Snarkoleptic
Snarkoleptic's JournalSebastian Gorka to accept position outside White House: report
Source: The Hill
Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, will take a position that deals with the "war of ideas" regarding radical Islamic extremism, sources told The Washington Examiner on Sunday.
Gorka has served as both a national security adviser and on the Strategic Initiatives Group, which is an organization within the White House, according to the publication.
The news he is accepting an outside role comes after reports raising questions about his security clearance status.
--snip--
A spokesman for the National Security Council told the publication he did not "personally know" about Gorka's future.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/331318-sebastian-gorka-to-accept-position-outside-white-house-report
Suspected Nazi enthusiast & Fake Terror Expert Sebastian Gorka is OUT!
Healthcare groups denounce revised GOP health bill (Call your congresscritter, please)
Please call your congresscritter to push back on those supporting this ill-conceived bill.
The first AHCA wasn't mean & dumb enough, so they made it meaner and dumber to attract the firebaggers.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/330896-american-medical-association-denounces-gop-health-bill
Leading healthcare and advocacy groups are urging Congress not to pass the revised Republican ObamaCare replacement bill, fearing that changes could harm those with pre-existing conditions.
The American Hospital Association (AHA), American Medical Association (AMA) and American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) all denounced the revised bill on Thursday. The groups were already opposed to the American Health Care Act (AHCA), saying that millions would lose coverage, but raised new concerns about an amendment from Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.).
“We are deeply concerned that the AHCA would result in millions of Americans losing their current health insurance coverage,” AMA President Dr. James Madara wrote in a letter. “Nothing in the MacArthur amendment remedies the shortcomings of the underlying bill.”
The amendment would also allow states to apply for waivers to repeal ObamaCare’s community rating protection, which protects people with pre-existing conditions from being charged much higher premiums.
“We are particularly concerned about allowing states to waive this requirement because it will likely lead to patients losing their coverage,” Madara wrote.
The AARP says the revised bill is "even worse," warning lawmakers it intends to "let all 38 million of our members know exactly" how their representative votes on the legislation, if it makes it to the House floor.
Not-so-fun-facts are important to mention during calls to congress as well.
Number of Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions by Congressional District
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/04/05/430059/number-americans-pre-existing-conditions-congressional-district/
Number of Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions by Congressional District
Please consider looking up your district and calling your congresscritter.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/04/05/430059/number-americans-pre-existing-conditions-congressional-district/
Here are nine people who will lose their health coverage under #Trumpcare and one who won't:
1. a diabetic
2. a cancer survivor
3. an asthmatic
4. someone with allergies
5. a heart disease patient
6. an HIV/AIDS patient
7. someone with chronic lung disease
8. someone with Cystic Fibrosis
9. someone with Multiple Sclerosis
10. your congresscritter
Russian-controlled telecom hijacks financial services Internet traffic
Visa, MasterCard, and Symantec among dozens affected by "suspicious" BGP mishap.
This is one of those stories that I'm filing under 'sleeper story', that will later be shown to be part of a broader controversy.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/04/russian-controlled-telecom-hijacks-financial-services-internet-traffic/
Anomalies in the border gateway protocol—which routes large-scale amounts of traffic among Internet backbones, ISPs, and other large networks—are common and usually the result of human error. While it's possible Wednesday's five- to seven-minute hijack of 36 large network blocks may also have been inadvertent, the high concentration of technology and financial services companies affected made the incident "curious" to engineers at network monitoring service BGPmon. What's more, the way some of the affected networks were redirected indicated their underlying prefixes had been manually inserted into BGP tables, most likely by someone at Rostelecom, the Russian government-controlled telecom that improperly announced ownership of the blocks.
"Quite suspicious"
"I would classify this as quite suspicious," Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at network management firm Dyn, told Ars. "Typically accidental leaks appear more voluminous and indiscriminate. This would appear to be targeted to financial institutions. A typical cause of these errors [is] in some sort of internal traffic engineering, but it would seem strange that someone would limit their traffic engineering to mostly financial networks."
Normally, the network traffic bound for MasterCard, Visa, and the other affected companies passes through services providers that the companies hire and authorize. Using BGP routing tables, the authorized providers "announce" their ownership of the large blocks of IP addresses belonging to the client companies. On Wednesday afternoon at around 3:36pm Pacific time, however, Rostelecom suddenly announced its control of the blocks. As a result, traffic flowing into the affected networks started passing through Rostelecom's routers. The hijacking lasted five to seven minutes. When it was over, normal routing was restored. The event is nicely captured in a graphic here.
The hijacking could have allowed individuals in Russia to intercept or manipulate traffic flowing into the affected address space. Such interception or manipulation would be most easily done to data that wasn't encrypted, but even in cases when it was encrypted, traffic might still be decrypted using attacks with names such as Logjam and DROWN, which work against outdated transport layer security implementations that some organizations still use.
