Category: Politics

Sounds Like the Tories are Freaking Out Over the Scottish Referendum

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They set it up as an all or nothing vote, specifically leaving an option for autonomy of the Scottish independence referendum, and now that the polls are showing independence having a (small) lead, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has issued a statement saying that they intend to increase autonomy:

A last-minute all-party plan to devolve further powers to Scotland over tax, spending, welfare and a host of other areas will be unveiled in the next few days, George Osborne has said.

The announcement came after a YouGov poll showed the yes side taking a narrow lead, spreading fears at Westminster of a constitutional crisis.

The chancellor detailed the plans – the product of backroom talks – saying they would be unveiled in the next few days with a clear timetable for implementation in the event of a no vote. The offer is similar to the last-minute package offered to Quebec by the Canadian government in 1995, that staved off a vote for separation.

All the major political parties have presented different offers of further devolution, but there has been no agreement between them on far they should extend.

The announcement of the package also represents a shift away from the negative tone of the previous no campaign to a positive offer of the benefits of staying inside a United Kingdom. Many polls show support for wider devolution but there has been a lack of clarity about what it represents in practice.

The political parties said it was unlikely the joint statement would set out detailed new powers beyond those already promised, but focus on a credible timetable and process for the transfer to come about. The three parties have already issued a joint statement of further transfer of powers in June but, judging by the latest polls, this may have had little effect.

No specifics, of course, because they really do not want to allow Scotland to have authority on taxes and social welfare programs, because this would provide a nearby case study for the futility of benefit and tax cuts, but it appears that political reality is that some sort of retreat is essential for the Conservatives to defeat this referendum.

Still, I would not trust them do keep their word if I were a Scotsman who had to make up his mind about how to vote.

And Now the Cops are Ratting Out Christie’s Bridge Scandal

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Props to the The Bergen Record for their coverage of Bridgegate.

Today, they revealed that senior staff at the Port Authority Police were aiding the bridge closures, and the rank and file cops are talking:

On the second day of the George Washington Bridge lane closures last year, a Port Authority police officer stationed at a gridlocked intersection picked up the two-way radio in his patrol car. The closures were creating “hazardous conditions” on Fort Lee’s streets, he told fellow officers according to his own account, and the lanes needed to be reopened.

 “Shut up,” a Port Authority police supervisor at the bridge allegedly replied, instructing the officer not to discuss the apparently secret operation over an open radio channel.

 That exchange, as described by officer Steve Pisciotta and involving the highest-ranking officer at the bridge, Deputy Inspector Darcy Licorish, is included in a summary of the recollections of nearly a dozen rank-and-file police officers that was provided to lawmakers investigating the lane closures, according to documents obtained by The Record.

The accounts of 11 officers at the bridge during the week of the closures share common threads and provide vivid new details about how the operation was put into effect on a Monday morning nearly a year ago.

 ………

 The instructions about the new lane configuration, many of them said, were delivered at roll call before the morning rush hour on the first day by Police Lt. Thomas “Chip” Michaels, who grew up with Governor Christie in the town of Livingston. He told the officers not to touch the traffic cones choking the number of access lanes out of Fort Lee from three down to one, according to the officers.

Later that morning, officers said they saw Michaels driving David Wildstein — the Port Authority executive who ordered the closures and also grew up with Christie — around Fort Lee’s gridlocked streets.

………

 Several immediately heard gossip in a police break room that the closures were part of a dispute between Christie and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who had declined to endorse the governor for re-election. The officers described the resulting traffic as “horrible” and “horrific,” and at least one urged a reversal of the operation, only to get warnings that his remarks over the radio were “inappropriate,” according to his attorney. It’s the first indication that police charged with patrolling the bridge recognized and notified superiors of the chaos being caused by the lane closures.

The summary, written by the legislative panel’s attorney Michael W. Knoo and based on an interview with the officers’ attorney Dan Bibb, renews questions about the role of some Port Authority police officers in what appears to have been an exercise motivated partly by politics.

The Record also obtained separate summaries of informal interviews with the two police supervisors at the bridge at the time, Michaels and Licorish. Those interviews were conducted prior to the one given on behalf of the 11 rank-and-file officers and do not address some of the allegations regarding the instructions – and warnings – the officers say they received.

