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top of the heap to third world status in one generation

armedoldhippy

Well-known member
Veteran
https://abcnews.go.com/US/shootout-...dead-including-baby-florida/story?id=79846767

Former Marine charged in killing of 4 people, including baby

"A former Marine sharpshooter dressed in full body armor and wielding an automatic weapon allegedly went on an early-morning shooting "rampage" in Polk County, Florida, on Sunday, killing four strangers, including a mother and her baby, and wounding an 11-year-old girl before giving up.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the suspect, who he identified as Bryan James Riley, 33, of Brandon, Florida, allegedly told investigators the victims "begged for their lives, and I killed him anyway."

He was arrested on four counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted first degree murder, seven counts of attempted first degree murder on a law enforcement officer, shooting into an occupied dwelling, two counts of armed burglary with battery, arson and cruelty to an animal, according to the probable cause affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff's Office. He is being held at the Polk County Jail."

he's one sick mofo...already confessed. i'm surprised (and truthfully, a bit disappointed) that he has not been shot & killed trying to escape...yet.
 

entropical

Active member
Veteran
Thomas Frank | Listen, Liberal, March 2017, Stockholm

I found both the talk and conversation afterward to be interesting. This is from Sweden where the welfare state is in a state of collapse under the pressure of replacement migration. It is likely what pushes lightbulbs to spark up at times like we see here. They appeared at the same time to be lost and struggling to find their way. They realized however the value of the nation state, even to the point of calling for a return of socialism back to nationalism. Sweden, who would have known..
 

Gry

Well-known member
Veteran
Emergency Action Warranted' to Protect CA Recall Election After Vote System Software Leak, Experts Warn SoS

Open letter to CA's Sec. of State calls for 'urgent mitigating action' with an immediate mandate for statewide post-election Risk-Limiting Audits...

Eight of the nation's top cybersecurity and voting systems experts warned in a letter sent to California's Secretary of State on Thursday night that "emergency action is warranted" in response to a recent leak of key voting system software used in nearly 60% of state jurisdictions amid CA's ongoing Gubernatorial recall election.

The bluntly --- and urgently --- worded, 3-page letter [PDF] from the longtime experts in this field to CA Sec. of State Dr. Shirley Weber calls for a specific type of public, post-election audit as the "one critical action" that should be announced immediately, in response to software recently stolen from Mesa County, Colorado and Antrim County, Michigan. The software in question, Dominion Voting's Election Management System (EMS), was released over the Internet for broad download during a so-called "Cyber Symposium" run by Trump supporter, conspiracy theorist and pillow impresario, Mike Lindell three weeks ago. The EMS software, used in both CO and MI and many other states, including CA, is used to manage virtually every aspect of elections, from ballot creation to tabulation. Forty of California's 58 counties, according to AP's coverage of this matter tonight, use a version of the Dominion EMS that, according to the experts' letter, while "not identical" is virtually the same with only "relatively minor" differences.

"The release materially elevates threats to the trustworthiness of the ongoing California recall election and to public trust in the election," the experts inform Weber, as they urge her to, in advance of the election, mandate a robust statewide post-election audit in each county in the state.

The computer scientists explain that "a statewide risk-limiting audit (RLA) of trustworthy paper ballots...can substantially mitigate these threats," as posed by the recent breach. They define "trustworthy" as hand-marked paper ballots with a secure chain of custody, and advise that Weber mandate RLA's to both to ensure accuracy of computer-tallied results of those ballots and to offer confidence to the public in the results, no matter the outcome of the September 14th GOP recall targeting Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.

One of the letter's signatories, Prof. Philip B. Stark of UC-Berkeley, is the inventor of the well-regarded RLA protocol. It consists of a manual, public tally of a certain percentage of ballots as devised by the protocol to gain scientific certainty in the computer-tallied results. Stark recently discussed the alarming new security breach on The BradCast, comparing this release of proprietary election software into the wild as akin to having a life-sized, identical version of a bank and its vault with which to practice breaking into it...



