Here’s the live feed. The update is ongoing. Was officially scheduled for 3:30 local time in El Paso, but apparently started early.
NBC is now reporting 19 dead and 40 wounded, though Sergeant Gomez who is doing the briefing is being careful about casualty numbers because he indicates they may not have all the updated information yet.
Open thread!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
NBC reporting 19 dead, police not willing to confirm any casualty reports (from TV, not Adam’s live feed)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Local reporter said that one hospital said they have lost one person while being treated.
Martin
Republicans comprehensive immigration plan at work, everyone.
Jay C
The EPPD spokesman seems basically, at this point, not confirming much of anything.
I understand their not wanting to give out inaccurate info: but AFAICT, there is a lot more data available on the
Internet and the news media than the El Paso police are releasing.
The Dangerman
If it was like Gilroy, if it was an apparent White Surpremecist, it’ll quickly be forgotten (with his name, I don’t see it being MS-13, which would be in the news through 2020).
Another Scott
Relatedly, Twitter:
Cheers,
Scott.
RedDirtGirl
I am so done with this timeline, guys.
SiubhanDuinne
Im sure the numbers are fluid, but whether they ultimately go up or down, this is just fucking obscene.
And I’ve already forgotten the casualty count from last week’s garlic festival.
Adam L Silverman
@The Dangerman: His name is Patrick Crusius. He’s white.
Martin
@SiubhanDuinne: Thankfully only 3 plus the shooter.
Another Scott
@The Dangerman: Unpossible.
We’re still talking about the gunman who shot up the Dallas federal courthouse
yearsmonthssix weeks ago.Err…
(sigh)
I agree with everyone that it’s long past time that we stopped allowing the 2nd Amendment absolutists to put all of us at risk. When was the last time we heard about how vital the 3rd Amendment is to our way of life and preventing government tyranny??
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
sukabi
@Another Scott: El Paso isn’t the only locale that drumpf and Pence have refused to reimburse for security and other associated costs. Bankrupting one town after another.
Someone needs to put together a list of all the venues they’ve stiffed and post it on line.
Elizabelle
I don’t understand why El Paso cannot get a better handle on the casualty numbers.
Victims are either dead, on life support, or alive.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@sukabi: Reminds me of the English kings visiting their nobles.
Sloane Ranger
Thanks for the information in the previous thread. It is outrageous that people are expected to pay for the privilege of being shot by what appears to be a white supremacist.
If State governments want to encourage widespread gun ownership, shouldn’t they take responsibility for underwriting a totally foreseeable outcome and take responsibility for paying the medical bills of the innocent victims of accidents and deliberate shootings?
SiubhanDuinne
Petty of me, perhaps, but even in times of great tragedy and chaos I can’t turn off the Pedant Within. From FTFNYT:
(Yes, I know it’s breaking news. Still offends my eye.)
Adam L Silverman
@Sloane Ranger: Have you seen the people running Texas?
Mike in NC
Shooting in a Wal-Mart. How appropriate. We seldom venture there but will be armed with a chainsaw and sticks of dynamite next time we need fucking cat food.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: Flamethrower. Can’t be too careful.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike in NC: Last week was the first time I’d been in a Walmart in about 25 years, my photographer friend wanted my opinion of flashlights for light painting for our trip to Joshua Tree. I can wait another 25 years for a a return visit.
NeenerNeener
I think I’m going to start doing ALL my shopping online, including groceries, and just have it delivered to my front door. At least until Instacart drivers start going on house-to-house killing sprees, anyway.
chopper
@Another Scott:
apparently the dude didn’t get rich by writing a lot of checks. (for differing definitions of ‘rich’)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Pretty well known that Trump doesn’t pay for ‘services rendered’.
Mike in Pasadena
Thots and preyers.
said any random Republican congress critter
sukabi
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: at least 10 cities he’s refused to pay back for security costs.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/13/trump-has-stiffed-10-cities-that-asked-him-to-pay-for-police-at-his-rallies/
dr. bloor
@Elizabelle: I was on staff at St. Vincent’s in NYC after the first attack on the World Trade Center in the 90’s. It is not nearly as easy to clarify and compile information as you seem to imagine.
