The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

They Told Me If I Voted for Trump, Jews Would Suffer Legal Persecution …

Posted on | August 3, 2019 | Comments Off on They Told Me If I Voted for Trump, Jews Would Suffer Legal Persecution …

. . . and they were right!

A non-profit is fighting back against a lawsuit from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has forced its closure and shut down its crowdfunding platform.
Arthur Goldberg has been a target of SPLC since 2012. He and non-profits with which he is affiliated have been sued twice, once as the co-director of Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) — which offered counseling for those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction — and most recently as co-director of Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA), the parent organization for Funding Morality.
On Thursday, Hudson County, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso, Jr. slapped Goldberg and JIFGA with over $3.2 million in punitive fines and legal fees for allegedly violating a 2015 injunction and settlement agreement against JONAH that forbids him from providing counseling referrals.
In a move meant to “deter and punish,” he also barred Goldberg from serving as a director of any nonprofit organization in the state of New Jersey —–a condition that may violate Goldberg’s rights. As a result, JIFGA and the crowdfunding site, Funding Morality, will have to suspend operations. . . .
“We expect to appeal the decision, which we believe is at odds with the facts and infringes upon our constitutional rights to freedom of speech, religion, and association,” [Goldberg] said.
“Our appeal seeks to vindicate our constitutional right to promote biblical values,” he said. “Today’s politically correct progressive ideology seeks to eliminate the free exchange of ideas whenever certain views may be antithetical to current prevailing opinions.”
“This is part of the left-wing agenda to cut off conservative speech and shut down voices that disagree with them,” Goldberg said.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Anyone with an iota of common sense can see that New Jersey’s law against “reparative therapy” (a/k/a “conversion therapy”) is an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment religious liberty, when such counseling is provided through the auspices of a religious institution. Careful examination of the SPLC’s role in this case demonstrates how these tax-exempt totalitarians are endangering free speech, seeking to limit “acceptable” opinion and, in effect, to make it illegal to express disapproval of homosexuality.

“There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.”
— Deuteronomy 23:17 (KJV)

Do the courts of New Jersey intend to declare the Word of God illegal?



 

Category: Constitution, Gays, New Jersey, Religion

The Poison Fruit of Radical Seeds

Posted on | August 3, 2019 | 5 Comments

 

Last weekend a gunman opened fire on the annual Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, killing three and injuring 12. The shooter was soon identified as Santino Legan, 19, and as to his motive, there was a cryptic Instagram reference to Might Is Right by Ragnar Redbeard.

We cannot ask the killer what he intended by this reference, because he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. However, the text of the 1896 edition of Might Is Right is available online and its author, “Ragnar Redbeard,” has been identified as Arthur Desmond (1859-1929). A native of England, Desmond emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and became involved in radical politics there, before moving in 1892 to Australia, where he published a radical journal called Hard Cash. This made him a target of government investigation, and by 1895, Desmond had emigrated to the United States, taking up residence in Chicago. There, under a pseudonym — which also included the false claim of having a law degree from the University of Chicago — Desmond published Might Is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest.

To summarize its contents as briefly as possible, Desmond’s book combines the nihilistic atheism of Nietzsche with the “scientific” theory of Darwin in an attack on Christianity, particularly criticizing the themes of the Sermon on the Mount. Desmond mocks the dignity of labor: “All hireling labor is corroding, corrupting, degrading, devilish. . . . Labor performed for oneself is passable — when performed for others, it is utterly debasing — ruinous to brain and body” (pp. 163-164).

That is, as it was intended, antithetical to Christian belief — and to common sense, as well. Nothing is more conducive to health and happiness than hard work; the worker who commits himself wholeheartedly to his task, seeking to become more efficient and productive, has entered into a worthy competition: “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men” (Proverbs 22:29 KJV). For all the political attacks on the alleged unfairness of a free economy — the demonization of the 1% and so forth — any honest and intelligent young man willing to work hard can still begin as a teenager in “hireling labor” and, by being “diligent in his business,” rise to wealth and influence in America.

Yet we need not indulge in the errors of the “prosperity gospel” to defend the dignity of labor. A man’s lot in life may be poverty and obscurity, a constant struggle to make ends meet, yet the diligent laborer has no cause for shame. However little he may have, he has earned it by hard work, and in supporting himself and his family he has accomplished a more noble task than anything done by the so-called “intellectual elite.”

