“Their critics need to spend more time with teenagers; far brighter than they are given credit for.”
HRW said it, and Ricky liked it.
So how about one of you two explain to me why I should take advice/opinion on gun control from this same group of mental giants who were eating Tide Pods last week?
“An organization that monitors Russian trolling has spotted a peculiar similarity between certain types of social media postings that went up immediately after the Oct. 1 Las Vegas festival shootings and again after last week’s shootings at a school in Parkland, Fla.
The pattern: A day after the tragedy, the trolls tweet on all sides of the gun control debate. A day later, they push conspiracy theories.
It’s a formula designed to stir up emotions over mass violence and gun laws, and more broadly to foment anger and exasperation over the U.S. political system.
“The purpose is to stoke tensions,” said Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which is financing researchers following 600 or so Twitter accounts suspected of being operated by Russian “trolls” — pro-Kremlin mouthpieces aiming to encourage discord in the United States.
“It is also bait to attract a larger following from American users by talking about issues that we care about.”
The 600 accounts monitored by the project known as Hamilton 68 put out an average of 20,000 tweets a day, Schafer said, and they often focus on hot topics that divide Americans.”
Again, why should I take the opinion of people mostly unqualified to even handle a gun on issues involving something they know little to nothing about?
“With all that’s going on in this report from the Free Beacon, it’s amazing that our military is still hitting all of its recruiting goals. But somehow they are.
They don’t have all that many people to pick from, however. Just as the military is entering into a period of renewed expansion, there are fewer qualified candidates and even fewer expressing an interest. According to the Pentagon, if every person in the country age 18 to 24 showed up to apply, roughly three out of four would have to be turned away because they simply couldn’t qualify.
Nearly three-quarters of young Americans are ineligible to serve in the United States military due to obesity, criminal record, or lack of education, according to a new report by the Heritage Foundation.
The contracted pool of Americans aged 17 to 24 who are fit to enlist in the armed services poses an “alarming” threat to national security and risks derailing the Trump administration’s path to rebuilding a depleted military, the report found, citing Pentagon data.
The Pentagon estimates that 24 million of the 34 million Americans between 17 and 24 years old, or 71 percent, are unable to serve.
Health problems are the greatest obstacle to military service, with more than half of the young people who are ineligible for service suffering from a health issue.
This is particularly bad news at the moment because the Army is getting ready to recruit up to 80,000 new soldiers in the coming two years. The Navy isn’t quite as hard up, but they’re going to need 30,000 more sailors. All of this recruiting will be required to expand the service in line with the plans put in place by President Trump.
So what is disqualifying so many of them? For the majority, it’s health issues. Of those, more than half are too obese to be accepted. (The Army is saying they’ll take you if you’re “a little chubby” but if you’re seriously obese there won’t be time in basic training to whip you into shape.) Others are showing up with joint problems, respiratory ailments and related issues. Others failed to graduate high school or get an equivalent degree and are refused entry until they can meet the educational standards.”
1. A few young people may be eating Tide pods. Many more Trumpkins are killing themselves with opioids.
2. It wasn’t young people who chose the dumbest, most dishonest and most amoral of all of the Republican candidates in the primaries in 2016.
3. Young people understand the economics of trade much better than Trumpkins whose views follow those of Hugo Chavez and 1930s style protectionism.
4. Young people don’t generally get their news from Hannity or other nitwits at Fox or other sources I will not name.
5. I disagree with the gun control position of the televised young people. However, I agree with HRW that young people are “brighter than they are given credit for”. The same can not be said for all groups.
‘Between 1979 and 2014, meanwhile, the percentage of poor Americans dropped to 20 percent from 24 percent. The percentage of lower-middle-class Americans dropped to 17 from 24. The percentage of Americans who were upper middle class (earning $100,000 to $350,000) shot upward to 30 percent from 13 percent.
There’s a fair bit of social mobility. Half of all Americans wind up in the top 10 percent of earners at at least one point in their career. One in nine spend some time in the top 1 percent.
Poverty has been transformed by falling prices and government support. “When poverty is defined in terms of what people consume rather than what they earn, we find that the American poverty rate has declined by 90 percent since 1960,” Pinker writes.’
The great thing about Hannity having 3 million followers on Twitter while Mona Charen has 8500 and Richard Brookhiser has 4500 is that you can actually have discussions with the smart people. However, all is not serious. Last night we were remembering listening to Tom Lehrer comedy songs in the 1970s. Only the nerdy, politically active kids did that.
According to the Sun Sentinel, Deputy Scot Peterson resigned Thursday.
After video surfaced, corroborating witness reports confirming the absence of Peterson’s involvement an investigation was initiated Wednesday and Peterson was suspended without pay.
From the Sun Sentinel:
The police officer assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resigned Thursday, under investigation for failing to enter the building as a gunman opened fire and killed 17 people.
Sheriff Scott Israel said Deputy Scot Peterson should have “went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.”
Peterson, 54, came under scrutiny after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz entered the school with an AR-15 rifle and killed 14 students and three educators on Valentine’s Day.
