The Standard That Works Best For Us

(via illusory tenant)

In July of 2008, a convicted sex offender named Dinkins was due to be released from prison. State law required him to register his future address with the state's sex offender registry ten days before his release. He did not do this and was charged with a class H felony as a result.

His argument at trial was that he did not know where he would be living. No relative agreed to take him in and he had no solid prospects. He had no address to register.

Nonsense, cried the state:

...Dinkins, like everyone, knows that he must sleep somewhere, and Wis. Stat. § 301.45(2)(a)5. and (e)4. merely requires incarcerated sex offenders to identify and report the address or nearest address of the place where they plan to sleep at least ten days prior to their release—even if the place is a park bench or similar on-the-street location. The State asserts that such a location is an “address” within the meaning of § 301.45(2)(a)5., citing several dictionary definitions of “address.”

That's the WI Appeals Court summarizing the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice's position in their published opinion.

So, according to the Wisconsin DOJ, a convicted sex offender can fulfil their address registration requirement by stating they live under a park bench.

Understand they are saying this because they want Dinkins to go to jail - but consider:

Dinkins fulfills this requirement by scrawling "I think I'll sleep under a bench on the 100 block of East Main St. Not sure which one, but there are quite a few on that block" on his form and he's good to go.

Let's set aside the fact that makes the sex offender registry a whole lot less effective and zero in on the point illusory tenant makes so well.

According to the state of Wisconsin, registering as a sex offender requires filling out the address form as best you can. There is no requirement that you show a utility bill for that address, a rental agreement for that address. There isn't even a requirement that it actually BE an address. Quoting the WI Chief Justice, "...park bench okay?" State says, "You betcha!"

But if any Wisconsin resident tries to vote in an election, they will be asked for a photo ID with an address that will be checked against valid addresses for their polling place.

Priorities, people.

It's all about priorities.

Calling Gableman Out

illusory tenant makes a great call - Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the alleged judge-on-judge action. Not that Gableman really wants that, based on how badly he's managed his accusation. Interesting to see if his actions are scrutinized as much as say, a women who accuses a man of assault?

And there's also this hugely awesome call out

Gableman also told the police:

Justice Gableman said he has not told anyone about that incident and has not talked about that incident with anyone, including Justice Bradley, after it happened.

Then Justice Ziegler tells the police (page 69 of 70):

She then said, recently Justice Gableman told her about Justice Bradley hitting him on the back of the head, but she said she did not have any details of that and did not know when it happened. Justice Ziegler said she could not be specific on when Justice Gableman told her that happened.

Gableman's interview was on July 5, and Ziegler's was on July 18, so presumably Gableman told her about the September 18, 2009 (née 2008) incident after July 5. But Ziegler hadn't known anything about it.

Even though Justice Zeigler would have been present.

Followed by the even more awesome comment by gnarlytrombone:

"Not only present, but a witness: 'Justice Gableman said that he believed Justice Bradley was not joking because nobody was laughing at the time.' [page 64 of 70] i.e., they had to have seen it happen to choose not to laugh. Because it was serious. But not memorable."

Gableman's tying himself in a bit of a knot there, isn't he?

Bring on the investigation!

Two on Foreclosure

CJR's Ryan Chittum says about all that needs to be said about the current state of foreclosures in America, netting a fistfull of great articles- like this one from American Banker:

Several dozen documents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose.

Oooh! Tell us more, do!

And then there's Reuters, saying that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is suing the big banks.

The government will argue the banks, which pooled the mortgages and sold them as securities to investors, failed to perform due diligence required under securities law and missed evidence that borrowers' incomes were falsified or inflated...

Ya don't say...

Double Taxation

(Via Felix Salmon)

I was enjoying the gnashing of teeth spawned by Warren Buffett's Op Ed/PR stunt about taxes for the wealthy - and I ran across Daniel J Mitchell whining about how Buffett has it all wrong. The highest tax bracket has it rough, you see. What with their tax rates plummeting to less then half of what they were only three decades ago.

