Category: Schadenfreude

Bitcoin Has Had a Disasterous Week

No Comments

We’ve just had 3rd Bitcoin exchange robbery in a week, the suspicious death of the CEO of another exchange, the discovery the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is actually a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto, and Japan has decided not to regulate it as currency.

I know what you are wondering why is Japan deciding not to regulate Bitcoin a bad thing?

Well, because if it is not currency, then it is subject to the VAT (sales tax) and the capital gains tax:

The Japanese government officially said Friday that it doesn’t consider bitcoin to be a currency and has no plans at present to regulate it as a financial product.

As it tries to cope with the fallout from the bankruptcy of the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange, the government said that the crypto-currency would be treated like other goods and services, with commercial sales of bitcoin itself and bitcoin-based transactions subject to sales tax. In addition, any gains on exchange rates will be taxed as well.

“Any bitcoin transactions are taxable when they fulfill requisitions stated by laws on income tax, corporate tax and consumption tax,” the government said in its statement, which came in response to questions over how bitcoins will be regulated.

At the same time, the statement ruled out treatment of bitcoin as a currency or a financial instrument.

“Bitcoin are neither Japanese nor foreign currencies and its trading is different from deals stated by Japan’s bank act as well as financial instruments and exchange act,” according to a document released by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet.

(emphasis mine)

I don’t know if Bitcoin is done, but I think that a stake has been driven though the heart of the Randroid libertarian dream of completely unregulated and untraceable crypto currency.

Heh.

I am Feeling so Much Schadenfraude Right Now

No Comments

Its beginning to look like George Zimmerman is starting to learn that there are people out there who aren’t NRA gun nuts with small penises with racial murder fantasies:

Zimmerman taped an interview last Tuesday with Univision and Fusion, and then took his girlfriend, her kid and his brother to the beach. While they were catching some rays, people noticed him, started harassing him, and then someone shouted out George had a $10,000 bounty on his head.

We’re told it freaked him out and they all retreated to the hotel, but the crowd followed them.

Security swept their room to make sure no one tampered with their stuff and then stood guard throughout the day and night. We’re told Zimmerman did his CNN interview early the next morning and then beat it … literally fleeing Miami.

I am not feeling any sympathy, or empathy, for that racist murderer right now.

What, You Mean that the Union has Seats on the VW Board of Directors?!?!?!?

No Comments

The head of the union at Volkswagon is saying that the the labor environment in the South means that VW should conduct future expansion elsewhere.

Seeing as how labor unions effectively control a majority of the seats on the board, this looks to revealing Senator Bob Corker, who claimed that VW told him that not having a union was key to expansion, to be a lying sack of sh%$:

Volkswagen’s top labor representative threatened on Wednesday to try to block further investments by the German carmaker in the southern United States if its workers there are not unionized.

Workers at VW’s factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last Friday voted against representation by the United Auto Workers union (UAW), rejecting efforts by VW representatives to set up a German-style works council at the plant.

German workers enjoy considerable influence over company decisions under the legally enshrined “co-determination” principle which is anathema to many politicians in the U.S. who see organized labor as a threat to profits and job growth.

Chattanooga is VW’s only factory in the U.S. and one of the company’s few in the world without a works council.

“I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again,” said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW’s works council.

“If co-determination isn’t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor” of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW’s supervisory board, said.

The 20-member panel – evenly split between labor and management – has to approve any decision on closing plants or building new ones.

Here’s a thought: If you want to locate a plant in a 3rd world country, actually set it up in a real 3rd world country, as opposed to the 3rd world country wannabees in the south.

Conservative Butthurt

No Comments

Normally, I have no interest in awards, but the Grammy’s have their moments.

The last time was in 1984, when Annie Lennox stunned and offended ½ of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States (and amused the other ½).

This year, however, it is a bit more significant. Queen Latifa officiated at the wedding of 34 couples, some of them same sex, and right wingers are having a major butt hurt about this:

Anti-gay commentators were none too pleased with last night’s performance of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Same Love” at the Grammy Awards, which included a ceremony where thirty-four couples — including same-sex couples — were married. Unsurprisingly, many claimed that the show was evil and mean to anti-gay activists.

My heart bleeds borscht for these bigots.

