Last Call For Face The Face on Facebook, Con't

Not that the current US government cares, but apparently New Zealand's "fix this or else" conversation with Facebook over the white supremacist who shot up two mosques earlier this month while splashing live video of the massacre all over Facebook and Instagram was finally what it took to get the company to start removing these assholes from its social media services.

In a major policy shift for the world’s biggest social media network, Facebook banned white nationalism and white separatism on its platform Tuesday. Facebook will also begin directing users who try to post content associated with those ideologies to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups, Motherboard has learned.

The new policy, which will be officially implemented next week, highlights the malleable nature of Facebook’s policies, which govern the speech of more than 2 billion users worldwide. And Facebook still has to effectively enforce the policies if it is really going to diminish hate speech on its platform. The policy will apply to both Facebook and Instagram.

Last year, a Motherboard investigation found that, though Facebook banned “white supremacy” on its platform, it explicitly allowed “white nationalism” and “white separatism.” After backlash from civil rights groups and historians who say there is no difference between the ideologies, Facebook has decided to ban all three, two members of Facebook’s content policy team said.

“We’ve had conversations with more than 20 members of civil society, academics, in some cases these were civil rights organizations, experts in race relations from around the world,” Brian Fishman, policy director of counterterrorism at Facebook, told us in a phone call. “We decided that the overlap between white nationalism, [white] separatism, and white supremacy is so extensive we really can’t make a meaningful distinction between them. And that’s because the language and the rhetoric that is used and the ideology that it represents overlaps to a degree that it is not a meaningful distinction.”

Specifically, Facebook will now ban content that includes explicit praise, support, or representation of white nationalism or separatism. Phrases such as “I am a proud white nationalist” and “Immigration is tearing this country apart; white separatism is the only answer” will now be banned, according to the company. Implicit and coded white nationalism and white separatism will not be banned immediately, in part because the company said it’s harder to detect and remove.

The decision was formally made at Facebook’s Content Standards Forum on Tuesday, a meeting that includes representatives from a range of different Facebook departments in which content moderation policies are discussed and ultimately adopted. Fishman told Motherboard that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was involved in the formulation of the new policy, though roughly three dozen Facebook employees worked on it.

Civil rights organizations have been after Facebook for years on this and given that the Obama administration looked the other way on Silicon Valley way too often and the Trump regime could not care less about policing white supremacists when they are the world's leading white supremacist group, you will never convince me that Facebook gave a damn until Australia threatened to start putting social media executives in prison earlier this week.

Following the livestreamed New Zealand mosque shooting that left 50 dead in Christchurch, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is looking to crack down on extremist content on social media.

Morrison will on Tuesday meet with Australian executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google to discuss extremist content legislation that would punish these companies' executives with jail time, the Australian Financial Review reports. Local internet service providers will also be present at the meeting.

"If social media companies fail to demonstrate a willingness to immediately institute changes to prevent the use of their platforms, like what was filmed and shared by the perpetrators of the terrible offences in Christchurch, we will take action," said Morrison.

"We are considering all options to keep Australians safe."

And lo and behold 48 hours later we get this policy.

Amazing how that works.  Australia helping New Zealand do yeoman's work, when we surely won't here.

Decade of Decadence

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee want ten years of Trump's taxes, according, well, to Republicans on the committee who are trying to sandbag the move.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee is seeking 10 years of President Donald Trump’s financial records from an accounting firm, two Republicans on the panel revealed on Wednesday.

The Democrat-led committee asked Mazars USA, a tax and accounting firm, for documents related to Trump’s finances, with a focus on the president’s effort to bid on the Buffalo Bills, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the Oversight panel, and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a senior member of the committee.

It appears to reflect an effort by the committee to follow up on former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony before the panel last month. Cohen told lawmakers that Trump inflated his personal net worth as he sought to buy the NFL team.

Jordan and Meadows, two of the president’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, made the revelations in a letter to Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in which they alleged that the request for such information about Trump “appears to depart from responsible and legitimate oversight,” and is intended “solely to embarrass President Trump and to advance the relentless Democrat attacks upon the Trump administration.”

Their letter comes after Trump and his allies have claimed vindication after Attorney General William Barr informed congressional leaders on Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month investigation was unable to establish that Trump or his campaign conspired with Russians during the 2016 election.

