Charles
Krauthammer, the famed conservative columnist, informed readers on
Friday that he is confronting an aggressive form of cancer.
"My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live," he wrote.
Krauthammer shared the devastating news in a short, matter-of-fact note on the website of the Washington Post, where he has been a columnist since 1984.
"I leave this life with no regrets," he wrote in the farewell
message. "It was a wonderful life -- full and complete with the great
loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave,
but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended."
Krauthammer was also a longtime commentator on Fox News.
He had to step away from both jobs last August for surgery to remove what he called a "a cancerous tumor in my abdomen."
There were numerous complications.
"Special Report" anchor Bret Baier occasionally gave updates to viewers about Krauthammer's recovery.
Last month Baier offered some good news via a message from Krauthammer: "The worst now appears to be behind me."
But then Krauthammer received the worst possible news.
"Recent tests have revealed that the cancer has returned," he
explained Friday. "There was no sign of it as recently as a month ago,
which means it is aggressive and spreading rapidly."
In his note
to readers, he thanked colleagues, readers, and viewers "who have made
my career possible and given consequence to my life's work." He wrote:
"I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest
debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking. I am grateful to
have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide
this extraordinary nation's destiny."
To celebrate the launch of the newest game in one of their most beloved franchises, Nintendo
is holding a tournament dubbed the Super Smash Bros. Invitational 2018,
and they’ve invited some of the biggest names in the competitive scene
to face each other in the new “Smash” for Switch, including luminaries like Armada, MkLeo, and ZeRo.
Variety caught up with two of these Smashers to ask them their thoughts on the new
game, the future of the competitive game, and what they hope to get out
of the E3 tournament come Monday.
The anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination
has long served as a stark reminder of all that was lost on that day in
1968, and of what American politics might have become had the New York
senator survived that turbulent year. Wednesday’s 50th anniversary of
the tragedy saw a deluge of tributes remembering a man both haunted by
history and driven by the vision of an America redeemed.
Esquire’s Charles Pierce this week describes Kennedy as a man uniquely capable of standing against the “foul gales” that were then rising in American politics.
Pierce believes, as do I, that Kennedy’s election to the presidency
could have healed a nation pushed to a breaking point by a cacophony of
cultural tremors. Despite campaigning against the bleak backdrop of
Vietnam, torched American cities, heightened racial tensions
and political assassinations, RFK would have stitched together the
shredded fabric of American culture and healed the soul of a country
that remains, as Pierce writes, “perpetually redeemable.”
In a new book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham reminds
readers of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s belief that for all of this
country’s failings, the trend of American civilization is forever
upward. That is an invaluable reminder during a time when the president
proclaims his power unrestrained by Madisonian checks and balances,
including ignoring federal subpoenas, killing Justice Department
investigations, obstructing justice to protect his personal interests
and even pardoning himself. The resident’s hapless lawyers seem to have
convinced Donald Trump, like Richard M. Nixon before him, that “when the resident does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
But
that twisted interpretation of presidential authority is dead wrong.
Even in resident Trump’s America, no man is above the law.
It
may come as little relief to those unsettled by the commander in
chief’s autocratic impulses that this resident will likely face the
same fate as Nixon if he acts upon his lawyers’ ignorant legal opinions.
But perhaps take comfort from Meacham’s insight in “The Soul of America” that “to know what has come before is to be armed against despair.”
History
does, in fact, show that a president cannot pardon himself. Days before
Nixon resigned in 1974, the Justice Department issued an opinion that
echoed centuries of American and English law by declaring, “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.“
The history of Bill Clinton’s presidency also undermines recent claims
from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that Trump is legally entitled as resident to ignore a subpoena from Robert S. Mueller III.
But do not
take my word for it. Read instead Giuliani’s own words
from 1998. “You gotta do it. I mean, you don’t have a choice,” the
former U.S. attorney said of Clinton’s legal options if he received a
federal subpoena to testify to Whitewater investigators.
Other
claims of unchecked residential authority by Trump and his lawyers are
so preposterous that they warrant little discussion here. What Time
magazine describes as
the White House’s “increasingly broad claims of presidential impunity”
would likely be struck down in a unanimous opinion by the Supreme Court.
And even Trump’s most timid quislings on Capitol Hill would never
suggest (like Giuliani) that Trump could have murdered
former FBI director James B. Comey and escape indictment as long as he
was in office. Perhaps there are constitutional excesses that even Trump
apologists will not yield to in their unending efforts to defend Trump.
On the same day Americans marked a half-century since Kennedy’s death, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) defended
the FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign and told reporters that no
man is above the law. Ryan’s performance may have met only the
bare-minimum standard for political courage. But as one who still sees
America as perpetually redeemable, forgive me for believing this
president’s worst instincts will be checked, our country’s rule of law
will be preserved and the upward arc of American civilization that FDR
once spoke of will again be restored.
Unreal turned 20 years old this month. The extraterrestrial first-person shooter spawned (and showcased) a game engine whose descendants still motor on today.
To commemorate all those screaming prisoners and innocent alien
creatures killed at the hands of jumpy players, Brendan Caldwell got in touch with a
handful of the original team and asked them to share their memories of
making the first Skaarj conflict.
This is how Unreal was made, from the
perspective of the programmers, designers, artists and musicians who
were there.