Sab
@Sloane Ranger: Las Vegas was a concert with lots of out of state tourists, so their medical treatment was often out of network for their insurance coverage. And those who were badly injured probably lost their jobs (and therefore their insurance coverage) when they were unable to return to work in a reasonable amount of time.
Sloane Ranger
@Adam L Silverman: Fair point.
Martin
@Mike in NC:
Mike in NC buying cat food.
Shop Smart! Shop S-Mart!
Elizabelle
@dr. bloor: What accounts for that? Patient privacy?
RedDirtGirl
@Elizabelle: the public info officer says that some people were removed from the scene by other civilians so are not accounted for yet.
TS (the original)
@sukabi:
trump campaign doesn’t raise money for campaign costs – it raises money for trump
raven
@Elizabelle: I don’t understand why there is such a rush for numbers?
Martin
@Elizabelle: There’s patient privacy. There’s not wanting to announce a fatality before the family has been notified. There’s a real tracking problem. Victim gets taken to hospital A, are reported as a victim of the shooting, is transferred to hospital B with better facilities, is reported as a victim of the shooting. 1 victim or two? Some are being medivac some distance. Did you contact all facilities that received wounded? Are they clear that they came from this event and not some other event, etc.
It’s not super hard, it’s not trivial, but getting the police an accurate count is just about their lowest priority.
Another Scott
OT – Reuters:
The GOP Prion Disease has continued its spread throughout the UK. They’ll threaten to destroy everything unless they get their way.
I hope the loyal opposition has gamed all this out and has ways to prevent a no-agreement Brexit, but given the way this has played out since Cameron agreed to the stupid referendum in the first place, I’m not optimistic…
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@raven: Good point. I guess we will know soon enough.
I plead guilty to falling prey to “cable news” time. (Although I am not watching it. Have noticed that neither the WaPost nor the NY Times or LA Times will go with a number. I appreciate their waiting for confirmation there…)
Heading out for now. Bit of a pall over the day. Thanks, shooter (of this episode).
dr. bloor
@Elizabelle: That would be at the bottom of the list. In a situation like EP, I would imagine more than one treatment center is involved, transport for victims provided by multiple official and unofficial carriers, and they don’t arrive at the hospital with t-shirts that say “Walmart Shooting Victim.” Your scoresheet is also probably wrong by the time you finish counting, others have wandered into the ER, and the statuses of some that you counted have already changed.
Just be patient and wait a little if two versus ten versus forty dead makes a difference to you. The dead aren’t going anywhere.
Martin
@Another Scott: No deal was the only thing that was ever going to happen. Now they just have to figure out how to live with it.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Thank you. Good points.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Texas legislature elections are happening in 2020. It is definitely possible for the Democrats to take back control of the state House. Possibly even the state Senate, although it’s a bit of a longshot.
Link. Those state legislatures are where the real action and change will happen.
Elizabelle
@dr. bloor: Yeah, I am glad that ER and stabilizing trumps PR. Don’t distract the medical care in process.
Duane
@Martin: Lay every bit of the continuing gun carnage at the feet GOP. ( Gun’s Own Party.)
Mental health issues, gun laws, no excuses for the jackasses that have created, promoted and glorified this evil. The hell with republicans and being reasonable. Make it stop.
different-church-lady
This country now responds to every major tragedy and crisis with a shrug.
raven
Elizabelle
@Duane: Guns’ Own Party. I like that.
With a major assist from Moscow Mitch.
RAVEN
@dr. bloor: I remember at time when we were all into body counts. We lost that shit too.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Jesus Christ.
trollhattan
@raven: @SiubhanDuinne:
Huh. I wonder what the primary language spoken in what is now El Paso was, in the early 19th century?
ETA–if he’s a Christchurch copycat he’s doing it wrong. Gunning for Muslims in a Texas Walmart? I don’t think so.