If You are a Disgusting Corrupt Evil Person, a Twitter Q&A is Not Recommended

No Comments

In this case, it is the woman whose business model is profiting on the misery of our children, former DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee who was surprised to encounter a well deserved buzz saw instead cute fuzzy kittens:

Apparently having learned nothing from last year’s #AskJPM and #AskRKelly debacles, controversial education reformer Michelle Rhee announced on Wednesday that she’d be answering questions from folks on Twitter using a hashtag of her own: #AskMichelle.

Anyone who isn’t a complete moron, as well as Michelle Rhee fan Matt Yglesias, realized this, but Rhee, because her evil is only exceeded by her feeling of her self worth disagreed:

@mattyglesias Make a New Years resolution to be positive, Matt! #AskMichelle
— Michelle Rhee (@MichelleRhee) January 15, 2014

Wrong:

.Dear @MichelleRhee, why have you never come clean about the cheating scandal in DC? You preach accountability but take none. #AskMichelle.
— Prison Culture (@prisonculture) January 15, 2014

#AskMichelle Why didn’t the StudentsFirstNY canvassers outside my school identify themselves, instead of just asking for signatures?
— Molly Knefel (@mollyknefel) January 15, 2014

#AskMichelle @MichelleRhee Do you think kindergarteners should have to take standardized tests? http://t.co/x3e30VDtR7
— Sarah Jaffe (@sarahljaffe) January 15, 2014

#AskMichelle is it a coincidence that state policies you rank as best have terrible outcomes and are radically right wing? @MichelleRhee
— Sam Knight (@samknight1) January 15, 2014

.@MichelleRhee Why aren’t Students First’s donors featured on your website? #AskMichelle
— Prison Culture (@prisonculture) January 15, 2014

.@MichelleRhee Why did you support OH’s Senate Bill 5 that stripped collective bargaining rights from all Ohio public workers? #AskMichelle
— Doug Foote (@FooteSteppes) January 15, 2014

Why won’t you disclose all your funding sources? #AskMichelle @MichelleRhee
— Mikey Franklin (@mikeyfranklin) January 15, 2014

How much $$ do you get from Walmart? RT @MichelleRhee: Im around for a little bit, anyone have any questions for me? Please use #AskMichelle
— Asher Huey (@asherhuey) January 15, 2014

Which brand of tape is best for shutting children’s lips? I smell a corporate partnership! #AskMichelle @MichelleRhee http://t.co/YUVdMZwayT
— Brian Thill (@Brian_Thill) January 15, 2014

More on the last tweet in another post.

This could not happen to a more deserving person.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Susan G. Komen Foundation

No Comments

As a result of their abortive (pun no intended) attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, their revenue has fallen by $77 million, about 22%:

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation committed one of the great PR faux pas of the decade in January 2012, when it summarily cut off funding to Planned Parenthood in what appeared to be a bow to anti-abortion crusaders.

Now, with its release of its latest financial statements, the cost of that decision can be measured: It’s more than $77 million, or fully 22% of the foundation’s income. That’s how much less the Dallas-based foundation collected in contributions, sponsorships and entry fees for its sponsored races in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013, compared with the previous year. The raw figures are these: In the most recent fiscal year Komen booked $270 million; the year before that, Komen booked $348 million.

………

The foundation’s decision to cease funding Planned Parenthood was a huge blunder. Komen officials said at the time that they had merely tightened grant eligibility rules to exclude groups under investigation by government authorities — Planned Parenthood was the target of a ginned-up “investigation” by anti-abortion Republicans in the House.

The decision by the nation’s leading breast cancer charity to defund the nation’s leading provider of health services to women sparked a predictable uproar, and Komen reversed the decision after only three days.

But the damage was immediate and, plainly, lasting. There were indications that the original decision had been driven by Karen Handel, the organization’s vice president for public policy, who had joined Komen after losing a race for governor of Georgia on an anti-abortion platform. She resigned from Komen days after the reversal.

The affair led to more public scrutiny of the foundation’s own record. It transpired, for instance, that while the foundation depicted itself as devoted chiefly to research for a breast cancer cure, it spent only about 20% of its donations on research; the biggest expenditure category was public education, at more than 50%. Critics questioned whether “education” really should be such a heavy priority in a field where research issues remain important.

