Departed Witcher 3 developers: "There is no bad blood"

"We did everything to make sure nothing bad happens."

By Robert Purchese

Two key members of The Witcher 3 team officially departed CD Projekt Red last week: lead gameplay designer Maciej Szcześnik and gameplay producer Marek Ziemak.

They left for another developer in Warsaw, Poland, called 11 bit studios, known best for Anomaly: Warzone Earth. Their given reason for leaving was to make smaller, more creative games.

But it didn't take long for concern to creep in. Losing a lead gameplay designer months from release - was Witcher 3 development OK? Were there deeper rifts within the team? Why didn't CD Projekt Red say anything?

That's why I phoned Maciej Szcześnik and Marek Ziemak this morning for a chat.

"We did everything to make sure nothing bad happens," Szcześnik assured me of the transition, "there is no bad blood. Other people took our responsibilities and it was quite smooth."

"It wasn't a surprise for the company," Ziemak added, telling me there had been at least a couple of weeks of slowly backing out of the door. Szcześnik nodded. "It wasn't like ... we were gone the next day," he said.

Also, the pair reminded me, The Witcher 3 is made by many. The gameplay isn't just Szcześnik's work, however senior his role. "We were designing this game together," he stressed. And, as Ziemak pointed out: "Most of the stuff is done."

Both men were CD Projekt Red old guard. Szcześnik had been there almost as long as the studio itself, since 2004, and Ziemak joined in 2006.

What I hadn't realized was that they had left before, in 2009, to set up a casual game maker called Sleepwalker Games. "And it didn't work out ... it didn't give us enough money to survive," said Ziemak.

CDPR rehired the pair to help finish The Witcher 2, after which Szcześnik moved from being lead combat designer to leading all gameplay design.

So why now - why wait until only a few months before The Witcher 3's release to leave? They'd been there for a decade, or thereabouts - they couldn't wait a bit longer?

Why wait for some "artificial date", Ziemak asked me. The project was in good hands and he was "burnt out". CDPR, remember, has made only Witcher games for 10 years.

Their desire to make something smaller, more immediate, something different was there, and then along came a proposition. It was a strange time to leave, both admitted, but they had a need to.

In other words, there are no rifts within the team, no apparent falling-outs; just two people satisfying personal creative urges.

So what will these former and senior Witcher developers make now?

Szcześnik will be lead designer of a game he can't say anything about, although it definitely isn't... casual. He told me he wants to make games that comment more on the world around us. Ziemak will be a senior producer.

11 bit studios typically turns out a game a year, and employs around 30 staff. That's not going to change.

When will we hear more? The press release last week said in March. One to keep an eye on.

I've been in touch with CD Projekt Red but no statement about Szcześnik and Ziemak's departure has been forthcoming.

Ground Zero in the fight for workers' rights

Fight for union rights heads to a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN, where workers begin voting to unionize with UAW. Ed Schulz and panel discuss.

The new ‘Gestapo’ talking point

Some on the right have started referring to the Obama administration and progressives with Nazi-era terminology. Rev. Al Sharpton is joined by Karen Finney and Joe Madison to discuss that rhetoric.

President Obama’s big debt limit win

The House voted Tuesday to raise the debt limit with no cuts and no strings attached. Rev. Sharpton is joined by Dana Milbank to discuss the move’s impact.

Leo the Homeless Coder Finished His App, and You Can Download It Right Now

Leo Grand considers himself lucky when the doorman at the luxury apartment building nearby lets him charge his Samsung Chromebook without issue.

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Leo's app — Trees for Cars — just launched this morning, and the new coder needs to make sure his computer is ready to go for the day. The guys in the apartment building have been a great help; four months ago when Grand started this venture, it was warm outside. That, unfortunately, is no longer the case.

"Trees for Cars" is a mobile application that aims to save the environment by helping users carpool to their destinations, and Grand programmed the entire thing himself from the streets of Manhattan with just 16 weeks of coding lessons. It also provides information on how much CO2 the user is saving with each ride which further encourages environmental awareness, creating within the app a healthy competition amongst users to save the most CO2.

Grand was approached by a young programmer named Patrick McConlogue in mid-August with a choice: Take $100 or take an opportunity to learn how to code. Grand, who had been homeless since 2011 after he lost his job at MetLife and was priced out of his neighborhood when a high-rise went up on the next block, didn't hesitate.

He wanted to learn to code.

The two men met every weekday where Leo sleeps outside for an hour each morning. McConlogue taught Grand how to program using three used books from Amazon and a refurbished Chromebook McConlogue purchased for Grand online.

Business Insider spent a lot of time talking to the men back in the fall, and we even visited a coding class on what would be the coldest day of September. Grand talked a lot about his upcoming app (which, at the time, remained a secret), and how excited he was for its launch. There were naysayers who said this day would never come, but Grand, McConlogue, and thousands of people following their journey on Facebook had kept a positive outlook.

Now the app has arrived to the Apple Store and the Play Store for $.99.

"Trees for Cars is a great way to build relationships, strengthen communities, help each-other financially and energy wise, all under the umbrella of saving the environment," Grand said in an official statement about the app.

Here's how it works: As a driver, simply pick a meeting address and the app will suggest nearby riders. Then, each rider and driver are only connected if they choose to mutually accept the invitations. The app tracks how much CO2 was saved by the passengers who got rides with others.

All of the money the developers receive from this app goes to Grand, who will use it to help him further his programming education.

