Wells Fargo caught creating ‘ghost’ accounts to steal millions from customers

By Zach Cartwright

Wells Fargo, one of the world’s biggest banks, just got caught in an elaborate scheme charging customers for bank accounts they never signed up for.

CNN Money reported Thursday afternoon that the bank fired approximately 5,300 employees who opened an estimated 1.5 million unauthorized bank accounts and cards. Customers charged for those accounts were never notified of their existence. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it would fine the bank $100 million for the scam — the largest fine the agency has ever imposed. Workers were incentivized to scam customers in order to net year end bonuses.

“The Bank had compensation programs for its employees that encouraged them to sign up existing clients for deposit accounts, credit cards, debit cards, and online banking,” the CFPB wrote on its website. “According to today’s enforcement action, thousands of Wells Fargo employees illegally enrolled consumers in these products and services without their knowledge or consent in order to obtain financial compensation for meeting sales targets.”

According to the CFPB, accounts were maintained by Wells Fargo employees secretly moving customers’ money from existing accounts into the phony accounts, and then subsequently charging those customers for having insufficient funds in their original accounts.

Credit card accounts opened by Wells Fargo employees without customers’ consent also resulted in annual fees, in addition to interest charges and late fees. CNN Money reported that bank employees submitted 565,443 applications for credit cards on customers’ behalf without their knowledge or consent, dating back to 2011.

“We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” Wells Fargo said in a public statement.

In addition to the $100 million fine levied by the CFPB, Wells Fargo may have to end up paying up to $85 million in additional fines and penalties, as well as an estimated $5 million in refunds to customers who were scammed.

Hillary Clinton Gets Gored

Paul Krugman

Hillary Clinton in Ohio last week. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

Americans of a certain age who follow politics and policy closely still have vivid memories of the 2000 election — bad memories, and not just because the man who lost the popular vote somehow ended up in office. For the campaign leading up to that end game was nightmarish too.

You see, one candidate, George W. Bush, was dishonest in a way that was unprecedented in U.S. politics. Most notably, he proposed big tax cuts for the rich while insisting, in raw denial of arithmetic, that they were targeted for the middle class. These campaign lies presaged what would happen during his administration — an administration that, let us not forget, took America to war on false pretenses.

Yet throughout the campaign most media coverage gave the impression that Mr. Bush was a bluff, straightforward guy, while portraying Al Gore — whose policy proposals added up, and whose critiques of the Bush plan were completely accurate — as slippery and dishonest. Mr. Gore’s mendacity was supposedly demonstrated by trivial anecdotes, none significant, some of them simply false. No, he never claimed to have invented the internet. But the image stuck.

And right now I and many others have the sick, sinking feeling that it’s happening again.

True, there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential. If he seems to suggest that he wouldn’t round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants right away, he’s moving into the mainstream. And many of his multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, get remarkably little attention.

Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.

Step back for a moment, and think about what that foundation is about. When Bill Clinton left office, he was a popular, globally respected figure. What should he have done with that reputation? Raising large sums for a charity that saves the lives of poor children sounds like a pretty reasonable, virtuous course of action. And the Clinton Foundation is, by all accounts, a big force for good in the world. For example, Charity Watch, an independent watchdog, gives it an “A” rating — better than the American Red Cross.

Now, any operation that raises and spends billions of dollars creates the potential for conflicts of interest. You could imagine the Clintons using the foundation as a slush fund to reward their friends, or, alternatively, Mrs. Clinton using her positions in public office to reward donors. So it was right and appropriate to investigate the foundation’s operations to see if there were any improper quid pro quos. As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the foundation “raises questions.”

But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, “no.”

Consider the big Associated Press report suggesting that Mrs. Clinton’s meetings with foundation donors while secretary of state indicate “her possible ethics challenges if elected president.” Given the tone of the report, you might have expected to read about meetings with, say, brutal foreign dictators or corporate fat cats facing indictment, followed by questionable actions on their behalf.

But the prime example The A.P. actually offered was of Mrs. Clinton meeting with Muhammad Yunus, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who also happens to be a longtime personal friend. If that was the best the investigation could come up with, there was nothing there.

So I would urge journalists to ask whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo, and urge the public to read with a critical eye. If reports about a candidate talk about how something “raises questions,” creates “shadows,” or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often weasel words used to create the impression of wrongdoing out of thin air.

And here’s a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate’s character are to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she is proposing. Mr. Trump’s record of bilking students, stiffing contractors and more is a good indicator of how he’d act as president; Mrs. Clinton’s speaking style and body language aren’t. George W. Bush’s policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Mr. Trump’s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton’s carefulness speaks volumes today.

In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can’t afford another election tipped by innuendo.

Read my blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow me on Twitter, @PaulKrugman. 

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. 

A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 5, 2016, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Clinton Gets Gored. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Donald Trump Does Detroit

Charles M. Blow SEPT. 5, 2016

So, after weeks of preaching his sinister sermon of black pathology to mostly white audiences as part of his utterly fake “black outreach” — which is in fact the effort of a bigot to disguise his bigotry — Donald Trump finally brought his message before a few mostly black audiences.

