Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Confessions From the Inside: Reddit’s Political Underbelly is not a Pretty Site

Article Mirror check main site for updates and comments.

December 19, 2012
By 

Oh no. Reddit banned us. What do we do NOW? Reddit’s censorship warriors just arbitrarily banned our asses.

Reddit’s SOPA stance is hypocritical, and in their pursuit of seeking more revenue, they have ceased listening to their user base while in the midst of a corporately owned powerhouse.


Articles submitted to the behemoth social site Reddit are voted on, or down voted by the site users. Some sites hire promoters to give their site some attention/traffic. Reddit has used this synopsis to arbitrarily ban certain sites, even without providing evidence, which they claim to have in their possession. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and the Reddit user base are/have been involved in anti-censorship activism which is admirable and also the reason that I first fell in love with Reddit, but the site itself has morphed into the epitome of censorship. As a news aggregator they are taking certain steps to ban users and sites in a fashion which seems suspect.  Of course, Reddit does not see this as censorship but without evidence of any wrongdoing, it most certainly is exactly that.



The Daily Dot reports:

“….a small group of volunteer moderators have close ties to Reddit’s paid staff, causing some to worry that those moderators hold unfair influence in a community that takes pride in an egalitarian ethos.”

See: Pastebin

Reddit has moderators to be sure the rules are adhered to; no editing of titles, no spamming and no doxxing. By spam (to moderators), that means no more than one out of ten submissions should be from your site or what a person has authored. The unwritten rules of which the user base is not made privy to, is that one may not submit from any site more than once out of ten times. So users believe they are following the rules and are told later, or even told via a ban that they are not adhering to the unwritten rules.

I love/loved Reddit and spent quite a bit of time there after Digg.com was sold. Long before we started FreakOutNation, Digg.com was my hang out. I’m all over the Internet and believe that when trying to put out a message diversity is the key. When Digg was in its last days before it was sold, users met on Facebook to share links. But, on Reddit that’s a big no-no. I never shared links in Facebook groups from Reddit. Yes, I did from Digg, so sue me, but I did not share links from Reddit. Some do, some don’t. I chose not to and I wasn’t aware of the rules, written or otherwise back then.

That said, much later I became a moderator on Reddit. Yes, I admitted that out loud. Don’t judge me.

Confessions of a moderator.

When this volunteer position was offered to me — and they have quite a regiment to go through first via a private voting system after a questionnaire is filled out — I thought it would be my way to contribute to the Reddit community. To give back so to speak. In hindsight, I unknowingly  stepped into a pile of icky shit. I had no idea that moderating was considered ‘power’ at least to one or two (or three) moderators. It would be a sad life to sit at one’s computer and randomly ban people over mundane instances, but that’s what I witnessed by a couple of the moderators. To feel powerful by banning an account that has been active for years simply because a user called a moderator a mean name, is beyond comprehension. I banned users from r/politics for racist or homophobic comments, or releasing personal information on other users. Most moderators do not enjoy banning anyone, but there are one or two in the mix that get their jollies out of holding the ban hammer over a user’s head.

The moment of ‘power hungry mods gone wild’ was the significant point in time that certain parts of my online life fell apart. It began with one moderator taking issue with me for having the audacity to own a blog (OMFG!), and then felt prompted to attempt vigorously to get our site banned. His opinion of our blog was that it was “spam” but not for the aforementioned argument. After asking what he considered spam, he said that he believed that our content was simply copy and paste material; without giving us the respect to linking to sources for credibility . When asked to direct me to an example, he came up empty handed. I listed links to a half dozen other sites which are well known on Reddit as well as across the Internet and asked if he considered them spam.  He replied, “We’re not talking about those sites. Only yours.” It was a witch hunt and he was going after my online child – my site.. To be clear, no other mod sided with his allegations. In fact, quite the opposite. For that, I am forever grateful. Hi guys!

