Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

This blog will pay for itself.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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103Comments

  3. 3.

    BGinCHI

    In this country, when an AfAm or Muslim man shoots someone (or multiple people) his race is part of (or all of) the equation.

    When a white man does the same thing it’s all about his mental faculties or state of mind.

    Wonder why.

  5. 5.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    Black and supposedly a Buddhist, so if you do the wingnut math that means MOOSLIM! ALBERT QAEDA! MORE GUNS! MORE GUNS!

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    Where did that sarcastic Twitter alien store the David Frum pod? I knew he’d broken from his former compatriots on some issues, but he sounds like a fellow libtard now.

    Here’s the only thing we need to know about the latest mass shooting: It will change nothing. If 20 dead first graders in Connecticut couldn’t break the NRA’s iron grip on Congress’s balls, nothing will.

  7. 7.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    He’s black so we are going to have to wait to find out whether or not he was a muslim or a Christian to determine whether it was terrorism or a tragedy. In a perfect world, this would be cut and dried, John. That’s not the world we live in.

  13. 13.

    Tommy

    Man just got back from a client meeting and saw this news for the first time. Wow, I used to live about four blocks from there. I mean who says, “lets attack the Navy Yard? Keep in mind their is a Marine annex* literally across the street.

    *Keep in mind if you are ever in DC to get a ticket from your Congress Critter to attend the the Annex where the Marine Band and Color Guard put on the best show (IMHO) in all of the city.

  15. 15.

    Hungry Joe

    I would seriously — I mean, seriously — like someone to explain why it’s necessary or helpful or even particularly interesting to speculate on the fallout from and consequences of an ongoing tragedy about which the details are still murky. If he’s white it means this; If he’s black it means that; If there’s more than one shooter it means something else altogether, depending on whether they’re all black or all white or … wait, if he/they acquired the guns legally, then … but if he/they didn’t, well …

    Jee-zus H., why not wait a few hours? Or a few days, even? Once the facts are established we can argue about the meaning of what actually happened instead of the possible meanings of myriad and constantly shifting rumors.

  17. 17.

    Ash Can

    If he had been white, he’d have been a lone wolf. Since it appears the perp is AA, however, he’s obviously the front line of Obama’s race war, and all the more reason white law-abiding citizens need to arm themselves ASAP. Also, it’s too soon to talk about gun control laws, we need a national mental health registry instead of a national gun registry, and stop politicizing the deaths of innocent people, you big meanies.

  20. 20.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    I think we’ll find out the perp attacked a navy yard because it’s just not safe to shoot up school children anymore now that the lunch lady is packing heat.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    Rule 5: Gun ownership is essential to freedom, as in Serbia & Guatemala. Gun restrictions lead to tyranny, as in Australia & Canada.

    The only way to improve this would be to use Iraq as an example of a freedom loving country rather than Guatemala. Iraq had one of the world’s highest levels of gun ownership under Saddam, with most of those weapons being Kalashnikovs. Somehow it didn’t do squat to prevent tyranny.

  24. 24.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    “I don’t want to stick my neck out, so I’m going to refrain from commenting, except to manage to contradict one of the few known facts about this guy. Just to be safe. ”

    It’s a good thing I don’t come here for breaking news, but for the Keystone Kops-quality animal on human comedy routines.

  25. 25.

    lamh36

    Damn! I just got home about 30 minutes. I work in a lab and anyone who does work in a lab knows the lab tends to be on the basement and below floors. So I missed everything that went on today.

    I didn’t get a chance to go to lunch, but I did go to break at like 8:45 until 9 and there was no news interruption or anything. This is the first I’m hearing about this morning’s shooting.

    Trying to catch up and see more of what I missed. But damn, this gun violence and mass shootings are getting damn ridiculous.

    Anyway, I’m playing catch-up, so I’ll be back once I’ve caught up.

  26. 26.

