Tag: Schadenfreude

I am Amused

Given his increasingly erratic behavior, and his reputation for stiffing his lawyers, it comes as no surprise that a majority Trump’s impeachment defense team just quit on him.

I’m wondering if they got fed up over his wish to re-litigate the election, or if he was pushing to testify before the Senate. 

It does not matter, I am amused:

Former President Donald Trump’s five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, according to people familiar with the case, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy.

It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal briefs due next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is clinging to his election fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, who were expected to be two of the lead attorneys, are no longer on the team. A source familiar with the changes said it was a mutual decision for both to leave the legal team. As the lead attorney, Bowers assembled the team.

I am amused.

Destroying Wall Street for the Lulz

If I was a Hedge Fund losing billions to Reddit shitposters, I would get a second job driving for Uber, cut out the Starbuck’s, and skip the avocado toast.

— Jean-Paul Blarte: Mall Cop (@OldPappyThomas) January 27, 2021

This is Beautiful


The Hedge Funds are Pissants

MaY NeEd tO gEt BaiLeD oUt pic.twitter.com/JrGW4hsxyI

— Aimee into the Sun🌹 (@AimeeDemaio) January 27, 2021

Too True


The inevitable sea shanty

to be clear. This has nothing to do with gamestop as a business. They are just a piece of rope being used in a tug of war between internet nerds and wall st suits.

the rally cry on r/wallstreet bets:

“we can remain retarded for longer than they can stay solvent!”

— Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) January 26, 2021

The real bottom line

It appears that a bunch of Redditors have taken down at least 2 hedge funds, and on one side are the titans of Wall Street saying something must be done to stop this, and on the other side is literally everyone else in the world, who are pointing and laughing:

GameStop’s stock price continued to soar in after-hours trading last night to over $300. While many are waiting for it to come crashing back down, it might be too late for some major hedge funds. With the stock still sitting at well over $250 a share (unthinkable just last year when it was trading at under $5) after the market reopened, Melvin Capital, one of the largest hedge funds betting against the company, is reportedly getting out of the game after suffering major losses, seemingly driven out by amateurs trading on their phones and joking on Reddit in what continues to be one of the most bizarre stories of 2021 so far.

“Melvin Capital closed out its short position in GameStop on Tuesday afternoon after taking a huge loss,” the fund’s manager told CNBC this morning.

The firm, which was worth about $12.5 billion before the battle between short sellers and Redditors began, bet big against GameStop and a number of other companies, only to see 30% of the fund disappear over the last few days. That prompted other billionaires to swoop in and lend Melvin $2.75 billion to help cover the losses. Andrew Left, a notorious short-seller activist, also announced in a new YouTube video today that his investment firm moved away from most of its bets against GameStop’s stock at “a loss of 100%.”

………

Meanwhile, the ensuing chaos caused GameStop stock trading to be temporarily halted yet again this morning and caused outages on the trading app Robinhood. Other companies like Blackberry and AMC are also seeing smaller, though still dramatic stock climbs, as Reddit traders attempt to go boost other companies massively shorted by big hedge funds.

All of this is the culmination of a long game that’s been brewing on the WallStreetBets subreddit for a while now as amateur day traders decided to turn the misfortunes of a floundering brick-and-mortar game seller into their cause celebre for dunking on professional investment firms. In some ways it’s a very complicated story driven by the weird mechanics of Wall Street, but in other ways it’s a familiar tale of extremely online people trying to stick it to someone, in part to make a buck, but also for the “lulz.” Here’s a quick rundown of how things got here.

Short version:  A bunch or Redditors, seeing that the moribund console game store GameStop was the most shorted stock in America, decided to take down said short sellers by bidding up the price and creating a “Short Squeeze”.

The mechanism is such that the hedge funds are incredibly exposed to this, and at least one had to be bailed out by other Wall Street Parasites because it was essentially insolvent.

What’s more, it appears that the same thing is happening with AMC Theaters, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Blackberry as I am typing this. (Scroll down) 

One thing that is not clear at this point is whether some other hedge fund type entity might be involved in this on the other side, though even if they did, they have done nothing illegal, since the information, “Let’s do it for the lulz,” is both accurate and publicly available.

