Last Call For Amash-ed Potato

Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash has now dropped the pretense of remaining as a Republican as his primary numbers in his district have plummeted to somewhere around "David Duke at the Apollo Theater" levels and as a result, he's leaving the GOP to pursue the tried and true role of helping Republicans as the third party spoiler

Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, the only sitting Republican member of Congress to support impeaching President Trump, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the party after facing fierce attacks from the president and fellow Republicans. 

In an op-ed essay in The Washington Post that did not mention Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Amash wrote: “I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions.” 

Three hours after the essay was published, Mr. Trump responded with a personal attack against Mr. Amash, calling him “one of the dumbest and most disloyal men in Congress.”.

Mr. Amash, 39, is known as a libertarian with a contrarian streak and has been one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest critics on the right. He has even considered a run against him in the 2020 election. Mr. Amash’s move on Thursday makes him the only independent member of the House, which has 235 Democrats and, now, 197 Republicans.

In May, he became the first — and so far the only — sitting Republican member of Congress to join Democrats in saying that the president had committed offenses that rose to the level of impeachment.

That assertion was based on his reading of the redacted report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which was released in April. In a series of tweets, Mr. Amash accused Attorney General William P. Barr of deliberately misrepresenting the report’s findings in his summary. Mr. Amash argued that the report had provided multiple examples of conduct that could be labeled obstruction of justice. 

The president immediately struck back, calling Mr. Amash a “loser” and reinforcing the congressman’s isolation within the Republican Party. A conservative state representative in Michigan, Jim Lower, and a National Guard veteran, Tom Norton, quickly suggested that they might mount primary challenges if Mr. Amash runs for a sixth term next year. 

In his essay, published on the morning of Independence Day, Mr. Amash wrote that his father, a Palestinian refugee who moved to the United States at 16, had instilled in him the belief that America is a land of opportunity.

Mr. Amash quoted George Washington on the dangers of partisanship and strongly criticized the two-party system. 

“Modern politics is trapped in a partisan death spiral, but there is an escape,” he wrote. 

He called for Americans to join him “in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us.”

If all of those are setting off your Gary Johnson "enough third-party anti-Trump votes to hand him the election" alarm bells, they should be, because that's exactly what's happening here.  Martin "BooMan" Longman saw this coming weeks ago.

The name that has been coming up with increasing frequency lately is Rep. Justin Amash from the Grand Rapids area of Michigan. He’s the only Republican member of Congress to say that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, and now he’s facing a serious primary challenge that he may not survive. He also quit the Freedom Caucus this week, saying that he didn’t want to be a distraction. One advantage of Amash over Romney is that Amash is actually a libertarian, so he wouldn’t be hijacking the party for his own vanity project. Beyond that, though, there’s little to recommend him as a vote-getter. Certainly, Romney would have vastly more potential for splitting votes off from both major party candidates. As a far-right Republican, Amash’s appeal to the left would be limited to a small subset of people who are primarily interested in the surveillance state and privacy issues, and those who agree with Amash’s critiques of America’s bipartisan foreign policy. Many of these people’s first choice will be the Green Party candidate. 

In any case, Rep. Amash is not discouraging this speculation: 

There has also been speculation Amash might challenge Trump in 2020 as a libertarian candidate, something he did not rule out at a recent town hall. 

“I’ve said many times, I don’t rule things like that out,” Amash said. “If you’re fighting to defend the Constitution, if you find a way to do that that’s different and maybe more effective, then you have to think about that.”   

Normally, you’d expect the libertarian candidate to cut more deeply into the Republican candidate’s base than the Democrat’s, but that is not a certainty. It might even cut in different directions depending on the state. A lot will depend on how comfortable the Democrats’ affluent white suburban professional base is with the their nominee. They may seek a middle option to register their disapproval, just as many are suspected to have done in 2016. Romney would be an easier landing place for them than Amash, but he might also soak up #NeverTrump votes that would otherwise go to the Democrat.

Amash may run in his district to keep his current job, but I expect him to seriously consider a 2020 third party bid, one that could be real trouble for the Democrats, and once again it's one man's arrogance that's going to cost the country dearly.

Justice Finally Served, Con't

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is headed for jail after he was arrested in NYC on charges of child trafficking and conspiracy.

More than a decade after receiving one of the most lenient sentences for a serial sex offender in U.S history, multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested in New York, sources confirmed to the Miami Herald Saturday night.

