StupidiNews!

• Keeping with policy changes announced earlier this week, New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern has announced an assault rifle ban for the country that should be in place in as little as three weeks.
• Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is under a government ethics investigation for his relationship with his former defense contractor employer, aerospace giant Boeing.
• Donald Trump is once again threatening Beijing with more trade tariffs, saying duties on imports from China will remain for a "substantial period" into the future to ensure any trade deal compliance.
• UK Prime Minister Theresa May called on Parliament to approve a delay in the Brexit deadline until June 30th, warning that failure to do so by March 29 will result in grave consequences. 
• A federal judge has ordered the Trump regime to conduct a thorough climate change analysis on lands leased for public oil and gas extraction.

Last Call For Meanwhile In Bevinstan, Con't

On top of everything else awful about Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin, he's an anti-vaxxer dipstick who exposed his kids to chickenpox without vaccinating them so they would get sick on purpose.

In a move experts say is medically unsound — and can be dangerous — Gov. Matt Bevin said in a radio interview Tuesday that he deliberately exposed all nine of his children to chickenpox so they would catch the disease and become immune.

“Every single one of my kids had the chickenpox," Bevin said in an interview with WKCT, a Bowling Green talk radio station. "They got the chickenpox on purpose because we found a neighbor that had it and I went and made sure every one of my kids was exposed to it, and they got it. They had it as children. They were miserable for a few days, and they all turned out fine.”

Three medical experts called the practice unsafe and unwise.

"I would never recommend or advise it," said Dr. Robert Jacobson, a pediatrician and expert in vaccines and childhood diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "It's just dangerous."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also urges against deliberately exposing kids to chicken pox, including the past practice of "chicken pox parties" held by some parents

"Chickenpox can be serious and can lead to severe complications and death, even in healthy children," according to the CDC website.

A Bevin spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bevin and his wife, Glenna, have nine children, ages 5 to 16, according to his campaign website.

Again, Bevin's example is putting the people of Kentucky at risk.  It's ludicrous.

In the interview, Bevin also suggested that the government stay out of mandating vaccines. In Kentucky, varicella (chickenpox) is among vaccines mandated for all children entering kindergarten, though parents may seek religious exemptions or provide medical proof that a child has already had the disease.

“And I think, why are we forcing kids to get it?" Bevin said in the radio interview, speaking about the chickenpox vaccine. "If you are worried about your child getting chickenpox or whatever else, vaccinate your child. ... But for some people, and for some parents, for some reason they choose otherwise. This is America. The federal government should not be forcing this upon people. They just shouldn’t."

Jacobson said he recommends vaccines as a safe and effective way to prevent disease.

"We're no longer living in the 17th century," he said. "I really recommend to my parents that they vaccinate their children, that they do it in a timely manner, and they recognize they are doing the right thing for their children."

In response to Bevin's comments, the Kentucky Democratic Party called on the governor to clarify his position on vaccination against the hepatitis A virus, which has killed 44 people in the state.
“Kentucky is currently experiencing the worst outbreak of Hepatitis A in the country. It is a major public health risk at this point. The last thing we need is Governor Bevin suggesting that immunization is not important," KDP spokeswoman Marisa McNee said in an email. "Governor Bevin should reassure the public that he supports the recommendation of the entire medical community with respect to controlling an outbreak of Hepatitis A, which is immunization.”

Bevin's comments followed news reports this week of a chickenpox outbreak at a Northern Kentucky Catholic school, where at least one student reported not being vaccinated for religious reasons.

I'm so tired of this.  The government doesn't mandate that you don't jump off cliffs without safety gear, but people don't choose to do it just to spite the government, and more importantly they don't push their own kids off cliffs in order to prove God exists or something.

And actually, that's manslaughter and felony child endangerment pretty much in all 50 states.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Former White House communications director Hope Hicks is now cooperating with House Judiciary Democrats in Rep. Jerry Nadler's wide-ranging investigation of the Trump regime.

Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director and long-time confidante of President Donald Trump, plans to turn over documents to the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into potential obstruction of justice. 

Rep. Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent Hicks a detailed letter earlier this month, asking for documents on a wide-range of topics, including over former national security adviser Michael Flynn's false statements to the FBI, the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey, Trump's involvement in a hush-money scheme to silence stories about his alleged affairs and the drafting of a misleading 2017 statement to the media about Donald Trump Jr.'s 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with Russians. 

