Category: Schadenfreude

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Nothing shady here.

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

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

StudentsFrist Rhee-Boots

Or more accurately, it boots the doyenne of educational grifters, Michelle Rhee:

Michelle Rhee had big ambitions when she went on Oprah four years ago to launch her new advocacy group, StudentsFirst, with a promise to raise $1 billion to transform education policy nationwide.

But as she prepares to step down as CEO, she leaves a trail of disappointment and disillusionment. Reform activists who shared her vision say she never built an effective national organization and never found a way to use her celebrity status to drive real change.

StudentsFirst was hobbled by a high staff turnover rate, embarrassing PR blunders and a lack of focus. But several leading education reformers say Rhee’s biggest weakness was her failure to build coalitions; instead, she alienated activists who should have been her natural allies with tactics they perceived as imperious, inflexible and often illogical. Several said her biggest contribution to the cause was drawing fire away from them as she positioned herself as the face of the national education reform movement.

“There was a growing consensus in the education reform community that she didn’t play well in the sandbox,” one reform leader said.

That last bit is pretty much the story of her career:  Walk into a room, kiss up, kick down, and do everything possible to ensure that her name is in the lights.

I do wonder what her next con-job will be, though.

Schadenfreude, We Haz It!!!!!

Head bigot at the rabidly homophobic group Texas Values, Jonathan Saenz appears to have a personal reason for his animus against other people’s happiness, his wife left him for another woman:

Mere months before Jonathan Saenz became president of the anti-gay group Texas Values, his wife left him for another woman, according to Hays County district court records obtained by Lone Star Q.

The revelation could help explain Saenz’s seemingly abrupt transformation from socially conservative lobbyist to homophobic firebrand.

Saenz, a devout Catholic, has been a right-wing operative in Texas for many years — working on abortion and religious liberty cases as a staff attorney for the Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute as far back as 2005.

However, it wasn’t until recently that Saenz emerged as one of the state’s best-known — and most extreme — anti-LGBT voices.

Court records indicate that Saenz’s ex-wife, Corrine Morris Rodriguez Saenz, is a member of the LGBT community who was dating another woman when she filed for divorce from Saenz in August 2011.

In early 2012, with their divorce still pending, Saenz would take the helm of Texas Values after the organization spun off from the Liberty Legal Institute, where he’d risen to chief lobbyist.

With Saenz as president, Texas Values has led the charge against not only same-sex marriage, but also passage of LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in San Antonio and Houston. In fighting the ordinances, Saenz has often repeated the debunked right-wing myth that sexual predators would use the laws to prey on women and children in bathrooms.

All this while going through a “War of the Roses” style brutal divorce.

Seriously, are there any professional conservatives out there who aren’t complete nutjobs?

H/t Raw Story.

Well, Waddya Know? Facebook has a Redeeming Social Function

It turns out that it’s a giving an opportunity for ignorant bigots to out themselves:

There are plenty of reasons to loathe Facebook. There’s the new messenger app that they’re making users install if they want to chat on their mobile devices. There’s the way they screwed around with users’ feeds, just as a little experiment. There’s the overall way it makes people unhappy. If you see it as a community, it’s pretty terrible. But if you instead choose to view it as the world’s most effective bozo-disclosing app, it’s rather brilliant.

Your mouth to God’s ear, Mary Elizabeth Williams.

On Wednesday alone, two outspoken Facebook users found themselves facing abrupt ends to their jobs after realizing too late that other people can actually see what you post in public. First, Virginia state Republican Party treasurer Bob FitzSimmonds resigned after controversy erupted when he declared on Facebook that Barack Obama’s recent comments on the achievements of Muslim Americans were “pure nonsense,” and asked, “Exactly what part of our nation’s fabric was woven by Muslims? What about Sikhs, Animists, and Jainists? Should we be thanking them too?” FitzSimmonds also drew ire earlier this year when he referred to Fairfax County Delegate Barbara Comstock as a “twat.” And in 2012, he raised eyebrows for speculating about when Obama “dies and goes to hell.” In a resignation letter he submitted to the State Central Committee this week, he said, “After discussion with several party leaders it seems clear that I will either need to stop posting on social media or step down from my party office.” While another, brighter individual might have chosen the former – to simply ease off on saying idiotic and offensive things in public — fortunately for FitzSimmonds’ colleagues, he chose the latter.

