Morning Must Reads

Most of us already knew this, but here's the dot-connecting for anyone who's still go their head in the sand.

Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html

Dessert: "God Freaks Self Out By Lying Awake Contemplating Own Immortality"

"Hagel and U.S. as 'world's bully' -- in context"

 The site may be forced to change. A move by Congress to require universal background checks would put a crimp in its business. In addition, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is representing Jetka Vesel's family in a lawsuit against the site, filed in December. But Armslist and other similar sites aren't likely to go down without a fight. They represent a significant market share for the gun industry. More than 65 million Americans have criminal records that may impede their ability to buy guns legally, and it's clear that many of these folks want to buy guns, unlike most ordinary citizens. (Household and personal gun ownership has fallen 40 percent since the mid-1970s, just as hunting has also declined in popularity.) Since 1993, roughly 1.7 million people have been denied a gun sale because of background checks, and about half of them were disqualified because they had a criminal record. These folks make for a perfect market for online private sales.

 The Vesel case is not the only murder involving a weapon procured through Armslist. In Wisconsin in October, three days after his wife obtained a restraining order against him for domestic violence, Radcliffe Haughton purchased a gun from a private seller he contacted through Armslist, after posting a rather desperatead on the site that read:

Looking to buy ASAP. Prefer full size, any caliber. Email ASAP. I constantly check my emails. Hoping it has a high mag capacity with the handgun, ammo, accessories. I am a serious buyer. Email me ASAP. Have cash now and looking to buy now. I am mobile.

The restraining order would have barred him from buying a gun legally from a dealer. The next day, Haughton went on a shooting spree at the spa where his wife worked. He killed three people, including his wife, and wounded four others before killing himself. ATF investigated the gun sale, but no one was charged because private sales are only illegal if the seller knows the buyer can't pass a background check.

After the shooting, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett sent a letter to Armslist calling on the owners to implement stronger safeguards to prevent illegal gun sales through the site. They wrote:

Federal law barred Haughton from buying or possessing a firearm after his wife obtained a domestic violence restraining order against him, he was able to avoid an instant background check by purchasing a gun through a private, unlicensed seller on Armslist.com. While licensed gun dealers are required by federal law to conduct background checks, private sellers are not. For Haughton, this lethal loophole made breaking the law to buy a .40-caliber handgun as easy as searching the internet.

Moore and Barrett asked Armslist for a meeting to discuss changes to the site. Armslist never responded. (Neither Mancini nor Gibbon responded to requests for comment for this story.)

When a gun nut starts ranting to you about the limitations of the law, by all means point out to them how gleefully they seem to enjoy circumventing the law to sell weapons to crazy people.  Oh, that's right, crazy people are the reasons we have these shootings.  Never mind that people on Armslist and websites like them seem all too happy to sell them weapons.

"As it turns out, a Washington Times website ran a piece by Republican activist arguing that Ronald Reagan's childhood home 'could become a parking lot' for President Obama's future library. From there, it went to Newsmax, then Fox Nation, before reaching "Fox & Friends" this morning.

While easily dismissed, the story serves as an illustrative example of the way the conservative echo chamber can twist facts and turn baseless speculation into their controversy du jour."

Until April 2011, Armslist had operated largely under the radar, attracting attention only from gun enthusiasts. But that spring,Dmitry Smirnov brought the site its first widespread notice. Smirnov was a Russian immigrant living in British Columbia. As a foreigner, Sminrov, then 21, could not legally purchase a gun anywhere in the United States. (Canada's gun laws are even stricter.) But through Armslist, he connected withBenedict Ladera,a 31-year-old Seattle man who sold him a .40-caliber handgun outside a Washington casino. Ladera charged Smirnov an extra $200 because he couldn't prove he lived in the state. Smirnov then traveled to Illinois, and tracked down Jetka Vesel, 36, whom he'd had a brief relationship with after meeting her through an online gaming site a few years earlier. He'd been harassing her from afar ever since she broke up with him.

Once in Illinois, Smirnov stuck a GPS tracker on Vesel's car and followed her for a few days before finally ambushing her as she came out of the Czechoslovak Heritage Museum, where she'd been volunteering. He shot her a dozen times. He turned himself in a few hours later, and pleaded guilty to the crime. Ladera was also prosecuted and sentenced to a year in prison.

Jesus Christ, this is like reading a horror story.  How many people have we seen flooding in here recently already claiming that our current system was perfect, or that as gun enthusiasts they too want to see guns kept out of the hands of criminals?  Thanks for the link Alex.

Armslist quickly took off. By 2011, it was one of the largest online gun sites in the country, with more than 13,000 active listings for firearms. The site also had another, more dubious distinction: Weapons obtained through the site have been tied to the murders of four people and one suicide. An undercover New York City investigation (PDF) found that the site likely was a major conduit for illegal gun sales. Investigators discovered that 54 percent of the sellers they contacted through the site were openly willing to sell firearms to people who admitted they couldn't pass a background check (which is a felony, incidentally).

But hey, let the gun nuts pretend like they care about crime or what impact their second amendment rights (which are not being threatened) has on crime.

"Indeed, going through the transcript, one might be tempted to believe there are only three countries on the planet -- the United States, Israel, and Iran -- and that Iran poses some kind of existential threat to America's future.

Al Qaeda wasn't deemed important, nor was North Korea. China was brought up only a handful of times, and the use of drones wasn't mentioned at all.

In Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the next Pentagon chief, Afghanistan -- the country where American troops are fighting an active, hot war right now -- was largely treated as an afterthought.

And why did the hearing play out like this?"

The Romney campaign closes the books.

"Biden: New gun controls likely won't end shootings"

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/31/16794835-biden-new-gun-controls-likely-wont-end-shootings

Translation: "But we are going to try to pass them anyway to appease the imbeciles who put us in office."

"Foes of same-sex marriage are laboring to pay the tab for an epic legal case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, as the movement suffers from fundraising shortfalls that could sap its strength in future battles."

"The number of student loans held by subprime borrowers is growing, and more of those loans are souring, the latest signs that a weak job market and rising debt loads are squeezing recent graduates.

In all, 33% of all subprime student loans in repayment were 90 days or more past due in March 2012, up from 24% in 2007, according to a Wednesday report by TransUnion LLC.

Meanwhile, the Chicago-based credit bureau found that 33% of the almost 900 billion in outstanding student loans was held by subprime, or the riskiest, borrowers as of March 2012, up from 31% in 2007."

"A suicide bomber killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, blowing the door off a side entrance and sending smoke and debris flying into the street."