Category: Evil

What a Surprise. The FBI and the DoJ Lied

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After attempting to invoke the All Writs Act, the FBI just unlocked the San Bernardino shooter’s phone all by themselves:

The Justice Department is abandoning its bid to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack because investigators have found a way in without the tech giant’s assistance, prosecutors wrote in a court filing Monday.

In a three-sentence filing, prosecutors wrote that they had “now successfully accessed the data” stored on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and that they consequently no longer needed Apple’s court-ordered help getting in. The stunning move averts a courtroom showdown pitting Apple against the government — and privacy interests against security concerns — that many in the tech community had warned might set dangerous precedents.

I am going to put my tinfoil hat on here, and suggest that the FBI always knew that they could hack the phone.  It was probably only a call to Fort Meade away.

It took them just a few days once they realized that the court was not receptive to their demands and they were getting excoriated in the press.

 They were sandbagging the court and abusing legal process.

Money Beats Talibaptists

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Following widespread outrage, and multiple companies said that they would pull out of Georgia, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has vetoed the “Hate the Gays” bill:

Under increasing pressure from major corporations that do business in Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal announced Monday he will veto a bill that critics say would have curtailed the rights of Georgia’s LGBT community.

House Bill 757 would have given faith-based organizations in Georgia the option to deny services and jobs to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Supporters said the measure was meant to protect religious freedom, while opponents have described it as “anti-LGBT” and “appalling.”

Speaking to reporters Monday morning, Deal, a Republican, said he didn’t think the bill was necessary.
“I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia, of which I and my family have been a part of for all of our lives,” he said.

He said he was not reacting to pressure from the faith-based community or responding to the business community, which warned Georgia could lose jobs if he signed the bill.

His decision, he said, was “about the character of our state and the character of our people. Georgia is a welcoming state. It is full of loving, kind and generous people. … I intend to do my part to keep it that way. For that reason I will veto House Bill 757.”

As Charlie Pierce says, “This is a dodge, of course. It’s about bigotry in the private sector, as we all know, and the veto is due to push-back from more powerful entities in the private sector. Isn’t capitalism grand? And here’s the real irony of it all: Deal is term-limited out, so he has no real f%$#s to give to anyone.”

Worst ……… Fairy Tales ……… Ever

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The National Rifle Association has decided to rewrite classic fairy tales, because they need more guns: (Not The Onion)

The National Rifle Association has taken some heat this week after attempting what it saw as a family-friendly approach to to gun rights: inserting guns into classic fairy tale stories.

As part of its new family-oriented website, NRA Family, the organization reimagined popular fairy tales by arming the main characters with guns. The stories, which the NRA posted on its site and in the site’s newsletter, feature illustrations and stories by Amelia Hamilton, a conservative blogger and author.

The first, published on March 17, is called Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns), a new spin on the classic Brothers Grimm story. Instead of being nearly eaten by the witch, the brother and sister duo rescue another boy with guns loaded. They then to return to their village and tell their parents, who storm back guns-a-blazing to capture the witch.

Another story published Friday is a take on Little Red Riding Hood called—you guessed it—Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun). It follows a similar narrative, with both granny and Little Red packing heat and using their guns to scare the wolf so he can be tied up and carried away.

I guess that this makes sense in a twisted way.

Most of the classic fairy tales have their origins in pre-Christian tales of pagan gods, and the NRA worships at the altar of Smith & Wesson, so at least there is symmetry.

Finally!

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The mercenary monger behind Blackwater, is being investigated for selling mercs to foreign governments and money laundering by the US Department of Justice:

Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.

Prince, through his lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said he has not been informed of a federal investigation and had not offered any defense services in Libya. Toensing called the money-laundering allegations “total bullsh%$.” (%$ mine)

The Intercept interviewed more than a half dozen of Prince’s associates, including current and former business partners; four former U.S. intelligence officers; and other sources familiar with the Justice Department investigation. All of them requested anonymity to discuss these matters because there is an ongoing investigation. The Intercept also reviewed several secret proposals drafted by Prince and his closest advisers and partners offering paramilitary services to foreign entities.

