But what about the e-mails they wanted seized?

David Shearer, Russel Norman and Winston Peters have made a lot of noise this week. All are incensed that journalist Andrea Vance's phone log (as opposed to any data regarding actual calls) was handed over to David Henry whilst he investigated the leak of the Kitteridge Report on failings of the GCSB.

But turn the clock back around 7 weeks, and you'll find that things were very different. Winston Peters wanted the Police to investigate Peter Dunne, and boasted proudly how he had seen private e-mails between Dunne and Ms Vance. Dr Norman told Radio New Zealand this:

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the inquiry into the leak to Fairfax Media does not confirm whether Mr Dunne in fact did it, and police need to investigate and force Mr Dunne to release the emails.
"Clearly (inquiry head) David Henry didn't have sufficient powers to make Peter Dunne release the emails. If the police are investigating a Crimes Act offence, then they do have the powers to get Peter Dunne to release the emails."
Dr Norman said it needs to be seen whether Mr Dunne has breached the Crimes Act.

To his credit, Dr Norman thought things through over the weekend that followed, and did a complete u-turn. But his initial response was that private information involving Ms Vance should be taken by force by the Police.

And David Shearer took a similar stance to Dr Norman's initial one, as the Dominion-Post editorial reported on 11 June 2013:

Labour leader David Shearer's call for police to seize UnitedFuture MP Peter Dunne's emails and question him under oath about the leaking of the GCSB review suggests he has a remarkably short memory. It is little more than a year since Labour colleague Phil Goff used leaked Mfat documents to reveal that cuts within the ministry were undermining New Zealand's diplomatic capability. 
The Labour leader's comments also show a worrying lack of understanding of important principles. Is Mr Shearer really suggesting the police should have the power to seize material from anyone suspected of embarrassing the government? 

David Shearer's comments may have been made in the heat of the moment, but they reveal a particular lack of political nous. It is really ironic now that he wants John Key's head on a platter because Ms Vance's telephone records were erroneously given to Mr Henry by Parliamentary Services.

We all know that there is an element of the theatrical to politics. But Mr Shearer, Dr Norman and Mr Peters, in the best traditions of Cirque de Soliel, added gymnastics to the theatrics with their back-flips and u-turns. The end result, once their faux outrage is added in is little more than farce, and does them no credit whatsoever. 

You'd think that David would be grateful...

David Shearer has posted the following on Facebook:

I'm a bit surprised to hear John Key used breakfast radio to announce to the world there may be a serious security threat.

This typical John Key - whenever he is under pressure he rolls out the weapons of mass distraction.

I've worked in Afghanistan, I know how serious the threat of terrorism is. But I also know an attempt to distract when I see one.

Now David Shearer may indeed think that he knows "an attempt to distract" when he sees one. But with the truly dreadful Roy Morgan poll result (for Labour, at least), wouldn't you think that Mr Shearer would actually be grateful to John Key? 

After all, if it wasn't for Key's al-Qaeda people, everyone today would be talking about the ineptitude of Labour and David Shearer. And we all know where THAT would lead!

Uhm, I *am* Marshal McLuhan

Uhm, I am Marshal McLuhan

by digby

Poor Aaron

You have to feel sorry for former National Party List MP Aaron Gilmore; now he's even being mocked in Spain! Check this out:

And if, like us, your Spanish isn't too flash, here's a translation:

The ugly suffer more bullying at work

The graceful than physically are much more likely to suffer bullying someone who is not 

In the U.S., studies have shown that bullying or bullying moves into adulthood, especially labor. Also found a specific pattern (though not surprising) about who suffers more bullying as explained Very Interesting. Graceful Those not physically are much more likely to suffer bullying someone who is not. What is most striking is that the physicist is above other factors when suffering bullying, such as personality.

Timothy Judge and Brent Scott, the principal investigators interviewed more than 100 people to see them as often mistreated at work, at the same time would have to assess the physical appearance of others to see as placed.
"We find that unattractive workers are more likely to have attitudes rude, disrespectful and even cruel by their peers," explained Professor Judge. The society perceives different workers as attractive and unattractive, and acts on those perceptions in its most hurtful.
Other research has shown that beauty also helps a lot to earn a better salary and career success, but not only by what others think of us, if not for what we think of ourselves: if we act with good estimates greater security: this affects perceived as safe people smarter and with higher moral values ​​than the rest.
It seems that the physical is playing a great asset in our lives, most of which you will recognize. 

It's hard not to feel a bit of sympathy for poor old Aaron after this. Then again, he may be flattered to be a global celebrity!

White on white

White on white


by digby

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In his most recent Gawker piece, Cord Jefferson responded to the deluge of right-wing attacks on African-American communities with satire: “White-on-white violence is a menace to white communities across the country, and yet you never hear white leaders like Pastor Joel Osteen, Bill O’Reilly, or Hillary Clinton take a firm stance against the scourge.” Jefferson continued the joke on an All In conversation Tuesday night:

“I used to live in New York City and would occasionally go to Hoboken, New Jersey, St. Patrick’s Day Parade. And there were so many young white men there vomiting in the streets, urinating in the streets, getting in fist fights in the streets. It was a sight to be seen,” said Jefferson of what he has declared the “white-on-white crime scourge.”

Jefferson, Gawker’s West Coast editor, said he wasn’t playing the race card. “Anytime you tell the truth, there’s going to be those people that come out and think that you’re doing it for some insidious reason and say that you’re a racist,” declared Jefferson. ”My best friend is white, my mother is actually white, my prom date in high school was actually a white woman. She was very white actually, she used to ride horses and do that whole thing.”

He's right. We white people need to speak out. Why right in my own backyard, this happened just the other night:

Huntington Beach is cleaning up Monday morning after a fight broke out following the U.S. Open of Surfing, leading to a two-hour confrontation between police and unruly beachgoers. Eight people were arrested and several officers were injured Sunday night. 

Police in riot gear used tear gas and nonlethal rounds to disperse the crowd, which tipped over portable toilets and smashed storefront windows. Video of the rioting shows people in the crowd rocking city vehicles while others jump-kicking or shoving portable toilets onto their sides. 

Kyle Calder told KTLA the melee started when someone was hit with a ketchup bottle from a second-story restaurant. The person threw the bottle into the crowd, triggering a fight that expanded into a small-scale riot. “That’s when the cops came and everything went mayhem from there,” Calder said.

Just look at all those white people hurting each other and destroying their own neighborhood.  Those young white males just have no respect for authority. It's a culture thing.