Mike in DC
Shut down 8chan and related sites. ASAFP. And the next president needs to empower their AG to crack down on all these far right extremists, sovereign citizens, militias, white supremacists and various boosters. Anyone mainstreaming this hateful bile needs to be boycotted hard. Fuck “viewpoint discrimination”. This is fomenting domestic terrorism.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Mine is Greasy Old Poop party.
Not really a lot of differences from @Duane’s: take, they really are full of shit either way.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
You’d think the actual name of the actual town would be an actual clue.
trollhattan
@Mike in DC:
IIRC there was a Justice Department focus on domestic RW terrorism early in the Obama Administration, because it was heavily referenced at the big Tea Party rollout rally I went to.
“WE’RE not the enemy, THEY are. We’re PATRIOTS!!!” Wah-wah-wah.
Shrillhouse
As I always say after these all-too-common mass shootings:
The bloodbath will continue until Democrats are ready to have a serious conversation about violent video games and rap lyrics…
Harbison
What is wrong with this country when you can’t even go to the Walmart? Is nothing sacred?
Why can’t we go back to the good old days 40 or 50 years ago when this country was so much safer??? https://www.infoplease.com/us/crime/homicide-rate-1950-2014
Obviously the best way to discourage future attacks like this is to widely discuss the shooter’s political and and social views and spread them to as large a group of people as possible.
Martin
@Mike in DC: 8chan isn’t fomenting terrorism. The president is, and government officials saying things like this are:
The other shit has always been there. It’s the validating action from elected officials that draws it out in this way.
Ella in New Mexico
@trollhattan: ‘When we stole-er, annexed Texas from Mexico in 1845?
sukabi
@trollhattan: some version of Spanish and several dialects of Native American with a few speaking kings english, french and tail between the legs confederate.
lamh36
Damn…something to think about…the possibility that folks are too afraid of ICE and too scared to seek help at local medical services…
https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/1157766492907298817
different-church-lady
@Mike in DC:
Difficult to boycott half the federal government.
Jay C
@trollhattan:
I think the “Christchurch” reference is more likely “bravely taking decisive action against an ‘invasion’ of the [white] homeland by swarthy dangerous ‘Others'” – not “muslims” per se.
trollhattan
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’m in the middle of Chernow’s Grant biography, which delves far deeper into the Mexican campaign than anything I’d read previously. Nasty, brutish, bloody business, and the whole tragicomedy of errors in the planning, organization and support is something to behold. Grant had some flashes of brilliance that foretold his Civil War successes much later, though.
trollhattan
@Jay C:
Probably, but I don’t want to project too much nuance onto our neonazi gunhumpers.
Ruckus
At least the EPPD public information officer’s last name is Gomez and he speaks fluent Spanish. That actually says a lot, if you think about it.
patrick II
I’m betting that more Than 19 people, including children, have died in American concentration camps in the lost two plus years. This murderer is a terrible person, but how much worse than the powerful people who taught him that some lives have no value.
BC in Illinois
@lamh36:
From twitter:
Now, this is nothing I would be able to verify, but this is why the city had to put out a public statement. So that people would feel safe enough to come to the hospital to check on a loved one.
Jay
Martin
@BC in Illinois: And why should they believe that people that call them ‘subhuman’ would follow those rules?
Ruckus
@patrick II:
Not just espousing that these lives have no value but that the world is a better place without those lives, That’s not just hate, that’s instigation of murder.
trollhattan
Jesus Christ. Elsewhere in Texas.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I thought you meant don’t follow those rules, not, would they follow those rules.
zzyzx
@Martin: 8chan most definitely is fomenting terrorism. They egg people on to shooting up mosques. They bitch if the body count isn’t high enough. Their only complaint is that no one is targeting the Jews. It’s a scary place.
trollhattan
I see we have an early favorite for next Texas governor.
Marmot
@Ruckus: That is blowing the minds of a lot of the commerntariat here, I’m sure.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
Because we’re exhausted.
Jay
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
I do not have permission to edit my comment. I wanted to add that the riot police were out in the streets of Moscow beating people again today over their peaceful demands for a free and fair election to the city council.