The horror!

But he was useful in that he regurgitated one of the lamer talking points on raising the capital gains tax - It's Double Taxation!!

You see, investors bought stock and were taxed, then the investment barfed out more money and it was taxed again. That's not fair..!

Salmon beats all over that, then pulls in some backup to wail on it more. By far the best 'graph I've read on this yet was from the Citizens for Tax Justice, who point out the very selective nature of objections to multiple taxation:

It’s striking that hardly anyone in Washington talks about how the wage income of middle-class Americans is subject to “multiple taxes.” For the typical American, all income consists of wages and all of it is subject to the Social Security tax, and much or most of it to the income tax. Then when people spend their income, a great deal of the purchases are subject to sales taxes. Apparently, taxing income multiple times is something that concerns economists and politicians only when it affects the wealthy investor class.

As in - hello... whiny little investor b!tches? You think double taxation is a bad thing- I don't hear you crying over how everyone else's paycheck money gets wrung out twice to pay the feds, then stretched again for virtually every transaction its used for.

But taxing capital gains is a shameful double taxation? Oh shut the hell up, already.

FU GSE

(Via CJR)

Remember Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? They'd be the Government Sponsored Entities who pretty much owned the secondary mortgage market until Wall Street went all Subprime.

It depends on what the definition of "lose" is...

You probably remember that these two companies were bailed out by the government to the tune of billions.
They almost went under because they were criminally under capitalized and couldn't absorb the cost of failing loans.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Freddie and Fannie are pressing foreclosures on these bad loans at a startlingly aggressive pace.

Foreclosure is generally agreed on as the worst case for all involved. The homeowner loses their home, the bank takes a home that is worth less than the loan it secured, and the house is unlikely to sell in a depressed and glutted market.

So why do it? Moreover, why fall all over yourself in a rush to do it?

This is why:

For example...if a home with a $200,000 mortgage is foreclosed and Fannie nets $80,000 from its sale, Fannie loses $120,000. But because Congress authorized the Treasury Department to reimburse Fannie as part of the government's takeover, taxpayers eat the losses.

The complete and utter scumbags who run the GSE, aided by those who would have the power to stop them, are hoping to bury the losses with federal funds and then return to their former glory days as a semi-private firm. A firm that presumably would resume paying them handsome salaries once all is forgotten by the public.

Danziger Bridge Cops Found Guilty

...unfortunately none of them were for murder.

8 Innocents. 6 were shot, 2 were killed, 1 lost a limb, 0 were armed.


Every time I read about this event I'm infuriated. Let's recap:

The Danziger shootings were originally portrayed as a home run for the [New Orleans Police] department, a victory in restoring order to a city that had begun to come apart after [hurricane Katrina]. But a state grand jury that investigated the shootings didn't buy the testimony of the involved officers, seven of whom were charged with murder or attempted murder.

When the "Danziger Seven" turned themselves in at Central Lockup in December 2006, fellow officers joined them in a show of solidarity, clapping them on the back and calling them heroes. The state case fell apart for procedural reasons in 2008, when the charges were dismissed by a judge.

At that point, federal authorities, who had been monitoring the case, took over, and the pressure intensified. Last year, five officers wound up taking plea deals, agreeing to testify at trial in hopes of receiving leniency when their own prison sentences are handed down.

Their pleas contained shocking details of a seemingly coordinated cover-up: a planted gun retrieved by Kaufman from his garage; officers successively revising their accounts of the shooting; phony witnesses; a secret meeting to coordinate stories.

Three of the cooperating officers were involved in the shooting, including two men who admitted they themselves fired at civilians.

At trial, the three officers told jurors that after the shooting ended, they saw no evidence that the civilians, many of them grievously wounded, had been armed.

Brissette was shot numerous times, from the heel of his foot to his head. He was killed by shotgun pellets that struck the back of his head, experts testified. Susan Bartholomew's arm was nearly blown off by a large-caliber round, and it was later amputated. Her daughter's legs were torn apart by bullets. Holmes was struck multiple times, from his face to his abdomen, and had to wear a colostomy bag for years after the incident.