Here's a video of Leo talking about the app:

 

Who do you trust to get things done this year

I am getting sick of these self righteous, hypocritical, talking out of both sides of their mouths Republicans. 

Lacking trust is the latest GOP talking point to rationalize their inability to get anything done this year. Ed Schultz and Fmr. Gov. Charlie Crist discuss.

That Chemical Subway Ditched? McDonald's, Wendy's Use it Too

By Katie Little

This week, Subway found out customers don't like eating a chemical found in yoga mats, shoe rubber and synthetic leather.

After one blogger's petition against azodicarbonamide generated widespread uproar, the sandwich chain announced plans to remove the ingredient from its bread but did not say when. Currently, its 9-grain wheat, Italian white and sourdough breads contain it.

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The move has at least one other major chain pondering its own products containing the chemical, but its use at other restaurant chains is fairly widespread.

Although the product is approved for use in the U.S. as a dough conditioner and flour bleaching agent up to a certain limit, Europe and Australia have banned it as a food additive, writes Vani Hari, who drafted the petition and runs the site FoodBabe.com. Hari noted that her site's traffic has doubled since she began the petition. To date, it's drawn more than 75,000 signatures.

According to restaurant websites, here is a list of some products that contain it as an ingredient:

• McDonald's: regular bun, bakery style bun, bagel and English muffin, Big Mac bun and sesame seed bun.
• Burger King: specialty buns, artisan-style bun, sesame seed bun, croissant, English muffin, home-style Caesar croutons and French toast sticks.
• Wendy's: bagel, premium toasted bun, sandwich bun and panini bread
• Arby's: croissant, French toast sticks, harvest wheat bun, honey wheat bread, marble rye bread, mini bun, onion bread and sesame seed bun
• Jack in the Box: bakery style bun, jumbo bun, croissant, grilled sourdough bread and regular bun
• Chick-fil-A: chargrilled chicken sandwich, chicken salad sandwich, and chargrilled chicken club sandwich

Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Wendy's, Arby's and Jack in the Box did not respond to multiple attempts for comment.

"Case reports and epidemiological studies in humans have produced abundant evidence that azodicarbonamide can induce asthma, other respiratory symptoms, and skin sensitization in exposed workers."

Following Subway's announcement, McDonald's spokeswoman Lisa McComb told CNBC: 

"Azodicarbonamide is commonly used throughout the baked goods industry, and this includes some of the bread goods on our menu." She noted the ingredient is recognized as safe and approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the chain would continue to serve "the great tasting, quality food they expect from McDonald's. This ingredient, like all the ingredients we use, is available to consumers on our website."

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In an email to CNBC, Dunkin' Donuts said, "There are trace amounts of azodicarbonamide, a common ingredient approved as safe by the Food and Drug Administration, in three Dunkin' Donuts bakery items, including the Danish, Croissant and Texas Toast. All of our products comply with federal, state and local food safety standards and regulations. We are evaluating the use of the ingredient as a dough conditioner in our products and currently discussing the matter with our suppliers."

Following Hari's petition, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest lobbied for the USDA to consider barring it. It noted that when the chemical is baked in bread, it produces the carcinogen urethane and "leads to slightly increased levels of urethane in bread that pose a small risk to humans" when azodicarbonamide is used at its maximum limit.

Evidence also suggests the product is harmful in its more industrial form. Britain's Health and Safety Executive lists it as a substance that can cause occupational asthma.

Meanwhile, a World Health Organization report states: "Case reports and epidemiological studies in humans have produced abundant evidence that azodicarbonamide can induce asthma, other respiratory symptoms, and skin sensitization in exposed workers. Adverse effects on other systems have not been studied."

At Starbucks, a shift is already underway from the ingredient as part of its transition to La Boulange Bakery products. Currently, the company's butter croissants and chocolate croissants contain azodicarbonamide.

"Our new La Boulange Bakery goods do not contain the ingredients. Our goal is to transition all the stores to La Boulange. We're about halfway through that transition," Starbucks spokeswoman Linda Mills said in a phone interview.

Still, there are no plans to ax the ingredient from stores that have yet to switch.

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"We're so close to the transition—so, no, we won't be changing the recipe for the current croissants," Mills said.

Filthy Republicans Did It Again

Mike Malloy talks about the Senate failing to pass the unemployment benefits extension.

Recall of 9 million pounds of meat not fully inspected

 By Greg Botelho and Janet DiGiacomo, CNN

(CNN) - Some 8.7 million pounds of meat from a Northern California company have been recalled because they came from "diseased and unsound" animals that weren't properly inspected, a federal agency announced Saturday.

The recall affecting Rancho Feeding Corporation products -- as detailed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service -- marks a significant expansion of one announced January 13, when just over 40,000 pounds of the company's products were recalled.

According to the U.S. agency, Rancho Feeding "processed diseased and unsound animals and carried out these activities without the benefit or full benefit of federal inspection."

"Thus, the products are adulterated, because they are unsound, unwholesome or otherwise are unfit for human food and must be removed from commerce," the FSIS reported. The Petaluma company made the recall.

The government agency noted there are no reported illnesses tied to these products, which went to distribution centers and retail establishments in California, Florida, Illinois and Texas. It was not immediately clear which companies got them, or whether they ended up being sold in some form at any markets or restaurants.

There was no answer Saturday night to a call from CNN to a phone number listed for Rancho Feeding Corporation.

A wide range of products are listed in the recall, including beef carcasses and various parts such as heads, cheeks, lips, livers, feet and tongues in boxes of 20 pounds and bigger. Forty-pound boxes of veal bones and 60-pound boxes of veal trim are included as well.

