monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I've heard that the NRA has given permission for this bill to be passed.

After Florida School Shooting, Russian ‘Bot’ Army Pounced

...“This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this,” said Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of New Knowledge, a company that tracks online disinformation campaigns. “The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically.”

...since the election, the Russian-linked bots have rallied around other divisive issues, often ones that President Trump has tweeted about. They promoted Twitter hashtags like #boycottnfl, #standforouranthem and #takeaknee after some National Football League players started kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.

...The automated Twitter accounts helped popularize the #releasethememo hashtag...

The mushrooming corruption scandal plaguing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel turned in a surprising new direction on Tuesday, with an allegation that one of his closest advisers had sought to bribe a judge into dropping a criminal investigation involving the prime minister’s wife.

At the same time, the Israeli police said they had arrested several of Mr. Netanyahu’s friends and confidants, as well as top executives of Bezeq, the country’s biggest telecommunications company, in a widening inquiry into whether Mr. Netanyahu had traded official favors for favorable news coverage. That inquiry involves suspicions of obstruction of justice, as well as fraud and breach of trust, the police said.

On the other hand, it doesn't follow that nothing can be or should be done [about terrorism], of course. If the US and other nations had not established security systems in airports to prevent another 9/11, we can be certain that trick would have been duplicated.

Bibi is a corrupt, deceitful, racist extremist but he isn't alone in much of that.

5 Ways the Trump Budget Undermines Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Efforts

1. Cuts funding to grant programs that help states get records into the background check system.

2. Cuts funding to programs to improve school safety, climate, and responding to violence.

3. Eliminates funding for safe and healthy students.

4. Eliminates before- and after-school and summer programs for students.

5. Continues restrictions on funding public health research into gun violence

That's true, but what I mean is that there are virtually unlimited ways to commit terrorism, many of which can't be defended against without completely unacceptable changes to our society.

Actually, I'm surprised at the lack of inventiveness of terrorists. I think that's mainly due to most potential ones being mentally disturbed individuals rather than state sponsored and organized as in 9/11.

Dysfunctional Washington refuses to work out its differences to solve problems that matter to Americans.

So say pundits and policy activists, perhaps hoping that diffuse criticism, rather than finger-pointing, will yield a government willing to govern.

But the problem isn’t “Washington.” It isn’t “Congress,” either. The problem is elected officials from a single political party: the GOP...

It’s easy to just chalk all this up to Fox News being Fox News. But Fox News is the main source of news for 19 percent of 2016 voters, including 40 percent of Trump voters. There’s academic evidence that Fox News is more powerful than we ever imagined. It’s a network that allows conspiracy theorists to make hay out of baseless lies. And to top it all off, there is evidence that the hosts see their jobs as advising Trump — talking directly to him — and that Trump sees them as his main information source.

This is why it’s important to keep track of what Fox News is doing. While Russians may have used clever trolling tactics to sow distrust in the American political process, Fox News does this out in the open, and it does it with a megaphone every single night, directly into the living rooms and the minds of millions and millions of Americans.

This [so many mentally disturbed people/terrorists] is interesting. And we can bet that the political/intel entities responsible for trying to stop such attacks has (or really wants to have) a pretty good handle on why this is so.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has joined a growing far-right smear campaign against the students who survived last week’s massacre in a Parkland, Florida high school.

Since the shooting, which killed 17 people, the students have become outspoken advocates for gun control to prevent future acts of violence.

Kingston attacked the students as mere stooges for “left-wing groups who have an agenda” during an appearance on CNN Tuesday morning. Kingston added he believed George Soros was actually orchestrating the students’ activism.

"Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing the members of the American public for suckers."

Mitt Romney
@MittRomney
If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement
11:13 AM - Mar 3, 2016

Mitt Romney
@MittRomney
Thank you Mr. President for the support. I hope that over the course of the campaign I also earn the support and endorsement of the people of Utah.
6:56 PM - Feb 19, 2018