Dozens of students who survived last week’s school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida have arrived in Tallahassee to push for new gun control measures. On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives blocked a bid to bring up a bill to ban sales of assault-style rifles in the state. The Florida gunman, a 19-year-old white former student named Nikolas Cruz, was a member of the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program before he was expelled from the school. Cruz was also part of a four-person JROTC marksmanship team at the school which had received $10,000 in funding from the NRA. For more, we speak with Pat Elder, director of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, an organization that confronts militarism in schools. He’s the author of “Military Recruiting in the United States [ http://www.counter-recruit.org/ , https://www.amazon.com/Military-Recruiting-United-States-Elder/dp/1540353753 ].” https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2/21/inside_the_us_military_recruitment_program[with embedded video, and transcript]
Listen to “American Poor,” a new song by Dead Horses. The song premiered on Democracy Now! today. The song appears on their new album My Mother the Moon out April 6.
Sarah Vos, lead singer/songwriter of Dead Horses said about “American Poor”:
After the 2016 presidential election, I started writing what would become several of the songs on the new record. I was inspired by my own feelings as well as the collective sense of shock and fear that seemed to be shared by so many people in the country and the world.
I’ve been interested in the disparity between the poor and wealthy for a long time.
What does it mean to be poor? I’ve been hearing that word [poor] my whole life–whether in church, on television, in history classes. American Poor is a concept… you can’t afford to go to the doctor, pay-off school loans, or keep your house warm, and yet all day long you’re being bombarded with reasons to buy things.
And then there’s the kind of poor that has little to do with money–poor in spirit or knowledge. Ignorance is one of the deepest kinds of poverty.
The act of service is one of the most beautiful human experiences, and yet service is one of the lowliest endeavors in our culture. It’s strange to me and it seems backwards.
A confounding case in Baltimore shows just how far prosecutors will go to keep a win on the books.
In 1987 police detectives — who’d later be made famous by David Simon, creator of “The Wire” — used flimsy evidence to pin a burglary, rape and murder case on James Thompson and James Owens. They were both sentenced to life in prison. Then 20 years later, DNA evidence cleared each of them of the rape and unraveled the state’s theory of the crime. But instead of exonerating the two men, prosecutors dangled the prison keys, pushing them to plead guilty to the crime in exchange for immediate freedom. What prosecutors offered was a controversial deal called an Alford plea. Last year, ProPublica investigated prosecutors’ use of Alford pleas and similar deals in cases of wrongful convictions, and found they often cover up official misconduct. Check out the story of the two Jameses above to see what happened after the Alford plea was offered in their cases.
It’s a full court press from Big Media, Big Hollywood & Big Government to take the guns and children, youthful idiots, have been chosen to the lead the crusade. It looks like Trump is going to take the bait, calling on his Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ban bump stocks — a silly gimmick item that will be a sacrifice to the gods of political correctness. But it establishes a very dangerous precedent. And Lionel joins to ask why REAL security reforms are being held hostage to a gun confiscation agenda and where did these juvenile gun gurus come from?
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
Moon, Mars, and Worlds Beyond: Winning the Next Frontier “President Trump declared that our nation stands ‘at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space’ – and after the first year of our administration, the record is clear: under President Trump, America is leading in space once again.” - Vice President Mike Pence https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/moon-mars-worlds-beyond-winning-next-frontier/
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Statement by the President on the Passing of Reverend Billy Graham
Issued on: February 21, 2018
Melania and I join millions of people around the world in mourning the passing of Billy Graham. Our prayers are with his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all who worked closely with Reverend Graham in his lifelong ministry.
Billy’s acceptance of Jesus Christ around his seventeenth birthday not only changed his life—it changed our country and the world. He was one of the towering figures of the last 100 years—an American hero whose life and leadership truly earned him the title “God’s Ambassador.”
Billy’s unshakeable belief in the power of God’s word to transform hearts gave hope to all who listened to his simple message: “God loves you.” He carried this message around the world through his crusades, bringing entire generations to faith in Jesus Christ.
In the wake of the September 11th attacks in 2001, America turned to Billy Graham at the National Cathedral, who told us, “God can be trusted, even when life seems at its darkest.”
Reverend Graham would be the first to say that he did not do it alone. Before her passing, his wife Ruth was by his side through it all—a true partner, a wonderful mother, and a fellow missionary soul. He also built an international team and institution that will continue to carry on Christ’s message.
Melania and I were privileged to get to know Reverend Graham and his extraordinary family over the last several years, and we are deeply grateful for their love and support.
Billy Graham was truly one of a kind. Christians and people of all faiths and backgrounds will miss him dearly. We are thinking of him today, finally at home in Heaven.
Wednesday, Feb. 21st 2018[, with appearances by Chadwick Moore, Jalen Martin and Jim Hoft]: 2nd Amendment Under Fire - The establishment is pushing for gun control harder than ever in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. President Trump has even called for strengthened background checks, another look into the legality of bump stocks and possibly more. Also, Christian evangelist Rev. Billy Graham has passed away at age 99. Guest host Milo Yiannopoulos will talk with journalist Laura Loomer who is in Florida investigating the recent school shooting.
It's kind of amazing to me how many bizarre subjects tend to pop up when having this discussion. It's a really fun exercise in analysis that takes you through all sorts of obscure twists and turns. It's also a great demonstration of how terrible Christian philosophers are at doing basic philosophy. Even when you're practically fixing their own problems for them, they still fight you on every level.