The request included documents from "any personal or work diary, journal or other book containing notes, a record or a description of daily events" about Trump, the Trump campaign, the Trump Organization and the executive office of the President. 

Hicks and other current administration officials have agreed to provide documents to the committee, according to Nadler's spokesman Daniel Schwarz. Hicks' attorney declined to comment. 

The development comes amid a growing fight between House Democrats and the White House over a range of investigations -- after the White House has ignored a number of deadlines set by Democratic chairmen, who now wield subpoena power. The White House has not yet provided information to Nadler, a Democrat from New York, as part of his investigation -- despite a deadline this past Monday.
Hicks' cooperation comes in stark contrast to former White House chief of staff John Kelly, who is facing an array of questions from the House Oversight Committee over his role in the White House security clearance process. Kelly is allowing the White House counsel's office to respond to the Democrats' demands for information, but Hicks appears to be interacting directly with the House Judiciary Committee. 

While she has agreed to cooperate, it's unclear how much information Hicks will ultimately provide the committee. 

Last year, Hicks testified behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee, but she did not answer all of the questions from Democrats, who at the time were in the minority. 

One of the Trump campaign's earliest hires, Hicks in 2018 was willing to answer questions about the 2016 campaign and some questions about the Trump transition, but she would not address questions about her time in the White House. Democrats on the committee had urged their Republican colleagues to subpoena Hicks to answer their questions. Now in the majority, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, has indicated he also is interested in getting additional information from Hicks, too. 

Nadler had set a Monday deadline for 81 individuals and entities to provide information to the panel as part of his investigation into possible abuses of power, corruption and obstruction of justice. Republicans contended that few -- only eight -- complied by Monday's deadline. But Democratic aides said far more witnesses had agreed to provide information in the coming days -- and Hicks is just one such example. 

Hicks isn't the only former White House official who is cooperating with the House Judiciary Committee. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, for instance, has already provided the committee with several thousands of pages of documents.

It's those early meetings with the Russians in 2016 that are the key to this whole mess.  Hicks was right in the center of dealing with Trump's communications.  She knows everything, frankly.

She's going to have a lot to say, I'd imagine.

It's About Suppression, Con't

Florida Republicans are in full panic mode knowing that the state passed a constitutional referendum last year to restore voting rights to felons who have served their time, a move that would add potentially a million new voters to the rolls.

And the vast majority of those new voters would be black.

You can imagine the scent of flop sweat and fear in Tallahassee.  This week, Florida Republicans moved to start stripping black voters off the rolls in other ways, staring with a bill re- disenfranchising felons over costs and state fees.

A Florida House committee approved a bill addressing the rollout of Amendment 4 despite concerns that it would limit the number of former felons who could have their voting rights restored. 

Voting along party lines, Republicans advanced the measure, which would require felons pay back all court fees and costs before being eligible to vote, even if those costs are not handed down by a judge as part of the person’s sentence. 

That standard goes beyond the old system, which only required someone pay back restitution to a victim before applying to have their civil rights restored. And Democratic representatives and others blasted it. 

“It’s blatantly unconstitutional as a poll tax,” said Rep. Adam Hattersley, D-Riverview.

At issue was how broadly or narrowly to interpret the amendment, and whether the Legislature needs to do anything at all. 

Advocates of Amendment 4 believe no bill is needed, and that lawmakers are just meddling. Already, felons are registering to vote — and voting — across the state. 

But elections supervisors and others have said they want help interpreting the historic amendment, which Floridians passed last year. It allowed more than 1 million ex-felons to have their voting rights restored, except for those convicted of “murder” and “sexual offenses.” 

Committee chair Jamie Grant, R-Tampa, said he took the language explicitly at its word, and he pointed to testimony Amendment 4 lawyers gave to the Supreme Court. 

Nobody defined what “sexual offenses” meant, Grant said, so he included every felony sexual offense on the books, including prostitution and placing an adult entertainment store within 2,500 feet of a school. 

“There is absolutely zero significance to the term ‘felony sex,’” Grant said. "Had the language said ‘sex offender,' that would have meant something.” 

And he said he cited Amendment 4′s own advocates before the Supreme Court, who said completing someone’s sentence could include fees and court costs.

