Here we go again with yet another “national conversation” about guns that is neither a conversation nor national. And not productive.
Understandably, as with the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre in 2012, the agonized outcries and visceral fears after the outrageous Broward high school deaths on Feb. 14 erupt from parents who entrust their most prized treasures to a public school. The betrayal is horrendous. The suffering unimaginable. And we flail around trying to find answers for the unimaginable, the inexplicable, the unacceptable.
There must be something we can do to prevent such awful events. There is. We could have.
We’re certain to hear much more of the tiresome, trite arguments from all sides this week as the annual Conservative Political Action Conference meets near Washington. You know, Second Amendment, our blessed children, only government can do something, government has no place, yada yada.
No one needs a crystal ball to know what will come of all this: Nothing. Same as after previous incidents.
Remember a little more than five years ago to protect himself against political backlash, President Obama handed the molten gun-control debate to Vice President Joe Biden to honcho new restrictions through Congress so school shootings would never happen again? Nothing.
We could do what Israel’s been doing in large schools for decades after terrorists killed scores of children in an attack. Lock the doors. Train and arm a few unidentified teachers to conceal-carry.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
Monday, February 26, 2018
GOOGLEYOUTUBE War on Alex Jones
YouTube [owned by Google] is censoring videos more than ever and Infowars has become one of their main targets.
The internet giant pulled down the following videos on the Parkland, Florida school shooting, and according to CNN YouTube will ban The Alex Jones Channel outright if two more videos receive strikes.
David Hogg Can’t Remember His Lines In TV Interview
Multiple Eye Witnesses Report More Than One Shooter In Parkland Florida Shooting
Matt Drudge warned America of an internet takeover during a 2015 interview with Alex Jones..
More here
The internet giant pulled down the following videos on the Parkland, Florida school shooting, and according to CNN YouTube will ban The Alex Jones Channel outright if two more videos receive strikes.
David Hogg Can’t Remember His Lines In TV Interview
Multiple Eye Witnesses Report More Than One Shooter In Parkland Florida Shooting
Matt Drudge warned America of an internet takeover during a 2015 interview with Alex Jones..
More here
March For Our Lives gets help from activists
The students billed as leading the gun control charge “from their parents’ living rooms” after last week’s deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, are receiving help from seasoned left-wing activists.
Deena Katz, co-executive director of the Women’s March LA Foundation, submitted the application for a National Park Service permit for the March for Our Lives, the March 24 rally on the National Mall described as a student-led protest.
The event’s website, which doesn’t mention the Women’s March, says the March for Our Lives was “created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country” and headed by junior Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 teenagers and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Meanwhile, gun-control advocacy groups have become involved in the “sister marches” being planned at more than two dozen U.S. cities and London.
More here
Deena Katz, co-executive director of the Women’s March LA Foundation, submitted the application for a National Park Service permit for the March for Our Lives, the March 24 rally on the National Mall described as a student-led protest.
The event’s website, which doesn’t mention the Women’s March, says the March for Our Lives was “created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country” and headed by junior Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 teenagers and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Meanwhile, gun-control advocacy groups have become involved in the “sister marches” being planned at more than two dozen U.S. cities and London.
More here
FBI didn't contact Google during probe on Florida shooter
The FBI was told of a threat accused Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz made on YouTube last September but never contacted the company to track down its source, missing an early indicator, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Friday.
Someone reported the online threat to the FBI and the bureau opened a counterterrorism investigation but closed it on Oct. 11 saying it never managed to identify the person behind the post.
It wasn’t until after last week’s school massacre that the FBI did track down the author and found it was the 19-year-old man now accused of slaying 17 people at his former high school, Mr. Grassley’s office said, after getting briefings from both the FBI and Google.
Google would have been able to help confirm the commentator’s identity if the FBI had followed up, Mr. Grassley’s office said.
The FBI also missed a crucial tip from a caller in January. The person described Mr. Cruz as “mentally ill with violent tendencies,” Mr. Grassley’s office said. The caller said Mr. Cruz mutilated small animals and had pulled a rifle on his late mother, and had threatened more violence.
