Suitably Flip

Liveblogging the Bernie Madoff Sentencing

Reuters is tweeting it live from the courthouse (victims' statements, pictures, et al) where the superlative Ponzi schemer is about to get up to 150 years.

Update:  Boom!  All 150.  Crime doesn't pay, kids.

It's Less Cute When You're Not a Fabulous A-Lister

It's been a rough few days for the paparazzi-unfriendly New York State Senate majority whip Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn).  After being arrested on Friday, he was stripped today of his $22,000 leadership stipend by majority leader Malcolm Smith.

Parker, of Brooklyn, is accused of chasing down and confronting a New York Post photographer to prevent him from taking his picture Friday night. He's charged with felony and misdemeanor criminal mischief, assault and menacing. If convicted of a felony, he could lose his seat.

"I expect to be here every week," Parker said from Albany. "I think that the (court) system will work. It's worked for me in the past."

Indeed it has.

The encounter was the latest in a string of reported assaults involving Parker, who has held office since 2002.

In 2005, he was arrested on charges he punched a traffic agent who was writing him a ticket. The charges were dropped after Parker agreed to take an anger management class.

That year, Parker's security pass for state buildings was temporarily suspended for repeated violations of security regulations. A former aide complained that Parker had once assaulted her, then threatened her for talking about the incident.

Last summer, another aide filed a report with police saying Parker had shoved her and smashed her glasses during an argument. At the time, Parker claimed that the woman hit him first.

Smith said he's also awaiting a report on a recent confrontation he was told was "heated discussion" involving Parker and state police in an Albany parking garage.

If you ask me, Smith's giving off mixed signals.  Earlier this year, he agreed to seat alleged lady-face-slasher (and habitual, self-dealing diverter of taxpayer funds) Hiram Monserrate into his new Senate majority.

To what can we credit the majority leader's suddenly limited tolerance for violent recidivism among his caucus members?

Previously:  Clutzy Hiram Monserrate Sworn Into NYS Senate

I'm All For Reducing the Size Of Government...

But the prosecution of crime seems like one of those functions we oughta hang onto.

It's Broken Windows theory in reverse.

Don’t even bother submitting the cases, [District Attorney Robert] Kochly said Monday in a memo to the Contra Costa County Police Chiefs Association. “If they are submitted, they will be screened out by category by support staff and returned to your department without review by a deputy district attorney,” he wrote…

Supervisor John Gioia, who represents Richmond, said the list of crimes that Kochly says he won’t prosecute is far longer now than what he told the board during its budget deliberations.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for the chief prosecutor in the county to inform the public at large what cases they’re not going to prosecute,” Gioia said…

Kochly said prosecutors will still consider charging suspects with certain misdemeanors, including domestic violence, driving under the influence, firearms offenses, vehicular manslauhter, sex crimes and assault with a deadly weapon.

(There's also a video.)

At least Kochly had the good sense to announce this policy to the general public.  Recessions can be stressful enough.  The criminal element, so often the hardest hit by economic strife, doesn't need to be further disquieted by fear of reprisal for their indiscretions, instigated in the first place by the likes of Jamie Dimon and Vikram Pandit.

Happily, Andrew Cuomo's office remains sufficiently well-heeled to pursue the real villains.

(HT: Hot Air)

Don't Call It a Comeback

Charitably, you might call it premature.

From Roger Stone:

Having worked for Richard Nixon, I know a little bit about come-backs. The key element is timing. After some time in the wilderness, a public image can be remade. Eliot Spitzer seems to have missed this point with the wildly premature roll-out of his most recent bid for public respectability.

Newsweek, owned by the Washington Post Company that so loathed Nixon for doing exactly what Spitzer did - using the Government to spy on political opponents, leads the charge for the Spitzer rehab with a cover story.
...
Newsday tells us Spitzer has mastered the art of the recovery although 'the steamroller' has yet to grant an interview for anything but soft-ball interviews and known sympathizers in the media. No tough questions about his actions. In his recent Today Show, interview Spitzer tried to minimize his use of prostitutes by saying "it was not long"but in fact, Spitzer regularly used call-girls, sometimes as often as twice a week, for at least ten years including the time he was Attorney General and was prosecuting call-girl rings!

It is this hypocrisy which prevents Eliot Spitzer from ever having the public trust again.

Stone goes on to hint - none too subtly - that Kirstin Davis (the madam with whom Client #9 dealt) will divulge additional damaging information about Spitzer if he goes ahead with his plans to re-enter public life.

Rupert Murdoch: Cop Killer By Proxy

"No doubt."

Worse still, Murdoch's Manchurian "may not be alone" in this "crazy, they're-coming-to-get-us mindset," per noted socio-criminologist Rick Sanchez.

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Update:  Please excuse my coarse rebuke of gentle Sanchez.  A Hot Air commenter points out Rick's Twitter page, which makes it quite clear the courageous man-child is afflicted with some devastating variety of mental debilitation.

You keep on keepin' on, sport.

The Man With the Golden Pajamas

Still stuffing money in your mattress?  That's bush league.

In the Change Times, your sleepwear is the preferred place to stash your cash.  The only problem is that it doesn't offer much security if you happen to be wearing those pajamas when the feds show up to arrest you for your involvement in government corruption.

Madoff, SEC Agree to Settle Civil Case

The assets stay frozen and Bernie agrees not to contest the facts of the complaint when the time comes to determine his civil penalty.

The SEC says the basic facts of the complaint are that Madoff committed a $50 billion fraud and told his sons his investment business was a sham. Madoff told them he had "absolutely nothing," that "it's all just one big lie," and was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme," according to the complaint.

Madoff's next apperance in connection with the criminal case is scheduled for February 11, unless he's formally indicted in the mean time.

Obama Now Officially President

Let's face it - you're not truly President until your brother gets busted.

Kenyan police say the half brother of President Barack Obama has been arrested for possession of marijuana.

Area police chief Joshua Omokulongolo said George Obama was picked up Saturday and was being held at the Huruma police post in the capital. Omokulongolo said officers found one joint of marijuana on him.

George joins an esteemed BROTUS roster that includes Billy Carter (comically failed beer baron, purveyor of White House access to Libya), Roger Clinton (coke dealer, reckless driver, peace disturber), Neil Bush (S&L scandal entanglee, among other things), and Ted Kennedy (bad bridge-stayer-onner).

 (HT: Dan Riehl)

Blagojevich Impeached, Patterson Confused

A nearly unanimous vote (114-1) in the Illinois House today assures Blago will head to the State Senate for removal hearings.

The "1" is Democrat Milton Patterson, representing - can you guess - the south side of Chicago.

[Patterson] said after the roll call that he didn’t feel it was his job to vote to impeach the governor. He declined comment on whether he approved of the job Blagojevich is doing.

Clutzy Hiram Monserrate Sworn Into NYS Senate

Hide the glassware.

Hiram Monserrate was sworn in as a new state senator Wednesday while authorities in New York City continued to investigate reports that he viciously attacked his girlfriend during an argument.
...
As he waited earlier in the Senate chamber, Monserrate said his girlfriend was not there; he didn't say why.

I can guess...

Monserrate was charged with assault and weapon possession after Karla Giraldo's face was slashed on Dec. 19 at his Queens home. Both the former New York City councilman and Giraldo say the incident was an accident - Monserrate told police that he tripped while holding a glass of water and that the glass accidentally hit her.

Hiram needs to be more careful.  Ms. Giraldo required between 20 and 40 stitches to close up her face after the shards of glass were removed from in and around her eye.  (Based on her injuries, the glass also appears to have punched her in the face.)

