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Southern Poverty Law Center troubles continue...Excellent example of greed and arrogance of the wealthy on college admissions...How can we stop robocalls?...So many guns in America, now they are going to Mexico...Bernie must come on strong for gun control to coincide with latest interest in this issue...First example conservative SCOTUS will turn against gun control

Have we just witnessed the Trump laugh of the century?

Here's the headline: "Trump urges Republicans, Democrats to ‘come together for the good of the American people.'" And it is the source of 99% of Washington bedlam that is speaking those words. Just look at the recent turnovers in the administration, described by CNN as constant chaos. The conservative Washington Examiner is mentioning none of the above as it quotes the absurd tweets of T-rump in trying to play down the results of the Mueller Report.

The WE did mention that "no Americans participated in collusion with Russia, but did not clear Trump of obstruction of justice." What it didn't say was that Mueller laid the groundwork that basically showed Trump's obstruction of justice, some that could be addressed by the U.S. Congress, and is being pursued by the New York Attorney General. Wm. Barr's blockade on the Mueller Report can be thanked for Trump's recent aggression on the issue.

Politifact published a scorecard on the Oval Office lunatic recently showing that Trump's statements are true only 5% of the time and are false 34% of the time, mostly false 21% of the time. That's a total of 55% and a disgrace when it is the person who runs our country. In all fairness, the Washington Post published an article recently of the 10 best things Trump did in 2018, some of which are questionable. But none of this would constitute a peace offering.

I'll believe this man really wants accord between parties when he hands in his resignation. Until then...just more chaos.

News to use

LATE BREAKING NEWS ITEMS

Why does Amazon pay no taxes?...More states are passing "Red Flag Laws"...Trump's "Anti-Woman" attacks blocked again...Health insurance deductibles soar-are employers to blame?...Democrats are obsessed with electability...Franklin Graham is a schmuck-certainly not like his dad

Even GOP says Trump not exonerated by Mueller Report

What can I say...and I didn't

It was Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse who best explained why the Mueller Report does not exonerate Donald Trump's antics. During the Barr hearing in the Senate, and following a long haul of frustration with Trump's bizarre behavior, Sasse made his point using Paul Manafort...

"Paul Manafort is hired by Deripaska for things related to the Ukraine. … He is on the payroll of a Russian oligarch that has interests completely disaligned with the American people. He is on his payroll. Is it permissible for [an American campaign official] to be paid by someone who is basically an enemy of the United States?"

Manafort was Donald Trump's campaign manager after Trump fired Corey Lewandowski in the 2016 election. The former will serve 47 months in prison "for financial fraud convictions obtained by special counsel Robert Mueller as he investigated Manafort's alleged collusion with the Russian government in 2016." Manafort is reported to have given up plenty in Robert Mueller's investigation that clearly points to obstruction of justice by Donald Trump.

Then Delaware's Democratic Sen. Chris Coons chimed in...

"he targeted Barr with a question based on the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting attended by three top Trump advisers and several Russians. The Russians had high-level government and intelligence connections and had conveyed through an intermediary that they were interested in providing the Trump campaign incriminating material about Clinton in the context of 'Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.'”

Mueller didn't pursue this due to the fact it would be difficult to prove, which Barr has picked up on in his all-out defense of Donald Trump. This has apparently given T-rump the will to defy Democrats at every turn in their investigation of the Oval Office lunatic, primarily in the release of his personal taxes. Apparently, Barr has found more confidence through his boss and has completely refused to appear before Democrats in the House.

Trump ran as the CEO president. But any corporate board would have fired him without ceremony or hesitation, reported The Hill. It also said...

"A corporate board would never tolerate even a fraction of Trump’s 1,400 conflicts of interests; A corporate CEO wouldn’t survive even one serious investigation of wrongdoing; A board would not keep a CEO who publicly lied as much as Trump; Any corporate board would be alarmed by the turnover in Trump’s administration, the number of unfilled leadership positions and temporary/acting replacements."

And if it weren't for the lowlife Senate head, Mitch McConnell, a "federal board of directors" could have done away with Donald Trump a long time ago. 

World asking why so many U.S. mass shootings?

The U.S. has 4.4 percent of the global population but owns 42 percent of the world’s guns. According to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, professor at the University of Alabama...

Dianne Feinstein-Here's the culprit

"Worldwide, a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds it would experience a mass shooting. This relationship held even when he excluded the United States, indicating that it could not be explained by some other factor particular to his home country."

In another Lankford study of the same year, "only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues." And re. suicides...

"countries with high suicide rates tended to have low rates of mass shootings — the opposite of what you would expect if mental health problems correlated with mass shootings."

