I missed one last week, I didn’t scroll down, and it was local, Oldham Family Alliance Federal Credit Union, of Baltimore, MD.
It is the 7th 6th failure of the year.
I had been miscounting the information from the NCUA closings page, and I have missed those credit unions “Merged with NCUA assistance.” (see below, click for popup)
So we actually have 1 more credit union failure this year than we have bank failures, which is kind of weird.
Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras will be visiting the United States to accept the Polk awards:
Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, two American journalists who have been at the forefront of reporting on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, will return to the United States on Friday for the first time since revelations of worldwide surveillance broke.
Greenwald and Poitras, currently in Berlin, will attend Friday’s Polk Awards ceremony in New York City. The two journalists are sharing the prestigious journalism award with The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill and with Barton Gellman, who has led The Washington Post’s reporting on the NSA documents. Greenwald and Poitras interviewed Snowden last June in Hong Kong as he first revealed himself.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Greenwald said he’s motivated to return because “certain factions in the U.S. government have deliberately intensified the threatening climate for journalists.”
“It’s just the principle that I shouldn’t allow those tactics to stop me from returning to my own country,” Greenwald said.
Greenwald suggested government officials and members of Congress have used the language of criminalization as a tactic to chill investigative journalism.
In January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested that journalists reporting on the NSA documents were acting as Snowden’s “accomplices.” The following month, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, claimed that Greenwald was selling stolen goods by reporting stories on the NSA documents with news organizations around the world. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) has called for Greenwald to be prosecuted.
Greenwald said the government has not informed his legal counsel whether or not he could face any potential charges, or if he’s been named in any grand jury investigation tied to the NSA disclosures.
My guess is that they will have to drive to the US, because they are both on the no-fly list, and I would expect all sorts of bureaucratic and law enforcement harassment.
I would place the chance of an arrest on the basis of the Espionage Act, or something similar to be about 25%.
I’ve made the point that the NSA cannot be trusted to decide upon whom it spies, because its cultural imperative is to spy on Everyone.
Case in point, NSA spying on human rights advocacy groups:
The US has spied on the staff of prominent human rights organisations, Edward Snowden has told the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Europe’s top human rights body.
Giving evidence via a videolink from Moscow, Snowden said the National Security Agency – for which he worked as a contractor – had deliberately snooped on bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
He told council members: “The NSA has specifically targeted either leaders or staff members in a number of civil and non-governmental organisations … including domestically within the borders of the United States.” Snowden did not reveal which groups the NSA had bugged.
The assembly asked Snowden if the US spied on the “highly sensitive and confidential communications” of major rights bodies such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, as well as on similar smaller regional and national groups. He replied: “The answer is, without question, yes. Absolutely.”
Snowden, meanwhile, dismissed NSA claims that he had swiped as many as 1.7m documents from the agency’s servers in an interview with Vanity Fair. He described the number released by investigators as “simply a scare number based on an intentionally crude metric: everything that I ever digitally interacted with in my career.”
The NSA is supposed to operate in a manner that serves the greater needs of the state.
The problem is that it is incapable of making a determination. It’s like a mindless vacuum cleaner sucking up data whether it serves our needs or not.
This is why it is incumbent on the civilian leadership cannot let the NSA on a loose leash.
I am referring to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who is doing his level best to create a violent confrontation with federal authorities after refusing to obey the regulations, and pay the rent, required for maintaining a grazing permit:
Wielding signs and slogans, several hundred demonstrators rallied Monday to support beleaguered Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy after authorities began to seize his cattle from federal land.
Protesters had responded to an alert that promised: “Range war begins at the Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m. We’re going to get the job done!”
Federal officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, habitat of the federally protected desert tortoise. A federal judge ruled last year that if Bundy did not remove his cattle, they could be seized by the Bureau of Land Management. That seizure began Saturday.
Bundy and his supporters remain unbowed.