One thing that is clear at this point is that this entire affair is showing most of the short selling activity out there serves no useful purpose, and that the arguments in favor of it, basically that shorting stocks create a financial incentive aggressive due diligence of companies, are 6 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.

It is one step removed from the infamous Bucket Shops of the early 1900s.

Today in Schadenfreude

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that Alex Jones can be sued for libel by parents of the Sandy Hook mass shooting victims.  (Also various other sundry people that he accused of being false flag actors)

It was enough of a slam dunk that they did not even bother to write an opinion:

An empire built on conjecture, conspiracy and a series of fake homeopathic cures for various ailments stands to be sued into oblivion after a Friday ruling by the Supreme Court of Texas.

Without comment, the Lone Star State’s highest civil court found that America’s foremost conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his flagship media outlet, InfoWars, are subject to liability in four separate defamation lawsuits filed over the past two-plus years. Those lawsuits were filed by parents of children who were killed during the Sandy Hook massacre and by a man Jones and his network falsely identified as the perpetrator of the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

………

Immediately after the 2012 shooting that left 20 children and six teachers dead in Newtown, Connecticut, Jones used his by-then vast platform to spread the idea that the murders were part of a “false flag” operation meant to scare the population into giving up their guns and Second Amendment rights. Jones also smeared the parents of the dead children, calling them “crisis actors.” None of those claims were true but the pernicious ideas gained traction among the easily-influenced.

………

“Our clients have been tormented for five years by Mr. Jones’ ghoulish accusations that they are actors who faked their children’s deaths as part of a fraud on the American people,” Bankston said in a statement at the time, “Enough is enough.”

………

Marcel Fontane, a Massachusetts resident who has never been to Florida, also sued Jones and InfoWars during the spring of 2018 after being singled out by Jones and InfoWars reporter Kit Daniels–falsely accusing him of being the Parkland shooter in a vain attempt to link the massacre to the political far-left. The outlet also published a photograph of Fontaine wearing a satirical t-shirt depicting several former Communist historical figures.

Here’s hoping that they take him for all he has.

To quote Billie Ray Velentine from the movie Trading Places, “You know, it occurs to me that the best way to hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.”

H/t Ecop at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

This Is the Best Thing I’ve Read This Year

It appears that there are some women out there who are using dating apps to identify and report Capitol Hill insurrectionists.

The short version is that they change their political affiliation on the dating app, this story mentions Bumble, and when the guys start to brag to them, the screen shot the shit out of them, and then call the FBI: 

Women in Washington D.C. are taking matters into their own hands to obtain information on Capitol rioters.

After noticing an uptick in MAGA supporters on dating apps, women started wondering if the profiles could be useful to police.

“There are DOZENS of men on DC dating apps right now who were clearly here for the insurrection attempt,” Alia Awadallah tweeted. “Is that info useful at all for law enforcement?”

I know a friend of a friend who changed her preference on Bumble to Conservative. She’s matching with MAGA bros and they’re bragging and sending her pics and videos of them in the Capitol. She’s sending them to the FBI.

— Allison #FreeThemALL Norris (@allisonnorris) January 8, 2021

After multiple tweets about the “Bumble honeytrap” went viral, Bumble removed the politics filter in the United States to “prevent misuse.”

We have temporarily removed our politics filter in the U.S. to prevent misuse. Don’t worry; it will be reinstated in the future. 💛

— Bumble (@bumble) January 14, 2021

Because seditious racist dirt-bags and their racist sedition must be protected at all cost, because they are central to their business.

Internet apps have the ability to allow users’ personal bigotry with no liability to the platform.

That’s how it works with Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, and no, apparently, Bumble.

Pass the Popcorn

Given that Trump has less than 48 hours left in office, I find that NY prosecutors are talking with Michael Cohen about possible tax evasion and fraud, and Atlanta prosecutors appear to be moving toward an investigation toward a Trump prosecution on election meddling, to be amusing and satisfying.

I really hope that Trump goes to jail and is reduced to penury:

New York prosecutors conducted an hours-long interview on Thursday with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former attorney, asking a range of questions about the president’s business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

The interview focused in part on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest-standing creditor, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The interview, at least the second with Cohen by the Manhattan district attorney, comes amid a long-running grand jury investigation into Trump’s business dealings.

………

The Republican president also faces a civil investigation, led by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, a Democrat, into whether his company lied about the value of its assets to get loans or tax benefits.

