It's not a "fact of life" in any other country. Just this one.
Now, a guy like Vance doesn't think it weird to be more concerned about kids having access to porn than guns. Republicans believe weird things. They believe in things like "post-birth abortion" which isn't happening and are concerned with that, not the school shootings which clearly are. Then again, maybe folks like Vance have warm and fuzzy memories about unsecured firearms.
Just like Mamaw used to have.
That's very certainly a terrible thing. We have a problem with gun violence in this country. Senseless deaths and horrific injuries occur all the time.
The knee-jerk response of many Trump Republicans was to immediately blame "The Left", President Biden, DEI, CRT, the Jews and Ukraine, because all the money intended for the Secret Service apparently went to missiles and now they have to hire dumb girls, or something. That's right, before they even knew who the shooter was or had any idea why he was shooting (which we still don't know).
Oh, and one more thing: we better not criticize Fearless Leader or bring up January 6th ever again.
Needless to say, that's not something I'm about to do. Donald Trump getting shot at isn't going to make him a better person and this shooting certainly doesn't cancel out what happened on January 6th. I still believe he has no business being president and the reckless lying about election fraud that led up to the massive violence of that day, the bloodshed, the Confederate flag being led through the Capitol, the violence intended to our political system. is something the Republican party must atone for--
Having spent something like a year and 3/4ths insisting she actually won the contest for AZ governor and only appeared to have lost due to voter fraud rather than conspicuous own goals like eschewing the support of "John McCain Republicans", has now decided to show a more moderate side by (checks notes) suggesting holy war and armed conflict:Kari Lake called on her supporters in Arizona to arm themselves ahead of an “intense” period leading up to the election. “We are going to put on the armor of God, and maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.” The crowd roared its approval.https://t.co/otBB7H2mkK
— Chris Cameron (@ChrisCameronNYT) April 17, 2024
It is not the first time Ms. Lake has alluded to armed conflict with her and her supporters. Last year, she said: “If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the N.R.A.,” referring to the National Rifle Association. She added, “That’s not a threat — that’s a public service announcement.”
Her voice is just one in a rising chorus of violent, authoritarian or otherwise aggressive political rhetoric from Mr. Trump and his allies. The former president shared a video late last month featuring an image of President Biden, his Democratic rival, hogtied. He has also said that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and described his political opponents last year as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”
I don't know about the John McCain Republicans, but this is a very familiar and tragic theme to Gabrielle Giffords Democrats. It is also a grave concern for AZ elections officials. And I think it is doubtful she will back off based on her previous history with such language and associations. Lake's true flaws are too big to airbrush away. She is a reckless demagogue.
NEW: Colorado Secretary of State "extremely concerned" about pro-Trump violence
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) December 20, 2023
Jena Griswold received 64 death threats and 900+ threats of non-lethal abuse just within the first 3 weeks of filing the case to keep Trump off the state ballot. https://t.co/aEwbadUZtZ
This follows a pattern that occurs around Trump, mostly because he encourages it. Trump's people do not respect the law because they have decided that supporting Trump is something higher than the law. What people who want to say that Trump has to be rejected at the ballot box don't understand is, Trump's insurrection started with undermining the importance of the ballot box. That pattern of violence and threats--includes poll workers and election officials.
Trump has already established his people don't respect the ballot--he lost in 2020, and 1/6 was the result of that. There are two things I strongly suggest cause this. The first is the Tea Party and militia-based kayfabe that the 2nd Amendment is a remedy against one's own government in the event that it becomes "tyrannical" (which seems to include Trump receiving due process for indictments received at the determination of a grand jury).
Mass Shootings in Texas
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 7, 2023
2023 Allen (9 dead)
2023 Cleveland (5 dead)
2022 Uvalde (22 dead)
2019 El Paso (23 dead)
2019 Odessa (8 dead)
2018 Santa Fe (10 dead)
2017 Sutherland Springs (27 dead)
2017 Plano (9 dead)
2015 Waco (9 dead)
2015 Houston (8 dead)
2009 Fort Hood (14 dead)
No, this is inadequate. Charles Whitman climbed the watchtower on the University of Texas campus in 1966 and the Luby Cafeteria shooting is infamous from 1991. This mass shooting thing in Texas is deep and makes the resolve of the elected officials there to just rely on "thoughts and prayers" to do anything at all while broadly supporting the NRA disgraceful. Of course, nice thoughts aren't fixing this.