President Trump Announces the Presidential Delegation to the Republic of Korea to Attend the Closing Ceremony of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games
Issued on: February 21, 2018
President Donald J. Trump today announced the designation of the Presidential Delegation to the Republic of Korea to attend the Closing Ceremony and events of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games beginning Saturday, February 24, 2018.
Ms. Ivanka Trump, Assistant to the President and Advisor, will lead the delegation. “I am honored to lead the U.S. delegation to the closing ceremonies of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics. We look forward to congratulating Team USA and celebrating all that our athletes have achieved. Their talent, drive, grit and spirit embodies American excellence, and inspire us all.”
Members of the Presidential Delegation:
The Honorable James E. Risch (R-ID), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism
Ms. Sarah H. Sanders, Assistant to the President and Press Secretary
General Vincent K. Brooks, Commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea
Mr. Marc E. Knapper, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim, U.S. Embassy Seoul
Sergeant Shauna Rohbock, Former Winter Olympian, current Team USA Coach,
Statement by the Press Secretary on the Syrian Regime Attacks on Eastern Ghouta
Issued on: February 21, 2018
The United States strongly condemns recent attacks on the people of Syria in Eastern Ghouta by Russia and the Assad regime. We offer our condolences to the families of those killed and wounded and call on the international community to condemn these horrific attacks. The targeted destruction of medical facilities in Eastern Ghouta and the continued use of siege tactics, which starve Syrian civilians and prevent humanitarian access, are especially troubling. We fully support the call from the United Nations for a cessation of violence to allow for the unfettered delivery of humanitarian supplies and urgently needed medical evacuations of civilians.
The United States also calls upon Russia and its partners to live up to their obligations with respect to de-escalation zones, particularly those in Eastern Ghouta, and to end further attacks against civilians in Syria. Assad and his deplorable regime must stop committing additional atrocities and must not be further abetted by backers in Moscow and Tehran. The regime’s horrific attacks demonstrate an urgent need for the UN-led Geneva process to advance toward a political resolution for Syria that respects the will of the Syrian people, in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the November 2017 Da Nang Joint Statement from President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hundreds of students in the Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia area marched to the White House to demand gun safety reform. The march comes just a week after a massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead.
The Florida High School shooting continues to dominate the news, though depending on where you look, for different reasons. On the left, as usual, they are attacking guns, the NRA, Trump and gun owners, not providing any logical or reasonable solutions to the problem, while the right is proposing common sense initiatives such as armed guards on campus. The unseen angle however is the fact it appears the main four students being used to push the anti-gun agenda are actually mere pawns of the globalists who want a gun free America.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
From the team behind the Peabody Award winning Last Chance High, comes SHELTER: a feature length documentary following a year in the life of homeless youth in New Orleans.
How a Virginia politician beat the NRA to win his seat
The Beat with Ari Melber 2/21/18
Virginia state house member Chris Hurst beat an NRA-backed candidate for his position, after his girlfriend was shot and killed on live TV. He tells Ari Melber the “passionate” and “articulate” student activists emerging from the school shooting in Parkland Florida will carry weight for the movement to reduce gun violence.
DOJ Lawyer who wrote Special Counsel rules: Mueller can ask to indict Trump
The Beat with Ari Melber 2/21/18
Legal experts have debated whether special counsel can indict a sitting president from the time of Nixon’s presidency. The man who wrote the rules on how a Special Counsel should operate Neal Katyal, explains Mueller’s indictment power and limitations within the Justice Department.
Alabama has executed 26 inmates in the last decade. What’s different about Thursday’s scheduled execution of 61-year old convicted murderer Doyle Lee Hamm, is that he has terminal cancer — a condition his lawyer contends the state has been medically treating, so it can be the one to end Hamm’s life.
“What they’re doing is a delicate balance of keeping him alive just long enough that they can be the ones who execute him, and that he doesn’t die of natural causes,” Bernard E. Harcourt, a Columbia Law School professor who has been representing Hamm pro-bono since the early 90’s, told VICE News.
Hamm, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Cullman County, Ala. motel clerk Patrick Cunningham back in 1987, has been on death row for 30 years. Since he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 2014, Hamm’s lawyer has repeatedly argued that killing him via lethal injection could result in a botched execution, because his cancer treatment impaired his veins.
“[If] it's a compromised vein, the lethal drugs don't go into the blood system...but into your flesh causing what's called infiltration” Harcourt said. “[It’s] an extraordinarily painful death, rather than going into your bloodstream. This is beyond ghoulish.”
The United Nations agreed and has said killing Hamm intravenously could be tantamount to torture.
But Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall rejected a request to halt Hamm’s execution in a Facebook video posted on Wednesday morning. The state of Alabama has also disputed Harcourt’s claim that Hamm is dying of cancer, and contends he is in remission.
Harcourt is set to file a last ditch motion to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution on Thursday morning, but told VICE News he is not optimistic that Hamm won’t be killed as scheduled tomorrow night.
These Pakistanis Are Demanding Justice For Racist Policing (HBO)
Published on Feb 21, 2018 by VICE News
Aspiring model Naqeebullah Mehsud was murdered in January by the Karachi police. His death prompted thousands of Pashtuns, Pakistan’s biggest ethnic minority, to demand justice.
In early February, sit-ins lasted for over a week in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. Eventually protests spread nationwide and even reached neighboring Afghanistan, where Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group.
