Trains and planes around the world were stalled and grounded Friday due to an international Microsoft outage during what was supposed to be a routine update from a cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike.
In what has been described as the “largest IT outage in history,” CrowdStrike’s catastrophic error fumbled every sector of the working world, from banks to hospitals, law enforcement, and McDonalds. But an update from CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, early Friday was surprisingly unapologetic and so bogged down in legalese that it was immediately read to filth by its customers.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” Kurtz wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” he continued. “We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”
Critics quickly observed that, despite the fact that the failure likely caused millions of dollars’ worth of damages around the globe, Kurtz refused to take any modicum of blame by writing the statement entirely in customer service jargon and by aggressively dodging any word combination that precisely identified the problem, offered a solution, or simply said, “I’m sorry.”
“It comes off as cowardly and callous,” wrote former Activision Blizzard CCO Lulu Cheng Meservey. “People might have died. And the CEO is not sorry.”
Kurtz had a significantly more human—albeit still callous—update in an interview with NBC News.
“Many of the customers are rebooting the system, and it’s coming up, and it’ll be operational because we fixed it on our end,” Kurtz told the news outlet. “Some of the systems that aren’t recovering, we’re working with them. So it could be some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover.”
On Instagram Live early Friday morning, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed the ongoing debate over whether President Biden is fit to run for reelection.
Speaking for close to an hour, the New York progressive explained her support of Biden and why she thought replacing him was a bad idea.
“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave ... that they will support Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez attacked her fellow Democrats who have spoken anonymously to the press about Biden, particularly those resigned to defeat in November.
“My community does not have the option to lose,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “If they’re going to come out and say all their little things on background, off the record, but they’re not going to be fully honest, I’m going to be honest for them. I’m in these rooms. I see what they say in conversations.”
“A lot of them are not just interested in removing the president. They are interested in removing the whole ticket,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
As far as a plan for replacing Biden, Ocasio-Cortez said that whenever she has asked, she hasn’t gotten an answer.
“I have stood up in rooms with all of these people and I have said, ‘Game out your actual plan for me.’ What are the risks of this going to the Supreme Court? And no one had an answer for me.… I’m talking about the lawyers. I’m talking about the legislators,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She noted that the convention is in less than a month, and that Michigan has to finalize their ballot two days after the convention, which could result in a legal crisis. Ocasio-Cortez said she was concerned that these factors aren’t being considered by Democrats in the replacement camp.
Recent reports say Biden dropping out of the race is increasingly likely, and could happen in a matter of days. The president appears to be strongly considering the idea after meeting with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, and reportedly even former president Barack Obama thinks Biden needs to reconsider running. A major West Coast donor has already drafted a withdrawal speech.
Watch Ocasio-Cortez’s full remarks on Instagram Live here:
A post shared by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc)
Donald Trump unleashed so many falsehoods during his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that it seemed to overwhelm CNN’s on-air fact checker.
After Trump’s appearance Thursday night, CNN’s Daniel Dale ran through a lengthy list of Trump’s lies, having to brush past several on his list because he was running out of time to dispute each baseless claim.
During his speech, Trump had claimed that his opponents inherited a world “at peace.”
“Trump did not achieve world peace when he was president; certainly wasn’t at peace when he left office,” Dale explained. “There were active wars or armed conflicts in dozens of nations in 2020: 51 by one research institution’s count, and then 51 again........