The world has gone mad.
Ruckus
@Marmot:
I’d bet not. We seem to be a diverse look at the world on this blog. But I thought that it was rather poignant all things considered.
He’s good too, it takes a lot of professionalism not to crack at all with some of inane questions asked in a situation like that.
Jay
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
The world has always been mad. We were just mistaken that it had gone sane for about 20 minutes one day in the last 100 yrs.
lamh36
Ugh…just saw LIVE footage of El Paso and one of the vans had “Border Patrol” stenciled on it.
like…if you want folks to come get help…maybe NOT have the freakn’ police car be a border patrol car…smh
lamh36
Lordt my sister lives in DFW and she mentioned a 4 month old…
I asked her where she heard that.
I know I saw headlines that said at least 4 children…jesus
Has there been any legit reporting about it?
https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1157766033475809281
Buckeye
@Another Scott:
I’ll give Pierce credit for having actually read up on prion diseases, unlike almost everyone else who compares the GOP and mad cow disease.
But as my mother died of Creutzfeld-Jakob, a prion disease, it’s still a comparison that pisses me off.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: @BC in Illinois: Unfortunately if ICE decides to do a sweep, El Paso PD can’t do much to stop them. And I was actually speculating that someone in an ICE office was probably thinking “hey, we should do a sweep at the family reunification center!” earlier when talking to my mom about what was happening a couple of hours ago,
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: The cop was 25 and, apparently, had just graduated from the police academy, been hired, and started working. Seriously inexperienced officer.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: And none of the armed Texan good guys and gals did that at all. I guarantee there were 100s of conceal carriers in that mall. And likely dozens in the WalMart.
B.B.A.
How about a compromise: white men aren’t allowed to buy guns, but the other 70% of the population still can. This ought to prevent mass shootings while still retaining the Founders’ intent for an armed populace to act as a check against government overreach. What do you all think of my modest proposal?
Jay
The Dangerman
@lamh36:
There’s your answer.
lamh36
Pete Williams on MSNBC now discussing the shooters “essay”.
Pete also said that LEO have pretty much confirmed that the “essay” posted was written by the suspect in custory
Per Pete, the “essay” looks to be written long before today, but it was only posted about 1 hour before the attack.
So even if LEO were aware of the post…not enough time to seek out shooter before the shooting took place
Mike in DC
This is NOT “yet another senseless mass shooting”. This was a terrorist act by a white supremacist extremist, the latest in a long and frequent series of such terroristic attacks by radical white supremacists. And they were incited and fomented by Alex Jones, Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, the alt right, 8 chan, r/pol/The Donald, and of course Trump himself.
DigitalAmish
@trollhattan: And if I remember correctly one of the first policy shifts of the Trump Justice Dept. was to de-emphasis that focus.
lamh36
@lamh36:
FYI: Pete Williams used the word “essay rather than “manifesto”. His thought was that calling it a “manifesto” is giving the shooter to much credit. That it wasn’t something so much “as grand a word as a manifesto” . instead an “essay” or “rant” was more appropriate words
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: So “Good Guy with a Gun” it is, that’s shown a high success rate. //
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: @DigitalAmish: The project you’re referring to was actually started by the Bush 43 administration. The first analytical report came out around the time that President Obama was inaugurated. And Republican elected officials at all levels, Fox News, right wing talk radio, conservative newspapers and digital platforms, the nascent conservative social media all started screaming bloody murder that everyday conservatives and Republicans were being smeared, libeled, and slandered by Obama. So the Obama DHS quickly pulled the report and then shuttered the section at DHS. I have a copy of the report.
Jay
apocalipstick
@TS (the original): This one reason why (unlike much of our media), I don’t care about his fundraising. He’s not going to spend it on the campaign; he thinks of it as his money. Look at the inauguration.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Abbott sounds like a televangelist.
Another Scott
@Shrillhouse: Sucks to be the only country in the world with video games.
Cheers,
Scott.