………

 Some of the 11 rank-and-file officers at the bridge, however, described the supervisors as ordering them not to voice opposition to the lane closures as they were happening.

 Perhaps the most explosive anecdote was provided on behalf of Pisciotta, a 12-year officer who is typically one of the first to arrive at the bridge before the morning rush hour, according to the summary. Pisciotta’s attorney said his client, who had worked at the bridge for over five years, recognized early on that the closures were causing traffic safety problems and aired his concern over the radio on the second day, according to the summary.

………

 Licorish “replied to Pisciotta by radio, telling him to ‘shut up’ and that there could be no further discussion of the lane closures over the air,” according to Pisciotta’s attorney.

Michaels and a police sergeant then “visited him in person at his post to tell him that his radio communication had been inappropriate,” the attorney said.

A second officer, Angela Tait, said she witnessed both exchanges, according to the summary.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, of Teaneck, who is co-chairwoman of the legislative panel, said the summaries indicate that “law enforcement was in on this whole thing.”

 “It was bad enough that it was the Port Authority and people close to the governor, but now you’ve got the people who are responsible for keeping us safe,” she said. “Any time you have law enforcement involved in a political operation, that’s very troubling.”

 Bibb, who is representing the 11 officers, also told the lawmakers’ attorney that many of the officers have already been interviewed by federal investigators, who are conducting a criminal probe. Bibb provided the legislative panel a summary of what the officers stationed at the bridge would say if subpoenaed to appear before the committee and testify under oath, according to the memo, dated Aug. 27.

Seriously, the lower level cops have both gone to the union, and gone public about this.

This is like peeling an onion, but someone is clearly making onion rings out of this, hopefully the US Attorney.

Rick Perry is Toast

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This story predates Governor Perry’s indictment by about 4 months, but this goes straight from abuse of power to outright bribery:

Aides to Gov. Rick Perry offered Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg continued employment in the district attorney’s office if she resigned her elected post following a drunk-driving arrest, officials familiar with the offer said Thursday.

The offer came after Perry threatened and then vetoed $7.5 million in funding for the office’s anti-corruption unit, known as the Public Integrity Unit, because Lehmberg had refused to step down.

But several officials and sources told the Express-News that Perry — through intermediaries — offered various options to Lehmberg to entice her resignation, culminating in promises to restore funding to the unit, another position in the District Attorney’s office, and selection of her top lieutenant to serve as the new district attorney.

The offer was explicit; “they were clear,” the elected official said.

Something that Rachel Maddow has always said is that if you want to look at local corruption, you need to check the local press, in this case, The San Antonio News Express.

This is an explicit quid pro quo, but if you read the national press, it’s pundits complaining about the criminalization of ordinary politics.

It isn’t. It’s a classic bribery attempt.

Governor Ultrasound is Completely Fornicated

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After just 17 hours deliberation, despite having an epic set of instructions from the judge, the jury found former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell  and his wife Maureen of every major charge:

A federal jury on Thursday found former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, guilty of public corruption — sending an emphatic message that they believed the couple sold the office once occupied by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson to a free-spending Richmond businessman for golf outings, lavish vacations and $120,000 in sweetheart loans.

After three days of deliberations, the seven men and five women who heard weeks of gripping testimony about the ­McDonnells’ alleged misdeeds unanimously found that the couple conspired to lend the prestige of the governor’s office to Jonnie R. Williams Sr. in a nefarious exchange for his largesse.

The verdict means that Robert McDonnell, the first governor in Virginia history to be charged with a crime, now holds an even more unwanted distinction — the first to be convicted of one.

He and his wife face decades in federal prison, although their actual sentences are likely to fall well short of that. U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer set a sentencing hearing for Jan. 6.

The former governor, a onetime Republican rising star considered for the 2012 vice-presidential nomination, was convicted of all 11 corruption-related counts brought against him. In a small victory, he was acquitted of lying on loan documents.

………

It was a stunning outcome for the couple, all the more so because in December, McDonnell declined to accept a plea agreement in which he would have been found guilty of just one felony count of lying on a loan document, according to people familiar with the case. Maureen McDonnell would have faced no charges.

He was unbelievably guilty, and he somehow figured that he would get out of it, so he now faces many more years in jail, and he sold the mother of his  children down the river.

I’m not surprised. 