A passerby said she saw about a dozen agents knock down the door of Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse around 5:30 p.m.

Epstein, 66, is expected to be arraigned in federal court in New York on Monday on charges that he molested dozens of underage girls in New York and in Florida, the sources said. His arrest, first reported by the Daily Beast, comes nearly two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it would not throw out his 2008 non-prosecution agreement, even though a federal judge ruled it was illegal.

Rumors had been circulating for months that Epstein was under investigation on sex charges in the Southern District of New York. It’s not clear what instances those investigations involved, and the Herald had not been able to confirm the status of the New York probe.

Sources said he was arrested by the FBI pursuant to a sealed indictment that will be unsealed on Monday. He is in custody in New York and a bail hearing is set for Monday.

“That bail hearing will be critical because if they grant him bail, he will disappear and they will never get him,’’ a source in New York told the Herald.

Last November, the Miami Herald published a series of stories, titled Perversion of Justice, that described the ways in which the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, worked in conjunction with Epstein’s lawyers to engineer the non-prosecution agreement — and keep it secret from Epstein’s victims. Acosta is now President Donald Trump secretary of labor.

Sources told the Herald that the indictment includes new victims and witnesses who spoke to authorities in New York over the past several months.

“Oh my God. Finally, finally, finally! Justice!’ said Michelle Licata, one of Epstein’s victims who was molested by him when she was 16 years old.

Epstein, who has homes in Manhattan, Palm Beach, New Mexico, Paris and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, sexually abused nearly three dozen girls, mostly 13-16 years old, at his Palm Beach mansion in 1999 to 2006, according to investigators. He used the girls to help recruit other young girls as part of an operation that ran similar to a pyramid scheme. He also had recruiters who helped with his appointments, scheduling as many as three or four girls a day, the FBI probe found.

Acosta met one-on-one with Epstein’s lawyer, Jay Lefkowitz, in October 2007, at a West Palm Beach Marriott. Records reviewed by the Herald showed that it was at that meeting that Acosta agreed to a non-prosecution agreement that gave Epstein and others involved in his operation federal immunity.

The Daily Beast story on Epstein posits that the charges against Epstein could net him 45 years in federal prison, and it backs up the Miami Herald story on the SDNY nailing him with new witnesses and testimony.

And yes, if Epstein is granted bail, he will step on a yacht and vanish like a ghost.  Even if he bugs out with only a fraction of his wealth, he'll be comfortable for the rest of his life in some country with no extradition treaty, probably the UAE or Mali or Russia...especially that last one.  Epstein is pretty mobbed up you know and if he does vanish, expect Trump to pardon him on the way out.

As to the fate of the man who Epstein bought last time to avoid spending the rest of life in prison, current Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, well who knows?  He hasn't been forced to resign yet, why would he be now?

We'll see what happens on Monday.  The Miami Herald team is basically responsible for putting Epstein away, so we'll see if they get the credit for it.

I'll Have The Patty Meltdown, Please

Hope everyone had enjoyable cookouts and all that for the 4th no matter what you eat these days, and speaking of cookouts, you know a green product is a real threat to capture American market share when corporate America calls on Republicans to regulate their competition out of existence.

It’s been a good few months for the plant-based meat movement — so good that opponents of the fledgling industry are starting to mobilize.

This week, a new law went into effect in Mississippi. The state now bans plant-based meat providers from using labels like “veggie burger” or “vegan hot dog” on their products. Such labels are potentially punishable with jail time. Words like “burger” and “hot dog” would be permitted only for products from slaughtered livestock. Proponents claim the law is necessary to avoid confusing consumers — but given that the phrase “veggie burger” hasn’t been especially confusing for consumers this whole time, it certainly seems more like an effort to keep alternatives to meat away from shoppers.

“The plant-based meat alternative category is on fire right now, with consumers demanding healthier and more sustainable options,” Michele Simon, the executive director of the Plant-Based Foods Association, said in a statement. “This law, along with similar laws in several other states, is the meat lobby’s response.”
The makers of meat alternatives are suing. In a lawsuit filed on July 2, they argue that since their products are already labeled “vegan,” no consumers are confused. If anything, the requirement that they avoid product descriptions like “veggie burger” makes things more confusing.

