Category: Schadenfreude

Words I Never Thought That I Would Ever Say

1 Comment

Good for George Lucas.

George Lucas wanted to expand his movie studios in Marin County, but has been running into a torrent of obstructionism and NIMBY from the local home owners for 25 years, and so they’ve thrown in the towel, and will be selling the land to the Marin County Foundation to create low-income housing:

He’s working with the Marin Community Foundation to instead construct affordable housing for either low-income families or seniors living on small, fixed incomes. In order to smooth along the development, he’s already given them all of the pricey technical studies and land surveys Lucasfilm spent years conducting. And we think that’s just great. Because if there’s one thing rich people will hate more than having movie magic made in their backyard, it’s poor people moving in.

Heh.

Vikram Pandit, F%$# You

No Comments

What Cee Lo Green Said (NSFW)

At the Bank of America’s annual meeting,; shareholders voted down Vikram Pandit’s pay package:

In a stinging rebuke, Citigroup shareholders rebuffed on Tuesday the bank’s $15 million pay package for its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, marking the first time that stock owners have united in opposition to outsized compensation at a financial giant.

The shareholder vote, which comes amid a rising national debate over income inequality, suggests that anger over pay for chief executives has spread from Occupy Wall Street to wealthy institutional investors like pension fund and mutual fund managers. About 55 percent of the shareholders voting were against the plan, which laid out compensation for the bank’s five top executives, including Mr. Pandit.

“C.E.O.’s deserve good pay but there’s good pay and there’s obscene pay,” said Brian Wenzinger, a principal at Aronson Johnson Ortiz, a Philadelphia money management company that voted against the pay package. Mr. Wenzinger’s firm owns more than 5 million shares of Citigroup.

Capitalism is a bitch, ain’t it, Mr. Pandit?

We need a lot more of this.

 In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the feeling of amusement.

This is Prize

No Comments

Unfortunately, the following is totally fictional, but I’d love to see some of the Facebook snooping employers get shafted like this:

One of the new terms is that every prospective new hire allow their manager to “shoulder surf” as they browse their Facebook or better still, to voluntarily log their manager into their Facebook account. If I recall correctly, she claims that we have the obligation to do a “background check” on prospective hires. I’m extremely vague on the correlation between faux-promiscuous sex or drinking and employee performance, but as she is a seasoned veteran, I have to trust her when she says that things like this overrule my judgment as to who is and who isn’t fit to be a programmer in our employ.

I was willing to go along with things and see how they panned out. But today something went seriously wrong. I have been interviewing senior hires for the crucial tech lead position on the Fizz Buzz team, and while several walked out in a huff when I asked them to let me look at their Facebook, one young lady smiled and said I could help myself. She logged into her Facebook as I requested, and as I followed the COO’s instructions to scan her timeline and friends list looking for evidence of moral turpitude, I became aware she was writing something on her iPad.

“Taking notes?” I asked politely.

“No,” she smiled, “Emailing a human rights lawyer I know.” To say that the tension in the room could be cut with a knife would be understatement of the highest order. “Oh?” I asked. I waited, and as I am an expert in out-waiting people, she eventually cracked and explained herself.

“If you are surfing my Facebook, you could reasonably be expected to discover that I am a Lesbian. Since discrimination against me on this basis is illegal in Ontario, I am just preparing myself for the possibility that you might refuse to hire me and instead hire someone who is a heterosexual but less qualified in any way. Likewise, if you do hire me, I might need to have your employment contracts disclosed to ensure you aren’t paying me less than any male and/or heterosexual colleagues with equivalent responsibilities and experience.”

I got her out of the room as quickly as possible. The next few interviews were a blur, I was shaken. And then it happened again. This time, I found myself talking to a young man fresh out of University about a development position. After allowing me to surf his Facebook, he asked me how I felt about parenting. As a parent, it was easy to say I liked the idea. Then he dropped the bombshell.

