Category: Evil

Sadism as Official Policy

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Context on the Dental Floss

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte is ending his state’s participation in the federal program increasing unemployment payments, because he thinks that it makes people too lazy.

Instead, he’s offering a one time limited offer of an “Employment Bonus.”

This is unbelievably and deeply stupid policy, as well as being stupid politically, particularly in a state so lily white (88.54%) that there are virtually no Black people (0.50%) to blame everything on.

I think that his brain has been poisoned by agricultural chemicals used on those famous Montana dental floss farms:

The coronavirus pandemic – heard of it? It’s famously still going on! Though national case numbers are finally starting to drop and recent regional outbreaks in the midwest have begun to subside, there were still about 50,000 new Covid-19 infections recorded in the US on Tuesday and just over 700 new virus-related deaths.

But Greg Gianforte, Montana’s governor, has other priorities: he’s been talking about a “labor shortage” in a cynical attempt to cut public assistance. The Republican governor released a statement on Tuesday announcing his state will stop participating in the federal program that has given unemployed workers additional unemployment payments since the start of the pandemic – in an apparent attempt to get Montanans back to work, and he plans to give those who choose to do so something he calls a “return-to-work bonus”.

………

Although Montana’s unemployment rate fell to 3.8% in April, which is about at pre-pandemic levels, the state’s labor commissioner, Laurie Esau, says its labor force is approximately 10,000 workers smaller than it was pre-lockdown, a drop that Gianforte assumes is to do with lazy people who, given their new found pandemic benefits, don’t want to work any more. And according to Montana department of labor estimates, nearly 25,000 people are currently filing unemployment claims, a good chunk of whom the governor is eager to push into the state’s 14,000 or so job openings.

But this means there aren’t enough job openings for the number of people unemployed; even if the governor’s plan succeeds in filling those vacant positions as intended, there will still be over 10,000 people without jobs to apply for, forced to subsist on less. It is also wildly reductive to assume that because there are fewer people working, it must be the result of a lack of will. People had jobs, and those jobs were taken away, either through mass layoffs or government shutdowns of businesses. That kind of disruption takes time to recover from. People could now be working out childcare arrangements again; finding out where they fit in a new jobs market; or worried about returning to work until the coast is clear.

The headline of this story should be, “Montana Governor has tragically small penis, inflicts pain on whole state to compensate.”

Also, boycott Montana grown dental floss until this policy is reversed.

Frau Merkel (Horses Whinny) Is at It Again

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The day after the Biden Administration said that it supported suspending IP rights on the Covid Vaccine, Angela Merkel comes out against this.

I think that her motivation is pretty simple:  Covid response is going pear-shaped in Germany, with Covid cases spiking, and by ginning up a controversy, she can avoid scrutiny of her handling of the pandemic.

This is not the first time that she has done this, it’s behind the whole policy of “othering” southern Europeans and spreading misery throughout the EU during and after the financial crisis.

She knows that if she’s seen as doing something, anything, with the argument that she is protecting Germans from the undeserving “other” she, and her CDU Party, can benefit, even if it provides no benefit to Germans, and may kill hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Merkel is despicable:

The US and Germany are at odds on the issue of waivers for patents on Covid-19 vaccines, as Berlin argued that a waiver would not increase production and would inhibit future private sector research.

The disagreement is the first major rift between the two economic powers since Joe Biden took office, and threatens to deadlock discussions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and sour relations within the G7 group of major industrialised democracies.

Any WTO decision on a waiver would have to be by consensus, so Germany opposition is a major obstacle to intellectual property rights on vaccines being suspended.

The Biden government’s announcement on Wednesday that it would back a waiver on vaccine patents was welcomed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a step towards greater global equity at a time when poor countries have little access to vaccines and south Asia has been hit by a devastating outbreak. India accounted for 46% of the new Covid-19 cases recorded around the world over the past week, and there are signs the wave is spreading to Nepal, Sri Lanka and other neighbouring states.

But Angela Merkel’s government came out against a waiver on Thursday.

“The US suggestion for the lifting of patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines has significant implications for vaccine production as a whole,” a government spokeswoman said.

“The limiting factors in the production of vaccines are the production capacities and the high-quality standards and not patents,” she added, arguing that the companies were already working with partners to boost manufacturing capacity.

This argument about the difficulty of vaccines is patently false, as I noted yesterday. 

You can mass produce mRNA viruses in a space smaller than the file room necessary to store the quality control documents, and Angela Merkel knows this; she got her PhD in Quantum Chemistry.

Unfortunately, there is no one in politics in Germany who is willing to call her out on her lies.

Good Riddance, You Incompetent Prat

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DCCC chair in the last election cycle, who has seen her chances to advance in House leadership as a result, will not be running for reelection in 2022.

In a just world, she would be run out of town on a rail.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline announced Friday she would not seek reelection next year after serving since 2013 in a northwest and west-central Illinois district that has trended increasingly Republican.

She does not know how her district will change in redistricting.

………

At one time, Bustos had been viewed as a rising star among House Democrats, demonstrating an ability to win in largely Republican territory.

