The DNC Makes Sure The Queen Gets Her Crown...

Here I was, all set to publish a post about the unfairness of taxing the income of only 55% of the population in this country to pay for the infrastructure and services that a full 100% of us enjoy, even while those who use the most services actually pay the least, if not nothing at all, but then all of the sudden, here comes these secret DNC emails from yet another hacked Democrat-controlled server, apparently a gift from evil Russians propped up by Uncle Vladi who, according to the left-side pundits, would prefer an “evil” Trump presidency to a “gonna perfect in everyway” Hillary presidency.

Whew! That was a mouthful! So, I have just one question to ask in light of the revelation provided by those 20,000 plus emails, which is the complete accuracy of our belief the DNC was never ever going to allow any serious competition to Queen Hillari-ous’s coronation: How do you feel about those emails, Berners?

We are seeing what was obviously a concentrated effort by the Democratic National Committee leadership, and I am sure a few key operatives within the Hillari-ous campaign, to do all they could to ensure that the Bernie Sanders campaign ended up exactly where it was supposed to – in second place, culminating in an endorsement of Hillar-ious by the Bern – and that all of the Berners ended up right where they were supposed to – in the ballot box in November, voting for Hillary Clinton for president.

See, once Bernie said he would support Hillar-ious if he lost, then all the DNC felt it needed to do to get all the Berners to vote “Clin-ton” (Simpsons reference!) in November was to make sure Bernie came in second place. And whether we believe a second place finish by Bernie was inevitable or not, it is very apparent that the top brass in the DNC was going to do all they could to make sure it happened. So while everyone at those Sanders rallies was all “hope and change”, sadly, you never stood a chance, no matter what, Berners. Thanks for playing, but the game was rigged against you from the start.

So, how does that make you feel? Personally, I’d be pretty damned pissed off. Not surprised at all, because hey, we’re talking about Hillar-ious here – that’s a person who is all about the backroom deal, the quiet settlement, the stacked deck, half-truths and bold-faced lies – but definitely pretty damned pissed off.

I know some of you were already pissed off that Bern kept his word and fell in line behind the Democratic establishment machine, so I am assuming the pissed off are even more pissed off and the not so pissed off and more understanding of Bern’s supporters are possibly now a little pissed off…maybe?

So, what are you going to do about it, Berners? Are you going to keep blindly following the Democratic party as they conspire against you and your beloved candidate and then take you for granted like they do the rest of their constituents, or are you going to do something?

Nothing’s happened at the convention that is going to make a difference – it’s not like there was ever a chance Queen Hillar-ious wasn’t going to get her crown, but are you going to now support the throne? I have a feeling that for all of your well-meaning principles and all your steadfast ideals, you are going to simply fall in line and vote Hillar-ious come November anyway. God save the queen! Enjoy being one of her loyal subjects, Berners…

Photo via Pexels

It's Time To Secure Cyberspace

Whether left or right, liberal or conservative, libertarian or mainstream party hardliner, taxpayer or tax money recipient, I think most of us as Americans can agree the one thing we expect from our government is to shield us from attack.

I am confident when alien invaders strike from above or a foreign army lands on the beach or zombies come streaming across the land, our military will be ready and willing to fight to defend us. But, there is a scary, new frontier that all the aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, smart weapons and the most highly-trained and prepared military force in the world are all powerless to stop without a serious shift in U.S. government policy: cyberspace.

I recently read an article from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on a small business that was forced to close its doors by a hacker, or a group of hackers, or maybe even that group of folks in those guy-from-England masks themselves. Sorry for the vague and wordy description, but I’m afraid to type out their name in case they have their Google alerts on!

The business featured in the article developed a site designed to allow people to post their opinions on political issues of the day, essentially providing a forum for people to debate back and forth through pre-recorded video. This was truly a small start-up, founded by college students and funded with a mere $35,000. This site could have been the next great thing, but once users posted videos commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hackers set out to destroy the site.

The attack began by redirecting the site’s main page to another page, which featured a graphic of that famous hacking mask and some green Matrix-style falling letters and numbers. Every time the site’s owners had the page redirect fixed, it was hacked and redirected again. Each time a hack was fixed, it was costing the site’s owners money because paid contractors maintained the site. Though they eventually found some angel coders to fix the hacks for free, the relentlessness of the attacks led the business owners to abandon their site and try to operate their vision through a mobile app. Unfortunately, though, the mobile app never caught on and hackers successfully silenced another site that had great capital potential.

According to a study by the National Cyber Security Alliance, these small business owners are not alone. One in five small businesses becomes the victim of hacking and of those that do, 60 percent go out of business within six months. But, according to a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce article, as cybercrime increases, our country still lacks policies to defend America’s cyber networks and the companies that use them.

The biggest problem for businesses that get hacked is they simply do not have the resources to fight back. They are completely on their own, fighting the attack in a silo. There is no “911” to call, no federal agency to ask for help when an attack occurs. The business can only hunker down and rely on the limited personnel and funds they have to combat the relentless attacks of people with a very unlimited resource – their own free time.

The only way we can fix this problem is to demand that our government step in to defend these small businesses – to defend us as Americans – just as they would if the hackers landed on the beach with a gunboat and an army in tow.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

One of the first steps our country's leaders should take to strengthen our defenses, experts say, is to pass federal cybersecurity information sharing legislation, which would protect firms that share information about data breaches and other cybersecurity-related experiences with public officials and other companies. Without it, business leaders will remain understandably hesitant to share information about attacks for fear of litigation or other consequences.

This sounds like a really great idea to me. Fortunately, legislation that would accomplish this has already passed the House and is being debated in the Senate. Let’s hope the people we put our faith in and send to Washington see fit to make every small business owner just as safe from cyberattacks as they are today from aliens, zombies and foreign armies.

Hackers Targeting By Name...

We are all aware that there is an entire underground army of hackers and phisers that are trying to scam us every time we even look at a computer, but we must also be very aware that they are continually becoming more brazen and crafty with each passing day.

MessageLabs, a security vendor that offers email filtering services to catch spam and malicious attachments reports that in May 2007, people in senior management positions received 10 emails per day, up from just 1 a year before.

10 emails might not seem like much, but it is the content of those emails that is alarming.

Many of the emails contained the name and title of the executive in the subject line, as well as a malicious Microsoft WORD document containing executable code.

The hackers are trying to trick the victim into thinking the email is from one of the top-level executives in the company, creating a false sense of security and an eagerness to quickly open the attachment before realizing that the email did not come from within the company.

The malicious code is most likely software the records and reports key-strokes, allowing hackers to obtain user names, passwords, and even top-secret company information.

Though MessageLabs would not divulge which large companies had been attacked in this manner, they did contact the individual executives involved and were told by those executives that their family members had also received emails with their name on it at their family members’ personal home email addresses.