Cohen is cooperating with that inquiry too. He previously told Congress Trump often inflated the value of his assets when dealing with lenders or potential partners, but deflated them when it benefited him for tax purposes.

………

Cohen, serving the remainder of a federal prison sentence on home confinement, has been asked by investigators to examine Trump Organization documents and provide other details about its corporate structure, the people familiar with the matter said.

Cohen pleaded guilty to evading taxes, lying to Congress and facilitating campaign finance crimes.

Deutsche Bank continued to do business with Trump even after he defaulted in 2008 on a loan for his Chicago hotel and condo development and sued the bank and others he blamed for his inability to repay.

But Deutsche Bank’s private banking division continued to lend to Trump, including $125m to finance the purchase and renovation of his Doral golf resort in 2012, according to previous disclosures.

And as to Atlanta prosecutors: 

Prosecutors in Georgia appear increasingly likely to open a criminal investigation of President Trump over his attempts to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 election, an inquiry into offenses that would be beyond his federal pardon power.

The new Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is already weighing whether to proceed, and among the options she is considering is the hiring of a special assistant from outside to oversee the investigation, according to people familiar with her office’s deliberations.

At the same time, David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s five-member election board, said this week that he would ask the board to make a referral to the Fulton County district attorney by next month. Among the matters he will ask prosecutors to investigate is a phone call Mr. Trump made in which he pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the state’s election results.

Jeff DiSantis, a district attorney spokesman, said the office had not taken any action to hire outside counsel and declined to comment further on the case.

Some veteran Georgia prosecutors said they believed Mr. Trump had clearly violated state law.

I am really hoping that we see some prosecutions and convictions, but I fear that this will be yet another case of getting off using the “affluenza” defense.

I Am Amused

A few days back, I offered a thoroughly insincere Thoughts and Prayers to the National Rifle Association over the revelations of fraud and self dealing, and their hypocritical attempts to dodge accountability via bankruptcy and relocating their incorporation location.

Now,  a major NRA donor will be filing a lawsuit to prevent the discharge of the debts, because debts incurred by criminal action (in this case fraud) are not subject to relief:

A major donor to the National Rifle Association is poised to challenge key aspects of the gun group’s bankruptcy filing, in an attempt to hold executives accountable for allegedly having defrauded their members of millions of dollars to support their own lavish lifestyles.

Dave Dell’Aquila, a former tech company boss who has donated more than $100,000 to the NRA, told the Guardian on Saturday he was preparing to lodge a complaint in US bankruptcy court in Dallas, Texas. If successful, it could stop top NRA executives discharging a substantial portion of the organisation’s debts.

It could also stop Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s controversial longtime chief executive, avoiding ongoing lawsuits that allege he defrauded the pro-gun group’s members to pay for luxury travel to the Bahamas and Europe and high-end Zegna suits.

………

Dell’Aquila’s complaint, likely to be brought within the next few weeks, would use a provision of the bankruptcy code to prevent the NRA from sidestepping more than $60m of debt on grounds it was improperly incurred. The law stipulates that debts acquired through malfeasance can be deemed by the court to be an exception to bankruptcy arrangements.

Speaking from his home in Nashville, Tennessee, Dell’Aquila said: “We intend to invoke this provision. We are going to ask the judge to determine that our claim was incurred as a result of fraud and should be deemed non-dischargeable.”

The NRA declared bankruptcy in the Dallas court on Friday. The organization also said it would be relocating from New York, where it was founded in 1871, to Texas.

I’m hoping that LaPierre gets reduced to penury over this.

In addition to being an extremist who foments violence, he’s a crook.

Thoughts and Prayers

In a transparent attempt to leave the jurisdiction of the great state of New York, the National Rifle Association has declared bankruptcy, and announced its intention to move to Texas

That is a horrible thing to do to Texas: (And I want to give Texas back to Mexico)

Seeking an end-run around an investigation by the New York attorney general, the National Rifle Association said Friday that it was declaring bankruptcy and would reincorporate in Texas. The gun group was set up in New York after the Civil War.

The group’s effort to circumvent New York’s legal jurisdiction raised immediate questions from Letitia James, the New York attorney general and a Democrat, who is seeking to use her regulatory authority to dissolve the N.R.A. She has been conducting an investigation into corruption at the gun group since 2019.

