Three year old shoots pregnant mommy in the stomach with her daddy's gun. Man, it does not get more American than that!

Not actual child in story. I think it's one of the Olsen kids.

Courtesy of Newsweek:

A pregnant mother of two is in critical condition after she was shot by her 3-year-old daughter, who picked up her father’s gun inside her car. 

The mother, 21-year-old Shaneque Thomas, was parked outside a Plato’s Closet thrift store in Merrillville, Indiana when she was shot from behind by her young daughter. 

Police said the father, Menzo Brazier, left the legal but loaded 9mm handgun between the console and the front passenger seat after he left the vehicle to go inside the store, reported WMAQ-TV. 

The child is then said to have climbed over from the backseat and reached to pick up the gun before accidentally firing, hitting her mother though the upper right part of her torso.

It's a good damn thing that bullet did not hit the fetus, because that is the only thing that would convince the Republicans to do something about gun violence in this country.

Men, women, and children can die by the truckloads and the Republicans could not, and do not, care one little bit.

But abortion, even bullet abortion, is one thing they simply could not handle.

Of course their solution would almost certainly involve some kind of maternity size bullet proof tummy shield, but at least they would have to weigh in.

The 2nd Amendment, causing death and mayhem for over two hundred years.

Per Trump's request Jeff Sessions speeds up investigation into Hilary Clinton's e-mails. Can you say "distraction?"

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has answered President Donald Trump’s demands for America’s top law enforcement agency to speed up the delivery to Congress of more than a million documents about an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server. 

The Department of Justice and the FBI asked Chicago prosecutor John Lausch to oversee the redaction and production of documents over the weekend. Many of these concern the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.

This March, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for 1.2 million documents connected to the investigation and other matters—including potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the investigation of the Trump campaign and the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The committee’s chairman, Republican Representative Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, said last month that just a few thousand documents have been delivered following his original requests last year. The subpoena is part of a joint investigation with the House Oversight Committee.

Trump took to Twitter (of course) to bitch about how long this process was taking.

What does the Department of Justice and FBI have to hide? Why aren’t they giving the strongly requested documents (unredacted) to the HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE? Stalling, but for what reason? Not looking good!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2018

Hey as far as I am concerned fucking go for it!

How many times have they investigated Hillary now?

And there is NEVER anything revealed which would constitute criminal or unethical behaviors.

My assumption is that either Donald Trump is too deep inside the Right Wing bubble to see how transparent all of this looks to most Americans, or he is so desperate for something he can use to distract attention that he just doesn't care anymore.

NONE of this is going to slow Robert Mueller down by the way, NOR convince the media not to report on the things he uncovers during that investigation.

Trump is pissing into the wind here, and it is splashing back all over him.

Donald Trump has now joined his buddy Vladimir Putin on Amnesty International's list of human rights villains.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

President Donald Trump joins authoritarian leaders like Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping in spreading hate and promoting regressive policies in 2017, Amnesty International’s annual human rights report determined. 

The report looks at the human rights situation in 159 countries and territories throughout 2017, Trump’s first year in office. 

“In the U.S.A., President Trump wasted little time in putting his anti-rights rhetoric of discrimination and xenophobia into action, threatening a major rollback on justice and freedoms—including by signing a series of repressive executive orders that threatened the human rights of millions, at home and abroad,” reads the report released Thursday by the human rights group.

The report details how the Trump administration oversaw and promoted abusive border enforcement practices and the detention of asylum-seekers on the U.S. border with Mexico.

And just in case you thought that Amnesty International was being completely unfair, get a load of this.

Courtesy of Politico: 

State Department officials have been ordered to pare back passages in a soon-to-be-released annual report on global human rights that traditionally discuss women’s reproductive rights and discrimination, according to five former and current department officials. 

The directive calls for stripping passages that describe societal views on family planning, including how much access women have to contraceptives and abortion. 

A broader section that chronicles racial, ethnic and sexual discrimination has also been ordered pared down, the current and former officials said. 