And he considered it offensive to consider the fines a poll tax. 

“To suggest that this is a poll tax inherently diminishes the atrocity of what a poll tax actually was,” Grant said. “All we’re doing is following statute. All we’re doing is following the testimony of what was presented before the Florida Supreme Court explicitly acknowledging that fines and court costs are part of a sentence.”

So by piling on loopholes and turning everything into a legal nightmare, Republicans would tie up the voting rights of hundreds of thousands for years, if not permanently.  That's how terrified they are, they know the Florida GOP will go the way of the Republican party in California, New York, and Illinois soon.  And with 2020 determining which party is in charge of redistricting, they have to do everything they can to kill this now or they will be wiped out next November.

And they know it.

StupidiNews!

• Police officials in New Zealand say the suspect behind Friday's massacre at two mosques that killed 50 was planning to attack a third mosque and traveling there when police stopped him.
• The British Museum has returned an ancient Babylonian tablet to Iraq after the artifact was found by customs officials in 2012 after being looted during the Iraq War.
• A San Francisco jury has found that pharmaceutical giant Bayer is responsible for causing cancer with its widely used weed killer Round-Up, which could open the company up to billions in lawsuits.
• Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has joined Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in the twelve-figure net worth club, both men are now worth upwards of $100 billion.
• Aluminum producer Norsk Hydro says its US division was hit by a major ransomware attack that has crippled operations, the Norwegian company says that the attack has spread to other countries.

Last Call For Deportation Nation, Con't

In a major victory for the Trump regime's coming mass detainment and deportation strategy, the Roberts court gave the green light for permanent detainment for non-US citizens with criminal records with no due process whatsoever.

The Supreme Court held on Tuesday that the government can detain -- without a bond hearing -- immigrants with past criminal records, even if years have passed since they were released from criminal custody. 

The case centered on whether detention without a bond hearing must occur promptly upon an immigrant's release from criminal custody or whether it can happen months or even years later when the individual has resettled into society. The statute says simply that the detention can occur "when the alien is released" from custody. 

The court voted 5-4 in favor of the government. 

The challenge was brought by lawful permanent residents who committed a crime that could lead to their removal. 

In his opinion for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said that the immigrants in the case had argued they were "owed bond hearings" in order to argue for their release. Alito said that the law did not support their argument. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to say that the ruling was based entirely on the language of the statute at hand. He said it would be "odd" to interpret the statute as mandating the detention of certain "non citizens" who posed a serious risk of danger of flight, but "nonetheless" allow them to remain free during their removal proceedings if the executive branch failed "to immediately detain them upon their release from criminal custody." 

"The court correctly holds that the Executive Branch's detention of the particular non citizens here remained mandatory even though the Executive Branch did not immediately detain them." 

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the dissent, and took the unusual step of reading the opinion from the bench. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. 

"It runs the gravest risk of depriving those whom the Government has detained of one of the oldest and most important of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms: the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law."

Indefinite detainment without due process for undocumented with criminal records is important, because the next step is for the Trump regime to then say that the act of being in the country illegally constitutes a national security threat, and that opens up the legalization of mass roundups of millions of undocumented in the US to be processed and deported, while the rest are simply kept in government internment camps.

SCOTUS laying down precedent to say that due process doesn't exist for a class of people living in the country is exactly the opening that the GOP has been looking for over the last several decades.  The ultimate endgame of this of course is to then argue that if due process doesn't apply to non-citizens, then the Trump regime can revoke that citizenship.  Expand the class to include your political enemies, in other words.

And then the real nightmare begins.

That Whole Saturday Night Massacre Thing, Con't

Turns out Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein isn't leaving the Justice Department (and oversight of the Mueller probe) this month after all.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is planning to stay on at the Justice Department "a little longer" than originally anticipated, according to a Justice official familiar with his thinking. 

Initially, he planned to leave in mid-March, but no firm date was ever set and after consulting with Attorney General William Barr, he will now stay in his position a bit longer. 

He has not given the White House his two weeks' notice. 

Rosenstein has been overseeing the Russia investigation and as CNN has reported, he has signaled to other officials that he would leave when he was satisfied that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation was either complete or close enough to completion that it was protected.

This jibes with last week's often overlooked news that while the Manafort part of the Mueller probe is winding down with Manafort's sentencing, the probe itself continues as Manafort's business partner Rick Gates continue to provide information.