Oh, and after they riddled an unarmed family with bullets, they chased a man and his mentally handicapped brother down and shot them as they fled - killing the handicapped man.

Then they stomped on his body. Then they dragged it to a nearby car. Then they set it on fire.Then they all agreed to cover it up.

Then their department whitewashed the investigation into the shootings.

And on and on.

Life without parole would be too good for these people - so being cleared of murder, their sentence can only be inadequate.

Ye gods.

Hunting Down Malware

This was awesome.

Computer security experts get a copy of malware called Stuxnet so they can write the counter for it - and in the process they discover something very, very interesting:

Within a week ... about 38,000 infected machines were reporting in from dozens of countries. Before long, the number would surpass 100,000. Stuxnet was spreading rapidly, despite signatures distributed by antivirus firms to stop it.

As Chien and O Murchu mapped the geographical location of the infections, a strange pattern emerged. Out of the initial 38,000 infections, about 22,000 were in Iran. Indonesia was a distant second, with about 6,700 infections, followed by India with about 3,700 infections. The United States had fewer than 400. Only a small number of machines had Siemens Step 7 software installed—just 217 machines reporting in from Iran and 16 in the United States.

The infection numbers were way out of sync with previous patterns of worldwide infections—such as what occurred with the prolific Conficker worm—in which Iran never placed high, if at all, in infection stats. South Korea and the United States were always at the top of charts in massive outbreaks, which wasn't a surprise since they had the highest numbers of internet users. But even in outbreaks centered in the Middle East or Central Asia, Iran never figured high in the numbers. It was clear the Islamic Republic was at the center of the Stuxnet infection.

The sophistication of the code, plus the fraudulent certificates, and now Iran at the center of the fallout made it look like Stuxnet could be the work of a government cyberarmy—maybe even a United States cyberarmy.

Read the whole thing at Wired.

(H/t Schneier)

Bannana Republic, Within The Republic

Oh, how I love this:

There's an address in Cheyenne, Wyo. — 2710 Thomes Ave. — where 2,000 companies are based. But it's not a skyscraper. Or even an office complex.

It's a basic, 1,700-square-foot brick house.

Not because it's good news or anything. But because it's yet another example of one of those things that only happen in other countries - happening right in our backyard.

(Via Reuters)

The Wisdom of Others

There's just a ton of stuff I'm catching up on - and while I could write up my thoughts on each, I'd just be wasting your time.

Here's a sampler of what I've been reading, and a teaser for each.

First, Blame The Lenders - Barry Ritholtz

There is a familiar odor to the “Blame the profligate Greeks” meme now circulating. It is little more than a brilliant marketing ploy. This distraction ignores the simple reality that lending to insolvent people, institutions and countries is first and foremost the fault of the lenders.


Let us start first with the Greeks, who lied their way into the EU (with the help Goldman Sach’s financial engineers). The ridiculous pay and vacation structure, the absurdly generous pension plan, the excessive spending by Athens. They are a nation that can honestly be described as tax scofflaws. Yes, Greece is a mess.


Which begs the question: WHO THE FUCK WOULD LEND A DIME TO THESE PEOPLE?

(H/t CJR)

The Wageless, Profitable Recovery - Steven Greenhouse, NYT

In their newly released study, the Northeastern economists found that since the recovery began in June 2009 following a deep 18-month recession, “corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1 percent” of that growth.

(H/t CJR)

Wisconsin Court Supremely Slippery - Brendan Beery

But the Wisconsin Supreme Court stated—citing another case from the same court from 1943—that a court cannot determine whether a law is constitutional until after it has been published because prohibiting its publication somehow interferes with the process of making law. (The idea here seems to be that although a court may rule that a law already made is unconstitutional, a court may not hold that the legislative branch has behaved in an unconstitutional way while making the law. Why this would be so is anyone’s guess.)


