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Guns: “You’d think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head” Bloomberg Attacks

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Meet The Press this morning shared with anchor David Gregory frightening and startling statistics on violence and death directly related to lack of gun control in America, and added, “You’d think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head, that would have changed Congress’ views.” Sadly, it has not.

As we have written here at The New Civil Rights Movement time and time and time and time again, 10,000 Americans die each year because of gun violence.

Bloomberg also said, “We’ve had 400,000 Americans killed since RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. were both assassinated back in ’68. That is more Americans that have died on the streets from illegal guns since then in America than Americans that were killed in World War II.”

Video and transcript via Ian Millhiser at Think Progress:

BLOOMBERG: You’d think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head, that would have changed Congress’ views. I can tell you how to change it, just get Congress to come with me to the hospital when I’ve got tell tell somebody that their son or daughter, their spouse, their parent is not going to come home again. This past, this week, even though the murder rate in New York is so much lower than almost every big city, we still had a cop shot last week with a gun that somebody had even though the federal laws prohibited that person from having a gun.

You know, the federal laws say you can’t get a gun if you have a drug problem, psychiatric problems, criminal record or [if you are] a minor. And yet Congress doesn’t give moneys to make sure we can have a background check. They have too many loopholes. The background databases aren’t up to date. Private sector sales of guns are something like 40 percent and they don’t do background checks, I don’t know who has to get killed for people to start saying ‘wait a second, this is enough.’

Millhiser properly adds:

If anything, the picture in Congress is even bleaker than Bloomberg suggests. In 2006, the NRA successfully lobbied Congress to make the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) a Senate-confirmed position. Since then, the Senate has been unable to confirm anyone to serve as the chief enforcer of firearms laws due to the combination of gun lobbying and the nearly-unbreakable filibuster. President Obama’s nominee was blocked because he opposes allowing civilians to purchase a weapon capable of punching a baseball-sized hole in 2.5 inches of bulletproof glass.

Not content simply to erect barriers to enforcing federal firearms laws, much of Congress also wants to strip states of their power to enforce reasonable gun regulations. The House recently passed the “National Right To Carry Reciprocity Act,” which forces nearly every state to honor concealed carry licenses issued by the states with the laxest licensing rules. Half of North Carolina concealed carry permit holders with felony convictions have been allowed to keep their permits, and Florida issued 1,700 concealed carry permits to people with “criminal histories, arrest warrants, domestic violence injunctions and misdemeanor convictions for gun-related crimes.” Under this NRA-sponsored bill, all of these permit holders who be allowed to carry concealed firearms in 49 of the 50 states.

Nor are federal lawmakers the only ones looking for new and more creative ways to arm the nation. Several states are pushing efforts to force colleges to allow concealed firearms on campus— because clearly what America needs are rooms full of fraternity members packing heat right after they each consumed a case of Milwaukee’s Best. Not to be outdone, Colorado lawmakers are pushing a bill to allow firearms in elementary schools.

As conservative Justice Antonin Scalia explained in D.C. v. Heller, respecting the Second Amendment does not mean filling every building with firearms, or eliminating concealed carry rules, or placing guns in the hands of convicted felons or the mentally ill. Sadly, far too many lawmakers have let the NRA convince them that the myth of the Second Amendment far exceeds the reality.

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‘War Is Peace’: White House’s Navarro Mocked Over Claim Tariffs Are ‘Tax Cuts’

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July 17, 2025

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Peter Navarro, Senior Counselor to the President for Trade and Manufacturing, says the White House likes “where we’re at” with tariffs—which he insists are “tax cuts,” despite broad disagreement from economists. Navarro also says President Trump’s tariffs have brought in $100 billion in six months, but he also insists that that money is paid by foreign countries. Ultimately, tariffs are generally paid—at least in part—by consumers, as higher prices for imported goods or for domestic products that rely on imported components.

Speaking to Fox News on Thursday (videos below), Navarro said, “when we put tariffs on the foreign countries, particularly the ones that depend on us the most, they have to eat the tariffs.”

“So tariffs, they’re not tax hikes, they’re tax cuts,” Navarro insisted.

“We’ve had $100 billion so far we raised in six months. We’re gonna have trillions over the ten years, and that’s going to pay for the big, beautiful bill. Tax cuts and debt reduction by the tune of about $2 trillion.”

READ MORE: ‘Trust in Trump’: White House Touts ‘Incredible’ Economy as Inflation Jumps

“We like where we’re at,” he claimed.

Navarro also insisted that “the reason why tariffs don’t cause negative impacts like inflation is because these countries, they depend so heavily on us. Europe, China, go around the world. They just live, they feast off us with unfair trade practices.”