For more than a year, U.S. intelligence has been monitoring Prince’s communications and movements, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence officer and a second former intelligence official briefed on the investigation. Multiple sources, including two people with business ties to Prince, told The Intercept that current government and intelligence personnel informed them of this surveillance. Those with business ties were cautioned to sever their dealings with Prince.

As an aside, Toensing, she of the unprofessional legal utterances, was a major player in the pursuit of Bill Clinton’s penis in the 1990s.

Prince is an evil dangerous man with delusions of creating a full mercenary army to rival nation states.

I really hope that he gets taken down hard.

H/t Charlie Pierce.

What Bill Moyers Said

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There are two Democrats whose resignation from office right now would do their party and country a service.

Their disappearance might also help Hillary Clinton convince skeptical Democrats that her nomination, if it happens, is about the future, and not about resurrecting and ratifying the worst aspects of the first Clinton reign when she and her husband rarely met a donor to whom they wouldn’t try to auction a sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom.

In fact, while we’re at it, and if Secretary Clinton really wants us to believe she’s no creature of the corporate and Wall Street money machine — despite more than $44 million in contributions from the financial industry since 2000 and her $675,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, not to mention several million more paid by other business interests for an hour or two of her time — she should pick up the gauntlet herself and publicly call for the departure of these two, although they are among her nearest and dearest. And we don’t mean Bill and Chelsea.

No, she should come right out and ask for the resignations of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic National Committee Chair — and Florida congresswoman — Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In one masterstroke, she could separate herself from two of the most prominent of all corporate Democratic elitists.

Each is a Clinton disciple and devotee, each has profited mightily from the association and each represents all that is wrong with a Democratic Party that in the pursuit of money from rich donors and powerful corporations has abandoned those it once so proudly represented — working men and women.

………

This is why Emanuel and Wasserman Schultz must go. To millions, they are enablers of the one percent, perpetuators of the Washington mentality that the rest of the country has grown to hate. What a message such servants of plutocracy send: Democrats — a bridge to the past.

Hillary is not going to do this, but it would be a savvy political move.

Also, putting Emanuel and Wasserman-Schultz in the political cross-hairs would be good for the party and their constituents.

Worst Constitutional Law Professor Ever

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Upon announcing Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme court, they tweeted that he would ignore the Constitution of the United States of America:

“Merrick Garland would take no chances that someone who murdered innocent Americans might go free on a technicality.” —@POTUS #SCOTUSnominee

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 16, 2016

Those “Technicalities” are the bill of rights, and their comment reflects that Garland is positively dismissive about the due process rights of defendants.

I do understand political realities, but the idea that any President would try to trumpet the willingness of a nominee for Supreme Court justice to ignore the Constitution is truly awful.

H/t Cory Robin.

How Convenient?

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The office in Flint Michigan that stores their water records has been burgled, and the police chief is calling it an inside job:

Mystery still surrounds an unsolved December break-in at an executive office inside City Hall where Flint water files were kept.

As of Friday, March 18, there were still no suspects in the case, and officials say it may never be known what — other than a TV — was taken.

But the city’s new police chief Tim Johnson says it’s too suspicious that there was a break-in where important documents were kept, just as investigations began heating up and decision makers were beginning to be held accountable.

“It was definitely an inside job. The power cord (to the TV) wasn’t even taken. The average drug user knows that you’d need the power cord to be able to pawn it,” Johnson said.

………

An employee returning to work at City Hall, 1101 S. Saginaw St., after the holiday break on Monday, Dec. 28, discovered a broken window and the break-in. No other offices were disturbed.

[Flint Mayor Karen] Weaver did not say exactly where the room was located in the suite, but did say a window was broken in an apparent effort to access to the area.

“They had to know what room to go into, I could just say that,” she said.

This does sound a like a Nixonian rat-f%$#ing, doesn’t it?

A Tory With a Conscience, and Other Myths

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Iain Duncan Smith, the British Work and Pensions Secretary,  has resigned over cuts to disability payments to the UK’s most vulnerable:

Iain Duncan Smith has resigned as work and pensions secretary, denouncing £4bn of planned cuts to disability benefits as “indefensible”.

