Category: Hypocrisy

Least Surprising News out of the Republican National Convention

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It turns out that the RNC was a bonanza for male prostitutes:

It’s been a great week for gay escorts in Cleveland.

Male prostitutes contacted by The Post said business is booming and Republican National Convention attendees — most of them married — are clamoring for their services.

“Business has been way better. I’ve seen 10 clients so far,” one male escort said.

“Most of them were first-timers. You could tell they were nervous, but once they became more comfortable, they seemed to be having a good time.”

Another escort said he had already earned $1,600 since Monday — over six times the amount he usually makes.

………

One gigolo who charges $250 an hour said he’s been making about $800 per day since the convention kicked off — all from men visiting from Florida, Louisiana and Washington, DC.

“Usually I need to go out of town,” he said with a chuckle.

Most men paid to have sex, but one client requested to “do his business in the corner” while watching his wife in bed with the escort.

………

“The Republicans have a lot of delegates in the closet, let’s put it that way.”

Party of family values my ass.

H/t Joe.My.God.

I’m With Jim………

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Specifically Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut.

As much as I hate praising a vice chair of the Wall Street loving New Democrat Coalition, particularly one who is an alumnus of the Vampire Squid, but he is right when he announces that he is going to boycott the Congressional moment of silence for the Tampa shooting victims, because it is hypocritical political theater that is used to excuse cowardly inaction:

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) says he won’t participate in any more moments of silence on the House floor for victims of mass shootings out of frustration that they don’t lead to action on gun control.

In a House floor speech on Monday, the day after the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Himes said the moments of silence offer a symbol of lawmakers’ lack of a legislative response to mass shootings.

“Silence. That is how the leadership of the most powerful country in the world will respond to this week’s massacre of its citizens,” he said.

“Silence. Not me. Not anymore. I will no longer stand here absorbing the faux concern, contrived gravity and tepid smugness of a House complicit in the weekly bloodshed,” Himes said angrily.………

………

“As you bow your head and think of what you say to your God when you are asked what you did to slow the slaughter of innocents, there will be silence,” Himes said.

Himes first declared his boycott of future moments of silence in a series of tweets late Sunday night, writing that they “have become an abomination.”

He may be a conservadem, but he’s completely right on this issue.

The moment of silence is a completely hypocritical excuse for doing nothing.

What is Wrong with the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party Succinctly Stated

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I am not at all surprised that it is a Brit who notes that aggressive identity politics has pushed economic justice out of the political spotlight.

I would argue that some political factions, most notably the Clinton political machine, have done so deliberately, because it allows them to check the “right” boxes while still aligning themselves with what Theodore Roosevelt called the “Malefactors of Wealth”.

People like Wal-Mart (Hillary was a member of its board for years) and Goldman Sachs (Hillary’s speeches, and they funded her son-in-law’s hedge fund) are Hillary’s peeps, because they all agree that focusing on identity politics, as opposed to the the increasingly ferocious war on the average American worker or the financialization of our economy, is a good thing:

The rise of identity politics means that the personal is commonly understood to be political. Being a radical today relates as much to who you are as to what you think. Class struggle, at one time the raison d’être of the socialist movement, has been usurped on the left by the personal grievances of women, gays and ethnic minorities.

 Identity politics was an understandable response to some of the injustices of the twentieth century. Despite the loftiness of much left-wing rhetoric, sexism, racism and homophobia have never successfully been eliminated from socialist politics for the simple reason that these movements reflect the societies in which they were conceived. It was often made apparent to women in particular that the priorities for leftists lay strictly within the class framework.

 It would be wrong to imply that today this dynamic has been turned on its head. One can still find sexism, racism and homophobia on the left as easily as one can find it in wider society. In an article for Slate about the US Democratic primaries, Michelle Goldberg wrote in late 2015 about a cultural phenomenon of so-called ‘Bernie Bros’ – male supporters of US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders who ‘seem to believe that their class politics exempt them from taking sexism seriously’.

 ………

 Ultimately, though, the left should seek to move beyond identity politics for the simple reason that it is compatible with neo-liberal economics. Identity politics can co-exist with the corporate boss who makes more money in a week than his cleaner takes home in a year – as long as the chances of being the boss are assigned proportionally among different ethnic groups, sexualities and genders. Individual winners and losers remain as remote from each other as ever; they are simply sorted in direct proportion to their numbers in society. The ultimate aim of identity politics is to ‘tune up’ the elite rather than to abolish it.