In support of this proposition, the court did no more than cite the antique case from 1943 and restate its premise. In so doing, as was noted in a stinging dissent, the court simply skipped right past more recent cases that seem to point in the opposite direction.


But more importantly, the court never explained how stopping the publication of a law interferes with the lawmaking process. By the time a law is ready for publication, it has already been made. No more committees will meet, no more floor debates will erupt, and no more drafting or editing will be undertaken. So, again, how does stopping the law from being published interfere with the process of making the law? If there is any intelligible answer to this question, the Wisconsin Supreme Court certainly could not have been bothered to provide it.

(H/t Illusory Tenant)

A Corporation, but not a Gableman, is a Person - Illusory Tenant

In the Wisconsin statutes, the distinction between the court's supervisory and original jurisdictions is codified by their separate numberings:
§ 809.70 and § 809.71. The Department of Justice chose the latter.


It would not have occurred to the Department of Justice to petition the court to take jurisdiction of an original action because Ozanne v. Fitzgerald could not, obviously, be an original action for the purposes of the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. Hence the supervisory petition.

¶7 This court has granted the petition for an original action ...

No such petition existed, until the Gableman court manufactured it.

How Wal-Mart Swiped JPMorgan in $16 Billion Debit-Card Lobbying Battle - Phil Mattingly and Robert Schmidt, Bloomberg

(Via CJR)

It's hard to pull a single quote out of this one - it's pretty much a tale of powerful corporate interests waging political war. The right thing for consumers ends up happening, but only because it also happens to benefit retail operations who were wealthy enough to pay for a lobbying war.

...and there's this winner

Biggest Tax Avoiders Win Most Gaming $1 Trillion U.S. Tax Break - Jesse Drucker, Bloomberg

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) has cut its income taxes by $7 billion since 2005 by booking roughly half its worldwide profits at a subsidiary at the foot of the Swiss Alps that employs about 100 people.


Now Cisco, the largest maker of networking equipment, wants to save even more -- by asking Congress to waive most federal taxes due when multinationals bring such offshore earnings home. Chief Executive Officer John T. Chambers has led the charge for the tax holiday, which would be the second since 2004. He says it would encourage companies to “repatriate” as much as $1 trillion held abroad, spur domestic investment and create jobs.

(H/t CJR)

Local Govt's to Secondary Lenders: Cough Up What You Owe

(Via Naked Capitalism)

Remember that whole MERS thing? Y'know the one where big lenders are too impatient and cheap to follow local laws about title transfer - so they make up a shell corporation so they can ignore the law?

Well, local govt's smell money they're owed - and they're suing.

“Defendants have not paid the Transfer Tax because they have claimed on the face of the documents they have recorded that the transaction is exempt from the Transfer Tax. They sometimes claim the transaction is exempt because they are government entities and, under Michigan statute, government entities are exempt. Other times they claim they are exempt pursuant to federal statute.

“Neither claimed exemption applies. Defendants are federally chartered private corporations and not government entities. Defendants’ federal law exemption from certain taxes does not include the Transfer Tax.”

Give 'em hell, folks. There's money in them thar hills!!

Ensign's Other Shoe Drops

(Via TPM)

BREAKING: Senate Ethics committee actually does something. Gives its report on frm. Sen. Ensign to the Dept. of Justice for criminal investigation.

It's still too early to cheer, but most times you wouldn't even get this much out of the Senate.

And seriously, read the report. Here's a sample:

Mr. Hampton found out about the affair on December 23, 2007, while he and his wife were on the way to the airport to pick up their son for the holidays. Senator Ensign was in a separate car on the way to the airport to greet the Hamptons son as well. While waiting in his car as Ms. Hampton went to pick up their son s girlfriend from her home on the way to the airport, Mr. Hampton saw that his wife left her cell phone in the car and he viewed a text message from Senator Ensign to Ms. Hampton that made clear an affair was occurring. Press reports indicate the text message stated “How wonderful it is ... Scared, but excited.”

