Department of Ed Takes Steps Against the For Scam Profit Colleges

The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), which has been a source for performance free accreditation for the for-profit colleges, has been debarred by the US Department of Education, which means that the schools that it accredits will not qualify for federal student loans:

The Education Department on Thursday moved to shut down the nation’s largest accreditor of for-profit colleges, which had stood watch as failing institutions like Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute teetered on a pileup of fraud investigations.

The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools — known as A.C.I.C.S. — is one of a few dozen different organizations charged with maintaining standards and quality at the country’s more than 5,400 higher education institutions.

An accreditor’s seal of approval is a prerequisite for colleges’ enrollment of students receiving federal student loans and aid, a funding stream that is essential for the institutions’ survival.

A letter from the Education Department said that A.C.I.C.S. was out of compliance with regulations in 21 areas. While it acknowledged some progress, the letter stated that the group’s “track record does not inspire confidence that it can address all of the problems effectively.”

………

A.C.I.C.S. was responsible for approving roughly 240 institutions that received $4.7 billion in taxpayer money last year.

An estimated 600,000 students currently attending schools the council has accredited are in no immediate danger of losing their federal financial aid. Regardless of any appeal, those schools have 18 months to secure the approval of another accreditor — although they might have to meet more stringent standards.

………

As a group, the mostly for-profit colleges that A.C.I.C.S. has overseen have the lowest graduation rates in the country and among the highest rates of student loan defaults. The Education Department staff report found that it failed to verify job placements, identify institutions that were at risk and monitor educational quality.

The accrediting agency was also plagued with conflicts of interest. At least two-thirds of its commissioners worked as executives at for-profit colleges, including Corinthian and ITT, a ProPublica investigation discovered last year.

………

“Accrediting agencies are supposed to make sure students get a good education and ensure colleges aren’t cheating students while sucking down taxpayer money,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, one of the sponsors. “But right now the accreditation system is broken.

Your mouth to God's ear, Senator Warren.

Interestingly enough, this is a single point of failure for the scam colleges, who are dependent on a captive accreditation process, so by effectively shutting down this agency, the Department of Education has effectively opened up a major can of whup ass on the whole corrupt industry.

Well done.

About that Clinton Credit Card Post………

It turns out that the report of many multiple unauthorized charges against donor's credit cards by the Clinton campaign was reported by the Observer, and their publisher is Jared Kushner, who is Donald Trump's son-in-law. (Thanks Daniel)

I looked around the internet, and with one exception, all the stories come link back to the Observer.

The exception, dating from June, is a TV report about he travails of a single donor who experienced problems.

As such, this story is unsubstantiated, and I refract retract it.

I will continue to follow this though.

This is Unconscionable

We are now seeing reports that US special forces assigned to train the "Moderate Opposition" in Syria are deliberately screwing up their assignments because they realize that there are no moderates, only Islamist extremists:(paid subscription required)

“Nobody believes in it. You’re like, ‘F%$# this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘F%$# it, who cares?’”

“I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. A second Special Forces soldier commented that one Syrian militia they had trained recently crossed the border from Jordan on what had been pitched as a large-scale shaping operation that would change the course of the war. Watching the battle on a monitor while a drone flew overhead, “We literally watched them, with 30 guys in their force, run away from three or four ISIS guys.”

The term for this is, "Going The Good Soldier Švejk."

Expanding on this, Jack Murphy notes that the CIA continues to be uninterested in fighting ISIS, instead focusing on overthrowing the Assad regime, while different CIA task forces are fighting each other:

One of the major points of this article is that the CIA doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq. By the end of 2014 there were only twenty CIA targeting officers and analysts were dedicated to IS. By early 2016, it was not much better. Instead, the CIA neurotically focused on removing Assad from power by any means possible. This laser focus was established by Brennan. I surmise this focus is shared by most in the Obama Administration

In spite of this focus, the CIA’s efforts in Syria is plagued by bureaucratic infighting. The CIA has three elements jockeying for power. The Syria Task Force is similar to the Iraqi Task Force and Iranian Operations Group that preceded it. It is Brennan’s baby. Damascus X is the Syrian CIA station now operating in Amman. And then there is the CTC/SI (Counterterrorist Center/Syria-Iraq), which is tragically focused on the Assad government rather than the terrorists. I have seen this kind of food fight for resources and prestige in the CIA and even in the DIA during the fat money days of the GWOT. I’m sure this cat fight is even more intense in today’s leaner fiscal environment.

The buck on this stops at Barack Obama's desk.

It is clear that he has been passive, and allowed the US state security apparatus to set their own, frequently conflicting priorities, and Obama's passivity with regard to this is the main cause.

It doesn't help that current DCIA, John Brennan, was a former station chief in Saudi Arabia, and has relentlessly supported Saudi policy goals ever since.

This is not as much of a clusterf%$# as the invasion of Iraq, yet, but it really is a level of incompetence simply buggers the mind.

Nashville Does the Right Thing, of Course, AT&T Will Sue to Stop This

After months of obstruction and delay by the incumbent providers, the Nashville City Council has voted to Google Fiber authorization to mount the the lines on the poles themselves.

Needless to say AT&T will not stand for such consumer friendly behavior:

The Nashville Metro Council last night gave its final approval to an ordinance designed to help Google Fiber accelerate deployment of high-speed Internet in the Tennessee city, despite AT&T and Comcast lobbying against the measure. Google Fiber's path isn't clear, however, as AT&T said weeks ago that it would likely sue Nashville if it passes the ordinance. AT&T has already sued Louisville, Kentucky over a similar ordinance designed to help Google Fiber.

The Nashville Council vote approved a "One Touch Make Ready" ordinance that gives Google Fiber or other ISPs quicker access to utility poles. The ordinance lets a single company make all of the necessary wire adjustments on utility poles itself, instead of having to wait for incumbent providers like AT&T and Comcast to send work crews to move their own wires.

One Council member who opposed the ordinance asked AT&T and Comcast to put forth an alternative plan, but the council stuck with the original One Touch Make Ready proposal.

AT&T and Comcast were using their positions on the top of the poles to delay Google deployment, a rather unsurprising state of affairs given that their business model is predicated on extracting monopoly rents.

The existing model is not a free market, but incumbent monopolies, which is why US internet is so expensive and so slow.

The Term for This Is "Desperately Flailing around for an Exit Strategy"

Barack Obama is clearly concerned that the campaign against ISIS will be a prominent stain on his legacy, as well it should be, and now he is throwing any sh%$ he can at Syria to see what sticks.

Case in point, they are now looking at openly arming the Kurdish militia:

The Obama administration is weighing a military plan to directly arm Syrian Kurdish fighters combating the Islamic State, a major policy shift that could speed up the offensive against the terrorist group but also sharply escalate tensions between Turkey and the United States.

The plan has been under discussion by the National Security Council staff at a moment when President Obama has directed aides to examine all proposals that could accelerate the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Obama has told aides that he wants an offensive well underway before he leaves office that is aimed at routing the Islamic State from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

Deciding whether to arm the Syrian Kurds is a difficult decision for Mr. Obama, who is caught in the middle trying to balance the territorial and political ambitions of Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, two warring American allies that Washington needs to combat the Islamic insurgency.

Directly providing weapons for the first time to the Syrian Kurds, whom American commanders view as their most effective ground partner against the Islamic State, would help build momentum for the assault on Raqqa. But arming them would also aggravate Mr. Obama’s already tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States and Turkey sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria.

