March 14, 2018

Lawrence just announced about 1400 absentee ballots to be counted...hope they have

tight security on that.

March 14, 2018

Did you guys see this amazing video of David Hogg and sister Lauren on Anderson Cooper?

It's a couple weeks old, but I missed it, and it's well worth watching. Lauren is only 14 and is as articulate as David. I used to work with gifted kids; middle and high school, and these kids remind me a lot of them.

March 8, 2018

PSA by cast of Modern Family for March for Our Lives. "We will be there with you March 24."

?t=56

http://people.com/tv/modern-family-cast-support-parkland-survivors/

“We are grateful to have the cast of Modern Family join and support the students demanding change during this historic moment in the gun violence prevention movement,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, says. “Students across America are committed to changing America’s culture of gun violence, and we plan to support them all the way — and that includes throwing out lawmakers who refuse to work to reduce gun violence in our schools and communities.”

Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan — also a member of the Everytown Creative Council with Burrell, O’Neill and Vergara — explains why his team wanted to stand up for this cause.

“Our show celebrates families, while gun violence devastates them,” he says. “How could we sit back and do nothing while these brave kids stand up to the gun lobby since our lawmakers won’t?”

Levitan will be participating in the March for Our Lives March 24.

March 3, 2018

Oregon Passes Its Own Net Neutrality Bill

By Mike Rogoway
mrogoway@oregonian.com
The Oregonian/OregonLive

Oregon senators voted overwhelmingly Thursday for a bill that seeks to preserve net neutrality protections for the internet, sending it to Gov. Kate Brown for her signature. She has previously indicated support for the issue.

snip

Congress gave the federal government authority for setting the rules for the internet, so Oregon and other states came up with a workaround. House Bill 4155 mandates that state and local governments contract only with companies that abide by the principles of net neutrality.

The bill is unlikely to have a direct impact on the biggest internet companies. Comcast, for example, reported nearly $85 billion in revenue in 2017. By contrast, its contracts with the city of Portland totaled less than $1.3 million last year.

However, local rules could make internet companies think twice about going against net neutrality. And the online protections are likely to return with the next Democratic president.

HB 4155 passed the Senate 21-7 on Thursday after winning approval in the House earlier in the week, 40-17. Several Republicans in each chamber joined Democrats in supporting the bill.

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2018/03/oregon_senate_sends_net_neutra.html

March 2, 2018

Student Activists of MSD High School: They Were Trained for This Moment

They Were Trained for This Moment
How the student activists of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High demonstrate the power of a comprehensive education.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Feb 28, 2018

The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School returned to class Wednesday morning two weeks and moral centuries after a tragic mass shooting ended the lives of 17 classmates and teachers. Sen. Marco Rubio marked their return by scolding them for being “infected” with “arrogance” and “boasting.” The Florida legislature marked their return by enacting a $67 million program to arm school staff, including teachers, over the objections of students and parents. Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill opted to welcome them back by ignoring their wishes on gun control, which might lead a cynic to believe that nothing has changed in America after yet another horrifying cycle of child murder and legislative apathy.

But that is incorrect. Consumers and businesses are stepping in where the government has cowered. Boycotts may not influence lawmakers, but they certainly seem to be changing the game in the business world. And the students of Parkland, Florida, unbothered by the games played by legislators and lobbyists, are still planning a massive march on Washington. These teens have—by most objective measures—used social media to change the conversation around guns and gun control in America.

