Category: Politics

Well, This is a Fine F%$# You

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The German Parliament just voted to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and Turkish President Erdogan’s head is exploding:

The German Parliament overwhelmingly adopted a symbolic but fraught resolution on Thursday declaring the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 a genocide, escalating tensions with Turkey at a diplomatically delicate juncture.

The Turkish government angrily denounced the vote as “null and void,” and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called his ambassador in Germany back to Ankara for consultations.

“The way to close the dark pages of your own history is not by defaming the histories of other countries with irresponsible and baseless decisions,” Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, wrote on Twitter. In Ankara, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, “There is no shameful incident in our past that would make us bow our heads.”

Germany needs Turkey’s help in following through on a deal with the European Union to manage the refugee crisis attributed in large part to the Syrian civil war. At the same time, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been under pressure not to be seen as caving to pressure from Ankara to compromise on Western values, particularly after a recent dust-up over freedom of speech set off by a German comedian’s satire that outraged Mr. Erdogan.

………

Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its coalition partners supported the resolution, which was originally proposed for last year, to mark the centennial of the start of the killings. But it was repeatedly delayed, most recently in February, over concerns about angering Ankara.

As the vote approached, debate intensified in Germany, which is home to an estimated three million people of Turkish descent, many of whom have dual citizenship. About 2,000 Turks demonstrated last weekend in Berlin, rallying to say that Parliament is not a court and therefore should not pass judgment.

………

Her decision to do so, despite those objections, may have been influenced by an episode in March, when a German comic, Jan Böhmermann, lampooned Mr. Erdogan with a crude poem. Ms. Merkel initially criticized the verses, giving the impression — which she later said was a mistake — that she advocated restrictions on freedom of expression in Germany. Critics portrayed her as weak.

Cem Ozdemir, the co-chairman of the opposition Greens and a driving force behind the resolution, accused Ms. Merkel of paying little heed to Turkey for most of her decade in power, until circumstances forced her to engage with Mr. Erdogan.

On Thursday, Mr. Ozdemir said there was “never a favorable time to speak about something as dreadful as genocide.”

Mr. Ozdemir read century-old statements by officials of the German Empire showing they knew that up to 90 percent of Armenians had been killed. “Working through the Shoah is the basis of democracy in Germany,” Mr. Ozdemir said, referring to the Holocaust. “This genocide is also waiting to be worked through.”

There have been people fighting for this for decades.

Merkel is not one of these people. She felt a political need to push this through because she is seen as kowtowing to an increasingly megalomaniacal and despotic Turkish leader.

Still, this is a positive move, and hopefully we will see more of this.

The Clintons Really Do Hate the Working Man

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Yesterday in Cranford, NJ, Bill Clinton discussing Donald Trump’s surprising political success noted that “Non-college-educated Americans need to be brought along to the future.”

I shouldn’t be surpriaed.  After 40 years in politics, demonizing the poor, diminishing labor unions, embracing the powerful, helping send decent middle class jobs to Mexico and China, I guess the fact that they hold the ordinary working American in disdain should have been obvious.

The Clintons think that people who work on their feet, “need to be brought into the future.”

They are avatars of the professional class in the Democratic Party, and smug condescension drips from them.

The Worst Democrat in Congress Just Did a Good Thing

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Dan Lipinsky is by most measures the worst Democrat in Congress, a light weight who inherited the seat from his father, and has used it to oppose abortion, support anti-gay bigots, oppose healthcare reform, and sh%$ting on immigrants.

He is a complete clusterf%$# as a Democrat, and this is the party that not long ago had Steve Israel heading the DCCC.

That being said, his declaration that, in the event of a contested convention, he will vote for Bernie Sanders because that is how is district voted, is a righteous move:

If there’s a contested Democratic convention this summer, Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski says he’ll be voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Lipinski, who’ll be a superdelegate at the convention, says he’d support Sanders because the Vermont senator beat Hillary Clinton in Lipinski’s district.

