No one seems to have the actual text of the rules change but the proposed legislation it was based off of (the HONEST act) is available and states very clearly:
"Personally identifiable information, trade secrets, or commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential must be redacted prior to public availability."
The problem with DACA wasn't that Obama choose to not remove illegal alien children from the US it's that it granted them special privileges.
If he had just issued an E.O. saying "don't deport minors" then absent a new piece of legislation by Congress everything would have been legal. Of course Trump could then rescind that order and again, everything would be legal; there would be nowhere in the process for the judiciary to step in. Instead he created the DACA program which went above and beyond simply not deporting them.
The not deporting potion is just selective enforcement which every President and every D.A. in the US routinely do. Granting special rights however, such as access to certain government benefits or special work permits, goes beyond choosing to not deport and into the realm of legislation.
The only problem with the belief that they were just 'checking' executive powers was that in at least the most recent two big immigration related issues (travel ban and DACA) the courts, by their own admission in cases going back over a century, have admitted they have almost no authority.
The travel ban was presented as a national security issue and as the targeted countries all have either failing, hostile or non-existent central governments to validate the persons claims that would be a valid argument to make. On national security issues the courts have repeatedly stated that the President has almost unchecked powers (within the confines of the constitution). Like it or not Trump was on firm legal ground to limit or completely prevent non-citizens from coming to the US and the cherry picked courts imposed their own beliefs into the decision, not a strong legally backed argument.
As for DACA, that is a weirder case in the fact that the DACA program itself is unconstitutional as the President cannot create immigration policy out of nothing which is exactly what Obama did when creating it. Trump is actually trying to undo an unconstitutional mistake from a previous admin and now the courts are stepping in to force the program to continue. Historically the courts have declared that immigration policy is wholly within the domain of the Legislative branch and they, meaning the courts, can only ensure that the laws are followed as written. If you can point out the legislation behind DACA than you could save a lot of people a lot of time and headache.
He gave up Hannity after being told by the Judge to give up the name. In case you haven't been to court, Judges don't just "ask" they order.
He was giving up the name anyways but originally the judge allowed the name to remain sealed but the lawyer for the newspapers present made a case that it served the public to have the name known and the judge agreed. I'm not sure how that is true, except for gossip which I guess is what most of the current media is nowadays, but that was what happened.
Cohen seems slimy but most of the big things they seem to be investigating him for (some kind of taxi medallion scheme, etc..) don't involve Trump in the slightest and those that do (possible FEC violation with Daniels payout) aren't even the type of thing that make a politician blink. Even if you put all the possible payouts together you're still talking a possible 'in kind' contribution violation of FEC laws of a couple 100 thousand. Obama's campaign was found to be in violation of the same laws by several million (and possibly more with the Facebook stuff coming to light) and just paid a small fine, which is what happens to pretty much everyone. FEC violations are a joke charge and seen by most pols as simply the cost of running a campaign. It would be nice if they had real teeth but these investigative agencies seems to always take the view that the election is over and what's done is done.
The actual FBI investigators stated that they did not believe that he lied or intended to deceive. He was asked about perfectly legal discussions he had with the Russian ambassador a month prior and his memory of the talk didn't not 100% match the recording the FBI had; which would be true for pretty much anyone asked about a conversation they had move than 10 minutes before being asked about it. It wasn't until it was seen as a way to apply pressure for the Mueller investigation that they decided he had lied.
From all appearances his plea had more to do with lack of money and threats of similar prosecution against his family members than any actual guilt. The post plea review by the judge as well as the delay in sentencing are also very odd and not in a way that generally favors the prosecution. As it stands now the plea is still on the record but with some of the other issues coming to light about how some of this was all started and who was involved there is a very real chance that the entire case may be thrown out as 'fruit of the poisonous tree'.
You can refuse to provide a future service for whatever reason you want. Unlike selling a pre-existing cake available on the bakery shelf for anyone to purchase these people wanted to contract for a special one-off wedding cake which takes the artistic skills of the baker. You can make a case for the pre-existing cake as a 'public accommodation' instance but the one-off wedding cake is not pre-existing and takes future special effort by the baker. You might even be able to make a case if they refused to sell them a standard cake on a future date when they have a set schedule of baking x standard cakes a day but in these cases they are actually asking for the baker to go beyond performing their standard baking schedule and performing an additional job for a specialty cake. The fact that they perform this service for some people but not others, for whatever reason they choose, is exactly the same as any artist who chooses to perform at some private functions but not others.
