Category: Corruption

So Not Shocked

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The claims by people like Art Laffer, and organizations like ALEC, that “pro business” policies produce an improving economy are not only wrong, but actually counter to the data which shows that the tax-cutting, rich fellating policies that they endorse actually make economic performance worse:

Conservative economic pundits just love to justify “business-friendly” policies to state governments as keys to job growth, which after all is the whole ballgame in economic policy-making.

As Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin has now shown, the problem is that pro-business policies don’t really contribute to economic growth. They just make the rich richer, which is not the same thing at all.

The index measures 15 state policy “variables,” such as top marginal income tax rates, property taxes, public employees per capita, state minimum wage, right-to-work law, and whether there’s an estate tax. You can guess what a state has to do to rank high in all these factors and therefore shine in the index–low taxes, small government, anti-union policies, no estate tax are virtual requirements.

But does a high ALEC ranking translate into high growth? That’s the question Chinn asked. He started by measuring private nonfarm job growth in four states–California, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Minnesota–dating to January 2011, when all four got new governors. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sam Brownback of Kansas were extremely ALEC-friendly, Jerry Brown of California and Mark Dayton of Minnesota were not.

………

Indeed, when Chinn mapped the ALEC rankings for all 50 states against their economic growth, he found that, if anything, a higher index score correlates with a worse economic performance. That won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the ALEC follies over time: The Iowa Policy Project found the same negative correlation in 2012.

Of course, much like Trotskyites, conservative Chicago School-type economists, and rich parasites, are impervious to the facts, so it is unlikely that this will translate into actual policy.

H/t Kevin Drum.

Not Dredd Scott Bad, but Maybe Plessy v. Ferguson Bad

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In a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court just ratified sectarian prayer at government meetings:

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that legislative bodies such as city councils can begin their meetings with prayer, even if it plainly favors a specific religion.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that Christian prayers said before meetings of an Upstate New York town council did not violate the constitutional prohibition against government establishment of religion; the justices cited history and tradition.

“Ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this Nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond the authority of government,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court’s conservative majority.

The ruling reflected a Supreme Court that has become more lenient on how government may accommodate religion in civic life without crossing the line into an endorsement of a particular faith. All nine justices endorsed the concept of legislative prayer, with the four dissenters agreeing that the public forum “need not become a religion-free zone,” in the words of Justice Elena Kagan.

But there was sharp disagreement after that, and the majority ruling could encourage public bodies to give more leeway to religious expression in their ceremonial prayers and less deference to the objections of religious minorities.

The court’s five conservatives said legislative prayers need not be stripped of references to a specific religion — the prayers at issue often invoked Jesus Christ and the resurrection — and said those given the opportunity to pray before legislative meetings should be “unfettered” by what government officials find appropriate.

It is stupid, petty, small minded, and bigoted ruling.

I’m disappointed, but not particularly surprised.

I will say the fact that the bigotry-deaf Kennedy is now the “moderate vote” on the court.

Not the Onion

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The energy company Kinder Morgan is arguing for putting an oil pipeline through an environmentally sensitive area because oil spills can be good for the economy:

That’s according to a 15,000 page application Kinder Morgan has submitted to the National Energy Board for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (a document so large that it “stands over two metres tall and fills 37 binders”).

 In a section of the application dedicated to the risks and effects associated with oil tanker traffic and the possibility of oil spills, Kinder Morgan finds that “spills can have both positive and negative effects.” In particular, “spill response and clean-up creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and clean-up service providers.”

Great googly moogly!

As Charlie Pierce observed, this is on a par with a parent murderer asking for for mercy as an orphan.

Firefly Ran 1 Season, and Bank of America Still Exists?

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In the latest f%$#-up, Bank of America had to suspend its stock buyback and dividends because the “misfigured” its capital levels:

Bank of America Corp said on Monday that regulators had suspended its plan to buy back more shares and raise its dividend after the bank realized it had miscalculated a measure of the capital on its books.

 The second-largest U.S. bank said fixing the mistake reduced a capital level by $4 billion, or about three-quarters of the extra money that the Federal Reserve had approved its returning to shareholders over the next year.

 News of the gaffe sent the bank’s shares down 6.3 percent on Monday to close at $14.95, in the biggest one-day decline in the stock since November 2012.

The announcement illustrates how difficult it is to determine appropriate capital levels for the biggest banks, particularly under hypothetical stress situations that regulators consider. Bank of America now has to submit its request to return more capital to shareholders for a third time, and the Fed itself previously erred in projecting the bank’s minimum capital ratios under a stressed scenario.

 The previously approved increase in the bank’s dividend would have been the first since the financial crisis, and raising it has been a focus of top executives. Banks historically paid out relatively high dividends, spurring retirees and other investors seeing income to buy their shares.