Rick Gates, the longtime right-hand-man to Paul Manafort who had high-level roles on the Trump campaign and inauguration, is not yet ready for sentencing, Mueller’s team said Friday— because Gates “continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations.”

Gates struck a plea deal with Mueller’s team in February 2018 and testified against Manafort at his trial in August 2018.

What’s left tantalizingly unclear, as ever, is what’s going on with Mueller’s own investigation. For weeks, it’s been rumored in Washington that the special counsel is close to wrapping up — but no Mueller report has yet materialized.

However, Gates’s continued cooperation doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about the state of the special counsel probe because he isn’t only cooperating with Mueller.

There are at least two known investigations, beyond Mueller’s own, that Gates is believed to be cooperating with: an investigation into the Trump inauguration’s money and an investigation into lobbyists’ and lawyers’ unregistered work for Ukraine.

Since both of those investigations appear to remain active, it makes perfect sense that Gates isn’t yet ready for sentencing. Gates could also be providing assistance to other investigations we don’t know about.

Rosenstein leaving was probably the biggest single sign the Meuller probe was winding down.  Now he's staying on.

We have a lot more ground to cover, it seems.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Republicans are crowing over a new USA Today poll that shows 50% of American agree with Donald Trump's assessment that the Mueller probe is a "witch hunt".  The problem is of course the poll's methodology was misleading and biased.

President Donald Trump on Monday touted poll results that appeared to show more Americans than ever siding with his oft-repeated accusation that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is nothing more than a “witch hunt.”

But some polling experts took issue with the phrasing of the survey question, saying it may have skewed the results.

“President Trump has called the Special Counsel´s investigation a ‘witch hunt’ and said he´s been subjected to more investigations than previous presidents because of politics. Do you agree?” the new USA Today/Suffolk University poll asked 1,000 registered voters in live telephone interviews between March 13 and 17.

The survey found that 50 percent of respondents said they agreed with the president’s view of Mueller’s probe of Russian election meddling and possible Trump campaign collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

Forty-seven percent disagreed, while 3 percent were undecided, according to the survey. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the total sample results.

Trump, who regularly decries the nearly 2-year-old Mueller probe as a politically motivated witch hunt, was quick to highlight the results of a survey that appeared to show the public on his side.

But here's the truth:

But multiple polling experts took exception to the structure of the question.

“I’m sorry to say this question violates three basic principles of questionnaire design,” said Gary Langer, president of Langer Research Associates, which polls for ABC News and others.

Langer said in an email to CNBC that the question is “triple-barreled” because it asks three things within a single question: whether the probe is a witch hunt; whether Trump has been subjected to more investigations than other presidents; and whether those probes have been lodged because of politics.

“Answers to each can differ,” Langer said.

He added that asking respondents if they agree — without asking if they disagree — makes the question “unbalanced.” And agree-disagree questions in general are “fundamentally biasing, because they lack the alternative proposition,” Langer said.

“In sum, it is a very good idea, in survey questions, to ask one thing at a time, and to do so in a balanced and neutral way,” Langer said.

Since I'm a computer guy, I would have said no to the question because not all three things are correct.  Trump has been subjected to more investigations than other presidents, certainly.   But the other two are not true.  The number of people who could have said yes to any of those single three statements would be recorded as yes for all three.

In other words, the poll is useless.

Won't stop the GOP though.

Or, you know, Mueller.  But as I've said, the White House is absolutely going to try to bury the report.

White House lawyers expect to have an opportunity to review whatever version of Robert Mueller's report Attorney General Bill Barr submits to Congress before it reaches lawmakers and the public, multiple sources familiar with the matter said, setting up a potential political battle over the hotly anticipated document. 

The attorneys want the White House to have an opportunity to claim executive privilege over information drawn from documents and interviews with White House officials, the sources said. 

The White House's review of executive privilege claims are within its legal purview, but could set up a political battle over the perception President Donald Trump is trying to shield certain information from the public about an investigation that has swirled around him since the first day of his presidency. 

Justice Department lawyers could advise him against certain assertions if they don't feel it's legally defensible. If Trump does assert executive privilege, the decision could be litigated in court if it's challenged, which Democrats would almost certainly do. 