As for people refusing to perform weddings for various reason, that is already the case. A justice of the peace, being a public official, has to provide wedding services to anyone legally allowed to marry but a clergy of whatever faith or even someone with a internet certificate can pick and choose their clients any way they wish. Or are you calling for orthodox Rabbis to be forced to perform gay weddings simply because you want them to?
The rest of your list is equally ridiculous as the people you list are already free to choose their clients however they wish. Doctors are a perfect example as they are required to perform emergency procedures to stabilize a patient (the standard baking if you will) but under no obligation to perform specialty operations (ex. plastic surgery, etc..) unless they choose to. Some doctors in public hospitals have effectively an extended standard baking menu but are still under no obligation to go above and beyond their normal procedures.
You've obviously never dealt with a wedding cake before. Unless you are having the most boring wedding ever there is no way you can compare the time required for a proper wedding cake to a regular cake. Besides the usual ornate decoration there is also a matter of engineering involved when dealing with a cake, or series of cakes as wedding cakes usually are, meant to look amazing and still feed a large number of people.
These couples were even offered the choice of purchasing one of their normal cakes but wanted a wedding cake so they obviously thought there was a difference too.
The majority favour more gun controls now, and Citi is following the market to maximise profitability.
For a poorly defined definition of "more gun control". Most of the forms of gun control that the majority want are actually already covered by laws on the books or have limited resistance even from gun 'nuts'. The problem is that anti-gun fanatics take those proposals and add outright bans and other changes that very few people agree with and lump them all together to conflate the issue or simply make things up to try and make things appear worse than they are.
For example: - Close the gun show loophole: There is no real gun show loophole. It's merely adding a location to the fact that most private sales do not require background checks (mostly because there is almost no way to actual enforce that system if implemented). It may as well be called the "My backyard loophole" or "McDonald's Parking lot" loophole. In fact any seller who actually sells enough guns to be considered a business (in some cases that number can be as low as 1) has to be registered as a dealer or go through a dealer to sell their weapons and thereby perform the federally mandated background checks regardless of their location. The vast majority of weapons sold at gun shows are through federally licensed firearms dealers.
- Ban assault weapons: Assault weapons aren't a thing. Assault rifles such as the M-16 are, but assault weapons are merely cosmetic features added to normal weapons. The AR-15, for example, is just a normal, usually low calibre, semi-automatic rifle that is popular simply because it's very modular and easily customizable for comfort and convenience. Almost none of the customizations added to the weapons actually make it any deadlier and a bullet fired from one of these "assault weapons" behaves exactly the same as one fired from a 'normal' hunting rifle. The one clear exception, which is also a mod available for several other rifles, is the bump stock. This is one mod that, although technically legal, does make it easier to make a semi-auto near identical to a full auto at the sacrifice of accuracy. Bans or at least tighter regulation of bump stocks does have relatively strong support.
- Increase purchase age to 21: What other constitutional right has an age requirement above and beyond reaching the recognized age of majority? Should you not be able to vote until you are 30? How about no protected speech until your 40's? Like it or not the right to bear arms is a recognized individual right and as such "shall not be infringed". People like to use the drinking age as a prime example of setting a legal requirement above 18 but drinking is not a recognized constitutional right. This one is one of the most ironic of the current protestors demands because, being primarily high school students, they are essentially demanding a restriction of their rights because they don't consider themselves mature enough to handle the responsibility of gun ownership while at the same time demanding the re-writing of American law to their preference.
- Strengthening background checks: This is often linked to the 'loophole' from above but also to such things are preventing criminals or unfit people from purchasing weapons. The problem here is that this is already the law and as has been the case in several of the last few mass shootings the failure wasn't in the background check but in the people responsible from entering the data (forgetting to submit a court martial for spouse abuse or failure to record direct threats). Not even the deepest background check will succeed if the people responsible for updating the linked systems fail to do their jobs.
- My favorite is the call to ban "high velocity rounds": This has been called for directly by the March for Our Lives kids and their supporters but is based entirely off of not having the least bit of understanding of how guns work. Almost any round fired from a rifle is 'high velocity' compared to a hand gun; it's si
But the bakers in question weren't even restricting sales to the couples, merely the special order of a wedding cakes. In at least 2 of these cases the shops in question had already sold to the complaining couples with full knowledge of their sexual orientation. They had no issue with selling to gay couples for normal general goods (general cakes, cookies, cupcakes etc..) it was only the sale of wedding cakes that they refused.
Wedding cakes are, in almost all cases, special order cakes and take a lot more personalized effort to create. The bakers considered this a form or their artistic expression and as such refused to participate in an act that was against their beliefs. In 2 cases the States decided that a baker could be forced to participate against their will while in the latest case, in California, the judge sided with the baker.
