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Mentionable News

In Leaked Chats, Nebraska GOP Gov’s Field Director Pushed White Nationalism.

“In other posts, Bressman says the only downside of running down a Black Lives Matter supporter is that he has ‘a nice car and it’s white.’”

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Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro should never have been allowed to spew their disgusting bigoted views on any national platform. This story is not surprising, these Fox News characters say this shit on purpose to garner attention from the media, so they can play their first amendment victim cards to their fans. :roll_eyes:

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Some twitter chatter, that Trump gave Breitbart a 40 minute interview today. So we have that to look forward to this week as well. :roll_eyes:

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30 years today - The WWW was born. Significant to our lives in so many ways…for good or for ill. It is amazing to realize that this phenomenal pathway was created to help scientists/institutions/universities inform and educate one another. Today, it has created another level of culture, online which 30 years ago would have made no sense.

Not T news…fortunately. Important because it was built by inquiring minds, to advance our knowledge base.

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Ummmm…because why? The bottom line maybe.

Grrrrr

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: :mag: All things Mueller - What we know he has on Trump 'n Co

Oh, the irony

Facebook’s effort to establish a service that provides its users with local news and information is being hindered by the lack of outlets where the company’s technicians can find original reporting.

The service, launched last year, is currently available in some 400 cities in the United States. But the social media giant said it has found that 40 percent of Americans live in places where there weren’t enough local news stories to support it.

(…)

Some 1,800 newspapers have closed in the United States over the last 15 years, according to the University of North Carolina. Newsroom employment has declined by 45 percent as the industry struggles with a broken business model partly caused by the success of companies on the Internet, including Facebook.

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Cindy McCain strikes back…(not for the faint of heart):cry:

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War of words – Conway v. T

#SeeTeleMundoLineUp

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Barack Obama steps in as healer-in-chief, shows concern and puts out a message on how to help with the floods.

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Breaking:

New Zealand will ban all types of semi-automatic weapons used in the Christchurch attacks, says PM Jacinda Ardern.

The country’s gun laws have been in the spotlight since a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques last Friday.

Ms Ardern said she expected the new legislation to be in place by 11 April.

She said a buy-back scheme would be set up for banned weapons.

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Just a backgrounder on this decision by Simon Louisson. Simon Louisson reported for The Wall street Journal, AP Dow Jones Newswires, New Zealand Press Association and Reuters and briefly was a political and media adviser to the Green Party. This is an article on “The Standard” my favourite NZ political blog. :slight_smile:
You can see that there has been considerable debate over the years on ways and means to strengthen our gun laws. This past tragedy has given our politicians the mandate to act.

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Re: https://thestandard.org.nz/banning-rambo-weapons-not-a-knee-jerk/

This is impressive! Thanks for sharing! I have world leader envy so bad right now.

So what should this latest gun law reform include? At the very least it should include all the 13 recommendations of the 2017 Law & Order committee that were not passed. It should at its heart included:

  • A total ban on the sale of military-style semi automatic weapons
  • A government-backed compulsory buy-back program for the existing 15,000 MSSA weapons
  • Extreme restrictions on pistols to such things as Olympic-games style range shooting
  • The establishment of an independent Firearms Authority as proposed by the Thorp Inquiry to oversee licencing
  • The licencing of every individual gun as happens in all countries except Aotearoa, Canada and the US
  • Licence renewal every three years and make it the licence holder’s responsibility to inform the authority of any change of address within days of it happening
  • Ban sale of guns over the internet
  • Restrict gun advertising
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I agree! Thx for posting this very comprehensive proposal - makes gun ownership way more regulated and each person accountable for that gun.

The entrenched powerful who consider guns a right makes me feel so cynical about US gun ownership ever really changing.

Wow!

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Here is what has actually happened and how it is going to be implemented from the Radio NZ website:

This afternoon, she announced that every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch last Friday would be banned under more stringent gun laws.

As of 3pm today an order in council took effect. The changes to the regulations would mean the firearms were now catergorised as needing an E-class licence endorsement.

This means no one will be able to buy the weapons without police approval. Ms Ardern said there was no point in applying for one.

For those who are already in possession of these weapons, Ms Ardern said the firearms would be tightly regulated, while for everyone else, the weapons would now be effectively out of reach.

She also said the government would be establishing a buyback scheme to take the firearms out of circulation.

After a reasonable period for returns, those who continue to possess these firearms will be in contravention of the law.

Anyone in breach of the law would be liable to a $4000 fine or up to three years imprisonment.

“We’re looking to increase the penalty when the ban is in full force and the opportunities of buyback are over,” Ms Ardern said.

Ms Ardern said the buyback scheme was designed to prevent the creation of a black market for banned weapons.

She said people who held weapons illegally would be protected by a police amnesty.

“We’re in the dark as to how many of these are in circulation,” Ms Ardern said, referring to the number of weapons the government might have to buy back.

“We haven’t had specific conversations about where the funding for the buyback will come from.”

She said she was confident that the majority of New Zealanders would support the gun law changes.

Minister of Police Stuart Nash said the decisive move was an interim step until legislation could be passed. That legislation is likely to be in place by 11 April.

He said this measure would enable New Zealand to become a safer place.

He said police were currently preparing to take these weapons out of circulation.

Cabinet - including the Green Party - decided in principle on reforms on Monday, with the National Party saying it supports change.

Ms Ardern said on Wednesday that gun laws in New Zealand were “a blueprint of what not to do” and there was a “large number of loopholes” in the law.


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:clap::clap::clap: this is excellent!