“When we say, ‘No, you can’t come in unless you pay this tariff,’ they got to eat the tariff,” he again insisted, neglecting to state that the importer, and, ultimately, the consumer, pays most or all of the cost of the tariffs.

FactCheck.org, analyzing some of Navarro’s claims on tariffs back in April, reported that “tariffs, also known as customs duties, are a tax increase on the U.S. importers who pay the tariffs – not foreign countries. And because those importers often pass at least some of those costs on to U.S. consumers through price hikes, tariffs are considered to be regressive taxes that affect lower-income households more than others as a percentage of income.”

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Responding to Navarro’s claim that tariffs are tax cuts, journalist Aaron Rupar, founder of Public Notice, wrote: “War is peace.”

Professor of Law Joseph Mastrosimone wrote: “Good lord this man is insanely stupid. And he is a senior White House Counselor. Right on brand.”

Joe Walsh, the former GOP congressman turned political commentator and a Democrat, called Navarro’s claim: “Utter b——-.”

Watch the videos below or at this link.

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‘Trust in Trump’: White House Touts ‘Incredible’ Economy as Inflation Jumps

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10 hours ago

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July 17, 2025

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is crediting President Donald Trump with what she described as an “incredible economic turnaround in just six months.” However, inflation continues to rise under his administration, and the data she cited highlighted only a selective set of favorable economic indicators.

Americans “saw prices for new and used vehicles and airfares dropped last month,” Leavitt enthusiastically declared on Thursday during a press briefing.

“In addition, prices for gas, fuel oil, energy commodities, hotels, airfare, public transportation, and fresh vegetables are all down over last year,” she claimed.

“As we said all along, trust in President Trump. The American dream is back and everyday families are already reaping the benefits of this incredible economic turnaround in just six months.”

READ MORE: ‘Total Nonsense’: Stephen Miller Blasted Over ‘Wonders’ of Life ‘When Illegals Are Gone’

Her statements highlighted positive data while leaving out ongoing inflation concerns.

Prices for new and used vehicles did drop last month, but both are up over the past 12 months: 0.2% for new vehicles and a hefty 2.8% for used cars and trucks, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks all these items and publishes the monthly inflation rate.

Overall, inflation last month rose to an annual rate of 2.7%, the highest level in months.

The cost of food is up 3% over last year. Electricity is up 5.8% over last year, and utility (piped) gas service is up a massive 14.2% over last year.

READ MORE: ‘Go Home’: Noem Tells Farmers to Help Their Undocumented Workers ‘Self Deport’

Shelter is up 3.8%, and medical and transportation services are both up 3.4% over last year.

Economists cite the President’s tariffs, now beginning to take effect, along with rising costs for food, energy, and rent as the reasons for the increase in inflation.

The White House appears to be attempting to head off public concern.

“Worsening inflation poses a political challenge for President Donald Trump, who promised during last year’s presidential campaign to immediately lower costs,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Republican Says Trump on Immigration Could Be Like Lincoln Was for Slavery

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‘Fear Is the Tool of the Tyrant’: Maurene Comey, Fired by Trump DOJ, Sounds Alarm

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12 hours ago

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July 17, 2025

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Maurene Comey, the veteran federal prosecutor who led the cases against Jeffrey Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was fired Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice amid a sweeping Trump administration scandal over its refusal to release the so-called Epstein files. Now, she has a few words of advice for her former colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” wrote Comey, in a letter obtained by Politico. “Do not let that happen.”

Maurene Comey served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and is the daughter of the also-fired former FBI Director James Comey, who reportedly is under investigation by the Trump DOJ.

READ MORE: ‘Total Nonsense’: Stephen Miller Blasted Over ‘Wonders’ of Life ‘When Illegals Are Gone’

“Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else.”

Also in her letter, which Politico’s Kyle Cheney posted (below), Comey wrote: “Yesterday was unexpectedly my last day in the Office. I was summarily fired via memo from Main Justice that did not give a reason for my termination. Every person lucky enough to work in this office constantly hears four words to describe our ethos: Without Fear or Favor. Do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons without fear of retribution and without favor to the powerful.”

“For the majority of my nearly ten years in SDNY, the hard part seemed to be acting ‘without favor.’ That is, making sure people with access, money, and power were not treated differently than anyone else; and making sure this office remained separate from politics and focused only on the facts and the law,” she explained. “Fear was never really conceivable. We don’t fear bad press; we have the luxury of exceptional security keeping us physically safe; and, so long as we did our work with integrity, we would get to keep serving the public in this office.”

She lamented, “we have entered a new phase where ‘without fear’ may be the challenge.”

Read Comey’s letter below or at this link.

READ MORE: Republican Says Trump on Immigration Could Be Like Lincoln Was for Slavery

 

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