How About Trump Experiences Accountability for Once?

 

When I see the suggestion that to avoid a violent civil conflict, we have to entertain the idea that Trump gets away with an attempted insurrection and collecting national security documents for his own purposes as if we had no imagination whatsoever about what a "disgruntled former employee" would want to do with such material. I can't help but feel like "what in the whole fuck are you a human being in the world with the rest of us thinking about, give me an entire fucking break." 

Trump's little fan club believes in power. Trump doesn't have that much anymore--outside of his little fan club. You remember Cesar Sayoc and his mail bombs and maybe some dozen or so Trump fans who penetrated the veil between our tolerance of Trump's violence-fluffing and its actual conception. Well, after 1/6, and the deaths of some insurrectionists and LE officers alike, how are we pretending his rhetoric doesn't matter, and after the most recent breach of his faith to lawfully uphold our Constitutional government, we see once again he was inept and unfit to do it, why are we pretending it's okay to just not prosecute him for the damage he's done? 

This Rhetoric is Harmful and Misogynistic

 

JD Vance thinks parents should stay in violent marriages "for the sake of their kids." That's not just wrong, it's unbelievably dangerous. pic.twitter.com/aQnTGRCuNi

— Tim Ryan (@TimRyan) July 25, 2022

I'm not going to get into the argument of "Well, women can be abusers, too", because I really feel like what Vance is getting at here is women don't like their helpings of marital chastisement, so the little round heels use lawyers to slink away from their otherwise perfectly good homes. Homes, where, presumably, they would be raising their children in a much better environment with two parents than by trying to go it alone.

It's appalling that a supposedly educated man knows no better than this. I heard something some time ago that really stuck with me--it's better to be from a broken home than to live in a broken family. If a spouse is being abused, what are the odds the kids aren't absorbing the trauma of that, and being abused themselves? 

On the other side of Roe, we're already looking at homicide being the number one cause of maternal mortality, and the likelihood of it being due to intimate partner violence being really high. Staying together "for the kids" in a world where parents might not have planned for or wanted these kids feels like so much resentment and interpersonal aggression ready to happen in a world where resources aren't there for them.  But once the kids are here, should they have a loving, not-violent environment to grow up in? 

His answer that getting a divorce is too easy is a disgrace--what if getting your ass beat and your psyche trampled on the daily is something no human should have to suffer? What if no one deserves the threat of violence or even death as a part of their interactions in their own home, which should be a refuge and place of safety and comfort? What if raising a child with healthy boundaries and physical and emotional safety was more important than some arbitrary feelings about two parents in the home? 

We have child marriage and rapists being fathers in this country. We have families ripe for abusive relationships. And this fool wants to pontificate on whether maybe spouses should just put up with beatings? Fatherlessness is better than a monster for a father. 

I don't know if this is his true belief or something he's signifying for the hard-right evangelicals who believe the rod shouldn't be spared and the husband is the head of the house in some iron-clad spiritual way, but this view is unhealthy and misguided, and saying it out loud displays an unfitness for making decisions pertaining to other people's lives. 

He needs to lose. Tim Ryan should be the next US Senator from Ohio. 

Eric Greitens is a Sociopath, and Sociopaths Should Not be in Office

 

None of us are brand-new here, so Eric Greitens' game of doing a big shooty-shoot ad is definitely for the signifying: he gets to get free media because it will be covered extensively, he gets CANCELLED BY THE SOCIAL MEDIA because there is a disclaimer on his post now, and he gets to turn around with a shit-eating grin and say "Aw shucks folks, why are you so heated? Can't you grasp a metaphor?" 

Which is good for him and all, except that he actually is a sociopath. Like, the documentation on this guy being a person who should not have custody of guns, kids, or like a whole state is very out there. He literally bound a woman up in a basement and took blackmail porn of her. He had to vacate the office of the Governor of the state he is now trying to run for US Senate in. He allegedly beat his wife and children. But there is just so much more to the Eric Greitens story. 

If other people want to play this game, hey. it's free speech, even if it's a bit despicable to encourage violence. Especially in today's climate, when elected officials are receiving death threats and paying for increased security. If you are Eric Greitens and people know you are a shabby person with violent tendencies, wow. great job highlighting that. Except we've gone through the looking glass on the right, haven't we? Encouraging violence isn't the bugbear it used to be in the olden days. And even being an admitted domestic violence practitioner doesn't seem to be a barrier to one's poll numbers.  