When Ms. Hampton came back to the car, Mr. Hampton stated “I know what you and John are doing.” Mr. Hampton then called Senator Ensign and said that he knew what was happening. Senator Ensign did not inform Darlene Ensign at the time. When the cars were parked in the airport parking lot, Mr. Hampton jumped out of his car and chased Senator Ensign in the airport parking lot. Ms. Hampton went into the airport and sat there for “hours.” Ms. Hampton later took a taxi back to her home. Once she was home, Mr. Hampton sought to get the couples together to talk about what occurred.

On December 24, 2007, the Hamptons went to the Ensigns’ home, and the four adults met in Senator Ensign s home office. Both Senator Ensign and Ms. Hampton stated that the affair would stop, and Senator Ensign wept and apologized. The Ensigns and Hamptons then had a meeting with their children. The families then celebrated Christmas together. According to Ms. Hampton, had Senator Ensign stopped pursuing her at that time, as he had committed to do before both families, the affair would have ended at that time.

In January 2008, Senator Ensign began texting Ms. Hampton again, and the affair resumed. Ms. Hampton was very despondent during this time frame. Senator Ensign gave Ms. Hampton $3,000 in cash to purchase items for herself and to use for hotel rooms in Las Vegas that Ms. Hampton reserved in her name at his request for their clandestine meetings, because “it always had to be under my name, it could never be under his name.” 

Owch.

Tone and Undertone

Following WI Judge Sumi's reiteration of her restraining order, you would think a certain amount of conservative face-saving would be in order.

"You're wrong" shouts the WI Dane County GOP:

For those people that don’t know, the state of Wisconsin has an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The executive branch has the job of carrying out the laws and setting the agenda for his administration. The legislative branch has the job of passing laws. And the judicial branch has the job of interpreting and applying the laws and ensuring their constitutionality.

By Judge Sumi’s action today, it is apparent that she has forgotten those roles and she thinks that her job is to be a member of all three branches. The Republican Party of Dane County believes it is time for the judicial branch to stop being judicial activists. If they want to legislate the laws, they need to run for political office not judicial office.

But those are words of political hacks. You expect them to be snide and petty.

But the outright defiance by those serving in government is pretty surprising:

But minutes [after Judge Sumi re-issued her restraining order], outside the court room, Assistant Attorney General Steven Means said the legislation "absolutely" is still in effect.

Last night on Maddow, WI Sec. of State suggested that the GOP might not have the votes if Act 10 is voided for the open meetings violation. Whether or not that's true - that would be perhaps the strongest possible motivator for brass knuckles tactics to get Act 10 over the finish line now.

The WI Dept of Administration is publishing new access rules for the Wisconsin capitol building again.

And the hairs are going up on the back of my neck. Judge Sumi has a hearing on the union lawsuits today, and the follow up to the open meetings lawsuit this Friday.

What are these guys up to?

Unringing a Bell

(Via The Wheeler Report)

Wisconsin just keeps on with the crazy. You would think there would be little ambiguity about how a piece of legislation goes into effect.

The bill is passed, signed and becomes law.

But there's more procedure than that and the bill is not law until it is published.

And (following a complaint) Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issues a temporary restraining order

I do, therefore, restrain and enjoin the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.

Judge Sumi schedules a hearing for March 29, and goes out of the state.

As everybody now knows, the State's Legislative Reference Bureau publishes the Act with this disclaimer:

* Section 991.11, WISCONSIN STATUTES 2009−10 : Effective date of acts. “Every act and every portion of an act enacted by the legislature over the governor’s partial veto which does not expressly prescribe the time when it takes effect shall take effect on the day after its date of publication as designated” by the secretary of state [the date of publication may not be more than 10 working days after the date of enactment].

