We’re listening on CNN this morning to interviews with students who are preparing to return to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tomorrow. I was struck by the interview, which you can see below, of Lorenzo Prado. In the chaos of that afternoon he was briefly mistaken for the gunman and reported as such – somewhat similar physical appearance and clothing and nervous pacing (unsurprising) that made him look suspicious at a distance to some others at the school. As he describes it, the SWAT Team stormed in, put him on the ground with guns drown, searched and cuffed him. He was in custody for some short period. Read More

Here’s our weekly (every Monday) Sum Up of all the key developments on voting rights and democracy.

If you ever listen to podcasts, please take a moment to subscribe to my new podcast. Seriously, just subscribe. You don’t even have to listen if it’s lame. But it’s definitely not lame. We’ve had a great response so far. And if you subscribe and give us a good rating that helps us immeasurably building momentum and audience and buzz. You game? Here we are on iTunes and here we are on Google Play. (RSS here) This week David Taintor and I are going to be talking to Chris Hayes. So if you have questions you’d be interested in hearing answers to, drop me a line by email.

I wrote last night that we were creeping up on 25,000 paid subscribers. Well, no more. At 12:48 p.m. ET, TPM Reader WB became our 25,000th subscriber. Awesome! Thank you WB and thank you to all 25,000 of you. (Actually, now 25,005.)

Let me share an idea I’ve had about the gun issue for many years. It’s not a panacea. But I think it’s a key part of any future in which we deal with guns in a way that is realistic and responsible. A number of years ago gun control activists tried a strategy to make gun manufacturers liable for the impact (literal and figurative) of their products. This approach shared some strategic similarities with what anti-smoking activists had done earlier. The gun lobby shut the whole thing down and that was the end of it. But I’m not sure it was the best approach in any case. It was less an effort to change behavior than drive gun manufacturers out of business. But there’s a different way to think about civil and criminal liability and guns. Read More

This counts as house news. So it’s nothing you have any reason to be concerned about as you would about the news. But if the future and livelihood of this site is important to you, it’s actually a big deal. We are now creeping up on a major milestone: 25,000 subscribers. We’re currently at 24,944. So we have a pretty good shot at getting there by the end of the month. (Our goal is to end the calendar year with no fewer than 30,000 subscribers.) So the first thing is, thanks. Really, thank you to all of our subscribers.

This isn’t just a nice thing on the side. It’s core to the site’s continued existence and vitality. We started Prime at the end of 2012 for a number of reasons. But a key one, really the key one, was that we believed the advertising-only digital publishing model was unsustainable, not just for us but for everyone. As a small player with no resources to fall back on, however, we knew we’d feel the storm early and hard. This, I’ve always thought, is one of the benefits of being a small player. Everyone has to grapple with the same industry trends. But being big allows you to go on longer thinking the trends won’t apply to you. Scale and easy access to capital can facilitate denial.  Read More

CATO analyst bravely takes pro-immigration message to CPAC. Hilarity ensues.

Who was in that meeting that Rick Gates lied to Mueller about? Well, it appears to have been Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R). And the lie was about whether they talked about Ukraine. Check out our story.

Thanks to everyone who checked out, subscribed to and rated my new podcast, The Josh Marshall Podcast. A sincere thank you. We’ll be publishing a new episode every Tuesday going forward. You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or through the direct RSS feed. Episode #2 drops Tuesday. But today we’re releasing a Special Edition episode where we dig into the new box set retrospective of Bob Dylan’s Christian period (which I discussed here in December) and a concert movie which debuts on Cinemax on February 26th. I recommend both highly. In this Special Edition episode I talk to three people who put together the box set and the movie: Jennifer Lebeau, Luc Sante and Greg Geller. I hope you like it. Listen here.

Rick Gates will plead guilty and cooperate with the Mueller probe. Tierney Sneed has the latest.