Not a member of the Trump administration, but rather Maine Governor, and human bowling jacket,^* Paul LePage, who just got spanked by the court for refusing to turn in Medicaid expansion paperwork to the federal government:

Gov. Paul LePage’s administration must file paperwork by next week to the federal government to adopt Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in Maine, a state Superior Court judge said Monday in a decision rebuking the defiant Republican governor.

Obamacare supporters in April sued the LePage administration to force it to comply with the results of a November ballot initiative ordering the state to expand coverage to tens of thousands of low-income adults under the 2010 health care law. But LePage has insisted he won’t adopt Medicaid expansion unless state lawmakers meet his conditions for funding the program.

Under the Maine ballot initiative, roughly 80,000 low-income adults are supposed to qualify for Medicaid benefits starting July 2. The LePage administration ignored an early April deadline to formally notify the federal government it would expand, prompting the lawsuit from advocates who spearheaded the ballot measure.

………

Monday’s court decision requires the LePage administration to file paperwork to HHS by June 11. A LePage spokesperson said the administration is reviewing the decision and declined to say whether it would appeal the ruling.

Your honor, if he does not file the paperwork by June 11, can you throw his ass in jail on June 12?

It would make my day.

^*Not my bon mot, it comes from Charlie Pierce.

Well, now that chaplains at Fort Campbell have banned Jewish Lay leaders from holding services on campus.

Yet another case of the Talibanization of the US military:  (It’s even worse in the US Air Force)

Chaplains in the 101st Airborne Division have fired the longstanding Jewish lay leaders at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, allegedly without providing any reason, effectively ending Friday night Shabbat services for Jewish soldiers and their families.

The two ranking chaplains also refused to support the Jews’ attempts to celebrate Passover on March 30, the first night of the eight-day long religious celebration, allegedly because it conflicted with Christians’ Good Friday observances and would save money during the installation’s four-day holiday.

Jeanette Mize, her husband, Curt, and son, Lawrence, served as lay leaders for Jewish worship on the installation for nearly two decades. On Feb. 28, the three were allegedly fired without cause under the direction of the division chaplain, Col. John Murphy, and his deputy chaplain, Lt. Col. Sean Wead.

“There was no explanation why I was fired,” Jeanette Mize told Army Times.

She added that her family has “faithfully provided weekly Shabbat and yearly religious worship events since 1999,” and they have worshiped at Fort Campbell since 1984.

Mize contacted Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who lodged a complaint with base officials. Weinstein subsequently spoke by phone with Col. Brett Sylvia, the division’s chief of staff, who is currently deployed with the headquarters to Afghanistan.

………

But Weinstein said he was informed on Friday morning that the inquiry had become a 15-6 investigation. That type of inquiry hints at the severity of the allegations and how seriously the Army is taking them, according to Weinstein.

“About 10 percent of the cases I file with the Army become 15-6 investigations,” he said.

Mize and her family have never been paid for the services they provide for the roughly 80 members of the Jewish community on Fort Campbell.

The nearest synagogue is about 50 miles away, and it appears that the chaplains were attempting to force Mize out for some time.

The term for the chaplain’s behavior is, “Contrary to good order and discipline.”

It appears that they are under the misapprehension that the investigation is being run by New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.,^* and so have forgotten basic rules of behavior when one is under criminal investigation:

1. Shut the f%$# up!
2. See rule 1.
3. Seriously, see rule 1!

In any case, path the popcorn:

President Trump on Thursday directly contradicted his earlier statements that he knew of no payment to Stormy Daniels, the pornographic film actress who says she had an affair with him.

Mr. Trump said he paid a monthly retainer to his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, and suggested that the payment by Mr. Cohen to the actress could not be considered a campaign contribution.

The president’s comments reiterated an explosive announcement late Wednesday by one of his recently-hired attorneys, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said on Fox News that the president reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment to the actress Stephanie Clifford, who performs as Stormy Daniels. Though Mr. Giuliani described his interview as part of a strategy, the disclosure caught several Trump advisers by surprise, sending some scrambling on Thursday morning to determine how to confront the situation.

