45 thoughts on “Consequence?”

  1. I think it is useful for our Trail Hands to read the last article.  There are many of us who are very Liberal/Progressive and Bleeding Heart Liberals who have used guns and/or own guns.  This is what makes the debate on gun control as hard to nail down as beating horse apples into silver dollars. Overall, gun control is wanted by all.  Tightened down this means that when asked about most gun control laws, almost everyone wants them.  When the question is moved to “do you want gun control” it falls down to 50/50.  The clear word is “control”.   Freak out greedy old perverts voters (all thirty percent of the general population they be). Seventy percent of the U.S. want gun “control” laws.

  9. Tried to offer a Post but “sorry you cannot edit at this time” appeared & would not let me submit for preview.

     

  10. After the election of 2016, we found out the ruskies were infiltrating the nra…the nra made a very bold video after the election of trump, inciting civil war.   The nra knew their best gun salesman was retiring…and trump?  remington is now bankrupt and the wealthier, white humans are now being gunned down.  And the usual parade of elected (suspiciously like trump) officials will use the face time to show they are concerned and praying.  Automatic weapons shoot right through prayer and concern…bullets!  Will anything change?  Repugs can only pass tax cuts and have no political muscle to provide for their citizens…no health insurance, no safety net and more guns to offset the more guns in the hands of humans who should not have them.   Withered muscles of leadership, I mean look at mcconnell, he can hardly walk!

    Psst…our leader is mentally ill…keep him away from guns and nuclear buttons.

  11. Holy gold lame.   Stormy has a dress from the Tahoe encounter.    russia is taking over syrian oil and gas.

    And bannon has spent many hours with Mueller this week and gates is getting closer to a plea.

    PGing potus has no time for gun control…he is an empty barrel.  He has marital problems and that ruskie problem?  Plus, the ethics hounds are closing in…even on his inauguration expenses and mel is also taking more that she gives back.   $26 million to the rich and Stormy only got a lousy $100K (after her lawyer got $30K).  charity did fair a bit better than Stomy…$2 million for Charity.

  12. “$26 million to the rich and Stormy only got a lousy $100K (after her lawyer got $30K)”

    bw, perhaps that’s why she is teasing twit about the dress — which may or may not exist, but he can’t be sure — in order to get more.  that $130 K was just a down payment, a retainer so to speak for her lawyer. plus, what about her agent’s 10% cut?  and inflation?

    twit lawyers will counter that the value of free publicity offsets further remuneration. same for amarosa.

  13. For me?  I like Stormy much more than mel…Stormy would have been a more engaged flotus.  And cheaper, too.

  14. Can the picture of the killer at the top of this page be changed to one of the coach who died trying to protect his students? Or one of the students? I get the “Consequence” theme. Time to spotlight the victims; let their stories paint a target squarely on the NRA & those who suckle at the teat of death. Consequences, hell yes.

    Blue Bronco noted about voting. Yes – and target all candidates from all Parties. Hopefully they will be in the cross hairs of political termination. Our vote is our weapon. Peaceful, non violent, progressive. Any one who accepts NRA money is unacceptable. Are we brave enough?

  15. Holy empty barrels.  Perhaps we should rid the planet of ammo…nothing for the gun’s chambers!   Most gun nuts follow the bullet flow.  In my area?  The gunnists are tracking the Wallyworld truck with the ammo…when it will arrive in town.  Guns are just hot air without bullets, remember that.  Bump stocks are worthless without ammo.  Get rid of all of the bullets except in writing (bullet points).

  16. SJ…I get it, but the deplorables need to be shown.   Remember our prez thinks white supremacists are fine people.  The dead bodies are piling-up under the repug lack of control and lawlessness.   Trickle down will take care of the gun problem in their bubble world.  Perhaps the bullets will burst their bubble!

  17. We know who they are, Blonde Wino. And they crave attention. This is why they do what they do. Copycats follow the shiny light of 15 minutes of fame.

    I noted the other day Anderson Cooper will not say the name of the killers in these mass murders. Kudos. Give the publicity to the victims. Let their lights shine over the darkness.

     

  19. Agree that we must get out and vote in the mid-terms.  And if the Dems take back Congress (and hopefully the Senate) then we must hold their feet to the fire….  write and/or email your elected officials and tell them you want them to make tighter gun laws a priority.

  20. renee, I agree with your call to “write and/or email your elected officials and tell them you want them to make tighter gun laws a priority” adding/amending it to include gun “safety” laws.  we need to get away hinting/saying gun “control”  as it feeds into the nra nutsoid mantra which has been successfully used to scare off sensible legislation.

  21. I’m getting exhausted hearing about yet another school shooting and another wave of insipid presidential blah blah that doesn’t mention guns, Congress saying we can’t do anything about guns but mental health, we need to look at that, joined in by SFB, and waiting for the next school shooting to see if it is done with an AR-15 and how many kids will die that time.

