General News You Want to Talk About

New York Times wrote:
How to Reduce Shootings

February 15, 2018

Opinion

Some of you will protest (as President Trump did the last time) that it’s too soon to talk about guns, or that it is disrespectful to the dead to use such a tragedy to score political points. Yet more Americans have died from gun violence, including suicides, since 1970 (about 1.4 million) than in all the wars in American history going back to the Revolutionary War (about 1.3 million). And it’s not just gang members: In a typical year, more preschoolers are shot dead in America (about 75) than police officers are.

Vox wrote:
Last February, Trump signed a bill making it easier for people with mental illness to buy guns

Feb. 15, 2018

It did not attract a ton of attention at the time (nothing does these days) but about a year ago on February 28, 2017, Congress passed and Donald Trump signed a law revoking an Obama-era regulatory initiative that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy a gun.

Yet despite this effort to roll back even a very modest effort to restrain the ability of seriously incapacitated people from obtaining deadly weapons, this morning Trump tweeted that there were “so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed,” implying that someone should have done something to report him.

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018

But it’s Trump’s party — and Trump himself — who have consistently prevented the federal government from doing anything about this kind of situation.

[. . . ]

Specifically, what Obama did was order to Social Security Administration to take the list of people who were deemed so severely mentally ill that they are unfit to handle their own disability benefits and forward it to the FBI. The FBI was then supposed to incorporate that list in the background checks used to disqualify people from gun ownership.

New York Magazine wrote:
How Republicans Have Been Making Gun Laws Worse Under Trump

February 15, 2018

In the past year Democrats have introduced more than 30 pieces of legislation aimed at combatting gun violence, and only four have had GOP sponsors, according to the Washington Post.

. . . Since President Trump took office, he and other Republicans have launched several efforts to loosen gun-control laws. There are also a handful of GOP lawmakers who expressed interest in fixing the gaps in existing laws that appeared to play a role in recent mass shootings — yet so far, nothing has come of those efforts. Here’s what Washington has been up to.

Trump Blocked a Rule That made It Harder for the Mentally Ill to Obtain Guns

In December 2016, the Obama administration finalized a rule that would have added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and deemed unfit to handle their own finances to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The rule was written in response to the massacre in Newtown and the Obama administration predicted it would have added 75,000 people to the national database.

President Trump signed the measure [that repealed Obama's regulation (which had made it harder for people with mental illness from buying a gun)] into law in February 2017, with no public signing ceremony. Since then Trump has continued to say mass shootings are a “mental-health problem,” not a gun problem.

Trump Made It Easier for "Fugitives" to Buy Guns

The 1993 Brady Act, which mandated federal background checks on gun purchases, says that gun dealers can’t complete the sale if the prospective buyer is a “fugitive from justice” . . .For years the FBI argued that this restriction applied to anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said it only applies to people with outstanding warrants who have fled across state lines to avoid prosecution.

In February 2017, Trump’s Justice Department sided with the ATF and purged about 500,000 people previously labeled “fugitives” from the system [thus permitting these persons to purchase guns].

[. . .]

Republicans Advanced a Bill to Make It Easier to Buy Gun Silencers

[The bill has been delayed because of the shooting involving Congress member Steve Scalise, then delayed again after the Las Vegas shooting.]

[According to Politico, the bill is] expected to pass eventually. The bill would also make it more difficult for the ATF to classify ammunition as “armor piercing,” and ease restrictions on the interstate transportation of weapons.

Congress Discussed Banning Bump Stocks, Has Yet to Pass Anything

After a “bump stock,” which makes a legal semiautomatic firearm function like an illegal automatic weapon, was used in the Las Vegas shooting, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill that would ban the devices. . . However, many GOP lawmakers backed off after the NRA said their legality should be addressed by the ATF.

House Passed Bill Allowing Concealed Carry Acros State Lines

. . . The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act . . .  would allow people [who are] granted a concealed-carry license in their state to conceal a weapon anywhere in the country, overruling other states’ gun laws. That top NRA legislative priority passed by a vote of 231-198 in December, mostly on partisan lines.

[New York Magazine believes this bill will not survive the Senate, because it will require the support of nine Democrats.]

Trump Proposed Cutting Millions of Dollars From the Background-Check System

Trump’s fiscal year 2019 budget, which he rolled out two days before the Florida shooting, calls for reducing funding to the National Criminal Records History Improvement Program and the NICS Act Record Improvement Program, which give states federal grants to improve reporting to the national background-check database.

CNN wrote:  
Mueller indicts 13 Russian nationals over 2016 election interference

February 16, 2018

Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud the United States, the Department of Justice announced Friday.

[. . . ]

"The defendants allegedly conducted what they called information warfare against the United States, with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said.