In three Twitter posts Thursday morning, the president repeated some of what Mr. Giuliani said a day earlier, specifically that Mr. Trump repaid a $130,000 payment Mr. Cohen made to Ms. Clifford just days before the presidential election in 2016.

Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump said this removed the question of whether it was a campaign finance violation. Mr. Trump also continued to deny the affair.

Seriously, when you combine Trump and Giuliani there must have been some sort of idiot bully event horizon.

^*See Cyrus Vance, Jr.’s history with Harvey Weinstein & the Trump SoHo investigation. This guy really does not want to investigate rich people.

Remember, Social Security and Medicare began as small, pilot programs that eventually evolved to provide guaranteed coverage. Oh, wait, no.

— Stephanie Kelton (@StephanieKelton) April 23, 2018

A very good point is being made here: The people who want a pilot roll-out of something like single payer actually trying to kill it.

Single payer, and things like the jobs guarantee, CANNOT not work unless they are universal in nature, and pilot programs are, by the very nature of their being pilot programs, are likely to fail.

It appears that someone in Congress snuck in a provision banning sending arms to militias that allow Nazis to serve.

It’s addressing what is a very real problem in the Ukraine:

A little-noticed provision in the 2,232-page government spending bill passed last week bans U.S. arms from going to a controversial ultranationalist militia in Ukraine that has openly accepted neo-Nazis into its ranks.

House-passed spending bills for the past three years have included a ban on U.S. aid to Ukraine from going to the Azov Battalion, but the provision was stripped out before final passage each year.

This year, though, the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law last week stipulates that “none of the funds made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.”

“White supremacy and neo-Nazism are unacceptable and have no place in our world,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), an outspoken critic of providing lethal aid to Ukraine, said in a statement to The Hill on Tuesday. “I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine.”

The United States has been aiding and training Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russian-backed separatists since 2014, and recently expanded that aid to include arms. The omnibus includes about $620.7 million in aid for Ukraine, including $420.7 million in State Department and foreign operations funds and $200 million in Pentagon funds.

The Azov Battalion was founded in 2014, and its first commander was Andriy Biletsky, who previously headed the neo-Nazi group Patriot of Ukraine. Several members of the militia, which has been integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard, are self-avowed neo-Nazis.

But a spokesman for the group has defended it, telling USA Today in 2015 that only 10 to 20 percent of recruits are neo-Nazis and that those people do not represent the official ideology of Azov.

Gee only 10-20% Nazis.

Would you like a sandwich to go with that? It contains only 10-20% rat feces.

So, we’ve been supporting Nazis in the Ukraine, and  al Qaeda in Syria (sorry, I meant “Islamist moderates”)

Should we just put a skull on our uniform caps and be done with it?

Bob Muller has just indicted 13 Russians for trolling the election.

I gotta figure that my blog is going to pop up on his radar soon, and I look awful in orange. Damn:

The special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations on Friday with illegally trying to disrupt the American political process, including efforts designed to boost the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and hurt that of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The indictment represents the first charges by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for meddling in the 2016 presidential election — the fundamental crime that he was assigned to investigate.

In a 37-page indictment filed in United States District Court, Mr. Mueller said that the 13 individuals have conspired since 2014 to violate laws that prohibit foreigners from spending money to influence federal elections in the United States.

Obviously, I am never a non-US citizen, but occasionally,^* I am a troll, so there is a concern about legal jeopardy for me.

As I understand this, Mueller’s interpretation of the law makes door to door canvassing, or volunteering in a campaign office by foreigners unlawful.

Of course, my standard caveat on such things, “I’m an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit!,” applies.^†

^*OK, maybe more than occasionally.
^†I love it when I get to go all Dr. Mccoy!

I missed it the evening that it came out, but caught it on Youtube.

At 2:10 in the video, he notes how Hillary Clinton responded to allegations of sexual harassment on her staff in 2008.

Spoiler: It wasn’t good, and her response when it hit the news a few days ago was even worse.

In 2016, she was in a close race for the least self-aware major party presidential candidate nominee, and I am still not sure who actually won THAT contest.

We had the first failure of the year on Tuesday, St. Elizabeth’s Credit Union of Chicago, IL.

Here is the Full NCUA list.

Slow pace this year so far.

