Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Here's a heartwarming story about a rally in my home state of NC, and by "heartwarming" I mean it will actually induce angina.

Two active-duty U.S. Marines were arrested after driving hours from their homes to take part in a pro-Confederate rally last week in North Carolina. 

Sgt. Michael Chesny and Staff Sgt. Joseph Manning were arrested for trespassing after draping a white nationalist banner over a building in downtown Graham during a May 20 demonstration, reported the Times-News. 

The pair unfurled a banner that quoted George Orwell’s “1984” — “He who controls the past controls the future” — and the letters, “YWNRU,” which stands for “you will not replace us,” a slogan linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa. 

The group has gained followers in recent years by blanketing college campuses with white nationalist literature, although it’s not clear whether either Marine is directly involved with Identity Evropa or similar groups. 

The Marines told arresting officers they had gone to the rally to record video of protesters from the Industrial Workers of the World to prove the social group wasn’t peaceful. 

Chesny serves as an explosive ordnance disposal technician based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, and Manning serves in the Marine Corps Engineer School at Camp Lejeune. 

The servicemen were each charged with first-degree trespassing, a misdemeanor offense, and released on $1,000 bond the same day as their arrest. 

The incident is under investigation by military personnel.

So many questions about this, such as one, why do we still have pro-Confederacy rallies in the US in 2017, two, why do we have white nationalists in public at these rallies, three, why are our military recruits so drawn to pro-Confederacy rallies with white nationalist messaging and four, are any of you still wondering why NC went for Trump?

As I keep saying, Trump is not the actual problem, although he's more like the metastasizing of the cancer of the body politic more than anything, the real problem is the people who saw his message and decided "Thank God, I finally can stop pretending now and do this openly."

And you know what, even if you as a Trump voter can still look yourself in the mirror and say "Well I'm not a white supremacist asshole" you're still okay with the candidate that made white supremacy publicly acceptable again.

For that, I will never forgive Trump voters.  To a person.

Mortal Coil Shufflling Department Comes For Roger Ailes

Serial abuser of women (and of news) Roger Ailes, former FOX News Channel head and founder, was found dead this morning at age 77.

The death was announced by his family and reported on Fox News Channel. There was no immediate information on a cause of death. 

"I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger Ailes, passed away this morning," his wife, Elizabeth, said in a statement. "Roger was a loving husband to me, to his son Zachary, and a loyal friend to many. He was also a patriot, profoundly grateful to live in a country that gave him so much opportunity to work hard, to rise -- and to give back." 

Sean Hannity, a prime time host and longtime face of the network, said on Twitter: "Today America lost one of its great patriotic warriors." 

Ailes started Fox News almost from scratch in 1996. With its slogan "Fair & Balanced," the network grew into not just the cable news ratings leader but a profound influence on the right wing of American politics. 

Fox News promoted Republican candidates and causes and relentlessly attacked what it perceived to be liberal bias in the mainstream media and the entertainment industry. 

Ailes was arguably the most powerful man in American media when he suddenly lost his job last summer. Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox anchor, sued him for sexual harassment, and other women came forward to support her claims. Carlson settled with 21st Century Fox, the network's parent company, for $20 million.

Roger Ailes was one of the chief architects of the rise of the current GOP, and of Trump.  He has done incalculable damage to the country and the planet, and his passing is quite literally the least he could accomplish in the wake of his decades-long reign of presiding of his empire of cable news diarrhea.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life believing that his final words yesterday were something along the lines that a special counsel for Trump and Russia would only be appointed "over his dead body" and that his body dutifully complied.

Good job, Roger Ailes's body.  Were that you could have only saved us earlier.

Last Call For That's Real White Of You, Con't

I'm tired of hearing excuses for Trump voters, guys.

I'm tired of having to find reasons to get along with people in positions of power who say things like this.

When Louisiana Judge Mike Erwin noticed a man share his seat with a black woman in crowded Baton Rouge, La., establishment Sammy’s Grill on Feb. 3, he allegedly spewed, “You should have made her get her fat nigger ass up.”