………

American commanders view the plan to arm the Syrian Kurds, whose population straddles the border with Turkey, as an incentive to keep them on board for the fight against the Islamic State. Asked if the recent volatile military and political situation around the Syrian-Turkish border had slowed the pace for taking Raqqa, Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of Central Command, said last week that it might have.

In desperation, our Syria policy is becoming even more incoherent.

Understanding Ammosexual Deviancy

A new study has shown that ½ of all guns in America are owned by just 3% of the population.

Let's run the math: (rounding a bit) There are about 320 million people in America. There are something north of 300 million guns in America.

3% of 320 million people is 9.6 million people.

½ of 300 million guns is 150 million guns.

That means that each of the serious gun fondlers has an average of 15⅝ guns per member of the ammosexual community.

Actually, I rounded.  The article is a bit more dire:

More specifically, the survey showed that the 3 percent owned 133 million guns. Each of these 7.7 million “super-owners” possess between 8 and 140 firearms for an average of 17 guns per person. For some context, most of America’s estimated 55 million gun owners own, on average, three guns and nearly half have one or two, according to the survey.

17 guns per person isn't just someone who has a lot of guns, this is a deranged nut with a firearms fetish.

How Utterly Proper

It appears that the Clinton Campaign has been erroneously overcharging its donors credit cards, but but only the small donors are effected, so no harm, no foul.

There is a metaphor here, but it is not yet fully formed in my mind:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is stealing from her poorest supporters by purposefully and repeatedly overcharging them after they make what’s supposed to be a one-time small donation through her official campaign website, multiple sources tell the Observer.

The overcharges are occurring so often that the fraud department at one of the nation’s biggest banks receives up to 100 phone calls a day from Clinton’s small donors asking for refunds for unauthorized charges to their bankcards made by Clinton’s campaign. One elderly Clinton donor, who has been a victim of this fraud scheme, has filed a complaint with her state’s attorney general and a representative from the office told her that they had forwarded her case to the Federal Election Commission.

“We get up to a hundred calls a day from Hillary’s low-income supporters complaining about multiple unauthorized charges,” a source, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of job security, from the Wells Fargo fraud department told the Observer. The source claims that the Clinton campaign has been pulling this stunt since Spring of this year. The Hillary for America campaign will overcharge small donors by repeatedly charging small amounts such as $20 to the bankcards of donors who made a one-time donation. However, the Clinton campaign strategically doesn’t overcharge these donors $100 or more because the bank would then be obligated to investigate the fraud.

“We don’t investigate fraudulent charges unless they are over $100,” the fraud specialist explained. “The Clinton campaign knows this, that’s why we don’t see any charges over the $100 amount, they’ll stop the charges just below $100. We’ll see her campaign overcharge donors by $20, $40 or $60 but never more than $100.” The source, who has worked for Wells Fargo for over 10 years, said that the total amount they refund customers on a daily basis who have been overcharged by Clinton’s campaign “varies” but the bank usually issues refunds that total between $700 and $1,200 per day.

Here's some more detail for the metaphor:

The source said that pornography companies often deploy a similar arrangement pull. “We see this same scheme with a lot of seedy porn companies,” the source said. The source also notes that the dozens of phone calls his department receives daily are from people who notice the fraudulent charges on their statements. “The people who call us are just the ones who catch the fraudulent charges. I can’t imagine how many more people are getting overcharged by Hillary’s campaign and they have no idea.”

I so want to go live in a cave until this f%$#ing election is over.

The Bull Durham Rule of Constitutional Law

Do not call the judge a C%$# Sucker.

On the issue of voting rights, the state of Texas has left a Federal Court Judge profoundly unamused:

Texas violated a court order intended to preserve voting rights. And it got caught.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department informed a federal court that Texas is violating a recent court order that sought to keep the state from disenfranchising voters. After an appeals court struck down the state’s voter ID law, a common form of voter suppression favored by conservative lawmakers, the state agreed to be bound by an order that would permit voters to cast a ballot in the 2016 election if they “cannot reasonably obtain” photo ID.

Despite this order, Texas published press releases, voter education materials, and training manuals for poll workers that effectively stated that a voter without ID cannot vote unless it is literally impossible for that voter to obtain a photo ID. Thus, for example, a voter who had to make multiple day long trips to a government office and make burdensome document requests to obtain an ID would not be able to vote, under Texas’ standard, unless that voter was willing to jump through all of these considerable hoops.

On Tuesday, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, the judge overseeing this case, weighed in on Texas’ defiance of the court order. And, if the order she issued on Tuesday is any indication, she’s pissed.

………

Among other things, the Tuesday order requires Texas to “re-issue its press releases concerning voting to properly reflect the language in the Court’s Order,” to “edit the poster to be printed and placed at polling locations to accurately reflect the language in the Court’s Order,” and to “edit digital materials on its website page(s) that address voting rights and procedures, including titles or headlines and FAQs” to bring them into compliance with the original court order.

Significantly, the Tuesday order also provides that “the State of Texas shall provide to counsel for all Plaintiffs scripts and copy for documents and advertisements that have not yet been published for review and objection prior to publication.” As a practical matter, this gives the Justice Department (as well as the private plaintiffs in this case) the power to read over and object to new elections related materials before those materials are published.

You read that right:  The judge put the state of Texas back under a pre-clearance regime, at least this year.

Oh snap.

The EpiPen Price Gouging is a Family Affair

It turns out that Gayle Manchin, Senator Joe Manchin's wife and mother of Mylan CEO Heather Bresch, was appointed chair of the National Association of State Boards of Education , where she relentlessly pushed to increase EpiPen sales:

After Gayle Manchin took over the National Association of State Boards of Education in 2012, she spearheaded an unprecedented effort that encouraged states to require schools to purchase medical devices that fight life-threatening allergic reactions.

The association's move helped pave the way for Mylan Specialty, maker of EpiPens, to develop a near monopoly in school nurses' offices. Eleven states drafted laws requiring epinephrine auto-injectors. Nearly every other state recommended schools stock them after what the White House called the "EpiPen Law" in 2013 gave funding preference to those that did.

The CEO of Mylan then, and now, was Heather Bresch. Gayle Manchin is Heather Bresch's mother.

The whole Manchin clan is in on this bit of looting.

On the bright side, both New York (first link) and West Virginia are looking at antitrust and Medicate fraud allegations against the firm:

On the eve of a Congressional hearing on the soaring price and lack of competition for the EpiPen emergency allergy treatment, the attorney general for West Virginia has confirmed his office is investigating EpiPen maker Mylan for allegations of antitrust violations and Medicaid fraud.

WV Attorney General Patrick Morrisey confirmed the investigation today, revealing that he’d issued a subpoena to Mylan back in August, seeking documents and other information related to EpiPen, but that the company failed to meet the Sept. 7 deadline.

In response, Morrisey’s office has petitioned [PDF] a state circuit court to enforce that subpoena.

The state believes that EpiPen has been short-changing the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services Bureau for Medical Services (BMS) by paying smaller rebates than it should have.

Drug companies pay different levels of rebates to BMS depending on whether a medication is considered an “innovator” or a “non-innovator.” The lower, non-innovator distinction, is usually reserved for generics, but Morrisey says that Mylan was paying that rate for EpiPen, even though it’s a brand-name drug.

