Arizona Violent Crime Down, Except Under Tough Anti-Immigration Sheriff

First Posted: 07/14/10 03:34 PM ET Updated: 05/25/11 06:05 PM ET 

A chart circulated by a leading immigration reform organization makes a basic, but compelling case that the new law passed -- though not implemented -- in Arizona could cause an increase rather than a drop in crime.
The non-profit group America's Voice sent out a chart on Wednesday, documenting the change in violent crime levels in various Arizona police jurisdictions from 2002 through 2009. The numbers tell two interesting stories.
The first is that, by and large, crime is down across the board. In Arizona as a whole, it has dropped 12 percent in the past seven years. But in major Maricopa County cities with their own police forces -- Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale and Tempe -- the rate has dropped even faster. (The group measured within Maricopa County because it is the epicenter of the immigration debate. But in Tuscon, which is not in the county, there has also been a drop in the crime rate since 2002, according to law enforcement statistics).


ArizonaCrime


Those findings alone suggest that the systemic violence often cited as the compelling argument for stricter border laws may be overblown.
But the more telling number may be the crime statistics for the portion of Maricopa County that is under the purview of controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio. According to data compiled by America's Voice, crime in that area has actually increased 58 percent since 2002.
Arpaio is considered something of a visionary among conservatives with respect to his approach to immigration. Many of his reforms, indeed, have served as a basis for the law that Gov. Jan Brewer tried to implement statewide. But he has clashed with other sheriffs over his methods, with some complaining that such broad anti-immigration policies put an overwhelming burden on law enforcement officials while producing social friction rather than safety.

America's Voice's chart isn't perfect. For one, Arpaio's domain is much smaller than those of the major cities within the county. Crime as a whole remains lower under his watch than, say, in Phoenix (only it's increasing as opposed to decreasing over time). Moreover, not every factor responsible for the violent crime level can or should be tied to immigration.
But the group's underlying point is that the discussion around immigration policy both in Arizona and the United States at large needs to be reoriented. And the raw percentages of violent crime statistics shown in the chart have that effect.

 

Sam Stein stein@huffingtonpost.com

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Right-Wing Christians Put Out Their Top-10 Favorite Racist Attacks on Obama (VIDEO)

 Right-Wing Christians Put Out Their Top-10 Favorite Racist Attacks on Obama (VIDEO)

November 24, 2013 | Filed under: Barack Obama,Racial Issues,Videos | Posted by: Mindy Fischer

The outright hatred for President Obama by right-wing groups who call themselves Christians and Patriots is just astounding. This website called “Americans Who Hate Obama” is one of many that proudly displays their racism and bigotry. Americans Who Hate Obama has put out a video with their top 10 favorite racist attacks on Obama.
This video proudly features things like calling the Obamas monkeys, terrorist Muslims, non-Americans, incompetent, and fried chicken and watermelon devouring negros.
It also features many unbelievably offensive slurs and signs. One says, “Send Obama back to the jungles of Kenya.” Another reads, “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012.” A girl shows off her new t-shirt that says, “Obama is my Slave.”
But, perhaps the most disturbing things in this clip are the pictures of nooses, including one with Obama literally hanging by a noose.

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Rush Limbaugh: “This Is Just Pure Marxism Coming Out Of The Mouth Of The Pope”

Rush Limbaugh: “This Is Just Pure Marxism Coming Out Of The Mouth Of The Pope”

FreakOutNation

opinionated politics | we inform, you decide.

November 27, 2013

By Anomaly

 We knew this would happen after Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny”, while writing of income inequality, and urging global leaders to fight poverty. One by one Republican talkers will trickle in, to voice their negative opinions of the Pope.
Infamous bigot, Pamela Geller asked when the Pope became an Imam.
And now here’s Rush Limbaugh declaring,”This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope.”

Listen to Rush’s objections as he mentions the Pope’s fight against poverty.

Rush Limbaugh would call Jesus Christ a CINO.
Courtesy of Media Matters. 

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Michigan about to require women to buy "rape insurance" based on petition signed by 4.2% of voters

Michigan about to require women to buy "rape insurance" based on petition signed by 4.2% of voters

by EclectablogFollow

The War on Women continues...

Graphic by Anne C. SavageCross-posted from Eclectablog.
Thanks to a petition drive that resulted in 4.2% of Michiganders voicing their minority opinion, Michigan is about to become a place where women have to plan ahead for their abortions. If you become pregnant accidentally or if you are raped and become pregnant and haven't purchased a separate abortion coverage rider on your health insurance, you won't be covered. This isn't just for state government insurance plans or those purchased on the health insurance exchange. It's for EVERY insurance plan available in the state.

