Thanks a lot, mother fucker:
Dylann Roof, the alleged gunman authorities say is responsible for killing nine people in a predominantly black Charleston, South Carolina, church Wednesday night, had been “planning something like that for six months,” according to his roommate.
Dalton Tyler, who said he has known Roof for seven months to one year, said he saw the white, 21-year-old suspect just last week.
“He was big into segregation and other stuff,” Tyler said. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”
Again, IANAL, and I don’t want people prosecuted for thought crimes and what not, and I do believe in freedom of speech and blah blah blah all the bullshit disclaimers you need to put in a blog or the fucking pedants will drive you insane, bud doesn’t this asshole shoulder some of the blame for last’s night’s terrorist attack?
Also, a big shout out to his fucking family for arming this shitheaded sociopath.
Chris
::GASP…::
… but… what do civil wars have to do with segregation? And racism? States’ rights, no? I just don’t GET IT!
beltane
It’s still early, but it may be instructive to compare and contrast with the treatment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s sad sack friends.
Maxwell Silver
Yes this is criminal negligence.
lamh36
Finally say NIkki Halley’s tears and I say fuq ’em.
She’s crying and saying they don’t know what motivates people to do what this bastard did and crying over the victims, and the damn confederate flag is just flapping in the wind above SC.
Fuq her.
JPL
@beltane: hmm I guess nothing comes from his statements.
David Koch
imagine the national hysteria if he was Mooslim and had murdered 8 Whites at church.
the media and congress would be demanding the reopening Manzanar
coin operated
No. Period. Just NO!
For the exact reason you denote. Thought crimes. Hell…I’d be in jail 1000X over during my divorce for shit like this. And even if he’d reported it, not likely that someone in SC would have done anything about it. Being a deep red state with a rebel flag flying at the State House and all that…
Edited to add…I’m leaving this here and taking off for the night.
beltane
@Chris: The Civil War was all about fashion and such. Southerners were passionate about preserving the hoop skirt. Why do liberals have to inject race into everything?
Belafon
I’m bringing this from downstairs:
For all those people attempting to claim he’s a Democrat, there has only been one party spewing hatred of minorities during his lifetime: Republicans.
Elie
Hear much from the Repub candidates? (crickets chirping).
The Republican hate machine owns this. They spew the hate and the push and sooner or later some one “out there” acts on it. It is deliberate and intentional… there have been too many such examples to not think that they are related with these sorts of outcomes.
This is a white people problem to solve. Don’t talk to us about it. What are YOU going to do. As many have asked black people to be “responsible” for “our people”, what are YOU going to do? Is it your mothers? Is it your fathers?
SiubhanDuinne
Aiding and abetting? I have no idea what the law says, and maybe just sitting there passively isn’t actionable, and for sure nobody likes snitches, but seems to me the roommate could have done or said something to at least set a few alarm bells ringing.
(This comment should be deemed to be fully aligned with every disclaimer John Cole mentioned.)
Steve From Antioch
“Isn’t this criminal negligence?”
No, not to anyone who has a passing familiarity with law in the United States.
lamh36
@beltane: Think Progress already compared Lindsey Graham’s response to both
The Wildly Different Ways One Senator Responds To Terrorism: Boston Versus Charleston
lamh36
Is this real life?
But of course he added that liberals are making it a “race” issue and politicizing it.
Fuck you Bill…fuck you…
Germy Shoemangler
@lamh36:
Is Bill getting ready for his new bosses, the Rupert Murdoch spawns?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I vote that we “politicize” the hell out of this shooting. I know, I know, Mitch McConnell and John Böehner and George Will and Charles Krauthammer and a host of other lowlife scumbags will weep and wail at the thought of “politicizing this tragedy,” but what the fuck? They tell us they don’t want to politicize it because it’s somehow demeaning to the people who died or something. I know that the real reason they don’t want to “politicize this tragedy” is that they don’t want to have to talk seriously about guns or race in America, but even if you give them the benefit of the doubt and assume good faith, I never understood how that made any sense. If “politicizing” this makes another of these abominations less likely, then how is that somehow a slap to the people who got killed?
Black people 50 years ago had no reservations about “politicizing” the deaths of Black children in churches. And if I had to guess, I bet there were segregationists back then asking, in the names of the slaughtered, not to “politicize” those killings either. And, shit, one of the people this asshole shot was a state senator. Does anybody think he’d be upset if somebody “politicized” his death if it made other deaths less likely?
Too many people take slime like McConnell, et al., seriously when they speak so sorrowfully and so sincerely about caring so deeply about the poor, poor families of those who died, and their tender feelings. But I don’t think they give three red fucks about the feelings of the families. They just want those of us who are pissed off about this to shut the fuck up so everybody else can forget about this, and then when it happens again, it’ll be like something altogether new, having nothing to do with any of the other slaughters that went before.
I’m sick of watching this shit happen every, what, two months? Three? It’s time to politicize the fuck out of this, and to call congressmen and senators and ask them to politicize the hell out of it, too.
lamh36
@Germy Shoemangler: naw he added that liberals are playing up for race
Mike in NC
@lamh36: Sadly, the only thing the media wants to speculate about is if Nikki Haley wants to be on the 2016 ticket with JEB! Both of them pushed for relaxed gun laws in their respective states, which haven’t been such a great success.
Major Major Major Major
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): You don’t need the umlaut if you have the ‘e’.
Anyway, no, failure to act in the case of a person saying violent things without intent or ability to incite other people is not illegal. Neither, for that matter, is saying violent things without intent or ability to incite other people.
Belafon
@lamh36: Fox’s theme is that it’s an act of terrorism against Christians. Because, as we all know, Christians are a minority in this country and are taking over and Roof was trying to stop them.
Davebo
No.
Now calm down Cole.
Belafon
A Daily Kos diary has a NYT comment about the right and this shooting:
Culture of Truth
So, basically he was a left-wing atheist part of the liberal war on christianity!
NotoriousJRT
@beltane:
Didn’t Tsarnaev’s sad sack friends help him after knowing he did the deed?