The move, believed to have been ordered by a top aide to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, reflects the Trump administration’s rightward turn from the Obama administration on family planning issues. It also appears to highlight the stated desire of Tillerson and President Donald Trump to make human rights a lower priority in U.S. foreign policy.

So yeah when a US report on human rights is stripped of language to identify abuses and protect human rights, I would suggest that we are no longer a leader in that endeavor.

Which I guess answers this question for a number of people in this country.

Yes, yes we are. 

How the take down of Al Franken was orchestrated by the Right Wing and supported by Russian Twitter bots.

Courtesy of Newsweek:

While everyone has been focused on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to support Donald Trump, the Franken take-down originated in—and was propelled by—a strategic online campaign with digital tentacles reaching to, of all places, Japan. Analysts have now mapped out how the initial accusation against Franken by Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden was turned into effective propaganda after first being hinted at by right wing black ops master Roger Stone.

A pair of Japan-based websites, created the day before Tweeden came forward, and a swarm of related Twitter bots made the Tweeden story go viral—and then weaponized a liberal writer's criticism of Franken. The bot army, in tandem with prominent real live human right-wingers with Twitter followers in the millions, such as Mike Cernovich, spewed thousands of posts, helping the #frankenfondles hashtag and the "Franken is a groper" meme effectively silence the testimonies of eight former female staffers who defended the Minnesota Democrat before he resigned last year. 

The operation commenced on November 15, when Roger Stone— who is now banned from Twitter for racism and profanity—tweeted from one of his accounts “Roger Stone says it’s Al Franken’s ‘time in the barrel.’ Franken next in long list of Democrats accused of ‘grabby’ behavior.” 

On the same day, a web domain called realusa.site was registered in Japan by a developer named Atsufumi Otsuka. A fake-news website was then established at that web address, and then a second one was created a few days later, according to research shared with the voting rights research outfit Unhack the Vote. 

Tweeden’s account of being groped by Franken was first amplified by a network of right wing media, including KABC in Los Angeles, where Tweeden has a radio show, The Hill, Infowars and Breitbart, which mobilized within hours of Stone's tweet and the release of a picture of a Tweeden and Franken clowning around at a USO performance before he was a senator.

By November 17, the trending of “Al Franken” was officially also a Russia Intelligence operation, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, an organization tracking Russian social media accounts, based on a sample taken that day of 600 of the fake accounts.

There is apparently a sophisticated botnet called "The Voty botnet" that was instrumental in pushing a story by a liberal writer called “Dear Al Franken, I’ll Miss You But You Can’t Matter Anymore” out to millions of people.

That article provided legitimacy for actual liberals to pile on Al Franken as well, and before you knew it Democrats like Kirsten Gillibrand were calling for his resignation. 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

And this serves as yet another reminder that it is not only the Right Wing who can be manipulated by Russian tactics online, but also seemingly intelligent liberals.

We have to examine literally every bit of information we see to discover its roots, and to determine if it is indeed accurate, before we accept it as fact.

This puts a huge burden on each of us, but right now this is essentially our only defense against allowing ourselves to be used to spread and weaponize misinformation.

Folks are now sending checks to lawmakers with no dollar amount filled in, but only the words "Thoughts and Prayers."

Sent to Michigan GOP Rep. Jack Bergman pic.twitter.com/FKFGyDPlrA

— Josh Mankiewicz (@JoshMankiewicz) February 17, 2018

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Amid endless calls for “thoughts and prayers” instead of legislative action in response to mass shootings, a woman in Michigan decided to take matters into her own hands. 

After Wednesday's mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Fern Malila mailed a letter and a check in the amount of "thoughts and prayers" to Representative Jack Bergman, a Michigan Republican 

“Dear Rep. Bergman,” she wrote, “since you and your colleagues in Congress seem to feel that this is the solution to mass murder, please accept this contribution.”

"I did it because I'm hearing the same arguments after each and every time this happens," Malila explained to Newsweek on Friday. "Each and every news media person says contact your congressman, and Congress doesn't do anything."