Also on Wednesday, a Texas police detective was fired after posting a Facebook tirade about the local “useless lazy turdbags” with “thousands of dollars of ink have adorning their unclean bodies” on government assistance. In his recent post, Detective Rob Douglas vowed, “I promise, if I ever snap and go on a killing spree, it will be in a supermarket on the first.” When announcing the decision to terminate Douglas, Marlin Police Chief Darrell Allen called the comments “inappropriate and troubling.” And yet, they did help take an resentful, angry cop off the streets, so they’ve got to be at least a little good for something.

In its relatively short lifespan, Facebook has proven itself the downfall of countless racists, sexists, homophobes and straight-up dopes. Turns out there’s always somebody willing to log on and do something regrettable. Earlier this summer, an Illinois woman was arrested for shoplifting – after posting selfies of her new merchandise on her page. And last month, after bragging on Facebook that “Y’all will never catch me,” Baltimore police did just that to Roger Ray Ireland after he violated his probation. And on Aug. 5, a Swedish politician abruptly ended his campaign shortly after referring on Facebook to “the Jewish pigs.” Reminder: This is all just in the past few weeks.

These days, Facebook is the “Maccaca Moment” Generator of choice.

This is F%$#ing Brilliant!

(Click for Slideshow)





Heh!

A couple in North Carolina has come up with a unique counter protest to the Talibaptist abortion criminalization crowd:

……… One Raleigh, N.C., couple—Grayson Haver Currin, a writer for Pitchfork and music editor at Indy Week, and his wife Tina, a copywriter and creative strategist—has been protesting alongside pro-lifers at a clinic in Cary, N.C., every Saturday morning since March. But their signs take a different approach.

Two days ago, Tina started the Tumblr Saturday Chores to document their glorious counter-protest technique. Grayson explains how this movement came about:

“There’s no big-box hardware store very close to where we live, so we were driving toward a suburb of Raleigh called Cary, which runs over with strip malls. We were getting supplies for a garden box. We both grew up not too far away, and we’ve seen the clinic in question hundreds of times. But for some reason, on this morning in particular, the protesters got under our skin a little more than normal. I’m full of crazy ideas and jokes, and Tina tells me which rare ones are good. I suggested that we make a sign that said ‘Weird Hobby’ and point at one of the protestors. She loved the idea and vowed that, if they were there when we passed back by, we’d do it.


………

He states that though this is satire, there’s an important message behind the signs.

“While it’s true that we’re mocking people, we consider the chief value of what we’re doing the solidarity that we demonstrate for the individuals or families that need to use the clinic’s services for whatever reasons they may have,” Grayson says. “Generally, upon arrival, they only encounter hate. We want to offer a rejoinder, however slight. And we also hope to show passersby on the busy thoroughfare that the far religious right need not be the only ones with a voice; those with progressive views have one, too, and we should use it.”

This is so F%$#ing brilliant.

No shouting, no screaming, nothing to make them feel like they are fighting “the man,” you just make them look, and feel, stupid.

I love it!

H/t Crooks and Liars.

This Makes Me Chuckle

Hedge fund billionaire William Ackman promised to deliver a deathblow to Herbalife from a Manhattan stage, but his long presentation on Tuesday bombed with investors and left the diet shake seller unscathed.

Herbalife CEO “Michael Johnson is a predator,” Ackman said fighting back tears as he wrapped up the second hour of the presentation while referring to his family’s American story, which started when Ackman’s great-grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Russia. “This is a criminal enterprise.” Ackman called Herbalife a $24 billion “scam.” “The fraud is affecting more and more people,” said Ackman. “It is time to shut the company down.”

Shares of Herbalife rose steadily in the morning after Ackman started giving his talk on Herbalife’s nutritional clubs, increasing by 8% to $58.40 in the first hour of the presentation. Two hours into the talk the stock had risen by 11% to $60. That’s a little higher than the shares were changing hands for on Monday before Ackman drove down the stock by 11%, saying he would be delivering “the most important presentation that I have made in my career.” Ackman had promised in a CNBC interview on Monday that “we won’t disappoint.” Ackman’s presentation was still going on at 1:07 p.m., with the stock up by 15% to $62.22. During the presentation, Ackman suggested that Herbalife had been repurchasing shares in a material way on Tuesday. Shares of Herbalife continued to rise after the three-hour presentation ended, closing at $67.77, up 25% for the day.

