The DOJ Promises a Crackdown on Leakers, Former Blackwater Employees Have Their Sentences Overturned, and Martin Shkreli is Convicted of Securities Fraud: P.M. Links

• The Department of Justice is promising to crack down hard on leakers in the federal government, which includes a review of its subpoena policies regarding media organizations.

• Three former employees of the security contracting business Blackwater had lengthy prison sentences thrown out by a federal appeals court today. The convictions stemmed from a shooting in Bagdad in 2007 involving Blackwater employees which killed 31 people.

• Martin Shkreli, the Pharma CEO everyone loves to hate, has been convicted on three counts of securities fraud.

• Axios has a helpful map of each state's economic ties with China, revealing who stands the most to loose under any sort of trade war.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Martin Shkreli, the Pharma CEO everyone loves to hate, has been convicted on three counts of securities fraud.

Pharma karma.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

I was told Obama is gone and that we should stop talking about him.

How convenient.

[Citizen X - #6]

Axios has a helpful map of each state's economic ties with China, revealing who stands the most to loose under any sort of trade war.

DJF has the most confused boner right now.

[Rhywun]

Donald J. Frump...?

[Citizen X - #6]

Minor-league Hit'n'Run commenter whose pet issue is that the Chinese Communist Party owns most Chinese companies and therefore nobody in the U.S. should be allowed to buy things manufactured in China.

[Rhywun]

Oh, I remember that cat-fight.

[Cynical Asshole]

DJF has the most confused boner right now.

Is he confused, or is his boner somehow sentient?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Three former employees of the security contracting business Blackwater had lengthy prison sentences thrown out by a federal appeals court today.

No link with this one. WHAT IS REASON TRYING TO HIDE?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Department of Justice is promising to crack down hard on leakers in the federal government...

"I learned it from watching you, Obama! Okay?"

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

American Airlines Disputes Lena Dunham's 'Transphobic Talk' Claims

American Airlines is disputing Lena Dunham's claims that she overheard two female airline employees having a "transphobic talk" at the airport on Wednesday, saying the time stamps of her claims don't add up.

[Citizen X - #6]

This is certainly the most important thing for American Airlines to be focusing on right now.

[Rhywun]

Good-will with the public IS important for any business. If she's lying, it's in their best interest to fight back. Good for them.

[Rich]

No wonder their fares are so high.

[Mickey Rat]

AA did not ask for two of their employees to denounced to the Thought Police by a prominent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League.

[Fist of Etiquette]

She needs to stay relevant. Doesn't AA recognize that?

[Rufus The Monocled]

I wouldn't put it past her to be lying and that she considers it noble to be doing so because it's an important subject to keep people aware of. Or she just gets off being an insufferable dumb ass.

[Cynical Asshole]

Or both.

[Eek Barba Durkle]

Also, she's a pathological liar.

Have any of her stories ever checked out?

[Square = Circle]

No - she's already proven herself to be a serial fabricator, with little regard for whether or not she's telling lies about actually existing people.

[Elias Fakaname]

And what are the odds that this happened at such a convenient time relative to the military tranny ban?

[Take that cloud!]

I knew this was going to happen as soon as American didn't immediately prostrate themselves.

They clearly checked the info and realized it was bullshit.

Also, Lena Dunham the child molester?

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

On Wednesday, Dunham said she overheard two American Airlines attendants having a "transphobic talk," adding that "at this moment in history we should be teaching our employees about love and inclusivity."

Yeah, I'm sure that's what employees want: lectures about love and inclusivity.

They're not children, moron. Did you regularly sit your crewmembers down to lecture them about sex and shit?

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Lena Dunham?Verified account @lenadunham

Things women do lie about: what they ate for lunch. Things women don't lie about: rape.

A performance artist of the highest order.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

The bottom sentence is Crusty's.

[Number 7]

God almighty. she says that and then says that 3% of rape accusations are false, then someone links to an article where it appears she wrongly accused someone of rape

http://www.hollywoodreporter.c.....ook-755193

[Number 7]

and she is getting blasted on twitter.

[Square = Circle]

I actually think she's a fairly talented writer, but talented writers are very often horrible people, and not fully sane.

[Number 7]

yeah, why can't she just be a grumpy alcoholic who finally blows her head off with a shotgun? (I don't wish that end for her honestly)

[Elias Fakaname]

I do. If that cunt had her way, people like us would pretty much be enslaved by her and her elitist commie friends. The more and faster they die, the better. Don't blame me, it's their own fault for being so vile that I feel that way.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Dunham later contacted the airline via direct message on Twitter, explaining, "I heard 2 female attendants walking talking about how trans kids are a trend they'd never accept a trans child and transness is gross. I think it reflects badly on uninformed employees of your company to have that kind of dialogue going on. What if a trans teen was walking behind them? Awareness starts at home but jobs can set standards of practice."