Jammie Wearing Fool notes that a security tape in the custody of law enforcement purportedly shows Monseratte "dragging the scared, bleeding woman from his apartment" and that the "woman looks scared out of her mind and trying to get away from this guy."

Notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary, New Yorkers familiar with Monseratte's record know he is not a violent criminal.  In the past, his alleged misdeeds have always been limited to self-dealing, misappropriation of taxpayer money, and abuse of non-profit privileges.

Bill Richardson Will Spend More Time With His Family

Wow.  My money was on Rahm to be the one to bow out of the Obaministration before Inauguration Day.  Who had Richardson?

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

"Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact," he said Sunday in a report by NBC News. "But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process."

Still two weeks to go of course.  Plenty of time for Emanuel (or Holder or Clinton or Daschle) to reconsider their appetite for federal scrutiny.

Update: Drew at AoSHQ:

He's staying on as Governor of New Mexico, which is apparently a non-partisan position since the fact that Richardson is a Democrat isn't mentioned in the story.

Richardson is under investigation in a 'pay to play scheme' (sound familiar?) involving a company that received a state contract after making a contribution to Richardson's political action committee

A federal grand jury is investigating whether a financial firm improperly won more than $1.4 million in work for the state of New Mexico shortly after making contributions to political action committees of Gov. Bill Richardson (D).

The probe focuses on whether the governor's office urged a state agency to hire CDR Financial Products. ... In the New Mexico case, the FBI and federal prosecutors are investigating how CDR, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., won lucrative fees from the New Mexico Finance Authority in 2004 soon after donating $100,000 to two Richardson organizations.

Update:  Inevitably, Team Obama insists this is not the Bill Richardson they thought they knew.

SEC Probing Several Other Potential Madoff-Style Scams

That's according to the obligatory person familiar with the situation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is casting a wide net as it investigates the apparent $50 billion fraud allegedly committed by Bernard Madoff, and it continues to look into whether Mr. Madoff's family had any connection to wrongdoing, according to a person familiar with the probe.
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The publicity surrounding the Madoff scandal has sparked a half-dozen SEC investigations into other alleged Ponzi schemes, the person familiar with the probe said. Investors are taking closer note of red flags such as promised returns that seem too good to be true, and some are bringing their concerns to the SEC, this person said.

I Smell a Reality Show

Think Punk'd meets The Running Man.

President George W. Bush took the very rare step Wednesday of revoking a pardon he had granted only a day before, after learning of political contributions to Republicans by the man's father and other information.

Bush pardoned 19 people on Tuesday, including Isaac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, N.Y., who had been convicted of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and of mail fraud. On Wednesday, the White House issued an extraordinary statement saying the president was reversing his decision in Toussie's case.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the new decision was "based on information that has subsequently come to light," including on the extent and nature of Toussie's prior criminal offenses. She also said that neither the White House counsel's office nor the president had been aware of a political contribution by Toussie's father that "might create an appearance of impropriety."

Asked to comment on his successor's decision to reverse a pardon due to the possible appearance of impropriety or quid pro quo, Bill Clinton's head exploded.

The title of the pilot, I assume, will be "Worst Christmas Ever".  And with another 4 weeks in office, there's time to film at least a season's worth of episodes.  Production costs would be minimal - it's just Bush phoning various felons and congratulating them on their pardons and commutations, followed by a montage of happy commutee footage over the following few days (collecting personal effects from the prison's outtake office, making plans with loved ones to make up for lost time, the inevitable "Things will be different now" speeches, etc.), then the devastating follow-up call.  If the deluded kids who don't get the yellow slip on American Idol are glorious train wrecks, just imagine the ratings potential of those "reveal" scenes at the end of each episode.  And since they're all criminals, you don't need to feel guilty about delighting in the spectacle.

(HT: JWF)

Madoff Investor Commits Suicide

Apparently.

Authorities found Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet at 7:50 a.m. with no pulse at his office of Access International Advisors, located on Madison Avenue a couple of blocks from Rockefeller Center.

A French newspaper is reporting that the 65-year-old de la Villehuchet committed suicide. The New York medical examiner spokeswoman says it has not determined the cause of death yet.

Madoff is accused of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that wiped out investors around the world, with big funds like de la Villehuchet's being especially hard hit.

His $1.4 billion fund specializes in managing hedged and structured investment portfolios.

Seeing a significant portion of your $1.4 billion fund evaporate and contemplating the repercussions from your own investors would be sufficient to inspire a certain amount of dismay, but (without knowing anything about de la Villehuchet's fund vis a vis Madoff's), it's also possible that authorities had come knocking on the doors of Madoff's large institutional investors to suss out whether any outside parties were in any way complicit in (rather than sloppily blind to) the fraud.  If so, a whole different level of dismay may have befallen de la Villehuchet in recent days.

French business paper La Tribune obtained some relevant quotes, but it's unclear (to me, anyway) whether these are characterizations made by the police to the paper or excerpts from a note or statements made by de la Villehuchet himself, as recounted to the paper by police.

Mr. de La Villehuchet, 65, the founding partner and chief executive at Access International Advisors LLC of New York, was "unable to resist the pressures that followed the eruption of the scandal," according to the report.

He had tried "night and day" to recover funds that Access International raised in Europe through its $1.4 billion Luxalpha fund and had begun legal action in the United States against U.S. authorities, according to the report.

Spitzer's VIP Streetwalker Scores Record Deal, Pun

After a longer-than-expected delay, Client #9's best gal has finally embarked on her singing/dancing/writing/acting/modeling/handbag-designing/celebreality career.

The call girl who cost New York [Democratic] governor ELIOT SPITZER his job has signed a music deal with Violator Records - the same company behind rappers BUSTA RHYMES and MISSY ELLIOT.

Ashlee Dupree shot to fame when her relationship with married politician Spitzer hit the headlines in March (08).

An aspiring singer, Dupree benefited from the exposure and her songs Move Ya Body and What We Want, both posted on her MySpace.com webpage, went on to receive over 3 million internet hits.

And now Dupree has landed a record deal with Violator, according to the New York Post.

A source confirms to AllHipHop.com, "She deserved a fair shake and Violator isn't scared of the controversy."

Crazed Scientologist/Amateur Samurai Fatally Shot By Scientology Celebrity Centre Security Guard

Whouldathunk all that brainwashing and sci-fi scripture could go so wrong?

A security guard at the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Centre in Hollywood on Sunday shot and killed a man wielding two samurai swords, police said.

Police detained the guard for questioning but said that a surveillance tape at the facility backed his claim that he fired his semiautomatic handgun to protect himself and two colleagues.
...
Det. Wendi Berndt said the man was involved with the church "a long time ago."

"There was a previous relationship, but it is unclear to what degree," she said.

A teenager who saw the man arrive in the parking lot said he stopped the car abruptly in the driveway and climbed out with a 5-foot sword in his hand and an angry expression on his face.

Tony Marquez, 17, said the man, who was bald and had tattoos on his arms, walked toward the building, then returned to the car to get the other sword.

This Is What Real Voter Intimidation Looks Like

Evil Republicans want to intimidate poor people by requiring some kind of polling place ID verification, under the cynical guise of attempting to curb the coordinated voter fraud we now know to be occurring across the country.

If only they knew that a much more effective method of intimidation is to have armed supremacists simply block the entrance to the polling place.

Update:  Michelle Malkin notes these statements made yesterday by the New Black Panther Party.