Given the clear influence of Nietzsche on Desmond’s work — we can only Might Is Right as a crackpot exegesis of The Will to Power — we are not surprised to find him expressing a theory of racial supremacy, which was by no means unusual in that era:

“Purity of blood has played, (and is yet to play), a leading role in the drama of racial evolution. Races held in bondage are necessarily mongrelized, degraded, ‘equalized.’ . . .
“Our race cannot hope to maintain its predominance, if it goes on diluting its blood with Chinamen, Negros, Japanese, or debased Europeans. . . . The Latin race is hopelessly effete in both the old world and the new” (pp. 156-157).

There are innumerable treatises from the 19th and early 20th centuries that express a similar viewpoint, but what makes Might Is Right distinctive is the way Desmond merges an anarchist sentiment — a celebration of power expressed through violence — with racialist theory. It is as if Desmond had read Hobbes’s description of society without law as the “war of all against all” (Bellum omnium contra omnes) and said, “Isn’t that awesome?” The point that Hobbes intended to make, however, was that government and law are necessary for human beings to enjoy any sort of civilized existence, guaranteeing the security of our lives and property. That the wealthy and powerful have an interest in preserving the established order is obvious enough, but what recent history has shown is that the destructive forces of radicalism generally make life worse for the “masses” in whose name revolutionaries claim to act. From the French Revolution to modern-day Venezuela, radical promises of “liberation” for the oppressed have invariably produced nightmares of bloodshed and misery. However much any Third World peasant might have resented the yoke of European colonialism, was it worse than the terroristic dictatorships of Mao, Mengistu or Mugabe?

When the teenage killer Santino Legan’s endorsement of “Ragnar Redbeard” was reported, the media rushed to label him a “white supremacist,” and thus someone linked to the “far right” which, by the prestidigitation of journalistic smear tactics, might make it possible to blame President Trump and conservatives generally. Yet it is dishonest to suggest that any conservative, who as a basic premise is committed to upholding the constitutional order, would endorse random violence inspired by the work of a 19th-century anarchist crackpot.

A mature and responsible adult can study any piece of radical literature — The Communist Manifesto or whatever — without being drawn into a vortex of deadly madness. The danger of such literature is always its appeal to alienated and emotionally vulnerable young people. If you’ve never studied logic and rhetoric, if you are unfamiliar with history and have few years of experience upon which to base your judgment, it is easy to be seduced by the arguments of radical crackpots, whether they are as famous as Bernie Sanders or as obscure as Arthur Desmond.



 

Category: Crime, Intellectuals

In The Mailbox: 08.02.19

Posted on | August 2, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Thing That Would Not Die
EBL: A$AP Rocky Free At Last To Leave Sweden
Twitchy: Occasional Cortex’s Chief Of Staff, Comms Director Leaving
Louder With Crowder: Black Man Illustrates Insanity Of “Everything Is Racist!” With Hilarious Video
According To Hoyt: New Worlds For Old
Monster Hunter Nation: July Update Post
Vox Popoli: Self-Destruction Is The Aim

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Fresh Air Edition
American Greatness: Don’t Kill Whitey
American Power: RFK Granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill Dies of Drug Overdose
American Thinker: President Trump Shatters Left-Wing Myths
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five UFO Kookery News
Babalu Blog: Nangaras In NYNJ Celebrate Cuba’s Enslavement
BattleSwarm: Will Hurd (TX-23) Not Running For Re-election, also, LinkSwarm For August 2
Camp of the Saints: The Kennedy Klan – Curse Or Tragedy?
CDR Salamander: Vietnam Plays A Smart Game, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Progressive Good Intentions vs. Inner City Realities, also, Ever Hear Of Teleconferencing, Greta?
Don Surber: Trump Asks, Why Trade With Red China?
Dustbury: Here I Come To Save The Day
First Street Journal: Good News! White Robots Are Raaaaacist!
Fred On Everything: Who The Hell is Mitch McConnell Anyway?
The Geller Report: CAIR Demands NY Young Republicans Cancel Pamela Geller Appearance, also, Watchdog Group Says UK Antisemitic Incidents Hit Record High
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Gillette Gets Woke, Goes Broke
Hollywood In Toto: Hobbs & Shaw – Loud, Dumb, Silly, & Spectacular
Joe For America: After “Winning” Debates, Fartacus Faces Arrest For Escorting Illegals Across The Border, also, Antifa Says It’s Coming To Texas For Ten Day Siege; Texas: Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time
JustOneMinute: Seven Up!
Legal Insurrection: U. Michigan Accused of Trying To Out Gay Student Suing Over Alleged Abuse By Prof, also, We Called It On Tulsi Gabbard
The PanAm Post: Leopoldo Lopez And The Guerilla Country In Colombia
Power Line: The Shameless Mr. Sharpton, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: Jeb Bush Backs Taylor For Clay County Sheriff
Shot In The Dark: No Guns No Coverage, also, The War On Dissent
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Socialist Workers Party & American Politics
This Ain’t Hell: Navy Orders Probe Into Actions Of JAG Corps Leaders, also, Valor Friday
Victory Girls: Cincinnati Trump Rally – Filled With Patriotic Goodwill
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Judge Blocks NY State From Turning Over Trump’s Tax Returns To Congress, also, Fauxcahontas Says She’ll Keep America Safe By Giving Enemies A Free First Nuclear Strike
Megan McArdle: Democrats, Welcome To Your Very Own TEA Party Problem
Mark Steyn: Guardians Of The Theocracy, also, Self-Knitting Antimacassars

