2025 Has Started with Terror

 

To wake and find that the promise of a new year is already draped in tragedy is a horrific start--and all my condolences to the friends and families of those lost in the horrific assault in New Orleans and to the survivors and theirs. It is a stark reminder that evil doesn't take a holiday, and that disturbed and radicalized people are among us. Violence is the burden of a society that needs meaning and unity. We are divided and life is stressful, and people dissociate and create demons to justify carrying out the worst of their fantasies. 

We should not become numb to this. We cannot accept it. It is inimical to civilized life. 

I don't know what the hell animated the mind of Shamsud-Din Jabbar to cause a man who once swore an oath to protect and defend this country to so drastically turn against its citizens, but this was an American--not a stranger. We grew this problem here. 

A Fact of Life

 

I don't know if referring to school shootings as a "fact of life" can be seen as anything but weird, but somehow, it made sense in the mouth of JD Vance. I grew up watching "Facts of Life" and I'm struggling to recall the episode where Mrs. Garrett lunged to put herself between a bullet and Tootie, but then again, when I was a kid we didn't have active shooter drills with the frequency we had fire drills. 

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. 

Nothing New Under the Florida Sun

 

Ryan Christopher Palmeter, the white gunman who shot and killed three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida was a 21-year-old who bought his guns legally and had no criminal history, local law enforcement said https://t.co/iXp0cIgwMo

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 28, 2023

The oft-repeated social media line is that Ron Desantis is coming back to Florida to address a tragedy that he doesn't want students to learn about the origins of in class. It's true, though. The slaying of 3 Dollar General patrons due to a racially-motivated murder spree, happened near to the anniversary of a race riot where white people went crazy in response to a lunch counter civil rights protest.* Like the Parkland shooter of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas HS, this young man painted swastikas on his rifle. It was meant to send a domestic terrorist message. 

I see Stupid People, But They Don't Know They're Stupid

 

Musk doubles down on his claims that there's no evidence the Allen, Texas mall shooter had white supremacist beliefs, and that @bellingcat "does psy-ops" professionally. pic.twitter.com/60yvbbspYZ

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) May 16, 2023

Do the big fucking Nazi tattoos confuse Elon, here? Because to the extent we have a potential motive, it looks like this shithead was fucked up about Asians. Also, Musk wants to pretend his weird Twitter obsession is somehow like Inigo Montoya but I don't think Elon's father got killed by the woke mind virus or he's doing anything especially brave by being a shitposter. An actually shit, shitposter. 

Yeah, He's Pretty Much on the Nose

 

our dive into the social media accounts of Allen, TX killer Mauricio Garcia. online, Garcia shared content from far-right extremists. he also signed up for a major incel forum before the attack. me with @MichaelEHayden, @MeganSquire0, and rachel janik. https://t.co/efjAEXQtz5

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) May 9, 2023

So, like, this is me being on Twitter instead of having a healthy middle-aged lady social life, but I notice that Andy Ngo and folks of that nature like the proprietor of the Twitter bar where I hang out and drink and poast think that Garcia's bio is a little too on the nose. Like in "total false flag exactly proving all the shitlib points" kinds of on the nose. I don't know. I'm just saying, the SOB's massive Nazi tattoos really feel like a weird degree of commitment to a bit if the guy wasn't a whole Nazi admirer. 

I'm going with--this guy is a whole ass Nazi. Yep, also entirely buying the incel angle and the Libs of TikTok and Tim Pool follows. Not sure what the problem is--so, just asking questions:

Are the deplorables mad that a person who expresses admiration for Dr. Mengele is a mass killer because I have some seriously bad news for them about Dr. Mengele?

Are they mad he makes their movement look bad as in now we know what their movement is?

Were they kind of hoping it was supposed to be a mass murder attributable to a POC and therefore one they could pin on libs?

Are we supposed to believe Libs of TikTok, and for that matter, cats like Walsh and Knowles, aren't encouraging stochastic terrorism when people like this exist, who are willing to do horrific shit because of what they sopped up online? How much exposure, clicks and likes and homicidal-oriented followers, should equal legal exposure?

Remember when MTG thought Texiera was a whistleblower and not a whole ass Nazi also too? Why is she always up for defending Nazis? Inquiring minds want to know. 

I wish right wingers wouldn't leap to their own defense so quickly before they tried to figure out why their side keeps being these guys. 

UPDATE: You know, this is the kind of guy who was at the 1/6 insurrection.  I mean, this was the kind of guy.  Aaaaanndd the type of girl.