A post about this went viral on Reddit, receiving over 300 comments, and it looks as if it has started a mini movement:

"My check is going in the mail today to Senator Marco Rubio — another NRA puppet!" one Florida resident wrote. "Thanks for the inspiration!"

I think it's a great idea.

And a way of demonstrating the hypocrisy shown by these lawmakers. 

If they received a deluge of mail containing checks that simply said "Thoughts and Prayers" I think at the very least it would get their attention.

Russian bots retweeted Donald Trump nearly half a million times during the final days of the 2016 election, while also setting up political events on Facebook to sow the seeds of divisiveness.

Courtesy of Newsweek:

Russian bots retweeted Donald Trump nearly half a million times in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, and more than 60,000 Americans RSVP’d for Facebook events created by Kremlin-linked trolls, the social media giants revealed in congressional documents this month. 

In written statements to two congressional panels investigating Russia’s election interference, the companies revealed new details about the extent of the Kremlin disinformation that reached more than 120 million Americans during the presidential race. The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia launched an unprecedented series of cyber attacks and fake news floods to sow division and sway voters ahead of Trump’s surprise victory. 

Twitter revealed that Russian-linked bot accounts recirculated Trump’s tweets more than two million times between September 1 and November 15, 2016, with nearly 500,000 of those coming in the campaign’s final stretch. The automated accounts retweeted Republican candidate Trump 10 times more often Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, and accounted for 4.25% of all of Trump’s retweets in the race’s final days, according to Twitter’s statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

They also fired off nearly 200,000 retweets in the same time for WikiLeaks, which exposed stolen information from Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee that U.S. intelligence agencies have traced to Russian hackers.

Facebook, meanwhile, told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that Russian trolls posing as American activists created 129 political events between 2015 and 2017, which were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users and in some cases drew demonstrators to the streets en masse. About 62,500 users said they would attend one of the events and another 25,800 users expressed interest in going. 

The events often preyed on divisive political or cultural issues, and sometimes set up demonstrations that would directly oppose each other or conflict with plans from actual activists. In one instance, according to Facebook, a fake page called “Heart of Texas” that called for the state to secede from the country promoted a “Stop Islamization of Texas” protest in May 2016 for the opening of an Islamic Center’s library. Another Kremlin Facebook group, “United Muslims of America,” promoted a “Save Islamic Knowledge” event for the same time.

This is what results from simply wanting to be spoon fed the news, and not utilizing our critical thinking skills. 

The Russians recognized that Americans had become sheep and they helped to herd us right over a cliff.

Irish priest claims there is a desperate need for more exorcists due to increase in "demonic activity." Hang on, I have to check what year it is again.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

An Irish priest has put out an urgent call for backup to help with the growing demand for exorcisms in the country, according to reports. 

“It’s only in recent years that the demand [for exorcisms] has risen exponentially,” Father Pat Collins said, adding that anyone who doesn’t see the need for more exorcists is “out of touch with reality.” Collins wrote an open letter to Irish bishops asking them to begin training more priests to deal with exorcisms, and he cited the International Association of Exorcists’ belief that demonic activity has increased substantially in recent years.

Collins has been speaking out about the activities of what he has called “the evil one” for years. He is widely considered Ireland’s most prominent exorcist, and he has also advocated for the church to take a more active role in demon hunting.

 "Anyone who doesn’t see the need for more exorcists is out of touch with reality.”

Just let that bounce around in your skull a little.

These are the people we are forced to share the planet with. These are the people whose beliefs we are encouraged to respect.

Thank you, but no thank you.

This kind of superstitious nonsense should be called out and refuted every single time we hear about it.

No, people are not talking to an actual god.

No, there are no guardian angels watching over you.

No, there are no spirits which need to be placated with charms or magic spells.

And no, there are no demons.

Yes, there is mental illness, and yes there are scientifically based strategies for supporting those who suffer with them.

And an exorcism is the very last thing that they need.

Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms that they will definitely still be interviewing Jared Kushner. Court date for Paul Manafort announced.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

The Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Friday that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will still be interviewed as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“Kushner is still going to be interviewed,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, said at a town hall meeting in western Iowa. “We’re getting some more documents, and that’s not done.”

Grassley assured constituents Friday that the interview would happen just days after expressing hesitation that his committee could easily secure a voluntary interview with Kushner after his Democratic counterpart, Senator Dianne Feinstein, published a 312-page transcript detailing a private interview with the founder of Fusion GPS, the organization behind the so-called Trump dossier. Grassley said Friday that the committee is just waiting on documents that Kushner has delayed in handing over before conducting the interview. 

“We’re going to do that,” Grassley said as an Iowan rebuked him over the committee’s five-month delay in interviewing Kushner. “Right now, Senator Feinstein is wanting more documents, and we wait until we get the documents, go through the documents, then we have a basis for the interviews that we’re going to have.”

While we are on the topic it appears that Paul Manafort and his associate , Richard Gates, have a shiny new court date to look forward to.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

U.S. Special Counsel in the Russia probe Robert Mueller will request a trial date of May 14 for Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Manafort’s associate Richard Gates, Mueller said in a court filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Friday.

Just a reminder that while all of these distractions about Trump's racism and piggish behavior are dominating the news cycle that the wheels of justice are still slowly moving forward. 

The Trump Administration has the highest rate of staff turnover in the last 40 years.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

President Donald Trump’s first year in office has seen a record number of staff turnover, with 34 percent of the administration resigning, being reassigned or being fired. 

The high level of staff turnover, detailed in a Wall Street Journal report Thursday, is unprecedented in the last 40 years, and is especially unusual given the seniority of the staffers who have left the White House. 

Administration turnover rate in the past year has been tracked by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has tracked White House turnover for more than three decades. Her analysis shows that 21 of the 61 officials she’s tracked have left the administration or been reassigned, a much higher rate than years prior. 

The next-highest administration turnover rate was when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. In 1981, 17 percent of senior aides left Reagan’s administration. 

“Not only is the percentage double, the seniority of people leaving is extraordinarily high,” said Tenpas of the Trump administration compared to Reagan’s.

Interesting that the next highest rate of turnover was during the Reagan administration don't you think? 

That administration also holds the record for the most criminal indictments, but I have a feeling Trump is on course to break that record as well.

By the way in case you were wondering Obama had a nine percent turnover rate, and Clinton had an eleven percent turnover rate.

So much MAGA.

Israel to name a train station after Donald Trump. Oh they are definitely going to regret this.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

The Israeli government is to name a train station after President Donald Trump following his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel earlier this month. 

The station will be built at the Western Wall, the site where Jews pray and believe to be a standing wall of the Second Temple, an ancient holy site revered in Judaism. Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site in May. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet lauded the Dec. 6 announcement as a recognition of reality and were moved to show their appreciation to the American leader.

"The Western Wall is the holiest place for the Jewish people, and I decided to name the train station that leads to it after President Trump—following his historic and brave decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel," Israeli Transportation Minister Israel Katz said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

I think it is becoming fairly obvious that the Trump presidency is going to end in scandal, so I would predict that Israel is going to be very unhappy about this decision.

Probably within the next year or so.

After all there is a reason we do not have a connecting flight at the Richard Nixon airport, or drive down the Richard M. Nixon turnpike.

At some point Trump's name will be used as a derogatory remark or insult, along the lines of "Boy he really Trumped that up didn't he?" or " Trump you, for driving like that!" 

I mean if the Netanyahu wanted to insult it citizens why not call it the Adolph Hitler train station?

After all there ARE a number of similarities.

Republican Congressman says the litmus test for the GOP is no longer ideological, it is about loyalty to Trump.

Rep. Charlie Dent: “Before Donald Trump became president, the litmus test for Republicans was— it was really about the ideological purity and conformity. Now the litmus test has changed. The issue is loyalty to the man.” (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/ecuG9LWy2Q

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 24, 2017

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

One of President Donald Trump’s biggest critics from within the Republican Party, Rep. Charlie Dent (R–Pennsylvania), said the new “litmus test” for the GOP is who supports Trump, rather than the party’s “ideological purity and conformity.” 