Pashtun activism prompted the government to respond to concerns. On February 16th, Pakistan’s Chief Justice ordered the arrest of Rao Anwar - the police superintendent who is believed to be responsible for Mehsud’s murder.
Nearly 30 million Pashtuns live in Pakistan. Since 9-11, many have fled violence in their ethnic homelands near the Afghan border for safety in the cities, as government anti-terror operations prompted violence with the Taliban.
But, many Pashtuns in Pakistan believe their community is systematically victimized by racist policing and profiling.
“We don’t want anyone else to be martyred as Naqeebullah was. We are fed up, We won’t tolerate any more dead bodies,” said Noor Rehman Mehsud, Naqeebullah Mehsud’s cousin.
While the Pashtun protests have wound down — the police superintendent still remains at large, and other demands levied by protestors, including the removal of landmines, accounting for “disappeared” persons by the Pakistani military, and ending security checks and curfews in Pashtun tribal homelands have yet to be addressed.
Melania's parents likely in U.S. thanks to "chain migration"
All In with Chris Hayes 2/21/18
Donald Trump has been obsessed with so-called "chain migration," but we learned something today that makes you think it might just be a super passive-aggressive move against his in-laws.
The problem with Trump senior advisor Jared Kushner is not just that he is still operating on an interim security clearance, but that he has been given a mammoth portfolio of responsibilities that he is unqualified for.
RNC paying Trump's former bodyguard $15,000 a month
All In with Chris Hayes 2/21/18
Trump's former bodyguard, Keith Schiller, now has a private security firm that's being paid $15,000 a month by the RNC to provide "security consultation for the RNC 202 convention site selection process."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-FL), Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch and Broward county Sheriff Scott Israel answered questions from survivors of the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas high school shooting, teachers and parents of the victims.
America's youth become America's conscience on gun violence
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/21/18
Rachel Maddow reports on the nationwide student demonstrations for gun safety and the particular pressure on legislators in Florida where students still grieving from the gun massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School rallied in the largest protest Tallahassee has seen in decades.
Americans rally for gun safety with Trump, GOP the only obstacle
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/21/18
Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, and who is now the managing director of Sandy Hook Promise, talks with Rachel Maddow about the gun safety ideas that are ready to be implemented if they have a willing partner in Congress.
US official: Russia's GRU chief did not visit United States
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/21/18
Rachel Maddow updates an ongoing story about the reported visit to the United States by Russia's top spy chiefs, including two sanctioned officials, one of whom, the head of the GRU, no one admits meeting while he was in the US.
New right-wing Mike Flynn legal theory grasping at straws
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/21/18
Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney, talks with Rachel Maddow about new developments in Robert Mueller's Trump Russia investigation and a new right-wing hobby horse about Mike Flynn's guilty plea.
Hope for answers in Alfa-Bank chief's son-in-law's guilty plea
The Rachel Maddow Show 2/22/18
Rachel Maddow looks at some of the questions surrounding Alfa-Banks interactions with Donald Trump and his campaign and notes that Alex Van der Zwaan, who pled guilty in a case brought by Robert Mueller is the son-in-law of a co-founder of Alfa-Bank, lending hope to the idea that his testimony could answer some long-standing questions.
Lawrence: Why arming teachers is a fantasy war game
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 2/21/18
Today at a listening session with school shooting survivors and family of victims at the White House, President Donald Trump suggested arming school personnel with handguns. Lawrence O'Donnell breaks down why this an unrealistic solution to school shootings.
Jared Kushner's security clearance is a problem for John Kelly
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 2/21/18
Jared Kushner is reportedly resisting giving up his access to classified information after John Kelly issued a memo that would strip White House officials using temporary clearances but is there a "Jared Loophole?" Ned Price and Max Boot join Lawrence O'Donnell.
Parkland survivor Sam Zeif: We are going to win this fight
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 2/22/18
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Sam Zeif who was a part of a meeting with Pres. Trump on gun control joins to discuss what he learned from the White House's listening session.
Dem Sen. Hirono: Hopeful teens can change gun control debate
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 2/22/18
The Hawaii Democrat discusses the challenges that lie ahead for lawmakers on Capitol Hill to come together on gun control policy and the role teens protesting nationwide may play.
As news breaks that Mueller is probing a whether Paul Manafort promised a banker a White House job in exchange for loans, Trump attacks his own attorney general again over the Russia investigation. Our panel reacts
Welcome to "The Moderate" - Uncensored - Jordan Klepper Solves Guns
Published on Feb 21, 2018 by Comedy Central
After inviting a group of moderate gun owners to a mansion, Jordan tries to select one contestant in order to influence the way they think about firearms.
Published on Feb 22, 2018 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are demanding to be taken seriously, while far-right adults are devising conspiracy theories to undermine them.
Stephen's Covetton House Wants To Fill Your Cavity With Wellness
Published on Feb 22, 2018 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
With Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Goop rolling out a coffee enema, Stephen's Covetton House 'one-ups' her by offering a product to stick 'one up' his customers' behinds.
When I look at the Parkland Florida Town Demographics I could not believe it. The Median Household income is $277,072.00 .., WTF ? $277k and most Americans are begging for Food Stamps, How long can a System like this go on ? Mr. Hogg and his Family are set for life, they don't really think about little things like that. The American Dream is for the 40 Million Government Contract workers, the rest of you 280 Million Peasants can fight over the bread Crumbs.
The Rocket Scientists who work at Youtube and Google have taken down a David Hogg Viral Video, I can only assume they are NOT aware of the Streisand Effect. Google/Youtube censorship grows, censor Americans, lol, I am sure that will end well !