And apparently, a certain type of woman has no problem backing him. A low-quality sort who associates with obviously deranged people, you might say.

Many Things Can Be True At Once

 

I was absolutely not interested in writing about a certain case which has been all over the news, but unfortunately, I get stuck in my writing if something like this goes by and I haven't commented. But I will not refer to anyone BY NAME because I know my readers will know what I'm talking about. And it feels like a nice blind item for a gossip column that way.

Sigh. So here goes...

It can be true that men can be abused. That does not give them a pass to also be abusive. Women can be abusers, but that does not mean that a woman has to be perfect to also be able to say that she has been harmed. The two people in this case both seem to have made each other thoroughly miserable and there was substance abuse involved. I hope for both of their sakes they are getting therapy. I'm not for the purposes of this post taking sides, but if you know what I've written about #MeToo and misogyny previously, you can probably imagine. 

That said, what I want to post about isn't this case per se, but the reaction to it--it's been weirdly personal, and despite getting more details than anyone ever could want and both of these people being famous--regardless, we don't know them. These are people underneath their celebrity and the roles they have performed. We know the cases their lawyers and PR professionals have made on their behalf.  Stories can have more than one side. 

But this case and its result should not affect anyone else's story, or anyone else's right to talk about their own abuse, and I think the reason in part this particular case became so riveting is because people wanted to fold it into some other narrative about cancel culture or whether men (all men, not this particular man) can now shrug off claims of abuse because women won't be believed, because this one woman wasn't believed. 

That doesn't seem right. 

But regardless, while I am not saying that all the people who sympathized with a certain nameless person are rotten people, it doesn't escape my attention that all the really rotten people are high-fiving each other over this jury's decision. And while I don't know the other nameless party personally, I know there are people who have suffered abuse and were not believed and can only imagine how gutting the gloating over this feels for them, because it's like their own predicament is being rubbed in their faces. It could have a dampening effect on other people trying to seek help or admit what has happened to them. 

That doesn't seem right, either.

So I want it clear that it really feels to me like there is some serious misogyny at play and while I'm not going to try to convince anyone about what happened in this case, I ask anyone who cares about domestic violence in general to take a good look around at who is supporting whom, and why. It can be eye-opening. 

A Very Meaningful Endorsement for this Mandel Guy

 

Trump: We’ve endorsed Dr.Oz. We’ve endorsed JP right? JD Mandell. He’s doing great pic.twitter.com/wkP3KetanL

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 1, 2022

To be charitable, maybe he misspoke, but since Trump can't seem to stop talking about the "X" test that proved he was actually smart, like all the other stable geniuses in is family, I think I want to humbly suggest that if he can't remember who he endorsed in the GOP primary coming up this Tuesday, maybe he should take another test.

To be less charitable, still, I understand why Trump might be confused, because neither Vance nor Mandel necessarily are stand-out candidates (although Mandel has definitely stood out in the field for ads, on occasion, when he's not in his bunker) but J.D. Vance has written a book. Which almost makes him Dr. Oz-level famous.  

Sure, Trump doesn't read books, but the book did get made into a movie (with Meryl Streep, so I'm pretty sure he didn't watch it, either).  They can't all be Herschel Walkers. And some of them are even Eric Greitens, recently seen on a gun-filled playdate with Don. Jr. You all remember Greitens, right? The accused domestic abuser with the rape dungeon in his basement. (Look, this happens.) 

I guess what I'm saying is, the problem isn't that Trump finds the candidate he endorsed in OH so forgettable, it's that he was sharing the evening with a candidate he endorsed who is currently defending himself from charges of sexual assault. It seems like Trump is endorsing people to show he still has political heft, but he doesn't give a goddamn who those people are. It just gives Trump an opportunity to get out there and campaign and appear politically relevant. These endorsees take second billing, and if they win, Trump will take credit, and if they lose, it will be forgotten. 

Maybe Trump isn't a stable genius, but take a look at what he's doing--these campaigns think they have glommed onto Trump's star. They've competed for the honor of his endorsement. But look who he chooses. The twice-impeached one-term wonder is just here for the clicks and likes. His endorsements are part of the con.

Lindsey Graham is on His Bullshit Again

 

Lindsey Graham tells young women that, “There’s a place for you in America — if you are pro-life — if you embrace your religion and you follow traditional family structure".