His partner was expecting, and shortly after being hired he would be taking six months of parental leave as required by Ontario law. I told him that he should not have discussed this matter with me. “Oh normally I wouldn’t, but since you’re looking through my Facebook, you know that already. Now of course, you would never refuse to hire someone because they plan to exercise their legal right to parental leave, would you?”

What could I say? I guess we have another hire whether he’s qualified or not. Here’s the bottom line: My ability to select the best candidates for our positions has been irreparably compromised by looking into their private lives. I’ve been “tainted” by knowledge of their sexual orientation, illnesses, religion, political affiliations, and other factors that expose us to anti-discrimination legislation. We can’t even claim that the employee improperly disclosed these matters to us, as we are the ones initiating the investigation of their private doings

Worse, I cannot manage these people once they’re hired. I would be diffident about censuring them or passing them over for advancement for fear of incurring a lawsuit that would be a distraction to our business and damaging to our reputation as fair employers.

You know I think that this may very well be true.

If you look at someone’s Facebook page, you might very well determine that they are a member of a protected group (no discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual preference [in some states], etc.)

So in addition to having Mark Zuckerberg suing you for hacking Facebook, which is what coercing a password against their TOS is, you might very well have a discrimination suit on your hands.

Oopsie.

Payback is Sometimes a Bastard Too

No Comments

There was a sex scandal in Minnesota, where the leader of the state Senate (a Republican, hoocoodanode) was found to have slept with an aide.

The aide was fired, and the (married) Senate Leader resigned.

The twist was that the leader who  resigned was one Amy Koch.  It was a woman.

In any case, the staffer who was fired has now filed suit, and he is threatening to out other state lawmakers who are f%$#ing around:

The saga continues over former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch’s (R) “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate staffer. Michael Brodkorb, who served as Koch’s executive assistant and communications director, claims that he was fired after the relationship was discovered because of his gender. He also says he has proof that other female staffers who had relationships with legislators were allowed to keep their jobs.

Brodkorb is now preparing to sue the Minnesota Senate, alleging wrongful termination and discrimination. Documents outlining the basis of the case confirm the relationship between Brodkorb and Koch. Rumors swirled in December that Koch’s “inappropriate relationship” was with him, but it wasn’t confirmed at the time. It continues:

“Brodkorb has evidence that similarly situated female legislative employees, from both political parties, were not terminated from their employment positions despite intimate relationships with male legislators. It is clear that Mr. Brodkorb was terminated based on his gender. He intends to depose all of the female legislative staff employees who participated in intimate relationships, as well as the legislators who were party to those intimate relationships, in support of his claims of gender discrimination.”

Heh.

Please, call his bluff. I want him to spill the beans.

They Can’t Even Give Away Ads on Rush Limbaugh’s Show

2 Comments

For the next two weeks, his syndicate, Premiere Networks, will be suspending their national ads from his show:

Radio-Info.com reports that Premiere Networks, which syndicates the Rush Limbaugh show, told its affiliate radio stations that they are suspending national advertising for two weeks. Rush Limbaugh is normally provided to affiliates in exchange for running several minutes of national advertisements provided by Premiere each hour. These ads called “barter spots.” These spots are how Premiere makes its money off of Rush Limbaugh and other shows it syndicates.

But without explanation, Premiere has supended these national advertisements for two weeks. Radio-Info.com calls the move “unusual.” The development suggests that Rush Limbaugh’s incessant sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke have caused severe damage to the show.

They are suspending the spots because they cannot give them away right now, and dead air is not a reasonable alternative.

This is a good thing, notwithstanding the concerns from the commentariat about a “slippery slope” of censorship. (Yeah, I’m talking to you Kevin Drum)

It’s pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-liberal hand wringing bullsh%$.

Being on the East Coast, I still hear now and again WBZ’s late night talk radio, which, even though its hosts lean right about 80% of the time is kind of a pre-repeal-of-the-fairness-doctrine relic, and their producers don’t pre-screen for conservative political orthodoxy.