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Someone reported the online threat to the FBI and the bureau opened a counterterrorism investigation but closed it on Oct. 11 saying it never managed to identify the person behind the post.
It wasn’t until after last week’s school massacre that the FBI did track down the author and found it was the 19-year-old man now accused of slaying 17 people at his former high school, Mr. Grassley’s office said, after getting briefings from both the FBI and Google.
Google would have been able to help confirm the commentator’s identity if the FBI had followed up, Mr. Grassley’s office said.
The FBI also missed a crucial tip from a caller in January. The person described Mr. Cruz as “mentally ill with violent tendencies,” Mr. Grassley’s office said. The caller said Mr. Cruz mutilated small animals and had pulled a rifle on his late mother, and had threatened more violence.
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The Case Against Google
Critics say the search giant is squelching competition before it begins. Should the government step in?
Shivaun Moeran and Adam Raff met, married and started a company — thereby sparking a chain of events that might, ultimately, take down this age of internet giants as we know it — because they were both huge nerds. In the late 1980s, Adam was studying programming at the University of Edinburgh, while Shivaun was focused on physics and computer science at King’s College London. They had mutual friends who kept insisting they were perfect for each other. So one weekend, they went on a date and discovered other similarities: They both loved stand-up comedy. Each had a science-minded father. They shared a weakness for puns.
In the years that followed, those overlapping enthusiasms led to cohabitation, a raucous wedding and parallel careers at big technology firms. The thing is, though, when you’re young and geeky and fall in love with someone else young and geeky, all your nerdy friends want you to set them up on dates as well. So Adam and Shivaun, who took Adam’s last name after marriage, approached the problem like two good programmers: They designed a dating app.
The app was known as MatchMate, and the idea was simple: Rather than just pairing people with similar interests, their software would put together potential mates according to an array of parameters, such as which pub they were currently standing in, and whether they had friends in common, and what movies they liked or candidates they voted for, and dozens of other factors that might be important in finding a life partner (or at least a tonight partner).
The magic of MatchMate was that it could allow a user to mix variables and search for pairings within a specific group, a trick that computer scientists call parameterization. “It was like asking your best friend to set you up,” Shivaun told me. “Someone who says, ‘Well, you probably think you’d like this guy because he’s handsome, but actually you’d like this other guy because he’s not as good-looking, but he’s really funny.’ ”
More here
Shivaun Moeran and Adam Raff met, married and started a company — thereby sparking a chain of events that might, ultimately, take down this age of internet giants as we know it — because they were both huge nerds. In the late 1980s, Adam was studying programming at the University of Edinburgh, while Shivaun was focused on physics and computer science at King’s College London. They had mutual friends who kept insisting they were perfect for each other. So one weekend, they went on a date and discovered other similarities: They both loved stand-up comedy. Each had a science-minded father. They shared a weakness for puns.
In the years that followed, those overlapping enthusiasms led to cohabitation, a raucous wedding and parallel careers at big technology firms. The thing is, though, when you’re young and geeky and fall in love with someone else young and geeky, all your nerdy friends want you to set them up on dates as well. So Adam and Shivaun, who took Adam’s last name after marriage, approached the problem like two good programmers: They designed a dating app.
The app was known as MatchMate, and the idea was simple: Rather than just pairing people with similar interests, their software would put together potential mates according to an array of parameters, such as which pub they were currently standing in, and whether they had friends in common, and what movies they liked or candidates they voted for, and dozens of other factors that might be important in finding a life partner (or at least a tonight partner).
The magic of MatchMate was that it could allow a user to mix variables and search for pairings within a specific group, a trick that computer scientists call parameterization. “It was like asking your best friend to set you up,” Shivaun told me. “Someone who says, ‘Well, you probably think you’d like this guy because he’s handsome, but actually you’d like this other guy because he’s not as good-looking, but he’s really funny.’ ”
More here
‘Free Speech’ Suit Aims to End Twitter’s Political Censorship
A group of free-speech lawyers filed the most serious legal challenge yet to Twitter’s censorship policies Tuesday in San Francisco County Superior Court, seeking a ruling preventing Twitter from banning users purely on the basis of their views and political associations.
