Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Everybody saw this coming.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

The revolution will be supervised.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

A consequence of cucumbers

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

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You are here: Home / Hopefully random violence instead motivated violence

Hopefully random violence instead motivated violence

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Hopefully this is random violence and not politically motivated violence.

Let’s wait for more information to come in before speculating too much.

Cheryl makes the very important point:

Reader Interactions

286Comments

  2. 2.

    Keith P.

    Holy shit. I came in from feeding birds (got 7 of them on my deck with minimal fighting!) to see this on a frozen news stream. Insanity. I’m going to have to find something else to watch on TV today, since I can’t handle any more shooting coverage, much less a political shooting. It wears on the soul.

  5. 5.

    Bobby Thomson

    Hey, that Reichstag won’t burn itself.

    Doesn’t really matter who set the fire.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    NBC says Rep. Scalise and two Capitol cops were shot and that Scalise is in stable condition.

  7. 7.

    mai naem mobile

    I don’t mean to sound political and conspiratorial but I hope this isn’t Dolt’s Reichstag moment. After all the garbage I’ve heard on the right over the decades, i don’t give a crap of what the RW thinks of this comment.

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    Hopefully this is random violence and not politically motivated violence.

    Why is random violence the preferred choice in this premise?

  11. 11.

    D58826

    Watching the horrible videos of the fire in London. No one has mentioned the T word and I have absolutely no reason to think that it was anything other than an accidental fire. But if a person can use a pressure cooker, a car, a truck, or a hammer, why not arson? It’s not like it’s never been done for profit. Wasn’t the Honorable (caught cough) Cong Critter Issa involved in an arson scheme before he moved on to DC?

    Here you have a building with building code violations and a flammable curtain wall. Just jam open the elevator doors on a couple of floors (creates a drought and prevents use to escape) starting from the top of the building throw Molotov cocktails around the fire exits (also creates a drought and blocks escape routes), douse the outside wall will gasoline, drop a match and bingo you have a towering inferno.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    Why weren’t the republicans armed.

    It’s terrible that this happened, but nothing is normal.

  15. 15.

    D58826

    CNN reporting two capital police offices and the congressman were shot. I really think it’s time to just go out and watch the paint dry on the middle lane on I-85

  16. 16.

    Ciotog

    They just interviewed someone at the scene who was strongly implying that it wasn’t fair that the shooter had a semi-automatic and the police only had handguns. Hmmm, I wonder what the solution to that might be?

  18. 18.

    MJS

    @Corner Stone: Because our media has the attention span of a gnat, and if this is political violence, it will consume all the media, all the time. The Russia investigation will be forgotten, as will the Senate’s attempt to pass the ACHA or whatever the fuck it’s called. Republicans will call for investigations of the shooting, said investigations to take up all of Congress’ time. That’s why “random” will be better than “political”.

  19. 19.

    D58826

    @Corner Stone:

    Rand Paul is sounding like a gun control advocate right now

    I think this is a variation of no atheists in a foxhole or depending on whose hog is being gored.

  21. 21.

    rk

    Well I’m sure he has excellent healthcare coverage and being shot will never be considered a preexisting condition.

  22. 22.

    Quinerly

    @JPL:
    Actually, they kinda were. Rand Paul is very dramatically saying that they would have all died but for Scalise’s security detail firing back. Because Scalise is leadership, his security was there.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    @D58826: Rand has already started to shape his message and is going more to mental illness. So obviously, by definition now is not the time to discuss gun policy.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @rikyrah: Think Progress has second hand reporting that the shooter is white. Take that with a grain of salt at this point.

  26. 26.

    Quinerly

    Shooter wearing blue jogging clothes (my hopes for a Confederate flag wife beater undershirt are dashed).

  29. 29.

    TomatoQueen

    The shooting happened in a residential neighborhood about two miles from my home, on a soupy humid morning. The perpetrator, spoken of as believed to be in custody (well he or she is, or isn’t), was positioned behind a dugout. Another politician is threatening to give a statement shortly, hinting that he spoke with the perp before the shooting. Then it all degenerates into mumblebumble. The DelRay neighborhood, btw, used to be working class, but since I moved to Alexandria in 2001, has gentrified beyond all possible reason. Roses on tv shown as blooming.

  30. 30.

    MJS

    @Baud: Per an interview Mo Brooks did with CNN, via DK:

    Mo Brooks on shooter: “He appeared to be a white male, middle-aged, a little on the chubby side.”

  33. 33.

    D58826

    @Corner Stone: Well if it is a white RWNJ then obviously he was mentally ill – he shot up a bunch of white republicans and not members of the OTHER party/group. Aside from the snark I am speculating about the shooter being a white RWNJ since I haven’t turned on the TV yet

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Chubby, middle-aged white dude according to CNN. A congressman who was there but left just before the shooting called in to Fox News and said a man had asked him if the people practicing were Democrats or Republicans. I predict the shitgibbon will be on TV tonight screeching about divisiveness and irresponsible rhetoric, at which point Irony will eat its gun.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @Betty Cracker: Looks to be an interesting setup. I wonder which way this thoughtful, sober and deliberative administration will choose to go with this incident.

  38. 38.

    D58826

    @Baud: yes it is sad that he first things we all think/snark about are nut jobs, what party he was trying to kill, will it be a Reichstag fire moment.

  40. 40.

    Morzer

    @Corner Stone:

    I wonder which way this thoughtful, sober and deliberative administration will choose to go with this incident.

    “Suspiciously light-skinned black man attempts to murder American patriots…”

  43. 43.

    MJS

    I would suggest Gabby Giffords attempt to get on ALL the news shows, ASAP, with the message of, “NOW can we do something?”

  46. 46.

    Quinerly

    If I’m understanding, all Repugs practicing. Shooter asked Duncan if they were Dems or Repugs.

  47. 47.

    Sloane Ranger

    Wasn’t there a primary contest in Virginia recently and didn’t the Republican Trumpanista candidate lose out narrowly to a more establishment candidate? And hasn’t the Trumpanista made some sour grapes comments about his loss?

    This sounds like it could be some alt right/militia type taking revenge against establishment ‘cucks’.

  48. 48.

    satby

    Put this below, fits better here: @Morzer: I read that. Poor Mo Brooks, his voice breaking as he described the terror. A terror he’s willingly voted repeatedly to potentially subject the rest of us to every day as he dances to the NRA tune, just like every single one of them out there.
    Not that I think the experience will bring any enlightenment.