Fast forward: And now, my personal account was banned. From my understanding (someone told me), it was to “get my attention.” And it did! I stepped down gracefully and demodded myself from all subreddits so that another mod would not have to do it and appear to be the ‘evil doer.’ All I asked when I left was that my site be respected. That’s it. Soon after, FreakOutNation was banned. This screen shot lists their dubious reason for the banning of FON.



After respectfully requesting to see their ‘evidence’ several times, I’ve yet to see it. I took it upon myself to go through a few hours worth of  messages and screen shots then presented them to the admins at Reddit which prove the direct opposite of their allegations. In fact, said evidence that I gathered, redeems me from their allegations. But, facts be damned. Reddit claims to have evidence of a paid promoter working for FreakOutNation and I’m supposed to believe them without seeing it while knowing full well that no one here is paying a promoter? Fuck that.

A redacted screen shot of the reply I received from a Reddit admin.



 If Reddit’s evidence is that an anonymous promoter told other promoters that we ‘have a promoter’, then I have to question their allegation. ___ said ___ so it must be true. I did swap links with two people (see: below) after receiving their private message, however, I did not write, “Vote for me!” And that accusation makes this even more curious as it seems like it’s more of a personal problem that someone has with me specifically. I haven’t used G-Chat since the Digg days that I’m aware of, and even then that was a rare occurrence. But, they said so.

So I replied displaying several screen grabs of my conversation with the website owner in question. Here’s one.



And then this response was sent to me:

I have a few other screen shots but I just wanted to be clear in this post as to the direction this was going.

What they seem to be confusing is my personal account and our site. If I had never taken the offer of moderating, I’m quite certain that this debacle would have never taken place. Also, other sites work out issues that Reddit has with them, and has historically unbanned sites. My request has gone unanswered.

What I did do against the rules.

I shared a few links via PMs on my personal account (and admittedly in other messages which they are not aware of to my knowledge) after links were shared with me. This was done possibly a dozen times. My account has been active for a couple of years. I was told later that sharing links is verboten on Reddit. I promptly apologized.

By the way, they read your PMs on Reddit.

India-gate.

The mention of traffic from India was brought up. We have no traffic from India, so the evidence should be given to us (the admins and myself) so that we can deal with any outside issues, although that’s unlikely since we have virtually no visitors from the good country of India, where shady site promoters are in abundance. And if someone who is a promoter submitted from FreakOutNation, we should be given the respect of knowing exactly what is going on outside of our control.

If there’s evidence of non-authorized FON promotions outside of normal-acceptable social networking – internally we need to resolve any issues – only two individuals have authority to act in this manner on FON’s behalf – Myself and comgenKDT the site/server admin. If we find that author(s) or other members of FON are engaging in unacceptable practices we as a site need to address this. If I did something against their rules — unwritten or otherwise — that information should be passed on to us. But thus far Reddit has produce nothing that would justify the banner of shame, though its action suggest they have said evidence readily available for review – - we’ve been tried and convicted already. <insert sad face>

Clearly, from our top ten listings, there is no traffic from India. Our recent traffic stats show that out of the 664,222 unique visitors, none of them are from India.


Our top traffic source stats – shown here – reflect little or no activity from India. There is nothing in our statistics on the scale that would suggest the site has ties to any artificial or shady traffic promotions originating from the region they are questioning.

And to be sure, it’s not only my reputation but the volunteer administrators here at FON as well as the writers’ which are also at stake. I’ve emphasized the word volunteer for a reason. We just recently placed ads here in innocuous places (at the bottom of each page) but they are scant and do not cover the charges for the server. We’ve never made a profit here nor have we tried to, so page views are not the problem.  During Reddit spikes roughly less than 20% of said traffic spends more than 2-3 minutes – or the time to read an article on site – the rest bounce traffic – which produces higher bounce rates in our reports and ad services factor this in, we gain less by this high rate – this suggests that Reddit and/or other social sites (digg,  slashdot) are not entirely a blessing if ad revenues were our main objective.