He thought that he was on the proverbial “Mission from God” only, unlike the Blues Brothers movie, he wasn’t joking.

It’s the same cycle as one sees in ancient Greek tragedies: Koros to Hubris to Ate to Nemesis.  (Success to arrogance to madness to comeuppance)

The Revolving Door Spins Again

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A Russian bank targeted by US sanctions, has hired Trent Lott and John Breaux as lobbyists:

Gazprombank GPB (OJSC), a Russian bank targeted with sanctions by President Obama over the Ukraine crisis, has hired two former U.S. senators to lobby against those sanctions, according to a new disclosure filed with the Senate.
Gazprombank is controlled by Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom, the country’s largest gas producer; it supplies about a third of Europe’s natural gas.

 In a filing submitted Friday and effective that day, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and former Senator John Breaux, D-La., are listed as the main lobbyists under the Gazprombank account for the firm Squire Patton Boggs, lobbying on “banking laws and regulations including applicable sanctions.”

Truth be told, the fact that these two are lobbying for Gazprombank is not the real problem, it is the fact that they never went home, and are now paid obscene amounts of money as employees of Squire Patton Boggs (BTW, the Boggs in the name of the firm is Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., son of Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., former House Majority Leader).

More back loaded bribery of our elected officials.

Least Surprising News of the Day

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Eric Cantor gets is back loaded bribe, because, after fighting financial reform tooth and nail, he will now make millions of dollars at a Wall Street firm:

Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who resigned last month after losing renomination to an underfunded college professor, spent much of his 13-plus years in the U.S. Congress advancing the agenda of Wall Street investment firms. This week, he announced that he will be joining a Wall Street investment bank as its new vice chairman.

Cantor will be joining Moelis & Co., the investment bank said, to “provide strategic counsel to the Firm’s corporate and institutional clients on key issues,” to “play a leading role in client development,” and to “advise clients on strategic matters.” The announcement press release praised Cantor as a “leading voice on the economy and job creation,” who worked in Congress “to lower taxes, eliminate excessive regulation, strengthen small businesses, and encourage entrepreneurship.” The deal reportedly includes a $1.4 million signing bonus and at least a $2 million annual compensation package.

Moelis and Co. will not get a value of $2 million a year from Eric Cantor, but that is not the purpose of their offer to him.

The purpose of their offer to him is to show people who are still in Congress that, if they play nice with the banksters, then when they retire, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, they will be set for life.

It’s the proverbial offer they cannot refuse.

Andrew Cuomo is Terrified Right Now

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First the New York Times declines to endorse the in the Democratic primary (they pretty much said that they would endorse Zephyr Teachout if she had a chance of winning), and then they endorse Teachout’s running mate, Timothy Wu for Lieutenant Government.

This makes things complex:

The conventional wisdom is that Teachout cannot win, but she can pose problems, both for Cuomo’s perception as an all-powerful and invulnerable politician and for the havoc her running mate, Columbia law professor Tim Wu, could cause if he defeats Cuomo’s handpicked running mate, Erie County’s Kathy Hochul.

 A Wu victory resulting in a Cuomo-Wu ticket in November would block Cuomo from counting votes won in the general election on several other ballot lines where the incumbent and Hochul already are on the line, such as the Working Families Party.

It’s still about as likely that Andrew Cuomo would lose the general as it is that he would lose the primary, which is to say about as likely as the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell.

There is actually a report that Cuomo may dump his running mate, Kathy Hochul. (Warning it is a New York Post link.)

BTW, if there is anyone who deserves to lose the next primary in New York State than Andrew Cuomo, it is Kathy Hochul:

There is a race for lieutenant-governor in which Tim Wu, the champion of net neutrality, is running against Cuomo’s handpicked candidate, a true Blue Dog horror named Kathy Hochul, a former congresscritter whose last days in Washington were highlighted by her staying around the Capitol to vote in favor of a move by the lunatic Darrell Issa to cite Eric Holder for contempt in the Fast And Furious mini-non-scandal.

And from the Times endorsement:

……… boasted repeatedly that she had voted many times against “Obamacare.”(H)er willingness to shift politically does not suggest she would offer any kind of independent judgment. Nor does her record give any real clue about what would happen if she took over as governor.”

She also had a 100% rating from the NRA while she was in Congress.

Andrew Cuomo chose her for one reason: as a gigantic f%$# you to the states liberals.