In particular, I remember the late David Brudnoy, who was a conservative, and a libertarian, and one with VERY strongly held beliefs. (He loathed the Clintons)

The fact is that the most extreme of their hosts (like Brudnoy) re to the right about like Ed Schultz is on the left.

What you have on the air on the right wing right now are, to paraphrase Roger Stone, “Rat F%$#ing” political operatives.

If sponsors flee the freak show conservatives, it is an unalloyed good.

To think otherwise is to declare that Rachel Maddow and Glen Beck to be to opposite sides of the same coin.

I have no problems with polemicists, and neither will advertisers.

What is happening now is that sponsors are getting the message now that there are risks to backing the partisan Rat F%$#ers, and this is an unalloyed good.

Heh

No Comments

It looks like Rush’s going postal is causing significant blow-back for all of the hate jocks:

Rush Limbaugh made the right-wing talk-radio industry, and he just might break it.

Because now the fallout from the “slut” slurs against Sandra Fluke is extending to the entire political shock-jock genre.

Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”

This is big. According to the radio-industry website Radio-Info.com, which first posted excerpts of the Premiere memo, among the 98 companies that have decided to no longer sponsor these programs are “carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm), and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).” Together, these talk-radio advertising staples represent millions of dollars in revenue.

They have a right to speak.

They don’t have a right to make millions of dollars a year to do so.

Schadenfreude, Irony, We Haz Them!

No Comments

The Koch Brothers are attempting to take over the Cato Institute, and its head, and much of the staff, are appalled.

The law seems straightforward, the Koch Brothers own at least half the shares in the institute, so they get to call the shots, which seems to be to turn it into a partisan think tank, as opposed to a libertarian sand box.

The response of the principals at Cato has been a remarkable exercise in self abnegation:

No. The irony here is that the nation’s preeminent libertarians—who ought to be exquisitely attentive to freedom of contract, institutional design, and observing the letter of the law—couldn’t get their rights right. They built this Streeling of libertarian thought, with its $20+ million annual budget and world-wide reputation, on a shareholding structure that is either actually or nearly under the control of people who do not share many of their values and have not for decades. The entire enterprise may well have been for years only one death away from Koch domination. If so many libertarians are now so worried about a Koch takeover, one has to ask, why have they spent so many years building a brand with an unshielded thermal exhaust port?

I must say, a week ago I would have said that I would have been willing to pay serious money to hear Ed Crane and his posse at the Cato Institute say something like:

Shorter Ed Crane: Our collective societal well-being is advanced when restrictions are put on the ability of property owners to do what they wish with their property. The Cato Institute itself, for example, is in a legal sense the private property of its shareholders. But its shareholders do not have the moral right to do what they wish with it. For the Cato Institute is not a mere legal instrumentality that three shareholders control and direct. Instead, what the Cato Institute is is a social trust, a Great Compact, a contract that makes a great chain between all libertarians dead, living, and yet unborn, in which all those committed to the collective intellectual project of libertarianism are stakeholders who have moral rights over the Cato Institute that completely trump the property rights that so-called “owners” of The Cato Institute may claim to have.

For such an argument would seem to have the potential for wider applicability…

While the schadenfreude is nice, James Grimmelmann observes that this entire dispute knocks out one of the primary philosophical underpinnings of Libertarian thought, the idea that contracts executed between people of reasonable intellect can handle such matters:

The answers are obvious, and completely understandable. Because few people knew about Cato’s unusual share-based ownership structure. Because those few who knew didn’t think the Kochs’ power play was a serious possibility. Because Cato was there, and so it made sense as a coordination point, whatever its weaknesses. Because each individual project made sense, regardless of the long term. Because they never even thought to ask. All completely human, all quite arguably reasonable, and all things any of us would likely have done in the same position. And yet the end result could well be to deliver one of the world’s most recognizably libertarian institutions into the hands of men who would use it for other purposes.

