If that isn’t scary enough, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, funds conservative candidates and superPacs that work to advance a conservative agenda and defeat Democrats. That’s right; millions of dollars of the profits from advertisements on your Facebook page are being used against Democrats, like you!

Now, have you anticipated what I’m going to suggest, next?

Remember when I wrote that FB sells your info “presumably” to advertisers? FB could not limit their “data-dump” sales to advertisers, only; they’d surely lose that battle in court. It would have to be for-sale to anyone who could pay.

So, you have a conservative CEO with the goal of defeating Democrats, and his company owns your personal information, all the pictures you’ve uploaded of yourself, your family and friends, and he knows everywhere you have been on the internet (which may include sites you’d prefer to remain private). And he sells that information on you, a Democrat, along with every other Democrat, to conservatives; conservative superPacs, conservative think tanks, conservative Governors and state legislators, conservatives in Congress. And its for sale, so why can’t anyone buy it? What about the FBI? The IRS? Homeland Security? Imagine the next time you try to buy a plane ticket and discover you can’t fly because of a comment you made on your Facebook page, which Homeland Security received in a data-dump they purchased from Zuckerberg. Imagine you’re a gay couple and you’re suddenly charged with a crime though some anti-sodomy law in your very red state, that learned about you and your partner from a data-dump they purchased from Facebook. The possibilities for abuse are endless. Should Democrats believe that today’s nasty, tea party conservatives – the ones who spew hateful rhetoric condemning women’s reproductive rights, minority rights, voting rights – are above using the private information of Democrats to their electoral advantage?

Remember in the not-too-distant-past when we all tried to keep our personal information private? We’d get on the do-not-call lists, buy paper shredders, warn our kids against online predators. Facebook has convinced the world that sharing your personal information is the cool thing to do. Meanwhile, they’ve been devising ways to gather and sell your personal information to God-knows-who, for legal and possibly illegal reasons.

Problem is, their system is so invasive and so widely used that it seems nearly impossible to get users to switch to another platform. Well, I’ve been a computer programmer since 1995 and I remember hearing the same thing about the IBM mainframe. And people said Apple Computer would never last, before their amazing turnaround. I watched the rise of the internet and the beginnings of Linux development, which people claimed would never be more than an operating system for hobbyists. Today, 65.4% of websites are on a Unix-based system, and 48.8% of those (including this blog) are on Linux (not exactly a hobby). It is possible for the biggest player on the internet to lose market share to alternatives, and its happening as you are reading this.

I HOPE that reading this article has made you seriously think about dumping Facebook. There are very good alternatives that are being used by hundreds of millions of internet users. Tumblr, which was in the news this week for being purchased by Yahoo, is a great, free alternative to FB. Its used by over 200 million people. Other great alternatives that are widely used include WordPress.com, Glassboard, Tagged, Hi5, and LiveJournal. Some of these offer plugins to expand features and make your page as good as Facebook, without having to worry if you’re being tracked, or who is buying your personal information. And no matter which platform you choose, you can always leave a link to your new page in your old FB page to redirect your visitors.

Have you made the switch? Tell us about it in a comment.

Eric Cantor, the second ranking Republican con-man in the House had a few words to say about the bill on the House floor:

“Recently, I spoke with a constituent from Richmond…a working mom who runs an early childhood education center… Some of her employees need to take off to take their child to the doctor, some need to go meet with a teacher…She understands that this bill would give her employees more flexibility to balance both work, and their lives at home…

For too long, working families in the private sector have not been able to choose a more flexible schedule when working overtime…”

In February, Cantor alluded to the bill in his “Make Life Work” speech stating:

“Imagine if we simply chose to give all employees and employers this option. A working mom could work overtime this month and use it as time off next month without having to worry about whether she’ll be able to take home enough money to pay the rent. This is the kind of common sense legislation that should be non-controversial and moves us in the right direction to help make life work for families.”

