Rancid

It began, of course, with The Stain doing his usual Stain-like things:

“If you look at President Obama, and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls," Trump said Monday. "I like to call when it's appropriate, when I think I am able to do it."

It was Trump's first public statement about the Niger incident, in which an Army special forces unit was ambushed by Islamic extremists in the western African nation. And it brought an swift and strong reaction from aides to former President Barack Obama.

"That's a (expletive) lie," said Alyssa Mastromonaco, Obama's deputy chief of staff, on Twitter, calling Trump "a deranged animal."

Of course previous presidents have called the families of soldiers killed in combat or in attacks similar to the one in Niger.  But The Stain got caught by the fact that, as of last Saturday, he hadn't made any such calls.  So he made his go-to move, which is to blame someone else, in this case Obama and other past presidents.

Of course, following his well-established pattern, when he finally DID make calls to the families, they went predictably poorly:

. . . a congresswoman said Trump told the widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger that he "must have known what he signed up for."

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., tells NBC6 that she overheard the call to Myeshia Johnson on Tuesday on a car speakerphone, as the two women were heading to Miami International Airport to meet the body of Johnson's husband, Sgt. La David Johnson.

In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump denied he said that, calling Wilson's account "fabricated" and adding, "I have proof." Press secretary Sarah Sanders clarified that there was no recording of the call, but that there were several people in the room at the time, including retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff.

Yet by midday Wednesday, the soldier's mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, had backed up the congresswoman's account. Jones-Johnson said she was also in the car listening to the call and told The Washington Post, "President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband."

I never the actual phone call in question, and clearly reasonable people can differ on whether The Stain was respectful in what he said.  But --- Sgt. Johnson's family were offended by his remarks, and that's really all that matters.

A sane person --- and anyone worthy of the office of the president --- would simply have issued a public apology to Sgt. Johnson's family and moved on.  But of course, we're not talking about a sane person worthy of the presidency, we're talking about The Stain.  Since Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) corroborated the Johnson family's story of The Stain's phone call, The Stain immediately went after her.

And he wasn't alone.  For reasons which are unclear, Chief of Staff John Kelly decided to attack Wilson.  In a speech which seemed designed to deflect attention away from The Stain's behavior, Kelly talked about his own son, who was killed while deployed to Afghanistan.  He also spent a lot of time discussing sacrifice and patriotism and a lot of other things that had nothing to do with the devastating effect The Stain's actions had on the Johnson family, but he did say "Let's not let this maybe last thing that is held sacred in our society, a young man, a young woman going out and giving his or her life for our country, let's try to somehow keep that sacred" --- a message which seems more appropriately directed at his boss than at Rep. Wilson.

Unfortunately for Kelly, he took his criticism too far, veering from indignation into personal attacks on Ms. Wilson.  He spoke about an FBI field office that opened in Miami in 2015, which was dedicated to two field officers named Grogan and Duke, who had died in the line of duty.  He attended the dedication, as did Ms. Wilson:

"Three of the men that survived the fight were there and gave rendition of how brave those men were and how they gave their lives. And a congresswoman stood up and, in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building. How she took care of her constituents because she got the money and just called up President Obama and on that phone call he gave the money, the $20 million to build a building, and she sat down. And we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned."

Kelly is obviously really, really mad at Rep. Wilson.  And who knows?  Bragging about bringing the pork home to your district is a bit obnoxious, and even disrespectful if done at a dedication ceremony for slain FBI agents.  But it's hardly the same as disrespecting a soldier's death to his widow, especially when she's expecting to be comforted.

But it turns out that Rep, Wilson's behavior wasn't either disrespectful OR obnoxious, because (try to contain your surprise) --- the bad behavior Kelly described never actually happened:

A video of Rep. Frederica Wilson’s (D-FL) speech at a 2015 FBI building dedication ceremony, taken by the Sun Sentinel newspaper and resurfaced on Friday, shows that the congresswoman did not brag about securing the funding for the building as White House Chief of Staff John Kelly claimed she had.

Rep. Wilson may be an empty barrel, but we certainly can't say that about The Stain or his staff.  To summarize: The big barrel of rancid pigshit that is our sitting president behaved like rancid pigshit.  As part of the damage control, The Stain rolled out a smaller barrel of rancid pigshit to defend him AND to make baseless attacks on the woman who confirmed The Stain's awful behavior.