Mueller had convened a grand jury as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as any possible connections between Russia and Trump campaign associates.

The sweeping indictment describes in detail an unprecedented campaign by Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, affirming the longstanding conclusions of the US intelligence community. It is at odds with President Donald Trump's repeated questioning of those conclusions, which has continued throughout his first year in office. CNN reported this week that Trump is still not convinced that Russia meddled in the election.

[. . . ]

Indictment details

Beginning as early as 2014, the Russian organization Internet Research Agency began operations to interfere with the US political system, including the 2016 elections, according to the indictment.

The defendants [the 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian entities] allegedly posed as US persons, created false US personas and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences, the indictment reads. Two of the Russians also allegedly traveled to the United States in 2014 to gather intelligence for their operations.

[. . . ]

Russians posted "derogatory information about a number of candidates," according to the indictment. They bought ads and communicated with "unwitting" people tied to the Trump campaign and others in order to coordinate political activities.

The indictment mentions a February 2016 memo to [the Russian] Internet Research Agency staff telling them to post political content on US social media sites and "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them)." The reference to Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who challenged Clinton for the Democratic nomination, shows that the Russian government decided early on to oppose Clinton.

[. . . ]

According to the indictment, the Russians created an email address, allforusa@yahoo.com, to purport to be a US person in order to send out press releases in June 2016 for a "March for Trump" rally to New York media outlets.

The defendants allegedly used a Facebook account belonging to a fictitious person named Matt Skiber, posing as an American to contact a real US citizen to act as a recruiter for the rally, even offering money to print posters and buy a megaphone.

The advertisements weren't limited to Trump. They also allegedly purchased ads on Facebook to promote "Support Hillary. Save American Muslims" rally to allege Clinton was supporting Islamic law. They also allegedly bought ads to promote a "Down with Hillary" rally.

The defendants focused on key purple states during the election. The Skiber account allegedly sent a private message to a real Facebook account, "Florida for Trump," to offer support. They also allegedly used a stolen identity of a real US citizen to email grassroots groups in Florida.

The defendants allegedly attempted to cover their tracks after social media companies, including Facebook, publicly disclosed in September 2017 that they had identified Russians purchasing political and social advertisements on its platform and after media reports noted the company was cooperating with the special counsel's investigation.

"We have a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with colleagues," one of the defendants wrote, according to the indictment.

[. . . ]

The defendants took extensive precautions on travel to the United States, the indictment alleges. They "planned travel itineraries, purchased equipment (such as cameras, SIM cards, and drop phones), and discussed security measures (including 'evacuation scenarios')," it says.

[. . . ]


Facebook's vice president of global policy, Joel Kaplan, said in a statement that the company has "more to do to prevent against future attacks. We're making significant investments, including increasing the number of people working on security from 10,000 to 20,000 this year. We're also continuing to work closely with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other companies on better ways to protect our country and the people on our platform."

"We're committed to staying ahead of this kind of deceptive and malevolent activity going forward," Kaplan added.

[... ]


House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that the indictments "make absolutely clear" that Russians tried to influence the presidential election to support Trump's campaign and continue to try to interfere with our elections.

"We are on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections," the statement added. "There is no time to waste to defend the integrity of our elections and our democracy."

Former CIA Director John Brennan said he thought the actions alleged in the indictments would have influenced some US voters, going further than the stated position of the US intelligence community.

"DOJ statement and indictments reveal the extent and motivations of Russian interference in 2016 election," Brennan tweeted. "Claims of a 'hoax' in tatters. My take: Implausible that Russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some Americans."

[. . . ]

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that given the indictments, Trump should "immediately" implement the Russia sanctions that Congress passed last summer to punish Moscow for its election meddling.

"The administration needs to be far more vigilant in protecting the 2018 elections, and alert the American public any time the Russians attempt to interfere," Schumer said.

Huffington Post wrote:
Parkland Survivor To Melania Trump: Stop Donald Trump Jr. From Cyberbullying Me

February 23, 2018

A 14-year-old survivor of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, has pleaded with first lady Melania Trump to stop her stepson Donald Trump Jr. from bullying her and her family online.

“You say that your mission as first lady is to stop cyber bullying,” tweeted Lauren Hogg. “Don’t you think it would have been smart to have a convo with your stepson @DonaldJTrumpJr before he liked a post about a false conspiracy theory which ... put a target on my back?”

“I’ve been getting all these horrible messages from Nazis and white supremacists and I woke up this morning and remembered that Melania Trump’s mission was to fight cyberbullying,” Hogg told Huffpost on Friday. “That’s what’s happening to me: cyberbullying. I thought she could do something about Donald Trump Jr.”