Let's get this out of the way early here so you can determine if you
want to continue: If you voted for Donald Trump, you are racist. If you
still support Donald Trump, you are racist. You are racist because you
are supporting someone who is not just personally racist but who wants
the nation to have policies and laws that are racist. Even if you are a
rich person who is just a greedy asshole and voted for Trump for the tax
cuts, you are still a racist.
I am making this distinction not because I want to excuse Trump's racism
on a personal level, but as a way of trying to explain to racist Trump
voters why they are racists even if, in their hearts, they believe they
have no issue with people of other races. That part doesn't matter if
you helped put someone in office who regularly says racist things and
regularly, deliberately does things that target non-whites, including
the Muslim travel ban, the savage immigration policies, and the attacks
on African Americans who protest violence against them. You can't say,
"I believe that everything Trump is doing is making America great again"
and then follow that with "But I'm not racist" because that's plainly a
lie.
Are we clear then? I am calling you "racist" because you're racist.
Earlier this week, when I implied that Trump voters are racist because
Roseanne Barr showed how racist they are, someone tweeted at me that
racism is "Taking a group of people and bunching them up in assumptions
and accusations." I've gotten this quite a bit, that because I say Trump
voters are racist, I'm engaging in a type of racism. But that leaves
out a crucial aspect about racism. Can you guess? It's that it's based
on race. It's not simply any random "group of people" who have some
unifying belief. If you take race out of "racism," then you don't even
have the word.
You wouldn't think that would have to be explained, but this is the way we live now.
After Barr said that Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett looked like an ape,
several people responded by pointing out how Bill Maher and many others
have said that Donald Trump looks like an orangutan. Of course, that's
because of his hair and weird tan, both things he chooses. Believe it or
not, he wasn't born orange.
Still, if you don't understand how comparing a black person to any kind
of monkey taps into an entire history of racial bigotry and degradation,
then you're too stupid to understand any of this and should probably
spend your time jacking off on r/The_Donald. The same thing goes if you
don't understand how Samantha Bee calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt"
is different than what Barr said. It's not racism. And you have to
struggle to make it sexist.
Calling you "racist" isn't political correctness run amok. It isn't an
attempt to shut down debate. It isn't even really meant as an insult
(even though, yes, it is one). It's a way of defining your beliefs. If
you think that people should be treated differently because of the color
of their skin or if you voted for leaders who believe that and act on
it, then what else should you be called? I mean, "Republican" works,
too, except that there are still one or two Republicans who aren't
motivated by hatred of non-whites. So "racist" is just a shorthand way
to describe an ideology. And, yeah, I do think racists are bad people
because, well, they're racists. But that's not racism on my part.
You wanna call that prejudice? Fine. You're right. You've nailed me. I
am prejudiced against racists. I don't think those people (yes, "those
people") should have a voice in the public sphere. They should be
treated as pariahs, mocked, and condemned until they are too ashamed to
say those things out loud. You have free speech, sure, and the rest of
us have the free speech to say that you are pathetic and have stopped
the human race from advancing and that you should be accountable for the
horrible things you say and do. Because, see, you're a racist.
The other thing that Trump's racists like to say is "What about Bill
Clinton?" Or, as my tweeter accused, "You're putting people in a group
and saying they all act/think the same? You're are a Democrat, so since
Bill Clinton was as well, then you're a womanizing weasel. See how
ridiculous that is?" Yeah, it is ridiculous, but only because of how
false it is to even begin to equate the two. See, it's not just about
the failings of two flawed men.
Calling out Trump and his supporters for racism is different than
supporting Bill Clinton, who you can accuse of all kinds of things in
his personal life but whose policies did not reflect whatever level of
repugnant you think Clinton is. You might think Clinton is a rapist, but
he did not try to pass laws to make it easier for rapists to rape nor
did he pardon rapists. You might think Clinton was a serial sexual
harasser, but he never tried to get legislation passed that would
legalize sexual harassment. I'm not excusing Clinton. I was very clear
back in the 1990s that Clinton should have resigned or temporarily
stepped aside during the Lewinsky saga because of the massive
distraction that it was and that fooling around with an intern was
pretty fucked up.
But here is the difference, and it's subtle, so see if you can follow along:
When Donald Trump says or does something racist, you cheer. When he
says, "Build the wall," you chant it. When he calls immigrants
"animals," you scream your approval. When he called for a "a total and
complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," you shouted
how much you love him. And when he issues executive orders that break up
immigrant families or threatens to deport DACA recipients or calls
places "shitholes," you say he's just doing what you elected him to do.
That's because you're racist.
On the left, we never cheered for Bill Clinton's affairs or alleged
harassment. At worst, we said it was a personal issue between him and
Hillary. At best, we condemned him. If I recall, my exact quote in 1998
was "If you're gonna be president, keep your dick out of it." So, no,
it's not comparable. Not even vaguely.
My advice, racists? Do like all of the overt racists are doing and own
that shit. Or, if you don't want to be called "racist," if being called a
"racist" makes you feel bad or ashamed, then stop being racist. And
that would mean no longer supporting Donald Trump.
But you won't do that because you're a racist and you're too fucking
dumb to get out of the pit of shit you love wallowing around in.
