Category: Schadenfreude

Ha Ha!

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Anonymous has apparently penetrated the US Chamber of Commerce, and now released a 1.2 Gigabyte file containing the documents.

It seems to contain files from the Chamber, the American Legal Exchange Council, and the the Mackinac Center.

The last two are right wing front groups.

The ALEC writes legislation to kill unions as well as the poor and the elderly, and the Mackinac Center is yet another of those right wing so-called “think” tanks.

There is a caveat here, one which has been posted at AnonNews:

On April 29th a person using the twitter account “@septscelles”  released a large file to Barrett Brown that purportedly contained secret US Chamber of Commerce documents. This file was later made available via File Dropper as a (strangely truecypted) torrent named “chambersecrets2”.  It is also reported to have been made available in an unencrypted form on the Pirate Bay.

Despite the promise of secrets and leaks, early research has thus far shown that this information is publicly available through a simple Google search. It’s very possible that “@septscelles” is just an attention seeking troll. Despite this, there is a more insidious possibility. We learned from the HB Gary emails that the Chamber of Commerce was advised to “feed the fuel between the feuding groups, [creating] disinformation.” Specific mention was made of “[creating] messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization [and to] submit fake documents and then call out the error…”

The file is very large, and will therefore take some time to fully examine. Nevertheless, we would like to state that this information was provided by an unknown party and may be an attempt to discredit Anonymous through a campaign of misinformation. More information will be coming soon.

So obviously, breaking out the champagne is premature, though perhaps chilling it might not be a bad idea.

You can go through the documents by downloading this torrent.

H/t Hedgehog at the Stellarparthenon BBS.

Well, Now We Know Why He Quit

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It turns out that John Ensign made his resignation effective the day before he was to testify under oath before the Ethics Committee:

Senator John Ensign’s resignation letter allows him to leave office just one day before he was to have to answer questions under oath about whether a $96,000 payment to the family of his former lover was illegal and designed to keep the affair from becoming public, according to people familiar with an investigation of Mr. Ensign’s activities.

That formal testimony, scheduled for May 4, was the final step as Senate investigators prepared for what were almost certain to be Senate ethics charges against Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada. Mr. Ensign’s resignation is effective May 3.

To paraphrase King Kong, it was cowardice and hypocrisy that killed the beast.

John Ensign Resigning Senate Seat

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John Ensign has announced that he will be resigning from the US Senate in May:

Embattled Sen. John Ensign announced this afternoon he will resign from office, effective May 3. The move opens the door for Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval to appoint Rep. Dean Heller to finish out the term.

“It is with tremendous sadness that I officially hand over the Senate seat that I have held for eleven years,” Ensign said in a statement. “The turbulence of these last few years is greatly surpassed by the incredible privilege that I feel to have been entrusted to serve the people of Nevada. I can honestly say that being a United States Senator has been the honor of my life.”

Sun columnist Jon Ralston first reported earlier in the afternoon that Ensign would step down.

Ralston was on Maddow just now and said that the Ethics Committee had just held a secret vote to open a public investigation of his activities, basically f%$#ing his best friend’s wife (both staffers) and paying them off, and this is what precipitated his exit.

I’m going to call my Senators, and ask them to continue the investigation even though he is leaving, he shouldn’t skate, and given that the DoJ under Eric “Place” Holder has dropped their investigation of him.

Fox Fires Glen Beck

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His TV show contract will not be renewed in December, and the definitive word on this comes from the Grauniad,* “Glenn Beck will be missed after he leaves Fox News – by satirists.”

I guess cratering ratings, and fleeing sponsors mean something, even to Roger Ailes’ Fox News.

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

Well, Here’s a Surprise

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Warning, listening to Rush Limbaugh may cause substance abuse, impotence, failed marriages, and hypocricy

We had a report that right wing radio talk shows were hiring actors to juice up their phone callers:

But what exactly was the work? The question popped up during the audition and was explained, the actor said, clearly and simply: If he passed the audition, he would be invited periodically to call in to various talk shows and recite various scenarios that made for interesting radio. He would never be identified as an actor, and his scenarios would never be identified as fabricated—which they always were.