Peterson has been a school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas since 2009. He began working for the sheriff’s office in 1985. His annual salary in 2016 was $75,673.72, according to sheriff’s office records.
The Sheriff’s Office released documents Thursday showing that Peterson was put under an internal investigation the day before. Israel said that Peterson was suspended without pay.
The agency also announced that it was placing two officers on a restricted assignment while a separate internal investigation took place.
Sheriff Scott Israel was a might bit defensive during CNN’s open forum last night. I think we now know why.”
—————————————
“Updates:
Since we published this post, more information has become available, none of it good.
According to the Miami Herald, the sheriff’s office received a tip in November that Cruz could be a school shooter, a tip that was unfortunately ignored:
In November, a tipster called BSO to say Cruz “could be a school shooter in the making” but deputies did not write up a report on that warning. It came just weeks after a relative called urging BSO to seize his weapons. Two years ago, according to a newly released timeline of interactions with Cruz’s family, a deputy investigated a report that Cruz “planned to shoot up the school” — intelligence that was forwarded to the school’s resource officer, with no apparent result.
The FBI received a similar tip in January and also failed to follow up.”
“A former State Department official and associate of Sen. John McCain has invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify in connection with questions from the House Intelligence Committee about the anti-Trump dossier’s Russian sources, according to a law enforcement source.
David J. Kramer, who is a central player in how the unverified Trump dossier made its way to the FBI in late 2016, testified before the committee in December in a closed-door session, indicating he had information about the dossier’s sources. A subpoena was issued for mid-January, as first reported by The Washington Examiner.
The law enforcement source confirmed, however, that Kramer did not appear and has exercised his Fifth Amendment rights.
Yet Kramer gave a videotaped deposition last December in separate civil litigation against BuzzFeed about the dossier and his contact with the former British spy who compiled it, Christopher Steele. Steele was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS to write and research the dossier, with funding from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
According to British court records obtained by Fox News as part of its ongoing investigation of the Trump dossier, Kramer was personally briefed in late November 2016 by Steele in Surrey, England. After that briefing, Steele told the British court that an arrangement was made so that Fusion GPS — co-founded by Glenn Simpson – would provide hard copies of the dossier to McCain via Kramer. Shortly afterward, the dossier was given to the FBI, which already had its own copy from Steele.
Fox News has repeatedly reached out to Kramer, and this week posed four questions to Kramer’s Florida attorney Marcos Jimenez, who is handling one of the defamation suits filed by Russian technology oligarchs against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified dossier in January 2017. Fox News asked why Kramer took the Fifth; why he’s no longer cooperating with the committee; why they want to keep the BuzzFeed deposition under seal; and whether Kramer helped provide the document to BuzzFeed.
There was no immediate response from Kramer’s lawyer to an email and phone message seeking comment.”
If young people understand the economics of trade better than I do then all I need to do is wait it out. Hope ya’ll don’t mind if I support infrastructure, a solid safety net and rational healthcare policies while we’re waiting for our next crop to make the world a better place. Thankfully, most of them support those things too.
I do not despise the next generation: the healthy, the sick; the fat, the thin; the beautiful, the ugly; the educated, the uneducated; the super-talented, and those less so—and all those in between. I have great compassion for them. They’ve received some good things from us, but they’re also inheriting some terrible doozies. More than anything I pray for God to revive and move in their generation, to bring them the wisdom to rely on Him, courage to stand against the wind, and peace of mind for all that is to come.
“Deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office are guarding the home of the school resource officer who was stationed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after his family requested the protection, according to multiple news reports on Thursday.
Local Fox affiliate WSVN said it sent a reporter to the Boynton Beach, Florida, home of Broward County Sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson for an interview when the reporter was met with six deputies “standing guard outside.”
Peterson’s family is believed to have asked for the protection, according to NBC affiliate WPTV reporter Andrew Lofholm.
Peterson resigned from his post at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following the shooting at the campus in which 17 people died. He was later criticized after an internal investigation found he never entered the building where the shooting occurred.
“I am devastated,” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news conference. “Sick to my stomach. He never went in.”
Peterson, who was armed and in uniform at the time, reportedly did “nothing” and remained outside of the building for at least four minutes during the incident, according to Israel.
Peterson had been the high school’s resource officer since 2009 and made a salary of $75,673.72 in 2016, according to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel.”
————————-
“Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals for allegedly conspiring to sow confusion in the 2016 presidential election. The chance of extraditing any of the accused from Vladimir Putin’s Russia is zero.
Some of the Russians’ Keystone Cops efforts to disrupt the election favored Donald Trump (as well as Bernie Sanders). Yet Mueller’s team made it clear that the Russians neither colluded with any U.S. citizens nor had any material effect on the election’s outcome.
But from here on out, there will be ironies, paradoxes, and unintended consequences with just about everything Mueller does.
Is it now time to prosecute foreigners for attempting to interfere with a U.S. election? If so, then surely Christopher Steele, the author of the Fusion GPS dossier, is far more culpable and vulnerable than the 13 bumbling Russians.