”We will not allow some racists and other angry whites, who are upset over an impending Barack Obama presidential victory, to intimidate blacks at the polls,” [Minister Najee Muhammad, national field marshal for the New Black Panther Party] said. “Most certainly, we cannot allow these racist forces to slaughter our babies or commit other acts of violence against the black population, nor our black president.”

Muhammad added, “We must organize to counter and neutralize these threats using all means at our disposal. This is a great time for our people, and we must ensure that peace prevails for our people.”
...
“We will be at the polls in the cities and counties in many states to ensure that the enemy does not sabotage the black vote, which was won through the blood of the martyrs of our people,” he said.

Update:  Wow.  Via Election Journal, here's amateur video by an enterprising Penn student (and credentialed poll watcher) encountering a Black Panther who falsely identifies himself as "security" while brandishing his nightsick outside the entrance to the polling place at 1221 Fairmount in Philadelphia.

Update: The next chapter (also from Election Journal), in which the cops arrive...

Ted Stevens Guilty on 7/7 Counts

He'll be sentenced on February 25th, when he could get up to five years.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was convicted today on seven counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in improper gifts he received from 1999 to 2006, a stunning blow to a political career that has lasted more than 40 years and marked Alaska’s entire history as a part of the United States.

Stevens, 84, now faces a question over whether he will resign, and if he does not, whether he can win reelection Nov. 4 in an already tough race.
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The heart of the government’s case against Stevens centered on the nearly total overhaul of Stevens’ home in Girdwood, Alaska, during 2000-2001. Bill Allen, a close Stevens’ friend and former CEO of VECO Corp., an Alaska oil-field services company, paid for much of the renovation work and used VECO employees to carry it out. That work cost more than $180,000, and Stevens never paid for it or reported it on his annual financial disclosure forms.
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Stevens, in particular, was argumentative and crotchety when questioned by prosecutors, and his testimony failed to convince the jury that he was an innocent man.

Suddenly It All Makes Sense

Ashley Todd is a Paulnut.

In March, Ms. Todd was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas, group leader Dustan Costine said. He said Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies.

“She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information,” Mr. Costine said last night. “We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her.”

About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul.

(HT: LGF)

Previously:
Ashley Todd Made It All Up
Drudge: Assailant Carves Letter "B" Into Face Of Female McCain Volunteer

Ashley Todd Made It All Up

Unbelievable.  Please lock this idiot up.

Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker. 

At a news conference this afternoon, offiicals said they believe that Ashley Todd's injuries were self-inflicted. 

Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

I guess she was dumb enough to carve the letter backward in the mirror after all.

Previously:  Drudge: Assailant Carves Letter "B" Into Face Of Female McCain Volunteer

Drudge: Assailant Carves Letter "B" Into Face Of Female McCain Volunteer

You stay classy, presumed Obama supporter.

Update:  More.

Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard tells Channel 4 Action News that the victim was robbed at knifepoint on Wednesday night outside of a Citizens Bank near Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m.

Richard said the robber took $60 from the woman, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using the knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.

Update:  It does appear to be a "B", but you have to turn your monitor upside down.

Michelle Malkin and Ace think it smells fishy, for a variety of reasons.

I'm not convinced the "backwards B" (some are suggesting she could've carved it herself and didn't think to accomodate for the mirror's mirror effect) is terribly meaningful, for a few reasons. 1) If she were on the ground and the assailant were above her, it'd be easy enough for him to be oriented such that this was a proper B from his perspective.  2) This is a digital image; it could've been flipped somewhere along the line.  3) She didn't seek medical help, so she could've taken this picture of herself in a mirror (camera chest-high, from several feet away, then cropped just the face). 4) If her account is accurate, the assailant was pretty clearly deranged. It's not a huge mental leap to assume a deranged man, capatable of carving into another person's face, might draw a letter backward.

That said, there are a couple of other weird details that Michelle and Ace point out (including the fact that she didn't seek medical help), but this story is plenty weird one way or another, so who knows.

Hateful Republicans Now Reportedly Firing On Obama Campaign Bus

I wonder why this isn't getting any media attention.

Oh, wait.  I think I may have mixed up the details...

We learned at this morning’s Stop Obama Rally here that the McCain/Palin Straight Talk Express came through town yesterday.  It arrived with a window shattered by a .22 caliber weapon.  It had also been hit by an unknown number of paint balls from a paint ball gun or guns.  There were reportedly no injuries and neither candidate was on board. One local man who saw the damage and spoke with the McCain/Palin staffers said the attack(s) had occured in southern New Mexico that same day.

That makes more sense.

(HT: JWF)

New Details On RNC's FEC Complaint Over Obama's Misbegotten Millions

Amanda Carpenter's got 'em.

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Previously:  RNC Filing FEC Complaint Over Obama's Excessive, Secret, and Foreign Campaign Cash [Update: $34 Million In Particularly Filthy Lucre]

Update:  Seems like a good excuse for a commemorative movie poster.

I'm delighted to see that McCain's new "gloves off" strategy involves informing people about Congressional Democrats' (including Barack Obama's) responsibility for the bad decision making at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that helped lead us into the current financial crisis (despite years of warnings by McCain and other Congressional Republicans about the government-sponsored firms' irresponsible lending practices).

Now what I'd like to see is John McCain challenging Barack Obama from tomorrow night's debate podium to finally release the contributor details of his more than $200 million in small-dollar donations, given the gross irregularities involving fictitious donors that have already been substantiated among these transactions.

Failure to oblige would be another example of Obama's consistent lack of transparency, even in the face of alleged large-scale fraud.  And complying with the request would open one helluva kimono.

Update:  More bogus donors surface.  (HT: HA Headlines)

CBS News has learned that two donors to the Obama campaign that gave a total of $7,722 appear to have made their contributions under fake names that look like they were written by a mouse running across a keyboard: Dahsudhu Hdusahfd of Df, Hawaii with the following employer CZXVC/ZXVZXV and Uadhshgu Hduadh listed as living in Dhff, Florida listed their employer as DASADA/SAFASF.

The campaign can't chalk this up to ignorance, because they clearly noticed the irregularity.  They just failed to rectify it.

Despite numerous refunds from the Obama campaign, Hdusahfd still has a record of giving a total of $7500 to Obama which is well over the legal limit for the primary and general election of $4600. Hduadh gave $14,200 but the Obama campaign returned all but $222.00.

A Big Juicy Lie From the Obama Campaign

The One's chief political strategist David Axelrod would have you believe the candidate was ignorant of Bill Ayers' terrorist bona fides in 1995 when the unrepentant former fugitive bomber and FBI most wanted list member hosted Obama's political coming out party in his living room.

It's possible - though imagination-stretchingly unlikely - that Obama was simply clueless about the revolting criminal behavior of the neighbors with whom he worked privately and with whom he got in bed politically, but that scenario isn't much more encouraging.

RNC Filing FEC Complaint Over Obama's Excessive, Secret, and Foreign Campaign Cash [Update: $34 Million In Particularly Filthy Lucre]

Instapundit notes an email from the RNC that reads:

"Republican National Committee (RNC) Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross will announce today a complaint that the RNC is filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against the Obama campaign. The complaint will address foreign national and excessive contributions accepted by the Obama campaign that demonstrate it is operating outside of federal campaign finance law."

The presumption is that the complaint relates to the pattern of thousands of evidently fictitious small-dollar donations Obama has accepted from donors like "Will, Good" and "Pro, Doodad" (irregularities that have already invited requests for verification from the FEC).  For contributions under $200, the FEC requires significantly fewer contributor details to be published by the campaign, unless and until their aggregate contributions exceed that threshold.