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Now there's a surprise!

Lawyer (or should that be soon-to-be former lawyer?) Davina Murray has been found guilty; Stuff reports:

Lawyer Davina Murray has been found guilty of smuggling contraband to murderer and rapist Liam Reid.
Murray, a former Maori Party political candidate, appeared in the Auckland District Court this morning where Judge Russell Collins delivered his verdict.
Murray, who has said she believed Reid was innocent, was accused of supplying the prisoner with contraband items - cigarettes and an iPhone - at Mt Eden Prison on October 7, 2011.
Reid, 41, is serving a 26-year minimum non-parole life sentence for the 2007 rape and murder of Deaf Christchurch woman Emma Agnew and the rape and attempted murder of a Dunedin student a few days later.
The judge said it was a "simple case" - either Murray brought the items to Reid or prison guards conspired to make it look so.
There was no evidence that it was a conspiracy between the guards, the judge said.
He said Reid's evidence was "completely implausible" and found Murray guilty.
During the defended hearing the court was read text messages sent by Murray in which she said of Reid: "I hate that I'm in love with him but I'm scared to lose him.
"He makes me laugh. He makes me cry. He makes me feel beautiful. I love him like I have never loved anyone before. If he doesn't get out do I just shrug my shoulders and say, 'oh well'."
She later texted: "He's the best kisser I've ever kissed" and he was "seriously the best - it's like he just gets me".
Another text to a friend mentioned marrying Reid and discussed "smuggling two witnesses into jail to be witnesses at my wedding".
The last text read to the court was unclear in its meaning: "No we haven't but come very close. Damn prison guards."

Ms Murray hasn't given up her fight however; read on:

Murray signalled that she would be seeking a discharge without conviction.
The judge remanded her on bail to September 6 when the discharge without conviction application will be heard. 

We doubt that her application will succeed. Murray fell foul of Judge Collins repeatedly throughout her trial, and the condemnation of Reid's evidence as "completely implausible" will doubtless reflect on her as well. The learned Judge's decision today is no surprise whatsoever.

Liam Reid is a very dangerous man. Just days after his brutality towards Emma Agnew he raped a Dunedin woman who was fortunate to escape with her life. New Zealand will be a safer place if he is never released from prison.

Quite what an apparently intelligent and articulate woman such as Davina Murray saw in Reid is anyone's guess. But if her professional judgment is as bad as her taste in men, she will have a very limited future in law. She will doubtless face a Law Society hearing to determine her fitness to practice the law, given that she cannot abide by it.

A quick, visual look at what's wrong with America's economy, by @DavidOAtkins

A quick, visual look at what's wrong with America's economy

by David Atkins

Henry Blodget at Business Insider has a fantastic short piece with four graphs that demonstrate the sickness at the heart of the American economy. Here are the first two:

CHART ONE: Corporate profits and profit margins are at an all-time high. American companies are making more money and more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. Full stop.

And here's chart #2:

CHART TWO: Wages as a percent of the economy are at all-time low. Why are corporate profits so high? One reason is that companies are paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" represent spending power for American consumers. And American consumer spending is "revenue" for other companies. So our profit maximization obsession is actually starving the rest of the economy of revenue growth.

Head to the article to see the other two, dealing with employment rates and labor share of national income. It's pretty obvious what's wrong. The solutions aren't complicated or scary. The only obstacle is obscenely rich people who don't want to give up any of their stolen loot.

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Sam Keller defeats EA Sports in Ninth Circuit

Major decision out of the Ninth Circuit today -- and will have serious consequences for the O'Bannon case, which is also being tried in the Ninth Circuit.  I answer some questions for SI on today's developments.

Tweet of the Day - 1 August 2013

Fairfax journalist Andrea Vance has vented her spleen this morning over the release of her phone records. You can read her piece here.

But this tweet raises an interesting perspective:

It's rather like Nicky Hager's outrage at journalists being declared subversives by the military when the Helen Clark government was in power in 2003, having himself profited significantly from a book based on e-mails gained by nefarious means. 

Things are not always as black and white as they seem. And what about Winston Peters' role in all of this, given his boast of having phone records? The Privileges Committee hearing later in the month might have all sorts of surprises.

Dday and the Real Housewives of New Jersey

Dday and the Real Housewives of New Jersey

by digby

Here's a must-read by dday in the New Republic about the Real Housewives of New Jersey. No really. It's about the government's zealous pursuit of one of the reality show stars and her husband for lying on their loan applications. Never let it be said that the Obama administration isn't pursuing mortgage fraud.

Yes, what they did was wrong. But when you read the article you'll see that they were doing was just part of the system the Big Banks had in place. You remember the banks, don't you? The institutions and their corporate leaders which the Attorney General publicly said couldn't be punished because the system would be wrecked? Yeah, they can't be touched.  But Teresa and Joe going to jail for 20 years will certainly teach everybody a lesson: only the little guys or the easy pickings ever have to pay a price. It's the new American credo.

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Crunch day for the ALP

Whilst the New Zealand Labour Party takes in the bad news delivered by last night's Roy Morgan poll its Australian counterpart faces a nervous day as well. Australia's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) will release a report today with "adverse findings" against two senior Labor figures in NSW politics.

Kevin Rudd is understandably nervous; News.com.au reports:

IF you throw enough mud some of it will stick.

There's plenty of dirt on the Australian Labor Party contained in a major NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) report released on Wednesday.
The two key Labor figures facing adverse findings - former NSW ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald - have been expelled from the party and face criminal charges over the alleged corrupt granting of mining licences.
The federal coalition is keen to ensure the taint spreads all the way to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office.
"Today is a black day in the history of the Labor party," Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said.
"The NSW disease has well and truly come to Canberra."
While there's no mention of Rudd in the 174-page ICAC document, it does spend three pages explaining how factions influence the NSW ALP.
These are the same factions that threw their significant weight behind Rudd's return to the federal leadership in June, and helped overthrow him three years earlier in favour of Julia Gillard.

One right-wing sub-faction "in effect ... had control over the ALP", ICAC said.

This really is a nightmare for Kevin Rudd; his "zero tolerance" policy towards corruption is hollow given that these men are among those who backed Rudd's destabilisation of Julia Gillard, and his subsequent leadership coup. He cannot simply wipe away history.