All of these were produced and shipped between January 1, 2013, through January 7, 2014. They all have "EST. 527" in the USDA mark of inspection and have a case code number ending in 3 or 4.

In the January announcement, the FSIS reported only that the products were being recalled only from January 8, 2014, and that they didn't have a "full federal inspection."

Chris Christie: Best case scenario

Steve Kornacki explains what has to happen for Chris Christie’s political career to continue.

How Hackers and Software Companies are Beefing Up NSA Surveillance

Companies like Endgame Systems have for years sold information and digital loopholes to the NSA to help bolster spying.

—By Pratap Chatterjee

Fri Feb. 7, 2014 9:50 A.M. GMT

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Imagine that you could wander unseen through a city, sneaking into houses and offices of your choosing at any time, day or night. Imagine that, once inside, you could observe everything happening, unnoticed by others—from the combinations used to secure bank safes to the clandestine rendezvous of lovers. Imagine also that you have the ability to silently record everybody's actions, whether they are at work or play without leaving a trace. Such omniscience could, of course, make you rich, but perhaps more important, it could make you very powerful.

That scenario out of some futuristic sci-fi novel is, in fact, almost reality right now. After all, globalization and the Internet have connected all our lives in a single, seamless virtual city where everything is accessible at the tap of a finger. We store our money in online vaults; we conduct most of our conversations and often get from place to place with the help of our mobile devices. Almost everything that we do in the digital realm is recorded and lives on forever in a computer memory that, with the right software and the correct passwords, can be accessed by others, whether you want them to or not.

Now—one more moment of imagining—what if every one of your transactions in that world was infiltrated? What if the government had paid developers to put trapdoors and secret passages into the structures that are being built in this new digital world to connect all of us all the time? What if they had locksmiths on call to help create master keys for all the rooms? And what if they could pay bounty hunters to stalk us and build profiles of our lives and secrets to use against us?

Well, check your imagination at the door, because this is indeed the brave new dystopian world that the US government is building, according to the latest revelations from the treasure trove of documents released by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Over the last eight months, journalists have dug deep into these documents to reveal that the world of NSA mass surveillance involves close partnerships with a series of companies most of us have never heard of that design or probe the software we all take for granted to help keep our digital lives humming along.

There are three broad ways that these software companies collaborate with the state: a National Security Agency program called "Bullrun" through which that agency is alleged to pay off developers like RSA, a software security firm, to build "backdoors" into our computers; the use of "bounty hunters" like Endgame and Vupen that find exploitable flaws in existing software like Microsoft Office and our smartphones; and finally the use of data brokers like Millennial Media to harvest personal data on everybody on the Internet, especially when they go shopping or play games like Angry Birds, Farmville, or Call of Duty.

Of course, that's just a start when it comes to enumerating the ways the government is trying to watch us all, as I explained in a previous TomDispatch piece, "Big Bro is Watching You." For example, the FBI uses hackers to break into individual computers and turn on computer cameras and microphones, while the NSA collects bulk cell phone records and tries to harvest all the data traveling over fiber-optic cables. In December 2013, computer researcher and hacker Jacob Appelbaum revealed that the NSA has also built hardware with names like Bulldozer, Cottonmouth, Firewalk, Howlermonkey, and Godsurge that can be inserted into computers to transmit data to US spooks even when they are not connected to the Internet.

"Today, [the NSA is] conducting instant, total invasion of privacy with limited effort," Paul Kocher, the chief scientist of Cryptography Research, Inc. which designs security systems, told the New York Times. "This is the golden age of spying."

Building Backdoors

Back in the 1990's, the Clinton administration promoted a special piece of NSA-designed hardware that it wanted installed in computers and telecommunication devices. Called the Clipper Chip, it was intended to help scramble data to protect it from unauthorized access—but with a twist. It also transmitted a "Law Enforcement Access Field" signal with a key that the government could use if it wanted to access the same data.

Activists and even software companies fought against the Clipper Chip in a series of political skirmishes that are often referred to as the Crypto Wars. One of the most active companies was RSA from California. It even printed posters with a call to "Sink Clipper." By 1995, the proposal was dead in the water, defeated with the help of such unlikely allies as broadcaster Rush Limbaugh and Senators John Ashcroft and John Kerry.

But the NSA proved more tenacious than its opponents imagined. It never gave up on the idea of embedding secret decryption keys inside computer hardware—a point Snowden has emphasized (with the documents to prove it).

A decade after the Crypto Wars, RSA, now a subsidiary of EMC, a Massachusetts company, had changed sides. According to an investigative report by Joseph Menn of Reuters, it allegedly took $10 million from the National Security Agency in exchange for embedding an NSA-designed mathematical formula called the Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator inside its Bsafe software products as the default encryption method.

The Dual Elliptic Curve has a "flaw" that allows it to be hacked, as even RSA now admits.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, Bsafe is built into a number of popular personal computer products and most people would have no way of figuring out how to turn it off.

According to the Snowden documents, the RSA deal was just one of several struck under the NSA's Bullrun program that has cost taxpayers over $800 million to date and opened every computer and mobile user around the world to the prying eyes of the surveillance state.

"The deeply pernicious nature of this campaign—undermining national standards and sabotaging hardware and software—as well as the amount of overt private sector cooperation are both shocking," wrote Dan Auerbach and Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based activist group that has led the fight against government surveillance. "Back doors fundamentally undermine everybody's security, not just that of bad guys."