“As a Democratic member of Congress, I have a vote at the Democratic National Convention as a superdelegate. Before the Illinois primary I told Democrats in the 3rd District that I decided that I would pledge my vote to whichever candidate won the district,” Lipinski said Tuesday in a statement. “When the votes were counted, Sen. Bernie Sanders received 54 percent and Secretary Hillary Clinton received 45 percent in my district. Therefore, if there is a contested vote at the Democratic National Convention in July, I will vote for Sen. Sanders.”

Props, but I will still support whoever runs against him in the primary.

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.

Another Myth Busted

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It turns out that rich people do not relocate when a state raises taxes:

When it comes to taxes, millionaires have short fuses. Ratchet up their rates and they’ll blow you off and move to a low-tax, or no-tax, state.

 Or so goes one argument against taxing the rich: States that levy a “millionaires tax” risk chasing those millionaires away to Florida, Texas, and other places with no income tax. Hedge fund manager David Tepper’s recent decision to move from New Jersey to Florida, possibly creating a billionaire-size hole in Jersey’s budget, raised alarms. Golf great Phil Mickelson, shortly after his infamous Dean Foods stock trade, complained about his high tax rate in California and threatened to move to Florida.

Now, a study based on 13 years of tax data finds that most millionaires don’t move cross-country just to avoid a tax bill. It turns out that the rich, while perhaps different from us, aren’t all that mobile. When they do move, it’s often for reasons that have nothing to do with taxes. For one thing, they appear to like the beach.

The study, published in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, suggests that states—and countries—may have some leeway to raise taxes on the wealthy without scaring away their tax base. It has obvious political implications, possibly serving as ammunition for those who favor taxing the rich. It could help advance the arguments of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, for example, who have both proposed higher taxes on upper-income Americans.

And if they did leave, good riddance.

If they leave, they lose political influence where they formerly lived, and the less influence that the self-obsessed pampered assholes have, the better.

Trump Wimps Out

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Now he’s not going to debate Bernie Sanders:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) had a bemused response on Friday to Donald Trump’s decision to back out of a suggested debate between the two.

“Well, Mr. Trump, what are you afraid of?” the Democratic candidate said.

Sanders said reporters were the first to inform him that Trump pulled out of the prospective debate, shortly after a tech firm offered to put up the $10 million donation the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had named as a condition.

“Mr. Trump comes across as a big tough guy,” Sanders said. “If you’re so tough, let’s sit down and have that debate.”

He’s a punk and a wimp, and Sanders called him out as such.

Good.

This is a Very Smart Move

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Donald Trump was on Jimmy Kimmel, and in response a question from the late night host, Trump said that he would be willing to debate Bernie Sanders, and Sanders promptly picked up the gauntlet:

On ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Trump was asked if he would consider holding a debate with Sanders. Trump agreed to the idea.

“If he paid a sum toward charity I would love to do that,” said the business mogul, noting that a Sanders vs. Trump debate “would have such high ratings.”

In a campaign stop in North Dakota, Trump said Sanderrs would need to raise $10 million for charity in order for the debate to happen.

Sanders quickly responded with a tweet reading, “Game On. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7th primary.”

I don’t expect Trump to follow through, but there is no way that this is a losing proposition for Sanders.

If Trump backs out, he looks weak.

If Sanders does poorly in the debate, Clinton is not harmed, and her campaign gets a preview of Trump’s debate performance.

Sanders gets another chance to sell his movement and his campaign.

If Bernie trounces Trump, he gives a big boost to his chances in California.

There are no downsides for Sanders, and only one downside for Clinton, here, and all likely outcomes are bad for the “Short Fingered Vulgarian.”

Well played.