The 29-page complaint contends that, under a California legal doctrine that recognizes some private facilities as “public forums,” Twitter may not discriminate against speech on their platform based purely on viewpoint. If successful, it would be the first extension of that doctrine to internet social media platforms and could transform the way free speech is treated online. The suit became all the more relevant Wednesday as Twitter stood accused of locking out thousands of conservatives under the guise of cracking down on “Russian bots.”
The genesis of the suit is Twitter’s November 2017 announcement that they would start banning and sanctioning users based on their offline behavior and associations. On December 18, 2017, Twitter, five years after their top British executive described the company as “the free speech wing of the free speech party,” made good on this threat, “purging” hundreds of mostly right-wing users.
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The 29-page complaint contends that, under a California legal doctrine that recognizes some private facilities as “public forums,” Twitter may not discriminate against speech on their platform based purely on viewpoint. If successful, it would be the first extension of that doctrine to internet social media platforms and could transform the way free speech is treated online. The suit became all the more relevant Wednesday as Twitter stood accused of locking out thousands of conservatives under the guise of cracking down on “Russian bots.”
The genesis of the suit is Twitter’s November 2017 announcement that they would start banning and sanctioning users based on their offline behavior and associations. On December 18, 2017, Twitter, five years after their top British executive described the company as “the free speech wing of the free speech party,” made good on this threat, “purging” hundreds of mostly right-wing users.
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More U.S. Companies Bow to Social-Media Pressure, Sever NRA Ties
Several companies have cut ties to the National Rifle Association after consumers took to social media to voice outrage against the gun lobby, days after a Florida high-school shooting left 17 people dead.
Insurance giants Chubb Ltd. and MetLife, cyber-security company Symantec Corp., and Enterprise Holdings, which operates the Enterprise, Alamo and National rental-car chains, were among those that said they would end partnerships with the NRA.
Saturday, both Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines, a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc., ended their discount travel programs with the organization. The airlines also asked the NRA to remove their information from its website.
In recent years, companies and their leaders have become vocal on issues such as transgenderism, immigration policy and gay rights. Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos last month granted $33 million in college scholarships for illegal immigrant high-school graduates in the U.S. In the aftermath of North Carolina’s now-repealed “bathroom bill,” which required transgender people to use public bathrooms based on their birth sex, companies including PayPal Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, and Adidas AG scuttled or froze plans to add jobs in the state.
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Insurance giants Chubb Ltd. and MetLife, cyber-security company Symantec Corp., and Enterprise Holdings, which operates the Enterprise, Alamo and National rental-car chains, were among those that said they would end partnerships with the NRA.
Saturday, both Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines, a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc., ended their discount travel programs with the organization. The airlines also asked the NRA to remove their information from its website.
In recent years, companies and their leaders have become vocal on issues such as transgenderism, immigration policy and gay rights. Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos last month granted $33 million in college scholarships for illegal immigrant high-school graduates in the U.S. In the aftermath of North Carolina’s now-repealed “bathroom bill,” which required transgender people to use public bathrooms based on their birth sex, companies including PayPal Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, and Adidas AG scuttled or froze plans to add jobs in the state.
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Little-known Black History Fact
Introduced by cartoonist Max Fleischer in 1930, the caricature of the jazz age flapper was the first and most famous sex symbol in animation. Betty Boop is best known for her revealing dress, curvaceous figure, and signature vocals “Boop Oop A Doop!”
While there has been controversy over the years, the inspiration has been traced back to Esther Jones who was known as “Baby Esther” and performed regularly in the Cotton Club during the 1920s.
Baby Esther’s trademark vocal style of using “boops” and other childlike scat sounds attracted the attention of actress Helen Kane during a performance in the late 1920s..
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Radio Host: Companies Splitting From NRA 'Basing Business Practices on Thought-Policing'
Radio host Tony Katz blasted the companies that announced they were cutting ties with the National Rifle Association.
In the wake of the Florida school shooting, several social media users pressured companies listed as working with the NRA on discounts and other programs to drop their affiliation.
Initially, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and First National Bank of Omaha - which sponsored an NRA-related credit card - cut ties with the Virginia-based gun rights and safety organization.
