Appearing on MSNBC’s AM Joy, filmmaker Michael Moore challenged white Americans to stand up for minorities and women who are coming under attack since the election of Donald Trump to be the next president. Since Trump’s stunning win on Election Day, attacks on Latinos, Muslims, African-Americans and women have skyrocketed, causing many to fear going out… Continue reading “Michael Moore throws the gauntlet with Christians”
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday said that Donald Trump supporters who bully women and minorities were not welcome in the Republican Party. During an interview on CNN, host Jake Tapper pointed out to Ryan that there had been countless incidents of harassment against minorities and women since Donald Trump won the presidency. “There are… Continue reading “Jake Tapper grills Paul Ryan over hate crimes spawned by Trump win: ‘Americans are terrified’”
Kellyanne Conway won’t rule it out.
Which is why I think Obama should issue a preemptive pardon for their imaginary crimes to both Clintons on his way out the door, just like Bush did.
Keith Olbermann:
Several progressive blog sites were hit by Russian DDOS attacks last week. Just a coinky-dink?
By Jonathan Landay and Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Friday formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations during the campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election. U.S. officials have said in the past few months that they believe cyber attacks were orchestrated by hackers backed by… Continue reading “U.S. formally accuses Russian hackers of launching political cyber attacks”
It’s not just porn, it’s also some of these faux terrorism arrests of dopes who never would have done a thing without an FBI operative egging him or her on. Lots of legal issues to look at:
On the heels of a sweeping federal sting operation targeting individuals involved with the distribution and possession of child pornography, a growing chorus of attorneys and social watchdogs are raising serious questions about the FBI tactics used as part of its “Operation Pacifier.”
Critics suggest that the strategies, which ultimately proved extremely successful, pose a real threat to internet privacy going forward and in actuality produce greater injustices than the crimes they are designed to stop.
Background of Controversial Sting Operation
In the springtime of 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was entrenched in a significant initiative designed to ferret out cyber criminals suspected of distributing and/or possessing child pornography on the “dark web.”
Continue reading “Scope of FBI porn sting raises key privacy questions”
When you think of all the things they tell us we can’t afford:
The United States Army’s finances are so jumbled it had to make trillions of dollars of improper accounting adjustments to create an illusion that its books are balanced.
The Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a June report, said the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. Yet the Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.
As a result, the Army’s financial statements for 2015 were “materially misstated,” the report concluded. The “forced” adjustments rendered the statements useless because “DoD and Army managers could not rely on the data in their accounting systems when making management and resource decisions.”
Disclosure of the Army’s manipulation of numbers is the latest example of the severe accounting problems plaguing the Defense Department for decades.
The report affirms a 2013 Reuters series revealing how the Defense Department falsified accounting on a large scale as it scrambled to close its books. As a result, there has been no way to know how the Defense Department – far and away the biggest chunk of Congress’ annual budget – spends the public’s money.
The new report focused on the Army’s General Fund, the bigger of its two main accounts, with assets of $282.6 billion in 2015. The Army lost or didn’t keep required data, and much of the data it had was inaccurate, the IG said.
“Where is the money going? Nobody knows,” said Franklin Spinney, a retired military analyst for the Pentagon and critic of Defense Department planning.
But this sounds like an improvement!
Ecstatic Syrian civilians have been shaving off their beards, burning their burqas, smoking and dancing in the streets after being freed from Isis.
The jubilant celebrations were seen in the Syrian city of Manbij on Friday, where militants have been driven out after months of fighting by US-backed rebel groups.
Families ran through rubble-strewn streets, past the ruins of buildings destroyed in air strikes, carrying their babies and belongings.
Men jubilantly had their beards cut off as women ripped off their veils and set them on fire in an act of rebellion after years living under Isis’ brutal interpretation of Sharia law.
One middle aged man broke down in tears of relief and joy, while female fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) shared emotional hugs with civilians.
Christ, I hope it sticks.
As I pointed out the day after it happened, I didn’t see any women in those crowds of protesters. They’re going to move Turkey back to an oppressive, theocratic state:
In the days after a failed military coup shook Turkey, women say they are being silenced. From the start of the coup attempt by military officials on Friday through to the government’s crackdown in response, women’s voices have been almost entirely absent. Images of protesters on the streets are mostly men. The military leadership is entirely… Continue reading “Women are being silenced in Turkey’s crackdown”
The dirty hippies were right again. I’m sure none of us are surprised, exactly, but it’s still shocking to see it all laid out:
Last week, the independent British committee established to delve into the blunders that led to that country joining the Iraq misadventure released a report astonishing for its breadth and sobriety. It is no easy read—with 2.6 million words in 12 volumes, it explores every detail of the processes and decisions that cost the lives of 179 British servicemen and women. And since the goal of the inquiry was to determine what went wrong across the board, it provides information no Republican politician would allow anyone on Capitol Hill to dig up.
The report’s shocking conclusion is obvious: The White House, the Pentagon and, to a lesser extent, the State Department had no idea what they were doing.
Incompetence permeates the tale, with Bush officials arrogantly waving aside warnings and pleas for better planning. The march toward war took on an unstoppable political momentum as evidence piled up that this invasion would be a colossal catastrophe. Preconceptions—such as blithe dismissals of a humanitarian and governmental role in the invasion for the United Nations, as well as a disregard for day-after-war preparations in favor of gut feelings and slogans—undermined the chance for success. Records show the British considered themselves indispensable to the effort, if only to counter the Bush administration’s reckless planning, which officials in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government derided as fantastical.
If you have the stomach for it, go read the rest.