“If I were trying to break into a bank, how helpful would it be to have blueprints of the bank and the bank vault?," Stark asked rhetorically. "How helpful would it be for me to have an actual exact copy of the bank, completely at my disposal, to try different ways of breaking in and so forth? Not even a scale model, but literally the exact same thing, just in a different place. That's what having a copy of these disks amounts to."

The letter is also signed by several other esteemed experts in the field such as Finnish cybersecurity and voting system expert Harri Hursti; founder of Georgia Tech's School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, Dr. Richard DeMillo; Univ. of South Carolina's Duncan Buell; retired Livermore National Laboratory scientist and voting system advisor to five successive CA Secretaries of State, David Jefferson and a number of other top experts.

"As of August 2021, thousands of unknown people can study the code and find weaknesses to plan attacks on elections," they write. "The attacks can be deployed by non-technical accomplices, including voters, building maintenance personnel, and election workers. Unfortunately, even extensive pre-election testing of the voting equipment may not deter or detect such attacks."

"In raising our concerns about the Dominion software release we are not accusing Dominion of wrongdoing. Nor do we have evidence that anyone currently plans to hack the recall election," they make clear. "However, it is critical to recognize that the release of the Dominion software into the wild has increased the risk to the security of California elections to the point that emergency action is warranted."

They go on to draw a distinction between the action they are urging from the Sec. of State, and the less-than-scrupulous so-called "audits" carried out recently, without public oversight, in places like Maricopa County, Arizona by inexperienced, private entitles with a partisan agenda...

Emergency measure to secure the election and maintain voter confidenceThis newly heightened risk can be mitigated by critical but straightforward action. We urge you to use your authority to mandate a statewide post-election risk-limiting audit of the outcome for the two questions on the recall ballot. RLAs have become the widely acknowledged gold standard of post-election auditing. This proposed audit should be done completely transparently, with citizen observation, and under guidance from your office (not vendors or third parties) and under the auspices of local county election officials to maintain Californians’ strong voter confidence. RLAs of the outcome require a trustworthy paper trail of hand marked paper ballots with limited use of machine-marked ballots. At least 17 of California’s 58 counties --of vastly different sizes and using a broad spectrum of voting systems from different vendors --- have already conducted pilot RLAs, so the process is well understood by local election officials. Because the same two contests are on every ballot in the state, a RLA of the recall election is especially straightforward and efficient.
If an actual cyberattack silently changes the outcome of the election, or any other procedural or software error does, a properly conducted RLA based on trustworthy paper ballots will detect it and correct it (with high probability). If the election outcome is correct in the first place the RLA will provide strong public evidence that it is, creating a “firewall” against litigation and disinformation seeking to discredit the outcome.



The letter's authors stress the importance of committing to such a post-election verification of results before Election Day. "Otherwise, it may appear to be a partisan decision, and there may be calls for other kinds of 'audits' that are neither scientifically grounded nor probative, and that would likely undermine public confidence in the election."

Over the past several weeks, beginning on the day of the unauthorized release of the Dominion EMS software into the wild, we have been covering this story, and trying to help both national media and CA state election officials understand this serious new threat to elections around the country --- where the same or substantially similar Dominion EMS software is used in some 30 states --- and, specifically, to the ongoing California recall, where the threat is currently most immediate and acute.

In recent days, a number of national media outlets --- Washington Post and Associated Press, for example --- have finally issued stories highlighting the concern of experts and the seriousness of the breach which is partly tied to Mesa County, CO County Clerk Tina Peters. She appeared at MyPillow magnate Lindell's forum in South Dakota last month, after sneaking into a secure area of the the County's Elections Division earlier this year with two accomplices late at night, turned off the security cameras, and made unauthorized copies of two hard drives containing the Dominion software.

While the recent national coverage has been good in general, those stories failed to connect the dots between the breach and California's critical Recall election. It is hoped that the letter to CA's SoS from the cybersecurity and voting system experts on Thursday night, along with AP's new coverage of same, may finally bring the needed attention to this urgent matter.

The exposure of the EMS software follows just days after new revelations in a long-running lawsuit challenging the use of Dominion's touchscreen Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) in Georgia, by the tenacious, non-partisan Coalition for Good Governance (CGG). In that federal suit, expert witness Prof. J. Alex Halderman, Director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security and Society was allowed to examine [PDF] Dominion's touchscreen systems and discovered previously unknown "highly exploitable vulnerabilities" that could allow an attacker with physical access to one of the machines --- including a voter --- to change votes by inserting malware that could be passed from machine to machine and eventually back to corrupt the EMS software.