 Banks failed to cut their dividends even as their earnings shrank during the financial crisis, burning up valuable capital and leaving them more vulnerable as the housing market deteriorated. In response, lawmakers have given regulators much more control over banks’ plans to return funds to shareholders.

 The Fed said Bank of America has 30 days to submit a new plan that corrects the errors and ensures no further reporting problems if it would like to return more money to shareholders over the next four quarters.

Seriously.  Just how f%$#ed up does a bank have to be to have the Federal Reserve, an organization which has not just been captured by the finance industry, but which is in part owned by the by the finance industry, to reverse a decision to increase dividends?

BTW, does anyone actually believe that it “miscalculated” its capital ratio?

My guess is that there were a bunch of stock options vesting, and this accounting “error” facilitated top execs cashed in.

This bank is too corrupt, or too incompetent, to continue to exist in its current form.

Fed press release after the break:

Press Release


Release Date: April 28, 2014
For release at 9:00 a.m. EDT

The Federal Reserve Board on Monday announced it is requiring Bank of America Corporation to resubmit its capital plan and to suspend planned increases in capital distributions. The decision relates to the disclosure by Bank of America that the banking organization incorrectly reported data used in the calculation of regulatory capital ratios and submitted as inputs for the most recent stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve can require a banking organization that is part of the annual Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) program to resubmit its capital plan at any time if there is a material change that could potentially lead to an alteration in a firm’s capital position. Bank of America will be required to resubmit its capital plan within 30 days, unless that time is extended by the Federal Reserve. Bank of America must address the quantitative errors in its regulatory capital calculations as part of the resubmission and must undertake a review of its regulatory capital reporting to help ensure there are no further errors.

Until receiving notice that the Federal Reserve has not objected to the new capital plan, Bank of America will not be able to increase its capital distributions, including those increases approved during the 2014 CCAR exercise last month.

The Federal Reserve in CCAR evaluates the capital planning processes and capital adequacy of the largest bank holding companies, including the firms’ proposed capital actions such as dividend payments and share buybacks and issuances.

For media inquiries, call 202-452-2955

The Bunco Wing of the Republican Party

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There is a wing of the Republican party which is dedicated to fleecing some of their not particularly too bright follower.

I discussed this a while back with the case of Linda Chavez and her husband Christopher Gersten, who set up a PAC where 99% of the costs went to overhead (them).

Well, it looks like the Tea Baggers have gotten into the act:

When the Tea Party Patriots threw its support last month behind Matt Bevin, the underdog conservative challenger trying to unseat top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, President Jenny Beth Martin vowed the group would be “putting our money where our mouth is.”

So far, its super PAC has mustered just $56,000 worth of mailers in Kentucky on Bevin’s behalf — less than half the amount it has paid Martin in consulting fees since July.

The Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, which blew through nearly $2 million on expenses such as fundraising, polling and consultants in the first three months of this year, is not alone in its meager spending on candidates.

A Washington Post analysis found that some of the top national tea party groups engaged in this year’s midterm elections have put just a tiny fraction of their money directly into boosting the candidates they’ve endorsed.

The practice is not unusual in the freewheeling world of big-money political groups, but it runs counter to the ethos of the tea party movement, which sprouted five years ago amid anger on the right over wasteful government spending. And it contrasts with the urgent appeals tea party groups have made to their base of small donors, many of whom repeatedly contribute after being promised that their money will help elect conservative politicians.

Out of the $37.5 million spent so far by the PACs of six major tea party organizations, less than $7 million has been devoted to directly helping candidates, according to the analysis, which was based on campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation.

I’m not sure why, but when you peruse ads at right wing sites, Worldnet Daily and Glen Beck are among the worst offenders, are chock full of what appears to be transparently deceptive sales pitches.

The Democratic Party establishment lies to its supporters, but they aren’t trying to sell overpriced gold coins and the like.

I’m not sure where there is a cultural difference.  I would think that grifting would cross cultural lines.

Thanks, Obama

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You know, this is to be expected. Obama appoints an industry lobbyist to head the FCC, and the FCC ends network neutrality: (See also here)

………

 The following can be attributed to Michael Weinberg, Vice President at Public Knowledge:

“The FCC is inviting ISPs to pick winners and losers online. The very essence of a “commercial reasonableness” standard is discrimination. And the core of net neutrality is non discrimination. This is not net neutrality. This standard allows ISPs to impose a new price of entry for innovation on the Internet. When the Commission used a commercial reasonableness standard for wireless data roaming, it explicitly found that it may be commercially reasonable for a broadband ISP to charge an edge provider higher rates because its service is competitively threatening.