George Herbert Walker Bush’s, “Thousand points of light,” in a nutshell.

All those people who talk about how how private charities can be a replacement for government action are full of it.

Not only are private charities rife with corruption and inefficiency, but we have wankers giving TED talks suggesting that the solution is to allow people to more aggressively loot. (More on that later)

Bridgegate

No Comments

The Chris Christie George Washington Bridge shutdown scandal has hit the big time, or times, specifically the New York Times, which is now writing about what only be called smoking gun emails: (You can peruse the emails here)

The mystery of who closed two lanes onto the George Washington Bridge — turning the borough of Fort Lee, N.J., into a parking lot for four days in September — exploded into a full-bore political scandal for Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday. Emails and texts revealed that a top aide had ordered the closings to punish the town’s mayor after he did not endorse the governor for re-election.

 “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, emailed David Wildstein, a high school friend of the governor who worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge.

Later text messages mocked concerns that school buses filled with students were stuck in gridlock: “They are the children of Buono voters,” Mr. Wildstein wrote, referring to Mr. Christie’s opponent Barbara Buono.

The emails are striking in their political maneuvering, showing Christie aides gleeful about some of the chaos that resulted. Emergency vehicles were delayed in responding to three people with heart problems and a missing toddler, and commuters were left fuming. One of the governor’s associates refers to the mayor of Fort Lee as “this little Serbian,” and Ms. Kelly exchanges messages about the plan while she is in line to pay her respects at a wake.

First, it should be noted that the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, is not a Serb, he is of Croatian extraction, so I am pretty sure that the hizonner the mayor is even more pissed off now.

So, now Jabba the Governor is saying that he was misled by his staff, the last refuge of scoundrels:

What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.

Yes, misled, that’s the ticket.

We also know that the traffic backup hindered emergency services, and may have resulted in the death of a 91 year old woman:

Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations – including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious – due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the borough’s EMS department.

 The woman later died, borough records show.

 In at least two of those instances, response time doubled, noted EMS coordinator Paul Favia, who documented those cases in a Sept. 10 letter to Mayor Mark Sokolich, which The Record obtained.

 On Sept. 9, the first day of the traffic paralysis, EMS crews took seven to nine minutes to arrive at the scene of a vehicle accident where four people were injured, when the response time should have been less than four minutes, he wrote.

 It also took EMS seven minutes to reach an unconscious 91-year-old woman who later died of cardiac arrest at a hospital. Although he did not say her death was directly caused by the delays, Favia noted that “paramedics were delayed due to heavy traffic on Fort Lee Road and had to meet the ambulance en-route to the hospital instead of on the scene.”

I think that the definitive word so far on all this comes from, of all places, the New York Daily News who started their article with:, “In the best possible light, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie built a top staff of lying thugs who threatened lives and safety to serve his political ends. If not, Christie is a lying thug himself.”

Whether he specifically knew or not, it is clear that Christie is a bully and a punk, and he surrounded himself with bullies and punks.

Looks Like the New York Times Bromance with Chris Christie has Ended………

No Comments

It took f%$3ing with the George Washington Bridge in a fit of pique, but the Times finally begun to see that Chris Christie is not a brave truth teller, but a bully and a thug:

In 2010, John F. McKeon, a New Jersey assemblyman, made what he thought was a mild comment on a radio program: Some of the public employees that Gov. Chris Christie was then vilifying had been some of the governor’s biggest supporters.

He was surprised to receive a handwritten note from Mr. Christie, telling him that he had heard the comments, and that he didn’t like them.

“I thought it was a joke,” Mr. McKeon recalled. “What governor would take the time to write a personal note over a relatively innocuous comment?”

But the gesture would come to seem genteel compared with the fate suffered by others in disagreements with Mr. Christie: a former governor who was stripped of police security at public events; a Rutgers professor who lost state financing for cherished programs; a state senator whose candidate for a judgeship suddenly stalled; another senator who was disinvited from an event with the governor in his own district.

In almost every case, Mr. Christie waved off any suggestion that he had meted out retribution. But to many, the incidents have left that impression, and it has been just as powerful in scaring off others who might dare to cross him.