No, she managed to get mentored by Nancy Pelosi, which is why she got, and mismanaged her time as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, most egregiously when she explicitly stated that consultants working on primary challenges would be blacklisted by the organization.

It’s called saying the quiet part out loud, and it is very very stupid.

I’m not sure if Pelosi is just a bad judge of people, in the early 2000s, she pushed Anthony Weiner and Deborah Wasserman Schultz who were similarly disastrous in their own special ways, or if she decided that the best way for her to remain speaker was to support flawed individuals as a part of the next generation.

I think that she may be following the advice of Lord Julius, “When you’re running a bureaucracy the best way to safeguard your job is to make sure you’re the only one who knows how the whole thing works.” (Pelosi might also be following he advice of Weisshaupt, but that is enough of a deep dive into Cerebus quotes)

Her path up the Democratic Congressional leadership is done for a very long time, and she knows it, so she’s looking to cash in as a lobbyist or a pundit.

Pass the Popcorn

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The  Executive Office for United States Trustees, a division of the Department of Justice tasked with overseeing bankruptcy proceedings in the United States, just unleashed a huge can of whup-ass on Wayne LaPierre and the NRA.

It isn’t often that you hear terms like, “Failed to provide the proper oversight,” “Personal expenses were made to look like business expenses,” and that their regulatory issues with the New York AG are, “Not a legitimate reason for filing bankruptcy.”

It’s extremely rare for the trustee to say things like this, or to call for a bankruptcy to be halted, or to call for appointing a trustee.

The NRA is in a world of hurt, and if there is any justice in this world, Wayne LaPierre will end up sharing a cell with Matt Gaetz and Roger Stone.

The National Rifle Association’s hopes of end-running a legal challenge in New York were dealt a serious blow on Monday when a Justice Department official rebuked its leadership and called for the dismissal of its bankruptcy filing or the appointment of an outside monitor to oversee its finances.

Lisa L. Lambert, a lawyer in the United States Trustee’s office, which is part of the Justice Department, said the “evidentiary record clearly and convincingly establishes” that Wayne LaPierre, the longtime N.R.A. chief executive, “has failed to provide the proper oversight.” For a number of years, she added, “the record is unrefuted that Wayne LaPierre’s personal expenses were made to look like business expenses.”

Mr. LaPierre and the N.R.A. had filed for bankruptcy not because of any financial distress, but as a strategy to avoid litigation in New York, where the attorney general, Letitia James, is seeking to shut down the organization and claw back millions of dollars in allegedly misspent funds from Mr. LaPierre and three other current or former executives.

………

“The N.R.A. is in real trouble,” said Adam J. Levitin, a professor specializing in bankruptcy at Georgetown University. “The U.S. Trustee rarely gets involved in this sort of motion, much less urges dismissal, a trustee or an examiner. I cannot see an outcome where the N.R.A. comes out unscathed. I think the real issue is what remedy the judge grants.” 

John Pottow, who teaches bankruptcy at the University of Michigan Law School, called the trustee’s intervention “a glaring signal of profound dysfunction” at the N.R.A., adding that such an intervention by the trustee “doesn’t happen very often.”

“The N.R.A. has stated that it is seeking refuge from the New York attorney general’s actions and wishes to change its state of incorporation,” she added. “That can be done outside of bankruptcy. It is not a legitimate reason for filing bankruptcy.”

Shut them down, take their domain names, and take their mailing and donor lists.

Don’t allow LaPierre to resurrect his scam under a different name.

The ammosexuals community will doubtless find another outlet for their political priorities, after all, they have won the war against common sense gun laws for a generation, but at least that new organization won’t rob them blind.

Nevada Governor Backs Off Really Bad Cyberpunk Idea

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If you’ve read any Cyberpunk, you are probably familiar with the idea of corporate controlled arcologies, which people are packed in like sardines and subject to the whims of psychopathic corporate drones.

Well the (hopefully soon to be former) governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, looked at this, and decided that allowing corporations to incorporate their own municipalities was just the balm that the state economy needed.

It was not well received, so the he’s downgraded to a study, which hopefully means that this idea is well and truly dead:

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak is retreating from his plan to introduce legislation that would have allowed tech companies to form local governments within the state. Per The Nevada Independent, the governor now instead plans to create a bipartisan committee made up of state Senate and Assembly members to study the idea. At the end of 2021, the group will present recommendations to Sisolak, with one possible outcome being that they suggest he abandon the proposal.

“Innovation Zones is a bold proposal for our State that deserves additional attention and discussion — and not under the pressure of less than 40 remaining days in the current legislative session,” Governor Sisolak said in a statement. “I know that legislators, stakeholders and Nevadans still have questions, and I want those questions to be discussed and answered. I want people to be enthusiastic about this opportunity, not skeptical about a fast-tracked bill.”