Avis Car Rental, Allied Van Lines, Budget Rent-A-Car, Chubb, Delta Airlines, Hertz Rent-A-Car, MetLife, North American Van Lines, TrueCar, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Symantec and United Airlines all later cut ties as well.
"This is the list of companies that don't believe in freedom of thought or freedom of expression," Tony Katz said.
Katz called for viewers to "study that list" ...
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http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/24/list-companies-boycotting-nra-include-enterprise-metlife-budget-delta-wyndham-radio-host
In the wake of the Florida school shooting, several social media users pressured companies listed as working with the NRA on discounts and other programs to drop their affiliation.
Initially, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and First National Bank of Omaha - which sponsored an NRA-related credit card - cut ties with the Virginia-based gun rights and safety organization.
Avis Car Rental, Allied Van Lines, Budget Rent-A-Car, Chubb, Delta Airlines, Hertz Rent-A-Car, MetLife, North American Van Lines, TrueCar, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Symantec and United Airlines all later cut ties as well.
"This is the list of companies that don't believe in freedom of thought or freedom of expression," Tony Katz said.
Katz called for viewers to "study that list" ...
More
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/24/list-companies-boycotting-nra-include-enterprise-metlife-budget-delta-wyndham-radio-host
Former Air Marshal: Arming Pilots Post-9/11 Worked, So Will Arming Teachers
Proposals to arm teachers and other staffers to better secure schools against mass shooters are worthwhile, just as arming pilots was following 9/11, said Chad Robichaux on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight in an interview with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
Robichaux is a former Special Agent with the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS). His work with the FAMS included the development and implementation of the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program — including training the first wave of armed pilots following 9/11 — after the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which screened, trained, and armed pilots.
Just as arming pilots following 9/11 has been successful in deterring hijackings and other terrorist operations, said Robichaux, so would arming teachers and school staffers be.
Armed personnel on site offer a quicker response time than law enforcement can typically provide to mass shooting scenarios, said Robichaux: “These shootings go down at these schools in an average of three minutes, and it takes up to eight minutes for law enforcement to respond, and that’s eight minutes too late.”
Left-wing resistance to defending school children via the arming of teachers and school staff resembles similar hostility toward the FFDO program’s arming of pilots, said Robichaux.
“There was a lot of pushback [to the FFDO],” said Robichaux. “People said, ‘You can’t trust these pilots with firearms.’ Well, you trust them flying your airplane. So now people are saying, ‘We can’t trust teachers with firearms.’ "
"We trust them with our children.”
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Robichaux is a former Special Agent with the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS). His work with the FAMS included the development and implementation of the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program — including training the first wave of armed pilots following 9/11 — after the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which screened, trained, and armed pilots.
Just as arming pilots following 9/11 has been successful in deterring hijackings and other terrorist operations, said Robichaux, so would arming teachers and school staffers be.
Armed personnel on site offer a quicker response time than law enforcement can typically provide to mass shooting scenarios, said Robichaux: “These shootings go down at these schools in an average of three minutes, and it takes up to eight minutes for law enforcement to respond, and that’s eight minutes too late.”
Left-wing resistance to defending school children via the arming of teachers and school staff resembles similar hostility toward the FFDO program’s arming of pilots, said Robichaux.
“There was a lot of pushback [to the FFDO],” said Robichaux. “People said, ‘You can’t trust these pilots with firearms.’ Well, you trust them flying your airplane. So now people are saying, ‘We can’t trust teachers with firearms.’ "
"We trust them with our children.”
More here
Hundreds Mourn Navy Vet, Athletic Director Who Died Trying to Save Students
It was at the Parkland school on Feb. 14 that a gunman opened fire, killing Hixon and 16 others. Another 16 people were injured in the shooting.
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Want To Improve Teacher Training? Stop Playing Games With Teacher Standards
Two U.S. senators plan to revise the federal Higher Education Act to make it ready for re-authorization. Should we find that reassuring?