The huge questions about Melania Trump’s immigration history nobody will answer President Trump is the most vocally nationalistic president in modern history — a chief executive who has made skepticism of immigrants his political calling card. He is also the husband of an immigrant whose past immigration status has been the source of nonstop caginess from his political operation. On Wednesday, we got a little taste as to why that is. It suggests there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy beneath the surface. The Washington Post is reporting that Melania Trump's Slovenian parents are legal permanent residents of the United States. This would appear to suggest they benefited from the same “chain migration” Trump has decried and sought to significantly scale back. Immigration experts say Viktor and Amalija Knavs very likely relied upon this to obtain their green cards, though their attorney has not confirmed it. Trump has proposed limiting family migration to spouses and children, which would mean people like the Knavs would no longer be eligible. Beyond that solo incongruence, though, the whole thing rekindles long-standing questions about Melania Trump's immigration status. Neither the president nor the White House have done much to address multiple inconsistencies in her story. This lends credence to notions that there is something else in her story that runs counter to the president's political brand and is being obscured. Put plainly: If Melania Trump's parents benefited from something Trump decries, is it possible Melania Trump herself benefited from something Trump has decried? Or put even more plainly: Has she ever been undocumented at any point? That has long been the suggestion behind these questions, and suddenly it is not so outlandish to ask. For a few reasons: [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/02/21/the-huge-questions-about-melania-trumps-immigration-history-nobody-will-answer/
Twitter bot purge prompts backlash The hashtag #TwitterLockout has trended after an apparent purge of suspected malicious bots on the social network. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43144717
How Billy Graham’s Movement Lost Its Way In 1949, under an enormous tent in Los Angeles, a young fundamentalist preacher from North Carolina named Billy Graham began preaching nightly. The initial plan was for the Greater Los Angeles Revival to last for three weeks. Attendance was underwhelming at first, with thousands of seats unfilled. As closing night drew near, the local organizing committee was uncertain about whether to extend the meetings. They decided to ask God for a clear sign, like the one Gideon received in the Old Testament. “It came at four-thirty the next morning,” Graham writes in his autobiography, “Just As I Am.” A jangling phone awoke Graham in his hotel room. On the other end was the popular entertainer Stuart Hamblen, one of radio’s first singing cowboys, begging to meet. As Graham tells it, he dressed and met Hamblen and his wife. After they talked, Hamblen “gave his life to Christ in a child-like act of faith.” Graham said it was then that he told the organizers that the crusade should go on. Hamblen discussed his newfound faith on his radio program, and, during a subsequent revival meeting, Graham was startled to find his tent “crawling with reporters and photographers.” Graham learned that the publishing giant William Randolph Hearst had issued an edict to all of the editors in his newspaper chain: “Puff Graham.” The evangelist had never met Hearst, but the magnate’s sons later told Graham that their father had come to the revival, in disguise, with his mistress, Marion Davies. Attendance swelled, and an estimated three hundred and fifty thousand people eventually passed through the canvas cathedral, as it came to be called, in the course of eight weeks. The Los Angeles revival turned Graham into a national figure at a turning point in the history of American Protestantism. Religious leaders such as Harold Ockenga, the pastor of the Congregationalist Park Street Church, in Boston, and Carl F.?H. Henry, a theologian of Fuller Theological Seminary, outside Los Angeles, had become increasingly critical of fundamentalism’s push to separate believers from society. But they were also uncomfortable with the theological liberalism of church reformers who had embraced modernist thought. They sought to unite Protestant conservatives in a broader movement, New Evangelicalism, which they hoped would maintain a commitment to historic Christian tenets while actively engaging with the prevailing culture. Graham would become the leading figure in this movement, which went on to eclipse mainline Protestantism as the dominant force in American religious life. Graham’s death, on Wednesday, at the age of ninety-nine, comes as that movement is enduring fissures that have parallels to those that he and his brethren sought to mend more than a half-century ago. From the mid-nineteen-seventies through the mid-eighties, evangelicalism, led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, began its steady march rightward into the embrace of the Republican Party. The movement came to be defined by its social conservatism, though Graham himself tried to steer clear of issues like abortion. “I’m just going to preach the gospel and am not going to get off on all these hot-button issues,” he told the Times, in 2005. “If I get on these other subjects, it divides the audience on an issue that is not the issue I’m promoting. I’m just promoting the gospel.” Other evangelical leaders, including Graham’s eldest son, Franklin, who has inherited his father’s mantle as the leader of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, adopted a very different tack. Many evangelical leaders have been stalwart defenders of Donald Trump, even in the face of allegations of adultery, sexual assault, and harassment, believing they have found in him a staunch ally. “I believe Donald Trump is a good man,” Franklin Graham said on CNN, last month. “He did everything wrong as a candidate and he won, and I don’t understand it. Other than I think God put him there.” Last November, many of these same leaders continued to back Roy Moore in his Senate bid in Alabama, despite allegations he had sexually assaulted teen-age girls. The result is a brewing existential crisis, particularly among younger believers, many of whom are choosing to shed the evangelical label. Graham and his cohort sought to forge a movement that was distinct from the fundamentalism of their day, yet that is precisely what modern evangelicalism has come to be associated with. The overriding interest of Graham and other neo-evangelicals, as they were called, was in spurring a religious revival in the United States. That was why they sought to overcome the divisions that beset Protestants at the time. The question, today, is whether evangelicalism’s leaders remain primarily interested in the spiritual, as Graham was, or if their agenda has become purely political. If it turns out to be the latter, that may well spell the end of the movement Graham helped forge. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-lost-revival-of-billy-graham