Your honor, people who used to see your crass bullying as something noble are beginning to see it for what it really is.

You are a punk, sir, and your comeuppance will be beautiful to behold.

H/T Balloon Juice.

I Think that Chris Christie now has a “-Gate” Scandal on His Hands

No Comments

Pass the Popcorn

Christie’s two recently resigned political appointees to the Port Authority have lawyered up:

Two appointees of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who recently resigned amid a controversy over lane closures at the George Washington Bridge have retained private attorneys, according to correspondence reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

 Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, former executives at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, have sought outside counsel amid an investigation into why traffic lanes leading to the nation’s busiest bridge were closed, the documents showed.

 The hirings came as correspondence and documents related to the bridge controversy are due to be delivered soon to a legislative inquiry of the state Assembly.

 The Democrat-led Transportation Committee subpoenaed documents from people involved in the incident, including Messrs. Baroni and Wildstein and leadership of the authority, seeking more information about how the lanes were closed and why.

 Mr. Wildstein recently hired Alan L. Zegas, a criminal lawyer from Chatham, N.J., to represent him, according to an email sent from Mr. Zegas to the state Legislature Tuesday.

 Mr. Zegas was co-counsel to former Newark Mayor Sharpe James in 2008 in response to federal corruption charges brought by Mr. Christie when he served as the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, according to Mr. Zegas’s biography.

 Mr. Baroni retained Michael Himmel, of Lowenstein Sandler LLP. Mr. Himmel works at the firm’s New York City and Roseland, N.J. offices, and specializes in white collar crime, according to his biography.

I figure that this will eventually degenerate into finger pointing, and the question is whether it will just involve Mssrs Baroni and Wildstein, or if it will go higher.

This is Just Nasty

No Comments

As you may be aware, Senator John Cornyn has gotten himself a Teabagger challenger in the primary, US Representative Steve Stockman (R-WTF).
Well, Harry Reid’s communications director just Tweeted this:

.@woodruffbets Senator Reid has always felt that Senator Cornyn is someone he can work with on a range of issues.
— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) December 10, 2013

Well played, Mr. Jentleson, well played.

It sounds nice, but it is read meat to the ‘Baggers who will vote in the primary.

My Mom Was Involved in Something Like This 40 Years Ago

No Comments

When my younger brother, Daniel, was in 5th grade, an Evangelical Christian group set up in the principal’s office, and made an announcement over the PA system that students were to pick up copies of the Christian Bible.

Dan, even at age 10, realized what it was, and so declined, and one of his classmates called him a “Heathen.”

Needless to say, some people were upset by this. My mom was furious (not a good thing for the target of her fury) and she and some concerned parents had a colloquy with Bill Ellena, the then Superintendent of the Charlottesville, VA School District.

Mr. Ellena cited a recent supreme court decision allowing for this, and my mom noted that it meant that everyone had such access, so they wanted a time to hand out a Marxist tract on atheism.

The superintendent decided that no future theological literature would be handed out in such a manner.

Well, it looks like the state of Oklahoma has a similar Hobson’s Choice (or Morton’s Fork, your choice):

Remember the Satanic Temple, which performed a ritual to turn Fred Phelps’ dead mother gay? They are still at it, now in Oklahoma. The Satanic Temple has filed the papers to put up a memorial on statehouse grounds, next to the state’s display of the 10 Commandments. They are doing this by citing Okla.’s religious displays legislation, signed into law in 2009. And they are absolutely serious about it. According to their press release:

The Satanic Temple, an established New York City-based religious organization, has offered to donate a public monument to Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Commission for display upon Oklahoma City’s capitol grounds. Described as an “homage” to Satan, the purpose of the monument is to complement and contrast the Ten Commandments monument that already resides on the North side of the building. The donation offer has been submitted and is currently awaiting the commission’s reply.

The Satanic Temple Is Dead Serious About This.

When Patheos heard of this, they reached out to the temple, and had some questions answered. The statement boils down to the Satanic Temple’s willingness to embrace the new Republican-led insistence of religiously backed memorials, and they plan to take full advantage of it.

Let’s be clear here, the Church of Satan is not being insincere here. 

This behavior is not just some sort of “Yes Man” style agitprop.  Causing discomfort is a part of their religious observance.

