Saturday, March 31, 2018

Saturday Shootout

I started firing back on Friday after being silent all week:

"Threatened by youth movement, NRA exploits racial divisions" by Astead W. Herndon Globe Staff  March 29, 2018

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association billed the video as “The Gun Conversation You Need To See,” a low-key intro that belied the inflammatory, racially laden messages the lobbying powerhouse is deploying in the wake of the latest school shooting spree. 

Try reading an agenda-pushing Bo$ton Globe everyday (in fact, you have to wonder if there is in fact some grand karma in the universe that will eventually set things right).

The NRA’s video featured Killer Mike, an outspoken African-American activist and rapper who gained fame as a political surrogate for Bernie Sanders on the 2016 presidential circuit, speaking with Colion Noir, the NRA’s most prominent black spokesman.

They agreed on one thing: Gun-control activists — embodied most recently by students marching on Washington — are ignoring black Americans.

It's the teachers behind them, is it not?

Other content on the NRA’s video website accuses one outspoken Parkland, Fla., student of displaying his “white privilege.’’

Where can I get some of that (never mind the unspoken of and unacknowledged Jew privilege)?

Black people “can’t continue to be a lackey,” Killer Mike said in the video, using words he later said he regretted.

Antigun activists, the rapper said, are “going to progress us into slavery.”

No, no, it won't mean local law enforcement could petition a court to order confiscation or anything like that.

The video was the most striking example of a concerted effort by the NRA during the last week to use race as a dividing line in the debate over gun control.

Unlike my National section lead, which is what is going on in Sacramento (the giveaway that it is an agenda is the presence of the charlatan Sharpton, and a clue as to from where all these tensions are being driven. Is there really anyone who trusts the FBI or the mouthpiece media that fronts for them anymore?)! 

Once some time has passed and the protests die down, the police will be justified as always.

(Btw, you want to see real oppression and police brutality? Consider yourselves lucky, Amurkn -- for now)

By casting the students from Parkland, whose classmates were recently gunned down by a mass shooter, as just more out-of-touch white liberal lobbyists, the NRA is making an overt racial appeal to nonwhites to reject the wave of antigun protests sweeping the country. The NRA itself is an overwhelmingly white organization with a fraught racial history, but the organization is now attempting to capitalize on existing fears among blacks and Hispanics that gun-control advocates do not sufficiently emphasize shootings in cities that overwhelmingly affect minority neighborhoods.

I'm so sick of these agenda-pushing hypocrites at the Globe that talk out of both sides of their mouths.

It is both a blunt racial appeal and a sophisticated strategy rife with coded language.

Try reading a Bo$ton Globe every f***ing morning.

“They only want to hear from black people who agree with gun control,” Noir said in a video released Saturday, the day of March for Our Lives rallies in Washington, Boston, and around the country. In other videos, the NRA seemed to push the idea that people who live in inner cities should arm themselves against gangs, not succumb to gun restrictions.

NRA experts said the new strategy could be a sign of an increasingly fearful organization. After the mid-February shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, student activists have presented the American gun lobby with its most formidable opponent in years.

“There’s a recognition from the NRA that this is a more real threat than other gun-control movements,” said Scott Melzer, author of a 2009 book called “Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War.”

He cited a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that showed a plurality of Americans had a negative opinion of the NRA for the first time in nearly two decades. 

As if I believe any push poll put out by the propaganda pre$$ (btw, how strange is it that Trump's approval starts to rise after he brought in Bolton -- even though the economy has been chugging for over a year? I rest my case. Btw, Bolton has also vanished down the old memory hole, hasn't he?).

“They’ve mostly only had to message to their base because that’s all they need to do,” Melzer said. “But now there’s something else going on here and they recognize this as more potentially ominous.”

“The NRA is on the run,” said Alan Jenkins, a former civil rights lawyer with the Department of Justice.

Noir and the NRA did not respond to a request for comment.

Nor would I. Matter of fact, they would most likely be met with a barrage of expletives.

The interview with Killer Mike, whose real name is Michael Render and who represents one half of the rap group “Run The Jewels,” appeared on NRA TV, the organization’s main media arm. The channel is loaded with video clips from conservatives pundits of all stripes, with some messages that border on apocalyptic to more sunny episodes about shopping for outfits that work with a firearm.

My new$paper is full of that stuff every day. Everything is framed in terms of fear and war.

The strategy of race-based attacks has left liberal organizations and gun-control advocates fuming, especially because Saturday’s march went to great lengths to include prominent minority voices from different racial backgrounds.

The opposition has been so fierce that Killer Mike has already apologized for his appearance on NRA TV. In a two-part video posted the same day the NRA video was released, the rapper said he now realizes the NRA used his words as a “weapon” against the March For Our Lives.

“I’m sorry that an interview I did about a minority, black people in this country, and gun rights was used as a weapon against you guys,” he said. “That was unfair to you and it was wrong, and it disparaged some very noble work you’re doing.”

We are in such an absurd and insane society now, where political correctness has run completely amok.

Critics were unsympathetic, and said the rapper should have known the organization would seek to use his words for its own purposes.

Therefore, why apologize? 


You know who they remind me off, these hateful, agenda-pushing pawn leftists?

"You can't negotiate with [them], as they can never give in on any point. They take every concession as the starting point for the next round of negotiations, which have to end in your giving in. It is funny how [they] are so, so ostentatiously 'progressive', yet the effects of what they do is always the opposite of progressive." --xymphora

Which is why I'm no longer motivated to comment on the narrative they provide, never mind being completely uninterested in the $upremaci$t and eliti$t slop they are shoveling these days. It's worse than it has ever been, as if they have either thrown in the towel or decided their bidding for financial purposes.

A primary strategy of the NRA, they said, is to deflect attention from the proliferation of guns in America and the epidemic of mass shootings. Generating racial resentment and fear of criminals fits that playbook, they said.

Related:

Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Operation Mockingbird

Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?

Turned in my playbook, so to speak!!

“The NRA has long employed old and familiar blame-shifting tactics that are highly racialized in order to turn attention away from the gun-control debate,” said Kristen Clarke, director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Whether stigmatizing black single mothers, or pandering to communities of color through figures such as Killer Mike, or promoting more cops inside schools as the solution to school shootings, the NRA has long used dog whistles to drive its agenda.”

The Globe is the only one hearing them!

Black supporters of President Trump disagreed. They said the liberal anger was another sign of the supposed political correctness problem among liberals, who they view as being intolerant of differing views. 

That's the sad part; they are the closed-minded ones now.

“It’s so sad that Rapper Killer Mike can’t have an opinion,” tweeted Diamond and Silk, who were paid supporters of the Trump campaign. Their real names are Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson.

The new strategy represents another twist in the NRA’s complicated history on race and political activism, according to Melzer and others who have studied the NRA for years. Founded in 1871, its political activism and close alignment with conservative politics emerged strongly in the 1990s, when current president Wayne LaPierre ascended to power and experts said the organization sought to remake itself from a single-issue Second Amendment group to something greater: a one-stop shop of conservative cultural zealotry. LaPierre’s NRA now stands against more than gun-control rights, calling itself “liberty’s safest place” against “thugs” and “liberals.”

(Blog editor just shakes his head at the never-ending, one-sided ax-grinding by the "journalists" at the Bo$ton Globe)

Just last year, an NRA spokesperson on NRA TV said that there was no “genuine black oppression as there was in the past” and that President Obama “set race relations back 100 years in this country.”