Apparently no government is too small to get between you, your doctor, and your health insurer.

A controversial initiative that would require women to buy an additional rider on their health insurance if they wanted abortion coverage is one short step away from going to the Legislature, where it is likely to easily become law. Because no one filed a challenge by Monday’s deadline to the more than 315,000 signatures turned in to the Secretary of State, an initiative that would prohibit abortion coverage from being included in standard insurance policies will go forward.
And the Secretary of State certified Monday that Michigan Right to Life, which spearheaded the petition drive, has more than enough valid signatures to start the ball rolling on the new state law. A minimum of 258,088 valid signatures were needed. The anti-abortion activists turned in 315,477 signatures. And the Secretary of State’s elections division estimated that 299,941 of the signatures are valid.
The state Board of Canvassers will meet at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 2 to certify the signatures and then the petition moves to the state Legislature, which has 40 days to approve, reject or do nothing with the legislative ballot initiative.

If Republicans vote it down or fail to act on it, it will be a ballot iniatitive in the next general election. Neither of these is likely given their ideologically extreme views. If they pass it, it becomes law. The other 95.8% of us won’t have a say and neither will Governor Snyder. Don't tell me there isn't a War on Women in Michigan being waged by religious conservatives in our state. The evidence is right before you.
If you want chime in, Planned Parenthood has a petition going asking legislators to allow ALL Michigan voters to have a say in this. You can sign the petition HERE.

Originally posted to Eclectablog - eclectic blogging for a better tomorrow on Wed Nov 27, 2013 at 09:24 AM PST.

Also republished by Motor City Kossacks, Your Government at Work, State & Local ACTION Group, and Michigan, My Michigan.

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Asshat Limbaugh Falls For "White Males Should Kill Themselves" Satire Piece

Asshat Limbaugh Falls For "White Males Should Kill Themselves" Satire Piece

by ProgLegsFollow

Conservative blogs have been abuzz the past few days over the latest round of bigotry against the oft-oppressed white male.   The "news" outlets are reporting that Noel Ignatiev, a real professor at Massachusetts College of Art, suggested in his final lecture that white males needed to kill themselves:

"If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease, white males have never contributed anything positive to the world! They only murder, exploit and oppress non-whites! At least a white woman can have sex with a black man and make a brown baby but what can a white male do? He’s good for nothing. Slavery, genocides against aboriginal peoples and massive land confiscation, the inquisition, the holocaust, white males are all to blame! You maintain your white male privilege only by oppressing, discriminating against and enslaving others!
[...]
Obviously, all whites need to be destroyed, but why not start with white males? They are behind most of history’s greatest atrocities. Besides, some of the brothers like to bang white women. Eventually white women can breed out, but my feeling is that if you are a white male, you should kill yourself now. If you are a thoughtful person, with a social consciousness who considers himself white, you will consider suicide. It’s the right thing to do."

Today Rush Limbaugh picked up the story and ran with it--it fits perfectly with his ongoing narrative that white male Christians are subjected to nonstop persecution.
The only problem?  The lecture is completely fictional--as one of Limbaugh's office flunkies pointed out as soon as El Rushbo's Gucci ostrich loafer-clad foot was firmly in his mouth.

I shit you not, Limbaugh actually led into his aborted segment with the following statement:
"I look at how easily people are made to follow and made to believe things and lied to and act like sheep..."

Rush then attempted to lead his sheep into believing a false story about a professor whose white man's guilt leads him to suggest mass suicide for his white male students: Listen for yourself:
*
Just when the vein was bulging dangerously on his sweaty crimson forehead, one of Rush Limbaugh's staff told him off mike that the story was not real.
Egg dripping from his wattles, Limbaugh tried--and failed--to save a little face:

"Now they tell me that this professor's story has been debunked.  Well, it just showed up in a major blog last night.  Ok, so the story is a satire.  It's a major blog.  Where did it show up?  (Rattles papers to cover sounds of nervous flatus) Ahhhhhh, I'll have to click on the link to find out, cause the print...Washington Times reported it.  Why does something like that work?  There are professors who teach that the problem with the planet is human beings.  There are environmentalist wackos who teach that the world would be much better if there were no human beings.  And the left is filled with these kinds of extremists."

