“The deliberately outrageous idea of arming classroom teachers is nothing more than a distraction, a ploy by the gun lobby to buy time for passions to cool. Don’t get sidetracked. Keep the focus where it belongs — on keeping military-style assault rifles out of civilian hands.”
Eugene Robinson is a shmart cookie. He didn’t win that Pulitzer for nuthin’
pogo, and then there’s this distraction to add to the one you mentioned. from time:
‘Take the Guns First.’ President Trump’s Latest Comments on Gun Control Defy the NRA
In a publicly televised meeting with lawmakers Wednesday, President Donald Trump took a moderate tone on gun control, telling members of Congress that they should not be afraid to defy the National Rifle Association in passing a comprehensive school safety package.
At one point, Trump urged taking guns away from anyone who could be considered dangerous, even before they have to he opportunity to defend themselves in court. “Take the guns first, go through due process second,” he said.
The president’s remarks about the NRA and seizing guns were dramatically different from the tone he struck at the Conservative Political Action conference last Friday, where he spent most of the time talking about arming teachers. During that speech, he barely mentioned strengthening background checks and did not mention his desire to implement a ban on bump stocks or raise the age limit to purchase a weapon.
[…continues…]
*
Patd, SFB’s “preference” is the first politically astute thing he’s done for a long time. It appeals to a broad swath of the voters, sounds like it might save some folks from nutty shooters and has zero chance of being incorporated into legislation in this congress.
Teachers are already armed with a force more powerful than any gun: knowledge. Politicians & those who own them know this & do everything in their power to neutralize an educated informed populace, or more to the point, voter. Skepticism is a shield against the unscrupulous. People who question are skeptical; a solid education leads to inquiring minds; the spark of curiosity is lit by dedicated teachers who realize their legacy is the key to a strong democracy.
Our Founding Fathers were influenced far more by the Enlightenment than by the Brown Bess. While militias (Minutemen deserve a shoutout; hello Lexington bridge) defended the country bravely & with unbelievable sacrifice the pen was mightier than the sword in keeping the hopes & dreams of liberty alive. Teachers were instrumental in forging our Rights, our Government. We belittle this country & the sacrifices made when we arc towards deliberate ignorance. This is also a matter of national security. We need to be smarter than the bad guys.
Teachers are not babysitters or security guards. They are the vanguard of civilization.
I just love that Noregard is thumbing his nose at Trumpsky.
Kushner is a weasel. Marrying Ivanker was the long con he was playing. Like attracts like.
On this day in 1692 a real Witch Hunt began in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
big story last night in ny times:
Kushner’s Business Got LoansAfter White House Meetings
Early last year, a private equity billionaire started paying regular visits to the White House.
Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, was advising Trump administration officials on infrastructure policy. During that period, he met on multiple occasions with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said three people familiar with the meetings. Among other things, the two men discussed a possible White House job for Mr. Harris.
The job never materialized, but in November, Apollo lent $184 million to Mr. Kushner’s family real estate firm, Kushner Companies. The loan was to refinance the mortgage on a Chicago skyscraper.
Even by the standards of Apollo, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, the previously unreported transaction with the Kushners was a big deal: It was triple the size of the average property loan made by Apollo’s real estate lending arm, securities filings show.
It was one of the largest loans Kushner Companies received last year. An even larger loan came from Citigroup, which lent the firm and one of its partners $325 million to help finance a group of office buildings in Brooklyn.
That loan was made in the spring of 2017, shortly after Mr. Kushner met in the White House with Citigroup’s chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, according to people briefed on the meeting. The two men talked about financial and trade policy and did not discuss Mr. Kushner’s family business, one person said.
There is little precedent for a top White House official meeting with executives of companies as they contemplate sizable loans to his business, say government ethics experts.
“This is exactly why senior government officials, for as long back as I have any experience, don’t maintain any active outside business interests,” said Don Fox, the former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics during the Obama administration and, before that, a lawyer for the Air Force and Navy during Republican and Democratic administrations. “The appearance of conflicts of interest is simply too great.”
[…continues…]
business insider:
A timeline emerges as Mueller homes in on what — and how much — Trump knew about WikiLeaks and the DNC hacks
Special counsel Robert Mueller is probing what, and how much, President Donald Trump knew about the Russian government-backed effort to hack the Democratic National Committee, and the subsequent release of stolen emails at the height of the 2016 campaign.
