What Ben Franklin Really Said

Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance–and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.

via What Ben Franklin Really Said – Lawfare.

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The Prenda Saga Goes Criminal: Steele and Hansmeier Indicted On Federal Charges

Eventually Steele and Hansmeier filmed their own porn to upload to support this scheme. When courts began suspicious, the indictment alleges that Steele and Hansmeier sent underlings to lie to courts, or even lied to courts themselves, to conceal the scheme. The indictment specifies 14 separate instances of perjury or lying to courts. This scheme, the feds claim, netted more than $6,000,000 in copyright settlements, of which $3,000,000 went to Steele and Hansmeier and only $1,000,000 went to sham “clients,” with the rest consumed for expenses.

via The Prenda Saga Goes Criminal: Steele and Hansmeier Indicted On Federal Charges | Popehat.

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Audit of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Management and Oversight of its Confidential Source Program

Among the Limited Use sources the DEA established were Amtrak and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees. In November 2015, the OIG completed two separate investigations into DEA’s use of two Amtrak employees and one TSA employee as sources. These investigations determined the DEA’s use of these individuals as sources was improper.1 During this audit, we found that, between FYs 2011 and 2015, the DEA actually used at least 33 Amtrak employees and 8 TSA employees as sources, paying the Amtrak employees over $1.5 million and the TSA employees over $94,000.

via Audit of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Management and Oversight of its Confidential Source Program – a1633.pdf.

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Trump Carrier Bailout – Economically Unsound

But in the matter of industry-specific or firm-specific tax benefits of the sort extended to Carrier in Indiana, they do not have a leg to stand on. These are straight-up corporate welfare, ethically and fiscally indistinguishable from shipping containers full of $100 bills.

Via Trump Carrier Bailout – Economically Unsound | National Review.

For Carrier’s accountant, any pecuniary benefit will do. So far as the bottom line is concerned, a $7 million tax credit is the same as a $7 million check or $7 million in Apple stock or $7 million in gold. It’s all +$7 million on the line where you want it.

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Donald Trump Faces Obstacles to Resuming Waterboarding

In an interview with The New York Times last Tuesday, his only comments on the issue since the election, Mr. Trump said he discussed the matter with James N. Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who is under consideration for defense secretary. Like most American military leaders, he is opposed to the use of torture.

“I said, ‘What do you think of waterboarding?’ ” Mr. Trump said. “I was surprised. He said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer.

via Donald Trump Faces Obstacles to Resuming Waterboarding – The New York Times.

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