Steele is not a U.S. citizen. Steele colluded with Russian interests in compiling his lurid dossier about Donald Trump. Steele did not register as a foreign agent. And Steele was paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to find dirt on political rival Trump and his campaign.
In other words, Steele’s position is far worse than that of the Russians for a variety of reasons. One, he is easily extraditable while the Russians are not. Two, his efforts really did affect the race, given that the dossier was systematically leaked to major media and served as a basis for the U.S. government to spy on American citizens. Three, unlike with the Russians, no one disputes that American citizens—Hillary Clinton, members of the Democratic National Committee, and anti-Trump partisan Glenn Simpson and his Fusion GPS team—colluded by paying for Steele’s work.
Mueller’s team has also leveraged a guilty plea from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for making false statements to FBI investigators. If the Flynn case is now the Mueller standard, then we know that a number of high-ranking officials are vulnerable to such legal exposure.
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr deliberately omitted on federal disclosure forms the fact that his wife, an expert on Russia, worked on the Fusion GPS dossier.
Steele himself probably lied to the FBI went he claimed he had not leaked the dossier’s contents to the media.
Hillary Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills likely lied to FBI investigator Peter Strzok (who had also interviewed Flynn) when they claimed they had no idea that Clinton was using a private and illegal email server until the story went public. In fact, Abedin and Mills had communicated with Clinton over the same server—as did then-President Barack Obama, who likewise denied that he knew about the improper server.
Former FBI Director James Comey likely lied to Congress when he claimed that his exoneration of Clinton came after he had interviewed her. We now know from documents that he drafted a statement about the conclusion of the investigation even before he met with her.
As far as obstruction charges go, Mueller has other possible targets. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch met secretly with Bill Clinton on a jet parked on a tarmac in Phoenix shortly before the Justice Department closed the probe of Hillary Clinton and chose not to pursue charges against her. Comey said Lynch asked him not to use the word “investigation” when discussing the Clinton email probe. Text messages between Strzok and fellow FBI official Lisa Page suggest that Lynch knew in advance about the conclusions Comey would reach in the investigation.
Did you catch (in Brooks’ article) that the existing safety net plus the lower prices produced by free trade have reduced poverty by 90% since 1960.
Since we are running huge deficits, would you be willing to pay more for your healthcare as a Medicare recipient (in a few years when you are old enough) so there might be funds to spend on infrastructure?
AJ, We have known for almost a year that McCain directed the dossier to the FBI. He thought Trump was “the Manchurian candidate”. My son laughed at that idea. “Manchurian candidates” are supposed to be attractive; not ridiculous imbeciles.
Ricky, those stats might be more impressive if there were not the constant pressure to cut ‘the existing safety net’ which typically comes coupled with the vilification of those who use it.
If we are concerned about paying for infrastructure, I would suggest that we make a little change to the recent tax law, and have corporate tax cuts end when individual cuts end. That way we can more fully and fairly assess our options. More young people will be eligible to vote then, so they will have a real voice. :–)
1. Those stats prove that there has been no cutting to the “safety net”, only expansion.
2. So your answer to question #2 is “No.”, and that is our problem. At some point those young taxpayers aren’t going to ask, they are just going to cut. Our creditors will demand it.
1. Those stats prove that there has been no cutting to the “safety net”, only expansion.
2. So your answer to question #2 is “No.”, and that is our problem. At some point those young taxpayers aren’t going to ask, they are just going to cut. Our creditors will demand it.
Ricky,
1. I haven’t read the Brooks piece yet, so I’m taking your word for the stats, and what you said was “the existing safety net. I’m taking that to mean the safety net we have now existing as well as that available since the date given (1960). My point is that Republicans and Conservatives in general, and you in particular, have not ceased to complain about people who use the safety net. The political pressure to cut it is constant, and so is the general vilification of those who do use it.
2. Regarding the deficit, I’m apparently in agreement with most congressional Republicans in not being all that concerned about it. Although their lips may claim differently, their votes make them a liar. And don’t get me wrong, tax cuts are fine when appropriate. But intelligent, honest people who care about the deficit don’t cut corporate taxes when there is already a huge deficit and a firmly stated, politically supported intention of dramatically increasing spending. I do not find that credible.
3. Healthcare is more complicated than I have time for right now. But if someone wants to put Medicare payments on a generous income-contingent sliding scale that’s fine with me. The point is, in a wealthy, powerful, influential nation, everyone should have reasonable access to healthcare they can easily afford—not just the old and the young. I see that as part of the safety net, and reasonable infrastructure.
4. Young taxpayers don’t get to decide policies unilaterally. Voters do. I think they will be smart enough to realize that even if we are not.
PS I cannot imagine that I have ever given you reason to believe that you may, with impunity, put words in my mouth. Don’t. It’s possible that all the time you’re spending conversing with the ‘smart people’ on Twitter has dulled your sensibility for ordinary conversation with more ordinary folk. I hope this has helped you out a bit. ;–)
““Their critics need to spend more time with teenagers; far brighter than they are given credit for.””
