Crappy news to wake up to: There has been a “mass casualty” shooting at an LGBT nightclub in downtown Orlando, Florida. From the CNN live feed, we know so far that there are multiple casualties and that the shooter is dead. Early witness reports mentioned two shooters, but the cops’ statement said the “shooter” — singular — is dead, so it sounds like one person committed the crime.
Witness video showed what appeared to be a gunfight in the street between cops and a suspect. It also showed patrons carrying wounded people away from the crime scene and a gigantic response by emergency personnel.
The shooting happened around 2 AM ET. There’s supposed to be a press briefing from the cops at 7 AM. Just another morning in America.
UPDATE: Cops said there are “multiple people dead” inside the club and that 42 people were transported to local hospitals. From the OPD chief’s report, it sounds like a cop onsite engaged the shooter after he opened fire outside the club, at which point the shooter ran into the club and took hostages.
A SWAT team then stormed the club and killed the suspect. The Orange County sheriff says they are investigating it as “an act of terrorism,” but they aren’t classifying it as a “domestic” or “international” incident.
UPDATE 2: OPD chief says around 20 dead inside the nightclub. Jesus.
UPDATE 3: Cops say they have reason to believe suspect had “leanings” toward radical Islamic terrorism but no definitive proof at this point.
UPDATE 4: Cops said shooter had “assault rifle,” handgun and a “suspicious device.”
Joey Maloney
It’s Morning In America!
satby
I just don’t understand how people can be so resigned to this, but they are.
Baud
Has it really been 51 days?
Tokyokie
And, I’d like to point out, that those who demonize LGBTs are largely congruent with those who demand unfettered access to firearms. After all, WWJS (Whom Would Jesus Shoot?)
Gimlet
Orlando… Orlando…
Orlando, Florida (CNN)Florida authorities answered one of the major questions in the shooting death of Christina Grimmie, the 22-year-old singer who made her name on NBC’s “The Voice.”
The man who killed her was Kevin James Loibl, 27, of St. Petersburg, Florida, according to Orlando police.
Gimlet
Fourteen fame-hungry young men tried to out-smug each other at a small studio in Manhattan’s Theater District on Saturday to prove they could play ‘America’s most hated man’ in a new musical comedy about pilloried former drug executive Martin Shkreli.
The hour-long production, titled “Martin Shkreli’s Game: How Bill Murray Joined the Wu-Tang Clan,” is based on Shkreli’s controversial $2 million purchase last year of the sole copy of the hip-hop group’s latest album.
Set to open in July, it is a fictionalized account of comedian Bill Murray joining forces with the rappers to steal the album back.
SiubhanDuinne
Just woke up to the same news. It’s awful, and I’m sure there will be revised numbers over the next several hours, but I think the thing that both saddens and infuriates me is that it is the same old same-old. The whole unfolding of media coverage, official reaction, and NRA defensiveness, is all too predictable. Donald Trump will say something either fatuous or outrageous about it, probably both, Hillary Clinton will call for common sense change in gun safety regulations, everyone will be distracted by what this means for the political race, and yet another mass shooting in America will become just another news cycle shiny object. It’s getting really hard to feel much shock or sorrow when these things happen so regularly, and I’m afraid I gave up on expecting any kind of meaningful change shortly after Sandy Hook.
Derelict
Another day, another mass shooting. Some say that there is nothing we can do about events like this.
But those people are wrong! As Wayne LaPierre will no doubt be explaining to us later today, the answer is to pass laws making it mandatory for all straight White people to carry guns at all times. Obviously, more guns will mean fewer shootings!
Meanwhile, remember that the very survival of America depends on the states being able to bar transgender people from using the restroom of their choice.
Gimlet
@SiubhanDuinne:
Just woke up to the same news. It’s awful, and I’m sure there will be revised numbers over the next several hours, but I think the thing that both saddens and infuriates me is that it is the same old same-old.
We should remember the victims and their families in our prayers this morning. Now is not the time…
Elizabelle
Please put up a link to the police conference presser when it’s available.
And remember this in talking to voters and reminding them to vote. Our lives depend on it, gay and straight.
Don’t be cynical. The tide is turning, which is why the Republican party and their lapdog, most of corporate-owned media, is in a panic. Vote, vote, vote.
We can get a better Congress. We can.
JPL
@Gimlet: At least they are calling it terrorism.
Iowa Old Lady
@SiubhanDuinne: Me too. If twenty dead six year olds didn’t prompt change, nothing will.
