Category: Politics

I’m Calling a Political Hit By Sarko

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As you may have heard, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been released on his own recognizance for the rape charges against him:

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

What prosecutors have discovered is that:

  • She had a phone conversation with a friend, who is in prison pending drug dealing charges, discussing the financial benefits of pursuing the case.
  • She appears to have lied about a gang rape on her asylum application.
  • She appears to have been used in, or participated in, some manner to launder cash and cell phones for her fiance’s operations. 

Seeing as how DSK was the leading Socialist candidate for the French presidency, and Nicolas Sarkosy is as about as popular as a case of the clap, I’m wondering if this wasn’t some sort of setup arranged by Sarkosy or his allies.

I don’t think that Sarko can make himself popular, but he could create a situation in which a contested primary by the Socialists could create disarray in the party* which could be used to his electoral advantage.

Google™ Analytics™ says that I do have an occasional reader from France, and I would love to hear their take on this.

*In fact, one could consider disarray to be the natural state of the Socialist party.

And Now, a Public Service Announcement

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Now if only they could pivot to the banksters

It’s an advertisement for Wikileaks.

I wholeheartedly support and approve this message.

Unfortunately, you cannot use your credit, but there are other options listed on their support page.

I would offer a caveat about Bitcoin, which is that the virtual currency has experienced wild price swings, as a result of someone counterfeiting the digital currency, and I would anticipate this sort of thing to increase, because it has some real world value, which attracts criminals, and it is not traceable by the standard three letter acronym (TLA) organizations, which might lead them to attempt to debase the currency or exchanges in some manner.

I would suggest buying an international money order with cash, and mailing it to:

WikiLeaks (or any suitable name likely to avoid interception in your country)
BOX 4080
Australia Post Office – University of Melbourne Branch
Victoria 3052
Australia

Not only do I support, rhetorically at least, Wikileaks, but I would like to see the US Constitution mirror that of the Swedish Constitution, and enshrine the concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness) into our governmental structures.

I believe that the classification of documents in our society should require a strong and affirmative showing that doing so is essential.

Secrecy is most often used to protect those in power from those whom they ostensibly serve, not for protecting the public safety.

Greeks Approve Suicide Pact

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You know, I was in the car, talking with my son about Greece, and I said that the Greek parliament had approved their own suicide pact by approving the austerity program demanded by the ECB and IMF.

My son, ever the precocious almost 11-year-old, asked me why it was a suicide pact, and I explained that austerity causes the economy to contract, which makes you less able to repay your debts.

I said that it was like demanding a salary cut so that you can better pay your debt.

My son did not understand this at all.

I explained that it was because they are stupid, and by “they” I mean the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Angela Merkel.

Charlie did not find this a satisfying answer, and, truth be told, I don’t find it a particularly satisfying answer.

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Un-Dirtyword Believable!

So, Michelle Bachmann, everyone’s favorite dose of batsh%$ insane, went to her home town of Waterloo Iowa, and invoked fellow Waterloo resident, John Wayne.

Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.

The problem is that the John Wayne that we all know from his film oeuvre, Marion Robert Morrison, was born in Winterset, Iowa, hours away from Waterloo.

The only famous John Wayne from Waterloo, was John Wayne Gacy, who began his history of abuse and violence in Waterloo before moving to Chicago and expanding to mass murder.

There is a part of me that is beginning to think that Bachmann does things like this because she so loves to play the victimhood card.

Say something mind-bogglingly stupid or deranged, and when people notice, complain that the media is out to get you, and your supporters get even more riled up.

Of course, Occam’s razor would indicate that it’s just stupidity and lunacy,

This is Weird, But Not Unexpected

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge David Prosser, after having admitted calling the Chief Justice of the court a “bitch”, and threatening to “destroy” her, with his excuse being that she was, after all a bitch”, and now he is alleged to have choked a fellow justice:

Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley late Saturday accused fellow Justice David Prosser of putting her in a chokehold during a dispute in her office earlier this month.