If this guy did nothing but listen to his piss-ant roommate spout off about his big-shot plans, I am not sure how he is responsible unless he knew the plan or that a plan of some sort was imminent and failed to intervene / alert law enforcement. It is possible he thought the guy was just all hateful talk. Afterall, he (eta Roof) didn’t have the stones to kill himself. But, yes, all approbation to whomever gifted him (eta Roof) his gun (although, let’s face it, he probably could have acquired a gun all on his own).
beltane
@lamh36: By referring to this white supremacist monster as a “whacked out kid”, Sen. Graham diminishes the awfulness of his actions. When a non “ethnic” white person commits racially motivated mass murder, conservatives not only refuse to call it terrorism, they barely even consider it to be that much of a crime at all.
Elizabelle
Got to catch up with your comments, but NY Daily News interviewed a friend, who said Roof was saying he was going to shoot up the College of Charleston within the past week — and they did not know whether to take him seriously or not. Thought he was joking.
WereBear
@lamh36: It was about race.
Stupid O’Reilly.
Belafon
@beltane: +1
lamh36
Of course the roommate wouldn’t say nuthin’. If the pics circulating from his FB page are any indication, he loves him some confederate flag. Sure sure…it’s for “Southern Pride” though….amirite?
Birds of a feather flock together, and this roommate was just protecting one of his fellow birds
Seems to me he’s trying to save face.
Elizabelle
@Belafon: That was a comment on the NYTimes today.
Or a lot of it. Recognize the gist. NYTimes thread had over 2400 comments.
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Did you think Haley’s tears were sincere? Maybe. I think it’s the horror of this happening on her watch.
But how these grifters cannot connect the dots.
LWA (Liberal With Attitude)
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Damn straight we should politicize this.
Politics is about establishing how we behave and treat each other, how we set policy that affects what is acceptable or not.
As the cultural conservatives would say, turning our eyes away from moral outrage makes us complicit in it.
I have no problem pointing the finger at the unindicted co-conspirators in this crime- the river of venom and filth that pours from the Wurlitzer night and day.
Elizabelle
@Elie:
So damned true.
Bill O used the word “psychotics” a remarkable number of times tonight.
Mr. Twister
@Belafon: Google map that area and search for churches. There are probably a hundred churches within a one mile radius of the crime scene, but he just happened to pick that particular one….
JPL
@Elizabelle:I thought they were. Unfortunately, her policies and political leanings will not change. Republicans are afraid of standing up to the extremists even though, it might be the morally right thing to do. There’s a word for that and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
beltane
@NotoriousJRT: It doesn’t appear that they helped them, more that they were trying to help themselves by denying they had contact with them. It’s highly doubtful the full weight of the American anti-terrorism establishment is going to descend on this assholes circle of friends and family looking for anything they can get a conviction on. After all, he was just a “whacked-out kid”, maybe in need of milk and cookies.
Elizabelle
They’ve got that curdlesome Bernard Goldberg on now. He’s huffing and puffing …. How dare they blame rightwing rhetoric? Without any evidence to support it.
But I think Fox News is worried this is going to blow back badly on them.
For good reason.
Roger Moore
Morally, sure, but I don’t think there’s a legal responsibility to report somebody for what he’s described. There have to be dozens or hundreds of people who fantasize and talk about going on a shooting spree for every one who actually does it. Unless you know that the person has actually progressed to the point of planning and preparing, I don’t think you have a legal responsibility to report them.
chopper
@Culture of Truth:
well, duh. what other reason would a white supremacist have for shooting up a black church?
lamh36
@Elizabelle: I’m sure her tears were real.
But the FUQ’N CONFEDERATE FLAG IS STILL FLYING HIGH.
The significance of her tears as that symbol of hate flies over SC should not missed by anyone.
Take Down the Confederate Flag—Now
TA-NEHISI COATES
JPL
Chris Hayes now has on Mark Sanford. Oh just great!
He is actually saying it was an imperfect compromise to keep it flying.. wow.. no heritage crap
I typed to soon.. here comes the heritage..
f..k heritage
beltane
@JPL: Without extremists, Republicans would be unelectable as there simply aren’t enough plutocrat votes out there to win office. And if they can’t get elected, how will they get their hands on that sweet, sweet grift.
Elizabelle
Bill O says it is inappropriate of PBO and HIllary to bring up guns today.
We can deal with that tomorrow.
Now Goldberg is blaming the “dopey father for giving his idiot racist son a gun” to kill 9 innocent people.
And in CT, it was the mother.
SO: the problem is idiot parents. Is there a law we can pass against that?
The derp is strong. Don’t look at guns. Look at psychotics. Racists. Dopey parents.
lamh36
@Belafon: Exactly, for all that we know, Dude probably considers himself a damn Christian as so many of this racist bastards do
MomSense
@lamh36:
The man who shot up the Knoxville UU church had a bookshelf full of O’Reilly, Hannity, and Savage and wanted to kill liberals.
Mike in NC
@beltane: Tomorrow Lindsey Graham will cite that he has proof that Roof was trained in an ISIL camp in Syria.
beltane
@JPL: Let’s be honest here, they’re “heritage” sucks. The Germans do just fine without invoking their Nazi past because they have a deep and wonderful heritage that has nothing to do with Nazis.
Bobby Thomson
In many states it’s not illegal to fail to report your knowledge that a crime has actually been committed. This is just an ambiguous threat of a possible future crime, not actual knowledge that a crime has been committed.
lamh36
@Elizabelle: Exactly, the number of white folk I know who has white friends/family whatever who are no different than this dude prior to this, ya know , like racist jokes, makes comments about Obama or Michelle, or talks about “those folks” or “them people” and the like, and then they say…”oh but they are good people”.
WTF! All I can say is if that is the kind of “good people” you don’t mind surrounding you then YOU have a problem as well.
lamh36
Oh and if I hear one more gawd damn reporter or commenter call this 21 YEAR OLD FUCKING MAN a “kid” one more damn time.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
I don’t know how you are managing. Some of the things Chris Matthews was saying had me fuming.
Cervantes
No, that’s something else.
As far as I can tell from the few facts and representations we have, the room-mate did not fail to meet any legal obligation.
If there is new information, and depending on what that is, he might at some point face an aiding-and-abetting charge, or a misprision (or some form of obstruction) charge — but based on what we know so far, I’d say he’s not in legal jeopardy at the moment.