Raven
@Gimlet: Now is not the time for what? It’s a fucking blog.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
twitter is saying 26 dead + 42 transported to hospital
satby
@Raven: she was snarking; imitating what will be said.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady: Please, don’t give up. And don’t fall prey to cynicism.
It’s because of the cretins who bought their seats in Congress. That can change. Other than gun rights nuts, no one took the deaths at Sandy Hook lightly. No one.
The arc of justice and all. It can bend, this November. Maybe even become apparent before.
Los Angeles had 7 murders this weekend. Violence is up around the country. I think it’s desperation and dead-endedness and picking up on all the despair and lies in the political and social world.
The WaPost has committed journalism again. Incredible story by Anne Hull (who shone in the Walter Reed Hospital reporting a few years back). About a white couple, struggling with the aftereffects of opioid addiction and felony convictions.
That the death rate for rural women is soaring.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/wp/2016/06/11/2016/06/11/the-lonely-road-of-staying-clean/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_alabama11pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Elizabelle
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Jesus.
Stacy
Apparently there was a cop in full uniform acting as security when it started and engaged the shooter. So a good guy with a gun was there and couldn’t stop the slaughter.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
I just finished reading that one too – it was really touching. Carlos Lozada’s piece about how Trump stacks up against fictional American dictators (like Buzz Windrip of “It Can’t Happen Here”) was quite good as well. I bet his Twitter account is buzzing with hate-tweets as we speak.
OzarkHillbilly
@Stacy: And yesterday, a good guy without a gun did. (christina grimmie’s brother)
satby
@Stacy: there seems to be a report of a gun battle inside the club, so the good guy with a gun may have contributed to the death toll as people got caught in cross fire.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
ABC saying “The worst terror attack in America since 9/11. It is being treating as an act of domestic terror.”
Gimlet
Pulse describes itself as “the hottest gay bar” in the heart of Orlando.
Another martyr doing God’s work. Exercising his “religious freedom”.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Yeah. Stories like that make up for Villager Karen Tumulty (previously of Time) with her “no one likes EITHER candidate” schtick. Sick to death of that type of crap reporting, at which the WaPost excels. (The ghost of David Broder, and Dan Balz is still walking their halls. Chris Cilizza. Gag.)
It seems the horses at Belmont get more honest and intelligent horse race coverage.
Joey Maloney
@satby: No mention of that in the initial LE briefing. Their sequence of events:
*Cop moonlighting on the door responds to shots fired
*Exchanges fire, then backs off for reinforcements
*Cops get contacts with a bunch of people hiding elsewhere in the club, which leads to
*SWAT team setting off a couple of explosions for distractions then busting in
*Gunman killed, 1 cop lightly injured
(That’s some interpolation by me, so take with salt.)
Baud
Seems like a lot to carry into a nightclub without being spotted.
Raven
@Joey Maloney: They really didn’t engage in a lot of “MAY” in the press conference.
Gimlet
Is there an advantage to labeling this a “terrorist incident” versus “lone wolf mass shooting”?
Elizabelle
From the Orlando Sentinel:
I don’t see the word Islam.
Joey Maloney
Someone asked specifically at the press briefing if there was an Islamic connection. Answer: maybe, we don’t know, we’re looking into it.
Raven
@Gimlet: so people on blogs don’t freak the fuck out even more.
D58826
There has been a lot of justified criticism of the militarization of police departments but as long as we are swamped with nuts and guns then maybe the cops have no choice.
Gimlet
@D58826:
There has been a lot of justified criticism of the militarization of police departments but as long as we are swamped with nuts and guns then maybe the cops have no choice.
If the FBI just had a bigger surveillance budget this would never have happened.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
They’re hiring people with felony convictions here now. I noticed it about a year ago. It doesn’t have anything to do with “ban the box” or compassion- we’re essentially at “full employment” and there are a LOT of people with felony convictions. They just need employees. They’re not “good jobs” – they’re entry-level low wage- but they are A job and that can mean an awful lot.
scav
@D58826: There’s a significent difference between having the capability of using such force and tactics and applying them willy-nilly to any and all situations, with a level of training and discipline far below that of the (also imperfect) military.
Baud
@Kay: That’s good to hear.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: The FBI dude at the presser said they have indications the suspect had “radical Islamic leanings.” The word “Islamic” is a direct quote. But he did say they don’t know the motive yet for certain.
Gimlet
@Betty Cracker: “leanings”?
Weasel word.