“It is hard to see how the commercial reasonableness standard, which inherently offers less protection than the standard in the previous Open Internet Rules, can serve the same policy goals. Additionally, approaching discrimination on a case-by-case basis creates less certainty than clear rules and disadvantages small businesses and entrepreneurs. The Commission should instead seek to find a way to ensure true net neutrality, including protections against discrimination by ISPs for commercial purposes. The DC Circuit Court opinion made it clear that the only way to achieve net neutrality is to reclassify internet access as a telecommunications service.”

What a thought: Obama’s FCC chair does not have the guts to reverse the that it made under the Bush administration to classify if ISP’s service as information services, as opposed to telecommunications services, which meant that they were not common carriers.

It also refused to appeal the DC Court of Appeals decision to the Supreme Court.

And they did this because ……… Regulatory capture, I guess.

It certainly fits in with Obama cozying up to malefactors in dysfunctional markets as opposed to trying to fix those markets. (Obama care, Banksters walking free, The Droning of Brown People, the NSA, etc.)

Oh well, when the Kochs take over the internet, maybe they will give Obama a medal.

Naah ……… I’m just sh%$#ing you ……… They’ll find a trumped up charge to throw him in jail.

H/t Kevin Drum for the pic.

Our Clusterf%$# in Guantánamo

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As has been obvious since their founding, the military tribunals at Guantánamo are completely dysfunctional, and the latest problem, where the FBI has been infiltrating the defense teams is getting even worse:

The major fissure concerning the controversial military commissions at Guantánamo Bay is no longer between civil liberties and national security. It’s between the commissions and the intelligence services, with the future of the 9/11 war crimes tribunal hanging in the balance.

On one side are both the commission prosecutors and defense attorneys, all of whom grapple in different ways with bringing justice to defendants who spent years in the brutal black box that was CIA custody. The prosecution in particular is laboring to send the message that, after years of stop-and-start proceedings, the commissions are now a viable, professional complement to federal courts.

On the other side are the CIA and the FBI, which have gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent information about the detainees – particularly about their torture in CIA custody – becoming public. The intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ equities at Guantánamo, at a minimum, conflict with the successful military prosecution of the detainees. At worst, they undermine the venue meant to provide a final dispensation for alleged post-9/11 war crimes.

And the agencies may now have overplayed their hand.

Last week, defense attorneys for 9/11 co-defendant Ramzi bin al-Shibh revealed that the FBI surreptitiously compelled a classification specialist assigned to them to sign documents indicating he would inform on the defense teams.

They have also bugged defense conference rooms, seized control of the muting system at the trial without the knowledge of the of the judge, and they are preparing to defy that judge’s order for details on the CIA’s torture program.

If the military tribunals were anything close to a real trial, the charges would have already been dismissed because of malfeasance on the part of the government.

For f%$3’s sake, just move this to the Federal Courts, where the jurist are capable of finding their posteriors with either, or both, hands.

Times Ombud Calls Out Shoddy Financial Reporting

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The New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan criticizes their coverage of Bank of America’s latest financial results, because they completely ignored the massive fines for fraud:

Reading The Times’s coverage of Bank of America’s quarterly loss last week, I almost felt sorry for the financial behemoth. It has mortgage troubles, you see. It has onerous legal costs.

“The disappointing news shows how Bank of America is still paying for its mortgage problems nearly six years after the financial crisis,” the article said.

I thought of sending a small check to help or at least conveying my sympathy.

I really should have remembered what this is all about because it was only last month that Bank of America settled a lawsuit that claimed the bank had committed mortgage fraud. The cost of the settlement? More than $9 billion. Bank of America was one of the banks that sold mortgage securities backed by subprime mortgages, which went south during the housing and financial crises – in many cases driving American consumers into financial ruin.

Some Times readers wrote to me about it, pointing out that there was more to the story. They hadn’t forgotten what happened, it seemed. Jamison Wilcox, for example, noted in an email that he was “dismayed to see the term ‘legal costs’ given a vague and euphemistic meaning – and repeated in a headline – as a short replacement for the specific identification of monies paid out … as a legal consequence of wrongful conduct by a corporation or bank.”

………

The language certainly isn’t overheated. In fact, nowhere in this article is there any straightforward mention of what really caused these legal troubles and costs.

It says only this: “At the heart of the additional legal expenses was a $6.3 billion settlement that the bank announced last month to settle a lawsuit arising from troubled mortgage-backed securities it bundled and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis.” (The bank also agreed to buy back $3.2 billion in mortgage securities, bringing the penalties to $9.5 billion.)

Bundles and troubles and costs, yes. Fraud accusations, not so much.

I do not think that this will make a difference, though.

This is Symptomatic of a Crisis in the Culture of the Military

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Air Force pilot Joshua Wilson, who blew the whistle on problems with the F-22 oxygen system, is having his career systematically destroyed in retaliation:

The Air Force has spent tens of millions of dollars over the past two years correcting problems with its premier jet fighter – issues that Capt. Joshua Wilson helped expose by speaking up, both to his bosses and on national television.

