Category: Schadenfreude

I Like this Catch 22

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Uber and Lyft claim that their drivers are independent contractors, not employers.

Now San Francisco, accepting the Not-a-Taxi-is Really-a Taxi services argument, has has issued a notice that the drivers therefore require business licenses:

Uber and Lyft drivers have cruised the streets of San Francisco for years. But the city has now decided that drivers who work for more than seven days in a year need a business license.

Nearly 37,000 people have been identified by the city as drivers for either Uber or Lyft, according to a press release issued on Friday by city treasurer José Cisneros.

Cisneros did not say how the city came across a list of names, but the notice being sent to drivers comes from “two years of enforcement work, including multiple requests for information and subpoenas to get sufficient data about business operations” from companies like Lyft and Uber.

Knowing that both Lyft and Uber have both actively fought having information released, it’s likely the data wasn’t passed over voluntarily. San Francisco was not listed as a city that had requested data in Uber’s transparency report, although its airport has information about 44,000 drivers.

“Uber partners with entrepreneurial drivers and as independent contractors, they are responsible for following appropriate local requirements,” an Uber spokesperson said.

Lyft, on the other hand, was worried that forcing registration would compromise driver privacy.

………

Cisneros will start by sending out three batches of letters to the identified drivers over the coming days, according to the SF Chronicle. Each driver will need to register him or herself as a business within the next 30 days and pay a $91 annual registration fee and display the registration in the vehicle, or face additional fines. If each driver registers, that generates approximately an extra $3.37 million for the city’s coffers.

………

Now San Francisco is flipping the argument around on the ride-hailing companies arguing that if their drivers are truly independent contractors, then they need these business licenses to be able to operate in the city.

Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

I Will Dine on His Tears, and They Will Be Sweet

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It looks like I Heart Radio, the company known as Clear Channel before Bain Capital looted it, is on the edge of collapse, and it looks like Rush Limbaugh will be facing a far less generous contract when it is renewed:

One of the favorite pastimes for sports fans is commiserating over the worst contract their home team ever made; guffawing over management’s decision to waste tens of millions of dollars for a player who never justified the huge payday. (See: Gilbert Arenas.)

For talk radio, there’s probably only one contract that enters that realm of notoriety: Rush Limbaugh’s eight-year, $400-million deal, signed in the summer of 2008 with his longtime radio employer Premiere Radio Networks.

Owned by Clear Channel Communications, which has since changed its name to iHeartRadio, Premiere’s Limbaugh deal instantly dwarfed any payout in AM/FM history. (Only Howard Stern’s contract with Sirius was larger.) The contract, which included a staggering $100 million signing bonus, never panned out as the wheels began to come off Limbaugh’s radio empire.
This year, his contract is up and the timing couldn’t be worse. The talker is facing ratings hurdles, aging demographics, and an advertising community that increasingly views him as toxic, thanks in part to his days-long sexist meltdown over Sandra Fluke in 2012. (He’s also stumbling through the GOP primary season.)

Concurrently, iHeartRadio’s parent company, iHeartMedia, is heading to court, teetering on bankruptcy. The once-dominant radio behemoth is saddled with $20 billion in debt, thanks to a misguided leveraged takeover engineered by Bain Capital in 2008, the same year the radio giant inked its disastrous Limbaugh deal.

I am so amused that in its own way, Mitt Rmoney’s bucket shop is involved in Limbaugh’s downfall.

I am VERY amused.

Snark of the Day

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I feel this may well be a turning point. It’s one thing to lose a 12-minute version of “Sherry Darling,” or the first-round of the 2072 NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament. But when the state legislature finds itself besieged by hundreds of angry, blue-balled, hairy-palmed, half-blind preachers, that’s when you’ll really see things move. Venceremos, my comrades!

—Charlier Pierce on XHamster blocking porn viewers from North Carolina from viewing their pr0n in response to the state’s anti-gay laws.

Heh.

Would You Like a Nice Cup of Shut the F%$# Up with Your Outrage?

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After months of outrage the Obama administration has finally taking action againat the tax dobbed known as “Corporate Inversion”, and accoording to FT, this is provoking a, “foreign fury.”