 ………

 Class politics must certainly evolve with the times – at the very least it should take account of the legitimate grievances of people who feel marginalised for reasons other than their class. However, liberal identity politics is increasingly a zero-sum game in which white men must invariably lose out so that women, ethnic minorities and LGBT individuals can prosper. With no account for the impact of class, this will simply give rise to another injustice, or at the very least, compound an existing one.

(emphasis mine)

I think that the author, James Bloodworth, undersells the deliberate nature of this transformation.

When one looks at the professional class, doctors, lawyers, and (most significantly) college professors, the top 2-5%, this focus on identity politics benefits them.

While they have not benefited to the degree of the top 1% of 1%, they have benefited, and now it’s easier to for them to find inexpensive domestic help.

3 “Democrats” Who Think That Your Financial Advisor Should Be Allowed to Cheat You

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The Senate voted to prohibit regulators from requiring financial advisors to work in their own client’s best interest:

The Senate voted Tuesday to strike down a controversial Obama administration rule for financial advisers, setting up a showdown with the White House.

Senators voted 56-41 to overturn the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule, which requires financial advisers to act in the best interest of retirement savers.

The Senate’s vote paves the way for a battle with the White House, which has pledged that President Obama will veto the legislation once it reaches his desk.

“The final rule reflects extensive feedback from industry, advocates, and Members of Congress, and has been streamlined to reduce the compliance burden and ensure continued access to advice, while maintaining an enforceable best-interest standard that protects consumers,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

………

Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy group, defended the regulation.

The rule “simply says that financial professionals who claim to offer honest, unbiased advice on retirement savings should actually have to do that,” the group said.

“The motive for this resolution is not a genuine concern about the wellbeing of retirement savers. Instead, some Wall Street salespeople and their firms are worried about losing out on the billions of dollars in excess profits they have been making by recommending investment products that serve their own interests.”

If you look at the vote you will find 3 “Democratic” senators who voted to allow grandma to be cheated out of her retirement, former Congressional “Blue Dog” Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Jon Tester (D-MT).

They need to be primaried, big time.

They are all up for reelection in 2018

I’ll Call These Folks Welfare Queens

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I’ve had a fair amount of exposure to various Ultra Orthodox communities, and as a result, I view the fact that the Heredim communities in Brooklyn have the one of the highest percentages of Section 8 recipients in the nation is as a result of a sophisticated attempt by leaders in this community to game the welfare system.

I call them Schnorrers (שנאָרער).

What is going on here is that people are spending their days studying instead of working to support their families.

As noted in Perkei Avot (Literally Wisdom of the Fathers), “Do not make the Torah into a crown with which to aggrandize yourself or a spade with which to dig.”

………

New York City’s 123,000 vouchers make this the largest Section 8 voucher program in the country. Reluctant landlords and rising rents are making vouchers nearly impossible to use in many areas of the city. Tenants, especially larger families, are often relegated to the edges of Brooklyn and the Bronx. That’s why this cluster of Hasidic households stands out.

The neighborhood is home to one of the highest concentrations of Section 8 housing vouchers in the city, according to federal data analyzed by WNYC and the Daily News. In several of its census tracts, Section 8 tenants compose more than 30% of residents, a level reached only in scattered pockets of the Bronx.

The difference: In Brooklyn, the Section 8 tenants live smack in the middle of one of the city’s hottest real estate market.

The juxtaposition happened over years, not overnight. Leaders leveraged longstanding political connections to win favorable zoning changes. Local developers bought and built to meet the need. Residents organized to get in line for rental subsidies. Block by block, the community created a de facto free market, affordable housing plan.

………

A sliver of the community makes money in diamonds, real estate and trading. But many men favor religious study over work, and most women stay at home, so money can be tight. Those who work are often relegated to low-wage jobs due to a lack of secular education.

Here is a news flash: Despite sporting similar facial hair, Orthodox Jews are not the Amish.

Jews are required to engage the rest of the world and to learn about it.

What we have here here is parents deliberately giving their children a 2nd rate education and creating multi-generational poverty.

My nephews and niece are frum (Orthodox), and their mom and pop are principals at the local religious school, and they have, or are studying for, real careers like systems engineer, lawyer, and therapist.

One can be learned in Torah and make their way in the world, and parents, regardless of religious affiliation, have an obligation to prepare their children to function as self-supporting adults.