Speaking on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, the retiring Congressman said, “Now the litmus test is changed. The issue is loyalty to the man, to the president, and for some, loyalty's not enough, you have to be angry and aggrieved.

"Dent said that Trump was “a factor” in his decision to retire from Congress after the end of his term next year and assessed the state of the country as “paralyzed” by polarity. 

“The polarization has reached the point of paralysis. There doesn't seem to be the bipartisan collaboration up front that we need on a lot of big issues,” he said.

If you think about it this is a fairly troubling assertion.

As much as we may have disagreed with the Republicans point of view on social issues, and what constitutes morality, at least they seemed to have a firm position.

But really all of that disappeared when Trump came on the scene, and now holier than thou evangelicals and big business supporting capitalists are eagerly supporting a thrice married, constantly bankrupt, possible Russian asset, as he destroys the credibility of the country they claim to love.

Have you ever had that moment when you thought you could not possibly lose any more respect for a group of people, and then suddenly discover that you can?

Newsweek reports that veteran intelligence experts believe that Trump is indeed a Kremlin asset.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

In a December 18 interview on CNN, retired Air Force Lieutenant General James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, virtually called Trump a Putin puppet. The Russian president, Clapper noted, is a former KGB “case officer,” or spy recruiter, who “knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president. That’s the appearance to me.” (Pressed to clarify his “asset” comment, Clapper said, “I’m saying this figuratively.”)

“Wow,” tweeted former CIA Russian hand John Sipher. “The rest of us try to find other clever ways to say the same thing. Good on him for having the courage to call out Putin’s behavior. Our president shouldn’t have fallen for it.”

Wow. The rest of us try to find other clever ways to say the same thing. Good on him for having the courage to call out Putin's behavior. Our President shouldn't have fallen for it. https://t.co/J6YdGCxCi4

— John Sipher (@john_sipher) December 18, 2017

Veteran spy handlers have judged Trump an easy mark for Putin, who spent years in the KGB sizing up and exploiting a target’s vulnerabilities. They note how easily he falls for praise, as when Putin thanked him and the CIA for helping him thwart a bomb attack plot in St. Petersburg. “POTUS is a [spy] handlers’ dream,” Asha Rangappa, a former special agent in the FBI’s counterintelligence division, said. “He responds, without fail, to praise and flattery and telegraphs his day-to-day thoughts on Twitter. Likewise, said Harry “Skip” Brandon, a former FBI deputy assistant director of national security and counterterrorism. “He often very publicly states he goes by his instincts. If that is accurate, he may be the ultimate unwitting asset of Russia.”

And so on. The steady drip of revelations emerging from multiple Trump investigations—his business deals with Russian investors, his associates’ many undeclared meetings with Kremlin agents, his resistance to accepting evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and his indiscretion with Israeli intelligence—draws a far darker picture.

Some veteran intelligence operators think it’s well past time to shift the narrative on Trump’s disturbing affinity for Putin, which the president insists is innocent and good for world peace. “Everyone continues to dance around a clear assessment of what’s going on,” says Glenn Carle, a former CIA national intelligence officer responsible for evaluating foreign threats. “My assessment,” he tells Newsweek, “is that Trump is actually working directly for the Russians.”

For a while now I have started to think that the investigations are no longer focused on collusion, but instead are fathering information about a conspiracy between Trump and team, and the Russians.

It is not just that the Russians helped the Trump campaign, and the Trump campaign accepted that help.

It is that there was a long term strategy that Putin worked out to insert an actual Russian asset into the White House, and that asset is Donald Trump himself.

And if that is the case than it makes what Sarah Kendzior said the other day, all the more troubling.