This may constitute Medicaid fraud under state law, according to the petition.

The state also believes that Mylan may have violated state antitrust laws by filing an intellectual property suit against Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2012 over an in-development generic version of EpiPen.

Joe Manchin will lose his bid for reelection in 2018.

If the Democratic base does not aggressively primary him, they are idiots.

The Brave New World of Technological Innovation, It's Another way to F%$# the Students

Greg Mankiw, who teaches Economics 10 at Harvard has decided to inflict an overpriced online license for course materials:

For the first time, students in the College’s introductory economics class must purchase a $132 access code to an online textbook and set of online materials—a course requirement that many have criticized as making the class too expensive. But the course’s professor and the textbook’s author, N. Gregory Mankiw, said the new system is worth the pricetag.

When Greg Mankiw says that this is, "Worth the pricetag," means that this makes him money, because, even if he cannot directly profit from Harvard sales, a standard setup at universities, it creates sales at other institutions, which does benefit him directly.

Students enrolled in Harvard's introductory economics course must now purchase loose-leaf copies of N. Gregory Mankiw's 'Principles of Microeconomics' as well as a code to online materials.

Unlike in previous years, students in Economics 10: “Principles of Economics,” the foundational course for the Economics Department, cannot purchase used textbooks, which often offer a cheaper alternative to the new books. Instead, they must purchase access to the MindTap learning system, an online platform developed by the textbooks’ publisher that includes test preparation materials, problem-sets, and quizzes for the course. An online copy of the textbook is included on MindTap’s website, and students also receive a loose-leaf hard copy.

The access will expire after 12 months, so students can not resell their textbooks, Mankiw said.

How convenient.

The Douglas Adams phrase, "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes," seems an apt description of both Dr. Mankiw his fellow travellers.

If a Business Treats Their Employees Like Crap, They Probably Do So to Their Customers

Case in point, Amazon, whose searches serve up their own products when better and cheaper alternatives are available:

One day recently, we visited Amazon’s website in search of the best deal on Loctite super glue, the essential home repair tool for fixing everything from broken eyeglass frames to shattered ceramics.

In an instant, Amazon’s software sifted through dozens of combinations of price and shipping, some of which were cheaper than what one might find at a local store. TheHardwareCity.com, an online retailer from Farmers Branch, Texas, with a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating, was selling Loctite for $6.75 with free shipping. Fat Boy Tools of Massillon, Ohio, a competitor with a similar customer rating was nearly as cheap: $7.27 with free shipping.

The computer program brushed aside those offers, instead selecting the vial of glue sold by Amazon itself for slightly more, $7.80. This seemed like a plausible choice until another click of the mouse revealed shipping costs of $6.51. That brought the total cost, before taxes, to $14.31, or nearly double the price Amazon had listed on the initial page.

What kind of sophisticated shopping algorithm steers customers to a product that costs so much more than seemingly comparable alternatives?

One that substantially favors Amazon and sellers it charges for services, an examination by ProPublica found.

Amazon often says it seeks to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Jeffrey P. Bezos, its founder and CEO, has been known to put an empty chair in meetings to remind employees of the need to focus on the customer. But in fact, the company appears to be using its market power and proprietary algorithm to advantage itself at the expense of sellers and many customers.

………

We looked at 250 frequently purchased products over several weeks to see which ones were selected for the most prominent placement on Amazon’s virtual shelves — the so-called “buy box” that pops up first as a suggested purchase. About three-quarters of the time, Amazon placed its own products and those of companies that pay for its services in that position even when there were substantially cheaper offers available from others.

There is a difference between expecting a lot from your employees, and treating them like crap.

If a company does the latter, they will treat the customer like sh%$ as well.

Elizabeth Warren Gets Added to My List of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off

Oh, Snap

Wells Fargo has been coercing low level employees to create accounts without customer's knowledge.

Wells has fired over 5000 low level employees over the criminogenic environment created by upper management.

They mandated cross-selling 8 accounts per customer when the industry norm is less than 3 accounts per customer

The manager of the division, Carrie Tolstedt, was allowed to retire with a $125 million wet kiss from the bank.

Well, the CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, was called before the Senate Banking Committee, and Elizabeth Warren gutted him like an overfed mackerel:

The Senate Banking Committee conducted a hearing Tuesday about the massive scandal currently engulfing Wells Fargo. The word "fraud" was used repeatedly by senators on both sides of the aisle when describing the bank's creation of millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts for existing customers.

………

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren—a longtime advocate for more stringent regulation of Wall Street—tore into Stumpf, describing the unauthorized accounts as a "massive, years long scam." She asked Stumpf what he has done to take responsibility for his bank's actions. "You have said repeatedly, 'I am accountable,'" she said. "But what have you done to actually hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned?"

Stumpf avoided answering the question directly, prompting Warren to repeat her question, her voice rising, at least three times.

Warren proceeded to pummel Stumpf with more questions. "Have you returned one nickel of the money you earned while this scam was going on?" she asked. Stumpf evaded the question several times. (Stumpf said earlier in the hearing that he earned $19.3 million last year.) Finally, an exasperated Warren said, "I'll take that as a 'no.'"

She then asked if he'd fired any members of his senior management. Stumpf initially began by describing the firing of regional branch managers, but Warren stopped him, emphasizing that her question was not about low-level leadership but about the people at the top. Again, Stumpf's answer was no.

She then went on to note that Stumpf had earned an additional $200 million in stock options from the stock appreciation largely driven by their absurdly high cross-selling numbers.

She really took the bark off that asshole, and it is a true thing of beauty.

Watch ……… the ……… Video.

They Went There

In the "Bridgegate" trial, prosecutors are saying that Chris Christie knew about the traffic tie up as it happened, and why it happened:

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey knew that three of his top officials were involved in a plan to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as it was happening and that the closings were intended to punish a local mayor for declining to support him, federal prosecutors said on Monday.

The assertion was an unexpected and startling beginning to the trial of two former Christie administration officials charged with closing the lanes in 2013 and then covering it up. And it was a surprising claim because of the side of the courtroom it came from, as lawyers made opening statements.

Defense lawyers have long argued that Mr. Christie, a Republican, and his top advisers were well aware of the lane closings and that they directed the cover-up as they tried to protect the governor’s political aspirations — saying their clients were “thrown under the presidential bus,” as one lawyer argued on Monday.

But this was the first time a prosecutor had pointed a finger at Mr. Christie. And it directly contradicts the governor’s statements in the three years since the lanes were mysteriously closed, paralyzing the borough of Fort Lee, N.J.

Mr. Christie, a former top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, has consistently denied that he knew about the lane closings as they unfolded, and argued that the United States attorney’s office had “exonerated” him when it declined to indict him along with the defendants now standing trial.

The prosecutor, speaking for the United States attorney’s office, said that two of the alleged co-conspirators in the case, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, had “bragged” to the governor about the lane closings at a memorial service for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, on the third day of the closings, and that they had been done to “mess” with Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, because he had declined entreaties to endorse the governor’s re-election. Mr. Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, who were close allies of Mr. Christie, are the two defendants in the trial.

Mr. Wildstein and Mr. Baroni boasted to Mr. Christie that panicked phone calls from Mr. Sokolich, pleading that the lane closings were a “public safety emergency,” were deliberately being ignored, the prosecutor said.

Wildstein has copped a plea and is testifying for the state, so my guess is that we will see some very interesting testimony.