The state’s liberals should return the gesture.

F%$# Me. I Agree with Rand Paul

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He just accused Hillary Clinton of being ridiculously bellicose:

Sen. Rand Paul is redoubling his efforts to paint Hillary Clinton as a hawk whose policies are dangerous for the United States.

The Kentucky Republican and 2016 hopeful took to the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to launch his latest broadside against the former secretary of state, saying her proposed foreign policy of arming the Syrian rebels would have emboldened Islamic militant group ISIS.

“To interventionists like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we would caution that arming the Islamic rebels in Syria created a haven for the Islamic State. We are lucky Mrs. Clinton didn’t get her way and the Obama administration did not bring about regime change in Syria. That new regime might well be ISIS,” he wrote in a piece published online Wednesday.

Paul added: “Those who say we should have done more to arm the Syrian rebel groups have it backward. Mrs. Clinton was also eager to shoot first in Syria before asking some important questions. Her successor John Kerry was no better, calling the failure to strike Syria a ‘Munich moment.'”

And let us not forget our little adventure in Nulandistan (the Ukraine) that seems to be blowing up right now.

He’s right. The only difference between the Neocons, like Richard Pearle and Paul Wolfowitz, and the Liberal Interventionists, like Hillary Clinton and Samantha Powers, is purely one of their vocabulary, their policy prescriptions are similarly short-sighted, and the results are similarly catastrophic.

Pass the Popcorn

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Pass the Popcorn

In 2012, Michelle Bachmann accused the Ron Paul Presidential campaign of bribing Iowa state senator Kent Sorenson for his changing his endorsement from her to the Libertarian stalwart.

Well, it turns out to be true.

Sorenson has pled guilty to taking at least $25,000.00 to switch his endorsement.

While this bit of of corruption may not seem significant beyond an indication that the Iowa caucuses are too corrupt and thus should lose their first in the nation status, there is actually more to this.

Specifically, it appears that Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign manager, Jesse Benton, is hip deep in this.

How is is significant today that the campaign manager for an iconoclast’s 2012 campaign is implicated in  bribery scandal?

Here’s how:

Neither Lori Pyeatt, Ron Paul’s granddaughter and the treasurer of his 2012 presidential campaign, nor Jesse Benton, who was Paul’s campaign manager (and is now manager of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign), had responded to requests for comment at the time this post was published.

(emphasis mine)

So Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager is implicated in a bribery scandal, and what’s more, it appears that he might be rolling over to prosecutors:

It isn’t clear if the investigation is continuing, but Sorenson has been granted immunity from further prosecution on federal and state charges, as has his wife, according to the plea agreement. OpenSecrets.org has learned that two grand juries have been investigating the events in Iowa, one focused on the Paul campaign and one on Bachmann’s. Last August, OpenSecrets.org published a copy of a memo written by Aaron Dorr, the head of the Iowa Gun Owners, in which he outlined Sorenson’s demands to switch his endorsement. Included in the emails surrounding the negotiations were several top Paul campaign officials, including Benton.

(Again, emphasis mine)

So Sorenson is singing to the feds like a canary, and Mitch McConnell’s (soon to be former?) campaign manager is clearly in the prosecutor’s cross-hairs.

Cease Fire in Gaza

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So Hamas picks up some more anti-Israel political cred, and Israel mows the lawn, and nothing really changes:

After 50 days of fighting that took some 2,200 lives, leveled large areas of the Gaza Strip and paralyzed Israel’s south for the summer, Israeli and Palestinian leaders reached an open-ended cease-fire agreement on Tuesday that promised only limited change to conditions in Gaza and left unresolved the broader issues underpinning the conflict.

Hamas, the militant Islamist faction that dominates Gaza, declared victory even though it had abandoned most of its demands, ultimately accepting an Egyptian-brokered deal that differs little from one proffered on the battle’s seventh day. In effect, the deal put both sides back where they were at the end of eight days of fighting in 2012, with terms that called for easing but not lifting Israeli restrictions on travel, trade and fishing in Gaza.

It’s the world’s most depressing remake of Groundhog Day.

Investment Banker is New Economy Minister In France

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Francois Holland makes the worst possible choice:

After a day and a half of protracted negotiations following the forced exit of three rebels from his cabinet, the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, on Tuesday night appointed a new economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker on the right of the Socialist party.