  49. 49.

    Patricia Kayden

    @JPL: I’m surprised that in a political gathering, someone with a gun could squeeze through. I would have thought this gathering would be heavily policed and that gunmen/women would be stopped from entering the premises. Glad that no one was killed. Sigh.

  50. 50.

    Morzer

    @Sloane Ranger:

    A chubby white man with a taste for violence who screws up consistently.. has anyone checked on Richard Spencer recently? Or Chuck Johnson?

  52. 52.

    hueyplong

    I am in a room where I am the only non-right winger, and they need no help from Trump to go full-on Reichstag fire. Already doing it. The intensity of the angry victimization is a little troubling.

    Guessing that Fox News programming is set for a while.

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Sloane Ranger: Interesting theory. Yes, Cory Stewart, obnoxious ass _even relative to contemporary Republicans_, lost a close race for the VA-Gov nomination yesterday.

  55. 55.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Nah, he was probably pissed that they didn’t give Hillary the public hanging she deserves.

  56. 56.

    Jack the Second

    Assuming this does turn out to be the rare case of politically motivated left-wing violence, when was the last case? All the ones that stick in my head are right-wing, but I know it’s not completely unprecedented.

  57. 57.

    LurkerNoLonger

    It will take some time to know the shooter’s motive (if he had one) but if he was targeting Republicans they just got a real life example that actions have consequences. You vote to take away health care from 24 million people, don’t think there won’t be repercussions.

  61. 61.

    bystander

    @MJS: The trumpencommentariat on facebook were unanimously shrieking at us that Gifford didn’t deserve having a naval vessel named for her just for getting shot.

    Sorry, but I can’t help but think of an angered citizen exercising his Second Amendment rights. I can remember hearing that that’s what real Americans do.

  63. 63.

    Cermet

    Little doubt that no matter what the motive, all we will hear is attacks on liberals until we find out the person’s motive; that said, if it isn’t a liberal than we will hear crickets then after.

  65. 65.

    D58826

    Morning Joe reporting no life threatening injuries and they think shooter is in custody.
    POTUS has issued a well written (i.e. no misspellings or extraneous ‘!!!!’) so must be from a staffer. Reports are 60-100 shots and ‘a massacre’ if the leadership security detail hadn’t been there. .

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    @TomatoQueen:

    Del Rey neighborhood?

    Well, after the carnage and the aftermath are cleared up, I can recommend Los Tíos as a pretty good Mexican-Salvadoran restaurant. Good margs.

    – “Look for the silver lining.”

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: WaPo had a terrific piece up the other day about kids dealing with the aftermath of school shootings. The article said that since Columbine, roughly 135K kids have been affected — not shot or injured, but traumatized by being in proximity to a school shooting. That stat boggles my mind. It also makes me ashamed that this country deems that an acceptable consequence of our insane gun culture.

  68. 68.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Cermet: If it’s not a left-winger then the whole thing will be chalked up to “mental illness” even if the guy straightforwardly says his motive was to retaliate against The Republican Establishment (TM).

  69. 69.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @hueyplong:

    The intensity of the angry victimization is a little troubling.

    To be fare they are like this at the best of times.

  70. 70.

    D58826

    Malcom Nance is again saying we don;t know enough at this point to say anything other than people are in the hospital with gunshot wounds. Alexandra police about to give a statement.

  71. 71.

    Morzer

    @FlipYrWhig:

    We’ll learn that the shooter was suffering from economic distress, felt that his honor was being attacked and was just exercising his Second Amendment rights as Thomas Jefferson intended.

  72. 72.

    TriassicSands

    @MJS:

    I’m shocked that you would politicize this event. Republicans would never do that. Never. Not ever. Not Republicans.

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cheryl Rofer: The phrase “thoughts and prayers” has been rendered utterly meaningless to me by its repetition by NRA shills in the aftermaths of shootings. Maybe THINK about doing something to stop this madness. Maybe PRAY for enlightenment.

  78. 78.

    Corner Stone

    @hueyplong:

    I am in a room where I am the only non-right winger, and they need no help from Trump to go full-on Reichstag fire. Already doing it. The intensity of the angry victimization is a little troubling.

    Surely I am not the only one who remembers seeing “Liberal Hunting License” t-shirts worn proudly by these assholes for at least the last twenty years?
    These are some of the nicer ones I have found.
    Link to CafePress

  80. 80.

    TriassicSands

    @MJS:

    But why would “random” cause the GOP to behave differently than “political?”
    If the point is to divert attention from Russia and Trump (not to mention the horrendous legislation being worked on by the Republicans), then the motivation of the shooting shouldn’t matter.

  82. 82.

    Morzer

    @Betty Cracker:

    I am not sure that Trump even knows what prayer is. As for his capacity for thoughts directed to anyone but himself, that seems pretty unlikely too.

  83. 83.

    Mike in DC

    We’re going to have a naval task force worth of ships named after pols who got shot at this rate.

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    @Baud: I am having a very difficult time getting to the point where I feel like that is too much speculation.

  86. 86.

    bemused

    @Cermet:

    It won’t matter if shooter is a liberal or a white supremacist. They will fabricate a story to suit their own fantasies.

  87. 87.

    SenyorDave

    No sympathy for people like Scalise, maybe his friends at EURO can hold his hand:

    On Dec. 28, liberal Louisiana blogger Lamar White, Jr., posted a story alleging that Scalise was an “honored guest” at the European-American Unity and Rights Organization conference held at a Best Western in Metairie, La., on May 17-18, 2002. The event was dubbed as an “international workshop” to support civil rights for Euro-Americans (a.k.a. white people), according to promotional material published by White.

  88. 88.

    PST

    @David Anderson:

    Politics by assassination is not a healthy environment (ask the Japanese and how they accidentally ended up in WWII)

    That is a very apt comparison and an instructive example. It shows how the viewpoint of a radical minority can prevail even in a democracy of sorts because politicians dislike being assassinated even more than they dislike being primaried.

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    @mai naem mobile: He’s got a brief statement up on his Twitter thing. It seems like something a staff person would have written – “patriot”, “thoughts and prayers”.

    The message is kinda minimized by the stupid floating balloons overlay animation. :-/

    Of course the shooter is mentally ill. Nobody who thinks reasonably clearly does such a thing. And of course the Teabaggers will mess with the optics for their political benefit (to demand more protection for themselves and inconvenience everyone around them in the process; to fight every attempt to make the rest of us safer by enacting sensible gun legislation; to blame Democrats and liberals; to rile up their base and distract from their actual actions on other legislation, etc.).