“I was surprised that it seemed so open,” the actor told me in an interview. “There was really no pretense of covering it up.”

Curious, the actor did some snooping and learned that Premiere On Call was a service offered by Premiere Radio Networks, the largest syndication company in the United States and a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, the entertainment and advertising giant. Premiere syndicates some of the more sterling names in radio, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. But a great radio show depends as much on great callers as it does on great hosts: Enter Premiere On Call.

, as the CJR notes, it’s Ensuring the authenticity of your programming… with paid, planted callers.

Well, we now have confirmation, because Rush “Drugs are bad, marriage is sacred, I did not f%$# little boys in the Dominican Republic” Limbaugh has now officially denied that he used actors as phoney call-ins.

I consider this to be confirmation because Rush lies about everything, and the story is nearly a month old, and any innocent person would have let it slip beneath the waves.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

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David Dayen notes that, “A Liberal Is a Villager Who’s Been Screwed By a Mortgage Servicer, and if this is the case, Washington Post hard core villager Dana Milbank has just discovered liberalism:

Behind the foreclosure crisis, big banks’ reign of error

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, March 6, 2011;

The problem in the nation’s housing market now isn’t subprime lending. It’s subpar lenders.

Last fall, my wife and I refinanced our mortgage with Citibank. Sixty days later, we received a “cancellation notice” from our homeowners insurance company “for non-payment of premium.”

Turns out Citibank, which had been collecting hundreds of dollars a month from us to pay the insurer, hadn’t made the payments. It was, I later learned, one of the usual tricks mortgage servicers use to squeeze more cash out of their customers. About a month later, I learned of another trick: Citibank informed us that it was increasing our monthly payment by nearly $300.

Along the way, a simple refi became a months-long odyssey: rates misquoted, interest charged on a phantom account, legal documents issued in wrong names, a mortgage officer who disappeared for days at a time (first it was his birthday, then his laptop was in the shop), a bounced check from Citibank’s own title company, and the freezing of our bank accounts.

For me, this amounts to no more than the hassle of arguing with Citibank to fix its “mistakes.” But consumer advocates tell me these are typical of the screw-ups by the big banks that service home mortgages. And these errors – accidental or otherwise – are driving large numbers of people into default and foreclosure when it otherwise would not have happened.

It’s a bad situation – and the new majority in the House is poised to make it even worse.

He got seriously boned by his bank, and now he realizes that it ain’t just a bunch of deadbeats who are trying to stiff the banks.

Unfortunately, he’s also singing the praises of HAMP, which was clearly constructed for the benefit of the banks at the expense of homeowners by Obama and His Evil Minions™, so he’s still that lovable clueless scamp we’ve always known.

House Votes to Kill F136 Engine

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While I expect to see some continued efforts by GE, Rolls Royce, and their supporters, I think that this is the death knell for the F136 engine:

The U.S. House of Representatives today voted to kill funding the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter backup engine made by General Electric Co. and Rolls Royce Group Plc.

By a vote of 233-198, the House voted to cut $450 million for the engine from legislation funding the Pentagon for the remainder of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

It is the first time in more than four years of votes that the House has come out against the GE-Rolls Royce engine for the F-35, the stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin Corp. In May, 2010, the House voted 231-193 to continue the program.

This is important for a number of reasons.

First, with this defeat on the table, the onus now falls on the supporter of the F136 to bring the engine back, which is hard.

Second, and more importantly, House Speaker John Boehner, whose district, and neighboring districts, directly benefit from the engine, could not whip the votes necessary to support the engine.

Like I said, the engine is toast.

In the long run, this is a bad thing, because leaving Pratt & Whitney as a monopoly supplier for the engine is likely to increase costs, and reduce performance, a lot down the road.

That being said, I do experience no small amount of amusement because Boehner got seriously served on this.

Shirley Sharrod Finally Sues Andrew Breitbart

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About damn time:

Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod has filed a lawsuit against conservative firebrand and web entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. The suit stems from the notorious video Breitbart posted online last year, showing an out-of-context excerpt from a speech Sherrod gave to the NAACP Freedom Fund in March 2010. The clip suggested she had used her position at the Department of Agriculture to discriminate against white farmers. The media devoured the Breitbart’s version of story so voraciously that the NAACP denounced Sherrod and the Obama administration fired her. The charge was, in fact, entirely untrue.