"If you have someone who can do the technical work of devising a cyberattack, then it could actually be deployed by a voter, by an insider, by a vendor, by whoever," he told AP. The new software breach "just really multiplied the number of people who are in a position to do harm to our elections by a very large factor."

Halderman's report, detailing the newly documented vulnerabilities on behalf of plaintiffs in CGG's case, was "so sensitive," according to the experts' letter to the CA SoS on Thursday, that the federal judge overseeing the case ordered it to be sealed, even from plaintiffs and defendants in the case. They urge Secretary Weber "to file a motion with Judge [Amy] Totenberg to obtain a confidential copy of Prof. Halderman’s sealed report to inform your cybersecurity team of the vulnerabilities he discovered."

CGG also issued a press release late on Thursday, citing the need for action as detailed by the experts' new letter, and quoting a number of them to highlight its urgency.

"The impact on the California recall election should not be underestimated," Georgia Tech's DeMillo warns. His concerns are echoed by Univ. of South Carolina's Buell, another letter author and expert witness in CGG's lawsuit against Georgia's Sec. of State. "It is imperative that California immediately address the breach of the Dominion election management system to provide the mitigation that can only be achieved by the use of hand marked paper ballots counted by scanners with the outcomes tested in thorough post-election audits," urges Buell.

"California is facing a grave security risk that can easily result in the loss of voter confidence if the danger is not mitigated with a rigorous post-election audit," notes CGG's Executive Director, Marilyn Marks. "California has often led the way in election security initiatives and is well positioned to swiftly solve this critical problem." She underscores the need for the state to take "immediate action" by declaring a statewide RLA "to ensure that voter confidence is earned in a way that sets the standard for all other states as they conduct their November elections."

https://bradblog.com/?p=13985
 

armedoldhippy

Well-known member
Veteran
Elder is already passing along Chumpian style vague warnings about "voter fraud", lol. how so very GOP of him... "i'm gonna get my ass waxed like a new car, so i think i'll stir up some shit on my way out the door..."
 

Cannavore

Well-known member
Veteran
Mayor Wheeler has announced the city will not be enforcing the citywide vaccine mandate on the police force.

"I am disappointed that we can’t hold all of our City employees to the same vaccine requirement."

Portland officials are considering changing the city's vaccine mandate to exempt the police force. The city attorney's office said they now feel the order is legally dubious after new guidance from OHA. "The City cannot require police be vaccinated."



in other words the police are a rogue unaccountable element not subjected to the law.
 

Hammerhead

Disabled Farmer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Cops will always think they are superior. Laws do not apply to those that supposedly enforce the laws.
 

Sunshineinabag

Active member
On a positive note here's the local elementary school teaching gardens...I was impressed.
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Gry

Well-known member
Veteran

Why Threats of Violence are Epidemic in America

We're witnessing the symptoms of a culture going through the early stages of transition from democracy to oligarchy - it quite literally starts with “average people” randomly behaving like asses


I’m sitting in my home office working on the next morning’s Daily Rant when I hear what sounded like a man in my driveway yelling, at the top of his voice, “You f*cking c*nt!” and other female-specific obscenities. Walking to the window, I saw a guy in his 40s, redfaced, giving my wife the finger with both hands and cursing her out as he climbed into his car and squealed out of the driveway.

Louise, it turns out, had invited a local contractor to give us a bid on some repairs and she’d (very nicely) asked him, before letting him into the house, if he was vaccinated. He exploded and marched back to his car screaming curses at her. In all her years on this planet, including as CEO of three different companies, that was the first time in her life a man had behaved like such an ass toward her.

In Tennessee a high school student testifies to a school board meeting that his grandmother has just died of Covid and he begs his school to mandate masks so his other grandmother isn’t next; he’s shouted down, laughed at and heckled by smirking, unmasked adults.

On Jet Blue what’s become a new rite of passage for flight attendants blows into life as a man screams obscenities when asked to leave the plane because he refused to properly wear his mask.