The story that suckered Limbaugh comes from a satirical website called Diversity Chronicle which includes such pieces as "Breaking News:  George Zimmerman Eats 3 Egg Omelet". Had Limbaugh actually done some research instead of getting all his information from headlines gleaned from easily outraged dimwit websites he would have found that the Ignatiev "lecture" included the following lines:

"Perhaps we are finally coming to an awareness in this country that the cancer known as the white race must be obliterated. Especially in the form of white males. Obama is president, and I think there is an excellent chance that we will never have a white male president again. I think we are witnessing the breaking of the back of the white male power structure. We will still have residual white males that must be dealt with, but I am confident that we’ve won. Eventually, I would like to put white males in concentration camps and work them to death just like they’ve done to everyone else. When they are all dead we can throw a party and dance around their corpses!"

But of course "facts" and "research" are not Rush Limbaugh's strong suit.

attribution: None Specified

Don't let them oppress you, my white brethren!!!!!

Decent folks who believe in tolerance and equality are no longer powerless against Rush Limbaugh's efforts to spread intolerance on the radio.  StopRush is making a major impact by convincing advertisers on this show to withdraw their ads--and with your help we can do even more.  Just a few emails, tweets, or Facebook messages a week to Limbaugh's advertisers can go a long way toward making hatred less profitable.  It is our collective voice that makes us strong.
Want to do something hold Limbaugh accountable?
Join StopRush!  We can use your help in the following ways:
Join:  The Flush Rush Facebook community
Visit:  The StopRush sponsor database
Tweet:  #stoprush Twitter campaign
Fact Check:  Limbaugh Lie Debunking Site
Install: ThinkContext StopRush browser extension--notifies you as you browse which companies advertise on Rush

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Rick Perry Is Quietly Encouraging Texans to Sign Up for Obamacare

Rick Perry Is Quietly Encouraging Texans to Sign Up for Obamacare 

Published October 23, 2013 - 3:30pm

Katie Singh
Burnt Orange Report

Governor Rick Perry has always been one of the Affordable Care Act's most vocal opponents. He's called it a "monstrosity," a "stomach punch to the economy," and a "felony." But that hasn't stopped him from telling Texans to sign up for health coverage from the law.

That's right — Rick Perry's administration is encouraging Texans to enroll in the ACA's health insurance exchanges.

As the Texas Tribune reported last week, Texas will soon be shutting down its high-risk insurance pool for residents with pre-existing conditions, pushing them to seek coverage in the federal insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act. According to the Tribune, "the state has deemed the high-risk pool obsolete, as the Affordable Care Act prohibits insurance companies participating in the federal marketplace...from denying coverage to Texans with pre-existing conditions." Governor Perry signed the bill abolishing the high-risk pool into law in June, and it will be shut down by the end of the year.

This is just the latest in a series of hypocritical moves by Governor Perry regarding the Affordable Care Act. Though he's called the law a "criminal act," Perry certainly has no problem accepting money from it. As we reported last month, Perry has accepted over $100 million in ACA grants, and was asking for even more to help expand a state program providing insurance to those with disabilities.

Perry's actions make it utterly impossible to take his position on the ACA seriously. The crux of his argument against the Affordable Care Act has been that it's better for states to control health policy than the federal government. But by accepting ACA grant money, and now by encouraging high-risk patients to enroll in insurance exchanges, Perry's actions have totally undermined his words. In accepting these parts of the ACA, he's essentially acknowledged that federal grants will enhance the state's existing health programs, and that the health exchanges will provide better coverage for people with pre-existing conditions than what the state has now.

Perry's actions confirm what policy experts have known since the law was passed — it's a step forward for Texans. Stacey Pogue of the Center for Public Policy Priorities told the Texas Tribune she "think[s] that people are going to have many more options and many better options in the marketplace than they do in the health pool today."

Texans in the high-risk pool currently pay twice the market rate for health coverage, but they will be able to find much cheaper options in the health insurance exchanges. The ACA's tax subsidies will also make coverage more affordable. In addition, the insurance plans available in the exchanges will expand the level of care people with pre-existing conditions can receive, "as they must cover 'essential health benefits,' some of which, such as maternity care, aren't [currently] covered in the pool."

So, the next time you hear Rick Perry call the Affordable Care Act an "attack on freedom" or some other hyperbole, remember that even he doesn't really think that. Perry's presidential ambitions mean he'll never admit it, but he's repeatedly accepted parts of the Affordable Care Act as good for Texas. In doing so, he's not only recognized that federal assistance can strengthen state programs, but he's also proven himself to be a Texas-sized hypocrite.