“The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold,” Bradley told the Journal Sentinel.

Sources told the Journal Sentinel two very different stories Saturday about what occurred. Some confirmed Bradley’s version. According to others, Bradley charged Prosser, who raised his hands to defend himself and made contact with her neck.

………

The conversation grew heated, and Bradley asked Prosser to leave. Bradley was bothered by disparaging remarks Prosser had made about Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a source said.

Bradley felt Prosser “was attacking the chief justice,” the source said.

Before leaving, Prosser “put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold,” the source said.

“He did not exert any pressure, but his hands were around her neck,” the source said.

The source said the act “was in no way playful.”

But another source told the Journal Sentinel that Bradley attacked Prosser.

“She charged him with fists raised,” the source said.

Prosser “put his hands in a defensive posture,” the source said. “He blocked her.”

In doing so, the source said, he made contact with Bradley’s neck.

It’s telling that Bradley has public with her statements, and Prosser is using proxies to put forward his story, which is pretty much of a repeat of his “the bitch had it coming” defense.

I know, yadda yadda yadda, innocent until proven guilty, but his defense seems particularly lame, particularly given his admittedly unprofessional and abusive behavior, I’m disinclined do believe the report that he choked her in self defense, though I’m sure we’ll be seeing that all through the right wing media.

Matt Taibbi is a Genius

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Just go read his takedown of Michelle Bachmann:

It could happen. Michele Bachmann has found the flaw in the American Death Star. She is a television camera’s dream, a threat to do or say something insane at any time, the ultimate reality-show protagonist. She has brilliantly piloted a media system that is incapable of averting its eyes from a story, riding that attention to an easy conquest of an overeducated cultural elite from both parties that is far too full of itself to understand the price of its contemptuous laughter. All of those people out there aren’t voting for Michele Bachmann. They’re voting against us. And to them, it turns out, we suck enough to make anyone a contender.

Just go read it.

It’s nothing new, but it is a cogent, and eminently readable, synthesis of what we do know.

Some Democrats Just Got a Small Clue

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Senators Durbin and Schumer have come out and explicitly accused the ‘Phants of deliberately tanking the economy for political gain:

hey’ve made it explicit. Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to sabotage the recovery — or at least stall it — by blocking all short-term measures to boost the economy, even ones they previously supported.

In a Capitol press conference Wednesday, the Senate’s top Democrats argued that Republicans don’t want to pass measures like a temporary payroll tax holiday for employers because they’ll improve President Obama’s re-election chances.

“Our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work: President Obama,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).

The harshest denunciation came from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the man who crafted the Dems’ new “jobs first” message.

“We are also open to hiring incentives, perhaps in the form of a payroll tax cut for employers that was floated by the administration…. [T]hat might not be our first choice, that shows how willing we are to work with the Republicans to create jobs. It’s pro-business, it’s a tax cut, and many Republicans have been for it in the past. But now all of a sudden they’re coming out against it,” Schumer said.

They should have been saying this 6 months ago.

First, it’s true, second, it’s good politics, and third, it’s true.

Dearie, Have You Considered Ritalin?

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Yes, the half term governor of Alaska, and Miss it-took-six-colleges-to-get-a-degree-in-journalism, Sarah Palin, has quit her nationwide bus tour about halfway through her schedule:

Amid diminishing media interest, Sarah Palin has quit her high-profile bus tour halfway through and returned to Alaska with her family, according to RealClearPolitics.

The move puts a damper on widespread speculations that Palin’s “One Nation” bus tour, which launched on Memorial Day, was a precursor to a potential White House bid for 2012. Palin never made it to her scheduled stops in the key primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

RealClearPolitics, which originally broke the story about the bus tour, reported Wednesday on Palin’s “extended hiatus.” The remaining legs of her trip, according to Scott Conroy, are “in limbo” as “Palin and her family have reverted to the friendly confines of summertime Alaska.”