He spoke Friday to a handful of African-Americans in North Philadelphia, and as described on philly.com, told them that “he is not a bigot, and blamed the media for portraying him that way, according to people who attended a private event.”

No sir, stop right there. We are not going to allow any deflection or redefining of words here. You are a bigot. That is not a media narrative or a fairy tale. That is an absolute truth. No one manufactured your bigotry; you manifested it.

You have proudly brandished your abrasiveness, and now you want to whine and moan about your own abrasions. Not this day. Not the next day. Not ever. You will never shake the essence of yourself. Your soul is dark, your character corrupt. You are a reprobate and a charlatan who has ridden a wave of intolerance to its crest.

You were a chief birther against President Obama. You have maligned Mexicans and slandered Muslims. You have treated women with disdain. You have mocked the handicapped. You have displayed a staggering lack of basic knowledge about governance. You have applauded dictators. You have encouraged the assault of protesters at your rallies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump in Detroit on Saturday. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

You are a prime example of the worst of humanity. You are what happens when incuriosity meets intolerance.

You are not to be praised for your fourth quarter outreach, but reviled for it, because it contains contempt, not contrition.

Trump wants to demonstrate to white moderates that he’s not a dyed-in-the-wool racist and to demonstrate to his base that he’s unafraid to walk through the valley of the shadow.

Then on Saturday, Trump traveled to Detroit and visited with a church congregation, or at least with a fraction of that congregation, judging from an image of the nearly empty venue.

Before Trump read his remarks, he said, “I just wrote this the other day knowing that I would be here, and I mean it from the heart.”

That’s the first thing that sounded like a lie. The New York Times reported last week that Trump’s advisers had gotten the questions Trump was supposed to answer during an interview in Detroit and prepared a script for him. What makes us think that they didn’t also write his pandering speech?

He told the gathering, “Our nation is too divided,” while not acknowledging that he is a principle source of that division. He said: “We talk past each other, not to each other. Those who seek office do not do enough to step into the community and learn what is going on.” And yet he never acknowledged that until now, when his poll numbers have dipped and worrisome numbers of people said they believed he appeals to racism and bigotry, he has avoided coming into the black community like one might avoid the plague.

The speech was feather-light on policy, but what was there was just repackaged Republican claptrap that reinforced negative perceptions about liberalism and blackness.

Trump said, “I believe we need a civil rights agenda of our time, one that ensures the rights to a great education and the right to live in safety and in peace and to have a really, really great job, a good-paying job, and one that you love to go to every morning.”

Translation: I want to further weaken public education through more charters and vouchers. I want to flood your neighborhoods with more police because you can’t control yourselves. I want you to stop freeloading, get off welfare, and get a job.

Everything about this spectacle was offensive: that a black pastor had invited this money changer into the temple to defile it; that Trump was once again using the objects of his aggression for a last-ditch photo-op; that news media continue to call this an “outreach to black voters,” when it’s clearly not.

Trump has no real chance in Detroit, and he knows it. During this year’s Michigan primary, Trump got just 1,679 of the total 132,602 votes cast in the city of Detroit.

But again, the citizens of Detroit — or black people in general — are not the intended audience for this pageant of perversity. You can’t earnestly court the black vote while at the same time your party is enacting laws in multiple states to suppress the black vote. The whole thing is a logical fallacy.

Trump closed his speech in Detroit by quoting a passage from First John, Chapter 4 in the Bible: “No one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

I too would like to close by quoting a passage from 1 John 4: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Everything about Trump reads to me as false, and I hope that on Election Day, America exercises the gift of discernment.

I invite you to join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter (@CharlesMBlow), or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. 

A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 5, 2016, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Donald Does Detroit. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Obama Allows More Oil Drilling And Fracking Than Any President And Then Preaches About Climate Change?!

By Sydney Robinson

Under the watchful eye of Democratic president Barack Obama, fracking has grown substantially, a massive oil pipeline was nearly approved, trade deals have been approved without blinking an eye, and oil drilling has continued on a massive scale.

Despite his label of eco-friendly, the president we now enjoy has lifted barely a finger in the fight to reduce America’s footprint on the earth, or work toward slowing climate change.

Despite all he has done to encourage the U.S.’s abuse of the land, the president is not above a symbolic gesture used to maintain his image as a peace-loving, eco-friendly world leader.

The president is set to make an announcement on Thursday about a group of programs worth $40 million which will help island nations and communities worldwide who are slowly being devastated by the effects of climate change.

Though doing little to prevent more disaster in the future, the president is more than willing to treat the symptoms of the planet’s illness when it directly affects humanity, while doing nothing to treat the disease – and it is malignant.

Thankfully, the president plans to head to China soon to formally agree to the terms made during the global climate summit held at the beginning of this year, though it has become clear by now that even the strictest measures agreed-upon at that event will not be enough to slow the effects of global warming on vulnerable communities.