Bounty Hunters

For the bargain basement price of $5,000, hackers offered for sale a software flaw in Adobe Acrobat that allows you to take over the computer of any unsuspecting victim who downloads a document from you. At the opposite end of the price range, Endgame Systems of Atlanta, Georgia, offered for sale a package named Maui for $2.5 million that can attack targets all over the world based on flaws discovered in the computer software that they use. For example, some years ago, Endgame offered for sale targets in Russia including an oil refinery in Achinsk, the National Reserve Bank, and the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant. (The list was revealed by Anonymous, the online network of activist hackers.)
While such "products," known in hacker circles as "zero day exploits," may sound like sales pitches from the sorts of crooks any government would want to put behind bars, the hackers and companies who make it their job to discover flaws in popular software are, in fact, courted assiduously by spy agencies like the NSA who want to use them in cyberwarfare against potential enemies.
Take Vupen, a French company that offers a regularly updated catalogue of global computer vulnerabilities for an annual subscription of $100,000. If you see something that you like, you pay extra to get the details that would allow you to hack into it. A Vupen brochure released by Wikileaks in 2011 assured potential clients that the company aims "to deliver exclusive exploit codes for undisclosed vulnerabilities" for "covertly attacking and gaining access to remote computer systems."
At a Google sponsored event in Vancouver in 2012, Vupen hackers demonstrated that they could hijack a computer via Google's Chrome web browser. But they refused to hand over details to the company, mocking Google publicly. "We wouldn't share this with Google for even $1 million," Chaouki Bekrar of Vupen boasted to Forbes magazine. "We don't want to give them any knowledge that can help them in fixing this exploit or other similar exploits. We want to keep this for our customers."

In addition to Endgame and Vupen, other players in this field include Exodus Intelligence in Texas, Netragard in Massachussetts, and ReVuln in Malta.

Their best customer? The NSA, which spent at least $25 million in 2013 buying up dozens of such "exploits." In December, Appelbaum and his colleagues reported in Der Spiegel that agency staff crowed about their ability to penetrate any computer running Windows at the moment that machine sends messages to Microsoft. So, for example, when your computer crashes and helpfully offers to report the problem to the company, clicking yes could open you up for attack.

The federal government is already alleged to have used such exploits (including one in Microsoft Windows)—most famously when the Stuxnet virus was deployed to destroy Iran's nuclear centrifuges.

"This is the militarization of the Internet," Appelbaum told the Chaos Computer Congress in Hamburg. "This strategy is undermining the Internet in a direct attempt to keep it insecure. We are under a kind of martial law." 


Harvesting your Data

Among the Snowden documents was a 20-page 2012 report from the Government Communications Headquarters—the British equivalent of the NSA—that listed a Baltimore-based ad company, Millennial Media. According to the spy agency, it can provide "intrusive" profiles of users of smartphone applications and games. The New York Times has noted that the company offers data like whether individuals are single, married, divorced, engaged, or "swinger," as well as their sexual orientation ("straight, gay, bisexuall, and 'not sure'").

How does Millennial Media get this data? Simple. It happens to gather data from some of the most popular video game manufacturers in the world. That includes Activision in California which makes Call of Duty, a military war game that has sold over 100 million copies; Rovio of Finland, which has given away 1.7 billion copies of a game called Angry Birds that allows users to fire birds from a catapult at laughing pigs; and Zynga—also from California—which makes Farmville, a farming game with 240 million active monthly users.

In other words, we're talking about what is undoubtedly a significant percentage of the connected world unknowingly handing over personal data, including their location and search interests, when they download "free" apps after clicking on a licensing agreement that legally allows the manufacturer to capture and resell their personal information. Few bother to read the fine print or think twice about the actual purpose of the agreement.

The apps pay for themselves via a new business model called "real-time bidding" in which advertisers like Target and Walmart send you coupons and special offers for whatever branch of their store is closest to you. They do this by analyzing the personal data sent to them by the "free" apps to discover both where you are and what you might be in the market for.

When, for instance, you walk into a mall, your phone broadcasts your location and within a millisecond a data broker sets up a virtual auction to sell your data to the highest bidder. This rich and detailed data stream allows advertisers to tailor their ads to each individual customer. As a result, based on their personal histories, two people walking hand in hand down a street might get very different advertisements, even if they live in the same house.

This also has immense value to any organization that can match up the data from a device with an actual name and identity—such as the federal government. Indeed, the Guardian has highlighted an NSA document from 2010 in which the agency boasts that it can "collect almost every key detail of a user's life: including home country, current location (through geolocation), age, gender, zip code, marital status…income, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education level, and number of children."

In Denial

It's increasingly clear that the online world is, for both government surveillance types and corporate sellers, a new Wild West where anything goes. This is especially true when it comes to spying on you and gathering every imaginable version of your "data."

Software companies, for their part, have denied helping the NSA and reacted with anger to the Snowden disclosures. "Our fans' trust is the most important thing for us and we take privacy extremely seriously," commented Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio Entertainment, in a public statement.

"We do not collaborate, collude, or share data with spy agencies anywhere in the world."

RSA has tried to deny that there are any flaws in its products. "We have never entered into any contract or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA's products, or introducing potential 'backdoors' into our products for anyone's use," the company said in a statement on its website. "We categorically deny this allegation." (Nonetheless RSA has recently started advising clients to stop using the Dual Elliptical Curve.)