It Could Not Happen to a More Deserving Bunch of Rat F%$#ers

No Comments

It appears that all is not well at the Heritage Foundation,*.

Former Senator DeMint has taken the helm, and in addition to making its so-called scholarship secondary to its electoral litmus tests, DeMint has embraced his MBA ethos, and started to enforce rigorous performance standards and metrics on its employees.

The employees are not amused. They see themselves as professionals, and they find it demeaning that they will be treated in the same way that they insist that the professionals who teach our children:

Julia Ioffe has a piece in the New Republic explaining the recent history of the Heritage Foundation, once the most influential conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. — perhaps the most influential think tank of any kind anywhere, for a few years — and now essentially a very large email list and activist PAC/pressure group.

Many people noticed how much the organization had changed during the recent government shutdown/”defund Obamacare” fight, a giant waste of everyone’s time and general self-inflicted disaster engineered and designed by Heritage Action, the 501(c)(4) “pressure group” Heritage launched in 2010. On the right, there was much consternation over the direction this once-respected think tank had taken. Truth be told, Heritage was always mostly political hacks, they just used to be effective political hacks with a realistic agenda. What was different now was the cheerful absense of any coherent and/or achievable goal — beyond fundraising and image-boosting for Heritage Action itself. Many blamed this on new Heritage president Jim DeMint, a former congressman not particularly known for his intellect, but Ioffe says the new tone at Heritage, and the tactics of Heritage Action, were both largely directed by Michael Needham, a 31-year-old former Giuliani staffer brought on to be the CEO of Heritage Action when it launched.

It seems that the folks at Heritage do not feel that they are being properly respected:

“I was always struck at how they felt absolutely no intellectual modesty,” says the former veteran Heritage staffer. “They felt totally on par with people who had spent thirty years in the field and had Ph.D.s.”

 Kind of like how turning over public schools to hedge fund managers, and the results are the same, MBA morons using the skills that blew up our financial system to f%$# their latest endeavor:

Since Needham and Chapman and DeMint have been in charge, a number of scholars and academic think tank types have left the organization, presumably distressed by the new regime’s management methods. Those methods do sound quite annoying, though:

DeMint also shared another bond with the two men: unlike the Heritage ruling class of yore, none of them had Ph.D.s. All three, however, had MBAs. Their preference for incentivizing behavior on the Hill with scorecards and primary challenges was “a very MBA approach to politics,” the former scholar noted ruefully. “There’s really no room there for deliberation or argument.”

Once he took the helm, DeMint set about reorganizing the business. Under Feulner, the Heritage Foundation ran as a decentralized confederation of so-called research silos—health care, national security, education—whose staffers each focused on a specific area. DeMint instituted a system of multidisciplinary teams that sprung up depending on the issue of the day that Heritage happened to be pushing. Moreover, now a Heritage staffer’s career trajectory was tied to the success or failure of that team.


You mean … compensation and advancement were tied to performance? That sounds like standard corporate management best-practices to me. It also sounds like something Heritage has spent years trying to implement in public schools.

You know, the Heritage Foundation just loved private equity pump and dump before it was applied to them.

My f%$#ing heart f%$#ing bleeds f%$#ing borscht for these bastards.

F%$#ing sauce for the f%$#ing gander.
*Full disclosure, a friend of mine was fired for having cancer from the Heritage Foundation, so I am not favorably inclined toward these bastards.

Sauce for the Gander

No Comments

The reactionary wing of the Catholic Church, whose refrain under the reactionaries John Paul II and Benedict XVI was to say that obedience to the Pope is not optional, is now complaining that Pope Francis is considering how they feel about what he says:

Rattled by Pope Francis’s admonishment to Catholics not to be “obsessed” by doctrine, his stated reluctance to judge gay people and his apparent willingness to engage just about anyone — including atheists — many conservative Catholics areRattled by Pope Francis’s admonishment to Catholics not to be “obsessed” by doctrine, his stated reluctance to judge gay people and his apparent willingness to engage just about anyone — including atheists — many conservative Catholics are doing what only recently seemed unthinkable:

They are openly questioning the pope.