“The N.R.A.’s claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt,” Ms. James said in a statement Friday. “While we review this filing, we will not allow the N.R.A. to use this or any other tactic to evade accountability and my office’s oversight.”

………

Typically, nonprofit groups that are chartered in New York and under investigation are prohibited from relocating their assets during an inquiry; in recent years, the attorney general’s office prevented the Trump Foundation from closing before it had reached the conclusion of an investigation into that organization.

The bankruptcy filing is likely to halt legal proceedings in the attorney general’s case while the matter is litigated in bankruptcy court.

………

The N.R.A. and a subsidiary filed Chapter 11 petitions in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Dallas. It reported between $100 million and $500 million in assets and the same amount in liabilities, with aggregate non-contingent liquidated debts, excluding those owed to insiders or affiliates, of less than $2,725,625.

………

The N.R.A. has weathered years of revelations about its spending and oversight practices, including hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on Mr. LaPierre’s Zegna suits and far-flung travel to places like the Bahamas, Palm Beach, Reno and Italy’s Lake Como. The group even once explored buying a $6 million mansion in a Dallas-area gated community for his use. Last August, Ms. James, whose office has jurisdiction over New York charities, sued the N.R.A., seeking its closure along with tens of millions of dollars in restitution from Mr. LaPierre and three other executives.

………

The N.R.A. almost immediately filed suit in federal lawsuit against Ms. James’s office, claiming her action was politically motivated and violated the organization’s First Amendment rights. But the group conceded in recent tax filings that Mr. LaPierre and other executives had received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of improper benefits from the group, which were reimbursed.

“The N.R.A. cannot be allowed to declare bankruptcy to try to escape potential criminal and civil accountability in New York,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign, a gun control group. “The N.R.A. can run, but they can’t hide, and their days are numbered. No organization is above the law.”

So one would hope.

Remember when we made bankruptcy tougher for ordinary people in the early 2000s because getting cancer is no excuse?

Maybe we should make bankruptcies tougher for corporations, hedge funds, derivatives and charities as well. 

They seem to be the ones abusing the code.

It Really Sucks to be You

It appears that in addition to being contemptible people, the purveyors of Parler, the now-shuttered right-wing Twitter, were technically incompetent.

Their tech was incompetently managed, and  a security researcher managed to download almost every post in Parler, including deleted posts and extensive metadata.

I’m sure that the FBI will be most interested in this information:

In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by her Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, among other sources, Parler is one of a several apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power.

………

In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.

The researcher, who asked to be referred to by her Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, among other sources, Parler is one of a several apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power.

………

Operating on little sleep, @donk_enby began the work of archiving all of Parler’s posts, ultimately capturing around 99.9 percent of its content. In a tweet early Sunday, @donk_enby said she was crawling some 1.1 million Parler video URLs. “These are the original, unprocessed, raw files as uploaded to Parler with all associated metadata,” she said. Included in this data tranche, now more than 56 terabytes in size, @donk_enby confirmed that the raw video files include GPS metadata pointing to exact locations of where the videos were taken.

………

Hoping to create a lasting public record for future researchers to sift through, @donk_enby began by archiving the posts from that day. The scope of the project quickly broadened, however, as it became increasingly clear that Parler was on borrowed time. Apple and Google announced that Parler would be removed from their app stores because it had failed to properly moderate posts that encouraged violence and crime. The final nail in the coffin came Saturday when Amazon announced it was pulling Parler’s plug.

………

The privacy implications are obvious, but the copious data may also serve as a fertile hunting ground for law enforcement. Federal and local authorities have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days accused of taking part in the Capitol riot, where a Capitol police officer, Brian Sicknick, was fatally wounded after being struck in the head with a fire extinguisher. 

My suggestion to @donk_enby is that if someone comes sniffing around for the archive that she made, don’t without a subpoena.  Providing the information under compulsion indemnifies you, so if someone wants to sue you for someting like “Invasion of Privacy”, you are covered.  (NOte that I am an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit.*

My second piece of advice is that turning your personal information over to an online site is a stupid thing, and doing so to a business that caters to reactionaries is even dumber.