But a good reputation is invaluable. And now our reputation has been hung out to dry by a powerhouse site owned by Conde Nast. Sort of. Conde Nast spun Reddit out and it is now corporately owned by Advance Publications and a sister to Conde Nast as of this year. They moved an IT guy in who had development experience and had worked for Facebook in the past, up to CEO status.

Semi-full disclosure on our site’s spies admins.

Our volunteer admin has given me permission to disclose the following about his professional life, although I think he’s a spy, but you can draw your own conclusions (think: Spy).

ComgenKDT’s 25/8  job: gov/state/local law/edu data-network security and multiple business owner with many moons of professional experience.

Co-admins:

A mad-scientist with an expressed interest in all things social with network security being a secondary discipline and personal hobby; imagine Walter Bishop unhinged. And she’s a sexay beast!

The others: a licensed data sleuth-contractor; suspected spy. and one crabfisherman/network-server engineer; definitely a 
suspected spy.

The aforementioned 
spies admins have contributed their time here without asking anything in return — certainly attempting to defame any of their stellar reputations is unjust.

Why I suspect the admins at FreakOutNation are spies.

They magically appeared out of nowhere! I still can’t figure out how I was blessed with these guys. BUT, I do know for a fact that the crab fisherman has nice hands; and that’s all I know. I saw a pic….while supposedly (wink wink) fishing (or spying for our country). These guys operate under low profile user accounts, but I was given permission to disclose the details mentioned above, although I did edit in that the mad scientist is a sexay beast. Again, don’t judge me.

If you click our about’ tab, it specifically states, “SEOs: We don’t want you. Do not ask please.” We’re addressing promoters. We/I have been besieged in the past with messages  from promoters seeking ‘work’ and frankly it’s annoying. I personally tweet our own posts, list them on Facebook, along with two other writers helping with the admin side of things on our Facebook wall.  (You see how sneaky I am? I linked to our Facebook wall. AKA: Promoted us. Take that!)

Lessons learned: Reddit users should never mouth off to a seemingly bipolar moderator or your account will be ghost banned. Ghost banning: The user has no idea of his or her ban and keeps posting sometimes for a significant amount of time with no knowledge of the ban. Why they do that, I have no idea.

Never, ever take a moderating position and have the unmitigated gall to own or write for a website, although, rumor has it that there is at least one other mod that owns at least one site, but he never spoke up. He did ask me to step down though and that’s pretty sad.

Lists of other banned domains by the censorship warriors at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/BannedDomains/new/

Oy! We’re not on the list. That’s just wrong.

When I began as a mod I noticed that a few sites which I’m familiar with, were  having problems.. All submissions from these site/sites would go directly into the spam filter, then a moderator would have to go through the ‘spam queue’ and release it, if they chose to –  or if a mod was even around. What occurred was a curious thing: for this to happen, another mod had to have hit what’s called the “remove spam” if a submitter from said site was guilty of disobeying the rules — and that would be wrong.

Why it’s wrong.

But what they’re supposed to do if the submission’s title  is edited by the person sharing it is to hit the “remove ham’ feature otherwise the algo changes and that site’s submissions go straight into the spam filter ad infinitum, unless it’s corrected over a period of time. So, I have to conclude that another mod must have had a grudge against the aforementioned site/sites, one in particular which which will remain nameless unless they agree to me outing them of course. So, during my months of modding, I spent a great deal of time going through the spam queue to be sure that the wrong keys were not inappropriately used so that sites would not be censored.

Eventually the algo changed to where it was supposed to be. I mention this so you can see how one mod can fuck an entire site over easily.

For the record: Moderating Subreddits is a bitch in many ways. Mods are called every name in the book on any given day — or at least days which end in a Y. Racist remarks are hurled at Moderators, homophobic and generally fucked up insinuations and threats of outing personal information. But, there was a good side to it too. I tried to extend myself to all the mods and mostly it was well received.. The mod that tried to previously ban my site gave the pretense of putting our differences aside and we even traded pet pictures via PMs.