Are we still confused by what we are dealing with? 

Bleeding Texas

 

Mass Shootings in Texas
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)

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 7, 2023

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? 

Greg Abbott is Still Greg Abbotting

 

You can go ahead and click to embiggen the above screencap, but the main takeaway is that Greg Abbott, Christian, can't even acknowledge the victims of a senseless and horrendous crime without pointing out that they were "illegal aliens". The eight-year-old dead child. The two women who died covering their children to try to save them from bullets. This after his appalling failure to even recognize the mass shooting earlier. 

This is Greg Abbott, Abbotting. This is the guy who didn't understand why the federal government would go so far as to feed babies in US custody if there was a formula shortage and who wanted (or still wants--don't even know!) to pardon a man who drove into a crowd of BLM protesters and then conveniently shot one who was lawfully open-carrying. 

It once again looks like Greg Abbott feels like there are mitigating circumstances to murder--if he agrees with who the victims were. But also, too, the murderer was an "illegal," so. There's a reward for his capture. 

I have to wonder if they were shot up by a white guy, would he try and commission a medal? Because that's the vibe I'm getting. 

The War at Home

 

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. 

Nothing New Under the Sun

There has been some discussion about whether there is a post-Rittenhouse embrace of violence on the right, as evidenced by the folks who want to now claim that Club Q patrons got something they deserved. I note that Trump attorney and sometime fart-snuffer, Jenna Ellis, wants to let us know that the real tragedy isn't so much that they were murdered, but that they probably died without the grace of Jesus entering into their hearts. They are just burning away in hell, and you know what?

Jenna Ellis does not mind that. She is sure enough of her own salvation that she doesn't think judging is a bad look for her--even if she has born false witness regarding an election. She wouldn't know how to start the day if she didn't know who she wanted to watch burn if she was given an all-access seat up yonder, to you know. Watch folks burn.

What other reward is there? 

Tim Pool was accusing everyone at Club Q as being "groomers" because that word is nearly as beat to hell as "woke". Instead of meaning a single individual who courts and isolates victims for their own gratification, it in his usage is "anybody who lets kids know queer people exist" which is really weird, because queer people do exist and knowing that isn't harmful. 

Sure--why don't you go storm a Southern Baptist church, tough guy Tim?  Go talk to some folks at the Vatican. Speak out about why the words "GOP politico" and "child porn" go together like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. (Look, you go search some links yourself and get as sick as you need to be. But let me suggest Ruben Verastegui, Ralph Shorty, Charles Young, and Dennis Hastert for a start.) 

They *Do* Want Us Dead

 

Hours after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, LibsOfTikTok is targeting another LGBTQ organization in Colorado Springs.

They want to get people killed. That’s really the only explanation here. This is textbook stochastic terrorism. pic.twitter.com/l793uiMQpm

— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) November 20, 2022

The LibsofTikTok account is live at Twitter under the new Regime. I hate it. I want you to understand something about this weird little targeting site--they want LGBT people dead, and their allies. Yes, even their allies. I know this because they targeted a whole Children's Hospital.  For a weird lie about what pediatric trans care entails--no one is performing surgeries on minors.  And that hospital is still receiving bomb threats, even now.  Because, I guess, like they say, a lie can travel the world before the truth has a chance to put on its pants. 

But think on it--this is a hospital for all kinds of sick children. Every patient, employee and family member has now been targeted for the supposed transgressions of a very, very few. Because they want allies to be severed. They want people to give up accepting LGBT lives in public, at all. 

One of the heroes of the mass shooting was a dad. He was an ally--a straight family man who was just there to appreciate a show. The violence is directed at telling people to fear LGBT spaces. To say if you are an ally--don't be there. Your friends belong in a closet. They shouldn't be seen and their books shouldn't be read. Be afraid.

I don't think it works that way. Mr. Fiero and a drag queen * (CORRECTION--new reports say she was a trans woman,) beat the shooter senseless, and that was more than the hundreds of police at Uvalde did when there was a mass shooter there. Let's face it, drag queens were the front line at Stonewall and are gonna be all up in haters' faces until the haters serve surrender. (And vis the correction--yes, trans women, too.)

But in the meanwhile, LGBT haters are still targeting trans athletes, trans treatment, and drag anything at all. 

Nearly Speechless

 

It's the reason that lies behind what everyone will call a "senseless act" that leaves me beggared for words. I mean: a troubled young man with a history of violent activity shows reg flags, goes on to commit an act of horrific violence with an AR-15. 

I have written so many words following this very outline.