Yep. This is a Woman of the People

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If Hillary were serious about inequality, she wouldn’t be hosting $100,000.00 a head fundraisers:

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is ramping up her fundraising schedule, attending a number of fundraisers this week that cost donors six-figures to attend.

The former secretary of state attended a pair of small, intimate gatherings in New York City on Thursday evening that cost donors a minimum of $100,000 to attend, according to a campaign official. On Wednesday, she attended two $100,000-a-head events in Englewood, N.J., and New York City.

Maureen White and Steven Rattner, two prominent Democratic fundraisers, hosted one of the Thursday fundraisers at their home in Manhattan. Mr. Rattner also was a prominent businessman and served in the Obama administration. The second Thursday event was at the home of Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent New York businesswoman and supporter of Mrs. Clinton and Democratic candidates. On Wednesday, architect Jon Stryker and hedge fund manager Orin Kramer played host.

Rattner settled with the SEC and the New York State Attorney General over kickbacks.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild is one of Those Rothschilds, the original multinational banksters.

And $100,000.00 a head for the contributors.

Does this sound like a woman who has the slightest interest in addressing the parasitic finance that is at the heart of Wall Street?

Does the former board member for Walmart sound like someone who would support labor unions?

Win or lose, this little foray into dynastic politics will not end well.

Irony is Officially Dead

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Ashton Carter, the Secretary of State, just issued the highest civilian award that the Pentagon can issue to a civilian to Henry Kissinger:

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter hosts an award ceremony honoring Dr. Henry A. Kissinger for his years of distinguished public service at 4 p.m. EDT, in the Pentagon.  Media interested in covering the ceremony should plan on meeting in Room 2D961 by 3:45 p.m. to be escorted to the ceremony.  Foreign journalists without a Pentagon building pass must plan on being escorted from the River Entrance Pedestrian Bridge only, or, if arriving at the Pentagon Metro Entrance Facility, must contact 703-697-5131 a minimum of one hour prior to arrival.  Please arrive no later than 45 minutes before the event if coming by Metro.  U.S. journalists without a Pentagon building pass will be picked up at the River Entrance Pedestrian Bridge or the Pentagon Metro Visitors Entrance only.  If arriving by Metro, please contact 703-697-5131 a minimum of one hour prior to arrival, and plan to arrive no later than 30 minutes before the event; have proof of affiliation and photo identification.  Please call 703-697-5131 for escort into the building.

If you are unaware of his record, here is a quick primer:

On Monday afternoon, at 4 pm Eastern, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will host an awards ceremony at the Pentagon honoring one of the world’s most notorious war criminals.

The criminal in question, Dr. Henry Kissinger, has never been charged. But the evidence that he aided and abetted war crimes during his time in the White House advising Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford is well-established and overwhelming.

While Kissinger deserves real credit for some of America’s most important Cold War victories, including Nixon’s diplomatic opening to China, he is also responsible for some of its worst atrocities. Carpet-bombing Cambodia, supporting Pakistan’s genocide in Bangladesh, greenlighting the Argentinian dictatorship’s murderous crackdown on dissidents — all of those were Kissinger initiatives, all pushed in the name of pursuing American national interests and fighting communism.
While the Obama administration might want to pretend that only the first half of his résumé exists, that doesn’t change reality. The secretary of defense is handing an award to a man whose actions belie the values Obama administration claims to stand for. It’s hardly alone in this: Kissinger has been treated as an elder statesman in polite Washington society for decades. But this is the most recent example, and one of the most high-profile, of polite Washington society rewriting Kissinger’s legacy. Let’s not forget what it really is.
 

………
 
Most infamously, Kissinger masterminded a Nixon-era plan to carpet-bomb Cambodia. Nominally, the bombing — which indiscriminately hit targets in civilian-populated areas — was supposed to destroy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong bases. In reality, it was designed to improve America’s strategic position before a negotiated withdrawal.
 
………

American bombs killed between 150,000 and 500,000 people in Cambodia. That created a swell of public support for Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge rebels, who exploited popular anger at the bombings to seize control of the government in 1975. The Khmer Rouge then slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and starved even more, ultimately killing at least a million people, about one-seventh of the country’s population.
 
………
 
He pulled the US consul general in Dhaka, Archer Blood, from his post for questioning the policy, and blocked efforts to pressure Pakistan (a US ally) to end its slaughter. The killing only stopped after India intervened to stop it; estimates of the death toll range from 300,000 to 3 million.
 