He complains of pressure to “salami slice” welfare, saying the latest cuts were a “compromise too far” in a Budget that benefits higher earning taxpayers.

David Cameron said he was “puzzled and disappointed” at the resignation.

Earlier, the government had indicated it would look again at some of the proposed disability benefits changes.

‘Enormous regret’

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said: “There had been bad blood off and on between Chancellor George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith over some of the more controversial welfare reforms, but nobody expected this move only 48 hours since the Budget.”

She added that she understood Mr Cameron had personally tried to persuade Mr Duncan Smith to stay on and called the resignation “a bombshell at a very sensitive time”
………
Mr Duncan Smith, who was the Conservative Party leader and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003, wrote in his resignation letter that the changes to disability benefits were “defensible in narrow terms, given the continuing deficit”.

But he said they should have formed part of “a wider process” of finding the best way to focus resources on those most in need.

“I am unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest,” Mr Duncan Smith said.

“Too often my team and I have been pressured in the immediate run up to a Budget or fiscal event to deliver yet more reductions to the working-age benefit bill.

“There has been too much emphasis on money-saving exercises and not enough awareness from the Treasury, in particular, that the government’s vision of a new welfare-to-work system could not be repeatedly salami-sliced.

“It is therefore with enormous regret that I have decided to resign.”

………

Over the weekend Iain Duncan Smith discovered the Chancellor planned to offer cuts in Capital Gains Tax and was very unhappy that those tax cuts were to be offered to the better off, while he had been forced to make more welfare cuts prematurely, in his view. When Number 10 and the Treasury then backtracked on the reforms to PIP today, he concluded that he could no longer remain in government.

Sources close to him are absolutely adamant that his decision was in no way related to his views on Europe.

Smith supports a Brexit from the EU, so there is some speculation that his exit was influenced by this difference.

Personally, I am inclined to think that there are crass political motivations, but I’m a cynic that way.

Corrupt Prosecutors Lose Primaries

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The prosecutors who did their utmost to cover up the police murders of Laquan McDonald and Tamir Rice have been turfed out in the primaries:

Forcing out prosecutors who refuse to treat police shootings as serious crimes is a significant milestone in the movement against unjustified police shootings of black Americans.

Last July, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez explained why she chose to charge police officer Dante Servin with involuntary manslaughter instead of murder for firing his gun into a crowd of people and killing 22-year old Rekia Boyd. Servin was inside a car, and fired the gun over his shoulder, claiming that he fired because he saw a man approaching him with a gun.

“He intentionally fired his weapon, yes. But is there intent to kill? I don’t think he went out intending to kill anyone,” Alvarez told the Chicago Tribune. “He was reckless, shooting off his shoulder into a crowd of people.” Servin was set free after the judge angrily said that the entire case had been wrongfully charged.

How someone could fire a gun into a crowd of people and not intend to kill anyone is as much of a mystery as why it took Alvarez nearly two years to charge Servin. Similarly, Alvarez took more than a year to charge officer Jason Van Dyke for the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, and only then after the government was forced to release video of the shooting that showed Van Dyke firing his weapon into McDonald’s body while he was lying on the ground. According to the Daily Beast, Alvarez declined to file charges against police involved in fatal shootings more than 68 times in the last seven years.

Alvarez lost her job Tuesday night. So did Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga County, Ohio prosecutor who told the grand jury looking into the shooting of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old holding a toy gun, that they shouldn’t press charges against the officers who killed him because Rice’s death was merely tragic and not criminal. Though a video showed that Rice had been shot by police moments after they arrived, with no opportunity to even follow their commands, McGinty, by his own admission, encouraged the grand jury not to indict.

“Justice would not be achieved by bringing charges that would violate the ethical canons of our profession,” McGinty said last December, “because we know these charges could not be sustained under the law in our Constitution.” The local judge who ruled there was probable cause to bring charges against the officers described McGinty’s approach to the matter as “unusual.”