Sounds compassionate about the struggles of working parents, doesn’t he? With Republicans, that’s a red flag to read the fine print so to speak; and when you do, you find the only people who gain anything from this bill are- Surprise!- employers. Here are a few key pieces of this legislation:

(1)   GENERAL RULE- An employee may receive, in accordance with this subsection and in lieu of monetary overtime compensation, compensatory time off at a rate not less than one and one-half hours for each hour of employment for which overtime compensation is required by this section.

Sounds good so far… but then there’s this:

USE OF TIME- An employee–

‘(A) who has accrued compensatory time off authorized to be provided under paragraph (1); and

‘(B) who has requested the use of such compensatory time,

shall be permitted by the employee’s employer to use such time within a reasonable period after making the request if the use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer.

So here’s what this bill really does:

It lets employers bank the money they would have paid workers in overtime, in exchange for time off- sometime- unpaid.

It lets the employer dictate when he can afford to let an employee take that time, so there’s no guarantee at all that it could be used to leave early for those doctor’s appointments or teachers’ meetings Cantor spoke about.

The fact is, as unscrupulous as American employers have become, those who choose not to opt for comp time in lieu of overtime will probably see their overtime hours gradually shift to those who do. Employers could also insist that comp time be used during the slowest business periods, (much like a temporary layoff) which again, only benefits the employer.

Contrary to Cantor’s claims, if an employee can’t be certain when they will be able to (or forced to) use the time, it makes it much harder for a family to budget their income. In this, as with all Republican legislation, the only group that comes out on top is business; and calling this the “Working Families’ Flexibility Act” is simply lipstick on a pig.

Pratt: In his view, evidently, the fact that he barely got 50-plus percent of the vote means he can do anything he wants, that he’s not the president in a constitutional republic where the president can do certain things and most things the president cannot do. According to the president’s view now, Barack Obama thinks he can do just about any bloody thing he can get away with. And that’s a gross misunderstanding of the office of president. But it’s apparently not the misunderstanding that a communist has. And that’s really the way the president thinks. He was educated that way. He is a full-bore Marxist. And this guy is after and grabbing ahold of every bit of power and centralizing in his hands. And as he said even before the election – we should have been listening – ‘If the Congress won’t go along with me, than I’m just going to have to take action myself.’ Well, hello, Mr. Dictator. I guess you will.

Jones: They stole the election, that’s what I’m worried about, Larry. There’s so much election fraud now. They’re about to legalize the 30 million illegals. [This is the statement that reveals their real source of angst - more minorities voting for Dems] But they know this is their last shot, because America is starting to wake up. I’m not just saying that. But that’s why we’re in so much danger, folks, because we can beat the collectivists and so now they are like cornered zombies.Pratt: That’s right, they had to steal the last election or they could not have won. And it’s up to us to become part of the election machinery, to become part of those officials that are sitting there. It’s a long day, it’s like five in the morning to seven or eight at night, maybe nine or ten at night, it’s a killer day. But it’s either that or the republic, take your choice.

I have news for you knuckleheads; the President is doing exactly what we, the majority of us who elected him, want him to do. In fact, he should be doing much more to advance a progressive agenda. Personally, its an added bonus to know that it drives you crazy.

We have got to get past that and figure out what are we going to do going forward. Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff. [...]

There are some real issues there and then there is just some crazy stuff. The crazy stuff is, you know, the airman in Ramstein [Air Base, Germany,] that knew that the Predator was armed. There are no armed Predators in the region there. The status of forces agreement does not allow us to fly them armed, and everybody knows it.

[On the GOP claims that four security officers at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli were ordered to "stand down" after the first reports of an attack, rather than assist the consulate in Benghazi:]

The stand-down order was for four guys. When you step back and say how were the people killed at the annex, they were killed by an indirect fire mortar round. Four more M-4s inside the annex doesn’t change that outcome. In fact, they might have just created more casualties. We have got to get down to what really happened on the DoD side and for us the DoD side was not properly postured, why?

Mark D. Obenshain

Obenshain has already tried to pass laws in Virginia that would force women to notify police within 24 hours of a miscarriage or face up to one year in jail and a fine.  A miscarriage is defined as “the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently.”  And miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy.