Concern among traditionalists began building soon after Francis was elected this spring. Almost immediately, the new pope told non-Catholic and atheist journalists he would bless them silently out of respect. Soon after, he eschewed Vatican practice and included women in a foot-washing ceremony.

The wary traditionalists became critical when, in an interview a few weeks ago, Francis said Catholics shouldn’t be “obsessed” with imposing doctrines, including on gay marriage and abortion. Then earlier this month, Francis told an atheist journalist that people should follow good and fight evil as they “conceive” of them. These remarks followed an interview with journalists this summer aboard the papal airplane in which the pope declared that it is not his role to judge someone who is gay “if they accept the Lord and have goodwill.”

Never mind that the pope has also made clear his acceptance of church doctrine, which regards gay sex and abortion as sins and bans women from the priesthood. Behind the growing skepticism is the fear in some quarters that Francis’s all-embracing style and spontaneous speech, so open as it is to interpretation, are undoing decades of church efforts to speak clearly on Catholic teachings. Some conservatives also feel that the pope is undermining them at a time when they are already being sidelined by an increasingly secular culture.

Gee, the shoe is on the other foot now. My heart bleeds borscht.

FWIW, I think that the new Pope IS undermining you and wants you sidelined, because he sees you as a threat to the church.

Obnoxious dogmatic intolerant f%$#s are not a selling point for the church.

As to any claim of morality, you lost that when you looked the other way at pedophile priests.

Things that Make You Shout out in Glee

No Comments

Larry Summers is not going to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve:

Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama’s closest economic confidants and a former Treasury secretary, has withdrawn his name from consideration for the position of chairman of the Federal Reserve amid rising opposition from Mr. Obama’s own Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

In a statement released by the White House on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Obama said he had accepted the decision by his friend even as he praised him for helping to rescue the country from economic disaster early in the president’s term.

“Larry was a critical member of my team as we faced down the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it was in no small part because of his expertise, wisdom and leadership that we wrestled the economy back to growth and made the kind of progress we are seeing today,” Mr. Obama said in the statement.

He added: “I will always be grateful to Larry for his tireless work and service on behalf of his country, and I look forward to continuing to seek his guidance and counsel in the future.”

Mr. Summers appeared to have been the White House’s favored candidate to succeed Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Fed, though Mr. Obama had repeatedly said he had not yet made a decision between Mr. Summers, Janet L. Yellen, who is a vice chairwoman of the Fed, or someone else.

But Mr. Summers’s reputation for being brusque, his comments about women’s natural aptitude in mathematics and science, and his decisions on financial regulatory matters in the Clinton and Obama administrations had made him a controversial choice.

Three Senate Democrats on the Banking Committee had come out against Mr. Summers’s nomination, meaning that the White House might have had to barter for as many as three Republican votes for him even to pass out of committee.

It ain’t 3, it’s 4, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, and Jon Tester, who announced his opposition on Friday.

Summers withdrew his name because he cannot be confirmed.

Let’s be clear here:  the American People won.

Obama desperately wanted to nominate Summers, despite the crescendo of opposition.

Silvio is Going to Jail

No Comments

Italy’s highest court has affirmed his jail sentence:

Italy’s highest court has upheld a prison sentence given to former PM Silvio Berlusconi for tax evasion.

The court also ordered a further judicial review on whether he should be banned from holding public office.

In an emotional video statement, Berlusconi denounced the decision as “based on nothing, and which deprives me of my freedom and political rights”.

The sentence cannot be appealed against further but Berlusconi, 76, is unlikely to go to jail because of his age.

The ruling by Rome’s Court of Cassation came after a three-day hearing. Berlusconi was not in court.

The former prime minister was sentenced to four years in prison at the conclusion of the trial in October last year, though this was automatically reduced to a year under a 2006 pardon law.

Berlusconi is likely to serve house arrest or carry out community service.

Hopefully, this spells the end of his political career.

Now go and break up his television monopoly.

Those Whom the Gods Destroy, They First Make Weird(er)

No Comments

So, Michelle Bachmann is under investigation for campaign finance violations, one of her staff has been charged in petty thefts in other Congressional offices, and now its been revealed that aa Conservative Christian group mailed vibrator to Michele Bachmann:

.Hundreds of pages of email and text message correspondence made public last week shed new light on the infighting and organizational disarray that have plagued America’s leading conservative Christian political consulting firm in recent months.