NRA TV today features programming for nearly every demographic, including Noir’s show, videos from more traditional conservative firebrands, and a Real Housewives-style program called “Love at First Shot.” Noir, who was hired after years of running a successful YouTube series about gun enthusiasts, regularly attracts more than 100,000 viewers per episode.

They haven't taken that down yet?

His programs often accuse others — not the NRA — of being the true arbiters of racial bias in America.

“If our politicians are truly using the carnage that they refuse to stop to attack the rights of honest, hard-working Americans caught in living hell, then they are guilty of the most despicable form of racism imaginable,” Noir said in another video posted Monday.

Whether or not this message resonates with black communities is hard to ascertain. Recent polling released by Quinnipiac University said black Americans are more likely than their white or Hispanic counterparts to support gun control, and polls show that whites make up the majority of those opposed to stricter gun regulations.

Btw, it was the Democrats who brought you those policies (everyone seems to have forgotten that the Republicans are the party of abolition and that the Democrats are the party of segregation, now conveniently called identity politics).

Multiple black gun ownership groups did not return repeated requests for comment, and survey data show the NRA’s membership remains overwhelmingly white — though specific numbers are unavailable. Black gun ownership has risen in the Trump era, but the NRA still received widespread condemnation for remaining silent after the death of Philando Castile, a licensed black gun owner who died in a police shooting in Minnesota during 2016.

That's because many blacks that have guns have stolen them -- at least, according to Bo$ton Globe reports (go ahead and spend the day scrolling, readers) -- and they did send a note of condolence.

Because of this, some question whether the NRA’s recent overtures to black communities are even targeted at black people. Jenkins, the former DOJ lawyer and the current president of a social justice organization called The Opportunity Agenda, said the NRA is merely using black people as a prop to speak to their white base.

The same way the other side is using the students and women.

In fact, all these movements 

“Attempting to divide black people is not the same as an overture to black people,” Jenkins said. “It’s just corrosive and cynical.”

--more--" 

They don't care about the white man?

The sad part is these schools shooting mass casualty events all fit the pattern of all staged and scripted crisis drills then being reported as real by a lying, agenda-pushing, elite supremacist media that has made its goals and designs more than clear.

Then they are literally laughing in your face when I flip the fold and they flip the script:

"Where is Frank Capra now that we really need him? If the director were around today, you know he’d already be working on a script set in and around the aftermath of the shootings in Parkland, Fla. And we’d all be waiting to see how it ended....."

He was also Bozo the clown, “one of the most decent, gentle, and likable people in television,” (at least as far as we know) and while we are bringing back things from the dead:

"Charles P. Lazarus, 94, Toys R Us founder" by Michael Corkery New York Times  March 25, 2018

NEW YORK — Charles P. Lazarus, who founded Toys R Us, the toy store chain that for decades captured the hearts of American consumers but that eventually faded and succumbed to bankruptcy, died Thursday. He was 94.

Mr. Lazarus’s death comes one week after Toys R Us announced that it would start liquidating its stores in the United States.

The bankruptcy killed him.

His understanding of a child’s mind-set helped him amass a considerable fortune; “Over the years, I have taught children to say, ‘I need, rather than I want it,’ ” he told the documentary filmmaker in a 2016 interview. 

So he is the one who turned us all into little brats.

Michael Goldstein, a former chief executive at Toys R Us who worked with Mr. Lazarus for many years and had become a close friend, said he did not mention the liquidation to Mr. Lazarus when he saw him Saturday. “The beauty of Toys R Us was that we were the toy store for children across the world,” Goldstein said.

Would he have even known what you were talking about?

By the early 2000s, the business model of Toys R Us was under pressure, and the company was purchased by a group of private equity investors in a leveraged buyout in 2005. The new owners loaded the company with $5 billion in debt, a burden it was never able to overcome.

“There have been many sad moments for Toys R Us in recent weeks, and none more heartbreaking than today’s news about the passing of our beloved founder, Charles Lazarus,” Toys R Us said in its statement Thursday afternoon. “We will forever be grateful for his positive energy, passion for the customer, and love for children everywhere.”

Yeah, the elite love kids.

President Bush visited Mr. Lazarus at a Toys R Us store opening in Japan in 1992. Mr. Lazarus said of his success, “When you look at what the creativity of the toy market is, you have to have imagination, you have to think like a child.”
President Bush visited Mr. Lazarus at a Toys R Us store opening in Japan in 1992. Mr. Lazarus said of his success, “When you look at what the creativity of the toy market is, you have to have imagination, you have to think like a child.” (associated press/file)

Apparently Bush Sr also liked children, as did his eldest son.

--more--"

Do you think it is possible that.....

‘I am still old and still in love’ — Barbara Bush updates Smith classmates" by Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff  March 29, 2018

Even former first ladies like to keep up with their college girlfriends.

“I am still old and still in love with the man I married 72 years ago,” Barbara Bush wrote in the March edition of the alumnae magazine for Smith College, a women’s school in Northampton.

Her dispatch leads the “Alumnae Lives Update” section for the Class of 1947, and she is among 10 class members who provided updates for the Smith Alumnae Quarterly’s latest edition. The magazine identifies her as Barbara Pierce Bush.

She dropped out of the college in 1944 and married George H.W. Bush two weeks later, according to a White House biography. Smith claims her as a member of the Class of 1947 and awarded her an honorary degree in 1989, the school said.

She dropped out to marry, huh?

A full-page photograph of Bush, 92, sitting in a garden in Kennebunkport, Maine, also appears in the publication, with a quote from the matriarch of the American political dynasty.

“I have had great medical care and more operations than you would believe. I’m not sure God will recognize me; I have so many new body parts! Also, George Bush has given me the world. He is the best — thoughtful and loving,” she says.

She says that when she sees what he has been grabbing, and after the third time she punted, as did Bray of the Globe (last I knew the count was up to six, including a 16-year-old girl)!

Beyond that, Bar just made a colossal Freudian slip and confirmed the existence of organ-harvesting rings!! That is why and how these detestable fossils live so long!

Her note says she is “very active” in the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Her husband, the former president, keeps busy with his foundation, Points of Light, she writes.

“All of our children are working and serving others in their own way, along with my 17 grandchildren. I am very proud of them,” she writes.

Bush didn’t name any of her famous children or grandchildren or mention that her husband and son, George W. Bush, once occupied the White House.

Barbara and George H.W. Bush spend most of their time in Houston, Texas. Last fall, she said her children and grandchildren helped with hurricane relief and cheered for the Houston Astros, who clinched their first World Series win.

This isn’t the first time Bush has written a class note.

The Smith Alumnae Quarterly archives include periodic updates from Bush going back to August 1953 when the magazine published a birth notice for her second son, Jeb. The publication lists him as John.

The August 1968 edition has an update about George W. Bush, but doesn’t name him.

“Barbara (Pierce) Bush’s son graduated from Yale and joins the AF Reserve in July,” the note says.

Did he ever show up?

The November 1972 edition provides insight into Bush’s life in New York City, where she lived while her husband served as US ambassador to the United Nations.

“The family of 5 children find living at the Waldorf rather formal after their life in Texas but they enjoy taking other embassy children to the ball games, have “Americanized” the apt. by hanging only US artists, serving local wines and buying only American-made clothing,” the note says.

Three years ago, she wrote to the magazine about her husband’s medical troubles and aging.

“My precious George has been in the hospital and out, thank God. We have the best five children in the world — all giving and caring individuals,” she wrote. “Being almost 90 is tough, as many of you know, but with a loving, close family, almost anything can be survived.”