When it comes to device/console hacking, it is always the same game of
cat and mouse. Obviously, that also applies to the iOS jailbreaking
scene but now the ‘mouse’ has gained some temporary ground as Ian Beer has a tfp0 exploit for iOS 11.3.1!
Roseanne Barr, you are in no position to talk about ANYONE'S looks, your dumb, fat, non-National Anthem singing ass deserves to get fired. dlevere.
Cancellation is ‘the right thing,’ Disney CEO Bob Iger tweets Tuesday
Roseanne Barr waded into racial waters on Monday, suggesting that former
Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett is a product of the Muslim
Brotherhood and the “Planet of the Apes.”
By Ashley Boucher | May 29, 2018 @ 10:47 AM Last Updated: May 29, 2018 @ 11:22 AM
ABC has canceled “Roseanne” after Roseanne Barr’s racially charged
tweet about Valerie Jarrett Tuesday morning, with Disney CEO Robert Iger
tweeting that the decision was “the only thing to do here,” and “the
right thing.”
From Channing Dungey, President of ABC
Entertainment: "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and
inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show." There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.
“muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr said earlier on Tuesday in response to a Twitter thread about Jarrett, a former adviser to Barack Obama.
Special thanks to AgntLuck from the Discord channel. Today we learn how
we can use another software in combination with Cheat Engine to help us find codes
better, easier and more efficient than hunt and peck, trial and error.
Memorial Day was the holiday meant to honor fallen soldiers, but
somewhere along the line it has become a day that also honors all
veterans. Regardless of whether the holiday is Memorial Day or Armistice
Day, resident Donald Trump is likely to mark the day claiming that he
honors veterans who fought for America. It’s an interesting tactic given
his history disparaging veterans, attacking Gold Star families, mocking
prisoners of war, getting into a public battle with the family of a
soldier that had just been killed.
Then there are the broken promises for the Veterans Administration. That alone could make for an even longer list.
However, as the resident celebrates fallen soldiers Monday, here are 10 of the times he did the opposite:
1. The John McCain attacks
“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, OK?” Trump said at a 2016 campaign event.
A few days later Trump even doubled down on his remarks.
2. Trump goes after the Khan family for speaking out in support of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention.
“Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the
United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders, and
ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing — and no one,” Khizr Khan said.
In the days that followed the statement, Trump went into full attack
mode. He did everything from claim Khan’s wife wasn’t allowed to speak
because she is a Muslim wife. He claimed he made sacrifices because he
“created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs,
built great structures.” He even began spreading a conspiracy theory
that came from some right-wing fever dream that Khan was secretly a
“Muslim Brotherhood agent.”
It’s been almost two years and Trump has never apologized.
3. “My personal Vietnam”
Trump got five draft deferments while Vietnam raged for nearly 20
years. Trump had bone spurs, though. While we’ve heard about his
medication list, height, weight and other factors, but the president’s
physician, and former nominee to chair the Veterans Administration,
never gave a status update on the spurs that kept him out of serving his
duty.
He didn’t miss out, however. Trump said that his sex life was like his own personal Vietnam.
“I was dating lots and lots of women,” he said in 2004.
“I just had a great time. They were great years, but that was pre-AIDS,
and you could do things in those days that today you’re at risk doing.
AIDS has changed a lot.”
“It is a dangerous world out there — it’s scary, like Vietnam,” he
continued. “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very
brave soldier.”
4. Promise the moon but give them pennies.
Twice, Trump promised that he would be donating to veteran causes.
The reality, however, was another story. While campaigning in 2016,
Trump indicated that he has sent nearly $6 million to different veterans
groups nationwide, but when Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold
called every veterans advocacy organizations to uncover who got what
and how much, the donation was a little closer to nothing.
Despite making the claim for months, the money miraculously appeared
to various organizations in the days that followed Fahrenthold’s report
and questions for Trump.
5. The Niger widows.
The families that lost their husbands or sons in the Niger ambush
didn’t get a call from the resident for nearly two weeks. When the call
finally came it was only after the resident was blasted publicly in
the press.
Except, when he called one family, he completely flubbed the call.
Instead of taking the high road, Trump moved on to blast the family and a
local Congresswoman and friend of the family who mentored the Sgt. La
David Johnson.
If that isn’t bad enough, when Trump was blasted for his behavior, he
swore that he had done more for Gold Star families than anyone. He even
went so far as to claim that former President Barack Obama never called
the families. Not only was the claim false, families who had received
that heartbreaking call stepped up to call out the lie.
6. The $25,000 promise.
Chris Baldridge’s son was killed in June 2017 by an Afghan police
officer. Over the phone, the resident told Army Sgt. Dillon Baldridge’s
family how sorry he was. The father lamented how hard the family has
struggled financially.
“He said, ‘I’m going to write you a check out of my personal account for $25,000,’ and I was just floored,” Baldridge told the Washington Postin an interview.
“I could not believe he was saying that, and I wish I had it recorded
because the man did say this. He said, ‘No other resident has ever done
something like this,’ but he said, ‘I’m going to do it.'”
The interview took place five months after the promise. The check
hadn’t arrived. After publicly outcry at another Trump lie, the White
House told The Post “The check has been sent.” Better late than never.
6. Trump’s lie he fixed VA wait times.
Everything was supposed to change. Finally, the White House would
have an advocate for the veterans, Trump claimed in 2016. But, his
promises haven’t proved much in terms of action.