Governor Sisolak first floated the idea during one of his State of the State addresses earlier in the year. He positioned Innovation Zones as a way for Nevada to attract tech businesses without the need for measures like corporate tax breaks. Draft legislation obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal laid out a system where companies in verticals like cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and renewables would have had the option to form local governments with the same powers and responsibilities as counties. That means those companies would have had to do things like collect taxes and operate school systems.

Just when you thought that this idea could not get any worse, we find that the big push for this initiative came from a Blockchain firm.

Kill it with fire.

Bill Gates Is Really a Worthless Piece of Sh%$

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I have called Bill Gates a mass murderer for his efforts to prevent open source vaccines from being released, and now that there is a rising call for freeing up vaccines, the Microsoft founder is doubling down on his extremist mass-murdering agenda:

Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men and most powerful philanthropists, was the target of criticism from social justice campaigners on Sunday after arguing that lifting patent protections on COVID-19 vaccine technology and sharing recipes with the world to foster a massive ramp up in manufacturing and distribution — despite a growing international call to do exactly that — is a bad idea.

Directly asked during an interview with Sky News if he thought it “would be helpful” to have vaccine recipes be shared, Gates quickly answered: “No.”

Asked to explain why not, Gates — whose massive fortune as founder of Microsoft relies largely on intellectual property laws that turned his software innovations into tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth — said: “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done — moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India — it’s novel — it’s only because of our grants and expertise that that can happen at all.”

………

Nick Dearden, executive director of Global Justice Now, one of the lead partner groups in an international coalition calling for WTO patent waivers at a crucial meeting of the world body next month, characterized Gates’ remarks — and the ideological framework behind them — as “disgusting.”

“Who appointed this billionaire head of global health?” asked Dearden. “Oh yeah, he did.”

Bill Gates has always been an asshole.

He was a bully as a boss, and he has spent the past few decades trying to launder his reputation through charity actions that frequently, as in the case of Covid vaccines do more harm than good.

By the time this pandemic is over, he will probably be responsible for more deaths than Saddam Hussein, and perhaps more than Pol Pot.

Clearly the Democratic Party is Anti-Semitic

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This what forced Virginia Republicans to hold their nominating convention on Shabbat, with no provision for observant Jews to vote at an alternate time.

This is not a surprise.

Silly Jews, votes are for Goys:

The Virginia Republican Party, already under fire for a process for picking a gubernatorial candidate that critics say excludes some voters, just disenfranchised another constituency: Shabbat-observant Jews.

A majority of the State Central Committee voted Thursday for a religious exemption to voting at the convention taking place on May 8, a Saturday, but did not meet the 75% threshold to pass. Elections Daily, an elections news site, reported that 38 officials voted for an exemption, 28 voted against and three abstained.

An official at the state GOP confirmed the vote and told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to submit a question in writing about the vote.

The Republican Jewish Coalition said on Twitter that it was disappointed in the decision.

………

Republicans in recent years have veered between primaries and conventions. Rank-and-file party members have often complained that conventions are a means for the leadership to make sure the candidates it favors get the vote.

This is not a surprise.

Republicans these days are determined to prevent the “Wrong People” from voting, and it comes as no surprise that Jews are the wrong people for them too.

If they had their way, they would repeal the 15th and 19th amendments as well, and limit the franchise to white Christian property owners.

H/T Stephen Saroff      o o  The Bear who Swims      
                        (_)_____o      
                     ~~~~(______)~~~~~~~~~~
                         oo    oo

 

The Vaccine Makers are Hostage Takers

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Something that we are missing in the story of the vaccines is how the vaccine manufacturers are attempting to hold whole countries hostage.

It’s not a good look:

Pfizer has backed down over its controversial demand that the South African government put up sovereign assets guaranteeing an indemnity against the cost of any future legal cases. During Covid-19 vaccine negotiations, the company sought indemnity against civil claims from citizens who had experienced adverse vaccine effects – meaning that the government would have to cover the costs instead.

On Wednesday, the South African health minister, Zweli Mkhize, voiced frustrations about “difficult and sometimes unreasonable” terms his country’s government had been presented with during contract negotiations with vaccine manufacturers including Pfizer.

In a briefing letter sent ahead of his appearance at the parliamentary health committee, Mkhize said one condition in particular demanded by Pfizer was “too risky” – that the country put up sovereign assets as potential collateral.

In its negotiations to provide vaccines to countries around the world, Pfizer has been asking governments for wide-ranging indemnity protection against any civil claims a citizen might file. This means that if Pfizer was to be sued by someone who had suffered a rare adverse effect from the vaccine then the government, not the company, would have to pay for legal costs and compensation. This would apply even if the case had been brought as a result of the company’s own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. In other negotiations, Pfizer went further.

The company required some Latin American governments to put up sovereign assets – which could include federal bank reserves, embassy buildings or military bases – as a guarantee against indemnifying the cost of future legal cases. This was reported by the Bureau in February and picked up by more than 100 media organisations worldwide.

………

Experts have raised concerns about the fact that Pfizer and some other big pharma companies have demanded complete confidentiality during the recent vaccine negotiations, which would prevent the public from knowing about issues including indemnity protection and price. In South Africa, there are fears that any such secrecy clauses could undo public trust built up by years of anti-corruption work.