And there's more to come; read on:

Rudd and Labor will also be concerned about another ICAC report expected in August, probably during the federal election campaign.
It will examine a coal exploration licence granted by Macdonald to a company run by ex-union boss John Maitland and entrepreneurs.
The inquiry called two senior federal MPs to the witness stand - NSW Senator Doug Cameron and former minister Greg Combet.
Two others, Stephen Conroy and Tony Burke, were also mentioned as having been offered free accommodation at Obeid's Perisher Valley ski lodge.
The ICAC hearings have been keenly followed by voters in NSW's 48 federal seats.

The timing of these reports from the ICAC couldn't be worse for Rudd and Labor. The reports do nothing to diminish perceptions that Labor has a rotten streak running through it.

And unsurprisingly, the Liberals have been quick to respond, with this image doing the rounds:

Kevin Rudd's honeymoon is well and truly over.

QOTD: David Roberts

QOTD: David Roberts

by digby

The first step in WLDPS [White Liberal Dude Privilege Syndrome] therapy is for the sufferer to acknowledge that it does not matter what was or was not in his head, or what he “really” meant. Part of privilege is the deep conviction that one is the absolute authority on one’s own mental states and thus the dictator of one’s own meanings — no one can tell you what they are, what you think, who you are, man. You don’t know me! We privileged dudes have trouble accepting that language is a social phenomenon, a social act, and meaning is created collectively, in the spaces between and among people. When you use language that is freighted with social meaning, you are responsible for that meaning, even if you did not “intend” it.

Read the whole thing. You won't regret it.

And, by the way, the same rule applies to white liberal women privilege too. I've been there more than once over the years with people of color, LGBT, those with physical and mental disabilities and even other women. All you can do is admit that you were wrong and learn from the error. It is an ongoing process.

Good for Roberts for writing it out. I have apologized privately to those I insulted, but rarely in public. I should have done that more often.


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Is this the killer blow to Shearer's leadership?

The latest Roy Morgan poll is out, and it contains dreadful news for the Left in general, and for David Shearer and Labour especially; here are the gory details:

Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows a large rise in support for Prime Minister John Key’s National Party to 51% (up 4% since July 1-14, 2013). Support for Key’s Coalition partners has changed little with the Maori Party 1.5% (down 0.5%), ACT NZ 1% (up 0.5%) and United Future 0% (unchanged).
Support for Labour is 29% (down 2%); Greens are 10% (down 1.5%), New Zealand First 4% (down 0.5%), Mana Party 1% (down 0.5%), Conservative Party of NZ 1.5% (unchanged) and Others 1% (up 0.5%).
If a National Election were held now the latest NZ Roy Morgan Poll shows that the National-led Coalition parties would win easily.
The latest NZ Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating is unchanged at 128.5 with 58.5% (up 0.5%) of New Zealanders saying New Zealand is ‘heading in the right direction’ compared to 30% (up 0.5%) that say New Zealand is ‘heading in the wrong direction’.
Gary Morgan says:

“Today’s New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll contains further good news for governing National (51%, up 4%) now up for the fourth straight Morgan Poll and well ahead of Labour/ Greens (39%, down 3.5%). This is the biggest lead for National since the 2011 New Zealand Election.
“The boost for PM John Key comes as the New Zealand Dollar (NZD) hit a five-year high against the Australian Dollar (AUD) at just under 90c AUD and amid rising optimism about the prospects for the New Zealand economy. The ANZ-Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence Rating is near a three year high at 119.8 in July while the ANZ Business Outlook shows business confidence at a 14 year high.”

The rumours have been around for a while that Labour's internal polling with UMR has delivered a number with a two in front of it. Now Roy Morgan becomes the first external poll for some time to rate Labour that low. And Labour's potential support partners the Greens and NZ First are also down, with the Greens now in danger of dropping back into single figures for the first time in a very long time.

There's another dynamic at play here:

This latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll on voting intention was conducted by telephone – both landline and mobile telephone, with a NZ wide cross-section of 824 electors from July 15-28, 2013.

Those dates are critical here. Roy Morgan ceased polling last Sunday; AFTER protest meetings and marches against the GCSB Bill. To us, this indicates that concerns around spying are very much a beltway issue, as support for all the parties opposing the GCSB Bill (including the Maori Party) actually fell in this poll, despite saturation media coverage of Kim Dotcom and other luminaries telling us how evil John Key is. 

On the other hand however, the economy is growing, and that is what affects people on a daily basis. Following on from the Herald's chipper Mood of the Boardroom survey last week, the Roy Morgan organisation notes that the ANZ Business Outlook has business confidence at a 14-year high.

There's one area however where David Shearer gets lucky. Roy Morgan does not have a Preferred Prime Minister component to its polls, so there is no way of measuring whether Mr Shearer's personal popularity is soaring or sinking. That will be of small comfort to him though, given the awful poll result for Labour. 

For some months, the Roy Morgan poll swung in the wind, with one side then the other getting an advantage. This time around however a trend is starting to develop; support for National has increased markedly over three consecutive Morgan polls, and support for Labour has fallen in the same period. We suspect that there will have been some very anxious meetings in offices in Parliament last night as Labour MP's who are now threatened with extinction in 2014 digested the poll result. 

It's Thursday 1st August as we type this, and spring is now just 31 days away. Is there an end in sight to Labour's Winter of Discontent?

Hillary's making them crazy already

Hillary's making them crazy already

by digby

As Atrios says, good luck explaining all this to the kids:

None of the 90s scandals made any sense at all even at the time, unless there was something nefarious about losing money on a land deal or you were pretty sure Hillary Clinton had her friend murdered. 

Still it wouldn't surprise me if the NYT brings the Whitewater band back together. What's Jeff Gerth up to these days?

Fox is already going all in on the Hillary bashing in the crudest manner possible. Here's John Amato:

Fox News sinks to another low for this segment from Tuesday's America Live which discusses media bias over some Hillary Clinton mini-series and documentary being made. WMAL Radio host Chris Plante lowered himself into the Louis Gohmert chamber of shame with this.

Plante: Look, we know what their biases are and we know what the outcome is going to be as Howard said. Casting Diane Lane, the lovely Diane Lane as Hillary Clinton is enough of a tip off as to where this is going to go. 

You know personally I would cast Phillip Seymour Hoffman to play Hillary Clinton.

Plante is the type of vile conservative Fox obviously loves because of the bilge that pours out of his mouth when he discusses anyone left of center. Any liberal pundit who displayed this type of behavior on air would never get on TV again. By the way, he was so proud of this that it's on their website. Fox News is freaking out over the proposed plans that NBC and CNN are developing films around Hillary Clinton. 