D58826
@scav: Oh I agree. I didn’t mean to justify tactics like the Ferguson cops used last year. I just meant the days of Barnie Fife and his one bullet are long gone and police departments will have to have these types of weapons/tactics. Now maybe the Feds should establish a high level of training/retraining of police department personnel before turning these types of weapons over to the department.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: Well, if the shooter did have Islamic leanings and was radicalized, I hope he was considerate enough to born in the good old US of A.
Gimlet
Any surveillance video to review?
D58826
@Betty Cracker: It is terrible that we have to think this way but hopefully it is a white fundie gay hater rather someone with ties to Islam. In the current political environment the former would add less to the Trump firestorm.
Betty Cracker
@Gimlet: It’s speculation at this point, but I’m just relaying what I heard in the news conference. Here’s a tweet from an Orlando Sentinel reporter who heard the same thing from the FBI during the conference:
I’m surprised an ISIS-inspired nut hasn’t taken advantage of our absurd lack of gun control to commit a mass shooting in the US before now. Or maybe it’s just some random kook who shot the place up because his hamster told him to do it. We’ll find out soon enough.
Kay
@Baud:
I think prosecutors and police lost credibility with things like felony charges for “paraphernalia”. The charge isn’t reliable- it isn’t a good indicator of anything anymore. There’s a practical recognition that some of this is trumped-up bullshit – they never should have been charged with a felony OR it never should have been classified as a felony in the first place. They used it too much. It lost meaning. It’s like “oh, that’s not a FELONY felony- that’s that bullshit they use to justify a confidential informant”.
Elizabelle
OT, meanwhile I have been reading the NYTimes article about US workers at Abbott Labs in Libertyville (sic!), Illinois who were replaced by H-1Bs and forced to sign non disclosure agreements. They’re speaking out now. As went Disney, goes Abbott, and too many US companies, while the executives loot the company for exorbitant compensation.
Such abuse of H-1Bs. Needs to be a huge campaign issue. H-1Bs are supposed to supplement employer options when a suitable American worker cannot be found. It’s not meant to be a replacement program. Clearly, that’s been abused for decades now.
Murder of your future by gun or by business school grads and the sociopaths running major corporations and government. Take your pick.
I’d like to see Disney fined up the wazoo — at least a cool billion, to be dedicated to a job pool for American worker salaries — and executives and the legal department brought up on fraud charges.
Will be interesting to see if there is a legal (albeit unethical) loophole in the legislation, or if employers are just taking advantage of not enough money for US govt enforcement actions. (And the eventual fines end up being written off as a cost of doing business. Meanwhile, you have gutted families and whole industries.)
Gimlet
Perhaps one solution would be to pass out guns to the clientele as they enter and then collect the weapons as they leave.
The Thin Black Duke
There’s a chilling sequence in the TV drama The Band Played On, a fictionalized account of the early days of the AIDS crisis, where Dr. Don Francis (Matthew Bodine) efforts to prove his theory that the disease is caused by a sexually transmitted virus, are stonewalled by the CDC, who is reluctant to admit that the disease is transmitted through blood. During a contentious meeting, Francis asks, “What’s the number? How many people have to die before you finally take this seriously?” Back then it was about AIDS, now it’s about guns. Sooner or later, there will be a number that will finally get people to stop fucking around and do what has to be done to solve the problem. We just don’t know what the number is yet.
D58826
@Gimlet: can somebody ban this troll. He is distinctly not funny this morning
D58826
@The Thin Black Duke: As some one up thread said if 20 dead 6 years olds doesn’t do it, then I doubt that there is a number. Sad.
msdc
@Betty Cracker:
Well… other than San Bernardino. But yes.
Elizabelle
The San Bernardino shooter did not buy the assault weapons himself. He had an American friend do a straw purchase. Friend is in a heap o trouble now (including a scam marriage).
But yes, it is not hard for anyone to come by weapons in the US of Cray Cray. Lucky, safe us.
The Thin Black Duke
@D58826: Oh, there is a number. I’m just afraid it’s going to be a number with too many commas and zeros.
amk
@The Thin Black Duke: From presidents, politicians, civil rights leaders to hapless young kids in class rooms. Don’t think that magic number will ever be reached.
satby
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, that’s been an open secret in IT for about a decade. Until they just sent a lot of it completely offshore. Ironically, I was contacted last week by an Indian recruiters for an Indian outsourcing company about an IT job here in the States. I submitted a resume, so we’ll see but I’m not holding my breath. Too many times an initially enthusiastic contact ghosts on me later.
Glad you’re enjoying Barcelona, it’s one of my very favorite cities!
low-tech cyclist
[sarcasm]
Thank you, clientele of the Pulse nightclub, for heroically dying for our Second Amendment rights.
