Pete's Prep: Friday, Feb. 16, 2018

Senate stalls on immigration reform. Again.

The US Senate failed to agree on any of the four separate proposals aimed at the so-called "Dreamers."

That was the Senate yesterday trying to craft a reform of American immigration policy - with a specific focus on letting unauthorized immigrant children stay in the country.

Roll Call has a good write-up on each of the proposals, and how they were defeated.

Real Clear Politics examines what the votes tell us about the shifts by the Democratic and Republican parties.

And in a related note, Jazz Shaw at HotAir.com has a story about what it looks like when ICE goes around arresting unauthorized immigrants with criminal records - because "sanctuary cities" refuse to do.



No, video games don't cause mass shootings

Apparently video gaming is being cited as a possible reason for the most recent mass shooting. This time from Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin.

The research doesn't support this theory, though.

From Red State:

“The young males in my research were in grades eight and 11. I found  that just by themselves, even without any controls, violent video games  were a poor predictor of violent behavior,” DeCamp says. “Even in the  best model, it only explained about 3 percent of the variation in  violent behavior.”

According to the study, “even that 3 percent shrank when DeCamp accounted for other factors. He also found similar results among girls.”

“After controlling for other factors,” he added, “I found that not  only were the effects very weak in comparison with other ones, they were  mostly non-significant after you included those other controls.”

What was a more significant factor in the manifestation of violence  in children? The answer is home life, the same thing it is in many other  cases of violence.

Which makes this latest development pretty important:

Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the family home of  shooter Nikolas Cruz 39 times since 2010, according to documents  obtained by CNN — but it’s not immediately clear which calls, if any,  involved Cruz.




Another story of President Trump's infidelity

First, it was the story of porn star Stormi Daniels. Now, it's a former Playboy Playmate.

From Ronan Farrow's piece at the New Yorker.

In June, 2006, Donald Trump taped an episode of his reality-television show, “The Apprentice,” at the Playboy Mansion, in Los Angeles. Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s  publisher, threw a pool party for the show’s contestants with dozens of  current and former Playmates, including Karen McDougal, a slim brunette  who had been named Playmate of the Year, eight years earlier. In 2001,  the magazine’s readers voted her runner-up for “Playmate of the ’90s,”  behind Pamela Anderson. At the time of the party, Trump had been married  to the Slovenian model Melania Knauss for less than two years; their son, Barron, was a few months old.

I don't think this matters much. People knew what they were voting for (or against). But it does detail the way powerful people bury stories. They call it "catch and kill."

On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer,  had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to  McDougal’s story, which it never ran. Purchasing a story in order to  bury it is a practice that many in the tabloid industry call “catch and  kill.” This is a favorite tactic of the C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I.,  David Pecker, who describes the President as “a personal friend.”  As part of the agreement, A.M.I. consented to publish a regular  aging-and-fitness column by McDougal. After Trump won the Presidency,  however, A.M.I.’s promises largely went unfulfilled, according to  McDougal. Last month, the Journal reported  that Trump’s personal lawyer had negotiated a separate agreement just  before the election with an adult-film actress named Stephanie Clifford,  whose screen name is Stormy Daniels, which barred her from discussing  her own affair with Trump. Since then, A.M.I. has repeatedly approached  McDougal about extending her contract.

The White House denies this affair, as it did the alleged affair with Damiels.




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