Amy Siskind

The Mueller probe made news this week with new indictments, and the probe’s fourth and fifth guilty pleas. A comparison of public knowledge on where the probe was headed was made to the “tip of the iceberg,” as charges against a previously unknown Dutch man whose father-in-law is a Russian oligarch came Tuesday. Trump’s White House continues its high-drama chaos with continuing threats of firings and actual resignations, and amid controversy over access to highly classified materials.
Week 67 hi-lites:

1. On Saturday, at the Munich Security Conference, US lawmakers from both parties and top national security officials told Europe’s foreign policy elite to ignore Trump’s tweets, Trump’s main mode of communication.

11. Trump tweeted that the FBI missed “signals” sent out about the school shooting because the agency was too focused on Russian collusion, drawing widespread condemnation, including from survivors on Twitter.

12. Asked about Trump, Emma Gonzalez, a Parkland student who is helping organize gun-control marches in DC and other cities on March 24 said, “the best thing for us to do is ignore him,” calling his words “disgraceful.”

15. On Monday, WAPO reported according to a White House official, after the flurry of negative news to hit the regime in the last week, the school shooting which killed 17 was viewed as a “a distraction or a reprieve.”

18. Politico reported the Trump regime is trimming language on women’s reproductive rights and discrimination from the soon-to-be-released State Department annual report on global human rights.

19. By order of the regime, passages which deal with women’s access to contraceptives and abortion will be removed, and a broader section which chronicles racial, ethnic and sexual discrimination will be pared down.

20. The State Department report is relied on by a range of people, from U.S. lawmakers to political activists. Officials say these late, unusual revisions reflect Trump regime orders while many key roles remain unstaffed.

75. BuzzFeed reported Mueller’s team has now identified more than $40 million in “suspicious” financial transactions to and from companies controlled by Manafort. Mueller’s October indicted listed just $18 million.

82. Manafort and Gates received large amounts of money for their work in Ukraine from 2006–2015 which they laundered by bringing it into the US as corporate loans, also avoiding reporting the money as income.

83. When the money dried up, Manafort and Gates lied to lenders about their finances, and set up a real estate scheme under which they were able to obtain millions in financing in 2015 and 2016.

84. Lawfare reported while there are no allegations about the Trump campaign directly, the indictment alleges bank fraud between 2015 and 2017 during which Manafort and Gates were both involved with Trump.

Silence

Lemme see if I've got this straight. The community - students, cops, school admin etc; the community, following protocol and due process, exerted its collective authority over a few individuals and suddenly, there were no kids shot to pieces at school.

I'll make a radical assumption and say most of the cops in Leonardtown are all for their 2A rights. And yet, there's the chief talking pretty proud about taking those guns away from citizens - when there's good reason for doing it.

It's not simple, because it's never simple, but:

• If there are no cars, nobody dies in a car crash.
• If there are no airplanes, nobody dies in an airplane crash.
• If there are no 10 story buildings, nobody dies falling 10 stories to the sidewalk.

And nobody has ever died from being hit with a hand-thrown AR15 bullet.

So get fuckin' real, ammosexuals.

BTW, makes me wonder a little why the Press Poodles chose not to point this one up.

Refresher

Good guys get killed too - even the guys with the guns. And sometimes they get killed because they're the ones with the guns.

Yeesh

Parkland survivor Cameron Kasky has been speaking out, expressing his opinion on how we need to get something done - maybe something as radical as gun safety laws - to prevent mass shootings.

Cameron Kasky has been getting death threats from NRA supporters.

Think Progress:

Kasky isn’t the only teenager getting death threats for their activism against the NRA. David Hogg, also 17, has fiercely advocated on television for improved gun control laws in the wake of the mass shooting which left seventeen of his classmates and teachers dead. Over the last week, he has been a central target for conspiracy theorists believing that he is in fact not a student but a “crisis actor”. One video claiming Hogg was an actor got more than 200,000 views and was the top trending video on YouTube before it was taken down.
Let all that soak in for a minute.

Just fuckin' yeesh.

Today's Face Palm

45* says Gun-Free Zones are dumb things and only poopy-head libruls think they're OK.

ABC News:
Donald Trump spoke in favor of gun rights at the National Rifle Association convention today, but security and staff at several of his prized hotels and golf courses told ABC News that guests are not allowed to carry guns there.

The Trump Organization, meanwhile, claims that’s not true.

“We strongly believe in the 2nd Amendmentand are against gun free zones. While laws vary substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, we allow security personnel and other licensed individuals the ability to carry a firearm in an effort to protect themselves, our guests, associates and the general public,” a spokesperson told ABC News by email.

A few Trump properties where guests are not allowed guns:

Trump National Doral = (305) 592-2000
Trump National Jupiter GC = (561) 691-8700
Trump International GC = (561) 682-0700
Trump International hotel - Las Vegas = (702) 982-0000
Trump Mar-a-Lago = 561-832-2600.

Today's Tweet

I keep insisting "conservatives aren't all that stoopid." Cuz nobody can be that fucking stoopid.  And they keep proving me wrong.