    Ash Can

    @Betty Cracker:

    If 20 dead first graders in Connecticut couldn’t break the NRA’s iron grip on Congress’s balls, nothing will.

    Maybe a black shooter in their fucking back yard will help focus their little minds.

    @Hungry Joe: It’s because we’re sick to goddamn death of this shit, and need to vent.

  29. 29.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    @lamh36:

    Damn! I just got home about 30 minutes. I work in a lab and anyone who does work in a lab knows the lab tends to be on the basement and below floors. So I missed everything that went on today.

    Sounds like a good place to ride out a shooting.

  30. 30.

    Chris

    @Ash Can:

    Maybe a black shooter in their fucking back yard will help focus their little minds.

    No it won’t. They’ll just react by passing laws against black people instead of guns.

  32. 32.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Speaking of the episode last night that everyone is talking about, few know that the full name of Shelly’s poem was “Ozymandias and Harriet”. Apparently there was a second sculpture buried in the sand.

  33. 33.

    Redshift

    An acquaintance of mine (who’s a conservative gun-bunny, but not completely wingnutty) felt he had to respond on Twitter to Jay Carney’s statement about commonsense gun laws by pointing out that DC has strict gun-control laws. Normally my policy is “don’t get into arguments with idiots,” but since I’d woken up to a voicemail from my brother-in-law who works at the Navy Yard letting us know he was okay, I had just had enough of letting his crap go by (which all of us in that group generally do because we don’t want to argue politics all the time.)

    I pointed out that Carney was talking about national laws since he’s the national press secretary, and that when Virginia, which is literally yards away from DC with no checks at the border, has some of the most lax gun laws in the country, this isn’t a problem that can be solved locally. Then I told him he should at least have the decency to wait until the bodies were buried before declaring that it was impossible for laws to prevent this sort of thing.

    Then he called me a jackass and blocked me, so I guess I “won.” I hope it doesn’t cause me too many problems in that community. But geez, he lives in DC and is a government contractor, and huge numbers of people he communicates with on Twitter are either government employees or contractors, or have friends and relatives who are, and he decides during the crisis is the time to spout off about gun control, and he has the gall to say I’m the jackass?

    I’ve decided there are some areas of politics where I’m willing to ignore crap to keep things peaceful (even with people who wouldn’t return the favor), but matters of life and death aren’t one of them. They have to know that there are real people who think this stuff is not okay.

  36. 36.

    boatboy_srq

    @Ash Can: Not Chance One. Servicepeople are all “volunteers” these days – and they know what they signed up for. This is just “fight’em here” territory.

    Now, if the DRAFT were still in effect, and we had Congresscritters whose sons/daughters/siblings/spouses were serving (and didn’t really want to be)…

  37. 37.

    Keith P.

    This must be somehow related to tomorrow’s release of Grand Theft Auto V, since video games are more responsible than gun owners for gun massacres.

  40. 40.

    Trollhattan

    Frum’s decoder ring must have just had a firmware update. I give him one Full Golf Clap along with the laurel, and hearty handshake.

  42. 42.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Redshift:

    …and he decides during the crisis is the time to spout off about gun control, and he has the gall to say I’m the jackass?

    Religion — guns in this case — is a source of comfort in a crisis.

  43. 43.

    Botsplainer

    Another goddamn computer nerd contractor.

    Can we not at least keep this stuff in house for the continual evaluation and control offered by the chain of command?

  44. 44.

    Tommy

    I am just blown away they attacked the freaking Navy Yard. I know the place a little and it is an armed military base. Not been around it any since 9/11 so I can’t speak to the security now, but live near a huge Air Force base in the midwest. When I visit somebody on base, cause I don’t have a window decal nor military ID, they have to come get me from the front gate. It seems every couple months somebody gets arrested just for taking pictures of the place.

    I will pass no judgement until there are details, but how the heck did these folks get on base, much less on base with weapons? I am betting that will be interesting to learn.

  45. 45.

    lamh36

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Ya know you might be right.