Would Billy Graham be disgusted by evangelicals today? “An evangelical,” historian George Marsden once said, is “anyone who likes Billy Graham.” Ironically, the death of Graham, a towering figure in 20th century American religion, revealed evangelicals’ deep and bitter divisions — in this case over his legacy. His passing on Wednesday seemed to highlight a question: How did a group so uniformly inspired by Graham appear to so deeply reject his nonpartisan viewpoint? How did American evangelicals come to be the most partisan of faith groups, and what role did Graham play? Decades after Graham in 1981 expressed disgust at the possibility of a merger between the religious and political right, the term “evangelical” has for many become synonymous with right-wing politics. Some experts said Graham, who was virtually absent from public life in the last 10 years due to Parkinson’s, was the antithesis of today’s climate. Others said he made it possible. “I think he would be mortified by what’s happened today,” said Grant Wacker, who wrote a biography of Graham. “I think he would be in shock with how politicized the faith has become. He would look around and say, this is not what the gospel is about.” Graham, who preached at massive revivals around the world from the 1940s until 2005, was always present near American politics, yet tried not to be partisan. He visited the White House under every president from Harry S. Truman through George W. Bush. He was close with Democrats Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton, and Republicans Richard M. Nixon and George H.W. Bush. Yet in 2011, when asked about his regrets, he said, “I also would have steered clear of politics.” “I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to,” Graham said at the time. “But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.” The evangelical community that Graham leaves behind has gone in just the opposite direction, casting their lot decisively with the Republican Party. In the 2016 presidential election, 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/02/21/what-would-billy-graham-think-of-evangelicals-today/
Trump endorses guns for teachers to stop shootings US President Donald Trump has said arming teachers could prevent school shootings like that which left 17 people dead last week in Florida. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43149694
The Message Out Of Parkland That Should Terrify Republicans Three days after surviving a mass shooting at her school, 17-year-old Emma Gonzalez made a seven-minute speech about the hypocrisy of politicians who receive campaign donations from the National Rifle Association and then send victims of such attacks nothing but thoughts and prayers. “We call BS,” she said. She ended her speech with a crystal clear imperative: “If you agree, register to vote.” There may be no scarier sentence to a Republican Party that has shown itself to be rooted in the promise of white supremacy. Especially when it’s coming out of the mouth of a young Latina in a swing state. Register to vote. [...] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-sarriot-guns-florida-vote_us_5a8c9473e4b0273053a58f29
Bernie Sanders blames Hillary for allowing Russian interference - fucking idiot The senator and his top political adviser also denied Mueller's assertion that Russian actors backed his campaign. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blamed Hillary Clinton for not doing more to stop the Russian attack on the last presidential election. Then his 2016 campaign manager, in an interview with POLITICO, said he’s seen no evidence to support special counsel Robert Mueller's assertion in an indictment last week that the Russian operation had backed Sanders' campaign. The remarks showed Sanders, running for a third term and currently considered a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, deeply defensive in response to questions posed to him about what was laid out in the indictment. He attempted to thread a response that blasts Donald Trump for refusing to acknowledge that Russians helped his campaign — but then holds himself harmless for a nearly identical denial. In doing so, Sanders and his former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, presented a series of self-serving statements that were not accurate, and that track with efforts by Trump and his supporters to undermine the credibility of the Mueller probe. “The real question to be asked is what was the Clinton campaign [doing about Russian interference]? They had more information about this than we did,” Sanders said in the interview with Vermont Public Radio. After being contacted by POLITICO about the interview, Sanders issued a lengthy statement calling the Russian involvement a “direct assault on the free democratic systems that stand in contrast to the autocratic, nationalistic kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin and his backers in the Russian oligarchy” which “deserves unconditional condemnation.” He said that goes for “any candidate or active opposition to any candidate,” and listed most other candidates and campaigns whose support by Russians was detailed in the indictment — including "my own." Sanders said that his campaign had shared information with the Clinton campaign about suspected Russian anti-Clinton trolls on a campaign Facebook page. But Weaver later acknowledged that the Vermont senator had no firsthand knowledge that this had happened. Weaver said Sanders based his remark on an article published by NBC’s San Diego affiliate over the weekend about a campaign volunteer who claimed to have conducted his own investigation and brought the findings to the Clinton campaign in September — an assertion flatly denied by a former Clinton campaign aide. "A guy who was on my staff … checked it out and he went to the Clinton campaign, and he said, ‘You know what? I think these guys are Russians,’” Sanders said. Weaver said Sanders had not verified the information in the article himself before stating it as fact. The Sanders statement issued late Wednesday attributed to “an aide to Sen. Sanders” added “he was using the word ‘campaign’ expansively to include not only the formal, institutional campaign, but also the broader network of volunteers and supporters of Bernie 2016 across the country.” Sanders went on to indicate that he was at least vaguely aware of the operation that Mueller detailed in his indictment of 13 Russian nationals last week: “What Mueller reported, he had more specificity than we’d seen before. Not exactly new.” A former Clinton campaign staffer said it was nonsense that Sanders' campaign had reached out to Clinton's about potential Russian interference. "No one from the Sanders campaign ever contacted us about this”—not in September, and not in “April and May.” Sanders said in the radio interview that he noticed "lots of strange things" during those months in 2016. “They were supporting my campaign? No. They were attacking