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Category: Linkagery

‘Stupid and Crazy’: Debates Expose Democrat Party at War With Itself

Posted on | August 2, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘Stupid and Crazy’: Debates Expose Democrat Party at War With Itself

 

After Marianne Williamson emerged as the surprise winner of Tuesday’s Democrat presidential debate, the second night’s performance on Wednesday saw Joe Biden get tag-teamed by his rivals, and Tulsi Gabbard turning the tables on Kamala Harris. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have become dismayed by these donnybrooks:

Democratic lawmakers were left shaken and worried by Wednesday night’s bruising presidential debate, which left some fearing the fight will hurt the party and result in a damaged nominee.
Senate Democrats are frustrated that candidates are spending too much time and effort attacking each other for relatively small policy differences, while not focusing their ire on President Trump. . . .
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) blamed the debate moderators for much of the negativity.
“I think these debates are really silly,” he said. “Just the incessant focus on these relative minor divisions between candidates might make for good TV but I don’t think gives people an accurate portrayal of the stakes of this election.”
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) also voiced concern about the tone of the debates, in what could have been a signal to the candidates.
“No circular firing squads,” he said during an interview Thursday with SiriusXM’s Joe Madison.

Anything that makes Chuck Schumer unhappy is good for America. Likewise, we should be encouraged by the gloomy mood at MSNBC:

Several MSNBC personalities took aim at the 2020 Democrats for leveling several “attacks” at the Obama administration over President Trump.
“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough took to Twitter and and repeatedly slammed the Democrats for challenging policies under President Obama like Obamacare and immigration.
“Ok. Let me get this straight. Democrats hate Obamacare AND hated his immigration policies? What planet are they from?” Scarborough tweeted. “You know you have extreme ideologues running for president when @BarackObama is a punching bag for being too conservative. [For what it’s worth], President Obama is the only Democrat to twice win a majority of the vote since FDR (and is still hugely popular in the Democratic Party.) Not. Smart.”
He added, “These candidates are attacking Barack Obama’s policy positions more than Donald Trump. That is politically stupid and crazy…. Democrats who think trashing @BarackObama is a political winner, will be the political losers.”
MSNBC host Joy Reid expressed a similar sentiment on her network’s post-debate analysis.
“It was weird for me to watch about 40, almost 40 minutes of primary attacks on the Obama administration’s policies. It was odd,” Reid told the panel, later citing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attacks on Obamacare. “So it was an odd strategy to me… It’s almost as if the debate forgot who is president because the attacks on Donald Trump- I don’t remember his name being mentioned that much.”
Former Missouri senator-turned MSNBC commentator Claire McCaskill also called the repeated attacks on the Obama administration the “weirdest thing.”
“The weirdest thing to me which I’m having a hard time with is… is it a smart strategy to attack the Obama administration?” McCaskill asked. “I mean, this is a Democratic president elected twice. I think he’s the only Democrat we’ve had with the margins he’s had since FDR that did that, remains wildly popular in the Democratic Party.”

Democrat strategist and longtime Clinton adviser Paul Begala had this exchange Thursday with Jake Tapper:

BEGALA: This is my problem with the whole two-day debate. I believe many of these candidates seeking to win the nomination are setting themselves up to lose the presidency to Donald Trump.
TAPPER: By running so far to the left?
BEGALA: Yes.