That’s so laughably patronizing. Can anyone provide some objective means of measuring how bright teenagers are, especially in comparison to the rest of us stupid geezers?
rickyweaver, that’s not really persuasive. What were Obama’s numbers among teens? What are the reasons they give for disliking Trump, who do/would they prefer, what reasons would they give? Rabid pro-aborts also oppose Trump. That doesn’t make them admirable.
“A protester briefly interrupted President Trump as he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, before quickly being ushered out of the hall.
As Trump began to run down his administration’s biggest achievement — tax reform and the confirmation of new federal judges — a man toward the front of the stage began jeering him.
The man was quickly removed from the hall as thousands of attendees, many of them wearing the Trump campaign’s signature red “Make America Great Again” hats, booed him and chanted “USA.””
Nor should he. So many missed opportunities to do something about Cruz were missed or ignored. He made multiple threats to shoot up the school, yet the authorities did nothing.
“Nikolas Cruz’s dangerous and disturbing behavior was flagged repeatedly to authorities, both local and federal, over a span of two years starting in February 2016. But no one stopped him before he killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Here’s a time line of incidents where Cruz was reported to law enforcement. Many of the incidents involve the threat of a school shooting.
– Feb. 5, 2016: A Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy is told by an anonymous caller that Nikolas Cruz, then 17, had threatened on Instagram to shoot up his school and posted a photo of himself with guns. The information is forwarded to BSO Deputy Scot Peterson, a school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
– Sept. 23, 2016: A “peer counselor” reports to Peterson that Cruz had possibly ingested gasoline in a suicide attempt, was cutting himself and wanted to buy a gun. A mental health counselor advises against involuntary committing Cruz. The high school says it will conduct a threat assessment.”
—————————
Ricky, I think the choice you present is specious. I’ve already explained how I would deal with infrastructure through a reassessment of corporate tax cuts which should by rights expire when individual cuts expire. But I’m not greatly worried about it. If the young want to pull the plug on me when I am 65 and get the flu, they may do so; I will love them anyway. And if they want to pull the plug on corporate lenders and others who rule the country through corrupt corporate practices, I will love them anyway—and may even think better of their hearts and minds.
According to the evidence you’ve presented, the 90% reduction in poverty rate since 1960 has only been possible because of what you call “the gravy train”. When the time comes, I trust that our collective children will do the best they can. That’s enough for me.
Not quite correct, Debra. The article notes that the 90% reduction in poverty was caused by a combination of a. The gravy train; and b. A sharp reduction in the relative cost of food and other consumer items produced by the free trade of which you are so fond.
If you curtail free trade, you are going to need bigger subsidies from the youngsters who will have more difficulties finding jobs and will have less money as their cost of living will also increase.
Yes, it’s correct. Having listened to you for quite some time, I think we’re all aware of the advantages of cheap goods on our standard of living. But until now you had not informed us of the importance of the ‘gravy train’. OK, some of us did know the safety net (aka gravy train) is important, but apparently you did not, or if you did, there was no sign of it in your conversation.
We should have known that there can be no lasting prosperity without plenty of reasonably good jobs to support the population and stable countries. Perhaps the young ones will be able to have these conversations without the angst and accusations these issues bring out in their elders.
Wow, I think I mischaracterized that Broward Sheriff earlier, but to be more accurate describing him, I’d have to break some of the language rules of this site.
Debra, On the contrary, the young people I have heard speak on this issue would say that I am sugar-coating the problem, are themselves accusatory toward enormous swaths of their fellow Americans and struggle to prevent their angst from morphing into rage.
Clearly, Trump made a mistake by hiring Manafort. However, Manafort made a horrible mistake by going to work on the campaign. Manafort seems to have sought the position without giving any thought to how the position with Trump would bring greatly increased scrutiny to his prior activities.
Wandering Views 
“Their critics need to spend more time with teenagers; far brighter than they are given credit for.”
HRW said it, and Ricky liked it.
So how about one of you two explain to me why I should take advice/opinion on gun control from this same group of mental giants who were eating Tide Pods last week?
“Cuz I don’t see it….
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Looks like another successful Russian operation is ongoing……..
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article201646339.html
“An organization that monitors Russian trolling has spotted a peculiar similarity between certain types of social media postings that went up immediately after the Oct. 1 Las Vegas festival shootings and again after last week’s shootings at a school in Parkland, Fla.
The pattern: A day after the tragedy, the trolls tweet on all sides of the gun control debate. A day later, they push conspiracy theories.
It’s a formula designed to stir up emotions over mass violence and gun laws, and more broadly to foment anger and exasperation over the U.S. political system.
“The purpose is to stoke tensions,” said Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which is financing researchers following 600 or so Twitter accounts suspected of being operated by Russian “trolls” — pro-Kremlin mouthpieces aiming to encourage discord in the United States.
“It is also bait to attract a larger following from American users by talking about issues that we care about.”
The 600 accounts monitored by the project known as Hamilton 68 put out an average of 20,000 tweets a day, Schafer said, and they often focus on hot topics that divide Americans.”
