Please Support BiPartisan Approach on Health Care

Resistbot, September 19

The Graham-Cassidy bill would cost Florida $17.8B in Medicaid funding. It would remove preexisting conditions protections. It is a recipe to cost millions their access to health care. Rather than crippling one sixth of the nation's economy in what amounts to political dick-measuring, please support the bipartisan efforts of Senators Alexander and Murray.

Scientific Reality and the Budget

Resistbot: September 17, 2017

Climate change is a reality, it is caused by humans, and it has a disproportionate effect on Florida. Please oppose any budget cuts to FEMA, the Coast Guard, infrastructure grants, the EPA, and climate and clean energy research and planning.

Graham-Cassidy Removes Protections

Resistbot, September 17, 2017

The Graham-Cassidy bill would allow insurers to increase premiums by arbitrary amounts AFTER an existing customer becomes ill. Effectively, insurance would become meaningless. You pay in your premiums, then your policy gets yanked away by unaffordable increases just when you need it. Please oppose Graham-Cassidy and support the Alexander-Murray bipartisan process.

Graham-Cassidy the Worst Flavor of Republicare

Resistbot, September 15, 2017:

The Graham-Cassidy version of Republicare is even more punishing than previous plans put forward by the GOP Congressional majority. The funding plan would result in millions losing coverage. And the complex funding formula for its system of block grants would favor states with lower populations. There is no good justification for skewing funding that way, other than to try to buy off Senators from smaller states which arel already disproportionately represented in the Senate. The people deserve a medical care bill that focuses on delivering health care to people rather than trying to buy enough votes to pass the Senate. Please join in the bipartisan effort led by Senators Alexander and Murray to fix the system rather than undermining it for perceived partisan advantage.

Support the Dreamers through the Dream Act (S 1615 or HR 3591)

Resistbot, September 3, 2017:

Please cosponsor the Dream Act, to grant legal status to people brought to the US as children. America is a richer place thanks to the contributions of immigrants. I believe with all my heart that the opposition to the Dream Act is largely fueled by the ugliest of racist sentiments. Even Puerto Ricans locally, who are US citizens, have seen a sharp increase in racist and threatening comments from people who explicitly reference the current president's immigration policies. Hispanic people in your district see the passage of the so-called Kate's Law as part of the symbolic drumbeat that is making their daily life harder. Please send a clear message that you do not stand with the bigots.

Resistbot, August 25, 2017:

Please support the young people currently protected by DACA. These are good people, who would be valuable citizens. Give them a path to citizenship.

ICE to Destroy Evidence of Abuses

Resistbot, August 29, 2017:

ICE is planning to destroy records relating to the conditions of people in detention. This is beyond immoral. Democracy and justice require transparency. Demand that ICE preserve these records.

Mt Gox: Criminal or Careless?

In recent days, there have been a lot of contradictory reports about a large theft at the Mt Gox Bitcoin exchange. Their bankruptcy filing reported that USD $425 million worth of Bitcoins appear to have disappeared. Mt Gox has done nothing to clear up the confusion, which has led to ever more speculation about exactly what happened.

Much of the information that is being reported has been sourced to a document that has been published on the Internet. At this point, Mt Gox has not validated the document, but many reports believe it to be genuine.

Reports have centered around a known weakness in the Bitcoin infrastructure, known as "malleability." In attacks based on malleability, hackers slightly vary the information in packets about legitimate transactions and flood the exchange with fraudulent information. The exchanges then need to validate every transaction to see which transactions are valid. Most exchanges have built in safeguards to deal with attacks based on malleability.

Serious allegations are being raised that fraud within Mt Gox may itself have been responsible for at least some of the loss. In 2012, Mt Gox reported about USD $380k in revenue. But in 2013, the company had to pay out a USD $5 million fine. Financial reporters are not clear on how Mt Gox was able to keep its doors open after this fine, but there are several reports of slow payments after the fine was paid. Financial reporters have noted that some consider this to be an early warning of a company doing business on a fraudulent basis.

At the very least, it appears clear that Mt Gox continued to do business even after discovering that it was vulnerable to a hacking attack.