From CNN.Com:

A resolution denouncing neo-Nazis dies in 36 seconds

From TheHill.com:

Pennsylvania church holds AR-15 blessing ceremony

by Avery Anapol – 02/28/18 05:07 PM EST

A Pennsylvania church on Wednesday held a blessing ceremony for couples and their AR-15 rifles.

The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary hosted the event, at which couples wearing white dresses and dark suits renewed their vows and received blessings on their unloaded firearms, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The religious group, considered to be a “cult” by many, is led by the Rev. Sean Moon, who prayed at the ceremony for “a kingdom of peace police and peace militia where the citizens, through the right given to them by almighty God to keep and bear arms, will be able to protect one another and protect human flourishing.”

The group views AR-15s as religious symbols, and has previously held events featuring the rifles. An AR-15 is the weapon police say was used to kill 17 people and injure 14 others in the school shooting at a Florida high school.

A small group of protestors gathered outside the sanctuary, with one calling the attendees “an armed religious cult.”

One attendee of the ceremony told the Tribune that she and her husband own an AR-15 to protect themselves from “sickos and evil psychopaths.”

“People have the right to bear arms, and in God’s kingdom, you have to protect that,” she said. “You have to protect against evil.”

A nearby elementary school closed in preparation for the event, instead taking students to a school 15 miles away as a safety precaution.

In the wake of the Florida shooting, lawmakers have grappled with how to act on gun control legislation, with some proposing a ban on assault-style weapons like the AR-15.

President Trump on Wednesday pushed lawmakers during a bipartisan meeting at the White House to raise the minimum age for purchasing such rifles from 18 to 21.

Anything involving possible censorship should make everyone shudder, particularly when it consistently comes from a dysfunctional branch of the federal government. The Washington Post’s masthead says it all: Democracy Dies in Darkness.

From Politico.Com:

Trump suggests challenging NBC’s broadcast license

The veiled threat opens a new front in the president’s feud with the media.

By LOUIS NELSON and MARGARET HARDING MCGILL

10/11/2017 10:37 AM EDT
Updated 10/11/2017 12:07 PM EDT

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that NBC’s broadcast license should be pulled as punishment for the network’s reporting on his national security meetings, opening a new front in the president’s long-running battle with the press.

NBC News published a report Wednesday morning stating that Trump had surprised his national security advisers by proposing a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a July meeting. The meeting was what allegedly led Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to call Trump a “moron” — a comment that NBC first reported last week.

Trump lashed out at NBC, appearing to make a threat that is not even possible, given that the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t directly license networks.

“Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!” Trump wrote on Twitter, equating the two TV news outlets he has most often lashed out against. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”

NBC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FCC had no immediate comment.

The president’s willingness to potentially challenge the broadcast licenses of a media outlet whose coverage he objects to marked an escalation in rhetoric for Trump. The president has regularly complained about coverage he views as unfairly critical, labeling stories, reporters and entire outlets “fake news.”

As a candidate, Trump threatened to “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” He repeated that threat in a post to Twitter in March. He also floated the idea of canceling the long-held tradition of White House press briefings, which were moved mostly off-camera for weeks last summer.

It is the second time in as many weeks that Trump has attacked NBC News. The earlier attack came after the “moron” report, which also said Tillerson had been on the verge of quitting over the summer.

Tillerson has denied that he ever considered resigning, and a State Department spokeswoman later said the secretary doesn’t use language like “moron.”

Trump, meanwhile, said the network’s news division “is so knowingly inaccurate with their reporting” and had “low news and reporting standards.”

“NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Oct. 4.

It’s unclear exactly how Trump could directly challenge a media outlet’s broadcasting license, if he chose to follow through on his veiled threat.

The FCC, an independent federal agency, issues broadcast licenses to stations and oversees license holders. It does not license networks. NBC is owned by Comcast, which holds broadcast licenses for several stations. NBC also airs on affiliate stations owned by other companies.

Local residents or competitors can file a challenge to a station’s license renewal, but the basis for such a challenge is extremely limited — it must be a case where the station systematically violated the FCC’s rules or lacked the requisite “character” to hold the license. That is usually defined as a felony conviction, said Andrew Schwartzman, a communications lawyer with the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center.

