Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Everybody saw this coming.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

No one could have predicted…

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The revolution will be supervised.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Let there be snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

We still have time to mess this up!

I really should read my own blog.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Bark louder, little dog.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / President Biden: New Actions to Fight Gun Crime (LIVE) at 2:15 Eastern

President Biden: New Actions to Fight Gun Crime (LIVE) at 2:15 Eastern

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President Biden announces new administrative actions to fight gun crime.  (Because Republicans won’t even remotely consider voting  for any bill that addresses this issue.)

On the menu:  Ghost Guns and the announcement of a new nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  (aka the ATF)  I guess Explosives don’t rate an initial.

Totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

85Comments

  2. 2.

    Benw

    If we legalize it, it could be the Bureau of Weed, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (WATF).

  3. 3.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    Please don’t feel neglected, WaterGirl. It’s likely everyone’s watching the President.

    Could someone explain the NRA formula to me again – how many guns will it take to keep ‘Murica safe? 400 million? 500 Million? It’s all too much for a drunken starets to understand.

  6. 6.

    JaySinWa

    If the ATF added an E then people will try and pronounce it and not spell it.

    ETA: I expect they would use MJ rather than Weed in the new acronym.

    Maybe rearrange the letters. FEMAT, EATMF, MEFAT, FMEAT?

    Prior to MJ regulation FATE, FEAT, TEFA, ATFE, ATEF?

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): I think it’s probably along the lines of what they recommend for kitty litter boxes.

    You should always have ONE MORE litter box than you have kitties.

    So, extrapolating from that, I’m thinking that they are thinking 3-5 per human on the planet.  Including fetuses, because they seem to believe that they are people.

  17. 17.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):

    how many guns will it take to keep ‘Murica safe?

    Whatever combination of guns and laws will allow conservatives to hurt or kill anyone they don’t like and makes the Other cower and genuflect to the greatness of conservatives and give conservatives their way in everything big and small.  At that point, America and Americans will be safe.  This has not yet happened, so more guns and more legal freedom to display them, threaten with them, and use them without consequences are still necessary.

  23. 23.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    OT: Do you guys think there’s a chance of a recession in late 2023/early 2024 like some economists are predicting?

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Anything can happen.  Even the very best economists are terrible at this kind of prediction.  Krugman is as good an economist as he is bad a pundit, and he was wildly off with his ‘double dip recession’ prediction, which he really hammered on at the time.

  27. 27.

    geg6

    @Dangerman:

    Agreed.  Homes in my neighborhood are going for ridiculous prices and they are half the square footage and acreage that we have.  I figure our house is probably worth about 250-300K, but based on current housing prices, it would probably go on the market at around 400-500K.  And I live in a fairly low housing cost area.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I mostly worry about what the implications on Dems’ electoral fortunes re: the economy. Plus my investment porforlio also too.

    Figures I’d buy in at near the ATH and the markets are taking a gigantic shit now. And there’s really no end in sight given the Fed raising interest rates and doing QT, plus the War in Ukraine. I know, I know “stay the course, buy and hold, long-term investing in indexes will pay off. But it still hurts atm

  32. 32.

    geg6

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    You’ll be fine in the long run as you are still so young.  I’m looking at retirement in a couple of years.  I refuse to watch the markets at this point.  It’s all too volatile and the best thing I can figure to do is just sit tight and hope for the best.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @The Moar You Know:

    Remember, it’s never “if”, but simply “when”.  Such is the nature of capitalism.

    Isn’t it the nature of all economies? I’ve never heard of a guaranteed permanent growth economy.

  35. 35.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I don’t watch Morning Joe but apparently, the midterm issues for Democrats are:

    Censoring conservative voices on social media

    College campuses becoming liberal echo chambers

    Push to be politically correct

    Canceling historical figures

    Our democracy is being torn down brick by brick and this doofus has a 4 hour show on the teevee every weekday.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    President Biden’s ghost gun initiative led the network radio news this afternoon. It was paired with news of a big federal gun bust in Philadelphia that swept up 14 dealers and involved 400 weapons, mostly hand guns.

  39. 39.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @geg6:

    Yeah, I know. I have a lot of time on my side. I probably should just stop watching the markets

    Political instability worries me along with lower expected future returns in the area of 4%

  41. 41.

    raven

    Guess who?

     

    Where do you start at what has changed is, we’ve got an administration that they’re not leaders. They’re more reactive rather than proactive. And what I mean by that is, you know, one of the first things they did, and I think people need to know this, is they decided that they were going to give up our energy. By him going out giving up our energy and now we’re not energy independent anymore, which started the whole downfall. ou know, this country is…this is one of the most environmentally drilling countries in the world, but yet we’re walking on all the resources we have underneath our feet, and we won’t say, “Hey, guys, we got to come out of this. We cannot continue to do this.” And we need people in Washington that are going to be leaders, and not people that are going to be followers of people that are upset, have sour grapes, and they’re not going to do what’s right for the people of Georgia, they’re not going to do what’s right for people of the United States.

  43. 43.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Ha! However, inflation is running incredibly hot at the moment and there’s worries that the Fed either won’t act aggressively enough to squelch inflation before it causes a downturn or the Fed itself will cause a recession

  47. 47.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    OT: Elon Musk will no longer be joining Twitter’s Board of Directors.

    Elon shared that same morning he will no longer be joining the board,” [Twitter CEO] Agrawal wrote. “I believe this is for the best.”

    Don’t we all!

  53. 53.

    trollhattan

    Criming corporation finds that crime may not pay, but pay gets rid of crimes.

    PG&E Corp. cut a dramatic deal with prosecutors in six California counties Monday that enables it to sidestep criminal prosecution from two notorious wildfires. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. instead will pay tens of millions of dollars in fines, charitable contributions and other expenditures.

    The state’s largest utility agreed to pay more than $55 million in order to avoid prosecution on last year’s Dixie Fire — the second largest wildfire in California’s recorded history — and the 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County. The company had already been indicted in connection with the Kincade Fire and was being investigated by district attorneys in five counties following the Dixie Fire. Under the deal, the DA in Sonoma County dropped the criminal case and Sacramento Valley prosecutors will forego filing charges.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento has also been investigating PG&E’s role in the Dixie Fire, and wasn’t a party to the settlement. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney had no immediate comment. Both fires were caused by PG&E power lines. The deal is likely to be controversial among fire victims and others, given PG&E’s track record on wildfire safety and the amount of damage done by the two fires. But the district attorney in Plumas County — where the worst of the damage from the Dixie Fire occurred — said the agreement made sense.

    The agreement, announced Monday at a hearing in Sonoma County Superior Court, will actually be considerably more expensive than any penalties that would result from guilty verdicts. No one died in the Dixie Fire, and the maximum criminal fine would have been $329,417, according to calculations made by the DA’s.

    The DA’s, in a joint statement, said it made more sense to make a civil settlement “to maximize the return to the fire victims rather than to seek criminal penalties.”

    The utility only paid $4 million in fines after pleading guilty to 85 felony charges in the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire ever in California. The judge lamented that the $4 million was the maximum penalty under the law. Unless the federal government decides to prosecute on the Dixie Fire, the deal enables PG&E to avoid the stigma of more criminal convictions on its record as it struggles to polish its tattered reputation while spending billions every year to make improvements in wildfire safety.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article260301995.html#storylink=cpy

    The Levenson properties were destroyed by the Dixie Fire.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @trollhattan:

    I just think they have to explain at some point why everyone can’t buy their way out of a criminal conviction.

    Shouldn’t everyone be able to just compensate the victim and walk away as an option?

  59. 59.

    piratedan

    @Ohio Mom: the other old saw is to find 5 to 10 products that you use regularly because they’ve proven to be well made and functional and invest in those companies.

  61. 61.

    Spanky

    @WaterGirl:

    You should always have ONE MORE litter box than you have kitties.

    Which makes me suddenly wonder where werebear has been

    Eta – Her Faceplant page has been regularly tended into today. Should have looked first!

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Probably because most burglars don’t have that kind of money.  I bet most victims would take that deal.

  66. 66.

    Martin

    @lollipopguild: I doubt that, but being on the board would limit how many shares of Twitter he can own, so declining being on the board allows him to control more of the company. I have no idea what he thinks he’s doing, but there aren’t a lot of conservatives buying Teslas.

  70. 70.

    trollhattan

    @Kay: @Kay:

    When Romney lectured us that “Corporations are people, my friend” I wish it were true in the real world, and that CEOs and managing boards weren’t so firewalled against criminal charges for that company’s misdoings. “I had no idea” means nonmanagement.

  72. 72.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    Apparently, he’s on some crusade to make Twitter operate based on free-speech principles, saying Twitter is a public square. Not sure if it’s also related to his spat with the SEC and it’s consent degree on him and his Tweets needing to be approved by Tesla

  73. 73.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud: From TechCrunch:

    Joining Twitter’s board would have required Musk to cap his overall ownership of the social network at a maximum of 14.9% while he remained on the board and 90 days after the departure, according to terms of the agreement Twitter disclosed. In the regulatory filing, Twitter said it planned to appoint Musk to its board for a term that ends in 2024.

  74. 74.

    Martin

    @Baud: Rules of the board. Board members cannot own more than 15% of the company.

    Lots of companies have poison pills like that to limit hostile takeovers of the company, of any one person getting so much stake in the company that they can put themselves on the board and then dictate the direction of the company. So as soon as you get 15%, you lose your ability to do that from the boardroom. Part of the charter of the company. Not unusual to have things like this, particularly in tech companies.

  76. 76.

    trollhattan

    @Martin:

    Heard on the Beeb that not only does Musk have enough moolah to buy a majority share, he has enough to buy Twitter entirely.

    Dude can carry a grudge.

  77. 77.

    Martin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This suggests some cognitive issue with Musk then. Twitter cannot change the SEC rules. All they can do is make it more possible for Musk to commit security violations, which should be noted Twitter doesn’t have content rules about.

    My guess is that Musk gets frustrated that he can’t buy his way into doing what he wants and gives up on this.

  78. 78.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Agree with just stop trying to time the markets. That is for financial geniuses. Just invest conservatively on a regular basis and let it ride. If you are in sensible stuff at your age the market wiill come back  many times.

    If you are watching it too closely then you aren’t investing, you are gambling.

    This inflation now is uncomfortable for the young and the poor, but it isn’t actually nuts. The 1970s: my husband  felt blessed to qualify for a 9% mortgage. I had a couple of cerificates of deposit that paid 19%. That’s inflation.

    I do think there is some price gouging going on because we don’t have antitrust enforcement. Handful of companies strangle the smaller competition and also strangle their own supply chains by squeezing too hard. Look at meat these days.

  79. 79.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: Sorta. He’d have to sell out of Tesla to do it which would start to tank Tesla’s stock. He’d need about $20B to get controlling stake in Twitter, provided the price didn’t climb due to the new demand.

    Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that investors will bail on the stock once Musk gets too much of it. Congress will be all over him as well. I’ll delete my account if Trump is reinstated. I’m far from the only one that will.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @piratedan:

    I think the best advice these days is to accept you can’t out think the market, so you should just invest in an index fund or ETF.  Put money in regularly- maybe set up a monthly buying plan- and let it go on autopilot.  Check once in a while to see how things are going, but mostly just let it go.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin:

    He’d have to sell out of Tesla to do it which would start to tank Tesla’s stock. He’d need about $20B to get controlling stake in Twitter, provided the price didn’t climb due to the new demand.

    I thought his Tesla stock was worth something like $300 billion, which would let him buy a controlling stake in Twitter while still maintaining control of Tesla.  The bigger issue, as I understand it, is that he’s already on the verge of trouble with the SEC because of the way he bought his Twitter stock.

    Anyone who owns >5% of a company has to report every stock transaction to the SEC.  I don’t know the exact rules, but people who just own that many shares have a grace period to report their transactions.  Anyone who is buying shares in hopes of being on the board, though, has to report either immediately or within a much shorter grace period.  Musk reported his purchase within the grace period if he’s going to be an ordinary shareholder, but not if he is going to be a board member.  So if he did accept a spot on the board, he’d potentially be in trouble with the SEC for not reporting fast enough.

    This sounds like some super inside baseball stuff, but it’s actually really important.  Twitter stock jumped on news Musk was planning on joining the board.  Because he bought the stock over a period of days, he was able to buy a lot of shares after he was supposed to announce his intentions.  Since share prices jumped on the announcement, delaying saved him hundreds of millions of dollars.  The SEC is right to care about that kind of thing.

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @Ben Cisco: ​
     

    He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.

    Beginning to wonder if he’s smart at all.

    Musk obviously has some kind of smarts. The success of Tesla and SpaceX (and his previous ventures before them) seems bigger than you’d expect just based on good luck. And both Tesla and SpaceX seem to have succeeded by finding uneploited niche markets that let them grow and establish themselves without getting crushed. That seems like it reflects some real smarts, even if they’re narrower than the genius Musk is usually credited for.
    The big thing, IMO, is that Musk is one of those people who thinks his success is all down to him being a super genius. Not to take anything away from him, but he had a lot of help and good luck along the way. More importantly, that kind of success doesn’t mean he necessarily knows anything about anything else.

  85. 85.

    J R in WV

    The agency was ATF (alcohol, tobacco, firearms) for decades, so the addition of explosives and (someday) weed won’t ever displace the original ATF acronym for the agency.

    Besides, who believes the red necks can remember more than three letters?

    Joe Biden makes a good presentation for his goals, as usual.

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