-The NRA
[/sarcasm]
Because it’s almost never the gun nuts dying for their sacred right. It’s almost always other people.
Betty Cracker
@msdc: Good point. But from what I’ve read, that incident sounds like an odd hybrid of workplace violence with post-hoc terrorist justification.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: Lucky for us, our Congresscritters are behind armed guards and metal detectors. So they’re not likely to join the list of the shot on American soil peeps.
Elizabelle
@satby: Thank you.
Have you heard from the girls? Is it way too quiet chez satby? What a good experience you provided for Valentina and Q …. (sp?)
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
When did a “suitable American worker” become defined as a “person with barely passable English, willing to work for next to nothing, and wholly ignorant of their rights”?
Betty Cracker
@Gimlet: Sounds like you’ve had too many gimlets.
D58826
@The Thin Black Duke: I’m afraid you right. Infinity squared seems like a place to start (sigh)
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: when Republicans in Congress pushed through laws making it easier and cheaper for companies to use them. SATSQ
To be fair, many of the workers with HB1 visas speak fluent English, but they have accents, sometimes heavy accents, and people complain about it.
Peale
@satby: yep. The outsourcing companies sell the idea that the h1-b can be used to staff project teams, which are supposed to be short term and end when the project is over. Management then realizes that everything it does is project of some sort. Project after project I perpetuity, but that’s someone’s full time job.
OzarkHillbilly
@D58826: Disagree.
scottinnj
@msdc: I know it is way too early to speculate but if it was an Al-Quada like perpetrator I can think of a few other iconic and globally known places in Orlando if one wanted to get maximum coverage and terror.
Schlemazel Khan
@Gimlet:
ARG! That phrase is so ingrained in our media culture that when I read it my BP spiked as I wondered what sort of asshole you were. Then it dawned on me you were not saying it just that you know it will be said. I am sure it will be said today and repeated this week by ammosexuals all over the TV. Unless . . . unless . . . if we are ‘lucky’ and the shooter can be in anyway linked to Islam than we won’t hear that but instead how Islam is the religion of hate & we have to wipe it out at least in America.
I am won over to Rev Wight’s position, “god damn America”
EDIT: OK, I’m not the only one with a broken snark-o-meter this morning. Hi raven!
Elizabelle
Also, one can protest abuse of H-1B laws and still welcome immigrants. But not the gutting of American jobs so the bottom line looks good for our corporate overlords. Until, suddenly, Americans cannot afford to buy quality products and services, and they’re wary of their futures, and how did that happen, right? Is a mystery.
I suspect Democrats representing tech industry meccas are as guilty as your usual craven GOP Chamber of Commerce jackhole. But it has got to stop. We are past the tipping point.
Marc
Very recent news reports claim that the shooter was an Islamic extremist, for what it is worth. I wouldn’t jump to judgment yet, but if I was betting money I’d say that it’s more likely than not.
Baud
@Marc: Do you have a link? Last I heard, the authorities were only saying it’s a possibility.
Schlemazel Khan
@The Thin Black Duke:
I am beginning to think that number is closer to 350,000,000 than to whatever it is today. Remember, GOA, Gun Owners of America is a group that thinks the NRA are a bunch of Chamberlain level appeasers and the media can’t help but play the game in favor of controversy and not solution.
Gimlet
@Marc:
shooter was an Islamic extremist
“Leanings” suggest he wasn’t an Islamist, just agreed with their opinion on gays. Could say the same of gun-loving wingnut fundamentalist Christians as well.
bystander
@Gimlet: Their mayor has already made the obligatory plea for mass praying.
Second observation: The talking head on MSNBC stopped the interview she was conducting to read Trump’s tweet. This is how Trump is going to continue to be plumped by the MSM, as if anyone cares what Trump has to say about anything.
Third note: The interviewee has been speculating whether the shooter was drawn to attack people because of their “alternative lifestyle”. How about because of their hate that has to be unleashed on innocent people? Were those little kids in Connecticut living an “alternative lifestyle”?
Finally, please note that I hate these people. That is all.
Ang
The fact that officials are already calling it domestic terrorism suggests to me that they think it is radical Islamic. If it was a radical Christian the guy could have been carrying a bible, wearing an ‘I love Bryan Fisher’ t-shirt, and had a giant tattoo saying Jesus hates F*** – while the authorities would still be saying ‘no motive is known at this time’.
Did they ever decide why that Planned Parenthood in Colorado was attacked?
*deep announcers voice* We may never know…
satby
@Elizabelle: I heard from Qunoot when she was leaving D.C., she would have arrived home last night and I imagine will sleep the day away today.