Sherrod argues in the lawsuit that the clip “damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work.” Breitbart, meanwhile, denounced the suit, saying he “categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech.”

Let’s be clear, as a public official at the time, Shirley Sharrod has a very high burden of proof, so I do not know her chances of prevailing, but even if she wins, it is highly unlikely that she will get anything unless she takes action in advance to ensure that the real assets of his operations are secure.

His real assets would walk out of his office tommorow, on a memory stick, we are talking about things like his subscriber database, so if I were her lawyer, I would suggest that she move to have the court appoint a special master to oversee this data, to ensure that it doesn’t walk out the door.

Then again, I’m an engineer, not a lawyer, Dammit.*

*I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!

Republican Fail

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I’m not sure how it happened, but the Republicans in the house failed to pass an extension of some of the more contemptible parts of the Patriot Act:

Too clever by half, the House GOP leadership allowed only 40 minutes of debate on the extension of the PATRIOT Act today, and brought the bill up for a vote under a rule allowing no amendments and requiring two-thirds of the body to vote YES.

Well, that didn’t happen. Apparently, the Tea Party Congresscritters discovered their love for the constitution, Amendments One and Four inclusive, while taking the opportunity to stand up to their leadership’s lackadaisical attitude toward the Act’s extension.

I believe that the Republican House leadership may have a much deeper appreciation of just the deeper meaning of the exclamation that Dan Castellaneta created as the voice of Homer Simpson.

Heh.

Scientists National Enquirer Reporters Discover a Mythical Creature

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The creature in question is a straight Republican, one John Boehner, who seems to spend a lot of his time f%$#ing staffers and lobbyists, as well as f%$#ing the country:

New Speaker of the House JOHN BOEHNER is embroiled in a bombshell sex scandal – involving at least two different women, The ENQUIRER has learned!

Capitol Hill insiders and political bloggers have been buzzing about an upcoming New York Times probe – detailing an alleged affair that the 61-year-old married father of two had with pretty Washington lobbyist LISBETH LYONS.

And an ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered a bedroom encounter that Boehner – second in line of succession to the presidency – allegedly had with LEIGH LaMORA, a 46-year-old former press secretary to ex-Colorado Congressman JOEL HEFLEY.

The Ohio native, a congressman for 20 years, and his wife Deborah, 62, have been married for 37 years.

It should be noted that Ms. Lyons has lobbied for industries that have shipped jobs from Boehner’s own district overseas.

So while he was f%$#ing her, he was also f%$#ing his constituents.

I know what you are saying, but the Enquirer nailed John Edwards about his nailing Rielle Hunter, so they do have some cred on this, particularly since people have alluded to Boehner’s wandering ………… Eye ………*

*I bet that you thought that I was going to use a crude term for a body part that is pronounced the way his name is spelled. While the thought did cross my mind, so the the phrase, “fish in a barrel.” It would be like Dick Cheney when he shoots a bunch of birds (or a lawyer) released right in front of him.

Oops!

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Two potential reactions:


Whoever suggested that he rent out his house


My Reaction

Rahm Emmanuel has been struck from the ballot for the Chicago Mayoral race:

A state appeals court on Monday threw the Chicago mayor’s race into turmoil by ruling that front-runner and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel did not qualify for the February ballot.

Emanuel immediately responded that he would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court and urged quick consideration. The ruling on Monday overturned decisions by a lower court and a Chicago elections board that allowed him on the February 22 ballot.

It appears that there is an exemption in the law for elected officials, but not for staff, and the fact that he had rented out his house was a major contributing factor.

That being said, I think that it is likely that it will be overturned on appeal by the Illinois Supreme Court, though I would prefer if the ruling stood, and Rahm has the  backing of the machine, so he still has a good chance of winning.

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

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Tom Delay was convicted of one count of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to launder money.

Basically, he used the Republican national committee to funnel illegal corporate money to state races for the the Texas legislature.