Bobby Thomson
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
White people 10 years ago had no problem politicizing the deaths of people in the World Trade Center – in particular, that politicization was loudest from those who now argue that condemning racism is somehow unseemly.
Davis X. Machina
@Mr. Twister: “City of Churches” is one of Charleston’s nicknames…
Capri
Didn’t the family of the shooter in Colorado beg everyone they could to take him off the street? The barrier to involuntary hospitalization for mental illness in an adult is very high. The roommate could have made his life work trying to get this guy locked up before he committed a crime and he probably would have been unsuccessful.
It’s magical thinking to imagine that someone who hears a person rant about killing people can pick up a phone or walk into a police station and prevent a tragedy.
But yeah, the roommate is an asshole.
muddy
@beltane: I saw their treason flag referred to today as the Dixie Swastika.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Red wine. I will have a headache tomorrow.
Fox is just “white noise”, to use Chris’s wonderful phrase from previous thread, by now. Geraldo was talking about Charles Manson and a race war, but I missed some of it cuz I was refilling my wine.
WE CAN DO SOMETHING about nine innocent people killed with a gun during bible study.
We can do something. And we need to do it. It was them. It could be us. Where is safe?
Yes, statistically, most of us do not get shot in the course of the day. And your point is …
Next up on Bill O: how to confront evil.
Getting the sense I am watching it. Got to say, though, Bill O is kind of personable under that bluster.
Bernard Goldberg is just vomitous, though.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Somebody thought to wear a sweatshirt in 90 degree weather to hide the body armor.
Which he thought to obtain and wear.
beltane
@Bobby Thomson: I think the anger partially stems from the fact that we now have two parallel systems of justice when it comes to ideologically motivated homicide. In one system of justice, people are labelled as terrorists and are deprived of most traditional legal protections, even in the case of so-called thought crimes. In the other system of justice, normal laws and protections apply. For some reason, right wing extremists always seem to be directed to the latter system.
Elizabelle
@muddy: We need to call it the Dixie Swastika.
And not apologize for that.
Germany confronted its murderous past. We need to confront ours, the real one, not the myth.
NotMax
Blame? No.
Infamy? Possibly.
Animus? Yes.
Patricia Kayden
@David Koch: No one would be speculating if he was mentally ill. Because Muslims are all dangerous, doncha know?
Elizabelle
Confronting evil:
… the “reportage” today out of Charleston.
He’s talking about the internet.
Get involved. Do not look the other way. He talks about good Germans.
And what else has Bill O done all night? Guns? We can’t talk about that today. It’s not the time.
Mandalay
@Belafon:
That reminds me of Palin’s injured innocence after she had constantly used gun rhetoric against Democrats, and put Gabby Gifford in her crosshairs. After Giffords was shot Palin portrayed herself as a victim.
Elizabelle
Megyn: “An imposter among the faithful.”
This one needs a transcript. But she’s going heavily with the good Christians vs. the non-human killer.
Elizabelle
And she speaks of “opportunism” as some sought to take advantage of this tragedy.
As in our President with his remarks.
Megyn just earned the remote. Bye bitch.
beltane
@Elizabelle: I don’t know how you can do it. Just reading your posts is going to drive me to drink.
Patricia Kayden
@Belafon: That’s a great comment. So true. Rightwingers cannot be allowed to deny Roof’s shootings were about race. It was all about race.
Elizabelle
@beltane: Megyn is too much.
Machine gun delivery. More complex words than on the other Fox shows. I was impressed by the script. It’s precise.
But ugliness out of an attractive woman is even more lethal to me. It is La Palin’s trick of the trade too.
TCM has Vincent Price in “The Fly.”
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: When she takes down the confederate flag and advocates the passage of hate laws, we’ll know that her tears were genuine.
BruceFromOhio
Sorry, kids. We didn’t do shit motherfucking squat but wring our hands and bury the dead when the little ones got slaughtered at Sandy Hook, and we aren’t going to do shit motherfucking squat now either. Get used to it.
Bobby Thomson
@beltane: Yes, in one system of justice, the authorities behave criminally and do not uphold the laws or the Constitution. That’s wrong.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: The Dixie swastika?
And, yup.
A guy
When black on black crime, and white cracker drugs crimes take over the importance of today, I’ll listen
ShadeTail
I don’t hold his roommate responsible, because he probably thought the guy wasn’t serious. The unfortunate reality is that, when crazy people say they’re planning something like this, a lot of otherwise decent and rational people just laugh it off and assume it isn’t real. It’s a natural conclusion to reach about something like this. So no, I don’t consider this negligence.
JPL
@Elizabelle: I’m not sure how you cleanse your brain after listening to their swill. Hide the remote so that you are not tempted again.
JPL
@ShadeTail: Several friends came forward and didn’t think anything about his racists jokes. Racist jokes are just okay I guess.
beltane
Our new troll seems to be using Google Translate.
trollhattan
@A guy: No you won’t. You still won’t think, either.
msdc
If the family actually named this shithead “Dylann Storm,” I’m pretty sure they’re responsible for a lot more than just arming him.
Elizabelle
@ShadeTail: When I saw JCole’s title, I assumed it was about the father buying the kid a gun for his birthday.
After he’d already been arrested. WTG Dad.
Agree about the rooomate. Although: when those anti-government crazies dressed as the Joker and Harley Quinn shot and killed two Las Vegas cops in a restaurant, and then had a shootout in a WalMart (always a WalMart), it turned out they’d been telling their neighbors and friends about their plans and nobody said anything. (The nuts had hung out at Cliven Bundy’s ranch too and got asked to leave. Ponder that.)
Is it that people want to think that the ugliness they are hearing is not happening? That it is too crazy, and therefore it has to be a joke?
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Douchecanoe to English?
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: So Megan was the last straw, huh? Watch a comedy to wash your brain of all that Fox News nonsense.
chopper
@A guy:
I’m sure we’re all sitting on shpilkes waiting for the day you give a shit about 9 dead black churchgoers.
lamh36
Roommate Says He Thinks Charleston Suspect Planned Shooting For 6 Months
And he told NO ONE!!! He didn’t even think…dude maybe I should anonymously report it to police…
Naw…
Elizabelle
@JPL: I have you guys.
And a headache is already settling in from the red wine.