Businesses that cater to conservatives on the basis of politics tend to be scams.  All you have to do is listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, and see how many of the ads are transparent bullshit like fat burning plant extracts, overpriced gold, phony ED cures, Corona Virus Cures, etc.

For them, it’s all about the Benjamins.

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

Mitch Has What He Wants

Mitch McConnell has always supported Trump out of his own interest, and not out of any loyalty, so it comes as no surprise that the soon to be former Senate Majority Leader is pretty sanguine about impeaching Trump.

This is not a surprise.  McConnell has gotten the court stuffing that will support voter suppression and corruption, as well as the regulatory rollbacks that the Trump administration have implementation, and he is done.

As an aside, this may be an attempt to signal Trump to resign, or Pence to invoke the 25th amendment, which would reduce pressure on his caucus:

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has told associates that he believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking. The House is voting on Wednesday to formally charge Mr. Trump with inciting violence against the country.

At the same time, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader and one of Mr. Trump’s most steadfast allies in Congress, has asked other Republicans whether he should call on Mr. Trump to resign in the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol last week, according to three Republican officials briefed on the conversations.

While Mr. McCarthy has said he is personally opposed to impeachment, he and other party leaders have decided not to formally lobby Republicans to vote “no,” and an aide to Mr. McCarthy said he was open to a measure censuring Mr. Trump for his conduct. In private, Mr. McCarthy reached out to a leading House Democrat to see if the chamber would be willing to pursue a censure vote, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ruled it out.

Taken together, the stances of Congress’s two top Republicans — neither of whom has said publicly that Mr. Trump should resign or be impeached — reflected the politically challenging and fast-moving nature of the crisis that the party faces after the assault by a pro-Trump mob during a session to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory.

As more violent images from the mayhem wrought by the rioters emerged on Tuesday, including of the brutal attack that ultimately killed a Capitol Police officer, and as lawmakers were briefed about threats of more attacks on the Capitol, rank-and-file Republican lawmakers grew angrier about the president’s role in the violence.

The rats are leaving a sinking ship.

Need a Hobby?

Did you know that there is a group of left-wing analysists dedicated to naming and shaming Nazis, Fascists, white supremacists, and other extremists:

Before a mob of Trump supporters staged a riot in the U.S. Capitol and thousands of Americans became amateur detectives working to identify the culprits, a loosely connected group of seasoned online sleuths were ringing alarm bells and picking off extremists online, one by one.

For a nationwide network of left-wing activists who seek out and publish the identities of those they believe to be violent “fascists,” some investigations can take months, years even.

Or it can take 10 minutes.

If you need to get in touch with these folks, you can go to the Left Coast Right Watch and volunteer.

Tweet of the Day

People who broke into the Capitol Wednesday are now learning they are on No-Fly lists pending the full investigation. They are not happy about this. pic.twitter.com/5GfHo1eVU8

— Ray [REDACTED] (@RayRedacted) January 10, 2021

People who stormed the Capitol are surprised that they are on No-Fly lists.

It never mattered when leopards ate OTHER people’s faces.

Today in Self Immolation

Right wing attorney Cleta Mitchell, who sat in on Donald Trump’s now infamous call to the Georgia Secretary of State, offering advice/self incrimination, has been fired by the white shoe law firm that hired her.

It’s reported as a resignation, but it’s a firing:

Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who advised President Trump during his Saturday phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state in an effort to overturn the election, resigned on Tuesday as a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Foley & Lardner.

Mitchell’s resignation came after the law firm on Monday issued a statement saying it was “concerned by” her role in the call. The firm noted that as a matter of policy, its attorneys do not represent “any parties seeking to contest the results of the election.”

The Washington Post on Sunday published audio and a transcript of the hour-long call in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the election results. During the call, Mitchell complained that she had not been given access to certain information from Raffensperger’s office, and Trump relied on her to an extraordinary degree during the call.

I cannot say that I am in any upset at Trump dead-enders losing their jobs.

I’m sure that Amazon is hiring. 

Karma, neh?

Ha Ha!

Now that the scandal-plagued Jerry Fallwell, Jr. has been driven from his post as dictator of Liberty “University”, the students are trying to remove one of his more pernicious legacies, his blatantly political, Trump felching, “think” tank, the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty.