Hillary Clinton’s campaign and using my supporters against Hillary Clinton,” Sanders said in the radio interview. Asked why Sanders would blame Clinton for not intervening, Weaver said, “Uh, I don’t know. They [Clinton's campaign] did have more information.” As for Sanders’ claims of having gone to Clinton’s campaign about possible Russian meddling, Weaver said Sanders was “speaking broadly." “What he knows is all from published news reports,” Weaver said. The Vermont senator was adamant that he did not benefit from Russian bots urging voters to support him. “I did not know that Russian bots were promoting my campaign. Russian bots were not promoting my campaign,” he said. Sanders has repeatedly condemned President Donald Trump for not acknowledging the Russian attack on the 2016 election alleged in the Mueller indictment and being investigated by congressional committees. But he has refused to say that his campaign benefited from the activities. Mueller’s indictment states that the 13 Russians indicted “engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.” Among the evidence the indictment cites is a message from the day after Sanders and Trump won their New Hampshire primaries. "Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on ‘politics in the USA’ and to ‘use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them.),” the document read. Weaver, who is one of the senator’s closest aides, said repeatedly he wasn’t sure if he should believe the charges himself. “The factual underpinning of that in the indictment is what? Zero,” Weaver said. “I have not seen any evidence of support for Bernie Sanders.” Kenneth Pennington, the campaign’s digital director, said in an MSNBC appearance after the Mueller indictments were issued that he knew nothing of Russian support for the campaign, and Weaver said in the interview he didn’t either. “Two dudes sitting in a hole somewhere support Bernie Sanders—tell me what they did to support Bernie Sanders,” Weaver added later. Sanders’ and Weaver's argument mirrors the defense that Trump, who has argued in a days-long series of tweets that the Russians were not supporting him. The president has blamed his nemesis, Barack Obama, for not doing enough to stop Russian disruption in the campaign. “If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation?” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. He earlier said that "some 400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer" could have been responsible for the activities attributed to Russians. Sanders repeatedly refused to say why he didn’t call out Russian involvement during the campaign. Clinton's campaign regularly raised suspicions of Kremlin-backed activity during the home stretch of the race. Sanders said the key point was that he was campaigning hard for Clinton after losing the nomination to her, and “at this point we were working with them.” Sanders has faced questions since Friday about why he has not more strongly condemned the Russian actions that benefited his campaign. On Wednesday, liberal writer Joan Walsh of The Nation tweeted in response to Sanders’ comments about Clinton: “Seriously, this could be the end of Sanders 2020. Someone who cares about him ought to tell him how badly he stepped in it today.” In the interview, Sanders repeatedly said that the attention should be on Trump’s denials of Russian activity — an assertion he's made repeatedly since Friday's indictment. But in doing so, he floated his own conspiracy theory. “You have a president of the United States not saying that [Russians meddled in the election]. What exactly is going on? And you have speculation: ‘Do the Russians really own him?’” Sanders said. When pressed by the host if he believed that the Russians do have something compromising on the president, Sanders said, “I don’t know. But something [is] very weird.” https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/bernie-sanders-trump-russia-interference-420528
Trump Again Presses Jeff Sessions Over Russia Probe The president suggests the special counsel is looking at the wrong administration President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his public pressure on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suggesting the Justice Department should be looking at the Obama administration as it probes possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. In a tweet Wednesday, Mr. Trump wrote: “If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation? Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!” Mr. Sessions, who advised Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign, has repeatedly come under fire from the president after having recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation last year. That decision led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, after Mr. Trump fired James Comey as Federal Bureau of Investigation director last May. That special counsel’s probe, which is examining Russian interference in the 2016 election and any links to the Trump campaign, has ensnared several top Trump campaign associates. In his tweet Wednesday, it wasn’t clear what “Dem crimes” Mr. Trump was alleging, but he has previously criticized the Justice Department for not pursuing a prosecution of his 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over her alleged mishandling of classified emails. It also wasn’t clear what Mr. Trump was suggesting the Obama administration didn’t do about Russian election meddling. Less than a month before he left office, then-President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia related to its work in 2016. The State Department expelled what it described as 35 intelligence operatives from the U.S., and the administration imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Russian officials. As that was happening, members of the incoming Trump administration were working to undermine the impact of those sanctions, according to court documents. Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about a series of calls he made with Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., including discussion of sanctions. Mr. Flynn is now cooperating with Mr. Mueller’s probe. Then, last year, Congress voted to further punish Russia for its meddling, by memorializing in law the Obama administration’s sanctions and requiring the Trump administration to list oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. At the end of January, the Treasury Department published a list, but in a break from what Congress required, it didn’t impose sanctions on individuals doing business with Russian military or intelligence bodies. Asked Tuesday about this approach, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “there’s a process that has to take place, and we’re going through that process.” A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment. Senate and House Democratic leaders on Wednesday sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell requesting their support in increasing the FBI’s budget by $300 million to combat foreign influence in elections. That came days after Mr. Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three companies for alleged crimes tied to the use of a “troll” factory to sow political discord on social media, an effort that also sought to help Mr. Trump and hinder Mrs. Clinton. “We have Russian operatives flooding our social media platforms with misinformation,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) in a conference call about the request. It is “not clear” what the Trump administration is doing about it, he said. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan, AshLee Strong, made no commitments on whether he would support the expenditure. “The bipartisan House Intel Committee has conducted a year-long review into Russia meddling in the 2016 elections,” she said. “This review, along with the Senate Intel and FBI investigations, will inform lawmakers on ways to protect the 2018 election.” Some former federal prosecutors said Mr. Trump is wrong to pressure Mr. Sessions on investigations. Jimmy Gurulé, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former assistant attorney general in Republican President George H.W. Bush’s administration, said in an interview that the president shouldn’t look to determine who gets prosecuted. “When the president sends out tweets like this—why aren’t the Democrats being prosecuted?—that sounds to me like a president from an authoritarian country, where the prosecutor is an arm and extension of the president and people are being politically persecuted.” Robert Ray, who served as independent counsel in the investigation into the Bill Clinton-era Whitewater land deal, said he didn’t believe Mr. Trump’s actions in this instance are improper. As president, Mr. Trump establishes policy for the entire executive branch, with no exception carved out for the Justice Department, Mr. Ray said. In an email, Mr. Ray wrote that if Mr. Trump “wants to steer DOJ towards investigation of Russian meddling’ involving a prior administration, why not? That may have adverse political consequences, but in my judgment is not improper.” Mr. Trump has said his campaign didn’t work with Russia in 2016, although several people in Mr. Trump’s orbit have admitted to having had contact with Russians during the campaign. The Mueller team has indicted two other Trump campaign officials, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, for alleged financial misdeeds in work that predated the campaign. They have pleaded not guilty. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-again-presses-jeff-sessions-over-russia-probe-1519246156
The Alt-Right is Killing People The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) counted over 100 people killed or injured by alleged perpetrators influenced by the so-called "alt-right" — a movement that continues to access the mainstream and reach young recruits. https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people
This Neo-Nazi Speech Shows The Rally In Charlottesville Was Always Meant To Be Violent ( https://vimeo.com/256679477 ) The white supremacist organizers are hoping to fend off a conspiracy lawsuit. This video won’t help their case. The neo-Nazis gathered in a safe house a few hours after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August. One of their chieftains, Robert “Azzmador” Ray, wanted to say a few words that evening, according to a description of the speech Ray posted online. As the man on the ground for the Daily Stormer, the biggest hate site in the U.S., Ray had been in the middle of the action all day, leading his “Stormers” into battle. Now he wanted to read a fiery speech the site’s publisher, Andrew Anglin, had written for the occasion. “My brothers,” Ray began, looking at his phone in the dark room. “A day is quickly coming when it is we who will be digging graves.” The neo-Nazis howled their approval. For them, the “Unite the Right” rally had always been more than a protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. It was, as Ray and Anglin put it on the Daily Stormer, a “battle cry” for white nationalism. “This is our war!” Ray yelled in the safe house. “This has always been our war. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. Death to traitors! Death to the enemies of the white race! Hail victory!” The neo-Nazis got their war. But now they’re being sued by Charlottesville locals who say that Ray, Anglin and an array of other white supremacists — including James Alex Fields Jr., who drove the car that hit and killed 32-year-old protester Heather Heyer; Jason Kessler, the organizer of the rally; and several notable white nationalists, such as Richard Spencer — were part of a conspiracy to commit acts of violence, intimidation and harassment against the residents of Charlottesville. And speeches like Ray’s could hurt them in court. Several of the defendants in the conspiracy lawsuit, including Ray, have filed motions to dismiss, arguing that they are being targeted for making edgy jokes, expressing controversial beliefs and just happening to get caught up in violence that none of them foresaw. In short, they claim that they were merely peaceful protesters and are trying to shield themselves by invoking the First Amendment. “The Plaintiffs spend a lot of time detailing racially insulting language on the internet. Apparently, the Court is meant to conclude that this language is equivalent to a conspiracy to commit race-based violence or other actionable misconduct,” Elmer Woodard, a Virginia-based lawyer who is representing several of the white nationalists, wrote in a motion to dismiss. But lawyers for the plaintiffs, who have pored over thousands of online messages between the defendants and their followers, say that the First Amendment is no shield and that the violence that occurred in Charlottesville was no accident. “It reflected months of extensive, coordinated, and militaristic planning by Defendants and their co-conspirators,” the plaintiffs’ legal team alleged in a court filing on Tuesday. “The First Amendment does not protect a conspiracy to engage in violence any more than it protects a conspiracy to rob a bank,” said Roberta Kaplan, a New York attorney who conceived of the suit and successfully argued a same-sex marriage case before the Supreme Court in 2013. After the Charlottesville rally last summer, Kaplan was in a state of shock, she told HuffPost. As she considered ways to hold the organizers accountable, she thought of a 20-year old case in which her mentor used civil conspiracy law to argue that a website on which anti-abortion activists posted the addresses of doctors who performed abortions led to the murder of multiple doctors. Kaplan and her legal team are now trying to prove that the organizers of the Charlottesville rally were part of a conspiracy to violently advance white supremacy by targeting racial, ethnic and religious minorities and their supporters. In order to prove that a conspiracy took place, the plaintiffs have to show that the violence in Charlottesville last August was part of the white supremacists’ plan — rather than an