It appears that, in addition to increasing the size of paychecks, testosterone offers protection from autoimmune disease:

Testosterone. Source of prostates and testes, muscles and machismo, chest hair, and according to some, even math skills. Its levels are only one of the biological differences between males and females, but they may help to explain another: the discrepancies in the incidence of autoimmune diseases.

Women are three to nine times more likely than men to suffer from autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), Grave’s disease, celiac disease, systemic lupus erythematous, and rheumatoid arthritis. Not only do women get these diseases at higher rates, they usually get them at younger ages.

Men’s higher testosterone levels—about seven to eight times higher than women’s—have been shown to be protective for MS in both mice and men. But it was not clear exactly how this worked. Recent work in a mouse model of MS has filled in the downstream effectors that mediate testosterone’s protective effects. These effectors might be useful as therapeutics, whereas testosterone use really isn’t, especially for women, who are the ones who need it most.

The work focused on a type of immune cell called a mast cell. Mast cells get a bad rap because they release histamine during allergic reactions, but they’re generally involved in inflammation. In the mice that recapitulate MS, testosterone influences the behavior of mast cells in the lymph nodes, central nervous system, and lining of the brain. In female mice, which don’t have as much testosterone, mast cells instead produce pro-inflammatory signaling molecules called cytokines.

The more you know.

Biden Trashes Millennials in His Quest to Become Even Less Likable

—VICE

Yeah, pretty much.

He’s my kid, and he did an artwork for 2017.

He torched it because 2017 sucked.

His thought was, “On the one hand, it’s weird that I destroyed one of my own art works, but on the other hand, I feel strangely accomplished.”

He filmed it, I was cameraman, and my other kid, Natalie, did the lighting.

Not bad for 2 hours of filming and editing.

It does seem to me that there is something profoundly Canadian about this:

Link.

At the Wall Street Journal CEO Council meeting. Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn asked who would be investing in new plant and equipment if the tax cuts passed.

Very few hands went up:

President Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, looked out from the stage at a sea of CEOs and top executives in the audience Tuesday for the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting. As Cohn sat comfortably onstage, a Journal editor asked the crowd to raise their hands if their company plans to invest more if the tax reform bill passes.

Very few hands went up.

Cohn looked surprised. “Why aren’t the other hands up?” he said.

He laughed a little to lighten the mood, but it didn’t cause many more hands to rise. Maybe the CEOs were tired. Maybe they didn’t hear the question. It was a casual poll, but the lukewarm response seemed in tension with much of the public enthusiasm among corporations for a tax overhaul.

………

Second, executives themselves have indicated they probably won’t use extra profits to invest. A Bank of America-Merrill Lynch survey this summer asked over 300 executives at major U.S. corporations what they would do after a “tax holiday” that would allow them to bring back money held overseas at a low tax rate. The No. 1 response? Pay down debt. The second most popular response was stock buybacks, where companies purchase some of their own shares to drive up the price. The third was mergers. Actual investments in new factories and more research were low on the list of plans for how to spend extra money.

This sh%$ is not a surprise.  Basically, it’s Econ 101.

1. Tax-overhaul backers say corporate rate cut will encourage investment by businesses
2. During #wsjceocouncil interview with Gary Cohn, WSJ asks CEOs to raise hands if they’ll boost investment if rates cut
3. Few CEOS raise hands
4. Cohn asks: “Why aren’t the other hands up?” pic.twitter.com/5PI60NlW0A

— Tim Hanrahan (@TimJHanrahan) November 14, 2017

Researchers at Abertay University and the University of New South Wales Canberra have concluded that boys are better at physics because they can “Fire for Effect” when peeing:

Boys are better at Physics because they learn about “projection” while going to the toilet, researchers have claimed.

From a young age, boys are taught about how to aim accurately so that they do not make a mess in the bathroom, and this gives them a better understanding of “projectile motion”, according to three academics.

Writing for Times Education Supplement (TES), Anna Wilson of Abertay University along with Kate Wilson and David Low of the University of New South Wales Canberra, explained their theory.

“Playful urination practices – from seeing how high you can pee to games such as Peeball (where men compete using their urine to destroy a ball placed in a urinal) – may give boys an advantage over girls when it comes to physics,” the academics wrote.