I could not tell you how many times I’ve encountered libertarian arguments about law that assume that individuals can and ought to use contracts to protect themselves against just this sort of contingency. Don’t worry about users clicking “I agree” to overreaching terms of service; if they truly cared about the terms, they’d negotiate for better ones. Don’t worry about people who refuse to buy health insurance; they’re making a rational choice for themselves. Don’t worry about minority shareholders, don’t worry about franchisees, don’t worry about all the other groups that find themselves on the wrong end of a bargain that always seems to tip against them in the long run—if they wanted better protections, they could and should have negotiated for them up front.

Except they don’t. They never do. And really. If the uber-libertarians of the Cato institute can’t watch out for themselves, what hope is there for the rest of us?

And so libertarianism is shown not to be just morally lacking, intellectually as well.

If the best libertarians in the world can get taken down like this, then the idea that contracts are a replacement for government is a lie.

But this is still some really yummy schadenfreude.

Of course, if the Koch’s win, now that the spat has gone public, much of the credibility of the organization will be destroyed in the process.

Heh.

What’s the Difference Between a “Moderate” Democrat and a “Moderate” Republican?

1 Comment

A moderate Republican will buck the party, but on the close votes about an important issue, will vote with the Republicans.

A moderate Democrat will buck the party, but on the close votes about an important issue, will vote with the Republicans.

So, I see the fact that Olympia Snowe is joining Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson in retiring from the Senate as an unalloyed good:

Citing excessive partisanship and a dispiriting political environment, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a three-term Republican from Maine, said Tuesday that she would not run for re-election in November. Her surprise decision delivered a potential blow to Republicans who need just a handful of seats to regain control of the Senate; Ms. Snowe was considered one of their safer incumbents.

“After 33 years in the Congress this was not an easy decision,” said Ms. Snowe, 65, a moderate who served 16 years in the House before moving to the Senate. “My husband and I are in good health. We have laid an exceptionally strong foundation for the campaign, and I have no doubt I would have won re-election.”

Her entire statement sounds like a hissy fit, so maybe it’s a fit of pique.

The lateness of her announcement, it’s almost March , does jam up the Republicans, particularly since Maine is really not fertile ground for the Teabagger types, particularly after their close exposure to flying monkey right wing nut job, and current governor, Paul LePage, and moderate Republicans have to deal with Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth.

Ha Ha!

No Comments

Lehman and its its creditors have subpoenaed Timothy Geithner over his discussions with JPMorgan Chase over the time when the investment bank collapsed:

Lehman Brothers‘ bankruptcy estate and its official committee of unsecured creditors asked a court late on Thursday to compel Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to testify about the investment bank’s collapse.

The request for a subpoena comes as part of the estate’s lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, which asserts that the bank illegally took $8.6 billion in collateral from Lehman, precipitating that firm’s demise.

The lawsuit’s main argument is that JPMorgan, apprised of Lehman’s fragile condition, improperly profited from making its collateral demands — and also pushed Lehman into bankruptcy.

Lawyers for Lehman’s creditors wrote in a court filing that they and the estate served Mr. Geithner with a subpoena last August, ordering him to testify about conversations he had held with both JPMorgan and Lehman over the former’s calls for collateral in early September 2008.

Mr. Geithner, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, spoke with JPMorgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, 10 times in the week before Lehman fell, according to the filing. Many of those conversations, the lawyers contend, must have been about JPMorgan’s collateral demands.

Basically, Lehman is asserting that Jamie Dimon’s bully boys stole from them in order to push them over into bankruptcy.

The implication is that they did so because they knew that, in the event of a collapse, they would get to keep the money.

Note that they are not asking about deliberations at the NY Fed, but the content of his discussions with Jamie Dimon.

Still, I relish the though of Geithner in the dock forced to answer questions about his dealings with the big banks.

Heh

No Comments

The Republicans have discovered the downside to the Citizens United ruling in the person of one Newton Leroy Gingrich.

It appears that Newt’s bit of scorched earth insanity is almost completely funded by an equally unhinged, and very rich patron, one Sheldon Adelson, who had contributed millions to the “totally not coordinating” Gingrich super-PAC.