Cry me a f%$#ing river:

A White House tax crackdown designed to put a halt to Pfizer’s planned $160bn takeover of Allergan has provoked fury from foreign multinationals with operations in the US.

Barack Obama stepped up the offensive on Tuesday championing new proposals to deter “inversion” deals — such as Pfizer-Allergan — that companies use to move to low-tax jurisdictions, accusing them of exploiting “one of the most insidious tax loopholes out there”.

Multinationals responded by saying they were being unfairly caught in the crossfire of Mr Obama’s campaign as their operations in the US could also be affected by the new rules.

The angry rhetoric came a day after the Treasury department released new proposals which threatened the biggest planned inversion to date — Pfizer’s takeover of Irish-domiciled Allergan — and triggered big losses for some hedge funds, such as Paulson & Co and Third Point.

“It came as a total surprise. Everyone thought the Treasury had used all their firepower,” said one hedge fund manager.

………

The Treasury’s latest moves would make inversions less lucrative by eliminating a tax benefit for “abusive” inverters. But its plan would also deny the benefit to foreign companies with US operations.

“Rather than using a scalpel to deal with this issue they are using a machete,” said Nancy McLernon, president of the Organisation for International Investment, a trade group for foreign companies in the US.

“It’s a misguided approach. They’re trying to go after those companies that are doing something they think is problematic and carelessly hitting a whole class of employers.”

The tax benefit stems from companies’ use of internal loans to cut their tax bills. By loading up US subsidiaries with debt from head office, foreign companies can deduct the interest payments from their US tax bills — a practice called earnings stripping.

Here is my response to the aggrieved tax dodgers:

The fact that you have been able to skate on corporate taxes for the past few decades do not give you the right to continue stealing from the rest of us.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Rahm!

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The Illinois Supreme Court just ruled that Rahm’s attempt to balance the city books by welshing on its pension obligations are unconstitutional:

Beleaguered Chicago taxpayers face short-term gain but long-term excruciating pain now that the Illinois Supreme Court has shot down down Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to save two of four city employee pension funds.

 “These modifications to pension benefits unquestionably diminish the value of the retirement annuities the members…were promised when they joined the pension system. Accordingly, based on the plain language of the Act, these annuity-reducing provisions contravene the pension protection clause’s absolute prohibition against diminishment of pension benefits and exceed the General Assembly’s authority,” the ruling states.

 “A public employee’s membership in a pension system is an enforceable contractual relationship and the employee has a constitutionally-protected right to the benefits of that contractual relationship…Those constitutional protections attach at the time an individual begins employment and becomes a member of the public pension system. Thus, under its plain and unambiguous language, the clause prohibits the General Assembly from unilaterally reducing or eliminating the pension benefits.”

 In the short run, Chicago will be off the hook to find $250 million in additional revenue over five years to honor its commitment to stabilize the Municipal Employees and Laborers Pension Funds.

But over time, Chicago taxpayers will be forced to bear a far heavier, backbreaking burden because employees and retirees won’t be meeting them halfway.

Here’s a though: How about rescinding the sweetheart deals and tax abatements with your friends, and make the rich folks pay their fair share of taxes.

And while you are at it, how about resigning in disgrace for covering up a murder for political gain?

Finally!

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The mercenary monger behind Blackwater, is being investigated for selling mercs to foreign governments and money laundering by the US Department of Justice:

Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.

Prince, through his lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said he has not been informed of a federal investigation and had not offered any defense services in Libya. Toensing called the money-laundering allegations “total bullsh%$.” (%$ mine)

The Intercept interviewed more than a half dozen of Prince’s associates, including current and former business partners; four former U.S. intelligence officers; and other sources familiar with the Justice Department investigation. All of them requested anonymity to discuss these matters because there is an ongoing investigation. The Intercept also reviewed several secret proposals drafted by Prince and his closest advisers and partners offering paramilitary services to foreign entities.

For more than a year, U.S. intelligence has been monitoring Prince’s communications and movements, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence officer and a second former intelligence official briefed on the investigation. Multiple sources, including two people with business ties to Prince, told The Intercept that current government and intelligence personnel informed them of this surveillance. Those with business ties were cautioned to sever their dealings with Prince.