† Pursuant to section 35.095 (3) (b), Wis. Stats., the secretary of state designated March 25, 2011, as the date of publication for this act. On March 18, 2011, the Dane County Circuit Court enjoined the secretary of state from publishing 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 until further order of the court. Section 35.095 (3) (a), Wis. Stats., requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to publish every act within 10 working days after its date of enactment.

Litigants rush to court and demand a temporary restraining order be issued to the LRB, making them “un-publish” and bizarrely, the GOP Majority leader makes multiple statements that the LRB publication puts the law in effect.

With Judge Sumi unavailable, it falls to Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah B. O’Brien to release a statement denying a temporary restraining order – because – as she puts it:

There will likely be questions raised in the underlying lawsuit about the significance of the “publication” by the Legislative Reference Bureau in light of the existence of the restraining order issued by Judge Sumi. I am not taking any position on whether the LRB has effectively “published” the act, nor on the effect of the LRB’s action in regard to a potential effective date of the bill. However there is no critical urgency to resolving those questions. Restraining orders are issued to protect the status quo. As Judge Sumi said in issuing the temporary restraining order enjoining publication of the bill on March 18, 2011: Finally, the necessity to preserve the status quo. I think relief is essential to preserve the status quo, which is what exists here and now. The bill has passed. But it has not been published.

1 I am using quotation marks around the word “published” to make clear that this is not a ruling on whether the Act has now been legally published.

Whatever the significance of it may be, the LRB acted today by putting the bill on its website. That bell cannot be “unrung”. Ordering that the bill be taken off the website, as I believe Attorney Ozanne would like to request, would have no legal significance. Therefore I am declining to hold a hearing in this matter

The judge is studiously avoiding the publication issue, but is implicitly saying that Judge Sumi's order preserved the status quo "which is what exists here and now." i.e. Ain't nothing changed, so I'm not issuing another order that will in no way affect the legal status of Act 10.

Taken as a whole you have a series of things that just don't follow each other so good:

• Judge Sumi restraining further implementation of Act 10
• a state agency doing something it is legally obligated to do and that has no implementation significance, 
• GOP leadership claiming that the law has been implemented
• and the WI Department of Administration Secretary saying his department is moving forward with implementing the Act

A very generous soul might excuse Sen. Fitzgerald's statements as mere grandstanding, but I would think the WI DoA would be flirting with contempt.

Madness.

Low Bidders

Q: Aren't you a little young to be international arms dealers?
A: Yes. Yes we are.

Just read this:

...[Efraim] Diveroli and [David] Packouz soon got the break they were looking for. On July 28th, 2006, the Army Sustainment Command in Rock Island, Illinois, posted a 44-page document titled "A Solicitation for Nonstandard Ammunition." It looked like any other government form on fbo.gov, with blank spaces for names and telephone numbers and hundreds of squares to be filled in. But the document actually represented a semi-covert operation by the Bush administration to prop up the Afghan National Army. Rather than face a public debate over the war in Afghanistan, which was going very badly indeed, the Pentagon issued what is known as a "pseudo case" — a solicitation that permitted it to allocate defense funds without the approval of Congress. The pseudo case wasn't secret, precisely, but the only place it was publicized was on fbo.gov. No press release was issued, and there was no public debate. The money was only available for two years, so it had to be spent quickly. And unlike most federal contracts, there was no dollar limit posted; companies vying for the deal could bid whatever they wanted.

Based on the numbers, it looked like it was going to be a lot of money. The Army wanted to buy a dizzying array of weapons — ammunition for AK-47 assault rifles and SVD Dragunov sniper rifles, GP 30 grenades, 82 mm Russian mortars, S-KO aviation rockets. The quantities were enormous — enough ammo to literally create an army — and the entire contract would go to a single bidder. "One firm fixed-price award, on an all-or-none basis, will be made as a result of this solicitation," the tender offer said.

The solicitation was only up for a matter of minutes before Diveroli spotted it, reading the terms with increasing excitement. He immediately called Packouz, who was driving along the interstate.

"I've found the perfect contract for us," Diveroli said. "It's enormous — far, far bigger than anything we've done before. But it's right up our alley."