Falwell, who does not have a degree in divinity, and Charlie Kirk, ditto, founded the organization which worships Trump first, and Jesus second, and a petition from the students at the “Christian” “University” is asking for it to be shut down, or at least removed from the campus:

Hundreds of former and current Liberty University students are calling on the evangelical Christian school to shutter the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty, a campus “think tank” known for promoting conservative political causes.

More than 450 students and recent graduates have signed a student-led petition demanding the university-funded center be dissolved, according to Matt Morris, a Liberty freshman who created the online petition last month.

“The Falkirk Center constantly preaches the message that the church needs to defend Donald Trump at all costs and rescue western civilization,” the petition reads. “Falkirk is wrong. Associating any politician or political movement with Christianity bastardizes the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

………

………

Falwell, who stepped down as president and chancellor of Liberty in August following a string of personal scandals, was a prominent early supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump rewarded Falwell’s loyalty by delivering a commencement address at the university in 2017.

The Falkirk Center, which unlike other research institutions has published no academic studies, openly waded into the 2020 presidential election and other races this campaign season to bolster conservative candidates and causes.

………

The center’s partisan nature has prompted dozens of former faculty members, current students and alumni to publicly speak out against the institution, including members of Liberty’s student leadership.

I believe that if this were to be set to a song, it would be “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead.”

Oh, Snap

The leader of the white supremacist group Proud Boys has been arrested in Washington, DC.

He publicly copped to vandalizing black churches during their last round of rioting, and when he got busted, he was found to be carrying illegal weapons:

The leader of the Proud Boys, the violent far-right group, was arrested in Washington DC and charged with destruction of property and a firearms offense, according to local police.

The arrest of Enrique Tarrio on Monday comes ahead of pro-Donald Trump protests in Washington planned for Tuesday and Wednesday to coincide with the US Congress’ vote on Wednesday affirming Joe Biden’s election victory.

The demonstrations are organized by the Proud Boys and other rightwing activists, who falsely allege election fraud and want to see the results of the presidential election overturned in Trump’s favor.

The property destruction charges are related to Tarrio’s admitted role in burning a Black Lives Matter banner torn from a historic Black church during a previous pro-Trump protest in Washington on 12 December, which DC police and the FBI said they had been investigating as a potential hate crime. Police said Tarrio, who lives in Miami, Florida, was arrested after his arrival in the District of Columbia on Monday.

DC police said Tarrio had also been charged with possessing two high-capacity ammunition magazines, which were with him when he was arrested. The District of Columbia, which has some of the strictest firearms laws in the nation, bans the possession of firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

………

The National Park Service said it had received three separate applications for pro-Trump protests on Tuesday or Wednesday, with estimated maximum attendance at 15,000 people.

………

The US capital has mobilized the national guard ahead of the planned protests. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested a limited national guard deployment to help bolster the metropolitan police department, and has asked local area residents to stay away from downtown DC.

“There are people intent on coming to our city armed,” said Robert Contee, the acting police chief, on Monday.

Am I a bad person for being VERY amused about all of this?

Daym!

South Dakota is trying to deny a speedy trial to a number of criminal defendants arguing that the Corona Virus pandemic should allow them to get a waiver due to extraordinary circumstances.

A federal judge has called bullsh%$ on this, justifying this by the fact that, “South Dakota has done ‘little, if anything’ to curtail COVID-19.” 

Basically, the judge is saying that the government of South Dakota, at the instigation Governor Kristi “Crazy Eyes” Noem, has refused to take even the most basic measure to deal the the situation, and that defendants should not suffer as a result.

Karma is a bitch:

A federal judge says a state court can’t use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to delay a Codington County trial and in the same breath criticized South Dakota’s response to the pandemic, saying it has done “little, if anything,” to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

U.S. District Judge Charles B. Kornmann ordered that unless the Codington County state court resolves Matthew Kurtenbach’s May 2019 case by January 15, 2021, Kurtenbach will win a federal petition he filed claiming wrongful imprisonment and a violation of his right to a speedy trial.

And in that same adjudication, filed federally in the Northern Division of the District of South Dakota and which can be read in full at the bottom of this story, Kornmann harshly criticized the state and Gov. Kristi Noem’s response to the pandemic and said some state courts could have done more to keep cases moving while protecting parties.

“South Dakota has done little, if anything, to curtail the spread of the virus,” Kornmann wrote in the Dec. 28 decision.

