The mister’s baking kick continues:
Nom nom!
Open thread!
Trump- and Gunman-Free Open Thread…with Bread!Post + Comments (65)
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads
The mister’s baking kick continues:
Nom nom!
Open thread!
Trump- and Gunman-Free Open Thread…with Bread!Post + Comments (65)
by Adam L Silverman| 152 Comments
This post is in: Gun nuts
Not to step on Zandar’s post, but there’s now updated information on the Smith Mountain Lake Shooting – as several commenters have indicated. The suspect’s name is Lester Lee Flanagan and he reported for the station under the pseudonym Bryce Williams. He seems to have started tweeting about the attack around 11:00 AM this morning. His tweets include his list of grievances, which include an accusation that Ms. Parker made racist comments:
He also posted his own smartphone video of him attacking and shooting Ms. Parker, Mr. Ward, and Ms. Gardner. Like Zandar, I’m not going to embed the video, but you can click over to Raw Story as they have it up there. As is the case with all of these types of situations – it is incredibly fluid and I am sure that the information is going to change several times until they bring Mr. Flanagan in. Here’s the link to the Roanoke Times ongoing coverage (warning: autoplay video of the shooting at the link), which Cheryl from MD put into the comments in Zandar’s post.
–UPDATE–
As Waynski just indicated in the comments, as I was composing the post, reporting came out that Mr. Flanagan killed himself around 11:40 AM. Also, there’s some confusion as to whether his first name was Lester or Vester – my apologies for that.
Updated Information on the Smith Mountain Lake ShootingPost + Comments (152)
by Zandar| 177 Comments
This post is in: All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Decline and Fall, Flash Mob of Hate, Their Motto: Apocalypse Now
A local morning news reporter and her cameraman were shot and killed on the air near Roanoke, Virginia this morning.
Police are searching for a person who they say shot at multiple people Wednesday morning, killing WDBJ7’s Alison Parker and Adam Ward at the Bridgewater Plaza near Smith Mountain Lake.
According to Franklin County Sheriff Department’s Spokesperson Phillip Young, the shooting occurred at the Bedford County-Franklin County line in Moneta at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, August 26.
WDBJ7 says the shooting occurred during their live shot and are asking for your prayers.
Members with Bedford, Franklin County and Virginia State Police are on scene. Sgt. Ryan Young with the Virginia Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries confirmed half a dozen of their department are on scene searching the shoreline and surrounding area.
Police say they continue to look for the shooter at this time and are hoping to get a description out to the public shortly. This incident remains under investigation.
At this time Bedford County Public Schools are on perimeter lock-down until further notice, according to the superintendent. For those students on their way to school, officials say they will be secured upon arrival.
And again, this happened live on the air. Raw Story has the video, I won’t put it up here, but it’s just unreal. Parker is interviewing a woman at a dockside shopping center and there’s three shots, screams, the camera falls over and you see the planks, and it cuts back to the anchor in the studio.
The look on her face is heart-rending.
Manhunt continues for the shooter.
by Tim F| 63 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, General Stupidity, Get off my grass you damned kids
It seems that even reactionary neo-fascist conservative networks do not appreciate Donald Trump like the Donald thinks he deserves. You know what Trump should do? He should start his own network. Talk about catering to a guy’s strengths. It could fill a very profitable niche in that narrow gap between FOX and an enraged eighty year old screaming incoherently at neighbors in his underpants. Yoooge! Classy! Trump could use a friendly outlet to help his third party run (Kennedy should see no problem there), and it would really show up those PC bastards at FOX. Just a thought.
***update***
Take the next logical step, Donald.
TRUMP: I think they cover me terribly. Fox News? I think they cover me terribly and I’m winning by double digits on every poll. So I don’t know. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t think I get good treatment from Fox. They certainly cover me a lot.
[…]I think they give me very bad treatment. I think Fox treats me terribly. And a lot of the people that like me think they treat me terribly. But I don’t think — I mean, what – you think I was asked nice easy questions? The other guys are saying, “What are you going to do about jobs?” Another one saying, “Do you love God?” Another one says something else. I get these questions like, what’s going on here? And, yet, I won in every single poll of the debate, I won. I won from Drudge. I won in Time magazine. I won all the — everybody thought I won the debate. But I certainly had the worst questions, the most unfair questions. And, you know, I like Fox. I like it, but, no, I think they treat me very poorly.
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Immigration, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
"I'm excited about the opportunity to change the status quo," Sam Clovis says – Trump's new national co-chair pic.twitter.com/cmmLxWRvqV
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) August 25, 2015
Sam Clovis is the Perry campaign defector I wrote about Monday evening. Spoiler alert, he went for the quick dollar. In his defense, there’s some question whether there will be a Republican party once Trump gets through entertaining himself, so collecting one last fat fee might be the smart move right now.
Top Iowa state R said yesterday that Clovis announcing he was for sale "exactly the kind of thing that's bad for Iowa caucuses"
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 25, 2015
What, just because The Donald is setting up his Iowa committee using the same highly successful methods that made Celebrity Apprentice such a money-spinner?
How Trump recruits staff in Iowa. "A stopwatch is involved." Pure gold from @tripgabriel: http://t.co/4kIcWtF97C
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) August 25, 2015
In related Everybody’s Talking About It mediatainment…
Donald Trump to Jorge Ramos: "Go back to Univision” http://t.co/TgDew3XpvJ pic.twitter.com/cZYLSKLXjr
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 26, 2015
Open Thread: Follow the Money, GOP StylePost + Comments (142)
This post is in: Open Threads
This post is in: Cruz-ifiction, Election 2016, Religious Nuts, Republican Venality, I Can't Believe We're Losing to These People
Link from The Hill:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Sunday that the concept of birthright citizenship is illogical given America’s struggles with rising illegal immigration.
“I think birthright citizenship as a policy matter doesn’t make sense,” the GOP presidential candidate told host John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“We have right now upwards of 12 million people living here illegally,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense that our law automatically grants citizenship to their children, because what it does is it incentivizes additional illegal immigration.”…
Brave words for a candidate born on foreign soil whose own father’s immigration to America was legally a little iffy. Except that Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to be running for President any more — he’s running for God-King in the Republic of Gilead.
Conventional wisdom is that Cruz is now deploring “illegals” in an attempt to lure the angry racists populists once Trump gets bored. I’m sure those voters would, as Austen might phrase it, make a tidy supplement to the marks already cheering for Cruz’s long con. Which wouldn’t worry me, if there weren’t a lot of desperate women going to get hurt by his ongoing maneuvers to draw Talibangelical attention…
Ted Cruz is teaming up with 100,000 pastors to defund Planned Parenthood http://t.co/VwobKbbrui
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 23, 2015
The Washington Post, on the Iowa event last weekend:
… Here in Iowa, 57 percent of Republican caucus-goers identified as evangelical Christians, according to entrance polls. Cruz has been courting faith leaders here, dispatching his father Rafael, a pastor, to speak at events around the state and announcing Friday that he wants to recruit a pastor in each of Iowa’s 99 counties to do faith outreach.
Cruz’s Iowa campaign chairman, Matt Schultz, suggested Cruz was chosen by God.
Meanwhile, on the Republic of Gilead Campaign Trail…Post + Comments (68)