I am not unsure whether or not the intent her is to finger Christie, or if it is a ploy to set the defense attorneys back on their heels.

Still, pass the popcorn.

I was Hoping for Stealthy McStealthface

The USAF has named its new bomber, the B-21, the "Raider" as an homage to the Jimmy Doolittle raids on Japan:

Almost seven months after designating Northrop Grumman’s next-generation stealth aircraft the B-21, U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah James announced on Sept. 19 that it will be called the Raider, in honor of the Doolittle Raiders who took on the Japanese during World War II.

The name came about through a poll of airmen that ran from March to May, with the winnowing down of potential names to a handful of top submissions. From more than 4,600 entries, the winning name "Raider" was revealed by Lt. Col. (ret.) Richard Cole at the opening of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Maryland. Cole is one of the last surviving Doolittle Raiders; he was co-pilot in aircraft No. 1.

………

There had been speculation that the Air Force’s B-21 name would honor a World War II aerial bombardment type, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-29 Superfortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, North American B-25 Mitchell or Martin B-26 Marauder.
In choosing Raider, the air branch has rejected ghoulish suggestions like "Wraith" or "Spectre" as well as tongue-in-cheek nods to the aircraft’s low-observable profile such as "Stealthy McSteathface" and "Dr. Stealthlove."

It should have been "Stealthy McStealthface".

Also, why the B-21?  What are the 18 aircraft between the B-2 and this?

Huh, It Appears That I Got It Wrong Yesterday

Police have arrested a suspect, one Ahmad Khan Rahami, an immigrant from Afghanistan whose
family came to the United States in 1995 when he was 7:

The man who the police said sowed terror across two states, setting off bombs in Manhattan and on the Jersey Shore and touching off a furious manhunt, was tracked down on Monday morning sleeping in the dank doorway of a neighborhood bar and taken into custody after being wounded in a gun battle with officers.

………

Even as the remarkably swift arrest eased fears across the region, investigators were still in the earliest stages of trying to determine what provoked the attacks, why a street in Chelsea was one of the targets and whether the bomber was aided by others. While investigators have been focused on Mr. Rahami’s actions immediately before and after the bombings, they were also working on Monday to trace his activities and travel in both recent months and years.

One law enforcement official said that the bomb technicians involved in the investigation believed that Mr. Rahami constructed all the devices and that his handiwork raised the possibility that he had received training from someone with experience building improvised explosive devices.

“If you’re working off the premise that the guy made all these devices,” the official said, “then the guy is a pretty good bombmaker. And you don’t get that good on the internet.”

………

Mr. Rahami and his family had traveled periodically to Pakistan, and on one trip, he stayed for nearly a year. A senior law enforcement official said that no evidence had yet been uncovered that he had received military training abroad.

I was figuring a white supremacist/Christian dominionist.

It appears that my first guess was wrong.

Seriously? There is an Opioid Lobby?

Seriously. Pharma has lobbyists whose job is to make sure that over-prescription and addiction continue.

Ka-Ching!

The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity teamed up to investigate the influence of pharmaceutical companies on state and federal policies regarding opioids, the powerful painkillers that have claimed the lives of 165,000 people in the U.S. since 2000.

The news agencies tracked proposed laws on the subject and analyzed data on how the companies and their allies deployed lobbyists and contributed to political campaigns.

$880 million in lobbying, over a thousand lobbyists, AstroTurf groups, the whole megilla.

Not enough bullets.

Yaar Maties!

It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Linkage

• Seven clues that "Game of Thrones" is really about hazmat shipping (DC Velocity) Am I the only person in the world who doesn't give a f%$# about Game of Thrones?
• Automated trading could work against investors: SEC chief (Reuters) Thank you Captain Obvious.
• Why supply chain managers are psychopaths (Australian Financial Review) I would never has never have guessed this. I would have thought finance or insurance.
• Google's become an obsessive stalker and you can't get a restraining order (The Register) The "Don't be evil" motto is now inoperative.
• Why Do I Suddenly Have To Log In Now To Use The Graphics Card I’ve Had For Years? (Consumerist) Money quote, "Unique user accounts sure are great for one big thing: marketing stuff."
• Lost for 168 years, doomed Northwest Passage ship discovered (Christian Science Monitor) More pieces of the puzzle of the loss of the he HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror.  History geek time.
• The NCAA finally took a worthy stand against discrimination (The Guardian) The NCAA does the right thing, for once, and tells the bigots in North Carolina to go Cheney themselves.
• After 23 years, the Apple II gets another OS update (Ars Technica) If someone still has a working APPLe ][, I want a review of the new OS.
• Money for Nothing(Jacobin) How the world’s richest companies get local governments to hand over millions of dollars in exchange for crappy jobs and empty promises.
•  Pluto Emitting X-Rays Could Be A Big Deal (Digital Trends)Pluto is getting weirder and weirder.
• This is a 3D model of a clitoris – and the start of a sexual revolution (The Guardian) The structure is far larger and more extensive that previously thought.

How to deactivate a cat:



This mimics how mamma cat carries her kittens. I knew that this worked on kittens, but I had no clue that it worked on adult cats.

Boeing Cannot Design Planes Anymore

As a result of years of layoffs and retirements of staff, Boeing lacked the technical resources to make a credible bid for the new Air Force Trainer:

It seemed so all-American: a U.S. aviation giant unveiling its newest military jet to flashing lights and thumping heavy-metal music. But the sleek twin-tailed T-X — Boeing’s candidate to become the U.S. Air Force’s next pilot trainer — couldn’t have made it to the dolled-up St. Louis hangar without a good deal of international help.

For all its deep aviation heritage, the Chicago company needed a partner on the T-X bid. A decade of engineering layoffs had left the venerable American firm without the workers needed to add the trainer competition to its existing workload, particularly with the Air Force requiring demonstration aircraft with a relatively quick turnaround. It also needed a way to do it more cheaply than past endeavors.

So the maker of the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Super Hornet teamed up with Saab — builder of the Gripen 4.5-generation fighter jet — to develop a T-X candidate. And less than three years after the two firms announced their partnership, they have now unveiled their first two aircraft, which are expected to fly by year’s end. That’s pretty fast for an American defense firm.

While officials from neither company would say just what parts of the plane were developed in Europe, Saab is believed to be manufacturing large portions of it. In June, a large Russian cargo plane believed to be carrying sections of the new aircraft flew from Sweden to the U.S.

………

“I’m not saying this thing is doomed. It’s just that I’m uncomfortable with a big disconnect between engineering and design and manufacturing,” said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at the Virginia-based Teal Group consulting firm. “It adds risk, it gets rid of a core company advantage, and frankly, there are just huge advantages of having designers and manufacturers co-located.”

Aboulafia cited Boeing’s need to lean on its partner for engineering.

“Outsourcing design — that appears to have a lot more complications than benefits,” he said. “It adds risk and it gets rid of a core capability, a core differentiator.”

I would note here that Boeing has outsourced technical expertise on the civil side as well, with many of the stumbles in 787 development coming from the fact that critical engineering expertise was outsourced to, "risk sharing partners."

It is a clear indictment of the McDonnell Douglas MBA style management that Boeing has had for the past few decades.

Boeing can no longer design and build new aircraft.

The Democrats Don't Deserve to Win

It appears that a significant portion of the Democrats in Congress want Hillary Clinton to appoint aged conservatives to the courts.