The majority of miscarriages are not the mother’s (or anyone else’s) fault, yet Obenshain wants to treat it as a criminal offense.  The 2009 bill he tried to pass states:

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

A Class 1 misdemeanor under Virginia law carries a maximum sentence of “confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500.”  So as opposed to letting these women grieve the loss of a pregnancy they had hoped to bring to term, Obenshain’s bill is threatening them with jail time and a hefty fine.

But even without Obenshain’s bill, existing Virginia law already takes a stance against women who miscarry stating, “[w]hen a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion or when inquiry or investigation by a medical examiner is required, the medical examiner shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall complete and sign the medical certification portion of the fetal death report within twenty-four hours after being notified of a fetal death.”

What must be understood is that not every woman is capable of bringing a baby to term naturally.  Women, like me, with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) have a 30%-50% chance of spontaneous abortion in the first trimester.  It is estimated that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 women have PCOS, which means approximately 5 million women of child bearing age in the United States may be affected.  However, PCOS is not the only cause of miscarriage.  Miscarriages have also been linked to poorly controlled insulin-dependent diabetes, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, autoimmune disorders and even the age of the mother.

What advantage do these laws offer?  None.  These women are suffering greatly as it is, why does the GOP feel it is necessary to treat them like criminals on top of it?  But alas, humiliation and degradation . . . just what I expect from my government.

It is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican Conference.

To that end, we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference. Legislation such as the Internet sales tax or the FARRM Act which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another ‘circular firing squad’ article.

Shocking, I know.  Who could have predicted that Republicans would lie about this administration?

Karl did post an update to the original report in which he notes the discrepancy, but does not retract the original report.   Nor does Karl offer any sort of apology to the Obama administration or the author of the email for mischaracterizing in such a manner as to prove embarrassing to the administration and beneficial to congressional Republicans.  The Karl addendum tries to make it appear that the real email fleshes out the original report, simply adding more information rather than debunking the point supposedly made by the congressional source.

In fact far from retracting Karl essentially excuses the malfeasance of his Republican source by noting that they were not allowed to copy the original email.    Thus, perhaps the discrepancy is explainable by the source innocently misremembering the email, in such a manner as to inexplicably cast a negative light on the administration while proving a point that has been manufactured from whole cloth by Republicans.

The admission that the source was not able to copy the original email should lead to an apology from Karl for claiming the exclusive report was based upon word for word quotes from the email in question.   Whatever the Republican source said is the definition of hearsay.   Having a respected reporter for a major media outlet file an exclusive using such material should cast the credentials of that reporter into serious question.    Particularly if the hearsay is from a source that has their own interest in the issue at hand which does not match the interests of the party supposedly being quoted.

Well, America’s premier media critic, the one and only Howard Kurtz, had a bit of an exclusive of his own on CNN’s Reliable Sources.   Kurtz queried Karl prior to his show and released the following statement on behalf of Karl while introducing the panel of his show.

“Clearly, I regret the email was quoted incorrectly and I regret that it’s become a distraction from the story, which still entirely stands.  I should have been clearer about the attribution.  We updated our story immediately.”

Note the use of quotations in the above statement.  I am only some obscure lefty blogger out here on the left coast.  I have not graduated from any journalism classes nor do I have a lengthy list of credentials to prove my journalistic bona fides.  In fact to be entirely honest, you probably should not trust me.  I have an axe to grind and I’m happy to admit that.  BUT… the previous quote is a more accurate report than Karl released last Wednesday.  I don’t pretend Karl said those words directly.  I don’t act as if I have firsthand knowledge of the words Karl used.   Those words are Howard Kurtz’ words, which he uses to describe what he was told by Karl.   Having honestly characterized those words was a very simple thing to do, and the fact that I feel the need to define this type of thing does not speak well for the quality of Karl’s work last Wednesday, or the followup he gave when his story was shot full of holes by the disclosure of the real email.