As an aside, Toensing, she of the unprofessional legal utterances, was a major player in the pursuit of Bill Clinton’s penis in the 1990s.

Prince is an evil dangerous man with delusions of creating a full mercenary army to rival nation states.

I really hope that he gets taken down hard.

H/t Charlie Pierce.

My Heart is Actually Bleeding Borscht Here

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After about 40 years, people are starting that hedge funds both under-perform the market and charge outrageous fees, and so the most overpaid professionals on Wall Street can’t pay as much their 35,000 square foot Summer cottages any more:

This had to happen. Now we’re getting reports that in the Hamptons, on Long Island’s east end, where Wall Street’s richest hobnob over the summer, home prices at the very top, after a phenomenal boom, are getting crushed.

What’s getting blamed? The crummy performance of the markets last year.

The average price in 2015 of the ten most expensive homes sold in the area has crashed 20% from a year earlier – to a measly $35.5 million.

After soaring a mind-bending 180% in five years, from $15.9 million in 2009, the average price of the top ten homes had reached $44.6 million in 2014, according to a report by Town & Country Real Estate in East Hampton, cited by Reuters.

The year 2009 was when the Fed’s “wealth effect” strategy was kicking in. It was precisely what Bernanke wanted to accomplish. He spelled it out in an editorial. The Fed’s “strong and creative measures” would inflate asset prices, which would lead those benefiting the most from it, including those on Wall Street that extract fees and get paid big bonuses, to feel wealthier and spend a little more, which would crank up the economy. And this is what happened in the Hamptons.

 I am so not crushed by this news.

She Said What?!?!?!?!

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In an interview with Andrea Mitchell Hillary Clinton praised Nancy Reagan’s “Low key activism” on HIV/AIDS.

While I fully understand the desire not to diss the Nancy on the day of her funeral, this bit of “Can’t we all just get along,” historical revisionism is completely repulsive:

In an interview conducted at Nancy Reagan’s funeral today, Hillary Clinton recounted a version of history that didn’t happen, lauding the former first lady’s “low key advocacy” for the cause of HIV/AIDS awareness. “Low key” is one way of putting it. In fact, the Reagan White House is infamous for its lengthy, deadly silence on the epidemic.

 Clinton’s remarks came after an extended explanation of Nancy Reagan’s efforts to expand stem cell research after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimers. Then, in a bizarre turn, Clinton began talking about AIDS in the 1980s, a topic anyone looking to remain civil and complimentary would go far out of their way to avoid at the funeral of Nancy Reagan:

“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan, in particular, Mrs. Reagan, we started national conversation when before no one would talk about it, no one wanted to do anything about it, and that too is something that really appreciated, with her very effective, low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience and people began to say ‘Hey, we have to do something about this too.’”

It’s almost tempting to interpret this as withering, devastating sarcasm—the Reagans “started a national conversation about AIDS” in the same sense that George W. Bush “started a national conversation” about Iraq.

 In reality, the Reagans were infamously, disastrously silent on AIDS—as President, Ronald Reagan spoke more about UFOs than HIV, and didn’t even say the word in a public address until 1987, by which point it had killed tens of thousands of Americans. The virus was quite literally a joke inside the Reagan White House. Whatever “advocacy” of Nancy’s Clinton is dreaming up here must’ve been low-key to the point of non-existence—just last year it was reported that she ignored her Hollywood friend Rock Hudson’s pleas for help as he himself died from AIDS. It’s hard for one ugly episode to stand out among so many ugly aspects of the Reagan administration, but Nancy and Ronald’s deliberate silence on one of the defining public health crises of the era is surely near the top of any list. What Clinton is saying isn’t just untrue, but erases the deadly legacy of the Reagan era.

The most charitable way to describe the Reagan administration’s behavior on the AIDS crisis is as an atrocity.