The president and his supporters on Capitol Hill have called on Democrats to cease their investigations into the president, which they have long derided as politically motivated.

“We should not waste our limited resources and energies on matters that do not improve the operations of the federal government or better the lives of our constituents,” Jordan and Meadows wrote, calling Cummings’ investigation “an ill-conceived inquiry into the finances of President Trump when he was a private citizen.”

The lawmakers sent a separate letter to Victor Wahba, the chairman and chief executive officer of Mazars USA, stating that Cummings did not consult with the GOP side of the committee before request the documents on Trump’s finances.

Elijah Cummings is having none of it.

Cummings dismissed the Republicans’ letters.

“If they had their way, the committee would just close up shop for the next two years, but that is not what the American people elected us to do,” Cummings said. “We are following up on specific allegations regarding the president’s actions based on corroborating documents obtained by the committee, and we will continue our efforts to conduct credible, robust, and independent oversight.”

We'll see how this battle turns out, but I'm willing to bet that between the White House and SCOTUS that at the very least they can keep this tied up for months, if not well into 2021 and beyond.  Trump knows full well that his financial records for the last decade being made public would be his end, politically, as well as from a criminal standpoint.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

There may be some hope for the Mueller report seeing the light of day after all.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report should be made public, American voters say 84 - 9 percent in a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today. Republicans say 75 - 17 percent the report should be made public and every other listed party, gender, education, age and racial group supports making the report public by even wider margins.

Mueller conducted a "fair" investigation, 55 percent of voters say, as 26 percent say it was not fair, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University National Poll finds. The survey was conducted March 21 through March 25.

But voters are divided on another question, as 49 percent say the investigation was "legitimate" and 43 percent say it was a "witch hunt."

There is a wide gender gap as men say 50 - 43 percent the investigation was a "witch hunt," and women say 55 - 37 percent it was "legitimate." 

Indeed, the margins are huge.

Again, three out of four Republicans want the Mueller report released.  For Democrats it's 93%, which is insanely high agreement on anything.  Independents come in at 86%.

People still don't think Trump is telling the truth, either.

The special counsel’s report may have concluded there was no conspiracy or coordination between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign, but a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows the political fog around the president remains.

The poll shows a plurality of voters, 47 percent, think Trump “tried to impede or obstruct the investigation into whether his campaign had ties to Russia” — despite the fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller didn't reach a decision on the question. Thirty-nine percent don’t think Trump tried to impede the investigation, and 14 percent don’t know or had no opinion about whether Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.

Following the release of the report’s summary, the president is not riding a new wave of popularity. His approval rating in the poll remains underwater — 42 percent approve of the job he is doing, compared to 55 percent of voters who disapprove of the job he is doing — which is essentially unchanged over the past few weeks. And when asked whether Attorney General William Barr’s letter summarizing the report changed their opinions of Trump, voters fell predictably along partisan lines.

As the Mueller report conclusion reverberates broadly, our polling suggests that the release of the summary findings has had little impact on President Trump’s favorability,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president. “Notably, 44 percent of voters — including 73 percent of Democrats and 42 percent of independents — have a less favorable impression of the president following Attorney General William Barr's summary of the Mueller report. This compares with 39 percent — including 79 percent of Republicans — who have a more favorable view." 

And yet if the Mueller report isn't released, exactly what's going to happen?

Are millions of us going to take to the streets?  Would even hundreds of thousands do it?  I'm not sure we'd get tens of thousands protesting a failure to release it.

The maintenance of our representative democracy is in the hands of us.  If we don't shut this country down over this, we're done.

And we won't do it.  It's too much work.  Hell, we couldn't even find a way to not vote for Donald Goddamn Trump.

StupidiNews!

• A Texas nonprofit that houses migrant children for the Trump regime is being sued for allegedly drugging and sexually molesting a 10-year-old Guatemalan boy in custody.
• Senate Democrats say they will oppose the nomination of right-wing economic pundit Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve, but the Senate GOP could confirm him without Democratic votes.
• UK Prime Minister Theresa May will address Parliament Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to pass a Brexit plan, but any successful vote may require her resignation as a price.
• US and Chinese officials are resuming trade talks this week in Beijing and next week in the US as the Trump regime tries to salvage a trade agreement and avoid more tariffs hurting US consumers.
• Rockland County, NY has declared a public health emergency over a Measles outbreak and is barring all unvaccinated children from public spaces for the next 30 days.