As to the gist of Kurtz’ statement of regret on behalf of Karl, suffice to say it falls well short of the mark.  How can the story still stand when the attribution is wrong, the quotes are wrong, and the reporter can not even bring himself to acknowledge his source is a congressional Republican, even after the rest of the media world is reporting that fact.  Karl knows that fact is another mark against the story so he can’t bring himself to admit it in public, which leads to the next problem with Karls statement to Kurtz.

The second to last sentence in Karl’s statement of regret is particularly ironic.  “I should have been clearer about the attribution.”  Karl has never given attribution for the original quote. He could be clearer about the attribution at this very moment by attributing his source. Even if he would admit it was a congressional Republican, that would be clearer than any attribution yet provided by Karl. I should have been clearer seems pretty weak when he refuses to be clear in any event.

The update of the exclusive report when the real email was disclosed fails for the same reason.  It is a defensive acknowledgement that mistakes were made, while not admitting the severity of the mistake or offering any sort of apology.   In fact the conclusion of the Karl report update is essentially a petulant demand for further information from the administration:

“The White House could still clear up this confusion by releasing the full e-mail transcripts that were provided for brief review by a select number of members of Congress earlier this year.”

Note the use of quotation and attribution of the quoted text?  Maybe I should go to journalism school because this is pretty freaking simple!

The reader may be asking why all this is another mark in my ledger against America’s premier media critic (scoff) Howard Kurtz.   Kurtz essentially allowed his program to be used as the platform for Karl’s statement of defiant regret and that is not the appropriate venue for this.  Karl should be expressing his regrets on ABC, in the very same venue as the original mistake.  Kurtz’ program is viewed by far fewer people than the ABC prime time news broadcast.   Would it be ok if the New York Times blasted a front page exclusive article and then when the article is proven factually wrong corrected the matter by issuing a correction to the N.Y. Daily News?

At the very least Kurtz ought to have insisted that Karl be interviewed on his program in order to face some tough questions, rather than allowing himself to be used as the mouthpiece for a somewhat recalcitrant statement of regret, while maintaining that there was really nothing to see here.  I would suggest that one of those questions ought to be when Karl would issue an apology and retraction on the venue used to file the erroneous report.

My next problem with the premier media critic is that he allowed his program to present the issue with the illusion that there were two equally valid sides of the issue.  Kurtz had David Shuster and Jennifer Rubin on to bicker back and forth as to the worthiness of the exclusive ABC report.  Of course Rubin, being all the whack a doodle righty type thinks the report is just fine, whilst Shuster being all reality based thinks having the real emails prove that the Republican quotes were just wrong discredits the report.

There are not equally valid sides here.  A media critic, nay the premier media critic, only discredits his own… well the word I almost used there is credibility but in Kurtz’ case that word does not seem appropriate.  Any media critic worth their title would not pretend both sides were equally valid here.  If a journalist or media critic believes that Karl’s article is fine after the proof of the matter is brought to light that speaks very poorly for the journalistic standards expected by that individual.

The past week is widely accepted as one of the worst for this administration, but what has happened to Obama’s approval ratings?   Despite the misleading headlines from the right wing echo chamber,  Obama has gotten a bump.   On the Gallup daily tracking poll ending the 14th of May, his approve - disapprove numbers were 47/47.  The numbers as of the 18th of May are 51/42 approve – disapprove.

The tendency of Obama’s political opponents to overplay their hand when they think they have an advantage does not serve them well when real issues that may actually reflect badly upon the administration hit the news.  The far right have been cartoonishly obsessed with Barack Obama since the 2008 campaign, and it only seems to be getting worse as time goes by.  Who can blame regular folks who witness the spectacle from the right over the last five years essentially ignoring the caterwauling from that side of the aisle, no matter how important the issue seems to be to those of us who are news junkies.  To wit…

IMHO, the widespread perception of the Republican hatred of Obama started with Sarah Palin’s speech to the 2008 Republican convention.  She threw all sorts of red meat and the right positively loved it.  In between lipstick on a pig jokes and folksy recollections of life in the wilds of Elleskeh, she decried Obama as soft on terrorism and not fit for the presidency.  Palin maintained that attack style on the campaign trail, reminding audiences that Obama “palled around with terrorists” and accusing him of being a socialist.  The introduction for the American people of the right wing opinion on President Obama was that his opponents were ferociously hostile, blindly attacking any perceived weakness  and outlandish in their approach.