It still does not make Citizens United a good ruling. It’s and awful, corrupt, and politically motivated decision by the conservative bloc of the Court, but I am amused by how it’s biting the ‘Phants in their flabby white asses.

Duke, Meet Newt

No Comments

In the middle of the Republican establishment’s heads exploding over the possibility of a Newt candidacy, Gingrich has been endorsed by former Congressman, and convicted felon, Randall “Duke” Cunningham:

Jailed ex-Congressman Duke Cunningham wants Newt Gingrich to know he’s got the Republican presidential candidate’s back.

Cunningham apparently has been watching the Republican presidential primary debates while spending 100 months in a Tucson, Ariz. federal prison. Cunningham, a Republican who represented northern San Diego, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion in 2005 in one of the biggest federal bribery scandals in recent memory.

Cunningham tells Gingrich in an electronic message he says he sent to the candidate last month that his fellow prisoners, and their families, support Gingrich

Heh.

It’s A Start

1 Comment

Love the mug shot

You know, it’s refreshing when a billionaire ignores a judge, and the judge throws his ass in jail:

The elderly billionaire owner of Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge has been jailed today for failing to meet court-ordered deadlines on a multimillion dollar construction project.

Manuel ‘Matty’ Moroun, along with company president Dan Stamper, has been sent to jail until his company complies with a 2010 court order to get the work on the $230m Gateway project done.

It is not yet clear how long the men will stay behind bars, but the work could take up to a year.

Well, were freed on appeal, so they only spent one night in the clink.

That being said, I want Wayne County Judge Prentis Edwards on the Supreme Court.

Ha Ha!

No Comments

The latest PPP (pp)polling, Rick Perry is in third place in Texas.

Normally, even in losing a Presidential primary contest, one tends to pick up a bit of stature both locally and nationally, in the case of Rick Perry, I think that it may very well have destroyed his future prospects in the state.

Rick Perry has three big problems: Collapsing poll numbers, worse debate performance than J. Danforth Quayle, and … let’s see … I can’t … The third one, I can’t … Oops.

And in the Further Adventures of Walker Wisconsin Asshole

No Comments

They turned in the petitions for his recall.  They needed 540,208, and were hoping for about 750K.

They got more than one million!

That’s more than ¼ of all registered voters.

The wind is blowing in from Wisconsin, and I smell toast ………… My bad that’s Scott Walker, who smells a lot like toast right now.

BTW, it’s not just Walker”

Democrats and union members also collected about 850,000 signatures to recall Republican Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and 20,600 names to recall [Republican] Senator [Leader] Scott Fitzgerald, about 4,200 more than necessary. Also targeted are Senators Pam Galloway, Terry Moulton and Van Wanggaard.

So, where was the Governor when this was all going on? He was in New York, raising money with Maurice “Hank” Greenberg at a $2500 a plate fundraiser.

Why was he raising large chunks of out of state cash from one of the prime architects of the AIG fiasco, whose bailout continues to cost taxpayers billions of dollars?

Why because those pesky lefties are flooding Wisconsin with masses of out of state dirty money.

Who says irony is dead?

Well, Damn! This is Interesting

No Comments

William Cohan, Bloomberg Columnist and former investment banker unloads on Mitt Romney with both barrels:

By bidding high early, Bain would win a coveted spot in the later rounds of the auction, when greater information about the company for sale is shared and the number of competitors is reduced. (A banker and his client generally allow only the potential buyers with the highest bids into the later rounds; after all, you can’t have an endless procession of Savile Row-suited businessmen traipsing through a manufacturing plant if you want to keep a possible sale under wraps.)

For buyers, the goal in these auctions is to be one of the few selected to inspect the company’s facilities and books on-site, in order to make a final and supposedly binding bid. Generally, the prospective buyer with the highest bid after the on-site due-diligence visit is selected by the client — in consultation with his or her banker — to negotiate a final agreement to buy the company.

