Here's me talking with Conn Carroll of the Heritage Foundation about various and sundry things:

Open thread.

The Donald is endorsing Newt Gingrich today[Update - fearing the point I am making here, Trump is going to endorse Romney and thus justify his not running. The short fingered vulgarian is a charlatan of course.] The Media needs to ask the short fingered vulgarian what happens when Gingrich loses to Romney. In December, Trump said:

It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama administration[. . . .] But if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am unwilling to give up my right to run as an independent candidate.

I demand that Trump run. Media, hold The Donald's feet to the fire. The clown car needs its biggest clown.

Speaking for me only

Just yesterday I was writing about the risk of online medical databases (like the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) being hacked, as happened in Virginia in 2009.

Today, a Denver non-profit medical group announced its database had been hacked and patient data compromised.

The group believes hackers may have accessed patient names, phone numbers, and medical conditions. It’s not believed that hackers were able to access billing information like credit cards.

Computer safety experts are warning other consumers to beware of hackers targeting medical data as it’s proving to be a valuable gateway for other consumer data. “It's incredibly valuable especially when it's medical information because it's tied to virtually everything," said John Sileo of ThinkLikeaspy.com, a identity theft protection agency.

How often do breaches of medical data occur? More than you'd think. [More...]

A funny thing has happened on the way to the November election - Mitt Romney has become a clown car of a candidate. It's one thing to be "inauthentic," it's another to make the mistakes Romney is now making on a regular basis. Gail Collins writes:

On the morning after the Florida primary, Mitt Romney bounded out of bed, inhaled the sweet air of victory, donned his new cloak of invulnerability ...

... and went on CNN to announce that he doesn’t care about poor people. “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he told a slightly stunned-looking Soledad O’Brien.

Whenever the topic turns to wealth, or the lack thereof, some inner demon seems to make Romney say something that sounds ridiculous, offensive or ridiculously offensive.

(Emphasis supplied.) Erick Erickson and his cohorts are engaged in a slash and burn against Romney, but the fact is Romney is the guy who is self destructing. Of course, Newt remains a Democrat's dream Republican nominee, Erickson's silly statements about how Romney dooms the GOP slate notwithstanding. It's a pretty shocking development that at this stage Romney is incapable of discussing fairness issues without putting two feet in his mouth. Are you telling me that his expensive team can't write a vanilla paragraph for him to repeat ad nauseum on the subject?

Speaking for me only

Donald Trump has announced he will disclose his preference for the Republican candidate for President tomorrow at 12:30 pm. If his candidate wins the nomination, he won't run as a third party candidate. Otherwise, who knows. But even if he decides to run, he reminds everyone he can't begin campaigning until May, when the newest Celebrity Apprentice finishes airing.

As everyone knows, Facebook filed a $5 billion IPO today. Here is the actual filing. Among the contents is a letter from Mark Zuckerberg, explaining his vision of Facebook. [More...]

The Pennsylvania Attorney General has asked the court to empanel jurors from outside Centre County for the Jerry Sandusky trial. It says, in addition to pre-trial publicity, the Penn State Community and Centre County are "philosophically and economically” intertwined."

Sandusky's lawyer says he will fight the motion.

“Jerry’s case has drawn national attention, as a result of which we feel there’s no better place than Centre County from which to select fair-minded individuals to sit as jurors in Jerry’s case,” Amendola said. “We will vehemently oppose the commonwealth’s motion for a change of venire.”

In other words, the state wants to keep the trial in Centre County, but import jurors from other counties to decide the case. The judge will decide on Feb. 8.

I'm swamped. Nothing from me today.

Open Thread.

As Republicans prepare to grill Attorney General Eric Holder again over Operation Fast and Furious, the Democrats on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have released a report. The executive summary is here. The full report is here.

Shorter version: There is no evidence higher-ups at DOJ were aware of the gunwalking operations, which were initiated during the Bush Administraton. [More...]

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), current Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, has always struck me as a public menace. He's now advocating more mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Other Republicans are joining him.

If you don't remember Sensenbrenner from 2004- 2005, when he was Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, here are some of his dooziest proposals:[More...]

Rough day at the dentist today. When I left with a prescription for pain medication, it came with a separate notice from the dentist, addressed to me, at my home address, advising me that when I fill the prescription, it will be entered in a state database accessible to law enforcement and doctors. 37 states are now enrolled in the prescription monitoring program. They are even working on an interstate version, having states share the information about your prescriptions with other states.

There's something wrong with this picture. Why should the private, personal medical information of millions of people be subjected to state surveillance and made accessible to law enforcement and thousands of pharmacists and health care providers, just so the Government can stop a few lawbreakers?

What if the database is breached or hacked, as happened in Virginia, exposing the medical information of 5 million people? The hackers demanded a $10 million ransom to return the information.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Carpathia Hosting has set up a website, MegaRetrieval.com, where those who stored data at MegaUpload can get in touch with EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). EFF is offering free legal services in hopes of assisting users who legitimately stored data on MegaUpload.

When the United States Government shut down access to Megaupload, a multitude of innocent users who stored legitimate, non-infringing files on the cloud-storage service were left with no means to access their data.

If you are one of these, are based in the United States, and are looking for legal help to retrieve your data, please email the Electronic Frontier Foundation at megauploadmissing-at-eff.org.

Here is their joint press release. [More...]