Valentina will leave very early Tuesday morning, also first to DC and then to Indonesia, but she has workshops in her own country to complete before she gets home to her family and her family was unable to travel to Jakarta to meet her where she first gets off, so she’ll finally be back with them about two weeks after she leaves me. Poor kid.
D58826
@Baud: Last statement by the cops was they are treating it as terrorism. That any attack that kills 20+ and wounds 42 is by definition terrorism. They won’t go beyond that as to motive.
tybee
@Betty Cracker:
snark meter adjustment needed
(yet again i’m late on the comment stream…)
Schlemazel Khan
@bystander:
I’ll disagree with one point, lots of people care what Drumpf has to say, he is the GOP candidate for President. I’d expect Hillary to get the same treatment. That the Drumpfenstein monster has endless shitty, sensational, stupid takes just makes them more excited to read his tweets.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
Hence my statement of ‘wholly ignorant of their rights’. Many of them feel like they have no choice but to do whatever they are told to while working for next to nothing because if they don’t their employers will fire them and then they have to go back. Most of these people have families they are trying to support. A job is not something they can just say, “Well, I’ll find another.”
@satby:
Hence my “speaking barely passable English” phrasing. A person can be fluent as all get out, but if their accent is so heavy nobody can understand them, that is not speaking English passably. I have complained of it too. It is very frustrating to call a help line (I know, they are not even here) and get a person who you can not understand a word that comes out of their mouth. That is not helpful.
I am just making an observation, not passing judgement on the individual.
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan: At least the tweet was ‘reasonable’ in tone. Nothing inflammatory. (yet)
Peale
@bystander: yep. This one will be easier to square up. Patrons were wrong for not having their own guns in the club. Patrons provoked the attacker with their own sinful lifestyle. Liberals brought this on themselves by allowing Muslims into the country. There won’t be a need for a “show us the bodies, it was a false flag” conspiracy to develop this time to buck up support for flooding the market with weapons.
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: We have a lot of folks working in India and the accent issue is a real problem. One of the unanticipated benefits of using IM rather than the phone is that it eliminates the accent issue. Syntax can be a bit interesting at times but usually understandable.
Matt McIrvin
@bystander:
For months it was conventional wisdom–may still be–that if one more incident like this happened and there was a Muslim connection, that was it, Trump would be President. So do we still think that?
Gimlet
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump – CNN Republican Debate March 10th
“I know the H-1B. I know the H2B. Nobody knows it better than me. I’m a businessman. These are laws. These are regulations. These are rules. We’re allowed to do it. … I will take advantage of it; they’re the laws. But I’m the one that knows how to change it. Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me.”
“I know the H-1B very well. And it’s something that I, frankly, use, and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it. Very, very bad for workers. And second of all, I think it’s very important to say, well, I’m a businessman and I have to do what I have to do. When it’s sitting there waiting for you, but it’s very bad. It’s very bad for business in terms of — and it’s very bad for our workers and it’s unfair for our workers. And we should end it.”
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, I know you aren’t. And as soon as a desk is running well with staff that communicates well with customers, it’s often bounced to another, cheaper country. I had to oversee one help desk be relocated to India from Brazil, and about a year later move again to Kuala Lumpur. The money and lost productivity those moves cost can get recouped in less than a year paying the new staff much less. And they don’t really care what customers think.
Schlemazel Khan
@D58826:
Maybe the GOP has taken the keys to his account & given them to an adult
D58826
@satby: I recently called the cable company with a problem. The guy on the help desk was trying very hard to be helpful but I could not understand a word he said. So as a customer where do I take my business? Cable is a monopoly.
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan: from your keyboard to the FSM’s ears
MomSense
There has been such a culture shift in my neck of the woods. When I was growing up there was a hunting culture that had nothing to do with assault weapons or handguns or conspiracy theories.
When kids were old enough to go hunting with their families, they were signed up for a safety course, and often given a lifetime membership to the NRA. There have always been stories about idiot hunters getting lost, shooting first and looking later but that was unusual.
It started to change after Ruby Ridge and Waco but even then it was a fringe thing. Now it seems everyone fancies themselves a good guy with a gun who is the first/last line of defense against tyranny,and some nefarious international scheme to make us all live within the confines of three square blocks in downtown Portland-coincidentally the same three blocks where all of those people live.
Gimlet
After HB1, the newest wave
Oak Brook, IL — After seeing a decline in earnings for the first time in nine years and battling workers who are demanding $15/hr, McDonald’s plans to do something no other restaurant of its kind has ever done before; open thousands of stores run entirely by robots.