This is the moment when Bain Capital would become especially crafty. In my experience — which I heard echoed often by my colleagues around Wall Street — Bain would seek to be the highest bidder at the end of the formal process in order to be the firm selected to negotiate alone with the seller, putting itself in the exclusive, competition-free zone. Then, when all other competitors had been essentially vanquished and the purchase contract was under negotiation, Bain would suddenly begin finding all sorts of warts, bruises and faults with the company being sold. Soon enough, that near-final Bain bid — the one that got the firm into its exclusive negotiating position — would begin to fall, often significantly.

Of course, some haggling over price is typical in any sale, and not everything represented by sellers and their bankers is found to be accurate under close examination. But Bain Capital took the art of negotiation over price into the scientific realm. Once the competitive dynamics had shifted definitively in its favor, the firm’s genuine views about what it was willing to pay — often far lower than first indicated — would be revealed.

And then there is the closing line:

I have no idea how Romney might behave in office. I do believe, however, that when he was running Bain Capital, his word was not his bond.

This guy has clearly been waiting for years to unload on Romney, and this take-down is truly a thing of beauty.

H/t The Shrill One.

John Stewart Weeps

No Comments

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but Newt Gingrich’s numbers are imploding.

Seriously, this makes Rudy Giuliani’s flame-out in 2008 look look like when Saddam set fire to half the oil wells in Kuwait.

PPP notes that, “Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row.  His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%.”

He’s lost almost half of his support over the past 2 weeks.

His campaign isn’t doing a Dorian Gray, it’s a face melting Raiders of the Lost Ark thing that he has going.

FWIW, I think that the cause of his numbers dropping is not that he is saying batshit insane stuff, but because people are starting to realize that he is doing so as a sacrifice at the church of Gingrich, and that there is nothing that he wouldn’t say to sate his own ego..

One wonders if RuPaul Ron Paul starts getting some coverage of his decades long history of explicitly blatant racism if he wins Iowa.

I’m sick and tired of the press ignoring this, because he gives good article.

It’s On Wisconsin!

No Comments

With over a month to go to gather signatures to recall him, the petition drive has already collected 97% of the signatures required:

Organizers of an effort to kick Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker out of office said Thursday they’ve collected nearly enough signatures to force a recall election, though their financial backing is far behind the Republican governor’s fundraising.

The state Democratic Party, unions and disgruntled citizens started organizing amid growing anger over Walker’s polarizing measure approved in March that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for public workers. Now, the United Wisconsin coalition reports that it collected 507,533 in 28 days; the group must submit 540,208 signatures by Jan. 17 to force the recall.

“The people of Wisconsin have said enough is enough,” Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate said.

But the coalition and Democrats have raised roughly $1.4 million since July, compared to the $5.1 million that Walker raised over the same period, according to reports from both sides Thursday.

Of course, Walker’s response is to try to tie it up in the courts, and he and the ‘Phants in the legislature are trying to replace the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board with lapdogs as well.

Oh, and did I mention that state senate leader is attempting to make signing a recall petition a possible cause for a felony investigation as well? (2nd link)

You know, I think that the protestations of Walker and his bully-boys that the voters will reject the idea of recalling them are ringing awfully hollow.

Pass the Popcorn…

No Comments

It appears that self hating gay Republican group GOProud was so incensed by Rick Perry’s anti-gay bigotry ad, and they grew a pair, and outed gay Perry staffer Tony Fabrizio, which so offended board member, and lush, Andrew Breitbart that he quit from their board:

GOProud issued a statement this morning, saying, “Tony Fabrizio is not the victim here. Tony Fabrizio has lined his pockets for years with money from gay groups and is now one of the chief architects of a campaign strategy – not just an isolated television ad – intended to demonize gay people in order to score political points.”