While the charges typically carry a sentence of 5 to 99 years in prison, the judge can also sentence him to probation.

First, Delay his lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, is very good, so there promises to be years of appeals, and there is a very real chance that he will find a judge or judges who owe him some sort of favor.

This is Texas, after all.

Call me a cynic, but I would be very surprised if he spends more than 18 months in a minimum security prison.

When one considers the degree to which he made pay to play a part of the Washington, DC political scene, he deserves a lot more than that.

He is a truly contemptible human being, and the most evil contestant on Dancing With the Stars ever, which is saying a lot.

Tom Delay, Felon…You know, I REALLY like the sound of that, and for today, at least, that is the truth.

Of course, he could go the way of Kenneth Lay, and die while the appeal is going on, which would be very convenient for people who are concerned that he might cooperate with authorities.

This is Texas, after all.

Finally, Someone In the Obama Administration With Guts

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Unfortunately, it’s just Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood:

The Obama administration is urging Wisconsin’s incoming Republican governor, Scott Walker, to reconsider his opposition to high-speed rail in his state and threatened to rescind $810 million in federal stimulus grants for the project if the venture is killed.

In a letter (pdf) to Walker yesterday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood discussed what he called a “difference of opinion about the value of a Midwest high-speed rail network” between the Obama administration and the incoming governor, emphasizing economic benefits that high-speed rail could bring to the region.

Walker, who is currently the county executive of Milwaukee County, campaigned heavily against a proposed high-speed line to link Milwaukee and Madison that would eventually be part of a Midwest network. Decrying the project as a waste of tax dollars, he has called for the cash to be redistributed to highway and bridge repairs in his state.

But LaHood said the stimulus grants must be spent on rail projects.

Additionally, LaHood is demanding $271 million back from New Jersey Transit for Governor Christie’s cancellation of the rail tunnel under the Hudson, and there are indications that the Feds will be demanding money back from Ohio when the new Republican governor there cancels their rail program.

Even more amusing is that Illinois is already applying for the money that the ‘Phant governors don’t want.

Good for Secretary LaHood, but I expect Obama to overrule him and give the money to Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey anyway, because he wants these loony tunes to like him.

It is interesting that the only one in Obama’s administration to do the right thing because it is the right thing is a Republican.

Just Desserts

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Bummer of a birth mark, ConservaDems

In looking at the elections, there is a trend here:

While a part of this is that liberal Democrats tend to have safer seats, though one of the Blue Dog losers, Gene Taylor, had polled at more than 75% in prior elections, what this is about is the fact that the Blue Dogs and the New Dems created the groundwork for this.

When people thought that they had to vote against Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, it was because the Blue Dogs gave credibility to this Republican talking point by campaigning against her too.

When people complained that the Congressional Democrats were in the banks pockets, it was because the New Democrat Coalition was in the pockets of the banks, and trading loopholes for campaign contributions.

When people complained that nothing was getting done, it was because the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats were slowing things down, because the Blue Dogs and the New Dems wanted time to get insurance company and banking lobbyists geared up and donating.

When they claimed that the stimulus did not work, they validated the Republican storyline.

To a very large degree, they validated the Republican attacks, and weakened legislation and policy, and contributed to the losses that we saw.

In fact, if these folks had held on, which was their argument for their positions, that it made them more electable, Nancy Pelosi would still be speaker in January.

Payback is a bitch, ain’t it?

It is best to remember what Harry S Truman said:

Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.

I’d much rather have a Democratic majority in the House, but I think that they are marginalized.

Let’s keep it that way.

Well, Alaska Just Got Weird

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With polls showing Lisa Murkowski in the lead, and the board of elections, in a transparent attempt to help her campaign, putting out a list of “registered write-in candidates,” for the first time in history, which is in court, but the Alaska Supreme Court is allowing the decision to stand for now pending arguments.

In response, Joe Miller and the Alaska Teabaggers have flooded the election office to register hundreds of write ins to be added to the list.