Once this blew up, Clinton walked it back, but this comment is indefensible:

Hillary Clinton’s statement on her comments about the Reagans’ record on HIV and AIDS: pic.twitter.com/RtIs0zpJfk

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 11, 2016

I can’t figure out whether this is a moment of mind-boggling stupidity, or if she was trying to pander to the right in the hope of picking up a few votes.

In either case, particularly when juxtaposed with her late to the game support of gay marriage, this is a major f%$# up.

For anyone interested in LGBT issues who is still on the fence, this is a push to Bernie Sanders.

Lawmakers in West Virginia Pass a Bill Legalizing Raw Milk, and Toast their Success With Raw Milk………

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Then they proceed to make the state house resemble the sets in The Wild Bunch if the film had been directed by John Waters instead of Sam Peckinpah:*

In West Virginia, farmers and fans of raw milk celebrated this week as the governor signed a bill that, among other things, legalizes the sale of raw milk to consumers. Some delegates celebrated by drinking cups of raw milk from a local farm, or at least tasting it. Some of them are now sick with a mysterious gastrointestinal illness. Is it a coincidence or deep irony?

 ………

 Cadle himself was out with a stomach bug on Monday, but he and others point out that a similar illness had been circulating around the state capitol building for weeks. “It ain’t because of the raw milk,” he told the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “With that many people around and that close quarters and in that air and environment, I just call it a big germ.” The illness includes diarrhea, vomiting, and a fever, and sounds like our old fast-spreading pal norovirus.

………

 Health officials are investigating the milk incident.

This is just too perfect.

*Not my bon mot. I adopted this from Paul T. Riddell essay, The Attack of the Mad Sh%$ter.

About F%$#ing Time

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This guy is in custody now too

It looks like the the FBI is finally going after people who threatened federal officers at the Bundy ranch:

FBI agents have been busy today. Another one (possibly two) of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s sons was arrested, this time in Utah. According to what David ‘Davey’ Bundy’s wife told The Salt Lake Tribune today, her husband was arrested just after 7:00 a.m. Thursday at the site of the house the Millard County contractor is building for his family just south of Delta.

Marylynn Bundy said she was told of her husband’s arrest by a worker who was blocked from getting to the house by law enforcement.

“I think they are just trying to get all the Bundy men locked up, so they can raid their homes,” Marylynn Bundy said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada confirmed to the paper that a charging document had been filed against Bundy, but said that it was sealed and the feds did not confirm his arrest.

The feds are busy making arrests today. After his role in the armed standoff in Nevada almost two years ago at the Bundy ranch, tea party activist Jerry DeLemus was arrested on nine federal charges today. He’s also the husband of Rep. Susan DeLemus, a crazy-time New Hampshire Republican lawmaker and co-chair of the state’s “Veterans for Trump” coalition.

………

UPDATE: The Idaho Statesman just reported that, “Eric James Parker, 32, and Steve Arthur Stewart, 36, both of Hailey, O. Scott Drexler, 44, of Challis, and Todd Engel, 48, of Boundary County were taken into custody, U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy Olson said.”

“This investigation began the day after the assault against federal law enforcement officers and continues to this day,” U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden said in a release. “We will continue to work to identify the assaulters and their role in the assault and the aftermath, in order to ensure that justice is served.”

The wheels of justice do grind slowly, but it appears that they grind sure.

Ég er Íslendingur

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When I heard that Iceland has sentenced 26 bankers to a over 70 years in prison, (total, not each) my first thought was, “What’s the Icelandic for, “Ich bin ein Berliner?”

In a move that would make many capitalists’ head explode if it ever happened here, Iceland just sentenced their 26th banker to prison for their part in the 2008 financial collapse.

In two separate Icelandic Supreme Court and Reykjavik District Court rulings, five top bankers from Landsbankinn and Kaupping — the two largest banks in the country — were found guilty of market manipulation, embezzlement, and breach of fiduciary duties. Most of those convicted have been sentenced to prison for two to five years. The maximum penalty for financial crimes in Iceland is six years, although their Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments to consider expanding sentences beyond the six year maximum.

………

Almost eight years later, the government of Iceland is still prosecuting and jailing those responsible for the market manipulation that crippled their economy. Even now, Iceland is still paying back loans to the IMF and other countries which were needed just to keep the country operating.