More Americans want to see Donald Trump impeached than are planning to vote for him in 2020.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Donald Trump is hemorrhaging support among the American people, and now more than 40 percent of them think it's time to start the process to impeach him, a new poll finds. The number is higher than the percentage of Americans who said they planned to vote for the president in the 2020 election.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, out Wednesday, carried very little good news for the president and put him on notice that 41 percent of Americans believe there is enough reason for Congress to hold impeachment hearings, even before the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. 

The poll found that 70 percent of Democrats, 40 percent of independents and even 7 percent of Republicans The number of people calling for impeachment proceedings to get underway closely parallels the 38 percent of Americans who believe Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.are in favor of the hearings.

Americans' desire for impeachment wasn't the only bad news for Trump in this poll. If he does survive his first term without being impeached, his chances of re-election are looking extremely bleak. 

Just 36 percent of respondents said they would probably or definitely vote for Trump against a generic Democratic candidate. Conversely, 52 percent said they would probably or definitely "vote for the other party." Such numbers would clearly leave Trump with no path toward a second term. 

Damn! You know that is going to drive Trump a little further over the bend.

Kellyanne Conway provides Donald Trump with alibi after he inadvertently tweets that he knew Mike Flynn lied to the FBI.

Kellyanne Conjob.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway has confirmed the president’s alibi for a potentially incriminating tweet posted on his Twitter account Saturday. 

The tweet indicates President Donald Trump knew that his national security adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI when Trump reportedly pressured the then–FBI Director James Comey to abandon an investigation into Flynn. 

On Monday, Conway told CNN that she was with the president “all day” Saturday and that his lawyer John Dowd crafted the tweet and sent it to White House director of social media Daniel Scavino Jr. to publish.

This is the tweet in question.

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

First off we KNOW that nobody tells Trump what to tweet, and secondly legal experts are simply not buying the excuse that his lawyer ate his homework.

Legal experts were incredulous when Dowd—an experienced defense lawyer who used to work for the Justice Department—claimed Sunday that he wrote the tweet. They were surprised by the incorrect use of legal language—using the phrase "pled" instead of "pleaded," and seeming admission the president had advanced knowledge Flynn lied to the FBI. 

So not only has Trump somehow convinced his lawyer to lie in order to cover up for his stupidity, but now he has Kellyanne Conway lying to cover for that lie.

But how can anybody seriously think this will help?

Do they not realize that Mueller will now question both Dowd and Conway under oath and then charge them for perjury if they try to stick to this story?

The lesson of Watergate was, "It's not the crime, it's the coverup." But of Richard Nixon had been even remotely this sloppy he would not have simply had to resign, he would have been sent to the chair.

Fox's Lou Dobbs suggests that Barack Obama should be detained by federal officials for speaking badly about Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Former President Barack Obama should be detained by federal officials for talking badly about President Donald Trump. After Obama said this week that people should "think before you speak, think before you tweet," in an apparent reference to Trump's twilight Twitter rants, Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs had harsh words for Obama. 

“I think U.S. Marshals should follow him, and any time he wants to go follow the president like he is, and behave… I mean, this is just bad manners. It’s boorish, it’s absurd, he doesn’t realize how foolish he looks. I mean, he should be brought back by the Marshals," Dobbs said. "Isn’t there some law that says presidents shouldn’t be attacking sitting presidents?” 

Dobbs' guest Steve Forbes added on that Obama doesn’t realize he “doesn’t matter anymore.”

Oh, he matters. In fact he matters more and more all the time.

First off Lou Dobbs is turning into a real nut job since going over to to Fox News, which I am now assuming is a prerequisite to employment.

Secondly Obama did not really single Donald Trump out by name, but instead said this in response to a question about a statement Michelle had made about not tweeting in bed:

“Michelle was giving the general idea . . . don’t say the first thing that pops in your head. Have a little bit of an edit function,” Barack Obama explained. “Think before you speak, think before you tweet.”

That is just good damn advice right there.  And we should all take it to heart.

Especially if we are a giant orange toddler currently living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The wedding of the decade is coming soon, and while Donald Trump's invitation will likely be lost in the mail, his predecessor could be a guest of honor.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

The guest list hasn’t been set for the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but a number of things could stand in the way of President Donald Trump getting an invite. 