That the young man in question has a political connection doesn't shock me, either--after all, recall the July 4th parade shooting? His father had been a candidate for mayor, and believed he raised his son with "good morals".  That the Colorado Springs shooter's grandfather was pro-insurrection? 

There's nothing I can say about that. Was this violent fool under the impression he was firing shots in a cultural war? Was he a part of the recent violent threats facing LGBT communities? 

Of course. 

I am heartbroken for this community and the victims and the families of the victims. There is too much hate and too many guns in the hands of the hateful. I feel like I keep saying it and saying it and saying it...

You Can't Wring the Truth out of Alex Jones

 

Today, a jury decided that Alex Jones' did about a $1 billion worth of damage to grieving families by maliciously lying about them repeatedly over the airwaves, costing them their piece of mind, safety, health, financial security--he just basically made money by opening his lying trash mouth over and over again to call these people liars over, of all things, the brutal tragic deaths of their children. 

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!

Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Scumbag

 

SCOOP from me and @swin24: January 6th committee is planning to request Alex Jones' text messages and emails from the Sandy Hook attorneys after his lawyer accidentally sent years worth of comms to the plaintiffs. https://t.co/nJbn0x3Ldy

— Adam Rawnsley (@arawnsley) August 3, 2022

Ok, it's delightful that Alex Jones' lawyers "accidentally" dropped the contents of Jones' phones for the last couple years into the laps of the opposing counsel which Jones clearly didn't want to do even though he kinda shoulda. and while I really want to stand around and bask in the idea that maybe after being exposed to the toxic little ass-breathing amphibious waste product Jones is, his lawyers decided their client was too stupid to give their full unalloyed support to and decided to sabotage him by just letting him go out and do him, but I guess I should put my serious face on and say "my word how sad it is his personal data got so badly mishandled."

BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! 

They knew opposing counsel had access to proof their client was perjuring himself right there because they gave it to them, and their client apparently was clueless. I need to believe they told him to shut up instead of lying his ass off umpteen times already and they already recognized he could not do that. And instead of letting him know they oopsed his lifestory out into the world, they just said, "This manchild will receive a lesson." And they will I guess fall back on maybe since their best strategy was a mistrial, maybe their backup was incompetent counsel. (Whoops, this is civil right? For now. Heh heh, they still are getting paid.) 

I am not a lawyer. And maybe that helps me truly appreciate the idea that Jones will try to get this thrown out or appealed or whatever, and pretend his financial statements didn't disclose how much serious bank he made from depraved indifference to other people's safety and welfare, but he has already put himself in such crazy personal jeopardy by associating with the events of 1/6, for example, touting his (family-owned) possibly not FDA approved supplements and boasting in texts that he could sell his little sheepies dick pills if he liked, and fucking about with declaring bankruptcy when he has money, he just doesn't care to part with.

Oh and family court. He's also got an issue too with family court because his ex lost custody of their children but he's got some potential criminal issues now. 

So no matter what happens with this case, which after so much running of his mouth regarding the plaintiffs, the judge and the jury (WHY!!!???) is gonna be like, "take all his recess nickels and flay his hide for mites", he will still be in deep shit for the foreseeable. 

I guess that makes today a pretty good day, schadenfreude-wise. It really truly does. 

(And yet this dirty little shitbrick still has fans. Rabid ones. Amazeballs.)

UPDATE: And the dirty little shitbrick is paying close to $50 million based on this trial, which is just the first of a handful of trials he has upcoming. It looks like he'll get his flaying in full measure and at an uncomfortable pace, which sounds about right. 

We Can't Look Away from Uvalde

 

This past week, we were able to see a surveillance video of the multiple, highly armed law enforcement officials in the hallway of Robb Elementary School doing not hardly enough while words about redacted screams were seen, encouraging a fearsome sound in the mind.  It's horrific and the release of it is fraught because in some ways, it feels like it is a desecration for people to ogle a tragedy, and in another way, it is necessary for people to understand what went wrong and to view this clinically. 

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. 

UPDATE: Just this:

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.

People die because no one wants to be responsible for people dying. How fucked up is that? 

The Devil's Lettuce Made Them Do It!

 

Fox's Laura Ingraham blames mass shootings on “regular pot use”https://t.co/bDkOQVbxix

— Media Matters (@mmfa) July 6, 2022

I wonder a bit at Ingraham's rant that pot use is behind the mass shooting phenomenon in the US--is she trying to excuse mass murderers with moral trolling or will any opportunity to moral troll do? I'm skeptical that there's a path from Cheech and Chong to Klebold and Harris, myself. Also, I presume that Laura Ingraham does not herself partake of the jazz cigarettes, so what exactly accounts for her dead-eyed sociopathy?