………

Forcing out prosecutors who refuse to charge police with crimes for fatal shootings of unarmed black men may be the best sustainable strategy of changing that national culture of impunity, where police need only say they were afraid to justify ending someone’s life. If prosecutors know they will pay a price for letting cops slide, they will be less likely to do so.

These are deeply evil people, and I would hope that folks in the legal profession in Illinois and Missouri are looking at referrals to the state bar for discipline.

These folks lack the moral character to practice law.

Perhaps some other district attorneys out there who are starting to realize that they have more to fear from people thirsting for justice than they do from the PBA (cop union).

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Needs to Be Fired ……… Out of a Cannon ……… Into the Sun ……… Part Gazillion

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As I have mentioned before, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has a primary challenger, who I have endorsed, Tim Canova.

Well, it appears that our lady of the unmanageable hair is spooked, because she has changed DNC policies to protect her own sorry political career:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s reputation as DNC chair has plummeted to the point where she is being challenged in the Democratic Primary for her congressional seat for the first time ever. Her poor leadership of the DNC contributed to significant losses in the 2014 midterm elections for Democrats, and the way she has handled the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries has irked both Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s supporters, as well as many of her colleagues. Just a few weeks ago, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, one of five DNC vice chairs, resigned from her position to support Mr. Sanders.

To help save her public image, Ms. Wasserman Schultz has authored desperate Op-Eds for various news outlets in attempts to come off as relatable. “Having a perspective of a working mother has helped in the role as a legislator,” the Florida congresswoman wrote (poorly) for US News. Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s explanation of how being a mother in government poses challenges fails to mention her privileged financial status. Most working mothers do not have the salary of a U.S. congresswoman plus a husband’s banker income to pay for things like childcare.

And now, to help rig her own election in the Democratic primaries, Ms. Wasserman Schultz is blocking any challenger to a Democratic incumbent from accessing the voter file database—a vital campaign tool for any election.

“Last week, I called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country,” wrote Tim Canova, Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s primary challenger, in an article on Medium. “I was told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access — even a lifelong progressive challenging an out-of-touch incumbent.”

Actually, it’s especially for an out of touch incumbent hack.

BTW, the DNC is not supposed to choose sides in a contested primary.

Seriously.  She  ……… Needs  ……… To  ……… Be  ……… Fired, both from the DNC, and from Congress.

She shouldn’t be elected dog catcher.

The Term for this is Unforced Political Error

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I understand that one needs to have a sense of decorum at a funeral.

It is not a place where one should prosecute political differences.

That being said, when you are in a primary contest, and among the complaints against you is that you are:

  • Mindlessly bellicose and willing to engage in regime change for its own sake.
  • A member of a corrupt and incompetent ruling elite.

This picture from Nancy Reagan’s funeral is a disaster, showing her palling around with Shrub, is a complete clusterf%$#, as the ensuing Twitter sh%$ storm shows:

This may be the best photo from Mrs. Reagan’s funeral. pic.twitter.com/kX1WZP9mwi

— David Chalian (@DavidChalian) March 14, 2016

The fail is strong in this one.

H/t naked capitalism.

How to Deal With Blackmail

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Turkey is (rather successfully) attempting to blackmail Europe over their handling of the refugee crisis:

Shopping in a Turkish bazaar is never wise for the novice.

The EU learned that lesson the hard way when it discovered the carefully crafted refugee deal it believed it had sold to Turkish leaders in the run-up to Monday’s summit turned out to be little more than the beginning of the negotiation.

Turkey made Europe a counter offer early Monday that six months ago would have prompted EU negotiators to get up and walk out. To European eyes, the proposal Ankara put on the table read more like a ransom note: €3 billion in refugee aid in addition to the €3 billion already pledged, full-scale visa liberalization for Turkish citizens in the EU by June, an acceleration of Turkey’s application to join the bloc as well as a pledge to resettle many of the Syrian refugees Turkey takes in.

Turkey’s message to Europe was clear: You need us more than we need you.

That Europe is not just considering the Turkish proposal, but is likely to end up accepting most, if not all of it, is testament to the desperation of the Union and its largest member, Germany, to secure a deal to limit the flow of refugees and end a crisis that is testing EU solidarity like nothing in its history.