One thing Trump said he would change are the wait times at the VA. During at least two events in 2017, Trump swore he’d fixed it.
“I used to go around and talk about the veterans and they’d stand on
line for nine days, seven days, four days… 15 days. People that could
have been given a prescription and been better right away end up dying
waiting on line,” he said during a July speech. “That’s not happening
anymore.”
It was.
“Now [veterans] go right outside, they go to a doctor in the area, we
pay the bill, and it’s the least expensive thing we can do and we save
everybody’s life and everybody’s happy,” the resident claimed.
Except, they still wait. The Government Accountability Office quotes says that they still wait on average 81 days.
7. The backlog in veteran disability claims
Trump signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act
of 2017 in August, saying that they were working to streamline
disability compensation appeal claims for veterans.
It’s great for new vets applying for disability. For those who were
stuck in the system, the wait continues as the legislation did nothing
to reduce or address the current backlog or address appeals after
denials. There are over 470,000 veterans stuck in the backlog. Former VA
Secretary David Shulkin said that it would take $800 million and 10
years to clear the backlog of appeals.
They wait still.
8. VA’s Veterans Choice Program emergency funding ran out before it was supposed to.
Someone didn’t do their math correctly. When Congress passed and
Trump signed the $2.1 billion in emergency funding for the VA’s Veterans
Choice Program, it was supposed to keep the program afloat until
February 2018. It ran out two months early.
9. Trump’s hiring freeze
Like many Republicans, Trump wanted to stop government from hiring
new people, so he placed a freeze on any agencies bringing in new staff.
For veterans looking for jobs at the Pentagon, in the social services
or anywhere in government, they were locked out. While many might think it’s a small number, in 2015 The Hill reported that one-third of those applying for federal government jobs were veterans.
10. Trump’s budget hurts veterans.
The Trump White House lacks a basic understanding for the daily life
of those coming home from war and being discharged face. When Republicans sought to cut food stamps,
they seemed to forget 1.5 million veterans use food stamps. Data on
active-duty soldiers isn’t available because the Pentagon doesn’t share
it. In 2013, however, 23,000 active-duty troops use food stamps.
Trump’s budget would gut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), by $17 billion for the 2019 budget.
So, if the resident touts his “many successes” that show how he has
“done more for veterans than any president in the history of the world,”
Americans can remind him what he has really done.
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez, who said just two months ago that the national party shouldn't be "anointing candidates"
in primary races, was widely rebuked by progressives for his decision
this week to endorse New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose reelection bid is
being challenged by longtime activist and actress Cynthia Nixon.
"Regardless
of who you support in this race, can we all agree that the DNC
shouldn't pick winners in a contentious primary in a safely Dem state?" tweetedEzra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible. "Don't be scared of democracy—let the voters decide."
Speaking at the New York state Democratic Convention on Thursday, Perez had said:
"I've not only admired Andrew Cuomo, I have admired the Cuomo family
since my youth. I've admired what they stood for and what they fought
for since I was a kid."
"We often have debates about what
wing of the Democratic Party we belong to," Perez continued. Calling
Cuomo and his running mate, lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul, "charter
members of the accomplishment wing of the Democratic Party," he had
declared, "that's why I'm proud to endorse them."
Journalist Michael Sainato posed that
Perez and the national party "are scared of progressives" like Nixon
because "they know if Cuomo and Hochul go down it'll be a game changer
and the rest of the establishment will start facing even greater
threats."
Perez's move on Thursday strongly contrasts with his refusal to weigh in on the Georgia gubernatorial Democratic primary earlier this week, in which the progressive candidate prevailed. Perez toldNBC News that the DNC had been "scrupulously neutral" in Georgia "because we think the voters should decide that."
DNC Deputy Chairman Keith Ellison, who is known for taking stances left of Perez, had made similar comments about the Georgia race to Democracy Now! on
Wednesday. Ellison, who was reportedly not informed of Perez's decision
on Cuomo before the chairman's public remarks, responded in a statement
to Politico that said: "The Democratic Party should not
intervene in the primary process. It is our role to be fair to all
contestants and let the voters decide."
Although "Cuomo easily
secured the party's nomination with over 95 percent of convention
delegates supporting his bid for reelection," BuzzFeed Newsreports that "Nixon still plans to petition her way onto the ballot ahead of the primary in September."
Nixon has been endorsed by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Working Families Party, Our Revolution, and Democracy for America.
"Cuomo
represents a wing of the Democratic Party that is out of touch with
what voters want right now and that people are veering away from," New
York Working Families Party state director Bill Lipton and New York
Communities for Change director Jonathan Westin told BuzzFeed News.
"For eight years, he's claimed that he's been getting things done and
enacting progressive policies but for eight years he's done nothing that
he promised."
"Perez coming in at this time only further drives a wedge in the Democratic Party," Westin said to CNN.
"What we're seeing play out, in a microcosm here in New York, is that
the party elites are out of touch with where the base of the party is
at."
Cuomo, meanwhile, has secured endorsements
from former Vice President Joe Biden as well as former Secretary of
State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
In a series of tweets,
comedian and writer Gabe Gonzalez said, "Perez has always placed party
loyalty over progress," and concluded, "If the best Cuomo can do is
muster Hillary, Biden, and Perez to endorse him, voters should seriously
ask themselves whether he's the candidate to guide NY into the future."