Seriously, can this woman finish anything?

Either Sarah Palin is the most pathetic person on the face of the earth, or she is the most inspired performance artist ever.

What Liberal Pushback Should Look Like

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Thomas Geoghegan, has just written an OP/ED suggesting that Social Security and taxation should be increased, not decreases:

As a labor lawyer I cringe when Democrats talk of “saving” Social Security. We should not “save” it but raise it. Right now Social Security pays out 39 percent of the average worker’s preretirement earnings. While jaws may drop inside the Beltway, we could raise that to 50 percent. We’d still be near the bottom of the league of the world’s richest countries — but at least it would be a basement with some food and air. We have elderly people living on less than $10,000 a year. Is that what Democrats want to “save”?

“But we can’t afford it!” Oh, come on: We have a federal tax rate equal to nearly 15 percent of our G.D.P. — far below the take in most wealthy countries. Let’s wake up: the biggest crisis we face is that most of us have nothing meaningful saved for retirement. I know. I started my career wanting to be a pension lawyer. In the 1970s, lawyers like me expected there to be big pots of private pensions for hourly workers. By the 1980s, as factories closed, I was filing hopeless lawsuits to claw back bits and pieces of benefits. Now there are even fewer bits and pieces to get.

A recent Harris poll found that 34 percent of Americans have nothing saved for retirement — not even a hundred bucks. In this lost decade, that percentage is sure to go up. At retirement the lucky few with a 401(k) typically have $98,000. As an annuity that’s about $600 a month — not exactly an upper-middle-class lifestyle. It’s too late for Congress to come up with some new savings plan — a new I.R.A. that grows hair, or something. There’s no time. We have to improve the one public pension program in place. Should we means-test it? No. I don’t care if they go out and buy bottles of Jim Beam: let our elderly have an occasional night out at a restaurant.

The most paralyzing half-truth in this country is that people hate taxes. People are willing to pay taxes that they spend on themselves. Two-thirds of those surveyed in a CBS/New York Times poll in January were willing to pay more taxes to save Social Security at its modest level. To “save” it, most of us don’t need to pay. We could lift the cap on high earners, the 6 percent of workers who make over $106,800 a year. If earnings above the cap were subject to the payroll tax with no increase in benefits to high earners, there would be no deficit in the Social Security trust fund in 2037, as projected.

If people are willing to pay more just to “save” Social Security, they should be glad to pay more to raise it.

I cannot imagine a such a full throated defense of basic human decency as government policy from any Democrat on the national stage, and that is a large part of the tragedy that is the Democratic party.

Fortas Was Forced to Resign for Less Than Thomas Did

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Of course, the Nixon justice department was willing to threaten to file a bogus prosecution against his wife to grease the skids, but Clarence Thomas relationship with right wing real-estate developer, who bankrolled his charities and his wife’s lobbying job:

Clarence Thomas was here promoting his memoir a few years ago when he bumped into Algernon Varn, whose grandfather once ran a seafood cannery that employed Justice Thomas’s mother as a crab picker.

Mr. Varn lived at the old cannery site, a collection of crumbling buildings on a salt marsh just down the road from a sign heralding this remote coastal community outside Savannah as Justice Thomas’s birthplace. The justice asked about plans for the property, and Mr. Varn said he hoped it could be preserved.

“And Clarence said, ‘Well, I’ve got a friend I’m going to put you in touch with,’ ” Mr. Varn recalled, adding that he was later told by others not to identify the friend.

The publicity-shy friend turned out to be Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas’s.

The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Ms. Thomas to start a Tea Party-related group. They have also spent time together at gatherings of prominent Republicans and businesspeople at Mr. Crow’s Adirondacks estate and his camp in East Texas.