Read more about this story at The Huffington Post.

Trump “Interview” At Black Church Exposed As Propaganda Designed To Fool Voters

By Jason Easley

Donald Trump has taken what was supposed to be an appearance in front of an African-American congregation in Detroit and turned into a scripted interview that will be edited for broadcast by his own campaign. 

The New York Times reported:

Instead of speaking to the congregation at Great Faith Ministries International, Mr. Trump will be interviewed by its pastor in a session that will be closed to the public and news media, with questions submitted in advance. And instead of letting Mr. Trump be his freewheeling self, his campaign has prepared lengthy answers for the submitted questions, consulting black Republicans to make sure he says the right things.

An eight page draft script obtained by The New York Times shows 12 questions that Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the church’s pastor, intends to ask Mr. Trump during the taped question-and-answer session, as well as the responses Mr. Trump is being advised to give.
….
The interview will be aired about a week later on the Impact Network, Bishop Jackson’s Christian cable television channel. The official said several Trump aides would be working with the network to edit the taped interview so that the final version reflected the campaign’s wishes.

It now makes sense why Trump decided not to address the congregation and banned the press from the event. Donald Trump will use the scripted interview as propaganda. Trump couldn’t take the risk of having journalists at the event who would blow the whistle on the con that he is trying to pull.

When a campaign is editing an interview so that the final product reflects their wishes, that’s not journalism. It’s propaganda.

This tactic is straight out the Roger Ailes school of presidential campaign media production. The Trump campaign doesn’t want their candidate to face real African-American voters, so they are designing a set piece and hoping that the media gets fooled into covering it as real news.

The Trump campaign thinks the free press should behave like state-run media, and staged propaganda interviews such as this one are an escalation of Trump’s war on the First Amendment.

Rush Limbaugh Says Donald Trump Is A Liar And We Need To Vote For Him

Posted By Rude One

Corpulent, multi-divorced sea cucumber Rush Limbaugh apparently still has a radio program. 

 

Limbaugh, like Ann Coulter, is desperately clawing at the ledge of relevance, trying to prevent his final fall off the cliff and into the Pat Buchanan Valley of the Lost, and he thinks that the number one priority in Uhmerka is to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president. 

 

He is so committed to this and to electing corpulent, multi-divorced cartoon Donald Trump that, today, on his show, Oxy the Walrus's Spunkorama of Incoherent Rage, he told his listeners, in so many words, "Don't be fucking dumb twats. Of course Donald Trump was a fuckin' liar who never meant that he'd deport all the stinky illegals. Vote for him for Uhmerka."

The actual quote ain't that far off: "I never took him seriously on this," and, as far as Trump's idiot hordes of voters who did believe him, "They still don't care! My point is they still don't care! They're gonna stick with him no matter what." 

 

And why is that? 

 

Because the evil whore of Babylon, Hillary Clinton, will get her whore germs all over this beautiful country just like Nigger Obama got his nigger germs everywhere and the country will be flushed down the toilet like one of those icky tampon things that women have to put up their hoo-has or something.

Again, the actual quote ain't that far off from the hyperbole there: " I don't care what the options are. Anybody but Hillary Clinton. Anybody but more of what we have had the last eight years...We're losing our country. Our country's being torn apart. Our country's being disassembled right before our very eyes by people who have that as their objective. And it's working on people like Colin Kaepernick, by the way. It's working on a whole lot of otherwise innocent people who are being radicalized each and every day by hatred for this country, which is absurd." Do the whore and the nigger have no shame? They are making innocent footballers become politically aware, and if the footballers become woke, then rape-by-Hottentot can't be that far behind. Why won't Obama stop jizzing in the face of Lady Liberty? Why won't Hillary stop twerking on Uncle Sam?

But, no, really, it's so much wiser to vote for the person that you just fucking admitted has been lying to the faces of millions of people. It's so much better to trust someone you are saying is a shameless fraud. That is surely the better path for Uhmerka.

Rush Limbaugh has been fucking the corpse of the dead past for decades now. It's time to stomp his sausage fingers and make him plunge away.

Trump Hides From The Press While Bailing On Talk To African American Congregation

By Sarah Jones

Donald Trump has backed out a speech to an African-American congregation in Detroit. He will be attending services at the church, but the press has been banned from attending.

“What in the hell do you have to lose?” indeed.

This sentiment has been Donald J Trump’s way of wooing the African American voters to his ticket.

When that proved futile, or rather when college educated whites started fleeing because they didn’t want to be associated with a racist, Trump’s handlers decided he’d embark upon a “I’m not a racist!” publicity tour.

First stop? Detroit.

But now the Detroit stop has been downgraded from speaking to the predominantly black congregation to attending a service at the church, followed by a one-on-one interview with Bishop Wayne T. Jackson.

Which the press is also not invited to.

