If we all agree prison is a school for crime, why are we separating thousands of children from family and confining them in groups in chain linked cells?

And then just dumping folks at Christmas in El Paso.

Source: HuffPo


Jeff Flake Won’t Rule Out 2020 Run: ‘Somebody Needs To’ Challenge Trump

“Like I said, I haven’t ruled it out,” he said. “I’m a long way from there, but somebody needs to and I think that the country needs to be reminded of what it means to be conservative.”

By Amy Russo

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-flake-2020_us_5c2740e4e4b08aaf7a90cd27

Outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is leaving Congress in the coming days, but he isn’t yet crossing a presidential run off his list of possibilities.

<snip>

“Like I said, I haven’t ruled it out,” Flake said. “I’m a long way from there, but somebody needs to and I think that the country needs to be reminded of what it means to be conservative, certainly on the Republican side, and what it means to be decent as well, because we need a lot more of that in our politics.”

<snip>

Flake, who has had an openly tumultuous relationship with Trump, criticized him for blaming Democrats for the federal government shutdown, which has now entered its eighth day as Congress remains in a standoff over a spending bill including money to build a border wall.

“Anytime you stand and say ‘I own the shutdown,’ then you own it,” he told Acosta, adding,”‘Shutdown 101’ tells you ‘shift the blame if you can.’ And when the president immediately said, ‘I’ll take the blame,’ then he’s got it.”

Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-flake-2020_us_5c2740e4e4b08aaf7a90cd27

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He will take a nomination but he'll never be elected. Why did he almost always vote with cheetolini???

The Inevitability of Impeachment

Even Republicans may be deciding that the president has become too great a burden to their party or too great a danger to the country.

By Elizabeth Drew

Ms. Drew is a journalist based in Washington who covered Watergate.

Dec. 27, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/opinion/trump-impeachment-resign-drew.html

A billboard asking people to sign a petition calling for the impeachment of President Trump in Times Square in New York last year.CreditJustin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency

?quality=90&auto=webp


An impeachment process against President Trump now seems inescapable. Unless the president resigns, the pressure by the public on the Democratic leaders to begin an impeachment process next year will only increase. Too many people think in terms of stasis: How things are is how they will remain. They don’t take into account that opinion moves with events.

Whether or not there’s already enough evidence to impeach Mr. Trump — I think there is — we will learn what the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has found, even if his investigation is cut short. A significant number of Republican candidates didn’t want to run with Mr. Trump in the midterms, and the results of those elections didn’t exactly strengthen his standing within his party. His political status, weak for some time, is now hurtling downhill.

The midterms were followed by new revelations in criminal investigations of once-close advisers as well as new scandals involving Mr. Trump himself. The odor of personal corruption on the president’s part — perhaps affecting his foreign policy — grew stronger. Then the events of the past several days — the president’s precipitous decision to pull American troops out of Syria, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s abrupt resignation, the swoon in the stock market, the pointless shutdown of parts of the government — instilled a new sense of alarm among many Republicans.

<snip>

Impeachment was the founders’ method of holding a president accountable between elections. Determined to avoid setting up a king in all but name, they put the decision about whether a president should be allowed to continue to serve in the hands of the representatives of the people who elected him.

The founders understood that overturning the results of a presidential election must be approached with care and that they needed to prevent the use of that power as a partisan exercise or by a faction. So they wrote into the Constitution provisions to make it extremely difficult for Congress to remove a president from office, including that after an impeachment vote in the House, the Senate would hold a trial, with a two-thirds vote needed for conviction.

