It is well known that the vast majority of United States citizens favor Gun Control, like 61% of them, yet there are few issues that have exposed the craven cowadice of Legislators on both sides of the aisle more.

One would have thought the violent massacre of First Graders at Sandy Hook would have elicited some change and it has in Connecticut where we already had some pretty strict firearms regulations. Instead outrage largely disappeared in a few months, and rabid Right Wingers like Alex Jones spread conspiracy theories about crisis actors. I live near enough to Newtown to assure you it was and is all horrifyingly real.

It is interesting that the Parkland tragedy is getting better traction on the conscience of lawmakers and potential lawmakers. For me the distingishing feature is its dreary ordinariness.

One reason may be that the National Rifle Association has had to scale back its electioneering operations this cycle. Pleading poverty they have slashed direct contributions to candidates as well as their independent expenditures and ‘Get Out The Vote’ efforts. They’ve become quite a toothless tiger.

I can only view this as a positive development, though the United States is awash in Guns and without massive confiscation (highly unlikely and probably ineffective) even immediate cessation of their manufacture would leave every citizen with 1 or two Guns were they evenly distributed (which of course they are not, if you own a Gun you almost certainly own many of them).

So was the invention of fire good for the Chinese people? Too soon to tell.

Suburban Democrats campaign on gun-control policies as NRA spending plummets
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Kyle Swenson, and Katie Zezima, Washington Post
November 3, 2018

Democratic congressional candidates in suburban swing seats are embracing restrictions on firearms as election-related spending from pro-gun groups, including the powerhouse National Rifle Association, has plummeted.

The willingness to campaign on gun-control policies, including universal background checks and restrictions on military-style weapons, runs counter to past elections, when candidates feared the topic could isolate moderate voters or prompt reprisal from the NRA, whose spending is down about 68 percent since the 2014 midterm elections. Groups calling for gun-control measures have injected nearly $12 million into campaigns, the most they have spent in an election cycle since at least 2010.

The candidates’ emboldened approach, combined with the changes in spending trends, reflects a shift in the politics of gun policy over the past two years. Polls show Americans are becoming more supportive of stricter firearm laws amid a spate of mass shootings.

“The convention in swing districts like this is, don’t take it on, not in a purple or light blue district. It’s a wedge issue,” said Jason Crow, a Democrat running against Rep. Mike Coffman (R) in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in the Denver suburbs. “But I believe the danger is in not taking this on anymore.”
…
On Thursday, days after 11 people were killed in a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Everytown for Gun Safety launched a $700,000 ad buy against Coffman.

Support for stricter firearm laws has grown. According to an October Gallup poll, 61 percent of Americans said firearm laws should be more strict — a dip from 67 percent in March but still at a high point dating back to 2004.

For the past few years, Everytown had focused on changing laws in states where it saw a chance to make inroads, including Nevada and Washington. It is now trying to replicate that with congressional and statewide races.

“The momentum is with us, the NRA is on its heels, and we think that it’s an opportunity to keep redrawing the map,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown.
…
While gun policy is not the top issue for most congressional battleground races, a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found 41 percent of people in battleground districts said gun violence was an “extremely” important issue in their vote for Congress this year. Gun control also resonates with younger Americans. A poll conducted in October by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics showed school shootings were the top concern among Americans from the ages of 14 to 29.

Public outcry after the February school shooting in Parkland, Fla., which left 17 dead, further shifted the political landscape going into midterm season. In its wake, 19 states passed some form of gun legislation. They include Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who is now in a tight race for Senate, signed a suite of gun-control bills into law.

The shift is happening in congressional and local races. Democratic gubernatorial candidates in states including Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire and Connecticut have all made gun control a major issue in their campaigns.
…
The NRA and other groups supporting gun rights have been far less active this election after ramping up their spending on advertising in every other cycle since 2010, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

In 2016, the NRA and other gun rights groups shelled out nearly $55 million on media and advertisements, CRP data shows. This election, their spending has plummeted to roughly $9 million, the majority of which has come from the NRA.

The NRA has spent 2018 fighting a torrent of criticism, facing direct challenges by students, activists, corporate America and politicians. Perhaps in a reflection of the criticism, some Republican candidates running in tough congressional districts this year returned or did not deposit donations from the group, Mother Jones found.