“We have hundreds of people here standing behind us,” said Bundy’s daughter Bailey Logue, 22, during a telephone interview Monday from the family ranch, as a rooster crowed in the background. “We’re letting these federal people know that the Bundy family is not the only ones who care what happens to this land.”
Bundy, 68, has refused to pay BLM grazing fees since 1993, arguing in court filings that his Mormon ancestors worked the land long before the BLM was formed, giving him rights that predate federal involvement. His back fees exceed $300,000, he says. The government puts the tab above $1 million.
Federal authorities have closed off the Gold Butte area and are rounding up what they call “trespass cattle,” many of which belong to Bundy. By Monday, 134 cattle had been impounded, according to the BLM website.
“Cattle have been in trespass on public lands in southern Nevada for more than two decades. This is unfair to the thousands of other ranchers who graze livestock in compliance with federal laws and regulations throughout the West,” the BLM said on its website.
………
For years Bundy has insisted that his cattle aren’t going anywhere. He acknowledges that he keeps firearms at his ranch, 90 minutes north of Las Vegas, and has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to defend his animals from seizure.
………
Kirsten Cannon, a spokeswoman for the BLM in southern Nevada, said Bundy “owes the BLM and American taxpayers more than $1 million in grazing fees and trespass fines.”
“He has been running more than 900 cattle while he only has the authority to graze 150,” she said Monday. “He has also made a number of inflammatory statements, saying that he will do what he needs to do to protect his livestock. When such threats are made, the federal government has the responsibility to protect public safety.”
So in addition to regular federal subsidies available to farmers, he’s also been squatting on federal land, and destroying it through overgrazing, and somehow he’s become a hero for the militia movement, because ……… Freedumb!!!
The Maryland legislative session has ended and they passed bills hiking the minimum wate to $10.10 and decriminalizing marijuana:
By the time confetti fell in Annapolis on Monday night, state lawmakers had loosened marijuana laws, made Maryland the second state in the country to raise its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and whittled their way through more than 2,600 bills considered during the 434th legislative session.
The two major votes on marijuana decriminalization and increasing the minimum wage closed out the annual 90-day frenzy of lawmaking. Measures to create stricter penalties for drivers who cause fatal accidents while texting and to revamp Maryland’s stalled medical marijuana program also received final passage.
Martin O’Malley will sign both bills into law, though he did issue a veto threat over a recreational marijuana legalization proposal.
As a Free Stater, I am happy.
In terms of both the Democratic 2016 primaries, and the Veepstakes to follow, the minimum wage bill is probably a bigger deal.
A few months back, I wrote of push-back from an NGO about the price of Gilead Sciences’ Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi.
Well the World Health Organization and the pharmacy benefits management company Express Scripts are pushing back as well.
While the WHO is engaging in fairly typical hand wringing:
Gilead Sciences’ new hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, will cost $84,000 for a 12-week treatment plan, rounding out to $1,000 a day. Bound to cause a whirlwind among investors and the healthcare world, the World Health Organization has stepped in.
The drug is facing protests in the United States because of the excessively high price that Gilead Sciences set for their new product. Despite its potential effectiveness – it is projected to cure 90% of the targeting hepatitis C patients – its gross income will exceed that of every other pharmaceutical drug if a majority of 150 million hepatitis C patients purchase it.
As a result, the World Health Organization is urging Gilead Sciences to make the drug cheaper and more accessible to help those in dire need of the medication and to avoid creating tremendous problems for insurance companies and investors. But pharmaceutical companies argue that they need to charge high prices on new effective drugs because they need to cover the expensive cost of development.
Express Scripts is playing some serious, and very well deserved, hardball:
Express Scripts Holding Co. (ESRX), a pharmacy benefit manager that handles more than 1 billion prescriptions annually in the U.S., is ratcheting up its effort to force Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) to cut the $84,000 price of its new hepatitis C pill Sovaldi.
