Rantt Rundown: This Is America

Day 484 of the Trump presidency
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by: Ahmed Baba on May 18, 2018

(Michael Murphy)

(Michael Murphy)

Today, tragedy struck.

It feels like just yesterday the nation was reeling from the loss of life in Parkland, Florida and subsequently looked to the future with hope as the March For Our Lives leaders proclaimed #NeverAgain.

But here we are…again.

In the 22nd school shooting so far this year, 9 students and 1 teacher were shot and killed at Santa Fe High School in Texas.

The killer was a 17-year-old white male who was a student at the school. He was reportedly wearing a trench coat and was armed with a shotgun and a revolver that he obtained from his father. Explosives were later found near the school. Some info about the shooter was discovered:

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump put this in perspective:

More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while serving in the military.

Source: The Washington Post

Source: The Washington Post

This is the country we live in. Month after month, we watch as our children are gunned down in the hallways they are supposed to be seeking knowledge in, with their whole lives ahead of them. Instead, our classrooms are war zones with children living in fear.

The GOP consistently advocates against gun control measures at the behest of the NRA. Instead, they claim mental health is the issue. Let’s say we let them have that argument. Well, in that case, why do they roll back access to affordable health care every chance they get, endeavor to cut Medicaid, etc. If they really wanted to solve this problem at its core and not pass any meaningful gun reform, wouldn’t they want more access to healthcare so that every child in America would have access to a therapist?

Welcome to America. A country where Republican leaders who are in control of all branches of government refuse to do anything about the gun epidemic plaguing our nation.

Meanwhile…

The Trump administration is proposing a far-reaching change in the distribution of Title X family-planning funds that would make clinics that provide abortion services or referrals ineligible for the federal funding. The move would potentially defund Planned Parenthood by millions of dollars.

Under the proposal filed Thursday and announced Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services, the $260 million program would require a “bright line” of physical and financial separation between Title X services and providers that perform or support abortion services or refer to abortion as a method of family planning.

  • President Donald Trump went on a tweet storm trying to claim that an informant spied on his campaign. Like much of what Trump says, this has yet to be verified as true.
  • Buzzfeed News reported:

Records pertaining to the financial activities of President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen are not missing from a government database; rather, Treasury Department officials have taken the highly unusual step of restricting access to them even from certain law enforcement agencies, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The New Yorker magazine this week reported that a law enforcement official — worried the information about Cohen’s banking records had been removed from government databases and therefore might be covered up — had admitted to leaking some of what was still accessible.

  • Special Counsel Robert Mueller reportedly subpoenaed another associate of Roger Stone, this time a key assistant.
  • Rudy Giuliani made a series of claims. Like everything he says, take it with a grain of salt. Giuliani claimed that Mueller has agreed to narrow the scope of questions he wants to ask and that the President cannot obstruct justice (tell that to Richard Nixon).
  • Zak Ali of Rantt reported:

On Friday, the historically bipartisan farm bill was voted down in the House, 198-213. What ultimately led to the bill’s downfall was not only the unanimous opposition by the Democrats, but the GOP leadership’s inability to muster up the support it needed from the House Freedom Caucus. The notoriously difficult group of Conservatives were intent on holding the bill hostage until a highly controversial immigration bill was brought to the floor.

  • Robert Wilkie was tapped to be the Veterans Affairs Affairs Secretary.
  • In more “Trump is using his position of power to target whoever he sees as an enemy” news:

Rundown // America / Gun Control / Politics
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by: Ahmed Baba

Ahmed Baba is the Co-Founder and President of Rantt. Writer of Unpresidented, Ahmed documented and analyzed every day of the Trump presidency. He's also a columnist at The Independent and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Blavity, Newsweek, The Telegraph, and more. He can be reached at [email protected] or found on Twitter @AhmedBaba_.

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