The culture is clearly fucked up. but the resort of fucked up people to utilize guns to manifest their fucked-upness is a critical problem. I don't want to criminalize folks just having guns, but figuring out who potential criminals are and not arming them would be great.
I see people out there decrying the folks mocking "thoughts and prayers" as being spiteful about god. Nope, these people are critical of prayers being used hypocritically, to be seen on the street corner doing conspicuous prayer, while being in private doing conspicuously nothing at all. While real humans suffer. Being shot in innocent surroundings. Sometimes dying, sometimes living with a forever affected life.
Do you have thoughts and prayers for the permanently maimed and terrorized? Do you consider that survivors have trauma and feel different in public spaces, maybe for a lifetime?
Tonight on @11thHour with @SRuhle: Kansas City shooter was “…fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line”. Grandson says Andrew Lester influenced by conservative media | The Kansas City Star @MSNBC https://t.co/IJivWs9Yxx
— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) April 21, 2023
A kid was shot because he knocked on the wrong door. A girl got shot because she turned into the wrong driveway. Cheerleaders were shot because they approached the wrong car. A little girl and her family were shot at because a ball rolled into the wrong lawn.
I try to not just blame the guns--our violence problem is exacerbated by the availability of guns, but that isn't the whole problem. There is a synergy between some kind of overly defensive mindset, some kind of near-paranoia, and the access to weaponry, that is the problem. Something has gone terribly wrong with the basic American brain that it looks for enemies everywhere.
Our gun-related violence statistics are something to behold. The grandson of Andrew Lester talks about the viewpoint of his grandfather and you almost wonder how such shootings aren't more prevalent.
Even while I understand how the AR-15 became a fetish for certain people, I don't blame the weapons--not entirely, even though I think we should keep them out of the hands of people who have previous assault charges, domestic violence, and restraining orders against them. That just seems logical to me. But we have a whole narrative, an NRA/gun lobby voice, saying having guns is your masculinity and your freedom. It's a solution to problems. The rhetoric isn't just home defense--it's payback and civil war.
The fixation on violence as a front line tactic is disgraceful and damaging to civil peace. The gunhumpers who facilitated this POV need to understand their bullshit is why so many progressives want to ban various weapons.
I get that the thing (any long gun, automated or not, any handgun, anything that goes boom and fires a projectile) is just a tool. But the rhetoric of gun nuts has weaponized the people for the sake of selling guns.
And the people go off, hurting people and sometimes killing them. And that is not acceptable.
But let's face it, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas choosing to do just that based on Fox News and the opinions of no less an intellect and subject matter expert on this than Kyle Rittenhouse is very, very on brand, And saying more just feels like a waste of words, in a way.
It's one thing for MS Gov. Tate Reeves to declare April Confederate Heritage Month, but it's a whole other thing for the majority Republican State House in Tennessee to expel two young Black lawmakers for, get this, siding with their constituents on a matter of vital local importance, namely, gun control in the wake of another national tragedy, gun violence at one of our schools.
Whew--see, that's actually showing some Confederate values, right there.
The legislators who were expelled exercised their freedom of speech, and represented the people who brought them to office. Whether you agree with them or not, it's hard to say that what they had done was on the same plane as what some previous office-holders were distinctly not expelled for, such as pedophilia and corruption. A White legislator, Rep. Gloria Johnson, who had stood with them, was not expelled, and gave a transparent answer as to why: it's skin color.
Above, I selected a picture of Rep. Justin Jones being arrested protesting the bust of KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest being on display in the State House. It looks to me like there are people who can not distinguish the difference between causing good and bad trouble on the moral plane, but this young man gets it.
