Mercury Rising 鳯女

Politics, life, and other things that matter

Exchanging documents

Posted by Charles II on September 4, 2015

John Croman, KARE (via Jen Hayden, DK):

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Two Minnesota lawmakers Wednesday vehemently denied a Dakota County park ranger’s report that they were “making out” in a car in Eagan.

Rep. Tim Kelly of Red Wing and Rep. Tara Mack of Apple Valley drew the nuisance citations Aug. 25 from Dakota County Parks Ranger Jordan Moses, who encountered them in a parking lot at Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan.

Moses told Kelly and Mark that they were double parked, because of the way their two cars were aligned. Kelly disagreed with Moses and took a photo of the cars. Moses subsequently issued them both public nuisance citations.

The public copies of those citations identify the cars involved, and the time of day, 4:30 p.m.. But they don’t include the officer’s notes. But another court document, a case register obtained by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, included a briefing notation by Ranger Moses.

“Was making out with female in car. When I approached the female’s pants were unzipped and pulled down.”
…
Kelly and Mack, who are both married to other people, said the park ranger’s statement was completely false and egregious.
…
In a statement issued to the media on Wednesday, Rep. Kelly said he met Rep. Mack in the Lebanon Hills Regional Park to exchange some documents related to the South Country Health Alliance, based in Owatonna.

That’s their story, and it’s sticking to them.

As Richard Thunderbay at Eschaton says, there’s a lot of information in DNA. Maybe that’s what they meant by “exchanging documents.”

Posted in Republicans acting badly | Leave a Comment »

Big Coal Sinking Fast, Taking Paid Deniers With It

Posted by Phoenix Woman on September 3, 2015

Courtesy of the Intercept by way of the Guardian, we find out that Big Coal is in a death spiral, and – to the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention – a longtime and heavy funder of various climate-change-denial actions:

We have known for years that privately funded organizations have attacked climate scientists, both in the US and the UK, to the extent that they had to set up a legal defence fund. But we’ve known little about where their money comes from, beyond efforts to connect the dots between different groups.

Now, the bankruptcy filings of Alpha Natural Resources, a large Virginia-based coal company, provide a rare window into the list of political and advocacy organizations the company has funded. E&E Legal (formerly known as the American Tradition Institute) is one of them. Other recipients include the Heartland Institute, which compared climate scientists to the Unabomber, the American Legislative Exchange Council and numerous others.

If Big Coal had invested in, say, large-scale cleantech battery research all the money it had invested into doing things like buying the North Carolina legislature, the businesses that comprise it could have smoothly transitioned away from coal. But of course the bosses don’t care what happens to their workers as the bosses have set up their own golden parachutes, with no doubt further gilding achieved by raiding the workers’ pension funds.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The Mexican civil war simmers on

Posted by Charles II on September 2, 2015

Dan LaBotz, UpsideDownWorld:

Since June Oaxaca has been occupied by thousands of soldiers and police, and only a few days ago it came to light that in late July the governor had officially called upon the federal government to send the Army, Air Force, and Navy to maintain order. Governor Cué has argued that the strength of la CNTE, which has shown that it can put over 80,000 teachers into the streets, makes it impossible for him to govern without the backing of the military.

Oaxaca has been at the heart of the militant teachers movement, and the federal and state governments are determined to break the union’s significant power there. Since 1992 when, under teacher pressure, the state created the State Institute of Public Education of Oaxaca (IEEPO), the Oaxaca state government has been obliged to hire all graduates of the teachers colleges, which are dominated by the same left groups that lead la CNTE.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

The end of impunity in Guatemala

Posted by Charles II on September 2, 2015

DemocracyNow:

In Guatemala, the Legislature voted unanimously to strip President Otto Pérez Molina of immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for his arrest. The ruling echoes the decision by the country’s Supreme Court last week and makes it possible to prosecute Pérez Molina as part of a corruption investigation that has sparked protests calling for his resignation. We’re joined from Guatemala City by Allan Nairn, a longtime journalist who has covered Guatemala since the 1980s.
…
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, people were cheering, they were crying, setting off fireworks. This is an example for the world. This is a general we’re talking about, one of the generals—one of the U.S.-backed generals who carried out the massacres that devastated the Mayan population of the northwest highland. I met him in the highlands as he was doing that, and his troops described how they strangled, executed civilians and threw them into mass graves. He then became president. Prior to that, he was placed on the CIA payroll. And now he’s going to be treated like a common citizen, and perhaps a common criminal. He could be taken at any moment by the authorities.

