October 30, 2020

Walmart pulls guns and ammo from store displays, citing potential "civil unrest"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/walmart-guns-ammo-store-displays-civil-social-unrest-precaution/

Walmart on Thursday said it has pulled guns and ammunition from the sales floors of its U.S. stores as it seeks to keep firearms from being stolen should social unrest erupt.

"We have seen some isolated civil unrest, and as we have done on several occasions over the last few years, we have moved our firearms and ammunition off the sales floor as a precaution for the safety of our associates and customers," a Walmart spokesperson said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. "These items do remain available for purchase by customers."

The company in June removed firearms and ammunition from stores after George Floyd's killing by police when several of its stores were damaged.

The nation's biggest retailer remains a major seller of guns and ammunition, although it has scaled back, selling firearms in roughly half of its 4,700 U.S. stores.

October 30, 2020

How America Became a Country Full of Assholes

The new documentary “Assholes: A Theory” examines the assholing of America, a nation ruled by the biggest asshole of them all: Donald J. Trump.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-america-became-a-country-full-of-assholes

As U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) famously opined on Justified, “You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” Yet in a 2020 America on the precipice of a monumental presidential election, it seems that assholes are not only everywhere you turn—in newspapers, on cable TV, at political rallies and protests, and all over social media—but that they, and their behavior, has been normalized. It’s this “rising tide of assholery” that’s the focus of director John Walker’s Assholes: A Theory, which adapts philosophy professor Aaron James’ 2012 non-fiction book into a documentary aimed at both precisely defining the term “asshole,” and investigating how those who fit that bill have increasingly come to dominate key spheres of modern public life.

Donald Trump isn’t seen or mentioned once by name in Assholes: A Theory. Nonetheless, his specter looms large over Walker’s film (in theaters Oct. 30, and on VOD Nov. 6), whether during conversations about corrupt Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi—the forerunner of the media-manipulating populist-criminal-strongman trend that’s recently swept through Western nations—or passages discussing Facebook, Twitter and Google’s prioritization of profit over their responsibility to safeguard democracy from hate speech and disinformation. Without once bringing him up, Walker makes clear that Trump is the embodiment of this problem, given that his election to the highest office—and subsequent flouting of rules and standards of common decency—has made it appear acceptable, and in fact rewarding, to act in the worst possible manner as a means of achieving one’s selfish ends. He is, the film silently contends, the apex of American assholery.

October 30, 2020

Former Marines charged in conspiracy to illegally manufacture, sell firearms

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/former-marines-charged-in-conspiracy-to-illegally-manufacture-sell-firearms-1.650303

Two former Marines based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., were arrested for illegally making, transporting and selling firearms, including one who was investigated for white supremacist activities while in the service, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Former Marines Liam Montgomery Collins, 21, and Jordan Duncan, 25, were arrested along with Paul James Kryscuk, 35, on federal charges Oct. 20 for “conspiracy to unlawfully manufacture, possess, and distribute various weapons, ammunition and suppressors,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

“The Marine Corps will continue to assist the investigating authorities in any way we can. The serious allegations are not a reflection of the Marine Corps, do not reflect the oath every Marine takes to support and defend the Constitution, and do not align with our core values of honor, courage and commitment,” Capt. Joseph Butterfield, a Marine Corps spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday.

Collins and Kryscuk are co-defendants who “used the conspiracy to enrich themselves and others by manufacturing and selling hard to obtain firearms and firearm parts in a manner that would hide these purchases from the federal government,” the Justice Department said. Duncan was aware of the illegal activity and participated in it, according to the release.

Collins made multiple money transfers to Kryscuk from May 2019 to the present to buy guns, including a 9mm pistol and suppressor and a short-barrel rifle, according to the Justice Department. Kryscuk then made the firearms and suppressors from parts that he bought from vendors. He also used an alias to mail the firearms and suppressor from Idaho, where he lived, to Jacksonville, N.C. Duncan resides in Boise, Idaho.

October 29, 2020

Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff goes viral with EPIC takedown at Georgia Senate debate

Brian Tyler Cohen

October 29, 2020

Olbermann vs. Trump #16

October 29, 2020

MSNBC airs 80-second supercut of Trump's racist remarks over the past 30 years

Video shows Mr Trump making birther claims about Barack Obama, telling Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/video-donald-trump-racist-barack-obama-central-park-five-us-election-2020-b1426977.html

A devastating 80-second montage of Donald Trump making racist remarks was aired by a TV news network before the host asked voters: "Are you for or against this?"