A lot of young people get it, which is probably why states like Florida don't want "getting it" being taught in the schools and deride "wokeness" and CRT. I think the Tennessee GOP's actions here were execrable, and they will be hearing from the vox populi on this next election time.
UPDATE: The GOP-led leg promises to be economic terrorists if their bête noire is reinstated, which seems very fascist indeed. Among other, obviously derogatory descriptors. Also, too, our VP Kamala Harris came in support of these Democratic heroes.
It is traditional,
like love letters
and candy,
we have massacres here:
red and black and white
color our Valentine's Day,
cupid's arrows replaced by bullets,
the romance of the gun
and an affair with Death.
It is traditional,
like a daily ritual
practiced in tiny classrooms
and taught in auditoriums,
and workplace videos to remind you
your co-worker could go berserk,
so please take time to think how
you should run, hide, fight.
We have massacres here
for the old and young with no exemption,
our one truly inclusive
experience, and some
get to see two or more
in even one short lifetime.
Here there be massacres--
a feature of our landscape like amber waves of grain,
only waves of pain
and passersby that jest at scars
not having felt a wound.
And it happens so many times in a week
we can hardly speak to it,
other than to say it happens and something goes horribly awry--
but we never quite answer: why?
Trump superfan and failed state senate candidate Solomon Pena had a problem--he lost his election, by rather a lot. But he was damn certain it was rigged, because if they can do it to Trump, they could do it to him. So he decided the answer was what some might refer to as a "Second Amendment" solution.
Around 3 p.m. APD’s SWAT team swarmed a condominium complex near the ABQ BioPark Zoo to execute a search warrant. They made announcements for Pena — who they said may be armed with a firearm — to surrender as drones flew overhead.
Within an hour officers had arrested Pena, who is accused of paying four men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators, Police Chief Harold Medina announced Monday evening. Investigators also believe Pena was present for at least one of the shootings.
Did he think intimidation would somehow get them to overturn the election for him? Who knows--the people who have signed on to this "rigged elections" nonsense seem to have parted ways with reality to me, like the tribe of election-deniers in my own state who have decided that one day, a recount of the 2020 ballots will prove Trump won.
But the logic (or lack thereof) pales against the reality that when Pena researched his options, he saw violence as definitely one of them--just as some people did on 1/6. And there's reason to believe that he will not be the last person to decide that this is an option as the paranoid and deluded, even "apocalyptic" mindset prevails among MAGAs.
For his part, Alex Jones says that he hasn't got the money--he's bankrupt. He swears they will never see a cent as he fundraises. He fundraises so he can continue to do the work of--lying his face off.
Watching the Sandy Hook verdict live from his studio, Alex Jones makes an urgent plea to his audience for cash, and tells them that none of the money they send him will go the the families because he has filed for bankruptcy. pic.twitter.com/H658p5Sjiw
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 12, 2022
Now, I am a firm believer that if you are such a demented fuckmuppet that you can completely understand that this man perpetrated a politically biased and wholly made-up campaign of lies that ruined the lives of innocent, grieving people and still support Jones that you basically should by all means be hosed of your money. I also believe that if you somehow still and all believe in Alex Jones' lies, there are worse things you could be doing with your money, because by GOD! you are a sick one, aren't you! And I am a believer that somehow, someway, the law will attach the properties of one Alex Jones and alleviate him of his ill-grifted valuta, bankruptcy proceedings or no. I think one court might take a dim view of being used to circumvent the purposeful findings of another.
What can't be adequately done, however, is wring the truth out of this monster, and worse yet, you can't wring it out of the kind of monsters who support his lying.
Now--this man has said demented things that no person in their right mind should be capable of believing, because just a basic awareness of the workings of the world should militate against it. Things like weather machines and actual public figures being part of a ring of demonic pedophiles is an awful lot to choke down for someone who has their head on straight. He says purposefully horrific things all the time for attention. For clicks and likes and people following him to hear more crazy shit. The idea that there are people who like what he says and then go ahead and believe it gags me with biggest of all possible spoons.