As President François Hollande struggled to overcome a political crisis sparked by leftwing dissidents who campaigned against the Socialist government’s austerity policies, Valls also announced that finance minister Michel Sapin, a close ally of Hollande, was being put in charge of overseeing public accounts. Macron is close to Sapin and Hollande, which should ensure that the government in future speaks with one voice on economic policy.

Five months after putting Valls in charge of a “fighting” government, Hollande had demanded “clarity” and “coherence” following the surprise resignation of the cabinet, including the economy minister, Arnaud Montebourg.

Valls has vowed to pursue the government’s three-year economic plan providing for an easing of the tax burden on businesses and 50 billion euros in spending cuts.

(Emphasis mine)

A disastrous wrong policy with disastrous bad optics.

Hollande is imploding faster than Nicolas Sarkosy.

The German promulgated austerity fetish is going to give France a president le Pen.

New York Times Declines to Endorse Andrew Cuomo

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I still think that Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu are unbelievably long shots, and that the putative Republican nominee is pretty much the only in ‘Phant in New York willing to be that embarrassed in a state wide campaign, but the fact that the New York Times has refused to endorse him for reelection is a pretty big deal:

More than four years ago, while announcing his campaign for governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo stood in front of the Tweed Courthouse in downtown Manhattan and said Albany’s antics “could make Boss Tweed blush.”

 New York had had enough corruption, he said, and he was going to put a stop to it. “Job 1 is going to be to clean up Albany,” he said, “and make the government work for the people.”

 Mr. Cuomo became governor on that platform and recorded several impressive achievements, but he failed to perform Job 1. The state government remains as subservient to big money as ever, and Mr. Cuomo resisted and even shut down opportunities to fix it. Because he broke his most important promise, we have decided not to make an endorsement for the Democratic primary on Sept. 9.

 His opponent in the primary is Zephyr Teachout, a professor at Fordham Law School who is a national expert on political corruption and an advocate of precisely the kind of transparency and political reform that Albany needs. Her description of Mr. Cuomo as part of a broken system “where public servants just end up serving the wealthy” is exactly on point, but we decline to endorse her because she has not shown the breadth of interests and experience needed to govern a big and diverse state.

 Why endorse no candidate in a major state primary? Here’s how we see it: Realistically, Governor Cuomo is likely to win the primary, thanks to vastly greater resources and name recognition. And he’ll probably win a second term in November against a conservative Republican opponent. In part, that’s because issues like campaign finance rarely have been a strong motivator for most voters. Nonetheless, those who want to register their disappointment with Mr. Cuomo’s record on changing the culture of Albany may well decide that the best way to do that is to vote for Ms. Teachout. Despite our reservations about her, that impulse could send a powerful message to the governor and the many other entrenched incumbents in Albany that a shake-up is overdue.

So basically, the Times is disgusted by Andrew Cuomo, and they wanted to endorse Ms. Teachout, but she’s too much of a long shot for them.

The primary is in 2 weeks, September 9, and I am with Ryan Cooper when he says, “It’s time for Democrats and progressives to get rid of this toad.”

The bottom line is that Andrew Cuomo is the worst kind of backstabbing, triangulating “centrist” in the wretched No Labels mold. Better for liberals to beat now, or at least make his victory as unimpressive as possible, before we have to beat him in a presidential primary down the line.

Needless to say, the Zephyr/Wu ticket is on my Act Blue Page. 

While on the Subject of Right Wing Governors Facing Criminal Investigations………

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It turns out that Scott Walker was illegally coordinating with 3rd party groups:

Gov. Scott Walker prodded outside groups and individuals to funnel millions of dollars into Wisconsin Club for Growth — a pro-Walker group directed by his campaign adviser — during the recall elections in 2011 and 2012, according to court documents unsealed for a short time Friday afternoon.

The documents form much of the basis for prosecutors’ theory that Walker’s campaign and conservative groups illegally cooperated to help him and other Republicans. Walker and the groups deny they broke any laws, noting two judges have sided with them.

Among the funds that flowed into the Wisconsin Club for Growth was $700,000 from a company trying to build a massive open-pit iron mine in northern Wisconsin. Soon after the 2012 recall and general elections, Walker and Republicans eased environmental regulations, helping the firm.