Other vendors like Endgame and Millennial Media have maintained a stoic silence. Vupen is one of the few that boasts about its ability to uncover software vulnerabilities.

And the NSA has issued a Pravda-like statement that neither confirms nor denies the revelations.

"The communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets are not of interest to the National Security Agency," an NSA spokeswoman told the Guardian. "Any implication that NSA's foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true."

The NSA has not, however, denied the existence of its Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), which Der Spiegel describes as "a squad of [high-tech] plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked."

The Snowden documents indicate that TAO has a sophisticated set of tools at its disposal—that the NSA calls "Quantum Theory"—made up of backdoors and bugs that allow its software engineers to plant spy software on a target computer. One powerful and hard to detect example of this is TAO's ability to be notified when a target's computer visits certain websites like LinkedIn and to redirect it to an NSA server named "Foxacid" where the agency can upload spy software in a fraction of a second.

Which Way Out of the Walled Garden?

The simple truth of the matter is that most individuals are easy targets for both the government and corporations. They either pay for software products like Pages and Office from well known manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft or download them for free from game companies like Activision, Rovio, and Zynga for use inside "reputable" mobile devices like Blackberries and iPhones.

These manufacturers jealously guard access to the software that they make available, saying that they need to have quality control. Some go even further with what is known as the "walled garden" approach, only allowing pre-approved programs on their devices. Apple's iTunes, Amazon's Kindle, and Nintendo's Wii are examples of this.

But as the Snowden revelations have helped make clear, such devices and software are vulnerable both to manufacturer's mistakes, which open exploitable backdoors into their products, and to secret deals with the NSA.

So in a world where, increasingly, nothing is private, nothing is simply yours, what is an Internet user to do? As a start, there is an alternative to most major software programs for word processing, spreadsheets, and layout and design—the use of free and open source software like Linux and Open Office, where the underlying code is freely available to be examined for hacks and flaws. (Think of it this way: if the NSA cut a deal with Apple to copy everything on your iPhone, you would never know. If you bought an open-source phone—not an easy thing to do—that sort of thing would be quickly spotted.) You can also use encrypted browsers like Tor and search engines like Duck Duck Go that don't store your data.

Next, if you own and use a mobile device on a regular basis, you owe it yourself to turn off as many of the location settings and data-sharing options as you can. And last but hardly least, don't play Farmville, go out and do the real thing. As for Angry Birds and Call of Duty, honestly, instead of shooting pigs and people, it might be time to think about finding better ways to entertain yourself.

Pick up a paintbrush, perhaps? Or join an activist group like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and fight back against Big Brother.

Ted Nugent's Epic Hatefilled Rant Against Liberals And President Obama: 'An Avowed Racist'

By John Amato 

February 6, 2014 11:25 P.M.

Ted Nugent gave a very disturbing interview to a reporter at the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, in which he viciously attacked the President and all liberal Democrats.

 

Ted Nugent's form of crazy is very, very scary, to say the least. His vitriolic rhetoric most definitely helped land him on the board of the NRA and a gig on the Outdoor Channel, but that doesn't excuse his actions. Many conservatives cry out loud when somebody on MSNBC says something very inappropriate, but in conservative politics, Ted Nugent's disgusting descriptions are par for the course.

In this interview for Pennlive, he called Obama a racist, liberal Democrat for destroying Detroit on purpose and described Democrats in government as cockroaches.

He was as vicious as I've ever seen him.

Nugent: I scare the living hell out of brain dead psychotic liberal democrats. I'm on a mission doing God's work. I'm exposing the soullessness of the left The evil agenda of the same liberal democrats who engineered the destruction of the greatest city in America, my birth city Detroit

They did it on purpose and now we have a commander and chief who's actually following the recipe for the destruction of Detroit for the whole country.

My most important driving duty as a "We the People" caring, knowledgeable, educated participating in self government is to spotlight the cockroaches that have infested our government and much of our media Joseph Goebbels propaganda ministry of so much of the media in this country, so I'm a very busy man.

A president who's an avowed racist, who claimed because Trayvon Martin was black even though he was a gangster and an attacker and a doper, that he could have been his son -- really?

The Outdoor Channel has a lot of explaining to do:

In January, Outdoor Channel announced a multi-year deal with Nugent, which includes "making talent appearances on the network's behalf at top consumer and industry trade events."

At the time, Outdoor Channel's CEO said, "Ted Nugent symbolizes everything that is right in our industry." Nugent recentlyrepresented Outdoor Channel at the gun industry's annual trade show, where he compared Jewish film executive Harvey Weinstein to a Nazi because of Weinstein's opposition to the NRA.

Nugent also created controversy and faced accusations of racism for an interview conducted at the trade show where he called President Obama a mongrel -- a term for a dog of indeterminate breed.

 This man is a pillar of the conservative movement. Need I say more?

Leno's legacy on political comedy

Jay Leno has interviewed and skewered the biggest names in American politics. On the night of Leno's last show, Lawrence O'Donnell takes a look back.

Sore loser Ann Romney STILL simply cannot accept the fact that her corporate mannequin of a husband lost to Obama

By Michael Hayne

Ann Romney is no stranger to publicly scolding voters like they were the hired help at one of her galas.  For example,  she previously blamed them for the government shutdown earlier this year.

Once again, she’s proving that she’s the washed up mean girl who married money and now makes fun of you behind your back.

Ann Romney ‘explains’ why America messed up in 2012.

While plugging the Netflix documentary about her husband and his presidential run, Ann Romney stated how she always felt her husband would be elected and was totally shocked when he wasn’t.