DigitalAmish
@Adam L Silverman: this is the source that I remember. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-extremists-program-exclusiv/exclusive-trump-to-focus-counter-extremism-program-solely-on-islam-sources
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: He pretty much is.
DigitalAmish
@Adam L Silverman: obiously I don’t know how to post a link.
Adam L Silverman
@DigitalAmish: Different program. That program, which the President’s DHS transition landing team started to wind down almost immediately, was intended to focus on all forms of extremism in order to promote deradicalization. The people involved with killing it including Katie Gorka, the wife of the Blue Footed Boobie of Budapest, and a crackpot named Frank Wuco.
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@DigitalAmish: You know what you did!
Jay
Steve Crickmore
Don`t worry, the EL Paso shooter can´t be classified as a terrorist, because he is a white nationalist and rants away at the Great Repacement theory, the conspiracy theory the Presidental also likes. Trump has become one of the most influential proponents of that conspiracy theory. Reporting the Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s findings that Trump consistently referenced the Great Replacement, the president’s Twitter account was identified as one of the top ten promoters of the ideology. His history of describing Muslims and migrants as “invaders”, according to SBS News, closely mirrors the language of explicit supporters of the theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Replacement
lamh36
hard eyeroll.
FUQ U Mittens
Jay
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks, that fills in a lot of holes in my perforated memory. Of course, with a MOOSLIM in the WH it was the wrong time to point our attention anywhere else.
debbie
@lamh36:
The man you dined on frogs’ legs with.
Jay
apocalipstick
@trollhattan: Not Muslims; he “targeted” Hispanics.
lamh36
jl
@apocalipstick: Just heard a news report that authorities discovered some statement the shooter posted on social media (some 4chan discussion board, if I heard correctly) about the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” (huh what!?) had to be stopped, and this shooting was what he was going to do about it. The immediately afterward, they said authorities were still searching for a motive.
I sure do hope those two statements were a result of one hand not know what the other had just come up with. OTOH, the guy was white so we have to be very very very careful to conclude a white person could be a terrorist, even if he just wrote something that strongly indicated that is exactly what the crime was.
On the other hand, the Gilroy shooter was looking at such a mix of righ and left wing, and ‘off the looking glass and through the map’ outer-space crazy extremist shit, hard to say what he was trying to do. That person may have been nuts.
But hard evidence that the El Paso shooting was more white reactionary racist (or xenophobic?) terrorism.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve Crickmore: And Tucker Carlson has been pushing it on his prime time Fox News show for well over a year now.
Jay
@lamh36:
Yup, the “hoocoodhavenood” after Dolt45 hosted a hatefest in your city, welched on the bill, and a dozen of el Paso Nazi’s got doxxed.
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus:
Are usually refer to them as the Gross Old Pedophiles, but I may switch to Gun Owning Pedophiles instead.
Citizen Alan
@Harbison:
Oh Christ, it’s this asshole.
lamh36
Sigh…It’s easy Pete…here I’ll help you… “YES…Chump IS incidint white nationlist violence against immigrants and minorities!”
See easy peasy…
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Neither the Gilroy shooter or today’s shooter are really mixing extreme right and left wing. There has always been a huge anti-corporate and environmental protection/conservation component to the extreme right in the US. But because of the mainstream politics on these issues, and how they’re covered, when they show up among white supremacists, neo-fascists. neo-nationalists, and neo-NAZIs it confuses the coverage.
Kay
Listened to the press conference with the government officials. They offer nothing.
This country doesn’t function in the most basic ways. What’s the point of having a government if it can’t do anything, about anything?
jl
@raven: That seems to be statement as summarized in the news report I heard, If so, thanks for posting the statement. I hope we don’t hear any more BS about the authorities wondering what the motive was.
And I note the the mention of ‘The Great Replacement’ which indicates the shooter was into antisemitism too. Like the Charlottesville chant that ‘They will not replace us’. ‘They’ are the Jews. Theory being, that blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, etc. are inferior, and no way they could achieve any status in our society other than ditch diggers and beasts of burden unless the clever and Satanic Jews, lead by a secret cabal of cosmopolitan financial oligarchs, were in the background orchestrating an infernal plot to promote them and displace the good white folk.