It was in response to this decision that Breitbart, who edits Big Government, Big Hollywood, and several other conservative websites, released a statement of his own, resigning from his position as an advisor to GOProud. “I have a zero tolerance attitude toward the intentional infliction of vocational and family harm by divulging the details of an individual’s sexual orientation as a weapon of political destruction,” he told The Daily Caller, “As an ‘Advisory Board member’ I was not consulted on this extreme and punitive act.”

You know, it’s so cute when sh%$ like this goes down. 

That’s Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!!!

No Comments

This referring to the conviction of “Bad Hair Bob” Erhlich’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign manager of attempted vote fraud:

Paul E. Schurick, the 2010 campaign manager for former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., was convicted Tuesday by a Baltimore jury of four counts stemming from a robocall that prosecutors said was intended to suppress the black vote.

The call, which Schurick acknowledged authorizing, was placed on Election Day to 112,000 voters in Baltimore and Prince George’s County, the state’s two largest majority-African American jurisdictions. Recipients were told by an unidentified woman that they could “relax” because Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) had been successful.

The guilty verdict not only sullied the three-decade career of one of Maryland’s best-known political operatives, it also served as a major embarrassment for Ehrlich, the state’s only Republican governor in a generation.

Although prosecutors have never suggested that Ehrlich approved the calls, he is pushing a new book that draws anecdotes from his four years in Annapolis and contends his failed comeback bid last year was “swamped” by the black vote.

The jury convicted Schurick — who got his start in politics working for Democrats — of trying to influence votes through fraud, failing to identify the source of the call as required by law and two counts of conspiracy to commit those crimes.

Schurick’s defense argued during the week-long trial that he relied on the judgment of a campaign consultant hired to reach out to black voters, who said the calls would make use of “reverse psychology” and motivate potential Ehrlich supporters to go to the polls.

This is where it gets interesting, because now that prosecutors have gotten a conviction, people are going to start thinking about rolling over.

While I think that prosecutors are probably right when they say that, “prosecutors have never suggested that Ehrlich approved the calls,” after all, when you break the law, you make sure that the candidate has no direct knowledge of it.

That being said, I think that he had to know that the central pillar of his campaign was suppressing the black vote, and he had to know that, and I’m hoping that this come out at trial.

Schadenfreud Futures are Dropping from Oversupply

No Comments

For the 2nd time in as many months, Alabama law enforcement has arrested a senior foreign auto executive in their state:

To arrest one foreign car-making executive under Alabama’s new tough immigration laws may be regarded as a misfortune; to arrest a second looks like carelessness.

A judge has acted to put a Japanese employee of Honda Motor Company out of his misery by dismissing immigration charges against him, three days after he was booked under Alabama’s new immigration laws that have been billed as the most swingeing in America. Ichiro Yada is one of about 100 Japanese managers of the company on assignment in southern state.

Yada was stopped in Leeds, Alabama, at a checkpoint set up by police to catch unlicenced drivers. He was ticketed on the spot, despite the fact that he showed an international driver’s licence, a valid passport and a US work permit.

Key parts of the new immigration law, HB56, came into effect in late September, including the driving provisions. Under them, the police are required to check up on the immigration status of anyone they stop who they suspect of being in the country illegally.

In addition, all drivers are required to carry a valid driver’s licence, either from a US state or from their native country if they are from abroad. The law is designed to trap undocumented immigrants – in practice, Hispanics largely from Mexico – who are no longer allowed to apply for driving licences.

Over the past two months thousands of undocumented Latinos have fled the state and many more have ceased driving for fear of being caught and incarcerated.

Yada is the second foreign car executive to fall foul of the new law. Last month police officers arrested a German director of Mercedes-Benz for failing to carry a valid driver’s licence. The move exposed Alabama to widespread criticism and ridicule.

What the Germans and Japanese don’t understand is that the compliant workforce, born of a vehement opposition of unions and worker protections, naturally leads to this, because hatred of the other is a way to deflect criticism for creating so many have-nots.

I believe in tough immigration enforcement, but effective immigration enforcement must raise the risks of employing illegal aliens, not simply this sort of security theater.