He later said:

“South Dakota cannot ‘take advantage’ of its own failures to follow scientific facts and safeguards in entering blanket denials of the rights of speedy trials.”

………

An excerpt from the filing:

The Governor has steadfastly refused to impose a statewide mask mandate. She has often questioned publicly the scientific fact that mask wearing prevents the virus from spreading. she appeared at a dedication ceremony for a large 3M Company in Aberdeen manufacturing plant expansion — to allow 3M to produce even more N95 respirators needed by front-line healthcare workers — as the only public official not wearing a mask. Her example significantly encourages south Dakotans to not wear masks. South Dakota is now a very dangerous place in which to live due to the spread of COVID-19. Even a casual observer must note the failure of most residents of South Dakota to wear masks and maintain social distancing.

He went on to cite a separate case, Carson v. Simon, in saying: “There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution.” 

I should not feel schadenfreude about this, but I do.

Tweet of the Day

I may be wrong but I think there’s room at the Four Seasons.
Landscaping.

— The Palaeoanthropologist (@HamishAlexande6) December 29, 2020

The favorite hotel of the Proud Boys is shutting down for 3 days rather than deal with them, and their violent protests, and virus spreading behavior at the inauguration.

This is glorious, as is the Four Seasons Landscaping snark.

I Thought That the Crazy Season Was Supposed to End with the Election

My loyal reader(s) are no doubt aware that I was unimpressed with the stimulus package that the Congressional Democrats capitulated themselves into.

It appears that Donald Trump is equally unempressed, as he is strongly implying that he will veto the bill if the individual payments are not increased from $600 to $2,000:

President Trump’s last-minute move to reject a sweeping coronavirus relief package is escalating confusion and panic among Republicans while setting the stage for an uncomfortable confrontation Thursday that could lead GOP lawmakers to object to their own president’s demand for larger stimulus checks for Americans.

The chaos is unfolding against the backdrop of another threatened government shutdown, with funding set to lapse starting Tuesday unless a spending bill to keep federal operations running is signed into law along with the virus aid bill. While the president hasn’t explicitly threatened a veto, his defiance of a deal negotiated by his own administration could spark a standoff that could conceivably last until Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20.

………

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Wednesday that Democrats would seek to pass a bill at a short Thursday House session that would provide $2,000 checks, though the measure could easily be blocked by Republicans, as it would require unanimous consent from House members.

I would note here that Pelosi could bulldoze her way through the requirement for unanimous consent, but she doesn’t want the $2,000.00 payment either. 

They could write a 2 page bill, and get it though in 1 or 2 days.

It would be good politics and good policy, but for whatever reason, Pelosi is not willing to call Trump’s bluff.

The politics of this are fascinating:

………

Trump started by decrying “wasteful” spending in the relief bill, tallying up a bunch of funny-sounding programs (amberjack fish, haha! Asian carp! Poultry production technology!). I believe all these programs are in the omnibus section of the bill, not the COVID relief section. First, it’s a stupid gimmick to define programs in a couple words that are actually pretty vital. (Poultry production technology would add efficiencies and perhaps save lives in the production process, to use one example. Here’s an entire conference about it.) Second, the spending, while not wasteful, also doesn’t add up to much. The fourteen programs explicitly identified total $3.849 billion, in a bill of $2.2 trillion (between the $1.3 trillion discretionary spending and the $892 billion in COVID relief.

Trump went on to say that the $600 direct payments in the bill were “ridiculously low,” and that he wanted $2,000, gesturing toward cutting the “wasteful” spending and using the proceeds. Trump didn’t quite say he would veto the whole package, just that he would “ask Congress to amend” it.

For the record, it would cost about $380 billion to increase the value of the payments by $1,400, and Trump identified $3.8 billion. I did the math, his calculations would add $13.91 to everyone’s check. But the numbers sound big in nominal terms, so he gets away with relying on the innumeracy of the public. But who cares about the cost when people are suffering? We have skyrocketing poverty and falling personal income. Checks for $2,000 are obviously better than $600.

