The Supreme Court Just Limited Federal Power. Health Care Is Feeling the Shockwaves.

Stephan: 

What stands out for me about the christofascist cabal that dominates the Supreme Court is their commitment to ideology over social wellbeing. I don’t know any of them personally so I’m not sure whether it is that they aren’t intelligent enough to understand what they are doing, or whether it is they just don’t give a damn about the wellbeing of American society and the individuals and families that make it up. This article illustrates the point I am making.

The Supreme Court’s June 28 decision overturned a 1984 precedent that said courts should give deference to federal agencies in legal challenges over their regulatory or scientific decisions. Instead, courts will exercise their independent judgment about what Congress intended when drafting a particular law. Credit: Al Drago / Bloomberg / Getty

A landmark Supreme Court decision that reins in federal agencies’ authority is expected to hold dramatic consequences for the nation’s health care system, calling into question government rules on anything from consumer protections for patients to drug safety to nursing home care.

The June 28 decision overturns a 1984 precedent that said courts should give deference to federal agencies in legal challenges over their regulatory or scientific decisions. Instead of giving priority to agencies, courts will now exercise their own independent judgment about what Congress intended when drafting a particular law.

The ruling will likely have seismic ramifications for health policy. A flood of litigation — with plaintiffs like small businesses, drugmakers, and hospitals challenging regulations they say aren’t […]

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J.D. Vance Is an Oil Booster and Doubter of Human-Caused Climate Change

Stephan: 
I have been listening to the commentators on Fox Propaganda, and MSNBC talk about why Trump picked J.D. Vance for his vice president. I don’t think any of them get it. Not one has talked about his corruption, which is perfectly in synch with criminal Trump. But of equal importance, like Trump he is an agent for the carbon energy industries, and he explicitly says he does not believe climate change is occurring because of those industries. Just as Trump does not. The only media person I have seen who agrees with my thinking is Lisa Friedman. She gets it. What this means is that should Trump and Vance be elected the United States, in contrast to China, will not properly prepare for climate change.

As a consequence, you can expectt enormous and unnecessary American misery, suffering, and death.

J.D. Vance has accused the Biden administration of “wanton harassment of fossil fuel companies.”
Credit: Maddie McGarvey / The New York Times

Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry, opposes solar power and electric vehicles, and has said climate change is not a threat.

It wasn’t always that way.

Mr. Vance, a fierce critic of Mr. Trump before becoming one of his most loyal MAGA supporters, also appears to have undergone an evolution on the issue of climate change. As recently as 2020, Mr. Vance said in a speech at Ohio State University that “we have a climate problem in our society.” He praised solar energy and he called natural gas an improvement over dirtier forms of energy, but not “the sort of thing that’s gonna take us to a clean energy future.”

Fast forward to 2022. As Mr. Vance sought Mr. Trump’s endorsement for his bid for the Senate, his positions on climate change took a sharp turn.

“I’m skeptical […]

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RockYou2024: 10 billion passwords leaked in the largest compilation of all time

Stephan: 

I didn’t know what RockYou2024 was, don’t use it, and never heard of it until I read this article. But if you do use it your passwords may have been compromised. This and the next story about AT&T make it clear that our electronic devices are very vulnerable, and that legal enforcements to protect the internet and mobile phones are grossly inadequate. Both are examples of Congressional failure to foster the wellbeing of Americans.

Credit: Cybernews

The largest password compilation with nearly ten billion unique passwords was leaked on a popular hacking forum. The Cybernews research team believes the leak poses severe dangers to users prone to reusing passwords.

The king is dead. Long live the king. Cybernews researchers discovered what appears to be the largest password compilation with a staggering 9,948,575,739 unique plaintext passwords. The file with the data, titled rockyou2024.txt, was posted on July 4th by forum user ObamaCare.

While the user registered in late May 2024, they have previously shared an employee database from the law firm Simmons & Simmons, a lead from an online casino AskGamblers, and student applications for Rowan College at Burlington County.

The team cross-referenced the passwords included in the RockYou2024 leak with data from Cybernews’ Leaked Password Checker, which revealed that these passwords came from a mix of old and new data breaches.

“In its essence, the RockYou2024 leak is a compilation of real-world passwords used by individuals all over the world. Revealing that many passwords for […]

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“Nearly all” AT&T customers had phone records stolen in new data breach disclosure

Stephan: 

If you use AT&T for your mobile phone you have probably been compromised and your data has been hacked. Read this article and follow its recommendations. As I said in my previous comment, as a country we lack the necessary enforcement security for our internet and mobile phones.

In a déjà-vu nightmare, US phone giant AT&T has notified customers that cybercriminals managed to download phone call and text message records of “nearly all of AT&T cellular customers from May 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022 as well as on January 2, 2023”.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AT&T said:

“On April 19, 2024, AT&T Inc. (“AT&T”) learned that a threat actor claimed to have unlawfully accessed and copied AT&T call logs.”

AT&T says the customer data was illegally downloaded from its workspace on a third-party cloud platform. This might be related to the Snowflake incidents we have seen several of by now.

In the statement, AT&T specifies which data it believes was stolen:

“The call and text records identify the phone numbers with which an AT&T number interacted during this period, including AT&T landline (home phone) customers. It also included counts of those calls or texts and total call durations for specific days or months.”

And which data is unlikely to be included:

“The downloaded data doesn’t include the content of any calls or […]

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‘He was a Republican’: Juan Williams reminds Fox News that Trump shooter wasn’t a Dem

Stephan: 

Fox News, and NBC News report that Thomas Matthew Crooks who attempted to assassinate criminal Trump was a registered Republican.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the Republican gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump. Credit: The New York Post

Fox News contributor Juan Williams reminded his colleagues that the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump was a Republican.

“I mean, it’s not only when you think about the president, former President Trump, but also the people in the audience, the people who died, and you understand the danger,” Williams explained during a panel discussion on Fox News Sunday. “It just makes you feel like the country is, the level of political polarization in the country is at a danger point.”

“It’s, I think, a reflection of the divisions within the United States today, not only liberal, conservative, but also on the extremes,” he continued. “This young man, they say he’s a Republican.”

Williams said he found the scenario puzzling.

“The whole thing is just like, especially with the Internet, I think the Internet feeds a lot of the extremism that we’re experiencing in the country, drives people,” he explained. “The politics of grievance, anger, all the conspiracy theories.”

“We’re talking about […]

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