………

The delayed Pfizer deal arrives as South Africa is facing a third wave of Covid-19. In total, the country has recorded nearly 1.6m cases and more than 53,000 deaths.

We need to be clear about this:  The pharmaceutical industry will let nothing stand between them and their outrageous rents and are now behaving like mob bosses.

Their power needs to broken thoroughly and completely.

Interesting Thesis

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In a (sort of) obituary for Bernie Madoff, we learn that in interviews following his conviction for runing a Ponzi scheme, Madoff believed that everyone on Wall Street knew what he was doing.

Certainly, the pattern of financial players of cashing out early before the game of musical chairs stopped is suspicions:

Bernie Madoff died today, and he leaves behind a legacy of financial wreckage that stretched around the globe. His Ponzi scheme was the largest in history, wiping out some $65 billion in gains, albeit paper gains. The longevity of his scheme — decades — was breathtaking. He was without a doubt one of the most accomplished liars in history. Yet perhaps it takes a con man to know how the system cons us all. And Madoff understood the financial system as only a financial crook can. One thing he was certain of: They all knew.

………

I spent hours talking to Madoff during his years behind bars, and more hours listening to tape of his depositions from prison, exclusive material which offered insight into his crimes for my podcast. To the extent one can get into the mind of the greatest con artist of the age, I felt I knew him, or at least certain things about him. And I came to believe that Bernie Madoff was, in his way, a truth-teller. Madoff understood the workings of the financial system as few others did. Clearly he used that knowledge to sustain his con. The financial system’s attitude toward him was “willful blindness,” he said in one deposition.

When he was caught in 2008, as the financial crisis gripped America ever tighter, Madoff became a poster child for the misdeeds of that entire universe. The banks had pushed us to the brink of national ruin. But theirs was a complicated fraud, including such arcana as securitized bonds and overleverage. Their crimes weren’t easy to understand. Madoff, on the other hand, looked you in the eye, shook your hand, and then cut the shirt off your back. That was straightforward.

And so a narrative evolved. The systems, financial and to some extent judicial, cast Madoff as a rogue operator, a lone bad apple in an otherwise forthright arrangement. We were all hoodwinked, was the going line. He was that good.

Nonsense. The financial system enabled, weaponized, and profited handsomely from Madoff. Some hedge funds he did business with were nothing more than sales operations. They lured in clients with promises of due diligence and exclusive access. “I made them hundreds of millions,” Madoff said. It was true. And for doing what? Some simply took money from investors and handed it to him. For their trouble, they took a percentage off the top. They promised that they examined the details, but that simply wasn’t true.

………

Did the small investors know? Most of them didn’t. They trusted their financial advisors, those connected with institutions such as Banco Santander, who promised to keep an eye on Madoff’s operations.

………

Of course, he bears a large share of the responsibility for defrauding investors, although he liked to shrug that off. No doubt the notion of Madoff as another victim of the system is repulsive. But without the cold-blooded support of large financial players, Madoff would have been a local phenomenon, a tragedy limited in time and scope.

We need to make it easier to prosecute Wall Street malefactors, and we need to make it easier to claw back their ill gotten gains from them when it all goes pear shaped.

Quote of the Day

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He’s a Hateful, Bigoted Rich Prick, Always Has Been and Always Will Be

—Scott Lemieux on the fact that in high school, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson declared himself a member of the “Dan White” society while in high school.

Perhaps this is the story that @TuckerCarlson was trying to get ahead of. In his college yearbook, he listed himself as a member of the “Dan White Society.”

Dan White was the man who murdered Harvey Milk. pic.twitter.com/TYklyfC8tS

— Travis Akers (@travisakers) April 21, 2021

Roll Tape!

For those of you who are not up on the history, Dan White was a homophobic politician who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk, and then got a slap on the wrist because of Twinkies. (Not The Onion)

If you are inclined to think that he was “just” a collete school student at the time, understand that he spent much of his childhood in San Francisco, and knew exactly what he was saying.

Tucker Carlson is a complete f%$#ing tool.

Never Happier to be Wrong

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Chauvin Upset He Isn’t Able to Properly Celebrate Hitler’s Birthday Thanks to Guilty Verdict https://t.co/6PmmnYQw7b pic.twitter.com/TKZzmtkmK7

— The Hard Times (@REALpunknews) April 20, 2021

Yeah, Pretty Much

I have not been commenting on the Derek Chauvin trial, because I found it too depressing.

I figured that in Minneapolis a city legendary both for antisemitism and for its completely dysfunctional police force, that at most Chauvin would get was a conviction for 2nd degree manslaughter, be sentenced to less than 5 years, and be out in less than 2 years, particularly after the jury deliberated about 10 hours.

I was completely wrong, and I am elated to be wrong.  The now-convicted murderer was convicted on all three counts, and, assuming that the judge is not completely in the tank for the malefactors in Minneapolis law enforcement, is facing decades in prison:

Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder for killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, a crime that prompted waves of protests in support of racial justice in the US and across the world.