States are also probing the NRA’s insurance products; the group is embroiled in a lawsuit with New York over its Carry Guard insurance policy.
…
In comparison, gun-control groups have spent nearly $12 million this election, according to an analysis of federal spending records by the CRP. While their spending still pales in comparison to the massive amounts gun rights groups injected in previous election cycles, it is the most gun-control groups have spent in one election cycle going back to 2010, CRP records show.

Giffords PAC, a gun-control super PAC founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot at a campaign event in 2011, and her husband, Mark Kelly, has injected nearly $6 million into races around the country, including in Texas, Virginia and Minnesota. The group says far more political ads on gun control are running this year than in previous cycles.

Spanish Caravan

Ch-ch-ch-changes

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway

No rest for the wicked

My name is ROGER MURDOCK. I’m an airline pilot.

Every Televised Talent Competition Ever

Pugsley

Sneakers with wheels in them

Albany’s Favorite News Team

Oh, you want real News

This might be amusing for a while.

Beethoven – Eurythmics

Ray of Light – Maddona

Crazy – Alanis Morissette

Now $200 Million falls in the rounds of a $716 Billion budget but the next time someone spouts off about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or heck even funding for Public Broadcasting or the National Endowment for the Arts you should remember that there’s always enough money for meaningless election stunts.

Trump’s border deployments could cost $200 million by year-end
By Paul Sonne, Washinton Post
November 3, 2018

The total price of President Trump’s military deployment to the border, including the cost of National Guard forces that have been there since April, could climb well above $200 million by the end of 2018 and grow significantly if the deployments continue into next year, according to analyst estimates and Pentagon figures.

The deployment of as many as 15,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border — potentially equal in size to the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan — occurs as the budgetary largesse the military has enjoyed since Trump took office looks set to come to an end.

Although the costs of the border deployments will be a tiny slice of a $716 billion annual defense budget, they arrive as the Trump administration is calling on the Pentagon to cut unnecessary expenditures. The White House recently ordered the Pentagon to slash next year’s budget for the military by about $33 billion in response to the largest increase in the federal deficit in six years.

Veterans and Democratic lawmakers have complained that Trump is wasting military dollars in a politically motivated stunt ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, at a time when the Pentagon budget is under pressure.
…
About 2,000 forces from the National Guard are already there, operating under an order Trump issued in April. Northern Command has said more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops will join them in Arizona, Texas and California. Trump said this week that he will be deploying between 10,000 and 15,000 troops but didn’t make clear whether those figures included the National Guard.

The cost of the National Guard deployment from April 10 through Sept. 30 amounted to $103 million, according to Pentagon figures. The Defense Department expects the Guard deployment to cost an additional $308 million through the end of next September, including the last quarter of 2018, so long as the operations continue apace.

Active-duty forces, which Trump deployed under his recent order, generally are less expensive because they don’t require additional pay or benefits.

Travis Sharp, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments, estimated that the cost of deploying 8,000 active-duty troops through mid-December in addition to the Guard would amount to $40 million to $50 million. Should the administration deploy 15,000 active-duty troops, as Trump suggested, the estimated cost would rise to as much as $110 million, Sharp said.

The forces could end up staying past mid-December, depending on the status of the caravans, which by most accounts are still weeks away from the border. An extension of the deployment could result in costs in excess of those estimates.

As of Saturday morning, about 3,500 active-duty service members have been deployed as a part of the mission, dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot, said Maj. Mark Lazane, a Northern Command spokesman. They include about 2,250 in Texas, 1,100 in California and 170 in Arizona, he said.
…
Democrats have complained that in addition to paying for the border deployments, the Defense Department internally allocated $7.5 million to advanced planning for a 37-mile barrier along the side of a military bombing range in Arizona that abuts the border. Democratic lawmakers said the barrier alone could cost as much as $450 million.

Mattis offered a safety justification for the barrier in testimony to Congress earlier this year, suggesting that any migrants crossing the border through the range could end up hurt. Critics have said the project amounts to a move by the president to build part of the border wall he promised on the campaign trail by tapping military resources.

It was nice to see Stephen Colbert take it to Chris Wallace on Thursday night. Chris made 2 assertions about Asylum that were flat out false-

1. That only about 10% of Asylum seekers who are released from detention return for their Court hearings.
2. That only about 10% get legitimate Asylum.

The first statement was debunked on-air, in reality 60 – 70% of Asylum seekers attend their Court proceedings. I held off posting the video of this encounter because I wasn’t sure about his second assertion.