“There is no evidence that consumers are confused by plant-based bacon or veggie burger labels, and federal laws are already in place that prohibits consumer deception,” said Jessica Almy, director of policy at the Good Food Institute, an organization that works on expanding access to plant-based foods. “This law is a tremendous overstep of state powers.”

And that’s not the only problem. Food scientists are working right now on cell-based meat products, which are identical to meat from animals but grown from stem cells in a factory. Those products (which aren’t on the market yet) are meat in every relevant sense — most importantly, anyone with an allergy to meat will experience an allergic reaction to the products, and the items must be stored, refrigerated, and handled as meat. But under Mississippi’s current law, it’d be illegal to disclose that on the label.

This legal fight matters. Labeling laws like these have been discussed around the country, and courts will soon debate whether they’re constitutional. At the same time, federal regulators are looking to the states for cues about labeling laws for plant-based meat. Aggressive prohibitions could slow the growth of plant-based alternatives, which are badly needed.

“This bill will protect our cattle farmers from having to compete with products not harvested from an animal,” said Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation president Mike McCormick in January when the bill passed in the Mississippi state House.

Mississippi isn’t the first state to consider this. Missouri passed the first such labeling law last year, and it was challenged in court by groups including the Good Food Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that such a “content-based, overbroad, and vague” restriction on the language companies could use to describe their products was unconstitutional. The lawsuit is now in settlement talks.

Dozens of other states have considered similar laws since then. The laws are popular with farmers and ranchers, who see their business model threatened by the rising popularity of plant-based meat.

Expect this to go to the courts in a losing battle while the Trump FDA issues new "labeling guidelines" that make Mississippi's law a national one, and soon. The rancher and meat processing lobby wants plant burgers and lab-grown meat to go away now, because if Millennials and Gen Z get hooked on Impossible Whoppers from Burger King now, they know they're done in an increasingly greening and sustainable world.

It doesn't have the Tesla problem either, plant burgers are actually cheaper in some places because hey, Trump's stupid trade war and climate change and family farms tanking has made beef pretty pricey these days, it's $4-$5 a pound here in the Cincy area for ground beef and well more than that for steak.  Plant-based products are cheaper.

So yes, I definitely see Trump's FDA moving to hamstring plant burgers like this, and if they don't, GOP legislatures will be lobbyed until they do.

It's Still The Economy, Stupid

Pundits, especially on the right, keep telling us that Trump's re-election is a slam dunk finish because the economic and job numbers are "the best in your lifetime".  Only one problem with that analysis, and that is the analysis is flat out wrong for those left behind by wealth inequality.

Sommer Johnson thought everything was finally coming together for her last year. She was engaged, working full time and doing well in online college classes when her fiance’s mother died a week before their wedding day — triggering a series of large and unexpected expenses that left her struggling to pay her bills and brought her to the verge of bankruptcy.

“I keep hearing this is one of the best economies we’ve ever had and unemployment is down, especially among African Americans, which I am,” said Johnson, 39, who lives in Douglasville, Ga., an Atlanta suburb. “I’m looking around going, ‘Where is this boom?’ From where I sit, this doesn’t look like the best economy ever.”

The economic expansion this week became the longest in U.S. history, surpassing the 1990s boom, which lasted exactly a decade.

The stock market is at record levels, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing at a new high Wednesday ahead of the July 4 holiday, and President Trump has made the economy’s strong performance a centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

But this expansion has been weaker and its benefits distributed far more unevenly than in previous growth cycles, leaving many Americans in a vulnerable position.

This is a “two-tier recovery,” said Matthew Mish, head of credit strategy at the investment bank UBS. About 60 percent of Americans have benefited financially, he said, while 40 percent have not.

The 40 percent — which Mish calls the “lower tier” — have seen paltry or volatile wage growth, rising expenses for housing, health care and education, and increased levels of personal debt. They tend not to own homes or many stocks.

In discussions with 30 Americans unable to pay all of their bills, a clear pattern emerged: Most were able to eke by until they faced an unexpected crisis such as a job loss, cancer, car trouble or storm damage.

The extra expense caused them to get behind on their bills, and they never fully rebounded.

Economists fear such precarious financial situations put many Americans at risk if there is even a mild setback in the economy, potentially setting up the next recession to be worse than anything in recent history except the Great Recession.