Here’s what happens when nothing but white guys write history books. pic.twitter.com/ywbvsVwXtV

— shauna (@goldengateblond) February 25, 2018

 

What We're Aiming At

18 U.S. Code § 201 - Bribery of public officials and witnesses

(a) For the purpose of this section -

(1) the term “public official” means Member of Congress, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner, either before or after such official has qualified, or an officer or employee or person acting for or on behalf of the United States, or any department, agency or branch of Government thereof, including the District of Columbia, in any official function, under or by authority of any such department, agency, or branch of Government, or a juror;

(2) the term “person who has been selected to be a public official” means any person who has been nominated or appointed to be a public official, or has been officially informed that such person will be so nominated or appointed...

Margaret Carlson, writing in The Daily Beast:

It’s all well and good for Paul Manafort to spend 15 years in prison for money laundering, and Rick Gates to plead guilty to cut a deal, and Alex Van Der Zwaan to miss the birth of his first child because he lied to the FBI.

But it would be an injustice if, once again, those around the president suffer and he is left unscathed. He was the beneficiary of the highly questionable Russian contacts his campaign made and desperately tried to keep secret leading up to the 2016 election, which speaks of collusion and much worse. Trump couldn’t have chosen two top advisers with more contacts with the Kremlin than campaign manager Manafort and national security adviser Michael Flynn. He could hardly have praised Russia President Valdimir Putin more. And he could have hardly benefitted more from Russian interference than to win.

- and -

...It is Title 18 United States Code, section 201 that specifically makes it a crime for a public official to take “anything of value,” a bribe, in exchange for government action, which can be prospective.

Note that above I wrote “public official.” That’s because the law is generally wielded against public officials. Problem: Mueller is investigating conduct before Trump became one. Enter Waxman. He points out that in 1962, Congress extended the bribery law to cover activity prior to the assumption of office. It did so, he says, in order to close a “loophole” afforded those “who assume public office under a corrupt commitment.” The upshot? Trump became covered by 18 USC not when he was sworn in but as of July 21, 2016 when he became his party’s nominee in Cleveland, Ohio.

And one last tasty little tidbit - It could be a coincidence, but Veselnitskaya, the Kremlin lawyer who was at the Trump Tower meeting, had long been fighting a money laundering case in New York and suddenly won a favorable settlement after Trump’s election.

What It Did

The 1994 moratorium on assault rifles did what it was intended to do - it drove down the  numbers of dead Americans due to mass shooting incidents.

WaPo, Christopher Ingraham:

Critics of bans on assault weapons, however, say they do little to save lives. The NRA correctly points out that assault weapons are used only in a tiny fraction of gun crimes. The gun rights group also notes that a federally funded study of the previous assault weapons ban, which was in place from 1994 to 2004, concluded that “the ban’s impact on gun violence is likely to be small at best, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” Similar points have been made in arguments against a new ban in publications running the ideological gamut from Breitbart to the New York Times to HuffPost.

But the 1994 assault weapons ban was never intended to be a comprehensive fix for “gun violence” writ large. Its purpose, according to gun violence experts and the lawmakers who wrote the bill, was to reduce the frequency and lethality of mass shootings like the ones in Parkland, Sandy Hook and elsewhere. And on that front, the data shows it had a significant impact.

In the last few days, I've had people tell me (people I've known for a long time) - they've told me I'm lying to them when I present facts about things. It's almost like they've decided the numbers themselves don't even exist anymore, much less the facts those numbers illustrate.

I had one guy tell me I was lying when I pointed out that congress, in the mid 1990s, had cut the funding for CDC to study gun violence as a public health issue (they did it in a sneaky way, but they did it), and they added an amendment to a spending bill instructing CDC not to "advocate or promote gun control". So, of course, any study where the authors conclude that their findings suggest gun control measures might be appropriate is deemed in violation of that "non-advocacy" rule.

You may also have heard a while back all the noise about family docs and ER clinicians being told to shut up and stop asking patients about guns in the home.

I pointed to all of that when discussing the gun issue on several sites, and got nowhere.  I went back and dug up some of the articles available in the archives, and showed them to my debate opponents, who dismissed them out of hand simply because they were Washington Post, and so they couldn't be trusted.

As usual, this gets worse before it gets better.

Today's Randy

Randy Rainbow

Today's Pix

(click to embiggen)

Well And Truly Fucked

Wanna know how fucked up this joint is?  How well and truly fucked we are?

WaPo, Travis Anders:

The Florida House of Representatives was in session on Tuesday considering several issues. These included a motion to debate a bill banning the sale of assault weapons in the aftermath of the mass shooting that killed 17 people last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and a resolution declaring pornography a public health risk.

The House chose not to consider the gun-control bill.

It later passed the resolution claiming that porn is dangerous.

And this, from the Tamba Bay Times, Jeffrey Solocheck:

With the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting still looming large, its students in the Capitol to lobby for gun controls, the Florida House overwhelmingly passed a measure Wednesday its sponsor said aimed at bringing "light" to the schools.

