Yesterday, under extreme pressure from the public led by students from Marjory Stoneman High School, Florida governor Rick Scott signed a hastily drafted gun safety law that nibbled around the edges of our gigantic problem of gun violence.  Not completely lame, the new law does raise the minimum age for any gun purchase to 21, imposes a 3 day waiting period for gun purchases by unlicensed individuals, increases the budget for police in schools, raises the budget for mental health treatment for students, and bans bump stocks which should have never been legal to begin with.

What does the bill get wrong?  The bill stupidly legalizes arming school employees which actually INCREASES the risk of gun violence in the schools.  It doesn’t ban assault weapons.  It doesn’t even pause the sales of assault weapons while the state studies gun violence.  It doesn’t limit magazine size or limit ammunition sales.  It doesn’t strengthen the background check system.  In fact, a provision that closed the “lie and try” loophole was left out.  The “lie and try” provision would provide a mechanism to the state to charge people who lie on their background check form with a crime.  Right now, there is a federal criminal penalty for lying on the form, but in 37 states, including Florida, there is no mechanism for the FBI to notify the state that an applicant lied on the form.  Stupid, right? Easy to fix, right?  Well, they didn’t.

Sixty seven “A” rated Republicans voted for this bill, and, of course, the NRA immediately responded by suing the state in an effort to stop it, and its lobbyists have certainly already started threatening those politicians for daring to not do its bidding.

Nibbling around the edges of gun violence will do little to curb it, and will just add fuel to the gun nut argument that “laws don’t work”.  They’ll be correct, of course, since the poorly crafted gun safety bill will do little to actually increase gun safety.

Y’all, I wanna do this.  Admit it, you do, too.

I’m sure it doesn’t bother Manafort – after all, he knows for a dead solid guaranteed freeze-dried natural fact that he’s a damn traitor, but it would make me feel better.

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It’s that time again.

Enjoy!

Okay, it appears that Erik Prince, of Blackwater infamy, lied to congressional investigators when he said that his meeting with Russians in Seychelles was “just a chance encounter.”

Yeah, he didn’t tell the truth.

Investigators now suspect that the Seychelles meeting may have been one of the first efforts to establish such a line of communications between the two governments, these people said.

So a little congressional perjury and millions in campaign donations is all it takes to get your sister appointed to be the absolute worse Secretary of Education ever.

Speaking of which, Betsy went to Florida this week at government expense to talk to Parkland students, who for the most part did not want her there.  She only met with a small group of students and didn’t satisfy that group with her answers.  More than one said, “She was clearly there for a photo op. This was nothing more.”

Then, exhausted from that one meeting with high school students, she shuffled off on her $40 million yacht for a little sunshine and fun.

Wave to Betsy, y’all.  Here’s her yacht.  No word on whether or not she’ll cruise by the Seychelles to help her brother in his quest to raise his own private army.

No seriously, that’s her yacht.  If you look real close, you can see her on there, not reading of course.

Thanks to Deb T for the heads up.

Paying off a porn star to silence her less than two weeks before a presidential election; colluding with foreign powers to swing the election; starting a war with the US Justice Department; using the presidential seal in a crass commercial operation; running a hotel in a federal building, pocketing millions of dollars in foreign money; putting family members who can’t pass a background check in charge of top secret operations; having a family member on the White House staff who uses his government position to reward (and punish) countries to advantage his private real estate projects; using government influence for foreign trade licensing of the family business; cheating contractors, banks, and investors; filing bankruptcy numerous times; having 5 children by 3 wives, 2 of which were made US residents by shady means; staffing the White House with a rogue’s gallery of white supremacists, unregistered foreign agents, criminals, and weirdos; playing 100 rounds of golf in his first year as president spending one-third of the time at his own resorts; starting trade wars; threatening nuclear war; pissing off every US ally; lying in a continuous stream.  It goes on and on, but that’s enough for now.

The question is, what does it take to wake the Congress from its coma?  Can you imagine the 24/7 howling if even ONE of these transgression was committed by anyone else?  Especially a Democrat who made the mistake of being president while black?