Last night after the verdict, I walked by the Casa Presidencial, the presidential house—it’s the White House of Guatemala—and spoke to a soldier outside who is a member—a corporal of the presidential guard. And I asked him how his unit would react if the Ministerio Público, the justice department, comes and tries to arrest the president, Pérez Molina. And he said they would not resist. They would take their orders from the Ministerio Público.

Our State Department, May 8th is, of course, propping up the corrupt, murderous thug:

The U.S. Government takes note of the decision of Guatemala’s vice president to submit her resignation. We support President Otto Perez Molina and his administration’s efforts to address charges of official corruption in Guatemala. [emphasis added]

Apparently they’ve gone silent since Perez Molina was charged. So I guess they’ve transferred the support to the CIA. Jeff Abbott, UpsideDown World:

Throughout the crisis, the embassy has maintained their support for the embattled president, leading many protesters to claim that the United States is meddling in Guatemalan politics once again. But since the announcement of charges against the President, the embassy has remained silent.

Early on in the crisis US Ambassador Todd Robinson appeared beside the embattled Guatemalan President to announce the United States plan to help “reform” and “modernize” the Guatemalan tax collection agency.

Posted in abuse of power, Latin America, State Department | Leave a Comment »

Tough guy

Posted by Charles II on September 2, 2015

Sarah Everts, C&EN:

Smaller than a finger nail, the marine slug Elysia tuca may not seem like a formidable predator. Yet the tiny gastropod has an unwavering predilection for a rather intimidating prey. The slug hunts Halimeda incrassata, a species of seaweed that packs toxic defense compounds and is more stone than flesh—its body is 85% calcium carbonate, the same mineral found in limestone and coral.
…
After finding its prey, the slug pierces the seaweed with a sharp saw-like appendage called a radula, and sucks out the seaweed’s cytoplasm, including its chloroplasts, which the slug then uses to make its own energy from sunlight. “It’s a solar-powered slug,” Rasher says, explaining that it gets 60% of its fixed carbon from these stolen photosynthetic organelles. The slug also steals the seaweed’s toxic arsenal of halimedatetraacetate—one of the compounds used by the slug to track the seaweed—for use as its own defense.

While you’re there, read up on a self-cleaning membrane that could help to pick up oil slicks

Posted in environment, Just for fun | Leave a Comment »

Give the man points

Posted by Charles II on September 2, 2015

Stephanie Kirchgaessner, The Guardian:

Pope Francis has opened the door for women who have had abortions – an act considered a grave sin by the Catholic church – to be absolved if they express contrition and seek forgiveness from their priest.

“The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented,” the pontiff wrote in an extraordinary letter that was released by the Vatican on Tuesday.

“I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal,” he added.

The order, which temporarily allows all priests to grant forgiveness to women who have elected to have an abortion and profoundly regret the procedure, is part of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December and runs until 20 November 2016.

Maybe they could extend the jubilee to just do what’s right all the time. But this is a big step forward.

Posted in Good Things | Leave a Comment »

A deserving journalist is flogged.

Posted by Charles II on August 29, 2015

That is, a journalist who should have been flogged, was. Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s next iteration of an afactual fact checker, awarded Bernie Sanders Four Pinocchios for this:

“A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932. He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.”

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), interview in the Christian Science Monitor, June 11, 2015

[Added: Historian Mark Roseman, interviewed by Deutsche Welle agrees with Sanders, saying that the Nazis were by far the largest single party.]