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Again, why should I take the opinion of people mostly unqualified to even handle a gun on issues involving something they know little to nothing about?
Seems…… like a stupid idea.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/22/super-three-quarters-young-americans-couldnt-join-military-wanted/
“With all that’s going on in this report from the Free Beacon, it’s amazing that our military is still hitting all of its recruiting goals. But somehow they are.
They don’t have all that many people to pick from, however. Just as the military is entering into a period of renewed expansion, there are fewer qualified candidates and even fewer expressing an interest. According to the Pentagon, if every person in the country age 18 to 24 showed up to apply, roughly three out of four would have to be turned away because they simply couldn’t qualify.
Nearly three-quarters of young Americans are ineligible to serve in the United States military due to obesity, criminal record, or lack of education, according to a new report by the Heritage Foundation.
The contracted pool of Americans aged 17 to 24 who are fit to enlist in the armed services poses an “alarming” threat to national security and risks derailing the Trump administration’s path to rebuilding a depleted military, the report found, citing Pentagon data.
The Pentagon estimates that 24 million of the 34 million Americans between 17 and 24 years old, or 71 percent, are unable to serve.
Health problems are the greatest obstacle to military service, with more than half of the young people who are ineligible for service suffering from a health issue.
This is particularly bad news at the moment because the Army is getting ready to recruit up to 80,000 new soldiers in the coming two years. The Navy isn’t quite as hard up, but they’re going to need 30,000 more sailors. All of this recruiting will be required to expand the service in line with the plans put in place by President Trump.
So what is disqualifying so many of them? For the majority, it’s health issues. Of those, more than half are too obese to be accepted. (The Army is saying they’ll take you if you’re “a little chubby” but if you’re seriously obese there won’t be time in basic training to whip you into shape.) Others are showing up with joint problems, respiratory ailments and related issues. Others failed to graduate high school or get an equivalent degree and are refused entry until they can meet the educational standards.”
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AJ @ 6:42
1. A few young people may be eating Tide pods. Many more Trumpkins are killing themselves with opioids.
2. It wasn’t young people who chose the dumbest, most dishonest and most amoral of all of the Republican candidates in the primaries in 2016.
3. Young people understand the economics of trade much better than Trumpkins whose views follow those of Hugo Chavez and 1930s style protectionism.
4. Young people don’t generally get their news from Hannity or other nitwits at Fox or other sources I will not name.
5. I disagree with the gun control position of the televised young people. However, I agree with HRW that young people are “brighter than they are given credit for”. The same can not be said for all groups.
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The best parts of this article by David Brooks are the economic statistics:
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From the article:
‘Between 1979 and 2014, meanwhile, the percentage of poor Americans dropped to 20 percent from 24 percent. The percentage of lower-middle-class Americans dropped to 17 from 24. The percentage of Americans who were upper middle class (earning $100,000 to $350,000) shot upward to 30 percent from 13 percent.
There’s a fair bit of social mobility. Half of all Americans wind up in the top 10 percent of earners at at least one point in their career. One in nine spend some time in the top 1 percent.
Poverty has been transformed by falling prices and government support. “When poverty is defined in terms of what people consume rather than what they earn, we find that the American poverty rate has declined by 90 percent since 1960,” Pinker writes.’
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The great thing about Hannity having 3 million followers on Twitter while Mona Charen has 8500 and Richard Brookhiser has 4500 is that you can actually have discussions with the smart people. However, all is not serious. Last night we were remembering listening to Tom Lehrer comedy songs in the 1970s. Only the nerdy, politically active kids did that.
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It. Just. Gets. Worse. 😦
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/02/marjory-stoneman-douglas-high-school-resource-officer-resigns-stayed-outside-and-did-not-engage-shooter/
“The Florida school shooting story gets worse.
According to the Sun Sentinel, Deputy Scot Peterson resigned Thursday.
After video surfaced, corroborating witness reports confirming the absence of Peterson’s involvement an investigation was initiated Wednesday and Peterson was suspended without pay.
From the Sun Sentinel:
The police officer assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resigned Thursday, under investigation for failing to enter the building as a gunman opened fire and killed 17 people.
Sheriff Scott Israel said Deputy Scot Peterson should have “went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.”
Peterson, 54, came under scrutiny after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz entered the school with an AR-15 rifle and killed 14 students and three educators on Valentine’s Day.
Peterson has been a school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas since 2009. He began working for the sheriff’s office in 1985. His annual salary in 2016 was $75,673.72, according to sheriff’s office records.
The Sheriff’s Office released documents Thursday showing that Peterson was put under an internal investigation the day before. Israel said that Peterson was suspended without pay.
The agency also announced that it was placing two officers on a restricted assignment while a separate internal investigation took place.
Sheriff Scott Israel was a might bit defensive during CNN’s open forum last night. I think we now know why.”
—————————————
“Updates:
Since we published this post, more information has become available, none of it good.