Mueller is also looking into Trump’s relationship with Roger Stone, a longtime Republican strategist who was in touch with WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the election.
The revelations indicate Mueller is zeroing in on what appears to be a growing timeline of Trump associates’ communications with Russia-linked actors during the final months of the campaign.
[…continues…]
something verrry familiar about this photo
The due-process issue is not paramount just as it isn’t when a traffic cop orders a drunk’s car towed.
The native Americans around Massachusetts bay colony in 1692 summed up the witch trials as:
white man crazy.
Forget about assault riffles…putin nukes florida in animated video.
Nuclear war will take care of all of those guns. putin claims invincible nuclear warhead coming to a town near you, very soon.
From the article —
“But this isn’t the end. We’ve developed new strategic weapons that don’t use ballistic trajectory at all, which means that missile defense will be useless against it,” Putin bragged.
Putin admitted that they don’t have any names for the new system in the animation and got a chuckle when he asked for members of the audience to submit proposals to the Defense Ministry’s website.
The new weapon uses a “nuclear power energy unit,” according to Putin. “This is how it avoids defense barriers,” Putin explained as the video played.
“It has unlimited range, so it can keep going like this forever. As you understand, this is unheard of and no one has this system in the world. They may come up with something like this in the future, but by that time our guys will come up with some new ideas as well,” Putin said.
To look back at fire and fury, wolff might have been referring to hope as trump’s wh paramour. She is said to be in the private chambers early morning and late night. A vanka substitute? It seems the whole wh-thing is collapsing, hope-fully trump is next.
Here’s what arming teachers gets us, two in Georgia arrested for firing shots in school
Putin has fancy new nukes but can they penetrate Trump’s twitter feed?
hell yeah…
axios:
John Kelly jokes his White House job is a punishment from God
At a Homeland Security event today, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly joked about regretting leaving his job at the agency:
“The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the Secretary of Homeland Security, but I did something wrong and God punished me I guess.”
— Chief of staff John Kelly
john, a redemption song for you to set yourself free
https://youtu.be/OFGgbT_VasI
Why wouldn’t Hope Hicks sleep with SFB — she has the worst taste in men ever.
Happy March 1st…the meteorological spring begins…it is Irish-American month…March madness starts…today is National Pig Day.
National Pig Day is an event held annually on March 1 in the United States to celebrate the pig. The holiday celebration was started in 1972 by sisters Ellen Stanley, a teacher in Lubbock, Texas, and Mary Lynne Rave of Beaufort, North Carolina (wikipedia)
OINK! OINK!
happy national pig day, bw!
It is also national women’s history month and while flotus tweets about it…it is revealed that mel was part of the Einstein visa program…a string bikini leads to the ‘green card’ flotus.
thanks for the pig pic, patd. google has changed photo download policy.
The graying of America — uber to introduce medical transport to offerings…no app needed. Texting applies.
Hand for the hog……
Is that pig as in eat pork or pig as in pet
Pork is my favorite
So, Tsar Putin is threatening to nuke Mar-a-Lago? I guess the stuff Put-ey has on Donny isn’t keeping him on a short enough leash.
Ambulances are crazy expensive. If it’s not an emergency, why would you need to use Uber Health instead of regular Uber? If it is an emergency, you need an ambulance and healthcare en route.
Kudos for them for trying to fix (and cash in) on whatever gap there may be.
As with guns, it’s going to take citizens and companies piecing together multiple solutions because Congress is owned & impotent.
Hope all of you East-coasters have supplies. It’s not Putin, but another bomb cyclone headed your way.
When the Kushners can’t repay that $500 mil in loans, who is gonna pay? Too big to fail?
BiD… The coast is going to get the brunt of it up here… Old Sea Hag will get hammered. Here in NH we are expecting a bit of wind, rain, and some snow… but nothing we can’t handle.
Russian model threatening to spill info on Trumpsky is US doesn’t help her get out of jail in Thailand. Could this be the dossier hotel pee-pee-er?
she must have a death wish
Perverse. Trump so low he’s put Jeff Sessions on the high road. The guy who lied about Russian contacts is now a champion of Democracy?
sounds like another diversion… on par with Vlad’s missile announcement. also sounds like it might be a pr stunt to promote new movie red sparrow. who knows nowadays what’s real and what’s not
Russian model in Thai jail promises to spill Trump secrets
altho’ it is plausible given the navalny connection.
from that cnn link above:
Rybka has come under the spotlight in recent weeks after the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny published an investigation earlier this month on his anti-corruption foundation website into her connections with some of Russia’s richest and most powerful men.