What a bad guy...pic.twitter.com/KwBppG65oV

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 1, 2020

I did not think Graham would make a more bare-faced exclusionary statement than the remarks he had regarding Black and brown people living in South Carolina, but here he goes again. Now, as for me, I have been in America since birth, and firmly believe in taking care of the health and rights of people who have been born (as well as the pre-natal care for pregnant people so that they can have healthy babies if they choose), am militantly agnostic, and understand that traditionally, people have formed many kinds of families, so I would certainly like to think there's "a place" for me in America. 

 (And I happen to also know that the phrase "young lady" rankles many actually young ladies who have just been told what they should believe as it rankles me at my big age. It always seemed a bit of a condescension.) 

 Like Trump's foolish "we're getting your husbands back to work" comment, these words show no recognition of the diversity ofwomen's lives. We are sometimes the sole breadwinners in our households, we go to work and have meaningful careers, we want to be paid what we are due, and not dependent on another person's labor, but women have suffered the brunt of job-losses in this pandemic. Trump talks about women wanting safety from hypothetical (and presumably Black and brown, because, wow, yes, dog-whistles!) strangers, when surrounding himself (and being, himself) persons who are abusive to their partners, in a party that that privileges the gun rights of abusers over our lives. 

 As with the right wing's touting of Amy Coney Barrett's seven young qualifications, we are faced with a picture-book image of women as household angel, who "keeps sweet" and raises babies, not hell. His view seems to me like a faded antique, and for many women who grew up as I did, the feeling should be that the genie has long been out of the bottle. This appeal he's making is towards certain evangelicals who go out of their way to extoll "family values" in a way that barely values people, let alone families.

And Graham wonders why he has been so dominantly outraised during this campaign. (Did he not know us frails control our own purse-strings these days?)

The Strange Case of Mr. Smollett

Regardless of whether you believe actor Jussie Smollett paid two men to stage a hate crime attack on him, the question on many people's minds is why he -- or anyone -- would lie about such a thing https://t.co/ujAR99aGgL pic.twitter.com/PBoP0PyIBn

— CNN (@CNN) February 22, 2019

There's something about the Jussie Smollett situation that pretty much scrapes every nerve, and even now, I find myself trying to understand why a person who is in a good position as an artist, is talented and well-liked, and who has a solid reputation for trying to do good, would engage in such a pathetic, time and emotion-wasting lie. There is a lot of real hate out there, for people of color and LGBTQ folks. There has been no shortage of examples of people who have experienced hate and violence. For someone to perpetrate a false alarm with the intention of just garnering sympathy to make himself more marketable or valuable in a salary dispute is so extraordinarily selfish it literally beggars my capacity to consider that such a nakedly selfish motive could be all there is to the story.

If anyone, anyone at all, considers the rights of victims of hate crimes or other deeply personal violence, it has to be understood that false accusations harm real victims. The biggest barrier to justice is the fear of reporting due to being disbelieved, or being accused of trying to ruin someone else's life or reputation. It places a terrible stigma on a person already injured by encouraging other people to consider "what if this terrible thing never happened?" Maybe the world isn't so terrible that people can randomly be assaulted for any reason. Maybe the victim is the problem. We can see this easily with circumstances of domestic violence or rape. Victims sometimes opt not to come forward because their reputations will be damaged, or they will face other societal or economic penalties for trying to receive justice. With hate crimes, this can also have other levels of blowback, if one suspects that law enforcement are not sympathetic to their race or orientation or gender expression. There is a risk of further oppression.

For Jussie Smollett to wave away the entirety of what the revelation of his imposture would mean to real victims, his counting on his identity to earn his sympathy, and the supposition that he would never be found out, shows an enormous ignorance or tunnel-vision about social and criminal justice. The idea that he staged this for solely monetary reasons, when the reality of his salary is already just nonsensically rich to regular folks, is as unsympathetic to consider--in much the way the plight of an actual victim of hate would seem sympathetic.

And yet--the perpetrated story of Jussie Smollett is his story, and it was told to family, friends, co-workers, fans, and the world. The love and sympathy and outpouring of affection he received, and the harshness with which people would condemn violence against people due to racism or homophobia are still good motives, even if what he did to elicit them was a lie. It is still right to stand by marginalized people because of real harms they experience, and it is still right to listen to the stories of victims because most really are true. It is still right to condemn hate and seek justice, and although Smollett's story called out MAGA hat wearing fake perps, I want one thing to be pretty clear:

The fake details were not a smear against all Trump-supporters. This was Smollett's version of verisimilitude. He was working with the reputation MAGA hat wearing people (like Cesar Sayoc) already had, in rather the same way Susan Smith blamed the death of her boys on a carjacking by black men.  He wasn't trying to make a political statement--his shit was very personal.