It is the Republican Party that defends and protects him at the
detriment of the country. They are responsible for what he does now and
what he might do in the future. Although Trump may be a daily threat to
the country and the world, he is where he is at, and where he will be
tomorrow, because of the Republicans. They cannot hide in the shadows
and refuse to take responsibility, or to blame his divisive rhetoric on
the Democrats.
Democrats should wash their hands of this creep. People cannot worry
about matters for which they have no control. The Republicans have all
the control and they own all the responsibility and blame for whatever
the trump might do. They own Donald Trump and the American people need
to be reminded daily about who is responsible for what is happening in
our country. It is not the politicians in Washington. It is not the liberals. It is not the media. It is the Republican Party.
They are the only ones that can do anything about Donald Trump.
A white Pennsylvania man is going to prison and losing his home after he was convicted of harassing his black neighbors over a period of years, reports The Morning Call.
According to the report, 45 year old Robert Kujawa of Easton, was found guilty by a jury of ethnic intimidation, harassment, stalking and is facing two to four years in state prison.
In their case against Kujawa, prosecutors claimed that the man hung Confederate flags in the windows of his home that faced his black neighbor’s home, and used a racial slur against the woman and her son when they were in the backyard — which Kujawa has denied.
According to the family, the man also used a pellet gun to shoot out their outdoor lights and damage their furniture, forcing them purchase a security system, lighting and a fence and forbid their sons from playing in their yard.
Following the announcement of the verdict, Judge Jennifer Sletvold noted that Kujawa was previously convicted of harassment of the family in 2015 and the following year admitted to reckless endangerment, with the judge stating, “Over the course of many years, Mr. Kujawa robbed this family of their peace.”
At his Friday hearing Kujawa apologized, saying he is losing his home to foreclosure and that he plans on leaving state once his 10th grade daughter graduates.
“I’m really remorseful,” Kujawa told the court. “I’m really sorry that it got to this point.”
According to his neighbor, Biafra Baker, “We just wanted to raise our children. We didn’t ask for any of this.”
For an ethnic intimidation conviction in Pennsylvania, authorities must show that a defendant committed a separate offense — in this case, stalking — for bigoted reasons.
You can watch a clip of Kujawa harassing his neighbors below via the Lehigh Valley Live on YouTube:
The FBI on Friday issued a formal warning that a sophisticated Russia-linked hacking campaign is compromising hundreds of thousands of home network devices worldwide and it is advising owners to reboot these devices in an attempt to disrupt the malicious software.
The law enforcement agency said foreign cyber actors are targeting routers in small or home offices with a botnet — or a network of infected devices — known as VPNFilter.
Cybersecurity experts and officials say VPNFilter has infected an estimated 500,000 devices worldwide.
The FBI recommends any owner of small office and home office routers reboot the devices to temporarily disrupt the malware and aid the potential identification of infected devices," the bureau's cyber division wrote in a public alert.
"Owners are advised to consider disabling remote management settings on devices and secure with strong passwords and encryption when enabled. Network devices should be upgraded to the latest available versions of firmware."
Earlier this week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the bureau was working to disrupt the malware, which officials have linked to the cyber espionage group known as APT 28 or Sofacy.
Experts at Cisco’s threat intelligence arm Talos on Wednesday first called attention to VPNFilter, warning that hackers are ramping up malware attacks against Ukraine, infecting thousands of devices ahead of an upcoming national holiday in the country.
"While this isn't definitive by any means, we have also observed VPNFilter, a potentially destructive malware, actively infecting Ukrainian hosts at an alarming rate, utilizing a command and control infrastructure dedicated to that country," Talos wrote in a blog post.
"Both the scale and the capability of this operation are concerning. Working with our partners, we estimate the number of infected devices to be at least 500,000 in at least 54 countries."
The firm warned that VPNFilter could wreak havoc in a number of ways, from stealing website credentials to causing widespread internet disruption.
"The malware has a destructive capability that can render an infected device unusable, which can be triggered on individual victim machines or en masse, and has the potential of cutting off Internet access for hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide."
You see that up there? That's Major General Benedict Arnold's Oath of Allegiance to the United States, signed,
in the middle of the Revolutionary War, on May 30, 1778 at Valley
Forge. By the end of 1779, Arnold was working for the British to defeat
the United States. Lotta fuckin' good that loyalty oath did, huh?
Professing your love of nation doesn't mean shit if you don't act like
you love it.
Every generation or so, we have to go through this ludicrous exercise in
symbol worship. Anti-flag-burning still rears its ugly-ass head every
now and then even though the Supreme Court said in 1989 that it was free
speech. You know who joined
the majority in that case? Motherfuckin' Antonin Scalia who, when asked
about it years later, said he did it because the First Amendment is the
First Amendment. "If it were up to me, I would put in jail every
sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I
am not king," he said in 2015. You got that? Freedom of speech
specifically allows us to say things like "your bullshit symbols are
bullshit."
And it allows us to not have to worship whatever symbols people in power
tell us to worship. During the flag-burning debate, I wrote a comic
piece about a joyful flag maker who is encouraging people to burn flags
because he makes more money that way. The point was that a flag is a
product, often not even made in the United States, that is purchased and
is the property of the person who purchased it. If I bought it, it's
mine. If I wanna wipe my ass with it, I can because capitalism.