Funny how they never cried like this for the Hillary propaganda movie that was made by Citizens United. In fact, they were promoting it endlessly. And we know how the Supreme Court ruled on that movie. It's destroyed our campaign finance laws. [...]

Kurtz: Everybody knows Hollywood, quote, 'Hollywood loves Hillary Rodham Clinton,' but I don't three years before a presidential election anything in the works on Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or any of the other names that you mentioned, so there is this view that feeds the narrative that a lot of people already have, Hillary has this special status both in the culture and the media culture and if there is no film on any of the prospective Republican presidential candidates, then I think that does tilt the scale. 

Megyn Cut Out: ...but we know it's going to start after that point (1998) Do you think they get into Benghazi, I mean it's been such a..I mean a US Ambassador died on her watch as SOS. Is it going to be addressed? Is there a way to address it that in some way portrays her in a positive light, that she did what she could? Plante: Well of course, that's the value of propaganda. Of course she's going to be the innocent victim, the heroic figure. She's already been declared one of our greatest SOS ever with no accomplishments to her name, quite literally as SOS, other than the Benghazi cover-up so of course it's going to make it, paint her the person who tried to save them and worked late into the night. That 3am phone call. This is a whitewash before you begin and the CNN piece, Charles Ferguson is famous for two films. One is a hatchet job on the Bush administration and the Iraq war and the other is a hatchet job on Wall Street and capitalism that he did with Matt Damon. Those are his credentials...

This fool obviously knows nothing about Ferguson, who is a multimillionaire software entrepreneur who won an Academy Award for Inside Job about the financial collapse. And he was an early Iraq war supporter, but was so disillusioned by it that he helped fund research and the movie called No End In Sight, about how disastrous George W. Bush handled the initial occupation of Iraq, which then broke out into an uncontrollable civil war.

Read Amato's entire piece for the full rundown. It's going to be a very ugly campaign if Clinton decides to run. They just can't help themselves.

And Howie Kurtz is fitting in just perfectly, isn't he?
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When a superpower loses it

When a superpower loses it

by digby

In this must-read from James Fallows he picks up on a column over the week-end by academic John Naughton which lays out one of the major ramifications of our surveillance overkill: the fact that the rest of the world is no longer going to trust American internet companies to guard their data. I don't think we understand quite yet how that's going to play out but it isn't good. The concept of the free internet is at stake and our government pretty much ran around like a bunch of cowboys without considering the fallout of their own parochial, paranoid needs of the moment.

He concludes:

The real threat from terrorism has never been the damage it does directly, even through attacks as horrific as those on 9/11. The more serious threat comes from the over-reaction, the collective insanity or the simple loss of perspective, that an attack evokes. Our government's ambition to do everything possible to keep us "safe" has put us at jeopardy in other ways.

One more note: it is also worth emphasizing that this damage was not done by Edward Snowden, except in an incidental and instrumental sense. The damage comes from the policies themselves, just as the lasting damage from Abu Ghraib came not from the leaked photos but from the abuse they portrayed. [My emphasis. And thank you James Fallows, for saying it.]

What governments do eventually becomes known. Eventual disclosure is likely when a program involves even a handful of people. (Latest case in point: Seal Team Six.) It is certain when an effort stretches over many years, entails contracts worth billions of dollars, and requires the efforts of tens of thousands of people -- any one of whom, as we've seen from Snowden, may at any point decide to tell what he knows.

In launching such an effort, a government must assume as a given that what it is doing will become known, and then calculate whether it will still seem "worthwhile" when it does. Based on what we've seen so far, Prism would have failed that test.

So much of our government's reaction to 9/11 can be summed up with one image of our president at the time, standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn, promising retribution. I realize that was very satisfying to many people. It's human. And maybe the nation needed to hear it.

But the irrational decision to invade Iraq dispelled any notion I had that this was merely a performance and that a more thoughtful, considered analysis of how to respond was taking place in the corridors of power. All the literature on the decision process since then has born that out. Some, like Cheney and Wolfowitz, were always crazy and saw their opportunity to advance their crazy cause. Others were just afraid either of the terrorists or being blamed if another terrorist attack took place. The result was that our government lost its collective mind. And it took on an ethos within its national security apparatus that institutionalized that insanity.

So here we are, 12 years later with what looks to me like a runaway surveillance operation run by a power mongering General (not to mention the various CIA operations and Dirty Wars) --- and all of it blessed by a Democratic president. We're not getting any saner. And the blowback hasn't even really begun yet.

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Links Jul 31

Most of TJN's bloggers are currently away, so posting will be relatively limited for the time being.

Info Tax Justice #10: Offshore-Leaks and what follows TJN Germany Blog (In German)

President Obama Clings to His Proposed Business Tax "Reform" that Would Raise No Revenue in the Long-Run Citizens for Tax Justice
See also: Biggest U.S. Firms Park $1.2 Trillion in Profits Offshore, Study Finds Wall Street Journal on the new study by U.S. PIRG

UK: Punish tax-dodging multinationals, says Lords committee The Telegraph
See also: The House of Lords recommend some deeply regressive corporate tax reforms Tax Research UK

Revealed: Nazi-looted Czech gold sold by Bank of England RT

Diamond revenues could be funding Zimbabwe election-rigging Global Witness

Meet the new UN tax committee Martin Hearson's Blog

Liechtenstein bank pays US $23.8 million for tax evasion globalpost/ Agence France Presse

Paris tax hunt sends French to Switzerland The Local

Tackling Tax Havens Center for American Progress

Your Big Mac would cost shockingly little extra if McDonalds workers were paid $15/hour, by @DavidOAtkins

Your Big Mac would cost shockingly little extra if McDonalds workers were paid $15/hour

by David Atkins

Update: it appears that the information in the original source may have been erroneous. Apologies for taking the numbers at face value, as the story had appeared in HuffPo, Business Insider and other places.

A business student crunches the numbers on what a Big Mac would cost if McDonalds workers were actually paid a living wage of $15 an hour. The answer? Not that much more:

Arnobio Morelix, a student at the University of Kansas School of Business, found himself asking the same question, so he did some financial modeling based on McDonald’s annual reports and data sets submitted to investors.

Morelix’s take: If McDonald’s workers were paid the $15 they’re demanding, the cost of a Big Mac would go up 68 cents, from its current price of $3.99 to $4.67.

A Big Mac meal would cost $6.66 rather than $5.69, and the chain’s famous Dollar Menu would go for $1.17.