While the nation celebrated Obama’s election conservatives could not hide their contempt.  The very night of his inauguration Republican power brokers met and determined to  do everything in their power to subvert the new president.   At that very moment the nation was in the depths of an economic crisis not experienced since the Great Depression.  America lost 524,000 jobs in December of 08.  2.9 million jobs were lost in 2008.  Yet, rather than meeting to determine the best way to work with the new administration to pull the nation from the brink of economic collapse Republicans determined to do all in their power to cause political harm to the new president.

Republicans set about obstructing at historic levels, decimating the previous record for Senate filibusters.  The obstructionism was so bad that Republicans found themselves voting against bills they had sponsored, simply because the president expressed support for the issue.

The overt hostility of congressional Republicans to President Obama was demonstrated early in his term when Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “you lie” from the floor during a presidential address to a joint session of congress.   While most of the nation was appalled at that breach of decorum, Wilson quickly became a hero to conservatives.

These are all very early examples of the unhinged behavior of the right to President Obama.  Orly Taitz and the birthers, death panels, the blatherings of Donald Trump, Obama the secret Muslim, racist Obama images, Obama hates white people… these and many other examples introduced the nation towards the absolute hatred of Obama by the right.   Each one is cartoonishly silly and the accumulated effect of this unreasoned vitriol for the president must have an effect on the average American.  Not the effect of convincing the audience that Obama is a socialist Islamist despot who wants to kill your family because they are white.   The impression is that his opposition are a bunch of unreasonable clowns.

The drumbeat of righty Obama hatred has not subsided as time passed, it has only grown stronger.   Which leads us to the answer as to why a sudden outbreak of Obama scandal has not brought his poll numbers lower, as many expected.   In fact the progress of the past week provides a case study on why Obama has developed a coat of Teflon:  for while the mainstream media pondered the damage being caused by the big 3 scandals the right wing media echo chamber ESSPLODED with outrage because a Marine held an umbrella over Obama during a rain shower.  No one ever foresaw the obscure permutations of “Marine umbrella protocol” being used to ruthlessly attack the president, but the right wing freaks did their best when they saw the chance!   Wouldn’t most folks who have any sense of self awareness just sort of know how silly that sort of attack makes one look?

If you are a normal citizen who does not follow the news on a regular basis, every time you hear anything from conservatives about Obama it is some completely overblown crazy eyed conspiracy theory which automatically casts the president in the worst light possible.  And now we are supposed to get all high dudgeon-ed about the IRS, The AP, and Benghazi?

Maybe if conservatives weren’t such clowns when it came to President Obama they would be taken more seriously when it might actually count.

I want to shoot her right in the vagina and I don’t want her to die right away; I want her to feel the pain and I want to look her in the eyes and I want to say, on behalf of all Americans that you’ve killed, on behalf of the Navy SEALS, the families of Navy SEAL Team Six who were involved in the fake hunt down of this Obama, Obama bin Laden thing, that whole fake scenario, because these Navy SEALS know the truth, they killed them all. On behalf of all of those people, I’m supporting our troops by saying we need to try, convict, and shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina.

Listen to the entire rant for yourself:

You’re probably wondering, shouldn’t the Secret Service be alerted? Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, is a Secret Service “protectee”, afterall. Well, tonight I reached out to the Washington D.C. Public Affairs office of the U.S. Secret Service and found that there have been several reports on this threat and an investigation is already underway.

What could this nutjob hope to gain by this? More listeners? When does hyperbole cross the line into an actionable threat? Is the line drawn between “We should have her shot” and “I want to shoot her”?