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10 Tips For a Libertarian Thanksgiving

Ben Cohen on November 26, 2013

The Daily Banter

Thanksgiving is a tradition that Americans from every walk of life can enjoy. It is a time when friends and family get together and give thanks for what they have. However, the tradition has some rather worrying elements to it that could teach Americans socialistic concepts like sharing and selflessness. To counter the troubling Europeanization of a distinctly American tradition, here is a 10-step guide to having a Libertarian Thanksgiving:
1. Buy your Turkey from Butterball – America’s biggest Turkey farm. It stands to reason that Butterball must be the best turkey producer because it has beaten all the competition and makes $1.5 billion in revenue a year. Sure they may pump their turkeys full of antibiotics and have a horrific record on animal cruelty, but who cares? The turkey is cheap, and it lines the pockets of corporations so it’s a win-win situation for the die hard capitalist.
2. Outsource the cooking. It is almost certainly cheaper to have your Thanksgiving dinner prepared in India and Fed-Exed.
3. Charge family members for leftovers. In fact, they’re not actually leftovers, they’re ‘opportunity costs’. All the turkey they didn’t eat could have been resold at above market rates given turkeys are in heavy demand at Thanksgiving. It is only fair that you are compensated by your family for this loss of earning.
4. No turkey giveaways. Poor people are poor for a reason, and giving them free turkeys will just encourage them to remain poor.

5. The strongest family members eat first. They are bigger and stronger and it stands to reason that they are more deserving of food than the young and elderly. 
6. Make sure you are carrying a concealed weapon at the dinner table. You may have a closet Communist in the family and you need to always be prepared. 
7. Get a sponsor for your dinner. This might mean making family members and guests wear branded t-shirts or drinking Pepsi rather than Coke. You should never pass up an opportunity to monetize family occasions. 
8. Boycott Canada’s celebration of Thanksgiving. They have universal health care coverage. 
9. Challenge the White House’s pardoning of one turkey. This is the government telling Americans which turkeys they can and cannot eat and is a slippery slope towards socialism. 
10. No holding hands during grace. We are not all in this together. It’s every American for themselves.

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Ex-Generals Say President Obama Must be Forced to Resign

Ex-Generals Say President Obama Must be Forced to Resign

By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Monday, November, 25th, 2013, 7:46 am

Traitors Paul E. Vallely and Charles Jones

World Net Daily yesterday celebrated the idea that the time has come for the U.S. military to step in and force Obama to resign, a poll showing that 79 percent (822 votes) feel that the military should “Court martial our commander in chief for treason against our nation and its defense.” And WND managed to do it without ever once mentioning that the whole idea of a military coup – which is what they’re talking about – is unconstitutional. Or that there is something inherently creepy and banana republic-like about ex-generals keeping an eye on a twice legally elected president:

After one of them called for the “forced resignations” of President Obama and congressional leaders in response to multiple grievances, including the alleged political purge of hundreds of senior military officers, two retired U.S. generals are creating a citizens’ commission to scrutinize Obama administration actions on national security and economic issues.
“America’s Provisional Leadership Council” will look at major concerns, as outlined by Army Gen. Paul E. Vallely and Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Jones, in an eight-point paper titled “The Americans Project.”
…
In calling for the forced resignations of Obama and the leadership of Congress, Vallely outlined suggestions for nationwide rallies and said a peaceful “civil uprising is still not out of question.”

You might be interested to know that Vallely, an Islamophobe, is senior military analyst for Fox News and that Jones, an apparently VERY angry old white man, wrote an open letter in support of birther Orly Taitz, claiming that the president was “possibly [a] citizen of Kenya.”
We are told that “In their paper, Vallely and Jones call for adherence to the Constitution with strict congressional oversight of all executive actions.”
What a great idea for saving our Constitution! Except…
NOTHING in the United States Constitution provides for using force to terminate a presidency. NOTHING. Yet the claim made here is that this would be done in order to protect the Constitution. Yes, protect the Constitution by violating it.
Interesting concept. Something that would make sense only to a tea party mind.
It’s kinda funny too, in a way, in that these generals are angry at Obama for “forcing resignations.” Did they forget their oath? Did they forget that the U.S. president is the “commander-in-chief”?

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States….
ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 1

Did they forget that the president was legally elected according to the Constitution and that neither a military coup nor leading a civilian uprising would not be in accord with the Constitution they swore to uphold?

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

This is Vallely back in 2010 telling a bunch of Republicans in Virginia City, Montana, about his plans:


Perhaps he doesn’t remember the significance of the oaths he is talking about here? Is it possible he does not see that violating the Constitution does not protect the Constitution?