And this was supposed to be happening at 2am? Let them have their private human conversation, you fuck. You probably would've smiled if they were gossiping about how awful the men on the flight were.

And other than those with Liberal Munchausen-by-proxy, who would want a trans child? Sounds like a massive headache, and potential heartache.

[Square = Circle]

And other than those with Liberal Munchausen-by-proxy, who would want a trans child? Sounds like a massive headache, and potential heartache.

Sound like someone needs some love and inclusivity.

*cracks knuckles*

[lap83]

"Our employees"

Has she ever even been an employee? No one who has would think that shit is any business of an employer

[Rich]

Axios has a helpful map of each state's economic ties with China, revealing who stands the most to loose under any sort of trade war.

"Let loose the dogs of war!"

[Libertarian]

I'm giving you demerits for not saying "ret roose . . ."

[Rich]

Ruh-roh!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Axios has a helpful map of each state's economic ties with China, revealing who stands the most to [lose] under any sort of trade war.

Luckily the trade war is just another promise that stands to be broken.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi claims group of Teamsters who hurled racial slurs at producers and wanted to 'smash her pretty little face' outside of a Boston restaurant were in 'cahoots with police'

Top Chef star Padma Lakshmi told FBI officials she felt 'let down' by police after a group of union members threatened her outside of a Boston restaurant.

An FBI report seen exclusively by DailyMail.com reveals the Bravo TV show host described the Boston Teamsters as 'menacing, threatening, and intimidating.'

'She felt like it was bullying, but much [scarier], even though the police were present,' the report reads.

[Mickey Rat]

Top Chef crossed Teamsters picket line? They really thought that union Police Officers were going to help them in anything other than a grudging manner?

[Rich]

The Department of Justice is promising to crack down hard on leakers in the federal government,

especially those who use the wrong restroom.

[Jerry on the sea]

Dubai's 'Torch' Tower Caught on Fire, Again.

[Rich]

Already, authorities are blaming flammable cladding on the building's exterior for the fire, eerily echoing the recent Grenfell Tower fire in London, a tragedy that killed at least 80 people. The cladding is made of aluminum panels with flammable plastic cores.

One imagines such cladding meets stringent government specs.

[Cynical Asshole]

One imagines such cladding meets stringent government specs.

It's more important to be energy efficient. If that means a few peasants end up going up in flames, so be it. Look on the bright side: anyone who dies in a fire because of the flammable cladding has had their carbon footprint reduced to zero. So, win-win.

[Rich]

"We're delighted in many ways," Shkreli said later outside the courtroom, saying he was glad to be exonerated on other charges he considered more serious. "This was a witch hunt of epic proportions," he said. "They may have found some broomsticks."

Ah, HA!!

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

'Sex and the City' actress Cynthia Nixon may run against Cuomo in gubernatorial primary

She'd be a fantastic candidate," said Billy Easton, executive director of the teachers union-supported Alliance for Quality Education. Easton has worked with Nixon on state education issues.

Nixon, whose potential run was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, has frequently been an activist on state and city issues, particularly pertaining to public education.

Someone's 'bout to feel the powerful thrust of the New York establishment machine.

[Citizen X - #6]

It's doubtful she could be worse than Cuomo, at least.

[Rhywun]

LOL

Smikle accused [Republican candidates] state Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco (R-Syracuse) and Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino, who lost big to Cuomo in 2010, of both being "from the same end of the ultra-conservative right wing of the Republican party."

And it goes on and on in that vein.

[Jerry on the sea]

Amanda Knox: Michelle Carter deserves sympathy and help, not prison.

[Rich]

"Conrad Roy III needed our sympathy and our help and didn't get it in time. Michelle Carter deserves the same sympathy and help now."

It's sympathy and help all the way down!

[Unicorn Abattoir]

It's the First Amendment that needs sympathy and help. If it's not too late already.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

The Secret Life of the City Banana

In most of the country, the unseen, nocturnal business of ripening and distributing bananas is performed by grocery chains like Safeway. In New York, though things may be headed in that direction, much of the work still falls to local banana purveyors. They can trace their roots back to Antonio Cuneo, an Italian immigrant who cornered the market in the late 19th century and became known as the Banana King.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

"Banana King" was my nickname in college.

[Mickey Rat]

The reason had something to do with being yellow and curved?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Because you were mushy when it mattered?

BOOYA!

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

Because I'm so a-peeling.