"Will" and "Pro" often reported similar nonsense (e.g. "Loving" and "You") as their employers of record and sometimes resorted to simple gibberish and random strings of letters that neighbor each other on the keyboard.

The country of origin for more than 10,000 contributions has also raised eyebrows at the FEC, with 520 appearing to originate in Iran alone.

The suspicion (my suspicion, anyway) is that these thousands of apparently bogus contribution records are being used to illicitly funnel tens (if not hundreds) of thousands [or tens of millions, per update below] of dollars to the campaign on behalf of contributors who either 1) have very deep pockets, but have already maxed out their personal contributions and need a way to shovel unlimited funds under the radar, or 2) are not U.S. citizens and are therefore prohibited from contributing.

After all, the campaign's displeasure at the Americans-only restrictions of American elections is well documented.

It's hard to imagine such a large scheme being perpetrated without one of more campaign treasury staffers being complicit (or grossly, willfully thick-headed).  In the past, the campaign has issued partial refunds related to these highly suspect donors, but (in another move that's marvelously idiotic in its most innocent interpretation) didn't refund enough to bring those donors anywhere near the $4,600 contribution limit.

Nor is this precisely strike 1 (or strikes 1-10,000, rather) for the Obama campaign.  Long-time readers will recall that no politician outside of New York took more dirty money from Norman Hsu and his band of straw donors than Barack Obama - more than $70,000 in total.  An unconfirmed account relayed to me at the time (by someone in a position to know such things) also maintained that representatives from the Obama campaign approached Hsu when they caught wind of his Clintonian largesse and began asking questions about where all of his money was coming from, agreeing to keep their mouths shut only when Hsu agreed to grease Obama's palm.

This is obviously just a distraction on the part of people who don't want to talk about socializing healthcare or imposing windfall profit taxes on select businesses, but I suppose for real law and order buffs, determining the extent of federal malfeasance perpetrated by the Obama campaign might be of at least passing interest.

Previously:  Good Will Funneling

Update:  Amanda Carpenter has much more info on the complaint (which will be formally filed on Monday), including this nugget.

RNC General Counsel Sean Carincross said various press reports have called into question at least 11,500 donors names. Those names donated approximately $33.8 million to Obama's campaign.

Carincross said, "There were no quality control devices," such as a method to verify a U.S. passport if a citizen was donating to Obama's campaign from overseas. He said he believed Obama had knowingly accepted foreign donations and taken no reasonable action to investigate the illegal donations.

For reference, $33.8 million represents roughly half of Obama's cash on hand, as of the most recent filing.

Obama: Too Liberal For His Crooked Cronies

This is not the poker buddy Barack thought he knew.

The FBI on Wednesday raided the county offices of a former Illinois state senator who is a poker-playing buddy of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
...
Mr. Walsh, who served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2005, was endorsed by Mr. Obama in his county executive election bid. With the support of some of Mr. Obama's U.S. Senate volunteers, he easily defeated incumbent Republican Joseph Mikan.
...
According to sources, the Walsh investigation may be tied to lobbying firm Smith Dawson and Andrews, which was hired in 2006 for $10,000 per month to help Will County acquire federal grants.
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A corn farmer from Joliet, Mr. Walsh has supported his friend's presidential bid, and campaigned for him in rural and farming areas of the state. They are seen hugging each other in photos before Mr. Obama's announcement that he was running for president.

The two men became tight friends during their tenure in the Illinois Senate and bonded over games of poker. According to a report in Time magazine, Mr. Walsh lost to Mr. Obama once with what he thought was a winning hand, and then slammed down his cards and said: "Doggone it, Barack, if you were more liberal in your card-playing and more conservative in your politics, you and I would get along much better."

Scientology Slapped With Civil RICO Suit

Xenu's most perfect creation is named individually.

(Sounds like a potentially flimsy suit, despite the "religion" clearly having it coming.)

Tom Cruise is named in a $250 million federal lawsuit that is using the RICO statute against the Church of Scientology. Ex-Scientologist Peter Letterese, a longtime critic of the church, filed suit in Southern District Court in Florida on July 15 alleging, among other things, that members of the church harassed him after he left.
...
One of Letterese's beefs is that the church allegedly uses a business book, "Effective Sales Closing Techniques," as part of its teachings. He says this violates his intellectual property rights, since he bought the rights to the book from the widow of author Leslie Dane.

Cruise's lawyer, Bert Fields, did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology, told us: "This is a frivolous suit based on falsehoods."

As for the Dane book, Pouw said, "Earlier this month, the federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit already rejected similar claims and affirmed that the church's use of the book in question was fair use. Mr. Letterese was penalized $266,000 by a California court for refusing to provide evidence to support many of the same allegations."

If RICO applies, the damages can be tripled.

The Super Adventure Club probably isn't what the statute's drafters had in mind, but then again...

Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, one of its main drafters, insists that Congress never intended to restrict its application to the Mob. "We don't want one set of rules for people whose collars are blue or whose names end in vowels, and another set for those whose collars are white and have Ivy League diplomas," he says.

Presumably the same goes for people whose collars are red and who rule the Galactic Confederacy.

(HT: WWTDD)

An Affirmative Defense For Batman

I'll finally be seeing The Dark Knight tonight (in IMAX as God intended) and I'm pleased to be going into the experience with the cloud of Christian Bale's motherboy assault flap no longer looming overhead.

From The Sun, via Tyler Durden:

BATMAN actor Christian Bale flipped during a slanging match with his mother and sister after they told him a sob story, it was revealed last night.

Welsh-born Bale was alleged to have pushed and shoved mum Jenny, 61, and Sharon, 41. ... Jenny inflamed the situation by hurling insults about his wife Sibi, 38.
...
Sharon and Jenny, a part-time clown from Bournemouth, left the hotel on Monday morning and, on the way to their Dorset home, stopped at a Hampshire police station and reported Bale for assault.

If you're a clown, do you get into it with a man who clobbers homicidal clowns for a living (even if he's your son)?  If Bale's mother were a part-time scarecrow, this would've happened three years ago.  Pleading "Batman" ought to be enough to make this one go away.

On the other hand, maybe this was all an intricate publicity stunt.  Just the kind of buzz this scrappy little indie flick needed to get noticed.

Rumors Of His Death Were Roughly As Exaggerated As Everyone Assumed

Samuel Israel, III, the hedge fund manager and convicted fraudster who took a detour while driving himself to prison to begin his 20-year sentence last month, in order to pitch himself off the Bear Mountain Bridge, has turned himself into authorities.

Mr. Israel, who disappearing last month shortly before he was supposed to begin serving a 20-year prison term, turned himself into the Southwick, Mass., police department at 9:15 a.m. EDT Wednesday, an assistant to Southwick Police Chief Mark J. Krynicki said Wednesday.

Mr. Israel, the former chief executive of Bayou Management LLC, is expected to be turned over to U.S. Marshals Service, which led the manhunt, later Wednesday, she said.
...
On June 9, Mr. Israel's sport-utility vehicle was found abandoned on a bridge in Westchester County with the words "suicide is painless" scrawled in the dust on the hood -- about 90 minutes before he was to report to prison in Massachusetts.

Authorities investigated at the time whether he may have jumped from the bridge in a suicide attempt, but they later ruled that out.

2nd Amendment Quiz Time!

The Supreme Court may have upheld the Constitutional rights of Washington residents to bear arms, but here in New York, good luck carrying concealed french fries, much less a firearm (unless you're spectacularly wealthy, of course).