Bush is among two first ladies to attend Smith. The other, Nancy Reagan, graduated in 1943.

--more--"

The fawning over the blood-soaked, war-criminal crime family shows you how phony all the #MeToo and other pre$$-promoted movements are. HW's ass-grabbing no big deal now, wow.

Those victims got visits and threats, no doubt, and the self-censorship regarding the sicknesses and perversion of a powerful, blood-soaked, war-criminal crime family that is somehow an AmeriKan aristocracy is enough to make one puke.

Btw, Bushes have been accused of racism in past, but that all gone-gone. Mind and memory massaged, same as under Obama. The ma$$ media dispatches the past into a vacuum and acts like you never remembered a damn thing they said.

"Gunmaker struggled to find lender for bankruptcy financing" by Eliza Ronalds-Hannon and Tiffany Kary Bloomberg News  March 29, 2018

For Remington Outdoor Co., one of the oldest firearms makers in the United States, not even going bankrupt is easy these days.

At a time when gun-control demonstrations have unfolded across the nation and the world, 30 lenders declined to provide bankruptcy financing for the company, according to court filings. In the end, two prominent financial companies— Franklin Resources and a unit of JPMorgan Chase — ended up giving Remington the bulk of a $100 million loan. The names of other lenders that agreed to provide financing were blacked out from court documents.

OMG, THEIR PRIVACY is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than YOURS!

So WHEN do the KIDS start PROTESTING the BANKS?

Gunmakers have fallen on hard times. A projected jump in sales stemming from the expected election of Hillary Clinton never materialized due to her defeat, and retailers such as Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. have restricted sales. Remington, burdened by debt from its 2007 acquisition by Cerberus Capital Management, filed for Chapter 11 on March 25, a day after throngs energized by student survivors of a February mass shooting in Florida rallied for the passage of tighter gun laws. The skittishness of Remington’s potential lenders could be the first sign that Wall Street is listening to the protesters.

Yeah, but remember, a gun isn't a toy. 

I mean, they have toy guns but....!!

Remington, to speed through Chapter 11, needed three new forms of financing to help it stay afloat through the bankruptcy process.

The company was able to secure a $45 million bridge loan from its parent, which is owned by Cerberus, to give it enough cash to make it to the bankruptcy in the first place.

I wonder who is behind Cerberus and from where they come.

The company also had to negotiate debtor-in-possession loans to finance operations through the Chapter 11. Remington sought a $100 million term loan from outside investors to provide a large chunk of the cash. It had no takers.

‘‘The vast majority of lenders contacted, however, indicated that they were reluctant to provide financing to firearms manufacturers,’’ according to a court filing. The company’s adviser, Lazard Freres & Co., said it approached 30 potential lenders — not just banks but hedge funds specializing in distressed debt who are usually hungry for such opportunities — and found no appetite among them. After eight parties agreed to further talks, most declined, citing timing factors as well as ‘‘concerns about investing in the firearms industry.’’

Related: "Remington, a storied gun maker that began turning out flintlock rifles when there were only 19 states in the Union, has filed for bankruptcy reorganization after years of slumping sales and legal and financial pressure over the Sandy Hook school massacre. In papers filed Sunday in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Remington outlined a plan to turn over control to its creditors and continue operating with up to $100 million from lenders. It remains unclear what will happen to its 3,500 or so employees as it tries to put its finances in order. Some investors decided after Sandy Hook that they wanted nothing to do with Remington, whose roots go back to 1816. Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that acquired Remington in 2007, tried to sell it less than a week after the shooting. There were no takers. The industry has been hurt by another trend: A large percentage of guns in the United States are owned by an increasingly small group of people. Some of Wall Street’s heaviest hitters are stepping into the debate on guns. BlackRock, a major shareholder in Sturm Ruger, American Outdoor Brands, and Vista Outdoor Brands, announced about a week after the Parkland shooting that it wanted to speak with firearms makers about their responses to the tragedy. It’s also looking into creating new investment funds that exclude gun makers and retailers....."

Are they also going to exclude investments in Lockheed, Raytheon, etc?

Finally, existing term-loan lenders agreed to extend the $100 million loan — but their identities remained anonymous. Their names are redacted from court documents. They’re supposed to be repaid through stock in a new, reorganized company.

Spokesmen for Franklin, JPMorgan, and Cerberus declined to comment. A Remington representative didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Remington appears to have had an easier time negotiating with parties to an asset-backed loan, which will be repaid in cash and not stock when Remington exits bankruptcy. Eventually, the lenders provided $193 million. Their names are disclosed in the court filings. Among them are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Regions Financial, Synovus Financial Corp., Fifth Third Bank Bancorp, and Deutsche Bank.

OMFG!!! 

Of course, the reason the banks loaned them the money is so they won't default on their debt payments.

In a filing, Remington acknowledged the effect of media attention on its business. ‘‘Negative attention will likely have a negative influence on public opinion’’ and ‘‘may impact the long-run demand for Remington’s products,’’ it said. The company also talked about its litigation risk.

I don't think so; we have stopped listening to them and whatever they are pushing. Whatever it is, wish for the opposite.

North Carolina-based Remington is involved in a lawsuit concerning the 2012 mass shooting that left 26 dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Bushmaster, owned by Remington, manufactured the firearm used in those killings. The company is also entangled in litigation over trigger defects on guns such as its iconic Model 700 rifle.

Sued over a hoax?

I hate to keep spit-balling that one, but you know....

The AR-15 assault rifle used in the Florida school killings was made by another gunmaker, Smith & Wesson, a unit of American Outdoor Brands Corp.

--more--"

Related:

TripAdvisor, Wayfair pull advertising from Laura Ingraham’s show after she mocks Parkland survivor

Actually, that only accrues to her benefit -- or it should, if Globe reporting is to be believed.

Liberty Mutual becomes third Mass. company to scrap ads on Laura Ingraham show

Bye, Laura. 

Or welcome back, rather.

"Gun control is emerging. What’s next for its advocates?" by Mark Arsenault and Michael Levenson Globe Staff  March 26, 2018

The emerging movement that brought hundreds of thousands of youthful gun violence protesters to the streets across the country this weekend now faces a steep political climb to sustain momentum in the weeks and months to come.

With a GOP-controlled Congress unlikely to make major changes to gun laws, gun safety advocates say they are turning their attention to the mid-term elections this fall, hoping the energy inspired by the teenaged survivors of the massacre in Parkland, Fla., will carry into the voting booth. Activists see the election as the first key test of whether the renewed push for stricter controls can reshape Congress and eventually bring about political change.

The staged and scripted crisis drill fraud also serves the purpose of undergirding the election narrative that will return the House to Democrats control.

“If youth are anything, we are persistent, and we are not going to get out of their hair until we see action taken,” said Laura-Luiza Gouvea, a 15-year-old from Somerville and spokesperson for the March for Our Lives Boston.

She then went and checked her phone.

For example, she plans to lobby Beacon Hill for legislation that would allow family and household members to petition a court to temporarily remove a gun from a person who is considered a risk to themselves or the public.

WTF are they doing up there anyway? 

Not much, from the looks of it, and "time is running out."

Really earning that pay, aren't they?

The bill is a top priority for advocates in Massachusetts, which already has among the nation’s strictest gun laws.

Nationally, advocates say the movement is growing but they caution that Washington is traditionally resistant to quick change.

Unless it is something like a bank bailout or what Israel wants. Then it is fast-tracked through.