As BuzzFeed reported in June, the Columbus-based Strategy Group for Media — which has represented dozens of tea party and religious right Republicans, including Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich — has been mired in lawsuits and internal tumult since last spring, when seven of the firm’s managers staged a religious intervention with their CEO, Rex Elsass. After the managers made their demands in a dramatic meeting that culminated with them laying hands on their boss and praying for his soul, Elsass fired three of his top lieutenants, including his longtime protégé and Strategy Group President Nick Everhart.

The series of emails and text messages, made public on the Franklin County Court website in the ongoing lawsuit between Everhart and Strategy Group, adds further detail to that meeting, and shows the extent to which the company’s managers were worried about Elsass’ psychological and spiritual health. They also reveal potentially embarrassing anecdotes for the company, including one incident in which an executive said Elsass accidentally mailed a “female pleasure machine” to Rep. Michele Bachmann.

………

And an email thread from May 29 — after the three managers were fired — featured Strategy Group’s former voter-contact consultant P.J. Wenzel making reference to Elsass sending “female pleasure machines” to Bachmann. The emails don’t elaborate on the incident, but one person familiar with the story told BuzzFeed that Elsass had intended to give Bachmann a vibrating head massager to help alleviate her migraines, and that the employee he sent to buy the gift accidentally purchased something that more closely resembled a sex toy — and sent it to her office.

Tyler said the item in question was purchased at Brookstone and was not a sex toy, but he declined to provide further information about the product. (Brookstone announced in 2011 that it had begun selling “pleasure objects.”)

The person familiar with the story said the firm successfully retrieved the gift before Bachmann could open it.

Seriously, have you noticed that when a political figure’s career is in a death spiral, that there suddenly emerge a plethora of stories that are even weirder than before?

By this benchmark, I think that Michelle Bachmann will be sent to Gitmo.

Damn, This is Weird

No Comments

There have been rumors of a corruption investigation f Representative Michelle Bachmann for some time. Well, now a senior staffer of hers has been arrested for petty thefts from other Congressional offices.

Have you ever noticed that just before a political figure is frog marched out of the building in handcuffs, their staff starts getting busted for the weirdest crap?

Well, it looks like Bachmann is on the hit parade:

That’s Javier Sanchez back in June of this year with his then-boss, Michele Bachmann. [Not bothering with the picture here] They’re headed for a closed briefing on the NSA disclosures. Javier Sanchez was a high-level legislative director for Michele Bachmann, assisting her with issues such as immigration reform, the farm bill, and her oxymoronic assignment to the House Intelligence Committee.

On July 11, Mr. Sanchez was arrested on charges that he burglarized several offices belonging to other House members. From news reports, it appears that some thefts took place back in 2012 and others in 2013.

It has been noted that, “Sanchez has been charged with Theft II,” which is for amounts less than $1000.00.

If this is the indicator that I think that it is, then Michelle Bachmann is toast.

Matt Taibbi Gets Owned by Thomas Friedman

No Comments

We live in a strange world.

There are very few things that I depend on, but brilliantly crafted takedowns of Thomas “The Mustache of Stupidith” Friedman by Matt Taibbi is one of them.

Recently, he held a reader to, “Come Up With the Ultimate Thomas Friedman Porn Title, ” and notwithstanding some fine entries by his readers, Thomas Friedman won the contest with his recent column, “This Ain’t Yogurt.”

I can only conclude the Friedman was aware of Taibbi’s effort, and he took appropriate action:

The winner, of course, is Thomas Friedman himself, whose very next column after this contest was announced was entitled, “This Ain’t Yogurt.”

“Jesus F%$#ing Christ,” noted a friend, impressed. “This Ain‘t Yogurt is more obscene than anything a mere commentator could think of.”

“He took your contest,” noted another “friend” of mine, “and shoved it right up your poop-chamber.”

“Friedman’s revenge,” chirped a reader.

“Tom Friedman – human masterpiece machine,” commented a fourth. “Matt Taibbi, Suck On This. Grab some bench, rook.”

(%$# mine)

Tom Friedman, just this once, I take my hat off to you.