Can't make it to DC on March 24? You can now see if there's a march in your area – and if not, create your own & check out the toolkit! Thanks to @everytown @GiffordsCourage for supporting this effort. #MarchForOurLives https://t.co/HrHYh9rwIE
— Emma González (@Emma4Change) February 27, 2018
For the first time since Columbine, most Americans believe mass shootings can be stopped https://t.co/KYPrdT7MY9
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) February 27, 2018
… Four months ago, when 58 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a shooting in Las Vegas, a plurality of respondents told pollsters that government and society were essentially powerless to stop these incidents.
Today, however, 64 percent of Americans say that “government and society can take action that will be effective in preventing shootings like the one in Parkland, Florida from happening again.” Just 32 percent say shootings like Parkland “will happen again regardless of what action is taken by government and society.”…
The Way We Advocate Now pic.twitter.com/ZzvcYmPHMp
— laura olin (@lauraolin) February 27, 2018
.
And good people just go on, being good…
Dolly Parton likes to give away books. She just donated her 100 millionth. https://t.co/O1GD7skCuH
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 27, 2018
President @BarackObama surprised our public meeting tonight to share his vision for the Obama Presidential Center and our mission to inspire the next generation of leaders: https://t.co/1vrS8lsEMB pic.twitter.com/nGkbKWJjsY
— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) February 28, 2018
Big Ole Hound
Dolly you rock. A great charitable act in this time of discord.
Betty Cracker
Here’s an interesting piece on Jeff Foster, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher who encouraged Ms. González and other students to get involved. Weirdly, the class was studying special interest groups’ influence on government policy at the time of the massacre:
People have marveled at how poised and knowledgeable the MSDHS kids are — it sounds like Mr. Foster is a big part of that. He also points out in the article that his school gets the funding and support it needs for its students to excel, unlike other schools in the area. Worth a read.
zhena gogolia
@Big Ole Hound:
I love those kids in the front row looking up at her in rapt amazement.
Chyron HR
Ha ha, silly activists, only people killed by undocumented immigrants are “angels”. If a good old red-blooded American waters the tree of liberty with you, everyone should just shut up and deal with it.
Chyron HR
@zhena gogolia:
I’m not going to make a rude joke in response to that, but I want everybody to know that I came up with one and it was pretty great.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: A good teacher can make a world of difference. I’m proud to say that my older daughter and her husband are both teachers; I hope they affect some kid’s life like this. Props to Mr. Foster.
Gin & Tonic
I see that the Dick’s Sporting Goods chain is going to require gun buyers to be 21, and is going to stop selling assault rifles.
I remember when the Iron Curtain was impregnable and eternal.
billcoop4
Mr. Foster yes.
The district-wide inclusion of debate in a systematic way–all high schools and middle schools, and soon all elementary schools–is a key component of the poise these teens have had. Last November, the topic was gun control.
They are the change we’ve been waiting for.
BC
BC in Illinois
[Reposted from last night, when the topic came up.]
In St Louis, the Riverfront Times has the info. “St Louis Students Organize March for our Lives on March 24.” Saturday, March 24, 10am, start at Union Station, go to the Arch.
And the local “Moms Demand Action” chapter can no longer fit into the Webster Groves Library Meeting Room. They will meet this Thursday at the Hixson Middle School Auditorium. Things are moving. Even in Missouri.
germy
Kay
We’re planning on going to the Cleveland march. It’s the beginning of spring break for my son so we were going on vaca anyway. We won’t be spending the whole week vacationing in Cleveland, however.
My daughter went to the women’s march and she told my youngest “you have to do your marching”
Your marching. And get your marching slip signed when you’re done.
germy
Here’s what Levi Sanders said about Joy Reid last year:
Baud
@Kay:
Can’t imagine why not.
Jeffro
That’s just crazy – 100M books?!? We should all aspire to do that much good in the world.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Levi Sanders needs to STFU and take up knitting.