    Every hospital lab I’ve ever worked in was in the basement or on 1st floor. Back at DFW, I worked in the hospital where they brought JFK to (a quick google will tell ya which if ya don’t know already) and it was in the basement/ground floor. Every new floor was built upwards, so as you went up each floor, there were newer fixtures and such.

  49. 49.

    Bobby Thomson

    @joes527: No, that’s the Church of Satan, which is really just Randism.

    The central teaching of Buddhism is that pain comes from attachment.

  51. 51.

    Comrade Dread

    @Hungry Joe: Most of us are complaining sarcastically, using black humor to vent how disgusted we are that we as a nation have decided that we’re perfectly willing to sacrifice 32,000 or so men, women, and children every year to Ares just so we don’t inconvenience someone who wants to buy a gun, and how disgusted we are that no matter how many people die, there’s always an excuse to continue sacrificing the innocent from gun nuts.

  53. 53.

    Botsplainer

    @Trollhattan:

    To add to your point, ironically, a lot of military installations use private security firms for guards. It’s cheaper, I’m told.

    Free Enterprise is wonderful.

  56. 56.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    @lamh36: The only downside is you won’t be able to hear freedom whizzing by at 2000 feet per second and even possibly experience this body liberating freedom firsthand.

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    I think we should wait until the UN inspectors have made their report before jumping to the conclusion that there was a shooting. It could have been a false flag to help bring in martial law. What would the shooter have to gain from attacking the Navy Yard?

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Tommy: I work at Fort Leonard Wood on a regular basis. Never needed anything more that a drivers license to get on base. In the thousands upon thousands of days I have worked there, I only got searched once. Does your AF Base house nukes?

  59. 59.

    chopper

    god, i stopped to get a coffee and CNN was on in the background. apparently wolfie got to dig the 3D holographic supercomputer out of the broom closet cause some choad was showing a 3-D movable workup of the building and drawing routes the shooter took or some crazy shit.

    listen, information is good and all but this shit turns into tragedy porn right quick.

  61. 61.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Comrade Dread: Bingo.

    It just never stops, and no matter how bad it gets, no one does much of anything about it. Despair is all you have left at some point. Or you can move to a country more sane about these things, but then you have to deal with learning how to count quickly in a system that thinks that “four twenties, ten, and eight” is a sensible approach.

  63. 63.

    Tommy

    @OzarkHillbilly: Nope. Scott Air Force Base. Now there are several important Commands (Air Force Communication Command, Military Airlift Command, and TRANSCOM [the big on IMHO] to name three) but even back in highschool in the 80s when I wanted on base the only reason I could get on was cause my father worked there and I had a “sticker” on my car. Still needed a drivers licence.

    Now I couldn’t get on the base if I wanted to without somebody coming to get me (a few times they will just call and get approval that I should be there). It is to the point my friends on the base just come see me at my place or we go someplace else cause it is such a pain in the ass.

    Not sure why it is different there …. and to be honest I would have thought (and I guess wrong) that it was the same on most bases these days.

  65. 65.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:
    I don’t think it’s the NRA’s power. Conservatives see this as a liberal/conservative conflict, and gun control is just more fallout of Cleek’s Law in congress.

    @Hungry Joe:
    The BJ crowd isn’t speculating about details, not really. They’re bemoaning the record of gow these tragedies have been reacted to, especially in the media. A big part of that is complaining about heads-I-win-tails-you-lose scenarios.

  66. 66.

    raven

    Blitzer just asked the Secretary of the Navy what a “muster” was and then said that “we understand that his rat is Petty Officer 3d Class”. My fucking cocker spaniel could do a better interview.

  70. 70.

    Citizen_X

    @Heliopause:

    It’s a huge state governed by dozens of regional warlords.

    Well, but there’s three main ones: Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and, um, uh, I forget. Oops.

  71. 71.