Kaneitra Johnson, a resident of Baton Rouge, shared her traumatic experience in a public Facebook post that has been shared 183 times to date. She went into even further detail with the Rouge Collection, stating:

“I’m halfway on the seat and the Lyft driver is on the other half of the seat,” Johnson said. “Then he asked for his jacket. All of a sudden I hear this older man behind me tell the Lyft driver, ‘You never give up your seat for a n*gger.’”
...
As Johnson and the driver sat side by side, the older man continues, “You should have made her get her fat n*gger a** up.” 

Johnson says that it was only after police arrived on the scene that she learned the racist white man in question was Judge Mike Erwin of Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court, which covers East Baton Rouge.

Guess the price of his meal was causing economic anxiety, right?

I'm tired of this, guys.  I'm tired of people asking me to forgive Trump voters and racist-ass white people in general, I'm tired of people asking me to continue to enable them through sympathy or empathy, when they have none for me or anyone who looks like me.  At this point the direct result of enabling them is a regime dedicated to disenfranchising me for the rest of my natural life.

I'm not exactly too concerned with the root cause.  Either by malice or by ignorance, the truly malicious are now in full control of this country again.  I'm fighting for my basic civil rights now.  I don't care how we got there anymore.  As a black man in a blood red state I'm only interested in survival and resistance.

Everything else takes a back seat.  Especially when these guys are local.

Amanda Lee says she is building an army and Ohio plays a key role in her plans.

As the national imperial commander for the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Lee predicted last week that 2017 will bring a resurgence of her group's activity - public rallies, widespread pamphlet distribution, greater recruitment efforts - and a push in several targeted states, including Ohio. 

"We have people all over Ohio already. There is a large membership of Loyal White Knights there," she said in a phone interview during a dinner break from her job in North Carolina. "When things start going wrong, it's time for us to start retaliating. It's time for us to get active." 

Lee said she couldn't provide membership numbers despite the fact that members of her branch of the KKK pay monthly dues - $10 a person or $15 a couple - and that it calls itself the largest KKK faction in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks what it calls hate and extremist groups and combats discrimination through education and litigation, has acknowledged the Loyal White Knights has a significant Ohio presence. 

The Alabama-based law center said in its most-recent report that 34 such hate groups operate in Ohio, dividing them into categories, including KKK, black separatist, white nationalist, racist/skinhead, neo-Nazi and anti-LGBT. The center maps where the groups are based, including Ohio organizations such as the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in Cleveland, the Nation of Islam in Columbus and the Supreme White Alliance in Cincinnati. 

Rick Zwayer, the director of Ohio Homeland Security, said it falls to every federal, state and local law enforcement officer to monitor extremist groups and to keep an eye out for those who might want to do harm to others.

An increasing amount of organizing happens online, however, including for the world's most-visited white supremacist website, the Daily Stormer, which is run by central Ohio native Andrew Anglin. Anglin's specific whereabouts are unknown these days but, at least until recently, donations to his website were directed to a Worthington business address associated with his father.

Especially when the new regime is happily announcing that they will drop the focus on these groups now so that they can grow and thrive again.

Do not ask me to understand them again.

Last Call For Economic Anxiety

Remember folks, it's all about jobs and the economy, and it certainly isn't about Trump making America's 400-year-long love affair with bigotry open and acceptable again.

A Massachusetts man is facing hate crime charges, accused of attacking a Muslim woman Wednesday night while she worked at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Prosecutors said the man invoked President Donald Trump's name as he threatened the woman and mocked her religion.

Authorities arrested 57-year-old Robin Rhodes, of Worcester, Massachusetts, on charges including assault, unlawful imprisonment and menacing, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Thursday.

Economic anxiety a go-go, baby!

Prosecutors said Rhodes punctuated his claim with a kick to Khan's leg and blocked her doorway with his body. He moved when another employee came to Khan's aid, but followed when Khan ran past him to the lounge's front desk.

Rhodes allegedly followed Khan, got down on his knees and "began to bow down in imitation of a Muslim praying," Brown said.

"(Expletive) Islam, (expletive) ISIS," Rhodes yelled, authorities said. "Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you. You can ask Germany, Belgium and France about these kind of people. You will see what happens."

Khan's right leg was injured in the confrontation. Police charged Rhodes with assault, unlawful imprisonment, menacing and harassment as hate crimes. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison.

Yeah, I remember all those people who never said "Obama's in charge now, he's going to get rid of all you white people" eight years ago.