    Again, we’re fortunate that the shooter was incompetent. 50 shots could have done much, much, more damage. :-(

    Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery for everyone affected.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    My heart is with those killed and injured in this morning’s apartment house inferno in London. Housing for low income and disabled; place went up like a torch. And with the responders and the British. Residents appear to be heavily immigrant community; first and second generation.

    Sad that the GOP shooting will eclipse that.

  93. 93.

    bystander

    @D58826:

    @Nah a Baud voter would have done it right – would have used an Apache helicopter

    You might want to speak with TengUPhule. I’m betting he likes tactical thinking like that.

  94. 94.

    Morzer

    @Another Scott:

    IANAGN, but statistics I’ve seen suggest that, even with modern weapons and training, it takes a pretty high number of rounds to actually hit a moving target at close range and that most rounds discharged end up in the surrounding landscape.

  95. 95.

    MJS

    @TriassicSands: The vast majority of people don’t know or care who Steve Scalise is. If this is a random act of violence, to most people he will be no different than any other victim of a random shooting. If, however, he was targeted as a Republican politician, the Republicans, with the full force of the media, will be able to play this as an attempted political assassination. People do care about “political assassinations”, and the media, always after the ratings/clicks, will go after that angle non-stop. Republicans may try to play up the shooting even if it’s random, but they won’t get near the help they would from the media if it’s not.

  97. 97.

    D58826

    Well according to Cong. Mo Brooks he recognized it as gunshots because he is from the SOUTH. Must be a nice place to live where gunshots are just background noise. If he had said from out in hunting country then that would apply to any part of the country.

    He also took a pot shot at the local police because they didn’t respond fast enough

  98. 98.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Corner Stone:

    What about politics by threat of assassination? Would you term that a healthy environment?

    Go read the Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire – the Japanese leadership was so terrified of being murdered it took the Emperor personally ordering them to AFTER the two nuclear bombs and the Soviets invading. Even then two generals were murdered by their own subordinates in an attempted coup.

  99. 99.

    CaseyL

    I’m thinking of the old joke, “What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”

    Other than the Reichstag possibilities, that is. Wonder if all the ‘Thugs will now sport Eric Prince’s mercs as security details. It’ll be a status symbol.

  100. 100.

    D58826

    @PST: And if I remember my history correctly, there were a couple of assassinations in Aug. 1945 that almost derailed the talks to end the war.

  101. 101.

    TriassicSands

    @MJS:
    The only problem with your reasoning is that the Republicans can do all that no matter what the true motivation of the shooter is. When has the truth stood in the way of the preferred Republican narrative?

    As for “help” from the media. I think you give them too much credit.

  102. 102.

    chopper

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    but of course. and what happens if it comes out that the shooter is just a guy who’s going to lose his healthcare coverage and his kid has cancer?

    doesn’t really matter, the GOP is gonna play this up no matter what.

  103. 103.

    hueyplong

    In my rwnj room, Gifford shooting irrelevant “because that guy was crazy.” Pretty sure that will not be their take on today’s shooter.

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack:

    Well, after the carnage and the aftermath are cleared up, I can recommend Los Tíos as a pretty good Mexican-Salvadoran restaurant. Good margs.

    Noted! I’m still meaning to get over to Stomping Ground and Holy Cow for their ‘must-have’ eats…

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jack the Second:

    Assuming this does turn out to be the rare case of politically motivated left-wing violence, when was the last case?

    Arguably, the Dallas police shooting, unless you count that more specifically as racial/revenge motivation. And all the various black-bloc property-damage incidents that Republicans use as evidence that Hillary voters are all riot-happy.

    You could maybe argue that the DC sniper spree back in 2003 had anarchist motivations, but it was really muddled, and the older guy in charge may have been trying to murder his ex-wife and deflect suspicion by making it look like a terrorist crime spree. For a really clear-cut case of arguably left ideology driving terrorism you’d go back to Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski in the Nineties, but note he was himself sort of a 60s/70s throwback who had been at it a long time.

  109. 109.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Jack the Second:

    I can’t designate the cop-hunting episodes as actual left-wing violence, because of the racial aspects. Probably have to go back to the Weathermen.

  110. 110.

    japa21

    Quick question. Supposedly, the shooter was seen prior to the shooting and even spoken to. This is summer. Kind of difficult to hide a hand gun, much less a semi-automatic rifle. Is Virginia an open carry state?

  112. 112.

    D58826

    GOP congressman is already framing it as an attempt to kill as many republicans as possible. Now in the end that may be true but certainly way way to soon to impute motive.

    MSNBC interviewed a woman witness who say an armed older white man with a beard approaching the ball field. She knew that wasn’t right so called 911. That helped local police to get a quick response.

  114. 114.

    MomSense

    @D58826:

    And if I remember my history correctly…

    See that right there is the problem with you libturds.

    /winger

  115. 115.

    ThresherK

    @mai naem mobile: You don’t sound overly partisan saying that, here, now.

    I hope I don’t step over a line by predicting that nobody on the right or from the NRA will utter their previous mantra of “Enforce the gun laws already on the books”.

  117. 117.

    japa21

    My wife just asked me, “What if Trump hired the guy?” We know if it had been Dems being shot, Alex Jones would already have been out there saying it was a false flag, set up event.

  118. 118.

    D58826

    Some other goper is saying that things like this call for us to aspire to a higher calling. Apparently events like the shooting at the gay bar last year or the recent events in Portland don’t call for that. Amazing how ‘when your hog is being gored’ changes your outlook on life.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Morzer:

    but statistics I’ve seen suggest that, even with modern weapons and training, it takes a pretty high number of rounds to actually hit a moving target at close range

    Only true for the bad guys, every movie I’ve ever watched always shows the good guys hitting what they shoot at every time.

  122. 122.

    MJS

    @TriassicSands: I’ve been pleasantly surprised with at least some of the media’s coverage of the Russia investigation and the health care bill debacle. Because it’s getting them ratings, that coverage will continue to hold until a juicier story comes along. “Attempted political assassination” might be one. In my opinion, “Random shooting that involves a Congressman” is not, even though he’s a Republican. As for, “When has the truth stood in the way of the preferred Republican narrative?” it generally hasn’t, but I don’t understand why you then indicate I’m giving the media too much credit. Who do you think is responsible for getting the preferred Republican narrative out there?