So, the shooter was almost certainly a racist, xenophobic, antisemitic reactionary and very violent extremist. It was terrorism. And from the deepest darkest pit of Trump’s base.
lamh36
lamh36
@Kay: I find myself to cynical to beleive anything the Pro-NRA Republican pols in Texas say about this.
They are still beholden to NRA and basically sounded to me like a bunch of CYA…thoughts and prayers bullshit
lamh36
jl
@lamh36: Same hate the fascists and Nazi’s are motley crew of reactionaries were chanting at Charllottesville. Though we have been assured that there were fine people on both sides there.
Ladyraxterinok
@zhena gogolia: You read Putin wants to cut off fingers of protestors who refuse being finger-printed?
zhena gogolia
@Ladyraxterinok:
No, I haven’t seen that.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
He does say that if you listen to the whole thing.
lamh36
Kay
@lamh36:
It’s appalling. For Abbott to sit there and accept this ridiculous abject helplessness enrages me. Really? That’s all he can do? Sit there and wring his hands at the sadness of it all? Why do we need him at all if all we can do is pray?
They’re all talking about the prosecution of the shooter. That’s it? That’s the response? They indict this one, and then the next and the next and the next? We’re supposed to be thankful that there’s still a (somewhat) functioning criminal justice system to deal with the shooters after the fact?
Redshift
@jl: They were even more blatant than that in Charlottesville. They chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”
jl
@Redshift: Thanks for jogging my memory. I believe you are correct.
lamh36
@Kay:
Kay
Governor Abbott will “support the victims”. While he pretends the ceiling fell in on them- a giant bolt of lightening, a flash flood. There are no causes of these shootings and absolutely nothing can be done by city, state or the federal government to stop them. They’re a clean up crew. That’s their only role.
jl
@Kay: It is part of the long standing reactionary program of social engineering to promote learned helplessness. You are helpless because nuts and political extremist walking around with assault rifles is the necessary price of freedom. You are helpless because you should be thankful that you, your family and your friends, were not murdered in mass shooting by a right wing white guy with an assault rifle at your ice-cream social or local chess club meeting, or softball game, or whatever.
A milder version is the Fox News pundit gasbags nattering about how we should be thankful for whatever we have since prehistoric cavemen and Medieval serfs had it worse, And, well, it would be worse for us if the worthless government were messing it up.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
He tweeted this:
Ladyraxterinok
@zhena gogolia: @zhena gogolia: Think I saw it in a comment at democraticunderground.
Procopius
@DigitalAmish:
The de-emphasis on right wing terrorism was done by the Obama Department of Justice, and was widely reported on at the time. I’m sure Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III took it even further, but the report was first withdrawn and then disavowed under Obama. I think it was withdrawn before Eric Holder was confirmed, but I don’t think he would have done anything to enforce it. Stop blaming everything on Trump. Yes, he’s destroying everything good that he can; yes, he’s a menace to the country, but this bad shit has been growing for decades under both parties.
jl
@Procopius: IIRC, the commie administration that commissioned the investigation that resulted in the report that said the feds need to watch right wing domestic extremism more carefully was that of one GW Bush. But it was finalized during Obama administration, and GOP cynically said it was a fiendish plot against liberty by the blackity-black usurper.
I remember the fuss, and was very upset when the Obama administration seemed to fold without a fight. Someone tell me if I am remembering it wrong.
But, news said Trump tweeted that this was ‘very bad’, so, there’s that.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Another Scott: I fear brexit will give a fairly good roadmap for how we’ll handle climate change.
zhena gogolia
@Ladyraxterinok:
I haven’t seen that, but this:
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1157688885260038145
debbie
@jl:
I thought it was during the Clinton presidency. Janet Reno got raked over the coals for it, didn’t she?
dmbeaster
@Elizabelle: With so many and so many sent to various hospitals, it is tough to be certain.
joel hanes
@Procopius:
report was first withdrawn and then disavowed under Obama.
after extreme and unrelenting pressure from right-wingers, aka Republicans
both parties
[head -> desk]
Bless your heart.
jl
@debbie: I think that may have been a previous attempt at due diligence and responsible governance. As a commenter said, the problem of domestic reactionary white supremacist terrorism has been developing for decades. I remember reading that the specific report and proposal that caused the uproar during the Obama administration was a GW Bush administration initiative. Some kind commenter please correct me if I’m wrong.