Ha, I kid. (Do I?) Her fellow Fox News talker, Tucker Carlson. blames taking psychiatric meds and mean mommies, and the latter might be a bit of a personal issue. I have to question that, too--knowing how many mass shootings have begun with family abuse and violence against women, it seems to me Carlson is really just on-board with misogyny. Also, once again, just as with hosting COVID-19 disinfo, Carlson is making medical pronouncements he's highly unqualified to make. 

My own theory is that young men stew in a nihilistic environment in which they are baited into a vague sense of outrage and hopelessness by people who don't give a shit about right or wrong, whether in terms of truth and morality. They are told by soul-less media figures that they are put-upon, and that violence is a solution. They are even given plenty of hints at who to blame for their problems. 

It's just a theory.

I Thought They Knew (Uvalde updates)

 

Video obtained by @ABC News appears to capture a 911 dispatcher alerting officers on scene that they were receiving calls from children who were alive inside the classroom that the gunman had entered. https://t.co/jo2cGVyMjC

— ABC News (@ABC) May 31, 2022

The question for me isn't how they sleep at night with this on their conscience but what anyone does about it. I can't imagine what it would have felt like for those children--an eternity? I think about how they will survive their trauma. But if those officers knew about those desperate calls and did nothing, the shame of it shouldn't leave them.

UPDATE:  Every time some new detail comes out, it appears that the Uvalde PD tried to create a self-serving narrative. The initial claim that the door that the shooter gained entrance to had been propped open turned out to be more complicated than that--the door was also then shut but had not locked properly. But regardless--doors do open and shut, nothing about that detail stopped the cops from getting as far as the hallway to do nothing. They have now stopped cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety's investigation into the shooting.

UPDATE:  The Uvalde police chief says that he will have more to say after the funerals when the families stop grieving. Suffering is endless, but closure is a blessing. There is no perfect time, but there is also no "when the families stop grieving." There is only doing one's duty and being transparent. 

UPDATE: Chief Arredondo did not have a radio on the scene and made up his mind about not gaining entry early on. The tragic 911 phone calls from inside the classroom might not have been conveyed to him right away.  This tragedy seems to have been such a communications clusterfuck. 

UPDATE: I do not know if the Guardians of the Children bikers in Uvalde are meant to shield the families from journalists (kind of understandable, actually) or the cops (whose performance has earned serious criticism). I get that journalists are feeling intimidated by the evasive measures the local PD are taking, but I also think the families need to be left alone unless they volunteer that they have something to say to the press. 

It *Was* Worse

 

Gov. Abbott is livid that he was misinformed about the police response and that so many things he said in his comments following the tragedy and later on Wednesday turned out to be entirely wrong. The shooter had an AR-15, not a handgun. There was no resource officer on campus. The local cops were on the scene but waited nearly an hour, even stopping other officials and parents from breaching the classroom due to the wrong idea that the shooter was barricaded and no longer an active shooter--when he was locked in a classroom actively still killing children. And the children in the room were still calling 911. 

It could have been worse--but it is glaringly obvious that it should have been better. (It should not have happened at all. That young man had warning signs including animal abuse and misogyny, made threats and previously tried to get his sister to obtain a weapon for him. A red flag law may have stopped him,) 

If the governor is livid, I'm going to suggest that Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin (who was calling Beto O'Rourke a "sick son of a bitch" for interrupting the solemn lying because of politics) probably helped him get misinformed. The chief of police has his share of the blame. But to some extent, the worst kind of misinformation a man in a position of responsibility allows is the kind he invites. 

The "good guys with a gun stopping the bad guy with a gun" story was the narrative he wanted. It was more complicated than that. It always is. 

The Good Guys with Guns

 

Ted Cruz proposes armed cops in elementary schools to deter school shootings pic.twitter.com/sJ8B6cf9Xd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 25, 2022

The cops engaged Salvador Ramos when he crashed his vehicle outside of the elementary school where he murdered 18 children and one teacher--they were good guys with guns, and he was wearing tactical armor. They failed to stop him. The good guy with guns thing fails again and again. There was an armed resource officer at Columbine High School. There was an armed resource officer at Mary Stoneman Douglas High School. Officers were on the scene at Sandy Hook within minutes of Adam Lanza entering the school. The good guy with a gun in Buffalo died because the shooter wore body armor, and he didn't. 