With Miller firmly in 3rd place in the latest polls, and these polls were before the release of his personnel files, I can understand why they want to move votes from Murkowski to him, but this would appear to move votes from Lisa Murkowski to Lisa Martini, or Lisa Murkin, or Lisa Murrow, which has the effect of boosting Democrat Scott Adams.

Pass the popcorn.

Heh.

Payback is a Bitch

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When you look at the Democratic Party Congressional caucus, the people who are most threatened with losing their jobs are the Blue Dogs:

More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week’s election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The author of the article says that this is worrying because the Blue Dogs are, “a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House,” but my take is rather more positive: It’s these rat f%$#s that were in large part for blocking and weakening every serious policy initiative that the Democratic party, and it is this perceived lack of accomplishment that has put off voters.

Truth be told, it’s not that payback is a bitch, it’s that payback is making them it’s bitch.

People don’t want to vote for Democrats because they are perceived as timid, and the people who forced this are reaping the whirlwind.

Heh.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

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If there is a bright spot this year it is the meltdown in the Colorado Gubernatorial race, where John Hickenlooper is cruising to victory as Republican Dan Maes and wingnut Republican turned 3rd party candidate Tom Tancredo pummel each other, but I did not think that it was much beyond that.

Well, I was wrong, because Maes appears to be polling near 10%, and if he gets less than 10% of the vote, then the Republican Party becomes a “minor party” in Colorado:

But a big win for Tancredo — or even drawing much closer — could spell a big loss for both the GOP and his adopted third party, the American Constitution Party, for the next four years.

If Republican nominee Dan Maes receives less than 10 percent of the vote in November, the GOP becomes a minor party and subject to rules that could cut in half the amount its candidates can collect in campaign contributions. [Because they cannot get a separate donation for the primary if it is uncontested for state and local positions]

As Republicans absorb the news, leaders of the 2,000-plus-person ACP worry about their potential promotion to the majors if Tancredo exceeds 10 percent at the polls, a status that comes with new and costlyorganizational requirements.

Former ACP chairman Doug Campbell reveled in the GOP predicament, if not that of his own party, which may have to host precinct caucuses throughout the state and mail out primary ballots.

Additionally, it would mean that the party would not be placed in the to ballot spots, but rather would be ranked down ballot on the basis of a lottery with crazies like the Monster Raving Loony Party:

“The effect of the designation of minor party status for the 2012 election would be that our candidate for president will not be in the top two lines which will be reserved for the Democrat and American Constitution Party candidates. We will be left to compete for ballot position with the Greens, Socialists, American Communist Party, Libertarians. Prohibitionists etc.

“Our state house and senate candidates will similarly be relegated to bottom positions. In 2014, when we have our US Senate, Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer etc races, again, we will be at the bottom of the ballot fighting the libertarians etc for ballot placement. As we all know, being at the top or toward the top can mean several percentage points in the vote, enough in a close race to secure victory.”

Admittedly, Maes is polling significantly above the 10% line, he is polling at 15%, and I think that when it becomes clear that neither of them will win that there will be the governor voters will hold their nose and vote for Maes to avoid chaos for the next 4 years in the Colorado Republican Party.

Still, heh.

I Believe That the Term Here is “Vigorish”*

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Bummer of a birth mark, Sharron Angle

Nevada Republican Senate Candidate Sharron Angle had a meeting with the 3rs party Scott Ashjian in an attempt to get him out of the race.

Unfortunately for her Mr. Ashjians recorded the conversation, and she was offering a piece of the action:

Says the grass roots movement “gives me juice. That’s really all I can offer to you (Ashjian) is whatever juice I have, you have as well…You want to see DeMint, I have juice with him….I go to Washington, DC and want to see Jim DeMint, he’s right there for me. I want to see Tom Coburn, he’s right there for me. I want to see Mitch McConnell, he’s there.”

She goes on to say that Republicans are corrupt, and that she will lose if the Teabagger Ashjian stays in the race.

Let me make this clear: I do not support the surreptitious taping, and if this happened in a state where it’s illegal, like Maryland, I would support prosecution.

That being said, these revelations could not happen to a more deserving character.

Pass the popcorn.

*I believe that the “juice” in the quote is a reference to transactional profits similar to those of a bookie, hence “vigorish”.