“It’s an empty threat. The last thing that NBC is going to worry about is whether its broadcast licenses are in jeopardy,” Schwartzman said.

Schwartzman said the only time he could remember a large broadcaster losing its license was in the 1970s, after a New York station’s management was convicted of bribery. The license renewal issue surfaced in 2012, when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. was facing controversy over a phone-hacking scandal in Britain, but Fox’s U.S. television licenses were not revoked over the issue.

Although NBC is currently in Trump’s cross hairs, CNN has most often been the target of Trump’s anger with the media. The president has sought to turn the network into something of a foil for him and his supporters, who have chanted “CNN sucks” at rallies. Trump has shared images viewed by some as encouraging violence against CNN, including a professional wrestling clip that shows the president attacking a man with a CNN logo superimposed over his head and a cartoon with a “Trump” train running over a man covered by a CNN logo.

The cable network’s White House reporters have sparred often with White House press secretaries Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders during briefings, while the administration has, at times, refused to put its spokespeople and surrogates on CNN.

Trump has lobbed insults and threats at newspapers, too, most often targeting the “money losing” New York Times and The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of online retail giant Amazon.

“The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!” Trump wrote on Twitter in June.

The attack came one day after the Post reported that at least four Trump Organization golf properties had on display a fake Time magazine with Trump on the cover and flattering headlines about his reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” which aired on NBC.

Jason Schwartz contributed to this report.

From CNN.Com:

Jimmy Kimmel takes on new health care bill, says Sen. Cassidy lied ‘right to my face’

by Frank Pallotta   @frankpallotta September 20, 2017: 9:15 AM ET

Jimmy Kimmel didn’t pull any punches when it came to the Senate’s new health care bill and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, saying that Cassidy lied “right to my face.”

(article continued below the video)

“A few months ago after my son had open heart surgery, which was something I spoke about on the air, a politician, a senator named Bill Cassidy from Louisiana was on my show and he wasn’t very honest,” Kimmel said opening Tuesday night’s show.

Kimmel then explained how Cassidy came up with what the senator called the “Jimmy Kimmel Test,” which according to the host was a test that said that “No family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise because they can’t afford it.”

“He agreed to that,” Kimmel said. “He said he would only support a healthcare bill that made sure a child like mine would get the health coverage he needs, no matter how much money his parents make.”

Shortly after Cassidy’s May 2017 appearance on Kimmel’s show, Cassidy spoke to CNN about a separate healthcare bill he had just introduced, and had co-sponsored with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. Unlike the Graham-Cassidy bill, that bill would have avoided lifetime coverage limits, and extended protection to those with preexisting conditions.

In Tuesday’s show, Kimmel explained that a new bill proposed last week by Cassidy and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham “actually does pass the Jimmy Kimmel Test” in that with this bill “your child with a pre-existing condition will get the care he needs if, and only if, his father is Jimmy Kimmel.”

“Otherwise, you might be screwed,” he said.

Kimmel continued thrashing Cassidy, saying that the senator not only failed the Jimmy Kimmel test, but that “he failed the Bill Cassidy test.”

Cassidy, in an appearance Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day,” said of Kimmel: “I’m sorry he does not understand.”

He insisted that the bill provides broader health care coverage than now exists.

“There are more people who will be covered under this bill than under the status quo,” Cassidy said. “Everybody fears change. Even if it’s worse to better, they don’t want change.”

During his seven-minute monologue, Kimmel also made the point that those in congress trying to push the bill into reality are counting on the American people to be “overwhelmed with all the information.”

“Most of the Congresspeople who vote on this bill probably won’t even read it. And they want us to do the same thing,” he said. “They want us to treat it like an iTunes service agreement. And this guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied right to my face.”

Kimmel then showed a clip of himself asking Cassidy in May if he believed that every American, regardless of income should get regular checkups and maternity care in the same way that people who have health insurance receive the care. Cassidy responded “yep” in the clip.

