…huh, he took the bait!

Illustration: Olle Magnusson – McClatchy/Tribune

It certainly looks like the president* took the bait from the Republican “establishment” and backed the losing horse in a two horse race in Alabama on Tuesday…

Apparently, Alabama’s faithful turned out in droves yesterday, opting to send a Bible-thumping clown/candidate named Moore to Washington D.C. rather than the only-ever-so-slightly-more mainstream clown/candidate named Strange.

Some believe, (according to the New York Times article referenced above), scandal-weary voters viewed the former/twice-removed State Supreme Court Justice as the better choice to take on Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor and the Democratic nominee, at the polls in December.

The kicker? The Twitter-in-Chief™ deleted his support for Strange… Typical.

Knee Full of Things…

…with profound apologies to Stephen King. ;-)

My, oh my, where to begin? …do I start with the Idiot-in-Chief™ lobbing casual, (albeit existential), threats at the leader of North Korea last week? …or how about his incoherent tirade on Friday night while addressing yet another gathering of those deplorable-types, (this time in Alabama), while stumping for Luther Strange? …or maybe the bashing of professional basketball players who decline White House invitations and professional football players for their silent – but oh-so-symbolic – protests at games? …and what about the Trump administration’s “Ugh, we just can’t seem to get it [alt]-right.” – and now revised – travel ban? Meanwhile, not a peep, (or tweet), about the devastation – or much-needed aid – in Puerto Rico. Sad.

Aw, heck, let’s just do ’em all!

Blaine Harden penned an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times this weekend offering what he referred to as a remedial history lesson on North Korea. In short, Harden suggests the president* stop behaving like a schoolyard bully and take the long view when deciding how to deal with “rocket man”.

Wait a minute, isn’t the election over? Apparently our Campaigner-in-Chief™ doesn’t think so. On Friday night, while speaking to his adoring fans in Alabama, he launched into yet another rambling screed targeting perceived enemies far and wide, including professional basketball and football players who ‘take a knee’ while the national anthem is played at games. Yes, really.

Reaction? New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow claims the president* is a racist, while fellow New York Times columnist Peter Baker laments the divisive rhetoric spewing forth from the White House. I’m on board with these two guys.

Lastly, as we head into the final week of September, The Washington Post reports a revised travel ban is being readied for implementation. But first, a quick recap to catch everyone up:

We start the year with “OK, so let’s ban immigration from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria – oh, right, no refugees either…” Then, in March, we get “…uh, let’s remove Iraq from the list…” And now, in September, it’s “…uh, let’s add Chad, North Korea and Venezuela to the list, but remove Sudan from the list…”

An excerpt from the Washington Post article with details:

The new rules vary per country, barring entry into the United States of immigrants and non-immigrants from Chad, Libya and Yemen, on business, tourist or business-tourist visas. It bars entry of Iranian citizens, as immigrants or non-immigrants, but provides an exception for Iranian students, provided they receive extra screening. The proclamation bars immigrants and non-immigrants from North Korea and Syria. It bars immigration by citizens of Somalia. Under the order, a range of Venezuelan government officials and their immediate family members are barred from entering on business or tourism visas.

Sure, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is gut-wrenching, but isn’t there still an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan? Why were the restrictions originally targeting Iraq relaxed back in March? Oh, right, it’s all about the oil… …and the bazillions of dollars we’ve spent bombing the sh*t out of – then attempting to stabilize – it!

What a clusterf*ck. Nuclear annihilation. Rampant nationalism. Electoral interference. The Cheeto-in-Chief™ itchin’ to holler “…you’re fired!” …and Pennywise – yikes!

…is it any wonder we’ve got grown men dropping to their knees?

Tw*tter-in-Chief™

I swear to God, that sad, little doucheb*g camping in the White House has simply got to go…

Alrighty, Kara Alaimo pretty much nailed it in her opinion piece on Sunday; there is absolutely no reason for this miserable excuse for a president* – who happens to be explicitly endorsing violence against women – to spend even another minute at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

A link to .PDF version of today’s poster here.

‘fax on, ‘fax off…

Incredible. According to the New York Times, Equifax issued a rather circumspect disclosure on Thursday describing a massive – and only recently-discovered – data breach impacting approximately 143 million Americans. Yup. 143 million people!!!

Said differently, 1 out of every 2 consumers with some form of credit history may – emphasis on may – be at risk here. Take a moment to ponder this statistic… Yikes!