 

Obama’s former chief of staff was also demoralized:

Rahm Emanuel told “WSJ at Large” on FOX Business that it’s foolish to try to paint Obama’s record negatively in order to attack his former vice president and now presidential hopeful, Joe Biden.
“The guy (Obama) is 90 something percent (in popularity ratings) among Democrats,” he argued. “The most successful progressive, prolific president who had an incredible Chief of Staff, let me say that– since the Great Society. What are they doing?”
Emanuel, who was a member of the House of Representatives Opens a New Window. before his stint at the White House, then became mayor of Chicago, said Democrats would be crazy to separate themselves from the former president.
“Every element of progressivity, from literally (Woodrow) Wilson to Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt to the Great Society and forward builds on the progress of the generations before for generations to come. This is nuts!” . . .
Earlier in the week, he sent a memo to the candidates saying, “If you win the nomination in a way that forecloses a path to victory in the general election, we will lose, and your name will go down in infamy.”

Perhaps the best news of all is that David Brooks of the New York Times — whom I hate like God hates sin — has endorsed Williamson:

Trump is a cultural revolutionary, not a policy revolutionary. He operates and is subtly changing America at a much deeper level. He’s operating at the level of dominance and submission, at the level of the person where fear stalks and contempt emerges. . . .
In Freudian terms, he’s operating on the level of the id. . . .
The Democrats have not risen to the largeness of this moment. They don’t know how to speak on this level. . . .
It is no accident that the Democratic candidate with the best grasp of this election is the one running a spiritual crusade, not an economic redistribution effort. Many of her ideas are wackadoodle, but Marianne Williamson is right . . .
“We’ve never dealt with a figure like this in American history before. This man, our president, is not just a politician; he’s a phenomenon. And an insider political game will not be able to defeat it. … The only thing that will defeat him is if we have a phenomenon of equal force, and that phenomenon is a moral uprising of the American people.”

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.”



 

Category: Debates, Democrats, Election, Media Bias

Her Superhero Name Was ‘Whorella’

Posted on | August 1, 2019 | 3 Comments

“The fact is the ‘respectable girl from a nice family in Connecticut’ ship has already sailed.”
— Ella Dawson, July 2014

Longtime readers will remember Ella Dawson, the 2014 alumna of elite Wesleyan University ($70,704 a year, including room and board) who made her name a synonym for herpes and got a personal fan letter from Hillary Clinton. After writing about Rasheem Bodiford, who was sentenced to prison for failing to inform his partners of his HIV infection, I got wondering what the notoriously diseased feminist has been up to lately, and it turns out she’s writing a book:

Let’s quote her inspirational prose:

“I received the message loud and clear that girls who were sexual, girls who wanted sex, girls who were aggressive and talkative and confident, were those girls. . . .
“I did the bitter calculus of being a teenage girl and decided to embrace my destined and disdained sluttiness. I even made up a superhero identity for myself: Whorella.”

It was not just random coincidence, you see, that she was diagnosed with genital herpes during her junior year at Wesleyan. The law of large numbers and her own ignorance (condoms don’t prevent herpes or HPV) made it more or less inevitable that “Whorella” would catch something.

Nowadays, she’s offering relationship advice:

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but you deserve better. You deserve a partner who texts you back.
Maybe not immediately, maybe not every single time, but reliably and honestly and with care. You deserve someone who wants you to feel secure and heard, who answers your questions and asks you about your day and your mood and sends you memes they saw on Instagram. You deserve someone who wants to talk to you, no — someone who wants to talk with you, never just at you, no monologues or one-sided status updates, no director’s commentary on your life. You deserve conversation, flirtation, consideration. You deserve all of the f–ks, my friend.
I promise you, you’re not being too demanding.

You can read the rest of that, but notice her use of the word “deserve.”

If I were to write an essay advising young men of what they deserve from women, I’d be accused of promoting “male entitlement.” But I’d never dream of writing such an essay, because that would be bad advice. The key to happiness is low expectations. You are less likely to be disappointed with women if you don’t expect too much of them. The problem many guys have is that they have a more or less rational expectation of reciprocity: “I do this for her, she will do that for me.” But there is no standardized exchange rate, and women’s innate solipsism tends to blind them to any sense of obligation to return value for value.

While my dating years took place before the advent of the cell phone and texting, the shrewdest voices in the manosphere advise guys to strive for a 3-to-1 ratio — for every three texts she sends, give her one in return. But my own advice, to my young sons, is not to let girls waste your time with a lot of silly texting, as if you’ve got nothing better to do than engage in constant relationship management. Convey the idea that you’re a busy man with important things to do, and can’t be bothered dealing with all this emotional stuff. She needs to grow up and learn to deal with her own problems, rather than being a source of endless drama.