That pretty much puts a damper on the NRA's perpetual and tiring comment that mass shootings are a mental health issue. The Washington Post Editorial Board said "there have been more than 100 mass shootings, more than 4,500 gun deaths (not counting suicides) and more than 8,400 gun injuries. Here's a comparison with down under...

"Australian physician. Nikki Stamp, a heart and lung surgeon in Perth, Australia, said in a Wednesday Post op-ed that in more than 16 years of practice, she has had to deal with only two instances of gunshot wounds. One was a man who had accidentally shot himself and the other an attempted suicide."

And if you look at the Aussie's gun laws you can understand Stamp's comment. This is "because of the gun-control measures the country put in place after a mass shooting in 1996, in which 35 people were killed." Sheer common sense which neither the U.S. Congress nor the American public has. Australia wonders why we haven't tried the same thing here. So do American gun advocates. And speaking of the U.S. Congress...

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is introducing legislation to increase the minimum age to buy assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the wake of a shooting in that state."

This is sheer nonsense considering the magnitude of the gun violence issue, especially since it was Feinstein who proposed banning assault weapons entirely just a few years ago. It is dumb moves like this the rest of the world will look at and marvel that the U.S. population hasn't self-destructed using its 393-million guns. Come to think of it, it is a wonder we haven't.

Wm. Barr on a par with Mitch McConnell as lowlife

Barr and Trump

CNN's analysis by Stephen Collinson is frightening, to say the least, and predicts months of "unchained presidency" by Donald Trump. Collinson says Trump was right when he remarked that he could get away with anything. He continues...

"The drama also showed that in the short span of a White House term, given certain partisan conditions, the modern political system will find it almost impossible to constrain a President -- especially one who poses such an overwhelming challenge to congressional custom as Trump."

He has accomplished all this with the help of Attorney General Wm. Barr, "a human block of granite, who sees few limits on presidential power and is willing to obfuscate and execute blocking movements on his behalf." But Collinson's most alarming statement is...

"There's probably never going to be a price to pay."

Which means Stephen Collinson believes that the Oval Office lunatic will never be held accountable for the bizarre antics of his administration. He doesn't believe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will act on impeachment and the House investigations will continue until they have run their course. In other words, we must live with T-rump until he is voted out of office, because with his enormous ego exceeding all limits, he won't resign. A dismal outlook for sane voters.

Barr has completely obfuscated the Mueller Report getting harsh criticism that comes from both sides of Congress and the general public. Benjamin Wittes of The Atlantic says, "The attorney general misled the public in seven key ways." And although in the beginning he said he was willing to give Barr a chance, finally concluded that "he [Barr] is likely as good as we’re going to get," [from Donald Trump] 20 more months to put up with this monumental nuisance.

Wittes on Barr's failures...

"Where Barr has utterly failed, by contrast, is in providing 'honest leadership that insulates [the department] from the predations of the president.' I confess I am surprised by this. I have never known Barr well, but I thought better of him than that.'

Benjamin Wittes is Editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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Latest on the Democratic Primary for 2020

2020 Democratic candidates

To begin, it should be noted that after Joe Biden announced his candidacy recently, he shot up to a 26-point lead over other candidates, Elizabeth Warren second, Bernie Sanders third. Don't know about Warren's campaign, but I'll bet that Bernie's camp expected the surge; the question is what will he do about it? One thing he is doing is out-raising his competitors in contributions bringing in $18.2million in first-quarter fundraising.

On the other hand, Biden raised $6.3 million on his first day out of the gate. Kamala Harris is second to Bernie and Elizabeth Warren is a distant fifth at $6 million in total returns. The BBC says...

"Her [Warren] campaign is far from scraping the bottom, however, as she transferred $10.4m from her Senate campaign coffers to her presidential account, giving her some financial breathing room in the months ahead."

But here's the game changer...

"64 percent of Democrats and likely Democrats who had selected a favorite presidential candidate said it is possible they might change their mind. Thirty-six percent said they 'definitely support' their top choice."

Which means Joe Biden's 26% lead could go up in smoke and any of the other challengers could become the favorite. Money is the thing and Bernie Sanders is one of the best at fundraising, depending on small donations in the range of around $27.00 each that are loyal donors who give over and over.  But "Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) topped the list, with 23 percent of respondents putting her in the top three candidates they were most curious about."

Elizabeth warren was second, Joe Biden third. It might be safe to assume, because of Bernie Sanders run in the 2016 election, the public is so familiar with him they don't need to know more. There are 21 Democratic presidential candidates in the race so far with Joe Biden regularly taking the lead and the Bern a close second. However, Elizabeth Warren has seen increased interest in the last few days. In other words, it's still a wide-open Primary.

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