The jury swiftly and unanimously convicted Chauvin of all the charges he faced – second- and third-degree murder, and manslaughter – after concluding that the white former Minneapolis police officer killed the 46-year-old Black man in May through a criminal assault, by pinning him to the ground so he could not breathe.

Huge cheers immediately went up among a crowd of several hundred people outside the heavily fortified courthouse with people chanting “All three counts” and “Whose victory? Our victory!”

And then things went back to normal, when a cop in Columbus pumped 4 rounds into the chest of a 15 year old girl.

………

However, a fatal police shooting in Ohio of a 15-year-old girl, which took place just moments before the verdict was read, unleashed a sense of fury and frustration among protesters who gathered at the scene.

“We don’t get to celebrate nothing,” said one protester, KC Taynor, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “In the end, you know what, you can’t be Black.”

Chauvin, who showed little emotion as the verdicts were read, was immediately taken into custody to await sentencing. He faces up to 40 years in prison but is likely to receive a shorter sentence, according to legal guidelines.

What happened in Minneapolis is not just about one specific violent incident. It’s about systemic violence as well. This absurd headline from the Minneapolis Police Dept. drives that home. In a better world it would read “Minneapolis cop kills resident in broad daylight.” pic.twitter.com/6mrL3rBTCi

— Josh Skolnick (@JoshDSkolnick) May 26, 2020

Police lie confirmed on Snopes

It should be noted that if not for a teenage girl capturing the video of George Floyd’s murder, the police department lies about this incident would have meant that Chauvin would still be out on the streets, free to kill again.

In a related note, Nancy Pelosi needs to resign, because she is suffering from what can only be described as senile wokeness.

When she literally said that she thanked George Floyd for his sacrifice in the cause of civil rights, she was so clueless and so offensive that she needs to be removed from her position as speaker of the house.

This is even more racist and more clueless than Trent Lott’s endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s segregationist 1948 Presidential campaign in 2002.

It’s even worse because she did this at a Congressional Black Caucus press conference.

Sorry Madam Speaker, but as much as you love the limelight, this was a time for members of the CBC to take center stage, not you.

Also, Floyd was not a civil rights activist, he was a victim of a murder by a corrupt and evil police officer:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was condemned on Tuesday saying that George Floyd, a Minneapolis man murdered by a police officer in 2020, “sacrificed his life” for racial justice, a statement some critics called “ignorant” and “tone deaf.”

………

“Thank you George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom, how heartbreaking was that, call out for you mom, ‘I can’t breathe,'” Pelosi said at a press conference hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus following the verdict. “But because of you and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice.”

What a f%$#ing clueless narcissist.

Your Daily Schadenfreude

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The DoJ has sued Roger Stone for $2 million in unpaid taxes.

That’s what they got Al Capone for: 

The Justice Department sued Roger Stone on Friday, accusing him of failing to pay more than $2 million in taxes.

The suit, filed in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, alleges Stone, 67, and his wife, Nydia, dodged $1,590,361 in taxes between 2007 and 2011 and stiffed the IRS of $407,036 in 2018 alone. The couple used a company, Drake Ventures, to “shield their personal income from enforced collection and fund a lavish lifestyle,” according to the Justice Department.

The DOJ calls Drake Ventures “an alter ego of the Stones,” alleging that despite appearances of separation between the couple and the company, “the Stones dominated and controlled Drake Ventures to such an extent that it does not exist as an independent entity.” The mailing address of the company is the Stone’s house, and the husband and wife each own 50 percent of the LLC, according to the suit. The Florida Secretary of State has twice dissolved the company.

The Stones allegedly sent checks that listed Roger Stone as the payee to Drake Ventures, upwards of $1 million in total for 2018 and 2019. The company would pay for most of the Stones’ purchases and financial liabilities, including $500,000 in taxes in 2018 and 2019 and the $140,000 down payment on their condominium in February 2019. The company did all this, the DOJ alleges, without keeping necessary documentation. The financial arrangement “evaded and frustrated the IRS’s collection efforts,” DOJ lawyers wrote.

“[The Stones] used Drake Ventures to receive payments payable to Roger Stone personally, pay their personal expenses, shield their assets, and avoid reporting taxable income to the IRS,” the DOJ alleges.

In addition to the Stones and Drake Ventures, the Justice Department is also suing the company that owns the Stones’ condominium, Bertran Family Revocable Trust, alleging that the transfer of ownership was a fraudulent transaction meant to further hide the Stones from financial liability. Nydia Stone is sole grantor and sole trustee, the suit says, giving her complete control over it.

How sweet.  The lovely couple is dodging taxes together, just like Carlo Ponti and Sofia Loren, only, of course, we don’t generally associate Ponti and Loren with ineluctable evil.

Support Your Local Police

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It turns out that lots of cops have been making donations to racist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.

If you are wondering how cops can donate to a racist murderer, you are not paying attention.  They are donating to a racist murderer, BECAUSE he was a racist murderer:

A data breach at a Christian crowdfunding website has revealed that serving police officers and public officials have donated money to fundraisers for accused vigilante murderers, far-right activists, and fellow officers accused of shooting black Americans.