In a city with such a charmingly totalitarian spin on individual liberties, can you guess where the easiest place to arm yourself to the teeth would be?

1. Gun show/exhibition
2. Craigslist
3. Weehawken
4. Property clerk's office, 1 Police Plaza

Answer after the jump.

---

If you guessed Property clerk's office, 1 Police Plaza, kudos.

Nearly one out of three handguns and rifles that had been turned in to the police could not be immediately accounted for in a Manhattan property clerk’s office, according to a city audit released on Tuesday that criticized the Police Department’s storage procedures.

The audit, conducted by the office of William C. Thompson Jr., the city comptroller, examined the records of 324 weapons chosen at random out of thousands in storage in the Manhattan property division. Ninety-four of them could not be immediately found in their assigned storage areas.
...

After the initial search, it was determined that 70 of the 94 weapons had been returned to their owners or destroyed, Mr. Thompson said, while 24 “miraculously” turned up on shelves from where they had previously been missing after several attempts to find them.

“At no time were we given a satisfactory explanation about where the firearms had been, how they had been located or how they had been returned to the same spot that the auditors and the property clerk staff had checked on at earlier dates,” Mr. Thompson said.
...
The report said the Manhattan office had 29,576 handguns and thousands of rifles as of June 2007. It said auditors found rifles stacked on top of one another, some without identifying tags.

Child Raping Murderer Dispatched

Florida just performed its first execution since Governor Bush declared a moratorium in 2006 and it couldn't have happened to a better monster.

Convicted child killer Mark Dean Schwab has been executed by lethal injection for the murder of Junny Rios-Martinez, 11, of Cocoa.
...
Schwab's death came 16 years to the day after being sentenced to death for Rios-Martinez's murder.

He was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Rios-Martinez in 1991, after calling the boy's school, pretending to be his father.

More on Schwab's crimes.

Schwab was released from prison on March 4, 1991, after serving three years of an eight-year sentence for an aggravated rape committed in 1987. The rest of his sentence was commuted and he was placed on 15 years of probation.

A month later, Cocoa resident Junny Rios-Martinez, Jr., went missing. Schwab had seen Junny's picture in the March 21, 1991 edition of Florida Today. He became friendly with the boy and his family, introducing himself as an associate of Malcom Denemark from that newspaper. After getting to know Junny, Schwab exploited his interest in surfing by saying he had left Florida Today for a job at a surfing magazine. On April 18, 1991, friends saw Junny get into a U-Haul truck.

On April 20, 1991, Schwab called his aunt in Ohio, claiming a man named "Donald" forced him to kidnap and rape Junny, under threat of killing Junny's mother, Vicki. The next day, police tapped a phone call with Schwab's aunt's permission, and determined Schwab's location. Schwab was arrested, and led police to Junny's dead body, found in Canaveral Groves, a rural area of Brevard County, Florida in a footlocker that was not completely shut and wrapped in rope.

Nice work, Florida.  Only 387 to go.

Dhimmitude Of the Day

The following image may be offensive to some readers.  Browser discretion is advised.

Feast your outrage, gentle readers, on this abomination produced by the ignorant, racist xenophobes that comprise the police department in Tayside, Scotland.

Are you sensing the outrage, but can't quite put your finger on it?

It's a dog, folks!  A picture of an actual dog.  And not everyone likes dogs.

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.   

Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community. ...

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Happily, outrage seems to have prevailed and authorities have at least partially capitulated by acknowledging and apologizing for the grievousness of their transgression.

'We did not seek advice from the force's diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.'

Well, okay, but that's scant consolation, given the pattern of intolerance shown by Tayside police who have been parading this four-legged furball of anti-Muslim hatred all around town and even beyond their borders.

Cards featuring police dog-in-training Rebel have been distributed to communities throughout the area to advertise the single number point of contact for non-emergency calls to the police.
...
A spokesman for Tayside Police said: ... 'His incredible world-wide popularity - he has attracted record visitor numbers to our website - led us to believe Rebel could play a starring role in the promotion of our non-emergency number.'

Think again, pigs Halaal-friendly pork substitute.

(HT: QandO)

God Lucky Is Neither

Clearly this is a sign of... something.

A man named God was arrested Saturday near a Tampa church for selling cocaine, police said.

Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police said he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood.

(HT: HA HL)

Unbefreakinglievable

From Roll Call (HT: K-Lo):

Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) announced Tuesday that he will run for re-election in November despite being the target of federal bribery charges.

Previously: A Picture's Worth 90,000 Dollars

Feds Ready To Steamroll Spitzer Over Schtupergate

Karma seems determined to keep the overzealous prosecution ledger in balance.

The noose appears to be tightening around sex-crazed ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The federal case against him is so strong that prosecutors had no interest in striking cooperation agreements with the ringleader of Spitzer's hooker-supplier, Emperors Club VIP, and his second in command, sources told The Post's Murray Weiss.

Prosecutors have records of Spitzer's transactions, phone records and taped conversations with Emperors Club, and are confident they need little more to nail him on charges that could include violating prostitution laws and money laundering, sources said. Probers are also said to be looking into whether he used campaign funds to pay for his pleasures.
...
A hooker booker who worked for Brener, Temeka Lewis, pleaded guilty in a cooperation agreement that requires her to testify about Spitzer's involvement with the ring and his alleged attempts to conceal payments for sex.

Tony Rezko Now Officially Eligible To Become Would-Be President Obama's First Pardon

Michelle Malkin's got the details.

- Guilty on 12 of 15 counts mail/wire fraud
- Not Guilty on 1 count attempted extortion
- Guilty on 2 of 6 counts corrupt solicitation
- Guilty on 2 counts money laundering

Looks like Barry's real estate buddy might be going away for a good long while.  Perhaps as long as 4-8 years, depending on whether Obama gets re-elected.

"Kids, You Noticing All This plight?"

It's too bad the Griswolds lived in such primitive times.  These internets are getting handier by the day.

SpotCrime is a mashup that plots recent criminal activity onto Google Maps, allowing users to shy away from seedier parts of towns they may not be familiar with.
...
Crimes are depicted as small icons according to the type of incident, and users can filter crimes over a certain date range or time period. Clicking on an icon brings up more detailed information (when available). The site currently supports only a select number of (mostly large) cities, but it says that it is expanding quickly.
...
SpotCrime says that they are offering the service as a free tool to both police stations and the general population. While it’s hard to believe that the police don’t already know about the rougher areas of town, the visual overlays could conceivably held them identify trends. Other potential applications of the data include real estate evaluation, and (for more paranoid users) “safe” driving routes mapped by GPS.

I figured I'd check out my neighborhood (one of the NYPD's lowest crime precincts) and to my surprise, found a couple of very recent shootings within a few blocks.  New York is still the safest large city in the country, but when viewed like this, it's a bit unnerving.

And that's just the last 30 days.

Just think, by this time next year, most of those little icons will have become "Law and Order" episodes.

Speaking of headline ripping, did anyone catch last night's season finale?

Wednesday's season finale about a governor and a call girl isn't about Eliot Spitzer, cautions series star Sam Waterston — although it's fair to say anyone, even Waterston, could get a bit confused.

Asked recently if the show was dramatizing Spitzer's story, the actor replied, "That's what we're shooting right now." Then he quickly offered a clarification.

"I shouldn't say we're doing the Eliot Spitzer story. I should say we're doing a story about a politician who gets into trouble because of sexual questions ... involving prostitution," Waterston told The Associated Press.