Express Scripts plans to ask its clients, composed of national employers, health insurance plans and government agencies, to join a coalition that would stop using Sovaldi once a rival medicine is approved for the U.S., expected next year, said Steven Miller, chief medical officer of the St. Louis-based company. Express Scripts said in December it may block reimbursement for Foster City, California-based Gilead’s pill once other new hepatitis C therapies are on the market.
“What they have done with this particular drug will break the country,” Miller said in a telephone interview. “It will make pharmacy benefits no longer sustainable. Companies just aren’t going to be able to handle paying for this drug.”
Cara Miller and Amy Flood, Gilead spokeswomen, didn’t return phone calls yesterday seeking comment. The company has previously justified the price for Sovaldi by saying it would pay for itself by avoiding future complications from the virus.
(emphasis mine)
Note that Sovaldi has been granted a breakthrough designation by the FDA, which allows the drug to hit the market faster, for which the US government, and the taxpayers got a consideration of ……… nothing at all.
Basically the declaration of “breakthrough” status, and that is the term the 2010 law uses, is a subsidy to the manufacturer, both extending the time available to Gilead under exclusivity, and reducing capital costs by allowing revenue to start earlier.
Maybe the FDA should include a “reasonable and justifiable pricing” clause to things like this.
By the way, I never want to consider the name “Jeb Bush” and the phrase “act of love” again in the same sentence in any context for the rest of eternity. Thank you.
Your mouth to God’s ear, Mr. Pierce.
Because, in response to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s decision to release their torture report, his response can best be summed up as, “Women be crazy,” which is a whole new level or repulsiveness by senior staff of our state security apparatus:
Former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden suggested Sunday that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) might have compromised the objectivity of a report on CIA interrogation techniques because she personally wants to change them.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Hayden cited comments Feinstein made last month in which she said declassifying the report would “ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.”
Hayden suggested Feinstein feels too strongly about the issue on an “emotional” level.
“That sentence — that motivation for the report — may show deep, emotional feeling on the part of the senator, but I don’t think it leads you to an objective report,” Hayden said.
(emphasis mine)
Seriously, does anyone anywhere who cannot see this as a blatantly sexist attack?
What was it like for women under his command? I’m thinking “boss from hell.”
A court just threw out his attempt to take down a MoveOn.org billboard using bogus trademark claims:
A U.S. district judge rejected Monday the Louisiana state government’s request that MoveOn.org’s billboard criticizing Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) for not expanding Medicaid under Obamacare be taken down. The billboard includes a parody of the state’s tourism slogan, which was the basis for the state’s legal action.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick issued the order. Lawyers for Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne (R), who filed the suit, had “not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of prevailing on its burden of proving confusion by viewers of the billboard,” Dick wrote. She rejected the state’s request for a preliminary injunction, which asked that the billboard be taken down as the court case continues.
“The State has failed to demonstrate a compelling reason to curtail MoveOn.org.’s political speech in favor of protecting of the State’s service mark,” she continued. “There has been no showing of irreparable injury to the State.”
And Jindal wants to be President.
I would think that he is too lame to be the Republican nominee, but considering the past 2 ‘Phant presidents, Bush and Bush, I am not sure if there is enough lame in the universe to rule out anyone as a Republican nominee.
On the other hand, I do think that a significant portion of the Republican electorate, particularly in the south, might be uncomfortable voting for a non-white candidate.
It appears that former Chris Christie political operative David Wildstein is singing to a grand jury:
Bad news for Chris Christie — and very good news for the citizens of New Jersey: Esquire has learned from sources close to the investigation that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority operative who helped plan and execute the Great Fort Lee Clusterfk, is now cooperating with Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor investigating the soon-to-be-ex-governor and his minions for criminal conduct. Fishman has also increased the number of investigators at work on the case, and has begun presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury in Newark.
Wildstein was forced to quit his PA job in December, before Fort Lee’s corpses bobbed to the surface. Christie, who went to high school with Wildstein and put him at the PA as “director of interstate capital projects” — a job created just for him — helped edit the media statement thanking Wildstein “for his service to the people of New Jersey and the region.”