Rybka has described herself as a seductress and has published a “diary” on “how to seduce a billionaire.” In the investigation, Navalny published video from Rybka’s Instagram account showing an August 2016 yacht trip with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko.
Navalny said the two men could be heard in the video discussing Russia’s poor relationship with the United States. Navalny suggested Deripaska and Prikhodko may have served as a link between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. CNN has repeatedly tried to contact Prikhodko for comment but has received no response.
Deripaska previously worked with President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort….
I was fortunate enough to see Roger Miller in San Jose when he was on tour in the late 60s and then bumped into him a little over a decade later. Lost too soon and still missed.
Big River was one of the musicals I saw while doing time in DC at the Chamber of Commerce. Since it was in 1986, it must have been on first tour during
its Tony winning run on Broadway.
Looks like the stock market is really “happy” with SFB’s latest ploy to put tariffs on aluminum and steel…
Dow plummets more than 500 points after Trump announces tariffs…
to be fair… the Dow did recover some from it’s low before the ending bell… but this ain’t good new for all those republicans touting how great the economy is doing…
White House preparing for exit of national security advisor HR McMaster: NBC News
National security advisor H.R. McMaster could leave the White House as early as next month, which would mark only the latest in a series of Trump administration departures, NBC News reported.
up dated story on mcmasters excerpt
A leading candidate to become President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser is the auto industry executive Stephen Biegun, according to the officials.
Biegun, who currently serves as vice president of international governmental affairs for the Ford Motor Company, is no stranger to the White House. He served on the National Security Council staff from 2001 to 2003, including as a senior staffer for then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Rice introduced Biegun to Mattis, recommending him for a position in the administration, according to a close associate of Rice. After Mattis met with Biegun at a think tank event he was convinced Biegun would be a good fit for the national security adviser role, the associate said.
renee, not just stock market boys unhappy with emperor twit’s new edict
GOP senators blast Trump’s tariffs announcement
1.- remove protections from designated national parks
2.- impose tariffs on foreign steel
3.- cut down all the trees in Isengard
4.- build orc army for Sauron
Not all who wander the halls of the West Wing are lost? Yes, the are, in this administration.
Thoughts while guessing what in the yard will end up in the Chesapeake Bay tonight or tomorrow. Kushie would not be under the bus looking at tire tread unless SFB allowed it. My guess is that he is being sacrificed for being stupid enough to sell access during the last couple of years. And, he is not blood. Daughter, who SFB would rape if she were not his daughter, is seen as a deflection. Put her out front and the salivating media ignores the orange moron.
Hope was shoved out the door. No other way to see why she would leave. Lie, cheat or steal and SFB is okay, but tell the truth and you are gone.
The idiot has no clue about anything. Rebuild the American aluminum industry? Where and with what? Rebuild the steel industry, where and with what? The infrastructure for those were build by robber barons in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Although a few of those types still exist, there is no place for these industries. Long gone. Long replaced with technology.
I have the image of SFB making his hired help pretend to be choo-choo trains hauling coal and iron ore to the furnaces in Pittsburgh. Of course all of that is imaginary.
patD – It may very well be a lie & a diversion.. but it was also a message to Donny. Why Florida? Not DC; not directly threatening our govt. Not NYC; Trump’s home, but a very touchy target since 9/11. Nope, he chose FLA; Trump’s weekend home, Mar-a-Lago. No subtlety with Put-ey.
BB – spot on. I worked in the steel industry in the 70s and my dad worked in it all his life. He literally went from coal and gas fired blast furnaces and open hearths to computer controlled electric furnaces – and that journey was from the late 40s to the late 70s. He probably wouldn’t be able to identify that he was in a steel mill today. There’s plenty of riverside real estate for the locations of the mills, but they would have to be built from the ground up, IOW, no damn way they could be built and compete in the world steel market.
Pogo – Detroit girl here. Grew up Ford. Grandfather worked River Rouge UAW before AFofL,CIO, Mother was a Teamster, Father planned and ordered parts, like screws and other parts (think of ordering a hundred millions screws). Wife’s father was Cleveland plant security. Brother-in-law, AFofL,CIO, worked GM Cleveland Engine plant.
The days of those years are long gone. Engines are no longer steel. They are composites. A 1960 six cylinder engine block was so heavy you needed hoist to pick it up. A 2001 six cylinder engine block weighed less than ninety pounds.