The good guys with guns don't prevent the tragedy, even if they can cut it shorter. It's astonishing to hear the same things, the same untrue things, again and again. The good guy with a gun doesn't come in time. The odds are against it. It's lazy to say something so frequently proven untrue. Isn't Cruz supposed to be some kind of smart person? 

He mentions deterrence. Deterrence. What the fuck? Meanwhile the incumbent TX AG who was indicted for securities fraud like years ago, who just won his recent primary says, man, outlawing guns won't do shit. "You can't stop bad people from doing bad things?"  Deterrence isn't even a real thing. 

And since an indicted MF is the top lawman in Texas, this really feels probable, and also, I don't understand why they outlawed abortion in Texas since obviously, that's still going to happen, not that I think getting abortions are bad, but laws are apparently useless, am I right? So like, why does Paxton even have a job? Since clearly law enforcement is some weird shit that never works. I MEAN, IT OBVIOUSLY DOESN'T IN HIS CASE. 

Did that sound like I'm frustrated with Republicans regarding their dependence on the NRA teat and the not-especially well-regulated militia and militia-curious voting demographic? Well, exactly. 

Where Did He Learn GRT?

 

The high concentration of Black residents on Buffalo’s East Side, which the suspect in Saturday’s mass shooting said was his reason for targeting the area, is a direct result of decades of segregation and systemic racism, according to decades of research. https://t.co/ylYrIj9SO3

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 15, 2022

The young man who killed 10 people in Buffalo singled them out demographically--he did homework in order to take human lives. This young man was handed coursework for a tragic and fatal assignment by people with no conscience. He was basically groomed for white supremacy and violence, in a society where guns and fantasized violence and casual racism are given a pass by a particular party. And what about his parents? Were they concerned about his mental diet? Did they wonder why their gun-loving son got body armor (as if deer ever shot back)? 

I don't think the GOP will denounce great replacement theory after they just called for starving brown babies in immigration detention. They have excused everything else, so why not double-down on their rhetoric even after tragedy? I mean, after a brief pause for thoughts and prayers, of course. It will be turned around--why are poor conservative victims being called racists!? The infamy of being called out like that!

I'm not feeling eloquent about the thing I keep writing about--how demagoguery and gun worship are priming the US for increased violence.  

Pat Robertson is Ghoulish

 

Pat Robertson came out of retirement to claim that Putin "is being compelled by God" to invade Ukraine in preparation for a massive End Times invasion of Israel. pic.twitter.com/Pmwybf57Ay

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 28, 2022

Claiming that Putin is being used as an instrument of God in what is looking more and more like a genocide (if he cannot take Ukraine with the people there, he will simply remove all the people) to ultimately lead to the End Times which for whatever reason is definitely in Israel is so, so...completely on brand? He's excited that there's misery on tap for humanity. His comforting message: the God we're supposed to worship wants this, so relax and accept all the death. It's almost as if death and misery give his conception of God shape and form. As if his concept of God requires blood and barely exists without the terror by night. As if ethnic genocide and horror were planned by God with the exacting detail of a Kommandant with the entire earth as his camp.

It takes away the human agency of Putin to not do horrific things, in the same way that John Hagee surrendered Hitler's human agency to God in declaring that he used Hitler to found Israel--again for the ultimate End Times purpose.  Will history's monsters face eternal judgment if they were just meat puppets God is operating through? It seems like an ethos that gives monsters a pass at the expense of so many bodies that are "fulfilling prophecy." 

And if God is good, then how is it He cannot achieve his ends without putting human lives through a meat grinder? Surely, a deity like that is to be feared, but how can one so monstrous be worshipped or loved? How can he be a comfort to the afflicted when he is the source of affliction? How can he be a savior when the model of his world is that his instruments are destroyers? 

In a moment of war and tumult, imagine thinking this is exactly the time to peer out from one's retirement and say "More of this, maranatha!" The Good News is--bad news until we all snuff it. 

It's folks like Robertson that are why Christianity and me aren't ever getting on. But it makes me wonder about people for whom this is their religion, the actual way they look at the world. There is a nihilism in it. Why do good at all? Why fight the good fight? The God who formed you in the womb also planned your eventual, necessary, and even potentially excruciating demise along with everyone you ever loved. How would you go through life? Would you be more inclined to do the right things, or find cosmic reasons why it wouldn't matter?  Would you decide that siding with horror had a purpose; that God was working through the evil you had done? 

I don't like the answers I see out there. But look at the old man. The specter of mass death livened his blood.