“Some folks online are complaining they will not pay $2 for their Dollar Menu, but the truth is that even if McDonald’s doubled salaries the price hike would not be 100%,” Morelix said. “I will be happy to pay 17 cents more for my Dollar Menu so that fast food workers can have a living wage, and I believe people deserve to know that price hikes would not be as high as it is often portrayed.”

It's not just a moral question. The economic drag and potential inflation of slightly raising the cost of unhealthy fast food would be dramatically overshadowed by the stimulative economic effect of doubling the salaries of every fast food worker in America. It would also have the salutory effect of putting healthy foods on a somewhat more level playing field, which would increase public health and reduce costs in myriad ways.

But that's not all. Morelix' numbers assume that McDonalds takes the same profit as it did before, and assumes wage increases for every worker all the way up to and including the CEO:

Morelix said that his number crunching assumes profits and other expenses are kept at the same absolute number. His calculations are based on increases in salaries and benefits for every McDonald’s worker, from minimum wage line cooks paid $7.25 an hour to CEO Donald Thompson, who made $8.75 million in 2012.

The assumption that profits must be kept at the same level is a critical one that underpins most Republican arguments about economic regulation. They inherently assume that profits must and will be kept at prior levels, such that any added costs due to regulation or wage increases are passed along to the consumer. That simply isn't a valid argument. There is a price point consumers will refuse to pay for substandard sandwiches--and it's probably below $4.67. Even with all workers paid at least $15/hour, it would probably be a competitive advantage for Burger King to offer a Whopper at under $4.50, which in turn would force McDonald's to keep pace. The huge corporations that make up the fast food industry would likely be forced to take slightly less obscene profits, the only drawback to which would be less money in the hands of the very few shareholders who own over 80% of the stocks. Whatever economic drag that might have at the top of the economic ladder would be offset a hundredfold by the increase in consumer demand capacity from the workers at the bottom of the ladder.

Meanwhile, those who would be significantly impacted in their wallets by a 50-70 cent increase in the cost of a hamburger today would be far less impacted by it tomorrow, if the national minimum wage were set to $15.

In short, it would be a win-win for just about everyone--everyone, that is, except for the fat cats at the very top of the chain.


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5 Tips for Better Networking at the ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo

Many of my friends in the Association Industry will be in Atlanta this week for the ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo.  As a member of ASAE I had hoped to attend the event this year, but my speaking schedule did not permit this to happen.  

If you are going to be at the ASAE conference, here are my top 5 tips for maximizing your networking experience at the event:

1.  Say good-bye to your co-worker once you arrive.  A major mistake made at large conferences is that people cling to those they already know.  They sit with their friends at every meal, and attend all the sessions together.  Better to split up and then come together on occasion to share details of individual experiences. 

This does not mean no contact with your buddies... but do not fall into the trap of being together all the time or you will miss the opportunity to meet new people.

2.  Put your SmartPhone and tablets away during meal, breaks and happy hours.  Most large conferences these days are overrun by the "Phone Zombies".  People who spend every break trying to connect outside the even fail to have any meaningful conversations with those present.  If you must check in with your office, walk outside.  To take your phone out in the networking areas sends a message to those close by that you find your electronics more fascinating than they are (and that is rude).

This does not mean you cannot have your phone out during the speakers presentations.  Take out your phone and tweet or post to Facebook any information you find interesting.  Those of us not at the conference will enjoy sharing in your learning experience. 

ALSO... if the speaker is boring... go ahead and check email or surf the internet.  If the speaker is not engaging enough to keep your attention, they do not deserve your attention!

3.  Be the person to initiate conversations.  People attend these events to meet others, but most are waiting for someone to talk to them.  Some are a bit shy at big events (both introverts and extroverts can clam up in big crowds), and when you say "hello" you can melt their shyness away and kick-start their whole meeting experience.  Once you have a short conversation with someone you will be surprised how often you will cross paths with them again and again at the event.

4.  Bring lots of business cards.  Do not assume anyone will remember your name.  While there are lots of people who want to push us all to use technology in place of a business card, it is often the easiest for everyone to trade the traditional paper cards.  It does not require anyone to have the same apps, and since most people are visual, your will card has a unique look were the new links all look the same. 

Telling someone to look you up on Google or LinkedIn puts the burden on them.  Make it easy for people to connect with you.

5.  Have fun.  When you are having fun people will be drawn to be around you.  This event will have a great mix of learning and social activities... so do not miss out on the festive side of the conference.  Too often people can get so caught up in the business and education that they forget to make the most from talking with other people.  Some of the best learning comes from the impromptu "hallway conversations" you have with other attendees and vendors... and sharing with people is always fun!!!

While there is a lot of "new" ways to connect.... the good old-fashioned face-to-face conversations that take place at meetings is still paramount to business success.  So get out there and talk to each other while in Atlanta.

I wish I was there with you - See you next year in Nashville.

Have A Great Day.

thom singer

Thom Singer is known as "The Conference Catalyst". He works with meeting planners and conference organizers to set the tone for a meeting. His presentations educate, inspire and motivate attendees to engage deeper in the event and make meaningful connections.  http://www.conferencecatalyst.com 

Simon Bridges; Minister of Back-Handed Compliments

Simon Bridges made a cracking speech in the General Debate in Parliament this afternoon. He has certainly proved that Shane Jones is a man alone in the Labour Party; check this out:

Shane Jones has shown a rare outbreak of pragmatism on the vexed subject of mining and oil exploration with his recent entreaties. But he is a lone voice in the wilderness, as Bridges demonstrated.

Nor were the Greens spared ridicule. Accusing the Greens of "quackery", Bridges gave viewers a history lesson with his reference to the passage through the New Zealand Parliament in 1908 of the Quackery Prevention Act!

The General Debate is usually pure theatre, and Bridges provided that in spades. But it was also a most effective speech using a back-handed compliment towards Shane Jones to attack the anti-mining, anti-drilling, anti-progress brigade of the LabourGreen Party.

Evans on Shearer

Malcolm Evans is a cartoonist whose work is featured in newspapers around the country. And he has come up with a gem today in the Press; check this out:

Interestingly, no-one's talking about Labour's plan to stop non-residents buying New Zealand properties today after the shortcomings of the policy were exposed by the likes of Stephen Franks and Rob Hosking.

But still the clock is ticking on David Shearer's gaffe-prone leadership of the Labour Party...