It's the same as a politician wanting to play a particular artists song at their event. If they choose to pay the licensing fees to the proper company they can play the pre-recorded mp3 to their hearts content, despite the artists protests, but that doesn't mean the artist is obligated to actually appear and play live or even make a special re-mix for them.
An AR-15 is a pretty standard rifle, usually small caliber but can come in many flavors. It's popular because it's so customizable but almost none of those mods actually change it's actual firing characteristics, just it's looks (a bump stock being an exception to that). The only reason people are afraid of it is because it looks scary. It is not a military grade weapon and despite what CNN tells you it's also not the weapon of choice for most mass shootings.
The exact same rifle characteristics can be found in any number of wooden stocked rifles but no one is screaming for them to be banned because they look like standard hunting rifles people have seen in movies.
Now if you want to talk about banning bumpstocks that would be something you might be able to get some support for even though it's a relatively futile gesture as they can be easily built or mimicked with even an elastic band.
The NRA doesn't make money selling guns although if you really want to stretch, since they do run a large number of gun safety and training courses across the US they would benefit from new purchasers. They are not the representative organization for gun sellers, that's an entirely different group. The NRA is like the ACLU in that it's goal is the protection of the constitutional rights; in the NRAs case, the second amendment.
When it comes to spending on lobbying or even political campaigns the NRA is barely a blip on the radar and is about equal to Planned Parenthood in political spending (although unlike PP their funding is mostly through ads in their magazines and membership fees and not government related billing). While their spending is measured in millions and tens of millions the real spending groups (such as healthcare, banks and unions) measure their campaign and lobbying numbers in the billions.
The NRAs real power comes from the fact that unlike a lot of these other organizations who are made up entirely of corporate entities, they have a membership somewhere north of 5 million people who are willing to use their vote to protect their rights.
As for sales increasing after tragedies, that has nothing to do with the NRA and is entirely on the gun grabbers plate. Whenever anyone talks about banning a popular product sales generally increase as people start 'hoarding'. It's simple supply and demand; threaten the supply and the short term demand will increase as even people who were only considering a future purchase will feel pressure to enter the market.
If talk went to the proper areas such as ensuring people are properly entered into the various databases when they are a known threat (as was the primary failure in this case and at least one other recent shooting) so that they will fail the background checks instead of banning weapons because they look scary (an AR-15 is just a standard, generally low caliber, hunting rifle and even with mods added it's no more powerful or deadly than any other rifle) then sales would mostly stay constant instead of seeing major upticks. In the last 10 years the best ad man for gun sales was Obama. Whenever he talked about "sensible gun laws" which in pretty much every case meant ban or even confiscation (even using Australia's mandatory buyback as an example) sales would increase.
Where are conservatives stripping away 1st amendment rights?
Excluding the fact that the 1st amendment is really just a restriction on the government, the vast majority of people I see being restricted from speaking are conservatives whenever they enter any 'liberal' enclave, like a college campus or even posting on Twitter. Even comedians who are generally pretty liberal themselves have made statements that the lefts rush to social justice have made some places unworkable because nowadays everything offends some specialty group.
So the National Research Council is a conservative think tank?
A 2004 critical review of firearms research by a National Research Council committee said that an academic study of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence outcomes".
No legitimate study found any decrease in gun violence due to the ban. The ban itself was simply snake oil for people who have no knowledge of guns.
The term "assault weapon" itself has no real meaning. It's effectively, "We want to ban the scary looking gun!!!". The exact same guns as those covered under all these proposed bans are also available with solid stocks or missing the barrel shrouds or bayonet mounts and they would remain 100% legal.
The AR-15 itself is just a standard semi-automatic, generally small caliber, rifle. Sure the versions they show on the news with its barrel shroud and collapsible stock look scary but neither of those additions impact it's operation, just it's looks. It's like saying we have a speeding problem in our town so we're going to ban all red cars because they look fast.
Maybe it's time to look at other solutions like mandatory reporting rules (there were so many opportunities to red flag this kid but no one at the school, police dept or FBI bothered to follow through with the paperwork to add anything to his record), a focus on trying to strengthen the nuclear family (children without 2 parents are exponentially more likely to commit acts of violence), and yes, even possibly allowing some sort of arms on school campuses (either through dedicated security or through special certification for employees/teachers of the school).
Most of these shooters either surrender or commit suicide as soon as they are faced with armed opposition and as the saying goes, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away"
A lot of things already bar you from legally obtaining a firearm but one of the biggest problems is just no one bothers to do the paperwork to put those into the system. Retroactively pointing out that someone should never have been allowed to own a gun doesn't help when none of that information was entered into the system even though so many people in a position to act knew about this guy and his history.