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said that after the marches “everyone wants a cathartic moment in Congress, but this is a marathon, not a sprint. It is going to take several election cycles to get us to where we need to be.”

You guys are running backwards.

Still, her group — which is affiliated with Everytown for Gun Safety, the organization founded by former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — has added 140,000 new volunteers since the Parkland massacre on Feb. 14, and it has started a new group, Students Demand Action, which has added 33,000 volunteers.

Oh, so that is who is paying for all this, an agenda-pushing Jewish billionaire. 

Yeah, the wealth inequality he embodies is nowhere to be found in the debate anymore.

Watts is focused on harnessing the energy from the marches to register and mobilize voters ahead of the mid-term elections and pressure state legislatures to toughen gun control laws.

“What the marches did was help us keep the national spotlight on this issue but also show lawmakers this is a movement, and we’re serious about this issue, and we are serious about making change,” she said.

The implication being that others are not. How arrogant!

Yeah, “Sandy Hook was the start of the movement,” gave it a “Pulse,” if you will, and it appears that people are catching on to the false flag phonies and government framing of pathetic and manipulated patsies.

Of course, that would take too much time to look into, right?

--more--"

I'm proud to be part of the “passionate minority” while Baker is nowhere to be found.

Related: DC POLICE: “MARCH FOR OUR LIVES” PLANNING PRECEDED PARKLAND FL SHOOTING BY “SEVERAL MONTHS”

Yes, dear readers, everything -- yes, EVERYTHING -- that is being presented to you by the $h!t media is STAGED and SCRIPTED ILLUSION and AGENDA-PUSHING GARBAGE!!

"President Trump said Wednesday that the Second Amendment — the right to keep and bear arms — “will never be repealed,” responding to an opinion piece written by a retired Supreme Court justice who called for just that. Trump’s declaration in an early-morning tweet came after days of silence on the subject, despite student-organized marches around the country over the weekend calling for more gun control. On Tuesday, retired Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. “Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday,” Stevens wrote. “These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.” Repealing the Second Amendment would have to be approved by Congress, and there have been no formal proposals for such a move. In his tweet, Trump also said that Democrats support repealing the Second Amendment, but that has not been the case in Congress, which is only considering modest policy changes on guns. In the 1990s, a Democratic congressman from New York introduced legislation for a repeal, but it did not get any traction. Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, did not campaign to repeal the Second Amendment....."

Stevens showing just how senile he is, for the last branch of government that is supposed to be influenced by public mob is the judiciary. 

What about a knife?

"A New Hampshire teacher who gave a high school student a knife for a civics lesson skit to discuss searches and seizures and the Fourth Amendment was put on paid administrative leave and has since resigned, according to authorities. The student’s father reported the incident at Gorham Middle and High School, according to WMUR-TV. Gorham Police Chief Pi Cyr said Wednesday the teacher approached the 17-year-old student for the skit and gave him the bi-fold knife. The student put it in a lunchbox. Other students weren’t aware of that when the two went through the skit. Knives are banned at the school. Police said the teacher made a poor decision, but no criminal charges will be filed. Several petitions are being circulated to bring the teacher back to work (AP)."

***********

"Repeat offender among 4 arrested in Dorchester for possessing loaded, high-powered guns" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff  March 28, 2018

Boston police Tuesday arrested two juveniles and two adults for allegedly cruising through Dorchester with loaded semiautomatic handguns in a bust that stopped the violent foursome “before they hurt anyone,” officials said.

One of the suspects, Ian Percival, 26, of Quincy, has three prior convictions for unlawful possession of a firearm with sentences ranging from 18 months in jail to four to five years in state prison, according to prosecutors.

“I want to commend our officers, since we most likely prevented another tragedy, by intercepting this vehicle before they hurt anyone,” Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said in statement.

His words were echoed by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.

“The cycle of violence and retaliation has claimed too many lives, and interrupting it has to be a priority for us in law enforcement,” Conley said in a statement. “Fast-breaking investigations like this one don’t just take guns off the street — they save lives.”

It won't be the last time.

The men caught the attention of gang unit officers around 5:10 p.m. Tuesday when their vehicle sped through stop signs in the area of Pleasant Street and Savin Hill Avenue, Boston police said in a statement.

A police report filed in the case said the unit officers were monitoring suspected gang affiliates involved in an ongoing feud linked to “numerous” shooting deaths.

Officers stopped the vehicle and recognized the four young men inside, the statement said. The report said the vehicle was carrying gang associates traveling through rival territory.

“The officers also noticed that the previously open window was now closed and the doors locked,” the release said. “Believing items may have been discarded from the vehicle, the officers retraced their path of travel.”

Police ultimately recovered two loaded black semiautomatic firearms, identified as a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380 and a Smith & Wesson M&P .40, near 28 High St., the spot where the sharp-eyed cops first noticed the vehicle with its window open, authorities said.

“Both firearms had scratches consistent with being thrown from a moving vehicle, and thermal imaging showed that the firearms were warmer than their surrounding area, which indicates they had likely just been in a person’s possession,” the statement said.

Prior to the stop, the report said, the suspects’ vehicle was traveling so erratically that “[n]umerous other vehicles had to drastically alter their path of travel in order to avoid [getting hit].” The suspects’ vehicle had also taken a number of “unnecessary turns” in an effort to avoid surveillance, the report alleged.

Evans implored judges to keep repeat gun offenders locked up for lengthy stretches to protect public safety.

“Time and time again, we are seeing young people with high-powered weapons, some who have already been charged and convicted of these crimes several times before; and it’s troubling, to say the least,” Evans said in the statement. “My officers have already taken almost 150 guns off the streets so far this year, many of them from kids who are only sixteen and seventeen years old. My officers are doing their part, and we are making a plea to the judges and courts to work in partnership with us to help keep these repeat violent offenders with multiple firearms convictions out of our neighborhoods.”

In addition to Percival, police also arrested Jonathan A. Dasilva, 26, of Dorchester, a 16-year-old juvenile from the neighborhood, and a 17-year-old juvenile from Quincy, according to the release. The juveniles weren’t named because of their ages.

All four suspects are charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and unlawful possession of a large capacity feeding device, police said.

Percival was also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm (second and subsequent offense), failure to stop, and negligent operation of a motor vehicle, the statement said. Plus he was hit with civil citations for various auto law infractions.

At his arraignment Wednesday in Dorchester Municipal Court, Percival was ordered held on $100,000 cash bail and additionally held on a probation matter, while Dasilva was held on $50,000 bail and had his open bail revoked in a separate case, Conley’s office said.

The juveniles appeared in the Juvenile Division of Dorchester Municipal Court, where bail for each was set at $10,000, prosecutors said.

--more--"

Related:

"Police arrested a Camden, N.J., man on Wednesday after finding him in a Dorchester apartment with a loaded pistol and several bags of marijuana, officials said. Officers arrested Freddie Evans, 30, at 385 Blue Hill Ave. at 5:55 p.m. during an investigation, Boston police said in a statement. While executing a search warrant of the area, officers seized a loaded .40-caliber Hi-Point Smith and Wesson pistol with seven live rounds of ammunition, three live .40-caliber rounds, one .40-caliber spent cartridge, several plastic bags of marijuana, and various drug paraphernalia consistent with the illegal sale of drugs, police said. Evans was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, unlawful possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and possession with intent to distribute Class D drugs."

You will just have to build your own, I guess.

And for preventing tragedies, was a FALSE FLAG AVERTED here?

