Category: Evil

The Masque Slips

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Republican Congressional Candidate Allen Quist has just said that it’s more important to fight Democrats than it is to fight terrorism:

“It’s because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is — every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes — but that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz — they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out.”

Well, it’s nice that at least one of them is telling the truth, that they find the quest for power is more important than the well-being of the nation.

Here is the video, you can see that statement at about the 3 minute mark:

Why the Air Force as an Independent Service Should be Abolished: Part 32

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Matthew Yglesias reports that retired USAF Lieutenant General Tom McInerney has just called for mandatory strip searches of all Muslims aged between the ages of 18 to 28 in an interview with (who else)Fox News.

This guy is bats%$# insane, but his insanity is endemic with the Air Force, as has been noted in a number of stories regarding a pervasive atmosphere of religious harassment at the Air Force academy.

(I’ve done a couple of posts on the problem generally.)

The problem here is not that he was in the Air Force. Any organization will have its share of crazies, criminals, and incompetents.

The problem is that he made it to 3-stars, despite being clearly unhinged, and there is way too much of that in the US air force.

In fact, in the video below, it’s clear that it’s so crazy that the interviewer on Fox feels the need to call him out on this, because of the hostility it would engender:

Bootnote: It looks like Al-Jazeerah is already covering it, so congratulations general, you just murdered a dozen or so US troops over the next few months.

When a Big Box Stores Turn to Terrorism

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I don’t mean terrorism in stores, I mean terrorism by stores.

Specifically, a vicious and malicious assault on the eyes by a warehouse store known as Brandsmart.

As “jollyreaper,” who introduced me to the photo, notes, “Never did I think I could find a store to make Best Buy seem tasteful and sedate. That entire store is turned up to 11. “

Maybe even turned up to 12:


Click for full size

I think that my eyes are now bleeding, and it’s way worse in full size.

What Do Alan Grayson and Church Lady Have in Common

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Could it be ………… Satan?

Well, first, they are both very funny, and they both present an aggressive take on truth and hypocrisy.

Now we have a 3rd thing, they both think that Satan has something to the darkness at the core of our society:

The Prince of Darkness himself might be best-suited to write the foreword to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s forthcoming book, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) suggested Monday.

Grayson, during an appearance on MSNBC, blasted the former Republican vice president for having attacked President Barack Obama’s handling of defending the U.S. from terrorist attacks.

Cheney’s attacks, Grayson argued, were only a tactic to gin up sales for his memoir, which is expected to be released this year.

“I wonder who’s doing the introduction to his book?” Grayson said. “Maybe it’s Mephistopheles; maybe it’s Satan.“

Somehow I doubt that Satan would want to be associated with Dick Cheney, it would be bad for his image, but Grayson’s underlying point, that the Republicans used security as political theater, rather than making a good faith attempt to keep us safe, is valid.

One note to the morons who compare Grayson to people like Michelle Bachman: There is a difference.

Grayson uses hyperbole to make his point, and he knows it, while when Bachmann says, for example, that US Census data will be used for Kommie Koncentration Kamps™, she actually really believes it.

The State Department Cover-Up of Blackwater Succeeds

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Basically, the State Department used the Oliver North option, so by immunizing and debriefing them, they made a trial almost impossible, and the judge, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina, was forced to dismiss the case.

Obviously, part of the problem is that the prosecution screwed up, though they can refile, but the real crux of the matter here is that the Bushies in the State Department intended this result. They wanted to protect Bush supporter Eric Prince and his company, now called Xe.

Republican Congressmen did this at the Iran-Contra hearings, because they feared that North would rat out Reagan if he actually ended up in prison.

Remember the Judges Who Took Kick-Backs to Lock Up Kids?

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Well, they are also mobbed up:

Reputed mobster William “Big Billy” D’Elia and former Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Conahan were longtime friends who partied together, used courthouse employees as personal couriers and met frequently to talk court cases over ham and cheese omelets at a Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, witnesses testified Wednesday at a hearing over allegations the men conspired to fix a $3.5 million defamation verdict against The Citizens’ Voice newspaper.

Background here.

London Bankers Discover Taxes in Switzerland Too

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Yes, all those bankers who are trying to move to Geneva to avoid the UK Bonus tax have discovered that Switzerland has a 44% tax rate, and that the posh private schools for their kids are already full:

Geneva, touted as a haven for London bankers facing heavier U.K. taxes, may lure fewer than predicted thanks to a housing shortage, crowded schools and a 44 percent income-tax rate.

Barclays Plc President Robert Diamond this month joined a chorus of financial leaders in arguing that the U.K.’s 50 percent tax on bonuses would drive bankers away from London. The Swiss Private Bankers Association said the “arbitrary” tax will boost the allure of Geneva, whose bankers oversee about 10 percent of the world’s foreign-held private wealth.