“So many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck,” said Signe-Mary McKernan, vice president of the Center on Labor, Human Services and Population at the Urban Institute. “We are headed toward a political crisis, if not an economic one.”

It won't take much, either.  I think the catalyst is going to be Trump's trade war with China, spiking consumer prices across the country, and that will hurt the "lower tier" more. 

And again, we're talking 40% of the entire country, which means we're talking about a number of working-class white voters as well as black, Latino, and Asian voters who are going to quickly fall into real trouble and soon.  How many working-class white voters will stick with Trump if they start going under?

Probably a large majority of them.  Will they actually show up and vote?

We'll see.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Some excellent news in the case of Marshae Jones, the black woman in Alabama who was charged with manslaughter in the death of her unborn child after she was shot in the stomach by another woman in an altercation at a store.  Jones will not be prosecuted as the county DA has dropped the charges.

One week after her story drew national attention, Marshae Jones, the Alabama woman who faced criminal charges after a shooting caused her to miscarry, will not be prosecuted, the Alabama district attorney announced Wednesday.

“After viewing the facts of this case and the applicable state law I have determined that it is not in the best interest of justice to pursue prosecution of Ms. Jones on the manslaughter charge for which she was indicted by the grand jury,” Jefferson County District Attorney Lynneice Washington said at a press conference. “Therefore, I am dismissing this case and no further legal action will be taken against Ms. Jones in this matter.”

In recent days, Washington’s office faced heavy criticism for Jones’s indictment, and Jones’s lawyers had filed a motion to have the case dismissed.

”There are no winners, only losers in this sad ordeal,” Washington added.

At the end of June, Alabama news outlets reported that Jones, a 27-year-old Birmingham resident, had been taken into police custody after a grand jury indicted her on manslaughter charges for the death of her then-5-month-old fetus. Police argued that Jones had initiated a fight with 23-year-old Ebony Jemison in December and was directly responsible for the fact that Jemison fired a bullet that struck Jones in the stomach.

According to a report from Al.com, police initially charged Jemison with manslaughter over the shooting. But a jury declined to indict her, saying that Jones initiated the altercation and that Jemison was acting in self-defense when she shot at Jones. That same jury later indicted Jones, arguing that she “intentionally caused the death of her unborn baby by initiating a fight knowing she was five months pregnant.”

Local police also blamed Jones for the shooting. “Let’s not lose sight that the unborn baby is the victim here,” Pleasant Grove Police Lt. Danny Reid said shortly after the shooting. “She had no choice in being brought unnecessarily into a fight where she was relying on her mother for protection.”

The indictment was heavily criticized and immediately raised questions about why the woman who was shot was the one charged. Reproductive rights advocates argued that Jones’s story was a troubling example of the ways pregnant women of color are criminalized in states like Alabama, which has prosecuted hundreds of women for things like “chemical endangerment” while pregnant. These groups argued that many more pregnant women in the state might be punished in the wake of a recently passed law that bans most abortions in Alabama. The law is scheduled to go into effect in November.

A definite win for Jones and legal sanity, but I fear there will be far more women punished under state laws like this, and should the Supreme Court open the floodgates for states to regulate abortion out of legal existence, cases like this will become the norm, not the exception.

Tanks For The Memories

Dear Leader Trump wants a military parade with tanks and jets just like the other dictators do, and he's apparently cajoled, whined at, and threatened the Pentagon and DC city officials to the point where they have to put on a show for the orange little prince of darkness.

Tanks for President Donald Trump’s “Salute to America” Fourth of July celebration were seen arriving in Washington on Tuesday morning, just days before the event is scheduled to take place.

NBC News captured video of the tanks — two Bradley and two Abrams tanks — purportedly en route to the National Mall for Thursday’s event. Also in transport are support vehicles, including an M88, used to help recover heavy armored vehicles.
A photographer for the Associated Press also spotted two M1A1 Abrams tanks along with four other military vehicles on a freight train in southeast D.C. on Monday night.

On Monday, Trump told reporters that tanks would be stationed outside of the Fourth of July celebration, but gave no further details.

The Federal Aviation Administration also confirmed that it would suspend operations at the Ronald Reagan National Airport, the closest commercial airport to D.C., from 6:15 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. ET due to the flyovers from Air Force One and other military planes. Operations at the airport will also be impacted from 9:00 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. ET, during the fireworks show.