And no, I don't feel sorry in the least that this guy is looking at four years for this.

The Story Of Lewis And Bark

Donald Trump is a walking orange chancre and I dislike him immensely.  

That was my opinion of the man before he made the mistake of going after Rep. John Lewis on Twitter this morning.

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday morning returned fire on a top Democrat who said he was not a “legitimate president.”

A day after Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said Trump was not legitimate, the president-elect told him to worry about his own district instead.

“Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!” Trump wrote in a series of tweets.

What set off the Tantrum Of The United States this time?  The fact that Rep. Lewis came out of the Comey briefing Friday with a very dim view of the President-elect.

Lewis on Friday told NBC News he wouldn’t attend next week’s inauguration, saying he doesn’t believe Trump is a "legitimate president."

"I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It will be hard. It's going to be very difficult. I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” Lewis said.

“I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton,” he added.

“I don't plan to attend the inauguration. It will be the first one that I miss since I’ve been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.”

Trump's assumption that Georgia's 5th Congressional district is "in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested)" because all black Congressmen from urban districts are from the goddamn ghetto to this piece of human excrement is classic racism, and this man is going to be President in a week.

Let that sink in.  By the way, GA-5, which includes Atlanta and some surrounding areas?  According to the US Census Bureau, it's a majority black district with a median income of $48,000 and a mean income of $73,200 or so, with 40% of the district having a bachelor's or higher and 88% having a high school diploma.  That actually makes it one of the highest-educated districts in the nation, and it should, with multiple colleges and universities like Georgia Tech, Emory, Georgia State, Morehouse and Spelman.

It's not falling apart, unless by that Trump means "The Atlanta Falcons".  They're having a bad year.

You know, like Trump is about to.

Last Call For History's Dustbin

As we go into tonight's debate, remember Trump is the guy supposedly running neck and neck with Clinton, and he's doing it with support from people like this.

A vendor at the Bloomsburg Fair in Pennsylvania advertised his wares by displaying a large Nazi flag next to a Donald Trump banner, according to The Citizens' Voice, a local Pennsylvania paper.

The flag was taken down Monday after it was initially spotted and a fairgoer posted a picture of it on social media Sunday night.

“Security and the directors and other people did take care of it,” concessions clerk Barbara Belles told The Citizens’ Voice. Belles also said the vendor was apparently displaying the flag for political purposes.

Additional Nazi flags were confiscated from the vendor Monday morning, according to ABC affiliate WNEP.

Nothing to see here.  But you'll keep up with your third party protest vote because keeping this asshole (who is getting support from literal, actual Nazis!) out of the White House somehow is less important than registering your equal displeasure with both major parties, right?

The Curse Of Zimmerman

Am I the only person who thinks this story should be the start of a Steven King novel?

SALE: One .9-mm pistol — and whatever’s left of George Zimmerman’s bankrupt soul. 

The Florida neighborhood watchman who fatally shot unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in 2012 is putting the killer handgun up for auction — and hoping to fetch at least $5,000.
“I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon,” 

Zimmerman wrote in his online description of the weapon. The perverted auction opens for bids at 11 a.m. Thursday. 

“The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012 ... Many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. This is a piece of American History,” Zimmerman wrote.

Understand that the person who purchases this weapon deserves all the bad karma in the universe for doing so, and like I said, that would make for a pretty gripping modern horror novel if you ask me.

Not as gripping however as the real-life horror of lives ended daily by guns in the US.  There's 32,000 or so stories there every year there, and David "KagroX" Waldman over at Daily Kos keeps the diary of those heart-breaking stories on a daily basis.

But to profit directly off your infamy like this?  A bankrupt soul indeed.  Steven King would have a field day.

Last Call For As Callous As They Come

The city of Cleveland has settled a lawsuit with the family of Tamir Rice for $6 million over the shooting death of the then 12-year-old boy by police for the crime of carrying a toy gun in Ohio.  But the settlement isn't the awful part. The response from the Cleveland's  largest police union is.

The head of the Cleveland rank-and-file police union says the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice should use money from a $6 million settlement to educate children about the use of look-alike firearms. 

Steve Loomis, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolman's Association association, was criticized on a national scale for statements he made to the media in the weeks and months after two officers in his union were involved in Tamir's death. 