“It’s a joke, it’s lobbying,” said Tim Dawson, an analyst at Geneva-based brokerage Helvea AG. “People are dreaming if they think the London investment banking world is going to move. There is more office space in Canary Wharf than in the whole of Switzerland,” he said, referring to London’s second financial district.

I also think that the bankers “misunderestimate” the degree to which people actually want them there, making city centers prohibitively expensive for ordinary people while they make demands for subsidies from lawmakers.

If there is a lesson from the Minaret fiasco in Switzerland, it’s that they don’t like foreigners there, whether they are hard working immigrants from the Middle East, or parasites from London.

Slavery is Legal in the United States Again

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The Supreme Court has refused to rule on an appellate case that not only declared that, “torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use,” but also ruled that anyone unilaterally declared an enemy combatant is not a “person” under the legal definition of the law.

This is quite literally the identical legal reasoning behind the Dredd Scott case:

“Another set of claims are dismissed because Guantanamo detainees are not ‘persons’ within the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – an argument that was too close to Dred Scott v. Sanford for one of the judges on the court of appeals to swallow,” he added.

The Dred Scott case was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. It ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants — whether or not they were slaves — were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.

And still, Obama is appointing sane conservatives to the bench, only to see them filibustered and delayed by the ‘Phants, because sanity has a known liberal bias.

Not feeling hopey changey right now.

H/t naked capitalism.

Someone Else Who Tries to F%$# Us Like a Bitch

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I’m not kind of bummed that I riffed on that scene in Pulp Fiction yesterday, because there are so many people who want to f%$# us all like a bitch.

Case in point, Verizon, who is claiming to the FCC that charging exorbitant cancellation fees should be supported because it helps the poor:

Verizon defended its early termination charges for cellphone contracts Friday, telling federal regulators that the high fees help the poor by making it more affordable for them to access the mobile internet.

The Federal Communications Commission asked the nation’s largest wireless carrier earlier this month to explain why it had raised the fees for breaking a mobile phone service contract to $350 for its smartphones. In a response that gave no ground to an increasingly active FCC, Verizon said the fees were a necessary and good way to subsidize expensive smartphones so that users don’t have to pay for the hardware up front, so long as they sign a two-year contract.

That arrangement “enables many more consumers, including those of more limited means, access to a range of exciting, state of the art broadband services and capabilities (.pdf),” Verizon VP Kathleen Grillo wrote. “The company’s pricing structure therefore promotes the national goal of fostering the greater adoption and use of mobile broadband services.”

Verizon raised the fees in November, with a $10 discount for each month of the service contract fulfilled for smartphones. Even so, if a customer cancels on the last day of their 2-year contract, they’d have to pay Verizon $120 for early termination.

It appears that in Verizon’s eyes, we all look like bitches that they really really want to f%$#………Without Lube.

Why the Naked CDS Should Be Banned: Part McCMLXXVII

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Yes, once again we have Goldman Sachs that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,* using naked Credit Default Swaps, (CDS) which are basically insurance policies, with the crucial differenc being that you can insure your neighbor’s home, and collect when you burn it down, something forbidden in other insurance products since 1746.

You see Goldman Sachs bought naked CDS, and then interfered in its reorganizing its debt so that it could collect:

International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James Hoffa said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is creating derivatives trades that would profit from the bankruptcy of YRC Worldwide Inc., the trucking company trying to avert failure with a debt exchange.

The most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history “is actively soliciting bond trades for clients and underwriting credit-default swaps to benefit from a failed exchange and resulting bankruptcy,” Hoffa, the union leader, wrote in a letter dated yesterday to Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein.

YRC, the biggest U.S. trucker by sales, is extending the exchange offer deadline to Dec. 23, after investors holding 75 percent of its debt initially agreed to the exchange, below the 95 percent required by bank lenders. As of 5 p.m. in New York yesterday, participation fell to 57 percent, the Overland Park, Kansas-based company said in a statement. The company said it believes some bondholders have withdrawn because they want to tender their notes only on the expiration date.

The company has faced opposition to its plan to exchange $536.8 million of notes for equity from bondholders who also own derivatives that pay out in a default, according to people familiar with the matter. The Teamsters’ pressure comes as Goldman Sachs is under fire from other labor groups over its role in the subprime mortgage crisis.

This is precisely why the Marine Insurance Act of 1746 was passed, and why the writing of new naked CDS instruments should be banned, and existing naked CDS contracts should be rendered unenforceable.

There is a difference between making money off of someone else’s misfortune, and making money by causing someone else’s misfortune.

*Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

60……Until Leiberman Knifes Everyone Again……

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We now have reports that Reid and Obama have managed to cajole Senator Ben Nelson into not filibustering the helathcare bill:

Senate Democratic leaders achieved a breakthrough Saturday in the drive for health overhaul legislation, securing the 60 votes needed to ensure passage after a late-night deal on abortion coverage locked in the support of Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson.