The Detroit Free Press reported “Trump won’t be speaking to the black congregation at Great Faith Ministries International during the 11 a.m. service. And his Saturday interview with Jackson on the church’s Impact Network — which will not be open to the public or the news media — won’t air for at least a week after the event.”

Just a few days ago, the Trump campaign issued a press release claiming that the Republican would be speaking to the congregation. My bold: “Mr. Trump will answer questions that are relevant to the African American community such as education (including HBCUs), unemployment, making our streets safe and creating better opportunities for all. He will then give an address to outline policies that will impact minorities and the disenfranchised in our country. Citizens around the country will see, as I’ve have seen, the heart and compassion Mr. Trump has for all Americans, which includes minority communities whose votes have been taken for granted for far too long.” – Pastor Mark Burns”

So the part Trump is cutting out is the address, during which he was going to outline policies that would allegedly impact minorities.

Shocking, not shocking.

Because Trump’s unplanned trip to Mexico – an erratic addition to the Statesman Not a Racist Tour, is also a risky venture and that’s probably why Trump closed off access to the press corps following him.

Trump isn’t going to let the press in and Trump isn’t really going to give an address about policy, which might involve some preparation. So Trump won’t be speaking to African Americans at all.

He’ll be taking questions from the Bishop for a TV show to be aired in a week.

The Detroit “address” is looking more and more like nothing but cover for charges of racism.

VitaPad 1.1 released. Use your PS Vita as a controller for your PC (now with Linux support)

Developer Rinnegatamante just released an update to his tool VitaPad, which lets you use your PS Vita as a controller for your PC. VitaPad requires a hackable PS Vita (that is, a PS Vita running on firmware 3.60).

http://wololo.net/2016/08/31/vitapad-1-1-released-use-ps-vita-controller-pc/

http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=46397&start=30#p410859

Xyz explains the Henkaku kernel exploit

Developer Xyz of team molecule posted a new article on his recently-created blog, to explain how the kernel exploit (used in HENkaku for the PS Vita hack) works.

http://wololo.net/2016/08/31/ps-vita-kernel-exploit-xyz-explains-henkaku-kernel-exploit/

https://blog.xyz.is/2016/vita-netps-ioctl.html

Racist Donald Trump's very first appearance in the New York Times...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028129053

 

https://twitter.com/GynoStar/status/768489753494757376

Don The Con Visits Minority Neighborhoods

Who says Trump isn't reaching out to Black voters? Other than Black people.

All The Passwords And Keycodes In Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

This page contains passwords and key codes in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. These codes will unlock doors, open safes / storage containers and grant access to various personal computers and security terminals.

These codes can usually be found in Pocket Secretaries around the location of the object being unlocked. For example, you may find a pocket secretary in the foyer of an office with the code to a safe in the stock room. Keep an eye out for pocket secretaries, as they often contain these codes and important pieces of backstory.

Morning Blow Loses Control Without Scarborough To Mansplain Donald Trump For America

By Dominic Gwinn



Mika Brzezinski had absolutely no time for Trumpkin nonsense on Friday’s “Morning Joe.” This could be because Joe Scarborough wasn’t there to man-splain and defend Donald Trump like he’s done for the past year, it could also just be a coincidence, or that Hillary Clinton was scheduled for an interview later. It could also just be that was 6:00 AM. Who knows?

The Morning Joe round table was laying into Trump for being genuinely racist over the past few days. Al Shaprton led off saying Trump was pandering to white nationalists and just playing presidential dress-up, or LARPing, or something, because years earlier Trump came to Sharpton’s National Action Network convention with Geraldine Ferraro. There’s even pictures to prove it! Then, after a supercut of Trump being all, “BOO, Hillary Clinton’s a lazy bigot, BOO,” Brzeinski eyeballs the camera and cuts the through the bullshit, kind of like how Scarborough does from time to time but with actual emotion.

“I just have to say it. Donald Trump, you have no idea what your words mean. You have no idea…and I can’t pretend and sort of cover this fairly and put it in the veil of objectivity. This is wrong, and you have no idea what your words mean and what you’re doing to this country.”

Mika going on a quick tirade is nothing new on “Morning Joe,” but without Scarborough there to remind everyone that rich white Republican men run things, the flood gates opened for the rest of the round table to just pour out the boiling pot of loathing for Trump that had been simmering on MSNBC’s hot plate.



About 30 minutes later, during an interview with Trumpkin Pastor Mark Burns, Brzeinski went into full lady-splain mode, and point blank asked Burns if he thought Trump was a racist.

Mika Brzezinski: …When he made the comments about the judge saying he was Mexican, was that racist or not? I just want to know if that is racist or not. I need to know where you stand on things in terms of reality. So, were those comments racist or not?

Pastor Mark Burns: I think it’s important to understand. I think if I was in Mr. Trump’s shoes and I had a very controversial policy that offended many millions of, potentially millions of Hispanic people…

Mika Brzezinski: You know he was born in America — were the comments racist or not?

Pastor Mark Burns: Let me finish my statement or not.