………

The company, which has vigorously denied Ackman’s accusations, said on Tuesday that Ackman was trying to drive down Herbalife’s shares over a relatively short period because a “substantial portion of the bet expires on January 17, 2015,” referring to put options Ackman purchased when he restructured his short position in the company’s shares. Circumstantial evidence suggests Ackman’s put options are currently not in the money.

………

During the presentation, Ackman invoked Enron, Bernard Madoff, totalitarian regimes and even the Nazis. “The big lie is used by totalitarian regimes, and by the Nazis and by lots of people and people generally believe big lies because they are so bold that how can they possibly be false,” Ackman said. He criticized former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for supporting Herbalife and claimed that Albright had successfully used her connections to make sure the company could continue to operate in the key China market after Ackman had attacked Herbalife’s China operations earlier this year.

Oh, yeah, and then there is those accusations of free babysitting:

“They are not selling weight loss in these clubs, they are selling business opportunities,” Ackman said at the presentation to investors in New York, adding the clubs provided free babysitting and had people working making nutrition drinks without pay.

“This is all free labor, totally illegal,” he said.

Herbalife jumped, and his short bet dropped in value as a result.

I joke about schadenfreude all the time, but this really does make me feel good.

Does that make me a bad person?

I’m Guessing that Obama Has a Sad Right Now

Because the UN Human Rights Commissioner has said that Edward Snowden should not be prosecuted:

The United Nations’s top human rights official has suggested that the United States should abandon its efforts to prosecute Edward Snowden, saying his revelations of massive state surveillance had been in the public interest.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, credited Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor, with starting a global debate that has led to calls for the curtailing of state powers to snoop on citizens online and store their data.

“Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected: we need them,” Pillay told a news conference.

“I see some of it here in the case of Snowden, because his revelations go to the core of what we are saying about the need for transparency, the need for consultation,” she said. “We owe a great deal to him for revealing this kind of information.”

The United States has filed espionage charges against Snowden, charging him with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorised person.

Pillay declined to say whether President Barack Obama should pardon Snowden, saying he had not yet been convicted. “As a former judge I know that if he is facing judicial proceedings we should wait for that outcome,” she said. But she added that Snowden should be seen as a human rights defender.

Considering the fact that Obama’s war on whistle-blowers makes Richard Nixon look like Julian Assange, I rather imagine that Obama is on the phone telling UN Ambassador Samantha Powers to go postal on Ms. Pillay.

Rick Santelli Gets Told that He Is Wrong About Everything

I think that his cow-orkers at CNBC are sick and tired of Rick “Tea Party” Santelli’s clown show:

Santelli gets completely owned, even if he doesn’t realize it, when Steve Liesman says, “Rick, it’s impossible for you to have been more wrong. Every single bit of advice you gave would have lost people money, Rick. Lost people money, Rick. Every single bit of advice. There is no piece of advice that you’ve given that’s worked, Rick. There is no piece of advice that you’ve given that’s worked, Rick. Not a single one.

It’s not often that you hear one employee call out another one on the network as completely incompetent and worthless.

H/t TPM.

Who Says That Irony is Dead?

Remember the now debunked story about Senator Bob Menendez and a Dominican Prostitute from Tucker Carlson’s so-called news site Daily Caller?

Well, it turns out that they were not making it all up. The Daily Caller was used as a stooge for an intelligence operation carried out by Cuba:

Sen. Robert Menendez is asking the Justice Department to pursue evidence obtained by U.S. investigators that the Cuban government concocted an elaborate plot to smear him with allegations that he cavorted with underage prostitutes, according to people familiar with the discussions.

In a letter sent to Justice Department officials, the senator’s attorney asserts that the plot was timed to derail the ­political rise of Menendez (D-N.J.), one of Washington’s most ardent critics of the Castro regime. At the time, Menendez was running for reelection and was preparing to assume the powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

According to a former U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of government intelligence, the CIA had obtained credible evidence, including Internet protocol addresses, linking Cuban agents to the prostitution claims and to efforts to plant the story in U.S. and Latin American media.

The alleged Cuba connection was laid out in an intelligence report provided last year to U.S. government officials and sent by secure cable to the FBI’s counterintelligence division, according to the former official and a second person with close ties to Menendez who had been briefed on the matter.