This appears simply to be an exercise in rank cowardice:

Senate Democrats say Hillary Clinton should ignore pressure from liberals who want her to make a younger, more progressive pick for the Supreme Court than Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee.

Democrats facing tough races in the next cycle don’t want Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, to spend her political capital on a messy fight over the court — and the hot-button social issues under its jurisdiction — during her first 100 days in office.

They also don’t want to have to defend a more liberal pick ahead of a tough reelection cycle in 2018.

Democrats will be defending 25 seats, compared to just eight for Republicans that year, including in states such as North Dakota, Montana, West Virginia and Missouri. All are tough places for the party to win in presidential, let alone midterm, elections.

The Democrats would prefer that Clinton, if she is elected, focus her time and attention on passing legislation they can run on as a major accomplishment, such as an infrastructure investment package.

A senior Senate Democratic aide whose boss faces a competitive reelection in 2018 said, “Not one of those vulnerable Democrats is going to run on the Supreme Court; they can run on an infrastructure bill.”

This is the sort of crap that leads makes voting 3^rd party or staying home a lot more attractive.

They want the next Supreme Court justice to be a guy who would be the oldest justice appointed in 44 years, and someone who is to the right of Scalia on criminal due process.

F%$# these guys.

The Washington Post just Became the Most Repulsive OP/ED Page in the US

When considering the fact that the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is a competitor, this is no small mark of ignominy, but since they just called for the prosecution of their own source in an Pulitzer Award winning study, they have clearly jumped the proverbial shark:

Three of the four media outlets that received and published large numbers of secret NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden — The Guardian, the New York Times, and The Intercept –– have called for the U.S. government to allow the NSA whistleblower to return to the U.S. with no charges. That’s the normal course for a news organization, which owes its sources duties of protection, and which — by virtue of accepting the source’s materials and then publishing them — implicitly declares the source’s information to be in the public interest.

But not the Washington Post. In the face of a growing ACLU and Amnesty-led campaign to secure a pardon for Snowden, timed to this weekend’s release of the Oliver Stone biopic “Snowden,” the Post editorial page today not only argued in opposition to a pardon, but explicitly demanded that Snowden — the paper’s own source — stand trial on espionage charges or, as a “second-best solution,” accept “a measure of criminal responsibility for his excesses and the U.S. government offers a measure of leniency.”

In doing so, the Washington Post has achieved an ignominious feat in U.S. media history: the first-ever paper to explicitly editorialize for the criminal prosecution of its own source — one on whose back the paper won and eagerly accepted a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. But even more staggering than this act of journalistic treachery against the paper’s own source are the claims made to justify it.

………

The editorial page is separate from the news organization and does not speak for the latter; I seriously doubt the journalists or editors at the Post who worked on these news stories would agree with any of that editorial. But still, if the Post editorial page editors now want to denounce these revelations, and even call for the imprisonment of their paper’s own source on this ground, then they should at least have the courage to acknowledge that it was the Washington Post — not Edward Snowden — who made the editorial and institutional choice to expose those programs to the public. They might want to denounce their own paper and even possibly call for its prosecution for revealing top-secret programs they now are bizarrely claiming should never have been revealed to the public in the first place.

(emphasis mine)

Jeff Bezos: You didn't hire him, but you can fire Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Post, tomorrow.

He is a cancer on journalism.

Quote of the Day

I'm as worried as anyone else about the possibility of Trump getting elected. But if it happens, it's not going to be because The New York Times allowed a few reporters to investigate the Clinton Foundation. It'll be because we're a nation of idiots, who vote the same way we choose channels: without thinking.

—Matt Taibbi

I agree: The idiots who are insisting that any investigation of Clinton is akin to treason are full of crap.

Speaking of Looters

In response to outrage over price gouging (sound familiar?), Mylan Pharmaceuticals is lobbying for an additional subsidy for their EpiPen:

Against a growing outcry over the surging price of EpiPens, a chorus of prominent voices has emerged with a smart-sounding solution: Add the EpiPen, the lifesaving allergy treatment, to a federal list of preventive medical services, a move that would eliminate the out-of-pocket costs of the product for millions of families — and mute the protests.

Dr. Leonard Fromer, an assistant clinical professor of family medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, just promoted the idea in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine. A handful of groups are preparing a formal request to the government. And Tonya Winders, who runs a patient advocacy nonprofit organization, reached out late last month to crucial lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“We can save lives by ensuring access to these medications,” said Ms. Winders, chief executive of the Allergy and Asthma Network.

A point not mentioned by these advocates is that a big potential beneficiary of the campaign is Mylan, the pharmaceutical giant behind EpiPens. The company would be able to continue charging high prices for the product without patients complaining about the cost.

An examination of the campaign by The New York Times, including a review of documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, shows that Mylan is well aware of that benefit and, in fact, has been helping orchestrate and pay for the effort.

………

The journal article says it was “drafted and revised” by a medical writing consulting firm paid by Mylan, in consultation with Dr. Fromer. And Dr. Fromer himself has served in the last year as a paid Mylan consultant — which he discloses as part of the journal article. The company has also contributed money to many other groups behind the effort, and it has met with them — and Ms. Winders’s organization in particular — to coordinate its strategy, the participants said.

………

The idea being advanced is simple: If the EpiPen makes the federal preventive list, most Americans would have no insurance co-pay when getting the product. That means they could obtain the medication with no direct cost, regardless of its retail price. Mylan could keep the EpiPen at the current price, or perhaps raise it more, while keeping patient anger at a minimum.

………

But a review of Mylan’s lobbying history makes clear that the company has an exceptional track record at influencing government policies, both in Washington and in state capitals. Heather Bresch, Mylan’s chief executive, called the effort “our unconventional approach to growing this franchise” in remarks to Wall Street analysts last year.

Her "unconventional approach" is based largely on the fact that her father Joe Manchin (D-WV) is a US Senator.

………

Mylan gives money to Ms. Winders’s organization to help expand treatment for severe allergies. She would not say how much the company has given, or the exact terms, citing a confidentiality agreement. But part of that money is related to this push, Ms. Winders acknowledged.

“I am being compensated to ensure access to epinephrine,” Ms. Winders said in an interview last week.

Manchin is facing reelection in 2010.  He needs to be seriously primaried.

What's more, if there is a way to take Mylan, down, and better yet put its management in jail, that should be pursued as well.

Of Course, It Wouldn't Be an Emergency without Uber Profiteering………

#NYCExplosion causes residents to attempt to get home. #Uber taking total advantage of chaos and surcharging passengers 1.4 to 1.8 times.

— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) September 18, 2016

So, of course, within moments of the bomb going off, the surge pricing kicked in:

Passengers attempting to hail Uber cars during New York City's explosion on Saturday night hammered the ride sharing service for its pricing policies, accusing the company of gouging customers during a dangerous incident.

As news broke that a device had detonated in the city's Chelsea section, scared passengers attempted to use their Uber apps to hail a ride home—only to be hit with notifications that demand was "off the charts."

Furious users took to Twitter to vent their frustration, which was first reported by The Sun UK. Shortly after the blast, Uber announced on the social network that it had suspended its "surge pricing," a system that has been criticized in the past by some riders.

They announced that "surge pricing" was suspended, but reports from Twitter indicate otherwise.

This is what happens when you allow Ayn Rand worshiping psychopaths to blithely ignore regulations.