This is F%$#ed Up and Sh%$

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The Federal Election Commission is so dysfunctional that it cannot even decide that an employer coercing its employees to make political contributions is wrong:

Last week, the Federal Election Commission deadlocked over whether to investigate allegations that coal baron Robert Murray coerced employees at his company, Murray Energy Corporation, into making campaign contributions. It’s a move that watchdogs warn will give the green light to workplace political coercion, which experts say is on the rise.

The case stems from a complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleging that Murray Energy coerced its salaried employees to contribute to the company’s PAC. Sources within the company had alleged that their year-end bonuses depended on their levels of political giving.

FEC staff had advised the commission that there was a strong case for enforcement, based on evidence that included internal company documents reportedly showing that the company told managers, “We have been insulted by every salaried employee who does not support our efforts.” Staff members recommended that the commissioners find that Murray and his company’s PAC had violated federal election law by “coercing Murray Energy employees to make contributions to federal candidates and participate in fundraising activities supporting federal candidates.”

When the commission finally voted on whether to take action last week, the FEC split along party lines, with the three Democratic commissioners voting in favor of investigation, and the three Republican commissioners voting against action. FEC rules bar the agency from taking action unless a majority of commissioners agree. It’s just the latest in a long list of FEC disputes that have ended in stalemates and inaction—involving everything from complaints over super PAC coordination with campaigns to nonprofits’ political activity, straw donations to LLCs, and end-runs around contribution limits.

Seriously?  An employer threatening loss of pay and perhaps loss of a job you don’t contribute to their candidates is OK?

Seriously?

We are completely f%$#ed.

Too True

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Over at The Nation, James Carden exhibits a shocking grasp of the obvious, and notes that Neocons are freaking out over Donald Trump because he represents a reduction in their influence, status, and paychecks, not because they are deeply concerned about the future of the nation:

The past year has been a difficult one for the leaders of the neocon right. First, their campaign to torpedo President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran came to naught. Then their preferred candidate for the Republican nomination, freshman Florida Senator Marco Rubio, ran a lazy and uninspiring campaign and was easily routed by Donald Trump. And now, with Trump about to be crowned king of the Republican castle in Cleveland, the neocons are experiencing something of an existential meltdown over the prospect of a future Trump administration.

Last week, a Politico piece surveyed the broken hearts among the neocon elite, in which they were described as being marooned on “The Lonely Island of Never Trump.” Just how lonely is that island, however, is open to question. If Politico is to be believed, nearly the entire GOP foreign-policy establishment is ready to bolt and join Team Hillary.

………

Kagan, Cohen and Boot quite rightly denounce Trump’s promise to ban Muslim immigrants. Yet their newfound concern for the well-being of Muslims is striking, given that they were among the most vocal supporters of the Bush administration’s “Global War on Terror” and the Iraq debacle which, according to the Nobel Prize–winning organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, has “directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million.”

………

Indeed. Are we really supposed to rue the possibility that the armchair warriors who’ve done the yeoman’s work of constructing an intellectual framework for endless foreign interventions and an overweening surveillance state might be excluded from the next administration?

It is hard to escape the conclusion that it isn’t Trump’s policies that are really bothering the neocons. Rather, it is the possibility that, come January 20, 2017, they could be frozen out of the corridors of power for the next four years. But what must really sting is this: Republican voters, given a choice between a neocon revival or Donald J. Trump went resoundingly for the latter. Deep down, I suspect, they know that they have no one to blame for Trump but themselves.

These guys have a hell of a racket:  They are wrong about everything, and the profiteers who benefit from this evil incompetence get them gigs at think tanks, and pay to publish their books.

As Upton Sinclair once observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

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

How Utterly Proper

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Karl Rove’s Crossroads PAC has endorsed Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the Democratic primary for her Congressional seat:

The super-PAC founded by GOP operative Karl Rove on Tuesday mocked Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-Fla.) leadership as a boon to Republicans and “endorsed” her reelection bid.

 American Crossroads said Wasserman Schultz’s management has led to electoral gains for Republicans and more tension among Democrats.