The bill is at best marginally better than what we have now, it might be a bit worse, since the mandate in a monopoly situation is a disaster, and the abortion language allows states to forbid insurance companies to cover abortions.

Let’s be clear, insurance companies don’t customize their plans unless forced to, and over the next few years, this will have the effect of eliminating abortion from insurance coverage, as NOW notes:

Statement of Terry O’Neill, NOW President

December 19, 2009

The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Manager’s Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us. And by the way, it’s the rest of us who voted the current leadership into both houses of Congress.

The National Organization for Women is outraged that Senate leadership would cave in to Sen. Ben Nelson, offering a compromise that amounts to a Stupak-like ban on insurance coverage for abortion care. Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care. And health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services.

We call on all senators who consider themselves friends of women’s rights to reject the Manager’s Amendment, and if it remains, to defeat this cruelly over-compromised legislation.

###

I’ll still be calling my Senators, and asking them to vote against the bill and against cloture.

Barack Obama: Hating te Gay Since 2007*

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Yes, the group most likely to be thrown under a bus by Barack Obama, the LGBT community, just got thrown under the bus again going through back-flips to defy a Federal Judge’s order on this:

Because she is a federal employee, Golinski’s benefits are overseen by the Office of Personnel Management, which effectively serves as the human resources department for about 1.9 million federal workers nationwide. Golinski’s insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, declined to provide health benefits for her legal spouse, Amy Cunninghis, but ninth circuit chief judge Alex Kozinski said that violated the court’s guarantee of equal employment opportunity and that same-sex spouses were entitled to benefits under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.

OPM attorneys consulted with the Department of Justice on this case, and the key to the case, according to the OPM official, was that Kozinski was presiding over an administrative proceeding that’s an internal employee grievance procedure — he was not serving in his official capacity as a ninth circuit judge.

I suppose that he’s better for Gays than the Christo-Fascist right, which was actively working for a death penalty for gays in Uganda until Rachael Maddow outed their murderous efforts, and that he figures that the LGBT community knows that it has no where else to go, but such a calculus is repugnant, immoral, and evil.

Let me quote Joseph Nye Welch:

Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

I support Howard Dean for President in 2012…………………Hell I support anyone who opposes Barack Obama in the primaries† in 2012.

*The Donnie McClurkin episode.
†This offer does not apply to Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, or Paris Glendenning. Note that side effects of an endorsement from Matthew Saroff can include:

  • Losing elections
  • Voting irregularities
  • An extremely hostile press corps
  • Embarrassing Youtube clips

Do not operate a political campaign under the influence of a Matthew Saroff endorsement, and avoid heavy consumption of alcohol.

Not Enough Bullets: Porsche Cayenne Turbo Edition

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Click for full size


SEC & DoJ need to fix this.
It should read: Sorry Ass in Jail!

So, Morgan Stanley Vice-Chairman Rob Kindler drives a Porsche Cayenne with the License Plate 2BG2FAIL.

Just delightful.

I need to figure out how to go long on pitch forks and torches.

And maybe some rabid ferrets, and ground beef, and honey, and really nasty stinging ants.

But no guns or rope: I oppose capital punishment.

H/t Matt Taibbi

Lieberman and Obama, and the Shark that They Jumped

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This is one big shark that he jumped.
With Frikken Lasers!

It appears that the excessive wankerage of Joseph Lieberman on healthcare has even gotten the Villagers, specifically nepotism affirmative action hire Luke Russert (video at link), and wannabe villager Ezra Klein to admit that perhaps, just perhaps, Joseph Lieberman is not acting out of moral conviction, but instead is acting out of a need for revenge.

When you have guys like this calling Joe Lieberman small and petty, and, well basically evil, Holy Joe has done more than jump a shark, he’s jumped the shark, specifically, he’s jumping C. Megalodon*.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Obama and His Stupid Minions™ are getting a clue on this, or that they understand that Joe just wants to turn the knife, and will keep pulling the football away, because his goal is to punish liberals for not recognizing his brilliance and moral superiority over the past 9 years.

Harry Reid, no doubt wanting to avoid Chris Dodd’s fate, where Dodd was hung out to dry by the administration for doing Geithner’s bidding and putting in a loophole on banker salaries, is now leaking like a seive, with sources who are clearly from his office saying that, Rahm Emanuel personally pressured Reid give in to Lieberman’s extortion. (See also here and here here)

As a result of this, 81% Of Dememocrats want Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee pulled, which to my mind, would be a good thing, because the Senate Democrats would have to start learning to live with 50+ the Vice President to pass a bill, and people like Lieberman (and Lincoln and Baucus) would be told to go pound sand.

If you want any more evidence of bad faith, Lieberman admits that he’s flipped on the Medicare option because liberals like it:

And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.

