monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

So children have some rights, if they can afford to play a round in the court system?

I'm not your doormat either, dickhead.

Keep making BS claims on this thread, and expect more attention.

One of the great disconnects of our history is how a nation birthed on the premise that all men are created equal could enshrine an entire race of people as three-fifths of a human being. We tried to fix that, through our bloodiest war and a series of amendments that followed.

Not so with guns. The Second Amendment, as applied in the last 30 years or so, has become so perverted, twisted and misused that you have to see it now as the second original sin in the founding of this country, after slavery.

It wasn’t meant to be the instrument for the worst kind of American exceptionalism — setting up the United States as the most violent of developed nations. But it is now. The more we stand out for random mass killings daily, the more the leading cause becomes clear: the warped interpretation of the freedom to own lethal weaponry.

The amendment itself is not the problem. Yes, it’s vague, poorly worded, lacking nuance. But the intent is clear with the opening clause: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”

The purpose is security — against foreign invaders and domestic insurrectionists. President George Washington relied on a well-regulated militia from three states to put down the Tea Partyers of his day, the tax-evading lawbreakers in the Whiskey Rebellion.

At the time, the typical firearms were single-loading muskets and flintlock pistols. At most, a shooter could fire off three rounds per minute, at a maximum accuracy range of about 50 yards.

Compare that with the carnage unleashed by the gunman in Las Vegas, Stephen Paddock. Among the 23 guns he hauled into the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino were at least a dozen that he had apparently modified into rapid-fire weapons of mass murder.

Spraying at people below him, Paddock unleashed about 90 rounds per 10 seconds and could mow down his targets — human beings — almost a quarter-mile away. He was able to convert semiautomatic AR-15s into something very close to machine guns.

All of his weapons were legal but should not be by any rational reading of the Second Amendment. Did the founders really intend to empower crazy people to kill children at school or worshipers in a church? If they did, then we should all have the right to portable nukes — for that is the logical conclusion of such an argument.

No, the Second Amendment became a cancer because lawmakers stopped making laws to match the technological advances of weaponry. They did it to appease a lobby of gunmakers. And that cowering to a single special interest shows how the cancer has spread to the democracy itself, making it nearly impossible for majority will to be exercised.
A majority of Americans — indeed, a majority of gun owners — want laws to keep lunatics and terrorists from committing mass homicide. But what is the response of our elected officials? I’ll let President Trump explain. As he told the N.R.A. after the election, “You came through big for me, and I am going to come through for you.”

The disgraced former cable pundit Bill O’Reilly said all the recent carnage is “the price of freedom.” But it’s not the price of freedom in Canada or Japan or England. It’s the price of freedom only in the United States, where mass killings have surged. In every other free country, sanity has prevailed.

And what about that “well regulated militia” part of the amendment? It’s overlooked in favor of the second clause, about the right of people to firearms. Nearly half the states have no requirements, before buying a gun, for any kind of training in handling a firearm.

As I said, it’s only in the last 30 years or so that this amendment has metastasized. President Roosevelt signed the National Firearms Act of 1934, restricting sales of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns — the weapons of choice for violent gangsters.

But now we have more regulations on paint, toys and the pull date of milk than on sophisticated weapons. The Supreme Court, though it ruled 5-4 in the 2008 Heller case that an individual has the right to own a gun unconnected to service in a militia, has left the door open to sensible regulation.

“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” the court wrote in that case. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever for whatever purpose.”

It’s a no-brainer to pass a law designed to keep people from turning their AKs into machine guns with the so-called bump stocks. But it was also a no-brainer to restrict people on terrorism watch lists from buying guns, as was proposed after the Orlando slaughter of 49 people last year. It failed. A healthy democracy, reflecting the outrage of its citizens and the common-sense will of the majority, would have done right by the Orlando victims in a heartbeat.

But we’re no longer a healthy democracy, thanks to the cancer that has grown out of the Constitution.

Trump Nominates a Coal Lobbyist to Be No. 2 at E.P.A.

In the aftermath of the summer’s deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, conspiracy theorists came out in force. It took less than a day for familiar faces such as Alex Jones of Infowars to begin peddling baseless claims that the entire thing was a left-wing plot to stoke racial violence and discredit President Trump.

Their allegations ran the gamut: The rally organizer was a “deep state” operative from Occupy Wall Street. Leftist protesters had dressed up in Nazi regalia. Billionaire investor George Soros had orchestrated the whole thing.

It was all swiftly debunked by stories in PolitiFact, Snopes, Politico and elsewhere.

But Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) still seems swayed by the “false flag” theory of the white supremacist violence.

In an interview with Vice News that aired Thursday night, Gosar suggested that the rally was “created by the left” and carried out by an “Obama sympathizer.”

The congressman also brought up a thoroughly-refuted claim that Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who survived Nazi occupation during World War II, had collaborated with the Third Reich, prompting a strongly-worded condemnation from a Soros spokeswoman.

The Second Amendment, as applied in the last 30 years or so, has become so perverted, twisted and misused that you have to see it now as the second original sin in the founding of this country, after slavery.

In the aftermath of two recent acts of gun violence, the House GOP caucus has been inspired not to pursue gun control legislation that could prevent future mass shootings, but instead to crack down on reproductive rights.

“As we mourn the lives lost in Las Vegas this week, and welcome Whip Scalise back to Capitol Hill, we are reminded just how precious life is,” the GOP caucus writes in a blog post about new anti-abortion legislation approved by the House on Tuesday. “This message weighed heavily on the hearts of House Republicans as we spoke of the potential of life — especially lives cut short through abortion.”

“Dude---we r in a global existentialist war where our enemy EXISTS in social media and u r jerking yourself off w/ marginalia!!!! U should be OWNING this conversation because u r everything they hate!!! Drop your toys, pick up your tools and go help save western civilization.”

“Message received,” Yiannopoulos wrote back. “I will do a Week of Islam next week.”

“U don’t need that,” Bannon responded. “Just get in the fight---ur Social Media and they have made it a powerful weapon of war. … There is no war correspondent in the west yet dude and u can own it and be remember for 3 generations--or sit around wasting your God-given talents jerking off to your fan base.”

Koch Group Pours Millions Into Ads Pressuring Democrats to Support Tax Reform

Every sitting president gets a sneak peek at U.S. job numbers the day before the official report is released. It’s just a perk of the job. So when Donald Trump started tweeting yesterday about how impressed he was with the stock market, he seemed to be sending a subtle signal: the job numbers probably weren’t great.
As it turns out, they were worse than anyone expected. While projections showed the U.S. economy adding about 80,000 jobs in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that the economy actually lost 33,000 jobs in September.

It’s important to emphasize that these totals were heavily affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which depressed hiring. That said, the new job numbers still fell short of low expectations. What’s more, the combined job totals from July and August were revised down, and that can’t be attributed to hurricanes.

President Donald Trump, weighing in on the hotly contested race for governor of Virginia, said Thursday night that the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, was “fighting” for violent street gangs.

In a tweet, Trump accused Northam of “fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities.” Trump added an endorsement for the GOP candidate: “Vote Ed Gillespie!”

Adam Schiff‏Verified account @RepAdamSchiff 21h21 hours ago
At urging of @NRA, Congress gave the gun industry an immunity from liability no other product enjoys. The bill I’m introducing repeals that:

Marshall Cohen‏Verified account @Marshall_Cohen 11h11 hours ago
More Marshall Cohen Retweeted Mark Berman
CNN has confirmed: FEMA just abruptly deleted the webpage that told the American people that 95% of Puerto Ricans still don't have power.