Jones apologists can pretend this man apologized and disavowed what he said. If he truly felt remorse in anyway, his shenanigans regarding the two court cases (with one to come) would have been utterly different, but instead, he used his time to whine, rage, complain, bitch that he was being shut up and silenced for his truth--not facing the consequences of actual lies, told by him, that he recognized as such and felt any way about. He can't have that both ways.
The problem for the right wing is, they legitimized this huckster. But why not? Trump, of Trump University and the Trump Foundation, both found to be frauds, wouldn't see any wrong in Jones. Tucker Carlson seems to aspire to be Glenn Beck and Alex Jones' circle jerk spank rag baby. And Steve Bannon literally still has a following of the kind of tools who donated money to Build a Wall that was supposed to be built by either Mexico or US tax dollars and was never going to be built with their money (that went to yachts and whatnots). They aren't just his supporters--they are his kith, kin and kind!
But it also struck me that Hawley was far from the only one who would have been likely to do such a thing, because being a massive troll is the rage (literally) in GOP politics. Whether it's dressing up one's finest Army/Navy store gear to go watch immigrants at the border and take a goofy little boat ride or taking holiday family photographs with everyone from the pater familias on down kitted out for a replay of Ruby Ridge or the Waco stand-off, signifying militancy and even the desire to overthrow the government is treated as quite normal.
It's what they've pulled the discourse down to. Take the endless 2nd Amendment signifying about citizens taking up arms against their own government (you know, the government that our elected officials are representatives of) that Rep. Jamie Raskin had to patiently explain was...well, horseshit.
And of course, a lot of these gunslingers just want to get strapped up so they can feel safe at the Chipotle or to menace random POCs or as a form of conspicuous consumption. Overthrowing the government might be something they vaguely support, but not in a whole life-disruption kind of way.
Hawley's shameless dash from the violent insurrectionists he definitely was insisting shortly thereafter were no such thing* can be compared to Steve Bannon's desire to "go medieval" regarding his "misdemeanor from Hell". Other than as a possible personal hygiene pledge, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but other than running his mouth after the hearing (where he was found guilty on both counts), it's hard to say what he means to do, other than possible appeal.
But what's funny is his claim that it's the members of the 1/6 Committee that are "gutless" for not coming to his contempt hearing when he was the one who couldn't even be bothered to go to them, even to take the Fifth or flip them off or whatever actual confrontation could have been made. It's political theater--he's being performatively defiant, but it boils down to name-calling.
It's possible that it's Bannon who has the best grasp of this ethos in his grubby way--after all, he made a bit of money off of homo ludens, He knows very well that people will pay real money for fake things because they love the thrill of sport and the sense of getting over. They will pay money for a wall that doesn't materialize. They'll wear tricorn hats and knickers and talk up a game about how they want to storm the castle. Shit. they will even sit in a medieval monastery (maybe) and train to be New World Order Knights. It's all an amazing LARP--
It's just one where people can die. Trump World people have been living a fantasy. They still want to run away from the real world results. They swarmed behind Trump like sheep--but it's beginning to smell like mutton in here.
*UPDATE: Oh my word, I totally forgot this chiclet-head had written in favor of Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement when he was a little 15-year-old spud. He learned exactly not one grown-up thing in the interim. Not one.
All in all, nearly 400 law enforcement officers arrived at the scene of this particular mass shooting. And somehow, one extremely damaged teenager who somehow despite a troubled history easily acquired weapons was not stopped before committing a deadly atrocity. It was because no one wanted to take leadership.
I'm not trying to say this is a metaphor for anything, but just not wanting to take leadership, or being confused about what is absolutely necessary to do, feels like an instructive point. There has to be one, after all. Tragedies should be able to be stopped by people who understand what needs to be done. What matters is if and how they act.
And right here, there was so much crucial inaction. I am so angry on behalf of these families, that they were not better served. We have to learn from this. We have to dispel the myth of the good guys with guns.