Seeing as how Erdogan is trying to turn Turkey into an theocratic dictatorship, you don’t want to do things like speed Turkey’s entry into the EU.

The way I see this, there are two options:

  • Roll over.
  • Start sending large numbers of Turks home to “make space for the refugees”, and  clamp down on remittances, which cripples the Turkish economy.

I recommend that the leaders of Europe choose the 2nd option.

Using Turkish gastarbeiters as human shields is not a particularly laudable thing, but the Turks are using the Syrian refugees as human shields as well, and Turkey continues to support ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates driving the refugee flow in Syria.

The Turks won’t stop fomenting the civil war in Syria, nor trying to exploit and exacerbate the refugee crisis until the cost to them become prohibitive.

Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!

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The FBI has a new program to spy on high school students:

Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and “western corruption” as potential future terrorists, warning that “anarchist extremists” are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to “suspicious” countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.

Based on the widely unpopular British “anti-terror” mass surveillance program, the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines, released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken.

This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other.

The FBI’s justification for such surveillance is based on McCarthy-era theories of radicalization, in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors that they claim to lead to acts of violent subversion, even if those people being watched have not committed any wrongdoing. This model has been widely discredited as a violence prevention method, including by the U.S. government, but it is now being imported to schools nationwide as official federal policy.


………

According to the FBI’s educational materials for teenagers, circulated as a visual aide to their new guidelines, the following offenses constitute signs that “could mean that someone plans to commit violence” and therefore should be reported: “Talking about traveling to places that sound suspicious”; “Using code words or unusual language”; “Using several different cell phones and private messaging apps”; and “Studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building).”

Under the category of domestic terrorists, the educational materials warn of the threat posed by “anarchist extremists.” The FBI states, “Anarchist extremists believe that society should have no government, laws, or police, and they are loosely organized, with no central leadership… Violent anarchist extremists usually target symbols of capitalism they believe to be the cause of all problems in society—such as large corporations, government organizations, and police agencies.”

Similarly, “Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists” are placed alongside “white supremacy extremists”, ISIS and Al Qaeda as terrorists out to recruit high school students. The materials also instruct students to watch out for extremist propaganda messages that communicate criticisms of “corrupt western nations” and express “government mistrust.”

………

At the surface level, the FBI’s new guidelines do not appear to single out Muslim students. The document and supplementary educational materials warn of a broad array of threats, including anti-abortion and white supremacist extremists. The Jewish Defense League is listed alongside Hizbollah and Al Qaeda as an imminent danger to young people in the United States.

But a closer read reveals that the FBI consistently invokes an Islamic threat without naming it. Cultural and religious differences, as well as criticisms of western imperialism, are repeatedly mentioned as risk factors for future extremism. “Some immigrant families may not be sufficiently present in a youth’s life due to work constraints to foster critical thinking,” the guidelines state.

BTW, the science also shows that these programs do not work, but that doesn’t stop lazy cops, and lazy school administrators, from using bigotry as a justification.

I Can Haz Prosecushuns?

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We have a new development in the Flint water crisis, the Michigan Governor has retained private counsel, including a prominent criminal defense attorney:

Gov. Rick Snyder has hired two outside attorneys in connection with the Flint drinking water crisis, including a criminal defense attorney retained to serve as “investigatory counsel,” a Snyder spokesman confirmed Thursday.

Eugene Driker, a civil defense attorney, and Brian Lennon, a criminal defense attorney, were each awarded a contract worth $249,000 through Dec. 31, after which those contracts can be extended, Snyder spokesman Ari Adler told the Free Press.

The contracts, which are to be paid with state funds, are just below the $250,000 threshold for contracts requiring approval from the State Administrative Board, which meets in public to approve state contracts and grants. Adler said that was by design because the governor wanted to hire the attorneys quickly in early February. The administration will be going to the State Administrative Board on March 8, seeking approval for additional spending on the contract with Lennon, he said.

They are claiming that this is about processing documents, but this sounds an awful lot like hizzoner is lining up a defense team in the event of a criminal prosecution.