The senators, Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) and Patti Murray (D-Washington), don’t tell us who will be writing or paying for the drafting of this mammoth bill — just as they didn’t tell us who wrote or paid for the 1,000-page re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
That newer law is best known as Every Student Succeeds Act, which Senators Alexander and Murray co-sponsored, making sure it got a unanimous vote in Congress in December 2015. The Every Student Succeeds Act dangled Title I federal money to state boards and departments of education eager to draft four-year education plans for their state without the approval of parents, state legislators, local school boards, or even the governor of the state. The only approval required by the new law for a four-year “state plan” was from the United States Department of Education — and that was likely necessary according to whoever authored and paid for the new law in order to ensure that all states were locked into Common Core-compliant standards and tests, no matter what they were called.
I do have several suggestions about the Higher Education Act for Senators Alexander and Murray, knowing full-well they will get no more attention than was accorded comments from parents of school children for the Every Student Succeeds Act:
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The senators, Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) and Patti Murray (D-Washington), don’t tell us who will be writing or paying for the drafting of this mammoth bill — just as they didn’t tell us who wrote or paid for the 1,000-page re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
That newer law is best known as Every Student Succeeds Act, which Senators Alexander and Murray co-sponsored, making sure it got a unanimous vote in Congress in December 2015. The Every Student Succeeds Act dangled Title I federal money to state boards and departments of education eager to draft four-year education plans for their state without the approval of parents, state legislators, local school boards, or even the governor of the state. The only approval required by the new law for a four-year “state plan” was from the United States Department of Education — and that was likely necessary according to whoever authored and paid for the new law in order to ensure that all states were locked into Common Core-compliant standards and tests, no matter what they were called.
I do have several suggestions about the Higher Education Act for Senators Alexander and Murray, knowing full-well they will get no more attention than was accorded comments from parents of school children for the Every Student Succeeds Act:
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Dana Loesch takes starring role for NRA
Dana Loesch has been at the center of the storm in the national gun debate, striking a forceful defense for gun rights at a CNN town hall and in a fiery appearance before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
The National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman has taken a starring role in the organization’s efforts to push back at calls for tougher gun restrictions following a deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead.
The shooting has created new challenges for the NRA, as young students who survived the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., have emerged as telegenic, outspoken proponents for gun restrictions, including a ban on assault weapons.
Loesch, a host on Blaze TV before joining the NRA, has been the organization’s public face, and on Wednesday endured tough questions in front of a generally hostile audience at the CNN town hall.
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The National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman has taken a starring role in the organization’s efforts to push back at calls for tougher gun restrictions following a deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead.
The shooting has created new challenges for the NRA, as young students who survived the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., have emerged as telegenic, outspoken proponents for gun restrictions, including a ban on assault weapons.
Loesch, a host on Blaze TV before joining the NRA, has been the organization’s public face, and on Wednesday endured tough questions in front of a generally hostile audience at the CNN town hall.
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Exposing the Deep Rot in the Deep State
Once again, the president has pried behind the stucco of the Deep State's institutional edifice and shown that the pillars are termite-ridden. Over at Instapundit, law professor Glenn Reynolds said it most succinctly:
FL Shooting Survivor Colton Haab: CNN Told Me I Needed To "Stick To The Script"; Entire Town Hall Scripted.
Trump's luck is pretty amazing. The entire media sets up a week-long hatefest aimed at the NRA, culminating in that shameful fake "Town Hall," and then the very next day it comes out that there was a police officer there who was too cowardly to do anything, and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who was shaming and lecturing gun owners the night before, must have known it while he was up there on stage.
Trump's superpower is his ability, just by existing, to bring out the deep and pervasive rot in America's institutions and the people who run them.
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FL Shooting Survivor Colton Haab: CNN Told Me I Needed To "Stick To The Script"; Entire Town Hall Scripted.
Trump's luck is pretty amazing. The entire media sets up a week-long hatefest aimed at the NRA, culminating in that shameful fake "Town Hall," and then the very next day it comes out that there was a police officer there who was too cowardly to do anything, and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who was shaming and lecturing gun owners the night before, must have known it while he was up there on stage.
Trump's superpower is his ability, just by existing, to bring out the deep and pervasive rot in America's institutions and the people who run them.