[Half-Virtue, Half-Vice]

Pulitzer Prize journalist Seymour Hersh -- famed for investigative reports on CIA torture at Abu Ghraib prison and the My Lai Massacre during Vietnam -- concludes Seth Rich was the DNC leaker for WIkileaks

This audio was released by WIkileaks on Twitter and it is fascinating, explores a top to bottom cover up from DNC to CIA Russian hacking concoction. No mainstream media outlet has touched this, not even Reason.

[Citizen X - #6]

Reason is mainstream now? Sellouts! Maan, this place is OVER.

[Half-Virtue, Half-Vice]

The fact that every news outlet in the world follows Wikileaks on Twitter and Wikileaks has a 100% accuracy rating on the leaks and information they have released just goes to show how horrifyingly bought and sold the media is by government agencies.

Seth Rich was murdered by some group connected or apart of the US Government as an attempt to stop him from leaking DNC information. Full stop.

[Cyto]

No. It was a robber who shot him in the back and forgot to steal anything this is known.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Sy Hersh has a fun reputation when it comes to the truth.

[Half-Virtue, Half-Vice]

Are you saying he is discredited and should be ignored? His resume is impressive but I have no fixed opinion of the man. He sounds real coherent in that audio.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Everyone involved in the Seth Rich murder conspiracy seems to have an issue with the truth.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Example:

Butowsky says he became convinced that the FBI had a report concluding that Seth Rich's laptop showed he had had contacts with WikiLeaks after speaking to the legendary reporter Seymour Hersh, who was also investigating Rich's death. According to the transcripts in the lawsuit, Butowsky says Hersh had an FBI source who confirmed the report.

In an interview this week, Hersh sounds unconvinced.

"I hear gossip," Hersh tells NPR on Monday. "[Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it."

[Half-Virtue, Half-Vice]

Why would Wikileaks post it than? That's the added consideration here, why would Wikileaks put out a $20,000 reward for info back when the murder happened?

This shit reeks to me, I'm actually surprised most people are unwilling to see the evil hands of some powerful government officials at work in this. America is great and all, but every government kills, no? I admit the depths this story could go is pretty wide reaching, implicating a lot of bureaucrats; but that doesn't make me think it couldn't happen.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

What do you think happened?

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Not to prejudge any of Hersh or Wikileaks' arguments, but this is naive, HV. You can't think of a motive for Wikileaks to fan the flames of a conspiracy theory centered around itself? Or one that directs attention away from a valuable source (or a controversial one... like a state agency)? You can't imagine putting up reward money for information you know cannot be provided?

[ChipToBeSquare]

Wikileaks has all the motivation in the world to push the Seth Rich narrative, because the other narrative (which may or may not be fair) is that they have become an outlet for Russian interests instead of this brave, independent organization that takes on governments out of a sense of duty

You don't need Seth Rich to be the leaker to find fault in the official narrative on Russia

Seymour Hersh is also a bit shunned by the mainstream at the moment (no one major took his article on the Syrian gas attack a month ago). Whether that's because he's onto something that makes them look bad or because he's turning too conspiratorial, who knows, but it is something to keep in mind

[Square = Circle]

I don't think it's outlandishly weird to find Seth Rich's murder a little fishy, and the aggression with which we're getting the "nothing to see here" message just fans the fire.

But lots of shady people have also opportunistically spun wild yarns about it that are easily shown to be fabrications/fever dreams.

It's easy enough to imagine a Pynchon-esque scenario where Rich was a completely random victim who nevertheless inspired a massive cover-up among the paranoid classes who see nothing as random or unconnected, and spin by instinct rather than concern themselves with truth.

If the murder was not random, I still think we're no ways near understanding what really happened. Didn't pay his bookie? Was about to leak incriminating information on someone we don't even know who because he didn't get the chance? Was part of a secret white supremacists cult and was murdered by a critical race theory hit team who found out? Wheelchair-bound Oneida separatists?

Who knows?

I don't lend credence to any specific theory, but I'm not ready to say "this situation is well understood and it's much ado about nothing."

[ChipToBeSquare]

I think they have motivation to ignore the story even if they aren't guilty. If you start talking about Seth Rich, you have to consider why people think he ever could have brought himself to leak these emails and help Trump beat Hillary. What would that reason be? That the DNC (and even CNN) colluded to make sure Bernie Sanders lost

[Square = Circle]

That does make sense - it's a huge spotlight on exactly the thing they've been trying to brush under the rug for the last year.

[ChipToBeSquare]

I listen to a podcast called Part of the Problem by this comedian Dave Smith. He's pretty damn great, and he's popping up on stuff like Kennedy pretty often. He told a story a while back about how he was on a show where Chris Hansen was a guest. Chris Hansen brought up how the media are generally good people who just want to tell the truth, and Dave brought up how CNN colluded with the DNC. The only response he had was basically "Yeah that was unfortunate"

They really, really don't wanna talk about the Donna Brazile thing or its implications at all

[Rich]

You know who else sounded real coherent?