I just can't see a better way for all this destruction of life and hope to be prevented than for this shooter to have never been armed. It isn't enough for him to be stopped eventually. It is ideal he never have the opportunity to start. There needed to be a strong red flag law here, I think. This was a kid whose acquaintances thought he had the attributes of a potential school shooter.
And I curse with utmost sincerity people who think an active shooter alert system is somehow a bridge too far. Just as with weather alerts or AMBER alerts, shouldn't communities be informed so that they can take action to potentially save lives? It really feels important, and like some people don't even understand that saving lives is something that people actually should want to do. It even seems like some people want to minimize active shooter reports because they feel like it defames, somehow, the gun culture.
This is depressing, and only too likely. People who privilege the reputation of inanimate objects over the lives of human beings are sketchy. We need to have people who do hold firearms to be responsible people--that is a minimum request. I'm not for gun-grabbing, but accountability, and I think folks who want to misrepresent facts are causing actual harm by making inaction a default. And inaction gets people killed, see all the above.
UPDATE: Sen. Cruz believes more cops will help with mass shootings, because knowing that 376 cops inside and outside of one elementary school isn't apparently failure of proof of concept enough for him.
In that report, Arredondo said that his approach was "responding as a police officer."
"I didn't title myself. But once I got in there and we took that fire, back then, I realized we need some things. We've got to get in that door. We need an extraction tool. We need those keys ... As far as I'm talking about the command part...the people that went in, there was a big group of them outside the door. I have no idea who they were and how they walked in or anything kind of -- I wasn't given that direction," the chief said in the report.Uvalde doesn't want to admit their guy made a crucial mistake for whatever reason. He didn't even have anyone try the unlocked door. He didn't know who was supposed to take point. He wasn't given direction, but understanding what was happening, he also never took initiative. It is an astonishing view of how things fail--when no one is in charge or takes charge, when no one can even take responsibility.
The alleged shooter apparently provided a lot of internet content, which is in the process of being scrubbed and I guess there are reasons not to publicize his little cartoons and lyrics and all. But apparently, red flags existed as to what was on this young man's mind about thinking of doing damage to other people. The above screenshot is from a video he did that depicted himself as a school shooter. The flag symbolism is just something to ruminate over--for now.
But I want to short-circuit the idea that this kid was antifa because of random dress-up photos or the idea that scrawny little pencil-neck betas are a libtard thing. Waldo over here was signifying badass MAGA wannabe, and that apparently meant embracing the gun--the symbol of dominance and cleansing for an American kid who has gone off the rails and wants to signify his badassery. By shooting innocent folks and causing terror for no clear reason at all.
So, we can offer up our thoughts and prayers now, our numb-skulled thoughts and broken-hearted prayers, that this kind of monstrosity which happens here more than anywhere else, happened here, on this day we celebrate our nation's uniqueness and history. These offerings are our national pastime after all.
(Look, I'm not a Mainer or Maine's mom or anything, but why do you have such a thing as areas that don't have an actual public school? Instead of offering tuition to anyone, just do a school. I think the world would be a better place if there were more schools. Figure out where there is a gasping need, build it. I don't know how a community exists that doesn't think there is a need for a local school, but okay, village, if you don't build it, the state can just step in that way. Shrug. Of course, I don't believe in private or homeschool education because there's a risk of things being way off standard. Ever see the Abeka curriculum? Yikes on bikes.)
We also saw a radical dismantling of gun control, also pretty bizarrely decided, with Justice Thomas telling us somberly that Justice Taney had some good points in the Dred Scott decision. Wait.. Have we retired the idea that you absolutely do not have to hand it to the Dred Scott decision; because I feel like I missed a memo. Last I checked we were not handing anything to the Dred Scott decision.
But while the conservative justices were feeling extra cute with their decisions (history might delete later) it's no surprise that Thomas once again added to the obvious furor that the Alito-written Dobbs decision was going to cause by actually saying the unravelling part out loud--yeah, we're coming for Obergefell, Lawrence and Griswold. (Who is going to check us, bitch? he did not add.) You don't have a private life that isn't dictated by the state. We can control your vertical and horizontal--the outer limits of your physical choices. You will fornicate inside the lines. God will decide if child will issue or not. If you die, you die.
