News and Current Events - 2017 - 2022

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I did not watch last night and I'm almost sorry I watched the news later on.

But Chuck Todd happened to say the reason I don't care to watch...that when Trump reads his speeches from a
teleprompter you never get the feeling that it's his voice. He's just reading. It's not him. Exactly.

If you want to really see the truth about the State of the Union, watch the first minute of Stephen Colbert's
show last night. It was live [EST].

http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/Ud7C5mzgoXaBKqAGJzdBp9u9nH6EYShp/-/

His monologue was also quite amusing. At around 16:30 his first guests are Tommy Vietor, Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett who do a
podcast called Pod Save America. These guys used to work in the Obama Administration. Two were speech writers (also for Hillary
Clinton) and the third was a communications director. These three look like they're still in high school, much less have White House
experience in their past/on their resumes. But they're young and smart and I love smart. They talk about the evening's speech.

I also switched over to Jimmy Kimmel for some time to see what Stormy Daniels had to say. If you don't know who she is, then
you'll see why the State of the Union is worse than you think. She's the porn star actress who was paid off by the Trump campaign
right before the election, but isn't even front page news because of the train wreck occupying the oval office. Turns out, and I suspected
as much, she really wasn't allowed to talk freely about anything because her settlement has a non-disclosure pact we assume, even
though Jimmy Kimmel tried his hardest to get sentences out of her. What was really interesting is a segment in the beginning of his
show where he individually talked to fervent anti-immigration (and Trump) supporters about their views and then brought them into
a room together to talk to an actual DACA person to see if any of them would change or soften their views. (HINT: They're usually called
hardliners for a reason.

I did happen to see the opening of Nightline after that where they had one of those rooms full of Republicans and Democrats watching
the State of the Union speech and then answering questions afterwards. I always hate those kinds of things because they specifically
get partisans because these segments have limited news time and they want people to spout their inanities for immediate reaction.
The Trump supporters acted like the State of the Union Speech was the Beatles 1st visit to The Ed Sullivan Show. It was horrendous.
I had trouble going to sleep after that inanity.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Justin Trudeau's motorcade was involved in an accident that left a California Highway Patrolman
and 2 others injured. Trudeau was leaving the Reagan Presidential Library after giving a speech there
last night. He also met with Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Right now he is meeting with
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti at the Griffith Observatory.

[Flyboy]

Are you chasing him around, Lyle?? Hmmmmm? 

He is certainly easier on the eyes than our Leader........

[Lyle (Mooska)]

^^^

[Gazapete]

 

[morrobay]

February 14, 2018 3:06pm EST

Happening now: There is an active shooting unfolding at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida
The victims: At least 20 people were injured, according to WSVN.

The shooting happened just as school was letting out
The school day at Stoneman Douglas High School ends a 2:40 p.m., according to the school's website. The first tweet from the Broward Sheriff's Office about reports of the shooting came at 2:53 p.m. ET.

About 2,000 students are enrolled at Stoneman Douglas High School.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/14/us/florida-school-shooting/index.html

[killersmom]

I got the alert on my phone, and just said to myself, OH God not again, and another one. It's never going to cease.

[BlueAmber63]

                                               ^^^

So very sad.

Everyone prays that it's the last time...each time....but it seems to happen over and over. 

[Lyle (Mooska)]

^^^

45 days into the year and there have been 18 mass school shootings. Defined as three or more people shot. Last year there was an average of one of these a week. And that's just referring to the school shootings. The Republican Congress has done absolutely everything to make sure that people like the shooter yesterday are allowed to legally buy and own AR15 automatic assault rifles. These were once illegal under the law. I do not know if that original law was changed or had an expiration date. (And if it did, WHY did it?) Florida's Governor Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio have blood on their hands. They voted for this situation. And they also have deflected questions with the hollow "it isn't time to discuss gun laws" meme and they try to deflect the issue by bringing up mental health issues. It does not help that we have a President with mental health issues.

This particular school had a fire drill early in the day. Near the end of the day the shooter set the fire alarm off again so that the students would empty out into his firing range. These children will never feel safe at any future fire drill with the experience of this having happened to them. Fire drills will return the terror to their minds.

Remember when Post Offices were the epicenter, it seemed, of these types of things? That's where the term "He's going postal" came from. In fact, yesterday on the Decades channel's "Through the Decades" program, a daily program that features news and events related to that particular day in history, a story that occurred on February 14, 1977, was featured when a man from New York City drove north to a post office in New Rochelle where he murdered 5 people in the place he used to work, but had been let go from. The police who investigated the man said he was a neo-Nazi / Nazi sympathizer. I suppose if you try to make the assailant seem like some kind of "other" person the event seems less dangerous to those who haven't experienced. Like it's an aberration. That's why people like Gov. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio try to interject the "mental illness" meme into these school shootings. Well, it's not the fact he was able to buy these guns legally, it's that he was somehow a mental case, so you shouldn't worry about it.  Keep in mind that the current White House occupant signed signed a measure into law in February a year ago that rescinded an Obama-era rule aimed at blocking gun sales and ownership of guns to mentally ill people.

So where is your case now Scott and Rubio?

[fritzkep]

It's never the right time. Either too early or too late.

The various gun organizations should get together and could sponsor a massacre of the day/week/whatever. Their base would love it.

It would seem that these days their chief god is Moloch.

[Jeff Wrangler]

The various gun organizations should get together and could sponsor a massacre of the day/week/whatever. Their base would love it.

Might be interesting to see what would happen if somebody did to the NRA headquarters what just happened in Florida.

Then again, I'm sure they would still be stoutly in defense of the Second Amendment because this is all about mental illness, not guns.

[Flyboy]

I haven't ever heard a good REASON why anyone besides LE or the Military NEED an assault weapon, or any kind!! It's been said we have more guns in this country than people! could be, could be..........

[Gazapete]

I will never be able to understand this aspect of the US. My girl wants to travel over there as an exchange student and spend six months at a US high school and I think my nerves would not survive it. Poor kids, poor parents. I don't understand that some people believe the right to have war guns is more important than the right to live.

[killersmom]

I don't understand that some people believe the right to have war guns is more important than the right to live.

Because unfortunately we have people who voted and support someone like 'pumpkin head', and the majority party  in our government who are supported by lobbies like the NRA, who keep guns in the hands of crazies, the mentally ill and those who support 'pumpkin head'.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

In a comment section of a gay blog someone referred to our current administration in a way I had not heard before and it
made me laugh. They called it the Turd Reich.