QOTD: Yellen edition

QOTD: Yellen edition

by digby

James Hamilton explains why Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen is “an outstanding choice to head the Federal Reserve.”

“If someone disagrees with her, her first instinct is not to try to bully them, but instead to try to understand why they have reached a different conclusion than she has. Because of this attribute, Yellen is one of the people I would trust most to be able to sort out what the key problems are and what needs to be done in any new situation.”

In fact,  that assessment has nothing to do with gender.  There  are plenty of men who have that attribute. Larry Summers isn't one them.

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I'm so glad these dangerous criminals are off our streets, by @DavidOAtkins

I'm so glad these dangerous criminals are off our streets

by David Atkins

Louisana's finest are protecting their communities from all those scary gay people--even though what they're doing isn't actually illegal. Here's the sting:

An East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office task force arrested at least 12 men since 2011 under a sodomy law invalidated a decade ago the U.S. Supreme Court, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The most recent arrest was July 18 when a man discussed or agreed to have sex with a male undercover agent, The Advocate (http://bit.ly/13mSpdc) reported. The task force was trying to deter sexual activities at the parish's public parks.

Although sex in public and sex solicitation for money are illegal in Louisiana, neither was part of these 12 cases, and most of the men were arrested after agreeing to have sex away from the park at a private residence, District Attorney Hillar Moore III told the newspaper.

"The sheriff's office's intentions are all good," Moore said. "But from what I've seen of these cases, legally, we found no criminal violation."

The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that a Texas law against oral or anal sex was invalid. Louisiana was among nine states with such laws. Richard Leyoub, then attorney general, said the high court's ruling made Louisiana's law unenforceable.

The sheriff's office sent a statement Sunday to the newspaper saying it "should have taken a different approach" to worries about park safety, the newspaper reported.

Priorities. Some places have the right ones. Some places don't.


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Geek out Live with Rush Holt today at 7:30 ET, 4:30 PT @RushHolt

Geek Out Live with Rush Holt

by digby

It does not have to be inevitable that the Wall Street friendly, establishment centrist Corey Booker is the next Democratic senator from New Jersey. There are real progressive alternatives, one of whom is a great congressman, teacher, civil libertarian and scientist --- Rush Holt.  Tonight his campaign is holding a major online townhall at 7:30 ET, 4:30 PT featuring a number of big names from the world of science and politics to talk about our future. (They're calling it a GEEK Out, so I know all of my readers will naturally be compelled to tune in.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1PUrjf_KiA

You can GEEK Out Live with Rush, here. I urge you to tune in.  It's an innovative concept --- an intelligent conversation with the American people. Imagine that.

Congressman Holt wrote this guest post for Blue America a couple of weeks ago:

I’m not the most famous candidate running for Senate in New Jersey. If you know me at all, you probably know me as the congressman who beat IBM’s computer, Watson in Jeopardy-- the one whose bumper stickers say “My Congressman IS a Rocket Scientist!”

But as a true progressive, you care about more than celebrity and slogans. You care about electing the senator who will fight the hardest for our shared values.

So let me tell you why, with your support, I will be that person: the truly progressive, evidence-driven voice we urgently need in the U.S. Senate.

As a teacher and a scientist, I used to help run the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and led the nuclear nonproliferation program at the U.S. State Department. This experience gives me a very different perspective from anyone now in the Senate –and gives me the conviction to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

You see, right now, the Senate has zero scientists. And as a result, the evidence in support of our progressive priorities is being ignored:

• The earth’s climate is changing, and human beings are responsible. Every single month for the last 28 years has been warmer than the historic average. If America fails to act, millions of people will die.

• America’s health care system is not the best in the world-- not even close. We’re paying 40 percent more than any other country as a share of our economy, and we’re still leaving almost 50 million people uninsured.

• America is betraying our young college students-- burdening them with an average of $27,000 in student loan debt, then abandoning them to face 13 percent unemployment in the workplace.

If we’re honest about the evidence, the way forward is clear.

We need to tax carbon so that polluters pay for the greenhouse gases they’re dumping into our atmosphere.

We need to move to a single-payer health care system, the kind that has held down costs and improved quality in nations around the world.

We need to make college more affordable by charging students the same low interest rate, 0.75%, that Wall Street banks pay to borrow money from the government.

And we desperately need a senator for the 21st century: someone who has a real understanding of the science and technology that are changing our world.

Because despite what some senators have claimed, the Internet is not a series of tubes, abortions do not cause breast cancer, and breast implants do not make women healthier. And although changing technology does present new challenges to law enforcement, it does not mean the NSA has the need or the right to monitor the phone calls, letters, and e-mails of innocent people-- treating Americans as suspects first and citizens second.

It’s long past time for the Senate to have at least one scientist, at least one voice who follows the evidence wherever it leads, no matter the political or personal risk.

When you think about it, it's kind of shocking that we don't. The closest we have are a bunch of right wing, anti-choice MDs who deny climate change and want to repeal Obamacare.

Please take the time to tune in to Holt's GEEKOut tonight. We really don't need another Big Money centrist in the Senate. That particular constituency is already very well represented. What we need is a progressive, civil libertarian, scientist to challenge the likes of throwbacks like Paul, Coburn and Barraso when they pretend to have scientific knowledge that backs up their antideluvian worldview.

If you'd like to donate to Congressman Holt's senate campaign you can do so here.

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Armstrong on the Parliamentary Services blunder

John Armstrong is far from complimentary towards Parliamentary Services this morning. In a column entitled Violation speaks ill of our democracy he opines:

That someone working for Parliamentary Service could consider it okay to release the private phone records of a Press Gallery journalist to an inquiry sanctioned by the Prime Minister truly beggars belief.
It certainly gives new meaning to the word "service" in the bureaucracy which runs the parliamentary complex and looks after MPs' needs.
It also speaks of something very sick and rotten at the heart of the country's democracy. Whether the release was motivated by malice or ignorance, it adds up to a fundamental breach of press rights.
It is to be hoped that the book is thrown at the culprit or culprits - preferably the one written by Edmund Burke who spelled out the role of the Fourth Estate more than two centuries ago.
Sadly, though, what has happened does not come as a great shock. The Greens claim a culture has developed under John Key's prime ministership where rules and rights are treated as expendable. But a different kind of "culture" must take responsibility for this disgraceful episode - a culture which developed long before Key became Prime Minister.

John Armstrong is rightfully annoyed; the release of Andrea Vance's phone records simply should not have happened. It is a blunder with potentially serious consequences.

