They posted pictures of their employees helping police destroy firearms. This is a good way to piss off the gun owning community, and that community likely has quite a lot in common with the (non-kitchen) knife-owning community. And they were caught donating to anti-gun politicians, too.

They are trying to walk the public relations disaster back, but in the process, admitted it isn't the first time.

If this is true, it represents a dramatic escalation of the tactics used against firearms businesses. It's one thing for an informal collection of individuals in a particular industry to blacklist people they don't like. (Not a GOOD thing, mind you). It's another when that blacklist process extends to your general financial life, including such basic necessities as having a bank account.

Details here. That many means they mean to pass it if they can. They are probably thinking three things: they will get Republicans in the Senate on the record and might even pass it, they might get Trump to sign it if they do because they have successfully pressured him on bump stocks, and either way, Bloomberg will give them campaign donations.

It's not completely insane. It's unclear if she wants to run. But, I want to make it clear: America is not, and should not become, a nation where husbands and wives run for office, especially not the Presidency. It becomes nothing more than a way to subvert the rule against more than two terms in the White House. We already have Congresspeople passing their seats -- in practice, not by law -- to their sons, daughters, or wives. We already have the shameful history of the Bush dynasty. We already have the Kennedy political clan.

We must not become a nation whose government is inherited. That is exactly what we fought a revolution to escape.

Axios

John Fry, an analyst with the Internal Revenue Service, was charged Thursday with leaking Michael Cohen's confidential bank records to Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti.

Why it matters: Avenatti posted a report on Twitter last May detailing payments that various firms made to a shell company Cohen set up called Essential Consultants — the same company Cohen used to pay off Daniels — for "insights into understanding the new administration." The companies included AT&T, Novartis and Columbus Nova, a U.S. investment firm with ties to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

What are the takeaways here?

Cohen is slimy and may have been improperly peddling his claims of influence in the Trump administration for cash from a variety of sources, some of which may have ties to Russians.

At least three people at the IRS broke the law and leaked a private tax return and/or other private financial data to a private individual (Avenatti and journalists) for the purpose of doing political damage to the President.

NPR

In the days after Superstorm Sandy soaked the East Coast, New York City Department of Transportation workers cataloged the damage to the agency's fleet of vehicles. That information was handed over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which would give the city enough money to replace the damaged vehicles with new ones.

Only one problem: Many of those vehicles were damaged before Sandy hit. Some hadn't been operational in years and had been marked for salvage long before the storm.

Remember when people said the disaster relief bills for Sandy were bloated and vulnerable to fraud? Remember when Democrats accused Republicans of being heartless for not voting on relief legislation they hadn't had a chance to read?

Yeah, there's been fraud. Millions of dollars worth of fraud, by government workers as part of their job.

Trump is building a big beautiful wall in California to keep out the murderers.

I've often asked the question, "Why are gun control activists so violent?" I can't take credit for it; I think I got it from Saysuncle. But it seems to me that the better formulation is "Why are violent people gun control activists?"

I suspect the reason, deep down, is that they think you are just as violent and unable to make moral choices as they are.

It turns out, after I wrote this post but before I published it, someone else had the identical thought.

Washington State man threatens to shoot sheriffs who do not enforce an unenforceable gun control law.

Why is it unenforceable? It's a background check requirement on private sales. Two criminals who don't care about the law will simply engage in their desired trade without police involvement.

More importantly, how do terroristic threats against sheriffs who realize this is unenforceable and an infringement on the 2nd Amendment make the situation any better?

(Well, ok, they may result in said activist going to jail, which based on his threats is probably an improvement).

But it's very telling that this guy who is supposedly against gun violence is threatening to use guns to commit violence against people he disagrees with.

Or rather, she unreasonably parses words to deny a "spy" while admitting to multiple confidential human sources within the campaign but not "placed" by the FBI within the campaign. Details here, including the suspected identity.

The Federalist

Voter ID requirements do not affect voter turnout, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The researchers looked at 1.3 billion data points on U.S. voters from 2008 to 2013, and they found that “the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.”

This guts the only legal argument against such laws.