"Texas couple that allegedly brought arsenal to Tewksbury will stay in jail for a while" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff   March 30, 2018

A Texas couple that’s been locked up for a week after the husband told police he kept a weapons cache in their Tewksbury hotel room for a secret government mission will remain behind bars at least until April 26, prosecutors said.

That is one way of shutting them up. I mean, it's not like they are going to give them the guns back.

The suspects, Francho Bradley, 59, and Adrianne Jennings, 40, both of Frisco, Tex., will return to court on that date for a probable cause hearing, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan’s office.

On Friday, the couple appeared in Lowell District Court for a dangerousness hearing, and Judge Stacey Fortes ordered that they continue to be held without bail, Ryan’s office said in a statement.

The two were arraigned Monday in the same courthouse on a slew of weapons charges in connection with the small arsenal, including a grenade launcher, that they allegedly stored in their room at the Residence Inn in Tewksbury. Not guilty pleas were entered on their behalf.

Were they arms dealers like that guy in Vegas?

Their lawyers couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Bradley allegedly told police last weekend that he needed the weapons for a classified mission, but Ryan’s office said Friday that investigators believe he was working for a Cambridge company. Authorities declined to name the company.

Why didn't they name the company? An intelligence agency front, huh? 

Wasn't Analytica, was it?

“At this point investigators have not uncovered a specific plot or wider conspiracy; however this remains an ongoing and active investigation,” Ryan’s office said in a joint release with Tewksbury police Chief Timothy Sheehan.

Meaning it will be covered up and buried if there is anything to it.

The couple got on the radar of law enforcement Saturday afternoon when Bradley called Tewksbury police to report that he believed his hotel room had been burglarized because a video surveillance device he attached to the door had cut out, authorities have said previously.

So he wanted to get caught, huh? Why would he call the cops over that? It's as subtle as a cockroach crawling over a white rug. 

This is smelling like one big psyop, folks.

Bradley expressed concern because an unsecured gun was in the room.

A police report quoted him as telling the dispatcher that he didn’t want the gun to fall into “the wrong hands.”

Police went to the room and discovered several long guns wrapped in a flight suit, prosecutors said. Investigators then got a search warrant for the room and the couple’s vehicle.

They seized quite a haul.

The police report said the items recovered included an AK-47, an AR-15 with a grenade launcher and silencer, a .22-caliber rifle with a silencer, two .308-caliber rifles and three loaded large capacity magazines, a 9-millimeter gun with two large capacity magazines, a .45-caliber gun with two additional speed loaders, a shotgun, numerous rounds of ammunition, and multiple smoke grenades.

Police said Bradley refused to disclose the agency he was purportedly working for.

“He stated that he couldn’t tell us and that if we found out what he was doing, we would have to be writing reports for a long time, due to the fact it is classified,” the report said. “Francho came off very odd, it appeared he was trying to hide something and he was not forthcoming at all.”

Bradley also claimed to have previously served as a Los Angeles police officer and a military “bomb tech,” according to the report.

In addition to the firearms, the couple had several tactical military-style vests with “ ‘flash bangs’ and military-style smoke machines, tactical helmets, and military-style equipment to include satellite phones and radios,” the report said.

Bradley later told police he was a contractor for a company he owns called Ensyme Engineering but wouldn’t detail what the outfit does, the report said.

Jennings also spoke to investigators and said she and her husband “always bring the guns with us in case he gets deployed,” but she, too, would not elaborate, the report said.

During a separate interview with FBI agents, Bradley made a number of bizarre assertions, including that he served on the LAPD “sometime” during the 1984 Olympics and knew there were details of the O.J. Simpson case that were “supposed to be kept from the public,” police said.

Yeah, he's nuts. So says a lying, distorting, agenda-pushing piece of falsity.

Bradley also told investigators that he had “prominent roles” with Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign and the German government, working as a plainclothes officer in that country’s DST-K44 Unit, the document said.

Bradley at one point displayed a badge that said “Department of Defense, United States of America” and claimed to work for a “secret government agency,” police said.

Authorities said Friday that the badge appeared to be phony.

Yeah, well, we have reached the point where he -- or anyone -- is more believable than the lie authority stands behind.

Bradley also claimed he “saved a one-star general who was kidnapped a few years ago,” the report said. “Francho also stated that his first wife who was 60 years old died of old age, so he married someone who is 20 years younger than him to ‘solve that problem.’ ”

But that story was contradicted by a Virginia man who spoke to investigators and said he’s currently married to Bradley’s ex-wife, according to court records. The Virginia man said Bradley’s former wife was traveling in Morocco and unavailable to speak to police, and that Bradley had been telling stories about his government work “for years,” the report said.

Happens every day in the newspaper if you read them day after day, and nobody makes a big deal of it.

The man said, “No one knows if it is true or not,” the document said.

Maybe that is the point, but if you must, err on the side of caution and be skeptical of anything and everything you find in the Bo$ton Globe.

--more--"

Did they check under the bed?

"Texas man tells police he needed weapons cache at Tewksbury hotel for secret mission" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff  March 27, 2018

A Texas couple is behind bars for allegedly stockpiling high-powered weapons including a grenade launcher in a Tewksbury hotel room, and the husband told police that he works for a “secret government agency” and needed the arsenal “for his mission,” court records show.

Francho Bradley, 59, and Adrianne Jennings, 40, both of Frisco, Texas, were arraigned Monday in Lowell District Court on charges including possession of a large-capacity firearm, improper storage of a large-capacity firearm, possession of an infernal machine, and possession of a machine gun (bump stock), Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan’s office said.

The flamethrower is good for roasting nuts, or so I've been told.

More like it is a better tool to disperse a bomb at the gated mansion than gunfire.

Bradley, who has a valid gun license in Texas but not in Massachusetts, told investigators he needed the firearms for an unspecified mission, according to a Tewksbury police report posted to the Lowell Sun website.

“He also stated that we could take the guns and store them at the Tewksbury Police Department, but he would have to come get them if he was called for his mission,” the report said. “Francho went on to say that he can’t tell us what he does for work or why he has all the guns with him, but that he is down in this area working for a government agency that is dealing with a virus.”

Pleas of not guilty were entered on the defendants’ behalf. They’re due back in court March 30. Attempts to reach their lawyers for comment were unsuccessful.

The couple got on the radar of law enforcement Saturday afternoon when Bradley called Tewksbury police to report that he believed his room at the Residence Inn had been burglarized because a video surveillance device that he attached to the door had cut out, Ryan’s office said in a statement.

Bradley said he was concerned because an unsecured gun was in the room, according to the release.

The police report quoted him as telling the dispatcher that he didn’t want the gun to fall into “the wrong hands.”

Police went to the room and discovered several long guns wrapped in a flight suit, prosecutors said. Investigators then got a search warrant for the room and the couple’s vehicle.

They seized quite a haul.

The police report said the items recovered included an AK-47, an AR-15 with a grenade launcher and silencer, a .22-caliber rifle with a silencer, two .308-caliber rifles and three loaded large capacity magazines, a 9-millimeter gun with two large capacity magazines, a .45-caliber gun with two additional speed loaders, a shotgun, numerous rounds of ammunition, and multiple smoke grenades.

Ryan’s office said investigators do not currently believe there is any additional threat to public safety.

“However our investigation is continuing,” the statement said. “As this is an active investigation no additional information is being released at this time.”

Tewksbury police said in a separate statement that the “purpose behind the couple’s Tewksbury stay and unlawful possession of the weapons cache remains under a multi-agency investigation.”

The police report said Bradley refused to disclose the agency he was purportedly working for.