"There's always tension between what looks best politically and what represents the interests of the institution -- the office of the presidency," one source close to the White House said. "Preserving executive privilege trumps political optics." 

While Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani suggested privilege could be used to keep parts of the report from public view, the issue is up to the White House, not the President's personal attorneys.

This will get leaked, of course.

Nixon didn't stop the Pentagon Papers, guys.

Won't work here.

StupidiNews!

• Legendary surf guitar master Dick Dale has passed at age 81, Dale's nearly 60-year career spanned from the Beach Boys to Pulp Fiction to Disneyland.
• Goldman Sachs is raising its hiring targets for black and Hispanic employees and requiring more candidates be interviews for entry-level positions in an effort to increase diversity.
• House Democrats say they expect "thousands" of documents as the House Judiciary Committee's investigation of the Trump regime moves into high gear.
• Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is calling last Friday's slaughter of 50 Muslims in New Zealand a "domestic terrorist" attack in contrast to Donald Trump dismissing the idea.
• New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has signed a bill banning cashless stores and restaurants in the Garden State, New Jersey joins Philadephia's similar law signed earlier this year.

Last Call For Stock Home Syndrome

A new Siena College poll finds New Yorkers really, really wanted Amazon's garbage deal for taxpayers, even if it meant the ludicrous promise of 25,000 jobs (the reality would have been a small fraction of that number at best) that would have cost the state billions in lost tax revenue.

By a 67-21 percent margin, New Yorkers say that Amazon cancelling its planned second headquarters in Queens was bad for New York. By as nearly as large a margin, 61-30 percent, they support the deal in which Amazon would receive up to $3 billion in state and city incentives and create up to 25,000 jobs if Amazon reconsiders, according to a new Siena College poll of New York State registered voters released today.

An overwhelming 79 percent of voters say parents should be required to have their children vaccinated before attending school, regardless of the parents’ religious beliefs. Voters continue to support making the two-percent property tax cap permanent, legalizing recreational use of marijuana, and eliminating monetary bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. They are split on congestion pricing, and by a nearly two-to-one margin, they oppose allowing undocumented immigrants to get a New York driver’s license.

“At least 63 percent of Democrats, Republicans and independents, upstaters and downstaters, men and women, young and old, black and white New Yorkers agree: Amazon pulling out of Queens was bad for New York. Even 56 percent of self-described liberals think it was bad for New York,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “While some may have celebrated Amazon’s announcement to pull the plug, the vast majority of New Yorkers of every stripe thought it was bad for the Empire State.

“Who do New Yorkers blame? Well, there’s certainly blame enough to go around. More people think that Amazon, Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, the State Senate, and local Queens activists were villains in this saga than they were heroes. However, voters say the biggest villain was Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Only 12 percent call her hero, while 38 percent label her a villain,” Greenberg said. “Amazon itself was seen as the biggest villain among Democrats, but Republicans and independents had Ocasio-Cortez as far and away the largest villain, followed by the local Queens activists.”

“By a wide margin, New Yorkers would support the deal coming back together if Cuomo and others can convince Amazon to reconsider,” Greenberg said. “The Amazon deal was seen as very contentious, however, there was strong support for it last month, before it got cancelled. There is an overwhelming feeling that its cancellation was bad for the state. And there is strong support – among all demographic groups – for Amazon to reconsider and move forward. Clearly, jobs outweigh the cost of government incentives in the minds of most voters.”

Blaming Ocasio-Cortez over Cuomo is ridiculous as well, but Cuomo will gladly push her under the bus like he does with most Democrats in the state, and if he doesn't, Bill de Blasio certainly will.

You can do better, New York.  Amazon was never going to deliver on its promises and everyone knows it.  Ocasio-Cortez just had the courage to say it out loud and because she's a woman of color, she gets destroyed for it.

It's exactly what Republicans want, and NY Dems are more than happy to play along.

Meat The Press, Con't

So turns out Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan isn't a very nice person, especially when it comes to dangerously fascist theocratic obliteration of dissent.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia authorized a secret campaign to silence dissenters — which included the surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudi citizens — over a year before the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, according to American officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the campaign.

At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the same team that killed and dismembered Mr. Khashoggi in Istanbul in October, suggesting that his killing was a particularly egregious part of a wider campaign to silence Saudi dissidents, according to the officials and associates of some of the Saudi victims.