Since then, Wilson’s career as an F-22 Raptor pilot has stalled. A member of the Virginia Air National Guard’s 149th Fighter Squadron, Wilson hasn’t been permitted to fly the jet since early 2012. He’s fighting disciplinary actions that he sees as retribution for going public.

“I’m a fighter pilot. I worked my entire life to get in the cockpit and to that job,” said Wilson, who is 37. “Right now, I’m fighting the Air Force when I should be fighting our enemies.”

Almost two years ago, Wilson and Maj. Jeremy Gordon told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the F-22 had a defective oxygen system that was endangering pilots.

The veteran aviators, dressed in their Virginia Air National Guard flight suits, shared their personal accounts of mid-flight oxygen deprivation that left them disoriented. Other pilots had similar life-threatening experiences but were reluctant to speak publicly, they said.

………

Back at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia Air National Guard leaders were also taking action. Even before the “60 Minutes” segment aired in May 2012, the squadron’s leadership began a series of punitive measures against Wilson.

In April 2012, they stopped his planned promotion to major, and they threatened to take away his wings, jeopardizing his military career.

They also forced him out of his full-time desk job with the Air Force’s Air Combat Command at Langley.

During that time, Wilson alerted the Department of Defense’s office of inspector general, which is investigating. He and his lawyers say the Virginia Air National Guard’s actions are reprisal for speaking out.

This is a direct outcome of the up or out system that our uniformed military used.

By making a single disagreement or conflict with a superior officer a career ender, they have created a risk and conflict averse culture where careerism trumps doing the right thing.

I Can Do This Pissing in a Bucket of Bleach………

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After screwing it up by using Fascists to stage an at best marginally effective coup in the Ukraine, it looks like the Obama administration is
trying to use new dodgy allegations of chemical weapons use to try to create support for US action:

The United States has indications of the use of a toxic chemical, probably chlorine, in Syria this month and is examining indications that the Syrian government was responsible, the US State Department said on Monday.

 “We have indications of the use of a toxic industrial chemical” in the town of Kfar Zeita, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

 “We are examining allegations that the government was responsible,” she told reporters.

Earlier this month the Syrian regime and opposition forces accused each other of carrying out a chemical attack in Kfar Zeita, located in the embattled country’s western-central province of Hama.

 Opposition activists reported that dozens of residents suffered from symptoms of suffocation after air units loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad targeted the town with explosive barrels allegedly containing toxic material.

 Yesterday, French President Francois Hollande said that his country had “information” that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has continued using chemical weapons, although Paris lacked proof, AFP reported.

 “We have a few elements of information but I do not have the proof,” AFP quoted Hollande as telling the Europe 1 radio station.

And yes, you can create chlorine gas by peeing in a bucket of bleach.

Unlike the (blatantly false) allegations that the Syrian insurgents lacked the capabilities to make Sarin, making chlorine gas is pretty simple: (Pee has a low yield)

  1. Run DC current through sea water.
  2. Collect the oxygen and chlorine off of the anode.  (This is why, in chemistry class, they used something other than table salt, typically Epsom salt or lye).
  3. Either cool the mixture to less than -40°, or pressurize it at room temperature to more than about 100 psi. (or some combination of the two)
  4. When the chlorine condenses into a liquid, VERY carefully collect  it, and put in munitions.

Note that the provenance of the the Sarin is unclear, with Seymour Hersh detailing how the Obama administration chose to very suppress significant facts to in order to justify their abortive attempt to create a justification for a bombing campaign.

Hersh’s latest, The Red Line and the Rat Line, details how many inside and outside of the US state security apparatus are accusing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan of actively aiding the Islamist rebels in Syria develop chemical weapons capability.  (It appears that he objects both to Syria’s secular character, and wants the country to be a client state of Turkey).

Note that we have tapes of senior Turkish security officials planning an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb, technically Turkish soil, so as to justify direct Turkish (and possibly NATO) intervention.

Count me as tremendously dubious of the latest chemical weapons revelations.

    First, You Eliminate the Competition, Then You Refuse to Release Price Data for Competitive Reasons

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    I knew that the taxpayers would come to regret cancelling the alternate engine for the F-32, the F136, but I did not expect it to happen so soon:

    After a long battle to edge rival General Electric out of the F-35 engine market, Pratt & Whitney succeeded in 2011. GE announced it would shelve the F136 after the Pentagon refused to fund it for four years, leaving Pratt in the coveted position of a sole-source engine supplier for the largest international fighter program ever.

    Three years later, though, Pratt states that its position with its F135 engine is so potentially competitive it cannot comply with the customer’s request to publicly share the target contract pricing data. At issue is Pratt’s hope for more government funding by garnering a piece of a $1 billion next-generation fighter engine. Although proposed by the Pentagon, this program has yet to be funded by Congress.

