Last Call For Friday News Dump Time

OPM director Katherine Archuleta resigned this afternoon over Thursday’s “Well, you remember that 4 million people’s personal data hacked thing? Turns out it was 21 million plus in addition to that” story.

Ms. Archuleta went to the White House on Friday morning to personally inform Mr. Obama of her decision, saying that she felt new leadership was needed at the federal personnel agency to enable it to “move beyond the current challenges,” the official said. The president accepted her resignation. 

Beth Cobert, the deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, will step in to temporarily replace Ms. Archuleta while a permanent replacement is found. 

Ms. Archuleta, who assumed her post in November 2013, had been under pressure to resign since last month, when she announced the first of two separate but related computer intrusions that compromised the personal information of 4.2 million current and former federal workers, including Social Security numbers, addresses, health and financial histories and other private details. 

On Thursday, she divulged the breach had also led to the theft of personal data of 21.5 million people who had applied for government background checks, likely affecting anyone subjected to such an investigation since 2000.

So yeah, that was going to happen.  She was convinced to fall on her sword after Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia started making calls, and Warner has a lot of pull when it comes to federal employees affected by the data breach, representing the state with the most in the country.

Not surprised by this in the least.  When your agency loses personal info on every active, retired and potential federal worker since 2000, most likely to China, then yeah, you're going to be asked to resign, I'm sorry.

Supposedly the thieves got away with the data by using an admin password.  Oldest trick in the book in both spycraft and social engineering.

Everyone, government and private sector, needs to up their information security game, and that means passwords and authentication methods that inconvenience you from time to time.  You don't like it?  This is what happens when the weakest link in data security comes into play: the people too lazy to protect it properly.

Get used to more and more stuff getting locked down where you work, folks.

One Hundred Fourteen Million Reasons

While The Donald may be leading the polls right now, few Republicans believe he'll end up being the nominee.  And while the guy does have his own fortune in the billions, he's no match for Jeb Bush's fundraising tsunami.

Jeb Bush raised $11.4 million in his first 16 days as a presidential candidate, and the super PAC he tirelessly fundraised for before he formally entered the race netted $103 million in the first six months of 2015. 

The combined haul of the campaign and super PAC—$114 million—is likely double his closest competitor in the money race. 

It appears Bush raised even more than what was disclosed on Thursday. That mammoth figure still doesn't include a third political committee in Bush's orbit, the Right to Rise PAC Inc. When Bush first announced last December that he was "actively" exploring a presidential run, he said he was forming a PAC to help promote "leaders, ideas and policies." Neither the super PAC nor campaign responded to an inquiry about the other PAC's fundraising figures in 2015. 

The former Florida governor, as the son and brother of the last two Republican presidents, has long been expected to be the top fundraiser in the GOP field. His campaign team had downplayed talk of raising $100 million since the figure was first floated months ago, but in the end they blew past that figure by 14 percent. 

Bush formally declared his candidacy in Miami on June 15 and raised an average of $710,000 per day for the rest of the month. To put his $11.4 million haul in perspective, it would require Bush to have raised the maximum donation of $2,700 in primary dollars from more than 4,200 donors—in 16 days.

His super PAC, Right to Rise USA, run by one of Bush's longtime confidantes, is not constrained by contribution limits. Bush had roughly 500 donors contribute more than $25,000, according to figures released by his super PAC Thursday. Of the $103 million raised, the super PAC said that it had more than $98 million cash on hand.

And keep in mind Jeb can deploy that money now, a whole 16 months before the race, and six months before the earliest primaries.  If he keeps piling on money at this rate, plus pick up the money from his competitors once winning the primary, Jeb'll have half a billion plus on hand to buy the 2016 race at minimum.

In reality, he'll probably have billions to work with through PACs.  He'll need it to try to sell himself to the America public.

Question is, will we buy another four years of Bush?

Continuing To Trump Reality

The Donald is a blustering racist meathead, and it's no wonder then that he leads yet another poll among his fellow blustering racist meatheads in the GOP 2016 primary.

Media coverage of Donald Trump's controversial immigration remarks have lifted the GOP presidential candidate to the top of the Republican field, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll. 

Trump was the preferred GOP nominee for president for 15 percent of respondents — 4 points ahead of former Gov. Jeb Bush (Fla.) and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who were tied for second place. 

Gov. Scott Walker (Wis.), Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.) shared the third spot with 9 percent each.

In addition to being the first choice for the majority of likely voters who participated in the poll, Trump was also the primary second choice for those who preferred another candidate as their nominee.

12 percent of respondents said Trump was second in line for their vote, while only 7 percent picked either Bush or Paul as their safety candidate.

Donald Trump is the Republican party right now.  Here's a freebie: Donald Trump has been the Republican party for years: mean-spirited, greedy racist billionaires who think they should be able to buy and sell Americans like they do everything else.  And like Trump, you're only useful to the GOP as long as they can continue to exploit you for profit and not a second longer.

So yes, Republicans, Donald Trump is your racist, birther champion and has been for years.

In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that aired Thursday night, the Republican presidential candidate said he was not that interested in talking about the issue, compared to other ones.

“Honestly, I don’t want to get into it,” Trump said. 

Asked whether he thought Obama was born in the U.S., Trump responded: “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know why he wouldn’t release his records.”

The rest of us need to keep that in mind heading into November 2016.  The jackasses who want Trump for president will be voting then.

Will you?

StupidiNews!

• After GOP Gov. Nikki Haley signed legislation yesterday, South Carolina's Confederate flag on the capitol grounds will come down this morning and be moved to a nearby Civil War museum.
• Last month's reported hack of 4 million government employee's information has now been revealed to have affected more than 25 million Americans in total.
• In what observes say is an even more harsh austerity regime than the one rejected by Greeks on Sunday, PM Alexis Tsipras has proposed new spending and pension cuts for a bailout deal.
• FBI Director James Comey says at least 10 people have been arrested in connection with possible terror plots, including some who planned attacks over the July 4th holiday.
• A broken undersea cable is being blamed for the Northern Mariana Islands losing internet this week, as service is slowly being restored to the US territory.