  22. new Yorker: “A playboy model, and a system for concealing infidelity”
    In June, 2006, Donald Trump taped an episode of his reality-television show, “The Apprentice,” at the Playboy Mansion, in Los Angeles. Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s publisher, threw a pool party for the show’s contestants with dozens of current and former Playmates, including Karen McDougal, a slim brunette who had been named Playmate of the Year, eight years earlier. In 2001, the magazine’s readers voted her runner-up for “Playmate of the ’90s,” behind Pamela Anderson. At the time of the party, Trump had been married to the Slovenian model Melania Knauss for less than two years; their son, Barron, was a few months old. Trump seemed uninhibited by his new family obligations. McDougal later wrote that Trump “immediately took a liking to me, kept talking to me – telling me how beautiful I was, etc. It was so obvious that a Playmate Promotions exec said, ‘Wow, he was all over you – I think you could be his next wife.’ ”
    Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own.
    The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for sex or sexually harassing them. McDougal describes their affair as entirely consensual. But her account provides a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs—sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously—out of the press.

    On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to McDougal’s story, which it never ran. Purchasing a story in order to bury it is a practice that many in the tabloid industry call “catch and kill.” This is a favorite tactic of the C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker, who describes the President as “a personal friend.” As part of the agreement, A.M.I. consented to publish a regular aging-and-fitness column by McDougal. After Trump won the Presidency, however, A.M.I.’s promises largely went unfulfilled, according to McDougal. Last month, the Journal reported that Trump’s personal lawyer had negotiated a separate agreement just before the election with an adult-film actress named Stephanie Clifford, whose screen name is Stormy Daniels, which barred her from discussing her own affair with Trump. Since then, A.M.I. has repeatedly approached McDougal about extending her contract.

    [….]
    Several people close to McDougal argued that such untold stories could be used as leverage against the President. “I’m sixty-two years old,” Crawford said. “I know how the world goes round.” Without commenting on Trump specifically, McDougal conceded that she had a growing awareness of the broader implications of the President’s situation. “Someone in a high position that controls our country, if they can influence him,” she said, “it’s a big deal.” In a statement, A.M.I. denied that it had any leverage over Trump: “The suggestion that AMI holds any influence over the President of the United States, while flattering, is laughable.”
    McDougal fears that A.M.I. will retaliate for her public comments by seeking financial damages in a private arbitration process mandated by a clause of her contract. But she said that changes in her life and the emergence of the #MeToo moment had prompted her to speak. In January, 2017, McDougal had her breast implants removed, citing declining health that she believed to be connected to the implants. McDougal said that confronting illness, and embracing a cause she wanted to speak about, made her feel increasingly conflicted about the moral compromises of silence. “As I was sick and feeling like I was dying and bedridden, all I could do was pray to live. But now I pray to live right, and make right with the wrongs that I have done,” she told me. McDougal also cited the actions of women who have come forward in recent months to describe abuses by high-profile men. “I know it’s a different circumstance,” she said, “but I just think I feel braver.” McDougal told me that she hoped speaking out might convince others to wait before signing agreements like hers. “Every girl who speaks,” she said, “is paving the way for another.”
     

  23. Try to find the actual address of the campaign HQ/treasurer and send the contribution there with an accompanying note. Most times if you do it by credit card it goes to ActBlue, who takes their cut, and any sense of personalization in the individual’s desire for a better government is lost.

  27. sooo, wouldn’t this $150K fall into the in-kind donation category that should have been reported by campaign just as is argued the $130K one?

    daily mail coverage on the enquirer/ami story:

    National Enquirer ‘paid a Playboy model $150,000 for a story about her alleged affair with Donald Trump while he was married to Melania, but never published the account’
    The National Enquirer’s publishing company paid a Playboy model $150,000 for her story about having an affair with Donald Trump – but never ran it, sources have said.
    Karen McDougal, the 1998 Playmate of the year, claimed she had a consensual relationship with Trump over several months beginning in 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
    But the National Enquirer didn’t publish anything about McDougal’s allegations, despite paying six figures for the information, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
    Trump married Melania, his third wife, in January 2005. 
    McDougal and American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, agreed to the transaction in early August, the Wall Street Journal reported.
    American Media Inc. said in a statement the $150,000 was payment for exclusive life rights to any story related to a relationship McDougal may have had with a married man – and for fitness columns written by her.
    The contract, according to the Wall Street Journal, kept McDougal from disclosing her story on other outlets and established damages of at least $150,000 if she shared her account elsewhere.
    But American Media Inc. didn’t plan on publishing the story, even though McDougal expected it to run, people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal.