In January, Wildstein refused to testify before a New Jersey legislative committee investigating last September’s George Washington Bridge lane closures, citing his 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination. It was Wildstein’s cache of e-mails and texts, provided to the committee, that featured the instantly immortal exchange between Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly (“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”) and Wildstein (“Got it”).
No wonder the mainstream Republicans are looking at Jeb Bush for President now.
Christie may serve out his term, but he is not going to be the Republican nominee.
Phillip Goldberg, former state department intelligence chief, who has objected to the release of the Senate torture report because it might piss off a lot of people.
Hey, douche bag! Maybe you should have thought about this before you helped torture people!
I do rather hope that his story that Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after him is true. (scroll down)
Her birthday was today, so last night, we saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
I am going to try to avoid spoilers, so the cast list is after the break, but I will be putting my guesses as to future movies (when not spoiling this one) above the break.
First, this is a good movie. In some ways, the best of the Marvel movies, though as I have said before, I would pay money to listen to Robert Downey Jr. read the phone book.
Captain America is simply more compelling than Iron Man, more relevant than Thor, and less contrived than the Hulk.
This movie deals with a lot of things, but at its core, it is the story of an alien, by which I mean Steve Rogers/Captain America.
He is very from another world, one which has ceased to exist, which from that perspective, is rather a lot like Superman, only Cap is far more aware of this than the guy in the red and blue PJs.
Chris Evans is good as Captain America, and Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson reprise their roles as Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow.
It introduces some new characters, most notably Anthony Mackie who plays Sam Wilson/Falcon, a kickass vet with a flying suit who I think that we will be seeing more, and Emily VanCamp as Kate/Agent 13, in what seems like a future role (if the movie follows the arc of the comic books) as Captain America’s off and on love interest. (Though there is also an indication of some future fireworks between Cap and Black Widow)
Interestingly enough, the movie is rather topical, and fairly explicitly offers a critique of our wonderful world of pervasive digital surveillance that Edward Snowden confirmed to the world.
It does all this while it dealing with the issues of loss and friendship that are inherent in Captain America’s back story.
I would give the movie an 8 out of 10.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
Cast:
Chris Evans … Steve Rogers / Captain America
Samuel L. Jackson … Nick Fury
Scarlett Johansson … Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
Robert Redford … Alexander Pierce
Sebastian Stan … Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
Anthony Mackie … Sam Wilson / Falcon
Cobie Smulders … Maria Hill
Frank Grillo … Brock Rumlow
Maximiliano Hernández … Jasper Sitwell
Emily VanCamp … Kate / Agent 13
Hayley Atwell … Peggy Carter
Toby Jones … Dr. Arnim Zola
Stan Lee … Smithsonian Guard
Callan Mulvey … Jack Rollins
Jenny Agutter … Councilwoman Hawley
Yes, the cats are more likely to practice “tough love.”
No more posting tonight.
I just saw the latest Captain America movie, and I am going to sleep.
Review to follow.
Once again, we have a jobs report that is only a bit better than treading water:
Employers are hiring at a more aggressive pace again after a winter cold snap, but the pace of job gains is only slowly making up for years of lost ground in the labor market.
Nearly five years after the end of the Great Recession, the total number of private sector jobs is finally back to where it was as the downturn began in early 2008, the Labor Department reported on Friday.
But that level is still far below what is needed to fully accommodate the millions of people who have joined the work force since then, or relieve the backlog of jobless workers anytime soon.
Still, the addition of 192,000 jobs last month, all from private employers, represented an uptick from the anemic rate of job creation recorded at the turn of the year. That encouraged optimists, who foresee a slight strengthening as the wintry weather in many parts of the country in late 2013 and early 2014 yields to a more inviting spring.
In addition, while the unemployment rate remained flat at 6.7 percent in March, an increase in the number of Americans looking for work also offered up some modest hope that better times could lie ahead in 2014. So too did an upward revision in the number of jobs that government statisticians estimate were added in January and February.