………

But that universe of people, while in need, is about 2-3 percent of the total workforce. By contrast something like 80 percent of the public, everyone making $100,000 or less, is getting the check. From a messaging standpoint of “what’s in it for me,” that’s just going to take precedence. Moreover, you can see the two payments, from CARES and this bill, as a leveler of decades of soaring inequality, and really the least you can do for a population that has had the rules of capitalism rigged against them. Even if they weren’t means tested, giving everyone thousands of dollars means more to those at the lower end.

The politics, then, argue for higher payments. It was Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans who kept them artificially low. Now here comes Trump asking for them to be nearly tripled. It’s amazing that he waited until after losing the election to flash the old-time populism and wedge both parties, but here we are. And then came the moment where Mitch McConnell’s head blew up like in Scanners.

………

As soon as Trump posted that video, I suggested that the House pass a one-page bill, increasing the checks from $600 to $2,000. Much to my delight in seeing that political instincts in the Democratic Party aren’t totally dead, about 10 minutes later, Nancy Pelosi suggested the same thing, saying she would offer unanimous consent to amend the bill. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) even wrote the amendment. (I gave it a name: the $2,000 Does Offer Long-Lasting Available Relief or $2,000 DOLLAR, Act.) Eventually, Chuck Schumer got on board as well. Joe Biden hasn’t said anything, but he was on the record for seeking more money when he became president. So the Democratic leadership beat him to it, and called Trump’s bluff.

Now, a word on “unanimous consent”: it would be better to just pass a bill in the House, and demand its takeup in the Senate. Unanimous consent needs to be, well, unanimous; one Republican House member can derail it. If you move a bill, every House Republican has to go on the record of whether they stand with Trump for spending $380 billion in a direct transfer to low- and middle-income people. Every one of those that doesn’t gets a campaign ad in 2022 about how “you needed that extra money, and Congressman X voted to not give it to you.” So yes, #ForceTheVote.

This puts McConnell in a terrible spot. There’s an election in Georgia in two weeks that will determine his Senate majority. The only reason McConnell passed this bill is to save Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue’s careers and preserve his control of the Senate. He put an artificial $900 billion cap on it, which Donald Trump and Democrats now are united in regarding as puny. If McConnell resists the change, he’s all alone in denying money to the American people. These checks poll extremely well, and both Democrats in Georgia are already running on the $2,000 level. If McConnell resists, losing the Senate is a much likelier scenario. If he doesn’t, people get $2,000.

………

There are so many amazing subplots here. Trump can’t stand McConnell for abandoning his overthrow-the-election gambit, so he sticks in the final knife. The threat, by the way, is real: there are only 10 days left in this Congress, and Trump doesn’t have the bill yet (which is being “enrolled,” essentially double-checked for errors). He could “pocket veto” the bill and just not sign it, and in 10 days the clock would run out, and there would be no bill for anyone. The new Congress would have to start all over.

This would be a disastrous scenario—unemployment programs would expire, the eviction moratorium would lift, and more. Already this snafu is delaying the flow of relief. And the only man holding it up is Mitch McConnell. This upends the entire shift of the multi-racial working class away from the Democratic Party, and re-focuses the spotlight brightly on McConnell. Trump handed the Democrats a total gift here, and if they play it right, the payoff for people—literally—will be incredible.

Pass the popcorn.

Hunter Sentenced to Jail

That is Former US Representative Duncan Hunter, who now faces almost a year in jail. Not that other Hunter.

Former Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., was sentenced to 11 months in prison Tuesday for misusing campaign funds.

Hunter pleaded guilty in December to a corruption charge after prosecutors said he and his wife “converted and stole” more than a quarter million dollars in campaign funds for their own use over a period of several years.

When initially charged, Hunter tried to throw his wife under the bus

Republican family values.

Am I A Bad Person for Laughing?

Because my reaction to learning that Rudy Giuliani has Covid-19 was a hearty guffaw.

I know that the conventional wisdom is that no one deserves to catch Covid-19, but yes, dripping Rudy deserves to have caught the disease.

He’s been a walking and talking super-spreader, and any concerns I have are with those who he might have exposed, not him:

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is being treated in hospital.

The president wrote in a tweet: “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!”

Mr Giuliani, who has led the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to the election results, is the latest person close to the president to be infected.

The president and his team have been criticised for shunning safety guidance. Mr Trump was ill in October.

Mr Giuliani, 76, was admitted to the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC on Sunday, according to US media reports.

Ha ha.