………
 

In 2014, newly declassified documents suggested that in the 1970s, Kissinger signaled to Argentina’s right-wing military leaders that the US would not object to its plans to launch a 1976 crackdown on dissent that became known as the Dirty War — which killed about 30,000 people.

He’s kind of like Stalin, without the charm.

This is some unbelievably f%$#ed up sh%$.

Meet the Old Boss, Same as the Old Boss

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Hillary is now actively courting Bush donors:

Hillary Clinton’s supporters in recent days have been making a furious round of calls to top Bush family donors to try to convince them that she represents their values better than Donald Trump, multiple sources in both parties told POLITICO.

The moves come as Clinton and the Democratic Party try to take advantage of deep unease among establishment Republicans on Wall Street and elsewhere with Trump’s emergence as the presumptive Republican nominee.

Top targets for the Clinton team include people like Woody Johnson, Jeb Bush’s former finance chair and the owner of the New York Jets. In recent days, Bush’s brother and father, former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, have said they plan to skip Trump’s nominating convention.

One person close to Clinton said supporters of the former secretary of state drew up a list of Wall Street donors who supported Jeb Bush and other unsuccessful Republican candidates months ago but wanted to wait until Trump locked down the nomination before beginning to make the calls.

Yeah, now THERE’S a staunch defender of the Democratic Party’s liberal traditions, campaigning as the best Republican in the race.

At the rate that this is going, Jill Stein is going to qualify for federal matching funds.

Not Long Enough

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Child rapist and money launderer Dennis Hastert has been sentenced to 15 months in prison:

Mr. Hastert, whose date to report to prison has yet to be set, was ordered to pay $250,000 in fines, never to contact his victims and to receive sex-offender treatment.

“If there’s a public shaming of the defendant because of the conduct he’s engaged in, so be it,” Judge Durkin said.

Hopefully, given the nature of the crime and the length of sentence, he spends his time in a at least a medium security prison.

Yeah, He Endorsed Joe Lieberman Too.

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Barack Obama just endorsed Debbie Wasserman Schultz, because while he killed Osama bin Laden, he really hates liberals:

While President Barack Obama won’t tell us who he will be supporting in the general election, one candidate he has fully endorsed is Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Wasserman Schultz is currently running for her life in Florida against the first Democratic congressional opponent she has faced during her time in the House. Opponent Tim Canova is running on the idea that Wasserman Schultz is far too corrupt and indebted to Wall Street to effectively represent the people of her district. Canova has endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders and has been backed by some of the same groups that Sanders is.

President Obama does not often endorse candidates in House primaries, so his support for Wasserman Schultz is telling.

Interestingly enough, this came shortly after the Florida Democratic Party was shamed into providing voter lists to Mr. Canova:

Last week, the Florida Democratic Party — and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz — took some serious heat after it banned upstart congressional candidate Tim Canova from using the party’s voter data files, which help candidates research and contact supporters. But the Florida Democratic Party reversed its decision yesterday, party spokesperson Max Steele has confirmed to New Times.

Improbably, this was the second voter-data scandal to ensnare Wasserman Schultz this election cycle. In December, Wasserman Schultz, acting as chair of the Democratic National Committee, temporarily banned Bernie Sanders from accessing the DNC’s voter data files after his campaign staffer was caught hacking into Hillary Clinton’s campaign data. (The information allows candidates to research and contact potential supporters in their area.) But the move backfired, and Wasserman Schultz has since been accused of intentionally trying to sink Sanders’ chances at the presidency. Sanders sued, the move was overturned, and critics across the country have called for her ouster. She’s had a bad few months.

In something of a twist, Canova, who once advised Sanders on Wall Street reform, then said he had also been denied access to that very same data. This was due to a Florida Democratic Party rule, instituted in 2010, which bans candidates running against incumbents from using the information. In an interview, Canova called the rule “undemocratic” and said the party was acting to protect Wasserman Schultz.

The party did not offer data access “to candidates challenging incumbent members of Florida’s Democratic congressional delegation,” Steele told New Times earlier this month. “This policy has been applied uniformly across the board since 2010. We stand with our incumbent members of Congress, and we’re proud of the job they do representing the people of Florida. The Voter File is proprietary software created and owned by the Democratic National Committee that is maintained and operated by the Florida Democratic Party here in state.”

………

After Canova put up a fight, the Florida Democratic Party reconsidered how Canova’s case looked to the outside world, Steele says. The party made the choice today to give Canova, and only Canova, access to the file.