New Alt-Right Fight Club Ready for Street Violence - (aaaand cue the brownshirts)
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/04/25/new-alt-right-%E2%80%9Cfight-club%E2%80%9D-ready-street-violenceKyle Chapman, a California activist arrested earlier this month in a clash in Berkeley between anti-fascist protesters and pro-Trump demonstrators, announced this week he is forming the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights (cleverly called “FOAK).
Chapman, who uses the Internet meme “Based Stick Man,” says his new militant, highly-masculine group will be the “tactical defensive arm” of the Proud Boys, another group that shows up at pro-Trump rallies looking to rumble with counter-protesters.
“We don’t fear the fight. We are the fight,” Chapman said in a recent social media post announcing FOAK’s formation.
“I’m proud to announce that my newly created Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights will be partnering with Proud Boys,” Chapman said, with the “full-approval” of its founder, Gavin McInnes.
McInnes co-founded Vice magazine a decade ago and more recently has been a frequent guest on FOX News and a contributor for the racist site VDARE where he denigrated Muslims and called Asian Americans “slopes” and “riceballs.”
Now described as a “neo-masculine reactionary,” McInnes calls his Proud Boys a “pro-West fraternal organization.”
Think Trump's Stupid? Get A Load Of This Interview
Astonishing...no words...arrrggghhh!
Trump Administration Distances Itself From Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman Amid Call For Recusal
http://www.ibtimes.com/around-world/trump-administration-distances-itself-blackstone-ceo-stephen-schwarzman-amid-callThe Donald Trump administration now argues that even though Schwarzman chairs the White House Strategic and Policy Council — the members of that panel are appointed by Trump — the Blackstone CEO is not working for the White House in any official capacity, and is merely operating his own outside group.
The criticism, call for recusal and abrupt moves by the White House followed an International Business Times report that detailed how Schwarzman’s White House panel is overseeing regulatory, energy and infrastructure policies that could enrich Blackstone.
In December, Trump’s transition team announced the creation of the Strategic and Policy Forum, whose members “will be called upon to meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge” and “to provide direct input to the President” on policy matters. Trump himself appointed the members of the panel and named Schwarzman as chair. The group has convened meetings at the White House; Cabinet officials have presented policies to the group for review. Trump and Schwarzman led a session of the Strategic and Policy Forum at the White House earlier this month.
Rauner Campaign Using Koch Brothers Data Mine In Re-Election Effort
https://news.illinoisworkingtogether.org/rauner-campaign-using-koch-brothers-data-mine-in-re-election-effort-b1f08cd8bc35AKA "Cranky billionaires already won, but want to continue screwing us."
As Governor Bruce Rauner denies a campaign reboot, new campaign finance reports show the governor’s political operation has recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on voter data and analytics firms including i360, a company owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch, and Applecart, a firm that culls information about voters from church lists and high school yearbooks.
The filing, showing the Rauner campaign’s expenditures from January to March of 2017, show what looks to be a monthly fee of $750 paid to i360 for “software”. Previous filings show a total of more than $34,000 paid to i360 by the Rauner campaign since December of 2013. Rauner’s filing also showed a March payment of $338,092 to Applecart, a data mining and analytics firm based in New York. Rauner has paid Applecart more than $650,000 since taking office.
In a 2014 article, Politico described i360 as “the Koch data mine”, noting that after its launch, i360 merged with “a Koch-funded data nonprofit” and received investment from the Koch-affiliated Freedom Partners. A 2016 Time Magazine article called i360 founder Michael Palmer “the eyes and ears for the network led by industrial billionaires Charles and David Koch.”
This is not the first link between the governor and the Koch Brothers. Rauner attended a Koch Brothers “donor summit” in Palm Springs, California last January.
To clear the air, I offer this handy guide to things not to do re: Russia.
Whereas the ‘old standard’ was to avoid impropriety or the appearance of impropriety, I recommend everyone do NOT-
Assume plane spotters will not notice that a Russian oligarch is shadowing your campaign tour.
Borrow large sums of money from Russian banks and oligarchs.
Collude with Russia to hack/release e-mail and data on your political opponents.
Dispatch a shady envoy to Moscow with a recorded message, which can later be used as blackmail, offering to drop sanctions.
Echo Russian talking points about U.S. sanctions, NATO, Crimea, Ukraine.
Establish a server, which communicates exclusively with a Russian bank; instruct one of your future cabinet members to do likewise.
Meet with Russians and then lie about it on federal background check forms/affidavits.
Meet with Russians and then lie about it to congress (esp. under oath).
Personally and through your surrogates, employ Russian ‘Active Measures’.
Sell property to Russian oligarchs at inflated over-market prices.
Surround yourself with political operatives, many of whom have atypical and zealously concealed ties to Russian intel.
While staying in Moscow, assume your room is not being surveiled.
Work the halls of congress as an unregistered Russian agent. (Let alone register after the fact)
Care to suggest anything else be added to these new/old best practices?
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Chicago
Home country: USA
Current location: Chicago
Member since: Fri May 4, 2007, 12:12 PM
Number of posts: 6,002