Trump has spoken about hosting an event here in Washington that would display military prowess since he attended a similar event in Paris in 2017. Previous plans were scratched after concerns were raised about the cost and infrastructure impact, with critics raising similar concerns about his plans for this week's holiday event.

Local officials and residents have pointed to the damage such massive military equipment could cause to area roads. And Democrats in Congress have criticized the president for putting on an unusually large production at taxpayer expense.

But Trump whined and cried until he got his Fourth of July parade with his generals and tanks, and as Steve M says, if you think this is bad, wait until the billions of dollars of taxpayer money spent on this farce in an election year next July.

Believe me, he'll try. A year from now, an election will be four months away. There's a good chance Trump will be trailing in the polls. Of course he'll try. And this time he'll insist that the damn tanks have to roll down Pennsylvania Avenue, no matter how much damage they do to the roads.

As bad as this year's event will be, next year's will be much worse. Every Trump whim will be indulged.

This is 100% a Trump election rally held with taxpayer money, specifically $2.5 million Trump stole from the National Park Service.  The RNC will make sure that only Trump supporters are in the audience, because Republicans got free tickets, and Democrats weren't invited at all. And it will only be worse as we head into the 2020 election season.

That is if we still have elections, and aren't deep into a shooting war with Iran by then, which most likely we will be. This is almost certainly a test run for the coming "If you question what we're doing with our military, you're not a patriot" era of Dubya's post 9/11 excesses, only on a Trumpian scale, complete with Trumpian levels of violence and fear. America was pretty quick to shame people back in 2001, but in 2019, when, and not if we go to war, it's going to get brutal for the concept of dissent and soon.  Next year's Fourth of July Trump Parade will be mandatory, citizen.

Autocrats have military parades.  Autocrats also have bloody crackdowns on critics.

Have A Happy Fourth!

Reduced posting through this weekend, but if Trump does anything particularly stupid, I'll let you all know.

Have a safe holiday long weekend, and I'll be back on a normal schedule Monday.

Last Call For Baked Alaska

If you thought Sarah Palin was the worst governor in the history of Alaska, Republican Mike Dunleavy's line item vetoes are making Palin look like Bernie Sanders by comparison, as he's cut nearly $450 million from the state's budget (a 10% austerity whack on top of steep cuts made by the state's Republican legislature) that targets everything from the University of Alaska to Medicaid funding to a petty move to cut funding for the state's court system after the state's supreme court ruled abortion was protected by the state constitution.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday cut $444 million from Alaska’s state’s operating budget, slashing services beyond the cuts already made by the Alaska Legislature in order to move closer to a balanced budget without raising taxes or reducing the Permanent Fund dividend.

The action drew immediate and impassioned criticism from many Alaskans, including those who rely on those services and those who provide them, and there were calls on lawmakers to override the vetoes. But the governor also drew praise from Alaskans who believe state government is too large.

The University of Alaska is the biggest target of Dunleavy’s line-item veto pen, losing $130 million in state support atop the $5 million cut approved earlier by lawmakers. The resulting reduction is nearly 41% of the state’s support for the university system. University officials said the cuts would be devastating to the UA system.

“I believe they’re going to be able to work through this ... I don’t believe they can be all things to all people, and I think that’s generally speaking, the state of Alaska. We can’t continue to be all things for all people,” the governor said Friday morning in a news conference that was broadcast statewide.

For the fiscal year that starts July 1, Medicaid spending was reduced by $50 million, the state’s senior benefits program was eliminated, a cruise ship pollution inspector program was eliminated, the Village Public Safety Officer program lost $3 million in funding and most state support for public broadcasting was erased.

The Legislature can override those decisions, but only if three-quarters of its 60 members agree. The deadline for an override is the fifth day of the special session that begins July 8.

Alaska House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said the governor’s budget presents an “imminent threat" to Alaskans.

“The fundamental question is now squarely before Alaskans. What’s more important: a healthy economy, our schools, university, and seniors, or doubling the Permanent Fund Dividend at the expense of essential state services? The governor has made his choice clear,” Edgmon wrote.

We'll see if legislators want to overrule the cuts, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that.  The list of Dunleavy's cuts are here, and thousands of University of Alaska employees are already being furloughed because the vetoes and the fact that the fiscal year started yesterday means there's no money to pay them.

Welcome to Kansas, Alaska!