The repeated infractions at school (several weapons related), the multiple times the police had been called to his home, the repeated calls to the FBI; any one of those if properly handled and filed would have most likely made him fail the background check.
The slogan of "See Something, Say Something" has to be updated to "See Something, Say Something, Do Something"
The NRA gives grants to JROTC programs across the US, as does the US Government. The same JROTC program that trained several of the students touted as heroes during this terrible event.
Trying to blame the NRA for the fact this screwed up teenager was in the JROTC program for a little while is just like blaming the drivers ed program at the school when a drunk driver kills someone.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, an no one has disputed this, none of the information gathered during their contract appeared in the Steel Dossier. This only makes sense since the Russia angle wasn't really a center point of the Free Beacon contract (they actually contracted Fusion to perform oppo research on several GOP primary hopefuls) and it wasn't until the DNC/Hillary contract started that Steel was hired to look into the Trump/Russia ties.
Google is your friend. Not my original source just the 3rd result when searching for "Russian troll farm funding". A very informative article on the Troll farm including interviews with people who worked there. This was an up to 400 person operation with just 13 people indicted on poking their noses into the US election.
Essentially it was just a pro-Putin organization that like to stick their noses into everything but as the article notes:
Most of the operation focused on the separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia, not political races in the West
It isn't about Mueller being a Dem or Rep, he's a special council and historically they tend to expand way beyond their actual initial reason for being. They basically keep going until they find something to try and justify their existence. That's why almost all the named indictments from the Mueller investigation have nothing to do with the 2016 election and it's why Ken Starr is best known for catching Clinton committing perjury.
Mueller is just doing his job but the fault lies in the job of special council itself. It's a government job that has effectively no limits put on it so it tends to run wild. The Dems and Media however want to keep this whole thing going to get their 'blue dress' moment. It doesn't matter to them if the initial charges seem to have almost no basis in reality, they are just waiting for something to come out of the run away train of an investigation that they can pin on Trump.
The million dollars was the monthly operating cost of the troll farm. The US wasn't even their main target for most of their work. From Facebook and other sources the actual money spend on ads was between 45k and 100k in total. Compare that to about 81 million spent by Trump/Hillary on their online ads.
And just to add insult to injury, most of that was spent after the election and the pre-election ads were run in the wrong places. DC and other completely Dem enclaves got the most attention (places the ads made less than 0 difference) while actual battleground areas just got a couple thousand in ads. Even their most successful rally (since most others only had single digit turnouts) was actually an anti-Trump rally after the election which had all the usual suspects in attendance (with Michael Moore front and center).
It doesn't appear this trolling ever had anything to do with the election, just try to stir stuff up so they picked the easiest places to get people to make a fuss.
1) Except for relations between the supposed Oligarch funding the troll farm and Putin (which has relationships with all Russian Oligarchs) there is no actual accusation of Russian Government involvement with this group. As with all things Russian I'm sure Putin had some knowledge of it but he didn't apparently use government resources to run it.
2) Steele never worked for the Republicans or Republican leaning groups. His stint at Fusion started several months after the original Free Beacon contract had ended and about a month or two after the Hillary/DNC contract started.
3) Steele probably is off the hook with the whole foreign agent thing though I do wonder about all the Illegal Immigrations rights groups who actively run ads and organize rallies with admitted foreign nationals during campaign season. Or for that matter the group of British citizens who organized with the Hillary campaign to fly over and do door to door campaigning. If Russians trolling people on Facebook is such a threat to American democracy then why aren't those other people under arrest too? Their involvement was much more direct. It's also easier to find them since they actually posted pictures of themselves partaking in those 'illegal' activities.
Face it, this whole thing was completely oversold by the Dems and the media and now they are reaching for straws looking for someone to charge.
Steele never worked on the Free Beacon contract. He was hired by Fusion specifically for the DNC/Hillary project.
The Free Beacon contract ended early 2016. The DNC/Hillary campaign contracted Fusion for oppo researcher Spring 2016. Steel was hired to create the dossier in June 2016. There are several months between the Free Beacon contract and Steele starting work on the dossier.
Steele wasn't contracted to create the dossier until after the Free Beacon contract was over.
The Free Beacon contract was for general Trump background and it wasn't until that contract was over and the DNC/Hillary contract began that Fusion began focusing on Russia and hired Steele.
Slashdot Mirror
No one seems to have the actual text of the rules change but the proposed legislation it was based off of (the HONEST act) is available and states very clearly:
The problem with DACA wasn't that Obama choose to not remove illegal alien children from the US it's that it granted them special privileges.