And wanting to maintain a pretense of Stepford wife pleasantness, Mrs. Romney claimed the “country lost” but refrained from laying into the president.

I really believe this,”Ann Romney said, “We lost, but truly the country lost by not having Mitt as president.”

“How do you think President Obama’s doing?” Fox News’ Bill Hemmer asked.
“I think I’ll be polite and nice and not comment on that,” Romney replied. (Mediaite)

Here’s the video.



Well, Ann– maybe if Mitt wasn’t  essentially a crappy Christmas sweater that republicans had to feign enthusiasm for;  maybe if he wasn’t  a stiff, out-of touch patrician with a freaking car elevator and sordid background in vulture capitalism; and maybe if didn’t he always stuck a silver foot in his mouth, voters might have given him a chance.

For instance, maybe if we saw more of the guy who slow jammed the news with Fallon, as opposed to the corporate creep on the cover of the Just For Men box, Mitt might have squeezed out a win. Say what you will about the Bush family, but Laura Bush — and even Cindy McCain — have remained classy and come to grips with their husband’s failures.

Update on new 'bridgegate' developments

One of the main players in the Chris Christie bridge investigation now says the governor knew about the closures all along.

Christie Knew About Lane Closings, Ex-Port Authority Official Says

By KATE ZERNIKE JAN. 31, 2014

David Wildstein, right, with his lawyer, Alan Zegas, at a hearing in Trenton, N.J., in January. Ángel Franco/The New York Times

The former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, central to the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, said on Friday that “evidence exists” the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening.

In a letter released by his lawyer, the former official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.

During his news conference, Mr. Christie specifically said he had no knowledge that traffic lanes leading to the bridge had been closed until after they were reopened. “I had no knowledge of this — of the planning, the execution or anything about it — and that I first found out about it after it was over,” he said. “And even then, what I was told was that it was a traffic study.”

Document

Letter From Wildstein’s Lawyer on Lane Closings

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey knew about the lane closings as they were happening, a letter released on Friday by the lawyer of David Wildstein said.

The letter does not specify what the evidence was. Nonetheless, it is the first signal that Mr. Christie, a Republican, may have been aware of the closings, and marks a striking break with a previous ally.

The letter, sent from Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer, Alan Zegas, is to the Port Authority’s general counsel, contesting the agency’s decision over the legal fees. But it is clearly meant as a threat to the governor. Indeed, the allegations make up just one paragraph in a two-page letter that otherwise focuses on Mr. Wildstein’s demand that his legal fees be paid and that he be indemnified.

Mr. Zegas did not respond to requests to discuss the letter, which also consisted of a strong defense of Mr. Wildstein against negative comments Mr. Christie made about him during the news conference. “Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the governor made about him, and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” the letter added.

Late on Friday, the Christie administration issued a statement, insisting the letter supports Mr. Chrisitie’s contention that he did not know of the closings in advance:

“Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer confirms what the governor has said all along: He had absolutely no prior knowledge of the lane closures before they happened and whatever Mr. Wildstein’s motivations were for closing them to begin with. As the governor said in a December 13th press conference, he only first learned lanes were closed when it was reported by the press and, as he said in his January 9th press conference, had no indication that this was anything other than a traffic study until he read otherwise the morning of January 8th.

“The governor denies Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer’s other assertions.”

The bridge scandal erupted in early January, when documents emerged revealing that a deputy chief of staff to the governor, Bridget Anne Kelly, had sent an email to Mr. Wildstein saying, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” the town at the New Jersey end of the bridge, where Mr. Christie’s aides had pursued but failed to receive an endorsement from the mayor, who is a Democrat. The letter does not delve into the motives behind the lane closings.

Mr. Christie has steadfastly denied that he knew before this month that anyone in his administration was responsible for the lane closings, and his administration has tried to portray the closures as the actions of a rogue staff member.

The governor fired Ms. Kelly.

The closings caused extensive gridlock in Fort Lee, stretching some commutes to four hours and delaying emergency vehicles.

Mr. Wildstein communicated the order to close the lanes to bridge operators. He resigned from his position as the director of interstate capital projects at the Port Authority in early December, saying that the scandal over the lane closings in September had become “a distraction.” In a statement that documents show was personally approved by the governor, the administration praised him as “a tireless advocate for New Jersey’s interests at the Port Authority.”

The Port Authority has since refused to pay his legal costs associated with inquiries by the New Jersey Legislature and United States attorney into the lane closings. In his two-hour news conference earlier this month, Mr. Christie said his friendship with Mr. Wildstein had been overstated; that while the governor had been class president and an athlete, he did not recall Mr. Wildstein well from that period and had rarely seen him in recent months.

The Wall Street Journal has since published photos showing the two men laughing together at a Sept. 11 anniversary event — which happened during the four days the lanes were closed. A high school baseball coach also recalled them as friends in high school.

The Legislature has sent subpoenas to Mr. Wildstein and 17 other people as well as the governor’s campaign and administration seeking information about the lane closings. That information is due back on Monday.

Ms. Kelly’s email was revealed in documents Mr. Wildstein submitted in response to an earlier subpoena from the legislature. But those documents were heavily redacted, leaving clues but no answers as to who else might have been involved in the lane closings. Some of the documents, for example, showed texts between Mr. Wildstein and Ms. Kelly trying to set up a meeting with the governor around the time the plan for the lane closings was hatched. But it is unclear what the meeting was about.