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Deploy or 'Find Something Else to Do' in Civilian Life: Mattis
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis used tough terms to back up the new deploy-or-get out rules, saying those held back for administrative reasons place an unfair burden on troops who routinely serve multiple combat tours.
"You're either deployable, or you need to find something else to do. I'm not going have some people deploying constantly and then other people, who seem to not pay that price, in the U.S. military," Mattis told reporters traveling with him on his way home Saturday from a week-long trip to Europe.
"If you can't go overseas [and] carry a combat load, then obviously someone else has got to go. I want this spread fairly and expertly across the force," he said.
Defense Department officials have said there will be numerous exceptions to the new rules forcing out service members unable to deploy for 12 consecutive months -- including waivers for those wounded in combat and those who are pregnant -- but Mattis is firm on the overall concept.
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"You're either deployable, or you need to find something else to do. I'm not going have some people deploying constantly and then other people, who seem to not pay that price, in the U.S. military," Mattis told reporters traveling with him on his way home Saturday from a week-long trip to Europe.
"If you can't go overseas [and] carry a combat load, then obviously someone else has got to go. I want this spread fairly and expertly across the force," he said.
Defense Department officials have said there will be numerous exceptions to the new rules forcing out service members unable to deploy for 12 consecutive months -- including waivers for those wounded in combat and those who are pregnant -- but Mattis is firm on the overall concept.
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President Trump condemned officers outside the Florida school shooting who didn't stop it, saying he'd run in "even if I didn't have a weapon"
“You don’t know until you test it, but I think, I really believe I would have run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” the president said.
Speaking on Monday, Mr. Trump also said that the country needs to take a look at whether more mental health institutions need to be opened to treat people with mental illness and avert mass shootings.
Speaking on Monday, Mr. Trump also said that the country needs to take a look at whether more mental health institutions need to be opened to treat people with mental illness and avert mass shootings.
In Unexpected Snub, California Democrats Refuse To Endorse Feinstein For Reelection
In a stunning - if not altogether unexpected - blow to long-time California Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the California state Democratic Party opted not to endorse their own senior senator as she prepares to start campaigning to defend her seat in the 2018 midterms.
Delegates to the state party convention instead favored progressive state Senate leader Kevin de León, over Feinstein by a 54% to 37% margin, according to results, which were announced early Sunday. And while neither candidate reached the 60% threshold required to receive the party endorsement outright for 2018, de Leon's camp claimed it as a profound victory.
“The outcome of today’s endorsement vote is an astounding rejection of politics as usual, and it boosts our campaign’s momentum as we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against a complacent status quo,” de León said in a prepared statement, quoted by Politico. "California Democrats are hungry for new leadership that will fight for California values from the front lines, not equivocate on the sidelines."
Feinstein, a longtime centrist, has often maintained an uneasy truce with the progressive activists who dominate the state party. The result followed two days of lobbying by the candidates in convention speeches and throughout the convention halls.
In an appeal to thousands of delegates Saturday, de Leon portrayed Feinstein as a Washington power broker and corporatist insider who wouldn't listen to progressives.
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Delegates to the state party convention instead favored progressive state Senate leader Kevin de León, over Feinstein by a 54% to 37% margin, according to results, which were announced early Sunday. And while neither candidate reached the 60% threshold required to receive the party endorsement outright for 2018, de Leon's camp claimed it as a profound victory.
“The outcome of today’s endorsement vote is an astounding rejection of politics as usual, and it boosts our campaign’s momentum as we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against a complacent status quo,” de León said in a prepared statement, quoted by Politico. "California Democrats are hungry for new leadership that will fight for California values from the front lines, not equivocate on the sidelines."
Feinstein, a longtime centrist, has often maintained an uneasy truce with the progressive activists who dominate the state party. The result followed two days of lobbying by the candidates in convention speeches and throughout the convention halls.
In an appeal to thousands of delegates Saturday, de Leon portrayed Feinstein as a Washington power broker and corporatist insider who wouldn't listen to progressives.
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Paul Craig Roberts: "Devin Nunes For President...