But a former U.S. president might make the list, due to his friendship with the young British royal: Barack Obama and his wife, former first lady Michelle, who appear to have amiable relations with Harry and his elder brother and future king, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge.

Much of the reason that Trump may not make the guest list is focused on the added security and possible disruptions from protesters:

If Trump were to appear at Prince Harry’s wedding in spring 2018, it would likely spark protests. When Prime Minister Theresa May offered Trump a state visit early this year, polls showed that 2 million people intended to take part in a protest against him. The risk of embarrassment, were such a protest to occur at a royal wedding, might put the couple off inviting such a controversial figure.

However the bride has also expressed much disdain for the Orange tinted fuhrer:  

As for President Trump, Harry's wife-to-be revealed that she was not a fan. In an interview on The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore during the 2016 election, Markle said she might decide to stay in Toronto—where her show, Suits, is filmed—if Trump were to win. 

“We film Suits in Toronto, and I might just stay in Canada. I mean, come on, if that's reality we are talking about, come on, that is a game changer in terms of how we move in the world here,” she said. 

Markle supported Democrat Hillary Clinton during the election, calling Trump “misogynistic.”

You know this is going to burn Trump's ass, who before he won the election was notorious for crashing A-list parties that he was not invited to attend.

I can hardly wait to read the Twitter tirade that this will inspire.  

Despite claims by Donald Trump that it is dead, Obamacare enrollment is way up.

You know I'm going to kill Obamacare. Wanna bet?

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

The White House is trying kill Obamacare. Americans are throwing it a lifeline. 

Despite the Trump Administration’s promises to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, enrollment for health insurance under the program is quite healthy with less than a month to go in the current sign-up period, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency. 

“In week three of Open Enrollment for 2018, 798,829 people selected plans using the HealthCare.gov platform,” the agency reported.

That brings the total number of enrollees in this period to 2.3 million, which is almost 900,000 people — or 64 percent — more than the number of customers who signed up during the first four weeks of enrollment in 2016, according to CNBC.

The figures included more than 566,000 new consumers and 1.7 million renewals, with total Healthcare.gov users exceeding 8.1 million.

And keep in mind this is without the Trump Administration doing a damn thing to help advertise this open enrollment.

It's almost as if the Obama Administration created a pretty good program that the American people want in their lives, and have come to rely on.  

Hope Hicks loves Donald Trump like a father. Yeah, I'll bet.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

In an administration rocked by staff shakeups, resignations and infighting, Hope Hicks is a survivor. 

The 29-year-old White House communications director has been a steady hand at the center of Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, outlasting a rotating cast of political operatives and weighing in on everything from which media interviews to grant to the administration’s response to allegations of Russian collusion. 

“She has a great ‘Trump radar’ [in] understanding how he thinks...She loves him like a father in some ways, and I think that is an important loyalty to the family,” Brad Parscale, digital director for Trump’s 2016 campaign, told Newsweek.

Now, that allegiance is being tested because federal investigators have sought to interview her as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging Russia investigation. The White House didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to questions about Hicks's status in the federal inquiries, and her personal attorney, Robert Trout, declined comment. But she is one of the few people who could provide deep insight into the president’s thinking—and, moreover, his reactions to the scandal that looms over his presidency.

So what do we think?

Will Hope Hicks crack under pressure from Robert Mueller, or will she stay loyal to "Daddy?" 

Whatever happens this whole thing just gets creepier every day.

Another white man with a history of domestic violence went on a shooting spree yesterday. Update!

 Courtesy of the LA Times:

A gunman's deadly rampage through rural Rancho Tehama on Tuesday was stopped when police rammed his vehicle and exchanged shots in a fierce gun battle, authorities said. 

"The suspect was actually shooting at the police vehicle, back at them, the officer rammed the vehicle, forced it off the road, an exchange of gunfire — resulting in the shooter's death," said Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston. 

The shooting ended what authorities described as a 45-minute attack through Rancho Tehama, a quiet reserve about 120 miles northwest of downtown Sacramento. 