All this tragedy happened about 24 hours ago. Such a sad day, and too frequent.
Mandalay
@Elizabelle:
Well at least President Obama was clear and unequivocal, even if O’Reilly didn’t like what he was saying.
But Clinton’s comments were really offensive. Not because she talked about guns, but because was being an opportunist, nakedly pandering-without-actually-taking-any-position in the worst way.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: Megyn’s evil. She’s higher intelligence than the others. You can see it. And hear it. Very quick mind.
Patricia Kayden
@chopper: I thought someone was going to pie hole a guy.
Elizabelle
@Mandalay: Skipping the Hillary part of your comments, but I thought PBO’s remarks were perfect.
Painful and perfect.
They hit home, too, cuz Megyn Evil just told her viewers she will be back to fact-check the President’s remarks about gun murders. Fox has talked a lot today about fact-checking the president.
Because, you know, he’s a Democrat and black and the food-stamp president and he’s opportunistically using this who could see it coming tragedy for politics.
Germy Shoemangler
@Elizabelle: I always thought that Megyn was Tippi Hedren to Roger Ailes’ Alfred Hitchcock. If she does anything to cross him, he’ll ruin her.
EDIT: Fox News “fact checking” Obama? Bizarro world?
JPL
@Elizabelle: wonkette says to watch this .linkhttp://wonkette.com/588793/you-should-watch-these-kittens-science-says-its-good-for-you
Elizabelle
“Controversial claims” about gun statistics.
“And the President’s critics are already asking — is this the right tone? And the right moment.”
Incidentally, ABC’s David Muir opened a segment about the Pope’s “controversial” comments about climate change. It’s my impression the Pope went with established science. Not controversial.
So who is ABC slavering to there?
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
Oh god turn it off. I think that’s how Bill O gets you. He’s like one of those horror movies where you turn on the tv, answer the phone and suddenly your face melts and you transform into a Foxbot.
Elizabelle
Too much.
Megyn Evil and Ben Carson are talking about hate.
And it’s all hate from the liberals. The War on Women. The War on Income. Carson just talked about a house divided.
Project much, you two?
lamh36
The clip I posted in the last thread fits this roommate to a tee.
clip of Congressman Clyburn.
https://youtu.be/ko4tiX-gn-c
Baud
@JPL: Very nice.
Mike J
@MomSense:
Agreed. If I wanted to watch it, I’d watch it. I don’t need a fuckin’ liveblog.Just wait til the end and tell me they all acted like assholes.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Hey I tried to warn you, that he was evil but no, you didn’t listen.
Now go watch the cat video on Wonkette.
yodecat
@lamh36: You know that Lindsay is both a moron and an idiot, don’t you?
Germy Shoemangler
@Mike J: I disagree. I appreciate Elizabelle’s analysis of the fox programming.
She’s seeing it with fresh eyes, unlike the misinformed dullards who are fox regular viewers.
Like Hunter Thompson visiting Las Vegas during the cop convention in Fear And Loathing.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: That won’t happen, and it makes me wonder a bit about these innocent elders who suddenly become Foxbots.
Because these folks have seemed out of their trees, and professional dissemblers, to me.
For the most part, their speaking style is calmer than MSNBC’s. That’s something MSNBC might work on. I cannot abide Chris Hayes’ hysteria and Rachel’s sneering, smart and on the right page she is.
Voice tone counts.
Megyn has been the most hard-edged.
But talking about fact-checking the President? Who was clearly grieving to have to make yet another set of remarks about Americans cut down by guns, while trying to just live their lives.
Shut this bitch down. I know who needs fact-checking.
This is a murderous network. They should not be allowed to inject their poison — and that it is what it is — into American life.
They’re deflecting so hard, because they worry that this one will come back to their door. Theirs and all the other rightwing hate purveyors.
pseudonymous in nc
I wouldn’t say that being a white supremacist and plotting atrocities is South Carolina Normal, but it’s not South Carolina Highly Unusual.
The statehouse doesn’t just have the dixie swastika flying in its grounds: it has buildings named after Calhoun and Wade Hampton. And Strom Thurmond. Violent white supremacism is baked into the architecture of the state.
PurpleGirl
@Belafon: Reposting from below:
@StevefromAntioch:
Republican clown can blame anti-Christianity.
I want proof that it was anti-Christianity. He went to a Black church and shot people he found there. You want me to believe that in South Carolina, in Charleston! (ffs) there wasn’t a Bible Study group in any one of a dozen white Baptist or Evangelical churches?
ETA: It is traditional in Protestant circles that Bible Study groups meet on Wednesday night. Thursday is usually Choir practice.
ETA 2: It is also fairly typical, I think, that young adults — especially men — stop attending church themselves in their early 20s. They don’t go back until they get married. Again, I want proof he was actively anti-Christianity.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Analysis I heard cited his strongly linking climate change, poverty, environmental justice and helping the less fortunate as unprecedented. I have in no way read the thing, but it’s clear the pope is absolutely holding up unrestrained capitalism and unfettered resource abuse as the sources of many of the world’s ills.
Yeah, it’s going over swimmingly.
Next up, “The earth circles wha???” A conservative Catholic decides things have gone just too far.
pseudonymous in nc
@lamh36:
Oh, she knows. She’s a brown person who’s learned to pass for South Carolina White; she knows but she can’t say.
yodecat
@lamh36: You know that Lindsay is both a moron and an idiot, don’t you?@Elizabelle: I don’t believe that anything about Haley Barber is sincere.
I know badly damaged goods when I see ’em. Gods know I’ve plenty of experience.
lamh36
@Elizabelle: Fox News is scrambling to call this ANYTHING other than race related.
Ugh…I have to believe in karma, but damn sometimes karma takes too long. But unless the people at Fox News are evil incarnate, then I hope they all have internal ulcers…ugh
Elizabelle
@Mike J: Hi Mike. This is pretty much a one-day project. I hope.
Thought it would be interesting to see what they say, in real time. Clearly, they are liars and dissemblers.
I know what’s on MSNBC, and CNN is pretty predictable too. I have never subjected myself to Fox before. And thus you were subjected too.
Pogonip
@Cervantes: I think so too. Had he called the police, they’d have said “Well, call back if he stops talking and actually does something.”. The same thing tends to happen when a woman’s ex-husband or boyfriend threatens to kill her. The law is set up to solve crimes more than to stop them.