“He stated that he couldn’t tell us and that if we found out what he was doing, we would have to be writing reports for a long time, due to the fact it is classified,” the report said. “Francho came off very odd, it appeared he was trying to hide something and he was not forthcoming at all.”

Bradley also claimed to have previously served as a Los Angeles police officer and a military “bomb tech,” according to the report.

Investigators learned that he had received parking tickets on two consecutive days in the same area of Cambridge, even though he said he had no ties to Boston or Cambridge, the report said.

As a result, police began to suspect “he may be surveilling an area,” the report said. “It should also be noted that I knew there was a major demonstration ‘March for Our Lives’ in Boston that day.”

In addition to the firearms, the couple had several tactical military-style vests with “ ‘flash bangs’ and military-style smoke machines, tactical helmets, and military-style equipment to include satellite phones and radios,” the report said.

Bradley later told police he was a contractor for a company he owns called Ensyme Engineering but wouldn’t detail what the outfit does, the report said.

Jennings also spoke to investigators and said she and her husband “always bring the guns with us in case he gets deployed,” but she, too, would not elaborate, the report said.

During a separate interview with FBI agents, Bradley made a number of bizarre assertions, including that he served on the LAPD “sometime” during the 1984 Olympics and knew there were details of the O.J. Simpson case that were “supposed to be kept from the public,” police said.

Bradley also told investigators that he had “prominent roles” with Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign and with the German government, working as a plainclothes officer in that country’s DST-K44 Unit, the document said.

Bradley at one point displayed a badge that said “Department of Defense, United States of America” and claimed to work for a “secret government agency,” police said.

He also said he “saved a one-star general who was kidnapped a few years ago,” the filing said. “Francho also stated that his first wife who was 60 years old died of old age, so he married someone who is 20 years younger than him to ‘solve that problem.’ ” 

But that story was contradicted by a Virginia man who spoke to investigators and said he’s currently married to Bradley’s ex-wife, according to court records. The Virginia man said Bradley’s former wife was traveling in Morocco and unavailable to speak to police, and that Bradley had been telling stories about his government work “for years,” the report said.

The man said, “No one knows if it is true or not,” the document said.

Wow, man, deja vu. 

Cut and paste, huh?

Massachusetts authorities later contacted Frisco police and learned Bradley had reported to that department in 2013 that Jennings had gone missing, records show. Bradley told Frisco, Texas, cops that he was concerned because Jennings “was a psych patient and had ‘mental issues’ ” that required medication, the filing said.

Jennings was later located and told police at the time that she bolted after she saw Bradley’s shotgun lying on a table.

“She stated that her friend got killed by a shotgun and she wasn’t going to let him kill her,” the report said in reference to the 2013 incident. No charges were filed in that case.

Just another pathetic pair of patsies!

--more--" 

I wonder if they know that other band of Texas outlaws.

"Man, 35, shot to death in Dorchester" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff   March 30, 2018

Easter weekend began tragically on a Dorchester street Friday morning, when a 35-year-old man was shot to death in what Boston police Commissioner William B. Evans described as a “pretty brazen” attack.

The slaying on Wayland Street occurred shortly after 9 a.m. “on what’s supposed to be a real holy day, Good Friday, which is troubling,” Evans told reporters at the scene.

OMG! 

So it wouldn't be as troubling on any other day?!!

He said the victim, whose name was withheld pending family notification, collapsed near a surveillance camera on Wayland Street, but it wasn’t clear if any cameras captured the actual shooting.

?????

“I feel bad for the elderly and a lot of the neighbors who are all good people down here,” Evans said. “And they have to live in a neighborhood where a 35-year-old gets shot at 9 o’clock in the morning.”

Wow, WHAT an INDICTMENT of BO$TON!

One resident of the housing complex said she was watching television in her apartment when the shots rang out.

“Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “And I’m like ‘OK, were those firecrackers? I’ll wait five minutes and if I don’t hear sirens, then it’s firecrackers.’ I heard sirens.”

She said Evans arrived soon afterward. The woman also lamented the violence and drug activity that she said occurs in the area.

“It’s got to stop,” she said.

Then look away!

Evans said “We’re hoping the cameras help us,” adding that witnesses are strongly urged to contact police.

“We always worry about retaliation,” Evans said. “If we don’t get this shooter then someone’s going to come back at him.”

He also issued a call for peace during the remainder of the holiday weekend.

“Let’s hope that this is the end of it for the weekend,” Evans said.....

--more--"

Also, law enforcement officials are treating the deaths of two people found in a burning delivery truck in Bangor, Maine, as suspicious

Related:

"In normal years, Joseph Gibbons and Steve Bruno would get to work this weekend. It’s time, Gibbons said, for the two 57-year-olds to focus on their families and their day jobs. They are not sure if they’ll recoup their original investment. But that was never really the goal. “We’re both tired, we both have other responsibilities, we’re near retirement,” said Gibbons, an electrician. “I don’t have the energy to keep going. It’s not so much fun breaking it down [anymore].....”

I couldn't have said it better myself, and I could also “write a book about it.” 

Hey, ‘‘sometimes you dance with the devil, then you don’t really like the dance.’’ The Globe even ruined my cup of coffee this morning

You need to see the see the newspapers for what they are, people who spread falsehoods and distorts facts to fit their narratives.” 

No wonder they are dying.

Monday, March 26, 2018

Monday Silencer

They put the kids at the bottom of page A6 today. 

Led with this:

"NRA has long history of suppressing data on gun violence" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff  March 25, 2018

WASHINGTON — After the high school shootings that killed 17 people in Parkland, Fla., gun control advocates have seized the momentum with attacks on the National Rifle Association and captured public attention with Saturday’s nationwide protests, but the powerful gun lobbying group has a strong, little-known defense against challenges to its absolutist stand on the Second Amendment: federal limits on both research into guns and the distribution of data about the industry.

The protests were a great opportunity to transfer [demonstrators’] energy and concern into practical action.

Laws backed by the NRA and other pro-gun groups prevent the public from seeing which firearms dealers are selling the most guns used in crimes, information the federal government collects but won’t share, even with premier research universities. The NRA also pushed through rules that had a chilling effect on federal studies focused on how guns affect public health, denying policy makers a road map for better gun laws.

But they have no idea how many civilians were killed by police, at least that is what we are told.

Congress took a small step to loosen restrictions against gun-violence research sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its budget plan approved last week, but significant appropriations hurdles will remain before the research can restart.

Detractors say the NRA is using a tactic similar to the tobacco industry’s suppression of evidence about the health dangers of smoking. The difference: Big tobacco ultimately failed in its efforts while the pro-gun groups have successfully beaten back most legislation they oppose.

The NRA disputes the notion that it’s cutting off scientific study.

“Anyone who thinks there’s a lack of researchers studying firearms has been ignoring the headlines,” said Lars Dalseide, an NRA spokesman. “The fact is a number of studies are released every year. While most are tainted with preconceived outcomes in search of supporting data, there is plenty of funding in that arena.”

He may have a point there; in fact, maybe it's best to ignore the whole damn thing.

Gun control supporters were able to use the public outrage over the Parkland shootings to notch a rare victory when the Florida Legislature passed measures that include an increase in the minimum age to own a gun from 18 to 21.

Most gun deaths in the country aren’t the result of mass shootings.

Huh?

In cities such as St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit, where gun violence is rampant, residents have no access to the bigger picture that might show why so many weapons have flowed into their cities.