In Tacoma, Washington a group of thugs goes looking for a fight when “antifa” fails to show up for the brawl the “Boys” had advertised. Undeterred, they march around town with clubs, flags and baseball bats looking for people to pick fights with until a local (not-antifa) man, apparently disgusted and feeling threatened by their behavior, finally pulls out a gun and shoots one of them in the foot (the story is still evolving; it’s possible the guy shot himself in the foot).

In Ft. Collins Colorado a man harasses a group of women suntanning on the beach for wearing “pornographic” bathing suits, refusing to leave when they ask him to go away because, he says, “This is America!”

Across the nation, hundreds of poll workers and election officials endure daily death threats and violent harassment just for doing their civic duty. And school boards are under daily assault in similar fashion.

And these are just the stories from the past week.

This continuous and increasing use of violence and threats of violence has become an epidemic across America since 2016 and it’s not because of frustration with the pandemic.

This is what happens in every country when it begins making the transition from being a democratic and generally polite and respectful culture into one that embraces authoritarianism or fascism.

And it always starts from the top down: leadership sets the initial tone in countries, just like in companies and families.

In our case, these people are imitating Donald Trump; our best hope is that President Biden‘s reasonable and compassionate example can help the nation turn against it, although Trump-imitating governors and other elected officials are making it is very difficult.

The Republican leadership of Texas, for example, just legally embraced vigilantism against women and a dozen GOP-controlled states are planning to follow suit this month.

In Hungary, roaming bands of thugs with torches threatened to burn the homes of Roma people as Viktor Orbán rose to power a bit over a decade ago.

In The Philippines, President “Little Donald Trump” Duterte praised vigilantes roaming the streets with clubs and guns looking to beat or kill people “linked to drugs” including “more than 150 judges, mayors, lawmakers, police and military personnel” he viewed as political opponents. Duterte told his followers: “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun - you have my support.”

In Russia roaming bands attack and kill suspected-LGBTQ people as the government’s leadership ramps up otherizing language against its own citizens. Across former Soviet states advocates for democracy or gay rights are routinely hunted, beaten and often killed.

As Mussolini came to power in Italy in the early 1920s his civilian vigilantes, known as Blackshirts for their garb of that color, took to the streets regularly. Historian Michael R. Ebner writes: “Thus, life for labor leaders became terror-filled, especially because Fascists did not limit their attacks to the public sphere. Nowhere was safe. Late at night, 10, 30, or even 100 Blackshirts, as these squad members became known, sometimes traveling from neighboring towns, might surround a home, inviting a Socialist, anarchist, or Communist outside to talk. If they refused, the Fascists would enter forcibly or threaten to harm the entire family by lighting the house on fire.”

In Germany in 1921 Hitler organized a volunteer, unpaid civilian militia he called the Sturmabteilung (Storm Unit) who roamed across Germany looking for labor leaders, gays and Jews to beat up.

In Brazil today roaming bands of thugs called “militias” beat and kill people they believe are political enemies of strongman and Trump imitator President Jair Bolsonaro. According to reporting in The Intercept and The Guardian, they’re led by Bolsonaro’s eldest son Flávio.

In every case, around the world and throughout history, regular citizens were first surprised, then shocked, then intimidated, and finally dominated by the emerging authoritarian or neofascist movements led or encouraged by ambitious politicians in their nation.

In every case, everyday interactions like traveling on a train, bus or airplane, hiring a contractor, or just walking through town became a minefield filled with unpredictable eruptions of threat, intimidation and violence.

As Chicago reporter Milton Mayer wrote after returning from Germany just after World War II: “If I - and my countrymen - ever succumbed to that concatenation of conditions, no Constitution, no laws, no police, and certainly no army would be able to protect us from harm.”

We are witnessing today in America the symptoms of a culture going through the early stages of transition from pluralistic democracy to violent oligarchy, as I lay out in far more detail in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.

It quite literally starts with “average people” randomly exploding and behaving like asses while political demagogues promote agressive self-styled militias, lawlessness and vigilantism.

We ignore or minimize them at our own peril.

Thom Hartmann
 

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