    Tommy

    @OzarkHillbilly: You misunderstood me or I was not clear. I know that is how things are at Scott, but I would assume it was the same elsewhere/everywhere. I totally take you at your word it is not the same at Fort Leonard Wood. And if it different there I can only assume it is the same other places. Therefore I was saying I would have been wrong, not you.

    BTW: My nope comment was in reference to your question about if the base had nukes ….

  72. 72.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    A dear friend of mine works at the DoT right next door and I’ve been sweating bullets all day (he’s fine).

    Also-lots of phone calls from family members not familiar with DC geography. I live in Columbia Heights and work in Foggy bottom-nowhere near any of this. Concern was appreciated though.

    From what I heard from people I know in the area was that the police response was like fucking *lightning*. I think every single fed in the city was there. How nuts do you have to be to go on a shooting spree at a military installation? Hell near any federal shit in DC.

  73. 73.

    Trollhattan

    @Ash Can:

    Sweet sweating Ronnie Reagan in a Swedish silicone sauna, can they please give it a fucking rest?

    “He should work with us to delay his health care law for everyone…”

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @Ash Can:

    Jeezus Christ, John. Lay off the fucking Everclear, will ya?

    I think he’s skipped the Everclear and has gone right on to denatured alcohol and paint thinner. Either that, or he thinks his audience has.

  76. 76.

    The Dangerman

    @raven:

    Blitzer just asked the Secretary of the Navy what a “muster” was and then said that “we understand that his rat is Petty Officer 3d Class”.

    Just wait; the shooter went to the “Wat Busayadhammavanaram Meditation Center”. Blitzer might quit rather than try to pronounce that name.

  78. 78.

    Tommy

    @Full Metal Wingnut: I am going to give it a day or so before I call, but my best friend lives up the road not that far across from Eastern Market. He works at the EPA but his wife is home many days (works part time at a free health clinic — she is a doctor/stay-at-home-mom). I will be interested to hear what he has to say.

    Glad your friend is OK.

  79. 79.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    So it was just one shooter? The media always reports multiple shooters (and always “confirmed” somehow) and they’re always wrong. I get that shit is frantic, but they just scare the shit out of people for no reason.

    Last year I saw The Dark Knight Rises the week after Aurora. Came in late and had to sit in the front row, and kept worrying the whole time that someone was gonna come in and blow me away. Now I’m scared to go to fucking work! Working for the federal government is generally mundane but then you wonder in the back of your mind about assholes like McVeigh and this guy.

  80. 80.

    Churchlady

    @Hal: It would be a very rare occurrence for a Black man to commit mass murder this way. So I hope it’s chalked up to his ‘mental state’ as it is for every white person. We will see, won’t we.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Tommy:

    My nope comment was in reference to your question about if the base had nukes ….

    Nope, my bad. I understood you, I was just saying I don’t have a clue why the security at Scott is so strict if there are no nukes.

  82. 82.

    Tommy

    @Full Metal Wingnut: I hear you. I was on the last flight out of National on 9/10/01. I had never flown home from National (those tickets cost too darn much) in the decade plus I lived in DC. Always Dulles or BWI.

    I recall my mother waking me up in a panic the next morning as well, well well know what happened the next day.

    Now I lived on Capital Hill but did the “reverse” commute to NOVA. Most of my friends worked in government buildings in DC. When I got back home days later when I could fly again and heard the panic that was still in their voices as they recounted literally running out of buildings ….. well ….. I wish this shit would stop (realize I am not alone here BTW).

  83. 83.

    Tommy

    @OzarkHillbilly: My gut is TRANSCOM is the security issue (now and in the past). They mange all ships, planes, trucks, and trains that deliver supplies to the military worldwide. If I wanted to disrupt our military (clearly I don’t) that would be my target. When I went to my father’s retirement ceremony (I think 1998) I am pretty sure they vetted me beforehand. Going into the building folks where there with M16s at different check points. I recall thinking to myself, “I think I am in a pretty secure facility.”

