Dems Drive Stake Through Gun-Show Loophole
April 11: Gun-show loophole … Arizona abortion ban … Biden on Assange … Mayorkas impeachment …
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We got at least two or three scads of new readers in the last 24 hours, after Wonkette did a big, lovely, snarky-but-not-at-me writeup on yesterday’s TFN exclusive about the Faustian bargain emerging for Ukraine as a result of evangelical Christian shadow democracy. Which is not a sentence that existed before today.
By way of introduction, let me introduce myself. I’m a former TV news producer, having worked for many years on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann, created Up with Chris Hayes, and having had a hand in launching Anderson Cooper 360°. I was also Rachel Maddow’s executive producer at Air America Radio and created Morning Sedition with Marc Maron there, too.
Now, what most TV executives think when they see all that is: “Old.” So, I spent the last almost-seven years at The Young Turks, overseeing original and investigative reporting. I did lots of work I’m really proud of and I will hurl it at you incessantly in my newsletter with the ferocity of any other old man insisting you relive his ancient glories.
Now, the older I get, and the worse our media get, the more I question whether snark and humor are, in a word, bad. Or at least not helping. So I’m trying to find ways to use humor, or attempted humor, to shed light and make people feel okay about things, without using it to dehumanize. It’s a journey. I’m thrilled to have you with me. Thanks for coming. That’s what she said.
Harris Announces Death of Gun-Show Loophole
As of May 11, you won’t be allowed to buy a gun at a gun show without a background check.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Other Things That Kill People But Not The Fossil Fuel Industry is submitting a final rule to that effect for official publication today, which means it takes effect in 30 days, effectively closing the so-called gun-show loophole.
So getcher guns now, sad losers whose sad-loser history will otherwise show up in a background check!
Vice President Kamala Harris, who heads the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said yesterday, “I am proud to announce that all gun dealers now must conduct background checks no matter where or how they sell their merchandise.”
Harris said, “This single gap in our federal background check system has caused unimaginable pain and suffering.”
The administration estimates the number of annual gun sales by unlicensed dealers at “tens and tens of thousands,” so, at least twenties and twenties of thousands, or if I’ve got my vague math right, at least 40,000. Anyway, a lot.
The new rule is expected to make life unbearable for the estimated 20,000+ sad, unlicensed losers who actually choose to spend their precious time on Earth peddling devices that propel metal pellets through the air as a substitute for human connection.
As Harris noted, next week will be the 25th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, which was carried out with guns bought through the gun-show loophole. Despite the hard work of the gun-industrial complex, however, mass shootings are hardly the greatest cause of gun deaths.
So the gun-show loophole is also likely to reduce the number of domestic-violence shootings, and suicides committed by people who have the decency not to take out other people first.
See? It’s a happy story, kids! Democrats did a good!
Arizona Aborts Abortion Debate
Arizona Republicans yesterday killed an abortion debate in the state House of Representatives even though it had already been conceived and had a heartbeat and a mouth organ sufficiently developed to scream “Shame! Shame!” at Republicans.
Democrats — and a microscopic cluster of Republicans — are pushing to repeal the state’s ban on all abortions except in the cases of rape or incest.
The ban was put in place on Tuesday by the state’s Supreme Court. The court ruled that the death of Roe v. Wade meant they should reinstate the oldest abortion ban they could find on the books, 1864’s Ye Olde Banne on Abortionologie Practiʃes and Distaff Witchery, which has only one exception: lest said abortionologie be deemed providential to save the life of the harlot after thorough examination by licenʃed apothecary or haberdasher if it’s past noon, when Old Doc “Crazy Face” McGooligan’s in his cups. Abortions at the time were performed with a horseshoe and pickaxe, and rape and incest were not only legal, you could choose them as your major.
The ban is literally older than Arizona, and most of the people who live there. So Democrats in the state House yesterday tried to repeal it. That’s when Republicans shut down debate.
Hilariously, just two days after D4FRFP1 Donald Trump said states should decide, he over-weighed in to let Arizona know they had decided wrong. Asked yesterday whether the Arizona court went too far, Trump said, “Yeah, they did,” adding that the governor (a Democrat!) and state legislators (including Democrats!) will get the ban “straightened out.”
In other words, Trump just told Arizona voters to vote for Democrats in November. He also said he wouldn’t sign a national ban on abortion if he’s elected, a promise worth the paper it was printed on.
MEET THE FATHER OF ARIZONA’S ABORTION BAN The ban became law in 1864 under Arizona state House Speaker William Claude Jones. This guy:
“Married” Maria v. del Refugio, 12 years old.
Resigned as U.S. attorney in New Mexico after he was accused of abducting his 12-year-old “bride.”
“Married” Caroline Stephens, 15 years old.
Impregnated MaeMae Kailihao, 14 years old, then “married” her.