Mandalay
@Elizabelle:
Me too – he was great. They should start working on Mt. Rushmore right now.
But from what I have seen so far, no other politician has done themselves any favors in the past 24 hours. None of them.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
Ok happy thought for you. Took the pup to the dog park yesterday and there were 3 big goldens, two cattle dogs, and a couple of hound looking mutts. She herded them to the point where they were running in a small circle looking around wondering what just happened. She was circling them really fast and keeping them together. After about 20 minutes or so she was exhausted so I had to drag her away for a swim.
Elizabelle
As someone else mentioned, Fox is reporting on the European massacres. Which happen once in a decade. And acting like they are more common. They’re fact-checking the president.
No diff between the US and Europe. None.
And it’s a discussion between rightwing babes. I think one is Dana Loesch. Isn’t she appalling?
trollhattan
@lamh36:
When they arraign this shooter and relate the survivors’ quotes of what he said, they’re going to have to eat any notion this was about religion.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Your analysis was great.
lamh36
Bless this woman. She did more in a few minutes than this sumabitch roommate did the whole time he knew the suspect.
BREAKING: Tip from Kings Mountain florists led to Charleston shooting suspect’s arrest
Elizabelle
@MomSense: I love hearing of Korra and her herding prowess.
She is a working dog. She found her work.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I suggested an intervention earlier.
Elizabelle
Now Fox thinks we should all have free access to mental health care.
Yeah. They’re into free access to any kind of health care.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I’m with G-Shoe — I appreciate your wading thru the cesspool and reporting back. It’s important to know what the enemy is doing. Thanks.
Baud
@lamh36: That is amazing.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
They are horrible, carefully scripted and staged. It’s highly effective propaganda-evil as it is.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I hear you and ef. (Waves.)
Megyn Evil is over in 20 minutes. I would not dare tune in Hannity. Cavuto repelled me plenty.
Got to find something more reasonable or entertaining. Got to program the DVR for tomorrow’s noir offerings on TCM ….
JPL
@lamh36: Girl Power!
Elizabelle
@lamh36: I was shocked the bowl cut turned out not to be a wig.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle: I salute your bravery for watching and reporting. I would have had a coronary around noon
MomSense
@lamh36:
Wow. Good for her.
Germy Shoemangler
@Elizabelle: When I first saw the photo, I thought it was a hat.
Then I thought it was a wig; a disguise.
Turns out he’s just a reject from Dumber & Dumber.
gelfling545
@Mr. Twister: Indeed, Charleston is called “the holy city” due to its remarkable number of churches. Opportunities abound yet he chose that one. I can’t imagine why. Nothing to do with race, I’m sure.
El Caganer
@Elizabelle: That’s a lot more wholesome than Megyn.
Villago Delenda Est
Your kind of people, you racist fuck. Dylann Roof belongs to you. He’s one of yours.
Elizabelle
This last segment is surreal.
Apparently a local pol named Rutherford, friend of the late Mr. Pinckney, really got under Fox’s skin by calling them out for exactly the kind of crap they broadcast, and for “treating the President like he’s not even the president.”
Megyn opens the segment sniffing about divisiveness and hate, by Mr. Rutherford and ppl like that.
She’s got MLK Jr’s whacked out conservative niece on as guest stooge. This niece does not think gun control would do anything. (Are you shitting me? With your family history of tragedy?) Another black guy is on as next stooge up to rebut … it’s a Baptist minister out of NY.
Elizabelle
If you are not the dimmest of the dim Fox viewers, I wonder if this segment is at all convincing.
Mandalay
@lamh36:
I don’t find it automatically offensive to frame it as act of terrorism. But the problem with O’Reilly’s presentation is that he is portraying it as an act of terrorism as opposed to an act of racism.
I’m on Bernie Sanders mailing list and just got an email from him where he portrays it as both an act of terrorism and an act of racism:
I’m fine with that, since Sanders was very careful to make it about race as well.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@lamh36:
My mom is like that. She can be fine one-on-one, but she watches Fox News and they can set her off on embarrassing rants. I don’t let her say that shit around me, but I can’t cut contact with her. She’s my mom.
Elizabelle
The minister just had a lot of religious babble. It was impenetrable. Sounded like English. Could have been Latvian. I cannot listen to that stuff.
Megyn closed the segment thanking him for being on to discuss “the hate.”
Not Fox’s hate, of course. That does not exist. Nothing to see here.
Corner Stone
TRMS just completely sold out on the Brian Williams to MSNBC thingie.
That was fucking pathetic.
Elizabelle
This might be the last segment.
Megyn says she’s not using the shooter’s name or saying anything about him, and asks other networks not to reward him. She does not want to encourage his notoriety.
No.
She does not want him to say anything that leads back to ugly rightwing rhetoric. Which is Fox’s business deliverable. She’s got Park Dietz on, but her main aim is to try to innoculate Fox News against ever having to deal with anything that eventually comes out of Dylann Roof’s mouth.
ShadeTail
@JPL: Racist jokes are disgusting and not OK. But it’s a pretty long way from merely being a racist douchebag to being an outright genocidal murderer. I can understand completely why this gun nut’s roommate didn’t report anything; sane people simply assume that crazy people aren’t really *that* crazy.
Elizabelle
@Corner Stone: Do tell. I will catch TRMS on the rebroadcast.
I truly am retiring Fox in the next 3 minutes. Enough.
trollhattan
@Mandalay:
They’re traveling twins–racism and terrorism. He wanted to start a war by doing this? That’s EXACTLY what Charlie Manson wanted to do half a century ago. Only difference I can tell between the two is this turd didn’t have followers. Thank god. (Acid might have done him some good, but hey…)
JPL
@Elizabelle: haha.. I hope so.
JPL
@ShadeTail: So will they be witnesses at his trial? Will they use the insanity defense? It wasn’t racist or terrorism cuz he was ill.
Hatred might be a mental illness but that might mean all of Fox news reporters need to be medicated.
Debbie
@Elizabelle:
Similarly, Glenn Beck was of the opinion the guy sat there for awhile because he was having second thoughts. Jackal.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
You’re wrong, but not for the reason one might think: she will be proved wrong because they always always always are worse than what a rational person would assume is “the worst.”