If he had just issued an E.O. saying "don't deport minors" then absent a new piece of legislation by Congress everything would have been legal. Of course Trump could then rescind that order and again, everything would be legal; there would be nowhere in the process for the judiciary to step in. Instead he created the DACA program which went above and beyond simply not deporting them.
The not deporting potion is just selective enforcement which every President and every D.A. in the US routinely do. Granting special rights however, such as access to certain government benefits or special work permits, goes beyond choosing to not deport and into the realm of legislation.
The only problem with the belief that they were just 'checking' executive powers was that in at least the most recent two big immigration related issues (travel ban and DACA) the courts, by their own admission in cases going back over a century, have admitted they have almost no authority.
The travel ban was presented as a national security issue and as the targeted countries all have either failing, hostile or non-existent central governments to validate the persons claims that would be a valid argument to make. On national security issues the courts have repeatedly stated that the President has almost unchecked powers (within the confines of the constitution). Like it or not Trump was on firm legal ground to limit or completely prevent non-citizens from coming to the US and the cherry picked courts imposed their own beliefs into the decision, not a strong legally backed argument.
As for DACA, that is a weirder case in the fact that the DACA program itself is unconstitutional as the President cannot create immigration policy out of nothing which is exactly what Obama did when creating it. Trump is actually trying to undo an unconstitutional mistake from a previous admin and now the courts are stepping in to force the program to continue. Historically the courts have declared that immigration policy is wholly within the domain of the Legislative branch and they, meaning the courts, can only ensure that the laws are followed as written. If you can point out the legislation behind DACA than you could save a lot of people a lot of time and headache.
No it does not. Studies must still follow HIPPA regulations and mask identifying data. Anonymized data doesn't prevent a study from being public.
He gave up Hannity after being told by the Judge to give up the name. In case you haven't been to court, Judges don't just "ask" they order.
He was giving up the name anyways but originally the judge allowed the name to remain sealed but the lawyer for the newspapers present made a case that it served the public to have the name known and the judge agreed. I'm not sure how that is true, except for gossip which I guess is what most of the current media is nowadays, but that was what happened.
Cohen seems slimy but most of the big things they seem to be investigating him for (some kind of taxi medallion scheme, etc..) don't involve Trump in the slightest and those that do (possible FEC violation with Daniels payout) aren't even the type of thing that make a politician blink. Even if you put all the possible payouts together you're still talking a possible 'in kind' contribution violation of FEC laws of a couple 100 thousand. Obama's campaign was found to be in violation of the same laws by several million (and possibly more with the Facebook stuff coming to light) and just paid a small fine, which is what happens to pretty much everyone. FEC violations are a joke charge and seen by most pols as simply the cost of running a campaign. It would be nice if they had real teeth but these investigative agencies seems to always take the view that the election is over and what's done is done.
The actual FBI investigators stated that they did not believe that he lied or intended to deceive. He was asked about perfectly legal discussions he had with the Russian ambassador a month prior and his memory of the talk didn't not 100% match the recording the FBI had; which would be true for pretty much anyone asked about a conversation they had move than 10 minutes before being asked about it. It wasn't until it was seen as a way to apply pressure for the Mueller investigation that they decided he had lied.
From all appearances his plea had more to do with lack of money and threats of similar prosecution against his family members than any actual guilt. The post plea review by the judge as well as the delay in sentencing are also very odd and not in a way that generally favors the prosecution. As it stands now the plea is still on the record but with some of the other issues coming to light about how some of this was all started and who was involved there is a very real chance that the entire case may be thrown out as 'fruit of the poisonous tree'.
You can refuse to provide a future service for whatever reason you want. Unlike selling a pre-existing cake available on the bakery shelf for anyone to purchase these people wanted to contract for a special one-off wedding cake which takes the artistic skills of the baker. You can make a case for the pre-existing cake as a 'public accommodation' instance but the one-off wedding cake is not pre-existing and takes future special effort by the baker.
You might even be able to make a case if they refused to sell them a standard cake on a future date when they have a set schedule of baking x standard cakes a day but in these cases they are actually asking for the baker to go beyond performing their standard baking schedule and performing an additional job for a specialty cake. The fact that they perform this service for some people but not others, for whatever reason they choose, is exactly the same as any artist who chooses to perform at some private functions but not others.
As for people refusing to perform weddings for various reason, that is already the case. A justice of the peace, being a public official, has to provide wedding services to anyone legally allowed to marry but a clergy of whatever faith or even someone with a internet certificate can pick and choose their clients any way they wish. Or are you calling for orthodox Rabbis to be forced to perform gay weddings simply because you want them to?
