The NHL champion Pittsburgh Penguins visited the White House on Tuesday, a move that seemed to many like a deliberate slap in the face of the black athletes whom the president had been attacking on Twitter and in public appearances for the past several weeks.

The assembled Penguins players were all white; the lone nonwhite player on the championship squad, a black Canadian named Trevor Daley, could not attend due to scheduling conflicts. And then at the very end of the event, Trump said something that sounds like boilerplate — but, in context, was kind of absurd.

“You are true, true champions — and incredible patriots,” Trump said.

The line was a not-so-subtle swipe at NFL players like former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who kneel during the national anthem to protest police violence, as well as the 2017 NBA champion Golden State Warriors, who had refused to attend their White House visit in protest. But describing the Penguins as “incredible patriots” really gives away the game here: Most of the Pittsburgh Penguins squad aren’t American patriots, because they aren’t American at all.

Ten of the 23 players on the Pittsburgh Penguins roster during the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals were American. The majority hailed from elsewhere, specifically Canada and a grab bag of cold European countries (Russia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland). The fact that they play for an American NHL team does not magically turn them into American patriots; typically, they play for their home country during the Olympics.

Calling an all-white assembly of mostly foreign hockey players patriots, in clear contrast to the group of African-American athletes that the president has blasted, suggests the real issue here isn’t love for America. It’s how well the athletes fit in to Trump’s vision of America — one in which black athletes shut up about racism and perform the sort of patriotic spectacle that Trump likes.

Perhaps you've heard about the various Democratic plans to make college free for everyone. But have you heard about the Republican plan to make college more expensive for people who can't afford it?

The Federal Pell Grant Program provides billions of dollars in financial aid to college students in need of assistance, but these grants — and other aid — could disappear or be made worthless if proposals by Congress and the Trump administration are enacted.

The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income students to help pay for college.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted 219 to 206 to pass a 126-page congressional budget resolution [PDF] for fiscal year 2018 that would reduce education and workforce spending by $20 billion over the next nine years.

But her speeches.

White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, according to three U.S. government officials.

The discovery raises concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly’s phone while he was secretary of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing.

Tech support staff discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to White House tech support this summer complaining that it wasn’t working or updating software properly.

Kelly told the staffers the phone hadn’t been working properly for months, according to the officials.

Wanna read about the scummy, racist, overflowing-with-assholes inner-workings of Brietbart? Now's your chance!

The Count shared a fascinating and depressing article about how "tracking a gun purchase" is actually done.

“People don't think,” Charlie tells me. He's a trim guy, 51, full lips and a thin goatee, and he likes to wear three-piece suits. They fit loose, so the overall effect is awkward innocence, like an eighth grader headed to his first formal. “ I get e-mails even from police saying, ‘Can you type in the serial number and tell me who the gun is registered to?’ Every week. They think it's like a VIN number on a car. Even police. Police from everywhere. ‘Hey, can you guys hurry up and type that number in?’ ”

So here's a news flash, from Charlie: “We ain't got a registration system. Ain't nobody registering no damn guns.”

There is no national database of guns. We have no centralized record of who owns all the firearms we so vigorously debate, no hard data regarding how many people own them, how many of them are bought or sold, or how many even exist.

What we have instead is Charlie.

Inside The Federal Bureau Of Way Too Many Guns.

This is a profoundly stupid country.

Thanks all, for your kind words about the Tricksey situation.

Much appreciated.

WASHINGTON —
Expressing a sense of guarded optimism that the latest incident of gun violence that left 58 dead and 500 injured in Las Vegas would be a turning point for the nation, Americans across the country confirmed Monday they were hopeful this would be the last mass shooting before all such occurrences stopped on their own for no reason at all. “After something as horrific as what happened in Las Vegas, we’re all just hoping that now these terrible shootings will stop once and for all without circumstances changing in any way or any of us taking even the slightest amount of action in response,” said Harrisburg, PA resident David Snyder, echoing the sentiments of tens of millions of citizens from coast to coast who told reporters they were confident that, after living through the most deadly mass shooting in modern American history and taking no material steps to change gun laws, reevaluate safety standards, increase access to mental health care, or even have a national conversation about how mass shootings could be avoided in the future, tragedies of this kind would at long last come to an end. “Having seen acts of violence like this happen over and over again for years now, I’m really holding out hope that, despite every single factor that allowed them to occur remaining exactly the same, we won’t have to live through another day like today. I know everyone’s praying this will finally be the time this issue just disappears forever entirely by itself without anyone doing anything.” At press time, Americans nationwide agreed that years of taking no measures whatsoever to prevent mass shootings may finally be paying off.

Four things the Trump administration has done to ensure Obamacare enrollment is more difficult this year:

The TL;DR Version

• Less Time To Sign Up: The ACA enrollment window, which begins Nov. 1, will only last for six weeks — half the time of previous enrollment periods.
• Sunday Maintenance: With the exception of Dec. 10, Healthcare.gov will be down for “maintenance” for 12 hours every Sunday during the enrollment period.
• Slashed Funding/Support For Navigators: Navigator groups, who help people select and sign up for ACA coverage, have seen their grant funding slashed by 40% in spite of promises it would be kept intact. Additionally, some groups say that HHS is not providing the support it used to for the glitchy, complicated software it requires these navigators to use.
• Who Needs Advertising? The advertising budget for the enrollment period has been slashed by 90%

Consumerist

If I were king, I would ban guns completely. Instantly. Without hesitation.

I've the heard the arguments for them and none of those arguments rise above fantasy and fetishism.

But not really into it.