I didn't even realize they pretended their plots weren't, er, *inspired* by true events, despite the formal on-screen disclaimers about their being wholly fictional.  For a while, didn't their ad campaign actually feature the phrase "Ripped from the headlines?"

Ire In the Sky

Two days, two impossibly bizarre tales of aerial hijinx.

A British holiday plane was diverted to France after a couple became embroiled in a "drunken" air-rage fight at 35,000ft over the Mediterranean.

Eyewitnesses said the woman passenger "took a bite out of the face" of her boyfriend or husband.
...
One eyewitness said: "A couple who had too much to drink had a real set-to. They were in their late 20s. She bit him on the face and took a chunk out of his cheek. The crew tried to restrain them but they were mainly female.

"Two off-duty police officers joined in to help when they saw what was happening.

"The Captain ordered both the man and the woman to be restrained but it looked like there was only one restraint. The plane diverted to Lyon where they were arrested and detained by the local gendarmes."

 

Previously:  Fire In the Sky

(HR: HA Headlines)

Fire In the Sky

This is a case of a news story gone horribly, implausibly wrong.

A 19-year-old flight attendant angry at having to work a route set a fire in an airplane bathroom, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing, authorities say.

Eder Rojas, of Woodbury, Minn., was arrested in Minneapolis on Wednesday. He is being prosecuted in Fargo, where the Compass Airlines flight with 72 passengers and four crew members landed safely on May 7, after smoke filled the back. No injuries were reported.
...
Authorities said Rojas asked for extra paper towels and tissue before the plane left Minneapolis. He allegedly took a lighter from another flight attendant's home earlier that day and had it with him when he went through the security checkpoint.
...
The court documents say Peterka called Rojas, who was assigned passengers in the back of the flight, and asked him to check the bathroom. Rojas, another flight attendant and a passenger were credited with quickly putting out the flames with fire extinguishers, authorities said.

Sorry... I'm confused.  Was this a Mad Lib?  If the Coen brothers had written anything so ludicrous, they'd have been drummed out of the quirky movie business.

None of these facts make any sense.

The Godfather As Accidental Allegory For 21st Century U.S. Foreign Policy

As you might guess, it doesn't quite work.

The LA Times gave it a shot (with the upshot being that the current administration is the hot-headed Sonny Corleone).  See-dubya retooled it with somewhat more inspired casting choices (e.g. Cynthia McKinney as Fredo).

For my money, it still works better as an allegory for the mafia.

Ashley Dupre Learned a Trick Or Two From Her Gubernatorial Trick

It seems Eliot Spitzer's call girl has a beef with Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis.  And in a move certain to make Client #9 beam with pride, she's taking him to court in pursuit of exorbitant self-enrichment.

The lawsuit seeks more than $10 million in damages. In legal documents, Dupré alleges that Girls Gone Wild representatives approached her while she was vacationing in Florida in 2003, offered her alcohol and cajoled her into exposing her breasts for their cameras when she was just 17 (and not of proper legal age to sign a release form allowing her to be filmed).

Since then, the suit claims, Girls Gone Wild has illegally exploited Dupré's name, picture, voice and likeness in a number of deceptive ad campaigns and on Web sites.

Francis said he was "surprised and in fact amazed" by the lawsuit, noting he has not released new video of Dupré "due to corporate policy of not using footage of individuals younger than 18" and asserting she gave her consent on video, providing identification.

"She's seeking $10 million for topless photos taken in front of a room full of people, including two newspapers and multiple crews we had in the room," adds Francis. "These images were taken in public places and contain no sexual contact. We expect to triumph in this matter."

(HT: WWTDD)

Bracing For the Race War; Councilman Barron, Please Report To Makeup

The NYPD officers involved in the shooting death of Sean Bell outside a Queens strip club in November 2006 have been found not guilty of manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver were acquitted of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell outside the Kalua club in the South Jamaica section of Queens. Marc Cooper was found not guilty of reckless endangerment.
...
Outside the courthouse, news of the verdict caused the crowd that had gathered there to begin chanting obscenities at the more than 100 police and court officers posted outside the building.           

[New York Supreme Court Justice] Cooperman rendered his verdict after a seven-week trial in Kew Gardens. More than 50 prosecution and six defense witnesses testified.      

Witnesses said that, at about 4 a.m. on Nov. 25, 2006, Bell was arguing with a man outside the strip club. Isnora, dressed in plain clothes, claimed he heard mention of a gun in the argument and followed Bell and two of his friends to their car and stood in front of it with his gun drawn.      

Oliver, 36, who allegedly fired his gun 31 times, and Isnora, 29, who fired 11 times, faced as much as 25 years in prison. Cooper, 40, faced as much as a year in prison. Prosecutors said he fired his gun four times.    

No word yet from New York City Councilmember and New Black Panther Charles Barron, who has endeavored tirelessly to inspire the city's black population to spark a violent race war with the police, if justice (as he predetermined it) did not prevail in this case.

In late 2006 and early 2007, there were several rallies held throughout the city (often headlined by Barron) in which the elected official was unmistakable in his desire to see black New Yorkers visit physical violence on police officers.  As it turned out, two of the four officers involved in the shooting were black, though Barron didn't let that get in the way of his insistence that the shooting was racially motivated.  In Barron's eyes, those are simply "house Negroes who will shoot us at the behest of their masters."

Below is video I captured at one such rally and a partial transcript of the radical legislator's comments.

What we need here is a regime change.  What we need here is a radical, up, down, turn upside down – this police department is out of control.

Any time, in any institution in America, racism permeates every institution in America.  And the police department is no exception.  And we don’t care whether the shooters were Black, Latino, because the Negroes who were in – the house Negroes during slave time, they were Black too.  But slavery is still racist.  So just because we got some house Negroes that will shoot us at the behest of their masters, once some of those police officers joined the police department, White, Latino or Black, they all turned blue.  And because the victims are Black, we are under a racist, out of control police department.

I don’t care what they say about me.  They say Charles, you’re a [undecipherable] radical.  Charles, if you call for an explosion, that I’m the one that’s calling for violence.  Let me tell you something. We need to let the system know that they have to fear us.  They have no fear for us.  And once you put the fear into some people’s hearts, whether it’s politically, economically, or physically, they will leave you alone.

So brothers and sisters, I want to say to you today, just as we said over and over again, if we don’t get justice in this case, don’t ask us to demonstrate again. If we don’t get justice in this case don’t tell us to be cool, to be calm.

Don’t blame me, as a social forecaster, for forecasting an explosion, just like you don’t blame the weatherman for forecasting the storm.

We’ll let everybody know that we’ve had enough.  Enough is enough is enough.  We’re fired up.  We won’t take no more.

Barron was reportedly outside the courthouse this morning, so I don't think we'll have to wait long before he starts "forecasting" again.

Previously:
Inciting Race Warfare in NYC
New Black Panthers Want to Kill Cops

Debate Is Over: Hamburgers Do Cause Crime

Last week, we spent some time mulling the correlation between slaughterhouse employment and violent crime.  While we weren't quite sold on the argument that the former causes the latter, we're now forced to swallow our pride and concede that the evidence is mounting.

This isn't exactly violent crime, but it's no less compelling an example of the effect of beef proximity on criminal proclivities.

Police on Wednesday arrested an adult movie producer, two cast members and crew for filming a porn movie at a McDonald's shop in Higashi-Matsuyama City, Saitama Prefecture, in January.

Producer Kunikazu Ishii, 51, an actress, 21, an actor, 29, and staff were arrested for allegedly shooting a porn film at the McDonald's outlet around 3 p.m. on Jan 24. A customer noticed them and called police. McDonald's staff were apparently unaware of what was going on.