According to the Miami Herald, the sheriff’s office received a tip in November that Cruz could be a school shooter, a tip that was unfortunately ignored:
In November, a tipster called BSO to say Cruz “could be a school shooter in the making” but deputies did not write up a report on that warning. It came just weeks after a relative called urging BSO to seize his weapons. Two years ago, according to a newly released timeline of interactions with Cruz’s family, a deputy investigated a report that Cruz “planned to shoot up the school” — intelligence that was forwarded to the school’s resource officer, with no apparent result.
The FBI received a similar tip in January and also failed to follow up.”
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I was sure pretty sure McCain’s dirty fingers were all over the “Trump dossier.”
This just confirms what I suspected.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/22/mccain-associate-takes-fifth-on-trump-dossier-questions.amp.html
“A former State Department official and associate of Sen. John McCain has invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify in connection with questions from the House Intelligence Committee about the anti-Trump dossier’s Russian sources, according to a law enforcement source.
David J. Kramer, who is a central player in how the unverified Trump dossier made its way to the FBI in late 2016, testified before the committee in December in a closed-door session, indicating he had information about the dossier’s sources. A subpoena was issued for mid-January, as first reported by The Washington Examiner.
The law enforcement source confirmed, however, that Kramer did not appear and has exercised his Fifth Amendment rights.
Yet Kramer gave a videotaped deposition last December in separate civil litigation against BuzzFeed about the dossier and his contact with the former British spy who compiled it, Christopher Steele. Steele was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS to write and research the dossier, with funding from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
According to British court records obtained by Fox News as part of its ongoing investigation of the Trump dossier, Kramer was personally briefed in late November 2016 by Steele in Surrey, England. After that briefing, Steele told the British court that an arrangement was made so that Fusion GPS — co-founded by Glenn Simpson – would provide hard copies of the dossier to McCain via Kramer. Shortly afterward, the dossier was given to the FBI, which already had its own copy from Steele.
Fox News has repeatedly reached out to Kramer, and this week posed four questions to Kramer’s Florida attorney Marcos Jimenez, who is handling one of the defamation suits filed by Russian technology oligarchs against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified dossier in January 2017. Fox News asked why Kramer took the Fifth; why he’s no longer cooperating with the committee; why they want to keep the BuzzFeed deposition under seal; and whether Kramer helped provide the document to BuzzFeed.
There was no immediate response from Kramer’s lawyer to an email and phone message seeking comment.”
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If young people understand the economics of trade better than I do then all I need to do is wait it out. Hope ya’ll don’t mind if I support infrastructure, a solid safety net and rational healthcare policies while we’re waiting for our next crop to make the world a better place. Thankfully, most of them support those things too.
I do not despise the next generation: the healthy, the sick; the fat, the thin; the beautiful, the ugly; the educated, the uneducated; the super-talented, and those less so—and all those in between. I have great compassion for them. They’ve received some good things from us, but they’re also inheriting some terrible doozies. More than anything I pray for God to revive and move in their generation, to bring them the wisdom to rely on Him, courage to stand against the wind, and peace of mind for all that is to come.
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In another ironic twist, cops are now guarding the security guard who appears to have abandoned his post.
http://businessinsider.com/parkland-shooting-officer-resigns-deputies-sent-to-protect-his-family-2018-2?utm_source=facebook&utm_content=top-bar&utm_term=desktop
“Deputies from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office are guarding the home of the school resource officer who was stationed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after his family requested the protection, according to multiple news reports on Thursday.
Local Fox affiliate WSVN said it sent a reporter to the Boynton Beach, Florida, home of Broward County Sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson for an interview when the reporter was met with six deputies “standing guard outside.”
Peterson’s family is believed to have asked for the protection, according to NBC affiliate WPTV reporter Andrew Lofholm.
Peterson resigned from his post at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following the shooting at the campus in which 17 people died. He was later criticized after an internal investigation found he never entered the building where the shooting occurred.
“I am devastated,” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news conference. “Sick to my stomach. He never went in.”
Peterson, who was armed and in uniform at the time, reportedly did “nothing” and remained outside of the building for at least four minutes during the incident, according to Israel.
Peterson had been the high school’s resource officer since 2009 and made a salary of $75,673.72 in 2016, according to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel.”
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So the obvious question becomes…..
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/966820788140724224
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Victor Davis Hanson nails it again with “The Paradoxes of the Mueller Investigation”
“Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals for allegedly conspiring to sow confusion in the 2016 presidential election. The chance of extraditing any of the accused from Vladimir Putin’s Russia is zero.
Some of the Russians’ Keystone Cops efforts to disrupt the election favored Donald Trump (as well as Bernie Sanders). Yet Mueller’s team made it clear that the Russians neither colluded with any U.S. citizens nor had any material effect on the election’s outcome.
But from here on out, there will be ironies, paradoxes, and unintended consequences with just about everything Mueller does.
Is it now time to prosecute foreigners for attempting to interfere with a U.S. election? If so, then surely Christopher Steele, the author of the Fusion GPS dossier, is far more culpable and vulnerable than the 13 bumbling Russians.