Other texts show Mr. Wildstein and Mr. Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority, Bill Baroni, disparaging the mayor of Fort Lee during the lane closings, and discussing how to respond to the mayor’s complaints and inquiries from reporters. Those texts, too, are heavily redacted, but indicate that the two men were in contact with the governor’s office at the time.

The lane closings caused extensive gridlock in Fort Lee.

MSNBC Pathetically Apologizes For Tweeting Truth About Right Wing Racists

How Not To Run A Liberal TV Network

By Charles P. Pierce on January 31, 2014

In Fast Copy, his vastly underrated novel about Texas, newspapers, and Texas newspapering in the 1930s, Dan Jenkins writes of his hero, "newshen" Betsy Throckmorton, that her approach to local news -- to wit, actually covering it -- so inflames a prominent local merchant that he storms into her office and threatens to pull all his advertising. 

In response, Betsy tells the guy that she is suspending him, and that his advertisement is no longer welcome in her newspaper and, basically, he can go to hell or Waco, his choice. 

Naturally, by the end of the encounter, the goober is begging Betsy to take his advertising back. What can I tell you, but I think MSNBC chief Phil Griffin is no Betsy Throckmorton.

We wrote yesterday about the storm of fauxtrage that arose over an anonymous MSNBC tweet concerning a new commercial from the Cheerios people. This prompted an ungainly dive from the "liberal" network in the face of the flying howler monkeys. However, yesterday, the surrender became abject. 

Photo Illustration by DonkeyHotey via Flickr/Special to The Politics Blog 

 Obvious anagram Reince Priebus, the empty suit in the emptiest job in American politics, threatened to keep every Republican off MSNBC unless heads rolled to his satisfaction. 

Whereupon Griffin apologized again, and assured Priebus that he had fired the anonymous staffer who'd put up the tweet in the first place and, pretty please, would Priebus allow nutballs like Tim Huelskamp to come on MSNBC again? 

Flushed with triumph, Priebus pretended once again to be an important person.

"So, look, this was a first step. It was the first time I talked to Mr. Griffin. He reacted pretty quickly, and now we have to stay on top of it," Priebus told conservative pundit Sean Hannity. "So, you know what? It's sort of like being on probation, I guess. But the fact of the matter is we're here, we're watching them and it's our responsibility - and it's mine in particular, I think -also to stand up for our party. That's what I did today, and I'll do it again. I promise you that."

Good for you, junior. Here's a juicebox. Now run along.

There is no more powerless person in American politics than Reince Priebus, and few entities more powerless than the Republican National Committee which, last time around, couldn't even keep its primary calendar straight.

The power in the Republican party lies now in the vast network of independent organizations funded by the same claque of about 15 plutocrats, and what power does not lie there lies in the elements of organized theocracy.

Reince Priebus is a not very convincing marionette who couldn't even get elected to the Wisconsin state senate. What he knows about politics you could put up his ass and have room for a change of clothes. Priebus should have been told to fuck off and come back when he shows the ability, in the immortal words of Bob Knight, to lead a whore to bed.

 I realize that, unlike Roger Ailes, whose organized slander, pander and propaganda festival never apologizes for anything, and who could give a rat's ass if a Democrat ever entered his studios again, Griffin has the great deadweight of NBC News on his back while he tries to do his job.

 (I imagine that they've only just now revived Tom Brokaw, the man who invented World War II, and pried him off the fainting couch. and that the Dancin' Master, who still has a job despite this immortal moment, will have a segment on Sunday in which Priebus can flex it up again.)

I appreciate the problem. But some poor bastard -- whose identity, I guarantee you, the flying monkeys are at the moment seeking because they need an actual head on the wall -- has lost a job behind this now because Griffin took a ridiculous figure like Reince Priebus seriously. This is like getting held up by mail.

Screw U: How For-Profit Colleges Rip You Off

The for-profit college industry makes a killing while handing out expensive degrees that fizzle in the real world.

By Yasmeen Qureshi, Sarah Gross, and Lisa Desai

The folks who walked through Tressie McMillan Cottom's door at an ITT Technical Institute campus in North Carolina were desperate. They had graduated from struggling high schools in low-income neighborhoods. They'd worked crappy jobs. Many were single mothers determined to make better lives for their children. "We blocked off a corner, and that's where we would put the car seats and the strollers," she recalls. "They would bring their babies with them and we'd encourage them to do so, because this is about building motivation and urgency."

McMillan Cottom now studies education issues at the University of California-Davis' Center for Poverty Research, but back then her job was to sign up people who'd stopped in for information, often after seeing one of the TV ads in which ITT graduates rave about recession-proof jobs. The idea was to prey on their anxieties—and to close the deal fast. Her title was "enrollment counselor," but she felt uncomfortable calling herself one, because she quickly realized she couldn't act in the best interest of the students. "I was told explicitly that we don't enroll and we don't admit: We are a sales force."

After six months at ITT Tech, McMillan Cottom quit. That same day, she called up every one of the students she'd enrolled and gave them the phone number for the local community college.

With 147 campuses and more than 60,000 students nationwide, ITT Educational Services (which operates both ITT Tech and the smaller Daniel Webster College) is one of the largest companies in the burgeoning for-profit college industry, which now enrolls up to 13 percent of higher-education students. ITT is also the most profitable of the big industry players: Its revenue has nearly doubled over the past seven years, closing in on $1.3 billion last year, when CEO Kevin Modany's compensation topped $8 million.