The current crop of leaders, he said, must face a “demand resignation” process, which he explained requires massive grassroots protests and social networking which he envisions can be undertaken through his organization. And example of a “forced resignation,” he said, was that of President Richard Nixon.
“Our federal government continues down the path of destroying America,” Vallely said. “Americans must now stand up and put America back on the right track.”
…
Vallely and Jones in their paper say “The Americans” leadership has developed workable solutions to “help solve and fix what has without question stunted our nation’s ability to clearly, legally and peacefully function as a constitutional republic.”

Never mind that Nixon – who, unlike Obama, actually did something wrong – was not forced to resign – he chose to resign rather than face impeachment.
Vallely, if he really cares about this country, should be pointing the finger at the tea party anarchists in the House of Representatives, at the Citizens United ruling, and at a host of other problems that can be laid at the door of Republican ideology and governance from 2001-2008.
Republicans really can’t get over the fact that Americans have rejected them – twice, and that their brief tea party resurgence in 2010 did not imply that President Obama relinquish his role as president to a small band of lunatics in the House of Representatives. It did not alter Democratic control of the Senate. The Constitution did not change in 2010 from what it was in 2008. Barack Obama is still the president of the United States. He was re-elected president of the United States by 5 million votes in 2012.
Recent elections and polls show support for the Republican and tea parties to be at an all-time low. Deadly diseases are more popular than the Republicans in Congress.
What part of this do you treasonous clowns not get?
You can stomp your little feet if you want, sure. You can rant and rave, which is something you have shown us all you love to do. But you don’t get to shut down the government because you don’t like how America voted. How is that patriotic – or constitutional? And you certainly don’t get to impeach the president simply because you don’t like him, and what in the world gives you the idea that the military can remove a legally elected president because you don’t like the results of an election?
Don’t even pretend that you are doing this for us. What you want has nothing to do with what polls and elections show the American people want. Don’t even pretend you are doing this to protect the Constitution. Neither is true.
You are conservative reactionaries. You are doing this for yourselves, because you don’t like the fact that we as a culture have moved on, that the American people are no longer interested in what you have to offer. You ran our country into the ground and we aren’t going to let you do it again.
Not on our watches. Government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people. It is no more government of, by, and for the military than it is of, by and for the corporations or of, by, and for God.
If you don’t like the results of the last election, win the next election if you can, a possibility that is daily – thanks to your own insane behavior and ideas and actions – becoming more remote.

Ex-Generals Say President Obama Must be Forced to Resign was written by Hrafnkell Haraldsson for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Mon, Nov 25th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved
 

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Ted Cruz’s Aggressive Campaigning Could Hurt Him With Crucial Iowa Voters

By Ben Jacobs

November 25th 20135:45 am

followMore Stories by Ben Jacobs

After leading the shutdown and making headlines for months, the senator is aggressively campaigning in Iowa. But will voters burn out on him before the crucial caucus vote?

Eventually, even the most gleeful child learns that there is such a thing as too much ice cream when the carton is empty and all that’s left is the toothache. Might conservative Iowa Republicans, a demographic that plays an outsize role in the presidential nominating process, ever feel the same way about Ted Cruz?
The Texas senator has been in office for less than a year and has already become a national figure and a frontrunner not just in the 2016 Iowa caucuses but eventually to receive the GOP nomination as well. Indeed, according to prominent Iowa conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats, Cruz would win the Iowa caucuses “going away” if they were held today. His problem is that they still are two years away, plenty of time for even those conservatives most excited by Cruz to tire of the Texas senator.
Cruz’s 21-hour anti-Obamacare speech on the Senate floor on the eve of October’s government shutdown established him as a national figure, but his star had been rising before that. It was Cruz’s performance in the 2012 Texas Senate primary, when he won as an underdog Tea Party candidate, that gained him prominence in the Republican Party. Cruz combined Hispanic heritage (his father was born in Cuba) with unimpeachable conservative credentials and a sterling legal record as Texas’s solicitor general, arguing nine cases before the Supreme Court and drawing comparisons to a fellow Harvard Law graduate, Barack Obama.

Campaigning aggressively at this stage in the election cycle would expose any political weaknesses far earlier than they might otherwise.

