Rational Nation USA

The shooting deaths of African-Americans by police officers that have prompted nationwide racial tensions are local matters to be dealt with by local authorities, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at her Wednesday press briefing. ”Certainly a terrible incident. This is something that is a local matter and that’s something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities at this point in time,” Sanders said in response to a question about the acquittal of two Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers involved in the 2016 death of Alton Sterling. Sanders was also asked about the recent fatal shooting of Stephon Clark in California, and the 2014 death of Eric Garner. The death of Sterling and similar shooting deaths of other African-Americans became a key issue in the summer of 2016 amid the presidential race between Donald Trump, who voiced strong support for police, and Democrat Hillary Clinton, who expressed support for police while also calling...

More on the great myth fabricated by conservative extremists, aka right wing reactionaries. And the following On the Myth of “Cultural Marxism”  by Keith Preston • Culture Wars/Current Controversies , Economics/Class Relations , Left and Right , Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism

BEIJING (AP) — China announced a $3 billion list of U.S. goods including pork, apples and steel pipe on Friday that it said may be hit with higher tariffs in a spiraling trade dispute with President Donald Trump that companies and investors worry could depress global commerce. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to veto the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill already passed by Congress, only hours before government funding would lapse. The about-face comes a day after the White House had said Trump would sign the legislation despite his misgivings. The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday if Trump does not sign a funding bill into law. George Mason University will use a $5 million gift to its economics department to create three faculty positions, the school announced Thursday. The gift comes from the Charles Koch Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to colleges and universities across the country. The Koch family is known for its support of co...

This just in: Ralph Peters, a longtime Fox News military analyst, said Tuesday that he is leaving the network. And he's leaving in the most dramatic way possible: By sending to colleagues a blistering critique of the network as pro-Trump "propaganda." Peters wrote in a letter to a handful of colleagues that Fox is "assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law." He called it "a destructive and ethically ruinous administration." We couldn't agree more!! More HERE

I run Dick’s Sporting Goods. It’s Congress’s turn to do something about guns.   Edward W. Stack, CEO Dick's Sporting Goods Throughout history, the United States has been a beacon of hope for the world — especially for people who appreciate and respect that we are a country founded on laws that have been enacted to guard our freedom and keep us safe. As a gun owner, I support the Second Amendment and understand why, for many, the right to bear arms is as American as baseball and apple pie. But I also agree with what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his majority opinion in 2008’s landmark Heller case : “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” It is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” It is clear we have a problem with the gun laws in this country. They are not squarely focused on keeping all of us safe — especially our children. There continue to be m...

President Trump fired off angry tweets Sunday morning railing against the Justice Department special counsel’s Russia investigation and attacking the integrity of former FBI director James B. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, charging that their notes from conversations with him were “Fake Memos.” For the second straight day, Trump was unrestrained in his commentary about Robert S. Mueller III’s expanding investigation, which is probing not only Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to the Trump campaign, but also whether the president has sought to obstruct justice. After Trump’s personal attorney, John Dowd, called Saturday for an end to the Mueller probe, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Sunday urged the president and his legal team to cooperate fully with the investigation and warned of serious ramifications if they did not. In one of his tweets, Trump protested , “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, ...

study published on Friday appears to confirm what news reports suggested long ago: President Trump’s campaign rallies were associated with a rise in violence when they came to town. A city that hosted a Trump rally saw an average of 2.3 more assaults reported on the day of the event than on a typical day, according to the study, led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and published in the journal Epidemiology. The authors found no corresponding link between assaults and rallies for Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. “It appeared to be a phenomenon that’s unique to Donald Trump’s rally,” said Christopher Morrison, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and the lead author of the study. SKIP Mr. Trump himself repeatedly seemed to endorse attacks on his detractors, too. “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” he said of one protester who was reportedly punched and kicked in November 2015. “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell ya...

A hearty KUDOS goes out to McDonalds!! McDonald's says it will turn its logo upside down on all its digital channels, such as Twitter and Instagram, on Thursday, while 100 restaurants will have special "packaging, crew shirts and hats, and bag stuffers" to celebrate. "In celebration of women everywhere, and for the first time in our brand history, we flipped our iconic arches for International Women's Day in honor of the extraordinary accomplishments of women everywhere and especially in our restaurants," McDonald's global chief diversity officer, Wendy Lewis, said in a statement. Lewis continued: "From restaurant crew and management to our C-suite of senior leadership, women play invaluable roles at all levels, and together with our independent franchise owners, we're committed to their success."

Democrats may have already won the House Top Republicans sound increasingly resigned to losing a special House election in Pennsylvania Trump Country a week from today, after party-affiliated groups spent more than $9 million on a race that should be a "gimme." It's one of the increasingly bearish signs for the GOP ahead of November's midterms, with mammoth stakes for the West Wing: If Dems take the House and there's a Speaker Pelosi, President Trump faces endless subpoenas and perhaps impeachment proceedings. Show less We had a very clarifying conversation with an analyst who's reliably ahead of the curve, and he agreed to share his findings with Axios. Chris Krueger , managing director of Cowen & Co.'s Washington Research Group, said he sees four "glaring red flags for the House GOP majority": The correlation between the president’s approval number and first-term midterm losses by the president’s party: In the six times that the presi...