The pair met at Diveroli's apartment to smoke a joint and discuss strategy. Supplying the contract would mean buying up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ammunition for the kind of Eastern Bloc weapons that the Afghans used. Because such weapons were traded in the gray market — a world populated by illegal arms dealers, gun runners and warlords — the Pentagon couldn't go out and buy the ammo itself without causing a public relations disaster. Whoever won the contract to arm the Afghans would essentially be serving as an official front operation, laundering shady arms for the Pentagon.

...

The Pentagon can be a slow-moving bureaucracy, a place where paperwork goes to die. But because the Afghanistan solicitation was a "pseudo case," it had been designed to move swiftly. On the evening of January 26th, 2007, Packouz was parking his beat-up old Mazda Protege when Diveroli called.

"I have good news and bad news," Diveroli said.

"What's the bad news?" Packouz asked.

"Our first order is only for $600,000."

"So we won the contract?" Packouz asked in disbelief.

"Fuck yeah!" said Diveroli.

...and this is where I point out that Packouz is 25 years old and Diveroli is 21.

Seriously.
H/t Felix Salmon

Supremes to Fed: Spill It

I'll be buggered. Mark Pittman's wins his FOIA lawsuit, posthumously.

Yemen: Ground Level Account

(Via the Telegraph)

On the other side of what the demonstrators have begun to call "Taghyir" or "Change" Square, others stripped off their jackets and advanced towards the ever more relentless gunfire, pointing towards their chests as if in an invitation to shoot.

As the carnage continued, killing 52 and wounding hundreds more, victims were brought to a nearby mosque that had been turned into makeshift hospital.

Photographs showed the dead, identity cards and miniatures of the Koran laid on their corpses, lain in rows across the carpeted floor on an inner prayer room.

One young boy, barefoot and dressed in an Arsenal football club T-shirt, had been shot just above the eye. Another photograph showed a veiled woman cradling the body of her young son, his arms outstretched as if in supplication.

In one video, a man holding the body of his dead brother is shown making a tearful telephone call to his mother to tell her, in a faltering voice, that her son is dead.

Nearly all the bodies in the photographs had bullet wounds either in the forehead, neck or in the back of the head. There seems little doubt that this was the work of trained marksmen.

Yet President Saleh, while expressing his sorrow, claimed that the gunmen were either the demonstrators themselves or irate residents neighbouring the university who had grown tired of the noise of the protests – a claim denied by the residents themselves.

The opposition coalition at the forefront of the protests accused Mr Saleh, a key US ally against al-Qaeda, of perpetrating crimes against humanity.

"It is a massacre," said opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri. "This is part of a criminal plan to kill off the protesters, and the president and his relatives are responsible for the bloodshed."

Much of the sniper fire emanated from a building allegedly owned by a regional governor close to President Saleh, further evidence, the opposition said, of the regime's involvement in the killings.

Video footage showed a masked man crouching behind a balustrade on the building's roof.

As the gunfire continued unabated, a group of protesters stormed the rooftop, braving gunfire to capture 10 of the snipers – seven of whom were said to have possessed government identification papers.

One of the suspected snipers was dragged into the streets, where he was beaten and clubbed by protesters, while a second was allegedly flung off the edge of the building.

Ye gods.

Debtor's Prison? Seriously?!

CJR's Ryan Chittum picks out a WSJ piece about - of all things - debtor's prison in the US.
The WSJ points out "More than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can't or won't pay to be jailed."

The money quote:

Your hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts at work:

In September 2009, Jeffrey Stearns, a concrete-company owner, answered a knock at the door from a Hancock County, Ind., deputy sheriff. The deputy was holding a warrant to arrest Mr. Stearns for not paying $4,024.88 owed to a unit of American International Group Inc. on a loan for his pickup truck.