The gunman at one point terrorized a local elementary school. Witnesses said he crashed through the school's gates with his truck and opened fire, spraying walls and classrooms with bullets. Teachers and other adults on campus frantically got the students under desks. 

Before the rampage was over, five people were dead, including the gunman, and at least 10 were wounded. 

It could have been much worse if local teachers had not been so quick to respond to the threat.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

No children were killed in the shooting spree that began at shortly before 8 a.m. PT in the community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, about 130 miles north of Sacramento, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.

The rampage could have been worse, Johnston said, had not the staff at the school heard gunshots around a quarter-mile away and initiated a lockdown.

"The shooter literally took his vehicle and rammed their fence and gate, entered the grounds on foot with a semiautomatic rifle," Johnston said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. 

"It appears that because he couldn't make access to any of the rooms — they were locked — that he gave it up and re-entered the vehicle and then went on his killing spree and took it to the streets of Rancho Tehama,” Johnston said. "So I really want to say that the quick action of those school officials, there is no doubt in my mind based on the video that I saw, saved countless lives and children."

I say it all the time, but it bears repeating, teachers are the true American heroes. And it should not take a terrible incident like this to remind us of that fact.

As it turns out this lunatic was known by police for being a very violent offender, and was about to go on trial for past crimes: 

The gunman who killed four in a sprawling rampage Tuesday before being fatally shot by police was about to go on trial for stabbing and robbing women in his Northern California community. 

Kevin Jansen Neal, 43, was charged with assault in January. Little is known about the incident, except that Neal was charged with assault for shooting at two female neighbors through a wooden fence while they were walking. Neal then "jumped the fence, confronted the women, stabbed one and took a cellphone from the other," Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen told Red Bluff Daily News. Authorities said one of the four individuals killed Tuesday was a female previously targeted by Neal in his neighborhood. 

Neal, 43, was arrested again in February for assault with a deadly weapon, battery, crimes against an elder or dependent adult and discharging his firearm with gross negligence, among other charges outlined in Red Bluff Police Department logs. Neal was scheduled to stand trial on January 11, 2018, for the assault against the neighborhood women, with trials beginning in December.

And yet he was still able to get his hands on an AR-15 Bushmaster rifle as well as several other firearms.

And why not? This is America ain't it?

Investigators later found the body of Neal's wife hidden under the floorboards in his house, which brings the death toll up to five. 

Update: Totally agree with this.

As we approach the five-year anniversary of the horrifying shooting at Sandy Hook, it’s heartbreaking that we’ve made so little progress in preventing these shootings. Elementary schools like the one in Rancho Tehama Reserve shouldn’t have to prepare for mass shootings.

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) November 16, 2017

Russian bots now flocking to support Sean Hannity in response to boycott of his show. Things that make you go, "Hmm."

Per @SecureDemocracy's Russian propaganda tracker (3pm):

-#BoycottKeurig is now the #1 overall hashtag & #1 trending hashtag in Russian-linked influence networks (20,300% increase in use).
-"Keurig" is the #1 topic in Russian-linked influence networks (35,600% increase in use) pic.twitter.com/f0VYzyZVhn

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) November 12, 2017

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Fox News’s Sean Hannity is getting support from Russian-linked social media accounts after they began amplifying a protest by the American far right against Keurig coffee machines when the company pulled advertising from Hannity’s show. 

Keurig is among five companies that removed ads from Fox's Hannity over the weekend following his coverage of sexual misconduct allegations against Roy Moore, who is running for U.S. Senate in Alabama. 

On Twitter the hashtag #BoycottKeurig is now number one in overall hashtags promoted by 600 accounts connected to Russian influence efforts tracked by the German Marshall Fund. The hashtag #standwithannity and the variant #istandwithhannity, #boycottkeurig, and #keurig are among the top trending hashtags promoted by these accounts.

Wow, it's almost as if the Russians and the conservative media were somehow in cahoots.

Nah, that's just crazy talk.

Right?