And that’s just some of what we know.
VENGEANCE IS MINE, SAYETH THE LOVING GOD The indispensable Bolts magazine points out that two of the judges so fond of child-raper Jones’s legislative legacy, and 1864 health care, will be judged by voters in November.
Both Clint Bolick and Kathryn Hackett King, both of whose names sound like they’re also from 1864, are up for what’s known as retention. They’re both appointees of the previous governor, Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ).
Biden Considering Dropping Assange Charges
Pres. Joe Biden yesterday said “We’re considering” dropping charges against accused journalist Julian Assange. Which is weird because I was led to believe the Justice Department makes those kinds of decisions without White House involvement. Have those crazy kids been politicizing justice again?
Australia’s parliament in February passed a resolution calling on the U.S. to drop the charges and let Assange return to Australia, his native country. The request for mercy, poetically, comes from a nation founded by criminals to a nation founded by Jesus, also a convicted criminal.
Assange published military records provided by Chelsea Manning. The records had been classified as secret because of national security but mostly shame.
Under forever-ago-Pres. Barack Obama, the Department of Justice decided not to prosecute Assange, because journalism wasn’t a crime then. Then, somehow, because no one stopped it, Donald Trump was allowed to live in the White House for four years and act like he was in charge. And then the Justice Department charged Assange.
Prosecutors accused Assange of committing too much journalism, revealing too much criminal-but-lawful behavior by the U.S. military. Ironically, of course, it’s the former that gets prosecuted rather than the latter.
Republicans Delay Mayorkas Impeachment Trial
At congressional hearings yesterday, Republicans — and some Democrats who want to demonize immigrants enough to make voters think they’re Republican — went after Homeland [sic] Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for submitting a budget that doesn’t spend enough money on the border and punishing people who cross it.
The reason Republicans want to spend more money is to keep Americans safe from immigrants, who commit fewer crimes than Americans do and are boosting the economy. Which is different than keeping Americans safe by spending money on health care, which would just be crazy.
Hilariously, Mayorkas fired back that the reason his budget didn’t include money for enough beds to detain 41,500 people — like free countries are wont to do — is that Congress didn’t submit the federal budget in time for Mayorkas to know he had the money for all those beds.
Meanwhile, what Republicans in the Senate didn’t do was hold Mayorkas’s impeachment trial. You may remember that House Republicans made Mayorkas the first cabinet member to be impeached since William Claude Jones “married” his third child “bride.” But this week, House Republicans again delayed sending the impeachment for a Senate trial.
It’s now scheduled for next week. The reason? Republicans don’t have enough votes even to hold the trial, and want time to round up more.
I’d suggest there’s a good reason they don’t have the votes for a trial. Mayorkas is accused of (a) not detaining everyone suspected of crossing the border and (b) testifying before Congress that he was doing a swell job. A couple notes on why that’s gonna be a tough lift in the Senate:
Every Homeland [sic] Security secretary has done both of those things.
The articles of impeachment are terrible.
Why are they terrible? Well, as TFN revealed last month (what, you thought Ukraine was my first story?), the GOP House staffers on the impeachment range from apostles of Stephen Miller to apostles of The Apostles. One staffer is literally a veteran of the Benghazi hearings — perhaps the sneakiest Christmas gift Republicans ever gifted to Democrats.
No Republican in their right mind [insert snark of choice here] would want to go trial with a case pulled together by this clown car full of clowns. It used to be that members of Congress staffed up with people who study policy and legislative wizards. Turns out it’s much hard to get decent work done when you staff up with people who study the Bible and believe in actual wizards.
Crime Watch
VIETNAM Real-estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced this morning for embezzlement, bribery, and violating government banking rules. Lan was convicted of siphoning off about $12.5 billion by arranging illegal loans to a number of shell companies.
Which, weirdly, is the barest fucking minimum of what I am willing to do right now for $12.5 billion.
A whopping 84 people in the sprawling corruption case have now received sentences ranging from probation to three years in prison. And Lan’s sentence? The court decided this morning to kill her.
Of course, the death penalty has long been banned in the U.S. … for billionaires. And most millionaires. With those exceptions, we’re still beta-testing innovatiocutions for disrupting the respiration of the poors.
Personally, I’m an opponent of the death penalty for anyone. But executing a billionaire for embillzzlement? You have my attention, communist Vietnam.
Lan’s family says they’re now considering whether to appeal her sentence. Ha! Yeah, no, they’re gonna appeal that shit.
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids…!
Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.
From the bowels of Wonkette, I greet thee. Thanks for the amazing reporting, it's always nice to find someone both knowledgeable and snarky. (Snark is the only way I can stomach the news these days.)
About time that loop hole was closed🥳 Fuck the Arizona supreme, not, court🖕 Thanks for another great read☺