Lost in all the discussion about possible lawbreaking by Mr. Trump is the fact that impeachment wasn’t intended only for crimes. For example, in 1974 the House Judiciary Committee charged Richard Nixon with, among other things, abusing power by using the I.R.S. against his political enemies. The committee also held the president accountable for misdeeds by his aides and for failing to honor the oath of office’s pledge that a president must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

<snip>

How Banks Unwittingly Finance Mass Shootings
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN Dec. 24, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/24/business/dealbook/mass-shootings-credit-cards.html

Omar Mateen used six credit cards to buy two guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition before he opened fire inside the Pulse nightclub.
Orlando, Fla. | 49 dead

James Holmes used credit to help buy more than $11,000 in guns, grenades, a gas mask and other military gear to attack a movie theater.
Aurora, Colo. | 12 dead

Stephen Paddock had two dozen guns inside the Mandalay Bay Resort when he rained fire on a music festival below. Police found four credit cards.
Las Vegas | 58 dead

The New York Times reviewed hundreds of documents including police reports, bank records and investigator notes from a decade of mass shootings. Many of the killers built their stockpiles of high-powered weapons with the convenience of credit. No one was watching.



His web browsing history chronicled his anxiety: “Credit card reports all three bureaus,” “FBI,” and “Why banks stop your purchases.”

He needn’t have worried. None of the banks, credit-card network operators or payment processors alerted law enforcement officials about the purchases he thought were so suspicious.



A New York Times examination of mass shootings since the Virginia Tech attack in 2007 reveals how credit cards have become a crucial part of the planning of these massacres. There have been 13 shootings that killed 10 or more people in the last decade, and in at least eight of them, the killers financed their attacks using credit cards. Some used credit to acquire firearms they could not otherwise have afforded.

Those eight shootings killed 217 people. The investigations undertaken in their aftermath uncovered a rich trove of information about the killers’ spending. There were plenty of red flags, if only someone were able to look for them, law enforcement experts say.





<huge snip well worth reading>




John Shrewsberry, chief financial officer of Wells Fargo — which counts the National Rifle Association as a client — has dismissed the notion that banks should regulate the use of its credit cards for gun purchases.

“The best way to make progress on these issues is through the political and legislative process,” he said in April on a conference call with investors.

There may be good reason that no bank executive wants to talk out loud about guns: In October, Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, introduced a bill, the No Red and Blue Banks Act, which would “prohibit the federal government from giving contracts to banks that discriminate against lawful businesses based solely on social policy considerations.”

The bill was directed at banks that changed their policies regarding guns.

“Our friends at Citigroup and Bank of America apparently aren’t busy enough with their banking business; they have decided that they are going to set policy for the Second Amendment,” Mr. Kennedy wrote on Twitter.

And a policy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union recently expressed concern about how efforts to prevent mass shootings could infringe on individual rights.

“The implication of expecting the government to detect and prevent every mass shooting is believing the government should play an enormously intrusive role in American life,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the A.C.L.U. Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, wrote in July.










In 29 states, consumers cannot use credit cards to buy lottery tickets because legislators don’t want consumers wracking up debt gambling. And under the Gun Control Act of 1968, firearms dealers must report if someone buys two or more handguns in a span of five business days.

That requirement can be evaded simply by buying at more than one store, but a system involving the banks and credit card networks could have the opportunity to flag the purchases.




Olivia Carville contributed reporting. James Williamson contributed research. Design by Andrew Rossback. Graphic by Keith Collins and Troy Griggs.
More on NYTimes.com

as a whole, though I'm sure there's an out of work curd grader somewhere who will dispute that.
The timing is awkward as was the Texas Rep chairing the meeting trying to gin up some dunder over any questioning of the issue and the timing on Rachel last night. They didn't turn off the shot until he clammed up. We need to quit giving them soundbite opportunities, we need to show them flat footed and blathering once they get past the 10 sec script. Ask hard questions and be prepared to answer them ourselves.

cheetolini will be gone bye/at 2020. We'd better be thinking about getting back as much Senate as possible. And there's even more Republican seats coming up in 2022. This is about more than ridding cheetolini, its about clearing out those who enabled him and abetted him.