“The Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth,” said an April 28, 2011, email from Kate Doner, a Walker campaign consultant, to R.J. Johnson, an adviser to Walker’s campaign and the advocacy group. “Wisconsin Club for Growth can accept corporate and personal donations without limitations and no donors disclosure.”

In the email, Doner wrote to Johnson that Walker wanted Wisconsin Club for Growth exclusively to coordinate campaign themes. “As the Governor discussed … he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging,” she wrote.

Walker’s campaign has paid Doner’s fundraising firm $1.26 million since 2011, including more than $70,000 in his latest spending report.

The hundreds of pages of documents that became available Friday afternoon also showed Walker’s team sought to solicit funds for the Wisconsin Club for Growth from an array of nationally known donors to fend off his 2012 recall. Real esate developer Donald Trump, industrialist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson were all targets.

………

Mining company Gogebic Taconite LLC’s $700,000 contribution to the Wisconsin Club for Growth was not publicly known until Friday.

………

Gogebic first announced its plans in November 2010. By mid 2011, the company said that it wouldn’t move forward until Wisconsin changed iron mine laws to give more certainty to the regulatory process.

The company had an early hand in writing a mining bill and continued to play a key role throughout the legislative process. The bill, one of GOP’s signature pieces of legislation since Walker’s election, was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Walker in early 2013.

Why hasn’t he been indicted yet?

H/t Charlie Pierce, for this update on, “Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest facility formerly known as the state of Wisconsin.”

France’s Hollande Doubles Down on Austerity in Futile Attempt to Boost his Prospects

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Francois Holland’s Economy Minister calls out the German austerity fetish, and in response, he reshuffles his cabinet to give him the boot:

French president François Hollande took the biggest gamble of his two-year-old presidency on Monday by ordering his reformist prime minister to form a new government which will exclude Socialist dissidents demanding an end to economic austerity policies dictated by Germany.

 Casting off his characteristic indecision, Hollande agreed to prime minister Manuel Valls’s offer to dissolve the cabinet amid a political crisis triggered by the country’s outspoken economy minister.

 The dissolution of the cabinet allows Hollande to form a new government without dissenting voices.

 In a defiant farewell speech at the economy ministry, Arnaud Montebourg, said the austerity drive in France and Europe was a “financial absurdity,” and accused Hollande and Valls of ignoring his pleas for a “moderate and balanced” alternative.

 Less than an hour after he was called into Valls’s office for a 15-minute meeting, Montebourg said austerity-inspired tax increases had undermined purchasing power and has led to the rise of extremist parties.

 Montebourg said the “incorrect” austerity policies followed by the European Central Bank and EU member states had “continued to mire the eurozone in recession and soon, deflation”. Education minister Benoît Hamon and culture minister Aurélie Filippetti also said that they would not take part in the new government.

Holland has decided that he has to throw in with Angela Merkel’s twisted morality play in the desperate hope for his own political survival, his popularity is currently at a Cheneyesque 17% (!) approval rating.

It’s not gonna work, austerity will continue to depress economies and stoke the political right.

So the next president of France is either going to be a Gaullist, or Marine Le Pen.*

*I think that I just threw up in my mouth.

Quote of the Day

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Make no mistake: this is why conservatives are so enamored of block grants. It’s not because they truly believe that states are better able to manage programs for the poor than the federal government. That’s frankly laughable. The reason they like block grants is because they know perfectly well that they’ll erode over time. That’s how you eventually drown the federal government in a bathtub.

—Kevin Drum

He makes the observation that the TANF (what used to be called Welfare) block grants have had the effect of creating massive cuts in the program, and then (IMNSHO accurate) generalizes to block grants generally:  Just level fund them, and the program shrinks to meaninglessness.

BTW, f%$# Bill Clinton for shredding the social safety net for unneeded political benefit.  (He would have beaten Bob “Bob Dole” Dole in any case)

The Twinkie Defense, The Chewbacca Defense, and now the Bitches be Crazy Defense

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Dan White got away with murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk through the Twinkie Defense, Chef got put sentenced to jail, and sprung from jail with the Chewbacca defense, and in the Bob McDonnell bribery case, the defense has become even more ludicrous with the “Bitches be Crazy” defense.

That’s right, the former governor of Virginia’s defense team has become even more absurd than the minds of Tray Parker and Matt Stone.