So he paid Thomas’ wife’s salary, set up a museum that is an homage to Clarence Thomas, and gave free access to his private jet, as well as gifting him a $19,000 bible, and putting him up at “retreats” (Want some more caviar with your Dom Perignon?) ……… Nothing to see here, move along.

And then there was a $15,000 gift from the American Enterprise Institute, a frequent amicus filer in Supreme Court cases ……… America, what a country.

BTW, some background on comparisons between Clarence Thomas and Abe Fortas here.

BTW, the point person in the House of Representatives on Thomas’ethical lapses was Anthony Weiner ……… Imagine that.

Pass the Popcorn

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Two of former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich’s aides have been indicted on charges of conspiracy to violate Maryland election laws and obstruction of justice relating to robocalls, sent out before polls closed, that suggested that people stay home, because “Governor O’Malley and President Obama have been successful”.

It would be interesting to see what happens if one of them is flipped by prosecutors.

While I don’t think that Bad Hair Bob was involved, he’s really too stupid to be involved in such a plan, I can see his wife, Kendel, giving some sort of assent to the plan.

So, Anthony Weiner Has Resigned

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I guess the rule here, even if you are a Democrat, because they were the ones screaming for him to go, is that unlike Craig, Vitter, Coburn, Ensign, etc., is that it’s not OK if you aren’t a Republican.

The Democrats are such willing hostages to Republican political terrorism that Stockholm Syndrome should be renamed Beltway Democrat syndrome.

The only thing more pathetic is the behavior of the press, which sees fit to treat real scandals from Republicans with decorum, but turns into an (even bigger) freak show when a Democrat does something.

One final note, I would not call Anthony Weiner a dick, because a dick has a head.

Italian Voters Finally Refuse to Cover Berlusconi’s Ass

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I think that the Italian people may finally had their fill of Silvio, because they repealed a law granting him immunity, along with repealing laws restarting the Italian nuclear program,. as well as one privatizing the water supply:

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi suffered a stinging political defeat on Monday when voters overturned laws passed by his government that would have restarted Italy’s nuclear energy program, privatized the water supply and granted him immunity from prosecution.

Analysts said the government was not likely to fall immediately over the results, which came from a popular referendum — the first since 1995 to draw the quorum of 50 percent plus one vote required to overturn the laws.

But just weeks after Mr. Berlusconi’s candidates lost mayoral races in Milan and Naples in elections he had billed as a referendum on his own popularity, Monday’s results pointed to a new reality: the man who once had his finger on Italy’s pulse appeared to be losing touch.

The truth, for course, is that he’s never really had his fingers on Italy’s pulse.

What he has had is a monopoly on private TV in Italy, and control over all the television in Italy while he is in power.

Come to think of it, what Silvio Berlusconi has is a microcosm of America’s media oligopoly.

Imagine what the world would be like if Sarah Palin were Rupert Murdoch, and you will understand the hell that was Italian politics.

Pleasant dreams.

2 Years Too Late, Timmeh

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So, the US Treasury is finally taking action against banks who have not engaged in HAMP in good faith:

As the nation’s housing market continues to teeter, the Treasury Department on Thursday penalized three of the nation’s largest banks for subpar performance in administrating a government-sponsored program to modify mortgage loans for distressed homeowners.

As part of a new assessment of mortgage servicers, Treasury officials said they would withhold incentive payments for the three banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — until the problems are resolved. At that point, those payments would be made, a Treasury spokeswoman said.

In May, the three banks received $24 million in incentives as part of the modification program.

The Treasury Department has previously withheld payments from mortgage servicers, but Thursday’s action focused on some of the biggest players in the program. Called the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, it is voluntary for mortgage servicers. Nearly all of the nation’s largest banks have signed contracts to participate.

Only, as Yves Smith observes, this is not accountability, it’s accountability theater, from the folks who so f%$#ed up HANP so badly that, “HAMP was so clearly a disaster that Treasury Department officials didn’t try very hard to defend it in a meeting with bloggers that I [Yves Smith] participated in last August. The best they could do was claim that it helped the housing market by spreading out foreclosures over a long time period,” so in this bit of atmospherics, the banks still get their money, they just won’t get it today.