The stakes are very high. Current and former senior officials — and not only from DOJ and FBI, but from other agencies like the CIA and NSA, whom documents and testimony show were involved in providing faulty information to justify a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign official Carter Page — may suddenly find themselves in considerable legal jeopardy. Like, felony territory.
This was not supposed to happen. Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? Back when the FISA surveillance warrant of Page was obtained, just weeks before the November 2016 election, there seemed to be no need to hide tracks, because, even if these extracurricular activities were discovered, the perps would have looked forward to award certificates rather than legal problems under a Trump presidency.
Thus, the knives will be coming out. Mostly because the mainstream media will make a major effort – together with Schiff-mates in the Democratic Party – to marginalize Nunes, those who find themselves in jeopardy can be expected to push back strongly.
If past is precedent, they will be confident that, with their powerful allies within the FBI/DOJ/CIA “Deep State” they will be able to counter Nunes and show him and the other congressional investigation committee chairs, where the power lies. The conventional wisdom is that Nunes and the others have bit off far more than they can chew. And the odds do not favor folks, including oversight committee chairs, who buck the system.
Read more here...
This was not supposed to happen. Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? Back when the FISA surveillance warrant of Page was obtained, just weeks before the November 2016 election, there seemed to be no need to hide tracks, because, even if these extracurricular activities were discovered, the perps would have looked forward to award certificates rather than legal problems under a Trump presidency.
Thus, the knives will be coming out. Mostly because the mainstream media will make a major effort – together with Schiff-mates in the Democratic Party – to marginalize Nunes, those who find themselves in jeopardy can be expected to push back strongly.
If past is precedent, they will be confident that, with their powerful allies within the FBI/DOJ/CIA “Deep State” they will be able to counter Nunes and show him and the other congressional investigation committee chairs, where the power lies. The conventional wisdom is that Nunes and the others have bit off far more than they can chew. And the odds do not favor folks, including oversight committee chairs, who buck the system.
Read more here...
FL House Speaker Richard Corcoran: Suspend Broward Co Sheriff Scott Israel for Incompetence, Dereliction of Duty
Sunday, Florida Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran announced in a post on his Twitter account he was calling on Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) to suspend Broward County, FL Sheriff Scott Israel for “incompetence and dereliction of duty.”
“Today I sent the following letter to @FLGovScott Asking that he suspend Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for incompetence and dereliction of duty. I was honored to be joined by 73 Republican colleagues,” he wrote in the tweet.
Accompanying that tweet was a copy of the letter.
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“Today I sent the following letter to @FLGovScott Asking that he suspend Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for incompetence and dereliction of duty. I was honored to be joined by 73 Republican colleagues,” he wrote in the tweet.
Accompanying that tweet was a copy of the letter.
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Nunes says Obama was in cahoots with Russia
'Who created this? It was the last administration'
WASHINGTON – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is blaming former President Obama for being in cahoots with Russia for eight years and setting the stage for orchestrating a conspiracy theory of collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
“We went through a whole European infrastructure consolidation process of military installations across Europe, abandoned a lot of abilities in the North Atlantic to track Russian subs,” Nunes said. “We actually had the president of the United States, who said on a hot mic to the prime minister of Russia at the time, ‘Just tell Vladimir to wait after the election.’ That was President Obama who said that. So who created this Russian threat? Who? It was the last administration that put us in this position.”
Nunes also turned up the pressure on the Democratic Party and the media in his point-by-point refutation of the recently released memo by the House Intelligence Committee minority.
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WASHINGTON – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is blaming former President Obama for being in cahoots with Russia for eight years and setting the stage for orchestrating a conspiracy theory of collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
“We went through a whole European infrastructure consolidation process of military installations across Europe, abandoned a lot of abilities in the North Atlantic to track Russian subs,” Nunes said. “We actually had the president of the United States, who said on a hot mic to the prime minister of Russia at the time, ‘Just tell Vladimir to wait after the election.’ That was President Obama who said that. So who created this Russian threat? Who? It was the last administration that put us in this position.”
Nunes also turned up the pressure on the Democratic Party and the media in his point-by-point refutation of the recently released memo by the House Intelligence Committee minority.
More
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