Cat pic!


Sadly, it appears that trading pet pics with the other mod, was a trap! As if I didn’t know (wink wink).

To be clear, Reddit will not end our online presence. We receive a good deal of direct traffic, Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, rss, Google and Tumblr. This is not the end. This is only the beginning. We have much evil to spread.

Reddit, we don’t give a damn about the page views, but your site has just thrown quite a few reputations under the bus. Please clear this up. Or don’t. It’s your site — or rather it’s Conde Nast’s sister site — but let’s see that evidence you claim to hold in your files, mmkay?

The Reddit admins have responded several times, until I presented them with my evidence. They contend that I/we may or may not have up/down voted something they secretly consider spam and/or that we have ties to some group in India which sells up-vote promotion based services. One site was brought up in particular, which is owned by a 16 year old kid who relentlessly asked to be on our blogroll and I refused said requests countless times — in fact, I was messaged dozens of times on any given day. I will not kick this kid while he’s down by revealing his site, but Reddit admins have proof that I sent to them that I ceased following him after his requests became more abundant and spammy.

If Reddit’s admins come across this post, they can email me anytime, or even call me (and I’m phone-aphobic). I’ve provided them with the necessary information.

The Internet is a big place. This is about our reputations though.  All we’re asking for is the definitive evidence for their action. We have no problem if they consider us spam in nature nor disagree with our overall political opinion. We do have a problem with being labeled an  ”Internet community criminal-thief-cheater “ based on thus far scant strung together at best evidence. If mod/admin(s) have some personal issue with us make that clear but don’t go engaging in calumny action.

For the record: I do know of some rather large sites that do hire promoters. We aren’t one of them, nor will we throw the ones that do under the bus and mention them here. Also, I did not mention the ban-crazy mods by name. They know who they are. I do miss most of the mods on Reddit though. They really rock. Please note that most of them do work in the best interest of the Reddit community. A few bad apples do happen to make the others appear in a bad light though, and it’s unwarranted. The majority of the moderators really do care about the Reddit community.

P.S.: You’re welcome for the cat pic!

Update:

This post is not even published yet and I just got word of yet another banned account.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

GOP misplaces their Binders full of Women, House Committee to be chaired by all men

Article Mirror

November 28, 2012
By 

The contrast in our political climate is telling when Democrats throw support behind female candidates as much as men, and call out Republicans for their War on Women, and yet twelve of the major House committees will be chaired by men in the 113th Congress.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced who will chair all of the major House committees in the next Congress on Tuesday, while apparently disregarding any female possibilities, as if they are confirming their bias. So much for ‘soul searching.’ Certainly no one can say there are no worthy females for such positions — as Mitt Romney noted, he has binders full of them.

There isn't one woman or minority included in the 19 House committee chairs — this is coming from the party, that now wants to be inclusive, after the election results poured in.

Via Politico:

After a day of meetings closed to the public, the House Republican Steering Committee announced an all-male slate of committee chairs, including 12 returning lawmakers who will head up some of the most important panels in Washington. The chairmen for the House Ethics Committee and House Administration Committee have yet to be chosen, so a woman could end up in one of those slots.

New chairmen include Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas atop Financial Services, Ed Royce of California on Foreign Affairs, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia on Judiciary, Lamar Smith of Texas on the Science, Space and Technology Committee and Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania atop Transportation and Infrastructure.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was the only lawmaker to obtain a waiver to bypass House GOP rules to remain as a chairman for a fourth term. He will lead the Budget Committee again.