This is Amazingly Evil

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The most evil thing in America this doesn’t come from the Republican Presidential campaign.

It came from immigration judge Jack Weil, who has asserted that 3 and 4 year old children are qualified to represent themselves before an immigration judge:

A senior Justice Department official is arguing that 3- and 4-year-olds can learn immigration law well enough to represent themselves in court, staking out an unconventional position in a growing debate over whether immigrant children facing deportation are entitled to taxpayer-funded attorneys.

Jack H. Weil, a longtime immigration judge who is responsible for training other judges, made the assertion in sworn testimony in a deposition in federal court in Seattle. His comments highlighted the plight of thousands of juveniles who are forced to defend themselves each year in immigration court amid a surge of children from Central America who cross the southwestern U.S. border .

“I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds,” Weil said. “It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done.”

He repeated his claim twice in the deposition, also saying, “I’ve told you I have trained 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in immigration law,” according to a transcript. “You can do a fair hearing. It’s going to take you a lot of time.”

Legal and child psychology experts ridiculed Weil’s assertions, noting that key milestones for 3- and 4-year-olds include cooperating with other children, saying simple sentences and building towers of blocks.

“I nearly fell off my chair when I read that deposition,” said Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University, who is a witness for the plaintiffs in the Seattle case. “Three- and 4-year-olds do not yet have logical reasoning abilities. It’s preposterous, frankly, to think they could be taught enough about immigration law to be able to represent themselves in court.”

………

Lauren Alder Reid, a spokeswoman for the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), said in a statement: “At no time has the Department indicated that 3 and 4 year olds are capable of representing themselves. Jack Weil was speaking in a personal capacity and his statements, therefore, do not necessarily represent the views of EOIR or the Department of Justice.”

………

Weil is not just any immigration official. As an assistant chief immigration judge in EOIR’s Office of the Chief Immigration Judge — which sets and oversees policies for the nation’s 58 immigration courts — he is responsible for coordinating the Justice Department’s training of immigration judges.

………

Ahilan Arulanantham, deputy legal director at the ACLU of Southern California and the attorney who questioned Weil in the deposition, said he initially thought the judge had misspoken “because what he said was so outrageous. As I asked further questions, he obviously meant what he said.”

“This is the person in charge of training immigration judges about how to treat children? And this is the witness the government puts forward to present their views as to how this is supposed to happen? That is horrifying,” said Arulanantham. He added that Weil’s assertions “are going to be a significant issue in the case.”

Unlike in felony criminal cases in federal court, children charged with violating immigration laws have no right to appointed counsel, even though the government is represented by Department of Homeland Security attorneys.

Although a network of pro bono organizations and a Justice Department program try to help children find attorneys — some paid for by the government — many children are forced to fend for themselves. According to Justice Department figures, 42 percent of the more than 20,000 unaccompanied children involved in deportation proceedings completed between July 2014 and late December had no attorney. It is unclear how often children 5 or under are forced to defend themselves, but attorneys and advocates for immigrants said it does happen.

This is a level of outright malice inherent in his statements that leaves me dumbstruck.

Weil should not be an Immigration Judge.  I’m not sure that he should be trusted as a pastry chef.

San Bernardino DA Uses the Chewbacca Defense

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The San Bernardino District Attorney told a federal judge late Thursday that Apple must assist the authorities in unlocking the iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the two San Bernardino shooters that killed 14 people in a killing rampage in December. The phone, which was a county work phone issued to Farook as part of his Health Department duties, may have been the trigger to unleash a “cyber pathogen,” county prosecutors said in a brief court filing.

“The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino’s infrastructure,” according to a court filing (PDF) by Michael Ramos, the San Bernardino County district attorney.

The development represents the first time any law enforcement official connected to the investigation provided an indication, other than links to possible co-conspirators, of what the authorities might discover on the phone. The district attorney’s position comes a week after Jarrod Burguan, the San Bernardino police chief, said there was a “reasonably good chance that there is nothing of any value on the phone.” James Comey, the FBI director, said Feb, 21 that “Maybe the phone holds the clue to finding more terrorists. Maybe it doesn’t.”