The intelligence information indicated that operatives from Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence helped create a fake tipster using the name “Pete Williams,” according to the former official. The tipster told FBI agents and others he had information about Menendez participating in poolside sex parties with underage prostitutes while vacationing at the Dominican Republic home of Salomon Melgen, a wealthy eye doctor, donor and friend of the senator.

A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, which functions as the island’s U.S. diplomatic outpost, did not respond to requests for comment.

The allegations against Menendez erupted in public in November 2012, when the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, quoted two Dominican women claiming Menendez had paid them for sex.

The FBI investigated the prostitution claims but was unable to corroborate them. Last year, three Dominican women who had initially claimed to reporters that they had been paid to have sex with Menendez recanted their story.

BTW, the inestimable Charlie Pierce notes some additional irony here.

You noticed the name of the source that misled Tucker Carlson and His Evil Minions?

Well, the name Pete Williams has a history:

And, it appears that the Cuban spooks may well have a more finely honed sense of humor than we previously have noticed. Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a senator from New Jersey named Harrison Williams.Senator Williams was a Democrat of decent instincts,but he also was something of a grab-it-all and, one day, a phony Arab sheikh in the employ of the FBI dropped in on him with some money the sheikh said he’d like to share in exchange for Williams’s help in buying the output of a defunct titanium mine. This bit of American Hustle landed forced Williams to resign from the Senate and landed him in the federal sneezer for three years.

As it happens, because his given name was Harrison Arlington Williams, Jr., his friends all called the senator, “Pete.”

“Pete Williams.”

Well-played, Cuban spies. Very well-played indeed.

I think that I can authoritatively state that the schadenfreude drought is officially over.

Time for Some Schadenfreude

There was an open carry demonstration in Richmond, VA, and only two people showed up:

More than 300 people were invited on Facebook to walk down Cary Street on July Fourth with handguns, rifles and other so-called “long guns” proudly displayed.

Two showed up — and they were the organizers of the midday event in the family-oriented Carytown shopping district.

“I don’t know why,” said organizer Jason Spitzer, 29, when asked to explain the low turnout for what he described as an Independence Day demonstration to “spread Constitutional awareness” of Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“But even if nobody came I’d still walk,” the Chesterfield County steel mill worker said, holding a large American flag in his hands, with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a holstered handgun on his hip. “It’s the Fourth of July and I love my country.”

But with turnout so low, the shoppers and diners along Cary Street weren’t quite sure what to make of the two-man march, which might very well have gone unnoticed were it not outnumbered by two television crews and a photographer in tow.

BTW, I’m with the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life on the appropriate response if some of the open carry terrorists show up to your school/restaurant/laundromat, leave the area immediately without making an effort to pay:

The questions that concerns me now is how we bystanders should react when people come into a store with guns. There really is no legitimate way of determining intent. Even if the people with guns are carrying a sign claiming to be activists (which they do not do), they could be lying, just setting us all up for slaughter. And since there is no way to know what is on their minds, all we have are our instincts, but as we all should know, our instincts are often racist, classist, and frequently mistaken. So, what should we do?

My proposal is as follows: we should all leave. Immediately. Leave the food on the table in the restaurant. Leave the groceries in the cart, in the aisle. Stop talking or engaging in the exchange. Just leave, unceremoniously, and fast.

But here is the key part: don’t pay. Stopping to pay in the presence of a person with a gun means risking your and your loved ones’ lives; money shouldn’t trump this. It doesn’t matter if you ate the meal. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just received food from the deli counter that can’t be resold. It doesn’t matter if you just got a haircut. Leave. If the business loses money, so be it. They can make the activists pay.

Following this procedure has several advantages. First, it protects people. Second, it forces the businesses to really choose where their loyalties are. If the second amendment is as important as people claim, then people should be willing to pay for it. God knows, free speech is tremendously expensive. If it weren’t, I’d be reading this on ESPN during prime time, not posting this on Blogger.

Third, this proposal has the added advantage of taking the activists seriously. Most gun-rights activists describe a world of tremendous dangers. Guns, they repeatedly tell us, are the only thing between home invasion, rape, murder, and government intrusion. Okay, well if that’s true, then we bystanders should be equally afraid, and react instantaneously to keep away the chaos and the violence. We learned to be afraid from the gun-rights supporters. They have gotten everything they wanted.