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s eldest son “liked” two tweets promoting a conspiracy theory about Lauren’s 17-year-old brother, David Hogg, another shooting survivor. The cooked-up conspiracy claimed he had been coached to speak out against guns by his former FBI agent father to “cover” for the agency’s failure to prevent the shooting. The ruse was backed up by the “deep state media,” claimed one of the posts.

The fake theories circulating about the Hoggs have resulted in death threats against the family, the siblings’ mom, Rebecca Boldrick, told The Washington Post.

[. . .]

The Hogg siblings are now dealing with an onslaught of social media hate after a gunman killed 17 people at their school.

“It’s unbelievable to me that these people are even saying this,” David Hogg told CNN. He called Donald Trump Jr.’s support for the conspiracies “disgusting.”

The 17-year-old has become a key target for conspiracy theories swirling around Parkland’s student activists. One conspiracy video that presented him as a paid “crisis actor” — not a student — hit No. 1 on YouTube’s trending page before the company took it down earlier this week.

[. . . ]

The first lady had not yet responded to Lauren Hogg’s tweets as of Friday evening.

Jeremy wrote:It's unbelievable what happens in your country. It must be exhausting to hear such stories all the time.

NBC News wrote:
March For Our Lives pushes to expand the voter rolls across the country

March 24, 2018

At many of the March for Our Lives events across the United States on Saturday, speakers reminded the hundreds of thousands of people in attendance that there was an important way they could push for gun reform: register to vote and go to the polls.

According to many of the student speakers at the Washington rally, voting is the only way to pressure politicians to propose legislation that would meet the movement's demands, which include universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“Let’s take this to our local legislators and let’s take this to midterm elections," said David Hogg, one of the survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who helped organize the march. "Because without the persistent heat, without the persistence of voters and Americans everywhere getting out to every election, democracy will not flourish.”

[. . . ]

“The engagement has really increased and I think it’s an awareness,” said [Diane] Burrows [vice president of League of Women Voters in New York], who said the group had probably registered hundreds of geographically diverse voters. “People are really understanding the power of the vote and that’s what’s really motivating a lot of them. They’re figuring out the importance and power of civic engagement.”

Voter registration is the first option offered by the website of the March for Our Lives movement — powered by Rock the Vote, a progressive organization that encourages young people to vote — and visitors are given the ability to download “voter registration toolkits,” which are state specific.

Hogg told MSNBC on Saturday that the movement plans to continue to engage prospective voters and legislators.

“We have another national school walkout on April 20, on the anniversary of Columbine, where students are going to be walking out,” [David] Hogg said, referring to the Columbine High School massacre in which 13 were killed in 1999. “And hopefully they’ll organize it in their own communities, so they can walk out and register to vote."

Listen, don’t be a f*cking baby. We have recently elected a badass firebrand progressive to the United States Senate, and her name is Kamala Harris. Senator Harris will do all the mean tweets at President Trump that California needs to provide. . .  It would be a massive mistake to send Kevin DeLeon to Washington right now. 

The United States Senate functions largely via committee. Senate Committees are populated via rules which favor SENIORITY. And Dianne Feinstein is literally the oldest person in the Senate. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is one of the most junior of the junior senators. She won’t have decent seats on decent committees for another entire term, and that’s assuming she’s making a lot of friends. If California chooses to lose our very-senior committee seats via ousting Senator Feinstein, California loses even more of its inadequate voice in the Senate. This is bad. We do not want this.

Give Senator Feinstein another term and allow Kamala Harris the space to work her way towards being something other than the most junior Senior Senator in her first term.

Washington Post wrote:
Laura Bush: Separating children from their parents at the border ‘breaks my heart’

Laura Bush is a former first lady of the United States.

[. . .  ]

. . . This zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.

Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the internment camps for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; those who have been interned have been twice as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.

[. . . ]

Recently, Colleen Kraft, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics, visited a shelter run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. She reported that while there were beds, toys, crayons, a playground and diaper changes, the people working at the shelter had been instructed not to pick up or touch the children to comfort them. Imagine not being able to pick up a child who is not yet out of diapers.

Twenty-nine years ago, my mother-in-law, Barbara Bush, visited Grandma’s House, a home for children with HIV/AIDS in Washington. Back then, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, the disease was a death sentence, and most babies born with it were considered “untouchables.” During her visit, Barbara — who was the first lady at the time — picked up a fussy, dying baby named Donovan and snuggled him against her shoulder to soothe him. My mother-in-law never viewed her embrace of that fragile child as courageous. She simply saw it as the right thing to do in a world that can be arbitrary, unkind and even cruel. She, who after the death of her 3-year-old daughter knew what it was to lose a child, believed that every child is deserving of human kindness, compassion and love.

In 2018, can we not as a nation find a kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer to this current crisis? I, for one, believe we can.