Steele is not a U.S. citizen. Steele colluded with Russian interests in compiling his lurid dossier about Donald Trump. Steele did not register as a foreign agent. And Steele was paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to find dirt on political rival Trump and his campaign.
In other words, Steele’s position is far worse than that of the Russians for a variety of reasons. One, he is easily extraditable while the Russians are not. Two, his efforts really did affect the race, given that the dossier was systematically leaked to major media and served as a basis for the U.S. government to spy on American citizens. Three, unlike with the Russians, no one disputes that American citizens—Hillary Clinton, members of the Democratic National Committee, and anti-Trump partisan Glenn Simpson and his Fusion GPS team—colluded by paying for Steele’s work.
Mueller’s team has also leveraged a guilty plea from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for making false statements to FBI investigators. If the Flynn case is now the Mueller standard, then we know that a number of high-ranking officials are vulnerable to such legal exposure.
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr deliberately omitted on federal disclosure forms the fact that his wife, an expert on Russia, worked on the Fusion GPS dossier.
Steele himself probably lied to the FBI went he claimed he had not leaked the dossier’s contents to the media.
Hillary Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills likely lied to FBI investigator Peter Strzok (who had also interviewed Flynn) when they claimed they had no idea that Clinton was using a private and illegal email server until the story went public. In fact, Abedin and Mills had communicated with Clinton over the same server—as did then-President Barack Obama, who likewise denied that he knew about the improper server.
Former FBI Director James Comey likely lied to Congress when he claimed that his exoneration of Clinton came after he had interviewed her. We now know from documents that he drafted a statement about the conclusion of the investigation even before he met with her.
As far as obstruction charges go, Mueller has other possible targets. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch met secretly with Bill Clinton on a jet parked on a tarmac in Phoenix shortly before the Justice Department closed the probe of Hillary Clinton and chose not to pursue charges against her. Comey said Lynch asked him not to use the word “investigation” when discussing the Clinton email probe. Text messages between Strzok and fellow FBI official Lisa Page suggest that Lynch knew in advance about the conclusions Comey would reach in the investigation.
What is going on?”
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Good comments, Debra.
Did you catch (in Brooks’ article) that the existing safety net plus the lower prices produced by free trade have reduced poverty by 90% since 1960.
Since we are running huge deficits, would you be willing to pay more for your healthcare as a Medicare recipient (in a few years when you are old enough) so there might be funds to spend on infrastructure?
AJ, We have known for almost a year that McCain directed the dossier to the FBI. He thought Trump was “the Manchurian candidate”. My son laughed at that idea. “Manchurian candidates” are supposed to be attractive; not ridiculous imbeciles.
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Parents lose custody of transsexual teen, and other culture notes from World: https://world.wng.org/content/parents_lose_custody_of_transgender_teen
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Ricky, those stats might be more impressive if there were not the constant pressure to cut ‘the existing safety net’ which typically comes coupled with the vilification of those who use it.
If we are concerned about paying for infrastructure, I would suggest that we make a little change to the recent tax law, and have corporate tax cuts end when individual cuts end. That way we can more fully and fairly assess our options. More young people will be eligible to vote then, so they will have a real voice. :–)
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Debra,
1. Those stats prove that there has been no cutting to the “safety net”, only expansion.
2. So your answer to question #2 is “No.”, and that is our problem. At some point those young taxpayers aren’t going to ask, they are just going to cut. Our creditors will demand it.
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Debra,
1. Those stats prove that there has been no cutting to the “safety net”, only expansion.
2. So your answer to question #2 is “No.”, and that is our problem. At some point those young taxpayers aren’t going to ask, they are just going to cut. Our creditors will demand it.
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Ricky,
1. I haven’t read the Brooks piece yet, so I’m taking your word for the stats, and what you said was “the existing safety net. I’m taking that to mean the safety net we have now existing as well as that available since the date given (1960). My point is that Republicans and Conservatives in general, and you in particular, have not ceased to complain about people who use the safety net. The political pressure to cut it is constant, and so is the general vilification of those who do use it.
2. Regarding the deficit, I’m apparently in agreement with most congressional Republicans in not being all that concerned about it. Although their lips may claim differently, their votes make them a liar. And don’t get me wrong, tax cuts are fine when appropriate. But intelligent, honest people who care about the deficit don’t cut corporate taxes when there is already a huge deficit and a firmly stated, politically supported intention of dramatically increasing spending. I do not find that credible.
3. Healthcare is more complicated than I have time for right now. But if someone wants to put Medicare payments on a generous income-contingent sliding scale that’s fine with me. The point is, in a wealthy, powerful, influential nation, everyone should have reasonable access to healthcare they can easily afford—not just the old and the young. I see that as part of the safety net, and reasonable infrastructure.
4. Young taxpayers don’t get to decide policies unilaterally. Voters do. I think they will be smart enough to realize that even if we are not.