The difficulty in gaining access to gun data, or in conducting federally funded research, is the result of decades of work by the NRA. The powerful lobbying group has ensured that legislation — initially attached as riders to larger bills — became law.

One federal law, approved in 1996 and named for Jay Dickey, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas, specified that the Centers for Disease Control and Protection could not conduct research intended to bolster gun control advocacy.

Congress, in its budget bill that was signed by President Trump on Friday, included a provision clarifying that the rule was not meant to choke off all gun research. But the Dickey amendment was never the only reason gun-violence research was curtailed, and therefore advocates are uncertain whether changing it will mean new money will flow into research.

The 1996 provision came amid a massive fight the NRA picked over the role of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which is part of the CDC.

“They wanted to abolish the whole injury center,” said Mark Rosenberg, who was the director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control when the Dickey Amendment passed as part of a spending bill. Congress compromised; rather than defunding the entire center, lawmakers settled on a narrowly written amendment that barred the CDC from conducting research that advocated for gun control.

“This was really a warning shot. A shot across the bow,” Rosenberg said. Congress sent another message when it reduced the center’s budget by $2.5 million, the exact amount that CDC had used to fund a gun-related study that the NRA disliked.

The final warning came in 1999: Rosenberg was fired from his job.

“People got the message that this is a very hard area to work in. If you’re a researcher, you’re not going to get funded. If you’re in the federal bureaucracy, you’re going to get hassled,” Rosenberg said.

Dickey, before he died in 2017, forged a friendship with Rosenberg and told NPR in 2015 that he regretted pushing the amendment that has been credited with choking research.

The 2003 Tiahrt Amendment, part of a Justice Department appropriations bill, created a barrier to releasing data, one that has been almost insurmountable to researchers. It stops the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from sharing information about gun stores that have records of selling firearms that wind up in crime scenes.

Like on the border, part of the Fast and Furious government gun-running operation. 

Maybe that is why they are keeping things secret: government is the biggest gun-runner around. 

When a police department finds a gun used in a crime, it typically asks the ATF to trace the weapon back to the original sale, enabling law enforcement to figure out who initially bought the gun and who sold it. When it was available to the public, such aggregated data provided a powerful way to bring public pressure on gun dealers with terrible records for selling crime guns.

“The inner cities face the violence more than everybody else,” said Boston Police Commissioner William Evans. “We see the young kids getting killed. Most of these gun shops are not in the inner cities. They are out in the suburbs. They are interested in making money.” 

More on the inner city later.

In Massachusetts, law enforcement agencies had roughly 2,000 crime guns traced in 2016, according to the most recent data from ATF. Most of those weapons were purchased out of state, with New Hampshire, Maine, and Florida accounting for the largest supply of such guns to the Bay State.

“We’re trying to figure out how we can stem the flow,” said Evans, who added that many of the crime guns found in Boston originated from states with lax purchasing laws, but private researchers and the public don’t have more granular data showing which counties or specifically which gun stores are providing the weapons. Police departments are limited, too, and can only obtain trace data about crime guns found on their streets, though they can share this data with other police departments.

“It’s critical information,” said Lindsay Nichols, who is the federal policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Before the Tiahrt restrictions applied, researchers used the federal data to gain a sophisticated understanding of how guns went from legitimate seller to criminal. “We started to see some really important patterns,” said Daniel Webster, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Most important, Webster and others found a huge disparity in gun dealers: Roughly 1 percent of all gun stores in the country accounted for more than half of the crime guns the ATF traced in the late 1990s, according to a Hopkins report. And in some cities, Webster found that just a few stores were responsible for selling weapons recovered in 70 percent to 90 percent of all gun crimes.

Todd Tiahrt, who as a Republican from Kansas was the initial sponsor of the restriction in a 2003 amendment, said in an interview that the main point of his legislation was to prevent the public release of data on gun owners.

“The idea was to protect the privacy of American citizens,” said Tiahrt, who left Congress in 2011 and now runs a consulting firm. 

Bad idea!

The NRA has additional concerns. The group fears that high-volume stores would become unfairly painted as bad actors due to the simple fact that any establishment selling more guns is likely to have more guns end up at crimes scenes. Or, it points out, stores located near major freeways might also be used more frequently by criminals going out of state to purchase a weapon.

Who would do that?

The gun rights advocates say the ATF has plenty of authority to shut down stores that repeatedly sell to criminals. But experts counter that the bureau has limited resources.

“Congress makes sure that the ATF budget is insufficient to do its job,” said Webster, the Hopkins professor. “It makes sure that the way it’s written laws and regulations, [it is] incredibly difficult to shut down a gun shop.”

Well, when you plow everything into the war machine, Israel, corporate welfare, and lavish political perks and lifestyles, there ain't a hell of a lot left over.

Regardless of whether federal agents are willing to act, Webster said communities should be able to publicly protest stores. He gave the example of the Valley Gun Shop, an infamous dealer in Baltimore County that was shut down after a decade of supplying guns to criminals. 

That could be dangerous, I mean, consider your surroundings.

“If I’m living in the shadows of Valley Gun, and I know the rates that those guns end up at crime scenes, I’m boycotting that store. I’m picketing it,” Webster said. “Localities need to know this information. Community residents should know it.” 

That's better, just as long as Israel is not involved.

--more--"

Bunch of flat-earthers, right?

Related
:

Banning assault weapons is effective

Bombing suspect called himself a ‘psychopath’

He spoke from the grave!

Wasn't Apple in Austin at the same time?

"Apple goes to Hollywood. Will there be a happy ending?" by John Koblin New York Times   March 26, 2018

NEW YORK — Apple relishes its status as a dominant force in the corporate world. So it was noteworthy when one of its executives struck a note of humility this month at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

“We don’t know anything about making television,” said Eddy Cue, a senior vice president who oversees the company’s original programming team. “There’s other things we bring. We know how to create apps, we know how to do distribution, we know how to market.”

Apple’s new venture has taken it far from its Silicon Valley comfort zone to alien territory: Hollywood. Or, to be more precise, Culver City, Calif., where Apple is building a headquarters for its entertainment division.

Apple in recent months has outspent Facebook and YouTube — two other tech companies moving into original programming — as well as the traditional TV studios. In a few cases, it has also beaten Netflix in bidding wars.

Since October, Apple has made deals for 12 projects, nine of them “straight-to-series” orders — an aggressive method of creating new programming that skips the pilot-episode stage.

When Apple began courting producers last year, it said it had a budget of about $1 billion to work with. Now it is becoming clear the company will blow well past that figure.

Apple’s Hollywood prospects seemed dim as recently as June, when it rolled out its first original series, a reality show called “Planet of the Apps.” It had some big names attached — including Gwyneth Paltrow — but was largely perceived as a dud.

I'm not surprised, and the reason she has stayed quiet about Harvey (from the rumor mill in Hollywood) is because she not only consented but pursued.

Cue soon improved the company’s standing by hiring veteran TV executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht from Sony Pictures Television. They moved quickly to build Apple Worldwide Video, expanding its staff to roughly 40 people.

In putting together its slate of 12 projects (and counting), they made deals with big names including Reese Witherspoon, Steven Spielberg, Damien Chazelle, Jennifer Aniston, and Kristen Wiig.

You think that is going to make me want to watch?

To keep up with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have thrown money at new projects, while marquee cable players like HBO and FX are focused on holding their place in the market.

Then they are the next to go down; you gotta keep moving.

Apple has two advantages: cashmore than $285 billion on hand — and the promise of working with one of the most successful companies on earth.....

