the mainstream media engages in actions so heinous that it buggers the mind.

In this case, he is referring to CNN host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo, who has avoided covering his brother’s problems with Covid mismanagement, sexual harassment, and general corruption.

However, while he has avoided covering his brother, which is what he is supposed to do, what he did do was, participate in strategy calls with Andrew Cuomo and his staff on how to best manipulate the media.

Not a thing for a prominent member of a journalistic enterprise to do, particularly considering the fact that Chris likely has inside information on things like which reporters are most likely to cover him favorably, etc.

If CNN were as serious about its Journalism as it was about its ratings, Cuomo would have been fired today:

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo advised his brother, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and senior members of the governor’s staff on how to respond to sexual harassment allegations made earlier this year by women who had worked with the governor, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Cuomo, one of the network’s top stars, joined a series of conference calls that included the Democratic governor, his top aide, his communications team, lawyers and a number of outside advisers, according to the people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private sessions.

………

The behind-the-scenes strategy offered by Chris Cuomo, who anchors CNN’s 9 p.m. nightly newscast, cuts against the widely accepted norm in journalism that those reporting the news should not be involved in politics.

“If you are actively advising a politician in trouble while being an on-air host on a news network, that’s not okay,” said Nicholas Lemann, a professor at Columbia Journalism School and a New Yorker staff writer.

“Not okay ,” is putting this mildly.

In a statement, CNN acknowledged that Chris Cuomo took part in the strategy sessions, saying his involvement was a mistake.

………

The network said Cuomo will not be disciplined.

He should be fired  ……… Out of a cannon ……… And into the sun.

CNN should have taken Fredo out for a ride on their boat.

⅔ of Republicans Vote to Kill Capitol Insurrection Investigation

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This does not surprise me.

Seeing as how many members of the Republican caucus, particularly House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are hip deep in the conspiracies behind the January 6 insurrection, it comes as no surprise that House Republican leaders aggressively whipped the vote against a commission to investigate the matter.

This is why the idea of a bipartisan commission is a bad thing; unlike 911, Republican Representatives and Senators are suspects, and not just observers: 

The House of Representatives has voted in favor of a bill that would create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly attack on the Capitol in January.

The vote fell largely along party lines, with 35 Republicans joining Democrats in passing the measure. However, 175 Republicans voted against the bill, as Republican leaders endeavored to put the deadly 6 January attack behind them, and reframe the riot as a protest.

………

“It sounds like they are afraid of the truth, and that’s most unfortunate, but hopefully they’ll get used to the idea that the American people want us to find the truth,” Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said as she sharply criticized Republicans for opposing the bill.

Three Republicans spoke in favor of the legislation: John Katko, Fred Upton and Peter Meijer. All were among the 10 who had voted days after the attack to impeach Trump for encouraging his supporters to attack the Capitol.

The Republican Party is an enemy of the Republic.

Not Enough Bullets

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Emergent BioSolutions, whose cavalier and incompetent business practices contaminated millions of vaccine doses, still saw fit to give huge bonuses to its top executives.

I’m not sure what the executives did, beyond taking millions of dollars in government subsidies:

Emergent BioSolutions, the biotech company whose Baltimore plant ruined millions of coronavirus vaccine doses, awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses to its top executives last year, and the company’s board praised its founder and chairman for “leveraging his critical relationships with key customers, Congress, and other stakeholders,” according to documents released Wednesday by a House subcommittee.

………

Production at the plant was halted a month ago after workers accidentally contaminated a batch of vaccine, forcing Emergent to discard the equivalent of up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine.

Records from an Emergent board of directors compensation meeting offer a rare glimpse inside a politically connected federal contractor whose business is built largely around a single customer: the United States government.

The documents reflect earlier reporting by The New York Times, including a series of confidential audits that highlighted repeated violations of manufacturing standards at the Baltimore plant, including failure to properly disinfect the plant and protect against contamination of vaccine batches. Another report in June 2020, by a top manufacturing expert for the federal government, warned that Emergent lacked trained staff and adequate systems for quality control.

………

The board lauded executives for their “exemplary overall 2020 corporate performance including significantly outperforming revenue and earnings targets.”

Since 2018, Mr. El-Hibri and his wife, Nancy, have donated at least $150,000 to groups affiliated with the top Republican on the panel, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, as well as Mr. Scalise’s campaigns. At least two other members of the subcommittee received donations during the 2020 election cycle from the company’s political action committee, which has given about $1.4 million over the past 10 years to members of both parties.