“Given the unique circumstances of having an incumbent member of Congress who is also the DNC chair who is being challenged by a Democrat (a situation that as you can imagine has never arisen), the FDP has decided to grant Mr. Canova access to the Voter File,” Steele said via email. The file will cost $3,500 to access.

Steele reiterated that this will be a one-time policy change: “Given the dual nature of an incumbent who is also a national party chair, we’ve decided to grant Mr. Canova access to avoid any appearance of favoritism,” he said. Other candidates who run against incumbents will be out of luck.

As an aside, they would not have done this, or at least not have done this so soon, unless there was a significant amount of loathing directed towards Wasserman Schultz in the state party.

Considering her refusal to support challenges to reactionary Cuban-American Republicans in competitive districts, I rather expect that there is no small amount of loathing among the locals there.

This is a New Level of Low

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The Clinton campaign is saying that they won’t debate Sanders unless he stops criticizing her:

A top aide to Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Monday dodged questions about setting up a debate with Bernie Sanders in New York, saying it depends on the senator’s “tone.”

“This is a man who said he’d never run a negative ad ever. He’s now running them. They’re planning to run more,” Joel Benenson, Clinton’s chief strategist, said on CNN. “Let’s see the tone of the campaign he wants to run before we get to any other questions.”

After winning a trio of states over the weekend, Sanders on Sunday called for a debate in New York ahead of that state’s April 19 primary. The Vermont senator is looking to cut into Clinton’s delegate lead and says he has the “momentum” heading into the latter half of the race.

The pair faced off in a Miami debate earlier this month, and a Sanders campaign letter on Sunday said the two campaigns had agreed to a California debate in May but had not agreed to terms on a debate in April, according to The New York Times.

How long before someone says, “If she can’t debate Bernie Sanders, how can she stand up to Vladimir Putin?”

Never mind, I just did.

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.

But He Got Us Out of Iraq!

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Ground troops are back fighting in Iraq:

The Islamic State group is trying to retake control of the oil fields it lost two years ago in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan by launching rockets at Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers. In an attempt to earn back the massive amount of cash it used to fund its international terrorism in 2014, the group has focused its resources on attacking Makhmur, a city just 75 miles miles from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. So far, the group, also known as ISIS, has succeeded in outgunning the Iraqi forces in the city, but a new contingent of American Marines might change the outcome on the ground.

“Several weeks ago, thousands of Iraqi troops began occupying a tactical assembly area in Makhmur. This is part of the force generation associated with the liberation of Mosul,” Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, said in a press briefing this week. Mosul is the de facto ISIS headquarters in Iraq. “These Iraqi forces, along with their coalition advisers, require force protection,” Warren said. “So we constructed a small fire base to do just that.”

The U.S. Marines in Iraq are on the front line and have been tasked with protecting Iraqi units in Makhmur — a scenario President Barack Obama wanted to avoid as long as possible during his time in office.

In a statement before meeting with congressional leaders on Sept. 3, 2013, Obama talked about his plan to combat ISIS and said: “The key point that I want to emphasize to the American people: The military plan that has been developed by our Joint Chiefs — and that I believe is appropriate — is proportional. It is limited. It does not involve boots on the ground. This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan.”

There are now more than 3,200 U.S. personnel in Iraq. Many have been tasked with training Iraqi soldiers, but others, such as the new contingent of Marines, are in active battles or are leading special operations to rescue hostages. Two American soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S. deployed soldiers last year.

Hope and change my ass.

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)

Snark of the Day

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Democrats Always Prove the Commies Right

—Fredrik deBoer

Read his whole post, but he has a list of things where his communist friend’s predictions proved right:

I’m regularly accused of believing things that I’ve never said and don’t believe. That’s largely a facet of the fact that, on the internet today, arguing with people is really a matter of misrepresenting what they’re saying and then attacking the misrepresentation. One of the most constant of these is that I say “both parties are the same.” I’ve never said that. Ever. In my life. But over time, the claims of friends who do say that have been vindicated over and over again.

By that I mean something very simple: my communist friends who really do say that the two parties are the same make predictions about politics. My Democrat friends do the same. Looking back at the times when the two groups have clashed, the commies have been right literally 100% of the time.