  124. 124.

    hueyplong

    Clearly a small sample size, but I am losing faith in fellow citizens and in any possibility of an eventual consensus on Trump sitting in this room as opinions are voiced about the breaking news. Democrats are literally vermin to them.

  125. 125.

    Quinerly

    @japa21:
    Reported an hour ago that Rep Duncan (? not placing who he is) said the guy talked with him. Asked if Dems or Republicans were practicing.

  126. 126.

    Morzer

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Even with handguns, bows, javelins, shoes….

    It is remarkable how ballistics and probability accommodate the Designated Heroic Person.

  127. 127.

    liberal

    @Corner Stone: Look, in terms of some kind of vague cosmic justice, if the Angel of Death came down and cast all high-level Republicans into various circles of hell, I’d feel pretty good about it.

    The problem is one of consequences. To everything there is a season. I don’t think you can say “never use physical violence for political ends,” but you better be damn sure you think these things out.

  128. 128.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ciotog:
    There’s a reason why cops are better off patrolling with pistols than with rifles, I reckon. In the late 1980s, when the Malaysian military was switching to a newer European-made assault rifle, their old M-16s were given to the Royal Malaysian Police for constables to patrol with. That happened to be a politically tense time around here, but what really worried the public was how unwieldy the M-16s seemed to be for cops on foot or motorbike patrol.

  129. 129.

    Quinerly

    @japa21:
    Here’s a Twiiter on Rep Jim Duncan’s account. Looks like Duncan is from Knoxville, TN…not SChttps://mobile.twitter.com/Rachelle7NEWS/status/874967453314502657?p=v

  130. 130.

    Boatboy_srq

    Is it wrong of me to think that I’d be more concerned if the targets were, you know, human? And any Teahadi (R-NRA) who utters a peep besides how cops needz moar gunz needs to take a good long look in the mirror before the inconsistency shatters the image (any Teahadi that advocates for uparming LEOs is just listening to his GOA constituents and therefore merely consistent).

  131. 131.

    Morzer

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’d put him as more of a libertarian/anarchist with primitivist fantasies. FWIW, Breivik took quite a few ideas from the Unabomber, and he’s definitely not a leftist.

  132. 132.

    D58826

    I know this is a snarky reaction but listening to Sen. Jeff Flake explain how the critters hugged the ground while the shooting was happening and just let Scalise lie out in the field for 10 minutes till the shooting stopped. Now don’t REAL men disregard their own safety to drag the wounded man from the line of fire. Soldiers do that on an ongoing basis and get medals for it. I just have grown tired of these people, esp. Goopers, and their false courage.

  134. 134.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    A couple of thoughts –

    1. Start of the am, loaded for bear is not “random violence”.
    2. How did gunman know time and place of practice?

  135. 135.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @D58826:

    My thought is that there were no actual combat veterans in that group.

  136. 136.

    D58826

    @OzarkHillbilly: I remember the old FBI series and the agent – Ephrim Zimbast must have had a single shot revolver because he always hit his target in the last 2 minutes of the episode.

  138. 138.

    Corner Stone

    @liberal: I’m not sure how your reply addresses the comment it’s linked to, or any collection of comments I have made in this thread.
    Political violence, or the threat of political violence, is only legitimate when being used or committed by the right. This has been tolerated and incentivized for decades.

  141. 141.

    D58826

    @Amir Khalid: Probably true and the English Bobbies are generally unarmed. I think the issue is whither the cops have heavier firepower back in their car. It might not have helped the Capital police on the scene but would have helped other responding units.

  142. 142.

    Quinerly

    @Yoda Dog:
    I thought Duncan Hunter at first. This guy is from the Knoxville, TN area. Looked him up between posts. Never heard of him.

  144. 144.

    liberal

    @Corner Stone: My point is that at the current time, it won’t help “us” to commit acts of political violence.

    Is that fair, especially in light of your point about violence on the right? No.

    ETA: There are all sorts of things the right gets away with that the rest of us don’t, not just violence. IOKIYAR.

  147. 147.

    Chris

    @bemused:

    It won’t matter if shooter is a liberal or a white supremacist. They will fabricate a story to suit their own fantasies.

    True. Those are people who think Nazis are liberal, so the mental gymnastics won’t bother them at all.

  149. 149.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Maybe he didn’t know beforehand. According to one Congressman he was asked if Republicans or Democrats were practising.

    In a country/State where lots of people own guns, it would be easy for someone hearing the answer to go back to their vehicle or home, pick up their rifle and get back quite quickly.

  150. 150.

    Shalimar

    @D58826: We don’t have information to do more than speculate, but it is incredibly coincidental that a man firing from the dugout area only managed to hit the 2nd baseman and a handful of people who worked for the 2nd baseman. It’s almost like Scalise was the specific target.

  151. 151.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Morzer: I also remember a few McSweeney’s types who would probably identify themselves as liberal writing chin-stroking counterintuitive think-pieces about how if you put his deplorable methods aside, the Unabomber Manifesto afforded food for thought that was being unjustly ignored. Some of them seemed to romanticize him a little. Drove me kind of nuts.

    But it’s also true that he got outsize attention during a nationwide domestic-terrorism wave that was otherwise overwhelmingly right-wing.

  152. 152.

    Steeplejack

    @Jeffro:

    I haven’t been to Los Tíos in a while. I’m more up around Arlington-Falls Church, but my brother and I are constantly roaming far afield in search of good Mexican restaurants. And Del Rey is a pretty cool neighborhood in general.

    Latest discovery was Los Toltecos up in Sterling, when I dropped him off to pick up his new Mini Cooper. That place is good too. They have the elusive tostaguac on the menu, which is my litmus test for a true old-school Tex-Mex restaurant.

  153. 153.

    D58826

    Mel Brooks took ‘evasive action’ i.e. he ran like a scalded dog.

    And very tired of listening to these guys praise the security detail (which is justified) from preventing a higher butchers bill but what about the rest of us? Our gun laws just make us all sitting ducks and the only thing these whinners are willing to do is make it even easier to get guns.

  154. 154.

    liberal

    @Bobby Thomson:

    And if it was planned, why ask who was practicing?

    It could be planned, and at the same time the guy doing the planning could be pretty confused, not very clever, etc. I can see someone like that asking about the partisanship of the players just as “one final check”.

    Someone who really wanted to do this kind of thing half “sensibly” (assuming it wasn’t “random”) would (caveat: I am not a military tactician) set up with a sniper rifle and do it from a distance, not just walk up like that.