(emphasis mine)

You see, it’s all about pissing off liberals. It does not matter if hundreds of thousands of people die every year because of lack of insurance, Lieberman wants to punish liberals.

Joe Lieberman is a venal sociopath.

*The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). So in jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.

An Insight into the Mind of Ayn Rand

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Mystery/thriller writer Michael Prescott has looked through the journals of Ayn Rand, and he finds her musing on one William Edward Hickman, who said, “What is good for me is right,” which seems to pretty classical Randian Objectivism.

She is enthused about this person, and his philosophy, describing it as, “The best and strongest expression of a real man’s psychology I have heard.”

While Mr. Hickman is fairly obscure these days, unless you are a lawyer, in which case it is one of the earliest attempts at an insanity defense, he was well known during his day, basically 1927 and 1928, because he kidnapped a 12 year old girl, ransomed her, and dismembered her.

And Ayn Rand calls what he did a, “Real man’s philosophy.”

If there were any doubt as to her being evil, it is ended. If there were any doubt as to her sanity, those doubts are reinforced.

I will leave you with the last two ‘graphs, but please read the rest, but be warned, the specifics of the murder are grisly:

By the appraisal of any normal mind, there can be little doubt that William Edward Hickman was a vicious psychopath of the worst order. That Ayn Rand saw something heroic, brilliant, and romantic in this despicable creature is perhaps the single worst indictment of her that I have come across. It is enough to make me question not only her judgment, but her sanity.

At this point in my life, I did not think it was possible to significantly lower my estimate of Ayn Rand, or to regard her as even more of a psychological and moral mess than I had already taken her to be.

I stand corrected.

Well Damn, This Takes Chutzpah*

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Damn! I need this image on speed dial!

TPM reads Esquire’s interview with Alberto “Abu” Gonzalez, and finds this plum:

We should have abandoned the idea of removing the U. S. attorneys once the Democrats took the Senate. Because at that point we could really not count on Republicans to cut off investigations or help us at all with investigations. We didn’t see that at the Department of Justice. Nor did the White House see that. Karl didn’t see it. If we could do something over again, that would be it.

So, the only problem with politically purging the US Attorney corps, in order to drive corrupt and politically motivated prosecutions, was that Democrats were in power, and they would not, like the republicans had when they were in power, refuse to investigate.

*I was considering using the phrase “huevos”, meaning balls, but I find the connotation both too complimentary: If there is anything that describes Alberto “Abu” Gonzalez, it is his complete lack of balls. He would never, ever say no.

The Hague, Bitches

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We have new revelations on the British investigation of what happened during the march to the invasion of Iraq, the sort of investigation that US politicians have specifically eschewed, has revealed that Tony Blair was informed that Saddam had no WMD before the invasion:

Tony Blair was aware of last-minute intelligence revealing that Saddam Hussein had probably dismantled his chemical and biological weaponry, a key adviser has said.

Sir John Scarlett, who was the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee in the run-up to the war, said that two reports received in March 2003, which suggested that Iraq’s weaponry had been taken to pieces, were sent directly to the former prime minister. He also said that Mr Blair was made aware of doubts over Saddam’s access to the warheads needed to deliver them.

We now have enough evidence for the ICC to start an investigation, and perhaps enough for an indictment.

Please though, make it a secret indictment, so you can apprehend Reverend Smiler when he steps off the plane in Brussels.

F%$# the Shareholders, They Are Worthless Punks

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I don’t think that. I own shares in a number of Vanguard®‘s funds, but it’s clear that’s what the banks, and the bankers think about their shareholders.

We know that the UK is allocating a special levy on bonus funds for financial institutions, which will shrink the size of the bonuses that bankers get. The banker’s solutions is to increase the size of the pools to maintain the same outrageous bonus levels.

The way that these bonuses are supposed to work is that you allocate a certain percentage of profits in a publicly held firm to a bonus pool, based on the needs of the firm, things like profits, the need for cash on hand, and things like dividends for the shareholders, who are, after the people who own the f%$#ing company.

Well, that’s not how the bankers think, so when that pool gets taxed, you just take it out of the hides of the shareholders, and financial reserves, etc.

This is way beyond mismanagement. This is theft, just like what Conrad Black went to jail for, and it should be treated as such:

Bonuses are supposed to be determined by the amount of money available after you settle accounts for the year. If you decide it by starting from how much you want to pay for yourself, you are doing what Conrad Black did, and he’s now in prison:”

Several of the big US banks, and some UK banks, conceded in private that they were nervous of cutting the bonuses of City staff, partly for fear of causing internal friction, and partly to avoid having top staff picked off by bolder rivals or hedge funds

Disgraceful. Particularly when these guys were the ones who f%$#ed up our system in the first place.

Banking is not a meritocracy, not that it was ever much of one, it’s a kakistocracy.