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Yeah! There was also a Petition presented to Parliament today calling for the banning of these weapons from civilian use. I think the very interesting thing about this announcement though, is that it is an almost a universal acceptance across the board by our politicians. Remember that Jacinda leads a coalition government there are 3 parties in the governing administration Labour, NZ First, and The Green Party. Note that NZ First (headed by the deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters) are not mentioned in the announcement:

Cabinet - including the Green Party - decided in principle on reforms on Monday, with the National Party saying it [supports change]
Normally, if one of the coalition Partners does not support legislation, then it will not proceed. And that was the fear until now, of whether Jacinda could implement sensible gun laws, because we knew that Winston - being the conservative that he is wasn't up to it. However, it appears that National, who have been loosing favour in the polls over the past year or so - they were the largest polling party in the country with around 46% of the popular vote at the last elections but couldn't form a government because they had no mates - see this as winning back some support, and we'll take whatever support we can to ensure this gets through. So from all that it would appear that there is almost a 94% majority within the House for these reforms. The two parties not mentioned are NZ First with around 6% of the vote, and ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers - yep you guessed it - a 1 MP party of the hard right - which National gerrymander into parliament in order foster policy they wouldn't themselves).
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Yes, Stormy Daniels should never have been arrested. She didn’t break any laws. And the Vice Unit responsible has turned out to be so corrupt that it has been shut down following an FBI investigation and the indictment of one of its officers.

The troubled vice unit of the Columbus Division of Police, which became nationally known for its arrest of Stormy Daniels last summer and has since become the subject of a federal corruption investigation, was abolished on Tuesday, about two weeks after one of its detectives was indicted.

The Ohio detective, Andrew K. Mitchell, 55, retired on March 13, two days after his arrest on federal charges that he kidnapped women and forced them to have sex with him, a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday. Along with Mr. Mitchell, two other officers who had been in the vice unit were officially removed from their vice assignments after previously having been placed on desk jobs, police officials said. …

The vice unit of the Columbus Division of Police became the subject of national attention last July, when four of the unit’s detectives were sent to Sirens Gentlemen’s Club in northeastern Columbus to investigate complaints “alleging prostitution and drug activity,” according to court documents.

… the law under which Ms. Daniels was arrested applied to people who “regularly” appear nude or seminude at a particular establishment, and Ms. Clifford had not appeared at the club consistently.

Still, the episode raised the possibility that the arrest of Ms. Daniels, who by that time had gained nationwide prominence for her allegations that she had had an affair with President Trump, had been politically motivated and caused some to wonder why undercover vice officers had been sent to the strip club in the first place. The police chief at the time, Kim Jacobs, quickly acknowledged that “a mistake was made” and promised to review “the motivations behind the officers’ actions.” …

Mr. Mitchell, a 31-year veteran of the Division of Police, was not one of the four detectives involved in Ms. Daniels’s arrest on July 11, the police spokeswoman, Sgt. Chantay Boxill, said on Wednesday. Sergeant Boxill said the arrest was one of several episodes that drew attention to the vice unit and eventually prompted an investigation into it. …

In September, the vice unit, … paused operations for a month while the division conducted an internal review of the unit. Asked at a news conference at the time whether the strip-club episode involving Ms. Daniels or the fatal shooting of Ms. Castleberry had resulted in the pause, Chief Jacobs said that “everything’s related to it.”

As the four-week review period came to a close, Chief Jacobs requested that the F.B.I.’s Public Corruption Task Force take over the review — a request the bureau accepted. The pause on the vice unit’s work remained in effect, the police division said at the time.

Based on the F.B.I.’s initial findings, three officers, Steven Rosser, Whitney Lancaster and Mr. Mitchell, were, at various points late last year, stripped of their guns and placed on desk duty pending the outcome of the investigation, Sergeant Boxill said on Wednesday. She added that the investigation was continuing. …

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Theresa May hopes to delay, delay, delay the Brexit deadline…oh, March 29th is almost here.

BRUSSELS — A humbled, even humiliated British Prime Minister Theresa May came to Brussels on Thursday not to dictate the terms of her country’s exit from the European Union, but to plead for a brief extension of its departure.

Ahead of the meeting of E.U. leaders — a nail-biter that was expected to begin midafternoon and could stretch late into the night — attitudes appeared to be hardening against the British leader. Even some E.U. Anglophiles who once held out hope that Britain would change its mind and stay in the union were snapping that the sooner the door slams on the nation’s membership, the better.

It was clear that Britain has not taken back control from Europe, as the hard-line advocates of Brexit envisioned. May arrived not exactly as a supplicant, but as less than an equal.

May asked in a letter Wednesday for a delay of the U.K. departure until the end of June.

“This delay is a matter of personal regret to me,” she told reporters on Thursday, standing in the glass entrance to the summit building, where Britain’s Union Jack may soon be removed from the row of the 28 E.U. members’ flags. “But a short extension would give Parliament the time to make a final choice that delivers on the result of the referendum.”

The Europeans, though, are wary of her coming back again and asking for more. Their trust diminished, they want her to pass the deal before granting her a delay, potentially leaving a final decision until just hours before Britain would otherwise leave on March 29.

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Wrong direction…

In introducing her 36-page school safety bill Thursday, Florida House Education Committee chairwoman Rep. Jennifer Sullivan wanted to be clear: “This bill does not require a teacher to be armed.”

It would, however, allow school districts to let teachers voluntarily participate in the state’s armed guardian program, if they survive a rigorous background check and complete required training. And it passed the committee along party lines, after nearly two hours of comments and debate.

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