One of the suspects was quoted by police as saying, "We didn't think it would be a problem as long as nobody noticed what we were doing."

Given that this took place in a Japanese franchise, we priggish westerners need to bear in mind that Japan has long held a somewhat, er, saucier view of McDonald's than our own.

In 2005, the goofy, non-provocative Ronald was replaced with the ravishing Ronette.

Fast food chain McDonald's is attempting to woo adults back into its  outlets in Japan with a gender-bending makeover.

Gone are the clown shoes and baggy overalls, swapped for red-and-white striped bikini and flowing dress, thigh-length leggings and high heels.

Previously: An Affirmative Defense For the Hamburglar?

An Affirmative Defense For the Hamburglar?

The Freakonomics fellows are nothing if not compelling post titlers:

Do Hamburgers Cause Crime?

Most of us who eat meat regularly would still rather not kill an animal with our own hands. So we have, for generations, delegated that work to others.

Jennifer Dillard, at Georgetown Law, authored a new paper looking at what that delegation costs the workers of industrial slaughterhouses. She argues that prolonged work on a kill floor exposes workers to the risk of psychological damage, including post-traumatic stress disorder, and that they should be compensated under O.S.H.A. for any ill effects they suffer.

Giving slaughterhouse workers therapy might also reduce another cost associated with the meat-processing industry: increased crime.

Writing for the American Sociological Association, Amy Fitzgerald finds a spill-over effect from the violent work of the slaughterhouse into the surrounding community. According to her research, U.S. counties that have slaughterhouses consistently have higher rates of violent crime than demographically similar counties that don’t.

Meh - I'm a little skeptical.  Not of Dillard's findings, per se.  I can swallow the idea that a career in meat slaughter and a tendency toward violence would positively correlate (though it may be that those already pre-disposed toward violence are more likely to select careers in flesh carving, rather than said careers turning the mild-mannered into monsters).

But the bone I'm looking to pick is the apparent implication that (from an economic standpoint) the delegation (and pleasantly complete obfuscation) of the process of slaughtering food for the general population amounts to a misleadingly inefficient arrangement, due to the unrecognized emotional, financial, and societal costs that Dillard argues result from concentrating all the skinning, draining, gutting, and chopping among relatively few people.

That might be true.  But to evaluate the proposition fairly (even if you take as a given that the causality involved is that slaughterhouse employment breeds violent criminal tendencies, not the other way around), wouldn't you need to consider whether there's a similar reduction in violent criminal tendencies among the vast majority of the population who are spared direct interaction with meat in its pre-table state?

I don't think you'd have to shake the internets too hard to scare up a bunch of studies arguing that children who are made to hunt by their parents have greater tendencies toward violence.  Ignoring the political incongruity of the two suppositions, doesn't it stand to reason that we'd all be a little edgier, a little axe-happier, if we had to go out back and kill something every night before dinner?

If so, then delegating these unpleasantries is probably all the more important (including as a measure of crime prevention).  If there is an inefficiency, it's probably not the highly concentrated allocation of the horrors of food service, but rather the level of compensation offered to those who shoulder the ghastly burden.  If leaving the butchery (and the resulting emotional distress and criminality) to the few has the side effect of sparing society higher crime levels (and, relatedly, of sparing citizens mania and incarceration), then studies like Dillard's (despite arguing the opposite point) are important, because it'll only be through better cost visibility that the market will equilibrate and slaughterhouse wages will (if I'm right) increase.

Governor (D) Indicted

No, not that one.  This one.

The governor of Puerto Rico and at least 12 others, including members of his campaign finance committee, were indicted in San Juan in the culmination of a three-year investigation into the governor's campaign finances, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office on the island.

Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá is expected to turn himself in Friday to face a variety campaign related crimes: conspiracy to violate election laws, making false statements, wire fraud, program fraud, conspiracy to defraud the IRS and filing a false tax return.
...
Acevedo, a member of Puerto Rico's Popular Democratic Party, is in the midst of a reelection campaign.

Tentative congratulations are in order for Senator Clinton, as this party superdelegate had publicly endorsed Barack Obama.  If Acevedo loses his convention vote, it'll offset the one Hillary lost when Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace.

(HT: Hot Air)

No One Mourns the Wicked

Based on new revelations following new prostitution ring busts, Ashley Dupre is beginning to look like Eliot Spitzer's Paula Jones - just the tip of a much larger, discreet and totally classy, exotic iceberg. (HT: JWF)

Disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been identified as a long-standing client of a second high-priced call-girl ring, The Post has learned.

The ex-governor regularly patronized Wicked Models, the Manhattan-based operation taken down Tuesday, according to financial documents and other evidence unearthed in a yearlong prostitution investigation, law-enforcement sources said.
...
At the center of the new ring is Kristin "Billie" Davis, a busty bottle blonde who hails from a [r]ough-and-tumble California trailer park. She has a reputation for hard-partying, shameless self-promotion and a rumored 10,000-name-long client list.

Davis' alleged multimillion-dollar empire was smashed by city vice cops as she made plans to skip town. Prosecutors say she netted some $2 million last year by pimping out ladies of the night for as much as $1,000 an hour through four Web sites.
...
Davis, 32, pleaded not guilty to money laundering and promoting prostitution in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday and was held on $2-million bail. She faces 15 years in prison if convicted of running the ring, which also allegedly operated the Madison La A'mour and New York Body Miracle agencies.

The cynic in me (tragically jaded by revelations that the puritanical, prosecutorially merciless chief law enforcement official of New York State would (allegedly) so flagrantly trample state and federal laws) feels regrettably compelled to assign non-zero odds to the possibility that the ex-Governor might have been assisting Billie in her preparations to skip town.

After all, she wasn't just Spitzer's madam, according a truly gifted euphemist.

  A source said Davis personally serviced Spitzer.

"She personally interfaced with Spitzer a number of times" since 2003 before she became a madam, a source close to Davis said.

Shtupergate: The Resignation

It was just a matter of time:

Amid Charges of Spitzer Tryst, Embattled Prostitute "Kristen" Expected to Resign

Spitzer Aide: More Correct To Say That He Is Not Resgining

It's hard to imagine a sentient, non-delusional being conceiving of a way that Eliot Spitzer can remain in office, but maybe this is a hail Mary trial balloon (to mix a metaphor) to gauge just how appalled the public might be to the thought of the Governor clinging to the office he so thoroughly and ironically disgraced.

Or maybe he just feels he needs to polish up this one and only bargaining chip to convince federal prosecutors he has to be coaxed into resignation.

A top aide to Governor Spitzer said today Mr. Spitzer has not made up his mind about whether to step down from office despite mounting calls for his resignation amid allegations that he arranged to meet with a $4,300-a-night prostitute in the nation's capital on the eve of Valentine's Day.

"He has not made up his mind," a senior adviser to Mr. Spitzer, Lloyd Constantine, said. "It is more correct to say that he is not resigning."

This, as new information comes to light suggesting Spitzer has been soliciting prostitution for at least the last six years and possibly more than ten (i.e. throughout the duration not only of his short tenure as Governor, but of both four-year terms as New York's Attorney General).

(HT: Ben Smith)

Previously:
Shtupergate: Shtup By Numbers
From Troopergate To Shtupergate

Shtupergate: Shtup By Numbers

As we enter the 436th and likely final day of the rollicking Spitzer administration, Zubin Jelveh at the Odd Numbers blog takes a look at the economics of high-end prostitution, as evidenced by the Emperors Club's pay scale and service quality distribution.