As to what any guy might “deserve,” well, you’re never going to be treated well if you allow her to treat you badly. Learn to walk away. A big mistake guys make in dating is what Rollo Tomassi calls “oneitis,” concentrating all their energy on their current love interest, when it would be wiser to cultivate a sort of harem of potential girlfriends (what Rollo calls the “plates” approach). Even if you’re really crazy in love with your girlfriend, it’s dangerous not to have a backup plan in case things don’t work out. Having other options is what gives you the freedom to walk away if your girlfriend starts demanding too much or otherwise treating you badly.

“You deserve a partner who texts you back”

Whatever. Good luck with that, Whorella.



 

Category: Sex Trouble

‘Florida Man’ Strikes Again

Posted on | August 1, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

Just another random coincidence:

A Florida man who had sex with two women while knowingly withholding his HIV positive status was sentenced to a decade behind bars.
Rasheem Ikey Bodiford, 27, was sentenced Friday after being found guilty on three felony counts of having sex with another person without notifying that person of his condition. He was sentenced last week to 10 years in state prison and five years probation.
According to an arrest report obtained by the Pensacola News Journal, Bodiford encountered the two women in the period from September 2016 to October 2017 and, during that time, failed to inform them he carried the virus which can lead to AIDS.
One of the victims told police that, in June 2017, she tested positive for HIV and that her last sexual partner was Bodiford. She also told law enforcement that she saw him in possession of medication used to treat the condition and he told her he was simply selling the drug for his uncle.
Police say Bodiford was aware of his HIV status since September 2016.

Of course, risk of sexually transmitted disease is not random. In 2017, black people, who are 13% of the U.S. population, “accounted for 43% (16,694) of HIV diagnoses” in the nation, according to the CDC. New HIV infections among heterosexual women (6,341 in 2017) were more than twice as common as among heterosexual men (2,829), and the number among black heterosexual women (4,008) was more than four times the number among white heterosexual women (999).

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)



 

Category: Crime, Florida

In The Mailbox: 08.01.19

Posted on | August 1, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Tulsi Takes On Kamala
Twitchy: Rep. Elijah Cummings’ House Burglarized, Trump Tweets Blamed For Incitement
Louder With Crowder: Oh No! Gillette Lost A Lot Of Money This Year. Billions!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: For Want Of A Good Mission
American Greatness: Social Media’s Transition From Novelty To Malignancy
American Power: Fossil Fuels Are Not an Existential Threat
American Thinker: Thank You, Rep. Ilhan Omar
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Indentured Servitude News
Babalu Blog: Mike Pompeo – The Cuban People Deserve To Have Their Human Rights Respected
BattleSwarm: Quick Gabbard v. Harris Debate Roundup
Camp of the Saints: On Communism & Our Malicious Mediocrities
CDR Salamander: ISAFication Of The Strait Of Hormuz
Da Tech Guy: Bottom Line From Yesterday’s Debate? They KNEW Obama & Obamacare Sucked
Don Surber: Marianne Williamson’s Path
Dustbury: A Consistent Asshat
First Street Journal: CNN Tries To Sell The Notion That Obama Was “A Responsible Center-Left Leader”
The Geller Report: Germany Rocked After Syrian Migrant Hacks Man To Death With Sword In Broad Daylight, also, Man Beaten In NYC For Wearing MAGA Hat
Hogewash: Moar Exoplanets, also, An Interesting Perspective
Hollywood In Toto: How Carr’s True Believer Connects To Real Military Vets
Joe For America: Baltimore Took In $1.8 Billion Of Obama’s Stimulus – Where’s The Money Now?
JustOneMinute: This Is Why We Watch – Biden v. Inslee
Legal Insurrection: Michael Moore Claims Only Michelle Obama Can Save Us From Another Four Years Of Trump, also, HUD Administrator Blasts Occasional Cortex For Prioritizing Border Over Rat Problem In Her Own District
The PanAm Post: Iranian Con Man Promotes Henri Falcon In U.S. As Venezuelan President
Power Line: It’s Official – Philosophy Is Lost, also, A Question CNN Didn’t Ask Fauxcahontas
Shark Tank: Florida County Backs Confederate Statue
Shot In The Dark: At Long Last, “Honesty” (Of A Sort) (Kind Of)
The Political Hat: Omnibus Blues For RKBA In Nevada
This Ain’t Hell: Trump Nixes NAM Awards For Prosecutors Tied To SEAL Case
Victory Girls: The Net Closes In On James Comey
Volokh Conspiracy: Gundy & The Future Of Delegation
Weasel Zippers: Biden Says No Room For Fossil Fuels In His Administration, also, FBI & Police Raid Buttigieg’s South Bend Housing Authority Offices
Megan McArdle: Kamala Harris Turns Out To Have A Glass Jaw
Mark Steyn: Tongue Tied (Part Seven of Three Men In A Boat)