  84. 84.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    @Tommy: god that is so spooky. I was a senior in high school during 9/11. A girl in my class had spent the weekend of what was the 1st and 2nd of September, right before school started, in New York. Went to an observation deck in one of the towers (just like people do at the Empire State Building). Can’t imagine. Stood on top of a building that would burn and crumble just one week later. I can’t say I’ve ever been quite that close to a horrible tragedy, but just thinking about it is a mindfuck.

  85. 85.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    @Tommy: yeah I love flying out of DCA but I do Dulles.

    I don’t know if it’s just me but DCA always feels really small. I like a nice beefy airport. I think LAX is beautiful-the American terminal maybe? Forget which part. Can be a shit airport but I love being in it.

  86. 86.

    Tommy

    @Full Metal Wingnut: For me the “spooky” part was for years I’d take 395 out of DC. Hit 110 right by the Pentagon to 66. 66 to the Toll Road. Toll Road to Leesburg Pike to my office. I moved a few weeks after 9/11 (why I was out of town in the first place), but I had that road no longer, cause well the Pentagon closed off 110. The heartbreaking thing my co-workers talked about, in a highrise in Tyson Corner, seeing the smoke from the Pentagon on fire and knowing what he was. There is a large part of me that is happy I was NOT there that day.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Tommy:

    I mean who says, “lets attack the Navy Yard? Keep in mind their is a Marine annex* literally across the street.

    Suicide by cop, except that he took a few of his former co-workers with him first.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    Here’s the only thing we need to know about the latest mass shooting: It will change nothing. If 20 dead first graders in Connecticut couldn’t break the NRA’s iron grip on Congress’s balls, nothing will.

    When Newtown happened, I felt — viscerally — a big shift in the “national conversation,” for lack of a better term. And I think a lot of people did. BJ commenters. Most of my Facebook friends. POTUS. Editorialized and columnists. It just felt different, in an “enough is fucking ENOUGH” way.

    Alas, it wasn’t sufficient, and I’m not feeling any of that shift today. I don’t feel it myself, I’m very ashamed to say, and I’m not picking up any of the same passion and anger and grief so many people experienced after Sandy Hook. It’s an awful thing to admit, but at this point it just feels to me like, oh well, ho hum, another mass shooting, nothing I can do.

    Slough of Despond. Don’t like it here, and I hope I can leave soon and never come back.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Tommy:

    Going into the building folks where there with M16s at different check points.

    Only time I saw anything like that at FLW was when somebody crashed the West Gate, whole base went into lock down. MAJOR pain in the ass.

  95. 95.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    another mass shooting, nothing I can do.

    Well, one could walk into the headquarters of the NRA with an AR-15 and a hundred round mag. Surely they wouldn’t stop you at the door.

    Not recommending, just sayin’…

  98. 98.

    Mike E

    A stat just now covered on Chris Hayes’ show: A study looked at guns discharged by police in NYC over 11 years found that 34% of shots hit their intended target.

    I wonder if this percentage is within the average of police gun use in all other places.

  99. 99.

    J R in WV

    @Full Metal Wingnut:

    I stood on top of that building. Then a couple of years later, at work, my boss came into my office and said “A nut has flown a small plane into the World TraDe Center!”

    I said, “What?!” and he repeated himself. We walked over to anothe guy’s cube who had a tiny portable B&W TV and watched as the second plane did their thing……. We were all past understanding, most ex mil guys. After a few minutes I told the boss, “Well – I gotta go home, this is too wierd to get anything done…”

    My wife was a news correspondent at the time. It was a long day ’til she got home.

    Nothing can compare to 9/11 – I hope. If it’s ever worse than that then I want to be a long way from town, well armed, and well provisioned.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:
    Congress has balls?
    This is news to me. Congress has stupid. Congress has idiocy. Congress has grift. Congress has drunks. But balls? In what sense of the word? I’m gunna need some proof here before I believe this.

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