The Obama comparisons ended once Cruz took office. As a junior senator, Cruz has aggressively courted national media coverage to promote his causes, a strategy counter to the one President Obama used when he first entered Congress. According to Tommy Vietor, a former Obama Senate press aide who later worked for Obama both on his 2008 campaign and in the White House, the then-Illinois senator “basically declined every national press interview for nine months once he took office.” It was the same approach taken by Hillary Clinton when she was elected in 2000: “Keep your head down, focus on your work, and don’t look like you’re a show horse.”
In Vietor’s opinion, “when you’re an elected official and out doing every possible interview and on cable news, it diminishes you and makes people wonder why you aren’t spending more time doing your actual job.” As senator, Obama also took pains to avoid the appearance of even considering a presidential campaign and only visited Iowa twice before beginning his presidential campaign, both times while campaigning for fellow Democrats in the runup to the 2006 midterm elections.
By contrast, some grassroots Iowa Republicans say Cruz has hit just the right notes. Jamie Johnson, a member of the Republican Party of Iowa’s state central committee, said Cruz’s approach to the Hawkeye State has been “just right.” He noted that the Texas senator has made three trips to Iowa, each for a high-profile event, and that he likely won’t be back in the Midwest until next spring. Craig Robinson, a former party operative and editor of the Iowa Republican, voiced a bit more skepticism. While he acknowledged that Cruz has been in the state “a lot,” his criticism is not so much that the Texas senator is spending too much time in Iowa but that he has been concentrating on the wrong parts of the state. Cruz has been “been Des Moines-focused,” Robinson said. “It would be a bigger deal to me if he went to Dubuque or Davenport. That would be more interesting, rather than repeating” his trips to metro Des Moines.

As a presidential hopeful on the right of the Republican Party, Cruz has far more reason to visit Iowa in an effort to attract publicity than most of his potential competitors. After all, the past two winners of the Iowa caucuses, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008, might run in 2016, along with a number of other conservatives with strong links to the state, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) or Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), another former presidential candidate. Cruz is appealing to a specific slice of Iowa caucusgoers, committed conservatives who are far more familiar with his competitors. As one observer pointed out, he has “more ground to make up.”
The risk for Cruz with Iowa voters is that campaigning aggressively at this stage in the election cycle would expose any political weaknesses far earlier than they might be otherwise. Doug Gross, who was the Republican nominee for governor in 2002 and is associated with the pro-business, establishment wing of the GOP, said the Texas senator is exposing his “feet of clay.” Gross said he thought Cruz performed poorly on his most recent visit to the state in October, when he spoke at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Ronald Reagan dinner in Des Moines. In Gross’s opinion, Cruz gave “a 45-minute self-indulgent rant” that hurt him with Iowa Republicans and “was better suited for D.C.” than a friendly part of the Midwest, where “neighbors know neighbors.”
Of course, as Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier emphasized, his speaking schedule isn’t just about Iowa. “The senator accepts event invitations and schedules interviews that offer the best platform for him to share his priorities and make the argument for the policies he is pursuing in the interests of the Texans he represents,” she said. She noted that Cruz’s camp was “mindful” of the risk of overexposure but still “pleased that his message has been able to resonate largely through the work he has done in his role as a senator—in committee hearings, statements on the floor, etc. Of course, media interviews are a part of getting that message out, too.”
The problem for most politicians is that they are never “new” for long. They all eventually become known quantities. While Vietor pointed out that Cruz has “completely diluted his sort of freshness factor and everything he says is completely predictable,” that’s the case with almost every public figure who has stuck around in politics. The Texas senator was always going to lose his initial bloom after the wave of publicity surrounding his 21-hour speech and his leadership role during the government shutdown. The question now is whether Cruz and his team can deliver a message that resonates and maintain an appeal with Hawkeye State voters who no longer see him as the exciting new guy.

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Right-Wing Hackers Create ‘Destroy Obamacare!’ Program, Hope To Disrupt Website

Author: T. Steelman November 20, 2013 11:31 am

A new DDos tool looks to cripple or shut down the healthcare.gov website.
“Destroy Obamacare!” is highly illegal but the right will probably try to use it.

The right really, really wants to destroy Obamacare. Sure, the Obamacare website has had its problems since the roll-out. We’re all disappointed and discouraged that, after all the work we’ve done to get this up and running, we are having to defend the entire idea of health care reform. Because we all know that if a website ever has problems, it should immediately be shut down. Just like YouTube was Monday when it went down for a while. Oh, it wasn’t shut down? Well, I’m sure that was an oversight.

The Obamacare website is being attacked by hackers

Last week, Department of Homeland Security official Roberta Stempfley told the
monkey circusHouse investigative committee that the Healthcare. gov website had been the target of at least 16 cyber-attacks. These occurred between Nov. 6th and Nov. 8th and are currently under investigation.
But things may escalate if some on the right have their way. Recently, Arbor Networks, an online security firm, discovered a tool called “Destroy Obamacare!” It is being distributed (by whom is not yet known) so it can be used to overload the Obamacare website. According to Arbor, the program is written to perform constant, layered requests to get on two healthcare.gov web pages: the home page and the “contact us” page. The tool is a Distributed Denial of Service program. My IT friends tell me that…
“… the extra D in DDoS that makes a DDoS attack so effective — the first D stands for “Distributed” and means that the attacks would be coming from a variety of different IP addresses, making it hard to block the traffic without completely turning off the website (which is the goal of a “denial of service” attack to begin with).”
In other words, tens of thousands (or more) of computers will try to use the website over and over and over again, automatically. Think of having thousands of cars trying to use the same exit on the highway at the same time and you’ll get the idea.