Last Call For Meat The Press, Con't

The Trump regime's war on its critics has already reached dangerous levels, and we're not too far now from the point where the regime will take action to match Trump's rhetoric.

President Trump and his allies signaled Monday that they intend to use the broad conclusions of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation — which found no criminal conspiracy with Russia to influence the 2016 election — to forcefully attack perceived opponents they say unfairly accused the president of wrongdoing.

The targets are diffuse, ranging from specific Democratic lawmakers to the media more generally. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway called on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) to resign immediately, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urged Schiff to relinquish his committee chairmanship. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he planned to investigate what he dubbed “all of the abuse by the Department of Justice and the FBI” during the 2016 presidential election. And the Trump campaign sent a memo to television hosts and producers that included a list of guests it suggested should no longer be booked because they “made outlandish, false claims” on air.

Trump himself, speaking in the Oval Office, offered a broad and harsh denunciation, saying there were “a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, very bad things.”

“I would say treasonous things against our country,” the president added.

The next step will be a bevy of Justice Department investigations into Trump's critics on Capitol Hill and in the media, and if you think a man who openly uses the word "treasonous" to define his critics isn't doing this out of pure revenge, then you've just bet the freedom of your country on that assumption.

We all have.

The strategy — currently loose and informal — is still in its infancy. But all signs indicate a Trump operation seeking vengeance and accountability from critics it says maligned the president over the investigation into whether his campaign or associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. An adviser who talked to the president said Trump has an appetite to see his critics investigated. The adviser spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

“What he says is, he wants this investigated,” said Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani. “I don’t think he’s thought it out like Lindsey has. But he wants these things investigated.”

While Trump and his allies have portrayed Attorney General William P. Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings as a complete vindication of the president, Barr made it clear that the special counsel was not exonerating the president on the question of obstruction of justice. And details of the report, if made public, could prove troublesome for Trump. Mueller’s work led to criminal charges against 34 people, including six former Trump associates and advisers, and showed that Russia sought to influence the election and help Trump.

Still, the president’s aides and allies have shown little desire to turn the page, preferring to write a new book detailing what they say is a rush to judgment from a Washington establishment unwilling to ever give Trump an unbiased assessment.

“This is not something to put behind us and move on,” said David Bossie, Trump’s 2016 deputy campaign manager. He said the White House and the Trump reelection campaign need to make sure “we are beating the drum” on how what he sees as a D.C. echo chamber bungled its handling of the Mueller investigation.

“The members of Congress, who made these ridiculous claims, how can they be on television again? How can they be called by reporters again?” Bossie asked. “How can reporters who have perpetrated this fraud gleefully on a number of networks, and at major newspapers across the country, how can they be trusted again?”

The next question will be "How can they walk free among us again?" and then "How are they not traitors again?"

The time where autocrat Trump starts taking real revenge against his critics is very soon upon us.  Nixon and his enemies list was nothing compared to what's coming.  This is what I've been warning about for years now.  Trump feels now that there's nothing to stop him.

World history tells us that he's most likely correct.

Things will move quickly now.

Jussie-tified By The Circumstances

A month after being hit with sixteen felony counts related to what the Cook County prosecutors' office said was actor Jussie Smollett's conspiracy to fabricate a hate crime about an attack made by two men wearing MAGA hats, all charges were immediately dropped, Smollett's record expunged and the case sealed by a judge.

Attorneys for “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett said Tuesday that charges alleging he lied to police about a racist and homophobic attack have been dropped.

Smollett attorneys Tina Glandian and Patricia Brown Holmes said in a statement that Smollett’s record “has been wiped clean.” Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts related to making a false report that he was attacked by two men.

Among the questions that weren’t immediately answered was whether prosecutors still believe Smollett concocted the attack and whether there’s new evidence that altered their view of events. Typically, a minimum condition of dropping cases is some acceptance of responsibility. In a statement, the Cook County prosecutors’ office offered no detailed explanation.

“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the statement from spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.

Smollett had made a $10,000 bond payment to get out of jail after his arrest on the charges.