The usually talkative Loomis issued a news release that said "we can only hope the Rice family and their attorneys will use a portion of this settlement to help educate the youth of Cleveland in the dangers associated with the mishandling of both real and facsimile firearms. 

"Something positive must come from this tragic loss. That would be educating youth of the dangers of possessing a real or replica firearm," the release continues.

Now, stop and think about this.

First of all, the police union is telling the Rice family how to spend their settlement over the death of their child.

Second of all, the police union feels the need to tell the Rice family that it is their duty to educate Cleveland's kids to not play with toy guns so that Cleveland cops don't murder them in cold blood.

I have never seen anything more awfully callous, more reprehensibly disgusting than this release.

Steve Loomis, you are without a doubt a monster.

Marty, McFried

Looks like somebody finally knocked the smirk off Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli's face: The Feds.

A boyish drug company entrepreneur, who rocketed to infamy by jacking up the price of a life-saving pill from $13.50 to $750, was arrested by federal agents at his Manhattan home early Thursday morning on securities fraud related to a firm he founded. 

Martin Shkreli, 32, ignited a firestorm over drug prices in September and became a symbol of defiant greed. The federal case against him has nothing to do with pharmaceutical costs, however. Prosecutors in Brooklyn charged him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was later ousted from the company, where he’d been chief executive officer, and sued by its board. 

In the case that closely tracks that suit, federal prosecutors accused Shkreli of engaging in a complicated shell game after his defunct hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, lost millions. He is alleged to have made secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements. A New York lawyer, Evan Greebel, was also arrested early Thursday. He's accused of conspiring with Shkreli in part of the scheme. 

Shkreli’s lawyer and a spokesman for Retrophin didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Greebel and his firm weren’t immediately available to comment either. A spokeswoman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers did not immediately respond to a call and e-mail seeking comment. 

Shkreli’s extraordinary history—and current hold on the public imagination—makes the case more noteworthy than most involving securities fraud. The son of immigrants from Albania and Croatia who worked as janitors and raised him deep in working-class Brooklyn, Shkreli both epitomizes the American dream and sullies it. As a youth, he showed exceptional promise and independence and, after dropping out of an elite Manhattan high school, began his conquest of Wall Street before he was 20.

I hope the SEC lawyers have a field day with this asshole and he gets the full Bernie Madoff. Couldn't have happened to a nicer aggregate colony of sentient fungus, I say.  More truth from Steve M.:

Nothing terrible happens to you in this country if you shaft ordinary people. We saw that after the financial collapse. Shaft members of the investor class, however, and you really might face the law's wrath. Ordinary schmucks aren't full citizens. Want justice? Buy financial instruments. If you can't, tough luck -- the law doesn't care what happens to you. 

Shrkeli screwed the wrong people, so I suppose he really could go to prison. However, I expect him to play the "troubled white guy" card, in court and possibly in the media. All the "bad boy" nonsense -- the incessant boasting, the taunting tweets, the $2 million purchase of that one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan CD, the claim that he seeks to bail out imprisoned rapper Bobby Shmurda and also might pursue a rap career of his own -- I predict is going to be presented in court as a textbook case of bipolar disorder, or some condition on the autistic spectrum, that impairs Shkreli's judgment and renders him less than fully liable for his own acts. 

We know that blacks arrested for violent crimes are always "thugs" and Muslims are always "terrorists," whereas even white guys who commit mass murder are "loners," "troubled" and "misunderstood." Will Shrkeli try to play the "troubled" card? It might not work, but that's what I'm betting on.

What's good, Martin?

Last Call For Trumping Of Compassion

As The Donald keeps saying, “We gotta take our country back.”

The homeless man was lying on the ground, shaking, when police arrived early Wednesday. His face was soaked, apparently with urine, his nose broken, his chest and arms battered. 

Police said two brothers from South Boston ambushed the 58-year-old as he slept outside of a Dorchester MBTA stop, and targeted him because he is Hispanic. One of the brothers said he was inspired in part by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

This will end well.

Trump, told of the alleged assault, said “it would be a shame . . . I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”

Other “passionate” things include rabid wolverines, angry mobs, and racist beatings administered by a couple of assholes from Southie.