Adam L Silverman
@scottinnj: The Orlando media has already stepped on their crank in golf shoes. The officials at the presser didn’t bring up Islam, a reporter asked if it could be radical Islamic terrorism. The official indicated we don’t know, we’re investigating everything. Orlando’s major TV station then reported it out as possible radical Islamic terrorism. This is very strange targeting selection of both international and/or Muslim extremists. There are a lot better targets in Orlando for those subsets of terrorists to target. The last time that I recall a terrorist attack at a gay nightclub was by Eric Robert Rudolph in AL. And he lives in the part of the Venn diagram between Christian Identity, Patriot Movement, and anti-abortion movement that is the all American Army of God.
satby
@scottinnj: Security is very tight at Disney and Universal. Almost “getting on a plane” tight, with fingerprints.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly:
@satby:
Noted. And it frosts me when government contracts out for overseas labor. We have plenty of qualified people here who cannot get a job — even get looked at — and are Americans over 40 truly dinosaurs in the marketplace? I think not.
satby
@D58826: as I said, the companies don’t really care, they know if you want their products you haven’t got much of a choice.
Adam L Silverman
@Gimlet: Here’s how that started from the press conference held earlier this AM:
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: I did not automatically think “Islamic terrorist” given the targets were presumably gay people and those who danced/worked at a gay club. That sounded a lot more homegrown.
Time will tell.
burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
This is how the FBI puts its thumb om the political scale while maintaining the illusion of impartiality. They just handed a couple of news cycles to Trump, and when the theory that the shooter was a jihadist doesn’t pan out, no one will be paying attention.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: my lord, is that it?
Elizabelle
@satby: In theory. They’re counting on Americans not changing their habits. That could change.
satby
@Adam L Silverman: This is, obviously, a major peeve of mine: the leap to blaming Muslims for every incident before anyone knows anything.
They speculated for days about Oklahoma City being Islamic terrorism too, until the all-American white boy McVeigh was arrested.
Loviatar
@The Thin Black Duke:
Can be as little as 1. It just needs to be the right one.
Gvg
Just occurred to me my parents are in Orlando on way to flying to Alaska. I am dog sitting in their house. Well they won’t be anywhere near a nightclub. I grew up in Orlando. It seems like a long time ago.
Gimlet
Mixed irony in the Twitter rightwing calling for action against the Muslims that did this when the victims were the hated gays.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Gimlet:
yes, it gives Trump’s anti-Islamic fanbase something to cheer about.
and at the same time, shooting up a gay bar gives the Republican anti-gay anti-TG fanbase something to cheer about as well.
It’s lose-lose for the rest of us coping with the ungodly body count.
Betty Cracker
@Adam L Silverman: That’s not what I heard. The reporter asked if the attack was tied to radical Islamic terrorism, and the FBI guy said they had indications that the shooter had “leanings” toward that ideology but that it was too soon to say for sure and they were pursuing every lead. The reporters aren’t just pulling the Muslim angle out of their asses.
bystander
@D58826: I thought it was not so much “reasonable” as “look at me, dammit”. The only thing remarkable was that he didn’t jump to conclusions in his first tweet out. His tweet was the equivalent of the guy next to you on a bus muttering behind his newspaper that crime is bad.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Betty Cracker:
But the reporters are pushing that as Their Narrative, which is a terrible way to frame the story. The media’s trying to write the story before all the facts get out. Not good at all.
/headdesk
Peale
@satby: yep. It’s really a three year cycle with offshoring. It takes about 2 years for process teams to properly form, mis-hires to be replaced, training to sink in, and remaining staff to get sorted into optimal roles. Unfortunately, by that time, onshore management is fed up with a vendor that is underperforming and has been so busy trying to reproduce the results of the previous team, that it has already started looking for another vendor. It’s about year three that the offshore team starts to lose key members because of lack of promotion and demands for increased pay. You see, onshore management imagines that offshore workers are unlike US workers in that the unstable poverty of third world economies will create a motivated workforce in which top performers will stay in place without raises or bonuses. That isn’t true. But management continued to hope for that and when it doesn’t appear, they run off after the next vendor who promises that to them. “We shall get you that motivated, innovative workforce that will never ask for a promotion or a raise!”
Mark B
@satby: Alex Jones and his followers believe the whole thing was a setup designed to make white hate groups look bad. Yes, there are people in America who are THAT crazy.