The researchers said they have examined gender differences in achievement on physics tests, and found that girls generally perform worse than boys, but with a more marked gap in specific topic areas.

“In particular, the largest gaps in performance between girls and boys arise in questions that involve projectile motion – things that have been thrown, kicked, fired, etc,” they said.

“On some projectile questions, we’ve seen only around one-third of girls answer correctly, compared to two-thirds of boys. This isn’t a trivial gap in performance, particularly when a diagnostic test may contain several questions on projectiles.”

Seriously?

The stupid, it burns ………

In dry dock bow view

In dry dock, stern view

Hull patch

More Damage

Another view of patch

Following its collision with a cargo ship, the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) is in dry dock, and it got seriously damaged.

Now we have pictures, and this ain’t just door dings:

A new series of photos released on Wednesday by U.S. 7th fleet now show the hidden damage suffered by USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) from its June 17 collision with a merchant vessel.

The pictures of the guided missile destroyer from the Navy’s dry dock facility in Yokosuka, Japan show the size of the hole the bulbous bow of ACX Crystal punched into Fitzgerald’s starboard side amidships below the waterline.

Four five foot by 20-foot hull patches have been installed to cover the hull breach welded in place by divers since the ship was been pier-side following the collision.

While published images from Fitzgerald show the extensive damage to the ship’s superstructure above the waterline – including the collision’s effect on the ship’s A/N-SPY-1D(v) radar and the crushed commander’s cabin – the Wednesday images are the first that show how badly the destroyer was wounded below the waterline.

The below-the-waterline collision flooded two berthing spaces and one machinery space and resulted in the death of seven sailors.

This really is kind of horrifying to look at in detail.

I do look forward into an inquiry as to what happened, but US Navy culture being what it is, it is clear that the career of the Fitzgerald’s skipper is over.

What the F%$# was the USPTO Thinking?

Case in point, they just issued a patent for using a computer to count calories:

This month’s stupid patent, like many stupid patents before it, simply claims the idea of using a computer for basic calculations. U.S. Patent No. 6,817,863 (the ‘863 patent) is titled “Computer program, method, and system for monitoring nutrition content of consumables and for facilitating menu planning.” It claims the process of using a computer to track nutrition information like calorie or vitamin intake. It is difficult to think of a more basic and trivial use for a computer.

The ‘863 patent is owned by a patent troll called Dynamic Nutrition Solutions, LLC. Dynamic Nutrition filed a lawsuit this month in the Eastern District of Texas accusing Australian company Fatsecret of infringing the ‘863 patent. Dynamic Nutrition had filed four other lawsuits. Consistent with a pattern of nuisance litigation, each of those earlier suits settled very quickly.

What “invention” does the ‘863 patent purport to cover? Claim 1 of the patent is reproduced in full below (with comments in brackets):

A computer program comprising a combination of code segments stored in a computer-readable memory and executable by a processor to provide nutrition content information related to consumables, the computer program comprising:

a code segment operable to receive and store an input related to consumption of consumables, and to associate the input with a calender [sic] date [i.e. program a computer to track daily food intake]; and

a code segment operable to generate an interactive display screen, wherein the interactive display screen includes— [i.e. include some kind of user interface]

one or more lists of consumables and related nutrition content information, and [i.e. list food options and nutrition information]

a summary section of past consumption of consumables. [i.e. list past food intake]

In other words, program a computer to help people keep track of meals and calorie or vitamin intake.

The USPTO may be more dysfunctional than the Pentagon, and that is saying a lot.

this is a test, please ignore.

Democracy Dies in Derpness pic.twitter.com/otunUeS43a

— David V. Johnson 🌹 (@contrarianp) May 24, 2017

This is actually lamer than the tripe that oozes from the pens of Charles Krauthammer and Richard Cohen.

Thomas Friedman Shows Yet Again the Economy Still Has Good Paying Jobs for People Without Skills

—Dean Baker

I know, fish in a barrel, but it is amusing fish in a barrel.

By that, I mean DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

I was engaging in self pity over my general lack of writing skills, and he posted this:

You Will be seeing this again on my blog.