Mika Brzezinski: I’m asking for the answer to the question and not a statement. Could I have an answer to the question?

Pastor Mark Burns: Let me give you my answer the way I would give it to you so we can move forward. We’re telling the story.

Mika Brzezinski: But it’s yes or no.

 And that’s about the time that Al Shaprton and Mark Burns get into a full on black off. Burns insists Trump has policies, like education, to help lift African-Americans out of poverty (even if Trump has never said what those policies are). Al Sharpton wants to know where they are because Trump sure as hell doesn’t know where they are. Burns, however, is SURE that Trump’s education policies would be something like charter schools because the president has no authority over schools.

AL SHARPTON: Donald Trump therefore is saying that as president of the United States, who would be over the Department of Education’s answer, is outside of the public school system. He is over the public school system…Donald Trump has not come forth with an education policy…He sat up and pandered to you. Fine, that’s good. That’s not a policy.

Sharpton and Burns went back and forth, with Burns trying to dodge answering any sort of policy specific question, just defaulting to the assumption that he knows Trump has a policy because he’s met Donald Trump, and Burns has spiritual belief that Trump has a policy to help the African-American community. As if things weren’t going bad enough, Burns then took this train wreck of an interview right off a burning trestle by saying something about the sanctity of life, and Donald Trump will be guided by the ghosts of all the aborted babies, and are you trying to say the spirits of dead babies are wrong, because Jesus wouldn’t let that happen! Or at least that’s what it sounded like to us.
Darned if we’re going to listen to it more than once.

Mika then tried one last time to get Burns to say something other than a Jesus-filled word salad full of broken sentence croutons by asking Burns if he believes Trump’s statement that Hillary Clinton is a big ol’ stamina-impaired bigot, and things went about as well as you’d expect.



In the smoldering ashes of Morning Joe, Trump took to Twitter to praise Burns and demand an apology from mean Mika. Sad!



[MSNBC on YouTube / And Again]

Donald Trump's amazing tax returns!

August 24, 2016

To Whom it may Concern:

I am an tax attorny and have graduated number one (1) in my class from a prestigeous institution.

Since 1996, I have had hte distinct honor and privilige of preparing Mr. Trump's tax returns.

They are amazing, truly amazing. He has the best tax returns. The best.

I have shown the tax returns to collegues and they are always amazed. Always.

I can assure you that Mr. Trump's income is among the highest in the world. Probably is the highest in the world.

Well, it would be the highest in the world if liberals like Bill Gates and rapists like Carlos Slim didn't cheat.

And lie.

Mr. Trump is also the most generus man I have ever met. He has made more charitible contributions than anyone in all of history.

His charity cannot be matched!

Despite all the deduction he can take, Mr. Trump actually insists on overpaying his taxes! Why?

Because Mr. Trump knows that the country would collapse if the government ran out of money. And Mr. Trump has money!

Lots of money! He's rich! Really, really rich!

He knows that he is the only person -- the ONLY person! -- who can save us, so he overpays his taxes to keep America running.

I can also assure you that Mr. Trump taxes show no ties or obligations to anyone. He is his own man!

He is absolutely NOT paying 138.47% annual interest rate to Russian mobsters since 2004.

He is also unconditionally NOT paying the firm of Dewey, Burnham, & Howe to provide insurince so that none of his incredible buildings burn down.

Finally, Mr. Trump has been audited many times because liberals in the IRS are out to get him because he tells the truth!

But Mr. Trump has not yet been formally convicted of any wrongdoing!

I can't say anything about pending indictments because Mr. Trump has an entire separate legal team to handle all his indictments.

In conclusion, Mr. Trump's tax returns are incredible! Very presidential!


Sinceerly,


Donald J. Trump's Tax Man

Pills At Prince’s Estate Had Fentanyl

 

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In a story Aug. 21 about pills found at Prince's estate after his death, The Associated Press misidentified a synthetic drug found in some pills. It was U-47700, not U-4770.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Official: Pills found at Prince's estate contained fentanyl

An official close to the investigation says some pills taken from Prince's estate in Paisley Park after his death were counterfeit drugs that actually contained the powerful opioid fentanyl

 

By AMY FORLITI
Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Some of the pills taken from Prince's estate in Paisley Park after his death were counterfeit drugs that actually contained fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin, an official close to the investigation said Sunday.

The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said nearly two dozen pills found in one Aleve bottle were falsely labeled as "Watson 385." According to Drugs.com, that stamp is used to identify pills containing a mix of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, but the official said at least one of the pills tested positive for fentanyl.

Autopsy results released in June show Prince died April 21 of an accidental fentanyl overdose. The official who spoke to the AP said records show the 57-year-old Prince had no prescription for any controlled substances in the state of Minnesota in the 12 months before he died.

Authorities are still investigating how Prince obtained the drugs.

Fentanyl has been responsible for a surge in overdose deaths in some parts of the country. When made into counterfeit pills, users don't always know they're taking fentanyl, increasing the risk of fatal overdose.