    “We have already made significant progress in advancing this technology and anticipate a competition will be held to develop this engine. Releasing engine pricing and cost data on the F135 would impact our ability to compete for this potential next-generation fighter engine program,” says Pratt spokesman Matthew Bates.

    Senior Pentagon officials have, however, been urging Pratt to release at least some data in a transparency push for the highly scrutinized F-35. Bates cites a 40% drop in engine pricing since the first low-rate-initial-production (LRIP) lot in 2006. But the rate of cost reduction “slowed down when [Pratt] got the monopoly,” said Rear Adm. Randy Mahr, deputy program manager of the F-35. “We are trying to get that information out . . . But, I can’t force somebody to go ahead and report something that by law they are not” required to report. Mahr made his comments at the Sea Air Space 2014 conference here this month. “This is a subject of legal debate but the Department of Defense feels this information should be in the public domain,” according to one defense official who requested to talk on background owing to the sensitivity of the issue.

    The last known engine price for the F135 was cited by Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan for the third lot. The F-35A/C propulsion system cost $14 million. The F-35B, which includes a Rolls-Royce lift-fan designed for short takeoff and vertical landing, cost $38 million. He is frustrated at Pratt not bringing down F135 costs as predicted. “Pratt is not meeting its commitment,” Bogdan says. “It is as simple as that. Some of their business base has dried up on other programs and projects [and] they are spreading them right where they can, and I don’t like that.”

    Pratt & Whitney has declined numerous requests from Aviation Week over many months to release either its pricing data or its contractual cost targets.

    I predicted that the long term budget consequences of eliminating the 2nd engine would be negative, and that the F-35 advocates’ desire to lower front end costs would be swallowed up by the price increases resulting from creating an engine monopoly.

    Conservative Politics in a Nutshell

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    Looting.

    Case in point, the Tory proposal to sell British taxpayer’s data to private firms because it’s a good way to throw some vig in the direction of your supporters, in the hope that it will eventually flow back to you:

    The personal financial data of millions of taxpayers could be sold to private firms under laws being drawn up by HM Revenue & Customs in a move branded “dangerous” by tax professionals and “borderline insane” by a senior Conservative MP.

    Despite fears that it could jeopardise the principle of taxpayer confidentiality, the legislation would allow HMRC to release anonymised tax data to third parties including companies, researchers and public bodies where there is a public benefit. According to HMRC documents, officials are examining “charging options”.

    The government insists that there will be suitable safeguards on personal data. But the plans, being overseen by the Treasury minister David Gauke, are likely to provoke serious worries among privacy campaigners and MPs in the wake of public concern about the government’s Care.data scheme – a plan to share “anonymised” medical records with third parties.

    The Care.data initiative has now been suspended for six months over fears that people could be identified from the supposedly anonymous data, which turned out to contain postcodes, dates of birth, NHS numbers, ethnicity and gender.

    Seriously, John Kenneth Galbraith had it nailed when he said that, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

    It’s all about looting, and it is all justified under the rubric of the Gordon Gekko quote, “Greed is good.”

    And More Christie Corruption and Cronyism Raises its Head

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    As a result of “Bridgegate” Chris Christie’s deals are getting a lot more scrutiny.

    Now it appears that Christie threw a $300 million dollar pension deal to a supporter in violation of state anti-corruption laws:

    A PandoDaily investigation has discovered evidence that Gov. Chris Christie’s pending deal to award a $300 million pension management contract to a controversial hedge fund is in violation of state anti-corruption laws.

     New Jersey state pay-to-play statutes prohibit state contractors from directly or indirectly financially supporting the election campaigns of state officials. Those statutes also explicitly prohibit the use of outside groups or family members to circumvent that ban.

    Additionally, separate Department of Treasury rules appear to prohibit public pension contracts from being awarded to investment firms whose employees have made significant financial contributions to political entities organized to operate in New Jersey state elections. Those laws also bar investment firms doing business with the state from making contributions “for the purpose of influencing any election for State office.”

     Yet, late last month, the New Jersey State Investment Council moved to award a controversial $300 million investment contract to Chatham Asset Management, despite the fact that Chatham’s principal, and a woman living at his address and sharing his surname, donated more than $50,000 to a Republican election group that oversaw major portions of Gov. Christie’s 2013 re-election operation. The proposed investment is already highly controversial given the hedge fund also reportedly owns a stake in the Atlantic City casino, Revel.

     Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen, which originally lobbied for the pay-to-play statute, said that the $300m offer “appears to be not an indirect violation, but a direct violation of the law.”

    What’s more, Chatham is providing free space to a charity chaired by Mary Pat Christie, the first lady if the great state of New Jersey:

    As part of that investigation we have also learned that Chatham made a large in-kind donation to the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund, which is chaired by the governor’s wife, Mary Pat Christie. That charity has been plagued by allegations that it is a stealth conduit for corporations to buy influence and circumvent campaign finance regulations.