In many of these cases, the donations were attached to their official email addresses, raising questions about the use of public resources in supporting such campaigns.

The breach, shared with journalists by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, revealed the details of some donors who had previously attempted to conceal their identities using GiveSendGo’s anonymity feature, but whose identifying details the website preserved.

The beneficiaries of donations from public officials include Kyle Rittenhouse, who stands accused of murdering two leftwing protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last August. Rittenhouse traveled from neighboring Illinois to, by his own account, offer armed protection to businesses during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

……

Among the donors were several associated with email addresses traceable to police and other public officials.

One donation for $25, made on 3 September last year, was made anonymously, but associated with the official email address for Sgt William Kelly, who currently serves as the executive officer of internal affairs in the Norfolk police department in Virginia.

That donation also carried a comment, reading: “God bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

The comment continued: “Every rank and file police officer supports you. Don’t be discouraged by actions of the political class of law enforcement leadership.”

…….

Meanwhile, several Wisconsin police officers donated to a fundraiser, “Support Rusten Sheskey”, held for the Kenosha police department officer whose shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, led to the protests that drew Rittenhouse to the city.

…….

Another donation to Sheskey was associated with the official email address of officer Pat Gainer of the Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin police department. Given under the screen name “PPPD Motor 179”, the donation also carried the comment: “Stay strong brother.”

About 32 more donations, totaling more than $5,000, came to Sheskey from private email addresses associated with Kenosha officers, but under badge numbers rather than names.

It goes on, and on, and on, but you have to conclude that violent racism is supported by a significant portion of our constabulary.

This needs to be ended.

 

 

Karma’s a Bitch, Neh?

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Liberty University has just sued Jerry Falwell Jr. for ten million dollars, claiming that his behavior ran counter to his obligations as an officer of the school.

I only hope that there is a way for both of them to lose:

Liberty University filed a lawsuit this week against its former president Jerry Falwell Jr., alleging that he breached his contract and fiduciary duties to the school as he sought to cover up a personal scandal.

The evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Va., is seeking more than $10 million in damages from the man who led it for 13 years. The suit filed Thursday in Lynchburg Circuit Court marked another twist in the saga of Falwell’s messy departure last year from Liberty.

………

Later that month he agreed to resign after news reports emerged about a young man Falwell and his wife, Rebecca Falwell, had befriended who allegedly was sexually connected to the couple. Falwell has said that his wife, who also goes by Becki, had a brief affair with the man.

Falwell, 58, filed a defamation suit against Liberty in October, alleging the school accepted without verifying what he called false statements made by the young man. He later dropped the lawsuit.

In its lawsuit, Liberty contends that Falwell failed to return university-owned computers, devices and confidential information to Liberty and that he failed to disclose to the university alleged threats of extortion he had received in connection with potential personal scandals.

………

The 38-page complaint alleges that Falwell deliberately sought to hide the affair. “Despite his clear duties as an executive and officer at Liberty, Falwell Jr. chose personal protection,” the suit alleged.

Further, the suit alleged: “Falwell Jr.’s actions in breaching the fiduciary duty he owed to Liberty were willful and wanton and disregarded the rights of Liberty.”

………

When Falwell resigned in August, he said he was entitled to $10.5 million in severance. Liberty, in its lawsuit, disputes that claim.

His severance package is a major issue in the suit. Liberty alleges that Falwell concealed information about extortion threats from the governing board when he negotiated a new contract in 2019 that included a higher salary and a provision for two years of severance pay, under certain conditions, worth a total of $2.5 million. The suit indicates that Liberty agreed to that level of payout on Aug. 28, 2020.

It appears that everyone involves worships Benjamin Franklin. Isn’t there something in the bible about worshiping false gods?

………

Falwell’s father, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., was a prominent leader of the religious right who founded Liberty University and a nearby church.

Under Jerry Falwell Jr., who became Liberty’s president and chancellor after his father died in 2007, the school grew enormously and became a frequent stop for Republican politicians and others who wanted to connect with conservative evangelical Christian audiences.

………

Liberty recently announced that Jonathan Falwell, senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Falwell Jr.’s brother, will become the school’s campus pastor at the end of the semester.

That last bit has gotta hurt.

I hope that this case burns through decades and consumes millions of dollars from both institutions.

Always Read the Footnotes

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holy shit I’ve rarely seen a footnote used to such devastating effect. https://t.co/FjHRNcZYzE pic.twitter.com/sk597elmBR

— Jathan Sadowski (@jathansadowski) April 13, 2021

The Tweet that led me to the footnote

A while ago, (correctly) I called Bill Gates a mass murderer for his efforts to prevent open source vaccines from being released, with his insistence that any vaccine be licensed exclusively to one for-profit entity.

I still say that and now The New Republic says the same thing, complete with a ghastly portrait of Gates with horns.