After being handcuffed in front of his four children, Mr. Stearns, 29 years old, spent two nights in jail, where he said he was strip-searched and sprayed for lice. Court records show he was released after agreeing to pay $1,500 to the loan company. “I didn’t even know I was being sued,” he said, though he doesn’t dispute owing the money. “It’s the scariest thing that ever happened to me.”

AIG, of course, got hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts from taxpayers. Now it’s having those taxpayers thrown in jail. Nice.

Yeah, Nice.

Credit Card Interchange Reform

Not exactly a barn burner of a subject line - but here's a great way to draw someone's interest into why this subject matters, courtesy of Rortybomb:

“Credit cards are the lifeline of my business as customers use plastic for everything from; a cup of coffee, to a pack of gum, to a tank of gasoline. Credit cards and debit cards are easy to use, but what customers don’t know is that every time they use a credit card, I pay a fee. For example, a customer purchases a local newspaper (75 cent retail) my profit is 9 cents. If the customer is using a debit card I would pay 25 cent for the transaction fee plus .08% interchange fee. If the customer puts down a Visa credit card the transaction fee would be 19 cents plus 1.68% interchange fee. Regardless of the payment option I lose money on the sale.”
–Jinger Duryea, President of CN Brown which owns Big Apple convenience stores across Maine

A minimum charge by the credit card companies eats retail vendors lunch.

Credit card companies don't care - but there are more merchants than credit card companies. You would think that would make them care.

But you'd never get that from corporate shill like Edward Wyatt

Memo to Gov. Walker

You aren't Reagan, the teachers aren't PATCO, and the Berlin wall has been down for decades.

Also, if you're taking your cues from Reagan - he didn't agree with you either:

"These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland … They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost."
- Reagan in 1980 discussing Polish workers standing up to the Soviets.

Siege and Standoff

(Via The Wheeler Report)

Okay, there's an awful lot of stuff hitting the wire about the Wisconsin State Capitol building.

Image via WaxingAmerica

Supposedly, the building is being locked up, people are being denied entrance, barriers have been erected, and windows are being bolted shut. (the bolted windows story appears to be crap)

This, apparently in defiance of a court order that the building be open.

What the hell is going on?

Well, if you read the WI DofA memo - whoever is calling the shots has decided to get the last remaining protesters out of the capitol by denying them essentials and waiting until they leave.

All access to the capitol in the meantime is strictly controlled until these holdouts give up the ghost. On the one hand you could say this is good policing - certainly preferable to going in and dragging people out. On the other hand, there are reports that state GOP legislators do not seem subject to these new access procedures, nor are attendees to a party for the Joint Finance Committee (this per State Rep. Mark Pocan's open letter).

Trust between the sides is nonexistent.

So, the position of the administration that is essentially "Leave, and then we'll let everyone back in" is a very hard sell. Apparently a judge has ordered the capitol open by Monday, March 7 - (but even then, there's noises from Dems like it will be open tomorrow) after the protesters are removed.

So we could have arrests, or other confrontation with the remaining capitol protesters. Or not.

And to top it all off - we have the WI Senate issuing orders to detain the missing Democratic State Senators.

Which is an interesting escalation, since (at least according to law firm Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach) it is illegal to do so (emphasis added):

Members of the legislature shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest: nor shall they be subject to any civil process, during the session of the legislature, nor for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session.

This is not an absolute bar against sanction - Wisconsin Statues Section 13.26 spells out a brief list of things that the legislature can punish "...contempt, by imprisonment, a breach of its privileges or the privileges of its members..."

Here's the first item on that list:

(a) Arresting a member or officer of the house, or procuring such member or officer to be arrested in violation of the member's privilege from arrest.

And, thus we have an interesting dilemma for WI State troopers.

And Wisconsin is no closer to ending this mess anytime soon.

Late Edit: Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Albert has ruled that the state's restrictions on access are illegal- and that the protesters must leave the capitol when the building is closed.

Which seems very reasonable.

It remains to be seen if the new restrictions on capitol access that follow this order are equally reasonable. Restricting protests to the ground floor seems very unreasonable.