The rest of your list is equally ridiculous as the people you list are already free to choose their clients however they wish. Doctors are a perfect example as they are required to perform emergency procedures to stabilize a patient (the standard baking if you will) but under no obligation to perform specialty operations (ex. plastic surgery, etc..) unless they choose to. Some doctors in public hospitals have effectively an extended standard baking menu but are still under no obligation to go above and beyond their normal procedures.
You've obviously never dealt with a wedding cake before. Unless you are having the most boring wedding ever there is no way you can compare the time required for a proper wedding cake to a regular cake. Besides the usual ornate decoration there is also a matter of engineering involved when dealing with a cake, or series of cakes as wedding cakes usually are, meant to look amazing and still feed a large number of people.
These couples were even offered the choice of purchasing one of their normal cakes but wanted a wedding cake so they obviously thought there was a difference too.
The majority favour more gun controls now, and Citi is following the market to maximise profitability.
For a poorly defined definition of "more gun control". Most of the forms of gun control that the majority want are actually already covered by laws on the books or have limited resistance even from gun 'nuts'. The problem is that anti-gun fanatics take those proposals and add outright bans and other changes that very few people agree with and lump them all together to conflate the issue or simply make things up to try and make things appear worse than they are.
For example:
- Close the gun show loophole: There is no real gun show loophole. It's merely adding a location to the fact that most private sales do not require background checks (mostly because there is almost no way to actual enforce that system if implemented). It may as well be called the "My backyard loophole" or "McDonald's Parking lot" loophole. In fact any seller who actually sells enough guns to be considered a business (in some cases that number can be as low as 1) has to be registered as a dealer or go through a dealer to sell their weapons and thereby perform the federally mandated background checks regardless of their location. The vast majority of weapons sold at gun shows are through federally licensed firearms dealers.
- Ban assault weapons: Assault weapons aren't a thing. Assault rifles such as the M-16 are, but assault weapons are merely cosmetic features added to normal weapons. The AR-15, for example, is just a normal, usually low calibre, semi-automatic rifle that is popular simply because it's very modular and easily customizable for comfort and convenience. Almost none of the customizations added to the weapons actually make it any deadlier and a bullet fired from one of these "assault weapons" behaves exactly the same as one fired from a 'normal' hunting rifle.
The one clear exception, which is also a mod available for several other rifles, is the bump stock. This is one mod that, although technically legal, does make it easier to make a semi-auto near identical to a full auto at the sacrifice of accuracy. Bans or at least tighter regulation of bump stocks does have relatively strong support.
- Increase purchase age to 21: What other constitutional right has an age requirement above and beyond reaching the recognized age of majority? Should you not be able to vote until you are 30? How about no protected speech until your 40's? Like it or not the right to bear arms is a recognized individual right and as such "shall not be infringed". People like to use the drinking age as a prime example of setting a legal requirement above 18 but drinking is not a recognized constitutional right. This one is one of the most ironic of the current protestors demands because, being primarily high school students, they are essentially demanding a restriction of their rights because they don't consider themselves mature enough to handle the responsibility of gun ownership while at the same time demanding the re-writing of American law to their preference.
- Strengthening background checks: This is often linked to the 'loophole' from above but also to such things are preventing criminals or unfit people from purchasing weapons. The problem here is that this is already the law and as has been the case in several of the last few mass shootings the failure wasn't in the background check but in the people responsible from entering the data (forgetting to submit a court martial for spouse abuse or failure to record direct threats). Not even the deepest background check will succeed if the people responsible for updating the linked systems fail to do their jobs.
- My favorite is the call to ban "high velocity rounds": This has been called for directly by the March for Our Lives kids and their supporters but is based entirely off of not having the least bit of understanding of how guns work. Almost any round fired from a rifle is 'high velocity' compared to a hand gun; it's si
But the bakers in question weren't even restricting sales to the couples, merely the special order of a wedding cakes. In at least 2 of these cases the shops in question had already sold to the complaining couples with full knowledge of their sexual orientation. They had no issue with selling to gay couples for normal general goods (general cakes, cookies, cupcakes etc..) it was only the sale of wedding cakes that they refused.
Wedding cakes are, in almost all cases, special order cakes and take a lot more personalized effort to create. The bakers considered this a form or their artistic expression and as such refused to participate in an act that was against their beliefs. In 2 cases the States decided that a baker could be forced to participate against their will while in the latest case, in California, the judge sided with the baker.