Betty Cracker
@germy: Does he have a primary opponent? I’d like to make a donation.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: It IS like the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Russia, kinda, isn’t it? “Cascade theory” or something? It’s GREAT.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: There are about 8 people in the primary I think.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Isn’t Cleveland like the Florence of Cuyahoga County?
Baud
@Jeffro: Meh. Too much work.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Fucking guy doesn’t even live in the district he’s running in.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: If you’re referring to Florence, Alabama, then yes.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
Good question. Right now, Levi seems to be soaking up all the media attention. I can’t information on any challengers.
Immanentize
@germy:
Now I wonder where Levi learned that bigot technique. Thinking… Hmm, I got nothing.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: His dad wasn’t a member of the fucking party whose primary he ran in. Coincidence?
Immanentize
Al Giordano promised to run against Bernie. Maybe absent that, he can try supporting candidates who are running against the various clan members.
SiubhanDuinne
@billcoop4:
Or, as President Obama put it even more directly in a tweet last week:
We’ve been waiting for you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chyron HR: When my oldest was 2-3 years old, we went to visit my very well endowed oldest Sis. She had been working up a good sweat in her garden so we retired to her front porch for lemonade (probably spiked but my memory doesn’t cover that aspect). Sis was wearing a loose football jersey and no bra. My son walked over to her and pulled her jersey out so he could see up it. He then pulled it down and looked at my sis with a very questioning look on his face.
She said, “Boobs.”
He lifted the jersey for a second look.
Then let it fall back in place and with great wonderment declared, “Big boobs.”
Baud
@Immanentize: Isn’t Levi running to be like 1 of 1000 delegates to the New Hampshire legislature? Not sure he’s worth our attention, despite that offensive tweet.
germy
Levi supports Medicare For All.
But when Kamala Harris supports Medicare For All, he accuses her of “pandering”
Baud
@germy:
Yeah, a pattern is emerging.
BTW, what does it matter of she’s pandering?
germy
His dad is an expert on all three subjects.
Immanentize
@Baud: I know… Vermont and New Hampshire both have crazy legislatures.
But it still pisses me off. Not only his obvious bigotry, but his entitlement as well. Also, I am so very over our semi-aristocratic approach to the children of the famous. At least the Nixon, Ford, and Carter kids had the grace to generally keep their heads down and not profit off daddy. Kennedy’s? Well….
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Well, he certainly does have first hand experience.
eric
@germy: Start from the premise that it is not “pandering” when the intended audience is white……
Baud
@Immanentize: I’m not so categorical about the kids. They well may be the best people on certain cases.
germy
@Baud:
It illustrates his goalpost moving technique. If a Democrat doesn’t agree with him, she’s a corporate tool. If she DOES agree with him, she’s pandering. So she really can’t receive credit matter what she does.
Immanentize
@germy:
Doncha know that only the Bernie clan can righteously talk about universal health care. They OWN that idea. Look it up in the encyclopedia and you’ll see their ‘deed of idea.’ Therefore, if anyone else mutters anything about it, they are actually not only pandering, but stealing.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Hey, it worked for Betty White.
:)
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: No. He is running for the US House of Representatives.
Chyron HR
@OzarkHillbilly:
“It’s like one of my Japanese animes.”
eric
because it amuses me now and again, i check to see the titles of articles at the fox “news” website. Today John Stossel has “awards” for great political stuff. Allow me to give him the award in “the you cant make this up, are you not self aware” category for the following:
we are now officially int he post-truth version of the fall of the American empire.
Mary
That is a lot of freakin’ books. I wonder what titles she’s given away. I suppose I could look it up, but I’m lazy.
germy
@Immanentize:
Universal Healthcare™
Immanentize
@Baud:
The kids might be better in some cases, but in most, they are not:
Luke Russert
Maggie Halberman
Frank Graham
George W Bush
Dan Lipinski
Leap to mind….
Immanentize
@germy:
And all of it’s sub forms like
Medicare for All™
The Sanders will not allow others to Sully the purity of their stake.
NotMax
@germy
Highly competitive with United Artists Healthcare™ and Paramount Healthcare™.