And what remains to be considered is whether some other issue (outside leverage or mental instability) encouraged what Smollett seems to have done. There may be a reason besides the extremely selfish for what he has done. But although the details were political, I don't see this as solely a political case. The people he hurt most were POC and LGBTQ people whose stories are now going to be met with "but Jussie". It was certainly not "MAGA country" people.

The White House Porter Timeline Wasn't Right

FBI Director Wray on Rob Porter background check:

• Submitted partial report in March
• Completed background investigation in late July
• Received request for follow up, provided info in Nov.
• Closed the file in Jan. 
• Received and passed on new info earlier this month pic.twitter.com/ucNcgge4vz

— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 13, 2018

Because I am at the point where I just disregard anything Sarah Huckabee Sanders says because she is as bad a liar as Sean Spicer ever was and possibly even shows more contempt for the truth and for the media, and for the public that she, the media and the truth should serve, I am going to just accept that the timeline given by Trump's appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray indicates that key White House staff should have known this Porter fellow wasn't going to get that solid clearance, and was in fact, a perpetual liability as a serial woman-beater. People knew this, and they did not mind. One take is that they did not care because this White House is steeped in misogyny, which is the point I took up last time I visited the idea. But another, also ghastly point, is that Rob Porter, for all his obvious flaws, was competent enough to serve, in a White House staffing crisis where that particular grace did not befall all potential applicants.

This points to, what was also described today, as a White House clearance system that is broken. Sanders points to the internal White House personnel security office. I surely bet office politics has embargoed their free and open response to her throwing them under the bus. But I suspect the career folks that staff that office have a particularly rugged backstory to relate regarding clearing anybody from Jared Kushner on down.  This White House does not have the best people. This is a particular process barrier to letting them do shit, because the system is rigged to prevent grifters, posers and security threats from participating. This was set up not to be unfair to weirdo outsider dark horse sonsofbitches that Trumpists want to romanticize Trump et als as, but to actually not have grossly unfit and potentially dangerous people handling top level clearance intelligence. Because it is specifically harmful to national security to have randos who have proved themselves to be unaccountable suddenly be accounting for matters of state.

The Trump Administration can't get the best people, despite his boasting that he would. This is not an example of "deep state" fuckery. This is just the Trump Administration having shitty people in positions they can not be qualified for.

Trump Responds to Porter News

“We certainly wish him well,” President Donald Trump said of Rob Porter, the White House aide who has been accused of domestic abuse. “It’s obviously a tough time for him. He did a very good job when he was in the White House.” https://t.co/T9XclJXPuOhttps://t.co/T9XclJXPuO pic.twitter.com/O2ldQLBJOW

— POLITICO (@politico) February 9, 2018

I don't know if we could have expected anything better from Trump than wishing the best of luck to outgoing Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Porter amid allegations from three women that he is guilty of domestic assault. Trump is sure to remind us that we should not forget that Porter himself says that he is innocent, which is something we could also say of Trump with respect to the twenty or so women who allege he has harassed or assaulted them. I will also remember that Porter said that Colbie Holderness and he were arguing over a vase, and she received a black eye because the vase somehow hit her. Vases are sneaky like that.

In his public statement, it can be noted that he doesn't mention Porter's accusers, which is just as well, because in private, he apparently thinks they are lying.  This is, after all, a man who has said that women should be treated like shit. He's defended serial sexual harassers and assaulters like Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly.  There is nothing breath-taking or shocking about Trump matter-of-factly hoping that the man who beats women goes on to have a successful career because he has given us no indication by anything ever said that he thinks any other way. When it was revealed that Steve Bannon might have been violent to his former spouse, he nicknamed him "Bam Bam".