It's the same as a politician wanting to play a particular artists song at their event. If they choose to pay the licensing fees to the proper company they can play the pre-recorded mp3 to their hearts content, despite the artists protests, but that doesn't mean the artist is obligated to actually appear and play live or even make a special re-mix for them.
An AR-15 is a pretty standard rifle, usually small caliber but can come in many flavors. It's popular because it's so customizable but almost none of those mods actually change it's actual firing characteristics, just it's looks (a bump stock being an exception to that). The only reason people are afraid of it is because it looks scary. It is not a military grade weapon and despite what CNN tells you it's also not the weapon of choice for most mass shootings.
The exact same rifle characteristics can be found in any number of wooden stocked rifles but no one is screaming for them to be banned because they look like standard hunting rifles people have seen in movies.
Now if you want to talk about banning bumpstocks that would be something you might be able to get some support for even though it's a relatively futile gesture as they can be easily built or mimicked with even an elastic band.
The NRA doesn't make money selling guns although if you really want to stretch, since they do run a large number of gun safety and training courses across the US they would benefit from new purchasers. They are not the representative organization for gun sellers, that's an entirely different group. The NRA is like the ACLU in that it's goal is the protection of the constitutional rights; in the NRAs case, the second amendment.
When it comes to spending on lobbying or even political campaigns the NRA is barely a blip on the radar and is about equal to Planned Parenthood in political spending (although unlike PP their funding is mostly through ads in their magazines and membership fees and not government related billing). While their spending is measured in millions and tens of millions the real spending groups (such as healthcare, banks and unions) measure their campaign and lobbying numbers in the billions.
The NRAs real power comes from the fact that unlike a lot of these other organizations who are made up entirely of corporate entities, they have a membership somewhere north of 5 million people who are willing to use their vote to protect their rights.
As for sales increasing after tragedies, that has nothing to do with the NRA and is entirely on the gun grabbers plate. Whenever anyone talks about banning a popular product sales generally increase as people start 'hoarding'. It's simple supply and demand; threaten the supply and the short term demand will increase as even people who were only considering a future purchase will feel pressure to enter the market.
If talk went to the proper areas such as ensuring people are properly entered into the various databases when they are a known threat (as was the primary failure in this case and at least one other recent shooting) so that they will fail the background checks instead of banning weapons because they look scary (an AR-15 is just a standard, generally low caliber, hunting rifle and even with mods added it's no more powerful or deadly than any other rifle) then sales would mostly stay constant instead of seeing major upticks. In the last 10 years the best ad man for gun sales was Obama. Whenever he talked about "sensible gun laws" which in pretty much every case meant ban or even confiscation (even using Australia's mandatory buyback as an example) sales would increase.
Where are conservatives stripping away 1st amendment rights?
Excluding the fact that the 1st amendment is really just a restriction on the government, the vast majority of people I see being restricted from speaking are conservatives whenever they enter any 'liberal' enclave, like a college campus or even posting on Twitter. Even comedians who are generally pretty liberal themselves have made statements that the lefts rush to social justice have made some places unworkable because nowadays everything offends some specialty group.
So the National Research Council is a conservative think tank?
No legitimate study found any decrease in gun violence due to the ban. The ban itself was simply snake oil for people who have no knowledge of guns.
The term "assault weapon" itself has no real meaning. It's effectively, "We want to ban the scary looking gun!!!". The exact same guns as those covered under all these proposed bans are also available with solid stocks or missing the barrel shrouds or bayonet mounts and they would remain 100% legal.
The AR-15 itself is just a standard semi-automatic, generally small caliber, rifle. Sure the versions they show on the news with its barrel shroud and collapsible stock look scary but neither of those additions impact it's operation, just it's looks. It's like saying we have a speeding problem in our town so we're going to ban all red cars because they look fast.
Maybe it's time to look at other solutions like mandatory reporting rules (there were so many opportunities to red flag this kid but no one at the school, police dept or FBI bothered to follow through with the paperwork to add anything to his record), a focus on trying to strengthen the nuclear family (children without 2 parents are exponentially more likely to commit acts of violence), and yes, even possibly allowing some sort of arms on school campuses (either through dedicated security or through special certification for employees/teachers of the school).
Most of these shooters either surrender or commit suicide as soon as they are faced with armed opposition and as the saying goes, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away"
A lot of things already bar you from legally obtaining a firearm but one of the biggest problems is just no one bothers to do the paperwork to put those into the system. Retroactively pointing out that someone should never have been allowed to own a gun doesn't help when none of that information was entered into the system even though so many people in a position to act knew about this guy and his history.
The repeated infractions at school (several weapons related), the multiple times the police had been called to his home, the repeated calls to the FBI; any one of those if properly handled and filed would have most likely made him fail the background check.