We can debate who was asleep at the wheel. Equifax? Most assuredly. Regulators? In all likelihood, yes. …but before we go down that particular rabbit hole, let’s poke around a little bit and see what this publicly-traded company is doing to clean up this mess, shall we? Ugh, seems the first twenty-four hours after the disclosure produced little more than a hastily-crafted, (and rather confusing), website aimed at pimping fee-based credit protection services from Equifax! Sad.

Update: On Friday, September 15th, Equifax announced that their CIO and CISO will both “retire”, as a result of the massive data breach originally disclosed on September 7th. Take a quick peek at articles from the NYT, the WSJ and from WaPo.

Update: Prior to September 18th, an enterprising software engineer registered a domain name, (an inversion of the name of Equifax’s hastily-crafted website mentioned above), and threw together a fake website comprised of a splash page resembling the pablum Equifax cobbled together sometime around September 7th, just to prove a point.

OK, it’s time to just go ahead and fire pretty much every member of the IT organization at Equifax. They’re all idiots…

I’m in agreement with Farhad Manjoo who said this is an unforgivable breach, and should prompt the regulators into action. Hmmm… We’ll see.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported similar facts on Thursday, (their article contains an enlightening bar chart), then followed up on Friday with a nice article containing details of Equifax’s scramble in the days leading up to Thursday’s disclosure. Definitely worth a read.

Thursday’s Washington Post story covered familiar territory, but it also mentioned several executives exercising stock option sales prior to Thursday’s announcement – more on this in a moment…

On Friday, Washington Post writer Brian Fung offered helpful tips on how to avoid needlessly waiving your rights by unintentionally agreeing to arbitration if you opted to use the website Equifax slapped up earlier this week. …the nays are outpacing the yeas on this one.

If I were a crisis management consultant, (and I’m not), I’d have to say the f*cking idiot brigade running this poor excuse for a company are making pretty much every mistake one can possibly make in a situation like this.

Update: On Tuesday, September 12th, New York Times reporter Ron Lieber wrote an excellent article describing his attempts to elicit responses to what I think are some pretty reasonable questions posted to at least one Equifax executive, (definitely worth reading).

What did Mr. Lieber learn? Almost nothing! …and what about the President of Equifax Global Consumer Solutions, (some pr*ck named Dann Adams), who got all defensive when Lieber opined about whether or not he [Adams] should lose his job? Oh yeah, he definitely needs to lose his job, as does the CEO [Smith], and pretty much every other executive at this miserable excuse for a publicly-traded company!

Update: On Tuesday, September 26th, Equifax announced CEO, Richard Smith, is “retiring”. Yeah, more like “…he got fired…”, and frankly, it’s about time! Now the board needs to “claw back” any bonuses and stock options this jerk might be holding onto… The Washington Post article published the same day outlines the basics from the press release.

Sorry, Equifax, but attempting to rationalize those remarkably well-timed stock option sales as being just that – remarkably well-timed – is just plain stupid.

Bad optics. Bad choices. Bad governance. Bad outcome. Bad. Bad. Bad.

P.S., time to bring back the ratings, right?

:‑& :‑& :‑& the bloviating doofus [Smith]
>: >: >: the vacuous pontificator [Gutzmer]
>:\ >:\ >:\ and, of course, the self-righteous miscreant [Adams]

Coward-in-Chief™

I think the editorial board at the New York Times summed it up best, by pointing out we’ve got a Coward-in-Chief™ quivering in the shadows at the White House…

Yep, the Flounder-in-Chief™ has flip-flopped on the thorny issue of DACA more than once, or twice, or thrice, or…

According to the Washington Post, the administration’s fundamental misunderstanding of DACA shouldn’t surprise anyone either – yet another perverse over-simplification followed by a destructive, far-reaching pronouncement, only to be followed by a whiny admission of “…waaaaaah, it’s hard…” months later and finally another one-eighty in terms of policy.

Mixed messages abound – again typical of the idiot brigade hunkered down in the West Wing… Sad.

…and a couple of my favorite quotes from the NYT article I referenced at the very beginning of this post:

President Trump didn’t even have the guts to do the job himself.

…true ‘dat. I wonder if he even has male genitalia…

This wouldn’t be a concern if Congress had done its job and passed the Dream Act…

Yeah, uh, like that was going to happen…

A link to a .PDF version of today’s poster here.