Given the highhanded and improper treatment Mueller has already imposed on those facing him in court (putting Manafort in solitary confinement, threatening Michael Flynn's children, abusing lawyer-client privilege, and generally engaging in unnecessary, showy, and prejudicial military raids on his targets with tips to the media), placing a gag order on Roger Stone will effectively prevent Stone from defending himself in the media and the public eye against those extra-judicial and improper tactics.

Not that that stopped the judge from doing so.

Walkback begins.

Conservative activist slugged in the face on campus. There was also a death threat. This was a real incident. So are these.

Meanwhile, the left has to fake their hate crimes.

I don't normally suggest giving money in online fundraisers, but this one might actually be worth it. Sharyll Attkisson needs your help to get justice.

McCabe strongly implies the FBI did exactly that. The obvious real reason for the investigation was to force Sessions to stay at arms' length from the trumped up (pardon the pun) investigation into Trump.

Sara Carter

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker originally believed Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of highly classified information was “alarming” and “appalling.” At the time, he believed her use of a private server to send the classified emails was sufficient enough to secure an indictment to possibly charge her for violations under the Espionage Act, for mishandling sensitive government documents.

Baker held onto that belief until shortly before his former boss FBI Director James Comey made the public announcement not to charge Clinton on July 5, 2017. He said he changed his position only after arguing and discussing the situation over a period of time with senior colleagues at the bureau, to include Comey. Comey, however, had already written an early draft in May, exonerating Clinton and changing “grossly negligent,” a legal term for mishandling classified information to “extremely careless,” according to drafts obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017.

In other words, Comey lied about why he was declining to present the case to the DOJ. He said it was because no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. His own general counsel, Baker, clearly disagreed.

Lara Logan (CBS commentator) admits media are liberal.

Sara Carter

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency still have not granted access to Republican lawmakers to review hundreds of unmasking requests made on Americans by Senior Obama Administration officials, SaraACarter.com has learned.

Despite an order from President Trump more than a year ago, ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes, R-CA, on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said his committee has been stymied in its investigation into the unmasking requests that rocked Washington D.C. when discovered in 2017.

What are they hiding?

Legal Insurrection

The Hill article quotes the suspect’s older brother as bemoaning: “There was no attempt to try to work out a peaceful solution.”

Actually, there was an attempt to try to work out a peaceful solution: that’s precisely what “Don’t reach for the gun!” and “Put your hands up!” are. It’s an explicit attempt to try to work out a peaceful solution. That goes out the window, however, once the suspect actually reaches for the gun.

I'm sure everyone has, at some point, been startled awake by someone yelling at them. Do you even remember what they actually said that woke you? How much voluntary control do you have over your hands in the moment that you are startled awake and before you have even comprehended what woke you up?

It was very, very stupid of this person to fall asleep in his car at a drive-through window with a gun in his lap. Based on that alone, I rather suspect he was up to no good (in general, if not at that specific moment). Police responding to that situation were understandably in what I will charitably call a heightened state of alertness. I can't blame them for that. And I wasn't there to see exactly what happened.

However... it is unreasonable to wake someone up by yelling at them and then shoot them for not immediately understanding what you yelled and immediately complying with those orders.

The burning question: which two? Baker says he doesn't know. This report suggests it was the AG (Sessions) and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

I don't know how many times I can write "This was a coup attempt" before I wear out those keys.

Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records of communication of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the Office of the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or the Office of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussing the 25th Amendment or presidential fitness. Additionally, the lawsuit seeks all recordings made by any official in the Office of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of meetings in the Executive Office of the President or Vice President.

The suit was filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). The lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office.

Prior to this lawsuit, I had assumed that any discussions of the 25th Amendment or wearing a wire around the president were verbal only, with nothing written down, and no actual recordings made.

If that was the case, DOJ could have simply responded that they had no such records. But they did not. So there may actually be records related to this, which would be an act of mind-boggling stupidity on the part of the coup plotters.

Conservative Treehouse puts together some interesting facts that suggest the FBI may have bugged the White House. It's speculation -- for now. But put it together with this lack of response to the Judicial Watch FOIA...

The news comes out Saturday, after the initial attack allegations made headlines for weeks. By Monday, it will be old news... until the next fake hate crime.

Read the whole thing.

Looks like the "budget deal" is basically one big poison pill. Trump should refuse to sign it until trustworthy experts can go over the whole thing and remove the poison pills.