You wanna assign each person their own flag that was sanctified with the
blood of George Washington or whatnot, then we can talk about
restrictions. But after 9/11, I saw flags that were flown to show pride
in country that were just left up, on vehicles and homes, in the rain,
in the wind, until they were faded in color, ragged, and worn, which, if
you think about it, was pretty damn symbolic for the nation we became
pretty quickly after 9/11. But no one was screaming that the pick-up
truck driver with an NRA sticker and a "We Support the Troops" magnet
should fuckin' respect the flag by taking that threadbare piece shit off
his antenna, even though he should have.
Which gets us to the National Anthem.
Look, if you think the National Anthem is a good song, you're just
wrong. It sucks. It's a terrible song with warmongering, violent words, a
flag fetish, and a ludicrously bad melody that is only vaguely
interesting to hear sung to see if the poor singer can actually hit the
high note towards the end, at which point the dogs of Pavlovian
patriotism in a crowd applaud for the singer not fucking it up.
Seriously, though, we have one bullshit national anthem.
When the National Football League owners released its new policy that commands
all players on the field to stand during the National Anthem or face
fines, they may as well have wiped their asses with the stars and
stripes. It didn't have to be this way. They could have just let the
protest happen. Colin Kaepernick and the other players who knelt were
protesting the mistreatment of African Americans by the police. Then our
fucking dickhead resident saw a chance to exploit people's racism and
stupidity by condemning players for daring to have an opinion that
wasn't his.
And that savage orange bastard said today that he agreed
with the new policy. "You have to stand proudly for the national anthem
or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you
shouldn’t be in the country," he told pubic lice on Fox and Friends
this morning. You should lose your job and your citizenship if you
don't stand when a shitty song is played before a bunch of millionaires
beat themselves into insanity for our entertainment and line the pockets
of even richer men who would demand that they stand. Oh, they won't
lock the bathrooms and the concession stands during the anthem at
AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. You can be sitting on a toilet and
taking a shit while the Dallas Cowboys are forced to stand.
So now it's not just about protesting police violence. Now the only
patriotic thing to do is to kneel when you're at a public event and they
stupidly play our dumb anthem. At a Little League game? Take a knee. At
a school event? Take a knee. At a football stadium? Take a fuckin'
knee. Because the brutish asshole who leads this country still ain't a
king, even though he wants to be. And enforced patriotism is just a way
to make sure that people fuckin' hate the bullshit symbols.
You don't need to sign an oath or pledge to a flag or stand for a song
to love your country. In fact, a country that makes you do that ain't
worth your love. So show the players that are forced to stand that you
still have a choice. Use it while you can.
Rachel Maddow puts into perspective former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper's assertion that Donald Trump is only in
office because Russia put him there, and what that means to current
political events.
I have been sitting here, drinking away the lunch hour(s), trying to
figure out a way to encapsulate the hog pile of fuckery that has involved
the Trump administration just in the last few days.
I've thought about metaphors, like say Donald Trump is pretty much a guy
who likes to fuck sheep but he's always just lived on a small farm with
only a couple of sheep in the barn for him to fuck, but then, all of a
sudden, someone mistakes his fucking of sheep for being a really good
shepherd and he's hired to take care of a giant flock which for him is
like fuck paradise and now he's fucking all the sheep he can, fucking
them every which way, in their sheep asses, in their sheep pussies, in
their sheep ears, sometimes just rubbing his dick on the fleece on their
bodies until he orgasms, and no one's stopping him, no matter how much
people point over the fence and say, "He's fucking the sheep, sweet
Jesus. He's fucking the sheep," but no one who could stop him from
sheep-fucking is going to stop him, and, horrible as it is, you can't
look away because there's a fat old man fucking sheep.
But I didn't feel like that metaphor captured the nuances of the situation.
I've thought about recent history, like the "Chinagate" "scandal," where
Bill Clinton was accused of shifting policy to favor the Chinese
because China had attempted to donate to Democrats, including the
president's reelection campaign, and Clinton's legal defense fund.
Without getting into the muck of the details and the conflicting
conclusions (although some on the right really believe this is The Worst
Scandal In American History and Clinton should have been shot for it),
let's just deal with objectively what occurred: there were Justice
Department investigations that included teams of FBI agents involved, a
Senate investigation, and a House investigation, with Democrats,
including Joe Biden, being critical of Clinton.
At no point did Clinton attack the DOJ or Attorney General Janet Reno or FBI Director Louis Freeh. In fact, what Clinton
said was "[The allegations] obviously have to be thoroughly
investigated and I do not want to speculate or accuse anyone of
anything...Obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United
States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our
parties for any reason whatever" and said the investigations should get
to the bottom of the matter. Whatever he might have done behind the
scenes, Clinton did nothing but respect the independence of the DOJ and
the people who work there. By the way, the amounts of money that were
involved in Chinagate were ludicrously small, like in the $80,000 range (out of over $190 million that the DNC raised in 1996). And the foreign policy actions
that Clinton supposedly took to favor China were just a continuation of
a deal made under George H.W. Bush. You know, back when presidents
honored the agreements of other presidents.