At the current rate, we will have a pre-Great Recession workforce participation rate sometime in the 2nd half of this century.
The Senate Intelligence Committee just voted to release the torture report:
The Senate Intelligence Committee has voted to release parts of a hotly contested, secret report that harshly criticizes CIA terror interrogations after 9/11, and the White House said it would instruct intelligence officials to cooperate fully.
The result sets the stage for what could be the fullest public accounting of the Bush administration’s record when it comes to waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The panel voted 11-3 Thursday to order the declassification of almost 500 pages of the 6,300-page review, which concludes the harsh methods employed at CIA-run prisons overseas were excessively cruel and ineffective in producing valuable intelligence.
Even some Republicans who agree with the spy agency that the findings are inaccurate voted in favor of declassification, saying it was important for the country to move on.
“The purpose of this review was to uncover the facts behind the secret program and the results, I think, were shocking,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the committee chairwoman, said. “The report exposes brutality that stands in sharp contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do.”
The intelligence committee and the CIA are embroiled in a bitter dispute related to the three-year study. Senators accuse the agency of spying on their investigation and deleting files. The CIA says Senate staffers illegally accessed information. The Justice Department is reviewing competing criminal referrals.
As a result of Thursday’s vote, the CIA will start scanning the report’s contents for any passages that could compromise national security. That has led to fears in the committee that a recalcitrant CIA might sanitize key elements of their investigation, and demands for President Barack Obama to ensure large parts of the report aren’t blacked out.
Obama, said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., should “hold onto the redaction pen himself.”
The CIA’s strategy at this point is delay and obfuscate while leaking furiously to malign the report.
If I were a Senator, I remember that if it takes too long, reading the high points of the report on the floor of the Senate is a constitutionally protected activity.
Another credit union, the 4th 5th of the year, Mayfair Federal Credit Union, Warminster, PA.
It’s interesting that credit unions are failing at almost the rate of banks so far this year.
The Pentagon is looking at stripping the security clearance for the lead whistle-blower advocate for spies in the US government:
The Pentagon’s inspector general is trying to suspend and possibly revoke the top secret access of the Defense Department’s former director of whistleblowing, triggering concerns in Congress that he’s being retaliated against for doing his job.
If the recommendation is acted on, Daniel Meyer would no longer be able to work in his current job as the executive director for intelligence community whistleblowing at a time when President Barack Obama’s reforms of the system are supposed to be underway .
The controversy over Meyer’s fate comes at an awkward moment for the Obama administration. Meyer, the Pentagon inspector general’s whistleblower advocate until last summer, was well-known for aggressively investigating whistleblower allegations. In his current job, he was supposed to have a key role in the president’s initiative to improve the intelligence whistleblowing system.
The administration pointed to those reforms after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details on the agency’s then-classified mass collection of Americans’ email and phone records. Snowden has said he was prompted to disclose the details because he believed the whistleblowing system was broken.
“Dan Meyer has been a relentless advocate for whistleblowers in making sure they don’t fall through the cracks,” said one congressional staffer, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter. “If action is taken against him, it could have a chilling effect on whistleblowers coming forward.”
This is, of course, a feature, not a bug.
While I do not think that the political appointees in the Obama administration directly authorized this, I think that it is clear that this is a part and parcel on President Obama’s war on whistle-blowers. (He has criminally prosecuted more of them than all of his predecessors combined)
This is happening because this is a part of the culture within institutions like the DoD, the NSA, and the CIA, and because it is a part of the culture of the Obama White House.
Intimidating potential whistle blowers is an implicit goal of all of these policies.
Remember her?
She was the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter (and member of the royal family) who testified to Congress that she saw Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators.
She falsely claimed to be a nurse’s aid when she had not even been in the country at the time of the invasion.