The county declined to directly comment. A spokesman, David Wert, told Ars in an e-mail that “The county didn’t have anything to do with this brief. It was filed by the district attorney.” The DA’s office, which did not immediately respond for comment, followed up with a statement to Ars, saying that there is a “compelling governmental interest in acquiring any evidence of criminal conduct, additional perpetrators, potential damage to the infrastructure of San Bernardino County, and in protecting the California Constitutionally guaranteed due process rights of the victims, deceased and living, arising from state crimes committed on December 2, 2015.”

Jonathan Zdziarski, a prominent iPhone forensics expert, said in a telephone interview that the district attorney is suggesting that a “magical unicorn might exist on this phone.”

OK, it might not be an apocalyptic computer virus, it might just be a “magical unicorn”, or some other mythical beast, like a moderate Republican or a humble Frenchman.

This is a level of mendacity that should have the judge issuing sanctions against the DA.  (Some jail time would be nice)

What Happens When You Bring in a Finance Type to Shake Things Up

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First, the break everything, and then they get fired:

Simon Newman, the Mount St. Mary’s University president who astonished many with a brutal remark, inspired some to a new vision for the university, and set off an intense national debate about academic freedom, will step down effective immediately.

Karl Einolf, the dean of the Richard J.Bolte, Sr., School of Business at the university will serve as acting president, the board of trustees announced Monday night.

The change came after weeks of turmoil at the country’s second-oldest Catholic university, which faced questions from its faculty, alumni and national groups — including the organization that provides the crucial accreditation for the university — over its future direction and leadership. Some saw it as a clash between those open to change and those mired in tradition. Others felt it had become a debate over the very soul of the university: Catholic or corporate?

………

Newman came to the Maryland campus in 2015 with plans for sweeping changes, such as boosting enrollment, shoring up the university’s finances and raising its national profile. His blunt business manner — he had been in the financial industry for his entire career — was welcome to some and jarring to others. Several people were abruptly fired and escorted off campus, and retiree benefits were cut in the fall. But the real turmoil began this year after the student newspaper, the Mountain Echo, reported that Newman had planned to cull struggling freshmen early in the semester, before a federal reporting deadline, to improve the university’s retention rate.

No students left the school as a result of the survey, but Newman’s remarks after some faculty members expressed concerns about the plan shocked many; he said a professor was thinking of the students as cuddly bunnies but that they had to drown the bunnies, “put a Glock to their heads.”

When two professors were subsequently fired — one with tenure, one who had been the adviser to the Echo — many interpreted it as retaliation for opposing Newman’s policies despite the administration’s denial that it was retribution.

………

There was another fear, as well: The Mount’s accreditation was just reaffirmed in June, with its next scheduled review report in 2020. But this month the Middle States Commission on Higher Education requested “a supplemental information report, due March 15, 2016, addressing recent developments at the University which may have implications for continued compliance with Requirement of Affiliation #9, Standard 4 (Leadership and Governance), Standard 6 (Integrity), Standard 8 (Student Admissions and Retention), and Standard 10 (Faculty).”

This sh%$ is what happens when you hire someone whose qualifications basically consist of being a parasite from the finance industry.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Really Needs to be Fired

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Even if you ignore her tenure at the DNC, which is marked by incompetence, careerism, and biased, her history in supporting the most egregious examples of abusive consumer is a reason to force her retirement.

In November, she voted to allow car dealers to discriminate against minorities:

Before Thanksgiving, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz helped push through congress a bill that would allow automobile dealers and auto finance companies to discriminate against minority and unsophisticated car buyers by charging them more in fees and interest rates.

 The Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act that Wasserman Schultz voted for would basically let lenders and dealers ignore Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules that bar dealers and auto finance companies from charging unsophisticated borrowers who are mostly minorities hundreds of dollars more in excessive interest and fees on car loans regardless if the car buyer has excellent credit.

 The National Automobile Dealers Association or NADA is pushing this bill because they realized that after dusting off an old marketing book from Wells Fargo, that their members could easily widen their profit margins by adding stealth fees and charging higher interest rates to unsophisticated minority consumers who are just happy they can own a new car.