Police and prosecutors have said Smollett falsely reported to authorities that he was attacked around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29 in downtown Chicago because he was unhappy with his pay on “Empire” and to promote his career.

Smollett, who is black and gay, plays the gay character Jamal Lyon on the hit Fox TV show that follows a black family as they navigate the ups and downs of the recording industry.

Smollett reported that he had been attacked on his way home from a sandwich shop. Smollett said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and looped a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. He asserted that he could see one of the men was white because he could see the skin around his eyes.

Cook County and the Chicago PD were willing to put Smollett in prison for decades over this.

And then something happened to make all of this go away.  I don't know what it was exactly, but I bet it has something to do with this announced earlier this month.

Reports of leaks about the Jussie Smollett case have prompted an internal investigation of the Chicago Police Department. 

The department told CNN on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into alleged internal leaks. 

"I would like to point out that a lot of the information out there was inaccurate and there were numerous agencies involved in this investigation," said Sergeant Rocco Alioto with the Chicago PD Office of Communications. "As a standard procedure when there are allegations of information being leaked, an internal investigation has been opened and we are also looking at our vulnerabilities." 

Smollett reported to police in January that he had been attacked in Chicago in an incident that ended with a noose around his neck. Police initially investigated the case as a possible hate crime. 

But after police arrested two men who were "persons of interest," police sources revealed that police suspected Smollett knew the men and had paid them $3,500 to stage the attack. 

Smollett has denied that any involvement in orchestrating an attack.

This case went so far into the crapper for Chicago PD that the prosecutors dropped a case against a gay, black man who reported that Trump supporters assaulted him.  They indicted him with dizzying speed and had accomplices and everything.  Chicago Police went on national TV like Good Morning America to indict Smollett in the court of public opinion.

And then the case popped like a sop bubble and they tripped all over themselves making sure this case never happened.

There's a reason why, and I'm betting the Chicago PD did something so horrible that if it came out in the trial, it would have destroyed them.   Not a plea bargain, not a public apology, but a sealed case.  If this had been a celebrity payoff, then it would have been a plea bargain and community service or a suspended sentence/probation.

Whatever it was, it was so awful that it prevented a major police department from destroying a black man's life, something police have done with impunity for decades.

Something happened with this case.

I want to know what it was.

They're Coming For Obamacare Again

As I've been saying for a while now, Trump's main motivation is petty revenge, and there's nothing he likes more than punishing the Obama coalition.  There's no better way to get of us, he figures, than to take health care away from tens of millions, and the post-Mueller Trump regime is now fully dedicated to obliterating the ACA through the Roberts Court.

The Trump administration on Monday said the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down,in a dramatic reversal. 

In a filing with a federal appeals court, the Justice Department said it agreed with the ruling of a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the Obama-era health care law. 

In a letter Monday night, the administration said "it is not urging that any portion of the district court's judgment be reversed." 

"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court's comprehensive opinion came to the correct conclusion and will support it on appeal," said Kerri Kupec, spokesperson for the Justice Department. 

It's a major shift for the Justice Department from when Jeff Sessions was attorney general. At the time, the administration argued that the community rating rule and the guaranteed issue requirement -- protections for people with pre-existing conditions -- could not be defended but the rest of the law could stand. 

After the Justice Department took that position, federal District Judge Reed O'Connor struck down the entire law and the case is currently before a federal appeals court. 

The Trump administration would not defend the law in court so a coalition of 21 Democratic states led by California stepped in. 

"This lawsuit is as dangerous as it is reckless. It threatens the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans across the country -- from California to Kentucky and all the way to Maine," said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement. "The Affordable Care Act is an integral part of our healthcare system. ... Because no American should fear losing healthcare, we will defend the ACA every step of the way."

Attorney General Bill Barr has been given his marching orders.  The plan now is to take everything from those who voted against Trump.  That battle will be fought very soon in front of the Roberts Court.  There are absolutely four votes to overturn the Affordable Care Act.  All that matters is whether or not Chief Justice John Roberts is willing to be number five.

The plan now is to take it all from us.  Up to and including our health care.

Having said that, the ACA is broken.  It needs to be fixed.  It will never be fixed as long as Republicans are there to rebreak it.  But the GOP wants to take that from us anyway.