Armstrong continues, suggesting that the relationship between the media and Parliamentary Services is already fraught:

The truth is that the relationship between Parliamentary Service and Press Gallery journalists is not so much toxic as non-existent. All the gallery's dealings with the service are through the Speaker. There is little opportunity - and little effort made - to build trust and respect between the bureaucrats and journalists.
Journalists have long thought parliamentary authorities view the gallery as a nuisance that has to be tolerated rather than an essential part of the democratic fabric which should be given every assistance to do its job - and get it right.
The gallery's long but ultimately futile campaign to have the offices of its member news organisations located much closer to the parliamentary chamber is testimony to that. Those efforts to have the gallery returned to the second floor of Parliament Buildings - where it was before the complex was quake-strengthened in the early 1990s - have been blocked at every turn.
Combine that disdain for the gallery with the willingness of Parliamentary Service to bend over backwards to please its political masters and you long had the ingredients for an accident waiting to happen.

The Fourth Estate plays an important role in reporting on what our MP's are up to. At times we criticise them for the manner in which they do that, but nonetheless, the role is important to our parliamentary democracy. And Parliamentary Services has seriously compromised media independence by its actions with regard to Andrea Vance.

All is not lost however, and Armstrong has the grace to acknowledge that some good may come from this as a result of Speaker David Carter's actions yesterday, following on from those of the Prime Minister:

Some good may come of all this though. The Speaker, David Carter, has been hugely embarrassed, especially in having had to yesterday change his version of what occurred.
His referring to Parliament's privileges committee of the issues raised by the release of phone records and swipe-card movements of the Dominion Post's Andrea Vance around the complex is to be applauded. As is his forthright and very genuine apology.
Likewise the intervention by the Prime Minister by way of a letter to the Speaker. But Key realises what is at stake here.
The last thing he - or any politician for that matter - needs is the media really turning feral, especially when he has highly contentious spy laws to pass.

Love them or loathe them, members of the media are an important part of the democratic process. There has been a significant stuff-up here, and measures must be put in place to ensure that there is no repeat, regardless of which party is occupying the Treasury benches.

Photo of the Day - 31 July 2013

Guess what is going to be the hottest ticket in Hamilton this week?

Best of luck to the Chiefs and the Brumbies on Saturday night, and may the home team win!

Is Kiwi our canary in the coal mine? The New Zealand surveillance state revealed

Is Kiwi our canary in the coal mine?

by digby

It isn't just us, although we are being very helpful to allied governments in these pursuits. Because GWOT, dontcha know:

The New Zealand military received help from US spy agencies to monitor the phone calls of Kiwi journalist Jon Stephenson and his associates while he was in Afghanistan reporting on the war. 

Stephenson has described the revelation as a serious violation of his privacy, and the intrusion into New Zealand media freedom has been slammed as an abuse of human rights.
The spying came at a time when the New Zealand Defence Force was unhappy at Stephenson's reporting of its handling of Afghan prisoners and was trying to find out who was giving him confidential information. 

The monitoring occurred in the second half of last year when Stephenson was working as Kabul correspondent for the US McClatchy news service and for various New Zealand news organisations. 

The Sunday Star-Times has learned that New Zealand Defence Force personnel had copies of intercepted phone "metadata" for Stephenson, the type of intelligence publicised by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. The intelligence reports showed who Stephenson had phoned and then who those people had phoned, creating what the sources called a "tree" of the journalist's associates. 

New Zealand SAS troops in Kabul had access to the reports and were using them in active investigations into Stephenson. 

The sources believed the phone monitoring was being done to try to identify Stephenson's journalistic contacts and sources. They drew a picture of a metadata tree the Defence Force had obtained, which included Stephenson and named contacts in the Afghan government and military. 

The sources who described the monitoring of Stephenson's phone calls in Afghanistan said that the NZSIS has an officer based in Kabul who was known to be involved in the Stephenson investigations. 

And since early in the Afghanistan war, the GCSB has secretly posted staff to the main US intelligence centre at Bagram, north of Kabul. They work in a special "signals intelligence" unit that co-ordinates electronic surveillance to assist military targeting. It is likely to be this organisation that monitored Stephenson.

This should sound familiar:

The news has emerged as the Government prepares to pass legislation which will allow the Defence Force to use the GCSB to spy on New Zealanders. 

The Stephenson surveillance suggests the Defence Force may be seeking the GCSB assistance, in part, for investigating leaks and whistleblowers. 

Stephenson said monitoring a journalist's communications could also threaten the safety of their sources "by enabling security authorities to track down and intimidate people disclosing information to that journalist". 

He said there was "a world of difference between investigating a genuine security threat and monitoring a journalist because his reporting is inconvenient or embarrassing to politicians and defence officials".
[...]
An internal Defence document leaked to the Star-Times reveals that defence security staff viewed investigative journalists as "hostile" threats requiring "counteraction". The classified security manual lists security threats, including "certain investigative journalists" who may attempt to obtain "politically sensitive information". 

The manual says Chief of Defence Force approval is required before any NZDF participation in "counter intelligence activity" is undertaken. (See separate story)
Stephenson took defamation action against the Defence Force after Jones claimed that Stephenson had invented a story about visiting an Afghan base as part of an article about mishandling of prisoners. 

Although the case ended with a hung jury two weeks ago, Jones conceded during the hearing that he now accepted Stephenson had visited the base and interviewed its Afghan commander. 

Victoria University lecturer in media studies Peter Thompson said the Afghanistan monitoring and the security manual's view of investigative journalists confirmed the concerns raised in the High Court case. 

There was "a concerted and deliberate effort to denigrate that journalist's reputation for political ends".

But hey, don't worry.  That could never happen here, right? Cuz' we're good and they're evil.  And anyway, at least we don't have anything like this:

A leaked New Zealand Defence Force security manual reveals it sees three main "subversion" threats it needs to protect itself against: foreign intelligence services, organisations with extreme ideologies and "certain investigative journalists". 

In the minds of the defence chiefs, probing journalists apparently belong on the same list as the KGB and al Qaeda. 

The manual's first chapter is called "Basic Principles of Defence Security". It says a key part of protecting classified information is investigating the "capabilities and intentions of hostile organisations and individuals" and taking counteraction against them. 

The manual, which was issued as an order by the Chief of Defence Force, places journalists among the hostile individuals. It defines "The Threat" as espionage, sabotage, subversion and terrorism, and includes investigative journalists under the heading "subversion". Subversion, it says, is action designed to "weaken the military, economic or political strength of a nation by undermining the morale, loyalty or reliability of its citizens." It highlights people acquiring classified information to "bring the Government into disrepute".