 “Congresswoman and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has played a critical role over the past several years in the massive Republican gains we have achieved at the state level, in the U.S. House of Representatives, and in the U.S. Senate,” Crossroads President and CEO Steven Law said in a statement.

 “Wasserman Schultz’s leadership has also been a catalyst for the emerging civil war in the Democratic Party this year, ensuring that their nominating process will drag on far longer than that of Republicans,” he added.

 The GOP group is backing her over her insurgent primary challenger Tim Canova.

 “Voters of the 23rd District of Florida should know — American Crossroads stands with Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in her primary against ultra-liberal outsider Tim Canova, and they should too.”

Obviously, this is trolling, but it is very high quality trolling.

Trump is Right on This

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For more the 20 years, we have had a problem with out negotiations with the DPRK (North Korea).

We haven’t even been able to end the Korean War.*

The problem is that one of the parties is not negotiations is not acting in good faith, and engages in meaningless posturing, threats of dire consequences, and a general lack of seriousness.

The other, of course, is the DPRK.

Since the Clinton administration stiffed the DPRK on formal diplomatic relations in 2004, the US has refused face to face negotiations, because ……… Hell, I don’t know why, but it appears that Donald Trump finds this similarly absurd:

Presumptive US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he is willing to meet North Korea’s leader to discuss its nuclear programme.

“I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him,” the businessman said of Kim Jong-un.

Such a meeting would mark a significant change of US policy towards the politically isolated regime.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton decried Mr Trump’s “bizarre fascination with foreign strongmen”.

The statement, delivered by one of her aides, added that Mr Trump’s foreign policy “made no sense”.

Because talking with people instead of threatening them works so well?

The DPRK has tested nukes, probably including a boosted fission device, and they have conducted launches of SLBMs in the 22 years since we promised to exchange ambassadors.

Talking to someone is not a reward. Rewarding someone is a reward.

In fact, talking to Donald Trump is one of my definitions of cruel and unusual punishment.

The Washington, DC consensus on the DPRK is nuts, and stupid, and nuts.

Trump is right here, a generation of US diplomats are wrong.

BTW, f%$# the Donald for being right, and f%$# the idiots at Foggy Bottom for making him right.

*Seriously. This is not a joke. Technically hostilities are still active, we are just in a temporary truce.

Oh Snap!

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Despite a veto threat from the Obama administration, the Senate passed a bill allowing 911 victims to sue them for their ties to the terrorists:

A bill that would let the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the terrorist plot passed the Senate unanimously on Tuesday, bringing Congress closer to a showdown with the White House, which has threatened to veto the legislation.

The Senate’s passage of the bill, which will now be taken up in the House, is another sign of escalating tensions in a relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers.

Administration officials have lobbied against the bill, a view that the White House spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated after the vote. And the Saudi government has warned that if the legislation passes, it might begin selling off up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they face a danger of being frozen by American courts. Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the warning to lawmakers and the administration while in Washington in March.

The House of Saud is claiming that if this passes, they will dump their Treasuries on the market, which will cause the dollar to tumble.

So the dollar falls, making imports more expensive, and our exports more expensive.

This would have the effect of reinforcing our manufacturing economy and improving our balance of trade.*

The Senate bill carves out an exception to the [1976] law [which grants immunity to foreign governments] if foreign countries are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill American citizens within the United States. If the bill were to pass both houses and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 suits.

………

Mr. Schumer said he believed that Democrats would override a veto from Mr. Obama. ………

So, if the House follows suit, and Obama vetoes the bill, this is going be a major sh%$ storm, and it’s going to jam up the Democrats something fierce.

It plays into one of Trump’s narratives, and it’s a very popular idea among the American public.

What’s more, Republicans would love to override an Obama veto.