Alerted by witnesses, troopers arrested the brothers, and said the men continued to be disorderly in custody. Steve Leader allegedly urinated on his cell door, and both brothers allegedly made threats to staff members. 

Police said Scott Leader, 38, told them it was OK to assault the man because he was Hispanic and homeless. 

“Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” he allegedly told the police.

Whether or not you think Trump is a colossal cosmic joke inflicted on the body politic, the hatred he’s stoking is very real, and has very real consequences. This is apparently what Trump’s campaign is inspiring in some people, and I’m only surprised that it took this long to manifest. Trump is far from alone, but the nasty secret of the GOP is that he's the most hateful of the bunch and that's why he's ahead.

“Making America greatly racist again” is a hell of a campaign slogan, Donny.

Last Call For The Speed Of Derangement

President Obama got his own Twitter account Monday (@POTUS) and as Jonathan Capehart notes, it took all of ten minutes for Post-Racial America to show up with the virtual white hoods and the crosses to burn.

The first racist tweet appears to have come in at 11:48 a.m. from a particularly nasty fellow who addresses the president as the N-word and advises him to “get cancer.” The racist affront is the equivalent of being called the N-word by a coward in a passing car as you’re walking down the street. 

If you follow me on the beast that is Twitter, you have seen me do battle with racists, homophobes and the willfully uninformed and ignorant. I strongly believe those folks need to be exposed for sunlight is the best disinfectant, as the saying goes. And I strongly believe those folks need to endure the public censure and ridicule that comes with being revealed as a hate-filled bigot. It is then that whatever sliver of hope I have in humanity is restored. 

No doubt, Obama was neither shocked nor surprised by the racist reception he received. After all, this is a man who has endured six years of gasp-worthy sleights. But I wonder whether deep down on some level the president wasn’t disappointed. It wouldn’t make him naive. It would make him human.

I'm black and I still don't know how President Obama puts up with it without drone striking half of Alabama and Oklahoma in a fit of rage.  He's a better man than I will ever dream of becoming.

Last Call For Literal Gay Bashing

Gosh, when are white urban community leaders going to do something about white on white violence in New York City?

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is investigating allegations that men at a Dallas BBQ restaurant in Manhattan were called anti-gay slurs and then beaten. 

Jonathan Snipes, 32, told DNA Info that he was having dinner at the Chelsea neighborhood restaurant with his 25-year-old boyfriend, Ethan York-Adams, on Tuesday night when the attack occurred. 

“A table near us audibly started making pretty gross comments about the two of us like, ‘White f—-ts, spilling drinks,'” Snipes recalled. 

“I don’t let anyone talk to me like that,” he explained. “I went over there and asked, ‘What did you say about us?'” 

Snipes said that he weighed 140 pounds, and did not expect the two large men to turn the verbal disagreement into a physical confrontation. 

“I may be a mouthy broad, but I wasn’t going to take it to that level,” he noted, adding that one of the men “turned it into a physical altercation very quickly.” 

According to DNA Info, the man knocked Snipes off of his feet, and then began kicking him while he was on the ground. During the beating, one of Snipe’s teeth was left loose, cartilage in his ear was snapped and his head was bruised. 

“Take that, f—-t,” the attacker allegedly told Snipes. 

“At some point, the guy stops kicking me in the face. He’s won,” Snipes said. “But as [my boyfriend] tried to get me away, that’s when the other dude hits him with the chair.”

Maudlin humor aside, it's at the very least assault here and may even fit federal hate crime legislation if this ends up a civil rights case.  Even in a large, fairly liberal place like Manhattan there are still bigots and assholes and America still has a long, long way to go.

Tryin' To Catch Me Ridin' Dirty

We've long known that conservatives (being those completely logical, reasonable creatures that they are) will do anything detrimental, obnoxious, stupid, childish, or dangerous as long as they know that doing it pisses off liberals.  Case in point: diesel pickup trucks that are "rolling coal".

Pickup trucks customized to spew black smoke into the air are quickly becoming the newest weapon in the culture wars.

"Coal Rollers" are diesel trucks modified with chimneys and equipment that can force extra fuel into the engine causing dark black smoke to pour out of the chimney stacks. These modifications are not new, but as Slate's Dave Weigel pointed out on Thursday, "rolling coal" has begun to take on a political dimension with pickup drivers increasingly viewing their smokestacks as a form of protest against environmentalists and Obama administration emissions regulations. 