Next 10 years is tough domestically and internationally. But we can do it. We have an amazing amount of talent in the wings. Lets get all of them in office. I don't know of anyone from any list of 10 candidates for POTUS by any of us on DU that couldn't beat cheetolini and/or Pence. We need to be concentrating on all other state and federal offices as hard as possible. In 2024 we could be facing Mitt Romney. A solidly Democratic Congress would be very helpful.

male candidate, I'm voting for the woman. People who look like me are already overly represented.

The fact is that all six candidates are capable of being President. Klobachar and Harris deserve the more serious look not because they're women but because they have the same capability to lead as do the B's - then comes they're being women.

We have the best and deepest bench I've ever seen for an election. The truth is I will vote for Klobochar or Harris before I'd vote for the three B's. And no matter which one gets through to convention - I will have absolutely no problem voting for anyone of them against cheetolini. If he's even there in 2020.

What would you think of nominating Pelosi after she's been made President after the resignations of cheetolini and Mike Pence? I'd vote Pelosi - certainly has the experience.

Something happened under circumstances 100% controlled under our President's deadly fix for a non existent problem.

Its a crying shame when the death of a seven year old has to bring it home and yet will not even slow it down.

If I were her father, an extremely unsophisticated to US culture but used to military/police/political violence in my own country sort of man - I'd consider closely what I'd say against an authority that has me in jail and has had my daughter "die" alone already. Not speaking or understanding English, of course.

Donald Trump Jr. Attacks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez With Dog-Eating Meme
The meme shared by Donald Trump’s eldest son suggested Ocasio-Cortez’s policies would result in Americans eating dogs.

By Lee Moran

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jr-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-dog-meme_us_5c0a1ed6e4b0de79357b7269

Donald Trump Jr. used Instagram to attack Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday.

blob:https://www.instagram.com/1d7605e0-744b-4a24-aa8f-7a5ccc92a40e


President Donald Trump’s eldest son shared a meme featuring photographs of his father and Ocasio-Cortez, 29, which suggested that her progressive policies would result in Americans having to eat dogs.

“It’s funny cuz it’s true!!!” Trump Jr. captioned the post.

In reality, hunger in the U.S. is already a widespread problem.

Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in November, winning her race for a U.S. House seat in New York’s 14th District. As of Friday morning, she had not responded to Trump Jr.’s post.

However, Ocasio-Cortez did fire back at former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) earlier this week after he dubbed her “looney” for likening her election victory in November, and those of several other progressive candidates, to the U.S. moon landings.

Parkland Dad Praises George H.W. Bush For His Rejection Of The NRA
The late president denounced the extremist gun group decades ago.


By Sebastian Murdock

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/parkland-dad-praises-george-hw-bush-for-his-rejection-of-the-nra_us_5c02da24e4b04fb211688d4b

The father of a teenage girl killed in this year’s mass shooting at a Florida high school praised the late President George H.W. Bush for rejecting the NRA decades ago.

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jamie, was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in a February mass shooting, tweeted about Bush, who died late Friday night at 94 years old.

“A lot will be written today about President George Bush,” Guttenberg tweeted. “Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, most would think that he always served with honor and decency. This resignation letter that he wrote resigning his NRA membership is only one example.”



Bush resigned as a lifetime member of the extremist gun group in 1995 after NRA executive vice president at the time, Wayne LaPierre, compared federal agents to Nazis following the 1993 Waco siege and criticized them again following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings in which 168 people were killed.

“To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as ‘wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms’ wanting to ‘attack law abiding citizens’ is a vicious slander on good people,” Bush wrote in a letter published in The New York Times.

“Al Whicher, who served on my [United States Secret Service] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City,” Bush continued. “He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country ― and serve it well he did.”

At the end of his letter, Bush ― an avid hunter and pro-gun enthusiast ― asked that the organization remove his name from their membership list.

Guttenberg has become a strong advocate for better gun control following the shooting that left 17 people dead in Parkland. LaPierre, who is now the NRA’s CEO, has advocated that the only way to stop gun violence is to arm schools with guns.

<snip>