    In an interview with Pando, a spokeswoman for the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund acknowledged that Chatham Asset Management housed the 501(c)3 organization from November 2012 to February 2013, a total in-kind donation value of approximately $15,000.

     For his part, Gov. Christie has denied that the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund would be used as a way to wield influence with him. At a 2013 press conference, he said donors to the charity “know, because they know me, that it will not one iota affect the way I execute my job as governor or any decisions I have to make as governor regarding the use of public money.”

    Drip, Drip, Drip.

    Would You Like a Loss of Civil Rights with Your Breakfast Cereal?

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    General Mills is looking to make binding arbitration mandatory for people who take their lives into their hands when they eat their food:

    Might downloading a 50-cent coupon for Cheerios cost you legal rights?

    General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.

    Instead, anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.

    In language added on Tuesday after The New York Times contacted it about the changes, General Mills seemed to go even further, suggesting that buying its products would bind consumers to those terms.

    “We’ve updated our privacy policy,” the company wrote in a thin, gray bar across the top of its home page. “Please note we also have new legal terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

    ………

    The change in legal terms, which occurred shortly after a judge refused to dismiss a case brought against the company by consumers in California, made General Mills one of the first, if not the first, major food companies to seek to impose what legal experts call “forced arbitration” on consumers.

    “Although this is the first case I’ve seen of a food company moving in this direction, others will follow — why wouldn’t you?” said Julia Duncan, director of federal programs and an arbitration expert at the American Association for Justice, a trade group representing plaintiff trial lawyers. “It’s essentially trying to protect the company from all accountability, even when it lies, or say, an employee deliberately adds broken glass to a product.”

    You have problem with Corporate Capitalist ™®©, comrade?*

    We really need to pass Al Franken’s Arbitration Fairness Act, and put an end to this bullsh%$.

    *H/t CZ at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for this quote.

    Why We Have a College Funding Crisis

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    The University of Maine is suffering the budgetary equivalent of the death of a thousand cuts, and they gave their vice chancellor for administration and finance a $40,000.00 raise:

    While confronting a $36 million budget shortfall, the University of Maine System gave its top financial administrator a $40,000 raise between last fall and this spring, according to reports of employee salaries that the system publishes twice a year.

    The salary for Rebecca Wyke, UMS vice chancellor for administration and finance, was listed at $205,000 annually as of April 8, 2014. That’s up from $165,000 listed in the report published Nov. 5, 2013.

    “Is it a lot of money? Yes,” said University of Maine System Chancellor James Page, when asked Tuesday about the raise amid widespread budget cutting efforts at the seven UMS campuses and system office. “And we’re looking at reducing our financial management structure on an ongoing basis. But you do need to have the right people in place to get the job done.”

    Page said Wyke was a finalist for a position at a higher education institution out of state that would have paid her more. He brought the question of her raise to the board of trustees in January, and they ratified the decision in an executive session. There was no mention of the raise in the open session.

    “We determined that her leaving at this time would have significant adverse impact on the projects that we now have underway,” he said.

    Wyke declined to be interviewed for this story.

    The median salary of a vice chancellor at universities that award doctorate degrees in the United States is $326,863, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The median salary for a vice chancellor at any institution, including those that only have two-year programs, is $186,750.

    ………

    The raise comes at a financially stressful time for the system. In November, Wyke told the board of trustees that the universities would need to cut $36 million, or about 6.6 percent of the system’s budget, in order to pass a balanced budget in fiscal year 2015.

    Page told the state Legislature in March that up to 165 full-time jobs would have to be cut as a result of the budget shortfall.

    The bureaucratic overhead at higher education has exploded over the past 50 years, and the upcoming crisis in student loans continues barreling down on us.

    There is a genuine problem with looting in education, and it is at the administrative level where the problem exists, and not at the instructor level.

    There are way too many people who have little interest in education beyond finding a way to loot education for their own personal benefit.  (I’m talking to you, Michelle “Sell the Public Schools to Wall Street” Rhee)

    This is Complete and Total Contempt for the Law and Civil Rights

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    Not only was the FBI spying on the defense counsel at the kangaroo courts military tribunals at Guantánamo, they actually flipped a member of the defense team with access to all their documents into an informant:

    The US government’s troubled military trials of terrorism suspects were dealt another blow on Monday when proceedings were halted after an allegation surfaced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned a member of a 9/11 defendant’s defense team into a secret informant.

    Judge James Pohl, the army colonel overseeing the controversial military commission at Guantánamo, gaveled a hearing out of session after barely 30 minutes on Monday morning, following the revelation of a motion filed by the defense stipulating that the FBI approached an unidentified member of the team during the course of an investigation into how a manifesto by accused 9/11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed found its way to the media.