Mr. Kramer received a $1.2 million cash bonus, the records show; the board found that he had “significantly exceeded expectations.” Three of the company’s executive vice presidents received bonuses ranging from $445,000 to $462,000 each.

Sean Kirk, the executive responsible for overseeing development and manufacturing operations at all of Emergent’s manufacturing sites, received a special bonus of $100,000 last year, over and above his regular bonus of $320,611, in recognition of his “exceptional performance in 2020,” and for significantly expanding the company’s contract manufacturing capability to address Covid-19, the documents show. After the discovery that workers had accidentally contaminated a batch of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine with the virus used to produced another vaccine at the same plant, the company said Mr. Kirk had taken personal leave from his job.

………

The $628 million contract, awarded by the Trump administration nearly a year ago, was mostly to reserve space at Emergent’s Baltimore plant for vaccine manufacturing. The contract was approved by a former Trump administration official, Dr. Robert Kadlec, who previously consulted for Emergent.

………

Dr. Kadlec has said that while he did not negotiate the contract, he did sign off on it. The documents also show that last August he recommended that Emergent be given a “priority rating” so that suppliers would give preference to its requests.

These guys should be sharing cells with the Capitol Insurrectionists.

So much of our economy these days consists of little more than stealing from the general public, whether with taxpayer money, (these guys) monetizing the public commons (Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, Lime, etc.), through indirect subsidies through IP provisions, (Media, Pharma, etc.) or the granting of special rights not held by ordinary people. (ISDS, TBTF, etc.)

If we stop these folks from stealing from us, there is no reason that we cannot have a better and more just society.

Cowardly Prosecutor Bullsh%$

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Elizabeth City, NC DA Andrew Womble has announced that he will not be charging the officers who unleashed a fusillade of bullets and killed Andrew Brown in his car.

He has also announced that this was a serious investigation, and that he won’t be releasing the body cam footage, because, f%$# you.

This does not fill me with confidence in the integrity of the investigation:

A North Carolina district attorney on Tuesday said officers were justified in the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr, a Black man, in April, and that the sheriff’s deputies who fired will not face charges for killing the 42-year-old father of seven.

Andrew Womble said Brown’s death “while tragic, was justified” because three deputies “reasonably” believed deadly force was necessary to protect themselves and others while serving a warrant for Brown’s arrest on felony drug charges.

………

Brown’s death certificate said he died as the result of a gunshot wound to the head. Brown’s family commissioned an independent autopsy which specified that he was shot five times, once to the back of his head.

Womble said he would not release body-camera video of the confrontation, for which Brown’s family and supporters have repeatedly called to ensure integrity in the investigation of his death.

If the body cam footage were that clear, they would be streaming it on YouTube now.

They are covering it up because they have something to cover up.

$5 Million, Nothing to See Here

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That’s what “Ratfaced Andy” Coumo got as a $5 million book deal for self absorbed account of his “Heroic” fight against the Corona virus.

Later, more recent, accounts of his behavior, including things like covering up nursing home deaths indicate that he got about 100000% more than it warranted.

More patterns of corrupt behavior from His Excellency:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s publisher is scheduled to pay him more than $5 million for the book he authored last year on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to newly released tax returns and ethics documents.

The documents released Monday ended a months-long mystery over the size of the Cuomo’s book deal with The Crown Publishing Group, which issued Cuomo’s best-selling book, American Crisis, in October as the state stared down a second wave of coronavirus infections.

For nine months, Cuomo had repeatedly refused to reveal the details of his book deal, noting it would be revealed on his taxes at a later date. That came Monday, when both his state-mandated disclosure form and his taxes were due and released.

The form showed Cuomo’s book deal is set to pay him more than $5.1 million total. Cuomo’s tax return showed Crown paid him $3.12 million in 2020; He’s due another $2.05 million to $2.15 million, according to a separate financial disclosure form, which his office said will be paid out over the next two years.

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The book deal has been referred to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation into whether Cuomo improperly used state resources for the project.

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American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic was published in October at a time when Cuomo’s national profile had grown to new heights, in large part because of well-received, daily news conferences in the early days of the coronavirus crisis.

The book has been at the center of controversy ever since because members of Cuomo’s government staff assisted in the project, though the governor insists they volunteered their time for the project.

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In April, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli referred the book matter to state Attorney General Letitia James, asking her to investigate whether state resources were used for personal purposes.

BTW, Cuomo this guy is corrupt as hell, even if he did not actually break the law.