    Then again, the claim that he asked about partisan identity could be total BS.

  155. 155.

    Redshift

    @Bobby Thomson:

    it was planned. And if it was planned, why ask who was practicing? Dollars to donuts the guy Duncan talked to was not the shooter.

    Yeah, it’s entirely possible that was just some guy along about the practice. It’s also possible that there was public information about the practices, but not specifically who was at which park, which would fit with that account. No way to know at this point, but I agree it’s good to be skeptical.

  158. 158.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    saw this news and told myself I’d step away from the computer for a while, but here I am

    @Bobby Thomson: Dollars to donuts the guy Duncan talked to was not the shooter.

    Josh Barro‏Verified account @ jbarro 15m15 minutes ag
    As @ AlanMCole notes, Jeff Duncan says the man who asked him about party affiliation was in running clothes, Flake says shooter wore jeans.

  159. 159.

    Morzer

    @D58826:

    Personally I hope I’d have the good sense to run like a scalded dog in those circumstances. You can fault Brooks for many things, but any sane person would have done their best to get away from the shooter and live to see their family and friends.

  160. 160.

    Redshift

    @D58826:

    And very tired of listening to these guys praise the security detail (which is justified) from preventing a higher butchers bill but what about the rest of us?

    And that there was only a security detail because a member of the leadership was there.

  163. 163.

    Corner Stone

    The political question, if it happened at all could have easily been, “Hey man, who’s that practicing?”
    “Congressional Republicans”

  165. 165.

    Tenar Arha

    @satby: This is one of those moments when I realize that the endless demonization by the GOP has damaged my ability to empathize with them. (I feel a kind of remote concern that I feel this way. I’m going to have to do something for that I think). But I can’t do it anymore, because this is the world they have said they wanted.

    It’s a world where anyone with a gun can decide for any reason to pick it up one day and use it without checks or rules or anything to start them second guessing. Which means sometimes there will be people who were “fine upstanding citizens” who will use their guns for all the “un-approved” reasons. That’s the risk they have taken on by taking the gun lobby’s support. They’re the ones who decided to spread their fear of their own base to our entire society.

  167. 167.

    D58826

    @Shalimar: Malcom Nance is speculating that if the shooter had a scope then it well may have been targeted, like Gabby Giffords. And the right wing is outraged that a ship was named after her.

    I’m also tired of hearing Rancid Paul complain about how they are suddenly at risk in just going about their non-congressional lives. WELL WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US????

  168. 168.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Another thing I remember about the 2003 DC sniper spree was that were a million reports of white vans near the shooting sites, and a few of a Chevy Caprice. And I recall a statistician talking about that and saying “I bet it’s the Chevy Caprice.” Why? Because white vans are everywhere–you’d see them just by chance near any incident. (In Bayesian terms, the prior probability of seeing a white van is high.)

    The cops wasted a lot of energy chasing down white vans. It was the Chevy Caprice.

  169. 169.

    MomSense

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The problem is that the first narrative that goes out is the one that sticks. So no matter what we subsequently learn about what actually happened, people will remember that the shooter asked whether Dems or Repubs were practicing before the shooting.

    The only way to counter the first narrative with the truth is to try to assert a more powerful/emotional narrative and that is really hard to accomplish.

  170. 170.

    bystander

    @jeffreyw: Exactly. How do we know this isn’t a false flag to distract from the damaging Russian hearings? I’ll wait until Alex Jones weighs in.

    I also hope Congress responds with all the force they used in response to Sandy Hook. Those were some powerful prayers.

  171. 171.

    D58826

    @Morzer: I probably would also but they constantly talk about our brave soldiers going in harms way so how about putting your money where your mouth is.

    Scalise is in surgery. I wonder if they checked to see if he has medical ins. before he was admitted.

  172. 172.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Morzer:

    Candidate Baud was nowhere near this terrible event and has no recollection of purchasing a semi-automatic weapon!

    And if he did, he’s a better marksman!

  173. 173.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack: Awesome tips – thanks! I’m mostly going off of the WaPo’s last couple of recommended places. Stomping Ground has been noted in a few of those lists. Smoked and Stacked in DC seems to be a recurring fave as well.

  174. 174.

    Steeplejack

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    LOL. I love how Williams’s story helpfully notes “The Republican baseball team holds practice every morning at 6:30 ET at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia.” That’s . . . helpful.

  175. 175.

    Jeffro

    @D58826:

    Scalise is in surgery. I wonder if they checked to see if he has medical ins. before he was admitted.

    Any lead they can’t get out sure as hell better count as a pre-existing condition.

  176. 176.

    hovercraft

    I’m glad no one has any life threatening injuries.
    But can I ask, what the fuck are these assholes doing at baseball practice on a Wednesday morning? They don’t work weekends because they have to go home to stay in touch with their constituents, who they then hide from, they are constantly on recess, I think the number of days they will be in session this year is 144 ! This is bullshit!
    I must admit that the less time they spend at the Capitol destroying the country, the better, but it’s the principle, we pay them to get shit done, and for all their travel and security, the least they could do is sit at their desks and comment on BJ. Then again we have enough trolls as it is.

  177. 177.

    D58826

    @OzarkHillbilly: I think they do here in Charlotte as well.

    I don’t mean to make light/snarky of the situation but the GOP has been spending the past couple of decades about 2nd amendment solutions and people putting yourself in harms way. They have been impugning the patriotism of people who advocate for gun control.

    But all of a sudden when they are in the cross hairs, the whole world has to come to a halt to protect their cowardly butts. The rest of us are on own own.

  178. 178.

    Jeffro

    PS nickel bet that Scalise was involved with the shooter’s s.o. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  179. 179.

    Wumpus

    “2. How did gunman know time and place of practice?”

    It’s basically public information. It’s almost surely on a Web site somewhere; if not you could probably find out by calling the local park department and asking under the guise of trying to reserve the field.

    When I worked in DC, way back at the dawn of time, pretty much all the local parks’ ball fields were booked for Congressional baseball/softball practices or games at some point during the season. DC is a company town, and you have 535 offices, mostly staffed with young people, to draw from for teams, so there are a lot of them. These occasions are in no way rare or unusual.

  181. 181.

    Morzer

    @Jeffro:

    I feel a certain pity for the doctor who has to dig around in Steve Scalise’s ass for random bits of metal.

  183. 183.

    rikyrah

    Virginia:
    No background checks
    No licensing
    No registration
    No permit req’d for concealed carry of long guns
    Open carry long guns & handguns

    — David Frum (@davidfrum) June 14, 2017

  187. 187.