I think that’s a corollary to the Law (or maybe it’s a Theory) of Peak Wingnut. And also Rule # 6.
azlib
@JPL:
Exactly. I have a lobbyist friend who says there are many Republicans in the legislature here who will not vote against anything the NRA puts forward. They are terrified of that essentially criminal organization.
Elizabelle
OK. Fox is off. Your long blog colleague nightmare is over. Got MSNBC on, but kind of wondering about non-Charleston tragedy fare …
Mothra is on TCM. Well all right. Not even in English. Subtitles over Japanese. Soothing.
KS in MA
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
THIS.
Matt McIrvin
When half the people you know go around saying the same shit… what do you do?
That’s quite possibly the case here.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Will you PLEASE STOP. The staffers at Media Matters get paid to watch Fox so that you don’t have to – why are you putting yourself (and us, by extension) through that? Is it some weird kind of Ave Maria or Paternoster equivalent? Because if it is, whatever sins you may have committed have already been expiated.
rikyrah
where is that other Senator from South Carolina – Tim Scott? Where is his azz on the TERRORIST ATTACK?!?!? Where is he??!?!
Elizabelle
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Great, great comment.
We do need to politicize it. It’s what the NRA and Fox fear the most, because we’ve got the numbers, even if they’ve got the money and megaphone.
Can the ammosexuals hump their guns any harder? I don’t think so.
Elizabelle
@SFAW: It’s done. I am Foxed out.
I’d blog about Mothra, but it’s all in Japanese and I’m not watching the subtitles. Sheer heaven.
PurpleGirl
@MomSense: Yes, a pet story is always appreciated. Great little one you’ve got there.
ShadeTail
@JPL: Are you trying to make a point here? Because you’re coming across as rather aggressive and challenging, but I have no idea what you mean by it.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I question the accuracy of your assessment. What optimist would willfully put themselves through the existential pain of watching Fox, if they had a choice? Or at least, do so but still report the blow-by-blow in the manner she has.
To be clear: I don’t have a problem with Elizabelle, and generally appreciate her comments, but she needs to detach from the Fox thing for a bit.
Matt McIrvin
After the Virginia Tech shooting, hilzoy on Obsidian Wings made a long, haunting post about how she dealt with a friend of hers who seemed to be contemplating mass murder:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/04/shooters.html
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Good. Much better choice than Fox. And much more realistic.
NotMax
@rikyrah
Sen. Tim Scott mourns, denounces fatal shootings at historic Charleston, S.C.
JPL
@ShadeTail: I do think that his defense team will use comments from friends as a way to avoid the hate crime law. They will try to prove mental illness. That’s all I meant.
Villago Delenda Est
I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say it again.
If this country were REALLY serious about going after terrorist organizations, the NRA would be at the top of the list.
Villago Delenda Est
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Right Fucking On, as we used to say back in the 60’s.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Amusing brief parody of the Japanese monster genre.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Ooooo! Mothra! Just as soon as this baseball game is over, I am SO on that!
lamh36
Stay classy NRA board member…stay classy…
Elizabelle
@SFAW: Agreed.
My take from Fox News: (1) they’re concerned. They realize this could come back to doors like their own. (2) I wonder if some of their audience will buy the crap they were spewing today. Because the victims were church going family values types. Black people, yes. But people of true Christian faith. And they got murdered in a church. At a Bible study.
President Obama’s comments were not as crazy and untimely and needing to be fact-checked as paid obfuscators O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly pretend. They were short and to the point.
I think this story has legs, and possibly tentacles.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Cue TBogg sending this sentiment out of the park.
An excerpt:
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Thank you, my friend.
Hope to see you and Mrs. ef again as soon as the opportunity presents.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Per headline at Talking Points Memo, he’s already waived his right to counsel.
rea
@Elizabelle: “Did you think Haley’s tears were sincere? Maybe. I think it’s the horror of this happening on her watch.”
Clementa Pinckney served in the legislature with her–she might well have known him personally
Elizabelle
FYWP eated my comment, but my take from my day with Fox News is that they are concerned this story could come back to cause them problems.
And that I wonder how much the obfuscation goes over with Fox viewers. Many are people of faith (OK, simple-minded people of faith) and the fact that you had nine truly Christian people of faith murdered at close range in a church, after a Wednesday evening Bible study? Little too close to home.
Elizabelle
@rea: True. And how could you not like him?
It did seem Haley was upset about a mass murder in a South Carolina church.
JPL
@NotMax: He waived right to counsel in NC. Does that mean that he waives right to counsel tomorrow when he’s arraigned. I was a tad confused about that.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: Thank you.
NotMax
Don’t know, but someone here likely might.
Buying the gun involves a background check for the purchaser (most times, outside of the gaping loopholes of gun show purchases and suchlike). But how do such checks done through the retailer factor in, if at all, if the firearm if intended as a gift to someone else?
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
My SWAG, in the near-future they’ll recast it as a political assassination of the minister, with a mere eight Dan Whiteish collateral damage victims. You see, he just couldn’t take those misguided liberal policies any longer….
I blame the president and his enablers.
NotMax
@JPL
Yeah, the prose at TPM for that story is ineptly constructed, something more and more common there.
lamh36
Great cartoon
Take down that damn flag! That flag perpetuates a racist culture and revels in it…ugh
https://twitter.com/mviser/status/611720972647944192
JPL
@lamh36: Thanks. What a great cartoon.
Cacti
“We must not politicize this terrible tragedy”.
-Said no Republican ever, following the 09/11/01 attacks
NotMax
Miniscule and trivial in terms of the situation, but…
Am I the only one who wonders about anyone asking his barber for the Moe Howard cut?