PaulWartenberg2016
my two cents http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2016/06/waking-up-to-troubling-news-in-orlando.html
Matt McIrvin
@satby: For days? There was speculation about it for years after McVeigh was arrested. I think Laurie Mylroie never did give up the claim that he had a Middle Eastern accomplice somehow connected to Saddam Hussein.
Peale
@Betty Cracker: since there was a hostage taking, did the police ever contact the shooter?
Betty Cracker
@PaulWartenberg2016: Agreed — and the cops did say they are pursuing all leads. But they also said they had reason to believe the suspect had “leanings” in that particular direction. They didn’t make a completely neutral statement.
rikyrah
Were they targeted because of being LGBT, or because it was a place where they could kill a lot of people at once?
bystander
@Peale: All of the above. Plus many exhortations to pray to Jeebus.
satby
@Peale: you must work for my old company ???
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: @Baud: @satby: As one of the people involved with actually studying terrorism in 1995 when the OKC Bombing happened, and who publicly contradicted his supervisor by saying it was domestic and tied to the US extreme right fringe by pointing to the Turner Diaries, I am in complete agreement. The targeting on this looks wrong. Is it possible? Sure. Even leaving out the big, tourist targets, Orlando has more logical targets for Islamic extremists be they objectively or subjectively affiliated with IS, AQ, or any of their offshoots or affiliates.
Also, its 7 hours in. If this was even remotely tied to the IS guys or AQ or any of their offshoots or affiliates, their social media would be making claims already. I haven’t seen anything reporting that this is happening. Everyone needs to just sit back, keep good thoughts, and wait and see what the investigation brings.
Betty Cracker
@Peale: No idea. I think there’s another news conference scheduled shortly — 9:30 ET. Hopefully we’ll get more details then.
Mark B
@OzarkHillbilly: Many of the visas for foreign workers are tantamount to indentured slavery. They can’t complain about anything, or the contractor who owns their contract will revoke their sponsorship and they get sent back. The contractor who takes a great deal of their salary. Often the sponsoring contractor will use another contractor to actually place the worker, and both of them take a huge slice. It’s a racket.
Adam L Silverman
I’ve put up a post with the link to WFTV Orlando Channel 9’s live feed. It won’t let me embed it, so you’ll have to click through. The next law enforcement update press conference is scheduled for 9:30 AM EST.
The Thin Black Duke
@Loviatar: Exactly. For example, after too many people were infected and died and ignored for years, it was Ryan White who finally made the public pay attention to AIDS. The news media needs an appropriate martyr to put into the spotlight, and unfortunately the “right” person hasn’t been shot yet.
Adam L Silverman
@Gvg: The airport is east of Orlando proper.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: Laurie Mylroie started blaming everything on Saddam Hussein right after the Iraqi Defense Attache at the Iraqi Embassy in DC broke off their affair. Once that happened she did a 180 from Saddam Hussein is America’s best ally in the Middle East to everything bad that has ever happened to the US is the fault of Saddam Hussein. That woman is nuts.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: No, what everyone needs to do is complain about Indians and their lousy accents and how they are taking all the jobs. Perhaps we can add Indians to the list of people to be banned from entering the United States.
Since Hamilton is so popular let’s bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts too.
Adam L Silverman
@Peale: No the folks trapped/holed up/being held in the women’s restroom posted to Facebook that they were being held/trapped there. At that point Orlando PD sent their SWAT unit in.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: No one knows yet.
Bobby Thomson
@The Thin Black Duke: there is no such person. A classroom of kids didn’t do it.
It’s idolatry, wrapped up in perverted sexuality.
D58826
@bystander: IT’s a low bar but for Trump still a step up.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: @Betty Cracker: The WFTV anchors just indicated that the shooter was from Port St. Lucie and I stand corrected: the FBI SACC on site did offer up that they are “investigating the shooter for radical Islamic leanings”.
And the press conference has been moved back to 10:30 EDT.
Loviatar
@The Thin Black Duke:
Sandy Hook has taught us, to sway public policy, its no longer enough to be white and an upper middle class child. You have to be the right type of white upper middle class child.
Elizabelle
Chyron: Shooter identified as Omar Mateen.
Adam L Silverman
ABC News has reported that the shooter was named Omar Mateen from Port St. Lucie.
Kay
@Mark B:
My son works in tech and he says the same thing. He also says it’s impossible to verify their experience/education- that it’s a real crap shoot as far as what they’ve actually done or certifications/ worth of degrees, etc.
US hires are just a safer bet for his company- they know the reputation of the colleges or training programs and they know the value of their prior experience because they’re familiar with the various companies they worked for.