 The bill is, as Brian O’Connor at the Detroit News points out, “a repulsive layering of racism wrapped in consumer rip-offs wrapped in a layer of lies and stuffed with lots and lots of campaign cash.”

 Like an old sub-prime mortgage, the auto finance company sets a minimum interest rate on car loan made through a dealer, and the dealer can then hike the interest rate to 2.5 percentage points or more with the lender kicking in back end points equaling 1% to 3% of the sale price of the car to the dealer and the salesman. This similar to what used to be called Yield Spread Premiums in lending. In other words, NADA wants and what Wasserman Schultz endorses is really ghetto loans for cars.

And now she’s tring to hamgstring the CFPB’s attempts to regulate the worst practices of the payday lending industry:

One of the benefits of America’s unusually stingy welfare system is that it allows our domestic payday-loan industry to thrive. Since the safety net is too threadbare to catch the working poor when they fall on troubled times, payday lenders are able to charge them exorbitant interest on subsistence loans. Nationally, the average interest rate on a payday loan is a stellar 390 percent.

But Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is dead set on sapping all of the dynamism out of the payday-loan industry. The CFPB is about to issue new regulations on payday lenders that are aimed at preventing borrowers from falling into a vicious (or viciously profitable) cycle where they take out high-interest loans just to make the interest payments on their previous high-interest loans. Fortunately, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is co-sponsoring a bill that would gut the CFPB’s regulations and allow payday lenders to keep profiting off the desperation of the impoverished.

According to a memo obtained by the Huffington Post, Wasserman Schultz is trying to rally congressional Democrats around a bill that would delay the CFPB’s new rules for two years and nullify those rules in any state that adopts its own payday-lending law, like the DNC chair’s own home state of Florida.

The key thing about such state laws is that they’re likely to be much kinder to the profits of payday lenders than what the CFPB is crafting. In Florida, the average interest rate on a payday loan is still 304 percent, according to Pew Charitable Trusts. What’s more, 76 percent of all payday loans in the state are turned loans — loans taken out to pay back another loan — according to Americans for Financial Reform. Thus, Florida’s law has left the highly profitable vicious cycle of payday borrowing intact.

………

With such brave legislators leading the Democratic Party, it’s difficult to understand how Bernie Sanders can get so mad at the “Establishment.”

H/t Naked Capitalism, where they also note that DWS recently signed onto a letter to the CFPB asking for an exemption for credit unions and banks smaller than $10 billion from consumer protecting regulations.

Seriously.  What is wrong with the Democratic Party?

I kind of understand how one might be tempted to make use of an evil person’s evil, but Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is to incompetent that her evil servs no one.

If she were were in a James Thurber novel, the Todal would have Gleeped her by now.*

Support Tim Canova, who primarying her.

*The 13 Clocks. Just go read it.

How Scalia’s Death Makes the World a Better Place

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Without Scalia on the court, business have lost a staunch defender of a business’s right to defraud its customers, and so they are settling with plaintiffs:

Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N) agreed to pay $835 million to settle a decade-long lawsuit on price fixing, saying it had less chance of winning its petition at the Supreme Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

 Dow, which is in the process of merging with Dupont (DD.N), said on Friday it decided to settle, without admitting any wrongdoing, citing “growing political uncertainties due to recent events within the Supreme Court.”

 The chemicals company was found liable by a federal jury in Kansas in February 2013 in the class-action lawsuit, which alleged Dow had conspired to artificially inflate polyurethane prices.

 ………

 Justice Scalia died earlier this month. The next justice could tilt the balance of the nation’s highest court, which was left with four conservatives and four liberals.

 “While Dow is settling this case, it continues to strongly believe that it was not part of any conspiracy and the judgment was fundamentally flawed as a matter of class action law,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

While we think of Scalia as a culture warrior, his role as the leading opponent of consumer protection and corporate accountability on the court has arguably hurt more people than anything else that he has done.*

*Except, of course for Bush v. Gore, but, as that opinion notes, it doesn’t count.  It never counts.