Because it's a joke. Sometimes, in his mind, men just keep women in line like that. So maybe his staffer will just go on to better things, and maybe someday find a woman he won't have to beat on. Maybe Hope Hicks can be that woman--after all, he allegedly described her (according to Fire and Fury) as the best "piece of tail" Corey Lewandowski would ever have, which is both revolting and somehow what I believe Trump actually would try to bestow on someone as a compliment).  But in the meanwhile, he is a little miffed at Hicks for not, in all this, managing to craft a message that also makes Trump look good. (Rob Porter who actually abused his wives and a girlfriend?--Great guy worked hard, really sad situation. John Kelly who seems to have known all about it and covered it up-well, you know full confidence. Woman in an awkward relationship with a man accused of being violent towards intimate partners? Totally responsible for figuring out how to not have made this into a "thing", you know? Jennie Willoughby is worried about Hicks, and frankly, so am I. )

This White House is basically soaking in misogyny. Another person working there, a speechwriter, has resigned for domestic violence allegations as well.   But this is reflective of the man at the top. These are the people he has around him for reasons. They are not good reasons.

The White House Shielded a Domestic Abuser

The resignation of Rob Porter after allegations that he has been a serial domestic abuser come to light with a sickening side-note: The White House knew about the abuse allegations, and the impact that those allegations had on his ability to do his job (relating to his security clearance and the potential for blackmail) and they wanted him to stay. This put White House communications director Hope Hicks in the uncomfortable situation of crafting a statement about a person who is allegedly her current romantic partner (a thing I feel almost gossipy about relating, but really--this point is constructive).

The #metoo movement is alleged to go too far, and to appear to be going after people whose shitty behavior towards women is within some kind of acceptable level of shitty, for some value of the importance of their work. This guy, right here, working hand in glove with the White House Chief of Staff, is the exact reason why I don't find that argument at all acceptable. One of these women Porter is alleged to have abused  got told that the reason she should rethink her allegations regarding his mistreatment and violence was a consideration of his political ambitions. 

In her blog post, Willoughby wrote, “When I tried to get help, I was counseled to consider carefully how what I said might affect his career.” She told The Intercept that she had described Porter’s anger issues to a lay official in the Mormon church. She said the official had told her to think carefully about what she said publicly about Porter’s behavior. “Keep in mind, Rob has career ambitions,” she recalled the official saying. (The press office at the Mormon church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, declined to comment for this story.)

The career ambitions of an abusive person should have no relevance upon whether the suffering of that person's partner should be given credence or whether that person deserves a reckoning. But this is how this got played. There are two women this guy was married to who can present a story with some credibility, that this is a privately violent human, He might clean up great and do a nice job at the office--but he deep-down sides with dehumanizing his intimate partners. That needs to matter.

It doesn't seem to matter to this White House.

I worry still for this guy's ex-spouses, because at least one had been reached out by him for the purpose of trying to mitigate this story, and she said no. We know intimate partners and former intimate partners of abusive men can be in real danger.

This White House never did take the claims against this person seriously, anymore than his former employer did.

Women's lives matter. Domestic abuse is an indicator of this guy's bent regarding the value of human lives--including immigrants, a critical population this guy delivered stories to the president about. One who dehumanizes his own intimate partners doesn't strike me as the best spokesperson regarding anything at all.  I am glad he resigned, and appalled that he was defended from the White House. As if in some way, they sort of did think abuse was quite all right.

The Sickness We Don't See

There's nothing in this world that makes me want to blog about the massacre by Devin Patrick Kelley at the First Baptist Church at Sutherland Springs. Everything about it is chilling and awful--this was supposed to be a safe space. This was a place where families were gathered to worship their Lord and enjoy fellowship as a community. This person mowed down lives of persons young and old for whatever reasons, and I think by now we should just discount the production of bullshit manifestoes.

Fuck it. If the monster was a socialist monster or a conservative monster--would it make as much of a difference as the frigging time-bomb in his head and the socialization malfunction that told him there were reasons to mow down innocent people with a rifle? Would being an Islamic monster or a Christian monster make the enormity of the thing he did less? He could be a democratic socialist atheist monster, and tick off every box of compatibility with my world view, and be no one I have an ounce of pity for, because one of my main thoughts about life is--you don't just randomly create a bloodbath of your fellow sentient primates because of some burr up your ass. He slaughtered mothers and fathers and children in innocent prayer. There isn't ever a reason for that action. No concocted worldview ever satisfies the why for that enormity. It boils down to his inability to see these human lives as anything but pieces on a board for some personal game--but what I do see, and always look for?