“‘Yep’ is Washington for ‘Nope,'” Kimmel said.

Kimmel said he never imagined he would ever get wrapped up in an issue like health care.

“This is not my area of expertise. My area of expertise is eating pizza,” he said. “And that’s really about it.”

Kimmel then ended his monologue telling Cassidy that there’s a new Jimmy Kimmel test for him.

“It’s called a lie detector test,” he said. “You’re welcome to stop by the studio and take it anytime.”

In a statement, Cassidy did not directly address Kimmel’s monologue, but reiterated his commitment to the latest proposed legislation.

“We have a September 30th deadline on our promise,” Cassidy said in a statement, referring to some Republicans’ plan to repeal Obamacare. “Let’s finish the job. We must because there is a mother and father whose child will have insurance because of Graham Cassidy Heller Johnson. There is someone whose pre-existing condition will be addressed because of GCHJ.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published September 20, 2017: 12:17 AM ET

We are now in a low point in American history. But we survived Nixon, we survived George W. Bush. We will always survive. They can force us down, they can call the people protesting Nazis (Nazis!) the alt-left. They can force their god down our throats. They can ignore science. They can try to give tax breaks to the rich and leave roughly 15-20 million Americans without health insurance. They can try to pass draconian immigration laws in a country of immigrants. They can try to stop a woman’s right to choose or a gay couple’s right to marry.

Guess what? We always win in the end. The religious right, the alt-right, the Nazis, the climate deniers – they will end up in the dustbin of history, just like those that opposed the Civil Rights Act and the traitors that made up the Confederacy. Why? Because Americans, down deep, realize that in order for the truths of the Declaration to be “self-evident” and “unalienable,” they have to be true for EVERYONE. There was a time when blacks were slaves and Native Americans were slaughtered and women couldn’t vote and certain churches, mosques, and temples were not protected as promised and African-Americans were separate but not equal and gays and lesbians couldn’t marry. See, we as a country, we come around (often slowly). You may not like or agree with an idea or a law, and you have the absolute right to petition your lawmakers. But down deep, to love this country is to love the ideas it was founded upon. And, yes, some of our Founding Fathers were flawed men – but we are not here to speak of individual flaws. We are here to revel and rejoice in their ideas. To be an American is to look around and realize that that the people at work, in your neighborhood, at the mall, are different than you, yet the same. They are Americans, and they deserve the chance to fully understand what that means. The rights are for all or the rights are for none. There is no in between. Not here. Not ever.

Michael-Patrick Harrington
Ambler, Pennsylvania

From CNN.com:

DC’s Lincoln Memorial vandalized with spray-painted expletive
Miranda Green

By Miranda Green, CNN

Washington (CNN)The National Park Service is actively working to remove graffiti found spray-painted in red on a pillar of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall early Tuesday morning.
The graffiti was discovered around 4:30 a.m. ET Tuesday and appears to say “[expletive] law,” according to a statement provided by NPS. NPS also found indecipherable graffiti in silver spray-painted over a map of the Smithsonian museums in another area of the National Mall.

Both sites of vandalism are already being actively cleaned up by a National Mall and Memorial Parks monument preservation crew. Cleanup will continue until all evidence of the graffiti is gone, according to the NPS statement. The United States Park Police is currently investigating the incident.

This is not the first time that national monuments in DC have been tampered with. In February, the World War II, DC War Memorial, Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial were all vandalized with conspiracy-filled graffiti.

The graffiti consisted of text written in sharpie or magic marker, officials said, and included the words “Jackie shot JFK” and a message related to the September 11 attacks, according to US Park Police spokesperson Sgt. Anna Rose.

Back in 2013, the statues of Abraham Lincoln inside the Lincoln Memorial and Joseph Henry, outside the headquarters of the Smithsonian Institution, were also vandalized with green paint

I’ve tried to stop making political posts. Too many trolls. No debate – just name-calling. But I have to say, for the first time in a long time, I respect John McCain. I always liked him. My dad did too. Vince was a lifelong Republican who despised Bush II. We agreed there, but we also agreed on McCain (and I’m a lifelong Democrat). But when McCain ran for president, he called himself a maverick too many times to count, then said he wasn’t, then pulled Sarah Palin out of the obscurity in which she so clearly belonged. (Thank god for Tina Fey!) While I didn’t want McCain to win, I thought he was a great candidate – until he plainly wasn’t. He became wishy-washy. But last night’s Senate vote earned him the mantle of maverick once again. In the twilight of his time in public service, he served the public by following his conscience, not his party.