This is an unbelievably appropriate response.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Chris

It looks like Jabba the Governor has yet another bridge scandal:

Investigations into the Christie administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in 2011, according to people briefed on the matter.

While the inquiries were prompted by the apparently politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge last year, these investigations center on another crossing: the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City. They are being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressed the Port Authority to pay for extensive repairs to the Skyway and related road projects, diverting money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Mr. Christie canceled in October 2010.

Again and again, Port Authority lawyers warned against the move: The Pulaski Skyway, they noted, is owned and operated by the state, putting it outside the agency’s purview, according to dozens of memos and emails reviewed by investigators and obtained by The New York Times.

………

In bond documents describing the Skyway reconstruction and other repairs, the Port Authority has called the projects “Lincoln Tunnel Access Infrastructure Improvements.”

The accuracy of this characterization is now a major focus of the investigations, according to several people briefed on the matter. Under a New York State law known as the Martin Act, prosecutors can bring felony charges for intentionally deceiving bond holders, without having to prove any intent to defraud or even establish that any fraud occurred.

Two veteran prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office public corruption unit are working with two S.E.C. lawyers who are experts in such bond issues, one person briefed on the matter said, and another noted that while the agencies were each conducting separate parallel inquiries, they were working together.

In addition to criminal charges under the Martin Act, the investigations could result in civil action under the Martin Act or by the S.E.C., under federal securities laws.

Someone has lost a lot of weight for nothing, because he will never be the Presidential nominee.

Well, at Least Someone Has Put the Fear of God into the NRA

Following the National Rifle Association’s declaring the Texas open carry maniacs weird, said maniacs organized a mass destruction of their NRA cards, and the NRA responded by folding like a bunch of overcooked cauliflower:

The National Rifle Association is walking back its statement criticizing gun activists who carry loaded assault weapons in public as a form of protest, with the NRA’s top lobbyist apologizing and calling the statement “a mistake.”

In recent months Open Carry Texas and several other gun activist groups have made headlines for openly carrying loaded assault weapons in public and into restaurants in the Dallas area. This tactic of attempting to “normalize” open carry of rifles has spectacularly backfired, as gun violence group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America has persuaded several restaurant chains where open carry rallies were staged to ask customers not to bring firearms into their businesses.

On June 2, Mother Jones reported on a statement on the NRA’s website that criticized the open carry protests as “downright weird” and suggested that the practice was “downright scary” to onlookers and “counterproductive for the gun owning community.” The Mother Jones report was widely circulated in media as it was an aberration from the NRA’s typical absolutist position on firearm issues. Open Carry Texas called the NRA’s statement “disgusting and disrespectful” and some gun activists cut up their NRA membership cards.

The NRA’s top lobbyist, Chris Cox, appeared on the NRA’s radio show Cam & Company on June 3 to repudiate the NRA’s article criticizing the open carry movement. Cox said that the statement was “a mistake” and that “it shouldn’t have happened,” adding “our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners.” Cox also blamed the statement on a “staffer” who Cox said “expressed his personal opinion.” Referencing media interest in the statement, Cox termed it a “distraction.”

I’m beginning to think that we should start having people of color showing up at NRA meetings and maybe NRA headquarters, doing open carry.

See what that does to the state of their underwear.

How Much of a F%$#tard Gun Fondler do You Have to Be to Have the NRA Call You a F%$#tard Gun Fondler?

Well, now we know:

The nation’s staunchest defender of the Second Amendment has told gun activists in Texas who insist on carrying assault-style rifles in public places to knock it off.

In a statement issued late last week, the National Rifle Association (NRA) called out so-called “open carry” groups in Texas that have been frightening restaurant customers and motorists by approaching them while carrying AK-47s and AR-15s.

The NRA applauded Texas for a “robust gun culture,” but noted that a number of activists had “crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness.”
“Now we love AR-15s and AKs as much as anybody, and we know that these sorts of semiautomatic carbines are among the most popular, fastest selling firearms in America today,” the statement said. “Texas, independent-minded and liberty-loving place that it is, doesn’t ban the carrying of loaded long guns in public, nor does it require a permit for this activity. Yet some so-called firearm advocates seem determined to change this.”

“[I]t is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms,” the NRA continued. “Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary.”

(emphasis original)

Seriously, this like that classic moment in Iron Man 3, when one of the henchmen says, “”Honesty, I hate working here they are so weird!” and runs away.

This is a Good Day for Schadenfreude

Dinesh D’Souza has just pled guilty to using straw donors in violation of campaign finance laws:

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza entered a guilty plea Tuesday to a charge that he used straw donors to make $20,000 in illegal contributions to Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012, officials said.

The unexpected guilty plea came on the same day the trial for the strident critic of President Barack Obama was set to open in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The single felony count D’Souza admitted guilt on carries a maximum prison sentence of two years, but the plea agreement D’Souza’s lawyers reached with the government says sentencing guidelines applicable to the case call for a sentence of 10 to 16 months.

Judges are not required to sentence defendants in accordance with the guidelines, but usually do. Both sides reserved their rights to argue for a sentence outside that range and D’Souza’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman indicated he plans to ask Judge Richard Berman not to send D’Souza to prison.

The plea deal calls for dismissal of a second charge D’Souza faced if he went to trial: causing Long to file a false report with the Federal Election Commission. That carried a potential sentence of up to five years behind bars.

Atrios has noted that he is feeling far less schadenfreude about this than he expected, despite his being, “One of America’s Worst Humans.”

Me not so much.

This is the guy that has never grew up beyond tacky College Republican guerrilla theater that had classmate Timothy Geithner asking him, “how it felt to be such a dick.”  (And that is ignoring his rather idiosyncratic marital life)

This really could not happen to a more contemptible human being.

Bummer of a Birth Mark, Bob

In a completely that unsurprising move, District Judge James Spencer has ruleddisgraced former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s trial should proceed:

Virginia’s former governor Robert McDonnell, once a rising star in the Republican Party, failed to persuade a U.S. judge to throw out federal corruption charges against him and his wife, Maureen.

U.S. District Judge James Spencer in Richmond, Virginia, ruled today that U.S. prosecutors sufficiently supported their charges in the McDonnells’ indictment and that the case against them, scheduled for trial in July, should move ahead. Spencer also rejected the couple’s request that their cases be separated.

The McDonnells are accused of accepting vacations, loans, private plane rides and other benefits in exchange for using the governor’s office to benefit businessman Jonnie Williams, who at the time headed Star Scientific Inc. (STSI) and was trying to promote the dietary supplements made by the Glen Allen, Virginia-based company.

I half expect that the jury to, “Find the defendants incredibly guilty,” to quote Mel Brooks.

There is Justice in the World

Asa Hutchinson, one of the ‘Phant ratf%$#s who have pushed voter ID laws to suppress the poor and minority vote, was turned away from the polls because he did not have a voter ID:

Asa Hutchinson, who won the Republican nomination in the race for Arkansas governor Tuesday, forgot his ID when he went to the polls, despite backing the state’s new voter ID law, according to the Associated Press.

Christian Olson, a spokesman for the Republican candidate, told the AP that Hutchinson believed the situation was a “little bit of an inconvenience” and that a staffer retrieved his ID so he could cast a ballot. Olson said the former congressman still believes voters should be required to show an ID.

Hutchinson’s campaign has not responded to msnbc’s requests for comment. This post will be updated when it does.

Tuesday was the first time the state’s voter ID law affected an election, and Arkansas voters were required to show identification at the polls, according to the AP. Last month, a judge struck down the voter ID law, finding it unconstitutional. But the judge said that the law would be enforced during the state’s primary.

I can imaging what was going through his head at that moment, “You cannot stop me from voting, I am white!”

Fabulous!!!!

Not only did a federal judge overturn Pennsylvania’s gay marriage ban, but he cited Antonin Scalia in his opinion:

Upon striking down Pennsylvania’s gay marriage ban Tuesday, a federal judge cited Justice Antonin Scalia’s “cogen[t]” argument that the Supreme Court had essentially paved the way for nationwide marriage equality last year.
Here’s the relevant passage from George W. Bush-appointed Judge John E. Jones III in his 39-page opinion:

As Justice Scalia cogently remarked in his dissent, “if [Windsor] is meant to be an equal-protection opinion, it is a confusing one.” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2706 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Although Windsor did not identify the appropriate level of scrutiny, its discussion is manifestly not representative of deferential review. See id. (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing that “the Court certainly does not apply anything that resembles [the rational-basis] framework” (emphasis omitted)). The Court did not evaluate hypothetical justifications for the law but rather focused on the harm resulting from DOMA, which is inharmonious with deferential review.