The important thing is that SFB is living in a long ago era. He, in his lost in space brain, is trying to recreate something that no longer exists.
Well, well, well. It looks like the IC is getting tired of the whole grifter clan. So little daughter is getting the treatment, leaks where there were none before.
Watching ATMOS Energy presser blowing smoke. It took the death of a little girl to get the NTSB involved, cuz the guy who got burned when his stove flared & the house with a smaller explosion did nothing.
Now, 2,800 homes (including 4 homes of my friends) have no gas for the month while they finally replace gas lines.
Hotel vouchers for those who don’t want to live without gas is the least they could do…so of course, that’s what they are doing. The least.
Well, hope folks can find hotels, cuz how can you even take a shower or stay warm at night if you use gas?
Now, they are blaming it in heavy rain, not the fact that the natural gas grid is from the 1950s in that area.
They aren’t big, fancy houses; they are small, cute, bungalos and the city would probably love it if folks wanted to sell to get out of the area. Location-wise, it is very desirable. Bigger houses, more property tax.
It’s time to put fossil fuels to rest. It’s too bad Elon Musk couldn’t swoop in and replace the grid with alternative energy sources.
Steel. We have already ‘made’ steel all over the place from automotive waste, as well as other industrial waste, to infrastructure that has been dismantled; you name it. We have so much waste that China doesn’t want it anymore. This waste requires no blast furnaces. It needs reprocessing into stuff we can use for the the rebuilding of our country. I think Trump may have unwittingly done us a favor.
Flatus, the next level of the story of dad’s journey was that he went from pig iron from iron ore in the blast furnaces and steel from pig iron in the open hearths to steel from scrap in the electric furnaces.
Pogo
My great-grandfather was a mason in the Cleveland blast furnaces. He was the first one in after a burn–he died at a young age. In any case, he designed a proprietary process that made the process of replacing the firebrick faster and less brutal on those doing it.
It’s the last stage of your dad’s work that I’ve seen done in mobile settings traveling with contractors in the South. Nothing like what we saw as youngsters. Can’t we do those on a semi-regional scale? This one doing re-bars, that one doing I-beams, etc. Why do we need the Chinese to do that?
Here we go. The red mafia may be threatening Rick Gates. Now it’s gonna get dirty and this is gonna be deeper & wider than anyone thought.
By the way, what happened to yesterday’s story about folks st some military facility bring sickened by a suspicious substance in an envelope? Not a peep today.
Flatus, that last plant was where I worked on the summer guy labor crew. One of my favorite departments was the rail yard. It was a diverse workplace. Everything from scrap chopping to crane following to to working on the locomotive hooking and unhooking carloads of scrap. The plant made flat bars, channel, rebar, angle iron and mini I beams. Everything from low carbon rebar to specialty angle iron. Dad was an engineer turned assistant plant manager. He was a company man a lot of the guys didn’t like. A few of them called me Little LV, which was not a compliment.
BiD, thanks for telling us about this. most likely not the only one to worry from the wh ex-gang about being a target.
Washington (CNN)Former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday afternoon that he and his wife believe it’s “not prudent” for them to take their four children on a trip to Boston, after feeling threatened by an online commenter who invoked the Russian mafia.
A Boston Globe report on Gates’ scheduled trip, planned for next week and approved by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, “generated comments on the internet, some of which were of a threatening character,” Gates’ attorney said in a court filing.
Following his guilty plea and agreement to cooperate in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation last Friday, Gates had asked to take his family to Boston for spring break to learn about the Revolutionary War.
He is only allowed outside of the Washington, DC, and Richmond, Virginia, areas, where his lawyers are based and where he lives, with special permission from the judge.
Gates’ attorney said Thursday that Gates hoped for permission to travel with a different itinerary. The judge approved. The filing did not say when or where the requested trip would take place.
BiD, here’s an excerpt from abc news on that ft meyer incident:
Three Marines were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment with non-life threatening conditions. They were treated and released from the hospital late Tuesday night, according to a press release from Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall.
The eight others, who had symptoms ranging from itching to nasal irritation, were being assessed, a Marine official told ABC News.
Field tests on the suspicious material found inside the envelope came back negative for any known substance, a law enforcement official told ABC News. The envelope and the substance were taken to the FBI’s lab at Quantico for further testing.
PatD – Thanks. I find it odd when big stories quickly disappear.