Yeah, that is with a B!

All these social ills and budget problems, and yet there is plenty of money floating around out there. Must be directed to certain hands, I gue$$.

--more--"


Meanwhile, just over the border:

US family of four killed by gas in Mexico

You wanna go with that, okay. 

You know who discovered them?

Two firefighters among five killed in W.Va. accidents

They were about to hit the slopes for vacation.

"A Vermont hunting club has cancelled its crow shooting competition after a social media outcry. Mark McCarthy, president of the Boonie Club in Williamstown, told the Burlington Free Press it will not be sponsoring the April 7 crow shoot, in which teams of hunters would have competed to win prizes by shooting the most birds. Critics of the shoot say they understand ‘‘hunting for food’’ but are against ‘‘wanton killing.’’ (AP)

If you don't kill them, they remember you and drop sh*t on your property. 

No media coverage of this one

Actually, there was and they did.

"A Dorchester man was arrested after officers discovered he was in possession of a loaded hand gun Friday night, Boston police said. Isaiah Bates, 22, was stopped by officers conducting an investigation in the area of 489 Blue Hill Ave. in Roxbury at 8:48 p.m., Boston police said in a press release. The officers conducted a pat frisk and discovered Bates was carrying a loaded 9mm Bryco Arms Jennings Model Nine handgun, the release said. Police later discovered the gun had been reported stolen in Pawtucket, R.I., the release said....."

He should have left it in the car:

"A man who drove off and attempted to hide from officers during a Dorchester traffic stop was arrested after officers discovered an unlicensed gun under his seat Saturday night, police said. Ezekiel Washington, 20, of Dorchester, was stopped in his car for an equipment violation at about 10:22 p.m. on Adams and Winter streets and was talking to officers before he suddenly sped off, police said. They later spotted his car parked further down Adams Street, near the intersection of Robinson Street The officers searched the car and discovered a loaded 9mm Kel Tec Model PF-9 handgun under the driver’s seat, police said. Additional officers called in for back-up set up a perimeter and located Washington inside Ronan Park, where he was arrested without further incident....."

He should have ran.

"Man dies in Dorchester stabbing" by Danny McDonald Globe Staff  March 25, 2018

Boston police are investigating the slaying of a man who was stabbed in Dorchester’s Uphams Corner neighborhood hours before dawn on Sunday.

Jonathan Handy, owner of Handy’s Cafe on nearby Columbia Road, said he saw police cars with their blue lights flashing but he hadn’t heard any gunshots, so he didn’t think much of it initially.

Handy found the violence to be concerning. He said he wanted his customers to feel safe walking to and from his eatery late at night, and said he was troubled whenever anyone from the community suffers violence.

Handy, who opened his shop 11 months ago, referenced Batman’s hometown when talking about crime in the neighborhood

“I call it Gotham,” said Handy. “After 12 o’clock, it turns into Gotham.”

Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

Authorities, he said, didn’t offer him any details about the stabbing.

“Anything’s possible,” he said matter-of-factly.

Police shut down Columbia Road, a major thoroughfare in Dorchester, to through traffic while they responded to the scene early Sunday, said Handy.

The crime scene tape was gone by early Sunday afternoon, and people in the neighborhood were left with more questions than answers as details about the stabbing were scarce.

Police did not indicate what immediately preceded the stabbing and authorities did not announce any arrests in connection with the slaying.

A few doors down from Handy’s shop, at Upham’s House of Pizza, co-owner Dimetra Wilkins said she wouldn’t be surprised if she knew the victim. She has been working at the pizza shop since 1999, and knows most of the neighborhood’s youths, she said. Her business closed at 1 a.m. Sunday, so none of her employees saw the police response.

“It’s really sad,” she said, adding, “I hope it wasn’t over something stupid.”

Tony Rosa has lived on Cushing Avenue for 22 years. Rosa, a father of three who works as a ride-hailing service driver, said the street is typically quiet. He couldn’t recall a single stabbing or shooting on his block, he said. Rosa worked overnight, and when he came home Sunday morning, hours after police responded to the stabbing, he said he didn’t notice anything amiss.

“It happens everywhere . . . but this street?” he asked Sunday afternoon. “I don’t see gangs or anything like that on this street.”

Nestor Munoz, who lives in the neighborhood, was less incredulous. Like Rosa, he was away from the neighborhood when the stabbing occurred, working a double shift at his job at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He hadn’t hear of the violence until Sunday afternoon.

“I’m not surprised,” he said on his porch amid a snow flurry.

The three-story powder blue apartment building at 7 Cushing Ave., near where police say the stabbing happened, is located next to a back entrance to the historic Strand Theatre.

Matthew Breton, technical director for the Strand, said he was shocked to hear about the violence that occurred at most a few yards away from where he was loading equipment into the theater Sunday afternoon.

He described the neighborhood as quiet. The theater hosted an a cappella show on Saturday night, but that event got out at 11 p.m., hours before the stabbing, he said.

“I’m saddened to hear about this,” he said Sunday afternoon.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact the department’s Homicide Unit.....

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Until the ferry returns to service you can watch student-made videos on the nonstop flight to London.

"On Palm Sunday, pope urges youth to speak out" Associated Press  March 25, 2018

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’s message followed a meeting of young Catholics who told the Vatican last week that they want a more transparent and authentic church, and a day after hundreds of thousands marched in youth-led rallies across the United States to demand greater gun control.

‘‘The temptation to silence young people has always existed,’’ Francis said. ‘‘There are many ways to silence young people and make them invisible. . . . There are many ways to sedate them, to keep them from getting involved, to make their dreams flat and dreary, petty and plaintive,’’ but he told youths in his homily that ‘‘you have it in you to shout,’’ even if ‘‘we older people and leaders, very often corrupt, keep quiet.’’ 

I suppose the Catholic Church, of all people, would know about the silencing of young people.

Do they even hear themselves?

As the Roman Catholic Church enters Holy Week, retracing the story of the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection three days later on Easter Sunday, Francis urged youth to join those who offer praise. ‘‘Dear young people, the joy that Jesus awakens in you is a source of anger and irritation to some, since a joyful person is hard to manipulate,’’ the pontiff said..... 

I'm not even going to start, and what the hell is he talking about?

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Related: Bishop honors French officer whose sacrifice saved hostage

Also see:

"Fighters dressed in fatigues slumped in their seats and hid their faces from roadside news cameras, while children peered out of the open windows, unsure if they will ever be able to return....."

They are going to ‘‘refugee camps in Idlib.’’ 

"Three explosions in four days have rocked the Somalian capital and left a trail of carnage, killing nearly 20 people and injuring dozens of others, as Islamic militants unleashed a wave of attacks on the country. On Sunday, a car bomb exploded at a security checkpoint near the Interior Ministry on a road leading to the presidential palace in the capital, Mogadishu. Al-Shabab, an Islamic group affiliated with Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, which has been behind bombings and other attacks in Mogadishu, aims to topple Somalia’s Western-backed government. Earlier Sunday, another car bomb exploded in Siinka Dheer, outside Mogadishu....."

Was so loud you couldn't hear this:

"United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is expected to be in Boston for an event exploring hate speech and the First Amendment. Breyer is scheduled to have a public discussion Thursday with the president of the National Constitution Center, a nonprofit history museum in Philadelphia. It’s being held at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. Organizers say Breyer will participate in a conversation followed by a panel of legal experts who will debate the First Amendment and hate speech. He is also scheduled to speak April 4 at Tufts University in Medford (AP)."