And how many big banksters have been prosecuted in the United States?

Crickets.

This is an Inspired Protest

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Britain has an official board, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), to review and censor movies.

It charges the film makers for the costs of censoring their movies, to the tune of  £101.50 plys £7.09 per minute of film.

British film maker and journalist Charlie Lyne had a kickstarter to make a protest film, and when he totaled up the costs, he submitted a 10+ hour of film of paint drying:

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has determined that Charlie Lyne’s 10-hour Paint Drying contains “no material likely to offend or harm”, and has accordingly awarded it a “suitable for all” U certificate.

Nicely described by the BBFC as “a film showing paint drying on a wall”, Paint Drying is the result of a Kickstarter campaign aimed at highlighting the “prohibitively expensive” cost of presenting cinematic works for classification.

The BBFC charges a £101.50 submission fee and £7.09 per minute of film. However, it is obliged to sit through every single frame of material, so Lyne decided he’d make the censors work for their money.

He originally planned to raise £109 for a symbolic one-minute submission of paint drying, but ultimately attracted pledges of £5,936, financing an extended 607-minute submission to the BBFC.

It took 2 days for the BBFC to review the film.

Your Daily Schadenfreude

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Under pressure from the Texas Governor’s Office, the Harris County prosecutor’s office convened a grand jury to investigate the bogusly edited video from the so called “Center for Medical Progress” that alleged that Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue.

They came back with indictments ……… of the antiabortion Taliban that created the video:

A grand jury here that was investigating accusations of misconduct against Planned Parenthood has instead indicted two abortion opponents who made undercover videos of the organization.

Prosecutors in Harris County said one of the leaders of the Center for Medical Progress — an anti-abortion group that made secretly recorded videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to illegally profit from the sale of fetal tissue — had been indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a felony, and on a misdemeanor charge related to purchasing human organs.

That leader, David Daleiden, 26, the director of the center, had posed as a biotechnology representative to infiltrate Planned Parenthood affiliates and surreptitiously record his efforts to procure tissue for research. Another center employee, Sandra Merritt, was indicted on a felony charge of tampering with a governmental record.

………

On Monday, the Harris County district attorney, Devon Anderson, said in a statement that grand jurors had cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.

………

The case here started in August, when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican and an outspoken opponent of abortion and Planned Parenthood, asked Ms. Anderson to open a criminal investigation into the organization. His request came after the release of an undercover video recorded at a Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast office in Houston with a research official for the organization. Mr. Patrick said the video showed the group “discussing the gruesome and barbaric work of Planned Parenthood and what appears to be its profiteering from selling body parts from aborted babies.”

………

This month in federal court in San Francisco, Planned Parenthood sued the center, Mr. Daleiden and other abortion opponents involved in the videos. The suit accused them of engaging in a three-year criminal enterprise to target the group.

“These people broke the law to spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood in order to advance their extreme anti-abortion political agenda,” Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement Monday. “As the dust settles and the truth comes out, it’s become totally clear that the only people who engaged in wrongdoing are the criminals behind this fraud, and we’re glad they’re being held accountable.”

In making the videos, Mr. Daleiden and others have been accused of setting up a fake company called Biomax Procurement Services, creating fake identities and claiming to be part of a legitimate provider of fetal tissue to researchers. The charge of tampering with a governmental record appeared to be related to Mr. Daleiden’s and Ms. Merritt’s use of fake ID cards.

“We know that they used fake IDs that had their real photographs but fake names and fake addresses purported to be issued by the state of California,” said Josh Schaffer, a Houston lawyer who represents Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in the Harris County criminal investigation. Mr. Daleiden and Ms. Merritt presented those IDs to security at the Planned Planned office to gain entry to the building. “They never denied that they presented a fake ID,” Mr. Schaffer said.

Mr. Schaffer said he believed the misdemeanor charge stemmed from laws prohibiting offers to buy fetal tissue. He said that following the meeting with Planned Parenthood officials in Houston, Mr. Daleiden sent an email to them offering to buy fetal tissue for $1,600 per sample.