They go through the history of IP absolutism and how it has harmed people, and refer us to the case of South Africa and AIDS drugs where Big Pharma and their evil minions in government and the media suggested that compulsory licensing and generics would lead to the spread of drug resistant variants of HIV, because Africans are lazy and disorganized people who won’t take their pills regularly.  (In reality, Africans took their pills more reliably than their privileged brothers in the rest.

After mentioning this, there is an asterisk, and at the bottom of the page is a footnote about TNR‘s former editor-in-chief Andrew Sullivan:

*Among journalists echoing this argument was former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan. When The New York Times reported Sullivan was defending the companies’ lawsuit while taking undisclosed funding from PhRma, the industry trade association, Sullivan remained defiant in the face of evidence-based accusations that he was an unethical journalist. “It behooves me to say I see absolutely no problems with [drug industry sponsorship],” he told Salon. “In fact, I am extremely proud to get some support from a great industry.” It later turned out that Africans adhered more closely to the twice-daily pill regimens than patient populations in rich countries.

They just called their editor in the early 1990s, a racist hypocrite dirtbag. (Mark Ames has a rather good bill of particulars on his entire career).

I think that the publication is distance themseves the damage done by two profoundly toxic people, Sullivan, and former publisher Marty Peretz.

It’s a glorious take-down of a thoroughly contemptible human being.

Just so you know, his “storied career” at TNR included:

  • Publishing articles suggesting from racist eugenicist (and one time cross-burner) Charles Murray  that Black people were genetically inferior.
  • Published articles on public health paid for by the tobacco industry.
  • Brought in serial fabulist Stephen Glass to TNR, and published serial plagiarist and fabulist Ruth Shalit.

And that’s just the sh%$ that he did while he was at TNR. 

H/T Atrios.

Another Case Of, “I Thought It Was My Taser,” Bullsh%$ from a Bad Cop

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The Manual for a Taser

Not at all like firing a Glock

 With the trial of Derek Chauvin for his murder of George Floyd, drawing to a close, we have another completely contemptible shooting by a contemptible cop.

In this case, a 20 year old by the name of Duante Wright (Surprise, he’s black) was once shot to death at a traffic stop by one of Minnesota’s finest.

This is after George Floyd, and Philando Castile who was shot for telling a Minnesota cop that he had on his person a legally owned firearm.

The police chief is now saying that the officer mistakenly drew her Glock instead of her Taser, implying that it was an honest mistake which is unadulterated crap for the following reasons:

  • The Glock and the Taser are carried on opposite sides, so you have to pull the Taser by reaching across your body.
  • The Glock is twice the weight of the Taser unloaded, and the weight difference is even more when carrying a full clip.
  • The Taser is bright kiddie toy yellow, while the Glock is black.
  • The Glock has an automatic safety, while the Taser has to be turned on, or turned off and then on before use, and shuts itself down after 20 minutes to save the battery. (See attached manual)

I’m not saying that the Officer woke up that morning and decided, “I’m going to shoot me a n*****,” nor am I suggesting that she made a snap decision, “He’s an uppity n*****, I’ll shoot him,” but I AM saying that her was reckless and showed callous disregard for human life, and that as a police officer, she is a trained expert in the use of force.

That makes her culpable, and I hope the full force of the law drops the hammer on her.

BTW, when I say, “The full force of the law,” I don’t mean the 1 year that Johannes Mehserle for shooting of Oscar Grant, or the year and a half that Robert Bates got for shooting Eric Harris, both black, both officers claimed, “Oops, I thought that it was my Taser,”  I mean real consequences.

This sh%$ is just f%$#ing evil:

The traffic stop that would end Daunte Wright’s life played out on a Brooklyn Center police officer’s body camera. Officers appeared to try to handcuff him; then he slipped back into the driver’s seat.

A female officer yelled, “Taser, Taser,” and then fired her gun. “Holy sh%$, I just shot him,” she said.

Once again, a Black man died during a police encounter. In an instant, the world’s focus on Minnesota shifted from the trial of Derek Chauvin to a new outrage that brought street protests, promises of reform, and anguish over a relentless pattern of deadly police misconduct.

Military vehicles rumbled down city streets as businesses hastily closed to comply with a four-county 7 p.m. curfew Monday ordered by Gov. Tim Walz. While a massive police presence mobilized to prevent any repeat of the riots after the death of George Floyd, President Joe Biden called for “peace and calm.”

Heeding the demands of protesters, Brooklyn Center’s leaders dismissed the longtime city manager and granted authority over police to Mayor Mike Elliott. Elliott will make a decision Tuesday about whether to fire police Chief Tim Gannon, who described the officer’s use of a firearm instead of a Taser as an “accidental discharge.”

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension identified the officer as Kimberly A. Potter, 48, who has been a police officer for 26 years. She has been put on leave.

 Officer Potter should not have been a police officer for 26 days.

………

The shooting happened about 2 p.m. Sunday in the area of 63rd and Orchard avenues N. Gannon said he was told during a briefing that officers stopped Wright’s car because it had an expired tag and, when they checked his name, they found he had a warrant.