To Jelveh, something doesn't add up.

According to the complaint filed against the prostitution ring which serviced Eliot Spitzer, the owners of the Emperors Club brought in at least $1 million in revenue over roughly a 3-year period.
...
Let's assume that the Emperors Club and the prostitutes split the proceeds 50-50, so there is another million dollars out there that went to the roughly 80 women. That means that over the three-year period, the call girls earned about $12,5000 each on average, or a little over $4,000 per-year.

So why are these women choosing careers that don't pay them as much as a legal job? It could that getting paid for sex is a part-time gig which brings in supplementary income. Or it could be that not all of the money earned by the Emperors Club is deposited into the bank account tracked by the F.B.I. This could mean that the $1 million gross revenue figure is an understatement.

I'd guess it could also mean that the $1 million figure cited several times in the federal complaint with regard to prostitution receipts, money laundering, etc. is deliberately conservative, perhaps siginificantly so 1) to ensure the complaint remains accurate and unimpugned as various numbers shift around upon further investigation, 2) because $1 million is a big enough number to make the point, 3) because it's a big round number, and 4) possibly because some greater crime or aggravating condition might be triggered at that threshold, so exceeding it - by however much - becomes the key point.

Either way, I tend to agree with Jelveh's latter hypothesis - that the Emperors Club was generating considerably more than $1 million in annual revenues.

Previously:  From Troopergate To Shtupergate

---

Update:  On a related note, Slate.com offers business tips for aspiring high-class fleshmongers gleaned from the Emperors Club website, including:

Exploit all possible revenue streams. Most brothels stick to selling sex. Emperors' Club has a more diverse business model. Alongside the hooker portfolios, there's a page inviting companies to advertise on emperorsclubvip.com. (To inquire about rates, please e-mail ads@emperorsclubvip.com). The site promises access to a well-heeled clientele, noting that members' gross annual income averages $3.63 million per year. Perhaps Spitzer received some kind of financial aid—his annual salary is a scant $179,000.

From Troopergate To Shtupergate

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace was already a swift one, going from a landslide 69% victory in November 2006 to a negative opinion rating of 80% in February 2008.

Today's bombshell admission by the Governor of his involvement in a prostitution ring might tend to hasten this downfall.

The governor’s travel records show that he was in Washington in mid-February. One of the clients described in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, the Emperors Club VIP on the night of Feb. 13.

Mr. Spitzer appeared on a CNBC television show at 7 a.m. the next morning. Later in the morning, he testified before a Congressional committee.

An affidavit filed in federal court in Manhattan in connection with that case lists six conversations between the man, identified as Client 9, and a booking agent for the Emperors Club.

The Emperors Club reportedly arranged for female accompaniment at rates as dear as $5,500 an hour and also offered investment advice.  Full service, indeed.

I'll say it again:  Don't blame me, I voted for Faso.

The Governor is about to hold a press conference to address this latest scandal.

Previously:  4 Out Of 5 New Yorkers Agree: Spitzer Is Lousy

---

Update:  Hot Air is poised to put up video of the presser.

Update:  It sounds like this may be the result of a deal cut by one of the four people charged last week in connection with the bust of the Emperors Club.  [Update: Or not - the trail may have started with a federal probe into Spitzer's suspicious money transfers ]

All four were charged with conspiracy to violate federal prostitution laws: Mark Brener, 62, and Cecil Suwal, 23, who live together in Cliffside Park, N.J.; Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32, of Brooklyn; and Tanya Hollander, 36, of Rhinebeck, N.Y.

Brener, accused of being the leader and recruiter of the prostitutes, and Suwal, accused of controlling the operation's bank accounts, also were charged with conspiracy to launder more than $1 million in illicit proceeds.

Lewis and Hollander were accused of arranging meetings between prostitutes and clients. They were released late Thursday on $250,000 bail each.
...
In a criminal complaint, FBI agent Kenneth Hosey said clients were told a wire transfer to the Emperors Club would be identified as QAT Consulting to appear to be a business transaction.

No guarantees this is the same organization, but here's a web site for QAT Consulting Group, with plenty of double entendre fodder.

As our client, you will be protected with “attorney- client privilege of information”, as defined and secured by the Law of the United States—your privacy is strictly yours and your business/tax affairs will always remain yours private matters.
...
Our services are comprehensive and hands on. We combine our business management and financial expertise with the expertise of our highly qualified associates- investment consultants, lawyers, bankers,independent trustees, marketing and promotion specialists, artists and feng shui masters.

And via Allah, here's the more overt Emperors Club site, featuring the likenesses of their various "spokes models."

Flashback:  Little did we know this was dirty talk.

Update:  Fox News reports that sources say the Governor will resign.

Update:  Incidentally, I've had a FOIL request pending in Governor Spitzer's office (in connection with the State Sunshine project) for more than a month for all governmental e-mails sent or received by the office for the 4-day period immediately preceeding Spitzer's Washington trip in question.

I received some static from Spitzer's assistant counsel, stating that the office couldn't comply with the request until I clarified the term "governmental e-mail."  Excerpted from my reponse:

I'm not sure which word ("governmental" or "e-mail") is problematic, so I'll try to offer clarification on both:

By "governmental" (in the context of "governmental e-mail sent or received by the Office of the Governor"), I'm referring to all e-mail messages sent or received by personnel employed by or in the Office of the Governor during the date range identified, whether or not those messages were related to government business and whether or not those messages were transmitted via government-issued accounts or hardware, so long as they were sent or received by the respective personnel either during normal working hours, or during any hour while at their physical place of employment, or during any hour in any location if those messages were transmitted in furtherance of official or unofficial duties or tasks assigned to the sender or recipient by a superior, by the Office of the Governor, or by another state agency or official.

By "e-mail", I'm referring to all inbound and outbound electronic mail messages transmitted via Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol (POP), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), X.400, or web-based protocols, as well as electronic messages transmitted via SMS or other text messaging protocols.

Please let me know if any further clarification is required.

That was 10 days ago.  It'll be interesting to see what this turns up.

Prosecutors apparently have text messages in their possession related to the case, which were included in my FOIL request.

Update:  The Governor just released a brief statement, acknowledging a failure to live up to his own standards and apologizing to his family.  He did not announce his resignation, but said he would have more to say "in short order."

Update:  Sources says Spitzer has been indicted, but that seems to be in doubt.  The federal complaint itself appears to mention him only as "Client #9."

Update:  Here's video and a transcript of the non-resignation.

Over the past nine years, eight as attorney general and one as governor, I’ve tried to uphold a vision of progressive politics that would rebuild New York and create opportunity for all. We vowed to bring real change to New York and that will continue. Today, I want to briefly address a private matter. I have acted in a way that violated the obligations to my family and that violates my — or any — sense of right and wrong. I apologize first, and most importantly, to my family. I apologize to the public, to whom I promised better. I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good and doing what is best for the State of New York. But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard that I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family. I will not be taking questions. Thank you very much. I will report back to you in short order. Thank you very much.

Update:  Hillary quickly purged Spitzer (a superdelegate who has pledged to support Clinton) from her endorsement list.  But will she *reject* his vote at the convention?  Hillary taught us the importance of the distinction between *denouncing* and *rejecting* in her tiff with Obama over Louis Farrakhan.

Update:  Here's the federal complaint.

Update:  So far, Hillary neither denounces nor rejects, only wishes well.

"I don't have any comment on that, but I obviously am sending, you know, my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family," she said.