The Star Tribune first reported about the mislabeled pills in a story published on its website late Saturday.

Some of the dozens of pills seized from Paisley Park were found to have other drugs in them, some were oxycodone or codeine, and some were not controlled substances.

About a dozen tablets were found in a dressing room at Paisley Park, but the vast majority was in bottles of aspirin and Vitamin C that had been tucked inside a suitcase and bags — including one Prince often carried with him. Some pills were also found loose in the bag, the official said.

One pill with the "Watson 385" stamp tested positive for fentanyl, lidocaine and another drug.

Officials found nearly two dozen pills similar to the one that was tested, the official said.
Another aspirin bottle had more than 60 counterfeit tablets in it.

Some pills that were analyzed contained fentanyl, lidocaine and U-47700 — a synthetic drug that is eight times more powerful than morphine.

Authorities also found a prescription bottle in someone else's name that contained 10 oxycodone pills, the official said, without revealing who was listed on the prescription.

The official said Prince had many of these pills with him on April 15 when the airplane he was on made an emergency stop in Moline, Illinois, after he fell ill from a suspected drug overdose as he was heading home from a performance in Atlanta. Prince was given two doses of Narcan, an antidote used to reverse suspected opioid overdoses, the official said.

U-47700 can be tested for in toxicology screens, but is not done routinely because it is a relatively new chemical. Presence of the drug was not tested in Prince's case, but the levels of fentanyl in his system were more than enough to be toxic, the official said.

Tests on Prince prior to his death did not show fentanyl in his system, which means he wasn't a long-time abuser of that drug, but likely took the fatal dose sometime in the 24 hours before he died, the official said.

The official did not elaborate on those tests. But at least one doctor, Michael Todd Schulenberg, saw Prince on April 7 and again on April 20, the day before he died. According to a search warrant, he told a detective he had ordered tests for Prince and prescribed medications. Schulenberg's attorney, Amy Conners, has said patient-privacy laws do not allow her to say what the prescriptions were.

The autopsy report also shows Prince had diazepam, lidocaine and hydrocodone acids in his body, the official said. Diazepam is an anti-anxiety pill sold as Valium. It's a sedative and can also be used to control seizures, which Prince suffered from as a child. Lidocaine is a local anesthetic.

Election Phenomena ('The Futility of Satire')

Make Republicans Fucking Choke On Donald Trump

Posted by Rude One

Fuck acting like it's some kind of amazing act of bravery when Republicans say they are not going to vote for their nominee, Donald Trump. You know what? That's the fucking least you can do. In fact, fuck praising some of them for saying they'll vote for Hillary Clinton, as if somehow they had a magical conversion, like they were getting fucked by their boy-toys and, right at orgasm, thought, "Huh. Maybe I should move away from the party that says this is wrong" and used Trump as an excuse to stand tall when every other time they crawled like worms, happily ingesting all the dirt they could shove into their holes.

No, fuck that. You motherfuckers created Donald Trump. You in the GOP made it possible for him to capture the imaginations of the idiot hordes who became idiot hordes because of the steady diet of shit you've fed them for decades. Trump is here because of you, and he needs to be shoved down your throats until you choke, no matter how much you protest against him.

Did you read the actual letter from Republican national security officials? The one where 50 of the most hawkish, hateful cocks ever to give the nation their disease said that they would not vote for Trump? Yeah, read that thing. You'll see lots of lines about Trump's temperament and intelligence, like "Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be President. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary." This is not to mention that "A President must be disciplined, control emotions, and act only after reflection and careful deliberation. A President must maintain cordial relationships with leaders of countries of different backgrounds and must have their respect and trust" and Trump sure as shit ain't any of that. Most of the letter is that kind of "No shit, Sherlock" stuff.

You know what that letter lacks? A single goddamn sentence condemning Trump's promises and policies. They don't condemn him for his language on Muslims and immigrants, they don't say shit about his wall or his ban on people from whatever country hasn't powdered his balls lately. They don't spend any time talking about Trump's approach to ISIS or his promise to bring back torture (something that sadist John Negroponte must love). So what we can conclude is that if a candidate who wasn't dumber than a bucket of hair and who could shut the fuck up sometimes was running on the same foreign policy platform, these shit heels and fuck nuts wouldn't have a problem with him. In other words, Trump's just a crappy messenger; the message is fine.

And that's generally the pattern. It's not what Trump's running on that scares off Republicans. It's that he's a prick. And while, sure, it's great that they're not voting for him and some are actually voting for Clinton, the reason is more that they want the rational hawk and not the mongoose-on-meth who might get us all nuked. There are exceptions, like Bush's Commerce Secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, who dislikes Trump's economic plans.