“It does not surprise me that a grand jury that chose to correctly apply the law to the evidence that was presented would return this result,” Mr. Schaffer said. “The written charges have not been released publicly yet, so at this point I am working on my knowledge of the investigation.”

I am so amused by all of this.

Considering the nature of their actions, I’m thinking that Homeland Security should put Daleiden and his co-conspirators on the no fly list, but that is probably a pipe dream.

Straight from Seditious Conspiracy to Bad Parody

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It appears that the Y’all Qaeda folks out in Oregon have been raising some cash from their fellow travellers.

One of the guys appears to have drunk most of the proceeds:

………

Can we all just calm down? Can we all stipulate that there is a difference between an “ISIS-inspired” crime and an actual terror plot? Can we accept the possibility that a crook might seek to aggrandize his banal crimes with some geopolitical, religious filigree? Can we look for relief in the fact that the seditious claque out in Oregon is coming apart in the most hilarious ways?

Joe Oshaugnessy, an Arizona militiaman, has been actively seeking volunteers through social media to join the occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge…Jon Ritzheimer, the Arizona militiaman known for organizing anti-Muslim rallies and fundraising through his “Rogue Infidel” site, went to see Oshaugnessy at the motel and found him drinking there, according to Maureen Peltier, a disabled National Guard woman who claims to be the group’s official spokeswoman. Peltier said Ritzheimer had confirmed that Oshaugnessy had kept the money he had raised through social media for himself and had spent at least some of it on a drinking binge.

It really is the Whiskey Rebellion!

This level of schadenfreude may have deleterious health effects, kind of like how hypotonic overhydration (excess water consumption) can.

So be careful.

Excessive Schadenfreude May Cause Dizziness, Euphoria, and a Sense of Smug Satisfaction

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So now both Donald Trump and Ann Coulter have gone birther on Ted Cruz.

First, the Donald:

Donald Trump cast doubt on Republican candidate Ted Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency on Tuesday, on the basis that he may not be a natural-born US citizen.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said the fact that Cruz was born in Canada was a “very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head.”

The Republican frontrunner went on to claim a “lot of people are talking about … the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport.”

Cruz, whose campaign declined to comment, was born in Calgary in 1971. Although his father Rafael was not an American citizen at the time, his Delaware-born mother, Eleanor, was. Article II of the US constitution requires that “no person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

And from the Dennis Rodman of Republican spokesbimbos, we have:

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who once dismissed birthers as “cranks,” suggested Wednesday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) may be ineligible for the presidency because he is not a “natural born citizen.”

In a series of tweets, Coulter, an ardent anti-immigration advocate, suggested that Cruz was not a “natural born citizen,” a requirement to run for President outlined in the Constitution:

I’m amused.

Rahm Throws Another Evil Minion™ under the Bus

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The head of the (supposedly) Independent Police Review Authority, Scott Ando, has been fired by hizzonner:

A former federal prosecutor will head the agency charged with investigating police shootings in Chicago after the immediate resignation of its chief administrator, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office announced Sunday.

Sharon Fairley will take over for Scott Ando as the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, according to a statement from the mayor’s office. Fairley declined to comment when reached Sunday by the Chicago Sun-Times. Ando could not be reached.

“Scott has taken important steps to move IPRA forward and reduce its backlog of cases,” Emanuel said in a statement. “Yet it has become clear that new leadership is required as we rededicate ourselves to dramatically improving our system of police accountability and rebuilding trust in that process.”

Emanuel made his announcement hours after hundreds of protesters led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson marched through the Loop on Sunday, demanding accountability after the release of video footage of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014.

………

A former federal prosecutor will head the agency charged with investigating police shootings in Chicago after the immediate resignation of its chief administrator, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office announced Sunday.

Sharon Fairley will take over for Scott Ando as the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, according to a statement from the mayor’s office. Fairley declined to comment when reached Sunday by the Chicago Sun-Times. Ando could not be reached.

“Scott has taken important steps to move IPRA forward and reduce its backlog of cases,” Emanuel said in a statement. “Yet it has become clear that new leadership is required as we rededicate ourselves to dramatically improving our system of police accountability and rebuilding trust in that process.”

