All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Iron Maiden]

Opinion | An hour-by-hour comparison of Trump and Obama responding to school shootings

Video

The contrast between Obama's response and Trump's is stunning and sad. With Trump, it's still all about him. While Trump was tweeting and golfing, Obama was trying to get things done. But even then the GOP let the assault weapon ban die in Congress. Trump gets himself a smiling photo op after a 35 minute visit to the hospital before he heads to his luxury resort. Obama, as was his custom, meets with the victim's families and no press is allowed. He did this for the families of our fallen soldiers as I recall also. We can't even trust Trump to talk to them on the phone without getting into some kind of controversy.

[Ragged Maw]

Pennsylvania church plans to bless worshippers' AR-15 rifles

Wayne County institution associates AR-15s with the return of Christ. You just can't make up insanity like this!

I’ll let this weirdness slide.............as long as these people don’t try to argue that using “properly blessed rifles” to mow down those who piss them off should be protected under “religious freedom”.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The contrast between Obama's response and Trump's is stunning and sad. With Trump, it's still all about him. While Trump was tweeting and golfing, Obama was trying to get things done. But even then the GOP let the assault weapon ban die in Congress. Trump gets himself a smiling photo op after a 35 minute visit to the hospital before he heads to his luxury resort. Obama, as was his custom, meets with the victim's families and no press is allowed. He did this for the families of our fallen soldiers as I recall also. We can't even trust Trump to talk to them on the phone without getting into some kind of controversy.

The problem with Trump is his complete and total lack of anything even remotely resembling genuine empathy. The world and it's people are so far beneath his notice, it isn't funny, and anyone (save of course for his brain dead lemmings) can see that from a mile away, and that apathy has been on full display during the aftermath of the Florida shooting. Any proclamations he's made, like his declaration to ban bump stops has been nothing more than window dressing (the NRA and the gun lobby will lean hard on their paid whores in Congress to kill that initiative), and any speeches he's made about the tragedy to soothe the wounded psyche of the American people has him sounding bored, morose, uninterested, like he can't get that chore over with fast enough so he can hop back on Twitter to bash Obama, Hillary, the Democrats or someone else he hates. Bottom line: Trump doesn't care, PERIOD! Never has, never will, at 71, he's too old to change, not that he would even bother trying, and anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.

[BeastieRunner]

Mueller time! New Manafort charges ... bank fraud.

Paul Manafort Accused Of Bank Fraud In New Mueller Court Documents.

Mueller is beginning the chain freezing process that was used on Al-Qaeda. The team followed the frozen assets till it lead them to the top.

[worstblogever]

Several prominent conservatives and Alt-Right figures are whining up a Twitterstorm and spewing conspiracy theories after losing thousands of followers overnight.

The real reason for that? Twitter purged a slew of Russian bot accounts overnight.

[SquirrelMan]

I was never a fan of the "Trump and Sanders are alike" theory.



But today the line's getting vewwy bluwwy.

[Kal-El Summers]

http://www.pikecountycourier.com/app...assault-rifles

Sorry for the inelegance but I'm posting from my phone. Link is to story about church that seems to love assault rifles.

Ah, this is my neck of the woods. Honestly shocked this hasn't popped up more in the tri-state area given all the rural counties around here.

[Kal-El Summers]

Several prominent conservatives and Alt-Right figures are whining up a Twitterstorm and spewing conspiracy theories after losing thousands of followers overnight.

The real reason for that? Twitter purged a slew of Russian bot accounts overnight.

Checked out the hashtag for this and had a good laugh at all the whining.

[Tami]

Checked out the hashtag for this and had a good laugh at all the whining.

I have 473 followers and as far as I can tell, it hasn't changed. Proof that Russian Troll Bots prefer to follow Conservatives than Liberals.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The problem with Trump is his complete and total lack of anything even remotely resembling genuine empathy. The world and it's people are so far beneath his notice, it isn't funny, and anyone (save of course for his brain dead lemmings) can see that from a mile away, and that apathy has been on full display during the aftermath of the Florida shooting. Any proclamations he's made, like his declaration to ban bump stops has been nothing more than window dressing (the NRA and the gun lobby will lean hard on their paid whores in Congress to kill that initiative), and any speeches he's made about the tragedy to soothe the wounded psyche of the American people has him sounding bored, morose, uninterested, like he can't get that chore over with fast enough so he can hop back on Twitter to bash Obama, Hillary, the Democrats or someone else he hates. Bottom line: Trump doesn't care, PERIOD! Never has, never will, at 71, he's too old to change, not that he would even bother trying, and anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.

Incidentally the irony about bump stocks is banning them would do next to nothing. Which is why Republicans were willing to use it as leverage. They knew it was effectively meaningless, but it became a talking point for awhile so why not offer up something they viewed as valueless to try and get something. They overreached and it didn't work.

To the rest of your point, my thoughts about Trump are pretty simple. He only cares about his own self interests and that's the world he lives in. If he's convinced something he pushes will either make him look good or benefit him in some way, he'd push it. If tomorrow one of Barron's old private schools was the next one hit and his son was crying to him about all his old friends and Melanie and Ivanka were chewing his ear off, I think he'd sell the NRA up the river despite how much lip service he gave them and how much money he gave them, because his personal life would supersede that. Christe kissed his ass, and then was discarded because he thought he had someone better. He talked up Sessions forever and they had a good relationship until Sessions embarrassed him and now by all reports he can't stand the guy.

He's not an empathetic person. He's self a centered narcissist with traits of solipsism. Facts don't matter to him. The rest of the world doesn't matter to him. What effects him matters to him, what impacts him and how he feels about himself matters to him. He can't stand the Russia thing because he thinks it makes him look bad, not because he gives a shit whether they did anything or not. He was friends with the Clinton's for years, until Hillary ended up being the person he needed to walk all over. He was friends with Joe Scarborough for years until his show started going harder on him. The man has no loyalties.The only way to make this POS more bearable is for his situation to change and for the things that effect us to benefit him. It sucks, but that's the truth.

[KOSLOX]

Checked out the hashtag for this and had a good laugh at all the whining.

Thoughts and prayers.

[InformationGeek]

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has signed a bill to restore $7.5M to fund Planned Parenthood and other health clinics, which was cut by Chris Christie in 2010.


Suuuuuuuuck it Christie.

[JBatmanFan05]

Thoughts and prayers.

Thank you Things. You don't know how much that means.

[master of read]

These people seem to me to be literally worshiping guns. This is new to me, and I've been born and raised in Texas so take that as you will.

native texan here too. we only own 2 guns: a glock and a old sawed off shotgun my grandma left us when she passed. hell, we own more air guns than we do real guns. we just don't see the point in owning anything larger than a handgun.

While it's to a lesser degree, that sort of thinking is spreading and becoming acceptable across the board. It's a democracy killer and pretty much bound to lead to conflict with opposing ideas as we've seen increase in the last couple of years.



Like a good Ferengi

that does sound like a rule of acquisition.

[JBatmanFan05]

These people seem to me to be literally worshiping guns. This is new to me, and I've been born and raised in Texas so take that as you will.

"On the eighth day God created guns." Austin 3:16