I get a little bitter about it because for years people were told that “outsourcing” was inevitable, natural, like tides or the phases of the moon- they had to just suck up lower wages or unemployment- and now that it’s college-educated professionals getting hit by “insourcing” of employees it’s a matter of great national concern and can be fixed by lawmakers.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
All this from that? And no one’s called her out on that?
D58826
@Elizabelle: Please let it not be some one with a Muslim sounding name. Let it be a white Christian. IT won’t bring back the dead but the political atmosphere is so tense.
Mark B
@Schlemazel Khan: In sports, we call that the ‘hot take cannon.’
Remember when he declared that the EgyptAir airliner that went down last month was an act of terror? With in an hour of finding out? Almost a month later, and it’s still unclear why the plane when down, but Trump’s hot take is what people remember.
Edited: sorry for the typos, my browser is messed up.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: No one is saying that, Ms. Cat. I know your friend’s situation, the oncologist held up in visa limbo.
Both abuse of the H-1B program AND the doctor’s situation are problems, but not necessarily the same one.
It’s not about skin color. It’s about green. Dollars. Lots of dollars. And too many MBAs and soulless, gutless, selfish executives who can’t look beyond short term.
schrodinger's cat
@Mark B: Some of the IT contractors are terrible. I know some people on H1-B working in IT who went back.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: I’ve pointed it out several times. I was told this information by a very senior former Defense official.
Elizabelle
@D58826: My thought too. Gadzooks.
lollipopguild
This week in Louisville a well known Moslem celebrity was buried. His body was driven miles thru city streets to loud cheers and flowers were thrown on his hearse. A Moslem prayer service and his funeral were shown on live TV. He was then buried in a local cemetary were he will rest with Col. Sanders, well known locals and Union and Confederate civil war dead. This was done without any riots/shootings/fights/public arguments. When the news is bad remember that we are capable of good things as well.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodinger’s cat: Who’s mentioned Indians?
D58826
Pete Williams is reporting this guy was born in New York and there is some evidence of ‘radicalization’ and they are looking into his foreign travel record.
D58826
Williams is also reporting that he popped up on the FBI radar a couple of years ago. This is getting worse and worse above and beyond the actual death toll.
Elizabelle
Think I’ll go out for a while. Late lunch time here. Sad day. Another of many.
@lollipopguild: Yes, indeed. Never forget that.
Betty Cracker
@lollipopguild: Excellent point. Thank you.
Miss Bianca
@low-tech cyclist: Yeah, somehow the only thing I see moving the needle would be a mass shooting at an NRA meeting. Even, then, I have my doubts.
Schlemazel Khan
I did an engagement for a very large discount retailer. When I started every manager had a target number of jobs they were expected to move to this companies India operation. After designing and implementing a program to accomplish what was needed I did train the folks in India to do the job & it was a nightmare. Part of it was cultural, they seemed incapable of saying no to anyone & the job demanded some strict rules. They also wanted to freelance in a role that required well documented and repeated actions. Last I heard they had given up & brought the work back home.
Of note, after the Dems took control of Congress in 08 they changed the tax law so that there was no tax benefit to offshore and the company canceled it targets for offshoring. But they did tell me that it took 3 foreign workers to replace 1 local worker. Since the pay is 20% that means a 40% savings right off the bat. They still import thousands of workers on 2-year tours though
Schlemazel Khan
@schrodinger’s cat:
Actually my most recent frustration was with a Caribbean accent and neither of us could accurately understand the other. I have also had issues with Spanish accented help so it is not just Indian accents. To be clear I don’t blame the workers, it is partly on my also but the real ones to blame are the MBAs who look for the cheapest help possible with no thought to how qualified the person is or how they will affect the companies customers. I don’t blame the workers for wanting the job.
Robert Sneddon
@Schlemazel Khan: Working a call-centre job a little while back I had to occasionally phone the American contact desk where I was faced with trying to understand almost-impenetrable American accents. It was about as bad as dealing with the call-centre based in India which dealt with out-of-hours problems.
Our own call-centre office was deliberately located in Scotland as the local accent is thought to be “sweet” in terms of dealing with people over the phone, ditto for our sister call-centre in Ireland.
Amaranthine RBG
@Elizabelle: Only a handful of people are ever prosecuted for making straw purchases or otherwise violating the law when attempting to purchase firearms.
That should change.
JustRuss
OK, but if you have 3 times as many workers you need 3 times as many (higher paid) managers, whittling away at that 40% savings, and presumably 3 times as many phones, computers, desks, ….I wonder what the bottom line really is.