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

I think he's saying to tread lightly.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

A better question might be "why doesn't Wikileaks just release evidence that it was Rich?".

You know, them being the *organization it was leaked to*?

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

GTA5 and the problem of privilege: An elite school uses the controversial game to teach life lessons

The school recently undertook an experimental educational exercise that sought to address its students' privilege. It tasked senior students to play Grand Theft Auto 5, to come together in group sessions to discuss how the game frames and expresses their own lives in comparison to the lives of people less wealthy, less white, less male.

[Rich]

"The school recently undertook an experimental educational exercise that sought to address its students' privilege. It dropped off senior students late at night in areas of Los Angeles populated by people less wealthy, less white, less male."

[notJoe]

My wife and I have both have Master's degrees in technical fields, yet we will not be the slightest bit upset if our kids choose a career and life that doesn't require a postsecondary education. Undergraduate education especially these days is just the punchline to some pathetic joke.

Burn it all down.

[Cynical Asshole]

The school recently undertook an experimental educational exercise that sought to address its students' privilege.

Because that's totally important for kids to learn about in school. Not math, or science, or history. No, they must become "woke".

[Square = Circle]

Yes. GTA5 is totally how minorities live. Like every day man. These professors are so woke!

[ChipToBeSquare]

I'm not sure it's helpful to push the idea that the less fortunate are out there beating up hookers and stealing cars, and using cheat codes to acquire a tank and run people over

[Square = Circle]

They should be playing a game where they work at the DMV 5 days a week and go to the AME church every Sunday, if we're going to have cache in real stereotypes.

These people are so bourgeois they can't even racist right.

[Take that cloud!]

"loose"

God fucking dammit guy.

[loveconstitution1789]

Three former employees of the security contracting business Blackwater had lengthy prison sentences thrown out by a federal appeals court today. The convictions stemmed from a shooting in Bagdad in 2007 involving Blackwater employees which killed 31 people.
So these guys get their murder convictions over turned, various governors and state legislators had their corruption conviction overturned, and a lady get 15 months for texting some guy to commit suicide.

If you don't see a pattern of corrupt bureaucratic judges protecting pro-government types and throwing the book at civilians for a 1st Amendment issue, I just do not know how will survive as a country.

[Brandybuck]

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with Shkrelli's abuse of the monopolistic system the FDA erected for pharma. He was fully within the ethics of the law as the lawmakers intended it the law to be interpreted.

However, the shameless way he strutted his price gouging around in public indicated exactly the sort of personality that would eventually get caught with its dick in the securities fraud pussy.

[Unlabelable MJGreen]

Sounds fundamentally wrong to me. Fundamentally legal, sure, but still wrong. "abuse" sort of gives it away.

[ChipToBeSquare]

It doesn't violate the NAP or something but let's not go saying that's acceptable just because the incentives were there. We can comfortably call him a shitty human. It's stereotypical to bring up Ayn Rand, but remember that businessmen were her villains

Being a libertarian just means that you think the incentives created by government are the problem that can and should be addressed, rather than "capitalistic greed" or whatever

[Square = Circle]

It's stereotypical to bring up Ayn Rand, but remember that businessmen were her villains

Especially the businessmen who leverage restrictive government policies to their own advantage.

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Three people plan to sue Usher over herpes claims

The accusers claim, "Usher had sexual contact with them after 2012, and failed to warn them of his alleged STD, as required by law," according to a news release from Bloom released Friday. One woman will speak at a press conference in New York City on Monday. The other two will be named in the complaint as Jane Doe and John Doe and will remain private.

You make me wanna...get a prescription.

[Rich]

I give up: what is an "alleged STD"?

[Eek Barba Durkle]

You get them from Russian hooker piss.

[Red Rocks Baiting n Inciting]

"I'm in the club with my homies, try'na get a lil' v-d"

[ChipToBeSquare]

10/10

[Crusty Juggler - LAOL]

Our nation's greatest writer finally weighs in: The Lost Cause Rides Again: HBO's Confederate takes as its premise an ugly truth that black Americans are forced to live every day: What if the Confederacy wasn't wholly defeated?

[Cyto]

For while the Confederacy, as a political entity, was certainly defeated, and chattel slavery outlawed, the racist hierarchy which Lee and Davis sought to erect, lives on. It had to. The terms of the white South's defeat were gentle.

Never heard reconstruction described as gentle before

[Lord_at_War]

Ta-Nehisi Tuxedo- I wonder if Chumley wrote that one...

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