The slogan of "See Something, Say Something" has to be updated to "See Something, Say Something, Do Something"
Legally yes, but if you think 18 year olds have any real trouble getting alcohol then you live a sadly sheltered life.
The NRA gives grants to JROTC programs across the US, as does the US Government. The same JROTC program that trained several of the students touted as heroes during this terrible event.
Trying to blame the NRA for the fact this screwed up teenager was in the JROTC program for a little while is just like blaming the drivers ed program at the school when a drunk driver kills someone.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, an no one has disputed this, none of the information gathered during their contract appeared in the Steel Dossier. This only makes sense since the Russia angle wasn't really a center point of the Free Beacon contract (they actually contracted Fusion to perform oppo research on several GOP primary hopefuls) and it wasn't until the DNC/Hillary contract started that Steel was hired to look into the Trump/Russia ties.
Google is your friend.
Not my original source just the 3rd result when searching for "Russian troll farm funding". A very informative article on the Troll farm including interviews with people who worked there. This was an up to 400 person operation with just 13 people indicted on poking their noses into the US election.
Essentially it was just a pro-Putin organization that like to stick their noses into everything but as the article notes:
1) Russian Oligarch story
2) Free Beacon/Fusion/Steel Timelines I'd suggest clicking on some of the "read more" links for better breakdown of each groups involvement.
3) British volunteers working with Hillary campaign.
These were not necessarily my original sources, just ones at the top of the Google results.
It isn't about Mueller being a Dem or Rep, he's a special council and historically they tend to expand way beyond their actual initial reason for being. They basically keep going until they find something to try and justify their existence. That's why almost all the named indictments from the Mueller investigation have nothing to do with the 2016 election and it's why Ken Starr is best known for catching Clinton committing perjury.
Mueller is just doing his job but the fault lies in the job of special council itself. It's a government job that has effectively no limits put on it so it tends to run wild. The Dems and Media however want to keep this whole thing going to get their 'blue dress' moment. It doesn't matter to them if the initial charges seem to have almost no basis in reality, they are just waiting for something to come out of the run away train of an investigation that they can pin on Trump.
The million dollars was the monthly operating cost of the troll farm. The US wasn't even their main target for most of their work. From Facebook and other sources the actual money spend on ads was between 45k and 100k in total. Compare that to about 81 million spent by Trump/Hillary on their online ads.
And just to add insult to injury, most of that was spent after the election and the pre-election ads were run in the wrong places. DC and other completely Dem enclaves got the most attention (places the ads made less than 0 difference) while actual battleground areas just got a couple thousand in ads. Even their most successful rally (since most others only had single digit turnouts) was actually an anti-Trump rally after the election which had all the usual suspects in attendance (with Michael Moore front and center).
It doesn't appear this trolling ever had anything to do with the election, just try to stir stuff up so they picked the easiest places to get people to make a fuss.
1) Except for relations between the supposed Oligarch funding the troll farm and Putin (which has relationships with all Russian Oligarchs) there is no actual accusation of Russian Government involvement with this group. As with all things Russian I'm sure Putin had some knowledge of it but he didn't apparently use government resources to run it.
2) Steele never worked for the Republicans or Republican leaning groups. His stint at Fusion started several months after the original Free Beacon contract had ended and about a month or two after the Hillary/DNC contract started.
3) Steele probably is off the hook with the whole foreign agent thing though I do wonder about all the Illegal Immigrations rights groups who actively run ads and organize rallies with admitted foreign nationals during campaign season. Or for that matter the group of British citizens who organized with the Hillary campaign to fly over and do door to door campaigning. If Russians trolling people on Facebook is such a threat to American democracy then why aren't those other people under arrest too? Their involvement was much more direct. It's also easier to find them since they actually posted pictures of themselves partaking in those 'illegal' activities.
Face it, this whole thing was completely oversold by the Dems and the media and now they are reaching for straws looking for someone to charge.
Steele never worked on the Free Beacon contract. He was hired by Fusion specifically for the DNC/Hillary project.
The Free Beacon contract ended early 2016. The DNC/Hillary campaign contracted Fusion for oppo researcher Spring 2016. Steel was hired to create the dossier in June 2016. There are several months between the Free Beacon contract and Steele starting work on the dossier.
None of that is in dispute by Fusion or Steele.
Steele wasn't contracted to create the dossier until after the Free Beacon contract was over.
The Free Beacon contract was for general Trump background and it wasn't until that contract was over and the DNC/Hillary contract began that Fusion began focusing on Russia and hired Steele.
Not even Fusion disputes that.