    Defense attorneys argued the government plunged them into a potential conflict of interest, as they would need to potentially defend themselves against a leak investigation, risking their ability to put their clients’ legal needs ahead of their own.

    They implored Pohl to investigate, and if necessary, assign their clients with new independent counsel to advise the defendants about the existence and implications of conflict of interest. That could be a lengthy process – potentially the next delay for a proceeding that has yet to get out of the pretrial stage nearly two years after the latest incarnation of the 9/11 military trials began.

    “We have an impossible situation in terms of representing our client … on any issue,” said James Harrington, a civilian attorney for Mohammed’s co-defendant Ramzi bin al-Shibh in the case, which carries the death penalty.

    ………

    On 6 April two FBI agents approached the defense security officer assigned to bin al-Shibh’s defense team with a document that “in essence, seeks to enlist defense personnel” in an inquiry into the manifesto leak, said Walter Ruiz, an attorney for co-defendant Mustafa Ahmed al-Hasawi.

    Harrington said the unnamed security officer, a contractor for the firm SRA International, had signed the document, which was written to indicate the start of an “ongoing” relationship with the bureau.

    A defense security officer is a non-lawyer assigned by the commission’s convening authority to advise the defense team on the handling of classified information, among other issues. The officer would have had “unlimited access to our files,” Harrington said, although not to those of the other legal teams.

    The presiding officer has adjourned hearings to determine who else might have been turned into a government agent. Of note is that even though the prosecution denies knowledge of any FBI investigation, “Joanna Baltes, an absent member of the prosecution team who recently became chief of staff to FBI deputy director Mark Giuliano, played a role in the FBI involvement.” (emphasis mine)

    Yea, sure, no collusion between the FBI and the Prosecutors at Guantánamo.  None at all. (Not)

    On every single level, the military commissions have been a failure.

    It was created to generate guaranteed convictions, and in so doing it eschewed the hundreds of years of developments that created the modern Unified Code of Military Justice, and the nearly 800 years of development of legal process that began with the Magna Carta.

    These proceedings are an embarrassment to the nation which diminishes our stature throughout the world while serving as a highly effective recruiting tool for extremists,

    Why the NSA Cannot be Trusted with Our Cybersecurity

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    Many of you may have heard of the “Heartbleed” bug, which may allow people to access passwords of users and the crypto keys of for websites using the most popular SSL program, OpenSSL.

    It now appears that the NSA knew about Heartbleedfor 2 years, and kept it a secret so that they could use the exploit:

    The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.

     The agency’s reported decision to keep the bug secret in pursuit of national security interests threatens to renew the rancorous debate over the role of the government’s top computer experts. The NSA, after declining to comment on the report, subsequently denied that it was aware of Heartbleed until the vulnerability was made public by a private security report earlier this month.

     “Reports that NSA or any other part of the government were aware of the so-called Heartbleed vulnerability before 2014 are wrong,” according to an e-mailed statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

    Heartbleed appears to be one of the biggest flaws in the Internet’s history, affecting the basic security of as many as two-thirds of the world’s websites. Its discovery and the creation of a fix by researchers five days ago prompted consumers to change their passwords, the Canadian government to suspend electronic tax filing and computer companies including Cisco Systems Inc. to Juniper Networks Inc. to provide patches for their systems.

     Putting the Heartbleed bug in its arsenal, the NSA was able to obtain passwords and other basic data that are the building blocks of the sophisticated hacking operations at the core of its mission, but at a cost. Millions of ordinary users were left vulnerable to attack from other nations’ intelligence arms and criminal hackers.

    This bug is, to Bowlderize Joe Biden, “A big f%$#ing deal.”

    It basically completely breaks internet security, and the NSA sat on it, because they wanted to use the exploit.

    The idea that anyone would allow the NSA in on any discussion of computer security is truly troubling.  It is like like allowing a young Willie Sutton to consult on bank security.*

    * Later in life, after he got out of prison, Willie Sutton did actually consult on bank security.

    What, You Mean $1000.00 a Pill is too Expensive?

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    A few months back, I wrote of push-back from an NGO about the price of Gilead Sciences’ Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi.

    Well the World Health Organization and the pharmacy benefits management company Express Scripts are pushing back as well.

    While the WHO is engaging in fairly typical hand wringing:

    Gilead Sciences’ new hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, will cost $84,000 for a 12-week treatment plan, rounding out to $1,000 a day. Bound to cause a whirlwind among investors and the healthcare world, the World Health Organization has stepped in.

     The drug is facing protests in the United States because of the excessively high price that Gilead Sciences set for their new product. Despite its potential effectiveness – it is projected to cure 90% of the targeting hepatitis C patients – its gross income will exceed that of every other pharmaceutical drug if a majority of 150 million hepatitis C patients purchase it.