Last month, Vocativ noted many coal rollers focus their fumes on "nature nuffies," or people who drive hybrids, and "rice burners," or Japanese-made cars.

"The feeling around here is that everyone who drives a small car is a liberal," a roller named Ryan told Vocativ. "I rolled coal on a Prius once just because they were tailing me."

To recap, people spend money tricking out their diesel pickups to purposely make them more fuel-inefficient so they can belch more carbon smoke because screw you Obama liberals in your hybrids.  Adding more of a carbon footprint on purpose to counteract environmentally conscious folks because haha, Al Gore is fat is a completely, 100% viable thing to do if you're a winger, kids.

You have to be impressed with people who deny global warming so vehemently that they pay money to make it worse just in case it's real.  These guys are like Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons.

With this explosion in online attention, the battles between coal rollers and their environmentalist enemies are playing out in social media pages, Youtube videos and internet comment sections. Many of the rolling coal Facebook pages feature memes that mock hybrid drivers and liberals. Coal rollers have also posted videos showing their trucks blasting more environmentally efficient cars with smoke.

Opponents of the practice have also taken to the internet. Weigel noted "a mid-June surge of comments" from progressives attacking coal rolling social media pages in the wake of the Vocativ article. In 2012, one outraged YouTube user posted a video entitled "Victim Of Coal Rolling" that showed a pickup shooting fumes at his car.  

"Blow your smoke at me you son of a bitch," the driver says in the video. 

Though the clip seemed designed as a criticism of coal rollers, it attracted a slew of comments from people who were clearly on the side of the pickup driver. 

"What a loser you are, ain't nothing wrong with rolling some confederate coal," one person replied. 

"Stupid ricers. what were you gonna do you bitch?" another said.

And of course, it all comes back to douchebags still fighting the War of Nawthun Aggression.

Ridin dirty, indeed.

Healthcare Dot Hack

When anything and everything the government does becomes "an affront on individual freedom" to some, then the enemy becomes government itself.  That of course justifies any and every measure in response, morality be damned.

Researchers have uncovered software available on the Internet designed to overload the struggling Healthcare.gov website with more traffic than it can handle.

"ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people," a screenshot from the tool, which was acquired by researchers at Arbor Networks, declares. "We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!"

In a blog post published Thursday, Arbor researcher Marc Eisenbarth said there's no evidence Healthcare.gov has withstood any significant denial-of-service attacks since going live last month. He also said the limited request rate, the lack of significant distribution, and other features of the tool's underlying code made it unlikely that it could play a significant role in taking down the site. The tool is designed to put a strain on the site by repeatedly alternating requests to the https://www.healthcare.gov and https:www.healthcare.gov/contact-us addresses. If enough requests are made over a short period of time, it can overload some of the "layer 7" applications that the site relies on to make timely responses.

A relatively simple tool designed to specifically break the federal health care exchange web site.




People trying to sign up for health insurance? Who cares when you can watch the world burn and "Destroy Obama Care"?

A Game Of Word Appropriation

Rand Paul explains the difference between the Makers and the Takers.  Other people make articles, Rand Paul takes the words as his own.

Sections of an op-ed Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote on mandatory minimums in The Washington Times in September appear nearly identical to an article by Dan Stewart of The Week that ran a week earlier. The discovery comes amid reports from BuzzFeed that Paul plagiarized in his book and in several speeches.

Paul also delivered testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2013, that included the copied sections.

So, does this make him a moocher or a looter?   Please Republicans, please nominate this ridiculous clown show as your 2016 pick for the White House.

PS, why didn't anyone in the Village figure out Rand Paul was lifting speeches and policy positions wholesale from other authors before, or were you too busy regaling the world with how awesome and principled the guy is?

Jackasses.

Insurance Companies Are Still The Obamacare Bad Guys

Suddenly, Republicans are very, very concerned about people having their insurance policies canceled and being stuck with "substantially" more expensive plans.  But the reality is the insurance companies are happily using Obamacare as a smokescreen to screw their customers over every chance they get.  TPM's Dylan Scott discovers the truth as he investigates the case of Donna, a Washington State resident who got a cancellation notice from her insurer.

Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked. 

The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators. 

The insurance companies argue that it's simply capitalism at work. But regulators don't see it that way. By warning customers that their health insurance plans are being canceled as a result of Obamacare and urging them to secure new insurance plans before the Obamacare launched on Oct. 1, these insurers put their customers at risk of enrolling in plans that were not as good or as affordable as what they could buy on the marketplaces. 

TPM has confirmed two specific examples where companies contacted their customers prior to the marketplace's Oct. 1 opening and pushed them to renew their health coverage at a higher price than they would pay through the marketplace. State regulators identified the schemes, but they weren't necessarily able to stop them. 

It's not yet clear how widespread this practice became in the months leading up to the marketplace's opening -- or how many Americans will end up paying more than they should be for health coverage. But misleading letters have been sent out in at least four states across the country, and one offending carrier, Humana, is a company with a national reach.

So at least some of these cancellation notices sent out by insurance companies were attempts to sucker  people into the most expensive plans they offer, automatically, before the protections of Obamacare kicked in fully.

Let's remember the practices that made the ACA necessary in the first place.  Republicans want to take us back to these bad old days across the country.  

Last Call For Cruzing To The Poll Position

We have it again, are you going to believe Ted Cruz or your lying eyes?  Now that those pesky facts are getting in his way, he's going to take the GOP route of ignoring science and facts.

"If you seek out liberal Obama supporters and ask them their views, they're going to tell you they're liberal Obama supporters. That's not reflective of where this country is," Cruz told NBC News in an interview at the Capitol.

In the full poll, for example, 70 percent of respondents said that the GOP has put its own agenda ahead of what is good for the country. With Democrats removed, that number is still a majority of respondents at 56 percent.Even when Democrats are removed from the results of the poll, NBC/WSJ pollsters calculate that the results still show strongly negative reactions from independents and Republicans about the government shutdown and the GOP.

Where have we heard this before?  Oh yeah, when Republicans said the election polls were skewed lies that were generated to make them lose spirit.  Except they weren't.  They were mostly right on, but once the truth could be proved the lie was over.  Until now.

The article above takes out Democrats and shows the numbers are still devastating.  At this point, we should start sending thank you cards instead of criticism.  At the rate they are self-destructing, may they never listen to a us again!  Because when history settles the facts it will be clear through their own words or actions that no shady acts from the left caused this.  These morons just finally bought their own lies and spiraled out of control.  Their shame finally came home to roost, as my grandmother would say.

Can anyone seriously believe that someone so far removed from science and fact knows "where the country is" in regard government issues?  Cruz couldn't find his ass with both hands and a flashlight right now, and his poker face is wearing thin.  It's over, they know it's over, and when they get their spanking in front of a global audience, maybe we can get back to real business.

By the way, Cruz's numbers are dipping sharply, but I guess their sample was flawed yet again, so he's not concerned.  They can only make jackasses this big in Texas.

George Of The Bungle

Nobody could have predicted that George Zimmerman was going to remain a powder keg after his acquittal.  Nope.  Not a single person saw this coming.

Lake Mary police say they were called around 2:30 p.m. to the Sprucewood Road home of Shellie Zimmerman's parents, David and Machelle Dean.

According to Lake Mary Police Chief Steve Bracknell, Shellie Zimmerman called 911 claiming George Zimmerman had a gun and was making threats.

"He’s in his car and he continually has his hand on his gun and he keeps saying 'step closer' and he’s just threatening all of us," Shellie Zimmerman said in the 911 call, adding that George Zimmerman was "trying to shut the garage door" on her.

"He punched my dad in the nose my dad has a mark on the nose. I saw his glasses were on the floor," Shellie Zimmerman said in the call. He then accosted my father then took my iPad out of my hands. He then smashed it and cut it with a pocketknife, and there is a Lake Mary city worker across the street that I believe saw all of it."

The victims were not speaking to police and waited for their attorney to arrive before leaving just after 4 p.m. George Zimmerman is cooperating and is clam, according to police. Police say George Zimmerman is now accusing Shellie Zimmerman of being the aggressor in the conflict and the investigation is ongoing.

Can't wait for the conspiracy theories on that one.   Zimmerman's wife isn't pressing charges, so, of course George walks again.

