Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that most provisions of the Affordable Care Act were constitutional, as the controversial “individual mandate” fell under the power of Congress to levy a tax. Apopleptic critics such as State Representative Dan Gordon got on Twitter to vent their frustrations and put their big stinkin’ feet right into their big stinkin’ mouths.
However, that cliched metaphor doesn’t quite capture The Dan Gordon’s fecal mouthful. As a State Representative, no one really cares, and he has gotten away with worse multiple times. Known for Stolen Valor, Homophobia, Drunk Driving, Assault and Battery, and his affiliation with Anonymous, The Rep Dan is now known for his stark gullibility and abject failure at understanding the most basic workings of the Internet.
In the heat of The Dan Gordon’s rage over the Supreme Court decision, @YourAnonInc, a terribly obvious parody account openly controlled by Chronicle.SU, tweeted the following: “@RepDanGordon http://supremecourt.us #TangoDown Join #OpLiberty Please RT #Anonymous.” Dan’s response was a hasty retweet followed by an independent endorsement of the ongoing “operation.” There’s a lot of jargon here that might not make sense to those who aren’t involved in Twitter or Anonymous culture, so I’ll spell it out, especially for the Rhode Island State legislators who must be sick of this stain on their honor.
“Tango Down” is an expression popularized by “th3j35t3r,” which refers to a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS), in which a web site is maliciously overloaded with traffic until it can no longer provide service. There were no DDoS attacks in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, and http://supremecourt.us is a nonexistent web site. It is not even under the official .gov domain extension, another simple point that would have tipped off anyone with the least bit of web savvy. The hashtag #OpLiberty refers to the nonexistent group of people carrying out these nonexistent attacks on the nonexistent web site, which also serves as a hyperlink to their ongoing discussion. Had Gordon, or anyone, clicked that hyperlink, he would have instantly found that no such discussion exists.
Gordon’s incapacity to verify facts and simply use the Internet is frankly hilarious, but that’s a fairly common thing for legislators. It’s just not fair to expect people of his age to display a competent level of Internet savvy. While he does posture himself as a member of Anonymous, most have long known this to be a total front. What’s shocking is his ringing personal endorsement of what he thought was a cyberattack on the Supreme Court, the body directly responsible for ultimate interpretation of the laws he’s supposed to be legislating. It may have all been a pathetically simple ruse, but his intentions couldn’t have been more clear. Representative Dan Gordon has zero respect for the highest Judicial body in this country. Furthermore, he’d go so far as participating in attacks on their web site which, by their very nature, rely on promotion via social media.
