Apr 9, 2018

The Crux Of It All - Maybe


Arn Pearson, Salon:

Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s embattled EPA administrator, finds himself under attack this week after news broke that he had rented a Washington townhouse at below-market rates from the wife of a lobbyist who represents major fossil fuel companies. That was not the first time Pruitt has exercised questionable judgment around a property transaction, according to documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit watchdog group.

In 2011, Pruitt and his wife, Margaret, bought a property in Tulsa, Oklahoma, just days before a court ruled that it had been fraudulently transferred by a Las Vegas developer who was on the hook for a $3.6 million loan default. Pruitt, who was then Oklahoma attorney general, apparently flipped the property for a $70,000 profit four months later, selling it to a dummy corporation set up by a major campaign contributor, Kevin Hern.


Money laundering seems to be the general theme. And not just for the Trump-Russia thing, but for a lot of shit that's been going on just under the surface in this little game of Fuck-Your-Buddy. It goes a long way to explain a few things about how some of these guys finance their campaigns, and it could be all the explanation we need for why so many Congress Critters are so reluctant to call any of it out, which would then explain why they're not jumping up and down trying to move on impeachment - there's a shitload of tracks to cover first.

If everybody's guilty, then nobody can blame anybody; so nobody can be held accountable.

Apr 8, 2018

Today's Pix

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Today's Tweet



The consensus (according to my very cursory cherry-picking of the replies) is that the cause of the fire was an overheated Paper Shredder - and that the reason one man died is that 45* lobbied against the requirement of - and refused to install - sprinklers in the residential parts of the building.

 

Apr 6, 2018

Not Your Grandma's Needlework

I may have found myself a new hobby.














 




Today's Pix

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Stopping A Bad Guy


I haven't come up with the clever turnaround phrase - The good guy is the one who keeps the bad guy away from the gun(?)

I dunno, but if the bad guy doesn't have the gun, then the bad guy doesn't pull the shit.

Gun violence has something to do with guns - get it?

Sarah Burris, Raw Story

Police were able to thwart another potential mass shooting, this time the attack was aimed at Syracuse University. It’s all thanks to one gun shop owner who denied the possible shooter an AR-15, despite having all the legal rights to purchase one.

Twenty-two year old student Xiaoteng Zhan was deported to China by federal agents March 20, according to Syracuse.com. He had stockpiled a gun, ammunition and accessories in his off-campus apartment.

- and -

Police were able to arrest Zhan prior to carrying out the threat. They reportedly worked with a gun shop in New York’s Madison County to track the potential shooter on spring break in Mexico. The gun shop reported that Zhan wanted to purchase an AR-15, a weapon that has been used by mass shooters in previous incidents.

- and -

Zhan should have been able to purchase the weapons legally, but the shop owner refused. The owner then followed Zhan to his car and wrote down his license plate number. Police learned he went to Dick’s Sporting Goods asking about assault rifle. He was denied there as well.

I can't dismiss the probability that the gun dealers were acting on an impulse based in prejudice against "the other", but if there's a way to set that aside for a minute, I'm left with an impression that there are gun-friendly businesses out there trying to do something about our gun problem.

Way to go, guys.