Another stunning Uvalde development: The door to the classroom where a gunman killed the students and teachers was probably unlocked all along. Footage shows officers didn't try to open it until SWAT arrived.@bchasnoff https://t.co/YYPhrbxB9Q
— David Sheppard (@Sheppard_David) June 18, 2022
This has to be the grimmest example of a police force doing the very least imaginable. I was trying to keep up with the changing stories just post-the tragedy, but my initial post that "I thought they knew" about the 911 calls (the Uvalde police chief now says he never had his police radio, as it would have slowed him down (?) and he didn't exactly know who was supposed to take the lead on the affray) never anticipated that weeks later, the local PD would be fighting very hard against any evidence being made available.
Weeks later, we are finding out that they never tried the door. We were told they were fucking about in the hallway with no one immediately going to look for keys when to my mind, if they had even a glimmer of a hope any kids were alive, they should have been looking for a prybar--anything! to try and end the shooter's spree.
The idea that they didn't even try the door at all is just madness. Why in the hell not? Because they really would have had to do something? And now I'm only more certain than ever that when they finally did breech the premises, they must have fucked it up worse. Maybe even caught victims in the crossfire. Because they've given us absolutely no reason to believe otherwise based on all the other paucity of evidence we've got.
Grief might be forever, and peace of mind is hard to come by, but in lieu of that, the families and the community deserve the truth so they can get accountability and action. They deserve it! How can their elected officials think anything but?
Well, CYA. But that impulse is a damned disgrace. And I don't know how they would live with themselves.
UPDATE: They had ballistic shields and long guns. They could still hear the gunshots. And at least a few of the officers on the scene did want to go in at once. They should have indeed had some kind of prybar for this type of situation. They didn't lack for anything but the decision to move.
UPDATE: The school can no longer stand, because the situation is too painful for the community to endure. Asking anyone to stay teaching or trying to learn where so much tragedy took place is just an awful lot. One day we will salt the earth with places that we can't revisit owing to the violence that once was there. I don't think this is how a healthy society does anything. We must unlearn violence. We must desanctify the gun as a part of our national religion.
Kyle Rittenhouse is introduced at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit as the ideal catch for a husband: “I want to talk a lot about what kind of man you should be attracted to .. Men’s #1 goal is to protect your family .. and Kyle Rittenhouse is a man who does that.” pic.twitter.com/WLjIdQhc6d
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) June 5, 2022
I've wondered about these echo chambers for RW yahoos to yodel in before, especially the Pepto Bismol Pink ones, but Kyle Rittenhouse is a potato with issues. I also wonder about what "Young Women's Leadership" has to do with catching hubbies. Also, nothing the boy did has anything to do with protecting a family.
It has to be trolling.
UPDATE: Wow. So the entire thing was like that--we're young, we're edgy, we're not the old conservative party, so please go to church and figure out how to be a Stepford Wife. People paid to go there and be told what their granny would have told them. If their granny was really conservative and churchy.
UPDATE: From the Strangely Blogged Archives:
Yes, Louie Gohmert has a heart--it's the thing that pumps the blood into his face when he acts indignant that he is being called complicit with the mass shooters. It's alwys been his brain that I've been agnostic about--maybe if he showed more eidence of it? But as it stands, if he and his Republican colleagues did actually care about the gun violence situation in this country, they would actually know more about how lax gun laws have worked to put guns in the hands of the wrong people instead of giving the same old NRA-derived talking points. I get that this agitated display was for the base, but it doesn't persuade anyone for sensible gun control of much. The only thing Republicans really seem to be working on is their acting skills.Gohmert fires back at Democrats on gun debate: "You think we don’t have hearts?" https://t.co/AbZhcO3ktD pic.twitter.com/UdlpX80nve
— The Hill (@thehill) June 3, 2022
It certainly has been a minute, hasn't it? So, what brings me out of self-imposed blogging exile, if not something very relevant to my...