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36: The commenter apparently was dropped on his head multiple times as a baby, too.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: Yes, yes, yes. Right fucking on, again.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Which shooting are you referring to; if the shooting of the doctor who did abortions, he was shot at a Lutheran Church and a church which supports a woman’s right to choose.
beltane
@efgoldman: There is certainly no universal love of Christians among conservatives, who tend to regard everyone outside their own group as being inauthentic Christians. Not sure if it’s true, but it is often said that religious congregations tend to be the most segregated institutions in American society. The only thing bothering the Fox crowd right now is the fear that comes when one of your own actually acts on a commonly held, though socially unacceptable, fantasy. By tomorrow they’ll probably have unearthed some oppo research on the victims (maybe one of them once got a speeding ticket?) and all will be right in their world.
beltane
@PurpleGirl: There was also the Bill O’Reilly fan who shot up a Unitarian church because that’s where he knew he’d find liberals. These lone wolves sure seem like a pack to me.
hilzoy
So, speaking as someone who actually once had a homicidal friend (now all better): no, it’s not criminal negligence. I don’t think it ought to be against the law, if only because it’s really hard, sometimes, to tell the difference between someone spouting off and someone plotting homicide, and if this were against the law, we wouldn’t get to apply it to only the clear cases.
That said: obviously he should have told someone, or done something. When a friend of yours, or even someone you only know in a not-quite-friend way, is talking like this, you really ought to think: (a) people might actually get killed for no reason, and (b) if this person does this, his or her life as she knows it will be over. I can’t fathom this person not doing anything.
I believe that you are (at least partly) morally responsible for something if there is something you could have and should have done to prevent it (or at least: stand a decent chance of preventing it.) So I think this roommate is partly responsible for these deaths. Because I don’t think moral responsibility is zero-sum, this doesn’t mean that I think that Roof is less than fully responsible for it. But because I also don’t think that all bad things, or even all *really* bad things, should be criminalized, I don’t think that this is or should be against the law.
End of lecture!
ShadeTail
@JPL: Ah. Well, that seems pretty likely. I doubt they’ll have the brass to try for Not Guilty.
Tenar Darell
@Elizabelle: Evil Megyn? She’s a Schlafly. A ladder puller. She will take full advantage of the things our mothers fought for, and push everyone else behind her down the stairs. And she will do worse if you are not pasty faced and blonde. I cannot understand how you are watching that dreck. I would start screaming at the tv after 5 minutes of that swill. You scare me. (Seriously, i could not hack it. I pulled the internet over my head and spent all day reading about science fiction books).
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I just switched it on as well.
boatboy_srq
Responsibility for the act? No. Responsibility to appear in court for the prosecution, and to be quoted at sentencing? Oh BLEEP yes.
srv
@Elizabelle: I will never get enough Mothra.
Elizabelle
@srv: Loved the headline “Luxury Liner Onion Sunk.”
And the tiny singing sisters.
lamh36
Jon Stewart’s opening tonight…he “has no jokes to tell”.
The whole opening segment of The Daily Show is a MUST SEE!
Elizabelle
And it’s Mothra. Out of the cocoon.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Run, damnit, run!
Only Godzilla can help you now, sister. (Or is it Gamera? I gets confused.)
VFX Lurker
@Elizabelle:
I don’t think it’s meant to convince the impartial. I think it’s meant to reaffirm existing beliefs.
“See, I’m right. The news said so.”
Tenar Darell
@lamh36: I think they all have their own Dorian Gray portraits. I betcha Roger Ailes’ is a horror and a half.
LAC
@A guy: when you actually die and come back as someone useful, we’ll care.
lamh36
ICYMI:
An Emotional Stewart Drops the Comedy to Talk Charleston: ‘We Still Won’t Do Jackshit’ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stewart-drops-the-comedy-to-talk-charleston-we-still-wont-do-jackshit/
Mike in NC
My brother and his wife are coming down from Boston in September and would like to visit Charleston, SC. One time we took the ferry out to Fort Sumter, which local wingnuts have repeatedly tried to claim was local property stolen by those nefarious Yankees.
Mike J
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/06/18/editorial-cartoon-charleston-shooting/iLaBh5VNVxVRgCYoXgwViL/story.html
sm*t cl*de
Radio Rwanda is never responsible for the isolated actions of machete-wielding lone wolves.
Chris
@azlib:
Arms dealers are to the U.S.A. what drug dealers are to Mexico.
trollhattan
I miss the good old days of two weeks ago when we were joyfully making fun of Duggars. Each thrill killing takes another piece out of my very soul.
cckids
@lamh36:
QFT.
I’m sure I read this here, but the only thing that f-ing flag stands for is “treason in defense of slavery”. F your “heritage”, your “pride”, all that shit. Own your symbol.
Cacti
Topics I’ve seen right wingers use today to try and discuss anything other than the white supremacist beliefs of Dylan Roof:
Barack Obama
Ted Kennedy
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Robert Byrd
Al Sharpton
Jeremiah Wright
Concealed carry
Anti-Christian bigotry
Chicago
Baltimore
Black on black crime
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: I spent as much of the day as I could talking with a friend about other things. This is just isn’t something that I can process. Newtown did the same thing to me with the added complication of my having once lived there.
cokane
Dunno Cole. It’s easy to judge not given any context. Who knows if the roommate even knew about a gun? Maybe this Dylann dude talked alot of shit too. I mean the report said the roommate knew him for a year tops? ehh
piratedan
well could the roommate have said something, sure
yet what would have been believed, just another southern cracker talking big about killing black folks? and that would have been received in South Carolina exactly how?
I want some politician somewhere to finally emote the passion of the words of Charlie Pierce but hell Congressman Clyburn simply rises above it and hits it out of the park by telling people to no longer remain silent….
We need to talk about guns and we need to stop letting people get off the hook about it… it was too early post the Giffords shooting they said, too soon after Sandy Hook and now again, we’re told its too fresh in our minds to speak about this dispassionately and to use reason.
Sorry folks, tired of watching the monthly death toll rise, while we continue to not even do the simplest of things, keep the guns out of the hands of felons and those mentally unfit to have them. There is no fucking reason to allow someone to have a gun that will use a 30 round clip. No reason for semi automatic rifles to be in the hands of ordinary citizens. They exist for one fucking purpose only, that’s to kill people. If you want to kill people, then that right there is an indication that you shouldn’t be owning a gun.
I felt this way before Giffords, after Sandy Hook and even more so now. There’s still a lot to unfuck and no gun law will please everyone, but there are things we can and should do, we have to shout down the crazies and make it happen, either at the ballot box or with our wallets to buy out the duplicitous asshats who legislate for dollars.
It would also be nice if white folks (myself included) would stop enabling so many of our fellows to be so fucking scared of anyone else who has skin pigmentation.