Karma is a funny thing, George.

Last Call For The Last Train To Cobbsville

And it's leaving Racist Station, you can be there at 4:30, but I'd get a reservation.

A man living in North Dakota plans to turn his small town into a bastion of white supremacists, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“I didn’t have a clue who the guy was until he showed up. All I know is he bought that house sight unseen, $5,000 cash, and had no idea what it looked like, where it was, other than he knew the directions to get to Leith,” Mayor Ryan Schock told the Hatewatch blog.

Craig Paul Cobb, 61, has been buying up abandoned property in Leith, a town of only 19 people. He has invited other white supremacists to live on his properties and help take over the city.

In a post last year on the Vanguard News Network forum, Cobb said anyone who lives on his property would be required to fly a “racialist banner” — such as a Nazi flag — 24-hours a day. They would also be required to try to “import more responsible radical hard core [white nationalists]” and become a legal resident of the state so they could vote in local elections. He plans to rename the city “Cobbsville.”

“Imagine strolling over to your neighbors to discuss world politics with nearly all like-minded volk. Imagine the international publicity and usefulness to our cause! For starters, we could declare a Mexican illegal invaders and Israeli Mossad/IDF spies no-go zone. If leftist journalists or antis come and try to make trouble, they just might break one of our local ordinances and would have to be arrested by our town constable. See?” he wrote.

Cobb has even built a concrete prison, where he plans to “lock up recalcitrant journalists and lefty commies who violate the codes or peace of the community.”

Sounds like a happening town for all your extremely Aryan, goosestepping buddies who need somewhere to hang their SS hats after a long day of hating everyone who's not them.  Perhaps someone should inform Chief Justice Roberts that Craig Paul Cobb here didn't get the memo that racism in America was over when the court's conservatives struck down Section 4 of the no longer necessary Voting Rights Act.

The plan to turn Leigh into a white supremacist paradise has the town’s only black resident understandably worried.

“The more the word gets out, the better chance that we can move him out. People are welcome if they’re here to improve our community, but they’re here to bring hate,” Bobby Harper told The Bismarck Tribune.

Yeah, I'd be understandably worried too.

It's Good To Be A Corporate King

If American businesses really are being "crushed by regulatory burdens" and "driven into uncompetitiveness by massive government overreach" it sure as hell isn't being reflected in CEO pay at America's largest corporations.   While real wages for workers went down again in 2012 and have never exceeded their 1972 peak, CEO pay jumped by double digit percentages in 2012 and are now substantially above where they were even at pre-2007 financial crisis levels.

WHEN we made our annual foray into the executive pay gold mine in April, chief executives’ earnings for 2012 showed what appeared to be muted growth on the year. The $14 million in median overall compensation received by the top 100 C.E.O.’s was just a 2.8 percent increase over 2011, the figures showed. 

Well, what a difference a few months and a larger pool of C.E.O.’s make. According to an updated analysis, the top 200 chief executives at public companies with at least $1 billion in revenue actually got a big raise last year, over all. The research, conducted for Sunday Business by Equilar Inc., the executive compensation analysis firm, found that the median 2012 pay package came in at $15.1 million — a leap of 16 percent from 2011.  

And it's not just CEOs making hundreds of times the wages of average employees, other top chief-level executives are pulling in huge salaries too.

Because the data shows only chief executives’ pay, it does not reveal how good it still is to be a prince. Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant in White Plains, pointed out that the 2012 compensation of the No. 2 executives at some of these companies would have vaulted them to the top ranks on the C.E.O. roster. 

“The interesting thing is that there are people at these companies that make as much or more than other C.E.O.’s,” Mr. Foley said. “I’m sure it’s a case of ‘Look at what the C.E.O. has; I want more of that.’ “ 

Two things that shock me here.  One, there's at least 200 US companies with more than $1 billion in revenues each year.   At the top of the heap are companies like Apple, making hundreds of billions in revenue in a year.  That easily adds up to trillions in corporate revenues, and hundreds of billions in pure profit.

Second, the other officers at some of these massive corporations, the CFO, the COO, etc are making millions each year too, in some cases more than the CEOs of smaller corporations.  That's just nuts.

Republicans and Democrats aside, these guys are the real problem.  Did you get a 16% raise last year?

I didn't think so.