According to Hennepin County District Court records, a warrant was issued April 2 for Wright after he failed to make his first court appearance on a case filed in March of carrying a pistol without a permit, a gross misdemeanor, and fleeing police, a misdemeanor. It’s unclear whether Wright knew he had a court hearing, as he was charged by summons.

………

Brooklyn Center has a population of about 31,000, roughly 60% of whom identified as people of color in the latest census. Brooklyn Center police officers have killed six civilians since 2012. Four were Black.

That’s a lot of shootings for a community smaller than a full ball park at an Orioles game.

The Brooklyn Center PD has 49 officers.  Shut it down and let the state police take over.

Why am I Not Surprised?

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I’m shocked! Shocked! To find that gambling is going on this establishment

It appears that white supremacist terrorists are getting extensive support from elements of the Christian right.

I probably should not say that this is because they are one and the same, but it’s because they are one and the same:

A data breach from Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has revealed that millions of dollars have been raised on the site for far-right causes and groups, many of whom are banned from raising funds on other platforms.

It also identifies previously anonymous high-dollar donors to far-right actors, some of whom enjoy positions of wealth, power or public responsibility.

Some of the biggest beneficiaries have been members of groups such as the Proud Boys, designated as a terrorist group in Canada, many of whose fundraising efforts were directly related to the 6 January attack on the United States Capitol.

The breach, shared with journalists by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, shows the site was used for a wide range of legitimate charitable purposes, such as crowdfunding medical bills, aid projects and religious missions.

………

A large proportion of that money came from a number of high-dollar donors who elected to be anonymous on the website, but whose identifying details were nevertheless preserved by GiveSendGo.

………

Of Tarrio’s donors, none immediately responded to requests for comment except for Gerardo G Gonzalez, who anonymously donated $1,000 to Tarrio on 7 January.

………

In a telephone conversation, Gonzalez said that his support of the Proud Boys was motivated by his belief that “there is no systemic racism in this country”, and his opposition to “BLM and Antifa” who he said represented “the real extremism” in the United States. He also used derogatory terms for Latinos and Democrats.

Other Proud Boy fundraisers raised large amounts, and attracted a similar range of high-value anonymous donations.

………

Candyce Kelshall, the president of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies-Vancouver, who at at Simon Fraser University researches violent transnational social movements, said that far-right crowdfunding on GiveSendGo was just “the tip of the iceberg”, and similar efforts were happening across up to 54 other crowdfunding sites that her research had revealed.

She said, however, that GiveSendGo was “particularly insidious” due to its presentation of such crowdfunding in the guise of religion-based charity.

This is not “religion-based charity”, the religion is real:  White Christian Fundamentalism in the United States is a part of white nationalism and white supremacism, they simply sell themselves slightly differently.

I call them, “Talibabtists,” thought the term,. “Christo-Fascist,” might also work.

They need to be shown for what they actually are, and it is my belief that a majority of the American public will shun them and their projects.

Support Your Local Police?

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Have you heard the on how the Boston Police Department protected and promoted a child rapist in their ranks for decades?

Not a joke, and thoroughly appalling.  The thin blue line must be shattered: 

A father and his teenage daughter walked into the Hyde Park police station last August and reported a heinous crime.

The girl said she had been repeatedly molested from age 7 through 12 by former Boston police union president Patrick M. Rose Sr. Five more people soon came forward, accusing Rose of molesting them as children over the span of three decades, including the girl’s own father.

Rose being tagged as a child sexual abuser was news to the city when he was arrested and charged last summer. But it wasn’t news to the Boston Police Department where Rose served for two decades as a patrolman.

A Globe investigation has found that the Boston Police Department in 1995 filed a criminal complaint against him for sexual assault on a 12-year-old, and, even after the complaint was dropped, proceeded with an internal investigation that concluded that he likely committed a crime. Despite that finding, Rose kept his badge, remained on patrol for another 21 years, and rose to power in the union that represents patrol officers.

Today Boston police are fighting to keep secret how the department handled the allegations against Rose, and what, if any, penalty he faced. Over the years, this horrific case has come full circle: The father who brought his daughter in last summer to report abuse by Rose was the boy allegedly abused at age 12 in the 1995 case. The department’s lack of administrative action back then may have left Rose free to offend again and again, from one generation to the next.

(emphasis mine)

………

Boston police won’t say what, if any, disciplinary action was taken against Rose. But it is clear the department did little or nothing to limit his contact with children, and allowed him to salvage a career that led to the union presidency, where he became the public face of the city’s 1,500 patrol officers.

The Globe investigation raises significant questions about how the department handled Rose, whose broader history of alleged molestation has only become clear now that he is jailed facing 33 counts of sexual abuse of six victims from age 7 to 16 in Suffolk Superior Court. For security reasons, he is being held in the Berkshire County Jail on $200,000 cash bail.

(emphasis mine)

I’m beginning to think that the best indicator someone is the worst kind of cop is that they are a the president of the Union.

This appears to be the case in Boston, as well as in Minneapolis. (My guess is that bad cops realize  that as a senior union official, taking action against them is far less likely.)