But wait!  It gets worse!  Now that Kelly has been caught out in his lie, The Stain and his minions are falling back on the last refuge of Republican cowards: hiding behind the flag.  In this particular case, even though The Stain and Kelly are wrong, they're still right because, you see, it's inappropriate for anyone to criticize a former general:

The White House on Friday told a journalist who asked about errors chief of staff John Kelly made Thursday that it would be “highly inappropriate” to “get into a debate with a four-star Marine general.”

The militaristic language, used to refer to the civilian position in the White House occupied by the retired Marine general, came when the reporter pointed out that Kelly had inaccurately accused a congresswoman of claiming credit for securing funding for an FBI building in Miramar, Florida in 2015.

In other words, Kelly can lie and sling his shit however much he wants, and those in the line of fire just have to take it.  How unfortunate that the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson apparently doesn't receive the same courtesy.

So now we have the barrel of rancid pigshit press secretary telling us that we can't call the barrel of rancid pigshit John Kelly a barrel of rancid pigshit.  And that's the real takeaway of the story: In the current White House, it's rancid pigshit all the way down.

But wait!  It gets worse!  Because as entertaining as this story is, it's not even the worst part of The Stain's failed attempt at behaving like a human being. That prize goes to The Stain's interaction with the father of Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, who was killed in Afghanistan in June.  In this case, The Stain promised to send the father $25,000 --- but the check was never sent until just two days ago.  Coincidentally, the check was sent out the same day the Washington Post ran a story that the check had never been sent.

Funny, isn't it?  It's almost as if The Stain wanted Cpl. Baldridge's father to think he was a great guy, but then immediately forgot about him the moment he hung up the phone.  The White House claims "There is a substantial process that can involve multiple agencies anytime the President interacts with the public, especially when transmitting personal funds. In this situation there were other agencies involved."  And that might be true.  But that excuse would be more believeable if The Stain didn't have a history of promising to give money to veterans or their families, and failing to follow through until the media shamed him into it.

Rancid pigshit, all the way down.  Remember this the next time you read or hear anything from the current White House --- and then forget whatever pigshit they sling at you.

Poison

I aim for this to be my final post about flags for a while.

To the casual observer, it would seem that Trump voters are simply insane, and are unable to see the apparent contradiction in these two views that they hold.  It would seem to be a solid reason to vote against all candidates who hold the same beliefs (pretty much all of them Republicans).

But if you look a bit closer, you see that these two views aren't so contradictory as they might appear.

Most of the NFL players protesting are black, and the reason for their protest is systemic oppression of people of color.

The confederacy was a culture which was built entirely upon a foundation of oppression of black people, including the very heart of the confederate economy.

When looked at this way, these two views are completely consistent with one another --- and completely abhorrent.  The Republican party is the face of contemporary racism in America.  And it is more and more the case that racism is the face of the contemporary Republican party.

The Republican party is poison.

Flags

I just saw a post on Facebook from a guy who's upset about NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.  Pretty mundane stuff, although as I've pointed out before, if the kneeling is the thing that upsets you the most about it, you really need to re-evaluate your priorities.

Anyway, the thing that stood about this particular post is that this guy has literally chosen the battle flag of the army of Northern Virginia as his Facebook avatar.  You know, the flag which most people mistake for the flag of the confederacy, seeing as it has become the confederate symbol of choice by white supremacists everywhere.

Since this gentleman clearly did not appreciate the irony in making that particular statement after choosing that particular avatar, I felt compelled to make up this simple illustration for his benefit:

Puerto Rico

Eleven days ago, hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico.  A massive and immediate response was required; predictably, the response was inadequate:

This made me cry. I can't say much more. #PuertoRico https://t.co/lOdoAeG0gD

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) September 30, 2017

 I'll let the Crybaby-in-Chief waste time arguing about whether he's getting proper credit for the actions he has (or hasn't) taken, and instead urge everyone reading this to take action themselves, in the form of (you guessed it) making a contribution to one or more aid organizations.

First off --- I'll just say that I'm a bit dismayed that most of the commercials and so forth I've seen on TV are encouraging people to donate to the Red Cross.  Giving money to support Puerto Rico's recovery is great, but there is significant reason to doubt that the Red Cross is a good steward for that money.  Here are several other organizations I would recommend instead:

• St. John Rescue - Based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, this volunteer organizations works with governmental entities like FEMA to assist in rescue efforts.
• The Humane Society Disaster Relief Fund - Because there are pets, service animals, and other non-human lives suffering in Puerto Rico.
• Portlight Strategies, Inc. - Focusing specifically on disaster recovery services for the disabled.
• The Puerto Rico Community Foundation (This is page is in Spanish, which is what you should expect, when you think about it).
• Oxfam America - The U.S. branch of the British charity to address poverty and homelessness.
• The United Way
• All Hands Volunteers - A volunteer organization which helps communities recover from natural disasters.
• Save the Children - Focusing specifically on disaster recovery services for children.