Members of the team that killed Mr. Khashoggi, which American officials called the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017, the officials said.

Some of the operations involved forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing prisoners in palaces belonging to the crown prince and his father, King Salman, the officials and associates said.

One of the Saudis detained by the group, a university lecturer in linguistics who wrote a blog about women in Saudi Arabia, tried to kill herself last year after being subjected to psychological torture, according to American intelligence reports and others briefed on her situation.

The rapid intervention team had been so busy that last June its leader asked a top adviser to Prince Mohammed whether the crown prince would give the team bonuses for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, according to American officials familiar with the intelligence reports.

Details about the operations come from American officials who have read classified intelligence assessments about the Saudi campaign, as well as from Saudis with direct knowledge of some of the operations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from disclosing classified information or, in the case of the Saudis, from angering the Saudi government.

A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said the kingdom “takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously.”

Two observations:

One, I cannot understate how close the Trump regime is to the Crown Prince.  Jared Kushner's vulnerability to blackmail and other leverage to a man like MBS is such a screamingly awful threat to US national security that at this point we have to assume the Saudis have so much compromising info on him that they can do whatever they want and America will be complicit.  Kushner owes the Saudis billions, guys.  This is terrible news.  We know what MBS is willing to do to his own people, imagine what he's got on Trump's family.

Two, somebody should remind the NY Times that its coverage of the Saudi regime and especially MBS hasn't exactly been objective at times, and he's far from the only one.  The Saudi efforts to cover up their operations wouldn't have been as successful as it was without a compliant American press and mindless "pundits" like Tom Friedman at the Times and David Ignatius at the Washington Post, just to name two.

The Trump regime will never actually censure MBS, of course.  We're absolutely complicit in his fascism, hell our White House is taking notes on what they did and salivating at the chance to use those tactics here.

We're probably not far off from that point, either.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

One Missouri lawmaker wants to build an army of AR-15 wielding citizens at government expense because, well, you tell me why a politician would want to arm citizens throughout history?

Two bills introduced by state Rep. Andrew McDaniel would require residents to purchase firearms while providing $1 million in tax credits on a first-come, first-served basis to residents who fall under the law.

The first bill, the McDaniel Second Amendment Act, would require Missouri residents aged 21 or older to purchase a handgun. It also would allot up to $1 million per year in tax credits for residents who purchased weapons to comply with the law. The bill was filed in late February.

The second bill, the McDaniel Militia Act, was filed days after the handgun bill and would require Missouri residents aged 18 to 35 to purchase an AR-15. It also would provide a tax credit of up to $1 million per year to incentivize the purchase of weapons.

While the bills do not specify any penalties for adults who refuse to comply with the provisions, both stipulate that the Missouri Department of Revenue can "promulgate rules to implement the provisions of this section." The bills would sunset in six years if not extended by the state legislature.

They would not apply to felons or residents otherwise prohibited from owning firearms.

Oh I understand the excuse, the "well-maintained militia" part of a document written almost 250 years ago that also thought it was a great idea that black folk counted as 60% of a human being.  Close as I can tell though, Missouri isn't a border state, so unless some really good magic act has a portal in Branson that needs to be protected from the Chitauri, this is just an effort to be an asshole with guns in a country with a lot of assholes and a lot of guns.

That's the best case scenario, of course.  The worst one is raising an army just in time for Donald Trump to call upon it.

Up to you, dear reader, to consider what compelling Missouri's non-felon residents to all have AR-15s would lead to.

StupidiNews!

• Colorado is the latest state to join the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, states in the compact will pledge their electors to the winner of the national vote if the group reaches 270 electoral votes.
• Donald Trump once again threatened government action against Saturday Night Live for the show's Alec Baldwin parody of him after a rerun episode aired over the weekend.
• New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern will meet with her cabinet on Monday to discuss tightening the country's gun laws in the wake of last Friday's deadly mosque shootings that killed 50.
• Ride-sharing giant Lyft is expected to announce plans for a $2 billion public stock offering as soon as today, the company expects its stock to value the company in the $20-$25 billion range.
• Historians have confirmed a more than 500-year-old astrolabe from a wrecked ship of Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama is the oldest known example of a mariner's astrolabe so far discovered.