Just Lovely

It looks like some whack job set off a bomb in Manhattan. Thankfully, there are no fatalities:

A powerful explosion caused by what the authorities believe was a homemade bomb injured at least 29 people on a crowded sidewalk in the bustling Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday night.

A few hours later, the authorities found and removed what they described as a second explosive device four blocks away, raising the possibility that two bombs had been planted in the heart of the city.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called the explosion — which occurred about 8:30 p.m. on West 23rd Street — “an intentional act” but initially said there was no connection to terrorism and no immediate claim of responsibility.

Police officers swarmed Chelsea’s streets after the blast, which reverberated across a city scarred by terrorism and vigilant about threats, just days after the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Whatever the cause,” Mr. de Blasio said, “New Yorkers will not be intimidated.”

As the authorities sought to identify what had caused the explosion, they described the second device as a pressure cooker resembling the one used in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, according to a police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation.

No word on who yet, but seeing as authorities have not yet tried to finger ISIS or al Qaeda, which makes me wonder if this might have been a Timothy McVeigh type, rather than Islamist terrorism.

And Syria Becomes Even More of a Clusterf%$3

As you may be aware, Russia and Syria have hammered out a deal for a cease fire.

Russia wanted security council approval this, but the US refused because they do not want to reveal the content of the documents:

UN Security Council members had been due to meet in New York on Friday afternoon for a hastily called meeting on the fragile Syrian ceasefire, billed as the "last chance" to end the five-year war.

But Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, said the meeting was canceled at the last minute as the US was unwilling to disclose exactly what was in the documents outlining the deal hammered out last week by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"This briefing is not going to happen and mostly likely we're not going to have a resolution of the Security Council because the US does not want to share those documents with the members of the Security Council and we believe that we cannot ask them to support a document which they haven't seen," Churkin said.

In Washington, a US official said the session was canceled because the Russians were trying to force the US to make the ceasefire deal public.

"The United States will not compromise operational security," the official said.

Call me a cynic, but my guess that neither State nor the Pentagon want these agreements to be public so that they can violate the terms with impunity.

The last time the US got a security council ruling, they used civilian protection as a cloak for regime change. (Libya)

When you consider the fact that US special operations forces are supporting the Turkish invasion of Syria, and that the US just bombed Syrian troops, allegedly by accident, it makes one even more suspicious:

U.S.-led coalition forces bombed Syrian troops near Deir al-Zor airport on Saturday, the Syrian army said, allowing Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun their position and putting new strains on a ceasefire in effect elsewhere in the country.

The United States military said it had ceased air strikes against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The ceasefire, which took effect on Monday, is the most significant peacemaking effort in Syria for months but has been undermined by repeated accusations of violations on both sides and by a failure to bring humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

………

U.S.-led coalition forces bombed Syrian troops near Deir al-Zor airport on Saturday, the Syrian army said, allowing Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun their position and putting new strains on a ceasefire in effect elsewhere in the country.

………

Saturday's air strikes were reported by Russia and a war monitor to have killed dozens of Syrian soldiers, and were said by Moscow to be evidence of what it called Washington's "stubborn refusal" to coordinate strikes with Damascus.

Islamic State said via its Amaq news channel it had taken complete control of Jebel Tharda, where the bombed position was located, which would have allowed it to overlook government-held areas of Deir al-Zor.

As a result of this, the UN Security Council will be meeting to handle this development:

The United Nations security council has called an emergency meeting to discuss air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria, diplomats said, after Russia said coalition warplanes had bombed and killed Syrian government forces.

The 15-member council was due to meet behind closed doors on Saturday evening in New York, diplomats told Reuters.

The US envoy to the United nations, Samantha Power, said she regretted loss of life in the Syria airstrike, but said the Russian call for the security council meeting was “a stunt”.

Earlier on Saturday Russia’s ministry of defense said coalition planes had killed 62 Syrian soldiers, wounded 100 more and allowed Islamic State militants to gain an advantage through the strike.

The Pentagon did not outright admit that coalition planes had hit Syrian forces, but said that pilots had “believed they were striking a Daesh [Isis] fighting position” and may have struck Syrian government forces instead.

………

In a statement, the ministry echoed questions from President Vladimir Putin about US commitment to a shaky ceasefire deal brokered by the two countries, and said the airstrikes could be evidence that American officials had not consulted with their counterparts in Moscow.

“If this airstrike was the result of a targeting error,” Russian major general Igor Konashenkov said in a statement, “it is a direct consequence of the US side’s stubborn unwillingness to coordinate its action against terrorist groups on Syrian territory with Russia.”

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, was subsequently quoted by Ria Novosti saying the Kremlin would demand an explanation at the UN.

“We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world,” she said, according to the state-owned news agency. “The White House is defending Islamic State. Now there can be no doubts about that.

“We demand a full and detailed explanation from Washington. That explanation must be given at the UN Security Council.”

I find the assertion of it being an accident, at least one not involving deliberate recklessness, not particularly credible.

Both the State Department and the the military still have a large number of senior officials (including SecDef Ashton Carter) who want regime change in Syria, so I think that any consideration of potentially hitting Syrian troops by US forces is (at best) perfunctory.

There is no meaningful moderate opposition to the Assad regime, what isn't led by ISIS is led by al Nusra, which (despite its recent rebranding) is still a local chapter of al Qaeda, and our continued support for the desires of the Turks and the Gulf tyrants to overthrow him is going to crate negative backlash for decades.

Keith is Back

GQ has hired Keith Olbermann to make political commentaries.



5 videos and counting, and they are in the vein of his special comments.

This Has to Be the Best Campaign Ad of the Season

Jason Kander, Democrat running for the Senate in Missouri, just made incumbent Republican Roy Blunt his bitch:



That is gonna leave a mark.

Deep Thought

This is an ironic definition of "Sub" Woofer.

Seen on Facebook.

This Pretty Much is the End of a Political Career

Richard Milne lost the Republican New York state assembly primary to Bill Nojay who is both indicted and DEAD:

………

In the state's Republican-leaning state district, which covers parts of suburban Rochester and the Finger Lakes region, crooked State Assemblyman Republican Bill Nojay1 beat his primary rival Richard Milne on Tuesday - four days after his death. The 59-year old Nojay took his life Friday at family's cemetery plot in Rochester, shooting himself near his brother's grave as a police offer was arriving.

Only in New York, folks, only in New York.

"I really believe we would have fared better with Mr. Nojay still alive," said Richard Milne, his party rival. "They really did some things in the past few days that were in poor taste in my opinion to sway the vote."

Milne was referring to the onslaught of GOP "robocalls" and other efforts to boost the Nojay vote after his death.

"Despite the unexpected and tragic loss of our Assemblyman, the endorsement still stands," Republicans from the town of Hornell wrote, encouraging voters to back the dead candidate.

………

Milne posted a statement on his Facebook page3 that read: "I appreciate all the incredible support we've received," adding that he was "proud that we have run this election campaign fairly and professionally even when others that oppose us have not and are not."

Nojay, who was embroiled in legal troubles, was facing trial in Cambodia on fraud charges and was reportedly under FBI scrutiny.

In July it was announced that Nojay and three other American businessmen including Sichan Siv, a George W. Bush-appointed envoy to the United Nations, would be tried in absentia for an alleged fraud scheme in Cambodia, accused of running a rice-importing grift, allegedly swindling a prominent Cambodian dentist for $1 million.