Of Course They Do

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The UK, normally the United States’ poodle in all matters, is not offering its support for Biden’s global business tax plan. 

This is not a surprise.  The British financial sector, known colloquially as the City of London, has two areas where it dominates world markets: Tax evasion and currency speculation.

The US may dominate the UK, but the City of London owns the whole government, lock, stock and barrel.

Of course they are objecting to a plan with makes revenue shifting a less profitable enterprise.  It’s their profits that they are protecting.

A Perfect Metaphor for American Startup Culture

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It should surprise no one that gypsy cab company Uber is less of a ride sharing company than it is an exercise in fraud. 

By this, I don’t mean that it has no path to profitability (though it doesn’t), I mean that Uber, and WeWork, DoorDash, and pretty much the entire investment portfolio of Softbank is an attempt to generate buzz through a massive infusion of capital, followed by an IPO that offloads the company to suckers.

It seems to me that in addition to those startups, the management of Softbank should be frog-marched out of their offices in handcuffs when the reckoning comes.

It also turns out that Uber is an example of particularly extreme financial engineering:

Uber is not a business in the traditional sense. It’s a “bezzle” (“the magic interval when a confidence 

trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it”).

The only reason Uber was able to attain growth was because investors gave it billions to lose. First, it was the Saudi Royals, hoping to spend their way to a transportation monopoly.

When that didn’t work, the company’s investors suckered the public into taking their shares off their hands in an IPO premised on two things:

  1. Self-driving cars

  2. All buses and subways in the world being scrapped and replaced with Ubers.

Neither of those things have happened, of course. Uber actually had to pay someone else $400m to “buy” the self-driving car division it sank $2.5b into (the resulting cars could not travel for one mile without a serious accident).

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Uber’s “innovation” wasn’t self-driving cars. It was cheating. Uber is really f%$#ing good at cheating.

How good? Well, last year, Uber managed to dodge tax on $6b in global revenues by laundering its income through fifty Dutch shell companies.

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It’s quite a whirlwind of socially useless financial engineering, composed of obvious frauds like “selling” its IP to a Dutch subsidiary financed with a $16b “loan” from a Singaporean subsidiary, garnering 20 years‘ worth of $1b annual tax credits.

The Netherlands may be a bastion of progressive politics, but it’s also one of the world’s leading onshore-offshore tax havens, joining Cyprus, Luxembourg, Delaware, Wyoming and the City of London as a key player in the global money-laundry.

Our multinational financial system is one big case of, “If fraud can happen, it will already have happened.”

If we actually enforced the tax and fraud laws, there would be millions of people nationwide who would be in the dock right now.

Judge Calls Bullsh%$ on NRA Bankruptcy

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The NRA is attempting to declare bankruptcy so that they could move to Texas in order to evade a corruption investigation by the New York Attorney General. 

Judge Harlin Hale has been dubiouys of the arguments presented by Wayne LaPierre and his Evil Minions™ throughout the trial, and he has now ruled that the NRA cannot declare bankruptcy to dodge prosecution. 

Sweet, sweet ammosexual tears:

A federal judge Tuesday denied an effort by the National Rifle Association to file for bankruptcy protection, ruling that the gun rights group had filed the case in a bad-faith attempt to fend off a lawsuit by the New York attorney general.

“The Court finds, based on the totality of the circumstances, that the NRA’s bankruptcy petition was not filed in good faith but instead was filed as an effort to gain an unfair litigation advantage in the NYAG Enforcement Action and as an effort to avoid a regulatory scheme,” Judge Harlin Hale wrote in a 37-page decision.

The decision was a victory for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a far-reaching civil suit against the group last August accusing top officials of fraud and self-dealing. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre and his legal team had contended that the lawsuit was a political act intended to destroy the organization.

AG James is not attempting to shut down the NRA, she is attempting to throw Wayne LaPierre, and his corrupt cabal in jail.  In fact, it could be argued that her efforts may create a more accountable and transparent National Rifle Association.

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Adam Levitin, who teaches bankruptcy law at Georgetown University Law Center, said the ruling was not surprising, calling the NRA’s petition “a poster child for a bad-faith filing.”

He said he did not think the organization had good arguments for appeal, noting that LaPierre’s position as head of the organization could be at risk in such a move.

Hale’s decision follows a weeks-long hearing that revealed details about alleged mismanagement and excessive spending by top officials at the influential gun lobby, including LaPierre, the NRA’s controversial leader for the past three decades.

A trustee has not been appointed, which is a fly in the ointment, but I am happy about this ruling.