Someone must have informed Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner that even if Barack Obama would never fire him,* if the voters fire Obama, he’s still out of job.

*This fact that Geithner is unfirable makes a pretty argument against a 2nd Obama term.†
†We now have revelations that Larry Summers was more on the ball than he.

The Term Here is Credible Allegations of Fraud

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Pass the popcorn

On the recall front in Wisconsin, Judge John Markson ruled that the Government Accountability Board (GAB) can have an extension to review irregularities in the petition process against the Democratic senators.

What this means is that the allegations of fraud by Rebublicans have enough merit to warrant an investigation, while the allegations of irregularities by Democrats do not:

A Dane County judge has granted the Government Accountability Board’s request for additional time to finish its review of the recall petitions filed against Dems Dave Hansen, Jim Holperin and Bob Wirch.

The GAB now has until June 10 — next Friday — to certify those elections and has a meeting scheduled for Wednesday to review the petitions.

Judge John Markson denied a request from Republicans to delay the recall elections of Republican senators that have already been certified until the Dem reviews are completed.

Markson also specified that today’s original deadline for the GAB to certify those recalls remains in effect, setting up recall elections for six GOP senators for July 12.

If approved and certified next week, the three Dem recalls would take place July 19.

Markson said the GAB had shown good cause to extend the deadline, noting the unprecedented level of recall activity along with the passage of voter ID legislation and completing a statewide Supreme Court recount.

Part of the reason for the need for additional time is that the Republicans did not get half again as many signatures as was necessary.

The Republicans are desperate to have all the elections at once, because they want to make sure that the Dem get out the vote is diluted across additional districts.

I am amused, but I figure that the reactionary corrupt f%$#s on the Wisconsin Supreme Court who hold a 4-3 majority will find a way to mess with this.

I Believe That This Crosses the Stupidity Event Horizon

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Sarah Speaks


Revere’s official response

So, because she is in New England, she makes reference to Paul Revere, only she gets it really wrong, “He who warned, uh, the, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and, um, makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free and we were gonna be armed.“

The fact that anyone listens to Sarah Palin or takes her seriously says worse things about the USA than anything that Osama could have dreamed.

I pray for the day that her 15 minutes of fame is done.

H/t UM at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for catching the story, and finding the Revere pic.

I Should Have Taken the Blue Pill

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Well, it looks like we now have a chronology, methodology, and the perps in l’affaire Weiner.

It’s a pretty good layout of how a not-so vast right wing conspiracy fabricated all this.

The frightening thing, is that it looks to be somewhere around 1 or 2 dozen people who did all this, and they did it in a particularly ham-handed way, and still you had CNN bringing admitted liar, and un-admitted drunk, Andrew Breitbart on to discuss it.

You can click on the link, and click through to the the links beyond the link, or not:

You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Christie Blinks

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After claiming that there was no need to reimburse the state for taking a state helicopter to watch his son play baseball (see earlier post), because the pilots need the hours to maintain their current rating, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has agreed to reimburse the state for the cost of the flight:

Reversing course, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reimbursed the state for personal and political travel on a state police helicopter, including a trip to meet with Republicans urging him to consider a presidential run.
Christie, a Republican, personally paid the state treasury $2,151.50 for his use of the chopper on two occasions in the last week to attend his son’s games in a state baseball tournament.

I don’t think that Christie, and his fans amongst the press and the Washington, DC crowd, realize just damaging this will be for him.

First, of course, is the whole “tight with a dollar, unless it applies to him” bit, but the second, and possibly more important, thing is that this lets the air out of his political personae as a “tough guy”, and reveals him to be a just another bully who has no guts when push comes to shove.

If the voters of New Jersey did not get that before, perhaps they do so now.