Nojay denied fraud was committed.

"All the people I've worked with have been honorable people, but again, some of them have done well, and some of them have stumbled. That's just the nature of small business work," Nojay told Rochester's WHAM radio the day before he died.

Nojay's legal woes were growing stateside, as well. One of his New York-based companies was the subject of a federal investigation for a questionable contract with Rochester schools. Then, two weeks ago, FBI officials told Nojay's business partner that the assemblyman was under investigation for allegedly embezzling from a fund that held $1.8 million, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

A strong NRA supporter, Nojay was a foe of Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had pushed stricter gun control laws through the legislature after the Sandy Hook massacre. He was also a big fan of Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Why the hell did the party establishment continue to support this guy, particularly after he shot himself?

This buggers the mind.

California's Drought Could Last for Centuries

A new study indicates that anthropogenic climate change driven shifts to the pacific ocean may make the current drought the new normal:

Clues from prehistoric droughts and arid periods in California show that today's increasing greenhouse gas levels could lock the state into drought for centuries, according to a study led by UCLA professor Glen MacDonald.

The study, published today in the Nature.com journal Scientific Reports, looked at how natural climatic forces contributed to centuries-long and even millennia-long periods of dryness in California during the past 10,000 years. These phenomena—sun spots, a slightly different earth orbit, a decrease in volcanic activity—intermittently warmed the region through a process called radiative forcing, and recently have been joined by a new force: greenhouse gases.

As long as warming forces like greenhouse gases are present, the resulting radiative forcing can extend drought-like conditions more or less indefinitely, said MacDonald, a distinguished professor of geography and of ecology and evolutionary biology.

"Radiative forcing in the past appears to have had catastrophic effects in extending droughts," said MacDonald, an international authority on drought and climate change. "When you have arid periods that persist for 60 years, as we did in the 12th century, or for millennia, as we did from 6,000 to 1,000 B.C., that's not really a 'drought.' That aridity is the new normal."

Researchers tracked California's historic and prehistoric climate and water conditions by taking a sediment core in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They pulled a 2-inch-wide, 10-foot-deep cylinder of sediment from the bottom of Kirman Lake and analyzed it in third-of-an­-inch sections, creating the most detailed and continuous paleoenvironmental record of California.

The team correlated their findings with other studies of California climate history, and for the first time, united all the studies and cross-referenced them with histories of the Pacific Ocean's temperature taken from marine sediment cores and other sources.

What they found was not only that periods of increased radiative forcing could produce drought-like conditions that extended indefinitely, but that these conditions were closely tied to prolonged changes in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures.

While the urban areas of California may find a way to deal with this, but the agriculture sector of the state is completely f%$#ed.

Can We Please Give them Back to Mexico? (Part CCCXLIV)

Texas is at it again. It is now arbitrarily denying special ed services to meet a quota set by state regulators:

During the first week of school at Shadow Forest Elementary, a frail kindergartner named Roanin Walker had a meltdown at recess. Overwhelmed by the shrieking and giggling, he hid by the swings and then tried to escape the playground, hitting a classmate and biting a teacher before being restrained.

The principal called Roanin's mother.

"There's been an incident."

Heidi Walker was frightened, but as she hurried to the Humble school that day in 2014, she felt strangely relieved.

She had warned school administrators months earlier that her 5-year-old had been diagnosed with a disability similar to autism. Now they would understand, she thought. Surely they would give him the therapy and counseling he needed.

Walker knew the law was on her side. Since 1975, Congress has required public schools in the United States to provide specialized education services to all eligible children with any type of disability.

But what she didn't know is that in Texas, unelected state officials have quietly devised a system that has kept thousands of disabled kids like Roanin out of special education.

………

More than a dozen teachers and administrators from across the state told the Chronicle they have delayed or denied special education to disabled students in order to stay below the 8.5 percent benchmark. They revealed a variety of methods, from putting kids into a cheaper alternative program known as "Section 504" to persuading parents to pull their children out of public school altogether.

"We were basically told in a staff meeting that we needed to lower the number of kids in special ed at all costs," said Jamie Womack Williams, who taught in the Tyler Independent School District until 2010. "It was all a numbers game."

………

"It's extremely disturbing," said longtime education advocate Jonathan Kozol, who described the policy as a cap on special education meant to save money.

"It's completely incompatible with federal law," Kozol said. "It looks as if they're actually punishing districts that meet the needs of kids."

In a statement, Texas Education Agency officials denied they had kept disabled students out of special education and said their guideline calling for enrollments of 8.5 percent was not a cap or a target but an "indicator" of performance by school districts. They said state-by-state comparisons were inappropriate and attributed the state's dramatic declines in special educations enrollments to new teaching techniques that have lowered the number of children with "learning disabilities," such as dyslexia.

In fact, despite the number of children affected, no one has studied Texas' 32 percent drop in special education enrollment.

………

There is no agreed-upon number for what percentage of kids have a disability that requires special education services.

The best approximation may be 15.4 percent. That's how many U.S. kids ages 2-8 whom doctors have diagnosed with a mental, behavioral or developmental disorder, according to a March 2016 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's a long read, and it is infuriating.

H/t Diane Ravitch.

Repeat after Me: There Are No Moderate Rebels in Syria

In the latest episode of stupid sh%$ that Obama has done, we discover so called moderate rebels, who had been vetted by the CIA, just kicked US special forces out of the Syrian town of Al Ra'i:

………
 
The deployment of some 40 U.S. special forces to Al Ra'i did not go well. The Turkish "Free Syrian Army" proxies threatened to kill the U.S. forces. They called them "unbelievers" and "crusader pigs" and the U.S. forces had to retreat under Turkish cover (video). Some FSA spokesperson later claimed that the dispute was over U.S. support for the Kurdish dominated SDF, which at times had fought against the FSA. Unconfirmed reports now say that the special forces are back in Al Ra'i after certain FSA groups were ordered out of the area. There are also reports claiming the U.S., after the special forces were chased out of town, "accidentally" bombed some FSA group in Al Ra'i. Ooops.

However, the hostile FSA forces will be around and U.S. Special Forces are obviously seen as their enemy. If the U.S. forces proceed together with the other FSA groups they will certainly have to watch their back at any and all times.

The Turkish supported sectarian "moderate" FSA groups are the very same groups the CIA has "vetted" and provided with TOW missiles and other weapons. But nobody should be astonished that such groups, driven by religious zeal, eventually turn on their sponsors. They have done so in each historic parallel one can think of.

The current ceasefire in Syria is already breaking down. U.S. media claim that Russia and Syria are blocking UN aid to the al-Qaeda ruled areas in east-Aleppo but other media say that the "rebels" are the ones threatening the convoys. In east-Aleppo al-Qaeda demonstrators held a rally (vid) against UN aid.

Obama's liberal interventionism is every bit as much as a clusterf%$# as Dick Cheney's 1% doctrine.

Doing the Right Only Requires Months of Public Shaming

For months, it has been known that Katherine Wade, former in-house lobbyist for CIGNA and now Insurance Commissioner for Connecticut, has had major conflicts of interests in the states review of the merger between Cigna and Anthem. (Her husband is a lawyer for Cigna as well)

She has finally agreed to recuse herself from reviewing the merger:

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy’s top insurance regulator, Katharine Wade, agreed to recuse herself from her state’s review of a massive healthcare merger between Anthem and Cigna, amid mounting criticism of her ties to Cigna. Wade had been leading a multistate review of the deal, which critics say could raise insurance premiums for 53 million Americans across the country. The recusal announcement came from Wade's attorney during a meeting of the Office of State Ethics, which has been investigating the situation.