The simple solution would be for Obama not to veto the bill, but because the foreign policy establishment continues to view the House of Saud to be an invaluable ally, as opposed to the medieval terrorism supporters that they actually are, so the ever establishment Obama will follow through on his veto.

*Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.

Quit Drawing Targets on Your Shoes, Morons

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The useless meat sacks known as “Senate Moderates” are now prostrating themselves before the possibility of President Trump:

As Democrats portray Donald Trump as a dangerous leader for his party, most of them barely acknowledge he could be president. But some centrist Democrats say they’re ready and willing to work with the business mogul should he defeat their party’s nominee.

 “The people will have a chance to vote. If Donald Trump is elected president there will be a great opportunity to sit down and have a conversation about what that agenda looks like,” explained Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who has long backed Hillary Clinton. “If he’s president, we’re going to have disagreement. But we’d better all figure out how to come up with an agenda for the American people.”

 Getting ready for a potential Trump presidency in their home states may just be good politics for moderate senators such as Heitkamp, Jon Tester of Montana and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. They’ll be top targets for Republicans in 2018, a midterm year that could favor the GOP if recent trends of lower turnouts in nonpresidential elections continue. And it’s a good bet that they’ll need Trump voters to keep their jobs.

Seriously?

These cheese eating surrender monkeys are panicking over the midterms, and so they are engaging in activities calculated to demoralize the base.

It’s stupid on a policy level, it’s stupid, on a political level, it’s even worse.

This is blind unreasoning panic.

I’ve seen zebras chased by cheetahs that carry themselves with more grace and dignity.

This is Mindbogglingly Stupid

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At the Nevada state convention, it appears that the (Hillary supporting) convention chair decided to put her thumb on the scales even though her side had already won:

Organizers of the Nevada State Democratic Convention said they had to rush to wrap up the “unruly and unpredictable” event on Saturday after security became an issue and objects, including chairs, were being thrown.

State party officials said authorities at the Paris casino in Las Vegas informed them around 10 p.m. that they could no longer provide the necessary security for the event, where tensions between Bernie Sanders supporters and party leaders flared up. The convention was scheduled to end at 7 p.m.
………

Sanders supporters have accused state party leaders of rigging the process against them, and they objected to procedural votes to approve the rules of the event. They also questioned a credentials committee’s disqualification of 58 would-be Sanders delegates, who state party officials said didn’t provide evidence about their identities or weren’t registered to vote as Democrats by a May 1 deadline.

………

After casino officials told convention organizers to wrap up the event Saturday night, party chairwoman Roberta Lange accepted a motion to appoint delegates pre-approved by the Hillary Clinton and Sanders campaigns, organizers said. She also accepted a motion to elect the state central committee according to rules submitted by county party chairs.

Sanders supporters upset with the proceedings staged a protest outside the Nevada State Democratic Party headquarters on Sunday, writing in sidewalk chalk “Roberta Lange murdered democracy” and “Fire Roberta.” Officials also said Lange had received hundreds of phone calls and text messages, including death threats, after her cellphone number was posted on social media.

Sanders issued a statement Friday, as tensions simmered before the convention, saying all Democrats shared the common goals of defeating Donald Trump and electing Democrats to office. “Working together respectfully and constructively on Saturday at the Nevada Democratic convention will move us closer to those essential goals,” he said.

Hillary Clinton really has two things going for her in the race for the nomination, her “inevitability”, and her claimed ability to unify the party in November.

The actions in Nevada mitigate against these perceived advantages.

If the Clinton campaign is as sure as they claim about her victory in the nomination, they aren’t, (and neither am I) they need to stop going scorched earth.

What a Lovely Family

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Chelsea Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, just shuttered a hedge fund after losing 90% of his investor’s money:

Despite having Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein as an investor and being Bill and Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky (and two former colleagues from Goldman Sachs who manage Eaglevale Partners hedge fund) told investors in a letter last February they had been “incorrect” on Greece, generating staggering losses for the firm’s main Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity, a/k/a the “Greek recovery” fund during most of its life. By ‘incorrect’ the Clinton heir apparent meant the $25 million Eaglevale Greek fund had lost a stunning 48% in 2014.