Without one woman chosen to chair their committee, it’s revealing that Paul Ryan remains – Ryan is one of the most anti-female candidates in the GOP. Paul Ryan is considered by Republicans to be the intellectual member of their party, and that speaks volumes for the remainder of the GOP.  His budget has been deemed as cruel. Ryan extols the need for austerity measures, while refusing to touch defense spending, or raising tax revenue. Paul Ryan will not sit in the second highest seat of the land, but he remains in his Congressional seat representing Wisconsin. The soul searching Republicans have reportedly been doing, has had a hiccup. It appears they couldn’t find their soul, but instead of finding their life force, they hit the revolving door going back to that desolate, soulless space.

In stark contrast, House Democrats will likely have five women as ranking members committees.

Image: Wikipedia

Sunday, November 25, 2012

After the Presidential election, Kentucky teacher writes on chalkboard, “You can’t be a Democrat & go to Heaven.”

Article Mirror

November 25, 2012
By 

Just after the recent Presidential election, a high school teacher in London, Kentucky, took it upon herself to write a politically charged partisan message across her blackboard — apparently straight from the GOP Bible — which read, “You can’t be a Democrat & go to Heaven.” Think about that for a moment. Imagine if a teacher wrote that only Democrats go to heaven. Imagine if you will, the uproar, “They’re indoctrinating our children!”

A student took a photograph of the partisan statement, then promptly turned it in to the Laurel County Board of Education and the Sentinel-Echo, the latter of which published the story.

The accused teacher, Kendra Baker, violated district policy. According to Superintendent Doug Bennett, a student first uttered the statement as part of class discussion at South Laurel High School. The teacher, Kendra Baker, then wrote it on the white board.

Benett said, “She wrote it on her own, and she wanted to write it on the board.  She realized it was inappropriate.”

The juicy part (aka: crazy):

Baker is in her 17th year in teaching high school, and this is her ninth year teaching at South.  Her courses include psychology, civics, world history, U.S. history, economics, and sociology.  Since the incident, Baker’s statement has spread discord among students and parents via social media.

So, Ms. Republican has been teaching psychology, world history (and we have to wonder how much of it she revises), economics, and she’s still employed at the school after fucking with the kids’ heads, in a psychological way.

But it’s cool, because Ms. Republican was reprimanded. By reprimanded, they mean she apologized to the students. Huh. I’m curious as to how many parents have requested a different, less partisan teacher, so their children can actually be in class to learn — from actual books.

Some people are not taking the results of the election very well. It’s almost as if they’re taking it personally that their candidates got their asses whooped. Ah, sweet Schadenfreude.

Image: Michael in Norfolk. 

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Walmart’s mathematically-challenged Jedi Mind trick: Only 50 Workers Took Part In Black Friday Strike

Article Mirror

November 24, 2012
By 

Walmart strikers and their supporters have been in the news, because of their potential impact, not just on Black Friday, but in the future. This is the rise of the worker, against bad Corporate behavior toward their own employees. Walmart should be afraid — afraid enough to twist the truth. Walmart alleges only 50 workers took part in the strike.

On the busiest shopping day of the year, Walmart was hit with a massive protest and staff walkouts in 46 states, even in Dallas, Texas, where their love for unions is vacant. Alan Grayson personally escorted one worker out, so according to Walmart, that would leave 49 more.  This leaves us with a simple math problem to work out — of those 46 states, 1,000 protests were organized so, Walmart alleges that only a fraction of a percentage more than one person walked out in each state. With 1,000 protests sweeping across the States, we’re supposed to believe that only 50 workers took the day off, to strike, or from illness. For any sane American to believe that, the corporation in question would have to be one that is very good to their workers — or at least decent, meaning, not Walmart.

FYI: Walmart has a lengthy history of lying.

The Guardian reports:

“Only 26 protests occurred at stores last night and many of them did not include any Walmart associates,” said Bill Simon, Walmart’s US president and chief executive officer. “We had very safe and successful Black Friday events at our stores across the country and heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers,” Simon said.

He added that the retailer estimated less than 50 Walmart workers had taken part in the protests. “In fact, this year, roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year,” Simon said.