Compare that to what ought to be Trump's Chinagate, which involves a
$500 million loan by a Chinese government-run company for an Indonesian
project that includes a Trump hotel and golf course. On its own, the
fact that a company still owned by the resident of the United States is
getting massive infusions of capital from foreign countries ought to be
a goddamned scandal that'd make Clinton's Chinagate look like the chump
change it is. But add into that the fact that Trump tweeted, just a few
days after the announced investment, support
for the Chinese phone company ZTE, which had been sanctioned by the
U.S. for illegal trading with, you know, Iran. And now Trump appears
to be backing away from his much-hyped trade war with China as the
Chinese roll the United States in whatever the fuck is going on with
negotiations. Frankly, the easiest way any of it makes sense is if the
trade war threat was just a negotiating tactic to get that Chinese
investment in the Indonesian project.
That's a motherfuckin' Chinagate. It's not even a complicated scandal.
Trump's company directly benefits from the loan, which means Trump and
his family directly benefit from the loan, and anything that Trump does
to help China has at least the appearance of a bribed quid pro quo.
This ain't Russian pee hookers or clandestine meetings with idiot
man-children and a real goddamn pedophile. This doesn't even involve
spies. It's a fucking bribe. It's the simplest form of corruption there
is.
In fact, let's leave aside the entire Russia probe, which is so
monumental in its implications that Republicans just plug their fingers
in their ears and scream, "La-la-la, I can't hear you" rather than deal
with it. Let's just deal with another easy one.
Trump personally contacted
Megan Brennan, the Postmaster General of the United States (not the
Postmaster General of Trump, but the whole fuckin' country), to get her
to double the shipping rate on packages sent by Amazon because Trump
hates the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos. Trump tried on several occasions to get her to do what is clearly
a violation of a contract Amazon has with the Postal Service. But we
all know that a contract to Trump is just something used to wipe his
swampy ass dry. Brennan, obviously understanding her audience, sent
Trump a series of slides showing him that Amazon is paying a fair rate
and that the USPS makes money on the deal. But even a picture show
couldn't convince our fucking idiot resident that he's wrong once some
lie gets Fox-trapped in his thick, oatmeal-filled skull.
That's a scandal. That's the goddamn resident targeting and attempting
to punish an American and an American company because one of the
entities in that company doesn't worship Trump. That's abuse of power.
That's a violation of his oath. That's fucking easy to understand.
I know we keep thinking, like a mantra to give us some modicum of peace,
"Just wait until the midterms. Wait until the midterms." But unless
Democrats take back both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities,
something that is frankly impossible, we still need Republicans to shake
off whatever combination of craven political power-mongering and greed
they have in order to step the fuck up here. Even in 2019, Republicans
would be needed to remove Trump from office over any of the
extravagantly impeachable scandals that are racking up on a daily basis.
Again, I'm not even talking about whatever Robert Mueller's
investigation might find. I'm saying that the crisis is here, now, and
it's not just in the big, grand uber-scandal that Trump is not the
legitimate president. I'm talking about the quotidian, easily
comprehensible graft and threats. What we might simple call "the
dictator shit." And he's getting away with the dictator shit because the
elected officials who are supposed to stop the dictator shit aren't
doing a goddamn thing.
That's on Republicans. But the GOP has signaled, in ways small and big,
that not only are they not interested in holding Trump to account, but
they will do what they can to aid and abet the entire hog pile of
fuckery, starting with the repulsive pile of goat vomit, Devin Nunes,
who will go down the shitter of history as "that fucker who kept letting
Trump get away with it." And that'll go for nearly every Republican in
Congress right now. This is the other big scandal: the dereliction of
duty by the majority party in the Legislative Branch.
But that kind of talk does us no good. The best we can hope is that a
2018 Democratic wave will scare the shit out of Republicans. Hell, it
might even make a few of them change party when the choice is fealty to a
vile orange blob or the possibility of some kind of redemption. Trump's
balls can't taste that good.
And Democrats should run on those easily understandable scandals, not
the Russia stuff, precisely because it's just easier to communicate in a
30-second ad: He took a bribe. He threatened to make your Amazon
deliveries cost more. He's an asshole because of that and needs to be
stopped. Right now, Republicans aren't doing their fucking jobs.
Democrats can run on just doing the fucking job of a member of Congress.
Otherwise, yeah, we're all just standing at the gate, yelling, "Won't
someone, for the love of God, stop him from fucking those sheep?"
Former White House ethics lawyer and Democratic Senate candidate Richard Painter argued
on CBS Monday night that there is much more evidence against resident
Donald Trump for obstruction of justice than there ever was against
President Richard Nixon before he resigned in disgrace.
The difference between the two situations? Congress, Painter said.
"We
have far more evidence of abuse of power and obstruction of justice
than we had in 1973 when I was 12 years old and the House and the Senate
convened the Judiciary Committees to have hearings with respect to
Watergate and President Nixon. We're well-beyond that point. And yet the
House and the Senate won't do anything at all.
Nearly 51 million households don’t earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation, and a cell phone.
On Tuesday, May 15, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) joined Rachel Maddow on
MSNBC to discuss resident Trump's recent actions to protect Chinese
jobs and specifically ZTE, a company that violated U.S. sanctions on
North Korea and Iran and posed a cyber security threat.