    Mike in NC

    NRA spent $30M to elect Trump, so he should be tweeting about need for everybody to buy “moar gunz”.

  188. 188.

    Tenar Arha

    @hovercraft: It’s basically like a corporation’s Marketing and Legal teams. In their case the teams are a holdover from when they all lived in DC, and socialized a lot together. Gingrich started changing the socializing, but probably thought the competition stuff was fine. Now it’s a pretty obvious holdover from a bygone era.

  190. 190.

    AnonPhenom

    @MomSense:

    The problem is that the first narrative that goes out is the one that sticks.

    …so this was an example of ‘Second Amendment Remedies’ against the ‘government tyranny’ in our healthcare system being ‘shoved down our throats’
    …Oh wait. This was Republicans getting shot. Nevermind.

  191. 191.

    bystander

    I’m with those who have a hard time being sympathetic to people who invite everyone to buy a gun and to consider it an unlimited right when they’re faced with the consequences of their own actions. And I think we all know about how consequences arrive without sugar coating.

  192. 192.

    rikyrah

    I can talk about the race of the shooter, or his religion. Because sadly, Trump has made it quite relevant in 2017.

    — R. Saddler ? (@Politics_PR) June 14, 2017

    If the shooter was non-white we know Trump would be all over Twitter Fear-Mongering and whining about his dead in the water Muslim ban https://t.co/n6EbIlGUgv

    — R. Saddler ? (@Politics_PR) June 14, 2017

    Or if he was black our very own President of the United States would be talking about Chicago & inner city crime stats

    — R. Saddler ? (@Politics_PR) June 14, 2017

    Or if the shooter was Hispanic, Trump would effortlessly pivot to the border wall bs. So don’t tell me to stay silent about race

    — R. Saddler ? (@Politics_PR) June 14, 2017

  194. 194.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Betty Cracker:

    since Columbine, roughly 135K kids have been affected — not shot or injured, but traumatized by being in proximity to a school shooting. That stat boggles my mind.

    Appalling. And the GOP indifference to the suffering created by gun violence (or any of their policies, for that matter) is beyond imagination. I don’t get the lack of empathy or compassion among so many of our fellow citizens. Was our society always like this?

  197. 197.

    Jay C

    @hovercraft: @Wumpus:

    I heard on the live casts that the Congressional baseball game is actually a charity event, played at the Nationals stadium, raising six-figure sums for some charity (?) – so it’s not as if their practice is just time-wasting.
    Though given the choice of seeing these guys out on a field, or in Congress messing up the country, my only comment would be “Play Ball! “

  198. 198.

    Tenar Arha

    I’m going to re-up this from the previous morning open thread. This whole incident reminded me of something I’d read. It was via Robert Reich. This is his re-cap, talking to an old GOP friend:

    CONGRESSMAN: Let me tell you something. Most current and former Republican members of Congress are exactly like me. I talk with them. They think Trump is deplorable. And they think Giuliani and Gingrich are almost as bad. But they’re not gonna speak out. Some don’t want to end their political careers. Most don’t want to risk their lives. The Trump crowd is just too dangerous. Trump has whipped them up into a goddamn frenzy.

  199. 199.

    Steeplejack

    @Jeffro:

    Smoked and Stacked reminds me that for breakfast tacos and such District Taco is excellent. Multiple locations and five or six different salsas that are all great.

    Downtown in D.C., Lauriol Plaza is a good Mexican place. Cheaper and also good is El Sol on 11th Street N.W.

  200. 200.

    Punchy

    So fat, white chump in his late 40s/early 50s toting an assault rifle around, and peeps still guessing about his political affiliation? For realz?

  203. 203.

    Cermet

    “Fake news alert (this comment)”; gunman admits he was hired by tRump to create a false flag to prove liberals love guns and violence just as much as tRump voters … ” End false news alert.

  206. 206.

    The Moar You Know

    Political violence, or the threat of political violence, is only legitimate when being used or committed by the right. This has been tolerated and incentivized for decades.

    @Corner Stone: This was the case in Germany even before WW1. It got really bad after the war was over. One of the most important factors in how Hitler came to power – he routinely was either let off or given very light sentences for offenses that would have landed a left-wing German in jail for life.

  207. 207.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dino Grandoni‏Verified account
    Hearing on House bill easing gun-silencer rules scheduled for today is cancelled, per Pelosi’s office

    ETA: the bill was written by Jeff Duncan, who may or may not have spoken to the shooter as he left the park

  209. 209.

    Steeplejack

    @Tenar Arha:

    At every big company I worked at in my long career as a legitimate businessman, they all had “intramural” sports leagues for this and that. Especially the ones with a lot of young employees. I don’t see why Congress would be any different.

    Practice at 6:30 a.m. is a little extreme, I have to admit.

  211. 211.

    rikyrah

    @Quinerly:

    Reported an hour ago that Rep Duncan (? not placing who he is) said the guy talked with him. Asked if Dems or Republicans were practicing.

    Don’t believe that for one minute.

  213. 213.

    satby

    @Tenar Arha: I was thinking the same thing. I should be appalled, but I’m just kind of meh. These guys vote against any comment sense gun laws, vote to gut access to health care especially including mental health, and dehumanize their opposition. They created this world, and hearing Rand Paul and the others snivel about it being “like a killing field”… Well, you reap what you sow. Gather your crop, fuckers.

  214. 214.

    Aleta

    @hovercraft:

    And they have to take their staff away from work/family, because:

    Staffers usually attend the practice to help lawmakers take batting practice, (Rep Mo) Brooks said.

    “These younger guys, they can throw pitches that are strikes with speed,” he told CNN. “So they’re good to have.”

  215. 215.

    David Anderson

    @Aleta: I read that as a chance for low level staff to have a chance to have off the record time with the boss. Plenty of people play lots of rounds of bad golf for the same reason.

  218. 218.

    Immanentize

    @Punchy: They are waiting to identify him so they can build a Facebook profile to confound obvious expectations

  219. 219.

    cain

    @MJS: Unless it is a Trump supporter, a right winger. Then things will be very uncomfortable for the other side. It would put white right wing violence front and center.

    Irony would be that gun control laws get passed, Sandy Hook couldn’t do it, but when it is Congress, gosh we really need to do something!

  221. 221.