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Category: Linkagery

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | August 1, 2019 | 1 Comment

 

In 2009, a Washington State judge granted Trevor Allen Thompson’s petition to change his name to “Paige Adele Thompson.” Thompson’s family had moved from Arkansas to the Seattle area when he was a boy and he decided to remain there after his family moved back to Arkansas. Thompson was emotionally disturbed and had been hospitalized for mental health problems. In June of this year, Thompson wrote “that she told her counselor she ‘regretted transitioning fully. And that I felt stuck with the decision I made. And wished I knew what my options were as far as detransitioning.’” Thompson hadn’t held a job in three years and was living in a rundown house on the south side of Seattle with roommates who were also transgender. His/“her” last job, however, was as a computer engineer for Amazon Web Services:

A Seattle-based transgender former Amazon engineer has been arrested for allegedly hacking Capital One bank’s systems to steal data it was storing on Amazon’s Web Services cloud.
Paige Thompson, 33, was arrested for breaking into the bank’s systems to steal the addresses, phone numbers and names of 100 million people in the United States.
A portion of that figure — 140,000 — also had their social security numbers and 80,000 had their credit card details accessed.
Thompson allegedly pulled it off between March and July of this year by breaking into the bank’s servers through a misconfiguration in its firewall.
The data was being stored on Amazon’s Web Services cloud but Amazon insists it is not to blame for the hack and that she exploited Capital One’s systems to access it. Capital One admits that it was a fault in its infrastructure, and not Amazon’s, which led to the breach.

More background:

She spent her days holed up in a lavender-painted bedroom, playing the video game Counter-Strike and pounding out posts that were variously boastful or tortured on different social-media channels.
Before being charged with a massive hack of Capital One Financial Corporation’s computer network, Paige Thompson, 33, lived with three roommates in a run-down house in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of south Seattle. Her roommates said they met at a support group for transgender people; Thompson identified herself as a transgender woman on Twitter.
They described Thompson as a brilliant introvert, an Arkansas native who came west with her mother as a child and decided to stay even after her family went home. She began identifying as a woman about a decade ago, said the roommates, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation by law enforcement. . . .
Since her arrest, the information that has emerged about Thompson’s life, both online and in interviews, is of a computer engineer steeped in technical know-how but struggling to find stability in her professional and personal life. She jumped from job to job and the last one listed on her resume, a systems engineer at Amazon.com, ended almost three years ago.
“Pretty much the whole time it seemed like she had a lot going on personally and just a lot of things that were interrupting her ability to work,” said Jamie Kahler, who ran a team about four years ago that included Thompson at ATGStores.com, an online home-furnishing site.
Thompson’s social media postings show her struggling with life’s challenges. On Twitter, where she gave herself the handle “erratic,” she agonized over having to euthanize her sick cat, Millie, criticized her own looks and bemoaned her lack of dating options.

Still more background:

Sarah Stensberg said her husband, Kevin, met Thompson in a coding group for young people in the Seattle area and lived with her for a while. Thompson’s abusive behavior eventually led the couple to cut off contact in 2011, she said. Prior to that, they sometimes took Thompson to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center for mental treatment.
“We’d get her into inpatient treatment, we’d visit her, and she’d seem to be doing well,” Stensberg said in an interview Tuesday. “Then she’d go off the deep end. We couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
Thompson repeatedly stalked and harassed them, the couple said, sending them multiple insulting and demeaning messages, until they moved to get away. Then, they allege, she used geolocation tracking from online postings to find their new home. Last fall, the couple obtained protection orders against Thompson, which the AP reviewed along with their petitions.

Obvious question: How could someone so dangerously crazy be hired as an engineer by a multi-billion-dollar company like Amazon?

Oh, that’s right — “diversity”!

Filling the LGBTQ quota, you see. And it’s all fun and games until the deranged tranny hacks the data of 100 million people.



 

Category: Crime, The Transgender Cult, Washington State
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