His defense is that he didn’t take any bribes, it was all his wife, a technically private citizen is unbalanced, and had a crush on the man who bribed the governor, and that he had nothing to do with it. I guess the loan of a Ferrari, and the golf outing worth something in excess of $10,000.00, and thousands of dollars of loans from tobacco based “medicine” mogul Jonnie Williams, were just ……… “stuff”

As Eugene Robinson notes, the technical term for this is “throwing his his wife under the bus.”

How far would you go to stay out of jail? Would you publicly humiliate your wife of 38 years, portraying her as some kind of shrieking harridan? Would you put the innermost secrets of your marriage on display, inviting voyeurs to rummage at will?

 For Robert McDonnell, the former Virginia governor on trial for alleged corruption, the answers appear to be: “As far as necessary,” “Hey, why not?” and “Sounds like a plan.”

 McDonnell’s testimony this week in a federal courtroom in Richmond about his wife’s psychological turmoil has been both cringe-worthy and compelling. It has been clear for some time that McDonnell’s strategy for winning acquittal amounted to what could be called the “crazy wife” defense. But only when he took the stand did it become apparent how thoroughly he intended to humiliate the “soul mate” he still claims to love.

 McDonnell disclosed Thursday that he moved out of the family’s home shortly before the trial began. “I knew there was no way I could go home after a day in court and have to rehash the day’s events with my wife,” he testified.

 I guess not. Anyone who said such things in public about his or her spouse would be advised to clear out.

 McDonnell testified that Maureen McDonnell was so volatile that the entire staff at the governor’s mansion signed a petition threatening to quit if her behavior didn’t improve. “She would yell at me,” he told the court. “She would tell me I was taking staff’s side, that I didn’t know what was really going on over there.”

 He said he believed his wife needed professional counseling, though it was unclear whether he tried very hard to convince her to seek it. He spoke of the family’s severe financial problems, which included large credit card bills, and said that “it just seemed like there was too much stuff that she was buying.” Prior testimony has indicated, however, that unwise real estate investments caused most of the problem — and that Robert McDonnell, not Maureen, ran the family finances.

There are also tens of thousands of dollars of loans from the snake oil salesman, but hizonner the governor thought that nothing war wrong with that:

Testifying for the third day in his public corruption trial, former Gov. Bob McDonnell said today he saw nothing inappropriate about $70,000 in loans he negotiated with businessman Jonnie Williams in 2012.

The loans were extended by the diet supplement maker to a real estate company the governor operated with his sister to manage rental properties they owned in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach. Rents on the properties were falling short of covering expenses, and the McDonnells needed to make up the deficit.

 McDonnell said he saw nothing wrong with the loans because Williams hadn’t asked him to do anything on his behalf and his administration hadn’t done the businessman any favors.

 Williams testified earlier that he and the governor agreed the loans would be granted on a handshake and kept just between the two of them.

 McDonnell today denied that claim. “There was no such discussion with Mr. Williams,” he said.

 He said he tried to get the terms of the loans in writing, but that never occurred.

 He said he did not disclose the Williams loans on his annual financial disclosure statement because they were corporate loans for which he had no personal liability.

Yeah. Nothing shady here.

Seriously, I half expect the jury to take a page from the original version of the Mel Brooks film The Producers, and announce that, “We find the defendants incredibly guilty.”

Dude, you are going to jail.  The decision that you made is to go without a shred of dignity.

New York Times Calls out Cuomo on Campaign Challenges

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The Editorial Board are unamused by the Cuomo campaign’s efforts to keep Zephyr Teachout off the ballot:

New York State voters rarely have enough real choice on their ballots, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems determined to keep it that way. Ever since another Democratic candidate for governor, Zephyr Teachout, arose on his left, Mr. Cuomo has tried to throw her off the primary ballot on the shaky grounds that she hasn’t met the state’s five-year residency requirement.

On Monday, a Brooklyn judge tossed that argument out of court, ruling that Ms. Teachout is perfectly qualified to be on the Democratic primary ballot on Sept. 9. But Mr. Cuomo, true to form, won’t back down. His aides immediately promised an appeal of the ruling. That is political bullying, and the governor should back off and engage with Ms. Teachout as a serious candidate. Doing otherwise suggests he is more nervous about winning a second term than he would like to appear.