For some of us, that means taking our lives.

StupidiNews!

• Jeremy Richman, the father of Sandy Hook shooting victim Avielle Richman, was found dead Monday morning, the third suicide in the past week related to school shootings.
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell again blocked a Democratic-led resolution to call for the full release of the Mueller report, once again citing national security reasons.
• House Democrats have sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr demanding the full, unredacted Mueller report bu next Tuesday, April 2, the Justice Department says it needs up to 60 days to do so.
• The UK Parliament has voted to take over the Brexit process from PM Theresa May in a full revolt, three cabinet ministers so far have resigned in order to back Parliament's alternative plan.
• Apple is unleashing its new streaming service dubbed Apple TV+, the service will include original exclusive shows from Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Sesame Street and more.

Last Call For Heck Of A Job, Trumpie, Con't

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico continues to suffer 18 months after Hurricane Maria and the Trump regime has all but abandoned the island and its people.

The federal government provided additional food-stamp aid to Puerto Rico after the hurricane, but Congress missed the deadline for reauthorization in March as it focused on other issues before leaving for a week-long recess. Federal lawmakers have also been stalled by the Trump administration, which has derided the extra aid as unnecessary.

Now, about 43 percent of Puerto Rico’s residents are grappling with a sudden cut to a benefit they rely on for groceries and other essentials.

And while Congress may address this issue soon, the lapse underscores the broader vulnerability of Puerto Rico’s economy, as well as key parts of its safety net, to the whims of an increasingly hostile federal government with which it has feuded over key priorities. 

Puerto Rico will again need the federal government’s help to stave off drastic cuts to Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor and disabled, as well as for the disbursement of billions in hurricane relief aid that has not yet been turned over to the island.

The island would not need Congress to step in to fund its food-stamp and Medicaid programs if it were a state. For states, the federal government has committed to funding those programs’ needs, whatever the cost and without needing to take a vote. But Puerto Rico instead funds its programs through a block grant from the federal government, which needs to be regularly renewed, and also gives food-stamp benefits about 40 percent smaller than those of states.

After initially vowing to reject the food-stamp funding, President Trump has agreed to the emergency request to help Senate Republicans pass a broader disaster-relief package, which may be taken up for a vote this week.

But at an Oval Office meeting on Feb. 22, Trump asked top advisers for ways to limit federal support from going to Puerto Rico, believing it is taking money that should be going to the mainland, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the presidents’ private remarks.

The meeting — an afternoon session focused on Department of Housing and Urban Development grants — ended abruptly, and Trump has continued to ask aides how much money the island will get. Then, Trump said he wanted the money to only fortify the electric grid there.

Trump has also privately signaled he will not approve any additional help for Puerto Rico beyond the food-stamp money, setting up a congressional showdown with Democrats who have pushed for more expansive help for the island.

A senior administration official with direct knowledge of the meeting described Trump’s stance: “He doesn’t want another single dollar going to the island.”

Trump doesn't consider Puerto Rico to be part of America.  He thinks it's a foreign country, along with tens of millions of his cult.  They continue to suffer in squalor and pain and the titular leader of the country wants them to all rot in hell.

After all, they can't vote for him.  So why should he care if they live or die?

If Trump could end federal dollars to California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Hawaii overnight, he's do it in a heartbeat.

Hell, he still might.

He Fought The Law, And The Law Won

Michael Avenatti may actually be worse at his job of lawyering than Michael Cohen, and that's saying something.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Monday charged lawyer Michael Avenatti with attempting to extort more than $20 million from Nike. 

Avenatti was arrested Monday morning in Manhattan, law enforcement officials tell CNN. He will appear in court later Monday. 

According to the criminal complaint, Avenatti met in March 2019 with attorney for Nike and threatened to release damaging information about the company if Nike didn't make millions in payment to himself and an unnamed co-conspirator. Avenatti also allegedly demanded that Nike pay $1.5 million to an individual he claimed to represent. 

"I'll go take $10 billion dollars off your client's market cap...I'm not f***ing around," Avenatti said, according to the complaint. 

"And I'm not continuing to play games," he added. "You guys know enough now to know you've got a serious problem and it's worth more in exposure to me to just blow the lid on this thing." 