    Tenar Arha

    @Steeplejack: Oh, I have no problem with it. You gotta get exercise somewhere & in DC almost in the summer I bet 6:30 is the only time it’s comfortable to even practice. ? But the fact that even congressional representatives participate is probably a holdover from when they actually lived or stayed in DC for more than 3-4 days a week.

    Also, even though matches may be for charity, they must be ridiculously bad players with the amount of time they actually have available to practice. The staff probably have to make a bunch of allowances for their reps. ?

  223. 223.

    MomSense

    So there were capital police with them on the field? Armed capital police? Good guys with guns? And they didn’t stop the bad guy with the gun?

    Unpossible.

  224. 224.

    Aleta

    This reminds me of the importance of protesting, speaking up in LARGE numbers now, in case it becomes more restricted or harder as time goes on. Same for the importance of media coverage, asking for it and supporting it and thanking reporters or sending information to them.

  225. 225.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: My thoughts too. So shall you reap.

    I am pleasantly surprised that Barack Obama survived his presidency, and I wish him and Michelle a long and happy life, with as many grandkids and greats and great-greats as they are fortunate to have join the family.

    WRT those under fire today: I feel terribly for the police who were injured doing their jobs.

    It may take police to help take the lead on scaling back the number of guns in public. They sure are endangered by enough of them. (Recall: late 1990s, some nutcase wanted to shoot up Capitol Hill — killed two Capitol police men near Tom Delay’s office. Believe he was found mentally unsound … after that, much harder to get in to see our representatives. A visitor center. Greatly expanded security.)

    Interesting that this shooter figured out where the congresscritters might be, and be vulnerable.

  227. 227.

    hovercraft

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Hearing on House bill easing gun-silencer rules scheduled for today is cancelled, per Pelosi’s office

    ETA: the bill was written by Jeff Duncan, who may or may not have spoken to the shooter as he left the park

    When it seems that even the universe is trolling you ………………..

    But hey, let not your hearts be troubled, the hearing will be rescheduled in a week or two once the hullabaloo has passed. If only they had all been strapping AR-15’s with silencers, this never would have happened.

  229. 229.

    Steeplejack

    @Tenar Arha:

    [. . .] they must be ridiculously bad players with the amount of time they actually have available to practice.

    I was a little surprised it wasn’t softball. “Real” baseball seems a little “¿Quién es mas macho?” for these guys. For anyone more than a few years past college ball, really.

  231. 231.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Philip Rucker‏Verified account @ PhilipRucker 2m2 minutes ago
    News: Shooter named as James T. Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill., via

  233. 233.

    Boatboy_srq

    @Tenar Arha: The saddest part is that tRump would not have been able to create the frenzy without DeMint, DeLay, Gingrich, Ryan, McConnell, Gohmert, Bachmann and the other GOTea pols, without Jones, Savage/Wiener, Limbaugh, Beck and the rest of the talking headline appendages, or without Swaggert, Robertson, Dobson and the other hate-for-Jeebus’-sake merchants. tRump is symptom, not cause.

  234. 234.

    But her emals!!!

    @Elizabelle:

    Interesting that this shooter figured out where the congresscritters might be, and be vulnerable.

    Finding out where congressmen are and when they are vulnerable isn’t exactly difficult. Politicians on all sides are basically protected by strong social mores against just this sort of violence. Most of them don’t have significant protection details outside of the office. The only reason this wasn’t a worse tragedy, is because Scalise was there. As leadership, he gets a protective detail.

  236. 236.

    Betty Cracker

    @raven: Yep. If that’s his real FB page, and the info dovetails with the media reports about the identity, e.g., location, past occupation, etc., he’s 100% a Bernie bro. He posted petitions calling on Clinton to cede the nomination to Sanders and for Sanders to join the Green Party. Posted “#NeverVotingHill,” etc.

  239. 239.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    The Washington Post reports that Hodgkinson is a resident of Belleville, Illinois and is the owner of a home inspection business. Records in St. Clair County, Illinois show that Hodgkinson in April 2006 was charged with battery and aiding damage to a motor vehicle.

  242. 242.

    Corner Stone

    NBC is also trying to confirm the shooter asked who was playing before the shooting.

  245. 245.

    JPL

    @Corner Stone: It appears that the person who asked was in blue jogging attire, and the shooter had on jeans. It could have been just a random guy curious about who was playing ball.

    Fortunately, the guy was not an accurate shot,or the carnage would be greater.

  246. 246.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone: @JPL:

    It appears that the person who asked was in blue jogging attire, and the shooter had on jeans. It could have been just a random guy curious about who was playing ball.

    It doesn’t matter, the right wing bullshit machine will disseminate the deranged liber Twitler hating meme far and wide before the question is answered, it fits their narrative. I’m sure just like Sandy Hook it was a democratic plot to steal your guns.

    Bri Wi is their “anchor”, so he’s on anytime there is breaking news.

  247. 247.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL: I worded that a little badly. Pete Williams of NBC is “confirming” the shooter was the one who asked about who was playing before the shooting.
    It’s a soundbyte for history now, no matter what the actual truth is.

  249. 249.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Shooter seems to be a big admirer of the Independent Senator from Vermont, if reports of his social media accounts are accurate.

  250. 250.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:
    Sigh. Half of me is disgusted by political violence by our side. A quarter of me wants to disown this guy who hates Democrats as ‘our side.’ The last quarter is amazed it took this long, given that right-wing violence and threats of violence are a regular occurrence, Republican leaders call for 2nd amendment solutions, and they’re publicly bragging about working every lever to cheat the system so they can kill millions of people.

    None of me feels sympathy for the Republican congressmen involved. I should. Morally, I know I should. But it’s hard to feel bad for gleeful murderers when they’re the victims of violence.

  251. 251.

    D58826

    @Betty Cracker: If confirmed I guess it was inevitable that someone on the loony left would decide that a ‘second amendment solution’ is available to any one. And also if true it will cease to be a case of mental illness and become part of the liberal plot to destroy Murka and the real Murkins like Der Fuhrer and the ‘Wag from Walsilla’

  252. 252.

    Cermet

    Oh shit, we will never hear the end of this now – the guy was a progressive. Sanders supporter. Now fake news will run with this 24/7 and the useless media will act as their echo chamber – great.

  253. 253.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Cermet: Coming to you on the next Sunday morning political panel discussion: “Have liberal politics gotten too toxic?” :P

  256. 256.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    You know what? This is going to get me blasted, but I hope this was political.