But protesters disputed the retailer’s numbers.

Dan Schlademan, director at lobby group Making Change at Walmart, said “hundreds and hundreds” of workers were taking action.

He said as a result of protests, Walmart workers had seen their employment terminated, threatened with having their hours cut and that the labor board was now investigating 35 specific violations of the national labor relations act.

From vetting the hashtags on Twitter alone, one could conclude the Walmart is again full of crap. Updates by workers were tweeted and retweeted for all to see.

By safe, Walmart must mean this. 

Or this, which is the opposite of safe — this video highlights greed in those that chose to shop on Black Friday, where getting a bargain trumped standing up for your fellow man and woman. Bad karma strikes as shoppers appear to be eating their own.

Watch:



Walmart’s average annual pay of $20,774 is below the Federal Poverty Level for a family of four. As reported here, employees can work at Walmart for decades before they make much above minimum wage.

tl;dr: We don’t believe you Walmart– with the exception of a few fringe right wingers on Fox Nation, that is.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Hi Walmart, I see you’ve met Alan Grayson; joins the protest, leads demonstrators in a chant

Article Mirror

November 23, 2012
By 

Walmart is playing down their workers’ strike, but from watching it unfold, the protest is on. Walmart protesters were joined by Rep.-elect Alan Grayson (D-Fla), who just rejoined the House. After citing statistics on Walmart employees, whose children are on Food stamps, the fiery Congressman ended his speech with, “The people united, will never be defeated” which led a chorus of protesters to join the inspirational chant.

Walmart employees planned the walk off from work to occur on Thursday evening, while shoppers began to arrive early for “Black Friday.” Protesting crappy wages and a clear lack of benefits, Occupy joined forces with the workers.

Grayson is everywhere. 

Thursday, Grayson accompanied a Walmart worker as she walked off her job in St. Cloud as part of a nationwide protest against the country’s largest employer.

OUR Walmart and Making Change at Walmart, along with watchdog group Corporate Action Network, have called upon on the retailer to end what they call retaliation against employees who speak out for better pay, fair schedules and affordable health care.

According to the company’s internal pay plan, obtained by The Huffington Post, employees can work at Walmart for decades before they make much above minimum wage.

in Dallas, where there is an unfriendly attitude toward unions, the city has become a main center for the strikes, along with Los Angeles and Chicago. This isn’t just a strike. It’s a point. When politicians dismiss the need for a minimum wage increase, giving the justification of it being unhealthy for small businesses, Walmart impact on small businesses has been significant.

A study concludes:

The joint review of key research papers from the past seven years indicates that the opening of a Wal-Mart in New York City would likely eliminate more jobs than it creates, result in the loss of independently owned small businesses, and create an increased burden on taxpayers.

“The history of the last decade tells us that Wal-Mart stands to be our City’s Trojan Horse,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “Wal-Mart’s record of driving small businesses out of town and paying below-poverty line wages to its employees will only exacerbate the current decline of New York City’s middle class. We must do everything we can to spur job creation in New York City, but that does not include opening our doors to a proven job-killer.”

Don’t look for the man behind Walmart’s curtain. He’s actually a toxic ‘corporation, my friend’.

Strike on, Walmart workers.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Fox Pundit Andrea Tantaros mocked the poor on Thanksgiving eve. I think this deserves a food stamp challenge

Article Mirror

November 22, 2012
By 

While sitting at our dining room tables, collecting our thoughts in review of all for which we are thankful, and looking ahead on how much more we can accomplish to better the world in some small way, Fox News pundit Andrea Tantaros declared on the eve of Thanksgiving, that she would “look fabulous” if forced to live on Food stamps. Yes, she went there. She mocked the poor. Mayor Cory Booker recently agreed to live on $133 per month, just as food stamp recipients do, and that was the catalyst for Tantaros’ distasteful diatribe against the poor.

How Tantoros stepped in it.