Which is not to say the larger fund it was part of is doing any better: as of last February, Eaglevale had spent 27 of its 34 months in operation below its high-water mark. We are confident that 13 months later the numbers are 40 out of 47, respectively.

………

Meanwhile, things went from terrible to abysmal for both the clueless hedge fund manager and his LPs, and as the NYT reports, Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law is finally shutting down the Greece-focused fund, after losing nearly 90% of its value.  Investors were told last month that Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity would finally be put out of its misery and would shutter.

The closure comes as the worst possible time: we are confident that Donald Trump will be quick to work it into his political attack routine.

While there is no indication of legal or ethical wrong doing, I guarantee that Mezvinsky made his millions in various fees out of this fiasco.

This might be ONE reason why Clinton is so dedicated to preserving the, “Heads I win, tails you lose,” ethos of  Wall Street.

Just Give them to Mexico

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Texan ‘Phants are back on the secession binge:

If the nationalists get their way, this November might be the last time Texans vote for a US president.

On Wednesday, the Platform Committee of the Texas Republican Party voted to put a Texas independence resolution up for a vote at this week’s GOP convention, according to a press release from the pro-secession Texas Nationalist Movement. The resolution calls for allowing voters to decide whether the Lone Star State should become an independent nation.

File this under, “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.”

I Need to Stop Calling Him Governor Rat F%$#*

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He just jammed up the useless Baltimore Executive to force him to install air-conditioning before the start of the next school year instead of waiting for at least 3 years, and now he going to sign into a law a bill that provides free birth control to Marylanders:

Advocates say a new Maryland law will place the state at the forefront of efforts to require insurance plans to offer birth control at no out-of-pocket cost, expanding access to women and men who want to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

 The law goes further than President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which already reduced costs for women seeking birth control in many cases.

 Under the Contraceptive Equity Act, Maryland will be the first state to require insurance companies to cover over-the-counter emergency contraceptives, such so called morning-after pills, at no cost. Maryland also will be the first state prohibiting out-of-pocket costs for men who have vasectomies.

 Advocates who pushed the bill through the General Assembly say Maryland is the first state to pass such a comprehensive approach.

 “Maryland is on the forefront across the board with this act,” said Karen Nelson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Maryland.

 Other provisions prohibit co-payments for any type of contraceptive and also ban preauthorization requirements for long-acting contraceptives such as IUDs. The law allows women to receive six months’ worth of birth control pills at one time.

Did I mention that he’s a Republican?

While I am not a fan of of the governor or many of his policies, he is not the kind of batsh%$ insane Australopithecine of many other (Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Paul LePage, Bruce Rauner, Sam Brownback, Matt Bevin, Rick Snyder, Pat McCrory,Greg Abbott, etc.) Republican governors.

Credit where credit is due.  He did the right thing. 

*Full disclosure, when we had problems with health insurance exchange, we called our state senator, and we ended getting a call from Hogan’s office, where a staffer fixed the problem.

Straight from Bag Full of Cats* to Stuffing Rabid Ferrets down One’s Trousers

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The speaker of Brazil’s lower house has reversed himself and the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff for excessively rosy budget predictions is back on:

The drive to oust President Dilma Rousseff is back on track after the head of the lower house reversed a decision that had earlier threatened to throw the entire impeachment process into chaos.

Lawmaker Waldir Maranhao released a statement in the dead of night revoking his own call to annul impeachment sessions in the lower house. That puts the Senate back in the spotlight, with a vote on whether to put the unpopular president on trial still slated for Wednesday. If successful, it would temporarily remove her from office. Rousseff is charged with illegally using state banks to plug a hole in the budget.

This is seriously f%$#ed up.

*Yes, I know, I’m overusing this metaphor.