Friday’s Supreme Court decision in favor of same sex marriage is the culmination of so many people fighting to be recognized, struggling to have the same rights as everyone else, while hate groups and the Christian Right bit at their heels and compared them to animals. Yesterday, I was with two of my favorite people on the planet, two little boys named Søren and Silas (sons of Margaux Kent and her husband Walter). We were playing with action figures and looking for Chewbacca’s head when Margaux brought her laptop into the room. To listen to our President and watch the people on the steps on the Supreme Court celebrating while two little people positioned the Hulk and Iron Man, I realized that there is a possibility that we have just made this planet better for the next generation and that superheroes come in all shapes and sizes.

About damn time…

From RollingStone.Com:
Congress Ends Medical Marijuana Prohibition With Spending Bill Provision
Federal drug agents will no longer be able to raid retail outlets

By Kory Grow | December 16, 2014

Congress passed a federal spending measure over the weekend that includes a provision that will end the federal government’s medical marijuana ban. The measure precludes the Department of Justice and the DEA from preventing states from passing laws that authorize medical marijuana use, distribution, possession or cultivation. The L.A. Times reports that the prospective law would prohibit federal drug agents from raiding retail outlets in the 32 states and District of Columbia where the drug is legal for medicinal use. President Obama is expected to sign the spending bill this week, making it a law.

“The federal government should never get in between patients and their medicine,” said Democratic Representative Barbara Lee of California told the Times.

The spending measure, which totals 1,603 pages, was championed by Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacher and Democrat Rep. Sam Farr, both of California. “This is a victory for so many,” Rohrabacher told the Times. He added that Congress’ approval of the measure marked “the first time in decades that the federal government has curtailed its oppressive prohibition of marijuana.” The bipartisan push for the bill could also appeal to millennial voters whom Republicans are trying to attract, the Times suggest.

Despite the prospective law, the DEA continues to classify marijuana in the same category as heroin, LSD, ecstasy and peyote, substances with no “accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” The agency currently considers marijuana more dangerous than cocaine.

Last month, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C. voted to legalize marijuana to varying degrees. Because D.C. is a district and not a state, political pundits speculated at the time that politicians would attempt to overrule the vote.

That worry came true within the same spending measure that passed the anti-prohibition provision. Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, who has opposed marijuana laws, included an amendment that could overturn recreational weed laws in the district for much of 2015, according to The Washington Post. He has since become persona non grata at many businesses in the city. The Post reports that one shop, Capitol Hill Bikes, has gone so far as to tape an image of the congressman to its door with the words “NOT WELCOME” written on it, while a tumblr has popped up urging Washingtonians to blacklist Harris.

“D.C. is not a state,” Harris told reporters in his defense last week, according to Talking Points Memo. “I’m sorry, it’s not a state.”

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/congress-ends-medical-marijuana-prohibition-spending-bill-provision-20141216#ixzz3M5KL84Ye

I am so, so bummed…I have to remind myself that politics is cyclical, but this is really bad…at least Pennsylvania now has a Democratic governor who will open the health care exchange…

From the Associated Press:

GOP takeover: Republicans surge to Senate control
By DAVID ESPO and ROBERT FURLOW
Nov. 5, 2014 2:08 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Riding a powerful wave of voter discontent, resurgent Republicans captured control of the Senate and tightened their grip on the House Tuesday night in elections certain to complicate President Barack Obama’s final two years in office.

Republican Mitch McConnell led the way to a new Senate majority, dispatching Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky after a $78 million campaign of unrelieved negativity. Voters are “hungry for new leadership. They want a reason to be hopeful,” said the man now in line to become majority leader and set the Senate agenda.

TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE…