Trump held a “listening session” with survivors of school shootings, but judging by the reporting on Twitter, it was a sour joke – carefully packed with Trump fans, and no naughty rebels allowed.

To help him simulate human reactions, Trump's minders gave him a cheat sheet that prompted him to say things like "I hear you" during the WH listening session on the #Parkland shootings. [@AP Photo by Carolyn Kaster] pic.twitter.com/cEyVNDlvjU

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) February 21, 2018

https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/966438137936384002

I want to know why Emma Gonzalez and the Parkland students in the national spotlight aren’t at the President’s listening session. The focus seem to be focused on everything but easy access to guns.

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February

Margaret Sullivan, media columnist at the Washington Post, is disgusted at the things the Twisted Right is saying about the surviving students from Stoneman Douglas high school.

Here is the often-appalling pundit Dinesh D’Souza, outright mocking the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, after they showed their disappointment in a state legislature vote on assault weapons on Tuesday: “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs.”

Recall for a moment: These are teenagers whose friends were brutally murdered less than a week ago.

D’Souza, who has a huge social-media following precisely because he sinks so low, so often, also tweeted out his cynical scorekeeping: “Adults: 1. Kids: 0.” And he took a shot at what he called

I didn’t realize the Russian trolls had pounced on the Florida shooting that fast. The Times reported a couple of days ago:

One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate.

An hour.

So not only do we have a brain-fryingly stupid politics around issues such as gun control and abortion and women’s claim to be actual people, but also the brain-frying stupidity of our politics is like rotting meat to flies. We get the authentic stupid politics and then we get even more of it courtesy of Putin.

That is not fair.

The accounts addressed

Twitter bot purge shock:

(It’s fun writing headlines that would have been gibberish 10 or 15 years ago.)

The hashtag #TwitterLockout has trended after an apparent purge of suspected malicious bots on the social network.

Dozens of users report having had their accounts suspended until they provided a telephone number which they then had to verify, to prove they were real.

Some members have raised concerns about their amount of lost followers, and claimed discrimination against right-wing political beliefs.

Is it the right-wing aspect or the deranged aspect? To put it another way, when so much right-wing pro-Trump discourse is batshit crazy and sounds like trolling whether it’s out of Russia or not, how can one tell whether it’s … Read the rest

Florida legislators aren’t going to ban assault weapons just because a bunch of sissy kids think they should.

The Florida House rejects a motion to take up a bill banning assault rifles.

State Representative Kionne McGhee, a Democrat from Miami, asked for an unusual procedural move to consider his legislation, which had been filed earlier in the session but was never scheduled for a hearing.

“The shooting in Parkland demands extraordinary action,” Mr. McGhee said Tuesday on the House floor, as a group of Stoneman Douglas High students, who had previously arrived, peered down from the gallery.

The motion failed, 36 to 71, in a vote along party lines. At least one student burst into tears, Mr. McGhee said. One

The tweet

A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of Trump Tower 12 years ago. Never happened! Who would do this in a public space with live security……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2018

The tweet in response

Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11, 2006. Let’s clear this up for everyone. It’s liars like you in politics that have prompted me to run for office myself. https://t.co/ir7EEKoXRU https://t.co/GmkkZ5jUc7

— Rachel Crooks (@RachelforOhio)

I wondered why Rob mentioned Dinesh D’Souza…then I saw that the latter was trending on Twitter, so I looked. Oh, that’s why.

Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs https://t.co/Vg3mXYvb4c

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) February 20, 2018

The tweet he shared with that startling gloss:

https://twitter.com/passantino/status/966072311534182401… Read the rest

It turns out the whole thing is a left-wing plot to…um…to corrupt our precious bodily fluids? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely left-wing and a plot. And Soros.

Former GOP congressman Jack Kingston on Tuesday doubled-down on his inflammatory allegations that a group of school shooting survivors pushing for tougher gun laws are simply being used by left-wing political groups. Appearing on CNN, the Georgia Republican suggested that billionaire George Soros and other liberal activists had “hijacked” the “sorrow” of survivors of the Parkland, Florida, massacre, who in recent days have been helping organize a series of pro-gun-control protests.

“Do we really think, and I say this sincerely, that 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a

Trump and Co want to ditch a law that protects birds. Yeah, who needs birds anyway?

The bird protection law—known officially as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—is more important now than ever. It protects more than 1,000 species of birds by making it illegal to kill or harm any birds not covered by permits.

Stripping the nation’s longest-standing bird conservation law of its authority to protect birds contradicts decades of bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats. If the law is decapitated by the Interior Department and by legislative proposals authored by Wyoming GOP Representative Liz Cheney, millions of our most iconic and beloved birds will be at huge risk.

…

The penalties under the bird protection law are critical

Up for another Moral Quandary via Twitter session?

The BBC reported yesterday on the BAFTA awards and the MeToo Time’s Up campaigns.

Guests at the Bafta Film Awards showed their support for the Time’s Up and Me Too campaigns by wearing black and sending messages from the stage.

Virtually all the stars at the London ceremony were in black and some were accompanied by rights campaigners.

One of the few in a colourful dress was best actress winner Frances McDormand – but she told the ceremony: “I stand in full solidarity with my sisters.”

It’s all a bit knife-edge, isn’t it – movie stars all dressed up protesting and standing in solidarity with their sisters and stuff. A bit cringeworthy, … Read the rest

The slaughter of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school was a welcome relief to people at the White House, because it took the heat off them for a change. They’d been having a baaaaaad week until then. Whew! Thanks, 17 dead people!

One White House official said the shooting forced the White House to focus on critical and serious issues — like consoling the victims and trying to heal the nation — rather than getting bogged down in what they view as more trivial West Wing drama.

“For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,” said the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect internal conversations. “A lot of people here felt

Newsweek reports:

White nationalist provocateurs, a pair of fake news sites, an army of Twitter bots and other cyber tricks helped derail Democratic Senator Al Franken last year, new research shows.

While everyone has been focused on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to support Donald Trump, the Franken takedown originated in—and was propelled by—a strategic online campaign with digital tentacles reaching to, of all places, Japan. Analysts have now mapped out how Hooters pinup girl and lad-mag model Leeann Tweeden’s initial accusation against Franken became effective propaganda after right-wing black ops master Roger Stone first hinted at the allegation.

A pair of Japan-based websites, created the day before Tweeden came forward, and a swarm of related Twitter