Well,”Nurse Nayirah,” meet Liz Wahl, the former RT News anchor who resigned on the air:
Liz Wahl’s on-air resignation as a Russia Today news anchor came amid a perfect geopolitical storm. She announced her departure from RT just as tensions escalated between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.
“I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin,” said the 28-year-old American reporter and show host, who worked at RT America for two-and-a-half years. “I am proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth. And that is why, after this newscast, I am resigning.”
………
Wahl’s Howard-Beale-like moment came just one day after her colleague Abby Martin, host of RT America’s “Breaking the Set,” committed her own on-air indiscretion. Martin denounced Russia’s military occupation of the Crimean peninsula, which had been part of neighboring Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
Unlike Wahl, however, Martin didn’t quit the network; she is still hosting her daily 30-minute show. Martin’s decision to stay at RT drew criticism from the same reporter who landed the first interview with Wahl after her resignation, The Daily Beast’s Jamie Kirchick.
“Indeed, far from damaging the propaganda efforts of the Russian government, Martin’s momentary act of nonconformity plays right into the Kremlin’s hands,” Kirchick wrote in a March 4 article in Tablet Magazine. “RT will now be able to hold up her 60-second departure from the official script as evidence of its editorial independence.
………
Case in point: The Beasts’ Kirchick—who got the first interview with Wahl and was critical of Martin after she remained at RT—gets his paychecks from the neoconservative Foreign Policy Institute, where he is a Fellow. FPI has been described as a renascent version of the Project for the New American Century, which is in turn often described as one of the well-connected brain trusts behind the launch of the Iraq War.
Note that the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) was founded by William Kristol, who founded PNAC, and
A source from inside RT, who spoke to WhoWhatWhy anonymously for fear of retribution, had at one point “observed [Wahl] taking pictures of the office over the summer, asking all sorts of odd questions about my experience, and looking at Jamie Kirchick’s website while in the office.”
This led the RT America employee to believe that Kirchick—with the help of Wahl—was planning to write a hit piece on the organization.
A recently published piece by TruthDig goes further, contending that Kirchick and neoconservative allies orchestrated—in TruthDig’s words “stage managed“—Wahl’s resignation right from the start.
………
A large part of TruthDig‘s contention that Kirchick and the Foreign Policy Institute “stage managed” the whole thing relies on FPI’s Twitter feed activity in the minutes leading up to Wahl’s on-air resignation.
FPI’s feed that day telegraphed “something big might happen on RT” and teased “you’re really going to want to tune in to RT” within 19 minutes of Wahl’s stepping down. Then, as soon as Wahl made her announcement, FPI tweeted, “RT Anchor RESIGNS ON AIR. She ‘cannot be part of a network that whitewashes the actions of Putin.’”
Asked about the feed and timing of the tweets by WhoWhatWhy, Kirchick responded, “I am an employee of FPI. Liz called me [while I was] at work. I told everyone in the office to watch. We did.”
Wahl corroborated Kirchick’s account of how events unfolded.
The prevalence of this kind of sh%$ in the political and media landscape is why I try to get as much of my news as possible from overseas sources.
H/t Crooks and Liars.
Brendan Eich is out as Mozilla Corporation CEO:
Less than two weeks after drawing controversy over his appointment as CEO of the Mozilla Corporation, Brendan Eich has resigned from the position.
In a post at Mozilla’s official blog, executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker confirmed the news with an unequivocal apology on the company’s behalf. “Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it,” Baker wrote. “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”
The action comes days after dating site OKCupid became the most vocal opponent of Eich’s hiring. Mozilla offered repeated statements about LGBT inclusivity within the company over the past two weeks, but those never came with a specific response from Eich about his thousands of dollars of donations in support of Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in the state.
Eich’s bigotry has been an issue before, and for some reason known only to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, they decided to make him the face of the organization.
It was further compounded when Eich refused to offer anything vaguely resembling a sincere apology, and instead offered platitudes about how tolerant people needed to validate his bigotry.
Don’t let this door hit your ass on the way out.