It Doesn't Make Census

One of the Trump regime's arguments for telling the Supreme Court two weeks ago to ignore actual law, to simply defer to the government, and to make a summary judgment on the question of citizenship on the 2020 Census was that the government needed to start printing Census questionnaire forms no later than yesterday, July 1.

Of course, now that SCOTUS has ruled that the regime's argument is baloney, suddenly that July 1 deadline has been missed, and now the Trump regime is blaming the courts for the inevitable delay in the Census.

The Trump administration appears to have missed its own deadline Monday to start the printing of paper forms and other mailings that will play a key role in next year's constitutionally mandated head count of every person living in the U.S.

As of Monday evening, the 2020 census materials did not appear to have been officially approved by the White House's Office of Management and Budget for printing, according to a website tracking OMB's review process.

In another sign that production has not begun, Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge in Maryland on Monday that the administration has not reached a final decision on whether it will try to make another case in court for adding a hotly contested citizenship question to census forms.

U.S. District Judge George Hazel, who is presiding over recently reopened lawsuits over the question, has agreed to hold a hearing on the issue Tuesday, plaintiffs' attorneys Denise Hulett of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Shankar Duraiswamy of Covington & Burling tell NPR.

The delay in printing 1.5 billion paper census mailings could throw a wrench into a tightly wound timetable of final preparations for the 2020 census. The count is scheduled to begin officially in January in rural Alaska before rolling out to the rest of the country by April.

On Monday, President Trump said that his administration is continuing to look "very strongly" at delaying the census. Hours after the Supreme Court announced its decision last week to keep the citizenship question temporarily blocked, Trump tweeted that he wants to wait until the court has more time and information to "make a final and decisive decision."

Asked why it's so important to add a citizenship question, Trump said Monday from the Oval Office, "I think it's very important to find out if somebody is a citizen as opposed to an illegal."

Even Chief Justice Roberts said the Trump regime's argument that they were "only enforcing the Voting Rights Act" was totally contrived and dismissed it. It doesn't mean that the Trumpies can't come up with a better argument that he can feel good about, but for now, the scheme is as plain as day.

Besides, the Trump regime is required by law to start the actual Census counting by April 1, so we'll see how that goes.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

I have no clue as to why this is still in doubt, but the Russians helped Donald Trump win the White House with their propaganda and disinformation, and the massive pile of evidence making that point only continues to grow.

President Donald Trump and his allies have long insisted that Russian's 2016 propaganda campaign on social media had no impact on the presidential election.

A new statistical analysis says it may well have.

The study, by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, does not prove that Russian interference swung the election to Trump. But it demonstrates that Trump's gains in popularity during the 2016 campaign correlated closely with high levels of social media activity by the Russian trolls and bots of the Internet Research Agency, a key weapon in the Russian attack.

"Our results show that the weeks when Russian trolls were accumulating likes and retweets on Twitter, that activity reliably foreshadowed gains for Trump in the opinion polls," wrote Damian Ruck, the study's lead researcher, in an article explaining his findings.

The study found that every 25,000 re-tweets by accounts connected to the IRA predicted a 1 percent increase in opinion polls for Trump.

In an interview with NBC News, Ruck said the research suggests that Russian trolls helped shift U.S public opinion in Trump's favor. As to whether it affected the outcome of the election: "The answer is that we still don't know, but we can't rule it out."

Given that the election turned on 75,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, "it is a prospect that should be taken seriously," Ruck wrote, adding that more study was needed in those swing states.

He points out that 13 percent of voters didn't make their final choice until the last week before the election.

Ruck said the correlation between troll activity and Trump's popularity remained true even when controlling for Trump's own Twitter activity and other variables.

"It turns out that the activity of Russian Twitter trolls was a better predictor of Donald Trump's polling numbers than his own Twitter activity," he wrote.

Donald Trump won because he effectively got a third of a percentage point total in the right three states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all states we now know were heavily targeted by Russia's Internet Research Agency in 2016.

And now we have evidence that Russian social media propaganda was a leading indicator of Trump's perfidious success, not a trailing one.

We've got to get the guy out of office.

StupidiNews!