Emanuel made his announcement hours after hundreds of protesters led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson marched through the Loop on Sunday, demanding accountability after the release of video footage of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014.

It is gratifying seeing the bully and coward that is Rahm Emanuel scrambling for his political career.

I think that he will serve out his term, even with all this, but it’s going to be as a very lame duck.

It will be fun to see the knives coming out.

Martin Shkreli Has Just Made Express Scripts® a Hero

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This is a bigger shock than Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker’s father.

Deeply and ineluctiblky evil pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts®, in partnership with the compounding pharmacy Imprimis®, will offer a $1.00 clone of Turing Pharmaceutical’s Dataprim anti-parasite drug:

Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefits manager in the U.S., said on Tuesday it will partner with Imprimis Pharmaceuticals to provide a $1 alternative to Daraprim, the 62-year-old drug for a rare parasitic infection. In September, the company that owned the drug stoked outrage when it hiked the drug’s price by more than 5,000 percent overnight.

 Imprimis, a California compounding pharmaceutical company, said in October it would make the alternative—a compounded formulation of the active ingredient in Daraprim, pyrimethamine, and another drug, leucovorin—available for $99 for a 100-count bottle, or less than $1 per pill.

 That compares with a price of $750 per pill for the drug provided by Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company that acquired Daraprim earlier this year and dramatically raised its price from $13.50 a tablet to $750.

Express Scripts® is so evil and incompetent that it stuns Richard Bruce Cheney, but Martin Shkreli has just allowed them to be heroes.

This is a mindf%$# on a level I would heretofore think impossible.

Diaperman Finally Loses

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Years after being implicated in the DC Madame scandal, it appears that it has finally cost David Vitter an election:

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) announced Saturday night that he will not run for reelection after losing Louisiana’s gubernatorial runoff election.
Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards defeated Vitter, bringing an end to a rough campaign that saw Vitter fall short after entering as the heavy favorite.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune called the race for Edwards just after 10 p.m. Eastern time Saturday night, a little more than hour after polls closed.
………
Edwards and Vitter advanced to the runoff after finishing as the top two in the Oct. 24 open primary. In Louisiana’s “jungle primary” system, candidates of all parties run together, with the top two finishers having a runoff if neither one secures 50 percent of the vote.
The well-known Vitter, first elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving in the House of Representatives, was the prohibitive favorite during the early stages of the race. But after sustained attacks targeting his involvement in a 2007 prostitution scandal, he barely defeated two of his Republican challengers and finished in second behind the lesser-known Edwards by 14 points in the jungle primary.
Jay Dardenne, Louisiana’s Republican lieutenant governor, finished fourth in the jungle primary. He crossed party lines to endorse Edwards over Vitter in the runoff.

 ………
In a particularly ruthless ad, Edwards claimed Vitter had chosen “prostitutes over patriots” by skipping a vote to honor fallen soldiers in order to take a call from a prostitute.

I’m not sure why this scandal, which was reputed to involve diaper play on Vitter’s part, has taken so long to for him to pay the price.

My guess is that this is the first time that one of his opponents actually decided to bring it up.

This is Not the Onion

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She Turned Me Into a Newt!

Former Republican nominee for US Senator Deleware, Christine O’Donnel, who in 2010 was forced to kick of her campaign by declaring that she was not a witch, is now calling an FEC lawsuit over her campaign finance management a “Witch Hunt”.

She needs to get this straight. Is she a witch, or isn’t she?

Former U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell said Friday that a Federal Election Commission lawsuit accusing her of improper campaign expenditures is a “witch hunt” and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

O’Donnell, who famously declared during the 2010 Senate race that she was not a witch, made the comment in a teleconference with the federal judge hearing the case.

O’Donnell also said she is having trouble hiring a local attorney, claiming that at least three lawyers she has talked to have received phone calls warning of “political backlash” if they represent her. She declined to identify them or provide further details, noting that an Associated Press reporter was listening to the teleconference.

Yes, I know that my characterization is neither fair nor accurate, but seriously, this is just too good, and too weird, to pass up.