To achieve those returns, regulators suspect, ITT has been pushing students to take on financial commitments they can't afford. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking into ITT's student loan program, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how those loans were issued and sold to investors. (Neither agency would comment about the probes.) The attorneys general of some 30 states have banded together to investigate for-profit colleges; targets include ITT, Corinthian, Kaplan, and the University of Phoenix.

A 2012 investigation led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) singled out ITT for employing "some of the most disturbing recruiting tactics among the companies examined." A former ITT recruiter told the Senate education committee that she used and taught a process called the "pain funnel," in which admissions officers would ask students increasingly probing questions about where their lives were going wrong. Properly used, she said, it would "bring a prospect to their inner child, an emotional place intended to have the prospect say, 'Yes, I will enroll.'"

For-profit schools recruit heavily in low-income communities, and most students finance their education with a mix of federal Pell grants and federal student loans. But government-backed student loans max out at $12,500 per school year, and tuition at for-profits can go much higher; at ITT Tech it runs up to $25,000. What's more, for-profit colleges can only receive 90 percent of their revenue from government money. For the remaining 10 percent, they count on veterans—GI Bill money counts as outside funds—as well as scholarships and private loans.

Study Haul

How for-profit schools leave their students high and dry

96% of students at for-profit colleges take out loans. 13% of community college students, 48% of public college students, and 57% of nonprofit private college students do.

For-profit colleges enroll 13% of higher-education students but receive 25% of federal student aid.
The 15 publicly traded for-profit colleges receive more than 85% of their revenue from federal student loans and aid.

42% of students attending for-profit two-year colleges take out private student loans. 5% of students at community colleges and 18% at private not-for-profit two-year colleges do.

1 in 25 borrowers who graduate from college defaults on his or her student loans. But among graduates of two-year for-profit colleges, the rate is 1 in 5.

Students who attended for-profit schools account for 47% of all student loan defaults.

Sources: Sen. Harkin, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Education Sector

Whatever the source of the funds, the schools' focus is on boosting enrollment. A former ITT financial-aid counselor named Jennifer (she asked us not to use her last name) recalls that prospects were "browbeaten and hassled into signing forms on their first visit to the school because it was all slam, bam, thank you ma'am." The moment students enrolled, Jennifer would check their federal loan and grant eligibility to see how much money they qualified for. After students maxed out their federal grants and loans, there was typically an outstanding tuition balance of several thousand dollars.

Jennifer says she was given weekly reports detailing how much money students on her roster owed.

She would pull them from class and present them with a stark choice: get kicked out of school or make a payment on the spot. For years, ITT even ran a (now discontinued) in-house private loan program, known as PEAKS, in partnership with Connecticut-based Liberty Bank, with interest rates reaching 14.75 percent. (Federal student loans top out at 6.8 percent.)

Jennifer, who had previously worked at the University of Alabama, says she felt like a collection agent. "My supervisors and my campus president were breathing down my neck, and I was threatened that I was going to be fired if I didn't do this," she says. Yet she knew that students would have little means to get out from under the debt they were signing up for.

Roughly half of ITT Tech students dropped out during the period covered by the Harkin report, and the job prospects for those who did graduate were hardly stellar. Even though a for-profit degree "costs a lot more," Harkin told Dan Rather Reports, "in the job market it's worth less than a degree from, say, a community college."

Jennifer says the career services office at her campus wasn't much help; students told her they were simply given a printout from Monster.com. (ITT says its career counselors connect students with a range of job services and also help them write résumés, find leads, and arrange interviews.) By the time she was laid off, Jennifer believed the college "left students in worse situations than they were to begin with."

It's not just whistleblowers who are complaining about ITT. There's an entire website, myittexperience.com, dedicated to stories from disappointed alumni. That's how we found Margie Donaldson, a 38-year-old who says her dream has always been to get a college degree and work in corporate America: "Especially being a little black girl in the city of Detroit, [a degree] was everything to me."

Donaldson was making nearly $80,000 packing parts at Chrysler when the company, struggling to survive the recession, offered her a buyout. She decided to use it to get the college degree that she never finished 13 years before. Five years later, she is $75,000 in debt and can't find a full-time job despite her B.A. in criminal justice from ITT.

She's applied for more than 200 positions but says 95 percent of the applications went nowhere because her degree is not regionally accredited, so employers don't see it as legitimate. Nor can she use her credits toward a degree at another school.

Working part time as an anger management counselor, she brings in about $1,400 a month, but there are no health benefits, and with three kids ages 7, 14, and 18, she can barely make ends meet. She has been able to defer her federal student loans, but the more than $20,000 in private loans she took out via ITT can't be put off, so she's in default with 14.75 percent interest—a detail she says her ITT financial-aid adviser never explained to her—and $150 in late fees tacked on to her balance each month.

Donaldson says she has tried to work out an affordable payment plan, but the PEAKS servicers won't agree until she pays an outstanding balance of more than $3,500—more than double her monthly income. "It puts me and my family, and other families, I'm sure, in a very tough situation financially," she says.

Donaldson says she didn't understand how different ITT was from a public college. If she had attended one of Michigan's 40-plus state and community colleges, her tuition would have been roughly one-third of what it was at ITT. Now, she says, all that time and money feels wasted: "It's almost like I'm like a paycheck away from going back to where I grew up."

Wow, Fox News Is SCREWED

A new piece in New York Magazine lays out some pretty devastating facts about the Fox News Network that show how little influence the network really has, and how its future is bleak based on its aging demo of (really) old white men. http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/fox-news-2014-2/

The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.