OldDave
@NotMax:
Darn. I was sure you had picked this one.
Omnes Omnibus
@OldDave: That is the greatest cartoon ever.
Little Boots
gun nuts and stupid and racist, what a fucking american combo.
Chris
@lamh36:
Truthfully, I don’t think it’s possible to be white in America without having your dose of “good people” like this somewhere in your extended family network, if nowhere else. I certainly do. We all deal with them in different ways. In my case, it’s by keeping interaction with them down to a minimum, and if I do interact with them, staying the fuck off of political topics, but then I’m easily pissed off by that kind of thing. People who aren’t into politics tend to find it easier to handwave this kind of thing.
ETA: which, of course, allows it to fester and live on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris:
Same here. But I am also lucky that it takes getting a good way into extended family before I come across them.
Little Boots
@Chris:
I dunno Chris, there is a lot of this shit, but it is not as ubiquitous as all that. I know mostly mild racists, whites who would never, ever do any of this, but maybe, just a little, ain’t entirely fond.
but there is a fucking subculture, and it has a lot to do with guns and gun nuts. and I don’t think we will ever do anything about that subculture in my lifetime.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: You know how much I hate saying this to you, but you are right about the gun nut subculture. Take that, add virulent racism and horrible things happen.
Mike in NC
@cckids: Shortly after moving into our development we began the habit of taking a brisk walk every day when the weather permitted. One day my wife pointed out an odd flag flying from a house and asked what that was. I said I thought it was the CSA national colors and next day placed a non-threatening note in the mailbox about how we didn’t appreciate it being in our neighborhood. The flag came down and has never appeared again.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
yeah, I’m getting a little obsessive about this, but goddamn, it’s a thing, and I am really sick of it.
Chris
@Little Boots:
It’s not ubiquitous. Not all white people are like this. But enough that, as the saying goes, there’s one in every family (at least). And families aren’t the only sort of “extended networks” most people have, so there’s opportunity to run into them elsewhere too.
And yeah, the gun nut culture and Israel are the two issues I pretty much have given up on ever seeing changed in my lifetime. (Current age: 27).
Little Boots
@Chris:
yeah, israel, kind of different, but kind of not. everyone just locked in. not gonna change.
and guns, damn, find a Democrat talking about guns, i dare you.
trollhattan
@Chris:
Oh god, don’t give up. We olds are counting on you young’ns to keep pushing. If I were to relate the “normal” when I was 27 you might get a better feeling for those areas that have actually improved. Naturally, several other areas have taken steps in the wrong direction. My kid, at 13, would like this help, also, too.
Little Boots
@trollhattan:
and this. we have kind of given up on some stuff. don’t give up. You don’t have to, even if we have.
NotMax
@Chris
When I was 27, Egypt and Israel were still battlefield enemies, both in theory and in practice.
Things can and do change. Not as quickly nor necessarily in the precise direction we’d prefer, but history is not static.
Little Boots
the old joke: the democrats fall in love, the republicans fall in line.
I don’t know, if we’ve maybe reversed that. maybe we need to fall in love next year.
Little Boots
@Little Boots:
Omnes, you’re wise, and cynical, and annoying, and obnoxious.
what do you think?
Chris
@trollhattan:
Believe it or not, the most optimistic pep talk I’ve gotten on this notion was George Takei. Came to my university earlier this year to give a talk that was basically his life story. Starts out with him interned in a camp during childhood along with his entire family, because of their race. Ends with him in an America that has gay marriage.
And mind you, those are two issues. I’m not a long-term-pessimist on most of the others.
Little Boots
@Chris:
actually, damn, sometimes, yeah, we old cynics are not always right. yeah.
David Koch
Jon Stewart’s commentary on the massacre
Chris
@Little Boots:
There’s something to be said for being a cynic, though. Everything that happens either proves you right or makes you happy.
Little Boots
@Chris:
yeah, but you are too young.
nevertheless, come upstairs.
Chris
@Little Boots:
According to Churchill, I’ve got three years before I’m either a conservative or have no brains.
But then Churchill said a lot of things.
NotMax
@Chris
Old saying:
Cynic is a pessimist’s word to describe a realist.
Chris
@NotMax:
The main problem with cynicism is the ease with which it slips into glibertarian apathy.
The gateway drug’s not bad, as long as you leave it at that and don’t branch out into the harder ones.
NotMax
@Chris
Toss-up as to whether I’ve been a cynic or a skeptic for a longer time. Being both makes the speed bumps and potholes on the highway of life bearable.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: When I was 27, I had already spent a tour in Europe waiting for the Red Army to pour over the border. I turned 27 in Honduras, on TDY as part of the US military presence there anticipating war with the Sandanistas.
Things can change, real fast. Iran-Contra happened, and the shitty grade Z movie star malassministration couldn’t get the war it wanted. Then the Berlin Wall came down a few years later and just threw the entire MIC for a loop. Everyone was talking about a “peace dividend”.
fuckwit
@Elizabelle: Able-ist. Most psychotics don’t hurt anyone. Neither do most schizophrenics. Don’t buy into O’Lielly and others slandering the psychotics and schizophrenics. It’s a distraction.
This is about racism and hate, not mental illness. It’s not even about guns.
Hateful racism is damaging and unacceptable coming from anyone, regardless of their mental state or how armed they are or aren’t. I’m more convinced than ever that we have to solve the racism problem first.
Paul in KY
@Mr. Twister: He knew which church he was going to.
mclaren
I’m going to defend the roommate at this point because what that racist creep said was just too damn vague. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”
Okay, what exactly should the rooommate have reported to the police?
“My psycho roommate says he wants to start a race war.” The police would look at the guy and say, “Sir, do you have a crime to report? If not, get the fuck out of here.”
That’s the way police are. If you don’t have a specific crime to report, they aren’t interested.
And what does “he said he was going to do something like that” mean? Was the roommate supposed to know this guy would shoot up a church? How? ESP? Clairvoyance?
Maybe this psycho was making a bomb, maybe he was planning to shoot some black people, maybe he was planning to put poison in the food at a restaurant where black people eat, maybe he was going to get a bowie knife and crawl into some black family window at night and slit their throats. How the hell was the roommate supposed to know?