Hillary Clinton has embraced these wayward Republicans in that annoying way that Democrats have of trying to say that what they believe is extra-valid because Republicans like it. Yeah, she's making it seem safe for Republicans to cross that wall and vote for her by providing cover but, frankly, I don't need a fucking ad with fucking Michael Hayden and fucking Charles Krauthammer justifying why Hillary Clinton is a better choice than Donald Trump. Because, see, that's the lie that Obama bought into that fucked him over: That somehow he would bring people together who wouldn't ordinarily work together.

The second Clinton is inaugurated, impeachment proceedings will begin because that's what these GOP fuckers do. And every single one of them will run like baby rats back to their rat mother's teats and join the party in condemning Clinton for whatever made up shit they crap out this time. Their support of Clinton is just fucking cover so that they can say they turned away from Trump when he finally melts down and starts calling for death squads (which, again, would make Negroponte fucking hard).

If I were Clinton, I'd demand that each of these assholes scrambling to get away from Trump join the Democratic Party. Don't make it easy on this scum. Tell them they need abandon their party or tell them to go to hell with Trump. Leave the GOP to the extremists and the racists and the nutzoids. You know climate change is real. You know gun laws need to be passed. You fucking know that the tax laws are tilted radically towards the wealthy. You know that LGBT issues are done. You know that unless you get down and dirty with the fundamentalists and nationalists and the remnants of the Tea Party, you will be primaried. So fuck you and your support. Show you mean it. Then we can fight about the identity of the Democratic Party, which we're gonna have to do anyway.

Except you, Negroponte. Get the fuck away. Fuck you in hell.

GOP ECONOMIC POLICY HAS DESTROYED KANSAS, LOUISIANA AND WISCONSIN; NOW THEY HOPE TO NATIONALIZE IT

By mitty14u2

The entire rest of the party is committed to gigantic cuts to welfare, as shown by the budget formulated by House Republicans. Their most recent plan would slash $5.3 trillion in spending over a decade, 69 percent of which would come from programs for the needy.

http://theintellectualist.co/gop-economic-policy-has-destroyed-kansas-louisiana-and-wisconsin-now-they-hope-to-nationalize-it/

GOP tax cuts destroyed Kansas – and almost N.J. | Editorial

It's deeply alarming, even for conservatives, to see how tax cuts by a Republican governor have completely ravaged Kansas's budget. It has screwed the public schools, because the mystical promise of tax cuts creating new revenue failed, yet again.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/06/gop_tax_cuts_destroyed_kansas_and_almost_nj_editor.html

Bobby Jindal’s Anti-Tax Fervor May Have Destroyed Louisiana

But once Jindal was elected, he set about dismantling the income tax system. Rates for wealthy people returned to their pre-referendum levels. Shielding the state’s haves left Louisiana with about $800 million less each year to fund services for its have-nots. The surpluses Jindal walked into turned quickly into deficits.

https://thinkprogress.org/bobby-jindals-anti-tax-fervor-may-have-destroyed-louisiana-e7c9ececa2a2?platform=hootsuite#.bita1wl3x

Walker’s Total Destruction in Wisconsin

On Sunday, July 12, Walker signed the financially austere, socially vindictive 2015-2017 budget that shifts hundreds of millions of dollars out of public schools into private, unaccountable charter and voucher schemes, deepens the consolidation of power in the Department of Administration, and keeps the tax credits and forgivable loans flowing to campaign donors and others through the ineffective Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/07/188229/walker%E2%80%99s-total-destruction-wisconsin

Mega Corporations like Oil, WalMart the Kock Bros have been running the countries main tax plan and buying politicians, changing laws having the majority in the supreme court. We are in trying times that can and may get worse if Americans don't wake up to the complete corporate take over of government. They are ruthless without mercy, greed is blinding with collateral devastation at this level.

"Mr. Trump, you're right we black folks have nothing to lose ..."

Minny brings Ms. Hilly a Chocolate Pie with a "special" ingredient.

Why Donald Trump should play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

By Dean Takahashi

Above: Adam Jensen has to unravel a conspiracy in the oppressive city of Prague.

Image Credit: Square Enix

Deus EX: Mankind Divided has been in the works for several years, but its sci-fi plot is a prescient allegory for our U.S. Presidential campaign, where a divisive politician has capitalized on fears of terrorism and people who are not like us. Donald Trump ought to play this game, if only because it holds a mirror to his demagogue’s tactics of using race, religion, and the war on terror for his own personal political gain.

The cyberpunk story plays out the consequences of an incident where a nefarious man decides to divide humanity into two factions. His shadowy organization pits “natural” humans against mechanically augmented humans, or “augs.” In the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the aug hero Adam Jensen tries but fails to stop the “aug incident,” where a signal sent to a chip in every aug’s head compels them to slaughter as many natural humans as possible. More than 50 million people die in a massive genocide before Jensen can stop the signal.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided takes place in 2029, two years after the incident. Now we have a state of “mechanical apartheid,” where augmented humans are discriminated against and segregated into ghettos like the Jews in Nazi Germany. Jensen is still trying to find out who keeps trying to pin terrorist incidents on innocent augs. Meanwhile, the augs have created their own underground resistance to deal with the oppression of the naturals. All of this is recounted in a 12 minute cinematic that paints the grim state of the world and catches the player up on what happened in the last game.