Please give what you can, and pass it on!

Priorities

Here are three events which have made news recently:

1. Widespread incidents of police brutality and use of excessive --- sometimes lethal --- force toward Americans of color (no less disturbing is a similar pattern of police abuse of the disabled).
2. The President publicly condemned Americans engaging in peaceful protest, saying that if an employer sees one of their employees exercises their First Amendment rights in this way, then they should fire the "son of a bitch".
3. Multiple NFL players have chosen to kneel during the playing of the national anthem before games, in protest of the aforementioned widespread incidents of police brutality.

Now, no one will fault you for being upset about any of these things.  In fact, it's fair to say we all should be upset by all of them.

But if the thing that upsets you the most is item (3), then I respectfully suggest that you step back and take some time to seriously reconsider your priorities.

Especially considering that NFL players kneeling during the national anthem is hardly our nation's most pressing priority at the moment.  Police brutality is higher priority, as is the latest Republican attempt to set the individual health care market on fire (call you Senator: 202-224-3121).  Oh yes, and then there's the small detail that more than 3 million Americans are trying to rebuild their lives in 19th-century conditions in the aftermath of hurricane Maria.

For a good discussion about what matters and what doesn't when it comes to the NFL and the national anthem, see Martin Longman.

We Need to Stop Republicans from Peeing on the Carpet

I'm a dog owner.  Your sympathy is appreciated.

Our younger dog (not that young; she's 4) pees on our downstairs carpet quite often.  We were told she was housebroken when we got her --- we were lied to --- but we crate-trained her, and eventually, over time, it seemed like she finally 'got it'.

Until, it turned out, she didn't.

So we've tried various things, and paid a dog trainer to help us out, and nevertheless, almost every night, while we're asleep upstairs, she pees on the downstairs carpet.  And it seems like no matter what we do to try to communicate her that we DON'T WANT her to pee on the carpet, she does it anyway.

I bring this up because Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), two theoretically 'moderate' Republican senators, have introduced yet another bill which would repeal Obamacare, take away health care from millions of underprivileged Americans, and throw the individual health care market into chaos:

The bill would usher a number of shocking cruelties into law, not least the possibility that as many as 32 million Americans could lose health coverage. That's 10 percent of the population. We don't know for sure because Republicans are trying to force the bill through the Senate before its effects can be assessed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill is full of fun surprises, like the loophole it creates allowing insurers to deny people coverage for a series of basic medical treatments, including

• Pregnancy and maternity care
• Prescription drugs
• Mental health services
• Reproductive health services, including birth control
• Substance abuse treatment 

This bill appears to have the approval only of Republicans in Congress.  Just about everyone else has announced their opposition to it, including the National Association of Medicaid Directors, more than 75 different medical groups, hospitals, doctors, and even the insurance industry:

America’s Health Insurance Plans was even more pointed. The legislation could hurt patients by “further destabilizing the individual market” and could potentially allow “government-controlled single payer health care to grow,” said Marilyn B. Tavenner, the president and chief executive of the association. Without controls, some states could simply eliminate private insurance, she warned.

Sounds pretty good, huh?  So you have to ask yourself, why are Republicans so insistent on trying to pass this awful legislation that could do so much damage?

Because they can't stop peeing on the carpet, that's why.  This is their third attempt to repeal Obamacare, each more horrendous than the last.  They failed to pass the AHCA in April, because it was a terrible bill that would have eliminated health insurance for 24 million Americans and no one outside of Congress wanted it to pass.  Then a month later, the House DID pass the AHCA and Trump brought all of the congressional Republicans to the White House to celebrate over beer (I'm not kidding).

But the AHCA bill that passed the House could never pass the Senate, so the Senate tried to pass its own Obamacare repeal bill, called 'skinny repeal', which was even worse than the AHCA.  This bill famously failed to pass when John McCain (R-AZ) interrupted his treatment for brain cancer to fly to D.C. and give it a thumbs-down.