Kessler recites the facts that he says proves Sanders is a four Pinocchio liar:

In 1930, the Nazi party won a surprising increase in the number of seats in the Reichstag (Parliament), going from 12 to 107 seats (out of 608), making it the second-largest party.
…
Hitler…placed a distant second when the elections were held March 13, 1932. Hindenburg received 49.6 percent, just short of a majority to avoid a run-off, compared to 30.1 percent for Hitler.

When the run-off election (with three candidates) took place April 10, Hindenburg received 53 percent and Hitler 36.8 percent.
…
The new chancellor, Franz von Papen, called for a new Reichstag election in an effort to bolster his position, but the July 31 elections resulted in the Nazis winning 230 seats and 37 percent of the popular vote.
…
The government fell and yet more elections were held for the Reichstag on Nov. 6. This time, the Nazis lost 34 seats, ending up with 196.

But Hindenburg’s next choice for chancellor also could not form a government. Finally, on Jan. 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor in an effort to break the deadlock.
…
Hitler then dissolved the Reichstag and called for new elections, set for March 5.

But on Feb. 27, the Reichstag building was burned, with the deep involvement of the Nazis — who then pinned the blame on their main rival, the Communists. Hitler asked Hindenburg for a decree that suspended many civil liberties and gave his government vast powers to crush his opposition. Thousands of people were arrested. Yet even so, with all the propaganda tools of the state at their disposal, the Nazis were still unable to win a majority of the vote March 5, receiving 44 percent.

Dylan Matthews of VOX reams Kessler, pointing out that Germany is a parliamentary democracy. You don’t need a majority, just enough seats to form a government:

Kessler’s argument basically boils down to the fact that when Adolf Hitler personally ran for Reichspresident in 1932, he lost to the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg. But this is obviously not what Sanders was referring to. He was referencing the fact that the Nazi Party, with Hitler as its leader, became the plurality party in the Reichstag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, in July 1932. And though the party lost seats that November, it retained its status as the largest party.

Kessler awarded four Pinocchios to Sanders. That’s the same as calling him a liar.

Lost in all of this was Sanders’ point: Elections matter. Hitler gained power largely through legal means, not by a military coup.

Just as that lover of democracy, Jeff Bezos, got control of the Washington Post through legal means, and is using it to promote an illegal war with Iran and attacks on progressives.

At any rate, Kessler’s readers called him on this. I did not see a single comment supporting him. I hope that people will write to the reader’s representative (readers@washpost.com) and reinforce the message that when a newspaper’s fact-checker has little regard for the truth, it reflects ill upon the institution.
__________________
Added: Glenn Kessler does have a little bit of support… from the Hitler was a socialist and so is Bernie Sanders crowd:

struth
6:25 AM MST
history and facts have never been strong subjects for the left.

FYI, Sanders and Hitler were both socialist…so at least they got that in common.
LikeReplyShare

rorahl
6:14 AM MST
Angry Populists in 1932, angry populists in 2015.
1932: They say “A conspiracy of rich Jewish bankers is the cause of all our problems!”
2015: They say “A conspiracy of rich bankers (many of whom are Jewish) is the cause of all our problems!”

The more things change, the more they stay the same…

Posted in Media machine | Leave a Comment »

A case for the Crown

Posted by Charles II on August 28, 2015

Lisa O’Carroll, The Guardian:

The Crown Prosecution Service is considering bringing corporate charges against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper publisher over phone hacking, it has emerged.

The Metropolitan police handed over a file of evidence on News International – now renamed News UK – to the CPS for consideration after an investigation stretching back to 2011, when the News of the World was closed at the height of the scandal.

“We have received a full file of evidence for consideration of corporate liability charges relating to the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation,” a spokeswoman confirmed.

Posted in crimes, Fox Noise, media, Rupert Murdoch | 1 Comment »

Stephen Cohen on Ukraine

Posted by Charles II on August 26, 2015

Stephen Cohen, 8/25 on John Batchelor Show.

Posted in Russia, Ukraine | Leave a Comment »

Stiglitz

Posted by Charles II on August 26, 2015

http://podcast.ft.com/p/2926

Posted in economy | Leave a Comment »

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