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles will also announce separate charges of wire fraud and bank fraud against Avenatti Monday afternoon. 

Until recently, Avenatti represented adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, a central figure in the hush-money scandal that resulted in Manhattan federal prosecutors charging President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Cohen pleaded guilty and is set to report to prison in May. 

Avenatti and Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Earlier Monday, he tweeted: "Tmrw at 11 am ET, we will be holding a press conference to disclose a major high school/college basketball scandal perpetrated by @Nike that we have uncovered. This criminal conduct reaches the highest levels of Nike and involves some of the biggest names in college basketball." 

The Manhattan US Attorney's office said it would hold a press conference to discuss the charges on Monday afternoon. 

To be clear, Avenatti tweeted his press conference about Nike earlier today, threatening a major story on Nike in the middle of the NCAA basketball tournament.  About 15 minutes later, he was arrested for extortion.

You have never seen justice move so quickly.

Also, never trust a lawyer named Michael.

Meat The Press, Con't

As I've told you many times now, Donald Trump is driven by malignant narcissism and petty revenge, and now that he believes the worst is over on the Mueller report, he is now coming for those who he feels have wronged him.

For nearly two years, the Mueller probe had been a source of great anxiety and stress in the halls of the West Wing. Some staffers hired lawyers to help them navigate the investigation, and many were fearful of becoming ensnared based on what they might overhear or witness. They described Mueller’s findings as a best-case scenario that would buttress the president’s mood, solidify Republican support and allow Trump to present a better message for reelection.

“What they do is they clear the deck for there to be an evaluation based upon his record as president,” said former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R), a Trump ally, who called it a “very good day” for the president. “It lifts a cloud that was over the White House for the entire time he was there.”

Within an hour of learning the findings, Trump called for an investigation of his critics and cast himself as a victim. Aides say Trump plans to highlight the cost of the probe and call for organizations to fire members of the media and former government officials who he believes made false accusations about him, while aggressively mocking his critics and one of his favored enemies, the news media.
“Hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side,” Trump said, describing the Mueller investigation as “an illegal takedown that failed.”

“It’s a shame that our country had to go through this,” Trump said. “To be honest, it’s a shame that your president has had to go through this.”

White House aides and Trump allies moved quickly to take advantage of the moment. Campaign officials released a lengthy video called “Collusion Hoax!” and White House officials issued a flurry of talking points that defended the president while attacking Democrats.

Republican National Committee officials issued a long set of “talking points” that delineated the cost of the probe — $50,230 per day for 675 days, in their calculation — and attacked the news media and Democrats for extensively focusing on the investigation.

Aides and Trump allies said they believe the findings will bolster the credibility of the president — who traffics in untruths and conspiracy theories — while also undermining Democrats, some of whom have predicted that Trump would be found guilty of conspiring with the Russians and obstructing Mueller’s investigation.

If you thought the attacks on our free press were bad before -- and let's not forget Trump's hatred drove people to shoot up newsrooms and attempt to mail bomb journalists -- now Trump is feeling fully in his rage wheelhouse.

The demands to fire his critics will not end, not in our burgeoning autocracy.

StupidiNews!

• Avacados in six states are being recalled due to possible listeria contamination, Henry Avacados says the recall is voluntary due to positive test samples.
• Rescue operations airlifted nearly 400 passengers off the floundering luxury liner Viking Sky off the coast of Norway, the ship issued a mayday call Saturday as engines failed and the ship was towed.
• Friday's global stock selloff continued overseas on Monday morning as evidence is mounting of a major recession in the making heading into 2020.
• UK Prime Minister Theresa May faces revolt by her cabinet amid massive protests in the streets as a now-delayed Brexit reckoning could force May out of office.
• US computer science grads are outperforming colleagues in China, Russia, and India in a new test study that spanned more than 85 college and university programs.

Last Call For Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

In less than a week, two survivors of the Parkland High School terrorist attack took their own lives, because this is what we deem to be the price of the Second Amendment.

After a second Parkland shooting survivor died by suicide in a week’s span, Florida’s emergency chief is calling for the state Legislature to dispatch more mental health resources for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School community.

On Saturday night, a Parkland sophomore took his own life, according to Coral Springs police. A week before, a former student whose best friend died in last year’s massacre took her life.