As reported here, Mayor Booker tweeted, ”An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics” Plutarch ancient Greek historian (c. 46 – 120 CE),” a Twitter battle of sorts began. A couple of Republicans responded by deeming the mayor as a Socialist, so Booker presented one ‘special’ Republican with a challenge: Live on food stamps for an extended period of time, and Booker, will meet the challenge.

The attention garnered did not sit well with the Fox pundit.  After Fox Business panelists speculated whether Booker’s pledge was an effort at “positioning himself for a run for the Presidency as a man of the people,” Tantaros chimed in: “I should try it because, do you know how fabulous I’d look. I’d be so skinny. I mean, the camera adds ten pounds.”

To be sure, with Cory Booker, this was not political posturing, but just another day in his life. The man has saved citizens from burning buildings, fixed traffic lights, dug residents out of snowbound areas after a blizzard, and recently, invited people into his home after they had lost power, to recharge their tech devices, warm up, kick back and watch a movie. After Superstorm Sandy’s aftermath, Booker took to tweeting non-stop with updates on power outages, calming upset constituents and checking up on those in need.

That said, Andrea Tantoros is posturing to keep her job as a propagandist with Fox News while garnering attention by ridiculing the poor — on the air and not even behind closed doors like Mitt Romney did — and needy. But, just in case she’s being genuine (and we know she’s not), let’s present her with the food stamp challenge.

This is a bipartisan effort by FreakOutNation — Tantoros declared her desire to “look FABULOUS” and “skinny” so that she can resemble the millions of people that go hungry in America every day — and we want to help her. We care! Apparently, Andrea’s low self-esteem is worsening. She’s not obese but obviously feels that she is.

We can help you Andrea and you don’t need to be ‘forced’ on the diet! Take the food stamp challenge, but be prepared to eat icky Ramen Noodles daily.

How about it gurlfriend? Don’t make me go all petition on your ass. Put your food stamps where your mouth is — are you a survivor, or just a propagandist? I’m guessing she’s the latter.

As Media Matters notes, “Sean Hannity encouraged those suffering with food insecurity to shun SNAP and instead eat more rice and beans, which he said could be purchased “for relatively negligible amounts of money.” So, we should extend this challenge to Hannity as well. Perhaps next time they think of mocking those less fortunate than they are, they’ll remember those yummy Ramen Noodles, that they had to endure for a month in order to survive.

Image: Huffington Post

Linda McMahon (R-Classy) sends staffers bounced checks, a condom, and tells them ‘you’re screwed’

Article Mirror

November 22, 2012
By 

Well this sucks for Linda McMahon’s staffers. McMahon’s U.S. Senate campaign in Connecticut told WTNH-TV they were not paid after Election Day. After they received bounced checks, McMahon’s people stated that new checks would be mailed out (wink wink), but Twaine Don Gomes was punished for speaking to the press. Apparently, no one should know about McMahon’s cheap ass — who is only cheap with those working for her. McMahon spent $100 million on two failed campaigns for Senate.

Twaine Don Gomes was one of the people who first complained to News 8. While being handed a check, he states that the campaign told him they were mad that he reported the bounced checks, so he got a little something extra in his envelope, in the form of a condom, then promptly told him that he was screwed. Say what? OK, and to top this off, the ‘screwed’ staffers were part-timers who cashed their checks at M&M Check Cashing Company — meaning, they were low paid staffers who didn’t even have bank accounts, but they were generously afforded a big fuck you from the millionaire wrestling magnate.

“Basically he handed me a check with a condom in it, told me I was screwed,” Gomes said. “That’s the rudest gesture you can ever do to a person, it’s like spitting in a person’s face.

“I’m not blaming Mrs. McMahon for this, I’m not bashing anyone,” Brown said, “but I just want my pay for 16 hours.”

Not everyone received the replacement check they were promised. Evette Brown only received the original check, which apparently had the power to bounce around the world, and back. ProTip: When someone tells you ‘the check is in the mail’ an alarm should be blaring in your head.