unanticipated result of their rally. Kaplan and her allies have a wealth of evidence to point to. In addition to the video of Ray’s speech, the lawyers combed through voluminous transcripts from a private server on Discord, a voice-and-text chat application that many of the Charlottesville defendants used to organize the rally and plan logistics. Not long after the rally, the chats were leaked to Unicorn Riot, an anti-fascist website. They show the white supremacists discussing how to evade the police, how to use military-style tactics, which weapons to bring, where to meet, how to fund their operations, which Nazi symbols to wear and how to best injure black people, Jews and anyone who might stand in their way, the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in Tuesday’s court filing. Some of the chats even discussed attacking anti-racist protesters with cars. “In these exchanges, violence was not discussed as a mere remote possibility; it was anticipated, studied, and strategized,” the lawyers wrote, citing a Discord message from Elliott “Eli Mosley” Kline, the former leader of white nationalist organization Identity Evropa and one of the defendants in the case. “Our birthright will be ashes & they’ll have to pry it from our cold hands if they want it. They will not replace us without a fight,” Mosley wrote. Other notable defendants in the suit include Matthew Heimbach, who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after shoving a black protester at a Donald Trump campaign rally; Mike Tubbs, a former Green Beret who did prison time for plotting to bomb black and Jewish businesses; and Chris Cantwell, who showed off his weapon collection to Vice News and said during the weekend of the Charlottesville rally, “I’m carrying a pistol, I go to the gym all the time, I’m trying to make myself more capable of violence.” As the plaintiffs note, the defendants didn’t just discuss the potential for violence before the rally, they celebrated after the violence broke out. Anglin joked on the Daily Stormer about Heyer’s death. Spencer told The New York Times that Aug. 12 was a “huge moral victory.” Cantwell told Vice, “it was worth it. Nobody on our side died … none of our people killed anybody unjustly.” The lawyers for the plaintiffs had a different take. “This is obviously not how people react to unanticipated bloodshed,” they wrote. “It is how they react when their violent conspiracy achieves its intended results.” And it was how Ray, a violent felon with a long rap sheet, reacted when addressing his crew at the Daily Stormer house shortly after Fields’ car hit Heyer. Ray promised “eternal” war.” ?The day is coming when that beast that has lain dormant for 72 years is going to wake up and tear apart everything in its way,” he said. “And on that day, these kikes are going to wish they had never fucked with us.” The Stormers hooted. They hollered. They shouted, “Hail victory!” Then they broke into a spontaneous song, a racist rendition from “American History X” set to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic: “My eyes have seen the glory of the trampling at the zoo. We’ve washed ourselves in niggers’ blood and all the mongrels too. We’re taking down the ZOG machine Jew by Jew by Jew! The white man marches on!” Read the plaintiffs’ argument as to why the case should go forward: [embedded] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/neo-nazi-video-charlottesville-violence_us_5a8ca5dce4b00a30a250606c
( https://youtu.be/uO6l6Bgo3-A ) In 2016, Josiah Zayner, a former synthetic biology research scientist at NASA, checked himself into a hotel room. Over the course of four days, he performed an extremely risky experiment on himself. The goal: “To completely replace all of the bacteria that are contained within my body.” Gut Hack, a short documentary by Kate McLean and Mario Furloni, chronicles Zayner’s attempt to transplant his microbiome in order to relieve himself of a lifetime of debilitating gastrointestinal problems. “All of the medical doctors [I’ve seen] haven’t helped,” Zayner says in the film. “You just expect me to deal with my symptoms for the rest of my life? Why are people so afraid of something different—some change, some experiment?” Using bacterial samples from a donor, Zayner takes matters into his own hands to recolonize his body with a new ecosystem of microorganisms. McLean met Zayner by chance at a synthetic biology conference. According to co-director Furloni, at one point during a presentation, Zayner began to loudly boo the speaker from the back of the room, shouting “Biohack the planet!" That’s when McLean knew she had to make a film about him. “This movie is our attempt to share Josiah’s grueling and grotesque ordeal,” McLean told The Atlantic, “and communicate how it felt to behold this weird period of his life: alternately full of wonder, disgust, anxiety, excitement, exhaustion, and awe. At the end of the day, I hope the audience is entertained, intellectually engaged, and horrified in equal measure.” In a recently published interview [ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/biohacking-stunts-crispr/553511/ ] with The Atlantic writer Sarah Zhang, Zayner expressed concerns about the way in which the public has interpreted his biohacking experiments. “I see myself as a scientist but also a social activist,” he said. “How can I do experiments in a scientific way but also make people think? What it’s turned into now...people view it as a way to get press and get publicity and get famous. There’s no doubt in my mind that somebody is going to end up hurt eventually.” https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/553796/gut-hack-biohacking/
An NRA spokeswoman and a Florida sheriff clashed during a raucous discussion on gun violence Dana Loesch, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association took some pointed questions during a raucous CNN town-hall event on gun violence Wednesday night. The gathering featured students, educators, politicians, law-enforcement officials and others who spoke on the deadly mass shooting that rocked Parkland, Florida, last week, and possible solutions going forward. The discussion went off the rails at several points, especially during the segment that featured Loesch and the Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who confronted the NRA spokeswoman on stage. http://www.businessinsider.com/dana-loesch-calls-nikolas-cruz-an-insane-monster-who-shouldnt-have-had-a-gun-2018-2
NASA's Nuclear Thermal Engine Is a Blast From the Cold War Past Nuclear thermal propulsion, which was studied in the Cold War for space travel, could make a comeback to fly humans to Mars. NASA studied "nuclear thermal propulsion systems" during the Cold War, but shelved the idea because it wasn't necessary. Nuclear-powered spacecraft could send humans to Mars faster and allow them to abort a dangerous mission and return to Earth. NASA has already hired a company to start working on a new NTP engine design. https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a18345717/nasa-ntp-nuclear-engines-mars/