• Baseball fans are mourning the sudden death of LA Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, the 27-year-old was found dead in a Texas hotel room Monday, foul play and suicide have been ruled out.
• A new lawsuit by environmental groups seeks to block construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming the Trump regime ignored federal law to issue permits in March to proceed.
• Heavy flooding is being blamed for the collapse of a wall in Mumbai, India that killed 13, officials say monsoon rains and soaked ground toppled the retaining wall into a slum neighborhood.
• Hong Kong police are on high alert after protesters vandalized buildings and cars, police fired tear gas and used riot gear to break up demonstrations against a Chinese extradition policy.
• Facebook researchers have shut down a fake Libyan news site that was distributing malware and viruses for over five years along with its false stories.

Last Call For Border Line Psychos

America's law enforcement, military, and other first responders are filled with the kind of people who should never be allowed a trickle of authority, let alone the kind of power that police have in this country.  The Border Patrol is no different, with nearly half of the rank and file belonging to a Facebook group that regularly joked that migrants were vermin in need of extermination, and that Latina lawmakers were whores.

Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings.

In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to the post of a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in May while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Elmo with the quote, “Oh well.” Another responded with an image and the words “If he dies, he dies.”

Created in August 2016, the Facebook group is called “I’m 10-15” and boasts roughly 9,500 members from across the country. (10-15 is Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.”) The group described itself, in an online introduction, as a forum for “funny” and “serious” discussion about work with the patrol. “Remember you are never alone in this family,” the introduction said.

Responsible for policing the nation’s southern and northern boundaries, the Border Patrol has come under intense scrutiny as the Trump administration takes new, more aggressive measures to halt the influx of undocumented migrants across the United States-Mexico border. The patrol’s approximately 20,000 agents serve under the broader U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which has been faulted for allegedly mistreating children and adults in its custody. The agency’s leadership has been in turmoil, with its most recent acting chief, John Sanders, resigning last week.

ProPublica received images of several recent discussions in the 10-15 Facebook group and was able to link the participants in those online conversations to apparently legitimate Facebook profiles belonging to Border Patrol agents, including a supervisor based in El Paso, Texas, and an agent in Eagle Pass, Texas. ProPublica has so far been unable to reach the group members who made the postings.

ProPublica contacted three spokespeople for CBP in regard to the Facebook group and provided the names of three agents who appear to have participated in the online chats. CBP hasn’t yet responded.

“These comments and memes are extremely troubling,” said Daniel Martinez, a sociologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson who studies the border. “They’re clearly xenophobic and sexist.”

The postings, in his view, reflect what “seems to be a pervasive culture of cruelty aimed at immigrants within CBP. This isn’t just a few rogue agents or ‘bad apples.’”

The bad apples defense doesn't work when it's nearly a majority of your people, guys.

Look, I understand that border enforcement is a dangerous job.  But joking about violence towards people as if they're less than human isn't acceptable in people we should be holding to a higher standard.

Then again, we could say the same thing about President, so.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

It's July 1, meaning a host of state laws across the country take effect today (or would if they weren't current blocked by courts, hi Alabama's awful abortion ban!) and California's 2016 background check laws now apply to the sales of ammunition as well as firearms.

The bustle inside LAX Ammunition on the Friday before Father’s Day betrayed the gloom of the outside sky.

Employees inside the Los Angeles-area gun shop had their hands full chatting with customers who were looking to replenish their ammo supply before July 1, with some customers spending hundreds of dollars in the process.

Why the hurry? That’s the day a new state law will require almost all buyers to go through background checks before being able to buy bullets, potentially increasing the amount of time and money it takes to make purchases.

“We're probably up by 400% from where we were last year for this past month, and this month, in total sales,” says Daniel Kash, the store’s president.

As it is, California has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation — the state bans most assault weapons and restricts the sale and possession of large capacity magazines. There’s also a 10-day waiting period prior to the sale or transfer of a firearm, among other restrictions.

The passage of Proposition 63, a gun control measure approved, coincidentally, by 63 percent of California voters in 2016, will strengthen those laws by taking aim at the sale of ammo.
“Everybody that has a gun ... knows about the law that's upcoming,” Kash says. “That's why you see the store being as busy as it is this week for the Father's Day Sale. People are stocking up right now, basically.”

The new law — championed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, a longtime advocate of gun control — is meant to protect the public by keeping ammunition from getting into dangerous hands, the state says.

Here’s how:

• Customers will have to receive a background check every time they make an ammunition purchase, paying $1 each time.
• Those who don’t already have their information in the Department of Justice’s system for these point-of-sale screenings will have to pay up to $20 for an initial screening.
• Vendors will have to make sure customers aren’t on a DOJ list that names people who are prohibited from buying guns for various reasons — for example, committing a felony — before selling to them.