Well, I now have some numbers. According to U.S. News and World Report, 61.8% of Asylum requests were rejected in 2017 (sharply up by the way). What this means however is that 39.2% were accepted, not at all close to a mere 10%.

Anyway there are other things in the interveiw of interest that nobody is talking about and now that I have my answer I’m happy to share it with you.

Kind of just to prove I can junk up my sites with all kinds of self indulgent trash (and frequently do).

I don’t want to dull the political message but, I have fun.

How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths

Windpower – Thomas Dolby

If Left To My Own Devices – Pet Shop Boys

And who says I ain’t hip?

“Don’t Lie to Me” from Walls–

It’s easy to forget that Donald Trump was Impeachable the moment he took the Oath of Office (I mean outside of the fact that an Impeachable Offense is whatever Congress says it is) because of his straight up violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

What most people don’t know is that to Constitutional Scholars there is no “Emoluments Clause” per se and instead there are three clauses they distinguish as the Ineligibility Clause (Article I, Section 6, Clause 2), the Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8), and the Domestic Emoluments Clause ((Article II, Section 1, Clause 7).

Ineligibility Clause–

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Foreign Emoluments Clause–

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Domestic Emoluments Clause–

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Clearly the issues of concern involve the Foreign Emoluments Clause and revolve around the exorbitant fees charged and paid by Foreign Governments to Trump for use of his D.C. Hotel as well as the money Trump’s Organization is receiving from its overseas property holdings.

Impeachable. Day One.

Since the Inauguration some organizations have sought to hold Trump accountable for this violation of his Oath, or at least get him to divest his problematic holdings and today they got a boost.

Judge denies Trump’s request for stay in emoluments case
By Jonathan O’Connell, Ann E. Marimow, and David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post
November 2, 2018

A federal judge on Friday denied President Trump’s request to stay a lawsuit alleging he is in violation of the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments, a decision that paves the way for plaintiffs to seek information from his business as it relates to his D.C. hotel.

U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., denied the Justice Department’s request that he pause the case in order to allow a higher court to intervene. And he sharply questioned the president’s position that his business does not improperly accept gifts or payments — called emoluments — as defined by the Constitution.

By Trump’s analysis, Messitte wrote, the term emoluments is the subject of such “substantial grounds of disagreement” that payments his business received from foreign governments could not qualify. The judge did not agree: “The Court finds this a dubious proposition.”

Messitte ordered the plaintiffs, the attorneys general for D.C. and Maryland, to submit a schedule for discovery — the process of producing evidence for the case — within 20 days.That decision is subject to appeal.

The judge previously limited discovery to information related to the president’s D.C. hotel.
…
This is the second civil case in which Trump’s business is now subject to discovery, after Trump agreed Tuesday to produce portions of his calendar from 2007 and 2008 in a defamation lawsuit brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.

Trump still owns his company, although he says he has stepped back from day-to-day control.

The Trump Organization has held several large events paid for by foreign governments at Trump’s D.C. hotel and reported about $150,000 in what it called “foreign profits” last year.

The Constitution bars federal officials from taking emoluments from any “King, Prince, or Foreign State.” The Founding Fathers’ intent had been to stop U.S. ambassadors overseas — emissaries from a new, poor, fragile country — from being bought off by jewels or payments from wealthy European states.

Who needs Mueller if you have political will instead of craven cowardly corruption in Congress? The crimes are obvious and freely admitted.

Trump v. Oprah

You have to think of it as a kind of Rap Battle.

Trump

DJ Pence

Oprah

Mic Drop.

Welcome to Hollywood. You’ve been served.

I thought might enjoy the long format NBC Version rather than the shorter CBS version. Also there’s this other bit from NBC at a different camera angle.

The important part about my jokes is that they amuse me. You should also remember that I think at a run time of six and a half hours more or less The Abduction of Figaro is one of the funniest things I have ever watched.

Kind of self-explanatory

Seminal Goth Anthem. Didn’t Goth myself but I liked them and they liked me. We collaborated on several projects I thought very successful and wicked cool.

I’ve solo DJed several Halloween Parties for my DJ bud (he needed to mingle and party promote, I was there for setup and dance grooves). Had to take this out of the mix, we didn’t have enough chairs, but I thought it easy to move to. Some people just don’t like House.

Every Day Is Halloween! Why is it YouTube turns up the best material after you need it?