To reinforce its concern, the defence security manual raises investigative journalists a second time under a category called "non-traditional threats". The threat of investigative journalists, it says, is that they may attempt to obtain "politically sensitive information". 

Politically sensitive information, such as the kind of stories that Stephenson was writing, is however about politics and political accountability, not security. Metro magazine editor Simon Wilson, who has published a number of Jon Stephenson's prisoner stories, said the Defence Force seemed to see Stephenson as the "enemy", as a threat to the Defence Force. 

"But that's not how Jon works and how journalism works," he said. "Jon is just going about his business as a journalist." 

The New Zealand Defence Force "seems to be confusing national security with its own desire not to be embarrassed by disclosures that reveal it has broken the rules", he said.

Right. But our defense department 's Insider Threat Manual doesn't specifically mention investigative journalists, so we can rest easy:

Seriously, how much of this stuff is being used to ferret out whistleblowers and sources to protect the government from embarrassment? It's very easy to see how they can conflate the revelation of their own foibles, bad policies, errors and malpractice with a threat to the nation, isn't it?

Update: McClatchy is not happy about this.

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Congratulations Lauren!

Lauren Boyle is having a fantastic swimming world championships, and has won a second bronze medal; the Herald reports:

Lauren Boyle claimed her second bronze medal with a remarkable swim in the 1500m freestyle on day three of finals at the Fine World Championships in Barcelona overnight.
Boyle produced a stunning 15:44.71, just outside the old world record, to win the bronze medal behind American Katie Ledecky, who set a new world record of 15:36.53 after a dogfight with Denmark's Lotte Friis.

Not only did Ms Boyle distinguish herself with a medal, but she has knocked her previous personal best for the event out of the ballpark; read on:

Boyle has taken more than 30 seconds off her previous best over the 1500m over her heat and final.

An improvement of more than 30 seconds in this event is outstanding; that's more than one second per length of the pool!

And Lauren Boyle's best may yet be to come. Her bronze medals in the 400m and 1500m events (New Zealand's first since the heady days of Olympic gold medallist Danyon Loader) are a wonderful achievement, but her best event is yet to come; the 800m freestyle. Here's hoping that her two earlier events haven't taken the edge off her performances.

Congratulations Lauren Boyle!

The House GOP beats a dead horse then runs over it with a tractor. Repeatedly.

The House GOP beats a dead horse then runs over it with a tractor. Repeatedly.

by digby

This is so idiotic, I honestly cannot understand it. It is the most perfect illustration of the "beating a dead horse" metaphor I've ever seen:

[L]anguage to bar ACORN from receiving any money made the final cut [of the Defense appropriations bill.] Section 8097 of the bill reads, "None of the funds made available under this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries."

ACORN cannot receive any funding from the U.S. government under any legislation, of course, because ACORN does not exist. Similarly, ACORN has no subsidiaries because ACORN does not exist.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) referred questions on the provision to House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing. "I don't believe our response has changed since the last time you asked this question," Hing told HuffPost.

In June, the last time HuffPost asked Hing about ACORN defunding language, she replied, "These provisions are typically carried every year in appropriations bills."

The time before that, in March, Hing called ACORN defunding language "a typical provision that is included in most appropriations bills."

There has to be a reason for this. What's the point? Are people running on their record of repeatedly defunding ACORN? What else could it be?

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Bradley Manning guilty (despite what the media is saying)

Various media outlets are saying that Bradley Manning has been acquitted of the most serious charge against him in his espionage trial. Even as we drove to work just now, the radio news reported that Manning had been acquitted.

That may be so, but Manning is going to be behind bars for a long, long time; the Herald reports:

A military judge acquitted former US intelligence analyst Bradley Manning of the most serious charge against him, aiding the enemy, but convicted him of espionage, theft and computer fraud charges for giving thousands of classified secrets to the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks. He faces up to 128 years in prison.
The judge deliberated for about 16 hours over three days before reaching her decision in a case that drew worldwide attention. Supporters hailed the 25-year-old Manning as a whistleblower. The US government called him an anarchist computer hacker and attention-seeking traitor.
The WikiLeaks case is by far the most voluminous release of classified material in US history. Manning's supporters included Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, who in the early 1970s spilled a secret defence Department history of US involvement in Vietnam that showed that the government repeatedly misled the public about the war.
Manning's sentencing begins on Wednesday. The charge of aiding the enemy was the most serious of 21 counts and carried a potential life sentence.
His trial was unusual because he acknowledged giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 battlefield reports and diplomatic cables, plus video of a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed civilians in Iraq and a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
In the footage, airmen laughed and called targets "dead bastards."
Manning has said he leaked the material to expose the U.S military's "bloodlust" and disregard for human life, and what he considered American diplomatic deceit. He said he chose information he believed would not the harm the United States, and he wanted to . He did not testify at his trial.
Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to lesser offenses that could have brought him 20 years behind bars, yet the government continued to pursue the original, more serious charges.
Defence attorney David Coombs portrayed Manning as a "young, naive but good-intentioned" soldier who was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay service member at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the US military.
Coombs said Manning could have sold the information or given it directly to the enemy, but he gave them to WikiLeaks in an attempt to "spark reform" and provoke debate. A counterintelligence witness valued the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs at about $5.7 million, based on what foreign intelligence services had paid in the past for similar information.
Coombs said Manning had no way of knowing whether al-Qaida would access the secret-spilling website, and a 2008 counterintelligence report showed the government itself didn't know much about the site.
The lead prosecutor, Maj. Ashden Fein, said Manning knew the material would be seen by al-Qaida, a key point prosecutor needed to prove to get an aiding the enemy conviction. Even Osama bin Laden had some of the digital files at his compound in Pakistan when he was killed.

There are two schools of thought with regard to Manning. Some people see him as a hero, for taking on the establishment. Others regard him as a traitor for leaking confidential information gathered during his time in the military with the specific aim of embarrassing the US Government.

Bradley Manning will have plenty of time to reflect on his actions as he languishes in a military prison for a very long time. He violated his Oath of Office by stealing confidential military information. We find it somewhat ironic that although he lawyer argued that Manning wanted to "start a debate on military and foreign policy" he chose not to testify at his trial.

Actions have consequences. Bradley Manning is about to face the consequences of his actions, and they are unlikely to be pleasant.