Edit: I guess if you go back to pre Civil Rights Act days, the problem of domestic white supremacist terrorism never really went away. Maybe another way to look at it. Just, the groups targeted have widened greatly.
Kay
@jl:
“This tragedy struck”. We’ll call the shooters “tragedy” or “chaos” or “mayhem”. Rename them. Use language to convince everyone that nothing can be done.
Kattails
At what time am I allowed to note that, aside from any manifestos, any anger management issues, any mental health issues, the thing that every goddamned one of these shooters has is that it’s a male? We can guess at white, or gun nut, or whatever, but the very first thing I can pretty much guarantee is that it is a male. Women make less money, get less respect on the whole, have to deal with groping and the entire fucking range of crap that we’ve finally been dragging into the light over the last few years. The idea that we are not seething with rage is ridiculous. Yet we have not taken to blasting away at the generic population as an answer to our grievances. And I really deeply feel that you men need to answer this. And I don’t want to hear about it’s only being a few and I-would-never. I want the male portion of society to answer for itself and have this dialogue. I’ve had a hot sweaty day with a fender bender in the middle, took a nap and came online to find this ghastly, familiar news. I did not grow up with this shit.
I like this website, have great respect for the commenters, love my male friends, but I honestly don’t see how women can fix this, it is NOT coming from us. Fucking hell. I just need a shower and some food.
Bill Arnold
@jl:
That’s just part of it (it’s 4 pages). If you’re curious, get and deep-read a copy (probably still can find by searching on that text, quoted, or ask here), but don’t read it unless you are quite resistant to emotional manipulation and intellectually weak arguments.
My impression, FWIW, from a second reading is that this was not a “lone wolf”, that the guy was encouraged/manipulated into his belief system. I’ll assume people are looking hard at his on-line history and interactions. As Adam says, deeply anti-corporate and also environmentalist. I’ll add, a weird belief that somehow shooting non-whites will fix this, better than direct action against evil corporations and their owners, and/or against those who are causing environmental damage, aquifer depletion was the main concern in this case.
low-tech cyclist
NRA Celebrates “Highly Successful Year” in Texas
Congratulations, motherfuckers. You just added to your winning streak.
Aleta
@Kay: I’m inclined to call him the ter- orist instead of the shooter. And, in the same way that terms like female bomber, women ter- orists, Muslim ter -orist, Palestinian ter-orists are used and accepted as clarifying, he can be referred to as the white male terrorist.
lamh36
THIS is what it means to name and call our evil!
Thank u Beto!!
Another Scott
@Kattails: Well said.
Someone important agrees with you: Twitter:
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
tobie
@lamh36: I’m so in the tank for Beto that I doubt my words carry much weight but I’ve always really liked that when it comes to racism he doesn’t mince his words and calls a spade a spade.
I think the thing that hit me hardest today is that it was a tax-free shopping day so families could buy all the things they need for back to school. So many of these people went shopping thinking their kid would have a long and happy future. That’s just heartbreaking.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Mart
@Harbison:
Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum has made a compelling case for causation of violent crime and exposure to lead/leaded gas. Correlates well with your referenced murder rate spike.
trnc
@Jay:
NPR did a segment on assault weapons a few days ago and said statistics on mass shootings were difficult to find because there were so few of them. Makes sense, you know – it took me at least 30 seconds to find this site:
https://massshootingtracker.org/data
Between segments like that and the weekly+ broadcast of DT supporters, It’s extremely sad that the question “stupid or evil” has to apply to the news arm of the same org that produces “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.”