Small business owners who supported Donald Trump are complaining about troubles hiring foreign seasonal labor the Lexington Herald-Leaderreports.
The newspaper interviewed multiple landscaping business owners who claim they are unable to hire Americans for the same wages.
Eddie Devine voted for Trump, but worries he may go out of business if
he is unable to continue hiring 20 foreign workers a season though the
H-2B visa program.
“I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,” Devine admitted. “I feel so stupid.”
Devin
says Trump's policies are more about race than economics, noting that
Trump properties in
New York and Florida rely upon the H-2B visa program
for 144 jobs a year.
“I think there’s a war on brown people,” he
argued. “I want to know why it’s OK for him to get his workers, but
supporters like me don’t get theirs."
“We live and die by these
visas,” said Ken Monin, owner of Monin Construction. “Last year we about
went bankrupt. The workers we were supposed to get in March didn’t show
up until August because they couldn’t get visas.”
“Americans don’t want most of these jobs,” Monin claimed.
Donald Trump, with his feral cunning, knew. The
oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for
obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive
public figure. And Pence, who has reached this pinnacle by dethroning
his benefactor, is augmenting the public stock of useful knowledge.
Because his is the authentic voice of today’s lick-spittle Republican
Party, he clarifies this year’s elections: Vote Republican to ratify
groveling as governing.
Last June, a Trump
Cabinet meeting featured testimonials offered to Dear Leader by his
forelock-tugging colleagues. His chief of staff, Reince Priebus, caught
the spirit of the worship service by thanking Trump for the “blessing”
of being allowed to serve him. The hosannas poured forth
from around the table, unredeemed by even a scintilla of insincerity.
Priebus was soon deprived of his blessing, as was Tom Price. Before
Price’s ecstasy of public service was truncated because of his
incontinent enthusiasm for charter flights, he was the secretary of
health and human services who at the Cabinet meeting said, “I can’t
thank you enough for the privileges you’ve given me.”
The vice resident
chimed in but saved his best riff for a December Cabinet meeting when,
as The Post’s Aaron Blake calculated,
Pence praised Trump once every 12 seconds for three minutes: “I’m
deeply humbled. . . . ” Judging by the number of times Pence announces
himself “humbled,” he might seem proud of his humility, but that is
impossible because he is conspicuously devout and pride is a sin.
Between those two Cabinet meetings, Pence and his retinue flew to Indiana
for the purpose of walking out of an Indianapolis Colts football game,
thereby demonstrating that football players kneeling during the national
anthem are intolerable to someone of Pence’s refined sense of right and
wrong. Which brings us to his Arizona salute last week to Joe Arpaio,
who was sheriff of Maricopa County until in 2016 voters wearied of his act.
Noting
that Arpaio was in his Tempe audience, Pence, oozing unctuousness from
every pore, called Arpaio “another favorite,” professed himself
“honored” by Arpaio’s presence, and praised
him as “a tireless champion of . . . the rule of law.” Arpaio, a
grandstanding, camera-chasing bully and darling of the thuggish right,
is also a criminal, convicted
of contempt of court for ignoring a federal judge’s order to desist
from certain illegal law enforcement practices. Pence’s performance
occurred eight miles from the home of Sen. John McCain, who could teach
Pence — or perhaps not — something about honor.
Henry Adams said
that “practical politics consists in ignoring facts,” but what was the
practicality in Pence’s disregard of the facts about Arpaio? His
pandering had no purpose beyond serving Pence’s vocation, which is to
ingratiate himself with his audience of the moment. The audience for his
praise of Arpaio was given to chanting “Build that wall!” and applauded Arpaio, who wears Trump’s pardon like a boutonniere.
Hoosiers, of whom Pence is one, sometimes say that although Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and flourished in Illinois, he spent his formative years
— December 1816 to March 1830 — in Indiana, which he left at age 21. Be
that as it may, on Jan. 27, 1838, Lincoln, then 28, delivered his first great speech,
to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield.
Less than three months
earlier, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist newspaper editor in Alton,
Ill., 67 miles from Springfield, was murdered
by a pro-slavery mob. Without mentioning Lovejoy — it would have been
unnecessary — Lincoln lamented that throughout America, “so lately famed
for love of law and order,” there was a “mobocratic spirit” among “the
vicious portion of [the] population.” So, “let reverence for the laws
. . . become the political religion of the nation.” Pence, one of
evangelical Christians’ favorite pin-ups, genuflects at various altars,
as the mobocratic spirit and the vicious portion require.
It
is said that one cannot blame people who applaud Arpaio and support his
rehabilitators (Trump, Pence, et al.), because, well, globalization or
health-care costs or something. Actually, one must either blame them or
condescend to them as lacking moral agency. Republicans silent about
Pence have no such excuse.
There will be
negligible legislating by the next Congress, so ballots cast this
November will be most important as validations or repudiations of the
harmonizing voices of Trump, Pence, Arpaio and the like. Trump is what
he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and
not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic. Pence is what he
has chosen to be, which is horrifying.
If you think Rudy Giuliani created a mess during his pro Trump defense
right wing media tour, then you have to watch this to believe the
magnitude of the disaster expanded by Trump. Trump not only Ran the Bus
over Rudy, he reversed it over him as well, all in the name of defending
his friend.
© Fox News