    Thè shooting took place, so there’s no way to chage that. Then, the best possible scenarios are:

    – The shooter was a militia type who might lose his healthcare due to AHCA, and states this when questioned

    – As a result of this shooting, Scalise/Brooks realize that voting with the NRA may have contributed to this happening. And that both of them will be a little more sympathetic at the next mass shooting.

    -That GOP learns that 2nd Amendment remedies goes both ways and they’ll drop that type of campaigning.

    I make no excuses for these statments. The GOP wants us dead. And they’ve never suffered consequences for their actions. If the above apply to this situation, then besides for Scalise (hopefully) pulling through this that another benefit will be the GOP’s accountability blinders coming off.

  258. 258.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    posted that Karen Handel was a bitch.

    When I saw that, the first thing I thought was “I hope this doesn’t tilt the GA-6 election to Handel.” I’m not proud that it was my first thought, but it was. In the few days remaining, will she dare try to link Ossoff with the shooter? Wouldn’t totally put it past her.

  259. 259.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Quinerly: grossly irresponsible of The Week to print this as if it were part of the investigation, it’s just something some guy said

    Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), who was at the field in Alexandria, Virginia, when the incident occurred, told NBC News that the gunman seemed to be “there to kill as many Republican members as possible.”

    a reminder that Republicans spent eight years accusing Barack Obama of being a sleeper agent of foreign powers (Trump), of collaborating with terrorists (Palin) and seeking to deliberately weaken American (Marco Rubio, less than a year ago) for reasons unspecified, but surely nefarious.

  261. 261.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: she doesn’t have to, employees of the Kochs, the Mercers or someone like them are probably already putting a web ad together

  263. 263.

    Ian G.

    @Quinerly:

    Of course he did.

    The cult of Wilmer/Stein was never as big/dangerous as the cult of Trump, but if anyone was still kidding him/herself about its status as a deranged cult, this should end that.

    This isn’t to say that every Wilmer supporter is a cult member in need of deprogramming, but an uncomfortably large number of them are. Hell, the fact that I. I’m using “Wilmer” right now speaks to that.

  267. 267.

    Quinerly

    I’m grasping here….thrilled that this loon wasn’t a HRC supporter, isn’t POC, or an immigrant (still was praying that he was a middle aged white dude in the Confederate flag wife beater shirt). Trump getting ready to speak. I’m so fucking jaded.

  273. 273.

    chopper

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    given that this guy hated on clinton with such intensity, he seems to have more in common with a person like handel than a guy like ossof. that being said, i hope ossof is coming up with a line or two in preparation for just that sort of accusation.

  274. 274.

    Aleta

    When have R politicians and Fox and radical conservative christians NOT turned any violent event into an opportunity for political gain. They will be out in force in every possible contorted posture.

  275. 275.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @chopper:

    Just reporting what Trump said in his brief remarks. NPR commenter said that fact had not been previously reported.

  276. 276.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    If you constantly call for “revolution”, sometimes people take you seriously.*

    *Assuming the guy in question was a BernieBro.

    **I’m glad no one died*.

    ***Assuming Trump is incorrect. Which is pretty much expected. ETA.

  277. 277.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @chopper:

    given that this guy hated on clinton with such intensity, he seems to have more in common with a person like handel than a guy like ossof

    Quite so, but your average voter isn’t likely to connect the dots that way.

  278. 278.

    Kathleen

    I don’t care about the victims of the shooting other than relief that they’re not dead. Nothing ever good comes from employing violent solution. In this particular situation I fear the media and Rethuglican blowback and bullsh##t we’ll be subjected to. It’s tiresome and possiby dangerous .

  279. 279.

    D58826

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: one of the tweets

    Those images are despicable & were not widely lauded by the right, unlike undenounced calls 4 assassination by verified blue checkmark libs

    Aside from the fact that they were widely spread by the right, I see similar stuff from some of my relatives on FB. Really thinking of cutting them off.

    And in 8 years not one R in a leadership position in Congress every took to the podium and said “Obama is the duly elected president of the US and being born in Hawaii he meets all of the necessary Constitutional requirements. He is a Christian, a patriot and has a family that we all hope to have. Birthism is nonsense and beneath the dignity of the GOP. The depiction of nooses harkens back to a sad state in American life and has no place in today’s Republican party. Those Republican who send this stuff out and then ‘apologize’ that they were only joking should spend some time reflecting on their life and moral compass.’ .

    It was always a qualified ‘well I’ll take him at his word’ or ‘well I don’t really know what he believes’, or ‘it was just a joke sorry if you are offended’ etc.

  280. 280.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    @The Moar You Know:

    So what do YOU prefer the circumstances are, sport?

    Radical Dem/BernieBro? Do you really want the RWNJ to crack down on the left?

    Mentally ill shooter? So that the GOP can keep on pretending we don’t have a gun violence problem?

    Seriously, what is your hangup?

  281. 281.

    D58826

    And not to put to fine a point on it there has been a RW freak out about the Trump version of Julius Caesar by a local theater company. Bank Of America/Delta Airlines have pulled their sponsorship of the play. In 2012 no one had any objection when the part of Caesar was depicted as Obama. I saw one glowing conservative review that thought it was an especially nice touch that Brutus was played by an African American also. BOA had no problem writing checks in 2012.

    Now at a personal level, and give the level of political violence since 1963, I’m not sure it is a good idea to put on this type of performance using current political leaders. There was a movie/TV show a couple of years back about the events happening after an assassination of W. It never showed the assassination but they did use W as a plot device. Not a good idea. The movie Seven days in May made it’s point with a fictional president.

  282. 282.

    D58826

    @SiubhanDuinne: Can he just shut up for the moment. MAke the usual
    1. monitoring situation
    2. thoughs for victims
    3. situation is still fluid so will let any further comment come from the investigators.
    Sorta the way previous POTUS handled the initial stages of these events. Once the investigators have issue a more complete update then talk about it.

  284. 284.

    Applejinx

    @Tenar Arha:

    CONGRESSMAN: Let me tell you something. Most current and former Republican members of Congress are exactly like me. I talk with them. They think Trump is deplorable. And they think Giuliani and Gingrich are almost as bad. But they’re not gonna speak out. Some don’t want to end their political careers. Most don’t want to risk their lives. The Trump crowd is just too dangerous. Trump has whipped them up into a goddamn frenzy.

    Well, now they may as well speak out. Going along with all this bullshit is clearly risking their lives from the other direction, so they’re free to go with their principles if they have any. Alternately they can go get a real job, if they can find any.

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