I get accused of being a “Naderite,” though in fact I voted for Gore in the first election I was old enough to vote in. (I’ve come to regret that decision over time.) The Democrats said that left-wing critics of the party would be welcomed into the fold; the commies told me that the Democrats hate the left and always would. The commies were right. The Democrats told me that anti-Iraq war voices would be an important slice of the party in the debates to come. The commies told me Democrats and their representatives in the media would engage in redbaiting eliminationism like we’d never seen before. The commies were right. The Democrats told me that a candidate like Howard Dean, who at the time was running as an explicitly left-wing challenger to the Democrat establishment, would have a great chance at the nomination; my commie friends said that the Democrats and their surrogates in the media would destroy Dean. The commies were right.

He’s right, but kind of depressing.

Still, it’s a good read.

Very Long, Read Anyway

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How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable by the invaluable Matt Taibbi.

If  Mark Ames’ 2004 essay, “Spite the Vote,” gave us the big picture on Trump’s appeal in a moment of prognostic brilliance, Taibbi’s article explains the specifics, and the specific dangers.

He also makes a very good argument that Clinton is precisely the sort of candidate who will lose to him in the general.

I gotta look into Alyiah to Israel for my family and me. 

President Trump. 

I do not like that, Sam I Am.

Quote of the Day

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Over at the LGM blog, notes that  Hans “Der novotenführer” Spakovsky is claiming that, “Voting is for Dead Republicans, Not Living African-Americans.”

Von Spakovsky, whose entire career can be boiled down to 4 words, “Keep n*****s from voting,” is now suggesting that Scalia’s preliminary ballots should be counted as final.

But that is not the quote of the day.  The quote of the day comes from Warren Terra in the comments of another post: 

The joke here is of course that the delightfully named Hans Von Spakovsky has built a career as the country’s leading advocate of rejecting would-be voters on spurious grounds; now he’s got an actual corpse, and he wants to let it vote.

They really have no shame at all.

It’s One Thing to Get Called out by Politifact, But to Get Outed by Snopes?

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No chanting here

Delores Huerta, a civil rights activist and campaigner for Hillary Clinton, claimed that her efforts to translate at a caucus in Nevada were shouted down by Sanders supporters chanting “English only”.

Snopes.com, the urban myth busting site for the internet, Finds these claims to be false, which is unsurprising. Huerta made similar discredited claims against Obama in 2008:

Claim: Supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted “English only” at civil rights activist Dolores Huerta during one Nevada caucus event, ostensibly objecting to a translation of remarks into Spanish.

 False

Origin: On 20 February 2016, the Nevada Democratic caucuses ended in a victory for Hillary Clinton.  Not long after that, actress America Ferrera tweeted that  that supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted “English only!” at longtime civil rights activist Dolores Huerta (who had apparently offered to translate from English to Spanish at an event at Harrah’s casino on the Las Vegas strip), objecting to a translation of remarks from English to Spanish:

………

Origin: On 20 February 2016, the Nevada Democratic caucuses ended in a victory for Hillary Clinton. Not long after that, actress America Ferrera tweeted that that supporters of Bernie Sanders shouted “English only!” at longtime civil rights activist Dolores Huerta (who had apparently offered to translate from English to Spanish at an event at Harrah’s casino on the Las Vegas strip), objecting to a translation of remarks from English to Spanish:

………

Huerta initially didn’t specify how she identified the chanters as Sanders supporters. We spoke to Erin Cruz, who was present at the rally with a nurses’ union to support Sanders:

@AmericaFerrera @DoloresHuerta
The moderator said English only not anyone from the Bernie camp @SusanSarandon @rebeccab311

— Erin Cruz (@neuroticnurse75) February 20, 2016



Cruz told us she was accompanied by ten other nurses and actors Susan Sarandon and Gaby Hoffman. Cruz said she was unaware of any recording during the disputed chanting:

………

As Sarandon correctly stated, the segment in dispute started around the 53:30 mark, when parties called for a Spanish-language translator. As she indicated, at 55:18 the caucus moderator (not Sanders’ supporters) simply stated that the inability to locate a neutral translator meant the caucus would continue in “English only.” At no point did any Sanders supporters appear to have refused a translator based on the fact that translation was objectionable to them; nor was “English only” used in a pejorative fashion. The term was invoked a single time, during the moderator’s assertion that no suitable translator was located to provide Spanish-language translations:

Between Madeline Allbright claimin that women Bernie supporters are going to hell, Gloria Steinem claiming that women Bernie supporters are in it for the Bernie Boys, and now this, it appears that Hillary’s supporters may be a bigger problem for her than Bernie’s supporters.