It is a tale that will remind you of other sci-fi media, such as the Blade Runner film; the I, Robot novels; and the Battlestar Galactica reboot. But it says a lot about the maturity of video games as a medium that a major blockbuster game carries such a relevant message. And it is a warning that if you play with fire, you can start a massive wave of hatred that can bring an unspeakable conflagration to the world. It is a mirror for our own times, indeed.

“We didn’t try to change the story to fit real-world events,” said Oliver Proulx, producer of the game at Eidos Montreal, in an interview with GamesBeat. “The themes we chose just resonate. Cyberpunk helps with that kind of interpretation. Unfortunately, some themes are a bit more prominent today than when we started designing the game.”

Mankind Divided’s story is powerful, and it holds a lot of lessons, if you can survive its numerous flaws and bugs in the gameplay (I sure hope they fix the big ones in the first day patch). I’ve played it for many hours, and these are some of my impressions, and I’ll have more to say later on, once I finish. For now, I’ll focus on why the story pulls you in and compels you to keep playing. This story is what I like most about the game.

Jensen discovers a conspiracy that threatens to bring the world to an all-out civil war. At the outset, he is sent on a mission with a natural human military team to intercept an arms deal. All goes well until a mysterious security force with augmented capabilities shows up and tries to steal the arms shipment. Jensen begins to track down the conspirators. But he is nearly killed in a terrorist bombing at a train station in Prague, where the aug incident took a huge toll and the oppressive backlash against the augs is everywhere. The bombing takes a lot of civilian lives, and calls for revenge and crackdowns ensue.

It’s up to Jensen, who wasn’t affected in the aug incident and who doesn’t take sides, to solve the mystery of who triggered the incident before things get out control again. As he gets his augmentations repaired after the bombing, Jensen learns he has been equipped with some experimental superpowers that will help him with both stealth and combat missions. Jensen has to use his skills in combat, spying, silent movement, and hacking to infiltrate the places where the secrets are held. With each mission completed, he gets more resources to enhance his augs. But it’s all for naught if he can’t stop the conspiracy.

Above: You still have lots of stealth options in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Image Credit: Square Enix

The variety of augmentations add a lot of fun, but they’re also grounded in reality. Jensen can’t use them all the time, as they drain his energy sources. So he can’t just charge into combat every time.

Stealth still dominates the gameplay, and that is fitting because Jensen is up against some very powerful politicians, multinational corporations, and criminal organizations. Jensen is a one man army, but across the open world battlefields of Mankind Divided, many more armies stand in his way.

Jensen also learns that forces within Task Force 29, a global law enforcement group tasked with stopping terrorism, would be perfectly happy to blame the bombing on the Augmented Rights Coalition. Humanity is in the process of dividing into factions of hardline naturals or augs. Scant few peacemakers stay in the middle. Aug technology companies are also competing with each other, and they’re perfectly willing to engage in industrial espionage and private wars to get a competitive edge.

Jensen’s investigation is harder because Mankind Divided has an open world with multiple cities, such as the gritty oppression of Prague and the aug ghetto of Golem City. Jensen can wander about for many hours performing side missions. Some of these underscore ethical dilemmas, as Jensen has to decide who he can help and who he has to sacrifice in the name of his larger mission. I had to skip many of these side missions, but they told me a lot about the collateral damage among ordinary people as a result of the mechanical apartheid.

Above: The aug ghetto life in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Image Credit: Square Enix

What emerges is a poignant picture that could really be us in the near future. Victims are everywhere on both sides. Military and police presence are everywhere, and their tactics breed resistance.

Surveillance is the norm. Underground hacker communities form their own resistance. Extremists are born in the ghettos. And the rich profiteers create massive corporations and billions of dollars in wealth that they can use to build their own private armies.

At various points in the story Jensen (and you, the player) has to decide what to do. Should he take the non-lethal stealth path, or will he be an avenging angel? Should he do that side mission to reunite a man with his family, or will that cost him valuable time in pursuing the true enemy. Will you walk down that path that makes it easier for a high-level politician to blame terror on innocents? Or will you get to the real truth?

The trailer for the game starts with a message voiced by Adam Jensen, the “aug” hero of the game. “If you try and rip the world apart, someone will always put it back together. You can kill dreams. You can kill innocents. You can kill freedom. But you can’t kill progress.” That’s an optimistic, perhaps sarcastic view of how the future could turn out. I sure hope we’ll be lucky enough in our real lives to avoid this oppressive nightmare future. If the world comes to its conflagration, we’ll need a lot of Adam Jensens to make things right.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided comes out on Tuesday August 23 on Windows, the PlayStation 4, and the Xbox One. I played it on the Xbox One. I’ll have a formal review of the game by the launch day. I think you should play it in spite of its flaws and bugs. It’s an important game with a message that all of us have to hear, whether we’re running for president or not.