………

Although Mr. Cuomo is leagues ahead in the polls and has a $32.5 million bankroll, he should not dismiss Ms. Teachout and her growing number of followers as irritants. Her criticisms are mostly legitimate, and he should defend his first term in a series of robust debates with her in the weeks before the primary, rather than through the timidity of litigation.

Before the ruling from Judge Edgar Walker of the State Supreme Court, the governor’s campaign lawyers tried briefly to challenge Ms. Teachout’s nominating petitions, which required 15,000 voters to support placing her name on the ballot. After she turned in 45,000 names, they turned to the state’s absurdly rigid residency requirements to challenge her. (State law requires that candidates for governor be a legal resident of New York for five years before the election. By comparison, candidates for the United States Senate only have to be residents on Election Day.)

I still don’t think that she has the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell, but the fact that that the Times editorial board is calling out Cuomo’s politico cowardice is amusing.

Shorter Republicans: N*****s Shouldn’t Vote

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The Executive director of the Missouri Republican Party has called the voter registration drive being conducted in Ferguson “Disgusting”:

Encouraging more participation in the democratic process in a community that feels alienated from political power — hence the demonstrations — seems like an obviously good idea; and one that’s particularly compelling because it’s so simple. Voting is an alternative to protesting in the streets.

 And yet, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, Matt Wills, denounced the plan.

 Mr. Wills told the right-wing website Breitbart: “If that’s not fanning the political flames, I don’t know what is. I think it’s not only disgusting but completely inappropriate.”

 On another right-wing site, Red State, Dan McLaughlin also argued that there was something indecent about the registration drive. Ferguson presents an opportunity for “Right and Left” to find “common ground,” he wrote. But “the minute you turn your energies into just another effort to register Democratic voters and fire up the Democratic base in advance of an election,” he argued, “the harder you make it to keep the common ground from vanishing in the fog.”

In case you’re wondering, Mr. Sharpton did not say that the residents of Ferguson should vote for Democrats; he said they should vote, full stop. He didn’t even mention the ideological composition of the area’s governing bodies; though he did mention their racial composition (lopsidedly white in a majority black community). And of course the residents of Ferguson, once registered, will have the ability to vote for anyone they please — not just Democrats.

Your inner Jim Crow is showing, dudes.

Voter registration is not a partisan activity, it is an invocation to civic virtue, so of course Republicans are against it.

A Correction That I am Happy to Make

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In yesterday’s post about the indictment against Rick Perry, I suggested that the indictment for abuse of official power against Rick Perry, I supported the outcome, but was dubious on the actual law.

Well, I was wrong. Both the facts and the law support this indictment.

First, in addition to his public pronouncements, Governor Goodhair called the Travis County DA to threaten the veto:

When Lehmberg refused to resign, Perry threatened to veto funding of her Public Integrity Unit—which investigates corruption of local, state, and federal public officials. Sources close to the investigation told me that Perry’s threat happened as the unit’s prosecutors were investigating whether Perry’s political backers and campaign contributors had received preferential and improper treatment in receiving grants from an anti-cancer state agency, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

 ……… (Run of the mill Texas corruption snipped)

 When Lehmberg refused to resign, Perry threatened to veto funding of her Public Integrity Unit—which investigates corruption of local, state, and federal public officials. Sources close to the investigation told me that Perry’s threat happened as the unit’s prosecutors were investigating whether Perry’s political backers and campaign contributors had received preferential and improper treatment in receiving grants from an anti-cancer state agency, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

Making public statements and publicly threatening a veto is one thing, but the behind the scenes machinations and contacts by his evil minions™ appear to be a direct threat against the office that is investigating him.

And then there is the legal precedent:

The closest precedent dates back to 1917, when Gov. James Ferguson, who wanted the University of Texas to fire some faculty and staff of which he disapproved, was indicted based on his veto of funding to the university. Ferguson resigned before he was convicted. “There’s not really any legal or political precedent for this. You’ve got to go back nearly a century,” Jillson said.

I think that the case is far stronger than is made out in Politico.

The case against Perry is a lot stronger than against Ferguson, because those college professors were not investigating him and his, and DA Lehmberg is investigating him and his.

I still think that it is a tough case to prove unless the DA turns one of Perry’s evil minions™, but I do think that it is a winnable case.