PS I cannot imagine that I have ever given you reason to believe that you may, with impunity, put words in my mouth. Don’t. It’s possible that all the time you’re spending conversing with the ‘smart people’ on Twitter has dulled your sensibility for ordinary conversation with more ordinary folk. I hope this has helped you out a bit. ;–)
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““Their critics need to spend more time with teenagers; far brighter than they are given credit for.””
That’s so laughably patronizing. Can anyone provide some objective means of measuring how bright teenagers are, especially in comparison to the rest of us stupid geezers?
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Debra, So was the answer to my second question @9:36: Yes or No?
The smart people on Twitter have been telling me the answer most Democrats and Trumpers give to that question for a long, long time.
The young people will cut us off from the gravy train when they become a majority or when the lenders insist.
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SolarP, Here you go. Look at the second graph.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/across-all-parties-ages-and-races-trump-is-less-popular-with-women-than-with-men/amp/
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rickyweaver, that’s not really persuasive. What were Obama’s numbers among teens? What are the reasons they give for disliking Trump, who do/would they prefer, what reasons would they give? Rabid pro-aborts also oppose Trump. That doesn’t make them admirable.
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Whew.
OK good, Ricky’s here, so he’s not at CPAC……. 🙂
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/protester-disrupts-trumps-cpac-speech/ar-BBJuXrG?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
“A protester briefly interrupted President Trump as he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, before quickly being ushered out of the hall.
As Trump began to run down his administration’s biggest achievement — tax reform and the confirmation of new federal judges — a man toward the front of the stage began jeering him.
The man was quickly removed from the hall as thousands of attendees, many of them wearing the Trump campaign’s signature red “Make America Great Again” hats, booed him and chanted “USA.””
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I wonder why hwesseli’s students laughed at the idea of armed teachers.
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Broward Sheriff not coming out looking good at all.
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Nor should he. So many missed opportunities to do something about Cruz were missed or ignored. He made multiple threats to shoot up the school, yet the authorities did nothing.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/school-shooter-in-the-making-all-the-times-authorities-were-warned-about-nikolas-cruz/ar-BBJuAxC?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
“Nikolas Cruz’s dangerous and disturbing behavior was flagged repeatedly to authorities, both local and federal, over a span of two years starting in February 2016. But no one stopped him before he killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Here’s a time line of incidents where Cruz was reported to law enforcement. Many of the incidents involve the threat of a school shooting.
– Feb. 5, 2016: A Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy is told by an anonymous caller that Nikolas Cruz, then 17, had threatened on Instagram to shoot up his school and posted a photo of himself with guns. The information is forwarded to BSO Deputy Scot Peterson, a school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
– Sept. 23, 2016: A “peer counselor” reports to Peterson that Cruz had possibly ingested gasoline in a suicide attempt, was cutting himself and wanted to buy a gun. A mental health counselor advises against involuntary committing Cruz. The high school says it will conduct a threat assessment.”
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And there’s more. 😦
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Ricky, I think the choice you present is specious. I’ve already explained how I would deal with infrastructure through a reassessment of corporate tax cuts which should by rights expire when individual cuts expire. But I’m not greatly worried about it. If the young want to pull the plug on me when I am 65 and get the flu, they may do so; I will love them anyway. And if they want to pull the plug on corporate lenders and others who rule the country through corrupt corporate practices, I will love them anyway—and may even think better of their hearts and minds.
According to the evidence you’ve presented, the 90% reduction in poverty rate since 1960 has only been possible because of what you call “the gravy train”. When the time comes, I trust that our collective children will do the best they can. That’s enough for me.
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Not quite correct, Debra. The article notes that the 90% reduction in poverty was caused by a combination of a. The gravy train; and b. A sharp reduction in the relative cost of food and other consumer items produced by the free trade of which you are so fond.
If you curtail free trade, you are going to need bigger subsidies from the youngsters who will have more difficulties finding jobs and will have less money as their cost of living will also increase.
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Yes, it’s correct. Having listened to you for quite some time, I think we’re all aware of the advantages of cheap goods on our standard of living. But until now you had not informed us of the importance of the ‘gravy train’. OK, some of us did know the safety net (aka gravy train) is important, but apparently you did not, or if you did, there was no sign of it in your conversation.
We should have known that there can be no lasting prosperity without plenty of reasonably good jobs to support the population and stable countries. Perhaps the young ones will be able to have these conversations without the angst and accusations these issues bring out in their elders.
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Wow, I think I mischaracterized that Broward Sheriff earlier, but to be more accurate describing him, I’d have to break some of the language rules of this site.
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Debra, On the contrary, the young people I have heard speak on this issue would say that I am sugar-coating the problem, are themselves accusatory toward enormous swaths of their fellow Americans and struggle to prevent their angst from morphing into rage.
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Gates pleads guilty. Will Manafort try to cut a deal with Mueller or wait for a pardon from Trump?
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Clearly, Trump made a mistake by hiring Manafort. However, Manafort made a horrible mistake by going to work on the campaign. Manafort seems to have sought the position without giving any thought to how the position with Trump would bring greatly increased scrutiny to his prior activities.
http://time.com/5003298/paul-manafort-indictment-donald-trump/
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