“Destroy Obamacare” isn’t too much of a threat unless…

As it stands, this “Destroy Obamacare!” tool wouldn’t be able to do much to the Obamacare website. But, of course, there are a couple of caveats:

“… if this were developed into something more malicious (and rewritten to fire off more requests, more regularly), spread throughout servers and users online without adequate security, and launched from machines worldwide simultaneously, it would be catastrophically effective (especially if the program was smart enough to change IP addresses when blocked).”

The IP address issue, while not insurmountable, presents a problem for the people who would be using “Destroy Obamacare!” Their computers can be identified and blocked and the users prosecuted. But, as my sources say, if an enormous number of people (say, several million) decided to run the program or if someone with enough money were to rent a bot-net (a robot network), then they could wreak havoc. But, unless that were to happen, these website requests would maybe slow the site down a little. But everyone who ran it would be easily found and blocked.

It’s obvious the program came from someone on the right

Though it is rather like “one-legged dogs trying to take down a pride of lions” (as one of my sources compared it), “Destroy Obamacare!” could still be troublesome. But anyone who wishes to use it should know that it is highly illegal and easily traced. As you can see by the text which accompanies the tool, those who use it may not be smart enough to realize either of these things.

Looks like a Tea Party thing to me. Arbor says on their website coverage of this subject that they have no information on the active use of this software — yet — but that they have:

… seen site specific denial of service tools in the past related to topics of social or political interest.  This application continues a trend ASERT is seeing with denial of service attacks being used as a means of retaliation against a policy, legal rulings or government actions. (source)

They may be referring to Anonymous, who has targeted websites before. But this is, as far as we know, the first time that the right-wing has tried to use cyber-attacks.

My IT sources say it’s poorly written

For the coders among you, here is a screen shot of some of “Destroy Obamacare!” code:

My very smart IT sources assure me that this is nothing to worry about. Any well-written high-capacity website could easily handle this. Unless, of course, the Koch brothers decide to rent that bot-net…
What is frustrating for me, and for many of you, is that the media is focusing on the healthcare.gov website having problems. Yet nobody mentions the attacks that have already occurred nor this nascent, though probably toothless, concerted attack. “Liberal media” my arse.
 

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Anonymous Hacks Neo-Nazi Website, Finds Ron Paul Connection

November 18, 2013 | Filed under: Right wing hatred | Posted by: Kimberley Johnson

 

Internet hactivist group “Anonymous” broke into the white supremacist website America Third Position (A3P) and found more than they bargained for. In the document dump that consisted of private forum messages, emails, organizational notes and other personal information, they found connections with former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
The documents revealed Paul held meetings with the group and regularly met with many A3P members, engaged in conference calls with their board of directors and participated in a “bridging tactic” between A3P and the Ron Paul Revolution. Not surprisingly, A3P is heavily involved in campaigning for Paul. Also revealed, Paul met with Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party — the UK fascist group with neo-Nazi roots.
Live Leaks reported:
“Other excerpts show A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso (whose email account was one hacked by the collective) coordinating meetings between Paul and other members of A3P such as corporate lawyer and chairman of the neo-Nazi group Paul (sic). ‘I’m going to go to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with Bill Johnson,’ reads an email to an A3P member dated January 2011. ‘Bill and I will be meeting with Ron and Ran Paul. I have a teleconference call with Bill (and Ron Paul) tonight. Much more later. Things are starting to happen (thanks to folks like you).’ In another passage, Kelso, a former Scientologist and account owner of other German Nazi forums, wrote: “I’ll be at CPAC from Feb. 9 to Feb 12. I’ll send back reports to you from personal meetings with Ron Paul, newly-elected Senator Rand Paul and many others. It’ll be here on WhiteNewsNow, a place that is really starting to get interesting because of the presence of folks like you. Birds of a feather flock together, and we are really gathering some quality here.”’
Paul denies the connection. Paul also denied authoring a series of racist newsletters, despite confirmation from his staff that he signed off on every detail.

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Kimberley A. Johnson (BIO) is the author of The Virgin Diaries and an activist for women’s rights. Like her on Facebook, Twitter or follow her on FB HERE.