Which leads us to today and Cassidy-Graham, the worst Republican health care bill yet.

The reason I started all of this by talking about my dog is because the Republicans remind me of her.  No one wants their dog to pee on the carpet, just like no one wants any of these horrific Republican health-care bills.  And just like my dog, Republicans cannot be taught, coming back to pee on the carpet again and again, now matter how often or how forcefully the American people tell them to knock it off.

And I think it's fair to say that we've now come to the point where the only solution is to keep the Republicans off the carpet entirely.  Which is another way of saying, we need to keep these people out of Congress and away from the levers of power until they learn to stop peeing on the carpet.

Freezing Your Credit Reports

As a followup to my previous post, I wanted to report on my experience freezing my own credit reports with all three agencies.  It was somewhat frightening.

• For Equifax, the process was quite easy.  Too easy, in fact.  The problem is, the only identifying information they asked me for was my name, birth date, address and SSN.  In other words, the exact information they lost to the hackers.  So there is a distinct possibility that a hacker could put a freeze on your Equifax report, and you would have no way of removing it.  Worse yet, the hacker will then possess the PIN necessary to temporarily lift the freeze, meaning that they could get credit in your name, but you couldn't.
• My experience at TransUnion was somewhat better, in that they asked me a series of questions that the hacker likely doesn't have the answer to.  The problem there is that I must have answered one of the questions wrong, because the web site instructed me to call a number.  I expected I would need to talk to a human to prove my identity, but no.  Instead, I simply entered by phone a bunch of the same data the hacker already has.  So, like with Equifax, the hacker could have gotten in ahead of me to freeze my account and get my PIN.  I suppose it's possible that TransUnion was able to verify my identity by recognizing my phone number, but it was still a bit unsettling.
• Finally, Experian gave me the warm fuzzies.  Like with TransUnion, they asked me a bunch of questions a hacker likely would not know the answer to, and this time, the freeze went into place without a hitch.
• Update: Apparently there is a fourth, smaller credit agency called Innovis.  As with Equifax, the only information I had to provide is information that the hackers have already stolen.  On the plus side, they didn't charge me anything.  They also did not immediately provide me with a PIN to lift/remove the freeze, but are apparently sending it to me via snail mail.
• Update: And there's another agency, called ChexSystems, which is similar to the credit agencies, but for banks.  Like Innovis, placing the security freeze was free, and my PIN will be sent to me via snail mail.

So now my credit reports are frozen with all five agencies, and only I can unfreeze them.  The three big agencies gave me a PIN I will need to provide to temporarily lift or completely remove the freeze, and PINs for the smaller two agencies are on their way.  According to the FTC, the freeze will remain in effect forever, until I temporarily lift or remove it.

As noted earlier, this is not a complete solution to potential identity theft, resulting either from Equifax's screwup or for other reasons.  But it does make me feel a bit better about things, and it only cost a total of $15 (price will vary by state).

Update: Well, hell.  Shortly after I posted this, it was pointed out to me that the PIN Equifax generates for lifting/removing a credit freeze is basically just a date stamp.  This is effectively as bad as setting your password to 'password' or --- and I'm not making this up --- setting up an account where the username and password are both 'admin'.

I happen to work in the tech industry, and doing something this stupid on a production system is definitely grounds for termination.  For a whole company to do something like this is grounds for something much stronger.

But that's not the point.  The point is if you set up a security freeze with Equifax before 9/12/2017, you may have a PIN which looks something like '0909171220' --- which corresponds to the timestamp '09/09/2017 at 12:20 PM'.  If that's the case, you need to go back to Equifax and request a new PIN to be generated and mailed to you via snail mail.  Unfortunately, it appears that this cannot be done online.  To request a replacement PIN, you must do the following:

1. Call Equifax at 1-866-349-5191.
2. Press '5' to talk to an actual human person.
3. Wait on hold for a while.
4. Answer a bunch of questions to confirm your identity, during which time you are likely to be placed on hold several more times.

Needless to say, this is a drag, but it's almost certainly worth the effort.  And it seems that Equifax has finally received the hint that they need to take this stuff seriously --- I had to answer several very specific questions which a crook is highly unlikely to be able to answer correctly.  Indeed, I recommend that you make the call sitting in front of your computer, so that you can look up things such as the credit limits and balances on various accounts that you hold.

After going through all that, you should receive your new, secure PIN from Equifax within 5-10 business days --- and hopefully THEN, your information will be at least somewhat secure.