“I waited for mine to come in the mail,” Brown said to WTNH-TV. “It came in the mail and when I went to cash it, I couldn’t cash it.”

McMahon has been cheap before. While campaigning (before she failed miserably and spent gazillions of dollars) door-hangers were left at the houses of Connecticut voters portraying the Republican Senate candidate and President Obama as a pair who “will fight for us.” Yes, yes she did try to ride on Obama’s coattails, apparently knowing full well, that Republicans were not faring well in the public eye.

In fairness and in defense of Linda McMahon: It’s possible that she needed the money because she’s only worth a mere $500 million and owns a $40 million mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, a $20 million vacation home and a $12 million penthouse in Manhattan. So, understandably, McMahon had to screw her part time staff over while humiliating them, in order to survive. Life is ‘hard’ as Ann Romney would say.

This reminds me of something. What could it be? I remember now. Mitt Romney’s aides took taxis home late at night after the candidate’s concession speech only to get a rude awakening; their credit cards were cut off.

Linda McMahon who declared that she would “fight for us” was talking about the middle class and the poor — the same people she just screwed.

Image: NCAdvertiser

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Jon Stewart On Papa John: Let’s stop pretending bosses have transformed into assholes because of Obamacare

Article Mirror

November 14, 2012
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Jon Stewart delves into the Republican myth of ‘Job creators.’  Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnattner has come into the spotlight, by taking a political stance just before and now after President Obama was elected. Certainly, not all CEOs are threatening their employees, but a few have come under media attention for lashing out at their employees.  Jon Stewart hits two CEOs for their partisan stance, which resulted in an extreme case of whining publicly.

On last night’s Daily Show, Stewart worked out the real dilemma for Schnatter and his partisan cohorts. “Let’s face the facts,” Stewart says, “Pizza and coal companies are just unlucky enough to have a labor force that can’t be outsourced.”

Stewart adds, “Obamacare is just the latest excuse to wriggle out of the social contract,” Quit with the “I’d love to be able to give employees health care, I just can’t” excuse, he said. Not that they don’t have a legitimate gripe against the president: “If Obama had fought harder for single-payer health care, business owners like you would never have to pay another premium in your lives.”

Watch:





“That should be easy,” Stewart says,  “take all the millions you donated for partisan political purposes and pump it back into Health Care advances that may ultimately create productivity.”

Ouch.

As reported here, in our first post on Schnatter, Papa John’s CEO is certainly faring well.

Man doesn’t vote, Obama hating Wife runs over him in a Jeep (both are covered by Obamacare)

Article Mirror

November 13, 2012
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A wife decided to run over her husband in a parking lot reportedly because of his lack of voter participation. This brings a whole new light to ‘Get out the Vote’ efforts. The incident took place in Gilbet, Arizona.

The catalyst for the argument was Solomon’s fear and hatred of the Affordable Care Act. But, there is good (ironic) news. Holly Solomon, 28, and her husband will be covered — Holly for being completely nuts (obviously a preexisting condition), and her husband for injuries sustained, after Holly got into her Jeep and chased her husband through the parking lot.

Watch:




At first Mr. Solomon tried hiding from his unhinged Obama-hating wife, behind a light pole, but Holly drove around it while yelling at him, a Gilbert Police report stated. I’m going to wager a guess here: Holly is a Fox News viewer.

Solomon’s husband, Daniel Solomon, told police his wife “just hated Obama” and was very angry he was re-elected and blamed the President for problems her family is going through.

When the husband tried to flee, Solomon drove after him, eventually hitting him and pinning him between the SUV and the curb, cops said. ABC 15 reports that Solomon’s husband was taken to a local hospital where he is in critical condition.

Solomon was charged with domestic violence and aggravated assault. I’m curious as to why she’s not charged with attempted murder.

FreakOutNation wishes the best for Mr. and Mrs. Solomon.