 

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You Might Be A Fascist If…

Author: Stephen D. Foster Jr. May 7, 2013 12:01 am

 

Are you a fascist? Many people are fascists and they don’t even realize it. And sometimes, they know it all too well, but hide and deny it. Most of the time though, it’s obvious who the fascists are. For instance, you might be a fascist if…

1. You are obsessed with national power and pride and believe your country doesn’t have to follow the rules and shouldn’t ever apologize for doing things that are wrong. You think your nation can do whatever it wants.
2. You believe in the rule of the few, election rigging, political decisions being made by a select group of officials behind closed doors, embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, arbitrary deprivation of civil liberties, and little tolerance for meaningful opposition.
3. You believe in survival of the fittest, an every man for himself mentality that causes you to believe that poor people and sick people are weak and must be punished. You think rich people are strong because they are wealthy and that they should rule us. You also believe your race is superior to all others.
4. You use the media as a political propaganda machine to target a specific audience and to push your agenda on others. You make sure the media demonizes your opponents and takes your side on nearly every issue. You use your propaganda machine to play on the fears of others.
5. You are obsessed with security, and war. You feed this obsession by spending trillions of dollars building up a large military force and are willing to sacrifice domestic programs your people count on to keep your military huge. You start unnecessary and costly wars and you are paranoid of other nations.
6. You are driven to indoctrinate others into your way of thinking. So much so, that you try to re-write history, change the way school children are taught and you brainwash the ignorant. You use your propaganda machine as a tool to achieve this.
7. You fear and demonize intelligent people who have a higher education because they are the ones who can thwart your effort to brainwash people. You then attempt to prevent others from achieving a higher education because you want the people as ignorant as possible so you can convince them that your way is the right way.
8. You have a deep hatred and fear of communists and you instill your followers with hatred and fear of others by accusing your political opponents of being communists. This gives you an easy scapegoat to blame when things go wrong. Any person or policy you don’t like is branded as communism.
9. You disrespect women and think their place is in the home. You believe women are weak and cannot do things that men do. You believe that sexual harassment or assault is no big deal and that the only thing women are good for is cooking meals and having babies.
10. You strongly align yourself with corporations and you support corporate money and influence in government. You despise government regulations that keep corporations honest because you believe everything should be controlled by the free market and that corporations should be allowed to do whatever they please.
11. You are obsessed with Christianity. You seek to declare a Christian State and to impose religious laws on all the people across the country and the world. You believe other religions are inferior and that those who practice them should either be converted or destroyed.
12. You believe your race is superior and seek to disenfranchise or humiliate other races. You believe in legalized discrimination and fantasize about a return to times when the races were separate or when those of color were enslaved. You use code words in an attempt to hide your racism and you make laws that weaken the influence of those of color. Immigration and voting laws in particular.
13. You absolutely despise unions. To you and those like you, labor unions represent the empowerment of workers. Since you believe corporations can do whatever they want, you see organized labor as a threat because they fight for higher wages, health care, safety regulations, less hours, vacations, sick days, and holidays off. This obviously threatens the amount of money corporations can give to you and your cause so you brand unions as proponents of socialism and make laws that severely weaken them so that corporations can have a cheap, mindless labor force.
14. You are obsessed with crime and a major supporter of punishing those who commit crimes. So much so, that you don’t care about the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ You are proud of executing people and aren’t bothered if an innocent person is killed. You seek to make harsher laws, especially laws that target specific groups of people such as immigrants, women, and people of color. You also oppose Miranda rights and using humane interrogation tactics and you seek to undermine the independent judiciary.
15. You believe every election should go your way and to reach that goal, you push voting laws that disenfranchise those who traditionally vote for opponents such as people of color, the elderly, college students, and the poor. You even stoop to fixing elections in some cases and complain when your opponents challenge the vote counts.
16. You believe in rewarding your friends with positions when you gain power and you reward those who support you with government contracts and money, especially corporations. You also do your best to aid your supporters in any way you can, such as repealing undesirable pieces of legislation and regulations. You often have something to gain financially from this.
17. You create scapegoats to blame when problems arise. Whether it’s communists, liberals, minorities, homosexuals, the poor, or non-Christians, one thing is for certain. You and your propaganda tool will blame each and every one of those groups for bad things that happen even if you were the cause of the problems in the first place.
18. You take advantage of a national disaster such as an economic collapse or an attack to demonize your opponents and push your agenda. You use these events to strike fear into the population in an attempt to scare people into voting for you and your cause. It’s all about fear and scare tactics.
Sounds just like the Tea Party led Republican Party, doesn’t it?
 

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