:)
eric
@Immanentize: methinks you missed some rather obvious ones, one of which no longer has top secret clearance ;)
Now, i would think that “better” might exclude them given their parentage…but that is a debate worthy of Thomists
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: A good read. thanx
Betty Cracker
I’m not really going to contribute to the Bernie-spawn’s opponent, but I hope he gets beaten like a circus monkey in the primary. Bernie’s statement on the son’s run was decidedly hands-off. Maybe he knows more hinky bullshit will surface.
Chyron HR
Can we skip ahead to the part where it turns out that Messiah Jr.’s campaign is 100% funded by the Koch brothers?
Immanentize
@Chyron HR: probably not the Kochs. more likely funded by a small land holding, like the Crimea . He is currently too small fish for full on Russian support.
Immanentize
@eric:
I think Jared is neither better nor worse than his father, but likely to spend more time at the Grey Bar Hotel.
eric
@Immanentize: but his father was a self-made criminal, having to hone his craft on his own. Jared has been able to learn from the feet of masters.
Barbara
@germy: Gun violence in the U.S. is such a multifaceted problem that it’s easy for various groups to see it as different problems — problems of criminality, of mental health, of both random and targeted violence, for reasons and no reasons. For too many people, if you can put the problem in a bucket that doesn’t apply to you and that you believe to some degree you can control, that’s what you do. And that’s what people did to Michael Brown: they classified him as a thug and tuned out. Their kids aren’t thugs so it wasn’t a problem for them. And the events in Ferguson occurred well after what happened in Blacksburg, Virginia, which resulted in the deaths of slightly older but a demographically very similar population to the kids in Miami. I had friends and relatives on that location on that day (who were fortunately not harmed) but nothing, and I mean literally nothing, happened. Why? Because very quickly the shooter was classified as being mentally ill. And he most likely WAS mentally ill. Slaughters in Aurora, CO, and Phoenix, AZ, and for Christ’s sake, Newtown, CT, all emptied into the same bucket. Then, we move to what happened in Umpqua, Las Vegas, and everywhere else, mostly white places and white victims . . .
But for all of the built in racism and disadvantages, the BLM movement is the catalyst for all of the efforts that we are now seeing, whether it’s the women’s marches or the MSD students. Without BLM as a model of how to organize and fight back, it is not clear to me that the MSD students would have had such an effective blueprint for the techniques and actions that they have undertaken. To me, what is most infuriating is that it has taken SO MUCH carnage to get to what is really just the infancy of the possibility of greater sanity on guns.
Brachiator
Today is Paul Krugman’s birthday. He has a great op ed piece at the NYT titled The Force of Decency Awakens.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opinion/the-force-of-decency-awakens.html?referer=https://www.google.com/
Kathleen
@germy: Did you read the hole thread? Lots of love for Trump and white people. Not surprising at all. I also read he really dragged Obama but refused to read the thread. Such vile people.
rikyrah
@billcoop4:
Indeed
trollhattan
@Big Ole Hound: @Jeffro:
Dolly would deny it, but she’s truly one of the finest humans on the planet. Arithmetically 1/Trump.
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
I haven’t been good enough to warrant seeing Jared taken (in a limo in the dead of night to the back entrance) to prison. Perhaps a jackal or three have earned this and I get to enjoy it anyway.
No Drought No More
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: “Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”.
Trump makes a lot more sense when keeping in mind that Bush-Cheney successfully whitewashed the “Offical” investigation into their own plot to war.
ExpatDanBKK
Open thread? Why hasn’t anyone in the US latched upon this extreme bit of weirdness regarding Trump and Russia? It’s fabulous!
http://m.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2134995/russian-model-says-she-will-spill-information-trump
Origuy
@ExpatDanBKK: The Guardian wrote about Vashukevich last week, after the story appeared on Navalny’s website.
ETA In the WaPo. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/russian-watchdog-orders-youtube-to-remove-navalny-video
kc
@Immanentize:
Al’s been uncharacteristically quiet since several women came forward about abuse they endured and/or witnessed at his “School for Authentic Journalism.”