  28. White House refuses to release photo of Trump signing bill to weaken gun law

    A little over a month after his inauguration, on Feb. 28, 2017, President Trump signed HJ Resolution 40, a bill that made it easier for people with mental illness to obtain guns. CBS News then asked the White House to release the photograph of Mr. Trump signing the bill, making the request a total of 12 times.
    White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders finally responded to repeated emails and phone calls with a one-line note on April 19, 2017, writing to CBS News, “We don’t plan to release the picture at this time.”
    A White House photographer confirmed to CBS News that there are photos of the bill signing. Those photos won’t be seen unless the Trump administration releases them, though, because the White House is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. 
    […]
    On the day the bill was signed, the National Rifle Association (NRA) put out a press release quoting NRA Executive Director Chris Cox: “Today marks a new era for law-abiding gun owners, as we have now have a president who respects and supports our right to keep and bear arms.”   
    The NRA release says that had the Obama rule been allowed to move ahead it “would have resulted in 75,000 Social Security recipients who use a representative payee losing their Second Amendment rights without due process.” But in fact, the rule applied to Social Security recipients who weren’t able to manage their affairs because of “marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease.”
    The NRA noted the move to revoke the rule was supported by “the ACLU, and more than a dozen mental health advocacy organizations.”
    Thursday morning CBS News asked the White House again if it would release the photo of the signing, but received no response.

     

  30. Patd, the difference between the Stormy payoff and the McDougal one is tied to who did the paying. NE will rely on freedom of the press to distinguish its buying the story then “deciding” not to run the story based on its “lack of verifiable facts” to say it wasn’t a contribution.

  31. Flatus…  I thought of you and Kumcho last night as I watched the skeleton athlete from S. Korea, Sungbin Yun, win the gold medal.

  32. The importance of the photo is the trump hat and the attitude of the shooter

    I see we only spend time on the shooting if a lot of people are killed at the event. No one seems to care about the other 18 shooting who died

    I doubt this kid did for the publicity. He was obviously troubled some reports saying he had the disability of fetal alcohol syndrome I think we can celebrate the lives of those killed without being idiot ostriches.

  35. Why did the Vietnam epic doc by Ken Burns fade away and have no impact because it was full of crap — propaganda not documenting history.  You may not agree with what happened but by refusing to acknowledge the truth –which everyone knows– you lose any possibility of change and improvement.

    It isn’t necessary to be as crude as SFB but I think it would be refreshing to hear politicians say what they really intend to do and why.

    Rob Portman –yikes.  what a big fat liar and hypocrite he is.

     

  36. “the difference between the Stormy payoff and the McDougal one is tied to who did the paying”

    pogo, yep, but…

    did the rag (freedom of press) or did the candidate’s long time friend (supporter) who just happens to be the head of rag make the decision…..  and even if it is a press rather than a personal decision can intent be argued like when  malice is argued in defamation cases against media?  in this instance the opposite of malice of course being it was to protect/shield rather than harm a candidate.

  37. Mittens is in.  I hope he is what so many goopers promised they would be — a voice against SFB

  39. the guardian: 

    Most Americans can buy an AR-15 rifle before they can buy beer

     

    Americans have to be 21 before they can legally buy alcohol. But in most states, they can buy an AR-15 military-style rifle starting at age 18.

     

     
    Federal law has stricter age requirements for buying handguns than for the military-style rifles that have become the weapon of choice for mass shootings. With some exceptions, Americans must be 21 to buy a handgun from a licensed dealer.
    […continues…]

  40. Read Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue that begs Trump to address gun control
    On Thursday night, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel delivered another tearful monologue after another mass shooting, a day after 17 people were killed at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
     
    “Children are being murdered,” Kimmel said, getting choked up as he addressed President Trump with a plea to address gun control. “Do something! We still haven’t even talked about it. You still haven’t done anything about it. You’ve literally done nothing.”
    [….]
    And here’s what you do to fix that: Tell your buddies in Congress, tell Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio, all the family men who care so much about their communities, that what we need are laws, real laws, that do everything possible to keep assault rifles out of the hands of people who are going to shoot our kids. Go on TV and tell them to do that.
     
    I’ll tell you something. That is a perfect example of the common sense you told us you were going to bring to the White House. It’s time to bring it, we need it. Tell these congressmen and lobbyists who infest that swamp you said you were going to drain, force these allegedly Christian men and women who stuff their pockets with money from the NRA year after year after year to do something. Now. Not later. Now.
     
    And don’t you dare let anyone say it’s too soon to be talking about it, because you said it after Vegas, you said it after Sandy Hook, you say that after every one of these eight now fatal school shootings we had in this country this year. Children are being murdered.
    Do something! We still haven’t even talked about it. You still haven’t done anything about it. You’ve literally done nothing. Actually, you’ve done worse than nothing. You like to say this is a mental health issue, but one of your very first acts as president, Mr. Trump, was to actually roll back the regulations that were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill. You did that. Your party voted to repeal the mandates on coverage for mental health.
     
    So I agree, this is a mental illness issue. Because if you don’t think we need to do something about it, you’re obviously mentally ill.
    [….continues…]

  42. Wow the FBI is fubar on this I wouldn’t want to be the person who did not forward the tip they got on Cruz   My head is spinning with the Mueller indictments of the Russians

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