Last Call For Fox's Pirro-ette

Anyone who thinks the "lover's quarrel" between FOX News and Donald Trump over the future of host Jeanine Pirro's show is real probably believes that pro wrestling is completely spontaneous, too.  It's 100% kayfabe.

Jeanine Pirro, whose show did not air on Saturday night, was suspended by Fox News after her widely criticized commentary doubting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's patriotism, according a source familiar with the matter. 

Fox did not announce the suspension publicly. The network declined to confirm or deny that Pirro has been suspended. There is no word on whether Pirro's show will return next week. 

At the same time, there is no indication that she has been fired from Fox. The source said she has not been fired. 

Pirro is one of the network's highest-rated weekend hosts, well known for her vehement defenses of President Donald Trump and attacks against his perceived enemies. 

On Sunday morning the president returned the favor, tweeting, "Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well." 

Last Saturday night Pirro questioned whether Omar's Islamic religious beliefs stand in opposition to the US Constitution, prompting Fox to say "we strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro's comments." 

The network said at the time that the views Pirro expressed "do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly" — but declined to say if she was being sanctioned in any way. 

Several advertisers subsequently distanced themselves from Pirro's weekly show, called "Justice." 

The show did not appear on this weekend's cable schedule guide. In its place was an unusual repeat of a documentary series. 

Pirro has not said anything about taking a vacation. She hasn't tweeted since last weekend.

All this is scripted, Trump is happy to play his part, FOX News will most likely have her back next weekend, and her ratings will be way up...allowing the network to charge more for advertisers who will quietly come back.  This is such an obvious rope-a-dope that it should be sickening, and the real reason is to make sure Tucker Carlson keeps his White Power Hour.

Trump needs FOX, and FOX needs Trump. It's an incestuous relationship that is destroying the country.  When Trump really gets into trouble after the Mueller report lands and the NY state and SDNY cases close in on him and his family, it's FOX that be the loudest voice to broadcast armed insurrection to "protect" the Trumps.

And then it stops being kayfabe, and starts being bloody.

Climate Of Destruction, Con't

Meanwhile record spring flooding in the Midwest from Nebraska to Wisconsin will only get this worse this week as rivers rise from snowpack melt courtesy of last week's epic "bomb cyclone" March blizzard.

Several areas in the Midwest experienced record flooding this past week, with high water on Saturday causing more levee breaches on the Missouri River, prompting widespread evacuations and isolating neighborhoods and towns.

Record-high river levels were reported in at least 38 locations in the Midwest, particularly in Nebraska and Iowa, said Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist with weather.com. Heavy flooding was also reported in Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota, and the National Weather Service said it would continue past the weekend.

At least one man was confirmed dead in Columbus, Neb. The Omaha World-Herald reported that the man had been trying to help someone stranded by floodwaters on Thursday when a bridge collapsed as he was crossing it. Officials in Fremont County, Iowa, confirmed another flood-related death on Saturday.

The devastation was captured in dramatic photographs circulated on social media by those who surveyed the damage. Senator Ben Sasse and Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska showed how floodwaters from the Niobrara River in the northern part of the state had ripped through a dam on Thursday, releasing a torrent of water and depositing huge chunks of ice onto fields and roadways.

They shared photos of water rushing over riverbanks and encircling homes and neighborhoods.

Floodwaters had surrounded the town of Fremont, Neb., about 40 miles northwest of Omaha, said Councilwoman Linda McClain. The town sits between the Platte River to the south and the Elkhorn River to the north. Both rivers had overflowed their banks, Ms. McClain said

“We’re like an island,” she said. “You cannot get in or out.”

Ms. McClain said she spent Saturday visiting shelters where people who had been displaced were congregating. About 75 people had been reluctant to leave their homes, but as the buildings took on water, they were rescued by airboats and taken to the shelters, she said. Many homes were flooded by as much as three or four feet of water.

Parts of the city had been under a mandatory evacuation.

“Right now, we’re in crisis mode,” she said.

It will only get worse this week as more snow melts and rivers crest across the plains states, and climate change will continue to play a major part in why this is happening.  Now and in the future, what would have been historic 50- and 100-year flooding events are now happening every five or ten years instead.

We don't have the infrastructure in place to deal with it, and we won't build it as long as Republicans control our government that simply refuse to believe this is happening.

Thoughts and prayers should be enough to fix those levees, right?