The MSNBC video begins with Mr Trump's comments made about the Central Park Five case, in which he called for five black and Hispanic teens were charged and found guilty of beating and raping a woman jogging in Central Park in 1989. Ultimately it was discovered that they were wrongfully accused.

Mr Trump took out a full page ad in the New York City newspaper calling for the death penalty to be reinstated and to "bring back our police" two weeks after the attack. Even after the real killer came forward in 2002, Mr Trump refused to apologise for demonising the teens. He called a documentary made about the case a "one sided piece of garbage" because he believed it should have involved the alleged crimes that the young men committed.

Later in the video, it focuses on Mr Trump's championing of the racist birther conspiracy theory against former President Barack Obama. Mr Trump claimed that Mr Obama was not born in America, and even after Hawaii verified Mr Obama's birth certificate, he claimed many people did not believe the birth certificate was legitimate.

October 29, 2020

Jerry Falwell, Jr. sues Liberty University

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/10/29/jerry-falwell-liberty-university-lawsuit/

Jerry Falwell, Jr. has sued Liberty University, the evangelical school co-founded by his father that he led for more than a decade before resigning in August after a series of personal scandals.

Falwell claims that Liberty damaged his reputation, alleging the university affirmed what he called false statements made by a man who attempted to extort Falwell and his wife, according to the complaint.

“Other than God and my family, there is nothing in the world I love more than Liberty University,” Falwell said in a news release Thursday from a law firm representing him. “I am saddened that University officials, with whom I have shared so much success and enjoyed such positive relationships, jumped to conclusions about the claims made against my character, failed to properly investigate them, and then damaged my reputation following my forced resignation.”

Falwell’s departure in August generated shock waves because of his stature in parts of the evangelical world. Liberty has long been a power center for conservative Christians, and Falwell’s endorsement of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 was seen as a pivotal moment for the candidate, one of the earliest signs of support from a prominent evangelical leader.

Scott Lamb, a spokesman for the university, said Liberty trustees have not yet been served with a lawsuit and that he would not comment until they were.

October 29, 2020

Reset

October 29, 2020

'I regret voting for him': Ohioans hit by GM plant closure reflect on Trump

Trump’s message of bringing back jobs resonated with workers – but after GM announced it was shuttering the plant, some questioned why they voted for him

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/29/lordstown-ohio-trump-gm-plant-election


Before Covid-19 hit, Trisha Amato spent her weekdays behind a modest, ebony-colored desk, running the “transition center” that helps laid-off General Motors workers pick up the shards of their lives. GM announced it was closing its mammoth plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in November 2018 and ever since Amato has been ladling out advice to the 1,700 laid-off workers on such matters as how to obtain jobless benefits and how to qualify for government assistance to pay for college courses.

The GM plant, the size of more than 100 football fields, had long been the heart of Lordstown – as recently as 2016, it employed 4,500 workers, and in its 53-year history, it produced 16m vehicles. Built alongside I-80, the hulking plant has long been a monument to America’s industrial might, or perhaps one should say its fading industrial might.

Deep-voiced, with long, auburn hair and broad shoulders – she, too, had worked at the plant – Amato has problems of her own, saying that she can no longer afford health insurance for herself and her two daughters on her transition center salary. Amato, who is divorced, felt betrayed when GM said it would shut the plant – the company had received $60m in state subsidies, and had promised in return to keep the plant open through 2027.

October 29, 2020

Five Days Until Election, Nearly Twice as Many Democrats Have Returned Their Mail Ballots as Repub..

Five Days Until Election, Nearly Twice as Many Democrats Have Returned Their Mail Ballots as Republicans

https://www.newsweek.com/twice-democrats-mail-ballots-returned-1543165

Almost twice as many Democrats have returned their mail ballots compared to Republicans, according to data compiled by the U.S. Elections Project.

With five days to go until Election Day, more than 76.5 million ballots have been cast so far—more than half the total number of votes cast in the 2016 election.

Slightly more Republicans have cast in-person votes so far (3,511,359 for Republicans compared to 3,115,299 for Democrats), but when it comes to returning mail ballots, Democrats are ahead by far.

Not all states report the party affiliations of those voting early, but those that do include key battleground states Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.