Now it’s time for them to change the conversation around education in America, and not just as it relates to guns in the classroom. The effectiveness of these poised, articulate, well-informed, and seemingly preternaturally mature student leaders of Stoneman Douglas has been vaguely attributed to very specific personalities and talents. Indeed, their words and actions have been so staggeringly powerful, they ended up fueling laughable claims about crisis actors, coaching, and fat checks from George Soros. But there is a more fundamental lesson to be learned in the events of this tragedy: These kids aren’t freaks of nature. Their eloquence and poise also represent the absolute vindication of the extracurricular education they receive at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

snip

Part of the reason the Stoneman Douglas students have become stars in recent weeks is in no small part due to the fact that they are in a school system that boasts, for example, of a “system-wide debate program that teaches extemporaneous speaking from an early age.” Every middle and high school in the district has a forensics and public-speaking program. Coincidentally, some of the students at Stoneman Douglas had been preparing for debates on the issue of gun control this year, which explains in part why they could speak to the issues from day one.

snip

To be sure, the story of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students is a story about the benefits of being a relatively wealthy school district at a moment in which public education is being vivisected without remorse or mercy. But unless you’re drinking the strongest form of Kool-Aid, there is simply no way to construct a conspiracy theory around the fact that students who were being painstakingly taught about drama, media, free speech, political activism, and forensics became the epicenter of the school-violence crisis and handled it creditably. The more likely explanation is that extracurricular education—one that focuses on skills beyond standardized testing and rankings—creates passionate citizens who are spring-loaded for citizenship.

Perhaps instead of putting more money into putting more guns into our classrooms, we should think about putting more money into the programs that foster political engagement and skills. In Sen. Rubio’s parlance, Marjory Stoneman Douglas was fostering arrogance. To the rest of the world, it was building adults.

More:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/the-student-activists-of-marjory-stoneman-douglas-high-demonstrate-the-power-of-a-full-education.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=TheAngle_newsletter&sid=589dfd6ebcb59c58118b45d5

March 1, 2018

NRA sabotages law enforcement to protect political allies; attacks IC/Russia investigation

Dana told so many lies at the Parkland town hall... which we knew, but they are so in bed with the Russia stuff.

Cop Stoppers
How did the NRA become an enemy of law enforcement?
By William Saletan
Feb 28, 2018

The National Rifle Association knows exactly whom to blame for the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. The real culprit, says the NRA, is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As the NRA points out, the FBI failed to heed warnings about the shooter. But there’s a bigger story behind this rebuke. To protect its political allies, the NRA has become an enemy of law enforcement.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s CEO, likes to talk about “criminals” and “good guys.” He uses police officers as props. But backstage, the NRA sabotages law enforcement. It limits inspections of firearms dealers and argues against penalties for violating record-keeping laws. It forces the destruction of background-check records. It impedes prosecutions of illegal gun sales. It blocks background checks for person-to-person sales. It opposes the use of police to execute background checks, as well as federal mandates that would provide the necessary information.

If you’ve been investigated, arrested, or convicted, the NRA can help you. Are there police reports or drug arrests on your record? The NRA says they mustn’t be included in your background check for buying a gun. Nor should you be held back by a judge’s restraining order. The NRA opposed legislation that would let judges suspend firearm possession, even for just a week, when issuing temporary protective orders concerning domestic violence. It opposed a Justice Department rule that allowed federal agents to seize property “involved in controlled substance offenses.”

snip

(Then the article transitions to Russia, Trump, how NRA is blaming the FBI for Parkland and tying it to the RUssia investigation.)

If the NRA genuinely believed in law enforcement, it might have deferred to the investigating agencies. (RE Russia) At a minimum, it would have kept silent. Instead, it attacked the agencies. NRA TV host Grant Stinchfield and NRA TV commentator Dana Loesch denounced the officials who had outed Flynn. Stinchfield called Flynn’s exposure “a concerted effort with Obama loyalists inside these bureaucratic agencies, from the Justice Department to the intelligence community, trying to undermine the president.”

A week later, addressing CPAC, LaPierre charged that the media, hysterical “over the Russian–American equation,” had “found willing co-conspirators among some in the U.S. intelligence community.” He went on: “A hundred years ago, if you use eavesdropped and published the affairs of the head of state, you would have been tracked down and hanged for treason.” Shortly afterward, Trump accused Obama of wiretapping him in Trump Tower. The charge was bogus, but LaPierre endorsed it.

More:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/how-did-the-nra-become-an-enemy-of-law-enforcement.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=TheAngle_newsletter&sid=589dfd6ebcb59c58118b45d5