Domestic abuse. He was court martialed for abusing his wife and child.  How he treated the people closest to him, the most vulnerable and nearest to him, was a symptom or a sign of how he would eventually treat so many random others. This idea has been hashed out before, and I've documented it, and gifted feminist comedian and social justice warrior princess Samantha Bee just did a meaningful segment on the connection between domestic abuse and mass shootings. 

I don't really have anything to add--except my condolences to a community, a small Texas town where literally everyone knows someone who was affected by this tragedy. I care about their healing and want the church and it's communion to stay uninterrupted. But as long as I have a memory of violence and the causes thereof and the means thereof, I will continue talking about the toxic masculinity that sees violence as a necessary part of the enforcement of its claims on other people's behavior and sheer existence, and the acceptance of gun culture as a reinforcement of that toxic strain of social dominance. By murder. And by people accepting these tools and these unnecessary and petty ideas that lead to murder so easily. 

Baseball, Not Violence

Scene from the congressional ballgame, a couple years ago.

We US Americans live in a country where, even though there is partisanship and strained relations to be sure,players who enjoy the comradery of the field put it aside and play a game with time-honored rules together as they have done for 108 years.  It's a charity event, and it brings out the unique commitment to service and goodwill that, to be honest, we need to make our democracy work. It's a grand thing.

The purity of that grand thing was terrifyingly disrupted this morning with gunfire and chaos, the violent assault by one disturbed man, James T. Hodgkinson, and the bravery of DC and Congressional Police details who fired back at him to end the onslaught . The assailant was found to be a putative progressive who seemed to be targeting the GOP baseball practice out of malice for their politics.

I found myself more sympathetic to these GOP congresspeople reporting from the scene than I have been about GOP congresspersons at all for a long time. The visage of TX Rep. Joe Barton was shaken, as one could expect of a father whose sons were present at this terrible affray. Several of those who had been present recounted the event with tears of relief and horror--relief that it had not been worse--horror that it happened at all. And I am there for them, and my thoughts are with them. Partisanship should never erase the human strand that remains appalled at appalling things like this attack.

I want to address what I think about James T. Hodgkinson for a moment. I visited, as a curiosity, his Facebook page and found that while he had posted links to political cartoons and petitions, his FB wall was devoid of much of the personal, other than the message that he had ended his relationship with his business. At 66, with his career behind him, and having fed himself solely with political notions, maybe he was dry tinder looking for a spark--or, given what we know about his history of abusive and violent behavior--maybe he was dry tinder carrying a torch in a high wind. He apparently has treated human beings in his life terribly before this event.

This reminds me of so many other mass shooting events I have written about over the years. Obviously Elliot Rodgers was a hater, but domestic violence and attempts to translate the violent urge to politics,  are not new to me. The story gets old.  People who start with violence against family--especially women, can escalate to violence against anyone at all.

This terrible person left no manifesto, but we have his social media profile:  Isolation, failure and a growing attachment to political identity can be a pretty dangerous mix. I abhor what he did, as did Senator Sanders, for whom this character once volunteered.

I don't like the resolution of anything political to be due to violence. I am for playing ball.

My thoughts go out to all those impacted by the frightfulness of this tragic event.

I blame Ismaayil Brinsley.

It is possible to mourn the loss of life BY police and OF police. That is true humanity.
— Baratunde (@baratunde) December 20, 2014

The deaths of two NY police officers by one assailant who started his spree with the shooting of a former girlfriend and ended it by shooting himself are tragic and grotesque. These officers in no way deserved what befell them, and my condolences are offered to the families and associates of the fallen. There is no good that comes of unreasoning and deadly actions such as this, and the pain of what has happened will doubtless last.

But blame has to be laid where it is due. I think it's revolting that Ismaayil Brinsley tied his actions to the protests against police brutality, as if his personal drama assumed meaning by it. No. He didn't shoot his girlfriend because he thought "black lives matter", and he didn't shoot those officers because he believed an unarmed man shouldn't be killed by police. It looks like this person had a criminal record of some size and a reason to have feelings about law enforcement well before the events in Fergusen, New York or Cleveland went down. He doesn't seem to have given a shit about it before the day he shot his ex-girlfriend. (Now, someone may dig up that he protested somewhere--but I doubt it. He wasn't a New Yorker--he drove up from Baltimore. I don't care what he posted on Instagram at the last moment--and if he's dropping 50 Cent lyrics with his ex-girlfriend's blood on his leg he was a huge posing useless waste of space.)