It was a reference to Scalia’s scathing dissent against the Court’s 5-4 opinion that struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages. The Reagan-appointed justice warned that the majority decision — despite officially staying neutral on whether gay marriage was a Constitutional right — relied upon reasoning that would lead to that conclusion.

I will note that referencing a minority opinion does not seem to me to be a common thing, (Note however, that I an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit*) but this is the 2nd or 3rd time that a judge has cited Scalia in making a decision invalidating a gay marriage ban.

I’m beginning to think that the Federal Judiciary is conspiring to offer a very well deserved f%$# you to Fat Tony Scalia.

*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!!!

I Have Mixed Emotions About This

In response to American sanctions, the Russian Duma passed legislation, ostensibly to secure the actions of foreign bankers.

The result is that the Russian government is now demanding that Visa and Mastercard make a security deposit equivalent to 2 days worth of transactions, $3.8 billion, to continue to operate in the country:

International credit card companies face a “severe impact” on their operations in Russia following a strict new law Moscow has adopted in response to Visa and Mastercard freezing service to banks under US sanctions.

Visa described the regulations as “unprecedented” and Mastercard said it could experience difficulties, the Russian magazine Snob reported, after Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday to create a rival national payment system.

The law stipulates the creation of a homegrown system to facilitate cashless transactions by 1 July, but also imposes stiff new requirements on international payment systems operating in Russia.

The legislation was spurred on by Visa and Mastercard’s decision on 21 March to stop servicing payments for clients of Rossiya Bank, as well as its daughter company Sobinbank. Rossiya Bank was included in the first round of US sanctions over the Ukraine crisis because it is owned by Putin associate Yury Kovalchuk and is the “personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation,” the US Treasury said when announcing the sanctions.

Visa and Mastercard also blocked operations for cards issued by SMP Bank, which is owned by the brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, who are old judo buddies of Putin’s.

The new law forbids international payment systems from cutting off services to Russian clients and obliges them to base their processing centre in Russia. To ensure their good behaviour, international operators will have to place a security deposit in Russia’s central bank equal to the average value of two days’ worth of transactions.

Visa and Mastercard together processed $1.9bn (£1.12bn) in transactions per day last year – 90% of all cashless payments in Russia – equal to a $3.8bn security deposit, the Moscow Times reported.

The security deposit will be due in eight quarterly payments starting on 1 July. The law states that if a payment system unilaterally freezes operations for a Russian client, it is liable for a fee totalling 10% of its security deposit for each day without service.

The credit cards are caught between a rock and a hard place, they have to deal with both US and Russian law, which sucks for them, but they are credit card companies, which means that they spend their time giving people sh%$ sandwichs, so the fact that they are dining on excrement between two slices of white bread, it amuses me no end..

Like I said, mixed emotions.

The Stool Pigeon Sings


Pass the Popcorn

It appears that former Chris Christie political operative David Wildstein is singing to a grand jury:

Bad news for Chris Christie — and very good news for the citizens of New Jersey: Esquire has learned from sources close to the investigation that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority operative who helped plan and execute the Great Fort Lee Clusterfk, is now cooperating with Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor investigating the soon-to-be-ex-governor and his minions for criminal conduct. Fishman has also increased the number of investigators at work on the case, and has begun presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury in Newark.

Wildstein was forced to quit his PA job in December, before Fort Lee’s corpses bobbed to the surface. Christie, who went to high school with Wildstein and put him at the PA as “director of interstate capital projects” — a job created just for him — helped edit the media statement thanking Wildstein “for his service to the people of New Jersey and the region.”

In January, Wildstein refused to testify before a New Jersey legislative committee investigating last September’s George Washington Bridge lane closures, citing his 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination. It was Wildstein’s cache of e-mails and texts, provided to the committee, that featured the instantly immortal exchange between Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly (“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”) and Wildstein (“Got it”).

No wonder the mainstream Republicans are looking at Jeb Bush for President now.

Christie may serve out his term, but he is not going to be the Republican nominee.