All ammo sales will have to take place in person — even online orders will have to be shipped to a licensed vendor’s store before customers can pick them up.

Gun owners and enthusiasts aren’t happy, arguing that the new law will cost extra time and money.

“The biggest question on people's minds is what the process is going to be like, and how burdened someone's going to be, whether it's going to take it a tremendous amount of additional time, or whether it's going to cost them more money,” says Alexander Reyes, a manager at Martin B. Retting, a gun shop in Culver City near Los Angeles.

I don't understand, conservatives sure like to make things cost extra time and money when it inconveniences women trying to have reproductive health care or black or brown people, students, the elderly, and the disabled trying to vote.

Here's the thing though, we make people go through hoops to get a drivers' license or buy a car, and firearms are designed to, you know, cause grievous bodily harm to someone on purpose.  We might actually want to regulate that.

 

Russian To Judgment, Con't

The Pentagon and Joint Chiefs are politely pushing back on Donald Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the fact that Trump himself is the largest security risk to the nation right now, and our generals and admirals know it.

The U.S. is ill-equipped to counter the increasingly brazen political warfare Russia is waging to undermine democracies, the Pentagon and independent strategists warn in a detailed assessment that happens to echo much bipartisan criticism of President Donald Trump's approach to Moscow.

The more than 150-page white paper, prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and shared with POLITICO, says the U.S. is still underestimating the scope of Russia's aggression, which includes the use of propaganda and disinformation to sway public opinion across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. The study also points to the dangers of a growing alignment between Russia and China, which share a fear of the United States' international alliances and an affinity for "authoritarian stability."

Its authors contend that disarray at home is hampering U.S. efforts to respond — saying America lacks the kind of compelling “story” it used to win the Cold War.

The study doesn't offer any criticisms of Trump, but it comes amid continued chaffing by security hawks in both parties who have objected to the president's repeated slights at U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia, public affection for authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, and his habit of scoffing at the evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. A grinning Trump added to that pattern Friday in Osaka, Japan, where he got a chuckle out of Putin by admonishing him, "Don't meddle in the election, president."

In interviews with POLITICO, other Russia watchers supported the report's warnings that the U.S. needs to up its game.

"Russia is attacking Western institutions in ways more shrewd and strategically discreet than many realize,” said Natalia Arno, president of the Free Russia Foundation, an anti-Putin Washington think tank that recently completed its own study of Russian efforts to undermine the West. “The attacks may seem more subtle and craftier, but they are every bit as destructive as governments are influenced, laws are changed, legal decisions are undermined, law enforcement is thwarted and military intervention is disguised."

The unclassified “Strategic Multilayer Assessment” marks a clear warning from the military establishment to civilian leaders about a national security threat that strategists fear, if left unchecked, could ultimately lead to armed conflict.

"In this environment, economic competition, influence campaigns, paramilitary actions, cyber intrusions, and political warfare will likely become more prevalent," writes Navy Rear Adm. Jeffrey Czerewko, the Joint Chiefs' deputy director for global operations, in the preface to the report. "Such confrontations increase the risk of misperception and miscalculation, between powers with significant military strength, which may then increase the risk of armed conflict."

For the Pentagon to even begin to mention this publicly is a five-alarm fire klaxon. This nation will not survive much longer with Donald Trump at the helm, and even if it does, it will be so weak that military conflict will become inevitable.

Trump is a massive security risk, folks.  Even the Pentagon believes so.

StupidiNews!

• The CDC is warning summer swimmers that the cryptosporidium parasite can live in chlorinated pool water for sup to seven days and for Americans to be careful in public swimming pools.
• After decades of banning the practice, Japan is now allowing commercial whaling for the first time in 30 years, citing strong cultural and economic reasons.
• Hong Kong protesters hit the streets again on Monday at a rally to mark the city's return to Chinese rule as Hong Kong administrator Carrie Lam continues to resist calls for her ouster.
• Sudanese military snipers opened fire on a crowded march in support of civilian rule as a deadly crackdown by the ruling military junta continues into its third month.
• Two physicists have come up with the optimal way to make the humble crepe, using fluid dynamics to banish unwanted lumps and tears.