The bill (HB 839) would require all public schools to post the state motto, "In God We Trust," in a "conspicuous place."

Today's Tweet

If slagging For-Profit Christians makes me a bad guy, then I wear that badge proudly.

One of the shittier little things that comes into my shitty little brain on occasion:

The good news is Billy Graham died.
The bad news is Franklin Graham didn’t.

I know - I’m a very bad person.

— Mike Roberts (@eVilleMike) February 22, 2018

 

I Told Ya

45* is a shitty salesman. 

Today, he met with "kids" who're demanding to know what he intends to do to keep them from being slaughtered when they go back to school.

Every good salesman knows, eventually, he'll be called in so the clients can spend an hour or so yelling at him.

They yell about how the thing doesn't work the way they expected it to work.
They yell about how they weren't trained properly to use the thing.
They yell about how the price wasn't anywhere near what they thought it would be.
They yell about how you're too hard to get on the phone.
They yell about how they can't negotiate the phone menu when they call the help line.
They yell.
And they yell.
And they yell.

Well tough shit, cupcake. That's part of the gig. You're gettin' paid, so suck it up and be a man about it.

45* has no fucking clue what he's supposed to do in this perfectly understandable and predictable situation because 45* is a shitty salesman.

And it showed today - again. Try as he might, he was uncomfortable; he was dancing too hard; and it showed.

Here's the thing - ya gotta shut up and listen.

You shit-can the usual script, you shut your flap, and you fucking listen.

This is what you don't do:

You don't have your staff jot down a few notes to help you act like you have any clue about what people are going thru, and to pretend you give one empty fuck about what's happened to them.

Fuck this guy. Federal prison and hard labor is an extended vacation at Sandals compared with what should happen to this ass hat.

Today's Tweet

Just not quite quick enough - as usual.

I just missed seeing a vampire this morning 🧛‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/6cUa7dNTEa

— Matt (@blucanary) February 17, 2018

 

A Top 10

Ten lies about guns that are intended to fog up the debate.

Forbes, Chris Ladd:

Lie #1: There is no connection between mass gun ownership and gun deaths.
It seems obvious that a country flooded with guns will have higher rates of gun deaths than countries with few of these weapons. Why are land mines and hand-grenades forbidden in the so-called “Land of the Free,” despite their obvious value in home defense? Because everyone understands that placing these killing machines in circulation would get a lot of people killed. So why don’t we recognize the same problem with guns?

Lie #2: We don’t need stronger gun regulation because gun violence is declining.
This lie is fun because of the way it depends on careful framing. Gun violence, defined as crimes committed with guns, has been declining for decades. That makes sense, since crime in general has been declining for decades.

Lie #3: We didn’t have this problem “in my day” because people loved Jesus and didn’t play violent video games.
According to Franklin Graham, gun violence happens because Americans “turned our backs on God.” His “kids these days” explanation of gun carnage is a favorite of drunk uncles in MAGA caps all over the country. Though these claims frequently sour Thanksgiving dinners, they lack empirical support.

Lie #4: The Second Amendment blocks gun regulation.
Americans happily place curbs on our rights to religious freedom, blocking people from committing acts of violence, fraud or abuse in the name of faith.

Lie #5: The solution to gun violence is more gun ownership.
This lie would be too bizarre to earn column space, but politicians are actually using it build policy, putting guns in places like schools, churches and bars. There is no empirical basis for the claim, but it is sometimes accompanied by one misleading data point.

Lie #6: Chicago has tight gun restrictions and mass gun violence. Ergo, gun laws don’t work.
Chicago’s seemingly intractable problem with gun violence is one of America’s fondest fascinations. It’s also a myth. Chicago has more gun murders than other large cities like New York and Los Angeles, thanks mostly to its long, unsecured border with North Alabamastan (sometimes called Indiana). However, Chicago’s murder rate still lags far behind the nation’s leaders, many of which are in red states with loose gun restrictions.

Lie #7: We should enforce existing gun laws before imposing new ones.
Calls for more determined enforcement of existing gun laws are the most darkly cynical lie in the debate over guns. Our gun laws are carefully crafted to be unenforceable.

Lie #8: We need guns to protect ourselves from the government.
Until 2008, no federal court had ever recognized an individual constitutional right to own a firearm. If anyone imagined that the Constitution protected a right to use violence to overthrow the government, that idea was put to rest in 1794, when George Washington marched an army across Pennsylvania to squash citizens’ “Second Amendment remedies.”

Lie #9: No legislation can curb gun deaths in the US.
Americans now have more guns in circulation than citizens. No credible regulatory scheme, no matter how smart or ambitious, is likely to bring the rate of gun deaths in America in line with global standards anytime soon. Whatever we achieve politically in the near term can only be a down-payment on a better world for our children.

Lie #10: Americans oppose tighter gun regulation.
When presented with concrete proposals to regulate guns, majorities of Americans almost always favor them. That support is so universal that it spreads across partisan lines. In fact, a ballot proposal on gun control passed in Nevada of all places. More than 90% of gun owners support universal background checks. A majority of Republicans support a national gun registry.