“Now is the time for the Florida Legislature to help,” said Jared Moskowitz, Florida’s emergency management director and a former state representative from Parkland.

“Mental health is a bipartisan issue,” he posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile, local leaders are taking steps of their own.

On Sunday afternoon, more than 60 school, county, city, child services and law enforcement officials, as well as mental health specialists, teachers and parents, met for an emergency meeting.

Parents who attended the meeting said the Broward County School Superintendent’s Office is working to reach every parent in the district via text, email, social media and robo calls.

“They will be asking parents to take this issue seriously,” said Ryan Petty, father of Alaina Petty, a 14-year-old freshman who was one of 17 people murdered on Feb. 14. 2018. “Parents cannot be afraid to ask their kids the tough questions.”

Petty said the school district will be giving parents the “Columbia Protocol,” a set of six questions to ask their children. Based on their answers, they will be given several emergency resource options. Several nonprofits are also dispatching therapy groups that will offer free services.

“During the Spring break, I encourage you to take time to speak with your children every day. Dinners are a great time for family conversation,” said Superintendent Robert Runcie. “We need to remove the stigma from talking about suicide.”

I've been in the depths of despair to the point where I've considered hurting myself.  We've all had dark thoughts once in a while, and it's important to know that there is help out there.  A friend of mine saved me from acting precipitously on those thoughts back then and I'll always be grateful to him.

But to go through the awful trauma of a mass school shooting and to live to see your country rise up in sheer hatred against you for saying "this is wrong"?

Nobody should have to go through that.

BREAKING: It's Not Mueller Time

As expected, Attorney General Bill Barr has released almost nothing of the actual Mueller report, but summarizing its conclusions as "no collusion, no obstruction."

Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided the evidence was “not sufficient” to support a prosecution of the President for obstruction of justice.

“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Barr quotes special counsel Robert Mueller as saying.

Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the evidence gathered in the special counsel’s investigation was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense,” Barr wrote.

Republicans disagree, with Sen. Lindsey Graham calling this a "complete removal of the cloud" over Trump's head, and ranking member Rep. Doug Collins officially requesting an end to the House Judiciary probe into the Trump regime.

Barr says that the DoJ is still "processing" the report but will decide on releasing more at a later date.

If you believe that, I have a small moon to sell you.

The Mueller report was never going to save us from the Trump regime.

We have to do that.

Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

At least someone in the Democratic caucus has the stones to say that Trump's rhetoric kills, and once again it's Rep. Ilhan Omar taking a stand.  The problem is that Omar has her own critics.

Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, one of the first two Muslim women in Congress, accused President Trump on Saturday of inciting hatred of Islam and inspiring attacks like the killing of 50 people last weekend in a mass shooting at mosques in New Zealand.

In a speech to a packed hotel ballroom at a Muslim civil-rights banquet in Woodland Hills, the newly elected Democratic congresswoman said the New Zealand attack by a white supremacist fit a pattern of threats and assaults at American mosques and schools.

“We all kind of knew that this was happening,” she said. “But the reason I think that many of us knew that this was going to get worse is that we finally had a leader in the White House who publicly says Islam hates us, who fuels hate against Muslims, who thinks it is OK to speak about a faith and a whole community in a way that is dehumanizing, vilifying.”

Trump, she told the crowd, “doesn’t understand, or at least makes us want to think that he doesn’t understand, the consequence that his words might have. Some people like me know that he understands the consequences. He knows that there are people that he can influence to threaten our lives, to diminish our presence.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said last week that it was outrageous to suggest Trump had any responsibility for the New Zealand shooting.

Omar’s speech at the Council on American-Islamic Relations dinner sparked a protest hours earlier of more than 100 people outside the hotel. Police closed a stretch of Canoga Avenue, and uniformed officers stood watch over demonstrators waving Israeli and U.S. flags and calling Omar an anti-Semite.

Several of them marched with an enlarged photo of Omar, a Somali immigrant, with a swastika over her face and the slogan: “Your Hate Makes Us Stronger.”

Omar has said some pretty controversial stuff and that's being ridiculously generous.  At the same time, she's one of the few Democrats willing to call Trump out in an attempt to stop normalizing his behavior.

I'm good with that.  It's what we need right now.