The merger between Anthem and Cigna appeared to be moving forward for months, but was thrown into turmoil after a months-long International Business Times investigative series into Wade and Malloy’s ties to Cigna. That series prompted a state ethics probe -- and soon after the Department of Justice sued to block the merger.

………

As IBT’s series documented, Cigna and Anthem pumped campaign cash into the Democratic Governors Association — which is run by Malloy — at the very time they were pursuing their merger. While the cash flowed into the group, Malloy appointed Wade to head his state’s insurance department. She had served as an in-house lobbyist for Cigna, is married to a Cigna attorney and is the daughter-in-law of another attorney listed as representing the company. Malloy’s administration also promised to help Cigna if it pursued the merger.

Even by the standards of Connecticut politics, (The state is pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry) this was pretty brazen.

This Is a Natural Consequence of Hillary and the Democrats Running Away from Their Base

Over the past few weeks, I've seen dozen of Hillary Clinton ads, and they all mention Donald Trump more than her.

The Senate candidates seem to be a collection of has beens and never weres who have be consciously selected as a f%$# you to the party base.

As such, it is no surprise that in a year when Senate Republicans are facing major headwinds, Trump and the fact that 24 of the 34 seats are held by Republicans, the possibility of the Democrats retaking the Senate are diminishing:

Part of the August of Democratic Complacency that revolved around robust poll numbers for Hillary Clinton (and the assumption they would get better and better as Americans shrank in revulsion from Donald Trump) was a consensus that Democrats would very likely win back control of the Senate and might even get the House if Trump continued to implode.

Donkey Party optimism about the Senate actually began to spike in July when former senator Evan Bayh suddenly jumped into the race for the seat of Republican Dan Coats, who is retiring. Bayh had big sacks of money left over from his previous Senate campaigns and had always been very popular among Hoosiers. Republican nominee Todd Young looked like a sudden loser, and a lot of observers figured the GOP would concede the seat.

But pro-Republican outside groups did not get the memo, and they’ve already spent $5 million on the Indiana Senate race, with more in the pipeline. And although the Bayh name may be minor magic in the state, the former senator has some baggage, too, including tenuous residency in the state during his recent years as a lawyer-lobbyist in sinful D.C. While the Democrat is still the favorite, the polls are tightening noticeably, and Indiana’s one state where Trump is unlikely to drag down the ticket.

If Bayh’s no longer a lock, the whole proposition of a Democratic-controlled Senate gets dicier. And indeed, the prognosticators have become more cautious, with the Upshot and Daily Kos both now giving Democrats a 54 percent chance of regaining control of the upper chamber. Wisconsin and Illinois are still states where Republican incumbents are in deep trouble. But Republicans are narrowly favored to take a seat back in Nevada. Recent polling shows Ohio and Florida likely falling off the Senate battleground map. And vulnerable GOP incumbents in New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are looking stronger, though they are far from being out of the woods.

Hillary is aggressively courting Republicans who are unsettled by Trump.  The Senate and House strategies are to try to tie candidates to Trump.

There is absolutely nothing positive being said by the Democratic party campaign apparatus about the Democratic Party.

"Not Donald Trump," will not take back the Senate.

Another Rock is About to Be Turned Over in New York Yeshivas

It looks like a lawsuit will reveal that New York Yeshivas have systematically evaded state requirements on the quality of their secular education:

A powerful New York law firm has entered the fight over haredi education in the city, throwing its weight behind a group dedicated to bringing the curriculum at yeshivot in line with state-mandated curriculum.

The Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED) announced on Monday its new partnership with the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher global law firm. “Together, we will work to hold the New York City and New York State Departments of Education accountable – once and for all – for their failure to uphold and enforce vital federal and state laws protecting the rights of tens of thousands of hassidic and ultra-Orthodox children in New York to a basic education,” the announcement read.

………

Since 2014 the organization has been pressuring New York State and New York City officials to change the situation in certain yeshivot where they don’t believe education is up to scratch. Last year, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, the City of New York launched an investigation into 39 Brooklyn yeshivot for alleged failure to meet the state-mandated educational curriculum. More than a year later, YAFFED is unsatisfied with the lack of visible results.

………

YAFFED has received backlash from the haredi community for trying to change the Orthodox way of life, and particularly for having operated through channels outside of the ultra-Orthodox world.

That last paragraph reflects what is a longstanding problem in Orthodox community.

This unwillingness to apply the sunlight of public scrutiny to shortcomings within the community causes real problems for that community, in this case creating a generation of adults completely unequipped to engage the world, a halachic requirement.

One of the tenets of Jusaism is that, "It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either."^*

By eschewing the ability to meaningfully interact with the world, you are eschewing the the obligation to meaningfully interact with the world.

It appears that New York state politicians have put the enforcement of educational standards on the back burner for fear of a backlash from the Orthodox community.

^*Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot 2:21

OK, I Approve

The Obama administration has closed a loophole that allowed companies to take a tax credit on foreign taxes paid for income that they have refused to repatriate:

The U.S. Treasury Department took fresh steps on Thursday to curb tax avoidance by multinational corporations, announcing new curbs on a loophole through which companies artificially use credits for foreign taxes they pay to improperly lower their U.S. tax bills.

In a notice that took direct aim at the European Union’s push to have its member states collect more taxes from U.S. companies’ overseas units, Treasury officials said they’re writing new rules that would restrict how corporations can use credits on their foreign tax payments to reduce their U.S. tax bills. The official notice puts corporate tax planners on notice that officials will challenge any strategies that violate their intended rules.

The measure will focus on tax-planning strategies in which companies separate foreign tax payments from the underlying income that they’re based on. That separation -- which Treasury’s notice described as a “splitter” arrangement -- allows companies to artificially inflate credits they use to cut their U.S. tax bills.

Officials with the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service said it was possible that U.S. companies that find themselves subject to new tax bills as a result of EU investigations could use splitter arrangements to reduce their U.S. taxes. Last month, the European Commission found that Ireland must collect $14.5 billion in back taxes from Apple Inc. after determining that the iPhone maker received a special tax deal that violated so-called “state-aid” rules, which are aimed at fostering competition.

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In effect, the new rule would disallow corporations from using foreign tax credits unless the companies actually bring home to the U.S. -- or repatriate -- the overseas earnings on which they’ve paid the foreign taxes. Repatriation of overseas income triggers the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate, one of the highest in the world -- and companies can use foreign tax credits to reduce or eliminate it. Treasury officials are worried that without the new rule, companies could claim artificially inflated foreign tax credits tied to offshore money they haven’t brought home.

U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned that more than $2 trillion in offshore earnings that U.S. multinationals haven’t yet repatriated is now fair game for European countries.

Mark J. Mazur, Treasury’s assistant secretary for tax policy, said the new regulation would close “another tax loophole that contributes to the erosion of our tax base.”

“Today’s action protects the U.S. tax base by ensuring that such credits are only available when corporations repatriate their foreign earnings,” Mazur said.

Why the f%$# did this take 7 years to do?

Why did Obama have to wait until the  "I no longer have a f%$# to give" stage of his Presidency?

This should have started on day one.