     As a result, the World Health Organization is urging Gilead Sciences to make the drug cheaper and more accessible to help those in dire need of the medication and to avoid creating tremendous problems for insurance companies and investors. But pharmaceutical companies argue that they need to charge high prices on new effective drugs because they need to cover the expensive cost of development.

    Express Scripts is playing some serious, and very well deserved, hardball:

    Express Scripts Holding Co. (ESRX), a pharmacy benefit manager that handles more than 1 billion prescriptions annually in the U.S., is ratcheting up its effort to force Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) to cut the $84,000 price of its new hepatitis C pill Sovaldi.

     Express Scripts plans to ask its clients, composed of national employers, health insurance plans and government agencies, to join a coalition that would stop using Sovaldi once a rival medicine is approved for the U.S., expected next year, said Steven Miller, chief medical officer of the St. Louis-based company. Express Scripts said in December it may block reimbursement for Foster City, California-based Gilead’s pill once other new hepatitis C therapies are on the market.

     “What they have done with this particular drug will break the country,” Miller said in a telephone interview. “It will make pharmacy benefits no longer sustainable. Companies just aren’t going to be able to handle paying for this drug.”

     Cara Miller and Amy Flood, Gilead spokeswomen, didn’t return phone calls yesterday seeking comment. The company has previously justified the price for Sovaldi by saying it would pay for itself by avoiding future complications from the virus.

    (emphasis mine)

    Note that Sovaldi has been granted a breakthrough designation by the FDA, which allows the drug to hit the market faster, for which the US government, and the taxpayers got a consideration of ……… nothing at all.

    Basically the declaration of “breakthrough” status, and that is the term the 2010 law uses, is a subsidy to the manufacturer, both extending the time available to Gilead under exclusivity, and reducing capital costs by allowing revenue to start earlier.

    Maybe the FDA should include a “reasonable and justifiable pricing” clause to things like this.

    The Stool Pigeon Sings

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    Pass the Popcorn

    It appears that former Chris Christie political operative David Wildstein is singing to a grand jury:

    Bad news for Chris Christie — and very good news for the citizens of New Jersey: Esquire has learned from sources close to the investigation that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority operative who helped plan and execute the Great Fort Lee Clusterfk, is now cooperating with Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor investigating the soon-to-be-ex-governor and his minions for criminal conduct. Fishman has also increased the number of investigators at work on the case, and has begun presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury in Newark.

    Wildstein was forced to quit his PA job in December, before Fort Lee’s corpses bobbed to the surface. Christie, who went to high school with Wildstein and put him at the PA as “director of interstate capital projects” — a job created just for him — helped edit the media statement thanking Wildstein “for his service to the people of New Jersey and the region.”

    In January, Wildstein refused to testify before a New Jersey legislative committee investigating last September’s George Washington Bridge lane closures, citing his 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination. It was Wildstein’s cache of e-mails and texts, provided to the committee, that featured the instantly immortal exchange between Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly (“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”) and Wildstein (“Got it”).

    No wonder the mainstream Republicans are looking at Jeb Bush for President now.

    Christie may serve out his term, but he is not going to be the Republican nominee.

    It Now Gets Real for the Torturers

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    The Senate Intelligence Committee just voted to release the torture report:

    The Senate Intelligence Committee has voted to release parts of a hotly contested, secret report that harshly criticizes CIA terror interrogations after 9/11, and the White House said it would instruct intelligence officials to cooperate fully.

    The result sets the stage for what could be the fullest public accounting of the Bush administration’s record when it comes to waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The panel voted 11-3 Thursday to order the declassification of almost 500 pages of the 6,300-page review, which concludes the harsh methods employed at CIA-run prisons overseas were excessively cruel and ineffective in producing valuable intelligence.

    Even some Republicans who agree with the spy agency that the findings are inaccurate voted in favor of declassification, saying it was important for the country to move on.

    “The purpose of this review was to uncover the facts behind the secret program and the results, I think, were shocking,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the committee chairwoman, said. “The report exposes brutality that stands in sharp contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do.”

    The intelligence committee and the CIA are embroiled in a bitter dispute related to the three-year study. Senators accuse the agency of spying on their investigation and deleting files. The CIA says Senate staffers illegally accessed information. The Justice Department is reviewing competing criminal referrals.

    As a result of Thursday’s vote, the CIA will start scanning the report’s contents for any passages that could compromise national security. That has led to fears in the committee that a recalcitrant CIA might sanitize key elements of their investigation, and demands for President Barack Obama to ensure large parts of the report aren’t blacked out.

    Obama, said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., should “hold onto the redaction pen himself.”

    The CIA’s strategy at this point is delay and obfuscate while leaking furiously to malign the report.

    If I were a Senator, I remember that if it takes too long, reading the high points of the report on the floor of the Senate is a constitutionally protected activity.